I have never found a game that generates quite as much loud swearing as Hearts, or outright screaming if someone manages to shoot the moon.
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Which seems a bit odd as the game is still in stock everywhere… but I guess this is more about the expansions.
I don’t need a mountain of Millennium Blades but I’m curious about Set Rotation and its solo mode. Anyone played it, and is it either worth the time or a faithful simulation of a larger game?
Any other expansions that were particularly good?
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I have played MB, and had a great time (although it is very meta… you have to want to play a game about playing a game), but I haven’t tried the single player mode.
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I’ve seen a couple of people mention La Granja, and the pics really caught my eye, but I know nothing about the game except its title, it looks real good and it’s some kind of Euro?
So, fans of it, tell me of it. What’s it about, how does it play?
Thanks in advance!
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Absolutely one of my favourite euros!
Why is the tough one to articulate. I like that there are only so many ways to get points and each way has, most likely, more than one way to achieve it. This plays well with the multi use cards. So you get a game where you have to choose what you want to achieve, which route to achieve it and when to achieve it. The timing mixes in the slight engine building, any potential combos and also what your opponents are doing. All of these aspects are slight but present so need consideration without being overwhelming.
I like how focussed it is for something so sprawling. You won’t get points without deliveries pretty much. So the how is ‘how will I get stuff?’ Then ‘where, when and how will I deliver it?’ There are many stages and they interleave but that’s the reduction of the game.
It gets bonus points for the powers being interesting enough to give you multiple possible strategies each play which is genuine random input creating longevity.
Don’t expect the player interaction to be a big portion, it’s not tacked on but it’s also not the focus. Your own efficiency is the main thing and navigating a wild ride of dice draft and card draws and looking for combos to achieve that is the main thing. I think I like it still despite being less euro enthused due to that chaos element that’s not so passive aggressive and more about turning your assortment of lemons and hodgepodge of accoutrements in to a hopefully consumable lemon based liquid.
I also like the bucolic theme that verges in to the silly. Ymmv
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Overlapping take:
For me, this is the “chill Agricola” I’ve been searching for for years. As Wyvern mentioned, the spine of the game is pretty monolithic - collect goods, manage donkeys, use those donkeys to deliver goods to market = pointsss. So, like Agricola, the end state is always the same - making goods, accessing donkeys, making deliveries.
But the how is wildly different each game. Each worker you get or don’t get changes what you can do in a game. The dice may make certain resources abundant or scarce, and now the puzzle has changed. You know what you want - everything right now - but you have to choose very shrewdly what do to first and what to do second so you can pay the bills (get some crap on that donkey this round or you’ve lost a delivery) when they come due.
Regarding “chill,” there’s no real stick here. Only carrots. The cruel bite is that you have to eat those carrots one at a time and you’ll be hungry until you figure out how to get them all in that tummy.
Some of the fun twists - chudyk-like multi-use cards. Each card is a worker (south), field (west), farm extenstion (east), and wheelbarrow (north). Workers give you powerful abilities that customize your engine. Fields and extensions give you the goods you need (crops, pigs, money, donkeys) to operate your farm. Wheelbarrows are the “recipes” you are filling to turn your goods into points. Each card you play means passing on the other three edges of the card, which is juicy.
The game is exciting from start to finish. Round one you’re just trying to figure out if you want to play that card as a worker, to get the most out of its ability, or a field, to start growing crops, or a wheelbarrow. And you may go wheelbarrow and throw yourself on the mercy of the dice for crops to put in it. Or you may go crops and then have to delivery to a community building rather than your own wheelbarrow. It’s meager but tough.
Round 6 you may have 12 goods, 10 donkeys, and you just need one more wheelbarrow to put all this stuff in and get your points! Or you need to scrounge up a few more coins to turn those olives into something edible so the market will buy them. You never “arrive,” in that you get your farm running and you’re still chasing that ever bigger paycheck. It’s really deftly tuned.
I do find the interaction stimulating. You’ve got dice drafting where you’re trying to figure out what to take first and what to take second, balancing benefit and denial and gauging what others will pass up and leave for you. The turn-order track is real - but you want to go first for some things (dice and roof tiles) and last for others (moving wheelbarrows to market), plus you have a limited supply of tiles that force you to choose “first” sometimes and “last” sometimes, so the “when???” of it all is always a question. And the market itself is a soft form of area control where you can knock down other people’s markets - leaving a question of size (smaller spaces are easier to fill and quicker to get to market, but easy to bump. higher spaces take more resources to fill but bump other people and are more sticky… what’s the right decision right now?).
Bottom line - there’s a lot going on but it all comes as interesting rather than stressful. And the game works from start to end. Lovely personal puzzle to fill up but plenty to keep you engaged with your other farmers. All-around champ.
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Stop selling this game to me.
Chill Agricola sounds awesome
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Doesn’t it? I searched for it for years.
I mean, I LOVE Agricola. But you don’t want to watch Schindler’s List every night, even though it’s a masterpiece, right? So you need Chill Agricola.
Odin didn’t do it at all.
Arle kind of did it? But I kept looking.
Finally did Caverna (the obvious choice, didn’t start here because I thought it would be TOO similar) and thought it was as good as I’d get.
But La Granja has that same farm vibe, plus the “same mountain, find a different path each game” thing that Gric accomplishes with the cards and the hard-blocking on spaces. My farm looks roughly the same at the end of every game, but I did completely different things to get there.
(Come play with us on BGA… Come… )
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Hmm. I’ve put it off for years but… I might get into Arkham Horror LCG.
If I was to do such an expensive and foolish thing, which boxes should I buy to start with? Is there a particular expansion or scenario that is going to be enjoyable enough to make me stick with it?
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The Revised Core Set is the starting point. If you haven’t played before then I’d just pick that up and check you enjoy the game before picking up anything else because it can be quite the money sink… but it is well worthwhile in my estimation.
Assuming you enjoy it, the next step would be a Campaign Expansion + either an Investigator Expansion and/or one or more Starter Decks. The release format adopted since the revised Core Set means they can be mixed and matched (i.e. you can buy The Dunwich Legacy Campaign Expansion without buying The Dunwich Legacy Investigator Expansion).
For Campaigns, unless anything particularly catches your eye:
- The Dunwich Legacy was the first released, and therefore the simplest and still a very good starting point in my opinion.
- The Path to Carcosa is I think still regarded as the best, at least narratively, but plays on your expectations so is possibly best experienced after another campaign.
- The Innsmouth Conspiracy is also reckoned to be excellent, but perhaps a little harder than the two above.
- The Feast of Hemlock Vale is the new hotness. I’ve heard good things although I believe it is very challenging.
- EDIT: if you don’t want to invest in a full campaign straight away, then The Murder at the Excelsior Hotel stand-alone scenario is an excellent example of what the game has to offer beyond the Core Set.
For Investigator/Starter Decks, again unless you want a particular investigator:
- The Dunwich Legacy, again being the first released it contains quite a few staple cards that establish the class identities.
- The Circle Undone I think has a nice collection of weapons and spells as well as multiclass cards which can make up for having a smaller card pool.
- If you are planning to play solo, the Stella Clark Starter Deck is a strong choice. It has lots of ways of turning failure into success, which makes it forgiving for a beginning but it’s still very strong in the hands of an expert.
I hope that helps. I’m always happy to talk Arkham LCG if you want more information.
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This is all great detail, thanks!
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As above, get the core set and see if you like it. Even though the campaigns add some bells and whistles, the basic gameplay loop is what you get in the core box. If you enjoy it, you’ll enjoy more campaigns.
There are less of them going round now, but some places were selling the old-style deluxe/booster campaigns in heavily discounted bundles - the Ludoquist has the whole Dream-Eaters cycle for £59.99 for example.
A word of warning though - the later campaigns do a lot more storytelling through reams of text in the campaign guide. For example, the campaign guide for the Dunwich Legacy is 32 pages. Everything from the Forgotten Age onwards is ~60 pages. Reading big blocks of text can get tiresome (especially as it’s not briliant writing).
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I like this way of explaining things!
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I have the Everdell Superbigbox and I am noticing that while I like the game, I didn’t need the everything box. So my question is has anyone any opinions on wether it might make sense to exchange it somehow for Everdell Farshore (selling one, buying the other) to generate a smaller more usable footprint.
Only reference on the forums I found was here:
My geekbuddy analysis and reading some comments suggested it might maybe maybe make sense. Maybe. Maybe? We just talked about iterations and how I tend to go for 2nd ones.
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I have everdell and spirecrest. I’m not sure that’s “optimal” or what additional has come out since I did all the research. But it is everdell, it has more when needed, and it fits in a standard box. That’s where I landed a few years ago.
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Anyone own and/ or have an opinion on Cyclades? I think this is an @Acacia favourite and have seen others pledging for the Legendary Edition.
I’m jonesing to late pledge (although I won’t - definitely going to retail).
Have only played once, on TTS and we enjoyed it well enough.
Was ultimately underwhelmed by Kemet (and the hideous rule book) but really like Inis.
I prefer auctions to DOAM (although I feel like there’s a fighty game other than El Grande out there for me).
Hopefully like Ra there will be some cheap old editions popping up.
What are the opinions on the rule changes?
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I have Cyclades if you want to play it sometime!
I think the last time I played it was ages ago but it was one my partner didn’t completely detest for that sort of game so it’s got a tick there 
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Thanks man. Let’s get a date set
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Oh gosh, buckle up.
I don’t know if I can even bother with concise so I’ll aim for enjoyable.
First off, Cyclades OG is a 10/10 game for me. I have not yet played Kemet and only one round of Inis - which is too obtuse to show its genius in one session - so I can’t rank/compare.
At first, I abhorred the changes in this new edition. But after reading the developer diary, seeing the details, and understanding how old elements mapped to new, I was on board. I did not pledge due to the price, but I think the new version will be just fine.
Original Cyclades, you have the four gods. Ares and Poseidon are the gods of real estate. Get/Move armies and get/move ships, respectively, which you need for Islands. Real estate gives you cash and building sites - cash being the lifeblood of the game, and building sites being foundational for the win condition.
Zeus is the god of discount shopping, adding free cash to your bids and getting you mythical creatures (powerful one-shots) on the cheap.
Apollo is the god of passing, but provides cash so you springboard into the next round.
Athena is the goddess of nothing. Literally nothing. She provides Philosophers (which do nothing) and builds Universities (also nothing). But - but but but - you need philosophers or universities to finish a city, which is how you win. The result is that, at the end of the game, suddenly everyone is vomiting out money for Athena’s attention.
Now, what makes this whole system work?
- Tension between dominant and contrarian pathways
It’s like Libertalia. Zeus/Apollo are obviously more powerful at the beginning of the game, when their discounts and income give returns for the entire game, but near useless at the end. Athena is the inverse, useless at the beginning but DAMN CRITICAL at the end. There’s an obvious path through the game, start Zeus and Apollo to increase income, work Ares and Neptune to control building sites and further increase income, buff your armies, and set the groundwork for a few cities. Then seal it off with Athena who provides nothing but a capstone.
However, when everyone wants to do that, the obvious path grows expensive. Enter the juicy decision, do I go big and dominate the win path, or do I take Athena on round one for a drachma or 2, grabbing a few (useless) philosophers and an (also useless) university for next to nothing?
It’s never simple and it’s a highly social and responsive process for picking a path.
- Well designed combat / maneuvering
Combat is intelligently done: Number of troops + roll of the die vs. Number of troops + roll of the die.
The dice are “normal curved” at 011223. The result is a delicate, but excellent, balance between control and surprise (unlike Small World, which is so deterministic as to be boring). Here, GENERALLY, the larger force will win. But there’s a spice of uncertainty. Go in with an army +1 and there’s roughly a 10% chance you’ll be equalized. Go in at +2 and your opponent needs to roll a 3 against your 0. And it happens. What I love here is that the combat is mostly posturing and positioning, with better strategy and tactics carrying the day. You can make a plan and follow through based on the skill of your play and strength of your economy. But - but but but - there’s just that dash of uncertainty. One or two combats per game are going to backfire. It’s just the right mix to give the game both control and excitement.
What’s nice is that the backfires are exciting but not crippling. The defender expects to lose, assuming the attacker is coming in strong. And if the attacker rolls poorly, they can always retreat with only a loss or two. This isn’t Scythe or Polis where an unlikely result determines the game.
- Incrementalism, or the one-god-per-turn dynamic
You can only do one thing at a time, but accomplishing anything meaningful takes chaining a few of those together. Building a city takes time. Invading takes time. So you know what your opponents can and can’t do, right now. It’s a good decision space for interaction, with certain threats looming and others off the table. You can focus and respond.
However, you move just as slowly as they do, so if you are thinking “they can’t attack, they need to move ships and then move troops” and then they suddenly move those ships… and you’re on Athena… The space really demands interaction and planning, while making both things transparent and accessible. You really feel like you are in control of the game, not lost in it or watching mechanics work themselves.
–
Generally, the flow of the game is as follows: first half is about the map. The auction is good, but we’re mostly making money and dropping troops to secure, attack, or dissuade expansion. Someone grabs a few philosophers, looking at the win condition’s back door, and everyone eyes them. Combat is expensive, time consuming, and (usually) a foregone conclusion, so the game here is more about position than invasion. So we race to grab empty islands and make sure our real estate is too expensive to steal. Maybe some bumper boats going on out in the Aegean, so no one gets too comfortable.
Someone builds a city. Everyone wants it. Posturing over, Ares and Poseidon go for a premium. Someone else goes Athena and philsophers a city out of nothing. The endgame starts to mutter and everyone panics.
The last chapter of the game is laser focused on the auction. Most players have one city by now and a second city wins. Everyone knows what everyone else needs, but everyone needs something different. Someone has neglected Athena till now. Someone else needs one of Poseidon’s swimming pools. A third player has no path to building a city but the next Island over has one, and they’re mustering a new army.
The fuzzy calculus of what everyone needs, who’s going to go for the win and who’s going to play spoiler, how much someone can spend, turns the table to nervous but sizzling silence. If you go for your god but someone else bumps you, you’ll have a hard time getting back to where you want to be. But if you go for a different god, hoping to be bumped AFTER your rival has placed their bid, is anyone going to bump you? Sure, they also wanted Zeus but you don’t need Zeus, they know it, and there’s always next round.
It’s this last phase that, for me, takes the game from good to masterpiece. Again, the game state is so clear and the levers are so handy that everyone really engages with the game, and there’s room for “a fine move,” bluffing, outsmarting, and all that.
OK. If I had any more thoughts I’ve forgotten them by now 
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Damn you, now it sounds like the best game in the world!
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