Yeah whassup with this “Euro Carwarz” thing? Are the rules posted somewhere? I’d love to see this.
We played Car Wars so many times that we wore out the arenas we had drawn. My friend and I had those old desk pads with graph paper that was like 11” x 17” or so in tear-off sheets, and we drew arenas (that’s how it worked back then, guys—YOU MADE YOUR OWN MAPS) with colo(u)red pencils and then “drove” the little cardboard counters over them so much that the paper would wear down to tissue thinness, then rip, and we would tear off that sheet and draw a new arena. Through the lens of nostalgia, it seems amazing. What it really was was a miniatures system. We didn’t recognize it as such, but everything was based on real measurements. Since it was in graph paper, you didn’t use rulers on anything. Wonder if they kept that.
It’s Monday, which means it’s time to update my played board games!
The digital version of Gloomhaven is going to be the end of me. Ten scenarios this week, including one I never saw when I had a regular Gloomhaven group. The Jaws of the Lion showed how much smoother the game could be when it dispensed with the lengthy map setup, but the ease of jumping into a digital scenario almost makes me want to never play this analog again.
Train night was intense. I’m cooling on Trans-Siberian Railroad at the same pace that I’m warming to Iberian Gauge. Both play with track leasing, but it’s the focus of the latter more than the former, and there’s something about bridging to a distant city instantly that’s really satisfying.
Biggest play of the week was obviously Clash of Cultures. The new edition is smoother than the original. Still takes about three hours to play. Not bad for a civgame.
The earlier discussion on Imperium Legends prompted me to buy it. (Classics is hard to find.) I played single-handed, without the bot, as Qin, just to learn the mechanics. It seems pretty neat!
I was surprised, though, how small my hand was as Qin. I seemed to have only 9 starting cards – did I miss a 10th somewhere? I guess that’s not unusual for a deckbuilder; Dominion starts you with 10, I think. Also, I drew lots of Pin cards, which I played to my tableau, which meant my hand got even smaller. I was reshuffling – and thus drawing a nation card – every other turn. I suppose that’s normal at game start?
Anyway, I’m really looking forward to trying a “campaign” against the bot. The bot rules seem sensible and easy to follow. I liked Qin, but I’m debating whether to play as Qin or give it to the bot, and then choose a different nation for myself. I’m open to suggestions on that. :)
It’s normal, this game is a little different from other deckbuilders.
I haven’t played Qin but nine is even more than some other nations start with in their decks! Playing as Persia atm and I think I started with eight.
In most other deckbuilders the cards you acquire from market don’t go straight into your hand like they do here, they go into discard. Here there’s also the likelihood of adding Unrest cards to your hand at the same time as well. (I don’t think this slows getting through your first hand since you can discard them all anyway, I just like it. It means you get more inteteresting cards in your first two hands than you otherwise would with 10 cards of trash, like other games.)
Yeah the game promotes getting through your deck as the primary advancement mechanic. It’s pretty cool. When you play against a bot you’ll likely be slowed down a bit.
Though often with pinned cards (not always, and I’m not sure about Qin), the point can be to get enough to ‘abandon’ them to your discard, to trigger some other card’s power.
If you do give it to the bot, make sure to check the errata. I think Qin has the most out of any nation… :P
Check it anyway, there’s a couple bigger fixes, especially for solo.
Thanks for pointing me to the errata! You’re right, the entire Qin bot table is replaced in the errata. I think I’ll use a different bot for my first game, so I can rely on the paper bot. Also, the errata has a solo correction about revealing an Unrest card. In the paper rules, you’d play this as an ‘other’ card, but the errata makes clear that you return the Unrest card to the Unrest pile. Also, there are fixes to Acquire and Breakthrough and King of Kings.
That spreadsheet is also nifty! I think I won’t play the “easy” Minoans first, even though they have only an 8% win rate as the bot. I mean, what if I lost? :)
The game is almost literally unplayable if you’re using the rules as written. I have no idea how they failed to include the rule about what to do with unrest cards, but it makes unrest a powerful asset for the AI instead of a check on their expansion. I’ve seen plenty of crappy rules books in my day, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one that scuttles the game as thoroughly as Imperium’s.
Just to clarify, I’m not saying the rules are a mess. They’re pretty good except for some typos and a single mystifying oversight in how the solo games work. The errata fixes both issues just fine.
I know some people dislike the rulebook, but I think it’s decent. It errs on the side of pithy, concise presentation. I do wish it had include a few examples of play, though. I watched a YouTube video to make sure I understood everything. I recall that Twilight Struggle shipped with a detailed example of the first few turns of a game. I loved that example of play, and I wish more boardgames emulated it.
I played my first game against the bot, on Chieftain difficulty, as the Mauryans vs the Egyptian AI. I won, 102-89. That sounds nice until one compares it to the data in the spreadsheet tracking games , which says the average margin of victory for this matchup at Chieftain is 67 VPs! Well, in fairness, it was my first full game.
I really enjoyed the mechanics and theme, but it took four-plus hours, including setup and breakdown. I did speed up a lot in the second half of the game, once I’d internalized the rules and learned some of the cards. People on BGG say you can play solo in a couple hours. That sounds a lot nicer to me. As is, I found I wasn’t savoring the theme as much as I would’ve liked. Even so, I got a kick out of trampling the Nile with my War Elephants, and I enjoyed playing Buddhism – as well as a Tributary (I forget which) who put a stop to relentless Egyptian counter-attacks.
All in all, it was a very satisfying experience. If I can cut the play time in half, it’ll be great.
I plan to continue this campaign at the next difficulty level, as per the rulebook, but I wonder whether I’ll get tired of the same matchup. Do you all play the solitaire campaigns?
Edit: I see a guy on BGG played an Olmec campaign, but randomly chose a different opponent for each difficulty level. Maybe I’ll try that? But I wouldn’t mind another game against the Egyptians first.
Yeah I really like it too, and it gets quicker as you know it better - but I do find it runs quite long for a deck builder. I prefer shorter games in general, and I’m used to shorter games in deck builders specifically, so it’s kind of doubly off-putting in that regard.
I haven’t played any campaigns yet. I haven’t actually played a hell of a lot of games total either, my last one the other week was interrupted, and I’d not tried to play anything for three weeks before that, for injury reasons. I really need a much nicer chair at the game table…
You and me both. My back hurts after four hours hunched over the table. Also I can’t find my MTG playmats, so I ordered a new 36"x36" mat – a giant mousepad, essentially. Once I have that, I’ll be cooking!
I can’t wait to play again. I’m still thinking about how my nation developed. I might even do a little historical reading so I can appreciate the cards better.
I really like that. The nations (so far) seem to have a nice bit of unique flavour to how they play, which mimics some approximation of what might be historical accuracy!
It is cool to see in the rules that history was a bit of a focus and they put a lot of thought into it (still favouring mechanics where more practical of course).
I agree. It’s my favorite thing about the game. My Mauryans start with aggressive expansion – war elephants, aggressive early leaders – but eventually I have to choose whether to follow Ashoka’s path of pacifism or whether to stick with my militarism until the endgame. All of this resonates with what little I know about early South Asian history. I’m not paying as much attention to the bot’s Egyptians, but it sure is fun to see him build on the Nile and then to send my elephants in to force him to abandon them. :)
I’m playing my second game, same matchup, this time on Warlord difficulty. It’s noticeably tougher! Plus I’m being too slow to cycle my hand this time. I could be in trouble. I paused the game at the start of round 13 after two hours of play. I’m guessing it will end in 3-4 turns, so I am getting quicker, but I’ve still got some playing-time-optimization ahead of me. :)
