New boardgames

[Habbaku]

lol, Big Brown Van showed up, huh?

Yeah, there's a lot of paper product in that puppy.  The chart density definitely exceeds the counter density.

USPS, actually.  It came last week, but I didn't really get around to digging through all my stuff until today.  I read a decent amount of the scenario book for the usual Bergian commentary, though.

[frunk]

Played Maria over the weekend.  Excellent game, I think it's a big improvement over Friedrich.

[Habbaku]

Played Maria over the weekend.  Excellent game, I think it's a big improvement over Friedrich.

  Good to hear.  How'd it go?  What strategies and such did you learn about the respective powers?

[frunk]

  Good to hear.  How'd it go?  What strategies and such did you learn about the respective powers?

I played Prussia/Pragmatic Army and the schizophrenia of playing positions both for and against Austria isn't that bad.  It helped that Austria abandoned their position in Flanders quite early, so I didn't have to worry about helping them get vps by beating up on France.  I think the Prussians have to take Silesia quickly and/or make sure Saxony stays on their side.  Saxony went neutral and I failed to conquer Silesia.  Prussia deteriorated rapidly.  I barely managed to keep Austria from winning.  On the 9th turn Austria needed one vp, France needed one and my Pragmatics needed two.  Prussia was hopeless.  I fended off Austria, France wasn't in position to collect another and I flagged one more fortress while getting a big enough victory in battle to collect the last vp necessary.

The political deck works very well, ignore it at your peril.  Austria has the tiebreak advantage and the extra cardflow so can most easily leverage it.  If playing the other positions make sure they don't get it cheaply.  Austria starts card poor and in a lousy position to defend, but can rapidly change that if the opponents are slow in attacking.

France has to maintain pressure on Austria and the Pragmatic Army.  If they get distracted by one they'll almost certainly lose to the other.

Hussars make supply train placement painfully important.  Controlling fortresses is not only a way to win but can protect your flanks from sudden force marches.  Losing big battles is even more costly than in Friedrich, be confident of victory or getting a -1 or -2 retreat before fighting.  Losing by 3 or more can be a 2-4 vp swing when countries need 3-13 vps to win at the start of the game.

[Tamas]

Habs, considering that I will not read through the myriad of rules of Carthage in the foreseeable future, I say we finally should give Spartacus a try. I think that game could be really good and interesting, but I have yet to play it against an opponent. Here is the vassal module:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/avxlnyw43tw/Spartacus-v1.0

[Habbaku]

I have given Spartacus several tries.  It is a terrible game.

[Tamas]

I have given Spartacus several tries.  It is a terrible game.

Why?

[The Brain]

Might be interesting:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite_sec.asp?eidm=98&esem=1

[Habbaku]

Why?

Where do I start?

The combat system is ripped off from Sword of Rome, a game in which it works.  For those that aren't aware, SoR's combat system is, essentially, roll 3d6--5s and 6s inflict a certain amount of step losses.  There are then some modifiers based upon the type of units involved, leadership and force disparity, but the modifiers don't affect the losses except for purposes of determining which side loses/routs.  The losing side then has to undergo a potential rout where they have to roll against their leader's rating to see if they then lose another die roll worth of steps.  In SoR, this works out quite well, judging from what players of it tell me, because the amount of troops you get is not anemic.

It doesn't work in Spartacus because, while the amount of replacement steps the Sertorian player gets is related to the amount of territory they control (2 steps per province of Spain, plus legions for controlling Italian provinces) while, on the other side, the Romans get a single die-roll of steps per turn.  Legions, at full strength, are 2-step units (meaning if you roll a 6, you'll get 3 new legions or replacements for 6) that are 4-4 combat/movement units.  The average Sertorian unit is a 2-6 unit that can be trained to better units.  At their worst, the Sertorians will get 6 steps from turn 1 (maybe 8 if they do well enough), then, most likely, 10-12+ for the remainder of the game, and that's assuming they control no spaces in Italy, which unlocks their legionary units.

Now, taking all that into account, things might work out well enough, except that the way activations work allows the Sertorian player to simply play a 4 ops card and literally to send his 2-6 Spanish light units on suicide charges against the Romans.  Since step-losses are determined by die-roll (1 step lost for a 5, 2 for a 6), then Sertorian player has no real reason to give a damn if he loses one of his weak units--he will be getting 10-12+ of them at the end of the turn and if he rolls a 6 on either of his 4 battles, he's effectively "won," because, again, the Romans simply can't afford the losses.

On the non-combat-related side of things, the game has a "Crisis Track" which allows the possible collapse of the Roman Republic by internal strife.  Various things affect it, such as losing provinces, losing legions, raising legions, events, the retirement and death of Sulla, etc.  The only problem with the Crisis Track is that it doesn't actually matter.  Never, in any of the games I have played, has the thing gone anywhere near the -30 side of the scale because of the way the Romans regain stability.  They do so, primarily, by controlling provinces.  That wouldn't be so bad except, at its worst, the Romans are "only" gaining 6 points a turn due to the difference in provinces.  Since the game starts out with them at +25/30 and effectively gaining 10+ points a turn until the Sertorians really start to get moving, they are incentivized to never really worry about the negative effects of their "home cards," nor the number of legions they have on the board--the game simply doesn't go on enough turns to force them to care, since there are no negative effects beyond hitting the magical -30 mark.

Lastly (though I have other qualms about it that I'm getting too tired to type about) is the event system of the game.  Either events are over-powered (White Stag, for example) or are simply meaningless.  The biggest of these is the event chain of the Lepidus/Perpenna.  The event chain has three cards that must be played before it is "completed," and two of them are random with the third being a home/resource card of one of the players.  This, of course, means that the events will likely never happen because to even begin the chain requires that Lepidus' revolt starts--something that could happen as early as turn 2, or even never happen.  Once that starts, one of the events must be played, then the second event played, then the third event played before it is all complete.  Since only one of the players really wants the event to cycle through completely, that further raises the unlikeliness of it ever coming to fruition.  That being the case...I have to wonder why it's even in the game to begin with.

Then again, the whole mess was "developed" by Neil Randall, who is one of Richard H. "I-Was-A-Lawyer-Once-You-Know" Berg's cronies so I can't be too surprised that I got a stinker.  The guy pretty much lets the designers do as they please, which results in wildly divergent quality for the games he develops (see : Pursuit of Glory, compare to Onward, Christian Soldiers).

[Habbaku]

Might be interesting:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite_sec.asp?eidm=98&esem=1

Only two-player = lame.

[CountDeMoney]

Richard H. "I-Was-A-Lawyer-Once-You-Know" Berg's cronies

There are pretentious assholes, and then there's Richard H. Berg, Esq.

[Ed Anger]

I have given Spartacus several tries.  It is a terrible game.

Good thing I never punched my copy.

[sbr]

There's a guy at P'dpx doing an AAR of a board game: Der Weltkrieg.

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=442205

[CountDeMoney]

There's a guy at P'dpx doing an AAR of a board game: Der Weltkrieg.

I'm not big into WW1 strategy-level games, but a buddy of mine swears by the Weltkrieg system.  Apparently, the last module on the Eastern Med and the Levant is coming out in the next year.

[Delirium]

Twilight in the East is getting some good reviews over here.

Carthage: cheap, impossible to stay awake.