Hyperborea

Space Ghost wrote:

charlest wrote:
After release, a user realized you can keep your cubes out on multiple techs to thin the bag. This isn't a huge issue except for one particular strategy which is too powerful. They since errata'd to remove the rule which makes it slightly harsher to newbies but makes the game function as originally intended.

You would think that this would be super obvious to anyone working with deckbuilding/dicebuilding/cubebuilding. Thinning and increased draws are the most dominant strategy in any of these games -- have been since the early days of MtG.

If I understand correctly, the problem itself is not the thinning, it's one strategy focused around re-entering cities to get their benefit. Thinning allows you to do this as the Refresh is when you get kicked out of a city (or can reactivate the city). Otherwise, the thinning doesn't matter much in terms of balance.

charlest wrote:

Space Ghost wrote:

charlest wrote:
After release, a user realized you can keep your cubes out on multiple techs to thin the bag. This isn't a huge issue except for one particular strategy which is too powerful. They since errata'd to remove the rule which makes it slightly harsher to newbies but makes the game function as originally intended.

You would think that this would be super obvious to anyone working with deckbuilding/dicebuilding/cubebuilding. Thinning and increased draws are the most dominant strategy in any of these games -- have been since the early days of MtG.

If I understand correctly, the problem itself is not the thinning, it's one strategy focused around re-entering cities to get their benefit. Thinning allows you to do this as the Refresh is when you get kicked out of a city (or can reactivate the city). Otherwise, the thinning doesn't matter much in terms of balance.

My point was that any game that allows thinning usually has a dominant strategy that is facilitated by the thinning. Just like this -- without the thinning the re-entering wouldn't be possible.

Seriously, we see this in everything that allows deck manipulation.

So is this the Hyperborea Hammer?

Space Ghost wrote:

charlest wrote:

Space Ghost wrote:

charlest wrote:
After release, a user realized you can keep your cubes out on multiple techs to thin the bag. This isn't a huge issue except for one particular strategy which is too powerful. They since errata'd to remove the rule which makes it slightly harsher to newbies but makes the game function as originally intended.

You would think that this would be super obvious to anyone working with deckbuilding/dicebuilding/cubebuilding. Thinning and increased draws are the most dominant strategy in any of these games -- have been since the early days of MtG.

If I understand correctly, the problem itself is not the thinning, it's one strategy focused around re-entering cities to get their benefit. Thinning allows you to do this as the Refresh is when you get kicked out of a city (or can reactivate the city). Otherwise, the thinning doesn't matter much in terms of balance.

My point was that any game that allows thinning usually has a dominant strategy that is facilitated by the thinning. Just like this -- without the thinning the re-entering wouldn't be possible.

Seriously, we see this in everything that allows deck manipulation.

I'm not trying to argue but I guess it seemed like you were saying, "duh, they should have caught that because deck thinning always leads to a dominant strategy."

I don't think that's exactly true. It's not dominant in Mage Knight or in Arctic Scavengers. It depends on how the bag works really. For instance, say to Refresh you had to spend a turn "pulling back" your cubes (like when you pull back workers in The Manhattan Project, then thinning would not be good at all, in fact it would be bad.

Well, I meant thinning and cycling are generally the two most dominant strategies in deckbuilding games. It isn't that these are the optimal strategies, it is just that they are usually up there with the most profitable paths to victory.

I think there are some strategies in Mage Knight that are very well benefited from cycling through your deck. I also think that there is simplistic strategies in Arctic Scavengers about when and how many things to throw back in the Junkyard.


To test potential rules holes, designers should just give their game to a bunch of MtG players and see if they can exploit anything that wasn't meant to be exploited.

So this arrived today and I can see why it's so goddamn expensive. There's around 80 miniatures (7 sculpts) which are of ok quality and nothing special, but there's a huge stack of hexes, tons of cubes, 6 cloth bags of decent qualities, acrylic gems, a mound of tokens, and thick player boards.

I was a little surprised by how many hexes there are, maybe more than Eclipse. This wouldn't have been $100 MSRP five years ago but nowadays this is unfortunately right in line.

The artwork is pretty gorgeous. I really dig the clean graphic design on the player boards, tokens, and cards. Reminds me of Kemet for some reason, although it's thematically very different.

Looking forward to playing on Wednesday.

I look forward to hearing about this...your Thursday morning report is eagerly awaited.

Yeah, I got it in yesterday too...it looks really good, but I predict that the dudebro Ameritrasher crybabies will give it the same reception that Eclipse got, but replace all instances of "TI3" with "Runewars".

There are some really fun-looking concepts...I like the look of how development works, filling up "meters" to buy cubes and having a decision to hold for a couple of advancements to double up. Killing ghosts (do what now) looks like really just a way to do neutrals, but the light tomb-raiding adds just enough of an adventure angle. Components look great, tons of Euroglyphics but it's clean-looking and modern.

My main concern is if it can deliver on the 25 minutes per player claim...if that's the case, this could be a really good one. If it turns into 3, 4 hours...I dunno.

Also, armored mastodons.

Yes, love the technology cards. I'm a huge fan of the Eclipse "a small portion of technologies at at time" thing as opposed to huge tech trees that can be cumbersome to maneuver and decipher for new players. It's also a great way to add variety as you won't see every tech every game.

I can see this playing extremely fast if everyone gets their shit together. Since you know your options in advance (draw cubes at end of turn instead of beginning) you should have a good idea of what you are going to do when it comes around. The game also has that easy to play factor that Eclipse has, in that combat is simple to figure out, movement is pretty free and simple, and choices are streamlined. It doesn't look like one of those games where you go to pull it out and realize you haven't read the rules in forever so you can't actually play it. Should be easy to pick back up.

Michael Barnes wrote: Also, armored mastodons.

Fuck. I'm in.