Decathlon - Alhambra Preview

It's time for the last event of phase #2 - Alhambra!

Alhambra is a game set in 14th century al-Andalus, where you compete with other players to build the best palace/Alhambra. Modeled on the real-world Alhambra, players have the opportunity each turn to save money or buy a type of expansion for their palace. The game has randomized scoring rounds woven into the deck of money cards, during which players who have the most of an expansion type score points alongside points given for continuous wall-segments. The game is about identifying what other players are going for and working to get expansions they are ignoring so you can get all the points! For example, if you opponents are all doubling down on Seraglios, you should prioritize Pavilions or Gardens. The winner is the person with the most points at the conclusion of all the scoring rounds.

For full instructions on how to play, follow this link

If you can't tell from the length of the video, this game is extremely simple - perhaps the most noob-friendly event of our Decathlon. This is exacerbated by the number of sign ups (5), which presently give you a baseline 60% chance to walk away with Decathlon points.

This year, we have the following contestants:

Game #1, 7pm

Dave Harris
Danielle Harris
Michael Williams
Amanda Ayers
Ben Fish

Our Defending Champions

2018 1st Place - Kyle Dineen
2018 2nd Place - Brianna LeBeouf
2018 3rd Place - Danielle Harris

Dave And Dani's Game Advice

1. Don't be afraid to spend a turn collecting low value money cards, they really help to buy things with exactly change down the road and give you that turn efficiency.

2. Don't neglect your walls! While the expansions are all flashier, your walls provide a constant background source of point generation during scoring rounds.

3. Be careful with placement and try not to deny yourself too many potential building spots with poor expansion placement.

The Expanse Board Game Thoughts

So yesterday while visiting with our friend Emily, we broke out the game she bought us off our registry - the Expanse Board Game. Emily and I are both very fond of the Expanse, having both read through the books and watched at least some of the TV show. Dani has also watched the TV show with me, so suffice it to say we were excited to give the game a spin. So, here are some general thoughts in no particular order!

I'm mad that I didn't design this game, because it perfectly follows my overarching philosophy of game design. The baseline mechanics are simple, almost childishly so. The game packs its complexity into its cards (which spell out what they do), and in inter-player interactions.

This game is very much in the vein of Scythe where it allows for players to fight,but honestly most of the time there just isn't a very strong incentive to do so. Why fight when you can just ignore the enemy fleet and throw your influence on the base instead? In this regard it manages to be a game where fighting is a strong theme (and indeed, Dani as the UNE threw her weight around and obliterated multiple OPA fleets), without making the game all about that. The real meat and potatoes of the game is in smart card plays, and carefully choosing which card from the available ones to use.

UNE just seems to have really strong abilities on the whole (although their base one is maybe a little lackluster). Diplomats seems quite strong, Hegemony even more so. There are just a lot of ties in this game considering the low cap on influence.

Mars's abilities have very consistent theming, everything pushing them towards being able to control whatever orbital they so desire. However, this focus doesn't seem super worthwhile just due to the overall inefficiency of AP spent on warring and the small number of points gained from Orbital Control. I'm going to adopt a wait and see attitude on this though and want to play the MCR again when we have all four players and there is more fighting over things.

The OPA base ability seems extremely strong, as does Open Rebellion. Scrapships significantly less so. They also benefit from having a clear place they want to focus: Jupiter and Saturn. Every base there produces their bonus resources. You want to basically ignore the Belt and just double-down on controlling these bases. Unfortunately, those Orbitals and in particular that Saturn orbital are likely to attract the attention of the MCR.

Protogen did not make an appearance in our game (and I'm honestly still a little peeved about their promotion to main cast in this game), however, their tech abilities seem extremely good. In particular the nuclear bomb that is the proto-molecule. Their bonus resources make them want to focus on the Belt and Inner planets though, which is inefficient from a fleet allocation perspective. They don't really benefit at all from trying to control the bases of the outer planets. In the four player game, the competition over bonus resources is set up as follows:

Mars competes with the OPA and Protogen
The OPA competes with Mars and Earth
Earth competes with OPA and Protogen
Protogen competes with Mars and Earth

I do like this from a meta-gaming perspective, as the factions in the same band don't have strong incentive to work against each other. Their aims are compatible. Although, based on a story angle I find it strange that Earth and Mars don't necessarily work to cross purposes.

Finally, I'm going to conclude with the best Orbital to seek to control for each faction:

Mars: Saturn (Double Water)
Earth: Jupiter (Double Food)
OPA: Jupiter and Saturn (OMG, 3 Food and 3 Water)
Protogen: Mars (Minerals/Tech).

I look forward to our next game!

Decathlon - Small World Preview

It's time for event #5 - Small World!

Small World is a fantasy-themed 4x game where participants play as an array of high fantasy races seeking to control a map. The winner is the player with the most coins at the end of the game, and coins are gained at the end of each player's turn at a baseline conversion of 1 territory = 1 coin. Races are randomly combined with traits like flying (can attack territories you are not contingent to) or achemist (get +2 gold per turn). Players draft races, placing coins on less desirable ones to access to more synergistic pairings, but in the process bringing the less desirable combos up to par. A key mechanic in this game is going into decline. You will soon over-expand and run out of soldiers after about three turns of playing as a race. At this point, you put the race into decline. They still collect coins for you based on territories they control, but you cannot attack with them anymore. At this point, you draft another race, and begin again!

For a full walk-through of how to play, follow this link

This year, we have the following contestants:

Game #1, 7pm

Dave Harris
Kyle Dineen
Caralee Shepard
Emily Field

Game #2, 8pm

Wells Thompson
Danielle Harris
Michael Williams
Amanda Ayers

Championship Game, 9pm

1st Place Game #1
2nd Place Game #1
1st Place Game #2
2nd Place Game #2

Our Defending Champions

1st Place 2018 - Amanda Ayers
2nd Place 2018 - Daniel Halford
3rd Place 2018 - Jeremiah Glusica

This game is one of our favorites to run for the Decathlon at this point, easy to learn but with a lot of depth. Its exceptionally friendly to new players, especially considering the last two winners were people who played the game for the first time that night. Finally, this is the game in which we immortalize past winners of the Decathlon. This year will feature for the first time the Michaels (Our first year champion) and the Kyles (Our second year champion). Danielle spent a lot of time over the weekend crafting their materials and I can't wait to see people's reaction to their art and their abilities.

There are two open slots left in this game if anyone wants to jump in or bring a friend!

Dave and Dani's Player to Watch: Wells Thompson

Wells perhaps has more wins in Small World than anyone else, and is an extremely formidable player of the game. If he doesn't make it out of the qualifying game, its because he was on the wrong end of a dogpile.

Dave and Dani's Game Advice: 

1. Don't be afraid to take a sub-par race/trait combo is they have a lot of gold on the card! At the end of the day, you are weighing what you think you can score with a better combo against what you get for free for taking them.

2. You should be thinking in terms of playing three races over the course of the game (maybe four). Don't linger in a race too long if they are clearly past their prime or it will severely throw off your timing for getting a final race (you probably want your final decline to be on turn 7 or at latest, turn 8).

3. Pay attention to who is raking in money for in-decline races and take them out ASAP. The quickest way to win is to limit your opponent's income.

Decathlon - Root (Event #4)

After a bunch of disappointing last minute drops, Root proceeded last night with six players.

Winners

1st Place - Megan Prettyman
2nd Place - Dave Harris
3rd place - Michael Williams

Overall Decathlon Standings

Amanda Ayers - 1

Kyle Dineen -
Emily Field - 1
Ben Fish -
Jonathan Fish -
Samantha Fish -
Daniel Halford - 1

Danielle Harris - 5

Dave Harris - 4
Hubert Lee -
Megan Prettyman - 9
Kader Riddick -
Caralee Shepard -
Kaitlyn Steward -
Matt Stewart -
Erin Salter -
Wells Thompson - 1

Michael Williams - 4
Calvin -
Stephanie -

The Game

The game ended with the following scores.

Megan (The Eeyrie): 31
Dave (The Riverfolk Company): 28
Michael (The Woodland Alliance): 27
Danielle (The Vagabond): 20
Caralee (The Marquise de Cats): 17
Daniel (The Lizard Cult): 6

Megan scored a double-first last night, being the first person to lead the Eeyrie to victory and the first person to win three Decathlon events. She has won the last three events in a row, and while its not impossible that the right combination of players could knock her out of top four, its extremely unlikely.

Megan played an extremely strong game, consolidating her position early and weathering event an Otter invasion of her home clearing. Dave played a generally really strong Riverfolk Company game, and began acting as balancer in the mid-game: first going after Megan then opportunistically burning down three of Daniel's gardens. However, on what turned out to be the final turn, he couldn't spam out the last Trading Post and had to settle for scoring 10 points in a turn and ending at 28. Danielle played the Tinker, but her inability to find the hammer and people's refusal to craft it slowed her roll. Caralee benefited from some early rolls versus the Lizards, but overinvested in Workshops and had difficulty marshaling enough military force to reclaim clearings once taken from her. Daniel benefited from starting out with two bird cards in his hand, but lost a critical early battle versus Caralee. While he did get a ton of Gardens out, they were placed in the vulnerable mouse city, where Dave's otters used brutal tactics to purge the city. Michael played a blinder of a Woodland Alliance game, establishing a secure base of power in the northwest corner of the map and going on to place 4 sympathy in a single turn for 11 points. According to him, he could have played it a little better and cheated out 13 points for a win, but missed it. Either way, a very well played game. Dave took a long moment to decide who to go after, with the ability to prevent Megan's win or leave her alone and allow her to win by turn order. After hearing arguments from other players, he went with the option that granted the most points to himself, taking out Michael's sympathy and allowing her to end on her turn.

GG to all, a well-played game all round

In closing though, I would be lying if I said I was happy with the current placements in the Decathlon this year. Due to constant drops from events (Saturday's game could have easily been filled by other people who originally signed up for Root but couldn't make it with only four hours warning), the player pool has been narrowed for many events. As a result, we only have six people represented on the board at this point thanks to game placements, with the majority of points vested in me, Dani, Michael, and Megan. By comparison, by this time last year we had 11 unique entries on the board, and nobody was a lock for top 4. We strive to make this event friendly to newbies and don't like the winners or our top four being a foregone conclusion, but this year it seems we can't avoid it.

Decathlon - Root Preview

Time for one of the most anticipated games of this year, Root!

Root is a Redwall-inspired assymetric strategy game for 4 players. We have the Riverfolk expansion which allows us to expand that up to 6, and we're ignoring the recommendation of the developer and playing it with seven because we can. The game is won by the first faction to 30 points, or to secure a special win condition they declare for themselves via a mechanic called a "dominance card." How points are scored is unique to each faction, and good gameplay involves maximizing your own point production while understanding how opponents win and seeking to limit their potential points. I expect to see lots of diplomacy and nominations for the Kader Award by the end of this game, as its very hard to win this one without smart deal-making and diplomacy with other players. You're rarely too close to victory that a well-timed dogpile by the others can't bring you down.

For a full run through on the base game, click here.

For the Riverfolk expansion, click here.

This is probably the most difficult or second most difficult to learn game in the Decathlon, but our play group has only one new player. The contestants are thus:

Game #1, 8pm

Jonathan Fish - The Eeyrie
Daniel Halford - The Lizard Cult
Danielle Harris - The Vagabond
Dave Harris - The Riverfolk Company
Hubert Lee - The Vagabond
Caralee Shepard - The Marquise De Cat
Michael Williams - The Woodland Alliance

This is actually a surprisingly difficult game to figure out 2nd and 3rd place for, as the game ends when someone hits 30 points with a strong possibility of ties among the remaining players, and there are ways for players to team up.

With that in mind, here are the tie breaks I have laid out for point ties. I acknowledge these are not perfect, but there had to be something.

First Tie Break: Number of warriors on the board (instead of warriors, the Vagabonds count items). 

Second Tie Break: Total number of all warriors and cardboard (buildings, trading posts, etc), on the board. For this tie break, the Vagabonds count completed quest cards to add to their item count.

Now for the second problem, playing a Dominance Card removes your point counter. I am going to generally strongly recommend that players do not seek dominance cards this game because of how it hurts your ability to place, but if you do, and the game ends with you having an uncompleted dominance card, you will be placed as if you have 15 points.

Finally, the third dilemma, what to do if the Vagabond teams up with a player in last place? In the event the Vagabond - X team places, points will be divided according to the following rubric: 

1st Place - 2 Points to the Vagabond, 2 Points to their Ally
2nd Place - 1 Point to the Vagabond, 1 Point to their Ally
3rd Place - 1 Point to the Vagabond

This decision was made under the logic that due to the game rule that the Vagabond can only team up with the last place player, they're probably the senior partner in a given pairing. To offset the chance of them grabbing an unwilling partner, I'm instituting the following rule for this game.

Vagabond team-ups must be friendly, and the last place player has the right to refuse the team-up if they so desire. 

Okay, I think that's everything.

Hopefully there is not a scenario I missed XD

Dave & Dani's Players to Watch: Dave & Dani

A little self-indulgent perhaps, but I would be remiss if I didn't warn newer players about the threat the two of us pose in this game largely stemming from the factions we got. Dani has more wins on the Vagabond than anyone else (four), and is extremely good at sailing under the radar until the last minute to secure the win. Meanwhile, my most dominating win came while leading the Riverfolk Company and cleansing the forest of my enemies using two "Favor of" cards. We both have more games of Root under are belts than anyone else and are extremely dangerous on the factions we're playing.

Dave & Dani's Game Advice

It's hard to give general game advice for an assymetric strategy game, so I will try to give a little advice for each faction.

Marquise de Cats - Your first turn is basically hacked: build, overwork, build. Don't neglect getting sawmills out. Work that diplomacy hard, you suffer from being everyone's default player to attack.

The Eeyrie - Just take the charismatic leader, and don't forget to recruit multiple times per turn during the opening rounds. Try to get out to three roosts by round 3 and go from there. Don't neglect crafting - Disdain for trade doesn't mean you should completely ignore it.

The Woodland Alliance - Slow and steady wins the race. Set up your sympathy to tax people, and rein in the winningest players. Don't forget you don't need to remove sympathy to craft. Aim for the "Favor of" cards.

The Vagabond - Make sure you get more boots, tea, and sacks early. Coins are also extremely good. You should be gifting cards away like crazy to collect items in the early game. Remember you can actually hit pretty hard when you want to, and once a faction is hostile, you get points for killing them.

The Riverfolk Company - Don't overset your prices, especially on Riverboats, Mercenaries. More often your mercenaries won't actually die and just give the person the confidence to pursue an attack they wouldn't otherwise. You win through spamming trading posts and items, not through dividends. Leaving a lot of money in the bank is the quickest way to get whacked.

The Lizard Cult - Get a bird card in your hand early to sacrifice your people. Make sure you're recruiting all over the board in annoying places to force people to kill you. Don't forget you can build multiple gardens per clearing. You need to start scoring early and often if you are to get anywhere by the end of the game.

Decathlon - Evolution (Event #3)

It was a wild night at game #3, featuring murder birds, memes, and a three-way tie for second place in the championship game. We wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

Winners

1st Place - Megan Prettyman
2nd Place - Danielle Harris
3rd place - Daniel Halford

Overall Decathlon Standings

Amanda Ayers - 1

Kyle Dineen -
Emily Field - 1
Ben Fish -
Jonathan Fish -
Samantha Fish -
Daniel Halford - 1

Danielle Harris - 5

Dave Harris - 2
Hubert Lee -
Megan Prettyman - 6
Kader Riddick -
Caralee Shepard -
Kaitlyn Steward -
Matt Stewart -
Erin Salter -
Wells Thompson - 1

Michael Williams - 3
Calvin -
Stephanie -

The Games

As you can see above, we had the following results from Thursday night's games.

Game #1

Dave - 77
Danielle - 59
Megan - 56
Michael - 55
Fish - 45
Amanda - 42

Game #2

Kyle - 83
Daniel - 57
Calvin - 51
Caralee - 46
Stephanie - 45
Emily - 38

Game #3

Megan - 75
Danielle - 73
Daniel - 73
Kyle - 73
Dave - 67
Calvin - 30

Right before the games tonight, Dani and I kicked off the Decathlon Meme group me, and it was fire the entire night (thanks mostly to the efforts of Kyle and Dani). At the start of the night, Dani posted this:

I proceeded to go about trying to change her mind. The first game featured was really light on carnivores - our group just doesn't particularly like playing them. Dave played a carnivore out on turn 2 and proceeded to spam bird species out culminating in a bird predator. Dave used this duo to snuff out the only other carnivore in the early game while it was still a wee babe and went on to eradicate three other species with this combo. Amanda in particular was hit really hard, and Michael was on the receiving end of a carnivore dogpile on the last turn. This ended up being critical, as once again he lost to Megan by one point and barely missed qualifying for the championship game. 

One notable thing about these games before I continue is that I ended up giving everyone a preset starting deck: fertile, horns, foraging, and climbing. This was done to even out the difficulty curve and to eliminate the possibility that a new player would starve a carnivore on round 1. It still happened, but not on round one XD. 

To me, fertile was clearly the strongest of the four, I essentially gave it as a way to get everyone off to a good start - with the real choice being what to do with the other three cards. Of 12 contestants over the first two games, 8 played in on a starting species. In the finalist game, only one player didn't put it out at the outset. For better or worse, there was a very strong correlation between people who played Fertile out of this opening hand and placed. There also was a strong correlation between playing carnivores and winning, but that could be correlative rather than causal since experienced players are better at knowing how to manage carnivores. 

In any event, Game #2 was defined by a dominating performance by Kyle exploiting birds plus pack-hunting to build a flock of angry bees. Caralee eventually built a species specifically to hunt down the angry bees, and Kyle took carnivore off it the last turn, but the damage had already been done. Emily had all but been wiped out by his assaults, with Daniel and Caralee also taking big hits. Game #2 was notable in that it had contestants #19 and #20, Calvin and Stephanie, both in it. Emily and Amanda respectively brought them for the extra decathlon point, and the both acquitted themselves really well. Stephanie had a strong early game, only falling off on the last three turns, while Calvin managed to place. For all her sacrifices to bring down Kyle, Caralee fell just short of placing, and 2nd and 1st place were taken by Daniel and Kyle respectively. 

All eyes then turned to Game #3. This was a much more farmy game, with only a couple carnivores fielded by Megan and Dave for most of the running who declared a long-lasting truce to feast on Calvin. Danielle finally overcame her prejudice against birds and joined in throwing out bird species, with a record total of 10 on the board by the end.  Then on the last turn, all hell broke lose as Daniel debuted his own pack-hunting avian carnivore. The bloodletting began all around the board, and as the dust settled, it was clear that it was close. 

It turned out that while Megan had clearly won with 75 points (and with 6 decathlon points now all but clinched a top 4 spot), there was a three way tie at 73 points between Daniel, Danielle, and Kyle. The tie break was trait cards. Everyone held their collective breath and counted. 

Dani: 12

Daniel: 11

Kyle: 9

And so, Kyle was narrowly eliminated from top three, prompting the following memes. 

GG to all, an amazing series of games. Easily the best Evolution games that have ever been played under our roof. 

Tonight produced a ton of nominations. Here are some of the more memorable ones: 

Megan - Brittany Award

"She created murder birds and ate everyone, leaving only devastation in her wake (and she won)."

Kyle - Brittany Award

"BEES"

Fish - Jeremiah Award 

"He sacrificed his best species to feed Dave, Megan, and Michael's avian species."

Amanda - Jeremiah Award

"Her species were quite delectable."

Megan + Dave - The Beth/Taylor Friendship Commemorative Medal

"They teamed up with their trash murder birds and killed everything."

What can I say by bird is truly the word. Tomorrow, preview for Root!

Fixing Charterstone

Quick post during all the Decathlon proceedings, because I've been giving thought to how we could improve Charterstone with homebrew fixes should we choose to ever run a second campaign of it.

First up:

1. Change yellow and green's markets to being 1 resource for 2 gold and 1 gold/1VP respectively. Over the course of this I am going to buff the Rep track, but it became clear very quickly in our campaign that these markets were just straight up worse and you need a consistent source of income/points that combos off friends more than you ever want the ability to place Rep down. This will also act as a sideways buff to ghosts.

2. Upgrade the Rep track after games 4 & 8. Simply include stickers to put over the point values shown at the conclusion of these games. Something like 15/11/6 and 20/15/9. Point values would obviously be subject to tuning. The general thrust though should be that investment in the Rep track is a worthwhile investment at all stages of the game.

3. Upgrade the Treasury/Market after games 4 & 8. These buildings already suffer enough since you can't use minions on them and they don't combo with friends as the game goes on, and while I'm not saying they should be especially strong, they should be non-shitty alternative ways to Charters for acquiring the same things. Maybe the treasury just goes to paying out 2 gold and then 3 gold per resource, and the Market goes to returning influence/giving multiple advancement cards at the cost of more gold. Either way, it needs to be able to be used decently well beyond game 5 or so.

4. You can only use one treasure per turn. Pretty straightforward - these are the strongest advancement cards in the game and clearly are in dire need of having their power gated in some way.

5. This is where I come to rubber-banding, and while I feel pretty strongly about my other suggestions for changes. I'm less bullish on this one. There needs to be more effective rubber-banding in the game, but I struggled to come up with one that wasn't too punishing while still accomplishing my aim. Here's what I arrived at:

The previous winner is marked for the duration of the next game. Players may use buildings in their charter with a minion on them without the previous winner gaining the income bonus from their minion.

This is a little clunkier than I would like, since it involves having to remember this over the course of a game. It also might be too weak. The general idea is that if the person won through pumping points out of objectives, things like that, this will not hurt them too much. However, if they won because they have exceptionally strong buildings in their charter, the other players can benefit from them for a round without it coming at a untoward cost to the previous winner.

That's what I've got for now! We'll see if we ever actually get around to playing another game of Charterstone.

Decathlon - Evolution Preview

Time for the third Decathlon Event, Evolution!

One of the most popular additions we made to the 2018 Decathlon, Evolution is a game in which you attempt to create a suite of successful species by carefully adapting their traits to suit the environment. The basic game pattern is thus: each round you are dealt a hand of trait cards, with which you have the option to add to your species for an effect or to discard for a size or population increase. Following this, everyone feeds, the herbivores on the plant food of the watering hole and the carnivores on the other species! The winner is the species with the most consumed food by the end of the game.

For a full run through of how to play, follow this link.

This year, we have the following contestants:

Game #1, 7pm

Dave Harris
Megan Prettyman
Michael Williams
Amanda Ayers
Jonathan Fish

Game #2, 8pm

Daniel Halford
Kyle Dineen
Danielle Harris
Carlee Shepard
Emily Field

Game #3

1st Place Game #1
2nd Place Game #1
3rd Place Game #1
1st Place Game #2
2nd Place Game #2
3rd Place Game #2

Our Defending Champions

1st Place 2018 - Amanda Ayers
2nd Place 2018 - Kyle Dineen
3rd Place 2018 - Dave Harris

This game will be played with the flight expansion, which doesn't add much in the way of extra game mechanics but does diversify the trait pool and allow players the option of having bird species.

Additionally, these games will be set to end after a set number of rounds (tentatively thinking 7-8) so that we can finish each game within a decent time frame for people who need to work the next day. This shouldn't dramatically nerf late game strategies, but should be noted nonetheless. The round limit will be announced before each game.

Dave and Dani's Player to Watch: Emily Field

An accomplished Evolution player in our games with her, this will be Emily's first ever Decathlon event. As a herpatologist irl, watch out for her to field some mean herps in her qualifying game.

Dave and Dani's Game Advice

1. Don't equip carnivore to a species on turn one, this is the quickest way for them to starve.

2. Don't be afraid to grab bird species! The access to an alternate food source combined with event cards that scale off of the total number of bird species in the flight expansion makes them a solid bet in uncertain food environments.

3. Don't throw out defensive traits willy nilly if there are no carnivores on the board. You need to adapt your defenses to what the carnivores are equipping to deal with (and vice versa for carnivores).

4. If you create a new species in the late game, it needs to come in with a substantial card investment of defensive traits and pop, or it will just die immediately to carnivores on the field.

Finally, beware the size 6, pop 6 pack hunting apex predators. They will destroy your life.

May the fittest survive!

Decathlon - Seven Wonders (Event #2)

After a disappointing turnout for our first event, we had twelve people show up for Seven Wonders on Tuesday night. Here's where things stood at the end of the night.

Winners

1st Place - Megan Prettyman
2nd Place - Michael Williams
3rd place - Wells Thompson

Overall Decathlon Standings

Amanda Ayers -

Kyle Dineen -
Emily Field -
Ben Fish -
Jonathan Fish -
Samantha Fish -
Daniel Halford -

Danielle Harris - 3

Dave Harris - 2
Hubert Lee -
Megan Prettyman - 3
Kader Riddick -
Caralee Shepard -
Kaitlyn Steward -
Matt Stewart -
Erin Salter -
Wells Thompson - 1

Michael Williams - 3

The Games

We got the following results from our games:

Game #1

Danielle (Parthenon) - 59
Megan (Hanging Gardens) - 56
Daniel (Pyramids) - 54
Dave (Colossus) - 51
Amanda (Great Lighthouse) - 45
Caralee (Statue of Zeus) - 44

Game #2

Wells (GLH) - 58
Samantha (SoZ) - 56
Michael (Colossus) - 54
Fish (Parth) - 38
Erin (Mids) - 30
Kader (HG) - 20

Game #3

Megan (HG) - 59
Michael (Mids) - 58
Wells (Parth) - 55
Daniel (SoZ) - 53
Danielle (Colossus) - 47
Samantha (GLH) - 38

Game one was notable for the trading pairings that developed. Dave and Dani did a lot of trading back and forth while across the table Caralee and Amanda did the same. This friendliness didn't save three of these four from elimination though. Meanwhile, Daniel broke all precedent for a Giza player and didn't build a single level of his Wonder. Suboptimal play or not, it worked and he got third with a respectable 54 points to advance to the next game.

Game #2 was notable for the sheer amount of gold Michael was able to farm off his neighbors with Wineries. After a rough start, Erin made a comeback to finish with a respectable 30 points. Meanwhile, Fish and Kader were unable to finish their wonders, both having had difficulty finding the resources they needed to line everything up.

Game #3 produced the most bimodal line up of military wins and losses I have seen to date. Three alternating players heavily invested in military, getting 18, 17, and 17 points respectively. Meanwhile, the other three alternating players invested none or close to none and ended up with -6, -5 and -5. However, this deficit didn't stop one of these "minnows" from winning, alongside two of the "sharks." Notable was Wells's possibly record-breaking 37 technology points, beating even Babylon.

Over the course of the two qualifying games every Wonder managed to place once (We left out Halicarnasus because we generally think it to be the weakest and its a recurring source of rule misunderstandings). However, the championship game featured the same three winners as game #1, which tickled me. I do think these were generally the stronger wonders though (notable that all have a basic resource and not a luxury resource).

We had nominations for five of the six awards tonight! Here are some of the highlights:

Daniel - Brittany Award
"This motherfucker somehow placed third without building the Pyramids as Giza?!?! Who does that?!?! A motherfuckin' madman

Wells - Jeremiah Award
"For having a very attackable civilization"

Megan - Hero Bomber Award
"She pulled all the tech cards she needed to roll to a victory by one points"

Caralee - Farmville Award
"She racked up a winning first game purely by building blue, green and purple"

Evolution on Thursday!

Decathlon - Seven Wonders Preview

It's time for the second decathlon event, Seven Wonders!

Seven Wonders is a civilization building game where you play as one of seven ancient Mediterranean polities. The game takes place over three ages, and you get a deck of cards during each age. The basic gameplay pattern is thus: you take your deck, look at it, choose a building to add to your civilization, and then pass the deck on and receive a new one. You do this in each age, all the while constructing levels of your civ's wonder in the background. By the end you should have ~18 wonders and 3 levels of your wonder built. Points are scored off of building your wonder and combining buildings in your civ. The winner is the one with the most points.

For a full run through of how to play, follow this link.

This year, we have the following contestants:

Game #1, 7pm.

Amanda Ayers
Daniel Halford
Danielle Harris
Hubert Lee
Kader Riddick
Caralee Shepard

Game #2, 8pm

Jonathan Fish
Samantha Fish
Dave Harris
Megan Prettyman
Erin Salter
Wells Thompson
Michael Williams

Championship Game, 9pm

1st Place Game #1
2nd Place Game #1
3rd Place Game #1
1st Place Game #2
2nd Place Game #2
3rd place Game #2

Our Defending Champions

1st Place 2018 - Brittany Webb
2nd Place 2018 - Kader Riddick
3rd Place 2018 - Danielle Harris

There were complaints last year about how freely advice was able to be given during the event, so we're instituting a stricter policy this year.

During the first age of the qualifying games, anyone can receive any help from other people in the room.  In the second age, advice may only be given in the form of yes/no answers to questions. In the third age, the only interaction the onlookers can have with the players is to clarify rules. In the championship game, there will be no advice allowed from onlookers.

Dave & Dani's Player to Watch: Caralee Shepard

The Shepards were the ones to first introduce us to Seven Wonders, and both Beth and Caralee have played this game dozens of times with their family and are formidable opponents. Caralee was unable to compete in Seven Wonders last year, but she will be someone to look out for in Tuesday's game.

Dave & Dani's Game Advice

1. Don't neglect building up a resource base in the first age! It's really sad when you can't build the third tier of your wonder because neither you or your neighbors have the resources needed to complete it.

2. Don't ignore green buildings! They combo really hard if you know how to use them.

3. Don't overinvest in military. Unless your neighbors are going all out, there is no point in building more than exactly what you need to beat them.

4. Don't forget you can construct a tier of a wonder before the corresponding age (i.e. - You can build the second tier of your wonder in age I).

Decathlon - Overview

I had hoped to get this post up before our first event last night, but there is no time like the present!

With the sign-ups closed and the first event in the history books. It's time to look at what events were the most and least popular. Additionally, at the end of this post I'm going to talk about what it takes to place in the D&D Decathlon and make it to the vaunted top four.

The Games

So, first off, some baseline numbers:

We had 18 individuals sign up for a grand total 88 slots, of which 81 made. There were 85 competition slots total (91 before I deleted the bracketed game of Alhambra because of lack of interest). At present, there are four open slots in the competition for last minute fill-ins, guests, etc.  The average contestant signed up for ~4.9 games, made it into ~4.7.

I had ranking options available for each form, and while they are a good guide, they are not a perfect measure of popularity because not everyone filled them out (and additionally you can fill them out in an order that attempts to "game" the competition rather than represent the game you most desire to play). So while I will talk about the rankings in a moment, first lets talk about a simpler measure of sign-ups:

Popularity by Total Number of Sign-Ups

Seven Wonders - 14
Sentinels of the Multiverse - 12
Settlers of Catan - 12
Root - 10
Evolution - 10
Shogun - 9
Small World - 8
Scythe - 7
Alhambra - 6

The raw sign-up numbers give you a pretty good idea of the approximate popularity of each game, although its obviously weighted towards the easier to learn games that our "one and done" people prefer. I'm not surprised to see Seven Wonders do so well, it has rapidly become one of our standard games and is rapidly surpassing Settlers of Catan as my preferred game for getting the majority of competitors into the same room at the same time. The two new games this year, Sentinels and Root, both did extremely well in sign-ups too, as did another one we debuted last year: Evolution.

It's a testament to how much the popularity of these games is shaped by the games we host over the course of this year that Scythe and Small World (two of our favorites that we just haven't played a lot of recently), are on the lower end of the board. Finally, given how easy it is, I'm really surprised at where Alhambra landed. I was prepared to do a bracketed game of it, but due to lack of interest it will not be necessary.

Popularity by Percent Enrollment

Shogun - 180%
Root - 143%
Sentinels of the Multiverse - 100%
Seven Wonders - 100%
Scythe - 100%
Settlers of Catan - 100%
Scythe - 100%
Evolution - 83%
Small World - 80%
Alhambra - 100% (50%)

These numbers represent the total number of sign-ups as a factor of the available slots for that game. i.e. - there were five slots available for Shogun and nine people showed up.

My takeaway from this series of numbers is that people have finally figured out that Shogun is a very good Decathlon event to get into since you go in with a baseline 60% chance to score points. Root also came up with a very strong showing, which is not too surprising considering its general popularity with our play group.

Popularity by Ranking

I created this ranking by assigning a first choice game 6 points, a second choice game 5 points, and so on and so forth.

Sentinels of the Multiverse - 50
Root - 46
Seven Wonders - 38
Evolution - 34
Scythe - 27
Settlers of Catan - 23
Small World - 22
Shogun - 13
Alhambra - 7

Oof, Alhambra really was not popular with people. Even more surprising is the lack of people who ranked Shogun compared to the number of sign-ups. Considering four players did not make that game, just a marginally higher ranking by a couple of them could have gotten them into it.

These are just the raw numbers though, it gets more interesting when you divide the number by the number of sign-ups for each game.

Root - 4.6
Sentinels of the Multiverse - 4.2
Scythe - 3.8
Evolution - 3.4
Seven Wonders - 2.7
Small World - 2.2
Settlers of Catan - 1.9
Shogun - 1.4
Alhambra - 1.2

Okay, that changes things up a little bit. Seven Wonders is revealed to be the lower priority game it is for most people, while Root and Sentinels continue to top the scoreboard. The Scythe people really like Scythe is another takeaway from this.

Based purely on numbers, if we were to do the Decathlon against with the same people, we would definitely keep Root and Sentinels, and maybe look to bracket Shogun and Root and do them over multiple nights. Meanwhile, we would start looking to drop Alhambra and replace it with a more popular game.

Anyway, that's enough stat crunching, time for the real meat and potatoes.

How To Win

In the quest for the Golden Sailboat, there are a few general trends that have emerged out of our top four both years. Here are three pieces of advice for placing top four in the decathlon:

1. Play as many games as you can

The numbers don't lie, the more games you get into, the better chance you have of making top 4. The least number of games a contestant (and later winner) has made top four with was Kyle with three. This was pretty unusual though, and typically those who place competed in 5-8 games. While you can knock it out of the park on 1-2 games and get in, the usual path involves racking up more points from landing second and third places. So, if there is an empty slot in a game you originally didn't sign up for, take it! Finally, when signing up, prioritize smaller games (Alhambra, Shogun) where you go in with a baseline 50%/60% chance to get points versus the large crap shoots like Seven Wonders or Settlers of Catan.

2. Aim for 5 points

This is the magic number for getting into top 4. Historically, nobody has gotten in with less, and more than this all but guarantees you a slot. Two solid performances will get you there, or alternatively 3-4 middling ones. Whatever the case, know your current point total, know your point total goal, and plan accordingly. Slow and steady wins the race, and you should be thinking about which games you want to prioritize doing well in and where you want to hedge your bets with this point total in mind.

3. Play the table you're at

Not all tables are created equal. At some, you will be the clear favorite to win, at others, you will be hopelessly out of your depth. Know where you stand and work with it. If you know you can win, try to sandbag your position and conceal your power until the last minute. If you don't think you can win, try to limit the possibility that your nearest rival in decathlon standings can win. Don't be afraid to work together with other players to try and limit the power of a particularly strong player, or to sacrifice a 25% chance at getting first place for a 60% chance to get 2nd. You're playing the game in front of you but you are also playing the decathlon, and who gets 2nd and 3rd place matters - don't forget that.

Decathlon - Scythe (Event #1)

The first game of the decathlon is now in the history books. Saturday night produced the following placements in Scythe:

Winners

1st Place - Danielle Harris
2nd Place - Dave Harris
3rd place - Michael Williams

Overall Decathlon Standings

Amanda Ayers -

Kyle Dineen -
Emily Field -
Ben Fish -
Jonathan Fish -
Samantha Fish -
Daniel Halford -

Danielle Harris - 3

Dave Harris - 2
Hubert Lee -
Megan Prettyman -
Kader Riddick -
Caralee Shepard -
Kaitlyn Steward -
Matt Stewart -
Erin Salter -
Wells Thompson -

Michael Williams - 1

The Game

Scythe had the misfortune of falling victim to a host of last minute schedule conflicts, and three of the seven signed up players notified me they would be unable to make the game by the time we were heading home from Ft. Worth Saturday afternoon. We briefly discussed moving the game, but Michael and Ben were both unable to make the Sunday time that worked for the other three, so we went ahead for Saturday at 7pm.

Danielle drew Rusviet, Michael took Crimeria, Ben broke out Saxony, and Dave played as the Norse. This game ended up being pretty farmy with the wide open map. Michael spent most of the game on his islands farming away, and he and Dave took all their enlistments early and fed each other bonuses. Ben benefited from the "Hero" airship card and was able to churn out some popularity and an advantageous pair of objectives for Saxony. Meanwhile, Danielle busied herself grabbing the majority of encounters on the map.

The turning point came when Dave assaulted the factory, blitzing with Mox and a mech across the lake. Against all odds, Ben had two five strength cards in his hand and won the resulting combat by one. Dave returned two turns later to complete his conquest, but the battling left both players drained of power. Sensing the end was near, Danielle struck out, initiating combats with both Michael and the depleted Dave on the last turn and winning them both to close the game.

Final counts came at the following:

Danielle - 74
Dave - 72
Michael - 57
Ben - 41

GG to all for an excellently played and very friendly first game of the decathlon! Finally, this year we're trying something new and collecting nominations as we go. We had seven nominations tonight, four players for three awards. Here are some of the highlights.

Ben - Hero Bomber Award
"for pulling two 5's and throwing Dave back into the sea."

Danielle - Brittany Award
"for an amazing last turn coming out of nowhere to win after triumphing in two combats to clutch the game by 2 points"

Michael - Farmville Award
"for sitting on his island until the end of the game. [Then he] poked his head out and got poked back."

Dave - Brittany Award
"(in reference to his attack with mechs) THEY CAME FROM THE SEA!!!1!11!"

Next up, Seven Wonders on Tuesday!

Decathlon - Creating Competitive Sentinels of the Multiverse

This year's decathlon is ground-breaking in that it will be the first time we're incorporating a cooperative game - Sentinels of the Multiverse. The basic conceit is thus: players sign up as a team, draft from a selection of heroes, and fight against a preset villain and environment. The team that defeats the villain in the fewest turns will win the event, and each player will collect 2 points. I've been thinking about this event in the back of my mind for the last two months, and now that the wedding and honeymoon are over I can finally devote more of my attention to it. this article is intended to be a record of my thought processes for my own enjoyment and a primer/guide for players who are participating in this event. If you participate and decide it was horribly unbalanced, you can point to what I got wrong here. XD

Without further ado...

Picking the Villain

So, I decided a long time ago the villain needed to be relatively simple: no Dreamer, Progeny, anything like that. I think minion-based villain decks are usually the easiest to understand, and so my early thinking pointed me towards Citizen Dawn and Thano...Grand Warlord Voss. Dawn's deck however, despite my love of its theming, is probably just a little too swingy to put people against since it has multiple board wipes that can wreck your day. I like Voss a lot more, and had all but decided on him, but his deck has two shortcoming for this event: 

1. Most of his minions have low health pools, really incentivizing players to take AOE damaging abilities (hello Tempest). I want a villain who you can in good conscience take both AOE and single-target damage against and not be screwed by over-investing in one over the other.

2. His deck is a ticking time bomb, and I don't want my players to have to worry about 10 minions getting on the board in addition to trying to win. The time limit and the competition format are enough to rush them.

It was then that I hit upon one of my favorite villains from this game as my competition baddie: 

The first time we played against La Capitan, she pulled the perfect opening combo of cards and nearly obliterated us (we only won by combining the Scholar with Wraith's smoke bombs to mitigate damage with Amanda wiping out the minions as Skyscraper). The second time, she couldn't get her key cards out and it was really disappointing. She's the perfect candidate with someone like me stacking her opening deck to get a good level of difficulty. 

La Capitan has a minion-based deck, but its different than most as it has fewer higher health minions. This makes diversifying into both AOE and single-target good for dealing with her. She also doesn't have a time limit attached to her deck, other than the fact that eventually she will kill you with the sheer amount of cards she's cycling back in if you are not careful. She also feels appropriately like a video game boss fight, with periods where you can damage her (Time Corsair), before stealing your shit and becoming untargetable (Split Across Time). She also heals in this time making it important to kill her quickly. However, lots of damage in her deck scales based on the amount of crew she has out, so you can't ignore them either. 

She steals your equipment and ongoing cards, but not to an extent that decks heavily based on this will be unusable. If anything she incentivizes you getting more and more out so you have shitty stuff she can plunder. Finally, she has a couple nasty ongoing cards. 

I've seeded the top seven cards of her deck, and @players, you can bet she's going to get a fair amount of her crew out on the board right off the bat. Your immediate problem will be: Do we kill the ship so she draws less cards and to slow her roll, or do we kill the minions who are currently hurting us and powering up her other cards?  Playing against her should be punishing, but with three four-person teams, I don't think players will have problems defeating her - especially since we're not using advanced rules or nemeses. Not everyone will necessarily make it to the end though. 

Picking the Hero Pool

Okay, so the villain in mind. Time to pick heroes! It was an obvious choice to create a limited pool simply to close off OP options and limit the tyranny of choice for players. Ideally, my goal is to create a relatively balanced pool of heroes that allow for multiple paths to victory. I prefer that the winning team win based on clever play or a really synergistic comp as opposed to one "must pick" hero. 

With this in mind, my main picking criteria: 

1. Nobody who is a must-include in a winning team comp/dramatically more powerful than others. 

2. Nobody who is super user unfriendly/confusing for people (Absolute Zero - who I think is also probably the strongest hero in the game).

3. Good balance of the four archetypes (I'm aiming for 2 tanks, 2 supports, 2 control mages, and 2 damage, with the secondary focuses of the main eight heroes being somewhat balanced as well). 

4. Eliminate or downplay damage mitigation abilities (Haka's Ground Pound, I'm looking at you). 

5. Multiple sources of healing (3-4 would be ideal). 

6. Multiple decks with "Kill Cards" that can remove "Ongoing" cards (2-3 would be ideal).

So, here's what we got:

The eight I settled on are: 

Haka

Ra

Wraith

Omnitron-X

Scholar

Fanatic

Legacy

Tachyon

We ended up with 2 from each category, but with four secondary control heroes and no supports. Eh, not ideal, but I'm not unhappy with it. I doubt my players will mind. We have three healers, and four heroes with self-healing ability. The only one out in the cold here is Tachyon. Wraith, Fanatic, Omnitron, and Tachyon all have "kill cards." The concession I had to end up making was on damage mitigation, i.e. - cards that block all enemy damage for a turn. Tachyon has Hypersonic Assault and Haka has Ground Pound. I don't like these cards, but I love these heroes and I think it would be very sad to not have them int he competition when their kits are otherwise fine. I debated removing one or both instances of these cards from their decks, but held back out of fear of nerfing them too hard. Instead, I am going to institute one picking restriction: 

Your team can only have one of Tachyon/Haka. 

I don't want this game to be a story of combining the two and endlessly blocking damage. 

I ended up with a good difficulty spread too, although I think the website I'm using as a guide overrates Scholar's difficulty, and is better thought of as a "2." At any rate, we have a good spread of simple and intermediate heroes for people to work with. 

Before I get more into the heroes who made it, let's talk about the ones (that I have) who didn't and why they didn't. 

1. Skyscraper

 - Generally too complex of a hero, and her massive focus on AOE is a hard counter to La Capitan (ask Amanda how she carried our first game against Maria Helena with this hero). 

2. The Visionary

 - Way too strong in four player team comps, and would likely be a must-include. I also didn't want the players to have the ability to fuck with my deck stacking, or render the already fragile La Capitan impotent through card manipulation. 

3. Tempest

 - I think Tempest is just the strongest or second strongest in the game (compared to Absolute Zero with Visionary on the team). Moreover, her ability to do strong consistent AOE damage and retrieve trashed cards for players would likely make her a must include for all winning team comps. 

4. Absolute Zero

 - Fully powered up, probably the strongest character in the game. And hard for new players to use at that, I thought it best he sit this round out. 

5. Captain Cosmic

 - La Capitan has a lot of cards that deal damage to the highest HP hero target, and little in the way of AOE, so his constructs would likely last forever (short of me using an environment like the Dok'Thorath capital). Too strong, he had to go. 

6. Chrono-Ranger

 - I love this character's design, although our players sometimes struggle to make him worth. He's also probably particularly susceptible to La Capitan's deck since she plunders ongoing and equipment cards and he only has one example of each weapon. Still, I almost swapped out Wraith for him. 

7. Bunker

 - Nobody really likes Bunker and Haka does essentially the same things. The choice came down between these two for that slot and I felt like people would prefer Haka. 

As for the heroes who actually made it, some brief thoughts: 

1. Haka

 - Really good all-rounder, and he has the Ground Pound. Went back and forth on him for awhile but ultimately included him because of his popularity in our games.

2. Ra

 - I knew I would include this hero from the very beginning. You want damage, you take Ra. AOE, single target, he's got you. He also has four examples of his staff in his deck and four cards that summon it so even if he gets plundered he won't be out of it for long. 

3. Wraith

 - If I had to drop one champion from the pool it would be Wraith, I think she just has a boring deck. She's also probably more susceptible to La Capitan than most. However, she has really strong AOE damage once set up against the La Capitan's crew, and her smoke bombs are naturally really synergistic with Legacy or the Scholar. 

4. Omnitron-X

 - Probably my second favorite hero in the game. Pretty susceptible to La Capitan, but X scales super hard and also has more kill cards in their deck than anybody else. Probably your best option short of Visionary for trying to control what La Capitan is putting on the field. I look forward to seeing how people use their plating. 

5. Scholar

 - My actual favorite, ultimate support tank. I look forward to seeing if anyone can get out double flesh to irons this game. 

6. Fanatic

 - I almost didn't include Fanatic, as she gets a lot weaker without someone making her draw cards. Unlike Ra and his staff, she has no card that retrieves Absolution for her. However, with her good mix of tanking, damage, healing, two kill cards, two (limited) damage mitigators and a massive burst card, I think Fanatic may be the most well-rounded hero in this game. However, outside the right team comp, she just may have some difficulty getting  INTO THE FRAY. 

7. Legacy

 - I like encouraging team play, and if a four-person team is not the perfect place for Galvanize, I don't know what is. 

8. Tachyon

 - Another one of the most popular heroes in our pool. Tachyon is probably one of the better designed heroes in the game, with her deck and gameplay very accurately convey her character. Lots of good support options, and massive end-game burst. The key question will be if players want to use one of their Lightspeed Barrages early to clear out a critical minion, or save it for late game to start pummeling Maria herself. Either way, I expect to see a lot of Tachyon picks. Just maybe pair her with a few healers. XD 

Finally, it's time for...

Picking the Environment

My primary picking consideration with environment was to find one that didn't do the hero or the villain's job for them. I want a low impact environment that merely alters the conditions per turn and doesn't give damage debuffs or buffs that stick around for long periods of time. I considered the Dok'Thorath capital for awhile, as I love the theming of that deck, but the massive AOE damage coming out of it every turn would have been too much to track. 

After looking through all the environments I settled on Time Cataclysm, appropriate in a lot of ways for La Capitan. The essence of this deck is lots of temporal anomalies phasing in and out, and no two cards in this deck are the same. There are a couple high impact cards in this deck, but in general I find its a more neutral deck that doesn't especially favor anyone and provides some fun turn conditions. 

I am seeding the top two cards of this deck as well, once again in the name of smoothing out the difficulty curve and making sure each team faces similar starting conditions. How they fare after that though remains to be seen. This game will likely end up being decision by RNG more than anything else, but I expect it to still be very interesting. Perhaps more than anything else, I'm excited to see what people end up picking and the comps they devise :D 

Charterstone Chronicle, Game 12, & Reflections

IT’S OVER. MY 9 MONTH LEGACY GAME PURGATORY IS OVER.

I’m just kidding.

Well, not really.

I’ve said before I think Charterstone is a lot of good ideas with less than stellar execution, and the end of our campaign did little to change that.

Before I go into more detail with that though, Game 12!

Final Standings

1^st (The Infinity King) – Daniel

2^nd – Megan

3^rd – Caralee

4^th – Dave

5^th – Danielle

6^th – Amanda

Nothing as memorable as the infinite loop happened in the last game, and it was mercifully shorter. 

We elected a new mayor, finished the story, and set the game up to be replayed on the town we built.

The most notable thing that happened was Amanda scored a monster 13 points in one turn, the highest we've had (well, excluding infinite points XD).

So, let’s start with the good, because in fairness there is a lot of good stuff here:

1. The components are all well designed and have that premium feel to them, A+

2. Each charter has a very coherent sense of theming. Additionally, I really love the graphic design for many of the buildings, fairly accurately conveying across the board what it does.

3. I thought that being able to use buildings outside your Charter would be too strong and efface much of the benefit of a well-designed home Charter, but the game did a good job of balancing that out and making it equally worthwhile to use your own Charter even if your rivals have quality buildings.

4.  I loved the way that the personas shaped gameplay, and thought they were a pretty good addition to the game (although I think you should have been hard capped at 2 personas max to reduce mental load).

5.  The Sky Islands were another rather inspired feature to add some variety between games and presented some interesting cost/benefit trades (Do I place this empty sky island to get the most out of a build slot but deny myself the building under it for the first part of the game?)

6.  I for the most part loved the glory system of getting to choose new bonuses to acquire as the game went on, and it was really interesting to see what people prioritized.

With those nice things said, I’m now going to lay into the shortcomings of this game. Fair warning, this is going to include a lot of comparing Charterstone to other Legacy style games. It’s in the comparison that the big problems emerge:  

1. Feature creep. If you have a Legacy Game, you gradually add in features and systems to give the game a sense of progression. In this way, the game gradually grows more complex. This becomes a problem when there are so many features that they put a high mental load on players and force them to track multiple moving parts constantly. You have to cut off the creep somewhere before players are overburdened, and Charterstone does not succeed in this. The final game feels very bloated. The most egregious example of this is the income round. Great concept, but in practice we all dreaded trying to execute the increasingly complex income rounds, collecting not only for guests but for the innumerable income buildings on the board.

2. Unbalanced game elements. I could go at length at this, but the game suffers from elements that are disproportionately strong compared to others. First and foremost, advancement cards are extremely good – especially visitors and treasures. For this reason, Robots are disproportionately strong. By the end of the game, it felt pretty clear that some Charters were far stronger than others. Blue and Red in particular benefited by having the best minions by a long-shot, and black from having the best single building in the game (the Perfumery). I will give them credit that they tried to balance some of these elements against each other, I just don’t think they did it successfully. However, if I were to make one tiny change to fix the game, I would standardize the markets everyone gets. Purple and Red got the best hands down, because they combo with both of your Charter’s friends. Black and Blue’s were only marginally worse. Green and yellow were completely trash by comparison. Largely because…

3.  No scaling for the middle of the board/rep track. This is such a massive oversight, and by the end the Reputation track was good for little more than being an influence sink. Because of the uselessness of the Town Square as the game progressed, all the assistants basically fell completely out of use (Well, except for Booker). There should have been preset upgrades to these zones in the form of stickers at Game 4 and Game 8. 

4. Not play-tested enough. The fact that Daniel scored infinite points should make this clear. There were clearly some game elements that were not thoroughly tested, and I’m left thinking they just didn’t get a lot of late campaign testing in. This really shows in the game length, the late campaign is an unbearable grind with your general lack of Charterstones and Buildings to advance the progress track. You can’t tell me that our group was singularly quick at building everything, this just reeks of not being tested enough.

5. Underutilized game elements. This critique may seem strange in light of my first critique of feature creep. But truly, a couple of the game elements felt really underdeveloped compared to some of the others. Notable here are the Perils. As a rule, the peril type rarely mattered. I actually loved the game where there was an end-game penalty to anyone who collected a fuel shortage peril, because it introduced some meaningful variety and made you care more about the colors. The peril cash out buildings just did not scale hard enough to make it worthwhile to deliberately seek out peril, and the fact that you quickly maxed out peril placement and couldn’t collect a free one at the outset of the game for filling out the glory track was really crummy for people who upgraded it. 

6. Finally, and perhaps the biggest one. The lack of rubber-banding. I would be remiss if I didn’t note that Legacy Games all struggle with this. You need to reward the winner while still creating ways for others to jump back into the campaign. This is a difficult balance to strike. In Seafall for example, they rubberband the game by actively punishing the winning players to that game’s detriment. Charterstone by comparison has essentially no rubber-banding. The last place player gets their large meeple replaced with a ghostie, but this is essentially worthless due to the weakness of Reputation as the game goes on. And…..that’s it. There is essentially no way for the losing players to team together and reign in the leader because of the Euro-style nature of the game. By about game 5/6, you probably know who is going to win and there won’t be much you can do about it. You can’t even really gang up on the leader like you can in Risk: Legacy.

So, where does this leave us? The first few games of Charterstone are fantastic. The world really needed a village building legacy game (with it still being  a few months until Machi Koro: Legacy comes out). The first few games of Charterstone are pretty strong, and the game really flow well. But the late campaign is really underbaked, and exposes the weakness of the overall game. Stonemaier games produces consistently pretty good products, so it’s a shame that I can’t give their first foray into Legacy gaming higher marks.

If you have a more casual play group than us, I think you’re more likely to enjoy the campaign all the way through because you won’t accelerate through the “tech tree” as quickly. Playing with fewer players may also help to that end. For my part, I truly loved the first half or so of this campaign. But as the game times crested 3 hours and the feature bloat really set in, my enjoyment plummeted.

Good concept, less than stellar execution. 5/10.