I’ve never played the game (Twilight Imperium, right?), but it looks intimidating, even to a veteran board gamer. Prior to playing Arkham Horror, I never thought it looked intimidating, but this one does. Is it as difficult to grok as it looks? Or is its bark worse than its bite?
By comparison, I like Sid Meier’s Civilization: The Board Game, but my girlfriend doesn’t. I’m guessing there’s no chance she’d play this game…?
Nice! Another ST:FC owner! Don’t hesitate to request replacement ships and/other components from WizKids’ website, as I’ve done so twice thus far without resistance (6 replacement ships and 1 replacement Location Tile). They’ll even replace ships that were assembled incorrectly and/or sloppily (nacelles glued on crooked, gaps between components, etc.). You’ll just have to send them photos if you request more than two replacement ships. Also, inventory all your cards and tiles, and remember that the Command Post Tiles are located under the ship insert, not the main insert.
Good to know regarding the replacement of ships that are glued crooked. I haven’t submitted my replacement order yet, but I’ll include those as well and see what happens. I have lots of Klingon ships that aren’t very flight-worthy.
Regarding painting, these look like good candidates for the simple dip/drybrush technique often used by non-painters such as myself. there’s lots of detail for the dip to settle into and I think it would make the ships look a lot better with minimal fuss. Can any painters weigh in on the best way to go about that?
Reldan
3764
I’d say that TI3 is somewhat similar to Civ:TBG except with the combat mechanics more akin to something like CoN. It’s more complicated simply because the way that you give orders through an activation token mechanic that isn’t immediately intuitive, and the victory point win condition doesn’t typically click for most people on their first play.
That said, a play takes 6-10 hours, so it’s often hard to find a large group of people willing to devote such time to a game that probably won’t click in the first go.
Dean
3765
Here’s how to schedule that:
3 hours to drive to MA
12 hours to play
3 hours to drive home
Meal time is included as long as you don’t get grease on the gamepieces.
z22
3766
I also ordered it, based on BGG comments, and the hope that my g/f, who enjoys Trek, will play it with me. :)
I am concerned about the high rate of broken minis customers have reported. Check yours, and keep in mind, WizKids will replace anything broken. For $70 I’m sending back anything that’s screwed up (some ships have nacelles glues on backwards, etc.).
EDIT: Bleh, how did I miss Mysterio’s post about on everything I just said. lol ;(
Heading to the store to grab Gears of War :)
Why do I feel like I’m going to regret not taking advantage of the deal?
In my effort to get through my backlog Played 2 games Rune Age and one more of Olympus this weekend.
Olympus is a keeper. There is a lot going on for such a simple game. It definitely makes you think twice before you make a decision.
Rune Age - Not sure if anyone else has played this yet. How are the player elimination games? If you get knocked out first are you sitting around for 30 minutes?
My group decided to play the race variant. Our first game with rule explanation took about an 1 hour and 15 minutes. We liked it enough to give it another shot using the same races and game type. This time it took 10 minutes.
I know a lot of people are turned off by the lack of variety in the cards, but I think this game is great.
To give you a comparison:
Thunderstone = D&D themed “Epic Dominion”
Dominion = deck building with variable amounts of interaction still mostly solitaire.
Ascension= is a streamlined 2 player chess like deck builder (you can play with 4 but it shines with 2)
Rune Age= is like like Ascension in that it’s streamlined but maintains the race to be efficient and fight monsters like Thunderstone with lots of player interaction and it plays well with 2, 3 and 4.
I’m not sure if I will buy an expansion for it or not, but It fills a nice niche in the over saturated deck building world.
Do you mean Olympos? If so, that game’s on my wishlist, but isn’t generating much buzz on BGG, which seems odd.
Curse you, Lutes! No more of this teasing until you have a Kickstarter page or a shipping date, OK?
I need to get a Spirit of the Century campaign going while I wait…
Now you’re all just rubbing it in!
Ha ha no I mean Olympus
A worker placement game with assorted building powers.
Olympos
A civ builder with a Thebes/Red November turn mechanic.
I read about both and was actually going to pick up Olympos but I think I need to play it before I purchase. It sounds like In the Year of the Dragon in the sense that once you’re finish playing you not like, “That game was fun”. I’m sure it’s good and when Olympos first came out it had a lot of buzz. Don’t let BGG ratings put you off though. I own plenty of great games that the BGG says aren’t worthy of the top 200.
Those cards look fantastic, Jason. If you can market it so that Thrilling Tales of Adventure’s relationship to Honor and Glory is the same as Arkham Horror to A Touch of Evil, you’d have a definite customer base. I’ll save $100 for your Kickstart campaign.
Lorini
3775
Olympus was better than Olympos. Olympus is my favorite game of the year so far and I’ve played nearly all the Euro releases this year. Olympos wasn’t bad but play it with at least four people if you can.
wahoo and I concluded our first PBF game of Conquest of Nerath yesterday with him conceding the game to me on Round 5, Vailin’s turn. His two groups of Heroes (1 Wizard and 1 Fighter taking on 2 Dungeon Guardians and 4 Wizards taking on another 2 DGs) were decimated by die rolls. Going into the die rolls, I thought, “Crap! He’s gonna earn an average of at least another 2 VPs, possibly 4, from treasures,” but the dice betrayed him. I felt bad, but not too bad, 'cause, ya know, I wanted to win the game. :-)
We had a blast, but leaving the board on our respective tables for 1.5 months wasn’t ideal. So for the next game, I’m going to try to scan the board and all components, excluding the pieces, of course. I’ll then host a game via email (for copyright images) and the BGG forum (for turn orders and rolls) for 2-4 players (wahoo for certain, possibly Dave Perkins, and two other Qt3ers, if interested). I’ll start the scanning effort on Monday, and hope to have everything functional by the end of the week. If you’re interested in giving the game a go via this medium, let me know!
Oh, one other thing: wahoo gets to play the Karkoth/Iron Circle alliance (if it ends up being a 2P/3P game), or Karkoth or Iron Circle (4P game). He no like Vailin. :-D
SlyFrog
3777
Anyone here play Star Trek Fleet Captains enough to get a good, comprehensive feel for it? I’m interested in longevity with games (often involving good, random setups).
It is getting a huge amount of popular buzz, but given it’s price, I’m leery of taking the gamble that it is just the usual BGG geekout for the cult of the new for something that is actually just mediocre and will be forgotten in a year.
wahoo
3778
This was my thinking. It was worth it to possibly lose a dragon to eliminate his WEs, take a VP and get an income bonus. Dragons are more than a bit overpowered in the VP game in my viewpt. You have a weird game where it makes little sense to retake your own territory if there’s a dragon within 3 spaces of it. I would have loved for Mysterio to continue reinforcing his rear territories b/c those troops aren’t on the front line and tying up about 40-50% of his turn income. I envision games where you have huge front lines, the enemy controlling your rear territory and races for dungeon delves for treasure.
This game got really disgusting to me simply b/c the disparity of the dice rolls were simply off the charts. I had one dungeon battle where I got really lucky but it was merely a trade-off b/c I should have won the previous turn.
What led me to concede was losing a fight where I went a straight 0/11 on rolls where I had a 40% chance to hit. Overall for the fight, I hit less than 10% when I should have hit 40% on average. It’s hard to overcome such beatings.
I think the game would have been much closer if dice rolls had ever evened out, but I consistently underperformed in every big fight.
But that’s just it: I already had enough Karkoth pieces on the Nerath/Karkoth front line, and never intended on attacking that Nerath Castle. I was hoping you’d try to take back those two starting Nerath spaces adjacent to that Castle space, so I could earn another VP by retaking it, which you did once. Since Karkoth had the Robe of the Archmage treasure, I was happy to defend my rear spaces with Wizards, which I would then use to explore nearby dungeons. So I never felt like I was wasting gold on protecting Karkoth’s rear spaces. You recruited more Dragons than I did, by far, maybe because I still don’t feel they’re overpowered. You also used yours to raid my rear spaces while I used mine to support front line attacks and reposition to choke points.
I like the fact that there’s little to no point in recapturing your starting spaces if you can’t reliably defend them. Instead, you’re forced to capture others’ starting spaces to make up for the income loss. I wish I could have a game of CoN going at all times, because I love the theme and the fact that dice are involved. However, it can be very frustrating when the die rolls defy the odds.
This recent BGG poll might help you with your decision.
