ive played this solo 30+ times. its my GOTY. the variability is off the charts even with the same heroes. change how the map is setup and hte game will play out differently. mix the mission sets and more variability. how the citizens come out will change what and how you do things. i think this game is fantastic. not a heavy rule set, plenty of choices, and it looks great on the table.
I love your new mode - focussing more on review & analysis and less on rules explanations seems to the the right way to go. More value add. Most of the time I anyway skip the rules overview and go straight to the commentary, I bet many other viewers do the same.
That's my way of thinking and doing that segment required a lot more editing time with the photos. Being able to do a quickie overview and game comparison in a couple minutes works a lot better.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this game. I got it over the weekend and have played it once so far in a 2-player session. There were rounds where the revolutionaries seemed overpowered and rounds where the great machine seemed overpowered, but overall, it felt like a tight competition. I can see how it could be a challenging teach to new players, and how it could get very imbalanced if playing with a mix of experienced and new players - unless perhaps there were at least 2 experienced players: one as the great machine and one revolutionary helping the new players. I do like, though, that the rulebook provides options for tweaking the balance, and I do have a weekly gaming group with 3-5 regulars, so I'm hoping to see how this goes over with them soon. I'll probably try it solo as well, and I'm curious to check out the mission cards eventually.
Love this game solo. Definitely an 8/10 & made even better with the expansions. It's frustratingly enjoyable when the Machine moves one of its servants to mess with my plans... Or I've outwitted it at the last moment. In some ways it reminds me of the Loop for solo - no beat your own score but an automa opponent that actively plays against you.
@@bikstokninja it's the nature of crowd funding these days. It seems like virtually all crowd funded games have expansions as either all in options for expansions, or expansions as stretch goals or expansions as exclusives. I could list them but it would be a long long list.
Hmm, interesting review. I love this solo. I haven't had the chance to play this multiplayer at all yet. So, I might be wrong - but you didn't mention the ability to change the board both for the hero's AND the great machine. This will rearrange the configuration, so the machine will force the heroes to spend all their trust to move and likely fail - as equalizer for the hero-side. But again - I don't have experience yet to try these out. But it looks more balanced and interesting as you make it out. Ther strategies seem off the chart. But again - I backed this with all whistles, and so therefore I am biased! Thanks for the review..
The location that moves another location. Yes it exists but it's not suddenly a great game for it. And that's no guarantee you will be able to get use of it.
I really don't agree with most of the negative aspects, especially with the great machine being uninteresting to play. At some point, you have a lot of bonds so there's a lot you can do with the servants. And no, you don't spend your time frantically moving the guards. Actually, I rarely move them at all. And the choices you have when you detain a hero is sometimes really helpful. Advancing the Great Machine all the time is definitely not always the best to do. Anyway, thanks for the review.
If you're barely moving the guards, then the heroes will just break the ones they are near. 6-8 bonds is no where near enough to do a lot of interesting stuff (for first few rounds while discontent is low you barely get a couple of movements and maybe 1-2 actions to do) with the servants and by the time you get to heavy bond income, you're at a stage where the heroes should definitely win anyway unless they cock it up royally!
I think a bit of care needs taking on marking games down for the same players playing thing. This would be true of any low luck strategy game. Knowing who the game plays gives advantage generally. Food chain magnate, Gaia project etc etc etc would get marked down for that. It’s a feature of many games. The other reasons you cited about balance may well be valid but I think the game is supposed to offer a bit of scaling to mitigate that. Perhaps not enough though?
Shocked you didn't mention the setup as a negative, because that's definitely a chore (and if you did I didn't mention it). I've not played the game competitively but I do think the solo mode has been well implemented and works well and would probably agree with that 7 or 8 score.
I found playing as the Great Machine in competitive mode really frustrating, for the reasons you say: those city events never helped me, and they are the only way to advance my plan (other than guessing where the players are going and spending bonds on a raid). I think I got 1 out of 7 raid guesses correctly, maybe I'm just bad at the game, but I found playing by myself with no information just stymied everything I tried to do.
honestly only played it once completitely so far with 3 other players that have played a lot more boardgames than myself and honestly the machine completely destroyed usXD tbf the guy controlling the machine is very much for thinking very strategically and did an mazing job while we 3 that played the heros were fairly uncoordinated while trying to avoid being to obviousXD so I have a completely different experience from youXD but I do look forward to trying it in coop mode:)
@@TheBrokenMeeple I believe the great machine powers are all in the escalation with other modules, there is also the hero expansion that gives 6 more rebellion heroes and that is pretty much it, the exclusives are pretty small, a few cards and a city district tile with a module. You also get 3 new characters for rebellion and 1 for the great machine in the escalation and a bunch of modules, a lot of good stuff in that little box.
@@TheBrokenMeeple I totally agree with this sentiment! There is so, so much stuff board game publishers can do to please backers: wooden tokens, acrylic standees, sundrop / prepainted miniatures, cloth bags with labels and artwork, prettier dice, art books, art prints, playmats etc. etc. But as soon as there is crowdfunding-exclusive GAMEPLAY-content you just know that the publisher doesn't have the confidence that their game will hold up to neutral reviews and sell at all in retail, thus trying to force players to preorder through crowdfunding. There are exceptions of fully KS-exclusive games etc. that are still good, but for me: It's just a gamble that I'm not willing to take anymore. Luckily I only gut burned once with KS and it wasn't too expensive (Dark Souls with no paid addons), but there are just too many awesome games that I can just buy after watching reviews. I might back something if it's a reprint for something that has been reviewed. I might back an expansion for one of my favorite games. But a campaign for a new game with KS-exclusive gameplay content? That's just a red flag. (And no: Playthroughs and first impressions seen in paid FOMOtional videos won't make me reconsider.)
