Nope, it just makes Tempest take an additional single point of damage from any effect that damages him. It doesn’t go up over time, but it does stack with anything else that increases damage being dealt by those effects. Card text like that is just in continuous effect, it doesn’t trigger again periodically to add to itself. If they wanted to design a mechanic like that they’d have to have it stack up tokens on the card and increase damage dealt by X where X is the number of tokens on it, something like that.
Okay, I picked up Archipelago today and just finished reading the rules. I’m hoping to play a game of it this weekend. So with that in mind… how the heck do you guys approach teaching this? The rulebook layout seems good for referencing, but the order of things had me going back to recheck previous rules a bunch (as they were fleshed out more a few pages later). Is this a solveable problem or are all the systems just so interwoven that there’s no chance of teaching them coherently on a first pass?
Also what’s people’s experience on starting game length? I’ve heard the short games don’t give much of a taste of what makes the game interesting, but of course I’m nervous committing to a long game when we don’t know what we’re doing. Are a bunch of experienced board gamers fine jumping into a longer game on our first go at it? Or should we just set aside enough time to play a short and a medium / long game to get the breadth of it?
Here’s how my “teaching Archipleago cheat sheet” breaks down into three sections:
- “I can’t tell you how to win or how long the game is, because that’s up to secret cards we all get and the one overall objective card we’ll randomly draw, but I can show you the different parts.” (introduce components: tiles, resources, huts, constructions, citizens, ships, florins, explorer tokens, action disks, objective cards, evolution cards, market and population board)
- “So here’s how each turn goes.” (Run down the six phases printed on the back of the shields: explain engagement in disengagement phase, order of play, population bookkeeping, explain crises, come back to actions last, buying and rotating evolution cards)
- “Here’s the heart of the game, where we take turns doing these actions which I’ve written down on this sheet of paper that I’ll stick up here on the wall.” (Explain the actions, grouping them as follows: Econ: harvest, taxes, transaction; Population: reproduction, recruiting, migration; Exploration; Construction (explain the four buildings))
It seems like a lot, and it can be, but as long as players know they’re just getting three sections, and as long as you know the exact order to tell them stuff, it’ll go pretty smoothly. Also, if you really want to wrap your head around the game before you play and if you’re up to doing a bit of reading, I recommend this excellent thread at BGG about commonly misunderstood rules that might trip you up on your first few plays.
The short games are great to introduce the mechanics, but they’ll often end abruptly without showing off the systems very well. My advice is to first play a short game with your group and then immediately play a medium length game. Tell them the short game is just so they can try different things and see how they work, and then the medium game is where you’ll be really playing. Medium games are a perfectly fine way to apprecaite Archipelago. You can get an economy going, the tension of staying ahead of the natives comes into play prominently, more evolution cards come out to mix up the action. Also – and I can’t stress this enough – keep hitting the idea that you’re all going to have to cooperate to win, even if there’s only one “supreme winner”. The concept can be a hard sell until someone has played the game several times, but it’s a really important part of understanding Archipleago, even if you don’t personally want to call it a cooperative game.
Finally, TAKE OUT THE TRAITOR (i.e. separatist) AND PACIFIST. SERIOUSLY. DO THIS. The game doesn’t suffer one whit for not having them. Later, you can put them back in for an advanced group. But until that happens, the separatist will always win.
Let us know how it goes. And if you have any questions, fire away. I’m happy to talk more about it. It’s currently my favorite boardgame!
-Tom
Just sprang for A Study in Emerald. I was on the fence about the whole purchase, seeing as it’s a lot of money. Especially for me, with shipping and all. But somehow I know I’d regret it if I didn’t. Stocks seem to be dwindling, and from what I gathered from Martin on Tom’s podcast, it might not get a reprint anytime soon. Anyway, it looks crazy fun, so I’m having high hopes. The theme is right up my alley, and I think I have the right kind of group to play it with.
Worst case, if it ended up not getting very much time on the table, it seems like one of those games you’d pride yourself for having on the shelf, just for the novelty alone.
Anyway, on the topic of general rules explanation. One of my default sources for getting my head around rules, is the cheat sheets and summaries from The Esoteric Order of Gamers (formerly Headless Hollow). They’re so good compared to the rule books they’re based on, and make the process of learning and explaining a much more digestible process for everyone involved. Their library is limited though, so not too many games are in there. But if you can find yours (A Study in Emerald, yay!), you should download it to your iPad-thing or whatever and bring it along for easy reference.
That’s very helpful. Thanks. I read through bgg thread and had misunderstood about half of those so thank god for that thread.
I find A Study in Emerald hits the table a lot with my friends. Now that I’ve got a hang on teaching it, I’d consider it a medium-weight game, and I’ve been surprised at how many people have been able to pick it up with minimal confusion. Most people who play it want to play again to see more of the cards or with different player counts to see how it changes the game (for the record, I think it plays equally well with 3, 4 or 5 players). It also has the advantage of having something in its theme that appeals to nearly everyone: Sherlock / Moriarity for book people, 19th century anarchists for history buffs, Cthulhu for nerds, old style zombies and vampires for horror fans, and building a network of spies for… well, everyone loves spies.
hepcat
6447
I second the suggestion to remove the separatist and pacifist cards from Archipelago. It may very well ruin the game for new players and they’ll be resistant to playing it in the future. Trust me.
In other news, I received a copy of Freedom: The Underground Railroad for my birthday. What a great looking game. I’ve just started a solo game but I like what I see so far. Part Pandemic style coop, part CDG, it’s got some great mechanics so far.
Tom_Mc
6448
The makers of Freedom, Acedemy Games, have impressed me with 1775. From what I’ve seen there I would probably enjoy 1812 as well but the games seem close enough that I will probably just stick to 1775. Fief has me really excited though and considering their record I have high hopes.
Link to Fief: http://academygames.com/games/fief
Tom M
hepcat
6449
I owned 1775 but found myself lacking any real desire to play it after a few games. It has some fantastic game mechanics I’d like to see taken into a more complex game though. A CDG using the turn order mechanic and other stuff from 1775 would be an insta buy for me.
Tom_Mc
6450
I was impressed by the way it got my fiancé, who would normally have nothing to do with anything wargamey at all, to get excited about playing. I like it a lot but like you I would rather play something crunchier. I’ve raved a lot about the COIN series. 1775’s strength is its pacing and play time make it super accessible and very easy to get played.
Tom M
davidf
6451
Just wanted to let everyone know I was having a auction (a spring purge of my unplayed titles) on Boardgame geek. A lot of new titles, still in shrink wrap, never played and a few hard to find titles.
More info [Here](http://Spring Purge Market Place Auction (ends April 2nd))
robc04
6454
Has anyone played both Roll for the Galaxy and Race for the Galaxy? Preference?
It seems Roll is more accessible as it doesn’t rely on icons as much. I don’t have a lot of experience with dice based games (except for using ‘regular dice’ for randomness), but my first foray into one didn’t go well with Quarriors. It seemed impossible to come back from being down just a little bit.
Roll is excellent, and I think at this point the better game. Quarriors is fine, but unbalanced. Roll for the Galaxy, on the other hand, is neat because there are all kinds of ways to mitigate the randomness of your roll and manipulate the final outcome. If you dislike the Euro feeling of playing multi-person solitaire, maybe you wouldn’t like Roll. It’s also not exactly casual, although I feel it is slightly more accessible than Race (which requires basically learning a new language–something I think is neat about it, but off-putting for newbies). Other than those caveats, Roll is very easy to recommend.
Rob did you see Amazon has Roll on sale right now? Check in the bargain thread.
Nightgaunt, can Roll be played Solo? I believe Race had a solo variant, but I didn’t see on mentioned for Roll at BGG.
rowe33
6457
robc04
6458
Yep, I posted that link :-)
Would there be a reason to have both Roll and Race at some point? Do they feel like different enough games, or once you have one is there little point to getting the other? Race is cheaper by about $10-15.
I own and love both, but I’ll disagree with Nightgaunt. I think Race is the better game. Race card powers are more diverse than Roll card powers, which makes Race more thematically interesting and more dynamic from game to game. Race is harder to learn the first time, but quicker to set up and play, easier to transport (my girlfriend and I bring it on vacation with us), and its play diversity means it has more staying power for me.
That said, I very strongly think you can’t go wrong with either. Roll is easier to learn, but it still has a huge skill ceiling such that when you’ve learned it you’ll destroy players who are new to it. Like Nightgaunt said, you have much more control of Roll than you do of Quarriors. In both Roll and Race, however, you can get into a position where you are going to lose and there’s no way to come back. They handle this situation by being extremely short (<30 minutes) so the time you know you’ve lost is usually only those last 5 minutes.
If you want to roll a ton of dice that make an extremely satisfying noise when thrown into your plastic cup, get Roll. If you want a highly portable card game with a bunch of interesting expansions to explore after you’ve played 100 games, get Race. They’re both excellent choices.
I knew that! I did, really! ;)
