Probably an hour or so once you know what you are doing. Maybe 45 minutes for two. It certainly isn’t as deep as Viticulture, but once you learn the mechanics there are a wealth of strategy combinations in engine building with the cards. And the expansions add things in the right amounts and with just a few new mechanics to make it that much more enjoyable without overwhelming you or messing up the tight design.
I realize at some point it got so popular the inevitable “Overated/overhyped” talk started, but every time I play it is just effortless fun. People in my group poopooed it after a couple of plays, but we never play anything long anyway. Unless one of us just has really good or bad luck, the scores are close and games competitive. It got popular because of some hype and because it is somewhat easier to play, but it got super popular because it is just a flat out good game.
I was hoping to play Wingspan, but we wound up with King of Tokyo Dark. I am eagerly awaiting introducing Wingspan and the European expansion to the full game group. I think it’s a really neat game with a theme that works really, really well.
It’s easy to play, is really pretty, and has outstanding components. But it’s a pretty terrible engine builder and is the most solo multiplayer solo game out there. All of its beautiful pieces are just thrown haphazardly into a unsatisfying point salad.
Viticulture, on the other hand, is subtly smart in how it ends just at the point you have your engine running. In spite of its visitor cards adding maybe a touch too much randomness, the lack of AP-prone late-game combo-ing, and low point totals makes it more strategic than it first appears.
I wasn’t saying the two were comparable in any way. Only using it as a reference point since he’d mentioned it. I’d disagree on classifying it as point salady, but that’s fine if you think so.
I had a couple extra days off over Easter and played a bunch of games, all solo.
Roll Player with the Monsters and Minions expansion, where my final score was disappointingly low for how well I thought I was doing… still, arranging dice is fun and the monsters add another thing you can do when you’re not keen on going to Market.
Dice Settlers, I like the way solo bot works here as it’s slickly done and mimics most of the game mechanisms. It seems to play differently each time, even though it’s just random really. This time it was going heavy on the exploring and raiding, whereas last time I recall it was doing a lot of trading. I still won fairly handily, I focused on settling and raiding its lands. :)
Aeon’s End I set up a new expedition and played the first two games of that, vs Umbra Titan and then Prince of Gluttons. I was Taqren in both, I love his cheap healing ability and I lucked into pulling some cards that generate charges. Won both games - actually I don’t think I’ve ever lost a game of this. :P It’s still pretty much my favourite deck builder.
Dwellings of Eldervale is a new one and I ended up playing it three times. I have the basic version without all the minis, sorry thread title but the standees look nicer and fit in with the art on the tiles better. :) I really like this one so far. I used ‘easy’ factions for all three games - the Trolls, the Ratlings, then the Pirates. I lost the first two games, and pulled off a narrow last-move win in the third!
For a worker placement tableau builder it seems a really scrappy, hard-fought game. I never got any sort of traditional engine going, beyond some decent resource generation, and I’m not sure you can. The Ghosts (solo bot) play hard, if they start running away with adventure cards and elemental power then you’re in trouble. I like how you can always see their potential next action (out of three cards and a possible ‘regroup’), and need to really play to those to try limit their scoring. Randomized hex, resource, and card layouts is cool too. And it comes with a great storage solution.
Earlier I also played the first four scenarios in Baby’s First Gloomhaven, Jaws of the Lion, controlling Hatchet and Red Guard. I was really enjoying it but I think it starts getting a bit out of hand for me - at the start of a game there’s now like 40 abilities I have to ponder over to determine my opening moves (2 characters, 10 cards each, 2 abilities per card). :P And I’m not sure I like how you have fewer decisions the further you play.
Excited to try Dwellings…just ordered the basic set also. I went on a board game shopping spree and have already set up a few games and then took them down before I played them as new ones showed up…horrible habit.
But what is in there is real nice quality. And with the awesome storage solution it comes with, it’ll be
neatly packed away and back on the shelf in no time! :)
Anyone try The Initiative yet? Seems like an interesting concept - you play as teens in 1994 playing a board game they found. Game within a game type of deal.
We didn’t get to do our Christmas/New Year game exchange this year do to lack of gatherings, but this looks like the kind of game i might wrap for the white elephant exchange. It looks like enough where we can enjoy and my friends and family could play at home too. Plus it’s, you know, so pretty.
This game looks gorgeous and I have been keeping an eye on it for awhile! Definitely love both of the box arts (and matching playmats), but will be purchasing the purple one when it comes down to it.
I really enjoy a lot of Plan B’s other games - specifically the Century series (the Golem Editions are my preference!).
It is a rather striking arboreal image. And it is Knizia, who has some well known design chops. You could certainly do worse, I suspect, than buying that one blindly.
Apparently Equinox is a reimplementation of Colossal Arena, which is a… interesting thematic shift. Colossal Arena is about betting on the outcome of arena battles between several mythic creatures. You don’t own or control any specific beast, but you can influence the outcome to make sure you win your bets.
Gambling and brawling are not the vibes I get from those boxes! Here’s how the Equinox description reads:
In Equinox , mysterious creatures gather in the forest in an effort to write themselves into the legendary storybook and for tales to be shared for countless generations. However, there is room for only four more stories — not every story will be recorded, so the creatures have to be cunning and clever to outwit their opponents and make the cut.
It’s a good game. A small classic, even! It’s a little tricky to grok for beginners, I would say, because it’s so unconventional.
The evolution of the system was Grand National Derby → Titan: The Arena → Galaxy: The Dark Ages → Colossal Alena. It’s the kind of design that Knizia can resell every few years, and have the publisher slap on a whatever theme they want.
For example Grand National Derby was pure gambling (on a horse race), with no brawling. While Galaxy: The Dark Ages was themed as a space war, not as gambling.
