Giles Pritchard
Australia
Shepparton
Victoria
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Well, I’ve played several solo games of Origins: How We Became Human. Initialy it was to work out the rules so I could teach it - now I am quite enjoying it, and I never really saw myself as playing anything solo.
My first solo game I managed 5 points, my second I went well and managed 20. This time I managed 28 points - which I am thrilled with. I have to give some caveats though - I didn't use the solo rule that I needed to roll against metallurgy to move into another continent, I was playing as Homo Floreniensis, and was worried this rule would really affect that species more than the others. For me the first point of action was to run as quickly as possible to Asia before a climactic event raised the sea-level, stranding the poor Floreniensis until the wheels of fate brought the ice creeping back again.
This game was a real struggle - I was almost forced through ‘Age I’ as the cards I was pulling freed my brain map up very quickly and I was desperately struggling to make any headway on the Infrastructure tracks. Finally I managed to Domesticate the Yak and gain Energy 1, and I was hoping for a disease vector animal to increase my immunology, but it was not to be. So with very little infrastructure my little Homo Floreniensis arrived in the Dark Age of Era II - struggling to rise above their bicameral minds.
So I was at the beginning of Era II, near no Infrastructure, no cards in my Repertoire... things started to go right, though I was really struggling to increase my immunology and metallurgy I was going well with everything else. A little way along and I was starting to really hum - little Homo Floreniensis' were setting up communities all over the Old World. I was still struggling to increase either Metallurgy or Immunology, but all my other areas were moving really well. I got the resource domestication cards and decided, what the hell - I'll give this a shot - see if I can manage to domesticate bio-fuel in Spain, I had two cards that would allow me to do and needed basically to roll a 6 on either one. In the second attempt I rolled the golden number - Energy level 2! This was a bit of a turning point as it gave me an extra card for my repertoire, which in turn led to me finally increasing my immunology and metallurgy. I rose from the Dark Age and into the Golden Age. Tough going initially was starting to make way for some very nice social and technological development. Setting up Metropolis’ through domesticating plants, animals, silver and tin I also managed to really increase my elder pool. Comfortable with where I was at I moved into Era III
Then disaster struck. Chaos before I was ready for it - and with no fecundity decrease cards in hand. Fool! Why had I used them! My population grew massively and my Innovation was swiftly shrinking. This was a real dark age, I had 5 failed Chaos rolls over about 7 turns - I went from having units across Asia, Australia, Europe and Africa to having only 1 Metropolis. I had an innovation of 1 and was desperately pulling cards to get fecundity decreases. Over about 8 turns and with a series of lucky card draws and dice rolls I managed to get my population back under control. Phew - I hadn’t wiped myself out, now to slowly build back up again. If I was careful I could slowly move units between the Innovation, Population and Board in order to spread out again. I started to domesticate again to gain Metropolis’; very slowly I began to claw some semblance of control back into the game. However, I was worried - I had hit some pretty high marks on the Infrastructure track and hadn’t been able to capitalise by buying cards for my repertoire (the main source of points). Technically I had enough to end the game, but wouldn’t be scoring very well. Then I sort of hit lucky - I had managed to increase my elder pool through urbanisation and card play - and then it happened: a card that allowed me to increase my Maritime infrastructure. I hit a chain, but all the public cards I was drawing wouldn’t really score me points - I bought them anyway, knowing I wouldn’t have a chance to get many more - the public card I drew gave my population a disease, but this increased their immunology giving me a chance at another public card. My population actions exhausted my population track so my footprint increased - another public card. Finally my little Homo Floreniensis had a revolution - overthrowing a system of Social Equity for one of National Unity and all the public cards I had been buying were finally worth something in points!
Well, it was a long struggle, but I managed to survive very close disaster and come out with my best solo score so far.
Excellent game. I really enjoy the epic scope and narrative style of game-play. Well worth playing - and if you do get it, I really suggest checking out the solo rules and giving those a shot. I know the game better now than I did after reading the rules, and teaching it will be much easier. This is a game that you need to know how to set your bearings and go with - without knowing your bearings it’s easy to get lost. The solo game is well worth the effort - great fun!
Cheers,
Giles.
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Eric Phillips
United States
Fort Wayne
Indiana
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caradoc wrote: Finally I managed to Domesticate the Yak...
...and nothing was ever the same again.
I've just read the back of the box so far, but that might be the weirdest back-of-box I've ever seen. 'Course, I haven't really looked at Duck Dealer yet.
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Giles Pritchard
Australia
Shepparton
Victoria
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Fortuna wrote: caradoc wrote: Finally I managed to Domesticate the Yak... ...and nothing was ever the same again. I've just read the back of the box so far, but that might be the weirdest back-of-box I've ever seen. 'Course, I haven't really looked at Duck Dealer yet.
Man, the Yak was easy to domesticate. It was the giant megafauna diprotodon that was tough! Seriously though - it is amusing the animals you can domesticate. Elephant Birds actually make quite good cavalry animals!
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Dan Raspler
United States
New York
New York
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Sounds like a great session.
I just finished the book that inspired Eklund to design Origins: Guns, Germs and Steel, by Jared Diamond. If you enjoy the game you owe to yourself to read the source material.
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Was George Orwell an Optimist?
Spain
Corvallis
Oregon
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Dan R. wrote: I just finished the book that inspired Eklund to design Origins: Guns, Germs and Steel, by Jared Diamond.
Outstanding book. I haven't got the game to the table yet, but hope to before too much longer.
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Todd Bowdish
United States
Blue Springs
Missouri
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I would recommend "Guns, Germs and Steel" also. A very good read.
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Ethan McKinney
United States
El Segundo
California
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If you want to know more about what can go wrong, read his "Collapse."
Summary: deforestation is bad.
Really bad.
Really, really bad!
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John Douglass
United States
Phoenix
Arizona
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Great session report, what a fun read. Thanks so much for writing this up.
I was right there with you through it all. I know what it feels like to get that "6" when its the only chance you have in saving your species... and to fall into a mind-numbing chaos while barbarians are knocking on the door.
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Phil Eklund
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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Quote: I've just read the back of the box so far, but that might be the weirdest back-of-box I've ever seen.
The arrogant and narcissistic vainglory of a game designer who would put his own portrait five times on the box!
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Wulf Corbett
Scotland
Shotts
Lanarkshire
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phileklund wrote: The arrogant and narcissistic vainglory of a game designer who would put his own portrait five times on the box! Some of the pictures taken as early as 5:30 am...
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Doug Acker
United States
Hartwell
Georgia
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Jaynes and Diamond described
I understand that the author was inspired by Diamond's wonderful Guns Germs and Steel and Julian Jaynes' brilliant The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.
Jaynes argues from brain physiology and ancient sources that before the great migratory crisis of the 2nd millennium BC humans were not self-conscious. They could not choose behaviors by moving little mental models of themselves through actions and consequences. Instead they used a now-dormant area of the brain to generate auditory hallucinations based on what they heard repeated by elders.
According to Jaynes, before the breakdown we saw a dog with food and heard a voice in our head saying "let sleeping dogs lie." After, we imagined ourselves touching the dog, the dog waking and biting us.
Diamond argues that Europeans and middle-easterners own the world because we started out in a place that had the grains and draft animals that were the most easily domesticated, and the most productive. The domestic animals gave us not only power, but exposed us to diseases so that we could develop resistance to them.
I cannot do justice to these amazing works, but they seem essential to the conceptualization of the game so I give my 2 cents worth.
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