I’m intrigued! I’m also amused:
$250?
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That’s for the complete boxed game. The rules and guides are all I wanted. I have enough components from other games to jury-rig my own set-up. And I can always make my own maps.
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If the video on that page is indicative of the published product, I wanna know where they’re getting their sheets of paper that cost $5 each.
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Welcome to the wonderful world of gov’t think-tank contracting! 
Seriously though, I believe at least two computers are required for the actual set-up, so I assume one is paying for the software as well.
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Truthfully, the rules (all 74 pages of them) are both fascinating and incredibly dry. But it makes sense. This is not a hobbyist game, rather it’s a professional tool. Therefore, there’s plenty of purpose but zero (or very nearly zero) fun. I suspect very few here would be as interested in this as me, but it’s there if anybody wants it! 
I love this entry in the glossary under “Wargame”:
"Wargames embrace and leverage a concept expressed by Thomas Schelling: ‘One thing a person cannot do, no matter how rigorous his analysis or heroic his imagination, is to draw up a list of things that would never occur to him.’”
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This, in my heavily biased opinion, is no fluke. Enjoy!
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Was it Quinns who said it’s like it has the serotonin boost of playing slot machine? (Paraphrasing) Yeah. Agree. I like it. Just be prepared for the special cards. For a suppose family game, those cards are annoying to explain and I didn’t like the rule book on how it explains those cards.
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Very much interested in anyone’s experiences of Fields of Glory and Firefly.
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I’ve played quite a lot of Firefly. I love it. I am not particularly a fan of the show, but I like the idea of the show, the assortment of bits that one can rearrange, and that’s what the game gives me.
Mechanically it’s not a particularly elegant game. It’s not as luck-based as it seems at first (there are ways to mitigate most of the bad stuff) but it’s still bigger and longer and clumsier than it needs to be.
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I’ve played solo a couple of times, each of my games lasting until I realize I’ve made a rules mistake and realized my game is, at best, an asterisk. That said, there aren’t that many rules and me getting them wrong is more a function of my only gaming time being late at night after my partner and kids are in bed.
The game design is somewhat a breath of fresh air. I expected it to be brutal (because Firefly is a show that is set in tough times with characters constantly forced to make tough choices), but it wonderfully evokes the sentiment of the show, a la:
Simon: You had the Alliance on you, criminals and savages… half the people on this ship have been shot or wounded, including yourself, and you’re harboring known fugitives.
Mal: We’re still flying.
Simon: That’s not much.
Mal: It’s enough.
It’s wonderfully thematic and gives a genuine “space cowboy” feel.
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I’ve now been looking at the first edition of The King is Dead on BGG, and I have a horrible feeling that it’s better than the second edition in virtually every respect. The only benefits of the 2nd edition are wooden discs (not something I’m bothered about, and easily purchased if I was), and the new optional asymmetric cards – which I strongly suspect I’ll never use.
Apparent cons of the second edition (for me and my tastes):
- box is worse
- new board art is worse
- new card art is worse
- card backs are no longer colour-coded (as per-player sets), because the optional asymmetric cards need to match every player
- cost 50% more
Here’s hoping I’m wrong about those new gameplay options, otherwise this has been a terrible decision on my part (albeit a completely understandable one… who expects a downgrade in this situation?)
Also… is it my imagination, or is the game board not needed to play this? It’s certainly a convenience, but one could easily play the tokens to the cards instead of the board, right? Switching the order of cards would be slightly more cumbersome; and for better or worse all the players would be more likely to keep the order in mind without the more-static board to look at; but the game would still work just fine, wouldn’t it?
Edit: It was my imagination : )
The spatial orientation of the regions on the board are important, so it would be difficult to just replace with the cards unless you also had numbered tokens, or something similar, to put on those cards that determine the order of resolution.
Isn’t the order of resolution of the regions always just the current order of the cards?
Yeah, but the order can change as the result of (at least one of) the cards available.
Right. I’m not suggesting you no longer re-arrange the order of the cards when required. I’m just suggesting that the tokens are on/with the cards (and would be moved with them during any re-arrangement – the slightly more cumbersome part of the approach that I indicated).
Ahh, but my original point was that the spatial relationship between the regions is important for the movement of followers between regions and placement of followers in regions.
a la:
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Ah, I see.
For a while there I was imagining that the game might be carried around in a tiny tuck box to little ill effect. Slightly sad to see that’s not the case. Thank you for explaining!
Edit: Mind you…
unless you also had numbered tokens, or something similar, to put on those cards that determine the order of resolution.
One could grab any tatty old regular pack of cards in the house, take the 1-8 of some suit, and you’ve got yourself a solution of sorts : ) I’m pretty confident I’m going to stick with the map, however…
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Get the map printed on some cloth or canvas and I think you’d be able to pull it off.
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You could customise the cards so that they listed the regions bordering on them. At that point you’re making your own version of the game, though.
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