Mare Nostrum: I hardly knew thee

[This post has been edited. See the explanation here.]

MN on Mon Night

Monday night I brought Mare Nostrum. I knew getting it to the table would be an up-hill battle, but I set out with high hopes nevertheless.

After the appetizer of To Court the King, the group was deciding what to play next. Optimistically, I offered Mare Nostrum + expansion.

All-in-all, there was a lot of eye motion, fidgeting, and mumbling. Some rolled their eyes (in exasperation?); others averted their eyes (in embarrassment?); still others closed their eyes (but I think that guy was just sleeping...). Some one mumbled something about having played in the last year. Several others mumbled similar sentiments.

Some one raised the complaint that the last turn of the last game of MN took longer than 3 games of Race for the Galaxy. This statement is wild hyperbole, but it is true the last few turns took a long time.

Summarizing fidgeting, eye-motion, and accusations, Mare Nostrum was not played Monday evening.

MN in context

Extrapolating the furtiveness (to say nothing of direct challenges...), I do not see Mare Nostrum getting back to the table any time soon.

To be fair, I cannot blame anyone. A mighty river of games flows through the SABG, and any game showing the slightest flaw deserves to be quickly washed downstream to the math-trade delta. Why bother to play a game w/ any flaw when the world is saturated with untried games?

Our last game of MN took about ~4 hrs, and it had a...let me say "strange" ending. Speaking for myself, I enjoyed the last game quite a bit despite some issues. As Atlantis, I managed to build up my empire w/o being seriously attacked. There were land attacks, sea attacks, gods, trading, and more. MN provides some civ-like aspects, some military aspects, some diplomacy, some trading. There's some "attack the leader," but it's mitigated by the fact that a wonder/hero never goes away. To cap it all off, the different players have significantly different abilities. This kind of asymmetry is great when it is balanced, and MN seems to be reasonably well balanced.

While it took a while, it was also a learning game for almost everyone. I tried a variant to speed things up, but it was untested and caused a lot of confusion. People claim once the game is well known to the players it takes about 2-3 hours while still offering an epic, civ-like feeling.

While I enjoyed it a lot, it's true the game has some flaws. The ending can be strange, the trading mechanic is weird. I hear that a bad player can wreck the whole game, although in our one play that wasn't the case, IMO.

Woe is me

I enjoyed the game. A lot.

Those who didn't like the game have moved on to others.

Alas, it requires at least 4 players, and preferably 5-6. I doubt I will be able to muster this number ever again.

I suspect it will molder in my closet until I break down and consent to a trade.

Of such bitter moments is life built.

The King is dead; long live the King

Luckily, what the SABG taketh away, they also give. I doubt I can get this back to the table, but I know that many other games await me. Before Mon, I had never even heard of Fast Food, and it turned out to be a lot of fun.

Anyone want to play Combat Commander? I still want to try Thurn and Taxis. Then there's my (soon to be) painted BL set. Then there's the latest civ game out there: Through The Ages.

Summing up, I am left with but two parting words:

Game on!

War of the Ring, Jul 1, 2007

Steve and I met again to roll out War of the Ring (with expansion) at Dragon's Lair. For a change, we had the store completely to ourselves, and the pristine quiet of the surroundings enabled us to focus closely on the task at hand.

We rolled for sides, and Steve took the Free People. Remembering our last game where Steve successfully rushed the Fellowship to a ring victory, I suspected Steve would push them hard once again. I was correct and almost before I knew it Steve had them on the other side of Moria. I mounted the Witch King up on a Nazgul beast and sent him and his boys to go hunt. Gandalf the Grey died quickly, and a long series of successful hunt rolls and draws shot the Fellowship up to 8 corruption. (Cue evil laughter)

On the military front, I focused everything on Saruman. I took Helms Deep almost without a fight and was about to sweep up the rest of Rohan, when almost out of nowhere Steve played card combos and dice to bloom a huge Rohan army in Edoras. I kept Helms Deep, but he beat my main force all the way back to Orthanc. The crowned Aragorn rode up to join in the final assault. I hatched wolf riders like mad along with Hillmen to fortify Saruman. Steve launched three full assaults (using two cards) of Ents upon Orthanc, eventually killing Saruman. Luckily I was able to muster a garrison before he was able to claim my stronghold (i.e., we truly battled to the last man), but the power of the White Hand was gone. Argh!

Steve and I continued to trade body blow for body blow for the rest of the game. I took Minas Tirith and finally cleaned out Rohan. He took Dol Guldur, which I eventually reclaimed. I moved up to squash the Wooden Realm, but it was all taking far too long.... Steve had parked the Fellowship in Dale and healed them from 8 corruption all the way down to 1, then shot them down to Mordor in just a few turns. I hit him a few more times, but that little bugger Smeagol helped him more than once, as did Galadriel. Alas, though I was perhaps two turns from taking Dol Amroth and the Wooden Realm to win, Steve dunked the ring quite handily.

What a crazy, tough game that was! We totally beat the snot out of each other the entire game, killing off a good portion of the game's pieces and burning through most of the cards. I think we are both at the level of play now where every game is going to be a very brutal cage match. We were both on the edge of our seats the entire game, and by the end of the game I felt I had been on a 4 hour roller coaster ride.

In the end, I failed to close the deal quickly enough which will always be one's undoing in WotR. I had Steve on the ropes early where he positively couldn't afford to move the Fellowship. Knowing this, I should have totally switched over to military mode. Instead I continued to put dice aside for the hunt, though it was very unlikely he'd move. Steve played an excellent game all the way around, and I'm going to have to work very hard to reclaim the victory laurels.

We followed this game with Zooloretto and Colosseum, both of which Jon ran away with. Zooloretto is still a very light tasty snack, and Colosseum I'm not quite sure about... Right now I'd say it too is in the light, fun category, but I was never that excited while playing it. Perhaps that was due to it following the most taxing game of WotR ever, so I'm reserving final judgement.

BattleLore

1. Call to Arms looks pretty darn cool. I've read through it a bit, but I haven't gotten to try it out yet.


2. I need to play again soon.


3. Did y'all see that you can now buy the epic battles expansion? I think I might just give those guys my credit card. Give me one of everything, and two if it's really cool.
   
4. I need to play again soon.


5. Have y'all been following the controversy about the cleric lore cards? Check it out. I don't see much of a problem. I explain my position at the end of that thread, but I'll repeat it here in a nutshell. I think the cards are fine (almost). They can theoretically do a lot of damage, but it's diffuse. That's a key point because in C&C a unit battles at full strength until it is gone. Where I have a minor, very minor, problem is that you have that tiny, tiny chance of a huge impact. If I went w/ a house rule, it would be that no unit may take more than 2 figures of damage. This would nicely limit the max damage while still rewarding a high level cleric.


6. I really need to play soon.


7. Once I realized the cleric direct damage cards were diffuse, I concluded a high level cleric wasn't such a good bet. All the other cards are expensive, and you might not even get the cards in question.


8. Did I mention I want to play again soon?