rahdo, I have to say that you out of all video reviewers seem to be able to handle a difference in opinion in terms of recognizing that a game is both brilliant, and not for you. I find that most reviewers just claim that the game is horrible just because it doesn't meet their taste criteria, and for that sir I salute you!
I have to admit, I wanted you to love it. Because I love it. But I love that you realize it's not your type of game and still gave it high praise because you realize that doesn't make it a bad game. Thank you so much for the run through though, and let me tell you, as heavy as this game is, and you were playing both players, filming, explaining rules and hurrying because it's youtube , you did an amazing job with it.
Favorite game right here. I think it works absolutely great as a two player game as long as youre not a carebear like rahdo (no disrespect rahdo, love you and your run throughs).
My favorite reviewer reviewing my favorite game, in the exact way I thought you would! :) My wife and I play this game semi regularly and love it to death, but we enjoy being cutthroat in games just as much as having a pleasant evening building in any given euro. This is the main reason you are my favorite reviewer - games that you enjoy we enjoy, and games you find too mean and nasty we enjoy just as much! Best of both worlds in all your final thoughts!
oh man, I always watch your Final Thoughts! I get my idea if the game will work for me with the runthrough, but I like to hear your Final Thoughts because I think it's fun to hear people's opinions, and I like to hear your comments about the games, after all you are a game designer :) I like it mainly because you makes it looks like a conversation, and bring some informations about the theme of the game... I swear I almost cried together with you on your Freedom's Final Thoughts So Richard, please, never stop making these awesome videos that you do, including your Final Thoughts! :)
The Final Thoughts videos are the part that I look forward to the most. While I will make my decision based on game play of course. After seeing so many of your videos your opinions and tastes give me a more nuanced idea of the game.
Appreciate the runthrough for this. Not sure if I'll ever get to play it due to the time requirements but at least if I do I have an idea of how it goes.
I like your final thoughts... though primarily for games I've already played myself. I'm always curious to see whether you feel differently about games I like. For games I haven't played before I pay more attention to the run throughs. For those I've already played, sometimes I skip those and just go straight to the final thoughts.
yeah I watched this this morning, good vid, but the whole day I've assumed Chad Jensen designed Eminent Domain, just googled it and came back to correct it. :p Board game geeks are weird. :p
This game as a 2 player game doesn't really expose the great diplomacy aspect that is ingrained. You can only target one player for all of the cards...really takes away at threats to other players. Calculations can be minimized. Most tiles will usually be "locked" down by an animal with 5-7 Dominance factor. This can be kept track by placement of the Cone based on the hexside OR perhaps using "coins" from another game to indicate the necessary Dominance needed to change..(haven't done this) Also, typically, you'll know where you'll be close to changing dominance and therefore need only focus on those tiles. You could look all the time, but really only needed as it impacts your planning to score or obtain cards based on the number of AP on the Dominance Action Space. Sweet spot 5-6.
We found that moving the action pawn from a Domination eyeball onto the tile we're currently scoring for Domination to work very well. This way, you don't need extra components, and the action pawns are right there on the board, anyway, so it's easier to remove an action pawn and place it onto the scoring tile as needed to keep track. Haven't found a reason to do otherwise.
to be honest: Considering how this is so not your type of game and the rather many rules: Your run through seemed to have only some minor mistakes. You went through it really well and collected. Also I still sometimes make mistakes in this game (mainly cause I only get it out once or twice a year to play since its so long.)
Seeing a lot of comments about this being a “long” game. I’ve been playing this solo for a while; so far my longest game-using all six animal classes-was maybe 2 hours. Now, granted, playing solitaire is certainly more streamlined, but even if you add an hour, that’s still 3 hours. That ain’t no “long” game.
Think you're bang on here, Rahdo. It definitely needs more players - playing multiple animals is not fun (cognitive overload - see XCOM). I enjoyed the game the first few times (the theme, the depth, the omnomnom of your opponents) but the dominance recalcs and the cube counting (and the AP that ensues) are not fun (I'm finding area control doesn't work for me for these reasons). However, if you have the players and enjoy area control and worker placement - gotta try it.
I wish I'd seen this run through two years ago. It would have saved us from buying this game. It's such a wonderfully themed and designed game, and I wanted to love it, but we didn't. We kept it around until just last month because I wanted to love it. It's too long. We added a process to cycle through the cards faster, and it still lasted three plus hours. It's also much too chaotic for the level of thinking required. I don't mind a short, light, chaotic game. I don't mind a long, thinky, strategic game. But long and chaotic where my carefully thought-out moves could be easily destroyed because the board changes drastically every turn, that doesn't work for us. The biggest problem, though, was there's too much direct conflict in it for us.
i would argue the chaotic aspect, you see everything ahead of time. You literally can see what your opponents are going for and can play around it (to an extent, you don't know specifically where they are going to migrate or which card they are going for but you can make an educated guess). Now I know its easier said than done, its a real brain burner. But just because a game is so taxing on the brain doesnt make it chaotic (if what you mean by chaotic is random) I would say its more of a controlled chaotic game.
There is an app for this game where you can practise the game. After a couple of plays your brain removes the AP and the upkeep is helped that four players are playing the game. This game is 4x. Why even play it as a 2player 3x game? Its not intended as that. You would probably get a bigger kick from the game playing it solo on ipad then the game takes 15min. Many moves and strategies becomes obvious after a couple of play and you focus more on drafting and blocking your opponent. this game is awsome and for me simulates survival of the fittest like no game. But hopefully one day someone implements a 2 player 3-4x game of this that you can enjoy:)
Just to clarify, when you say there's app where you can practice, are you referring to the iPad version of the game? I presuming so, I just want to be sure. Thank you.
+Kamil Wolski it's just a generic lapel mic i bought on UK ebay for 18 pounds if i recall correctly. works well, though sometimes there's an unpredictable hum (you can hear it on my dungeon roll runthrough, for instance)
How can they make a game about such a fascinating subject and then design it with all the creativity of a sea cucumber? How about at least have the tokens be formed as the animal groups they represent?
Dude, did you do no research whatsoever before you bought a very expensive board game? How can you be surprised of the length of a game when it is written on the game box? And how can you not expect a game about becoming a dominant species to be somewhat violent??
rahdo, I have to say that you out of all video reviewers seem to be able to handle a difference in opinion in terms of recognizing that a game is both brilliant, and not for you. I find that most reviewers just claim that the game is horrible just because it doesn't meet their taste criteria, and for that sir I salute you!
p3ter20002000 thanks! :)
I have to admit, I wanted you to love it. Because I love it. But I love that you realize it's not your type of game and still gave it high praise because you realize that doesn't make it a bad game. Thank you so much for the run through though, and let me tell you, as heavy as this game is, and you were playing both players, filming, explaining rules and hurrying because it's youtube , you did an amazing job with it.
Favorite game right here. I think it works absolutely great as a two player game as long as youre not a carebear like rahdo (no disrespect rahdo, love you and your run throughs).
My favorite reviewer reviewing my favorite game, in the exact way I thought you would! :) My wife and I play this game semi regularly and love it to death, but we enjoy being cutthroat in games just as much as having a pleasant evening building in any given euro. This is the main reason you are my favorite reviewer - games that you enjoy we enjoy, and games you find too mean and nasty we enjoy just as much! Best of both worlds in all your final thoughts!
oh man, I always watch your Final Thoughts! I get my idea if the game will work for me with the runthrough, but I like to hear your Final Thoughts because I think it's fun to hear people's opinions, and I like to hear your comments about the games, after all you are a game designer :)
I like it mainly because you makes it looks like a conversation, and bring some informations about the theme of the game... I swear I almost cried together with you on your Freedom's Final Thoughts
So Richard, please, never stop making these awesome videos that you do, including your Final Thoughts! :)
The Final Thoughts videos are the part that I look forward to the most. While I will make my decision based on game play of course. After seeing so many of your videos your opinions and tastes give me a more nuanced idea of the game.
Appreciate the runthrough for this. Not sure if I'll ever get to play it due to the time requirements but at least if I do I have an idea of how it goes.
I like your final thoughts... though primarily for games I've already played myself. I'm always curious to see whether you feel differently about games I like. For games I haven't played before I pay more attention to the run throughs. For those I've already played, sometimes I skip those and just go straight to the final thoughts.
(4:48) According to BGG, Chad Jensen didn't design Eminent Domain - it was Seth Jaffee
It's an error Jensen didn't design ED, his signature game is Combat Commander
He probably meant Urban Sprawl (which has an eminent domain event).
yeah I watched this this morning, good vid, but the whole day I've assumed Chad Jensen designed Eminent Domain, just googled it and came back to correct it. :p Board game geeks are weird. :p
6:58 We'll always watch your Final Thoughts, rahdo!
This game as a 2 player game doesn't really expose the great diplomacy aspect that is ingrained. You can only target one player for all of the cards...really takes away at threats to other players.
Calculations can be minimized. Most tiles will usually be "locked" down by an animal with 5-7 Dominance factor. This can be kept track by placement of the Cone based on the hexside OR perhaps using "coins" from another game to indicate the necessary Dominance needed to change..(haven't done this)
Also, typically, you'll know where you'll be close to changing dominance and therefore need only focus on those tiles. You could look all the time, but really only needed as it impacts your planning to score or obtain cards based on the number of AP on the Dominance Action Space.
Sweet spot 5-6.
Use colors dices for dominations. (for all players color).
We found that moving the action pawn from a Domination eyeball onto the tile we're currently scoring for Domination to work very well. This way, you don't need extra components, and the action pawns are right there on the board, anyway, so it's easier to remove an action pawn and place it onto the scoring tile as needed to keep track. Haven't found a reason to do otherwise.
Thank you for your honesty!
to be honest: Considering how this is so not your type of game and the rather many rules: Your run through seemed to have only some minor mistakes. You went through it really well and collected. Also I still sometimes make mistakes in this game (mainly cause I only get it out once or twice a year to play since its so long.)
Seeing a lot of comments about this being a “long” game. I’ve been playing this solo for a while; so far my longest game-using all six animal classes-was maybe 2 hours. Now, granted, playing solitaire is certainly more streamlined, but even if you add an hour, that’s still 3 hours. That ain’t no “long” game.
Think you're bang on here, Rahdo. It definitely needs more players - playing multiple animals is not fun (cognitive overload - see XCOM).
I enjoyed the game the first few times (the theme, the depth, the omnomnom of your opponents) but the dominance recalcs and the cube counting (and the AP that ensues) are not fun (I'm finding area control doesn't work for me for these reasons).
However, if you have the players and enjoy area control and worker placement - gotta try it.
I wish I'd seen this run through two years ago. It would have saved us from buying this game. It's such a wonderfully themed and designed game, and I wanted to love it, but we didn't. We kept it around until just last month because I wanted to love it. It's too long. We added a process to cycle through the cards faster, and it still lasted three plus hours. It's also much too chaotic for the level of thinking required. I don't mind a short, light, chaotic game. I don't mind a long, thinky, strategic game. But long and chaotic where my carefully thought-out moves could be easily destroyed because the board changes drastically every turn, that doesn't work for us. The biggest problem, though, was there's too much direct conflict in it for us.
i would argue the chaotic aspect, you see everything ahead of time. You literally can see what your opponents are going for and can play around it (to an extent, you don't know specifically where they are going to migrate or which card they are going for but you can make an educated guess). Now I know its easier said than done, its a real brain burner. But just because a game is so taxing on the brain doesnt make it chaotic (if what you mean by chaotic is random) I would say its more of a controlled chaotic game.
There is an app for this game where you can practise the game. After a couple of plays your brain removes the AP and the upkeep is helped that four players are playing the game. This game is 4x. Why even play it as a 2player 3x game? Its not intended as that. You would probably get a bigger kick from the game playing it solo on ipad then the game takes 15min. Many moves and strategies becomes obvious after a couple of play and you focus more on drafting and blocking your opponent. this game is awsome and for me simulates survival of the fittest like no game. But hopefully one day someone implements a 2 player 3-4x game of this that you can enjoy:)
Just to clarify, when you say there's app where you can practice, are you referring to the iPad version of the game? I presuming so, I just want to be sure. Thank you.
I'm usually not one to argue about what's a wargame ... but there has to be a limit.
Not everything with conflict is a wargame.
Why are people so afraid of epic, long games? Are 3-4 hours really that much when you work double that every day?
This game is amazing
Before I saw you and while I was listening to your voice, I thought you were Jeff Goldbloom LOL
Richard, can you tell what microphone do you have clipped onto shirt?
+Kamil Wolski it's just a generic lapel mic i bought on UK ebay for 18 pounds if i recall correctly. works well, though sometimes there's an unpredictable hum (you can hear it on my dungeon roll runthrough, for instance)
Thanks for reply. It sounds good.
Chad Jenson did not design EmDo, Seth Jafee did
How can they make a game about such a fascinating subject and then design it with all the creativity of a sea cucumber? How about at least have the tokens be formed as the animal groups they represent?
Component quality does not detract from the awesome game design.
very prone to kingmaking and far too loooooong.. but hell of a game...
Dude, did you do no research whatsoever before you bought a very expensive board game? How can you be surprised of the length of a game when it is written on the game box? And how can you not expect a game about becoming a dominant species to be somewhat violent??
i wasn't surprised and i knew exactly what the game offered going in (as I had already played it years earlier)
Daniel Andersson , He didn't buy it , he gets them free to test play and he did a fairly decent job of basic gameplay , don't you think ?.