Let's Talk About: Alien Frontiers

I consider Troyes, Kingsburg, and Alien Frontiers all in the same neighborhood, although I've never played Alien Frontiers.

Troyes is an absolutely great game. It's really the only straight Euro I would probably say that about. The decisions are more meaty and it feels more replayable than Kingsburg. I've played Troyes 30+ times over the past few years and would always be willing to play it again.

I'm kind of interested in Alien Frontiers but not enough to want another dice game which probably won't be as good as Troyes.

I think I've played this twice, and neither time was impressed by it. It's too long, once a player has 3+ cards their turns take too long to compute, and the area majority aspect feels rigid and tacked on.

I played Alien Frontiers just once. I get it's a good design, it seems balanced, there's lots of choices to make and multiple paths to victory... but I didn't like it. I played a five player game, and it took too long. Maybe it's better with four. Still, after playing, I felt didn't need to play it ever again. Typical of many worker placement games, the best choice is obvious, even with all the ways you can manipulate the dice. There's not enough direct confrontation for me, but it is a euro. It's a good game for sure, but it's not for me.

For the record, I came in a very close second in the game I played.

Applejack wrote: Typical of many worker placement games, the best choice is obvious, even with all the ways you can manipulate the dice. There's not enough direct confrontation for me, but it is a euro.

See, I think the thing about AF is that the direct confrontation is essential. It's not like other WP games in that you're each trying to build your little efficiency engine and using the selections to insert little inefficiencies into the other players' plans. In AF, it's easy for one player to get a killer combo of techs/planets/factions (and/or a lock on the Terraforming space), and it's up to the others to start doing things to break that combo (steal techs, displace them from Terraforming, etc). I think it needs to be played more like a multi-player conquest, king-of-the-hill style game. In practice, I see folks focusing on their own engine, worried about the AP actions, and then eventually coming to a quick loss by whoever gets steamrolling. This is both a fraility and a strength of the design, IMO.

I love Alien Frontiers and definitely see real solid strategies in the game. I've seen victories by more than two points on several occasions and even seen people run away with it.

People don't dispose of their cards often enough, there are some crazy powers that can totally fuck the game up in there and they need to be used. Especially the one that lets you switch any two colonies. Cards in general are powerful, people constantly shuffle through the deck looking for the holographic decoy in our games, that is an awesome card. The expansion that gives everyone their own location (with a slightly modified location for others) is really incredible in opening up the game and I haven't played without it in awhile, that does effect my opinion.

It's way better than Troyes in my mind... if that's any help charlest... but I wasn't a big Troyes fan and I played it after... so who knows. It may not work for you. If you have an iPad don't judge it off the app, while a fun time it does not come anywhere close to showing you what the game can be with a table of cutthroats out there. The more you're willing to make enemies, the better the game is. Troyes does not have that side to it.

Alien Frontiers has a bunch of things going for it. I find the locations where you put your colonies are under valued as well. Everyone likes the extra ship, moving a third space for every two, the cheap moon units, and build ships for cheap... but man that play a card for a cost of one less is way more powerful than most people seem to notice, especially once you lock into a card heavy strategy, same with the location that lets you use two moon units instead of three to place triples for insta-colony, that and a gravity manipulator can be really fucking mean. You can accomplish a fuck of a lot with just a few ships and really fly under the radar.

As a last move try to time it so you play two ships at once (your last two) and dispose of a card or two to move things around. You'll see lots of 3-4 point leads at games end.

I had a copy of Alien Frontiers when it first came out, but it ended up in part of trade in order to get 1st edition Space Hulk (which was obviously the right choice). I really liked the game though and ended up getting in on this last KS for a new copy. Coming back to it has been a somewhat disappointing experience. I still enjoy the game, am happy to play it, and I still think that it's the best dice worker placement game without contest, but I don't know, it's no where near as enjoyable as I remember. I can't really put my finger on it. I've always like the concept of dice worker placement, and when I first played Alien Frontiers, I hadn't played any others. In the time since I parted with it I've played quite a few of them and they've ranged from completely shitty to unbearably boring. It's not like I've played something better.

It's weird. I had this moment playing it last night, watching people puzzle through their turns and it reminded me of Mage Knight, of all things. You've got what you've got to work with this turn, you know what you want to do with it, you just need to figure out how to get there.

Josh Look wrote: You've got what you've got to work with this turn, you know what you want to do with it, you just need to figure out how to get there.

There's some deep Hindu wisdom there. We could all learn from this.

S.