Thanks for the review of Guild Master. I hope folks won’t begrudge a few clarifications and counterpoints to some of the aspects raised given the audience size for this video. Guild Master is published by Good Games Publishing, and bears no relation to The King’s Guild by Mirrorbox Games. No game is for everyone. Guild Master was the top game of 2020 for several reviewers (Hungry Gamers, Nerds of the West, Tony’s RTDN Squirrely Award) and has been well reviewed or rated by a number of other reviewers. So the mix of mechanisms in the game certainly appeals to some gamers. That still might be you! I’d like to address some of the criticisms, which inevitably have counterpoints viewers might also consider. RULES ARE TOO LONG. The quick start guide explains a default 4 player games Round 1 plays and steps and teaches you as you go. It’s clearly optional. That style of learning certainly doesn’t suit everyone. However, even if you don’t use it as intended, it’s there for the rules explainer to read ahead of time. One person’s over-explained rulebook is another person’s comprehensive rulebook. 60+ images explain the text as clearly as possible, and this takes up some room. Nevertheless, long rules are an understandable barrier to some. We’re working on it. GAME IS TOO LONG AND SLOW You can play 6 or 9 rounds to suit your player’s tastes or time. Like many mid-weight games with many options to consider, it’s slower when there are any newer players playing. MISSING OUT ON THINGS IS TOO PUNISHING You absolutely don’t want to miss out on getting what you want from your orders, but you will likely miss out on 2 to 5 of your 25ish orders per game, as that is the fundamental structure of the game - you rarely get everything you want. Wandering is not great, by design. This is designed to incentivise you to plan your orders as cunningly as possible based on what other players likely also want. In the early game you really need to plan around your Private Contracts carefully - ie the team in Order 2 has more risk of missing out, so assign a team that can attempt a Private Contract in Order 2 if possible. If not, consider re-sequencing your orders to minimise the risk of having to Wander at all. It should never be a surprise that your team can’t do one of your own private contracts half way through resolving a turn. This is an intentional part of the game's secret planning tension and provides room for mastery. Recruiting adventurers with a wider range of skills than the 4 you start with makes falling back on Private Contracts, rather than Wandering when you miss out, much easier. But this might not be immediately obvious. It was our experience in development that if we eased up and lowered the tension around planning and risk, then players would play with less care and consideration of others' likely moves. The delicious drama of the reveals other reviewers love wasn't there. On a player’s first game or 2, they may not appreciate the importance of careful planning against rivals' likely moves well enough, despite it being repeated in the rules tips and strategy guide. But soon enough patterns emerge that the savvy gamer should be able to observe and use to plan and sequence their orders better. Eg If a player Upgrades their Guild’s Stable or Mess Hall in Round 1, they are very likely to Recruit a new adventurer in Round 2 to leverage that upgrade. If they Recruited an Adept adventurer in Round 1, they are very likely to either Upgrade their Guild (likely Stables or Mess HALL II) in Round 2, or attempt to recruit Adventurer E, in Round 2 IF they did well enough to still have 7 gold. If they are the ONLY player who still has 7 Gold in Round 2, they are only likely to do that as their 2nd order, and you can plan accordingly. There are starting contracts everyone is capable of going for in Round 1 with their best team’s 4 skill dice & some dice mitigation - giving them an almost guaranteed good first round contract, and decent income from it. And you start with 2 drafted private contracts you can attempt if something goes wrong or you would like to take some risks with some tricky sequencing. So, did you sequence your orders well enough to minimise the risk of having to Wander, while getting enough of what you want? Because that’s THE GAME. If reading other players’ likely moves without 100% certainty, in order to plan out your orders across the risk / reward spectrum frustrates you more than it tantalises you, then Guild Master may be too tense or frustrating for you. But if you like the tension from, and the requirement for cunning sequencing then you are more likely to enjoy it. THE RICH GET RICHER The Adventurer recruitment power curve is designed to expand the recruitment options available to players, allowing trailing players to more safely recruit Adepts if they miss out early. More costly and powerful Adventurers are certainly attractive and efficient. But you can still win the game with lots of lower level Adventurers and an upgraded Mess Hall allowing you to pit 3 or 4 Adepts and Novices against 2 higher level Adventurers if needed. And this usually gets you a wider range of skills in your Guild to attempt private contracts with, and more Adventurer abilities than your rivals. Also a player who does go for the power curve of recruiting an Adept in Round 1, and a Hero in Round 2 will certainly not have enough Gold to also upgrade their Guild to expand their Orders. Leaving them with just 2 orders, and 4 Adventurers they can use and 2 Adventures they cannot use in Round 3. Other players who upgraded their Guild instead are still likely to be able to earn more income or attempt 3 orders a round with their adventurers from Round 3. The power recruiter will absolutely feel that action efficiency burn unless they immediately use an Order to upgrade their own Guild on Round 3 so they can do more on Round 4. With all that spending on recruitment in Round 1 & 2, they won’t be rich, and will need to Hire Builders in their first Order space to ensure they can afford the Upgrades. In that time the other Guilds will likely also be ready to recruit Heroes too if they choose. On the flipside, if you focus too much on hiring builders to upgrade your Guild, your Guild will feel hollow, unable to make full use of your capacity until you recruit a few more adventurers. So strong advancement in one area of the game often comes at an opportunity cost of advancement in another area. Balance is important. Again, that might not be obvious to all players in 2 plays. Regarding Guild Upgrades (Buildings) - Getting priority for hiring Builders when there are rival teams trying to do so in the same Order is determined by a contested skill check between the teams… not by whoever has the most money there, as described in the review. This way poorer players still have an option to get upgrades cheap and force their rivals to spend more. Also you don’t ‘beat people’ to Guild upgrades for any but the unique level III buildings & end of game Prestige Upgrades that weren’t discussed (of which there are 6). Even when you don't Hire Builders first, other buildings / upgrades just get a few gold more expensive for those who purchase them later in the round than rivals. It’s hard to say exactly, but if this was played incorrectly that obviously may have affected the trailing player’s experience. If going later in a round would potentially make buying upgrades so expensive you cannot afford the ones you want, then you either need to prioritise a high powered team to hire builders in your Order 1, (to increase the chance you will get them cheapest), or do something else this round and come back when there is lower competition for them. When you do unlock your 3rd or perhaps 4th order space, you learn to order teams there to aim for lower demand objectives, or ones you know no other rival can attempt. Eg recruit another low level Adept, or one no-one else has enough money to afford. Do a low level public or private contract, or a high level contract with a Skill your rivals aren’t great at. Or just hire builders late if you are flooded with money and can afford the risk of some potential extra expense this round. FALLING BEHIND & CATCHUP MECHANISMS It is important to ensure a careful balance between the numbers of Adventurers you recruit and upgrading your Guild to leverage them. If you do that well you should be able to catch up to someone who might have pulled ahead a bit. Players who don’t do so will feel the pressure until they do. About 48 of the 95 Contract cards have direct or oblique catchup mechanisms, some of them intentionally strong. A few of the Adventurers do too. Table politics is important. Players should all be trying to reign in the leader on the Fame track with Contract and Adventurer abilities. Some bribery may be needed to sweeten the deal and that’s all legit. Trailing players can also make agreements to coordinate their order sequencing to cooperate at more lucrative Contracts to earn higher fame rewards that help them catch up with the leader. Eventually they need to win Contracts at the leader’s expense… and this can play out in fun ways in the prisoner's dilemma aspect of Contract contests touched on only briefly here. Anyway thanks again for the review! It's obviously disappointing your group didn’t enjoy this one. But hopefully I’ve clarified a few issues, and shown that there are strategies to deal with some of the game's intentional challenges. And for those of your audience that likes hidden & sequenced planning with cunning consideration of potential risks and rewards, then Guild Master is hopefully worth a closer look.
@@warpaint9385 Not trying to change Tom's mind. This is more for the viewers that like to delve deeper into the comments. Tom didn't get what he expected from Unfair, but he did from Funfair and likes that a lot. More his style of game! To each their own :)
@@warpaint9385 Yeah its there very deliberately as a catchup mechanism in a mid weight engine building game in a lovingly cynical themepark setting. Funfair is the rose coloured glasses view of running a themepark. Some people prefer one, some the other. No game is for everyone and we are just glad that some people love both.
@@warpaint9385 ...and the same is true of Guild Master. It has been very highly rated by numerous reviewers. They loved it for good reasons, Tom didn't. And that's OK.
I’ve played this twice at 3 and I have enjoyed it each time. It is definitely a game where you have try to set your self up to have back up plans with your groups if someone takes the action you want. But that’s what’s great about the game honestly. Also really like that you can choose to go against or team up with people on missions when you clash at those spots. Adds to the theme for me honestly and is a cool mechanism. The rule oil isn’t horrible but it isn’t the best either I will admit.
There is definitely a lot of stuff going on, but that means it requires some mastery for it to flow properly. It's a negotiation game where you have to watch what everyone else wants to do. I agree it can be a long haul though.
This game is loads of fun! Have yet to try with more than 2, but still, the slog concern seems more like a group thing. You reveal orders/plans, see if there are any conflicts, and you multithread from there. No need to go all sequential, because yes if you do, it will take more time. No surprises there. The rulebook (beside being square which is not ideal) is really not as bad as Tom makes it seems either. Just like in a lot of game, you hope for things to go well, but you plan in case they go wrong. Like he mentionned, the player interaction / snatching stuff before others is kinda the deal of the game. To each his own I guess! Edit : To be fair, the ribbon is kinda weird :P
Wasn’t the best review in my opinion. You started it by saying it’s a sequel to a game it’s not (I know you’ve said sorry but it still affects the review). Then you didn’t go over how the cooperate or conflict works at all, so if you do go for the same thing as someone else and they decide to go conflict against you, they’re making their chances at succeeding much lower by adding their total amount of dice rolling to the amount they need to roll. You also mentioned in your review how once you’re on a roll you can start doing things before everyone else, but you’ll have less money to do them so you won’t be doing those things anyway. It just felt like you wanted to bash on the game for having a large rule book that mainly goes over examples to avoid confusion in most areas.
I actually enjoyed this quite a bit. And I disagree with the wandering comments. I always set my groups so if I dont get what I placed for I can wander effectively, even getting VP from the building action. Also a rules correction, ties for builders are not broken by money placed it's broken by a skill contest.
The game is good at less than 4, rulebook isn't that bad, no weird rules. just look for someone to put up a summary. They should have emphasized all that can be done simultaneously for me. 8/10
Aahh man! I also really wanted this to be a great game, I really love "The King's Guild" and this should have been the next step of goodness. Thank you for this review because I would have purchased this game blindly based on TKG, you have saved me a lot of heartache.
Well this is frustrating. I REALLY wanted to like this game. I really like the art. The box art is awesome for drawing people (or at least me) into. Full disclosure though. I have never gotten this game to the table yet. I've never even gotten fully through the rules. I have come to realize that this would by no means be the most complicated game I would have ever played, but definitely seems to have more moving parts than it needs. Without even playing it myself, I'm still confident I could agree with most everything Tom said about the game experience, had I experienced it myself. So disappointing b/c I was so pumped about the prospect of this game and it's theme. Also, if the game really would produce as much of a gap between first place and last as Tom described, I know I would have HATED this game. I've always hated games that basically gratuitously punish or further penalize those that fall behind via the mechanics and flow of the game.
The last game i played with new players had all 3 players tied at 112 points. Its filled with catchup mechanisms in cards and in table politics. As long as you understand the fundamentals of planning carefully and expanding your guild in a reasonably balanced way to manage your growth (see my extensive comments above). Given that you have it already, I urge you to try it yourself a few times at different player counts without prejudice... and let us know what you think then.
@@GoodGamesPublishing I'm definitely still 'game' to do so. Frustratingly, I'm currently playing with a couple players that are extremely 'conflict averse' in their game personalities. It's frustrating because it limits our game options. I fear Guild Master may fall into that category. I'll make a real effort to try it with my wife first.
@@Soccer67 Awesome. Mastery in Guild Master is working out your best chance of avoiding conflict if you don't want it, or trying to make it happen in the rare instances you do. Most people don't go out of their way to conflict with each other. However in the last round or 2 you might need to step it up a bit. But most of the game is about prediction and negotiation. You can even negotiate with other players about where you should both go and bribe them one way or another if you like, so everyone gets something... with the risk that other players may cotton onto your plans. Even when 2 or 3 of you turn up to the same contract at the same time, the game incentivises cooperation more than conflict. Only bad negotiations or human greed early game, or the need to score points at a leaders expense late game would make players conflict typically. Also if you do Tabletopia games online we would be happy to teach you :)
As soon as saw it was a game that had that idea of trying to do something at the same time as someone else and you can get beat out I knew it was not for me. By far one of my most disliked mechanisms. Its why I hate super motherload and wreck raiders. I just really dislike "public contracts" in euro style games. It's not fun to be set so far back with little or no compensation just because you and someone else have similar strategies
Actual proof of how a bloated rulebook can ruin a board game. Just play Marco Polo or Marco Polo II: In the Service of the Khan, instead. This is a hard pass. Bye.
Thanks for the review of Guild Master. I hope folks won’t begrudge a few clarifications and counterpoints to some of the aspects raised given the audience size for this video.
Guild Master is published by Good Games Publishing, and bears no relation to The King’s Guild by Mirrorbox Games.
No game is for everyone. Guild Master was the top game of 2020 for several reviewers (Hungry Gamers, Nerds of the West, Tony’s RTDN Squirrely Award) and has been well reviewed or rated by a number of other reviewers. So the mix of mechanisms in the game certainly appeals to some gamers. That still might be you!
I’d like to address some of the criticisms, which inevitably have counterpoints viewers might also consider.
RULES ARE TOO LONG.
The quick start guide explains a default 4 player games Round 1 plays and steps and teaches you as you go. It’s clearly optional. That style of learning certainly doesn’t suit everyone. However, even if you don’t use it as intended, it’s there for the rules explainer to read ahead of time.
One person’s over-explained rulebook is another person’s comprehensive rulebook. 60+ images explain the text as clearly as possible, and this takes up some room. Nevertheless, long rules are an understandable barrier to some. We’re working on it.
GAME IS TOO LONG AND SLOW
You can play 6 or 9 rounds to suit your player’s tastes or time.
Like many mid-weight games with many options to consider, it’s slower when there are any newer players playing.
MISSING OUT ON THINGS IS TOO PUNISHING
You absolutely don’t want to miss out on getting what you want from your orders, but you will likely miss out on 2 to 5 of your 25ish orders per game, as that is the fundamental structure of the game - you rarely get everything you want.
Wandering is not great, by design. This is designed to incentivise you to plan your orders as cunningly as possible based on what other players likely also want. In the early game you really need to plan around your Private Contracts carefully - ie the team in Order 2 has more risk of missing out, so assign a team that can attempt a Private Contract in Order 2 if possible. If not, consider re-sequencing your orders to minimise the risk of having to Wander at all. It should never be a surprise that your team can’t do one of your own private contracts half way through resolving a turn. This is an intentional part of the game's secret planning tension and provides room for mastery.
Recruiting adventurers with a wider range of skills than the 4 you start with makes falling back on Private Contracts, rather than Wandering when you miss out, much easier. But this might not be immediately obvious.
It was our experience in development that if we eased up and lowered the tension around planning and risk, then players would play with less care and consideration of others' likely moves. The delicious drama of the reveals other reviewers love wasn't there.
On a player’s first game or 2, they may not appreciate the importance of careful planning against rivals' likely moves well enough, despite it being repeated in the rules tips and strategy guide.
But soon enough patterns emerge that the savvy gamer should be able to observe and use to plan and sequence their orders better.
Eg If a player Upgrades their Guild’s Stable or Mess Hall in Round 1, they are very likely to Recruit a new adventurer in Round 2 to leverage that upgrade. If they Recruited an Adept adventurer in Round 1, they are very likely to either Upgrade their Guild (likely Stables or Mess HALL II) in Round 2, or attempt to recruit Adventurer E, in Round 2 IF they did well enough to still have 7 gold. If they are the ONLY player who still has 7 Gold in Round 2, they are only likely to do that as their 2nd order, and you can plan accordingly.
There are starting contracts everyone is capable of going for in Round 1 with their best team’s 4 skill dice & some dice mitigation - giving them an almost guaranteed good first round contract, and decent income from it. And you start with 2 drafted private contracts you can attempt if something goes wrong or you would like to take some risks with some tricky sequencing.
So, did you sequence your orders well enough to minimise the risk of having to Wander, while getting enough of what you want? Because that’s THE GAME. If reading other players’ likely moves without 100% certainty, in order to plan out your orders across the risk / reward spectrum frustrates you more than it tantalises you, then Guild Master may be too tense or frustrating for you. But if you like the tension from, and the requirement for cunning sequencing then you are more likely to enjoy it.
THE RICH GET RICHER
The Adventurer recruitment power curve is designed to expand the recruitment options available to players, allowing trailing players to more safely recruit Adepts if they miss out early. More costly and powerful Adventurers are certainly attractive and efficient. But you can still win the game with lots of lower level Adventurers and an upgraded Mess Hall allowing you to pit 3 or 4 Adepts and Novices against 2 higher level Adventurers if needed. And this usually gets you a wider range of skills in your Guild to attempt private contracts with, and more Adventurer abilities than your rivals.
Also a player who does go for the power curve of recruiting an Adept in Round 1, and a Hero in Round 2 will certainly not have enough Gold to also upgrade their Guild to expand their Orders. Leaving them with just 2 orders, and 4 Adventurers they can use and 2 Adventures they cannot use in Round 3. Other players who upgraded their Guild instead are still likely to be able to earn more income or attempt 3 orders a round with their adventurers from Round 3. The power recruiter will absolutely feel that action efficiency burn unless they immediately use an Order to upgrade their own Guild on Round 3 so they can do more on Round 4. With all that spending on recruitment in Round 1 & 2, they won’t be rich, and will need to Hire Builders in their first Order space to ensure they can afford the Upgrades. In that time the other Guilds will likely also be ready to recruit Heroes too if they choose.
On the flipside, if you focus too much on hiring builders to upgrade your Guild, your Guild will feel hollow, unable to make full use of your capacity until you recruit a few more adventurers.
So strong advancement in one area of the game often comes at an opportunity cost of advancement in another area. Balance is important. Again, that might not be obvious to all players in 2 plays.
Regarding Guild Upgrades (Buildings) - Getting priority for hiring Builders when there are rival teams trying to do so in the same Order is determined by a contested skill check between the teams… not by whoever has the most money there, as described in the review. This way poorer players still have an option to get upgrades cheap and force their rivals to spend more.
Also you don’t ‘beat people’ to Guild upgrades for any but the unique level III buildings & end of game Prestige Upgrades that weren’t discussed (of which there are 6). Even when you don't Hire Builders first, other buildings / upgrades just get a few gold more expensive for those who purchase them later in the round than rivals. It’s hard to say exactly, but if this was played incorrectly that obviously may have affected the trailing player’s experience.
If going later in a round would potentially make buying upgrades so expensive you cannot afford the ones you want, then you either need to prioritise a high powered team to hire builders in your Order 1, (to increase the chance you will get them cheapest), or do something else this round and come back when there is lower competition for them.
When you do unlock your 3rd or perhaps 4th order space, you learn to order teams there to aim for lower demand objectives, or ones you know no other rival can attempt. Eg recruit another low level Adept, or one no-one else has enough money to afford. Do a low level public or private contract, or a high level contract with a Skill your rivals aren’t great at. Or just hire builders late if you are flooded with money and can afford the risk of some potential extra expense this round.
FALLING BEHIND & CATCHUP MECHANISMS
It is important to ensure a careful balance between the numbers of Adventurers you recruit and upgrading your Guild to leverage them. If you do that well you should be able to catch up to someone who might have pulled ahead a bit. Players who don’t do so will feel the pressure until they do.
About 48 of the 95 Contract cards have direct or oblique catchup mechanisms, some of them intentionally strong. A few of the Adventurers do too.
Table politics is important. Players should all be trying to reign in the leader on the Fame track with Contract and Adventurer abilities. Some bribery may be needed to sweeten the deal and that’s all legit. Trailing players can also make agreements to coordinate their order sequencing to cooperate at more lucrative Contracts to earn higher fame rewards that help them catch up with the leader.
Eventually they need to win Contracts at the leader’s expense… and this can play out in fun ways in the prisoner's dilemma aspect of Contract contests touched on only briefly here.
Anyway thanks again for the review! It's obviously disappointing your group didn’t enjoy this one. But hopefully I’ve clarified a few issues, and shown that there are strategies to deal with some of the game's intentional challenges. And for those of your audience that likes hidden & sequenced planning with cunning consideration of potential risks and rewards, then Guild Master is hopefully worth a closer look.
Don’t think your going to change his mind. Pretty sure he didn’t like unfair either.
@@warpaint9385 Not trying to change Tom's mind. This is more for the viewers that like to delve deeper into the comments.
Tom didn't get what he expected from Unfair, but he did from Funfair and likes that a lot. More his style of game! To each their own :)
@@GoodGamesPublishing I didn’t have a problem with unfair, I’m happy with it and the “take that” mechanic.
@@warpaint9385 Yeah its there very deliberately as a catchup mechanism in a mid weight engine building game in a lovingly cynical themepark setting. Funfair is the rose coloured glasses view of running a themepark. Some people prefer one, some the other. No game is for everyone and we are just glad that some people love both.
@@warpaint9385 ...and the same is true of Guild Master. It has been very highly rated by numerous reviewers. They loved it for good reasons, Tom didn't. And that's OK.
I’ve played this twice at 3 and I have enjoyed it each time. It is definitely a game where you have try to set your self up to have back up plans with your groups if someone takes the action you want. But that’s what’s great about the game honestly. Also really like that you can choose to go against or team up with people on missions when you clash at those spots. Adds to the theme for me honestly and is a cool mechanism.
The rule oil isn’t horrible but it isn’t the best either I will admit.
There is definitely a lot of stuff going on, but that means it requires some mastery for it to flow properly. It's a negotiation game where you have to watch what everyone else wants to do. I agree it can be a long haul though.
My wife and I enjoyed this at 2 players.
This game is loads of fun! Have yet to try with more than 2, but still, the slog concern seems more like a group thing. You reveal orders/plans, see if there are any conflicts, and you multithread from there. No need to go all sequential, because yes if you do, it will take more time. No surprises there. The rulebook (beside being square which is not ideal) is really not as bad as Tom makes it seems either. Just like in a lot of game, you hope for things to go well, but you plan in case they go wrong. Like he mentionned, the player interaction / snatching stuff before others is kinda the deal of the game.
To each his own I guess!
Edit : To be fair, the ribbon is kinda weird :P
I wonder if it does not scale well?
@@todddonaldson885 4 is probably a bit much, but 3 is probably a sweetspot. Very playable at 2 for sure.
Wasn’t the best review in my opinion. You started it by saying it’s a sequel to a game it’s not (I know you’ve said sorry but it still affects the review). Then you didn’t go over how the cooperate or conflict works at all, so if you do go for the same thing as someone else and they decide to go conflict against you, they’re making their chances at succeeding much lower by adding their total amount of dice rolling to the amount they need to roll. You also mentioned in your review how once you’re on a roll you can start doing things before everyone else, but you’ll have less money to do them so you won’t be doing those things anyway. It just felt like you wanted to bash on the game for having a large rule book that mainly goes over examples to avoid confusion in most areas.
I actually enjoyed this quite a bit. And I disagree with the wandering comments. I always set my groups so if I dont get what I placed for I can wander effectively, even getting VP from the building action. Also a rules correction, ties for builders are not broken by money placed it's broken by a skill contest.
Must be a polarizing game. It just won a squirrelly as Tony's game of the year over at RDTN. Now I must try it to know who is right 😜
I don't think anyone is "right". If you love the game, that's fantastic! I can only give my thoughts on a game.
@@thedicetower Correct! Games are subjective! One game can have people really like it or dislike it. You'll have to try on your on.
Well Hot Dog! RDTN and the Dice Tower in one thread. Love both the Podcasts!
@@Obvious_Llama We're working to schedule Tony vs Tom in a MMA fight this July in Vegas. I smells tens of dollars!!!
I think you are confused. The King's guild was put out by Mirrorbox games, not Good Games.
You're right! I don't know why I assumed they were the same. Sorry!
@@thedicetower so it’s not a sequel either?
@@Sam-vk8xd Nope. It has no relation to Kings Guild, other than this game using the same(really close) font.
@@thedicetower Will you please issue a correction in the video?
The game is good at less than 4, rulebook isn't that bad, no weird rules. just look for someone to put up a summary. They should have emphasized all that can be done simultaneously for me. 8/10
I’m old. The component camera pan makes me motion sick. 😂
I was worried that it'd be a 'rich get richer' game.
I adore the art and theme, though. If it had a solo mode I'd get it for sure!!
"Pablé" hurts my brain.
Interesting. Makes me think of Shadowrun Sprawl Ops.
It's quicker and better than that game if played right.
Aahh man! I also really wanted this to be a great game, I really love "The King's Guild" and this should have been the next step of goodness. Thank you for this review because I would have purchased this game blindly based on TKG, you have saved me a lot of heartache.
I passed on this but enjoy unfair which is another game by this publisher that Tom didn’t like.
Well this is frustrating. I REALLY wanted to like this game. I really like the art. The box art is awesome for drawing people (or at least me) into. Full disclosure though. I have never gotten this game to the table yet. I've never even gotten fully through the rules. I have come to realize that this would by no means be the most complicated game I would have ever played, but definitely seems to have more moving parts than it needs. Without even playing it myself, I'm still confident I could agree with most everything Tom said about the game experience, had I experienced it myself. So disappointing b/c I was so pumped about the prospect of this game and it's theme. Also, if the game really would produce as much of a gap between first place and last as Tom described, I know I would have HATED this game. I've always hated games that basically gratuitously punish or further penalize those that fall behind via the mechanics and flow of the game.
The last game i played with new players had all 3 players tied at 112 points. Its filled with catchup mechanisms in cards and in table politics. As long as you understand the fundamentals of planning carefully and expanding your guild in a reasonably balanced way to manage your growth (see my extensive comments above). Given that you have it already, I urge you to try it yourself a few times at different player counts without prejudice... and let us know what you think then.
@@GoodGamesPublishing I'm definitely still 'game' to do so. Frustratingly, I'm currently playing with a couple players that are extremely 'conflict averse' in their game personalities. It's frustrating because it limits our game options. I fear Guild Master may fall into that category. I'll make a real effort to try it with my wife first.
@@Soccer67 Awesome. Mastery in Guild Master is working out your best chance of avoiding conflict if you don't want it, or trying to make it happen in the rare instances you do. Most people don't go out of their way to conflict with each other. However in the last round or 2 you might need to step it up a bit. But most of the game is about prediction and negotiation. You can even negotiate with other players about where you should both go and bribe them one way or another if you like, so everyone gets something... with the risk that other players may cotton onto your plans.
Even when 2 or 3 of you turn up to the same contract at the same time, the game incentivises cooperation more than conflict. Only bad negotiations or human greed early game, or the need to score points at a leaders expense late game would make players conflict typically.
Also if you do Tabletopia games online we would be happy to teach you :)
As soon as saw it was a game that had that idea of trying to do something at the same time as someone else and you can get beat out I knew it was not for me. By far one of my most disliked mechanisms. Its why I hate super motherload and wreck raiders. I just really dislike "public contracts" in euro style games. It's not fun to be set so far back with little or no compensation just because you and someone else have similar strategies
Art is nice but wow does this look like a slog like you said. Feels like there's more components than needed too.
Bummer. Looks like I wasted my money on this one. I'll eventually give it a try anyway.
Actual proof of how a bloated rulebook can ruin a board game. Just play Marco Polo or Marco Polo II: In the Service of the Khan, instead. This is a hard pass. Bye.