Game 1: Base game + Captain of the Guard
Game 2: Base game + Captain of the Guard
Enthusiasm: ❤️❤️❤️❤️
- To me, this game has a wonderful mix of strategy and luck, although luck is a fairly strong aspect. The luck isn’t quite as strong as in a game like Galaxy Trucker, and there are ways to mitigate bad luck (although it generally costs actions to do so), but some bad luck can easily knock a player from first place to last. This does, however, mean that players also need to laugh at themselves when things blow up in the not-so-obvious push-your-luck aspect of the game.
- Building on this, I do appreciate that there’s a built-in catch-up mechanism in the game, where players who are “further ahead” are hit harder, so that players who are further behind always have the chance to catch up.
- The plastic walls and figures are, in classic Kickstarter fashion, excessive, but also manage to add a lot of playfulness to the game.
- The action economy is tight. You can never do as much as you’d like, so that’s something to always keep in mind.
- Due to the variety of refugee and building cards, the game ends up being more tactical than strategic because you can never count on the cards you need for your strategy showing up.
- It’s very, very easy to spend your victory points (since they’re also gold). It’s a double-edged sword, since sometimes you want to go down on the victory track on purpose, but it’s also really easy to knock yourself back too far.