The game is very crunchy and very fun but I agree with you about the length. It's one of the reasons why I haven't picked i up. I feel like for the time investment, there's other games on my shelves that would give me a bigger high even though they don't scratch exactly the same kind of itch. I prefer far more interaction in my long games, don't mind the luck elements. There's enough luck mitigation in there anyway. But, I'm very impressed with the design. I think the re-playability is fairly solid in it as well. Might pick it up when the price becomes less eye-watering.
I only played this once (2p) and including the teach/learning it took us 3hrs 15 min. No doubt in my mind we could play it in 2 hours after a fee plays and this game deserves to be that long I think
Must admit, don't really agree with 'obscenely' long. Only played 2 player so far and it's coming in at 2hours max once you know the game and it moves along at a really snappy pace. Really enjoying it
Everyone's different. A friend of mine is about 9 games in, a mixture of 2p and solo. I played one game with him which was about 2hrs45. He was saying that after a lot of games he's confident he can get the time to between 2hrs and 2.25 hrs on average. Which sounds nice until you're reminded that's ONLY at 2p. Any game averaging 1-1hr 10mins per player can and should be considered obscenely long . And I say this is as a fan of John Company, On Mars and other long games. Nothing wrong with long games (they're usually the best!) but don't undersell their length at all otherwise people will have a bad time as the hours drag.
Not sure why people get so defensive about game length. You’re spot on. The game is long. Sure, some players will be more efficient making decisions than others and I’m sure the more you play the faster it gets. But the game is still long. There’s nothing wrong with that. More variety is good. That said, for me I just can’t do these anymore. They don’t hit the table enough because my wife never has enough energy for more than once or twice a year to take on a 3-4 hour game. And my friends really don’t want to play something like this often.
I think once you know the game it can be played in 45 min per player easily. Even if it takes 1h per player, I don't think that's too much for a big game and most importantly, the game doesn't feel long to me at all. The turns are snappy.
I think the length of the game is relative. It's a once every few months game for us. It is quite a long game, but our first 2 player game was 3.5 hours including teach, which given the expansive nature of the game, we thought was pretty good. The reason I didn't mind it being long is you are constantly doing new things and the game never overstays it's welcome. There are 90 minute games that feel too long because they don't keep you interested.
54:34 you can also upgrade research as you need to follow the green line, that is how you know what you can explore. And the threshold is not just green. You choose a colour and anything in that colour is available for upgrade
The goof of forgetting to mention "Research" was already noted in the Klingon Subtitles that Richard asked to be turned on at the start of the video... if you did you would've seen a Subtitle appear on the screen at that point explaining what was done incorrectly And you caught that one, there were a couple more goofs that since you didn't comment I'm guessing you didn't catch! So, when watching a video like this on this channel always turn on the Klingon subtitles so that you see on screen when goofs happen! If you don't know what the Klingon Subtitles are, here's a video from Rahdo explaining it :) th-cam.com/video/9ftIoVN7w8I/w-d-xo.htmlsi=TCZicvubgi-JaZ6J Regarding the part of the color of what you can upgrade, you are wrong and Richard played it correctly... Pag.31 of the Rules: "From which 5 you can choose depends on their color, because one of their values MUST MATCH THE COLOR OF THE TRACK YOU'VE ADVANCED ON" (Emphasis mine) So, since he advanced and crossed the threshold to do the upgrade on the Green track then he can only upgrade modules that have the Green color and value of the die "2"... so all the modules that he mentioned plus the "Research" that he forgot and that was already noted in the Klingon subtitles. Cheers
Considering this and Men Nefer perhaps there are room for a company similar to the automa factory group, but for built in preludes or (licensed prelude expansions added afterwards). Paul Grogan managed to get a 3 player game done in less than 3h. So I was hoping this would be something along a 3-4h game at most. I don’t think this is ”worse” than say Through the Ages in length?
OMG i LOVE that idea. "Prelude Factory"!! It's been a LONG time since I played through the ages, and tbh i wasn't crazy about it when i did, so i'm not best suited to answer that comparison i'm afraid!
"If these people know the game in and out, it might play faster" Almost funny how the opposite can often happen. Oh now that I have a hang on the system, i'm gonna think this game through real hard & long and really flex those neurons.
heh, i agree i think a second play for me(Which may/may not happen), i would actually play slower as i would have a better idea of how to plan or set myself up for the future. i played very reactive my first go and had no sense of why or what i would want to upgrade i simply did in the moment what i thought might be best (it wasnt :) ) Ultimately this isnt the kind of game i want to really play or explore 'anymore', ie maybe a younger version of myself where i only had a dozen or so games and dozens of more hours available to explore what could be, i already know i have a plethora of games i enjoy and there dozens upon dozens of games i want to try....
Thank you for bringing this up, because no one almost never does. The "Now that I know that I love the game I might increasingly wanna do well at it, plus it's ok if it's not over quickly" factor is rarely considered.
Agreed! Love this, but how in the world will I get to play it very much? I have ran 3 solo games - very fun certainly. But 2 players? 3 players? (And probably never 4)? I need the right table with folks who want a long experience because it IS great!
yup, that's a good way to look at it. games like this make a straong argument in favor of boardgaming tables so you can pause the action and return later :)
Great review, I still want to try this game but length is big factor for me. Base on other review of yours I tried Windmill Valley which I adore. Quick and enough strategy to go back. With the new expansion on the horizon this game is a gem for me. Do you have 3-5 other game suggestions like WV, that has the same feeling of fun, quick with the depth? Thank you
something crunchy but closer to 60-90min? of recent years, my top10 games that fit that mold might be 10. Terra Futura 9. Zapotec 8. Funfair 7. Shipwrights of North Sea: Redux 6. The White Castle 5. Galileo Project 4. Windmill Valley 3. Furnace (with interbellum expansion) 2. Spectacular 1. Earth
Definitively not a game for everyone, but your playtime of 4+ hours is for sure not the 'standard'. I had two plays with a friend who tends to think in 2:15 to 2:30h. Especially first era is very quick, played in maybe 20, 25 minutes. So a prelude expansion would not change much in my opinion. I really like it, my #2 of 2024 behind Shackleton Base.
I don’t think, maybe not, ive heard severals reviews where a 2 players can take about max 2h. Right after the second. There are huge amour of actions but there are very easy to remember.. like feast for Odin for example.
A little over 40 plays so far. Most with 2 players, about six with 3 players. With two players we usually need between 70 and 80 minutes. All plays with 3 players were with one players who was playing for the first time and we never really needed more than a bit over 2 hours.
Nice for Paul Grogan to get a shout out, I will tell him when we meet up on Sunday. Paul taught my wife and I this game and after ten plays our so we are down to well under two hours. It becomes very fluid after a while and things really zip along, and we have even talked about trying to make it longer!
Just got this game and going to play as a 2p on the weekend. I am sadly prepared to waste all day :/ prelude would be great they could call it “evolution”
Seeing this whole playthrough, even at 2x speed, I have very similar thoughts on the "this needs a preludes," and I want to know if ANY group of four people actually play-tested this more than once because what a process that must have been. This game, on it's face, seems to have everything I look for, but 18 different resources is a big "why?" for a board game. What a beast of a game to come from Feld though... thanks for the run through!
The postman delivered this today. I was super excited to get it played, and now, knowing how super AP prone my group can be, I’m terrified! He also delivered Saltfjord, Maracaibo, and Come Together. So I have some good options! 😅
Sorry, but 'obscenely long' sounds a bit too dramatic, no? I think a good game design is allowed to demand some commitment. Everyone's in such a rush :)
For me it's a shame that the needs of board game influencers' jobs have affected the expectations of board game players. It used to be possible to sit down and enjoy one game over the course of an evening's session, but now (largely US-focussed) consumerist influencers have made that very difficult. Why? because their income is dependent on them being able to play games in rapid succession, so their preferences are for shorter games - to the point where a 90-minute game is now perceived as "a bit long" and two hours is excessive. As I said: it's a shame.
i'm afraid your supposition that long games no longer exist is incorrect (as proven by this video and many others i've filmed over the last year), as well as your explanation that my personal preferences (and therefore my personal character) are somewhat suspect and driven by money rather than fun.
@rahdo I think you read more into that than I wrote and you certainly misrepresented what I said about longer games. But let me ask you this: if you could only properly review 1 game a week, could you make a living doing it? (I don't begrudge you making a living the way you do; I don't believe that the way influencers consume games is representative of their audience - but I do believe that it is driving a convergence.)
@@mccrispy yes, i could make a living at that. SU&SD, rodney smith, no pun included, before you play, actualol... these are all channels that cover very few games and are doing just fine. over the last decade, i've personably reduced my output from 20 runthroughs a month to less than half a dozen, so these days i have MORE time to play an individual game than i did 6 or 7 years ago, and i'm still doing fine. and there are still MANY long, epic euros coming out every year... there's more of them coming out on the market these days than there were 6 or 7 years ago...
I'm not sure what you mean, I think you're trying to force your preference on other boardgamers. I have been playing hobby boardgames and RPGs since the 80s and I have always preferred shorter games when it comes to boardgames, with an hour to hour and a half being my preferred length. Obviously RPGs are going to run much longer but there is also more to keep me engaged. There are all types of gamers. Not all of us fit your mold, are consumerists, or think it's a "shame". To categorize those of us who prefer reasonable playtimes as having expectations only driven by influencers is insulting and untrue. I prefer to play 5 or 6 games in a gamenight instead of one long game that I find boring about halfway through. There are plenty of long games out there for folks with your taste and I'm glad there are but don't try to lump all boardgamers together and assume we'd have the same taste if not for influencers. I actually own and enjoy this game but I also wish it was about half the length so I'll only play it solo or maybe at two and then only rarely. Discrediting the preferences of others doesn't make your preference right or more noble or make you a real boardgamer or whatever you're trying to prove with this ignorant statement, it just makes you look like a dismissive gatekeeper and that's honestly something this awesome hobby could do with less of.
i only played it once, with 3 players, the other two players enjoyed it quite a bit, i didnt. It felt long and ultimately i didnt think it was fun, i would rather play the abundance of other games available to us. I had a lot of turns where i simply knew what i would do next and just put my dice in the next action and then it was waiting until my next turn, and i was pretty bored waiting for my next turn as i couldnt impact what the others were doing nor really cared what they were doing. I think it could be fine 2 player game, if you really are into this kind of thing but it's a stretch to think why you might want to play this over something else, i never felt like i was building towards something other than 'oh the green thing scores this round' let me see if i can get some clicks on the green track, oh you took the green card and there aren't others hmm...
![1 Orc vs 7 Computers [4K]](/img/n.gif)
The game is very crunchy and very fun but I agree with you about the length. It's one of the reasons why I haven't picked i up. I feel like for the time investment, there's other games on my shelves that would give me a bigger high even though they don't scratch exactly the same kind of itch. I prefer far more interaction in my long games, don't mind the luck elements. There's enough luck mitigation in there anyway. But, I'm very impressed with the design. I think the re-playability is fairly solid in it as well. Might pick it up when the price becomes less eye-watering.
I only played this once (2p) and including the teach/learning it took us 3hrs 15 min. No doubt in my mind we could play it in 2 hours after a fee plays and this game deserves to be that long I think
Must admit, don't really agree with 'obscenely' long. Only played 2 player so far and it's coming in at 2hours max once you know the game and it moves along at a really snappy pace. Really enjoying it
fair enough, i might have been working myself up a bit there! :) let me say absurd instead of obscene!
Everyone's different. A friend of mine is about 9 games in, a mixture of 2p and solo. I played one game with him which was about 2hrs45. He was saying that after a lot of games he's confident he can get the time to between 2hrs and 2.25 hrs on average. Which sounds nice until you're reminded that's ONLY at 2p. Any game averaging 1-1hr 10mins per player can and should be considered obscenely long .
And I say this is as a fan of John Company, On Mars and other long games. Nothing wrong with long games (they're usually the best!) but don't undersell their length at all otherwise people will have a bad time as the hours drag.
Not sure why people get so defensive about game length. You’re spot on. The game is long. Sure, some players will be more efficient making decisions than others and I’m sure the more you play the faster it gets. But the game is still long. There’s nothing wrong with that. More variety is good.
That said, for me I just can’t do these anymore. They don’t hit the table enough because my wife never has enough energy for more than once or twice a year to take on a 3-4 hour game. And my friends really don’t want to play something like this often.
I think once you know the game it can be played in 45 min per player easily. Even if it takes 1h per player, I don't think that's too much for a big game and most importantly, the game doesn't feel long to me at all. The turns are snappy.
I think the length of the game is relative. It's a once every few months game for us. It is quite a long game, but our first 2 player game was 3.5 hours including teach, which given the expansive nature of the game, we thought was pretty good. The reason I didn't mind it being long is you are constantly doing new things and the game never overstays it's welcome. There are 90 minute games that feel too long because they don't keep you interested.
54:34 you can also upgrade research as you need to follow the green line, that is how you know what you can explore. And the threshold is not just green. You choose a colour and anything in that colour is available for upgrade
The goof of forgetting to mention "Research" was already noted in the Klingon Subtitles that Richard asked to be turned on at the start of the video... if you did you would've seen a Subtitle appear on the screen at that point explaining what was done incorrectly
And you caught that one, there were a couple more goofs that since you didn't comment I'm guessing you didn't catch! So, when watching a video like this on this channel always turn on the Klingon subtitles so that you see on screen when goofs happen!
If you don't know what the Klingon Subtitles are, here's a video from Rahdo explaining it :)
th-cam.com/video/9ftIoVN7w8I/w-d-xo.htmlsi=TCZicvubgi-JaZ6J
Regarding the part of the color of what you can upgrade, you are wrong and Richard played it correctly... Pag.31 of the Rules:
"From which 5 you can choose depends on their color, because one of their values MUST MATCH THE COLOR OF THE TRACK YOU'VE ADVANCED ON"
(Emphasis mine)
So, since he advanced and crossed the threshold to do the upgrade on the Green track then he can only upgrade modules that have the Green color and value of the die "2"... so all the modules that he mentioned plus the "Research" that he forgot and that was already noted in the Klingon subtitles.
Cheers
Considering this and Men Nefer perhaps there are room for a company similar to the automa factory group, but for built in preludes or (licensed prelude expansions added afterwards).
Paul Grogan managed to get a 3 player game done in less than 3h. So I was hoping this would be something along a 3-4h game at most. I don’t think this is ”worse” than say Through the Ages in length?
OMG i LOVE that idea. "Prelude Factory"!!
It's been a LONG time since I played through the ages, and tbh i wasn't crazy about it when i did, so i'm not best suited to answer that comparison i'm afraid!
"If these people know the game in and out, it might play faster"
Almost funny how the opposite can often happen. Oh now that I have a hang on the system, i'm gonna think this game through real hard & long and really flex those neurons.
that is certainly true as well :)
heh, i agree i think a second play for me(Which may/may not happen), i would actually play slower as i would have a better idea of how to plan or set myself up for the future. i played very reactive my first go and had no sense of why or what i would want to upgrade i simply did in the moment what i thought might be best (it wasnt :) ) Ultimately this isnt the kind of game i want to really play or explore 'anymore', ie maybe a younger version of myself where i only had a dozen or so games and dozens of more hours available to explore what could be, i already know i have a plethora of games i enjoy and there dozens upon dozens of games i want to try....
Thank you for bringing this up, because no one almost never does.
The "Now that I know that I love the game I might increasingly wanna do well at it, plus it's ok if it's not over quickly" factor is rarely considered.
maybe I will limit it to 3P when I do finally play my copy. Sounds like fun, but this will likely need to wait for one of our longer game days
Agreed! Love this, but how in the world will I get to play it very much? I have ran 3 solo games - very fun certainly. But 2 players? 3 players? (And probably never 4)? I need the right table with folks who want a long experience because it IS great!
I had no idea that was the theme of the game...
it is a surprising one. i do like it quite a bit actually just for being unique :)
Yes, I thought it was just a straight up big game, wasn't aware of the whole "alien" aspect. Cool. Thanks for the runthrough!
Me neither! Almost no other content creators mentioned it.
Thanks for sharing! At 2:00:13 you mentioned a 4X Feld game: can you please confirm which one that was?
this is that 4x game :)
@rahdo Ah, I see -- thanks!
I am not saying Rahdo is an alien, but... he cannot handle point gardens.
This is my favorite game
it is a great game!
Length is a fair criticism. I view it as a 4-in-1 game that you play in 4 sessions.
yup, that's a good way to look at it. games like this make a straong argument in favor of boardgaming tables so you can pause the action and return later :)
Great review, I still want to try this game but length is big factor for me.
Base on other review of yours I tried Windmill Valley which I adore. Quick and enough strategy to go back. With the new expansion on the horizon this game is a gem for me.
Do you have 3-5 other game suggestions like WV, that has the same feeling of fun, quick with the depth? Thank you
something crunchy but closer to 60-90min? of recent years, my top10 games that fit that mold might be
10. Terra Futura
9. Zapotec
8. Funfair
7. Shipwrights of North Sea: Redux
6. The White Castle
5. Galileo Project
4. Windmill Valley
3. Furnace (with interbellum expansion)
2. Spectacular
1. Earth
@@rahdo thank you so much Richard!
This really sounds like my jam…but I’m not sure my other-half will have the patience.
goodluck!
How is it solo?
“Too bleeping much!” -Mrs Hamm
and she didn't say "bleeping" :)
I'm so confused...am I doing something wrong?😅 I remarked how fast my two playthroughs (2player) went for such a big game.
what can i say? you can take 80+ turns with usually a half dozen things to consider with every single decision much faster than my wife and I :)
Definitively not a game for everyone, but your playtime of 4+ hours is for sure not the 'standard'. I had two plays with a friend who tends to think in 2:15 to 2:30h. Especially first era is very quick, played in maybe 20, 25 minutes. So a prelude expansion would not change much in my opinion.
I really like it, my #2 of 2024 behind Shackleton Base.
I don’t think, maybe not, ive heard severals reviews where a 2 players can take about max 2h. Right after the second. There are huge amour of actions but there are very easy to remember.. like feast for Odin for example.
A little over 40 plays so far. Most with 2 players, about six with 3 players. With two players we usually need between 70 and 80 minutes. All plays with 3 players were with one players who was playing for the first time and we never really needed more than a bit over 2 hours.
Nice for Paul Grogan to get a shout out, I will tell him when we meet up on Sunday. Paul taught my wife and I this game and after ten plays our so we are down to well under two hours. It becomes very fluid after a while and things really zip along, and we have even talked about trying to make it longer!
Just got this game and going to play as a 2p on the weekend. I am sadly prepared to waste all day :/ prelude would be great they could call it “evolution”
good luck, hopefully it works better for you than it did up! it is really good, worth the time! :)
Seeing this whole playthrough, even at 2x speed, I have very similar thoughts on the "this needs a preludes," and I want to know if ANY group of four people actually play-tested this more than once because what a process that must have been. This game, on it's face, seems to have everything I look for, but 18 different resources is a big "why?" for a board game. What a beast of a game to come from Feld though... thanks for the run through!
The postman delivered this today. I was super excited to get it played, and now, knowing how super AP prone my group can be, I’m terrified!
He also delivered Saltfjord, Maracaibo, and Come Together. So I have some good options! 😅
good gaming ahead!
Sorry, but 'obscenely long' sounds a bit too dramatic, no? I think a good game design is allowed to demand some commitment. Everyone's in such a rush :)
i'll downgrade from obscenely to absurdly :)
For me it's a shame that the needs of board game influencers' jobs have affected the expectations of board game players. It used to be possible to sit down and enjoy one game over the course of an evening's session, but now (largely US-focussed) consumerist influencers have made that very difficult. Why? because their income is dependent on them being able to play games in rapid succession, so their preferences are for shorter games - to the point where a 90-minute game is now perceived as "a bit long" and two hours is excessive. As I said: it's a shame.
i'm afraid your supposition that long games no longer exist is incorrect (as proven by this video and many others i've filmed over the last year), as well as your explanation that my personal preferences (and therefore my personal character) are somewhat suspect and driven by money rather than fun.
@rahdo I think you read more into that than I wrote and you certainly misrepresented what I said about longer games. But let me ask you this: if you could only properly review 1 game a week, could you make a living doing it? (I don't begrudge you making a living the way you do; I don't believe that the way influencers consume games is representative of their audience - but I do believe that it is driving a convergence.)
@@mccrispy yes, i could make a living at that. SU&SD, rodney smith, no pun included, before you play, actualol... these are all channels that cover very few games and are doing just fine. over the last decade, i've personably reduced my output from 20 runthroughs a month to less than half a dozen, so these days i have MORE time to play an individual game than i did 6 or 7 years ago, and i'm still doing fine. and there are still MANY long, epic euros coming out every year... there's more of them coming out on the market these days than there were 6 or 7 years ago...
I'm not sure what you mean, I think you're trying to force your preference on other boardgamers. I have been playing hobby boardgames and RPGs since the 80s and I have always preferred shorter games when it comes to boardgames, with an hour to hour and a half being my preferred length. Obviously RPGs are going to run much longer but there is also more to keep me engaged. There are all types of gamers. Not all of us fit your mold, are consumerists, or think it's a "shame". To categorize those of us who prefer reasonable playtimes as having expectations only driven by influencers is insulting and untrue. I prefer to play 5 or 6 games in a gamenight instead of one long game that I find boring about halfway through. There are plenty of long games out there for folks with your taste and I'm glad there are but don't try to lump all boardgamers together and assume we'd have the same taste if not for influencers. I actually own and enjoy this game but I also wish it was about half the length so I'll only play it solo or maybe at two and then only rarely. Discrediting the preferences of others doesn't make your preference right or more noble or make you a real boardgamer or whatever you're trying to prove with this ignorant statement, it just makes you look like a dismissive gatekeeper and that's honestly something this awesome hobby could do with less of.
i only played it once, with 3 players, the other two players enjoyed it quite a bit, i didnt. It felt long and ultimately i didnt think it was fun, i would rather play the abundance of other games available to us. I had a lot of turns where i simply knew what i would do next and just put my dice in the next action and then it was waiting until my next turn, and i was pretty bored waiting for my next turn as i couldnt impact what the others were doing nor really cared what they were doing. I think it could be fine 2 player game, if you really are into this kind of thing but it's a stretch to think why you might want to play this over something else, i never felt like i was building towards something other than 'oh the green thing scores this round' let me see if i can get some clicks on the green track, oh you took the green card and there aren't others hmm...