We played a 3-player game last night, where we taught a new player the game. Rob is a pretty relaxed and easy-going guy, but he can get frustrated if the game is messy. A test of teaching the game, as well as introducing it to a new player.
A three-player game was tough - monsters get wiped out
much faster, allies are purchased earlier...going last in a round can
really be a hindrance.
Elle grabbed a keep in the first Day cycle, while I managed to snag a Mage Tower. For Elle's level-up, as the blood cultist, she could pitch wounds to other players, which was pretty nice. Rob managed to beat up a couple of marauding monsters.
The Night cycle is pretty awesome for spells. I picked up a fire-based spell that blocked damage, and if I spent a red and a black mana to do it, it destroyed the opposing creature - no Attack damage needed. The second Day felt less exciting - we got stuck without moves or without attacks, leading to a couple of dead turns in the beginning.
My second dungeon was tough - I had a good mix of Attack and Block cards, but the dungeon spawned a 5 defense (easy), 7 damage monster with swiftness - it was either Block 14 or take 7. My hand was good, but not that good. The three wounds I racked up turned out to be bad for me...my healing spell I picked up went on top of my deck, and I didn't discard enough cards to draw it (I figured there would be a couple of turns left.) Sadly, the final turn came early, as Elle stopped battling and continued to explore - with the first of the final tiles showing the end condition. I managed to heal one of my wounds at a magic glade, but it left me with wounds and the most wounds tile...losing the the game.
I managed to defeat two dungeons, a keep, and a mage tower. Sadly, both
dungeons awarded spells - I really wanted an artifact. The keep was
stolen away by Elle - only got half fame for the gray monster guarding
it, but gave her 2 fame at the end, as well as taking 2 fame away from
me.
I still haven't recruited like I should - they are better than spells,
in that they don't require you to draw them and usually don't take mana
to power them. There was a rules question I got wrong during the game - I wanted to use black mana from the source, during the day, but in a dungeon (dungeons are considered night). Sadly the rulebook uses the words "never" about usimg black mana from the source during the day. Go rules FAQ on BGG!
Other missed rules - when buying multiple things with influence in a turn, your reputation penalty/bonus only applies the first time. Buying spells, you also need to spend mana of the same color of the spell. There are lots of little things that happen in the game - I'm sure as the full rulebook is consumed, there will be dozens of understandings corrected. Clumsy.
Next up, a 4-player game.
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Initial review of Vlaada Chvatil's Mage Knight
I'm hugely disappointed that Wizkids doesn't offer rules support for Quarriors - to the point where I'd even avoid purchasing other games they produce, even by a favorite designer. I've mulled over Mage Knight since it came out, but couldn't pull the trigger.
My girlfriend was aware of my "could be good, but not buying it" stance, and just bought it one day when we were hanging out at a game store. It sat on our shelf for several weeks, waiting for the right time to come and play.
It plays 1-4. Word on the street is that the rules and game are dense. I ended up doing a single-player game as a warm-up one day, watched a guy play a single-player on youtube (painful, it's not worth it!), and then played a 2-player with the girl.
The rules are dense and somewhat clunky. I like Chvatil's design for Through the Ages - elegant! Dungeon Lords, Galaxy Trucker, and Space Alert are good in different ways. Mage Knight has so many rules that are not easily intuitive, I'm sad.
** The overview **
Mage Knight is an adventuring board game, in a complex vein of Runebound. Each player has a hero, who slowly walks around fighting monsters, occasionally picking up an ally. There are different scenarios to play, but that's pretty much the focus of the game - level up, take on bigger rewards.
The engine for gameplay is your own custom deck of cards. Everyone's deck is the same except for one card. You'll be able to add more cards to your deck, pretty much at the expense of your entire turn...I think we each added 4-5 cards. Everyone has their own selection of skill level-ups, but you won't see many in a game - maybe 2.
Your starting hand each turn is 5 cards. They can have a range of ordinary things - Move, Attack, Block, Influence, and custom effects that affect other cards. Each of those ordinary effects have a number - Attack 4 is good. Attack 2 means you'll need to add extra cards to make it work. Move 2 gives you enough move into a plains hex, or explore the edge of the map. If you have enough Block, you can avoid taking wounds (that clutter your hand and deck). Influence (combined with whatever reputation you've gained) is used in towns to pick up allies, spell cards, and advanced training cards.
Each card in your hand has a second effect. You can borrow 1 energy die from the common pool to use the second/better effect. If you have other energy lying around, you could boost more than one card. Needless to say, the basic effect of each card is tough to love. (Cards in your hand can be used as Attack/Move/Block/Influence 1. Wounds cannot be used that way.)
It's really about just wandering around and killing monsters. You can attack monasteries, Mage Towers, dungeons, tombs, monster dens...they all give you some kind of bonus, with the more challenging ones giving a bigger reward.
***
That quick overview is about it. The game adds some complexity on how monsters deal damage or avoid damage, as well as rules for playing during the day vs. a turn at night. Overall, it's a lot of fiddly bits.
First - movement is cranky. You thought Runebound was awkward, with rolling dice for movement. If you want to move and attack, you better have exactly the right cards. Mostly, you'll move and then have to attack next turn, because you'll probably need Block cards too (starting hand size is 5 for awhile). Or maybe you just want to move, and none of the cards you drew have move icons - each card can be used as a Move 1...which means you spend 2 to get just one plains space. (Your movement and vision change at night, as well as some spell effects.)
Second - damage is sluggish. You need X to kill a creature - fine. But to avoid damage from a monster, you spend block value equal to or greater than their attack value...or don't spend the cards. How about managing damage? Damage absorption is messy. And what happens if combat goes awry? Your hand floods with wounds, making you unable to draw cards. You spend your next turn, or turns as needed, discarding wounds into your discard pile (so next round you'll be crippled). Amazingly punishing.
Third - it's a deck-building game. You're supposed to add more cards to make your character better, right? The basic game is 3 large turns (Day, Night, Day.) Typically when you get a card, it goes on top of your deck - you'll get it for next turn. It's hard to imagine getting any of those cards in the first day cycle, which means for the effort of buying those cards, you *might* use them twice the entire game. Assuming you don't buy them on turn 3, or buy them turn 2 and not see them in turn 3.
There are variants, which I'm sure we'll explore. And the player vs. player, which they recommend for later games...maybe I'll revisit after some more experience.
My girlfriend was aware of my "could be good, but not buying it" stance, and just bought it one day when we were hanging out at a game store. It sat on our shelf for several weeks, waiting for the right time to come and play.
It plays 1-4. Word on the street is that the rules and game are dense. I ended up doing a single-player game as a warm-up one day, watched a guy play a single-player on youtube (painful, it's not worth it!), and then played a 2-player with the girl.
The rules are dense and somewhat clunky. I like Chvatil's design for Through the Ages - elegant! Dungeon Lords, Galaxy Trucker, and Space Alert are good in different ways. Mage Knight has so many rules that are not easily intuitive, I'm sad.
** The overview **
Mage Knight is an adventuring board game, in a complex vein of Runebound. Each player has a hero, who slowly walks around fighting monsters, occasionally picking up an ally. There are different scenarios to play, but that's pretty much the focus of the game - level up, take on bigger rewards.
The engine for gameplay is your own custom deck of cards. Everyone's deck is the same except for one card. You'll be able to add more cards to your deck, pretty much at the expense of your entire turn...I think we each added 4-5 cards. Everyone has their own selection of skill level-ups, but you won't see many in a game - maybe 2.
Your starting hand each turn is 5 cards. They can have a range of ordinary things - Move, Attack, Block, Influence, and custom effects that affect other cards. Each of those ordinary effects have a number - Attack 4 is good. Attack 2 means you'll need to add extra cards to make it work. Move 2 gives you enough move into a plains hex, or explore the edge of the map. If you have enough Block, you can avoid taking wounds (that clutter your hand and deck). Influence (combined with whatever reputation you've gained) is used in towns to pick up allies, spell cards, and advanced training cards.
Each card in your hand has a second effect. You can borrow 1 energy die from the common pool to use the second/better effect. If you have other energy lying around, you could boost more than one card. Needless to say, the basic effect of each card is tough to love. (Cards in your hand can be used as Attack/Move/Block/Influence 1. Wounds cannot be used that way.)
It's really about just wandering around and killing monsters. You can attack monasteries, Mage Towers, dungeons, tombs, monster dens...they all give you some kind of bonus, with the more challenging ones giving a bigger reward.
***
That quick overview is about it. The game adds some complexity on how monsters deal damage or avoid damage, as well as rules for playing during the day vs. a turn at night. Overall, it's a lot of fiddly bits.
First - movement is cranky. You thought Runebound was awkward, with rolling dice for movement. If you want to move and attack, you better have exactly the right cards. Mostly, you'll move and then have to attack next turn, because you'll probably need Block cards too (starting hand size is 5 for awhile). Or maybe you just want to move, and none of the cards you drew have move icons - each card can be used as a Move 1...which means you spend 2 to get just one plains space. (Your movement and vision change at night, as well as some spell effects.)
Second - damage is sluggish. You need X to kill a creature - fine. But to avoid damage from a monster, you spend block value equal to or greater than their attack value...or don't spend the cards. How about managing damage? Damage absorption is messy. And what happens if combat goes awry? Your hand floods with wounds, making you unable to draw cards. You spend your next turn, or turns as needed, discarding wounds into your discard pile (so next round you'll be crippled). Amazingly punishing.
Third - it's a deck-building game. You're supposed to add more cards to make your character better, right? The basic game is 3 large turns (Day, Night, Day.) Typically when you get a card, it goes on top of your deck - you'll get it for next turn. It's hard to imagine getting any of those cards in the first day cycle, which means for the effort of buying those cards, you *might* use them twice the entire game. Assuming you don't buy them on turn 3, or buy them turn 2 and not see them in turn 3.
There are variants, which I'm sure we'll explore. And the player vs. player, which they recommend for later games...maybe I'll revisit after some more experience.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
How does my love affair with Eclipse die?
There are several main reasons why you give up a favorite or cherished game...here are some ideas.
Even in the games where it isn't going your way, there's that nagging feeling of those golden fields from the games of yore. Games strive for that sweet spot - it obviously can't happen every time, but it needs to happen *just* enough.
There's a game that my girlfriend picked up, seeking a good 2-player game. A Few Acres of Snow is an interesting game, where each player essentially builds their deck and plays it out according to their needs at the time. One person plays the British, the other French...deciding who wins the war in early North America. It has a sense of flavor for the history of that time period, which is awesome. Sadly, when looking up a rules clarification on BGG, it turns out there is one and only one strategy for the game, and it generally means that the British win. I read through it, displeased that it existed. Oh, the problems of static games. Imagine if there was a perfect opening for white in chess...only we're just not smart/computational enough to see it.
There were games before Eclipse. My friends and I have a long tradition of Settlers of Catan (more specifically, Cities and Knights). Race for the Galaxy and its expansions took over more than a couple of game groups. Through the Ages took out Le Havre. But by and large, the "perfect" game comes along rarely. More rarely, that it comes along to wipe out an existing perfect game.
Friends - they drive games the most. You can play some games solo, but that's usually not the motivation when desiring to play a board game. At Spiele, I found vendors were pretty much interested in doing demos for groups of friends. 4 people, great! My cynicism is that there's a chance that at least one person in the game will feel that it's the perfect game, and will champion it to the others (as well as picking up a copy, of course). Maybe that friend is tired of the favored game coming to the table. Someone recently told me a story of a friend who ONLY wants to play Power Grid. They sit down to decide a game, and the only game that he will play is that one...the group usually concedes out of politeness, but he'll find himself looking for a new group eventually.
Or sometimes you tire of the group who will play the game. Maybe you need new blood, or you become exhausted dealing with a certain player's style - whining, bickering, politicking, analysis-paralysis, etc.
For me, it'll probably be #3 - maybe that's what everyone should hope for. A better game can be hard to imagine, but maybe someday...
- You've played it so much, there is nothing else to learn or appreciate
- It turns out there is only one way that anyone should play the game
- You find a new game that you love more
- Your friends tire of winning/losing/playing the game all of the time
- You tire of your friends who will play the game
Even in the games where it isn't going your way, there's that nagging feeling of those golden fields from the games of yore. Games strive for that sweet spot - it obviously can't happen every time, but it needs to happen *just* enough.
There's a game that my girlfriend picked up, seeking a good 2-player game. A Few Acres of Snow is an interesting game, where each player essentially builds their deck and plays it out according to their needs at the time. One person plays the British, the other French...deciding who wins the war in early North America. It has a sense of flavor for the history of that time period, which is awesome. Sadly, when looking up a rules clarification on BGG, it turns out there is one and only one strategy for the game, and it generally means that the British win. I read through it, displeased that it existed. Oh, the problems of static games. Imagine if there was a perfect opening for white in chess...only we're just not smart/computational enough to see it.
There were games before Eclipse. My friends and I have a long tradition of Settlers of Catan (more specifically, Cities and Knights). Race for the Galaxy and its expansions took over more than a couple of game groups. Through the Ages took out Le Havre. But by and large, the "perfect" game comes along rarely. More rarely, that it comes along to wipe out an existing perfect game.
Friends - they drive games the most. You can play some games solo, but that's usually not the motivation when desiring to play a board game. At Spiele, I found vendors were pretty much interested in doing demos for groups of friends. 4 people, great! My cynicism is that there's a chance that at least one person in the game will feel that it's the perfect game, and will champion it to the others (as well as picking up a copy, of course). Maybe that friend is tired of the favored game coming to the table. Someone recently told me a story of a friend who ONLY wants to play Power Grid. They sit down to decide a game, and the only game that he will play is that one...the group usually concedes out of politeness, but he'll find himself looking for a new group eventually.
Or sometimes you tire of the group who will play the game. Maybe you need new blood, or you become exhausted dealing with a certain player's style - whining, bickering, politicking, analysis-paralysis, etc.
For me, it'll probably be #3 - maybe that's what everyone should hope for. A better game can be hard to imagine, but maybe someday...
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