No new games played this week, so the post should be short.
Me, Shemp and Kozure again. Shemp picked The End of the Triumvirate and Mexica.
The End of the Triumvirate
Just to shake things up, we chose colours randomly. Kozure was red (Caesar), I played Blue (Pompei) and Shemp was black (Crassus). The starting positions make Pompei a military force in the beginning, whereas Caesar favors politics (I can only assume Crassus is somewhere in between). I started out by building/ conserving my strength and increasing my competency. Kozure and I were butting heads over control of Rome, while Shemp was remaining mostly unmolested. He stole my advisor, but I was managing to hold my own as a military force on the board. Kozure won the first election. Shemp won the second election, stealing the victory from Kozure by dragging ALL the remaining votes to his side. I was within two provinces of winning, but Shemp was so close to being acclaimed that it was imperative to bring him down. I spied a way to knock him down while simultaneously getting within one turn of winning through "competency" I had so much gold producing provinces on the board I was sure I would win, but Shemp and Kozure stole enough of my provinces that I was 1 gold short. In the end, we were all so close to winning every move was damage control. Due to the built in timer of the election, the game ended as Shemp claimed his second election as consul and won a political victory.
The End of the Triumvirate is quite a curious game. It simultaneously feels very much like a euro, and also very much like a wargame, which puts it in a very small category of games (with Antike, but what else?). The balance is terrific, and the tension of trying to advance your agenda without giving the game to another player through a different victory condition is palpable. Further, the constant timing mechanism of the elections ensures that the game ends eventually (this is an issue with Mare Nostrum, another game I quite like that feels similar). The main downside is that a player's turn has enough steps that downtime is somewhat of an issue. It's a three player game, and turns aren't THAT long anyway, but it's enough of an issue that I was noticing it (and I think that we tend to play reasonably quickly, so it might be worse for others).
Anyway, for a three player wargame it's quite good.
Mexica
In this session we started out fairly predictably by each going to our own corner and we eventually worked towards the middle. I forced the first scoring with a move that gave me the majority in a region AND got me on the sacred space for the bonus points, which I was very happy with. However, we forgot that the scoring only happens after all the players have had the same number of turns, which in this case would have given Shemp and Kozure a chance to act (and obviously would have improved their score). When Kozure ended it, it looked like I was comfortably ahead throughout the scoring. In counting the last half of the board, however, the score tightened up and it ended very close with me in the lead by 4-5 points. Hard to say if I still would have won if we hadn't made that mistake in the first scoring, however.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Battles: With and without Pus (The End of the Triumvirate, Chaos in the Old World)
No new games this week (shocking, I know). We played The End of the Triumvirate and Chaos in the Old World (me, Kozure and Shemp). Curiously, these are all games that I was impressed with the last time I played them, but felt a little less satisfying this time. Maybe it was the games, maybe it was my mood. Who knows?
The End of the Triumvirate
This system is a very successful three way tug of war. In order to succeed, you have to make sure you are moving towards one of the three possible victory conditions without allowing another player to get ahead of you in another track. Alas, this is what happened.
I was Caesar, and decided I would try for the political victory. I focussed on gold, and political competency. The idea was that I would stay ahead in that track, buy votes as often as I could and either get elected twice or do it once and corner the vote. I thought that if I made myself an easy target I would benefit from people attacking me and move ahead on the political competency track for free (due to the compensation given to the vanquished in battle). Unfortunately, Shemp and I skirmished too much and allowed Kozure to get too strong. Although I was one turn short of winning myself, we weren't able to stop Kozure from winning a military victory. To Crassus go the spoils.
As I said, it's a fun game but for some reason it felt a little "off" for me. There was some downtime between turns, we had to look up the rules a lot, etc. Not sure why, just seemed less polished than I remembered.
Chaos in the Old World
Having finally figured out the correct rules to the game, I was anxious to give this potentially great game another spin (the game ships with a couple of game-breaking errors which made our last games interesting but incredibly lopsided). We drew randomly, and I ended up being the same character as last time... Khorne, the red. Kozure played Slanesh and Shemp was Tzeentch.
Playing correctly, it becomes extremely easy to gain dial "ticks" as Khorne. Khorne is such a force militarily that overcoming the other's minions is a simple task if they don't run away. I was gaining two ticks nearly every turn.
I'm told that it's very easy to play and win as Khorne at first, but experienced players make it very difficult for him to win. I can only extrapolate that seasoned players know how to retreat and make Khorne waste actions. I'll really try to play a different god next time in order to broaden my horizons...
Anyway, it was still a good game and I did enjoy it, but there is something about the gameflow I find clunkier than it should be. Particularly, the multiple housekeeping phases required before ending a turn is annoying. Similarly, having to go through all the provinces sequentially three times in order to resolve combat, then domination and then again to do corruption seems like a bit much. We ended up doing many of the steps simultaneously, but also often forgetting a step here or there.
Not a deal breaker. As the others said at the end of the game, by the end it was starting to feel pretty smooth. I feel there is probably a very good game there, we just need to internalize the steps a bit better.
Regardless, here are a few additional thoughts on the game:
1) One of the characteristics that often separate a euro from and american game is the presence of a spacial element and the representation of physical movement. The euros will frequently go with a more logistical approach which presents choices in an abstracted way, while the american game will often have a map and units moving from one space to another. In this respect, Chaos in the Old World feels much more like a euro than an american game. Although the units occupy a map that represents a fantasy world, units do not really travel from place to place in any meaningful way. Every game turn, players summon creatures to one or more regions, they battle and/or corrupt and then that's it. Adjacency is only meaningful because of a few placement limitations (units need to be placed in contiguous provinces). It's much more similar to El Grande or China than Risk, for example.
2) Another defining characteristic of american games is that at the end of a session there is usually a story to tell, whereas with euros it's pretty hard to describe what happened thematically. CitOW doesn't lend itself very well to storytelling in my opinion.
3) The game effects that the random "Old World" cards have on the game give the system an ameritrash feel, but not nearly as pronounced as I expected. The effects are all known at the start of each turn, and although they will certainly favour one player over another it hasn't yet felt like it was overpowering. More than anything, it transforms the landscape over the course of the game and forces players to keep on their toes.
4) The player's cards and factions work together very well to make each god play differently. The powers of the cards in particular are just powerful enough that playing well requires using them effectively, and playing them effectively means doing things differently than the other players. It is also quite obvious that each faction has cards designed to nullify the powers of others, so there is a definite tug-of-war going on in this game as well.
All in all, despite the heavily applied theme and the presence of dice based combat, the game mechanics feel more euro to me than american. Given my personal preferences, that's a plus.
The End of the Triumvirate
This system is a very successful three way tug of war. In order to succeed, you have to make sure you are moving towards one of the three possible victory conditions without allowing another player to get ahead of you in another track. Alas, this is what happened.
I was Caesar, and decided I would try for the political victory. I focussed on gold, and political competency. The idea was that I would stay ahead in that track, buy votes as often as I could and either get elected twice or do it once and corner the vote. I thought that if I made myself an easy target I would benefit from people attacking me and move ahead on the political competency track for free (due to the compensation given to the vanquished in battle). Unfortunately, Shemp and I skirmished too much and allowed Kozure to get too strong. Although I was one turn short of winning myself, we weren't able to stop Kozure from winning a military victory. To Crassus go the spoils.
As I said, it's a fun game but for some reason it felt a little "off" for me. There was some downtime between turns, we had to look up the rules a lot, etc. Not sure why, just seemed less polished than I remembered.
Chaos in the Old World
Having finally figured out the correct rules to the game, I was anxious to give this potentially great game another spin (the game ships with a couple of game-breaking errors which made our last games interesting but incredibly lopsided). We drew randomly, and I ended up being the same character as last time... Khorne, the red. Kozure played Slanesh and Shemp was Tzeentch.
Playing correctly, it becomes extremely easy to gain dial "ticks" as Khorne. Khorne is such a force militarily that overcoming the other's minions is a simple task if they don't run away. I was gaining two ticks nearly every turn.
I'm told that it's very easy to play and win as Khorne at first, but experienced players make it very difficult for him to win. I can only extrapolate that seasoned players know how to retreat and make Khorne waste actions. I'll really try to play a different god next time in order to broaden my horizons...
Anyway, it was still a good game and I did enjoy it, but there is something about the gameflow I find clunkier than it should be. Particularly, the multiple housekeeping phases required before ending a turn is annoying. Similarly, having to go through all the provinces sequentially three times in order to resolve combat, then domination and then again to do corruption seems like a bit much. We ended up doing many of the steps simultaneously, but also often forgetting a step here or there.
Not a deal breaker. As the others said at the end of the game, by the end it was starting to feel pretty smooth. I feel there is probably a very good game there, we just need to internalize the steps a bit better.
Regardless, here are a few additional thoughts on the game:
1) One of the characteristics that often separate a euro from and american game is the presence of a spacial element and the representation of physical movement. The euros will frequently go with a more logistical approach which presents choices in an abstracted way, while the american game will often have a map and units moving from one space to another. In this respect, Chaos in the Old World feels much more like a euro than an american game. Although the units occupy a map that represents a fantasy world, units do not really travel from place to place in any meaningful way. Every game turn, players summon creatures to one or more regions, they battle and/or corrupt and then that's it. Adjacency is only meaningful because of a few placement limitations (units need to be placed in contiguous provinces). It's much more similar to El Grande or China than Risk, for example.
2) Another defining characteristic of american games is that at the end of a session there is usually a story to tell, whereas with euros it's pretty hard to describe what happened thematically. CitOW doesn't lend itself very well to storytelling in my opinion.
3) The game effects that the random "Old World" cards have on the game give the system an ameritrash feel, but not nearly as pronounced as I expected. The effects are all known at the start of each turn, and although they will certainly favour one player over another it hasn't yet felt like it was overpowering. More than anything, it transforms the landscape over the course of the game and forces players to keep on their toes.
4) The player's cards and factions work together very well to make each god play differently. The powers of the cards in particular are just powerful enough that playing well requires using them effectively, and playing them effectively means doing things differently than the other players. It is also quite obvious that each faction has cards designed to nullify the powers of others, so there is a definite tug-of-war going on in this game as well.
All in all, despite the heavily applied theme and the presence of dice based combat, the game mechanics feel more euro to me than american. Given my personal preferences, that's a plus.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Not as humorous as you'd think (Dungeon Lords, Bacchus' Banquet)
Vlaada Chvatil is a designer that interests me quite a bit. His games aren't necessarily polished or anything, but they tend to be pretty innovative. Different, anyways. Galaxy Trucker is the biggest hit among his games in our group, and a personal favorite. Through the ages is a very clever civilization game marred by a terrible combat mechanism (imho), and Space Alert is a game I quite enjoy but unfortunately the rest of the group dislikes. The premise of Dungeon Lords sounded intriguing and potentially interesting... I pre-ordered right after I heard about it. We had four players this week (Me, Shemp, Kozure and Bharmer), so we gave it a go.
Dungeon Lords
The premise of Dungeon Lords is that each player is an aspiring dungeon lord looking to pass his dungeon lord exam. Over the course of two years, he will build a dungeon out of tunnels and rooms, monsters and imps and see how well it stands against the adventurers that always seem to show up at this sort of thing. The rulebook is humorous in it's explanation of the game system, the illustrations are whimsical in their description of the setting and the creatures, the setting is silly, the gameplay is... convoluted and fiddly and unfunny.
Frankly, I'm pretty disappointed. The gameplay boils down to worker placement followed by an efficiency puzzle. Players start off by sending their 3 minions to collect food, hire imps, mine gold, hire monsters, dig tunnels, etc. This feels a lot like any other resource management worker placement game where you start by gathering X so you can perform Y, etc, etc. There is a twist involved because there is a hidden ordering system which makes it unpredictable in what order the minions will make it to the desired location, and depending on the order they get there the benefit changes slightly (for example, when gathering food the first to arrive must spend a gold to get the food, the second gets 2 food for free and the third gets food and gold). At the end of each season, an adventurer goes to each player's dungeon with the most powerful going to the most evil player (I didn't mention it, but there is an "evilometer" that gets modified by certain actions). At the end of each year, the adventuring party is complete and storms the dungeon the player has been working hard to build. The game then changes character completely and it becomes a puzzle for each player to determine the best order to send creatures and traps after the party to minimize the damage they might cause.
At the end, if your score is positive, you passed the exam and become an official Dungeon Lord. If you have the highest score, you win.
There are things I like about the game. The hidden worker placement mechanic works well and introduces some interesting doublethink. However, I think I would have liked it better if the swing between coming in first, second or third was less pronounced. Determining the selection order for monsters is one thing, but needing to pay gold to get one food vs getting two food paying no gold is a big difference that can seriously impact your plans. I like the "puzzle" aspect of defending your dungeon, and enjoyed the training dungeons quite a bit because of this, but the actual game introduces so much fiddliness as to sap the fun out of it (the spells, the varying fatigue, etc).
I think if I had to sum up my main issue with the game it would be just that. The humour is lost amongst the ponderous fiddliness of the whole thing. The strategy aspect which comes from the elaborate worker placement system (which goes against the silly setting in the first place) is undone by the level of chaos in the game.
...and there is WAY too much shuffling of bits around.
Anyway, I won the game after facing off against the 2nd year paladin and beating him. I tried not to be particularly evil, but always found myself in front. I have to admit that I found planning the defeat of that party very satisfying, even though I wish I didn't need to wait as long as I did to get to that point. Oh well.
As I've thought about it more, I now feel compelled to try to simplify the game and give it another chance. I wonder if the hidden orders and cycling of available actions could be reduced to a simple 3 step worker placement phase. The party could be dealt out in the beginning and the players could build their dungeons accordingly. Tokens could all be laid out ahead of time to save time (the question mark markers face up from the beginning and the creatures/ rooms turned face up as the one above it gets purchased. Maybe the spells would bother me less if the rest of the game was simplified.
Or I'll just trade it.
Bacchus' Banquet
We also tried out this game which promised to be a shorter, more streamlined "hidden identity/ hidden goal" type game in the vein of "Bang!". The idea is that various characters are attending a great feast hosted by the Roman emperor Calligula. Depending on the secret identity a player receives, he may be trying to kill Calligula, try to gather up valuable presents or just... you know... eat and drink a lot.
The mechanics are simple. There are seven cards showing gifts, food, wine, poison, etc. The active player chooses three cards then discards one, keeps one and presents the last card as a present to another player. That player must decide if they will accept the gift before looking at it, or pass it on to another player. When a gift is accepted, it's effects are resolved and the game keeps going. The trick is that if the gift is not accepted by anyone, then the active player will have to accept it.
It's worth mentioning that each time a player accepts food, drink or poison he/she must adjust a token representing a belt buckle on his/her player board. If the belt buckle goes too far, the character passes out and is out of the game (though the player isn't eliminated, he/she simply draws a new hidden identity and keeps playing).
It works well. The simple act of picking three gifts and discarding one/keeping one/ offering the last as a gift leads to all sorts of double-guessing. For example, if the player takes poison as one of the three cards, will he risk gifting it in case it gets back to him? Maybe he will take two good cards and one bad one, discard the bad one and gift a good one hoping no one will be brave enough to take it... therefore getting two good cards that turn.
I rather enjoyed Bacchus' Banquet. It's not stellar, but it is fun. We laughed quite a bit and engaged in some serious double-think over the course of two sessions. In both games I played a conspirator who won if Calligula died or if three daggers were ever on the table at the same time. I won a joint win with Shemp as three daggers made it to the table in game one, and won again in game two as Calligula Shemp ate a hunk of meat that made his belt buckle burst.
Dungeon Lords
The premise of Dungeon Lords is that each player is an aspiring dungeon lord looking to pass his dungeon lord exam. Over the course of two years, he will build a dungeon out of tunnels and rooms, monsters and imps and see how well it stands against the adventurers that always seem to show up at this sort of thing. The rulebook is humorous in it's explanation of the game system, the illustrations are whimsical in their description of the setting and the creatures, the setting is silly, the gameplay is... convoluted and fiddly and unfunny.
Frankly, I'm pretty disappointed. The gameplay boils down to worker placement followed by an efficiency puzzle. Players start off by sending their 3 minions to collect food, hire imps, mine gold, hire monsters, dig tunnels, etc. This feels a lot like any other resource management worker placement game where you start by gathering X so you can perform Y, etc, etc. There is a twist involved because there is a hidden ordering system which makes it unpredictable in what order the minions will make it to the desired location, and depending on the order they get there the benefit changes slightly (for example, when gathering food the first to arrive must spend a gold to get the food, the second gets 2 food for free and the third gets food and gold). At the end of each season, an adventurer goes to each player's dungeon with the most powerful going to the most evil player (I didn't mention it, but there is an "evilometer" that gets modified by certain actions). At the end of each year, the adventuring party is complete and storms the dungeon the player has been working hard to build. The game then changes character completely and it becomes a puzzle for each player to determine the best order to send creatures and traps after the party to minimize the damage they might cause.
At the end, if your score is positive, you passed the exam and become an official Dungeon Lord. If you have the highest score, you win.
There are things I like about the game. The hidden worker placement mechanic works well and introduces some interesting doublethink. However, I think I would have liked it better if the swing between coming in first, second or third was less pronounced. Determining the selection order for monsters is one thing, but needing to pay gold to get one food vs getting two food paying no gold is a big difference that can seriously impact your plans. I like the "puzzle" aspect of defending your dungeon, and enjoyed the training dungeons quite a bit because of this, but the actual game introduces so much fiddliness as to sap the fun out of it (the spells, the varying fatigue, etc).
I think if I had to sum up my main issue with the game it would be just that. The humour is lost amongst the ponderous fiddliness of the whole thing. The strategy aspect which comes from the elaborate worker placement system (which goes against the silly setting in the first place) is undone by the level of chaos in the game.
...and there is WAY too much shuffling of bits around.
Anyway, I won the game after facing off against the 2nd year paladin and beating him. I tried not to be particularly evil, but always found myself in front. I have to admit that I found planning the defeat of that party very satisfying, even though I wish I didn't need to wait as long as I did to get to that point. Oh well.
As I've thought about it more, I now feel compelled to try to simplify the game and give it another chance. I wonder if the hidden orders and cycling of available actions could be reduced to a simple 3 step worker placement phase. The party could be dealt out in the beginning and the players could build their dungeons accordingly. Tokens could all be laid out ahead of time to save time (the question mark markers face up from the beginning and the creatures/ rooms turned face up as the one above it gets purchased. Maybe the spells would bother me less if the rest of the game was simplified.
Or I'll just trade it.
Bacchus' Banquet
We also tried out this game which promised to be a shorter, more streamlined "hidden identity/ hidden goal" type game in the vein of "Bang!". The idea is that various characters are attending a great feast hosted by the Roman emperor Calligula. Depending on the secret identity a player receives, he may be trying to kill Calligula, try to gather up valuable presents or just... you know... eat and drink a lot.
The mechanics are simple. There are seven cards showing gifts, food, wine, poison, etc. The active player chooses three cards then discards one, keeps one and presents the last card as a present to another player. That player must decide if they will accept the gift before looking at it, or pass it on to another player. When a gift is accepted, it's effects are resolved and the game keeps going. The trick is that if the gift is not accepted by anyone, then the active player will have to accept it.
It's worth mentioning that each time a player accepts food, drink or poison he/she must adjust a token representing a belt buckle on his/her player board. If the belt buckle goes too far, the character passes out and is out of the game (though the player isn't eliminated, he/she simply draws a new hidden identity and keeps playing).
It works well. The simple act of picking three gifts and discarding one/keeping one/ offering the last as a gift leads to all sorts of double-guessing. For example, if the player takes poison as one of the three cards, will he risk gifting it in case it gets back to him? Maybe he will take two good cards and one bad one, discard the bad one and gift a good one hoping no one will be brave enough to take it... therefore getting two good cards that turn.
I rather enjoyed Bacchus' Banquet. It's not stellar, but it is fun. We laughed quite a bit and engaged in some serious double-think over the course of two sessions. In both games I played a conspirator who won if Calligula died or if three daggers were ever on the table at the same time. I won a joint win with Shemp as three daggers made it to the table in game one, and won again in game two as Calligula Shemp ate a hunk of meat that made his belt buckle burst.
Friday, February 05, 2010
The Thunder-business (Dominion x2, Thunderstone, Ra)
It was Shemp's pick, but Shemp did not pick. So, we brought games, and we played some of those. Three players again (me, Shemp and Kozure).
Dominion
First up was Dominion, which I had never played before (although I've played Dominion:Intrigue a few times). When I had played the expansion, I was a little ambivalent... The games wants to be played quickly, but the cards were *just* complicated enough that I couldn't quite internalize what they all did or how they could be combined and still play fast. The result was that I just wasn't getting into it. The base game, on the other hand, is much easier to grasp quickly and I found it to be much more enjoyable. No doubt if I played enough I'd want the additional variety and interaction of Intrigue, but for now I'd pick this one every time.
We played two times. In the first, I focussed on mines, the bureaucrat and the cellar. I purchased coppers, upgraded them to silvers and then gold (or, alternatively, received silver from the bureaucrat and upgraded it to gold). My multiple cellars ensured that I had a copper or silver to upgrade whenever I had a mine in hand. I soon had many gold cards and purchasing provinces was relatively easy. The funny thing was that both Shemp and Kozure had a lot of thieves in their deck, and were repeatedly trying to steal from me... and not once did I turn over anything more than a copper! Luck was certainly on my side. I ended up winning... my first Dominion victory ever! In fact, it was my first non-dead last finish ever.
In our second game, the cards were strangely skewed to the high end. The only relatively inexpensive card was the moat (ironic, because there was only one attack action card available). I attempted a "garden" strategy by accumulating as many cheap cards as possible and as many gardens as possible. Unfortunately, it didn't occur to me until later that I should have focussed on cards that gave me more "buys" so that I could bulk up my deck even further. I didn't quite make it to 40 cards, so my gardens only scored 3 points each. It wasn't quite enough because Shemp's last minute purchase of the final garden card gave him just enough to get by me.
Thunderstone
I gave my son "The Adventurers: Escape fromt he temple of Chac" by AEG for christmas, and unfortunately after our very first play he gathered up all the cards (so he could figure out what was the highest possible score) and then sat them down on the couch. My other son was jumping on the couch. Within seconds, al the cards were bent and folded. Not great for a game where hidden information is essential. I wrote an email to AEG to ask if they sold the cards separately, and they offered to send me a whole new deck for free! Because of that great show of customer service, I decided to see what other games they sold and noticed Thunderstone. As I mentioned above, until today I hadn't particularly enjoyed Dominion but I did find the central mechanic interesting. This game seemed to have a bit more depth, a theme that actually was reflected in the gameplay and it was getting good reviews. I decided to go for it.
Our game group generally doesn't go for fantasy themed games. Shemp, in particular, voiced that his desire to play was low largely due to the theme and "me-too" gameplay. Luckily, the guys are good sports about trying out new purchases and Shemp proclaimed that we would follow up Dominion with "the Thunder-business".
There are a lot of similarities between the games. Cards in the middle of the table represent the village and are used in the same way as the cards in Dominion. The deck that players build over the course of the game are worth gold and depending on what you get in your hand you can purchase better cards. The main difference in the game is that players have a second option... cards have other symbols which indicate the kind of adventuring party that can be mustered for a dungeon crawl. To the side of the village, a dungeon awaits consisting of a deck of cars and three face up creatures. If a player decides to pit their party against a creature in the dungeon, then the strength of the attack is compared to the hit points of the creature and if defeated the creature goes to the player's discard pile (analogous to VP cards in Dominion). The game ends once the Thunderstone is unearthed from the near the bottom of the creature deck.
Although the dungeon represents the biggest departure from Dominion, many other aspects of the game have additional little modifications. There are hero cards that can be leveled up, heros have a strength rating and equipment can only be used by those that have enough strength. Fighting creatures in the dungeon requires light, and the deeper into the dungeon you go, the more light is necessary. There are other differences as well, but suffice it to say that the game is at once similar to Dominion and quite different from it.
My feelings on the game are mixed. The theme of the game is relatively well captured. Unlike Dominion, it doesn't feel like you are just acquiring cards for the sake of gathering VPs. The additional details add some interesting decisions and force players to balance more things at once (powerful heroes are good, but light is also necessary, and the dungeon can't be ignored too long as you build up your deck or else the other players will get all the VPs). There are downsides to these changes, however. In Dominion, each player determines which combos they are aiming for and nothing really constrains their actions except the common goal of gathering VPs. In Thunderstone, certain basic necessities are needed in order to achieve the overall goal , and each player needs to look after them to a minimum degree. For example, everyone needs to get light. Everyone needs to get heroes and upgrade them. Everyone will be going to the dungeon and fight the monsters. This may lead to an overall feeling of sameness even though the specifics of each game may be different. The variety is found within that context... the selection of heroes, the village cards purchased, the monsters encountered in the dungeon. Also, the larger number of factors that need to come together means that the decks are more prone to clumping.
Anyway, I'll need to play a few more times to make a final judgement. I'd say that I like it better than Dominion: Intrigue, but less than Dominion. I'm not a big fan of the way the game ends as written... it feels a little like kingmaking, but it's easy enough to fix it and say that the game ends as soon as the Thunderstone is revealed. I also think that there is a strange disconnect between the experience the game delivers and what we have come to expect from dungeon crawling games: usually the easy creatures come first and there is a build up to the big bosses at the end. The random distribution ensures that this won't be the case in Thunderstone, for better or worse. I suppose it would be possible to make a variant where the monsters were encountered in order of strength if it really bothers me later on.
I won the game because I managed a lot of dungeon victories early in the game. Later, my deck got clogged but I had a good enough lead that it didn't matter.
"Ok, Blink dog"
Ra
We finished up with Ra. Fun as always, I learned an interesting tidbit about Shemp... He told us that Ra is the game that makes him willing to keep playing games he is initially unimpressed with. At first he hated Ra, now he thinks it's great.
Kozure came from behind and won on the strength of a great haul from his monuments.
Dominion
First up was Dominion, which I had never played before (although I've played Dominion:Intrigue a few times). When I had played the expansion, I was a little ambivalent... The games wants to be played quickly, but the cards were *just* complicated enough that I couldn't quite internalize what they all did or how they could be combined and still play fast. The result was that I just wasn't getting into it. The base game, on the other hand, is much easier to grasp quickly and I found it to be much more enjoyable. No doubt if I played enough I'd want the additional variety and interaction of Intrigue, but for now I'd pick this one every time.
We played two times. In the first, I focussed on mines, the bureaucrat and the cellar. I purchased coppers, upgraded them to silvers and then gold (or, alternatively, received silver from the bureaucrat and upgraded it to gold). My multiple cellars ensured that I had a copper or silver to upgrade whenever I had a mine in hand. I soon had many gold cards and purchasing provinces was relatively easy. The funny thing was that both Shemp and Kozure had a lot of thieves in their deck, and were repeatedly trying to steal from me... and not once did I turn over anything more than a copper! Luck was certainly on my side. I ended up winning... my first Dominion victory ever! In fact, it was my first non-dead last finish ever.
In our second game, the cards were strangely skewed to the high end. The only relatively inexpensive card was the moat (ironic, because there was only one attack action card available). I attempted a "garden" strategy by accumulating as many cheap cards as possible and as many gardens as possible. Unfortunately, it didn't occur to me until later that I should have focussed on cards that gave me more "buys" so that I could bulk up my deck even further. I didn't quite make it to 40 cards, so my gardens only scored 3 points each. It wasn't quite enough because Shemp's last minute purchase of the final garden card gave him just enough to get by me.
Thunderstone
I gave my son "The Adventurers: Escape fromt he temple of Chac" by AEG for christmas, and unfortunately after our very first play he gathered up all the cards (so he could figure out what was the highest possible score) and then sat them down on the couch. My other son was jumping on the couch. Within seconds, al the cards were bent and folded. Not great for a game where hidden information is essential. I wrote an email to AEG to ask if they sold the cards separately, and they offered to send me a whole new deck for free! Because of that great show of customer service, I decided to see what other games they sold and noticed Thunderstone. As I mentioned above, until today I hadn't particularly enjoyed Dominion but I did find the central mechanic interesting. This game seemed to have a bit more depth, a theme that actually was reflected in the gameplay and it was getting good reviews. I decided to go for it.
Our game group generally doesn't go for fantasy themed games. Shemp, in particular, voiced that his desire to play was low largely due to the theme and "me-too" gameplay. Luckily, the guys are good sports about trying out new purchases and Shemp proclaimed that we would follow up Dominion with "the Thunder-business".
There are a lot of similarities between the games. Cards in the middle of the table represent the village and are used in the same way as the cards in Dominion. The deck that players build over the course of the game are worth gold and depending on what you get in your hand you can purchase better cards. The main difference in the game is that players have a second option... cards have other symbols which indicate the kind of adventuring party that can be mustered for a dungeon crawl. To the side of the village, a dungeon awaits consisting of a deck of cars and three face up creatures. If a player decides to pit their party against a creature in the dungeon, then the strength of the attack is compared to the hit points of the creature and if defeated the creature goes to the player's discard pile (analogous to VP cards in Dominion). The game ends once the Thunderstone is unearthed from the near the bottom of the creature deck.
Although the dungeon represents the biggest departure from Dominion, many other aspects of the game have additional little modifications. There are hero cards that can be leveled up, heros have a strength rating and equipment can only be used by those that have enough strength. Fighting creatures in the dungeon requires light, and the deeper into the dungeon you go, the more light is necessary. There are other differences as well, but suffice it to say that the game is at once similar to Dominion and quite different from it.
My feelings on the game are mixed. The theme of the game is relatively well captured. Unlike Dominion, it doesn't feel like you are just acquiring cards for the sake of gathering VPs. The additional details add some interesting decisions and force players to balance more things at once (powerful heroes are good, but light is also necessary, and the dungeon can't be ignored too long as you build up your deck or else the other players will get all the VPs). There are downsides to these changes, however. In Dominion, each player determines which combos they are aiming for and nothing really constrains their actions except the common goal of gathering VPs. In Thunderstone, certain basic necessities are needed in order to achieve the overall goal , and each player needs to look after them to a minimum degree. For example, everyone needs to get light. Everyone needs to get heroes and upgrade them. Everyone will be going to the dungeon and fight the monsters. This may lead to an overall feeling of sameness even though the specifics of each game may be different. The variety is found within that context... the selection of heroes, the village cards purchased, the monsters encountered in the dungeon. Also, the larger number of factors that need to come together means that the decks are more prone to clumping.
Anyway, I'll need to play a few more times to make a final judgement. I'd say that I like it better than Dominion: Intrigue, but less than Dominion. I'm not a big fan of the way the game ends as written... it feels a little like kingmaking, but it's easy enough to fix it and say that the game ends as soon as the Thunderstone is revealed. I also think that there is a strange disconnect between the experience the game delivers and what we have come to expect from dungeon crawling games: usually the easy creatures come first and there is a build up to the big bosses at the end. The random distribution ensures that this won't be the case in Thunderstone, for better or worse. I suppose it would be possible to make a variant where the monsters were encountered in order of strength if it really bothers me later on.
I won the game because I managed a lot of dungeon victories early in the game. Later, my deck got clogged but I had a good enough lead that it didn't matter.
"Ok, Blink dog"
Ra
We finished up with Ra. Fun as always, I learned an interesting tidbit about Shemp... He told us that Ra is the game that makes him willing to keep playing games he is initially unimpressed with. At first he hated Ra, now he thinks it's great.
Kozure came from behind and won on the strength of a great haul from his monuments.
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