Dave Seidner
United States
Willow Grove
Pennsylvania
In another time's forgotten space, your eyes looked through your mother's face. Wildflower seed on the sand and stone, may the four winds blow you safely home.
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So, I picked up a copy of Cyclades recently because it's all the rage and looks cool and seems like it could be fun. I was itching to get a game in and yesterday my friend came over and we decided to give it a go.
After the first few turns, things were going pretty smoothly and we each had 1 Priest card. Then my opponent won Zeus's favor (got another priest card) and used the Dryad (steal opponent's priest card).
Next thing I know, he has 3 priest cards, I have 0. The 3 GP bidding discount that gave my opponent made the game almost impossible to recover from.
That bidding discount allowed my opponent to shut me out of The Gods I needed every turn for the next 7 or 8 turns and he gained another priest almost every time and I regained 1 priest. It eventually got to 8 priests to 1 priest!!! Eventually further 9 to 2 priests.
That's just too much of a distinct advantage in a two player game. How can the other player possibly recover from that?
No one even had a Metropolis yet at this point. With 3 Metropolis' to win, we eventually quit the game thinking this has potential to be great with 4 or 5 players, but just plain sucks with 2.
Yes, the board is tight in a two player game, which is great. But each player getting two bids is kind of weird. Especially since the first bid is random order and it ended up I got the first two bids in a row and he had the final two. It should start random, but alternating.
One swing of luck, being able to capitalize on that Dryad, made the game too much of an uphill battle for me. Just not a whole lot of fun.
Maybe that's the nature of direct conflict games. It's not like I play a whole lot of them. I'm not expecting the game to have cheesey catch-up mechanisms or anything, but I think in a 4 or 5 player game, with each player only allowed to get 1 favor per turn, that situation with the huge priest lead would've never happened. He had enough bidding power to get another priest almost every round AND build up his army or navy. In a multiplayer game, he would have to abandon Zeus a bit if he wanted to continue to build in other areas, giving other players a chance to catch up with priests. But in a 2 player game, he could increase his bidding power AND build his army making it almost impossible for me to do anything of significant value.
I do want to try this again with 4 or 5. I will not be playing it again as a 2 player.
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László Stadler
Hungary
Budapest
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Something like that happened to me as well. Priest cards seem really unbalanced in two player games.
With more players it plays much better.
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Jamie Pollock
Scotland
Edinburgh
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In 2-player, isn't it only one priest-discount per turn rather than getting the discount applied to both bids? You may have already played it this way, but I thought it worth raising.
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This may or may not be true (I haven't really played many games with just 2), but make sure that you play the priests right:
The rules say that each priest give a discount to each of your offerings in 2p. This is an error in translation. They actually only give a discount to the sum of the offerings, and each god is still at least 1GP.
Edit: Jamie got there first, and is correct.
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László Stadler
Hungary
Budapest
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Ok, this may change a bit but it's still too easy to get a lot of priests as Zeus is always available.
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Dave Seidner
United States
Willow Grove
Pennsylvania
In another time's forgotten space, your eyes looked through your mother's face. Wildflower seed on the sand and stone, may the four winds blow you safely home.
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Jambo wrote: In 2-player, isn't it only one priest-discount per turn rather than getting the discount applied to both bids? You may have already played it this way, but I thought it worth raising.
Ok, we did play that incorrectly. Thanks for the clarification. I still want to play this with at least 4 before attempting again with 2 (if I ever do attempt it with 2 again).
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Jamie Pollock
Scotland
Edinburgh
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I must admit it is a really unfortunate piece of translation in the rules.
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Robert
United States
Lebanon
New Hampshire
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I found it excellent with two. Of course, you do not want to let that scenario you describe happen. Ares and Zeus are both excellent choices and Poseidon might be a good alternate choice as well. When you play correctly (in that may only use priests once) then you should be able to avoid having one player get a runaway amount of priests, or, if you let that happen, dwindle that player down on the income by taking trade routes and islands. Cornucopias are worth the same, often cheaper to get, and more flexible than priests!
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Dave Seidner
United States
Willow Grove
Pennsylvania
In another time's forgotten space, your eyes looked through your mother's face. Wildflower seed on the sand and stone, may the four winds blow you safely home.
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RobertDD wrote: I found it excellent with two. Of course, you do not want to let that scenario you describe happen. Ares and Zeus are both excellent choices and Poseidon might be a good alternate choice as well. When you play correctly (in that may only use priests once) then you should be able to avoid having one player get a runaway amount of priests, or, if you let that happen, dwindle that player down on the income by taking trade routes and islands. Cornucopias are worth the same, often cheaper to get, and more flexible than priests!
Only use priests once? I thought it was just explained that the sum of the priest discount can be split between the two bids. My opponent was incorrectly using the full discount for both bids in his turn. Both what you are saying and what the other folks said could be considered a good solution for what we did wrong, but which one is correct? Is it that you can only use the priests for one of the two bids per turn or is it that the sum can be split between the two bids?
I do understand the rest of the game and that cornucopias provide income. The problem is that in our case (and the incorrect way we played) the priest discount became way to overwhelming to reconcile because the player with the discount fully controlled the bids and was not only able to consistantly increase his bid discount but simultaneously increase his army and navy much more rapidly, Granted, this was due to our incorrect way of playing and I am willing to give it another go 2-player, but I still think I'd like to wait until I have at least one 4-player game under my belt. I WANT to like this game and I don't want to risk 2 bad experiences in a row which could possibly turn me off to the game. My hope is that I will appreciate the game more with a 4 or 5 player game, and then try the 2 player again if the opportunity comes up.
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I think we both meant the same thing.
When RobertDD wrote that you can only use priest once, he probably meant that each priests discount can only be used once per turn. This is the same as to say that the priests give discount to the sum of your offerings (with a minimum of 1GP payed per god (except Apollon)). Temples work in the same way, by the way, but for myth creatures.
The first time I tried the game 2p we also made the same mistake, giving me the runaway lead. I then made a thread here asking if Zeus was OP in 2p or if the rulebook was wrong (kind of suspected it). The designer popped by to confirm that the translation was wrong. There have been several threads since then asking the same thing.
A friend of the designer has compiled this useful FAQ:
Cyclades FAQ (reviewed by the designer)
Edit: Take special note of item 9 in the FAQ as it doesn't appear in the rulebook. It's sort of counterintuitive, but slightly balances the endgame (I won't spoil possible strategies and tell you how)
Well, the 2nd game we got it right, and it felt a lot more balanced. My partner still didn't like it, it was too confrontational for her (with only one opponent to attack), and I agree that it's more fun with more players, but I'm sure it can play really well with just 2.
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Dave Seidner
United States
Willow Grove
Pennsylvania
In another time's forgotten space, your eyes looked through your mother's face. Wildflower seed on the sand and stone, may the four winds blow you safely home.
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Thanks for the link, which provided further links. This is completely clear now. I should've looked in the rules forums, but I honestly didn't think we played wrong, I just thought it was poor design for the 2-player version.
I'm glad to hear that many people are pleased with the game as a 2-player game (when played correctly, of course). I feel a little more confident about giving it another 2-player go, but I still want to try it with more first, because it does seem more fun that way.
Thanks to all who chimed in. 
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Dave Seidner
United States
Willow Grove
Pennsylvania
In another time's forgotten space, your eyes looked through your mother's face. Wildflower seed on the sand and stone, may the four winds blow you safely home.
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ironJames wrote:
Edit: Take special note of item 9 in the FAQ as it doesn't appear in the rulebook. It's sort of counterintuitive, but slightly balances the endgame (I won't spoil possible strategies and tell you how)
Thanks for drawing attention to that item as well. I went back and re-read that and it's interesting because in the (incorrect) game we played, Chimera came out first and was never used and ended up in the discard pile. Once the runaway lead occured, I thought that my best play would've been to use the Chimera to regain the Dryad and steal the priest back. But the Chimera was in the discard pile and I wouldn't see it again for a long time, if at all. Had we known that there's an instant reshuffle, I could've gotten lucky if the Chimera came out right away again.
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Cameron Chien
United States
Rancho Cucamonga
California
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Use Apollon. Save your gold, outbid him next turn.
I beat my friend and we were playing that the Priests were a discount on both bids, but because I had so much money I ended up beating him anyhow.
Cameron
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In another time's forgotten space, your eyes looked through your mother's face. Wildflower seed on the sand and stone, may the four winds blow you safely home.
