Catching Up on Games (12/16/23)

Recently, we had a chance to meet up and play games several days in one week. As the end of the year draws closer and we’ve been readying to redo our top 100s, I’ve also been trying to get in more solo games. So, here’s what I’ve been playing lately!

2023 Top 100 coming soon!

Iki

This was our (or at least, my) long-awaited second game of Iki. It’s such a smooth, mid-weight Euro with lots to do, things to get distracted with, and a tight economy. On top of that, the theme and art are great. Sadly, my brother may be the only human who doesn’t like the game. He finds it boring (but he likes Gaia Project?!). Though he claims he’ll still play it, his overt boredom with the game sucks the fun out of it for me. So this is now a 2-player game for us, but we don’t have too many 2-player game days. I really wish this had a solo mode. Came across a fan-made solo mode but haven’t tried it yet.

Knarr

This has gotten a lot of plays lately. For one, it’s a snappy 30 minutes even at 3-player. It’s so easy to bring out and set up. It still surprises me how much fun it is and how much depth it has for how simple it is. I wonder if a larger board game based on this system would still work just as well.

Dune: Imperium

I finally tried this out solitaire—had to before the end of the year! It’s incredibly smooth solo. While the AI deck is a bit random, you can start to get an idea of what the bots might do next based on the cards already used from the deck. Really enjoyed this one. There were definitely some tense turns in solo. I might have to get a copy of my own at some point.

I did a full write-up of the session here.

Knarr

Yet more Knarr! I always play white (me) vs. black (bot) in solo (the colors work as long as you don’t use two dark shades or two light shades together; they’re just too close).

I did a full write-up of the session here.

Xia: Legends of a Drift System (+Expansion)

I’m pretty sure this has been one of my brother’s grail games. He finally got a copy with the expansion (which it seems most people consider mandatory). It’s Merchants of Venus on steroids. Big, epic, space Sci-Fi sandbox game. There’s definitely more adventuring going on in Xia with missions to complete and more hazards to deal with. But there’s still a lot of pick-up-and-deliver to do which is the bread and butter of this genre. LOTS of dice rolling.

My only real complaint (other than the ugly graphic design) is that the first 30 or so minutes was mostly us wandering around trying to find things to do. There really isn’t enough stuff out in play at the beginning, and the randomness of exploring has multiple problems that primarily stem from the planets not being seeded into the stack. Is the game even playable if the planets are toward the bottom of the stack (which is bigger if you use the expansion)?

Still a fun game anyway.

Vindication

Just some messing around to find a better solo mode. I love Vindication multiplayer, but the official solo modes are just too different from the core experience for me. This mode is a work in progress.

Root (+Hirelings)

This was our first in-person game of Root and we used the much-recommended hirelings for the 2-player game. They worked great. And while the general flow of the game is easy to get the hang of, we had many problems trying to figure out some of the hireling abilities and some of the interactions. A lot of things were worded too vaguely, and other things created situations that didn’t have a clear answer. We were very unprepared for how much we had to look things up only to have to make a ruling because we didn’t have an answer.

All that aside, it was a lot of fun, and the game has a really interesting arch to it as one side can get ahead but then get knocked down and slowly rebuild later. Very interested in trying the expansion factions.

Anno 1800

I’ve been loving this multiplayer and was really interested in trying out the official solo mode. While it’s tough wrapping your head around the Trade rules for solo (I think they needed to frame it better), it was otherwise a very simple solo mode. I went with the all-purpose solo rules instead of the campaign and removed the few objective cards that play differently in solo just to cut down on extra overhead. It worked great. This is definitely one I’d love to own.

I did a full write-up of the session here.

Septima

Our first game of Septima. I may just end up writing a review for it soon since we played it a few times in a short period and played both the basic and advanced modes. While this is probably my favorite Mind Clash game, there are definitely some weird design decisions that left us a bit baffled. Without the deterministic variant, the game is oppressively random and can absolutely throw the game out of whack. My brother said that every playthrough he watched during the Kickstarter was decided by the random draws during the last witch trial.

And there are other problems like a lack of available patients (for rewards), possible imbalance with the witch abilities, and not-great iconography that really tripped us up in the first game. But overall, I still really enjoyed it.

Suburbia (+Inc. Expansion)

This was one of several I wanted to replay before doing the top 100 because it’s been so long, and we only played it once. This second time was with the Inc. expansion which seemed pretty easy to add. It’s such a shame that most city builders are very light; we enjoy the crunchiness of Suburbia.

However, it’s definitely showing its age. The uncertain game length absolutely destroyed me and handed the game to my brother. There just wasn’t anything any player could do. We all agreed the game length should be pre-determined. The randomness of the market can also totally screw a player if they invest in certain buildings too early if the other buildings needed just never show up. For us, a building showed up really early that rewarded you for restaurant tiles, but only 2 or 3 of them ever came up all game.

We might try some house rules next time. Really wish there was a heavier Lacerda/Mind Clash weight city-building game like this.

Obsession

While my brother and our friend played Voidfall 2-player, I played Obsession solo (I just don’t have an interest in Voidfall). I went with the full-length game since we had only played the short game on BGA.

Unlike Anno 1800, there is absolutely nothing clunky about the solo mode in Obsession. It’s super easy to run. Take your turn, then roll a die to see what gets removed from the building market. The bot card says what they score during courtship and what their base score is at the end of the game. And I really appreciate the different difficulty levels. It was a lot of fun solo.

I did a full write-up of the session here.

Knarr

Yeah, I love this game. Played it twice after Obsession (same day) and still finished before the others finished the tutorial scenario of Voidfall. Actually lost the first game when the bot triggered the end before I was ready (a slight bot rule slip-up that I didn’t think would matter did make a difference, and I was being slower than usual).

However, after this play of Knarr, I started wondering about the artifact module and how to incorporate it.

To try and add the artifacts, I knew two things:

The artifacts would definitely be too difficult for a simple bot to use. I wanted to avoid extra priority lists.
The bot would need an extra handicap to make up for the player having an artifact.

The problem I found is that not all the artifacts are of equal power. It doesn’t affect the balance since, normally, all players use the same artifact. But that means one artifact compared to another can have a greater impact on the game. Ultimately, it’ll have to be up to the player to find the difficulty they like most.

You can find the release of my solitaire rules here.

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Iki

Knarr

Dune: Imperium

Knarr

Xia: Legends of a Drift System (+Expansion)

Vindication

Root (+Hirelings)

Anno 1800

Septima

Suburbia (+Inc. Expansion)

Obsession

Knarr

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