Antiquity

There is so much going on here to understand fully without playing more. Similar depth and feel to Roads & Boats but a very different game and the variable victory conditions allow for several strategies. The sort of game I really love but never devote enough time to. Long, but time will reduce with experience.

Solidly better with 3 vs 2, and I don't think I want to play with 4 although it's a solitary game for a large chunk of it so does it really matter? As a friend described it immediately after; it's a RTS game, played slowly, and over turns. I think that's sort of true. It's a neat game, and when in-print, it's worth picking up and trying if you like the sort of game that Splotter made in the old days. It's a table hog, and the chits are still tiny. One of those instances where having larger hexes (and thus an easier time picking up stuff during harvest) may have improved enjoyment of it. There is sufficient space in the game to get at least a handful of plays of it, but I wouldn't pay 3 digits for it (let alone OOP pricing). Civ builders aren't necessarily my jam is part of it, but I keep looking at it going "this would be more interesting as a computer game". As a 3p game, it's a strong 6, as a 2p game, a strong 5.

As Samo once said: "And it's hard for me to say the game has a narrative. It [does], yet I didn't feel proud of building 3 cities and the buildings and all the stuff. No, I felt proud of surviving, of making this far. It's the constant "oh damn! Damn, damn, damn! Shit! Oh, crap." You are all the time trying to juggle your puny resources and come with a solution. There's no pleasure in building, it's pure necessity. We need to build this right now or we're dead. Whee, we made it, uhm, uh oh. Look like we created some new problems. It's a game of crisis management and every solution creates more crisis. The theme is really about ecology (of sorts)" I think that's sort of what I get out of it; it's a game about crisis management competing with your goal optimization. The game doesn't give me joy in terms of growth or progression so much as crisis mitigation. That's not bad, just not sure I often want to put up with the systemic implementation for it.

Edit: drops to a 4 at 3p after a few plays. Nothing here makes me say "oh, this is worth the sprawling play time, even with a unique experience."

Fantastic, fantastic!

A well-designed race hidden within an empire building game. The famine and pollution cast a lovely grim shadow over everything.

Fiddly, but worth it.

Hard work and not very gratifying. Based on one confused online play - willing to give another chance.

Novel resource management / civilisation building game, very low luck. Pollution management is the most unique and interesting aspect of the game, as it compels the players to build towards each other in what would otherwise be a multi-player solitaire game. One of the most fiddly games I've played though, as chits are constantly placed on and removed from the board, which makes me think that it would work better as a computer game.

It's brown brown brown and has a TON of weird little chits, but it's awesome. It's an epic game of civilization building, and it features a large map of the land AND individual maps of your cities that you fill with buildings and stuff! Way cool!

On the other hand, it has [i]all those chits and tokens![/i] o_0

Initial thoughts: definitely need to play this one more. The game is tight and tense, mainly based on the pressures put on you by the game itself. There is some interaction between players, but the famine and pollution caused by the game really make things stressful. The different win conditions are all intriguing, and I want to play enough games to really understand how to go for each of them. I would also like to play with more players to see how the game changes with different counts.

Good civ-style game. Starts out feeling very solitaire, but in typical Splotter fashion, quickly gets cut-throat and nasty. Pollution management is a fun subsystem, but the upkeep is incredible fiddly. Even though I enjoyed my one play, I am not itching to play this again.

This is the kind of game where, when we finished our first play, we instantly wanted to set it back up and play again. I think the 'weight' of this game is vastly overblown - you have a lot of options, but there isn't a lot of rules overhead/edge cases. Everything is clearly explained on the player aid as well. Great at two, but works just as well at other player counts - the mostly simultaneous action taking and quick rounds makes it so that you're never stuck waiting ages for the chance to do something. I would advise a bit of caution about playing this game with AP prone players however - they might struggle with it. It IS an expensive game - like all Splotters - but you get a lot of game for your money.