6261

I hear ya. It’s getting a lot of love on BGG and I got it originally on the suggestion of a friend who also loves it. My group and I seem to be on the outside on this one. So on the upside I don’t expect to have any trouble finding someone to gift it to who will appreciate it :).

6262

Terra Mystica really isn’t a game where there’s a clear optimal move that you just need to find. And it absolutely isn’t a game that’s determined after the faction selection. Yes, it’s a deterministic perfect information game, so theoretically you could minmax the game tree for every player. Not even any need for mixed strategies! But that’s like saying that chess is simply a game of finding the one obviously correct move among the noise, and really the only important part is choosing the right opening.

It’s true that you need to have an idea at the start of the game for where your points are coming from, it’s not a tactical game and hope isn’t much of a strategy. But it’s impossible to have map the game out very far. (I usually have a plan for the next 2 rounds, but that rarely survives for long except in the endgame). There are just too many points of player interaction for a solitaire plan to work out, since you’re never going to be able to predict all the moves of 4 other players.

I’ve played about 90 games of TM so far, with a split of 15 live, 20 realtime online, and 55 PBEM. Some of the PBEM games involved hours of detailed analysis between moves – so much for obvious moves :-) Even with that experience I still can’t tell at the start of the game where it’s going to be a 120 point game or a 180 point one. I probably couldn’t guess the winner with a high percentage halfway through the game. If someone’s opening really fails, it’ll admittedly be obvious. But with experienced players who have some understanding of the incentives in initial dwelling placement, that just doesn’t happen.

6263

Terra Mystica.

Yea I thought the systems were pretty interesting connected in meaningful ways so there really is a need to balance short and long term objectives, especially with the power point rotation. You can have a broad general strategy but opponents can rub up against that and you’ll need to adapt.

I think the games biggest crime though is its theme. It’s an elegant Euro style system but not tied too much to the theme. You are told you’re running a magical empire growing and developing to be in the best position. You are but it really doesn’t grab you and make you feel it the way a game like War of the Ring does, BTW for Tom or anyone who likes something like Kemet do check out War of The Ring it is fantastic. Terra Mystica is a great brain burner with intricate systems just complicated enough without being too arcane.

Tom M

6264

I can see that. I feel comfortable admitting I didn’t like our initial plays enough to put in the time to really understand it. In the two games we played (both 5 players), we did appear to have opening moves that severely handicapped players to the point where post-game, we couldn’t figure out anything those players could have done to be competitive. That includes the first game where we used their suggested setup. If we played a bunch more, I assume we could get better at choosing starting positions / species, but that seems like a large investment to get past the point where opening moves matter, especially considering how long it is.

I’m having a similar issue with Dominant Species. I’m quite enamored with the game, but my group is definitely more hit or miss on it. It’s a long game to play, and because so many of the points are scored at the end, I think players don’t really get a good sense for strategy at all throughout the entire first play through. It’s really that second play that cements the game and where you can start to learn strategies. But it’s also a 3-4 hour game, and I can’t seem to get any group to play a second time (played with 3 separate groups). I think it’s hard to get excited about a game that didn’t click for the whole first play through. For me, TM didn’t click in either play, so I can see where their reticence comes from.

6265

It’s funny I was thinking about Dominant Species exactly when thinking of Terra Mystica. I can see the same issue being a problem. These games have a lot of proverbial ‘trees’ and it may be difficult to see the forest. Dominant Species also has that aggravating, I wouldn’t have it any other way though, mechanic of making you plan out all of your actions before going back and resolving them. I generally do not like games as abstract as DS and TM but somehow those two work well for me, but I can see them not working for everyone.

They’re big time investments and if you feel lost or only really see one path it will be taxing. There’s no reason to spend time on games that arn’t good for you when there is so much out there. I get sad that they bounce off some but they have a good fan base so I can feel safe in my neurosis that someone else likes them as well.

Tom M

6266

I totally get where you’re coming from. There are so many games and so little time that I find it very hard to give a second chance to a game that just didn’t work. For example I played about 20 games at Essen this year, and liked 5 of them enough to want to play them again. Gave a second chance to an additional 2 games that I’d been excited and then disappointed by. Both completely mediocre on the replay too.

I wouldn’t care for TM as a 3-4h game either. Luckily even the first game was under 2 hours for us with 5 players, so it made the cut.

6267

Any chance you’d be interested in sharing your essen experiences? Or at least the 5 games you did like out of the bunch?

6268

Yeah so, is that possible yet? I don’t see it for sale outside of the kickstarter. There was a post from Wallace on BGG back in May that they will be selling it direct but I couldn’t find anything else.

6269

In short:

Would like to play again: Concordia, Patchistory, Sail to India, Wildcatters, Yunnan

Could replay if there are no other choices: Amerigo, Glass Road, Rokoko, Russian Railroads, Venetia

Don’t want to replay: Artifact, Bruxelles 1893, Caverna, Legacy, Nations, S-Evolution, Trains and Stations, Ultimate Werewolf: Inquisition

Of course my tastes are just my own, and don’t line up perfectly with anyone else’s. I’ve written my views in more detail in too many places to want to do it again :-) But my rating comments on BGG are pretty up to date. The following link should have the new releases at the top for now:

http://boardgamegeek.com/collection/user/jsnell?sort=postdate&sortdir=desc&rankobjecttype=subtype&rankobjectid=1&columns=title|status|version|postdate|rating|bggrating|plays|comment|commands&minplays=1&geekranks=Board+Game+Rank&rated=1&ff=1&subtype=boardgame

6270

My interest for Caverna has been slowly fading. It just seems that Uwe’s games feel awfully similar. I think I’m in a good place with Agricola and Le Havre I just don’t feel the need to expand on those really with Uwe. I’ve heard good things about Ora at Labora but I’ve got no real drive to pick it up and add it to an already crowded collection.

Tom M

6271

I’ve played Ora et Labora once, and it was good enough for me to purchase a copy after my experience. I like it a lot better than Agricola. It does bear some passing resemblance to Le Havre, though it’s more complex.

It has two faults that I can see: too many different kinds of resources, which makes it a game that’s difficult to learn, and by the end of the game you feel swamped in the number of possible actions. At game start there aren’t that many, but as players create buildings you get more options, and there’s going to be a lot of buildings by game end.

6272

Yeah, I really like Ora et Labora as well, but it does have the difficulty of being able to use actions on your opponents’ buildings, which requires (for good play) that you know what those buildings are and do. That is made difficult by the size of the building cards and the fact that you are (at least in some cases) staring across a table from a few feet away trying to read them.

I assume it gets better once you’ve played a ton and have a better memory of what each card does, but we’re nowhere near that level of familiarity with the game.

6273

That’s primarily what I was thinking about when I said “too many actions.” There’s a tendency to get tunnel vision and look only at your own buildings, since the cards are are in front of you and easily referenced.

6274

One thing I’ve been curious about with Rosenberg’s games, of which I’ve only played Agricola (though I have iOS Le Havre that I haven’t touched), is whether any of the others have anything similar to the hook that makes Agricola work for me - the card decks. I mean, card-free Agricola is a fine enough worker placement game. There’s some interesting decisions to be made and reasonably elegant mechanics, but that’s not the sort of thing that gets me hot and bothered to any great degree. But add in seven randomized occupations and seven randomized minor improvements, each drawn from any of three base game decks or a number of addons, and it becomes an endlessly varied and exciting experience for me. At least, insofar as subsistence medieval farming is exciting. Anything like that going on in the others?

6275

You’re going to love Le Havre. The basic economy can changes in any given game based on the order that cards appear and which special cards you deal out for that game. The player who owns the marketplace can even check the special cards in advance to get a sort of “insider trading” advance look at the trappings of the economy.

-Tom
6276

As Tom pointed out, Le Havre also has special cards that vary with each game. Unlike Agricola, they start out in a common pool and can be claimed by any player. The neat twist is that claiming a card does not prevent other players from using it, but in order to use it they must usually pay the owner. That means that cards might be valuable even if you don’t intend to use them, because you can play landlord after getting a hold of the key structures for your opponents’ engines. Of course, crafty opponents could pay you with items that can only be processed using their buildings…

6277

That’s honestly less appealing to me, at least in concept. I’ll reserve actual judgment until I play it.

6278

Tom Chick doesn’t like Lords of Waterdeep (the boardgame) but would rather play Agricola? Bah!!

Personally, I find Agricola far too stressful and time consuming. I make a plan and change it 4 times before it gets to my turns, as 4 other people have kicked the current plan to pieces by then. I also find it a bit of a pain to set up, though that might be the fact that I have little animal-shaped pieces for it (including carrot shaped orange ‘vegetables’ rather than discs) which causes ever more piece-spam. During many different rules explanations to people I’ve found it really hard to describe to someone in full what they can do and what they SHOULD do without confusing them, meaning their first game often sucked. The fact that I’ve yet to find a satisfying way to deal out starting cards also doesn’t help the potential for a bad game. (I’d also say a similiar think for Carson City, but I like that more than Agricola. I’ve not played Caylus or Dominant Species though)

But Lords of Waterdeep? It’s practically consistent in the less-than-one-hour experience it gives. It’s dead easy to explain (get cubes, spend cubes on quests. Try and do as many point giving quests as possible). Maybe the slick factory-produced consistency compared to the etsy-Agricola is a bad point for Tom though?

6279

As far as Lords of Waterdeep goes i like Troyes a little better. It does the same medieval style city building, quest etc. but I think it’s design is a little more solid. Personal taste most likely, I have only experienced a few Waterdeep games via IOS but that’s where I fall currently.

Tom M

6280

So a couple of weeks ago I watched some random review (maybe from one of the Dice Tower guys) of the Lord of the Rings LCG, and I was totally turned off. I was completely lost as to what was going on, and it just all seemed so overly complex. A few days ago I started working through the Watched it Played review (spread over 13 videos) and wow, do I want to play this game. Much like Pathfinder with the Crit Happens playthrough, seeing someone break down each step as they played really helped me understand the rhythm of the game.

The only thing that’s a bit of a turn off is, holy cow there’s a lot that you can buy for it. There must be at least $300 worth of stuff out there. I think it must be easier to get into these types of games when you’re in at the beginning.

Few questions:

So what’s the difference between the solo and two person game?

And I think I’ve seen that you can double the core set to play 3 or 4? How does that work? Do you have to have two sets of each adventure/expansion as well?

Did I read that at some point there are persistent upgrades to the heroes?

Anything else to know about the game that might not be obvious?

Given that I just started Pathfinder, I doubt I’ll be rushing into another card adventure game, but I think this is definitely on my radar.

Oh, anyone have play impressions from Eldritch Horror now that it’s out?