I honestly hope I played this game wrong. But it has never been a good experience to me. So please let me know if it is wrong, as it is baring the name of Martin Wallace. Brass and Age of Steam had given me good times but not this one.
I will comment more on the strategic gameplay side more than anything else since those are really just side-kicks. [i]Well if the gameplay is not good enough, you'd better have something else to sell![/i] Otherwise a passing mark and functional components with a good strategy game will have good reception. Example: Food Chain Magnate.
-----------------------
TL:DR
- This game is Risk (initial position) + Dominion + Eclipse. The game play is very dictated by RNG.
While it has a strong reference on eclipse and it looks like the author has awareness what is being weak in Eclipse, Eclipse is still straightly better.
-----------------------
- Mostly I would not comment on 'good' art since either they are functional or fail. It is good if art are good on top of being well functional or it is too excessive that it does more hurt than good. Sadly it is not for this game. Situational and VP awareness of this kind of combat games, like Eclipse, is very essential towards late game if one is playing to win, and therefore a VP bar is there for good reference. However, the reference is not easy. You have to look at the 10th digit bar, and then check the single digit bar to see the point difference and to decide who is the best to attack. This is a pain in the ass. While it could be easily done with a VP round race track like Amun-re to show VP, I do not understand why this weird way of presentation is chosen.
- Numbers, text and parameters are too small and hard to read on planets.
- Drawing cards of lost worlds out of your deck from time to time is very annoying.
- Unique cards of planets are very big burden of knowledge.
- Even if you know what card you will need, you might not get them easily because of your initial position and research card draw, a dictation by the RNG.
- The game ends when the 20 shuffles in Dominion. It is a game too short to comeback if you are forced into subpar plays, just like [url="https://boardgamegeek.com/article/9709366#9709366"]slightly subpar hexes[/url] in Eclipse.
- Since the game is short and has a somewhat fixed end, stacking resources and powerplaying cards is very strong and efficient, even if you overpay just to get rid of cards. These will earn you a bigger share of resources spent.
- Developments on the top of your charter makes powerplay even stronger despite they are necessary to offset Dominion luck. And hence spamming colony is better than building an early army. Even better when your developments are not returned if your colony is destroyed. Please correct me if I was taught wrong here. I really hope I played wrong here that colonies and developments have to be returned.
- Your initial position could lead to very good (clustered) or bad startings (spread everywhere) completely out of your control.
- Researching is mostly wasting time and a sub-par action as the correct research card has to land on the market, then with the correct amount of science bought, then placed on the discard, then shuffled, then drawn, then wait for the correct timing to play. Too hard to predict given the long activation time and too short of a game.
- Essential in Dominion: trimming is too expensive an action and mostly wasting time. Better build colony quick and get that free development.
- Very standard Martin Wallace economic snowballs. If you cannot catch up and lose tempo, even if was forced by bad RNG, you'd better pray everyone play bad or die to a wild comet in order to just have a comeback chance.
- Common problem of multiplayer combat games. You have two ways of spending your resources: simcity or building army. But you always lose troops when beating opponents so simcity players left alone or even hit last will have a economic snowball big enough, just to hold back the remaining troops, sit back and easily win. Good luck killing everyone warmongering!
- Flat distribution of ancient strength. Completely RNG, no prediction at all so you are playing against an almost same risk aversion curve. Landing a 2 with minimal fleet or hitting a 9 with a all-in is a big difference enough in a economic snowball game - one turn lost. See slightly sub-par hex arguement.
- And since beating ancient could have a result losing nothing and beating players would make you have to guess what hand they are holding (RNG) and a very potential lost, ancient farming is far superior early game until they are exhausted. And rather ancients are spawning around you depends on your initial position again (RNG again). If there are no ancient around, sorry bro!
- Moving big troops is toooooooooo slow and inefficient as in Eclipse. So you mostly will not build troops unless you need it, and it doesn't really matter losing one colony and play the "I am weak no attack me pls bro" card. I once misplay where you could have 0 moving cost in your own space, and I do hope it was the case so to make warmongering a bit more doable.
- This game relies on player balance but there could be no easy way to knock a leading player out of orbit. Say, if you and the winning players are at a two corners and you have no solution to him, while others do not care, game is done. Not to mention classic players who would get mad thinking you are up against hating him just because you are trying to do logical player balancing.
- The ending. The ending is terrible. I really hope I was wrong here. In Eclipse, you could at least burn resources racing to the end in order to observe all moves and make the last move reasonable in order to have a last swing of VP to win the game. In A Handful of Stars, the last player is well known. If someone is leading the main group 20VP mid game you might as well fold and start over already. But in normal cases where player balance works, scores are all open (unlike Eclipse where VPs are a guess though still very guessable) and everyone is close, you have a very good chance to make the lethal snipe given you have access to your target (RNG)
It is a RNG party game. Relax and enjoy fireworks and see how RNG screws people up but you might not see the whole picture! (Ah bad draws no research no ancient available gg). But if you want a competitive game, this game is too long a pain for bad random results - punishment in terms of expected value, big cost with a outliner result
------------
back-up-ed from BGG since it is OK to spam 10/10 because the publisher tells you to do so on twitter, but writing a sincere negative review is insta death penalty.
No comments:
Post a Comment