But the activation can’t happen before the card is played, by definition.
Also, regardless of the effect text,
also means you discard before drawing. It’s “your action” not “the instability effect”.
How did I miss this review? This game sounds really great, via Tom’s silver tongued (or typed) description. Do you guys think the listed game time of 45-90 is close to accurate? Games that typically run over 2 hours are often no-gos in my group (2 hours with learning is fine). That’s probably the only thing that would keep me away.
Our only game so far was three of us learning and playing for the first time (I’d read the manual through by myself once in advance but that was my only prep) and it took just shy of 2 hours for me to explain and the three of us to play. I’m guessing with 5 players it might be possible to go over 2 hours even without including time for teaching it (some of the instability effects may also slow things down a little, I’m not sure), but in most cases I’d say yeah, under 2 hours seems right.
Neither of my scenarios involves activating before the card is played.
Reading the other instability effect descriptions in the manual, most of them seem to implicitly involve playing the instability card (and immediately discarding it!) as the first thing you do on your turn, which establishes a new/additional way that things will behave during the turn you’re taking. I’m leaning in that direction.
Still, I can think of a devil’s advocate reading of every part of this. “Discard the instability card immediately after use and before drawing any new cards as a result of your action” could still depend on what “result of your action” means. Your normal action, or the new action that the instability card is allowing? I can see the argument that they’re both actions, and it could apply either way.
I appreciate you arguing with me on this, I’m not saying you’re wrong! I’m just saying I’m not convinced either reading is air tight, so I just keep trying to poke holes in what you’re saying.
I think you’d have to willfully misread the rules to interpret “your action” as anything other than the main convert/activate/move, not least because some instability effects aren’t the sorts of thing you can do in an action. More importantly, they’re never labelled as actions in the rules.
I played this for the first time last night. A two-player game took nearly two hours but that was mostly due to my own obtuseness about understanding the relationship between the instability cards and the effects (plus just first-timer slowness). Now that we’ve figured that out, I’m pumped to play it a lot more with different combinations of effects.
Glad you got to try it, Mr. Orbit! I’ve only played two-player once, but I recall thinking it felt a bit empty compared to larger player counts. On the other end of the spectrum, five-player games feel too chaotic and cramped. They’re both viable ways to play, to be sure, but I think the sweet spot for me is three players. With that player count, the game plays more with that tension of using your own structures vs someone else’s structures.
Also, I’ve only used the red cards once. Those are the instability effects that add direct conflict among players. Brutal. But, yeah, as you say, that’s one of the really cool things about Sol: playing with the different combinations.
-Tom
I also picked up a copy. I’ve played two games with my wife (though the first we called a draw as I forgot to shuffle a flare into the deck!). So far we both love it.
Interestingly, @tomchick, one of the designers posted on BGG to say it was designed as a two player experience, and were pleased by how well it scaled.
I’ve played 4 times now, mostly 3 players, and I really like it. Only played with Blue and Green cards so far. The score board kind of amazes me, so far the highest winning score has been…17. I can’t imagine scoring 50 points in this.
Ah, that makes sense, since it was made by two brothers! I think part of my issue is that there are plenty of other games tailor-made for two players that I’d rather play. Games that work just fine as two-player games are fine, but games specifically made for two players have spoiled me.
The physical scaling seems a little weird to me, though. One side of the board for two* to four players, and the other for five players? I guess they just needed to add a bit more room to accommodate a fifth player, but felt there was no need to scale physical space for the counts below five. Or at least that it wasn’t practical.
I think I made it past the bend in the track maybe once? Once someone hits that little switchback, as far as I’m concerned, they’re out of my league.
-Tom
* The solitaire mode strikes me as a set of puzzle challenges rather than a way to actually play the game.
We just finished our third game - I finally snagged a victory. It was a pretty close finish; I managed to use a Puncture to make a gate to the heart of the sun and then throw my sundivers in to get vaporized, netting me not points (I had a lead) but critically cards, ending the game while I had a lead. The next turn my wife would have activated multiple towers and taken victory.
Some of the reviews I’ve read/watched really disliked the ‘abrupt’ ending of the game. To the contrary, we both thought this was critical to tension. Besides, you shouldn’t know in advance when a star is going to explode.
Rules question, that I’ve also put on BGG: if you throw a sundiver into the sun, you gain 2 momentum and draw an instability card. The rules say ‘if that card is a solar flare, gain an additional momentum’ (emphasis mine). Now, in the case of multiple sundivers, you draw multiple cards. The designer has also clarified that you draw all the instability cards at the end of the turn, and resolve one at a time (I was also drawing additional cards for Puncture, which again was via clarification by the designer).
We decided that you only gain one momentum per solar flare - it seemed a bit much to do it per sundiver, and especially not per sundiver, per solar flare. Any thoughts here or rules text I’ve missed?
Sounds like you got the rules right. Why do you think it seem a bit much?
It’s a solid tactic to amass a sundiver fleet to suicide into the sun as the gaming is drawing to a close, especially if the scores are close. The uncertainty of scoring because of the solar flares keeps it from being a strictly deterministic thing.
-Tom
Mostly the scaling - it’s easier to drop multiple sundivers than it is to draw multiple flares!
Ameuter game design hat on:
I’m trying to avoid the situation where the dominant tactic is to dig a big hole to the centre of the sun and drop all your sundivers in it to end the game as quickly as possible with a ton of momentum. The multiplicative rule has to be right out - 5 sundivers times even three solar flares is a lot of bonus momentum! (And the moment you get two flares you are equaling the default gains of 2 per sundiver - a bonus should never dominate the default gains!)
So it’s either per flare or per sundiver, and it’s more exciting (and yet more safely bounded) to be per flare.
That’s how I came to the conclusion I did on the rule.
I don’t know why you’d think it was more than one momentum per flare.
I don’t think it’s about physical space per se. Having messed it up last time we played as a five-player game, it’s mainly because the spacing of the motherships doesn’t work on the other layout, so it’s harder to keep track of turn order/movement.
I’d hoped laying out my reasoning would help. :(
I think I could say ‘I don’t know why you’d think it was different to one momentum per sundiver’ with equal veracity!
The rules are very vague: “You also draw one instability card per sundiver hurled; if that card happens to be a solar flare, you gain 1 more momentum!”. But something has gone wrong with syntax here; ‘that card’ is referring to multiple cards.
Normally, at least the number of cards is equal to the number of sundivers, so either interpretation (per flare or per sundiver) is equal. But this is not always true! Those cards could be combined with cards from other effects. Should I be tracking which cards refer to which effect? (e.g. “Three cards from hurling - oh, no flares. And here’s two from the gate I made with Puncture - oh, two flares! What a shame they weren’t in the other three!”).
So interpretation of that rule seems wide open at this point. Does it mean to specify one momentum total, no matter how many flares you draw? Does it mean one momentum per flare you draw? Does ‘drawn’ include cards drawn from other mechanics that draw instability cards? Does it mean one momentum total, no matter how many flares, but that is per sundiver? Does it mean both?
No it’s not.
It means for each sundiver you hurl, you draw an instability card. If it’s a flare, you get an extra momentum. Like it says.
Yes! And fuck Discourse.
Where the heck is that rule written??
I mean, the game is telling you to draw an instability card for a specific reason and gives it a bespoke effect. How else are you supposed to do that?