I’m playing a second straight campaign and exploring areas I never touched in the first. In addition, I’m trying to play differently, more aggressively, so that even if I end up in areas I’ve been to in the first campaign, I’m choosing riskier options. And there are still entire map areas I haven’t touched.
I would say 2-3 run throughs would be it for most players. Definitely not infinitely replayable, but definitely not one and done.
How important are the expansions?
Excellent for 2 players. One of my wife’s and my favourites.
The mechanics are easy enough to learn if one of the 2 players is happy to read the rules / watch the Watch It Played video. And then the 2 players can immerse themselves in the exploration, the stories, the resource management and the combat.
I haven’t played with either yet. Tides of Ruins adds extra zones to the world map. That one we will use next time. The Dungeons one is more like a mini expansion that adds some more places you can scour for resources.
The expansions are certainly not needed at all until you have played your first 20 hours campaign. After which you can decide whether you’d like to add them. You won’t be missing out by not having them your first game.
There’s actually quite a bit to the game, especially for a narrative-driven game. There’s more “game” type stuff with worker placement, resource management and combat tactics than there is with Tainted Grail, I think, and far more than with 7th Continent.
I have a question. I bought this game last year to play with a buddy on our yearly game playing vacation. It didn’t arrive in time and I forgot about it until it showed up on my porch.
Now I’m debating if I should play a campaign solo, and then play another campaign with him this summer. Do ya’ll think that spoils the magic for him? Would the narrative be confusing for him if he joins for a second campaign but wasn’t there for the first?
No, it wouldn’t spoil it for him. It might spoil some moments for you if they come up a second time – but the world is big enough that that won’t happen much if at all. And playing it solo first will allow you to learn the game better, so you don’t have annoying rules confusion when he joins later. In short, I think your plan is a good one.
Just finished a 2-player campaign.
This game is just chef’s kiss
We only found one totem, primarily because we just squirrel brained the whole thing. Off in a million directions.
Ha! That’s what I did first time out. Turns out you find more totems if you follow the quests! :D
Started a second campaign. 2 totems a third of the way through.
We decided to run our campaign as cold ruthless treasure hunters, and it has added so much flavor to try and keep within that role. Actively avoiding to help folks if money is the other option!
We have also had 3 massive battles right out of the gate. The crew has spent the first third mostly shattered, including a magnificent last final attack by Odessa that net us out first totem. We won by a single HP, and required a 4+ fate draw to get the killing blow.
I don’t see any way I avoid getting the expansion in a moment of weakness, because I want more market items and events… But I’m not sure how many campaigns I will end up playing
I’ve been meaning to give the game a go for a while now. How complicated is it to set up and pack up again after a gaming session?
Gloomhaven kinda burned me a bit and I’ve actually moved over to the steam game to play through the whole campaign there.
Unfortunately I don’t have a spare table where I can leave the game set up for a few days.
I think it is a lot easier than Gloomhaven for setup and teardown.
They have instructions to save your progress. I think with a little practice it could probably happen in 5-10 minutes. They give you baggies to slide the player cards in entirely, and a sheet to mark a few other bits of information.
The game is really just spectacular. I’m trying to decide if it just dethroned Spirit island as my number 1.
Thats very encouraging! :) Thanks! Perhaps its time to finally unpack it and go adventuring.
I’d say the Tides of Ruin expansion is pretty essential. It merges seamlessly with the rest of the game and allows you to explore the full map. Plus trips to the market have more variety. (I never tried Arcade Mode. Seemed unnecessary.)
I guess I don’t mind how they did it, but I would have preferred to spend the extra money on the base game and just have it all in one box. Now I don’t know what to do with my empty expansion box! It’s handsome to look at but completely useless.
I never got the Dungeons expansion. It looks kind of intriguing I suppose. Maybe someday.
Easy. I threw it away after incorporating it into the main game. Life’s too short and my house too small to worry about storing empty boxes. :)
I agree that having the whole map is a must have and worth the purchase, in my opinion.
Oh, the pledge manager for Distant Skies opens in August, to everyone.
My poor wallet.
Hey, it worked! Thanks for the great advice. :D
I’ve been giving this a go, and I feel like I’m doing fairly well. Three totems, but now facing the most dangerous event cards, so we’ll see. :) Fun, in any case. My only complaint would be that it is a space hog, it is actually an awkward fit on my table.
But I have a question for those who know the game better. You start with two quests, and up to this point, completed quests always provided me with further quests. Now, suddenly, I have no quests to pursue. So… is this normal? Am I just supposed to explore blindly and come up with further quests? Or have I misread something somewhere, and overlooked quest cards I was supposed to receive?
From what I had seen to this point, it looked like the keyword system meant that arriving someplace without the necessary quest card really wasn’t going to accomplish much. But maybe that was just in a very small starting area, or I simply misunderstood.
If you didn’t notice this, the quest cards with waves on the left of the card are ones that will take you other places, and generally are ‘larger’.
But yeah, if you are out of quests then blind exploring is the way to go! Bigger cities and ports are usually a good bet.
Thanks!