Review: Kill Doctor Lucky:: Kill Doctor Lucky - Dodging More Murder Attempts Than The Three Stooges

Review: Kill Doctor Lucky:: Kill Doctor Lucky - Dodging More Murder Attempts Than The Three Stooges: "

by superflypete

Reprinted from The Superfly Circus

www.superflycircus.blogspot.com

A friend of mine had asked me to create some custom Heroscape snow tiles for him, and in return he sent me a copy of Titanic Games' 'Kill Doctor Lucky' in its latest iteration, published by Paizo Publishing. I had played this many, many moons ago when it was under the control of different publisher, but the Paizo game is far better than any previous iteration, and by a good bit, too. It's a neat little large-group game that has nice visuals and fun, brisk gameplay.



The premise of Kill Doctor Lucky is that the players act as characters who have had their good name besmirched, had their wives impregnated, had their cars repossessed, had their dogs sold into slavery, or were slipped several pounds of laxative by the not-so-good Doctor Lucky. They want revenge, in no uncertain terms, and the only way to describe their feelings toward the Doctor is in saying they would not piss in his mouth if his guts were burning with a white-hot flame. So, you see, they want to kill him, badly. For some reason, though, all these nemeses seem to be in his house at the same time, awaiting the right moment to end his feeble existence, but they can't risk being caught, so they can only strike when nobody is watching. So, in short, this is the opposite of Clue, where instead of finding who did it, and where, with what weapon, you're trying to find where you can, with what weapon, and how to get away with it.

The box is brilliantly illustrated, and when you open it you're greeted by an equally lovely game board, some beautifully illustrated standies that represent both the victim and the perpetrators, some tokens, and a great many nicely depicted cards. Additionally, a small but very well written rulebook accompany the good Doctor, and it will be more than sufficient to learn and play the game like a pro, even from the first play. The rules contain the previously released expansions, such as 'And his little dog too' which add some elements to the game to make it even more difficult to off the old man.



The gameplay is fairly straightforward, as is the setup. You place all the characters that are present in the foyer area, and each turn you may move one space and either play a card or try to bust a cap into the Doc. If you elected not to play a card, you may draw a card, provided you are in a room that is named rather than in a hallway. Line of sight is of paramount importance as you may not attack the doctor if anyone can see you do it, making it all the more difficult to pursue your sinister goal. At the end of every turn, you move the Doc one space forward, sequentially, so his path is mostly predictable.

Now, all of this sounds easy, right up until you realize how hard it is to kill him. He's not called Doctor Dumbass, he's Doctor Lucky, and he truly is lucky indeed and able to survive a multitude of attacks during a game before he meets his final disposition. You start the game with several cards in hand, and these range from allowing you to move yourself to a nonadjacent room, moving the doctor to another room, Weapon cards which are the key to killing the Doctor, and most importantly, Failure cards. Every Weapon card has an attack value, and most weapons get a bonus if you attack the doctor in the room listed on the card. You can attack him barehanded, but it only yields an attack value of one, so it's only very rarely effective. On the flipside, there are Failure cards that opponents play to stop you from killing the doctor, meaning that if you go at him with a lead pipe valued at two, you can be stopped by one player playing a Failure card valued at two or two players playing Failure cards valued at one each. The upside of failing in an assault, though, is that you are not only stopped from murdering the guy, you are so pissed off about it that you earn a Spite token, which gives you a permanent bonus of one point on every subsequent attempt at killing your target.



Gameplay is very, very brisk as there's not a whole lot to do but move, play or draw a card, and then move the Doc, but when attacks occur things can slow down for a second. There's a surprising amount of strategy involved in playing the cards, though, because only the last player in line behind an attacking player is forced to use their Failure cards, so as any other player defending the Doc, you may play a smaller card than you otherwise might in order to force other players to expend their Failure cards to make it easier to be successful when it's your turn to step up to bat....the Doctor in the skull.



The optional expansions are a nice distraction as well, with a little Scottish Terrier standie walking the gameboard each turn as another person to see you up to nefarious deeds, and although the Spite tokens are actually optional, playing without them is simply a stupid thing to do because they add so very much to the game, as well as reducing the length of the game to the level of Risk or Civilization. Playing with five players using the original rules can be spotty, at best, because it really comes down to getting the right cards and right situation in order to perform a successful attack. Since the game ends when someone kills the Doc, and with no Spite tokens in play, the game can stretch on for hours and hours, it's almost mandatory to use them.



Why Paizo Gets A Doctorate In Fun:

*The art is fantastic, with each room, card, and standie really bringing out the game's true colors

*The text on each Failure card is really, truly funny, and it adds a lot to the game when players read the cards during an attempt to foil the murder

*The strategic options within the game as well as the brisk play keep turns short and the fun level hig

*Backstabbity player interaction makes this a fun 'party in a box'

*Getting away with murder may not be moral, but it sure is fun



What I Found Murderously Unappealing:

*Without the Spite tokens, the game can drag on for a very, very, very long time

*The game isn't much fun unless you have four or more players



Overall:

This is a great, light party game if you have a bunch of people in your game group who are not opposed to murdering the elderly. The replayability is fairly high, and this version has several variants that allow you to extend it further. Finally, the art is very nice, which makes those who appreciate eye candy more willing to spend 2 hours looking at the same game board.



Rating:

3.75/5 Stars



Learn more about Kill Doctor Lucky at:

http://paizo.com/titanicGames/v5748btpy8ar0 "

Review: Neuron:: This is not the Knizia I know

Review: Neuron:: This is not the Knizia I know: "

by lacxox

I have some favorite Eurogame designers (especially Kramer, Dorn and Knizia). I am a fan of each of them. I must admit Knizia has a special place in my heart as even his weaker designs have a common special feature: more or less hard decisions, taking risk. Do I choose to do this for this (possible) reward and allow others get those other advantages or I do that for a smaller reward, but more probably stopping them get those advantages…? etc.

You do have this decision-making even in his later designs that are not too well-received here (I like many of them, especially Municipium and the Keltis expansion are truly fine designs). In almost all his games (well not the games he designed for the smallest children like Nino Conillo) you have this tricky question to answer almost each time it’s your turn. I just love it. This makes his games so entertaining for me: it adds tension to the game and I just love tension in games.



In Neuron this ascpect is missing.





What’s this game about?



Neuron is a pretty standard abstract tile-laying game. It comes with two sets of tiles (25 tiles in each set; actually the not-too-large box is still too large for the contents).

The hexagonal tiles are for beginners, the square tiles is for the advanced and the expert version (more about that later). The tiles show colored lines of 4 colors (yellow, red, green and purple); these are called ‘roads’ and (unlike in most abstract tile-laying games) you don’t have only lines, you have road ends as well on these tiles.

The rules are pretty simple. There is a randomly selected starting tile placed on the board. Players take turns placing their tiles next to this tile. Just like in the basic rules of Carcassonne, you have always only one tile to place: you place it and then pick up the next tile for your next turn (it’s just to speed up the game a bit – it’s not really a fast game even with a relatively short playing time).

Unlike in most abstract tile-laying games, tiles don’t have to fit perfectly. But the better they fit, the more they can score. For each road that fittingly connects to the tile you have placed (has the same color) you score points. And a road scores as many points as many sections of it you have just connected to the newly placed tile. So a long road is going to score a lot, and with a tile you can score several roads as you have several roads on your tile.

And that’s it about the rules: you take turns placing the tiles, then you run out of tiles. As there is a small advantage of being not the first player, now the start player is the player sitting next to the start player – you play as many rounds of the game as the number of players (finally each player is going to place 24 tiles during the game). In the end of the last round, highest score wins. (I just don’t know who thought placing a black score marker on a black score table is a good idea.)

Tactics/strategy?



Neuron is listed as an “abstract strategy” game which it isn’t. And I don’t want to start the usual debate about what the term “abstract strategy” means to some (perfect-information, no luck involved etc.) as I do think an abstract game that has strategy involved should be called an abstract strategy as well. But I don’t think you can have any strategy at all in Neuron. Even the tactics department seems to be quite weak here.

What do I mean? You don’t have any control over what tiles you happen to get. In most cases you have to make only one decision: where can I get the most points from the board? It’s actually more like solving a puzzle each turn than anything else. The rule that makes it work is that you can’t keep trying to place the tile to the already placed tiles until you find the perfect solution with the most points: you have to do all this in your head so there might be some surprises waiting. Maybe you didn’t take another road end into consideration, or you thought placing a tile there does continue that long road but actually it doesn’t. See this example: here the long red road is not continued – actually this pic shows the care that was put into the graphic design: the design clearly shows that the two tiles connected diagonally don’t connect the roads.

Okay, so that’s about solving the puzzle but what about having an effect on others’ score or your future score? Maybe you can have some advantage by the time you learn all the tiles, but until then it’s very little to nothing. You don’t know your next tile and you don’t know your opponents’ tiles. Even decision-making (puzzle-solving) can get very simple sometimes: if there is a long network of a color being built then everyone tries to take part of building it. All you can do is finish the network with an appropriate tile that e.g. has a road end so you score a lot but your opponent can’t – or make sure that they won’t be able to close that network either so you are going to be able to score more again in the next round. But all for these actions you need to have appropriate tiles – and sometimes you will, sometimes you won’t. Maybe if you are way ahead of your opponent you can even choose to end the long network with another color without scoring anything from that network (before your opponent closes it, scoring a lot) but sometimes you don’t have tiles even for that.



So, after a few games played, it still seems to me your tactical decisions are quite limited and a lot depends on luck. Not really a game for abstract strategy lovers.





Beginner – Advanced – Expert



So what’s the difference between the three ‘versions’? It’s not the rules, as the rules stay the same. It’s just that there are more options, more road connections to take into consideration before you place your tiles. In the beginner version you have only 6 road connection possibilities on the hexagonal tiles.

In the advanced and expert versions you have 8 road connections – which makes it a bit less luck-dependent as the 8 connections consist of 2 of each color. At the same time, it means only 4 connections in the corners and 4 connections in the middle of the tiles in the advanced version so I’m not sure if it’s not more luck-dependent than the beginner version. In the expert version the tiles can be ‘shifted’: placed in a way that a tile has only the half of its side next to another tile. While this way you have the most options to take into consideration before placing your tile, this is also the one that lets you have the most ‘control’ in the game.



As I said the most important (or only?) tool you are given to block your opponent from scoring a lot is when you end a long network. In the beginner game a road can be finished with 2 tiles, no less, no more.

In the advanced version, if the open end of the network is at the middle of the side of a tile, it can be ended with one (lucky) tile. But if it’s in the corner of a tile, you might need 3 tiles to close it.

In the expert version, however, it can be done with less tiles. You can even have some very creative ways to end a network.

This way to me it feels the expert version is the closest to what BGGers call a ‘game’, but if you start right with the expert version, not being familiar with the tiles and the game, your head can blow while you are trying to find the perfect fit for your tile.

So… Is it fun?



It… depends. If you expect a usual Knizia game you’ll be disappointed. If you expect an abstract strategy game you might be disappointed too. I just don’t think Neuron is going to have very high ratings at BGG.

But actually I like it. And the more I play the more I like it. I can’t really tell why. It’s not because it’s a Knizia game – it really doesn’t feel like a Knizia game. Also most of what I like in board games is missing here. Still I like this puzzle-solving and it’s not bad that a little competition is attached to it, also with the randomizing factor of the other player. (But I think Neuron might be the best when played 2-player; with more even the smallest portion of control is lost)

Also Neuron can be played solo. I haven’t tried it but for some strange reason I really like playing Ingenious solo – and that’s also played in a way that you always have only one tile in hand.



What about others? Some non-gamers saw what I play, others saw my Hungarian review in my blog and said they really want it (although I wrote it there how it lacks a lot of the usual features of board games).

I have played it with my wife and she likes it as well. I guess it helps that both of us like enjoying the games. We are not the AP players who keep thinking for ten minutes when it’s our turn – it’s good to be thinking for half a minute or so but not much longer. Enjoying the game is more important for us than over-analyzing a given situation just for score optimization. This way the challenge the ‘puzzles’ of Neuron provide is right up in our valley, as we can compare our skills while playing, even with the luck involved (and we end up with scores like 140:139 so our skills are a good match).



But rating this game is quite hard to me. I don’t think it’s a really good board game. But I think it’s a great brain-burner.

"

Review: Diamant:: Diamant - The Little Metal Dog Review

Review: Diamant:: Diamant - The Little Metal Dog Review: "

by idlemichael

I was a little bit reticent about reviewing Diamant what with it not being in print any more. Of course, it has been redesigned and reissued by Funagain, Sunriver and most recently Gryphon Games under the guise of Incan Gold but for me the original is king. Originally released back in 2005, Diamant was the brainchild of two of the greats of game design in recent years; Alan R. Moon and Bruno Faidutti. Between them they have created classics like Ticket to Ride and Citadels - Faidutti is also responsible for one of my all-time favourite games, the excellent Mission: Red Planet. Surely a collaboration between two of the better game designers of recent years would be a winner, yes?



Thankfully, yes, it is. While Diamant is a very simple game, it is extremely entertaining and a lot of fun to play. Between two and eight players are given a very simple task: collect more diamonds than your opponents. The game is split into five rounds, each one representing a visit to an underground cave. The players are explorers, venturing deep underground in a bid to become wealthy - however, the mine’s previous owners have very different ideas. Turns begin with a card being drawn and placed face up in the middle of the table. Numbered cards (between 1 and 17) are good - the diamonds (which are only plastic, but still look brilliant!) are divided between the players still in the round at the time, and any remainders are left on the card. After each card has been drawn and the loot shared out, players are given a choice - do they wish to continue further into the mine, or do they want to leave? Your selection is made with your Indiana Jones-esque meeple - secrete it in your hand and you leave (sharing any diamonds on the track with other escapees). If you do leave, all diamonds you collected in that round are placed into your treasure chest and you take no further action. An empty hand means you press on in search of further riches - but as mentioned above there are some little presents left behind.



Shuffled into the card deck are a series of hazards - three cards of five different types such as poison gas traps, giant scorpions and explosions. While those staying in the cave may well get a bigger share of the diamonds, they may also run into these hazards, and if a matching pair appear on the track, the round is over. Any players who didn’t run away leave the cave with nothing, having pushed their luck just a little too far this time. Thankfully, as the game consists of five rounds there’s always plenty of opportunity to catch up with others. As the game progresses, players who are lagging behind will find themselves taking more risks in the hope they’ll turn up that elusive 17 card (and keep it all to themselves!) - however, when there’s a plenty of dangers already on the track, the chances of the round coming to an abrupt end get higher and higher. And there lies the big draw of the game - how far do you press your luck? Do you keep pressing further and chance losing everything or leave early with a guaranteed (but invariably smaller) amount of gems?



Diamant is one of those games that (although it plays well with a few people) is definitely a case of the more the merrier. My copy is pretty much wrecked (surely the sign of a good game!) thanks to it getting thrown around and played a few times a week with the kids at school - they jeer at the early quitters, cheer on the brave and bold classmates who choose to keep going and yell madly when a second rockfall card comes out, ruining their chances of actually beating someone who played smart and left with a mere handful of prizes.



To summarise, I love Diamant, but please don’t think that Incan Gold is a poor replacement. It is, in fact, exactly the same premise - only the theme and pieces are different. There’s still the same element of pushing-your-luck while keeping an eye out on your opponents’ totals, but... well, Diamant is just so shiny. The jewels, the little Indy-meeples - everything comes together thematically to really enhance the game. If you really want to play it (and I really do recommend you do), go for a copy of the remake; however, if you’re patient I’d say check out the boardgamegeek marketplace or even hunt around on Amazon.de and get yourself a copy of the original and best.





This review is taken from The Little Metal Dog Show - the UK's newest boardgames blog and podcast. Find it at http://littlemetaldog.wordpress.com - thanks for reading!"

Designer “Preview” – Dominion: Alchemy

Designer “Preview” – Dominion: Alchemy: "

By Donald X. Vaccarino


May 12, 2010

The new Dominion expansion, Alchemy, has been out for a few days now, which means it’s high time for another one of my “previews.” What’s in Alchemy anyway? What do the cards look like? What can you do with them? Are these rhetorical questions? All this and more, coming up!

What You Get

Alchemy has 150 cards. It’s half the size of a “normal” Dominion expansion. Those 150 cards break down into 12 kingdom cards and one “basic” card.

The “basic” card is Potion! It’s part of the supply in games using Alchemy cards. It’s a new resource. It’s a treasure, but instead of making money, it makes a potion symbol. Ten cards in the set have that symbol in their costs, and to buy one of them, you need a Potion, plus whatever money they cost. The rulebook covers cases like, how does Remodel work with these cards, etc. It all works pretty much like you’d expect. A Potion is like money, but doesn’t combine with other money. It’s worth a Potion.

Some cards in the set care about Potions. Alchemist comes back next turn if you have a Potion; Apothecary draws Potions (and Coppers) for you. Other cards don’t mention Potions, but do useful things with them. Herbalist lets you reuse one of this turn’s treasures next turn; Apprentice lets you trash a card to draw cards based on its cost, which is handy with a Potion you no longer want.

The set has a sub-theme of “cards that care about Action cards.” Vineyard is a victory card that counts Action cards in your deck. Golem plays the next two Actions from your deck (other than Golems). University gains you an Action, and provides +2 Actions for playing all those Actions you end up with. Scrying Pool draws you all of the Actions from the top of your deck.

If there’s only one card out with Potion in the cost, is it worth buying a Potion in order to get that card? It oughta be. So the cards with Potion in the cost are almost all useful in multiples: Apothecary, Scrying Pool, University, Alchemist, and Familiar all provide +1 Action or more; Golem plays other Actions from your deck, which can end up giving you +1 Action; Vineyard is a victory card, and Philosopher’s Stone is a treasure – both useful in multiples. That just leaves Transmute, which can at least turn unplayable Action cards into Duchies, and Possession, which costs so much that you won’t typically be able to buy more copies than you want.

How to Play With this Expansion

As usual, the choice of kingdom cards to use is yours. You can use whatever method to pick out ten cards, and whatever method to pick out that method. It’s methods all the way down! And they’re all yours.

However, since multiple cards in Alchemy cost this new resource, Potion, some people prefer to see more than one Alchemy card on the table at once, so that you have a choice of what to buy when you draw your Potion. And some of those people are used to just dealing out ten random cards to play with.

For those people, here’s a method you can use: Deal out eight cards at random. Then, if any of those cards are from Alchemy, dig through the randomizer deck for two more cards from Alchemy. If none of those eight are from Alchemy, dig for two cards that aren’t from Alchemy. Either way, put the cards you went past back on top of the randomizer deck. This way, in the long run, you will see each card just as often as you would have otherwise. The Alchemy cards will just end up clumped together.

There are other ways to achieve this, or you can just always deal out three cards from Alchemy when you’re using it, and seven from your normal randomizer. Or you can just deal out ten random cards, and live with sometimes having just one card with a Potion in the cost. It’s not so bad. But if you wanted a method for using a randomizer deck, there’s one.

Your Guide to Costs in Dominion

To pad this sucker out some, here is a short essay about a random Dominion-related topic. I have chosen the cost system since Alchemy mucks with it.

People sometimes try to make a tidy formula for calculating how much the +’s in Dominion are worth. They assign values to +1 Card, etc., to try to get them to add up correctly for the existing cards. It doesn’t work. The costs in Dominion aren’t linear. The abilities aren’t linear either! +1 Action is better if it comes with +1 Card; +2 Buys isn’t twice as good as +1 Buy. And so on.

A big thing is, you start out with seven Coppers and three Estates. That seriously distorts the low costs. Your deck can make $3 consistently right out of the gates, and it makes $4 plenty. Then, as you buy more cards for your deck, each card has less and less of an effect on your draws – since your deck is larger! At the same time you are buying better cards, but it isn’t quite enough; building up from $7 to $8 is generally harder than building up from $4 to $5.

Here is a general guide to the base costs:

• $2: Since your deck starts out already making more than $2, these cards struggle to be good enough. Often they really have to be worth $3. Otherwise you’re just so rarely buying them. Mainly you buy a $2 when 1) you get $2 on turn one or two and the $2 at least isn’t going to hurt your deck, 2) you get a victory-card heavy draw late in the game and the $2 is useful then, 3) you’re choking on Curses, 4) you have an extra buy and can get the $2 with something else, and 5) the $2 is really worth $3. Often the main thing I go after when creating a $2 is that I at least want you to be able to buy it with a 5/2 opening without regretting it.
  

$3: These cards are squarely up against Silver. Silver is a good buy, and not a “terminal action” either. (A terminal action is one that doesn’t give you +1 Action.) The problem with a terminal action for $3 is, you could be using up your action on something costing more instead, which would be more powerful. Sometimes your strategy doesn’t involve an expensive terminal action, so you can go ahead and take a few cheap terminal actions. Other times you can live with having extra terminal actions, and other times you are just not buying a lot of $3s – unless of course they aren’t terminal! If they give you +1 Action, then it’s a whole different story. You may just snatch up some of those.

$4: These cards are also squarely up against Silver! $4 is just not that much more than $3. You most often start the game with either 3/4 or 4/3 hands, so you are buying a $4 right away. A main distinction for $4s is that you can’t buy two of them on turns 1 & 2. Some cards are too strong if you can buy two immediately, so those may end up at $4 rather than $3. Some simple cards are at $3 so that I can make variations at $4; if Village cost $4, Village-with-a-bonus would have to cost $5, and that’s a lot more. But with Village at $3, I can make Village-with-a-bonus at $4 and it all works out.

$5: These tend to drive your strategy. They make the biggest difference between actions and treasure; you can get Silver at $3 and Gold at $6, and you can afford to have only so many terminal actions, so you probably buy Silver at $4 some, too. At $5 then you have actions that really do stuff for you, with very little competition from Silver. $5s get to be a lot more powerful than $4s. And if you have a game that’s missing a particular cost, this is the one you really don’t want to be missing. Ideally there are multiple choices at $5.

$6: It’s hard to compete with Gold, and you don’t just get $6 immediately too often. People will snatch up a $6 if it’s a good one, but still, I don’t do that many cards at this cost. The main set had one, Intrigue had two, Seaside didn’t have any. They don’t do as much to promote different strategies as the other costs, and they get played in fewer games. The cost isn’t a complete dud – it can be cool to have something at $6 sometimes. It’s just not a significant factor in the game.

I haven’t done cards costing less than $2 except for Copper and Curse. Originally this was because of things like Bridge – I didn’t want it to be too easy to empty a pile. And if a card costs $0, you can just take it with any +Buy, so probably it’s going to be pretty weak. But really, $2 itself is already pretty low-end. There’s no point to having cheaper cards. Often a card costing $1 would actually be worse than the same card costing $2 – you wouldn’t be paying $1 for it, and it’s worse with Remodels. Anyway a card costing $0-$1 isn’t out of the question, especially when you consider weird additional costs. It’s not really on the menu though.

Some people think I should never do a card costing $7. They think that hole is doing so much for the game. When actually, if there’s a card costing $7, then in almost all games there still is no card costing $7. Whatever that hole is doing for the game, it’s still doing, almost always. And then whatever you get from having a $7, you get to have that, too, in those games where that card is out. Anyway a $7 here and there is just not causing a hole-filling problem. Instead the problem with $7 is that this is an engine-building game, and that engine normally tops out at buying Provinces. Province costs $8. If you aren’t building a deck designed to buy multiple Provinces in one turn, a $7 is going to usually be overkill. You would buy one if you got $7 early enough, but later on you’ll look sadly at the expensive action, then buy your Duchy. Hence, no $7s. And no $8s either. To compete with Province – as Possession does – you have to offer up a Province plus extra.Alchemy mucks with this arrangement by adding in Potions. It’s tempting, like with those people trying to figure out what +1 Action is worth, to try to assign a $ value to having a Potion in a card’s cost. You can’t though. It’s not linear! And this is especially obvious with Potions. Transmute and Apothecary are pretty close in cost, barring +Buys; Apothecary and Golem aren’t. Gardens was originally in Alchemy, way back when, with Vineyard in the main set. When they were switched, Gardens cost a Potion – no $ – and Vineyard cost $4. But that doesn’t mean that Golem is roughly worth $8. Potion doesn’t really have a $ equivalent, but is worth more on cheaper cards.

Fun With Potions

Normally at this point I’d be talking about what Throne Room does with all of these cards. Man, everyone has figured Throne Room out by now, right? You do the thing twice. So instead I’m just going to say whatever nonsense pops into my head about some of the cards.

Alchemist: The obvious combo is Herbalist. Put your Alchemists on your deck via having a Potion, then put the Potion on your deck via Herbalist. Nothing puts the Herbalist on your deck though. I don’t know what to tell you there. There are other ways to try to make sure you’ve got a Potion handy, of course. You can look around in your Cellars for a Potion. You can trash things with an Apprentice, madly looking for Potions. And of course you can just buy a bunch of Potions.

Apothecary: There are a bunch of cute tricks you can do with Apothecaries, but one of the simplest combos is just another Apothecary. The first Apothecary gets some Coppers and maybe a Potion into your hand, and lets you reorder the other cards you looked at. Then the second Apothecary draws you the card you wanted that you put


back (and who knows, maybe more Coppers).

Apprentice: I know what you’re thinking. Not now, in a second. You’re thinking, someday, I will trash a Province with that and draw eight cards. You will, too. And if trashing a Province with it can be good, trashing anything can be good. They especially like to feed on each other.

Familiar: It’s free (it gives you back the card and action it cost you), it hands out Curses, what’s not to like. When the Curses run out, it essentially vanishes from your deck; move along, Familiar, your work here is done. Free attacks can be scary things and well it does cost a Potion.

Golem: Golem is insane. Fortunately it’s expensive and you have to set it up. You worry more about what exactly is in your deck when any of it may leap out at you when you play a Golem. The fun thing, of course, is to have to play a card-trasher you may not want to, such as an Apprentice. Something’s going down. Another thing about Golems is that you can get combos. Sometimes there’s some combo between two action cards that you’d like to see – only you need to draw a Village and both cards together and well, it doesn’t just happen. With Golem, it just happens.

Herbalist: To some eyes, this is the only card in the set having nothing to do with Potions. Ten cards have the potion symbol in the cost; Apprentice cares about potion symbols in costs; and Potion is potion. What’s up with Herbalist? As it happens Herbalist is in the set specifically for how it interacts with Potions! A cheap +buy is a handy thing when you’re trying to buy cards with the potion symbol in the cost. And then it puts a treasure back on your deck. A treasure like… Potion? That’s right. Of course you already knew that from the bit about Alchemist.

Philosopher’s Stone: This one is tricky. You want to draw through your deck in order to play it more often. But when you play out that line of Villages and Smithies, suddenly your cards aren’t in your deck anymore, and Philosopher’s Stone doesn’t make you any money. You want ways to draw it more often that don’t actually put cards into play or your hand. That sends you into the realm of underappreciated cards like Chancellor and Navigator. Or hey, Herbalist.

Possession: The most common question is, if you Possess someone and make them play Possession, who controls that turn? They do. Possession isn’t an attack, but can feel like one, and sometimes you’ll try to defend against it. One obvious thing to do is to buy attacks. Not attacks that gain you cards – hurty attacks. If you Possess me and I’ve got Witch in my hand, do you play it? Either way, that hand was better for me (had I gotten to play it) than it was for you. You are not getting full value from that Possession. Another trick is to go for special victory cards like Gardens. In a typical Gardens deck, my hand is full of Coppers and victory cards. I’m just trying to get to $4. If you Possess me and I do have $4 this turn, the best you can do is take a Gardens away from me. You built a deck that can make $6 plus a potion; you’re going for Provinces. Once again my hands are better for me than for you.

Scrying Pool: Here’s another way to draw eight cards. The massive card-drawing this can do for you does not just happen by itself. There are actions to acquire, Coppers to trash. If you look closely, you will see that the vision in the pool is of a Village.

Transmute: Yes, if you Transmute a Great Hall, you get both a Duchy and a Gold. And a Curse doesn’t turn into anything, but at least you get rid of it.

University: When your University is gaining you Markets, it’s a business school! When it gets you Festivals, it’s clown college! When it’s getting you Torturers, that’s one badass university. If you have other Alchemy cards out, then it will often teach new Apprentices. Yes, all I really have to comment on here is the flavor. Gain actions, then play them, what’s not to like. It’s important that University can’t gain itself, or you would see piles empty so fast.

Vineyard: The obvious card to compare this to is Gardens. There are a lot of differences though. The cards that make each one good are completely different. Gardens wants Coppers, Estates, and other copies of Gardens. Vineyard doesn’t like any of those, or even other Vineyards; it wants cheap actions and lots of them. This makes playing a Vineyard deck a lot different than playing a Gardens deck. Another thing is that when you’re going for Gardens, other players will buy a few to stop you from going too nuts. They can’t buy Vineyards without Potions though. Did they get Potions? They didn’t always get them.

And That’s That

They were rhetorical questions! In retrospect it was obvious.

"

Review: Zombie State: Diplomacy of the Dead:: Ghost Story Pandemic with Zombies: More and Less.

Review: Zombie State: Diplomacy of the Dead:: Ghost Story Pandemic with Zombies: More and Less.: "

by ldsdbomber

Introduction

OK, I make this review based on just one play of the game with the missus, we have both enjoyed (a lot) Pandemic, I also particularly like Ghost Stories, which she did not like as much. In that case, and in this game she felt a little 'too hopeless', whereas I relish the difficulty challenge and knowing that more often than not I will 'lose', the fun is trying to find different ways to defeat the advancing front of doom! In both Pandemic, and more so in Ghost Stories, the escalation of defeat feels faster and more urgent, here in ZSDoD the pace felt slower but nonetheless unrelenting, in fact, it matched the theme of the game perfectly, the mechanics of how the zombie hordes feed, multiply and move works really nicely, and while random 'outbreaks' can occur (like in pandemic and ghost stories), unlike those games they are only small 'seeds' of zombie infection, so they don't suddenly cause ruination in a direct sense, but if you've spent time barricading yourself in, or organising your military might, or pushing the hordes around the map away from your key populations, this can provide a nasty (and fun!) surprise when a zombie 'seed' appears behind your defences!



Based on how the game evolved for us, I had quite good luck with Africa and always felt in control of the horde, coming close several times to eliminating them completely, the missus had some bad luck in Europe and quickly reached a position that looked pretty hopeless, although as I tried to point out to her, it was actually possible to selectively sacrifice regions to strategically direct the zombies away from certain areas, thus giving you the time to reinforce and hold on to a pocket of population in another area of the map.



Which brings me to another point. If we ever play again we will definitely take 2 regions each (the world is divided into 5 regions, see below), either as separate forces or as 'teams of 2 regions', perhaps even use the 5th region as a dummy region (perhaps allowing their research to be used globally or something). There's lots of scope for adjusting the play parameters I think, we did not try the suggested variants in the rulebook yet. I think it felt a bit difficult to see how the game could go on long enough in a region to allow you to really see the benefit of researching many technologies, I think I ended up with 3 or 4 technologies by the time we had got to mutation marker 10 (when you get to 15 its game over! the one with most population wins), and my missus was all gone. We need to play more, but because of the limited resources and actions and constant need to keep the zombies in check (and more research activates the mutation marker faster), I wonder how you would ever really get to the 'tier 3' research options which are quite powerful. I was surprised thematically to not see an option for zombie starvation (unless I missed it) but on the other hand zombies surrounded by 'empty' regions can't move into them so that is a way you can stem the surge of zombies across the map



Before I try to go over the game components and mechanics/gameplay, I would have to say that to me, it feels a bit less polished and streamlined than Pandemic, but more easy to grasp and understand than Ghost Stories, with a difficulty level between the two in terms of feeling like you can defeat the game. It is more like Ghost Stories in that there are a lot more options and actions available to you and it will take time to get to grips with what works best (raised borders work well!), and additionally, you are very clearly in charge of your own region, and while some co op type play can be seen, its not really a coop game in the same way, you can just as easily not have anything to do with your neighbours, in fact, a fun aspect of the game is being able to 'steer' zombies across your borders into neighbouring players regions.





So, 'in a nutshell',if you like Pandemic / Ghost Stories, I think you will definitely like this game, ESPECIALLY if you have the feeling in P/GS that you are often 'agreeing' on the best course of action, this game has the basic 'you vs the game mechanic' but here it's very much every man for himself, and totally up to you to decide how to resist the zombie horde, with options for helping or hindering your neighbours.if you don't like those games, either for feeling like you are banging your head against a brick wall of random 'bad shit', or that those games are 'too light' for your needs, you may not like this but I would say that the mechanics of how zombies feed, multiply and move does add a very logical, thematic and tactical/stragetic element not as obviously present in those games. You will perhaps still feel like you can't do as much as you want to do, but you can better predict and plan what the future holds to be able to make strategic choices (though to be honest, its more tactical because its difficult to go that much into the future with your planning).



And of course, the other plus point of this game is the updated theme relative to Pandemic in particular, there is just something a bit cooler about zombie legions than nameless diseases.

I have given this game a 7.5 for now, but will rerate as I play it more, I think I would like to play it with 4 or 5 individual players, so will break this out with my family when they visit. Ah yes, I should have mentioned (have not even started the review yet!), that the rules are very straight forward, and always work 'how you think', I was surprised to see videos online explaining zombie movement, feeding and combat, it really is pretty obvious, the only 'tricky' thing to learn is that there are a lot of available actions to do, but it's easy to follow the game play guide on your player board to keep in check. If your family can understand RISK they will have no trouble with this! (and I am not comparing this to RISK, though it does have a global map with regions!)





OK, on with the review.... what do you mean, that was just the introduction!





Components

The box is a decent sized, somewhat different to most of the bigger boxed games I have, a bit deeper and squatter, perhaps explained by the panoramic aspect of the board. The cover art is not spectacular, but good enough to convey the theme, without really being eye catching. The box insert has lots of little spaces, so there is plenty of room to keep all the bits in the game, of which there are quite a lot. First of all, a panoramic map of the world as mentioned, with 5 large regions (North & South America, Asia, Africa and Europe) subdivided into a dozen sub regions, the map is colourful and very nice to look at, somewhat RISk like you could say, but there is a curious mix of names for the sub regions, sometimes city names (some well known, some not), some regional or continental type names, and some with names that appear to be "future" labels for areas, such as "The Rust Belt" on the eastern seaboard of the USA. While I quite like the potential for "new names" fitting the theme of a post apocalyptic world, it seems a bit confused with some of the other regions not matching, I would be interested to hear the designers thoughts on how they chose this apparent mismatch, but let me also say it does not really detract anything from the game



Each player gets a nice and decent sized colour coded board which lists various research options, government popularity and influence, a random outbreak table and a play order reminder. I will describe this in more detail shortly. I actually think because most of this information is the same for all players, it would have been better to have a separate single board or card with research technology reminders perhaps including spaces for each players coloured tokens to track their development, and have smaller player boards with just their own information on it, or make the map 'wider' by adding the research area sections to the top and bottom edge. Maybe a bit picky, but they could have saved a fair bit of room on the table that way (e.g one idea would be to have a deck of cards for each player, one per technology and let the players place a card when they research it, since it seems hard to imagine you will ever get more than 4 or 5 technologies, having a whole board reminder of each one seems a bit wasteful.



Each player gets a mutation token which is an analogue to represent the advance of time and the disease in the game a bit like the Pandemic Outbreak marker, 6 'freedom pawns' to perform actions, linked very nicely to the players 'popularity' which is basically how many of your regions you are keeping alive!, then there is a deck of random event cards, some outbreak cards, resource cards for fuel, food, metal/wood, chemical, and tokens for zombies, research, resources, quarantines, oh, and some plastic figures of tanks and barricade/wall structures. You also get 12 coloured dice for each player, these are used to track population levels in each of your sub regions, and a black d12 used to roll random outbreaks or research success.



Again, I am going to sound picky here, but something about the components did not quite 'add up', i.e. it was easy to see this game was produced by a smaller independent label and not by one of the big companies, it felt a bit like they'd taken different components belonging to different games and put them all together, and maybe it could be said it seemed there was some obvious cost saving decisions there. Now, I also want to say that the components were still GOOD, they all do their job admirably, at no point did we sit there thinking anything got in the way of the gameplay. It's just that if I could, I would change a fair few of the components, either so they feel more 'cohesive' in terms of how they look and are constructed, or a bit more stylish. I will give some examples, but please, let me stress, this is probably just because I've been lucky enough to be spoiled by games with very lush components, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the stuff in this box!!!

Oh, note to designers, please in v2 of the rules, stop talking about 'zombie token' actions, it is a disconnect from the game/theme. Instead, please describe 'ZOMBIE movement, feeding and combat', we already know the tokens represent the zombies, it is jarring to read it in each rules section as though 'zombie tokens' were themselves some kind of entity.!





OK, some examples

the tank units are a bit odd looking, and it would have been nicer to have an 'upgraded' tank model to represent 'barricaded' (see below) military units, e.g. a basic tank model, an upgraded tank model representing better firepower (offense), and a separate counter to represent 'barricades', something that could sit under your tank model for example

the raised border /wall figures are too detailed and don't match the other components, this is one of the reasons it felt like the designers perhaps were balancing what they could and couldn't afford. I would have kept everything in the same 'style' and made these much simpler blocks or wall models (you could easily have models of cannons for firepower, and block type models for barricades and border walls for example).'

The dice for population markers are nice, but with only 12 regions to each player, it could have been nice to see some kind of building units, e.g. with simple models for 1, 2 and 3, each region could have a more 'visual' representation of its population, though it has to be said, the dice work well in seeing where the population is, and this is important when working out where the zombies go, so its hard to argue against the dice really the freedom pawns are cheap plastic versions of the pandemic pawns. Thematically I like what they represent, but they could have been a bit nicer

The resource cards are nice, perhaps I was expecting small wooden blocks though!

Anyway, as I said, this is a very picky point, perhaps you will disagree with me, but I just felt that either constraints of time and/or money left them just a little bit shy of getting all the components 'just right', having said all that, it still looks very nice, functionally it all works very well and this is only suffering with comparison to the bits from a big name company big box release that we have all been a bit spoiled by!

I would also have been tempted to use zombie models and then just stand them on tokens for their number, but I might do that anyway with some spares from Last Night on Earth! Since the tokens do stack, I would have made them a bit bigger and bit more noticeable as zombies!





Rules

OK, the rules are remarkably simple. Players start with their 12 regions populated, using the dice to display the population units in each sub region, marked on the map. Some regions have a symbol indicating they produce a particular resource, so you can already see how some countries or regions are more valuable than others in that regard, but also which ones are immediately at risk because of the low population.Each player randomly seeds 2 of his regions by rolling the d12 and referring to the 'outbreak' section on his player board, which says which country to add the zombie token. This table is also used when the various outbreak events (see later) occur.



So the play goes along these lines



1. Resource collection



In resource collection, players collect cards from all their regions with a resource symbol on them (and later research allows you to add tokens to regions to allow them to produce resources if they didn't originally). Initially that gives you 6 resources of various kinds, but since researching technologies costs you 4 cards in general, and using some technologies also costs resources, it is quite tricky to stockpile resources unless you specifically research the ability to add 'resource production' to your other regions. Since you really need to use most of your resources each time, and you can also spend actions to draw resources (see below), and since most technologies need at least 3 of the 4 types, this results in not as much resource specific tension as there could have been, this may become apparent as we play the game more, but it would have been nice to see different resources be more or less important for different strategies. I have to say we did not always feel this, although there were occasions when if we'd had a different balance of resources we might have snuck in an extra action or so. so maybe this will come with more experience with the game.





2. Freedom Pawns



OK, now we come to freedom pawns. Ultra neat idea! Basically this represents your 'government influence' and is represented by a track on your player board, in the start of the game you have 12 regions, and this gives you 6 freedom pawns, each one basically an 'action', but you can also use each action to move military, draw a resource card, contribute to research a technology, activate a technology, or increase the chance of research success. As you lose regions to zombie dinner (!) you take the dice off the board and onto your popularity track, thus reflecting how much population you have left, how much influence you have to do actions, and for each 2 regions you lose, you lose 1 freedom pawn, thus limiting your ability to deal with the current situation. It does remind you of the infection rate mechanism in Pandemic, although whereas in that game the track makes more bad shit happen (and thus your actions can cover less of it), here you get less actions to do stuff, and actually since the zombies advance relentlessly you get a bit of a double whammy with that one! Luckily there are technologies you can do to repopulate regions, and some of the random events help with that too. Basically this works really nicely, and fits very well in with the theme of your 'control' of the situation spiralling away as the population continues to dwindle. You also get some random cards that reduce your FPs because of rebellions in certain regions etc, so it does fit in very well to the game mythos.





3. Random Events



Next we have the random event deck, and again, its easy to draw a parallel with Pandemic, especially when you start shuffling in Outbreak cards as the mutation track advances (see below). What is nice about this deck is that it is truly random in that some of them are good and some of them bad, so its not like 'oh, which 3 cities do we add disease to now'. A card could just as easily help you crack a research goal more easily, or repopulate a nation, or airlift some military or upgrade your defences etc, but there are also bad cards that stop research, reduce your FPs (actions), and cause outbreaks, though initially the deck contains no outbreak cards (see 'upkeep'). So far, this has been super easy and straight forward, we gain resources, we count our freedom points, and we have various global events helping or hindering our progress, these cards are very nicely written, thematically very relevant and definitely add to 'tell the story' of how the defence against the spread of the zombie virus is going.





4. Zombie Actions



Then we have the zombie actions. Again, super neat mechanism. Basically the zombies are represented by tokens on the board. White side up as 'active', each zombie eats 1 population, so go through all your regions, change the dice to reflect the drop in population, if that number goes to 0, take it off the board and onto your popularity track to represent a drop in your influence for next time via the freedom pawns. Any zombies who feed you flip over to the red inactive side, and add tokens off the board to match each one, i.e. if 5 zombies are in a country with a population of 3, 3 zombies feed (take the die off the board and onto the player board), those 3 flip over to inactive, and 3 more inactive side tokens are added to the region, so now we have 6 'inactive' zombies, and 2 leftover white side up 'active' tokens. It is these leftover active tokens that now move to seek food. Again, super cool mechanic that just fits so well. Once you have done all zombie feeding, move your active zombies to neighbouring regions.

Take the first 3 tokens and move them to the adjacent region with highest population (more food!), obviously if only 2 active zombies are in a region, then both of them would go to the adjacent region most full of brains! In the case of ties, they prefer to go to regions with military (must say I did not understand this, or did I read the rule wrong!, thought they should avoid military, perhaps they like the noise!), failing that, break ties with dice rolls. After you have moved 3, if any more active zombies, take the next 2 and move them into the next highest populated neighbour region, and if you still have active zombies, go through them 1 at a time, going through all neighbours in population order one at a time, moving the zombies until all have moved (sometimes you loop through the neighbours a few times, e.g. if 10 active zombie tokens, and 3 neighbouring regions, say A, B and C in order of population, 3 zombies move to A, 2 to B, 1 to C, then 1 to A, 1 to B, 1 to C and the last one to A.)

It's a really nice way to deal with the theme of zombies eating, then doubling (infection), then moving (towards food source). it also means you can have a lot of input into your strategy by seeing where the horde will move next. You can predict how your population will suffer and where to focus your efforts. It's nice, really nice. Since you can also use border walls and quarantine research and various other actions to block off certain routes AND zombies don't move back into 'empty' regions (no population), you can very much shape how you funnel the infected towards areas you can deal with, and as I said, its really cool that you can effectively push zombies out of your map area and into the other players areas! (likewise you can use that perhaps to bargain for help, say, ask another player to block off a border between his and your region if you do the same somewhere else, or threaten to send your horde over his border by blocking off their other options).



Now, with a 2 player game, the unused regions (3 of them) are effectively quarantined, so I think this will really shine with 4 or 5 players and you start to see more border traffic as we can call it!

Finally, we have combat to take care of, very simple really, any zombies now in regions with military enter combat, 1 zombie = 1 point, any military (tank model) = 1 point, unless it's 'barricaded' when it is worth 2 points (and we did not read all the technology modifiers so maybe some of the higher level ones give extra bonuses). You basically lift off military and zombies to match, i.e. 2 zombies, 2 tanks, everyone dead, take them all off, 3 zombies, 2 tanks, take off the 2 tanks and 2 zombies, leave 1 zombie left over. 1 tank with upgraded defense can take out 2 zombies etc.

Really simple, predictable (and therefore something you can plan tactically) even if it seems difficult to ever have enough time or resources to effectively build much military. Also, one slight nitpick, when zombies move and then go to combat phase, you use military 'defense' strength, later on when we move the guns, you use 'offense' strength, but its not as easy to see that (you stand the tank up on its side to show an upgraded defense), so thats something to bear in mind





5. Player Actions



Now, finally we have our actions to play, depending on how many pawns and resources we have in our hand at this point based on population, and any random event card modifiers. You can use an FP (action) to draw a resource card of any type, you will do this when you want to research something or add military and are missing a specific card that forms the cost of that action. Of course, you can also draft military, research technology, activate technology or move military

Lets start with military since we touched on that in the zombie attack phase. You can spend 4 specific resource cards and 1 FP to draft a military unit (tank) and place it anywhere you have population but that does not have zombies in it at that point. You can then choose to upgrade its defense strength with 1 FP, you turn the tank on its side (meh!) to show this, or you can spend a FP to move any military unit up to 2 adjacent regions (if it hits the horde after 1, it must stop there and no more movement after), you can do this multiple times, eg, 3 FP to move 3 tanks. This time when you resolve combat use the offensive strength (more often than not, just 1, since the upgrades to offense take some time to research!). because of the speed of the game, and lack of resources and the quick spread of disease, we found we almost always used this just to send in a tank or two just to nip at the zombie forces in one region to allow that regions population one more round to survive while you planned something else. I.e. you will not be building up huge armies and sweeping across your nation splattering zombies everywhere! There are cool research options to upgrade your military and allow airlift to far away regions as well by the way



Ok the other mainstay of the game here is the research technologies. Cool! Though as I said, i would have preferred some kind of cool tokens or cards to place on the table to show that I had research 'nuclear strike' rather than the rather small token on a large player board with quite a lot of text. Maybe have the technologies as large icons instead, and just have a reference sheet to look at?Well, you can research in different areas, military being one, science being another, medical being yet another, each branch has 3 tiers of technology, tier 1 for quite modest 'powers', once you have successfully researched 3 of those you can research a tier 2 'power', for better options, and once you have 2 of those you can research a tier 3 power, e.g. Nuclear Strike! on military. YOu would thus need to do quite a bit of research to get to those giddy levels, but I think it would be possible if you keep alive long enough! It will take me a while to get used to all the technologies available, for example I missed the 'research focus' one which looks boring but actually gives you a +2 chance to succeed on all research in the future which would have avoided our bad dice rolls stopping research in key moments! I certainly made use of the technology to blockade borders between countries, which also allowed me to funnel a large zombie horde out of North Africa and into Western Europe haha! And defensive manouevres also allows you to upgrade your tanks defense automatically without having to spend a pawn.



Anyway, to research something you pay the resource cost, plus 1 FP and roll a d12, you need 7 to 'get it'. If you do, you place a green token on that technology, and you can then use it by paying, usually 1 FP, or some are just permanent modifiers in play. You can spend 1 FP to +2 to your test roll, and once you have got a tech in one area, that gives you another +1 to succeed in another tech in the same branch (eg military), finally, if you fail a research, you leave a +3 token there so that on the next turn you still have to pay the resources and FP to try again but you are more likely to succeed. Thats just nice, it works thematically, and it means you dont have to worry that you could miss out on an upgrade by bad rolls over and over.



And thats basically the actions done with, as you can see, a lot more options because of the large number of techs you can research, but still very simple to track and you won't ever have enough stuff to do lots at once, so you really need to think tactically with that, also with military placements and movement, and use of the zombie feeding and movement rules to plan where the horde is heading.





6. Upkeep



The final upkeep phase basically flips over all inactive zombie tokens to their active side ready for the next wave, the mutation marker moves along (see below), take away any quarantine markers used as part of research ability (allows you to block off one region from zombie entry), move the start player token, clear away any unused FP off your board and start again.

So, the mutation marker. Yes, its basically the Outbreak marker in Pandemic. Again, with an added thematic twist. Basically this goes up each round, each player has their own token on it, usually it goes up 1 space at a time, BUT once you start dabbling in 'high tech', eg Tier 2 and Tier 3, then your marker goes up 2 or 3 spaces instead. Since Level 15 means the virus goes airborne, that triggers the end of the game since you are powerless to stop the virus spreading. It really fits thematically that as you start messing with research you are more likely to cause mutations, and theres another subtle effect too.

The mutation track has red, yellow and black spaces. Black spaces do nothing, and yellow spaces are 'mutation alerts', only activated once (so if your marker hits the 1st yellow space, a mutation occurs, but if another player hits that space later you dont get another mutation for that space). Mutations basically mean you shuffle 'outbreak' cards into the random draw deck, these serve to generate the placement of a new zombie in a randomly rolled region, perhaps in a place behind your carefully designed defence!

With the red spaces, EACH TIME a player hits that an outbreak occurs, now most of the time, your tokens will move together, but as soon as one player uses a tier 2 tech, his token will go 2 spaces up instead of 1, and all of a sudden then, you have the possibililty of activating an outbreak space more than once, so that has some interesting possibilities as well I think!



End Game & Conclusion

The end game is triggered when the mutation marker hits 15 in which case I think you are supposed to have lost to the virus but since you all have separate forces, you can add up your population dice remaining to see who has the most survivors to determine a winner. Otherwise, if one player ends his action phase with no zombie tokens (and I almost had it!), then they are victorious!, and I think if one player loses his last population, then you play out the current round, and again use total survivors to determine a winner. I suspect that the most common way for the game to end will be one of the players succumbing and thus who has the most left alive at the end will win (and I am writing this away from the game, so it could be that the Mutation Track 15 just means everyone loses absolutely).



Well, my missus was not so enthused, but think she had some bad luck in the beginning, and does not really enjoy feeling she has no chance from the early doors, whereas I think I feel like that adds replay weight since it can really feel good to beat difficult games, and also, I think she did not play optimally as neither of us really knew the best way to proceed on our first play! I just know, that in a group of 4 or 5 this will be an absolute blast to play, light and easy enough for 'non gamers', but with plenty of stuff going on to feel exciting, interesting and varied, difficult in terms of not having enough time or resources to ever quite get on top of the infection, but the fact that you play your own forces really gives you a sense of satisfaction of planning your own way to manage the crisis, use different techs in different ways, and use the clever mechanic of zombie feeding and movement to shepherd the undead onto your neighbours land, this is a game you will enjoy win or lose, it will be about the developing story of the horde and your efforts to defeat it. I also think the quoted time on the box may be overstating it, I think it feels like quite a snappy game, very simple to learn and intuitive.



I absolutely recommend this game, really great effort, and definitely 'new' enough to own along with Pandemic and Ghost Stories, and to be honest, will appeal to a lot of people who liked those games but weren't quite convinced how much they were really playing as opposed to agreeing optimal strategies. I think this game will work as a solo game (e.g. just play 1 region on your own, or join 2 together and use 2 boards) to defeat the horde or just beat a best score for population when the mutation reaches 15, it works great with 2, either 1 region each or next time we will play 2 regions each, and I think this is crying out for a full 4 or 5 player game. Great effort, thanks so much for quickly getting this to Sweden so quickly, really looking forward to getting the most out of this game, and already thinking of several ideas for variants, modifications and 'pimps' to the game as well.



cheers

Lee & Petra

"

Review: Pirate's Cove:: I love it now let me tell you why it stinks like a bucket of fish heads and bilge water.

Review: Pirate's Cove:: I love it now let me tell you why it stinks like a bucket of fish heads and bilge water.: "

by Dimmthewitted

Ahoy there me yellow bellied pock spotted sea chickens. It is I, yer speaker of truth on the high seas of pirate gaming. I have a pirate's heart for the seas and an obsession for all marauder games of pyratical nature, but I will be blunt and bold as I strip the barnacles off the bulkhead and view the game as a hull.





Pirate's Cove is a dreadfully fun game with quite a few problems that can be a lot fun for the right players.



First and foremast, I love the wheel mechanic for ship movement. Setting the course of your ship to one of six destinations in secret then simultaneously unveiling is an intriguing element as used in Key Largo. I love the wheel concept it really imparts that nautical feel that a lot of sea games lack. What is unsettling is the illusion of choices provided.



Pirate's Cove gives you the illusion of choice for your only decisions in the game.



There are six locations that you can set your sails to. Well you are usually already at one of the locations so there are five new locations to choose from. There are also up to two black pirate ships that push each forward each turn. Early in the game it is best to avoid them, so actually each player on a typical turn has will usually decide between three islands. Now if you are playing with three or four players each with a choice of three new islands to visit, the odds are substantially increased of running into other players each turn.



There is a bit of second guessing the motives and needs of the other players which I find intriguing; on the par of Letter of Marque or Pirate's Cups (Liar's Dice), but the more games I play I find the best way to avoid confrontation is to steer blindly into the wind. This brings up another interesting element that is quintessentially detrimental to a game that self proclaims pyrate stature:





In Pirate's Cove, the people who win are the pirates who avoid fights.



Confrontation, raiding, sea battles, boarding and pillaging; these are what give the pirate his prowess and his plunder. To score points, gold, treasure, and tavern cards your best odds are on uncontested islands. More often then not, in a three player game, one player will be the whipping boy as the other two players build the strength of their ship.



Fleeing during combat give your opponents 1 point or fleeing before the cannons fire has only a one in six chance of having minimal negative consequence. The very nature of the game encourages cowardess and hiding from battle. These are not nefarious skull dogged traits that a true pirate glorifies. The Blackbeard, Long John Silvers, and Captain Kidds of stories are malignant treacherous adventurous treasure seeking characters as portrayed in Pirate King or Rum & Pirates. who take on Spanish galleons, French frigates, Dutch traders, and merchant ship of the lines like in Buccaneer or Loot or port raiders like in Dread Pirate.





When it comes down to it the game is all about dice battles.



You aim for the weakest part of their ship to knock them out the fastest. Rolling D6s looking for 5s and 6s. Maybe a parrot to block a shot or a volley card pack more of a punch, but inevitably the game distills down to a dice toss shootout. Some pirates like this type of mindless lack of strategy sea battling, but for those of us who have played enough epic 8hr Risk games to last 3 lifetimes we often want something with a bit more weight to combat.



3 Sheets to the wind.



Inevitably, the pirate first out of sail island with new sheets was the ahead most of the game. Before all the other players can upgrade at four islands two shots are all that are needed to send a ship scuttling over to Pirate’s Cove for repairs. Even the weakest ship gets two shots per turn, that’s a one in three chance of crippling someone before they get a chance to fire back. It all depends on who has the most sails and gets to fire first. Many players will get the sails to hit the high seas each fight, load up at Pirate’s Cove, and head out all the stronger. This game definitely favors the ships with more wind in their mast.







The game is a monotonous, at times a bit tiresome, luck of the sea pirate game that no naughty Nellie or Barnacle Bill should be without. Keep it for the kids or as a gateway game for Errol Flynn swashbuckling movie night.





Replay ability



I wouldn’t subject my gamers to this more than once every great while.



Swashbuckling



Self proclaimed as a game of swashbuckling and daring. I found it lacking in that aspect.



Components



The pieces where jolly good and added much to the intrigue of play.



Overall fun



If you can have fun losing and don’t mind your game in the fate of gods of the sea.



Development of theme



All things Pyratical considered, it left a bit to be desired for a true enthusiast.















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