I played Rising Sun tonight as well, and was pretty impressed by it. It was definitely a classic Eric Lang game, with elements from Blood Rage and Chaos in the Old World. The asymmetrical sides are done really well, and there are some really clever stuff you can do with the game’s actions.
That said, it also has some mechanics that are just so-so. I’m not convinced that there is that much strategy to picking alliances. Also, the bidding system for combat kind of sucks if you don’t have much money to spend.
Overall, I think I still prefer Blood Rage or Inis for this kind of game. Those games seem much tighter with their rules and flow better. Or I dunno, maybe I just really like card drafting.
Chaos in the old world is in a class of it’s own.
I would argue that the bidding system is great and a counter point to buying all the cards and strongholds.
Under 90 minutes! It took us over 3 hours and I still didn’t feel like anything exciting happened. My biggest dislike of the first play and worry going forward is that we as a group spent a lot of time deciding between what mostly felt like unimportant decisions. For instance, someone would spend 5 minutes figuring out which of two locations to enter during a Marshal, and after deciding on moving left, the subsequent players moves undid any advantage to moving left or right. I agree there looks like some interesting depth to be had there, but I’m not sure I have the patience to get there with the groups I play with. I kind of wish I could play with your group enough times to understand what’s important so I could appreciate it at a longer playtime. Under 90 minutes sounds breezy!
I’m curious about this statement. Cosmic Encounter is one of my favorite games, but I feel like in that the chaos and crazy imbalance was a core part of what makes negotiating fun. In comparison, Rising Sun felt like it was trying for a balanced, less chaotic experience where negotiation lead to small wins rather than big moves. Is that different than how you felt? Maybe I’m approaching it all wrong.
No Pun Included has an interesting review that looks both at what they love about the game and what it could do better. Worth a look if you want to hear about both sides of the coin:
It makes it sound tempting to me, but I don’t think it’s for my most regular group of players (my family), unfortunately.
@Shieldwolf Alright, you’ve totally turned me around on Rising Sun. We played it again last night and I went in thinking “Cosmic Encounter” and had a fantastic time. I spent significantly more time focused on paying people to do what I wanted and offering to do others bidding for money, and much less time focused on trying to build up to giant strategic moves. I had a ton of fun playing with that mindset. Crazy how much expectations can shape an experience! Thanks for the (perhaps unintentional) advice.
A lot of it is just how the thematic shift is used for a more streamlined and intuitive game. The concept of colonizing planets at varying distances works much better than building towns and trying to deal with rivers. The concept of terraforming, which is less clunky here, certainly fits better. What used to be a religion track is now a tech tree where a lot of the gameplay is determined.
For instance, there used to be an option on each player’s board to change terraforming costs and boat distance, and you just paid resources to improve those. Now there are tech tracks on the tech tree that determine terraforming cost and hyperspace drives (colonization range). These are earned with the same resource as the other techs, so we’re all choosing our fundamental gameplay rules from one central location, using a resource representing science instead of magic. Do you want to be able to reach farther or settle more versatile worlds? Do you want to be competitive for the gaia planets that draw players into more head-do-head interaction? Do you want to ramp up your economy on the tech tree?
It just feels like an even more elegant and carefully honed presentation of the same Terra Mystica dynamics. And whereas Terra Mystica never cared too much about theming, the theming here is a natural fit.
Clans of Caledonia is another Terra Mystica replacement. It’s got some significant differences, but it’s definitely in the same family. You don’t terraform (hexes are either mountains, lakes, forests, or grassland, and all players have the same set of buildings each of which requires a particular terrain). Instead of a religion track, there’s a market where you can buy or sell the goods you produce with your buildings; you can also use your goods to fulfill contracts for victory points. Each player gets a unique player power. And you get VP bonuses for doing different things each turn.
I picked up clans haven’t played it yet. I couldn’t justify the cost of Gaia. I loveTerra Mystica but it doesn’t get played that often.Also I had heard from some reviewers it was a bit too forgiving any thoughts on that?
I looked at that insert and ultimately decided to hold off for now, for a couple reasons. One is that I’m converting my 1st edition collection, so I don’t have the expansion boxes that Go7Gaming’s solution is designed to work with (though they are also set up to be used externally - I guess the smaller expansions for MoM are the horrible open-at-one-end style that the Arkham LCG “deluxe” expansions came in, and if so would barely count as boxes? it’s like FFG is actively trying to make it as difficult to store their games as possible). Maybe I could put them in my 1E core or Call of the Wild box, and in a pinch external would be okay I -guess-. But the other is that their complete storage solution references a “MOM-004” SKU that does not currently exist in their store. This appears to be the insert for Streets of Arkham, and I guess it’s still underway, based on comments on reviews. Since a partial setup would actually make things worse than my current 2nd edition core box for minis, 1st edition core box for map tiles, Streets of Arkham for tokens/cards/investigator minis/etc “solution”, I’m gonna wait until I can grab the whole thing. And maybe Beyond the Threshold will be back in print by then, and Sanctum of Twilight will be out…
Having put an insert in the Arkham LCG core box, though, I’m kind of jonesing to make at least some of my other games better organized, so I got the Eldritch Horror inserts instead, along with ones for Argent and Millenium Blades. And for good measure, Broken Token’s Gloomhaven insert (backordered, but supposedly in stock starting tomorrow) and Legendary Encounters insert. (Why not Go7’s Gloomhaven insert? Well, it’s $20-30 more depending on whether you add on the top tray, and I liked the look of Broken Token’s setup better.) Looking forward to putting those together!
