Solo Suggestions

Thanks for the suggestions, and the consensus to stay away from TotAN as a solo game.

jhuntin1 wrote:

At the risk of losing my AT cred, how does Agricola play solo? I had the chance to pick it up for half price at my FLGS and decided to give it a try.

It's good for a few games solo, but not many. Once you've figured out how to survive a full 7 game campaign it lost interest for me: trying to maximise your score based on what cards you get is too much of a tedious analysis chore for me.

I was just on a 3 hour flight from Baltimore to Dallas and I cranked up Hold the Line's Ticonderoga, July 8, 1758 solo on Vassal. The nice thing about Vassal is that I can play it any where even on an airplane or in Matt's case with a 6 week old around. Set up takes no time and the game can be completed in 40 minutes. When I play a tactical war game solo I like playing siege type battles because the defender (in this case the French) are on automatic pilot (basically if British come close enough to shot they shot). I focused on playing the British which have the more difficult role of breaking through a well fortified defense. Due to my poor the tactics the British were slaughtered. Maybe British will do better on flight home.

jhuntin1 wrote:

At the risk of losing my AT cred, how does Agricola play solo? I had the chance to pick it up for half price at my FLGS and decided to give it a try.

No need to play solo, there's a website you can play on online. My friend plays 2-3 games a day. No setup, excellent opponents, and it even tracks your performance.

Mad Dog wrote:

I'd like to hear more about Struggle for the Galactic Empire. Is the game too easy/hard? How long does it take to setup/play?

The game is pretty hard, but I haven't played enough, so it may become easier. Also one of the few games I've played was with possibly the hardest scenario (Second Empire where basically all the galaxy is in chaos except the one system in the center). Set-up is quick enough but the game is long (in the 3-5h range), especially with scenarios with lots of chaos systems as that's what takes most of the time (the upkeep for each chaos unit to see how it reacts).

I made a file to note down all the information so I could play each game in more than one session (it's on BGG's file section for the game). It lengthens setup time as you have to go through each sector and place each unit/system but for me it's the only way to play as I rarely have enough time for a whole game in one go and can't leave it set up.

Overall it's a game where, to me, it doesn't matter so much if I lose or win. It's fun to see how the galaxy evolves, not only through your actions but through what the gamesystem generates. The "AI" is fun because different types of chaos units interact in different ways with other chaos units, and overall the game feels very dynamic. This also makes upkeep longer than in other games, so I can see some people seeing it as a problem too....

BTW, I just tried Frontline D-Day solo and posted about it in another thread: fortressat.com/index.php?option=com_kune...id=12&id=57372#57817

From my experience it is a great solo game, especially when you nee something that plays fast.