J'ai une âme solitaire: Solitaire Boardgaming Megathread!

I really dislike the tacked-on focus system. It’s a perfect example of the Fantasy Flight maxim: if there’s a good game design, they’ll find some way to undermine it, undo it, or milk it for more money. It’s as if they have one or two good designers, and everyone else working there is either an idiot or a suit only interested in earning money.

To me it felt like that system was the one piece that was missing from the original box. I was slightly annoyed that it came in an expansion. That’s not to say I disagree on the larger point about FFG, though. I felt like the sideboards are tacked on and unnecessary. I’ll get the pyramids expansion because I want the other stuff and I want the complete set but I doubt the board will get much use.

Also, your storage solution sounds pretty much like what I have going on right now. I tried building dividers out of some heavy board but my engineering skills were not up to the task.

Yeah, there’s stuff like this, but it’s way, way too pricey and it might not offer enough space once all expansions are out.

Oh cool, I’m ordering that since I always wanted to play the first one in the series. I see GMT are also shipping the Labyrinth expansion, may have to add that to the cart too…

That organizer is crazy! Kinda want it, but there’s no way I would spend that much money. Broken Token supposedly has one on the way for Eldritch Horror. I’ll wait and see what that ends up costing.

Mmm, that could be cool, but I don’t know if it will be much cheaper, looking at their prices. See that the storage solution I linked has an assembled price and a much cheaper price if you assemble it yourself. Still too high (and international shipping cost are also really high), but close to what Broken token seems to be charging for simpler games.

Wait and see, I guess. There’s one more big box expansion coming and I would guess another small box expansion (and then it is probably over for Eldritch horror).

Yeah, I can understand that. A lot of people like the focus tokens because it means you can always do something and because it mitigates the randomness.

But I feel the first part further robs the map of personality. When you can’t do certain actions in the wilderness or out to sea, it’s because you’re in the wilderness or out to sea! If you want to optimize your actions, figure out how to maximize your time in cities. Sheesh. But, no, just as Fantasy Flight throws gate tokens everywhere – why would Cthulhu want to open an interdimensional gate to Antarctica, which now has to be as frequently travelled as the cities? – they want to make sure you progress the gameplay no matter where you are. Really, it gets to gamers’ unwillingness to have negative space. And that was the beauty of Eldritch Horror’s map. A recreation of the world in the early 20th century where it could be hard to get around and it could be particularly hard to get to certain places!

And as for mitigating randomness, I’m cool with that but there goes the idea of clue tokens filling that role. The way the game originally worked, you would almost never use your clue tokens to reroll a roll, and when you did, it was only because things were really really desperate. But now rerolling rolls is easy peasy and it happens all the freakin’ time. Now mitigating randomness with focus tokens is pretty much a core gameplay concept. Now die rolls are considerably less scary and less important.

Jeeze, you got me started on a rant…

-Tom

You have got to be kidding me.

Sigh.

-Tom

Nope, sorry.

It looks like the best one yet, since it’s the Dreamlands board, so it can be accessed from more than one location, apparently (which means I might be willing to use it more). But still, sideboards suck in general. They are certainly NOT needed.

I agree with you on the diminishing sense of geography with the expansions. Apart formt he gate tokens, they even made expeditions take place in cities now. There are balance reasons they did so, I think, but there’s certainly a lot of lost elegance compared to the vanilla experience. There’s of course a lot of added options and narratives now, which I think partly compensates for the lost elegance in many ways. It’s a messier game, sure, but it’s also surprisingly lean for how much content and real variety is there. Still, I wish they had expanded in a different direction (in depth and not in width, further differentiating the territories).

But I don’t mind focus tokens. It’s a little something to do those turns you are stuck without moves, it’s an extremely simple mechanic, and certainly the game is much harder now and the extra help Focus gives is welcomed.

There’s still plenty of stuff you can’t do sojourning out in the wilderness, even with Focus around, so I don’t think it removes personality from the board, it just reduces dead turns. And frankly, I’ve never encountered a game where dead turns were an enjoyable mechanic. Less interacting with the game, woo! (said no one ever - about a game they would actually want to play, at least).

And I think the math on the dice mechanic in Eldritch Horror is skewed heavily towards failure, so having some mitigating factor is crucial. Clue tokens are too valuable and hard to come by to serve as that mitigating factor. Focus is still an investment, but it’s something you can actually afford to use sometimes. I think they could afford to go further, frankly. We’ve still never won a game of EH and it’s a bit dispiriting.

Bleh, Dreamlands are too Alice in Wonderlandy for me. Of course, I’ll still buy it…

Something must always be happening or teh gaem is broek!!!1!

Like I said, some of you just hate negative space. Can’t abide it. But one man’s “dead turn” is another man’s resource cost. The problem with sailing to Antarctica is that you have to sail to Antarctica. Unless you’re playing with focus tokens because then sailing to Antarctica just means free re-rolls whenever you feel like it. Yay, theming. Or pacing uber alles. Or short attention spans. Or however you want to characterize it. “Enjoyable mechanic”, huh? You know you wanted to write “fun”, didn’t you? :)

Seriously, though, it’s just different approaches to game design. You have a desire to be consistently entertained and that’s cool. It’s like people who demand fast travel in a game: crossing an ocean or an arctic waste shouldn’t be an inconvenience, geography be damned! Fantasy Flight definitely caters to your preference in the long run. But I tend to prefer Corey Konieczka’s designs as he originally designs them rather than after Fantasy Flight has “fixed” them. Seems the aftermarket just wants more stuff chucked into the mix, and there’s nothing quite like negative space as a perfect slot into which something can be shoved.

-Tom

I think you’re thinking of it as “negative space” because you’re playing by yourself. It’s called “not getting to play the game”, if you’re playing it as designed.

I’d be willing to take the “resource cost” argument if it were a question of deciding to go for the quick, easy profit or a bigger one down the line, but Eldritch Horror doesn’t usually make it your choice to that degree. Instead, you need to do everything and travel time is already a huge obstacle to getting things done. To further insist that you entirely waste your time in motion (and it’s not like Focusing is nearly as useful as most other things you could be doing with your action) doesn’t make the decisions any more interesting, it just makes you more prone to being screwed by the game’s already substantial degree of randomness.

Uh, how else would I play a solitaire game?

Gotcha! :)

-Tom

I keep trying to play solitaire games lately but inevitably I get sleepy and quit after the first turn or so. Frustrating because I really want to play a proper solo game of Mistfall or Scythe among others but it just falls flat. Our semi-regular Fri night group has low interest in medium+ weight games so solo is usually my only chance to try many games.

I don’t know what Mistfall is, but Scythe definitely isn’t a solitaire game, even though you can play it solitaire. It’s just adding a half-assed AI to a multiplayer design. A good solitaire game is built from the ground up to be played solitaire, whether it’s something simple like the Oniverse games, something more complex like the State of Siege engine games, or something utterly unique like Navajo Wars or Dan Verssen’s Leader series. Or Eldritch Horror, which is a solitaire game with half-assed multiplayer support. :)

-Tom

Tom are we sure we can’t have a like here? You pretty much said exactly what I feel about solo games. I am very skeptical as soon as I see 1 to any higher number on a player count. I agree that you have to make very different design decisions when you start adding other players or removing all of the other players.

Are you looking at Comanchería? it’s supposed to be out now.

Tom Mc

My copy is on the way and can’t frickin’ get here soon enough.

-Tom

I do have Cruel Necessity but ran into the same wall right after I set everything up! Scythe with two was fun but haven’t had a chance to play it again yet.

Eww, Cruel Necessity is terrible. It’s basically a bunch of slapped together arbitrary sliders. I feel like you’re not being shown the state of siege engine at its best, or even at its passable.

I wish I was your secret santa. :(

-Tom

How long do GMT typically take to send an order? Say I ordered a P500 title whose status was already ‘shipping’.

I wish I had not entered this thread. Just read a Comanche book and now have to get this Comanche game…right after buying Merchants and Marauders, Freedom the Underground Railroad, and Warfighter. My wife hates me.