Nice little overview of the game. Maybe I should show this next time I explain the game.
I played this game for the first time last night with 3 others players, who had never played this before either, and the reactions afterward were a little mixed. We did play it without flare cards and techs since FFG suggested that in the rulebook for new players.
One guy, who I had never met before but, as he told me later, who likes to play Settlers of Catan, was upset about the fact that the alien powers were so imbalanced. I happened to have the "Chosen", which he said was just an unfair super strong power, while he had the "Zombies" (not too shabby either I must say). He also didn't like the fact that some attack cards are just super strong (30 or 40) while others, including the reinforcement cards are really weak (3 or 0 even)
During the game he asked me: "you actually paid money for this game?"
I told him later that the game is almost like a party game and that you shouldn't treat like a normal wargame. I also told him that if one player has a really strong alien power you should gang up on him more.
Guy number two, one of my regular gaming buddies, thought it was so so and said we should give the game another shot now that we understand the mechanics better.
Guy number two's wife said she liked it.
I thought it was fun too. Pretty light 60 minute gaming and the fact that I won helped as well. I did notice that it would be more fun with 5 players because with 4 we had a lot of 2 vs 2.
Last edited Sat Dec 27, 2008 3:40 pm (Total Number of Edits: 4)
The reinforcements should clearly be as strong as the attacks, which should be 99% 10s. And the powers should all be balanced, for example, one alien should have the power to add one to his total; another could have the power to subtract one from the opponent's total; yet another could have the power to swap his attack of 10 with his opponent's (extremely rare) attack of 12. That last one adjusts your advantage by 4, but can only be used in rare circumstances. That's good balancing right there.
Man this game could be awesome if only the right designer came along!
The reinforcements should clearly be as strong as the attacks, which should be 99% 10s. And the powers should all be balanced, for example, one alien should have the power to add one to his total; another could have the power to subtract one from the opponent's total; yet another could have the power to swap his attack of 10 with his opponent's (extremely rare) attack of 12. That last one adjusts your advantage by 4, but can only be used in rare circumstances. That's good balancing right there.
Man this game could be awesome if only the right designer came along!
Unfortunately, I think CE would lose appeal rather than gain it if it were rigidly balanced in these ways. The point of the design is not really to create a fully balanced environment. The point is for players to judge the lay of the land and adjust for it.
Reinforcements that were valued higher than 2-5 would swing things in a very unbalancing way. They are meant to be equalizers, used in encounters with close totals.
Managing your hand is the real mechanic that is necessary to master... you see what cards you have and plan their use accordingly ("I will save this higher card for when I am attacking and take my chances with the lower card when defending")- but you also factor in allies when evaluating your cards ("This is a mid-range card and I will probably need more allies to win if I use it- but who is safe to ask to ally at this stage in the game?")
Finally, the aliens themselves create different dynamics. What you suggest would essentially be impossible to realize. You'd have to have far fewer aliens, and most likely you would need to use the same ones in every game. Having one alien whose ability specifically counters another alien is just not that compelling- again, they'd always need to be in the same games, and what about the other players? There would be no balance between them in this case.
No, what you need to do is get familiar with the aliens. Virus looks, at first glance, like an unbeatable alien. But the reality is that he doesn't win games any more frequently than any other alien. I know, because I've been playing this crazy game since 1982 or so, and with hundreds of games under my belt. We actually spent a summer tracking win/loss with all the aliens to get percentages. Virus gets weaker the longer the game goes on. Anti-Matter is another tough hombre, but when you have a lot of allies and a low card, you can beat him easily enough. He's also slave to what's in his hand. Duke posted a screengrab from Cosmic Online showing an awful starting hand for Anti-Matter. Because his power is mandatory, it "balances" out its strength.
Keep playing it. Use the flares, for crying out loud! They are incredibly useful and add serious depth to the game strategically. Also try playing with two aliens per player. The game gets seriously ratcheted up then!
One guy, who I had never met before but, as he told me later, who likes to play Settlers of Catan, was upset about the fact that the alien powers were so imbalanced. I happened to have the "Chosen", which he said was just an unfair super strong power, while he had the "Zombies" (not too shabby either I must say). He also didn't like the fact that some attack cards are just super strong (30 or 40) while others, including the reinforcement cards are really weak (3 or 0 even)
During the game he asked me: "you actually paid money for this game?"
I can save you some time right now by assuring you that this guy should never again be invited for a CE session.
He doesn't get it, and will clearly refuse to get it, even if (God forbid) a little fun starts creeping into his life. He is the classic everything-must-be-fair-while-we-all-solve-this-math-puzzle-posing-as-a-game GameSnob that so many of us like to mock and expose as the poseurs they are.
Thanks for a nice overview/review, Tom! CE is truly one of the great ones. We played the Mayfair edition a LOT and I still have mine. My resolve to NOT get the FFG edition is eroding rapidly...
Good review! I think you captured the spirit of the game, and your zeal in recommending it is similar to my own.
I have owned the original Eon Products CE since 1979. I have to agree that the FFG version is the best, and bought it just for the purpose of introducing others to the game. It was worth it. I think the rules and rulebook are more clear.
I must agree with the earlier poster that it appears that the hyperspace cone is backwards in your review. The original rules had the point directed at the planet being attacked. Also, while offensive allies are gathered along side the main offensive players tokens on the opposite wide area of the cone (as you have them), the defensive allies' tokens are put in the narrow part of the cone where there is a "halo" wider area. Otherwise, if you place them on the planet itself, they could be confused as being a colony.
Unfortunately, I think CE would lose appeal rather than gain it if it were rigidly balanced in these ways. The point of the design is not really to create a fully balanced environment. The point is for players to judge the lay of the land and adjust for it.
Reinforcements that were valued higher than 2-5 would swing things in a very unbalancing way. They are meant to be equalizers, used in encounters with close totals.
Managing your hand is the real mechanic that is necessary to master... you see what cards you have and plan their use accordingly ("I will save this higher card for when I am attacking and take my chances with the lower card when defending")- but you also factor in allies when evaluating your cards ("This is a mid-range card and I will probably need more allies to win if I use it- but who is safe to ask to ally at this stage in the game?")
Finally, the aliens themselves create different dynamics. What you suggest would essentially be impossible to realize. You'd have to have far fewer aliens, and most likely you would need to use the same ones in every game. Having one alien whose ability specifically counters another alien is just not that compelling- again, they'd always need to be in the same games, and what about the other players? There would be no balance between them in this case.
No, what you need to do is get familiar with the aliens. Virus looks, at first glance, like an unbeatable alien. But the reality is that he doesn't win games any more frequently than any other alien. I know, because I've been playing this crazy game since 1982 or so, and with hundreds of games under my belt. We actually spent a summer tracking win/loss with all the aliens to get percentages. Virus gets weaker the longer the game goes on. Anti-Matter is another tough hombre, but when you have a lot of allies and a low card, you can beat him easily enough. He's also slave to what's in his hand. Duke posted a screengrab from Cosmic Online showing an awful starting hand for Anti-Matter. Because his power is mandatory, it "balances" out its strength.
Keep playing it. Use the flares, for crying out loud! They are incredibly useful and add serious depth to the game strategically. Also try playing with two aliens per player. The game gets seriously ratcheted up then!
Are we experiencing the Euroist (as opposed to fundamentalist) cousin of Poe's Law?
Are we experiencing the Euroist (as opposed to fundamentalist) cousin of Poe's Law? :)
You tell me! :laugh:
Ha! If your post was serious then yes, we were.
Although, I did find your comment about Virus to be interesting. On cosmicencounter.com, Virus is often the top alien of the month. This month, Trader happens to be #1, but Virus is #2. There seems to be a discrepancy between your stats and theirs - could this be attributed to the pool of aliens available on CE Online? It could be that the idiotic bots fare badly against virus - any game with less than 4 players has at least one bot - because they're, well, idiots.
Don't get me wrong- I think that Virus is a good alien to have, and it is typically in the top twenty aliens that win (my set has about 200 aliens in it, so top 20 is pretty good). Loser tends to win more than Virus, and so does Anti-Matter in our games. The dynamics of Cosmic Online are definitely different, since they only play with 4 players (which will be a factor, versus 5 or more, which is usually what we have), and they play with only 4 bases to win (we always play 5), and they don't have flares (among other things... moons, double aliens, etc.). As Virus gets weaker in a longer game, I am not surprised it fares better in the 4 colony version.
Flares in particular will add more depth and more strategy to the game, since they act like mini-powers.
Virus wins its share at CE Online, for sure (and for many of the reasons just listed), but it's hardly what anyone would call dominant, especially with experienced players. Virus is also the all-time zap magnet at CEO, which includes two zaps in a mix of only 63 cards. He also gets plagued, force-fielded (hey, I just made up a word!), and EC'd like its going out of fashion. And, like in all versions of Cosmic Encounter, Virus is rarely invited as an ally.
I've said this before many, many times at many, many sites: in a $10,000 winner-take-all, choose-yer-alien game of CE, Virus would not be among my first five choices.
I've said this before many, many times at many, many sites: in a $10,000 winner-take-all, choose-yer-alien game of CE, Virus would not be among my first five choices.
I wasn't sure what to think of this game at first. An area control game where you don't really get to pick your place of attack sounded strange to me... but I ran the idea past my not so strategic wife and she thought it was interesting! So I've been looking into it further.
Your review convinced me I need to try this out, and I might even have to add it to my collection if that opportunity doesn't come along soon
Haha. It's great how he had the attack gate pointing the wrong way.
Although, it does somehow look better that way.
I was wondering why it was some sort of warp gate anyway. I mean, if I have to use the gate to attack red and I have to use the gate to attack green, how is it that red can somehow fly over to me normally, then we attack green together? Wouldn't red have to use the gate to get to me first, then we use the gate to get to green together? And if all aliens have equal access to the gate, why couldn't they just fly a little bit more and get to their destination without the gate. I mean, they would already be halfway there.
The reinforcements should clearly be as strong as the attacks, which should be 99% 10s. And the powers should all be balanced, for example, one alien should have the power to add one to his total; another could have the power to subtract one from the opponent's total; yet another could have the power to swap his attack of 10 with his opponent's (extremely rare) attack of 12. That last one adjusts your advantage by 4, but can only be used in rare circumstances. That's good balancing right there.
Man this game could be awesome if only the right designer came along! :D
Unfortunately, I think CE would lose appeal rather than gain it if it were rigidly balanced in these ways. The point of the design is not really to create a fully balanced environment. The point is for players to judge the lay of the land and adjust for it.
Reinforcements that were valued higher than 2-5 would swing things in a very unbalancing way. They are meant to be equalizers, used in encounters with close totals.
Managing your hand is the real mechanic that is necessary to master... you see what cards you have and plan their use accordingly ("I will save this higher card for when I am attacking and take my chances with the lower card when defending")- but you also factor in allies when evaluating your cards ("This is a mid-range card and I will probably need more allies to win if I use it- but who is safe to ask to ally at this stage in the game?")
Finally, the aliens themselves create different dynamics. What you suggest would essentially be impossible to realize. You'd have to have far fewer aliens, and most likely you would need to use the same ones in every game. Having one alien whose ability specifically counters another alien is just not that compelling- again, they'd always need to be in the same games, and what about the other players? There would be no balance between them in this case.
No, what you need to do is get familiar with the aliens. Virus looks, at first glance, like an unbeatable alien. But the reality is that he doesn't win games any more frequently than any other alien. I know, because I've been playing this crazy game since 1982 or so, and with hundreds of games under my belt. We actually spent a summer tracking win/loss with all the aliens to get percentages. Virus gets weaker the longer the game goes on. Anti-Matter is another tough hombre, but when you have a lot of allies and a low card, you can beat him easily enough. He's also slave to what's in his hand. Duke posted a screengrab from Cosmic Online showing an awful starting hand for Anti-Matter. Because his power is mandatory, it "balances" out its strength.
Keep playing it. Use the flares, for crying out loud! They are incredibly useful and add serious depth to the game strategically. Also try playing with two aliens per player. The game gets seriously ratcheted up then!
I think you are arguing against a comment that was THE perfect example of how some people do not understand sarcasm :DDD
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