So, I recently received Stonemaier Games’s Charterstone for my birthday. I pulled together a couple people from some of the other Legacy games I’ve hosted, combined with a few new faces to play it.
First off, a brief word on the game itself and its components. Stonemaier continues to blow me away with the art style, presentation, production quality of their games. The metal coins in this one are especially appreciated.
I had everyone in my party watch an online “how to play” video, and then we jumped into the first game.
Onto the results!
Me and my fiance finished first and second respectively. The other four players had worse finishes, but all of them build two structures to me and Danielle’s 0. Megan even built one of her tier 3 structures. I was surprised that you are allowed to use other player’s structures, at least beyond their basic buildings. I scoured FAQ and errata to make sure I was not getting something wrong. Indeed, it is quite intentional.
It’s too early to say much definitive on this, but I will say that not getting exclusive access makes them seem even worse in light of their influence/resource to VP conversion rate. But, buildings provide end campaign points, and in the interim provide additional bonuses even if they are not exclusive, alongside future unlocks (and the buildings, personas and game systems that accompany them). It was definitely endearing seeing people advertise their buildings and beam with pride as people repeatedly bumped each other to use their coal or pumpkin markets.
I wish the game had explained how capacity worked before the end of the game, as we were all wondering what we would get to keep. As it stands, I think everyone is quite happy with the system, but I wish it had been clarified earlier. We just realized today that capacity can be increased on one of the glory tracks, thinking before that opportunities to do so would unfold as the campaign went on.
Regarding the flow of our specific game. For my part, I was initially torn between immediately paying to use the Charterstone with my starting 4 gold, or targeting the 6 gold objective that cropped up. After a moment’s hesitation, I decided on the latter, as I thought this was probably the best opportunity to go for it this game. This strategy seemed sound until the Coal Market cropped up, which meant gold was no longer at such a premium.
I made a mistake harvesting the first couple rounds and not using my first position in the turn order to get first pick of assistants. The one who is able to allow you to reclaim influence from the center seems especially good for building-centric strategies. I settled on targeting objectives and reputation this game, as I was able to swing the synergistic assistant combo of the longshoreman and the maestro (a combo I promptly forgot I had the first time I used the Grandstand).
The three objectives were: have two assistants, have 6 gold, and have 3 influence in the Sky Port. The first two being so easy, that combined with my two assistants, it just made sense to go for all three and target it alongside reputation as my path to victory.
The Cloud Port seems intended to be a resource dump for the late game, but honestly, the 1 influence/x resource to 3 VP base conversion seems very strong. Definitely stronger than the conversion rate of the Charterstone and Zeppelin. That being said, if you have a way to pull back influence, the latter get significantly stronger. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had grabbed onto the assistant who allows you to do so and kept him around for the second game.
The Reputation track doesn’t seem worth ever investing more than 4 influence in, at least not unless you have someone like the longshoreman to increase your point totals from it. Additionally, with friendly ties being the rule in Charterstone, I don’t know why you would ever get in a serious bidding war with someone, unless they were in second and you two were neck and neck in points.
The essence of the game seems to be combining the right assistants and personas with your game plan to maximize your VP output. Although, when it came to what advancement card to keep, I feel keeping a guest might have been better (I did a dumb and kept an assistant). There are 6 income markers on the track, meaning that if you grab a visitor with a VP option, it’s worth a cool 6 VP by the end of the game. That compares very favorably to the assistants who give you 2VP for using the Charterstone/Zeppelin or even my own overworked longshoreman.
The one exception I’ll note for this is Daniel’s assistant, the explorer, who gives 1 VP per time you advance the turn track. With lots of ways to proc this (even as simple as using all your influence), this seems quite strong and probably the best of the opening assistants.
Winning actually doesn’t extremely very worth it, or at least is not something you should sacrifice everything to achieve. You effectively get your total glory score rounded down to the nearest 10 at the end of the campaign, and each win only gives you 6-8 on top of that. As long as you are scoring high, winning is hardly an end all be all – especially because you don’t get any additional interim benefits from it. In that regard, I appreciate this game, as it nips in the bud one of my bigger problems with other competitive legacy games, the tendency for certain players to snowball. The fact that the glory total always rounds down sucks though, as I wrapped up the game with 48, just a little short of 50 and rendering my last minute push to get VPs largely worthless.
So, first game down, and Danielle an I are chomping at the bit for a second game. This time around, I’m going to slap on my first persona and actually start building things XD. I am intrigued by the King’s Guidepost, but at this point, am unsure how much I should invest to get it without knowing what the payoff is. I predict someone will go all in and be pleasantly surprised by how great it is, or underwhelmed.
First off, a brief word on the game itself and its components. Stonemaier continues to blow me away with the art style, presentation, production quality of their games. The metal coins in this one are especially appreciated.
I had everyone in my party watch an online “how to play” video, and then we jumped into the first game.
Onto the results!
Me and my fiance finished first and second respectively. The other four players had worse finishes, but all of them build two structures to me and Danielle’s 0. Megan even built one of her tier 3 structures. I was surprised that you are allowed to use other player’s structures, at least beyond their basic buildings. I scoured FAQ and errata to make sure I was not getting something wrong. Indeed, it is quite intentional.
It’s too early to say much definitive on this, but I will say that not getting exclusive access makes them seem even worse in light of their influence/resource to VP conversion rate. But, buildings provide end campaign points, and in the interim provide additional bonuses even if they are not exclusive, alongside future unlocks (and the buildings, personas and game systems that accompany them). It was definitely endearing seeing people advertise their buildings and beam with pride as people repeatedly bumped each other to use their coal or pumpkin markets.
I wish the game had explained how capacity worked before the end of the game, as we were all wondering what we would get to keep. As it stands, I think everyone is quite happy with the system, but I wish it had been clarified earlier. We just realized today that capacity can be increased on one of the glory tracks, thinking before that opportunities to do so would unfold as the campaign went on.
Regarding the flow of our specific game. For my part, I was initially torn between immediately paying to use the Charterstone with my starting 4 gold, or targeting the 6 gold objective that cropped up. After a moment’s hesitation, I decided on the latter, as I thought this was probably the best opportunity to go for it this game. This strategy seemed sound until the Coal Market cropped up, which meant gold was no longer at such a premium.
I made a mistake harvesting the first couple rounds and not using my first position in the turn order to get first pick of assistants. The one who is able to allow you to reclaim influence from the center seems especially good for building-centric strategies. I settled on targeting objectives and reputation this game, as I was able to swing the synergistic assistant combo of the longshoreman and the maestro (a combo I promptly forgot I had the first time I used the Grandstand).
The three objectives were: have two assistants, have 6 gold, and have 3 influence in the Sky Port. The first two being so easy, that combined with my two assistants, it just made sense to go for all three and target it alongside reputation as my path to victory.
The Cloud Port seems intended to be a resource dump for the late game, but honestly, the 1 influence/x resource to 3 VP base conversion seems very strong. Definitely stronger than the conversion rate of the Charterstone and Zeppelin. That being said, if you have a way to pull back influence, the latter get significantly stronger. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had grabbed onto the assistant who allows you to do so and kept him around for the second game.
The Reputation track doesn’t seem worth ever investing more than 4 influence in, at least not unless you have someone like the longshoreman to increase your point totals from it. Additionally, with friendly ties being the rule in Charterstone, I don’t know why you would ever get in a serious bidding war with someone, unless they were in second and you two were neck and neck in points.
The essence of the game seems to be combining the right assistants and personas with your game plan to maximize your VP output. Although, when it came to what advancement card to keep, I feel keeping a guest might have been better (I did a dumb and kept an assistant). There are 6 income markers on the track, meaning that if you grab a visitor with a VP option, it’s worth a cool 6 VP by the end of the game. That compares very favorably to the assistants who give you 2VP for using the Charterstone/Zeppelin or even my own overworked longshoreman.
The one exception I’ll note for this is Daniel’s assistant, the explorer, who gives 1 VP per time you advance the turn track. With lots of ways to proc this (even as simple as using all your influence), this seems quite strong and probably the best of the opening assistants.
Winning actually doesn’t extremely very worth it, or at least is not something you should sacrifice everything to achieve. You effectively get your total glory score rounded down to the nearest 10 at the end of the campaign, and each win only gives you 6-8 on top of that. As long as you are scoring high, winning is hardly an end all be all – especially because you don’t get any additional interim benefits from it. In that regard, I appreciate this game, as it nips in the bud one of my bigger problems with other competitive legacy games, the tendency for certain players to snowball. The fact that the glory total always rounds down sucks though, as I wrapped up the game with 48, just a little short of 50 and rendering my last minute push to get VPs largely worthless.
So, first game down, and Danielle an I are chomping at the bit for a second game. This time around, I’m going to slap on my first persona and actually start building things XD. I am intrigued by the King’s Guidepost, but at this point, am unsure how much I should invest to get it without knowing what the payoff is. I predict someone will go all in and be pleasantly surprised by how great it is, or underwhelmed.
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