What’s the Race expansion? Is that the first wave big box?
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BGG says it combines Gathering Storm, Rebel vs Imperium, and Brink of War.
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I’m following it on BGG and waiting for the UK release
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A French version of Spirit Island is on its way to me!!!
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This got me wondering about card counts. Because I like Prestige; it takes some time to get used to playing with it but it can be grokked and then becomes good.
Base Race: 114 cards
Base + AA: 160 cards
Base + XI: 165 cards
Base + TGS + RvI: 180 cards
So those are all about the same and seem to be the sweet spot for variety.
BoW adds 48 cards, bringing the deck to 228. And that seems to be too much.
I wonder if there is an analysis out there that removes ~50 cards from the Arc 1 deck to give you a balanced experience, including prestige, with a manageable deck. Surely someone has done this. Surely I’m not going to be thinking about this as I try to fall asleep tonight.
Surely.
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Everyone will be happy to know I spent no time on this.
So after curating dozens of qualified opinions from Reddit and finding nothing on BGG I was left with the hypothesis that the most diluted/wonky deck is the Base + Storm + RvI deck. Brink of War brings the total deck to exactly double the base deck, but also re-introduces many near duplicates of base cards (e.g., a second 6-cost development to synergize with Blue worlds, a second Rebel-focused 6-cost dev, etc.). Having double the cards does change the probability distribution, but Brink of War brings at least the average back to balance.
Played then with the app and determined:
- Yes, Prestige is good. Every once in a while it goes sideways and gives you a runaway leader, but much more commonly it is an interesting wrinkle for the game.
- The full Arc 1 deck, while probably hard to shuffle, does work. You may not get the exact card you want, but it doesn’t seem much harder to get a card that works with your tableau.
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Treasure Island. A friend was talking about it, sounded like good fun. Then I watched the SUSD review, which of course was pretty positive.
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Goodness, that’s a big box absolutely full of cardboard (and an entirely unnecessary extra cloth mat).
Nemo’s War Ultimate Edition arrived.
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Gonna be honest, the two rulebooks are so densely written that I’m slightly afeared.
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I’ll hope they’ve improved some elements of the rules with the Ultimate edition, but rest assured there are ample responses to any question you might have on BGG.
My best recommendation is to remember it’s “just” a threat management game and roll with it for your first playthrough. It’s not long enough to warrant being meticulous and slowing things down at every question, and you should find most things work out anyway.
You reminded me that my first game or two was a bear, but you’ll be duly rewarded for the effort.
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The Dead Eye. Twice (kinda), because the first place just told me, two weeks after they’d confirmed the order, that they don’t have it. Speedy stuff.
This is a solo game with an optional 3D gimmick (glasses included) and therefore sounds awful; and yet many of the comments are about how the 3D works far, far better than the commenter had expected, and is actually kinda great. In the end, my curiosity won out.
This is possibly a terrible decision, as I dislike 3D glasses a great deal. The recent fad for 3D movies was something I went well out of my way to avoid (I’m dreading the Avatar sequels – not because I’m going to see them, but because I’m worried they’re going to kickstart another wave of this nonsense); so I can’t imagine I’m the exact target audience for this; but it’s an optional feature, the comments were pretty intriguing, and I decided to find out for myself. I’m at least confident that the second place I ordered from has it in stock – I noticed it on their shelves in person a few days after placing the original order, and had felt slightly irked that I was currently waiting on an online delivery for something I could have picked up there and then!
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I stopped buying games until UKGE unless it’s a holy grail.
Just before this cut-off I bought:
- Both MicroMacro: Crime City
- Gang of Four yet another tricking-taking/climbing card game. Can’t stop, won’t stop.
- The Duke: Lord’s Legacy - a semi-holy grail
-
Ascending Empire - a 4X flicking holy grail game
- David & Goliath - a rare trick-taker
- Menara: the Chameleon - a promo expansion for Menara
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Where from? I opted not to buy this back when I simply didn’t understand that things might very well never be reprinted. I’ve kicked myself for this a number of times. The mythical second edition seems as insubstantial as ever, although I’m hoping that this time it might actually eventuate. I’ll believe it when I see it though. I’ve played the original version (a colleague owned a copy) and had a really great time – such a fun design.
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I got it from eBay
That sounds substantial. Give it a year max.
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I … messed it up. The buying. “So Kleever” came back in stock at last, and this one was already on my must-buy list and accounted for in the collection count. But to get to free shipping… I was going to add Gutenberg but at last minute replaced it with Anansi and Coyote because we already haven’t managed to play Spicy and apparently my brain went “oi nice art, I’ll just say these aren’t games but art”. Ah well, at least if I do decide they aren’t keepers at some point I can make a package deal. “Collection count” is still below 200 and future-Ra and Doomrock are already accounted for as well.
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Some quality games there! What is the third one from the bottom up?
EDIT: I managed to magnify the image, Ghost Stories, nice one…
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Ghost Stories has been sitting there for almost a year now, I had a rather miserable time trying to learn it, so although I’m aware that it may not be the game’s fault (circumstances were less than ideal, so I don’t know how much of my bad time was me not clicking with the game and how much was the environment not being conducive to me clicking with the game), it’s not left me in a hurry to play it again. I want to, though. Gotta give it a fair shot.
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Ghost Stories isn’t too bad to learn, but many people do complain about the rulebook. So that may have contributed to your difficulty. Hope you give it another go, it’s a great (if punishing) game.
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