Yeah, that’s my interpretation- not anywhere near Best.Game.Ever. or anything, but good fun.
I had a nice engine going, built a solid lead, and then a disastrous final round- none of my ‘extra’ point ingredients, none of my ‘double value’ ingredients- and I had a lot of them. Another player got enough to come right up on my tail, but I squeaked out a win.
Long Live the Fighters!
So finally got to play Terraforming Mars with my son. I was a little worried that the game would be too dry and abstract, but it proved to be a huge hit. We played with drafting, which definitely made the game more fun, my son paid attention to what I was doing and specifically drafted cards to mess with me.
The rules only seem to suggest drafting during the research phase, but I was wondering if anyone tried drafting during setup too? It feels like it would be cool to draft the starting Project cards, and also perhaps the Prelude cards.
Was the Dune replay inspired by the reprint, or just something you guys regularly bust out?
A guy I used to know back in my Uni days made his own print ‘n’ play version of Dune because of how unavailable it is. I don’t know if he designed it himself or just had it all printed up. But in trying to find the pictures it also turns out he did a major rewrite of the rules that a lot of people seem to use. Did you use those?
edit: I looked up a image of his print ‘n’ play, and it appears you’re both playing the same print ‘n’ play design! I think that’s based on Scott’s, right?
@Kadath, if that images is after the end game scoring, then you lost! :'( That’s surprising given how well your last round went (and how poorly blue did! Though, based on the rats, you were way behind at the start of round 9?)
Also, I’ve got the witches expansion for Quacks and I feel you get a lot for your £15. It’s definitely a “more of the same” sort of expansion, though, so don’t expect too many changes.
Drafting in the first round adds about 20 minutes to the game for no real gain :) You’ll still going to throw away half of the cards because of them all requiring 10 oxygen or whatever.
Oh yeah, I got troooounced not understanding how the engine would develop early, and making poor luck push choices. It’s an indicator of how good a game is if you can get smoked and still want to play it more!
I played Dune once, full table, with an original copy. The owner got mad at me because I was Harkkonen and allied with the Fremen.
When I play with groups, I’ve always played with a draft for the initial 10 cards, but the standard rule for starting corps (deal 2 to each player and pick one.)
I mean, that seems manifestly not true. How could it add 20 minutes to the game? The cards aren’t that complex to read, and you can just not read the ones that aren’t relevant. The gain is that you can better sculpt your hand to support your initial strategy. Or try and hose an opponent based on your guess of what they are going for.
For extra intrigue, I’d have players choose but not reveal corporation cards and prelude card before looking at the project cards they are going to draft.
How long does it normally take the people you play this with to look at their 10 cards and pick them, along with their starting corp? 5 minutes? (And, if you’re playing with the expansions, all the extra cards you can choose from at the start),
Now image that time, but x4. And that’s just when they get each fresh hand. Every time they get the diminishing hand of cards they’ll have to um and ahh over what they take and pass on, and what’s been taken already and passed on already,
And then after all that they have to umm and ahh over their final 10.
Drafting already makes the research phase 2x or 3x longer, so I don’t see how it’s a stretch that it makes the initial card choices that much longer as well. But, unlike the research phase drafting, I don’t think the initial choice adds as much potential, as you don’t even really know who everyone else is yet or what they’re doing, and it just means that if someone gets a lucky combo they get a REALLY lucky combo. (Or ‘sculpting your strategy’, I guess?)
edit: Infact, I think the wording of your response strongly illustrates why I don’t think drafting the first 10 cards is a good way to play the game. You want to “scult” your hand to your “initial strategy”, whereas the game seems like it was intended that you just land on mars and try and make the best of a bad situation, i.e. by developing your strategy as you progress, in response to how the game is progressing.
I guess I’ve never really though of TM as an “engine building” game, even though some people term it that.
I guess, given that you’re already playing a variant, another variant can’t really hurt.
Hmm, now that you mention it, I wonder why that isn’t part of the drafting rule. Maybe Pod’s right that it’s not really worth it, since you throw away most of the cards? But I think it’s crazy to suggest a single round of drafting is going to add 20 minutes. Pod, are you playing with a bunch of those DMV sloths from Zootopia? :)
There’s an expansion for Terraforming Mars called Prelude that adds more customization to your pre-game set-up and I presume highlights even more the differences among the corporations. It’s the one add-on for Terraforming Mars that I would consider getting, since I feel there’s still too much content in here for me to be piling on new maps and cards. But I like the idea of each player coming to an empty Mars with a bit of unique infrastructure in place.
Not cool, dude. Not cool.
-Tom
Yeah, I picked up Prelude almost immediately, I really like it’s affect on the game. I think using the Preludes actually helps new players as it gives them a starting direction. For the same reason I don’t use Beginner Corps for beginners.
I’m tempted to pick up the expansion that adds two more maps. I think switching maps between games will be interesting without adding extra complexity or options.
If people are having problems with too much time been taken during the draft, you could always time picks. Too slow? You have to take a random pick! All of a sudden I bet no one needs twenty minutes to draft ten cards…
Has anyone played The Great War? I’ve played a couple other C&C games, with mixed results — Memoir 44 was a bit too barebones and Battlelore (2nd edition) had an excruciating setup and non-climatic ending. However, I really like the WWI theme, and it looks more meaty than M44. Also, has anyone played with the expansions?
Never! But I’ve wanted to. However it was published by The Plastic Soldier company so it means the minis were probably awful, like they were with the Battle of Britain reprint ;)
I looked it up! And the designer echo’d my point about drafting at that point being essentially “blind”, because you’ve yet to choose a corp.
If you’re playing with a variant where you pick the corp first, then I guess a draft would work… but then you’re picking your corp blind, which I feel might be even worse :P
Correct it is Scotts! I haven’t played it in about 7 years and decided to get the print and play version a go. The additional cards to shore up the pen and paper mechanics and other tweaks to the rules you mentioned were greatly appreciated!
The bene gesserit and I teamed up against the other 3 players. I worked out a signal to warn the bene gesserit of bad treachery cards so we fought with our overpowered combat abilities till a standstill angaist their axis of evil "), until the freeman flipped to our side allowing us to win on turn 15.
I should check my LFGS.
I really love the look and sound of this game for that price!!
So today’s update for 7th Continent was pretty cool.
Game is heading over on a slow boat from China. Literally. April 15 is the deadline to change your address, so I assume by early May folks with Wave 2 shipping like me will get theirs.
Secondly, though, they’re shipping with Wave 2 shipments a full set of the 962 cards from the base original game. Because some cards were incorrectly cut and just slightly too big, and because some curse cards have variations in color that make them detectable, they’re sending out full replacement sets. Which is pretty great of them.
Looking forward to this. I have the first edition box and the game is really quite good. This is probably the last Kickstarter only game I’ll ever own, so I’ve got to enjoy it!
Did anyone here back U-Boot? I’m very tempted to pick up copy when it arrives at the end of the month.
One of my gaming group did, but we haven’t had a chance to get it to the table yet. The app is still in beta, which isn’t helping enthusiasm.
