So one of the reasons I’m reluctant to buy TI4 is that I’ve had my copy of TI3 for over two years, spent about £120 on it, and I’ve never done more than look at it.
I’ve had a bit of a look around and people seem to ask but get no solid response, sadly. 
As far as I can tell, the moment TI4 came out the second-hand market for TI3 collapsed. I seem to remember Quinns recommended 3 as a relatively cheap “not sure if I’m going to like this game” option, but I haven’t even seen it in convention bring and buys.
A TI3 sold on eBay uk a couple of weeks ago for £50
Interesting. Maybe it’s just too big for people to bring to conventions.
TI3 was still real expensive after TI4 came out
OK, just the people I knew then.
I had TI3 since the moment it released (considering I was a huge TI2 fan). In the 12 years I owned it, I played it… 10-15 times? There’s about. Once a year most years, twice a year some years, but that was it.
I have played TI4 15 times in 3 years, and I’ve been in lockdown for almost half of 2020 or that number would be at least 18 times.
Just a head’s up. TI3, as much as I loved it, was a consistent DAY of gaming. Show up around 10am, get the table set up and races selected, break for lunch, game until dinner, eat dinner, finish the last two turns around midnight, retire for drinks and laughing discussions of tactics, wish everyone a good night around 1am.
TI4 is get home from work at 6pm, wolf down dinner while the table is set up and races are selected, start the game by 7pm, finish by 11:30 and retire for drinks and laughter.
In my experience, TI3 was, with an experienced group of players (experience = 3+ plays) about 1.5 hours per player. TI4 is 45min per player. It’s (almost) the same experience in half the time.
BUT, it is STILL a very rules heavy game, and somebody has to know those rules cold or you can increase the playtime by a factor of 2. And again, it definitely isn’t for everyone. You kind of need a group you really, really like, because you’re going to be spending a LOT of time with them.
Both Concordia and the estates are amoung my favourite games, for reasons well explained by Quinns. So let’s talk about another game:
I adore Maria. It’s such an elegant, tense, historical wargame. It’s a three player game with two sides, where one player plays both sides!
I like how it doesn’t attempt to emulate a historical conflict through dozens of mechanisms, rules and exceptions. Rather it tells its story through a limited number of abstracted mechanisms. Positioning is king and the hidden information allows you to bluff, without feeling random. No bad dice rolls that destroy your chances in a 4 hour game.
It’s a game that is less about full on aggression and more about knowing when to show restreint. How many cards can i afford to play? When to accept defeat and retreat? This is reinforced further because it’s a three player game. Here, the player interaction is golden. Yes, you are supposed to balance each other. But because all deals are binding, you don’t have the diplomacy-style backstabbing. It is rare, and a mistake, for two players to gang up on one for too long. Moreover, the choice to let one player take charge of both the pragmatics and Prussia (who are on opposite sides in the conflict!) is pure genius.
It is the type of game where my tastes diverge with the SUSD crew. I really appreciate the historical feel of a game, which seems less important for them.
Pax Pamir 2nd ed also falls in this category i guess. Haven’t played it enough yet for it to be a favourite, but I really appreciate the stories it tells. The theme fits the tactical gameplay and need to stay flexible at all times. In some ways it’s very similar to the estates in that regard.
I’ve always found it difficult to name my favourite game. On the one hand my taste has shifted in various directions over the last few years in the hobby, on the other hand I often have the urge to explore new games after I’ve played old favourites a number of times. So games that I adored at some point, although I still appreciate them, don’t speak to me in the same way they did before. Favourites come and go. All of this preamble is just an excuse to talk about a game I have played only four times, but that got better each time I played it: Antiquity from Splotter Spellen.
Antiquity is a civilization/tile-laying/ressource management game set in medieval Italy (just stay with me!) where you build your city on your own tableau and expand to the surrounding territory on a shared map, desperately fighting against pollution and famine. Things to love about Antiquity:
Polyonimoe-tile-laying (before it got hip)! Your city board consists of a 7x7 grid which you fill with buildings of various shapes. The grid fills up very quickly which makes for agonizing decisions which buildings to place when and where, since each building gives you new abilities. The tile-placement aspect seems familiar today, but this game came out 10 years before Patchwork!
Choose your own victory condition! As soon as you build the cathedral in one of your towns, you pledge yourself to one of five saints, four of which come with their own powerful ability and a victory condition that you now have to work towards. What about the fifth saint then, you might wonder, does she also give you a special power? One? How about you get all the abilities of the other four saints? The catch is that Santa Maria expects you to fulfill two victory conditions instead of just one to win the game. This saint gives you loads of flexibilty in an excessively tight game, but Antiquity is a race to complete your objective and having to fulfill two of those is incredibly worrisome.
Beautiful aesthetics! Well this might be divisive, but I really love the old map look of the shared board, the colorful icons on the ressources and the lavish playerboards (although it would be great if they were cardboard instead of paper).
Lots of variablity based solely on the map setup! When you start a game the only factor that informs your strategy is the randomized composition of the map and where on it you start. If you have access to a lot of rivers you might play a very different game than when you have forests and mountains all around you. I love how much variability you get without complicating the game with variable player powers or stuff like that.
There are a couple of things that people might find off-putting. Foremost, Antiquity is known to be quite fiddly. There are lots of little bits to place on and remove from the board all the time. I think the first two editions of Antiquity used cardboard tokens instead of translucent plastic chips as pollution markers which made the board even harder to read. I don’t mind the fiddliness, but recognize that it might annoy some people.
The other thing about this game is that it is mean. And I don’t mean in the sense of player interaction (although there is that too!), it’s just that the game absolutely hates you. If you don’t plan right you might get stuck in a sea of pollution with no more legal moves available to you, which means you are out of the game. Or you could just get overwhelmed with famine which fills your city with graves. However, in true Splotter fashion if you get wrecked it’s no one’s but your own fault. There are no random event decks or stuff like that, you can always see the escalation on the horizon and are able to prepare for it. So I guess this is something that is common to a lot of Splotter games.
This game is most certainly not for everybody, but if this sound appealing, by all means give it a shot! (For example, right here: Does anyone want to play Antiquity?)
Great post. As with a lot of these I’m reading and thinking, ‘I should play that’.
However, every person I’ve ever heard talk about Splotter says how mean they are. I think I’d be terrible at this (and other Splotters). How long is a game irl? If you say 60 minutes I could handle being crap and out of the game. I imagine the answer is going to be 2+ hours though.
I think I heard somewhere that Antiquity was the inspiration for Agricola’s (and subsequently, At the Gates of Loyang’s) farming mechanism. Sounds like Mr. Rosenberg may have also found polyomino-shaped inspiration as well.
Thank you!
Yes, this one is on the longer side. I have only played it two-player and it took us usually about 2-2.5 hours.
Regarding the meanness: as I said there is negative player interaction in the game, but it is somewhat optional. It’s more like Agricola’s “misery farmer” experience where you fight mostly against the game. But just keeping your head above water can be a bit stressful!
Carcassonne is still my favourite game, despite deeper and more complicated games joining my collection.
I love the simplicity. I love how easy it is to teach. I love how modular it can be taught. I love how passive aggressive it is, and how the ‘gentle’ theming hides how much of a needling experience it can be. I love how quick it can play. I love seeing the map grow and spread over the table.
I don’t think another game I own matches the character of my relationship with my friends in the same way.
I’ve never felt the connection to Carcassonne as others have; I basically would 100% always choose to play Isle of Skye instead.
But I am constantly interested to hear how many people keep a special place in their home/heart/mind/egg carton for Carcassonne.
At a quick scan through my collection, other that maybe come close would probably be:
Roll for the Galaxy
Abyss
Seafall
Near and Far
Ice Cool (& 2)
Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective
Rhino Hero Super Battle’s fun to play with the family too
Abyss is my partner’s favourite game! I’m glad to see it appear here.
Tigris and Euphrates. Hands down, even though I’ve only ever gotten to play it on the app, but man have I lost so many hours to that app. I keep an old android tablet for nothing more than playing it because it doesn’t work on the newer OS. I very much adore Spirit Island, Carcassonne, Orleans, and Barenpark, and while I put all of those on the same level of love, I find that they all really depend on my mood for how enthusiastic I am about them.
I will play Tigers and Pots anytime, anywhere, with anyone, over anything. Every single turn feels consequential, and I feel like you can’t ignore anything happening on the board unless you want to get done over. I never care if I lose because, just as they point out in the SUSD review, the whole game is filled with moves that just tickle me because I didn’t see something that my opponent did or I manage to pull something off that feels so clever. No decision in this game ever feels wasted or superficial, and as soon as one game is over I find myself disappointed if there isn’t another one happening right then and there.
Great choice. I have a feeling T&E might have been my number 11. Perhaps it didn’t make it into the top 10 just because I haven’t played it enough.
I really want to try Abyss. That game is so gorgeous!!!
Just wish it worked a bit better at 2, which would make it easier to justify.
It’s beautiful. It does actually play OK with 2, it’s just better with more. Adding the expansions were good but I’m just as happy to play the base game.
Kraken would have almost nothing to add to a 2 player game but adds a good bit of player interaction to a 3/4 player game
Leviathan is pretty much automatically used by my friends and I because it addresses one of the few weak points we felt the game had.
There is a smaller card game with the same setting released now - Conspiracy: Abyss which also has some of the lovely art (albeit in a more limited fashion), different gameplay but similar feel to it.
It plays great with 2 players, is pretty cheap if I remember correctly too. As a small box (tin) card game without the board, huge tiles, pearls etc that went into the production of abyss it sets up really quickly and doesn’t swallow the table space in the same way. It could be a wee compromise option to give a go