Friday Night Gaming: Galactic Emperor
November 21, 2008
Galactic Emperor
Oh, man. This was a trial. The box says it takes 90 minutes to play. For the six of us, it took 5 hours or so. Normally, we expect that the first game will take much longer, especially for more complex games. And there is always the Merwin Effect, which can double the typical play time. But I guess these two factors multiplied together to give us an extraordinary long game.
In its defense, the game didn't feel like it took that long. For me at least, it was engaging and interesting all the way through. But then, I was targeted as an early leader thanks to my back-to-back choices of Explorer and Brian's relentless campaign to let everyone know I was winning. As we entered the final stretch of the game, it was clear to me that Robert was the biggest threat--he certainly had the greatest military might thanks to his Robotics. Brian made a late-game surge by picking up multiple systems with multiple planets and earning hefty victory points. But in the end, Zach came through with a surprise win because everyone had written him off in the first round.
Why did they write him off? Because he tried to quit. See, Merwin made an aggressive move against him, severely hurting his position early on in the game, and he gave up. He took his pieces and systems off the game board and declared he was quitting. We should have all quit right then and started over, but I, at least, think it would have tainted the next game we started. Instead, we convinced Zach to keep playing; he ended up winning, but not happily. He seemed to be just going through the motions, having minor clashes with Merwin, and picking up planets and victory points. Though we mocked the notion that the earned victory points were kept secret (surely someone with a good memory and attention span could have kept track of everyone's score), it ended up being the key to Zach's win. I think Brian, on Zach's other flank opposite Merwin, could have been more aggressive against Zach, but he was focused on me and (I think) being nice to Zach.
And Ian? After being the first to get to the Black Hole and becoming the game's first big military threat, he directed an attack against me, but my counterattacks and admitted errors on his part eventually weakened him to the point of having very few ships or planets. Attacking the leader is a very necessary part of the game, but there wasn't enough coordination with the other players, especially Merwin on the other side of me, and Ian "took one for the team" that cost him. And this was perhaps the element that I least liked about the game. Though player elimination is impossible, since the home planet is immune from attack, a player can be so crippled as to have a negligible chance of winning. This is fine in a 90-minute game, but not a 300-minute game.
Galactic Emperor has the role-selection and theme of Race for the Galaxy with combat and units not unlike Nexus Ops. Merwin disliked what he called the Risk-like nature of the battles, but I think we all appreciated the direct conflict and empire construction that was missing from RftG. Personally, I need to play it again. The duration bothers me a lot and I'm hoping a second play will get it down to 2 hours; if not, I cannot see us playing it again. Plus, we made several rules-related and tactics-related mistakes that would have made some critical differences in how the game went. For example, Zach was rolling half the dice he was supposed to be in defending against Merwin's fateful early attack. In hindsight, we should have agreed to a shortened practice game, perhaps a full round (with everybody having a chance to pick a role), to get all the rules down and get a feel for the game. But without that agreement, Zach's knee-jerk decision to quit was just bad form.
Galactic Emperor
Oh, man. This was a trial. The box says it takes 90 minutes to play. For the six of us, it took 5 hours or so. Normally, we expect that the first game will take much longer, especially for more complex games. And there is always the Merwin Effect, which can double the typical play time. But I guess these two factors multiplied together to give us an extraordinary long game.
In its defense, the game didn't feel like it took that long. For me at least, it was engaging and interesting all the way through. But then, I was targeted as an early leader thanks to my back-to-back choices of Explorer and Brian's relentless campaign to let everyone know I was winning. As we entered the final stretch of the game, it was clear to me that Robert was the biggest threat--he certainly had the greatest military might thanks to his Robotics. Brian made a late-game surge by picking up multiple systems with multiple planets and earning hefty victory points. But in the end, Zach came through with a surprise win because everyone had written him off in the first round.
Why did they write him off? Because he tried to quit. See, Merwin made an aggressive move against him, severely hurting his position early on in the game, and he gave up. He took his pieces and systems off the game board and declared he was quitting. We should have all quit right then and started over, but I, at least, think it would have tainted the next game we started. Instead, we convinced Zach to keep playing; he ended up winning, but not happily. He seemed to be just going through the motions, having minor clashes with Merwin, and picking up planets and victory points. Though we mocked the notion that the earned victory points were kept secret (surely someone with a good memory and attention span could have kept track of everyone's score), it ended up being the key to Zach's win. I think Brian, on Zach's other flank opposite Merwin, could have been more aggressive against Zach, but he was focused on me and (I think) being nice to Zach.
And Ian? After being the first to get to the Black Hole and becoming the game's first big military threat, he directed an attack against me, but my counterattacks and admitted errors on his part eventually weakened him to the point of having very few ships or planets. Attacking the leader is a very necessary part of the game, but there wasn't enough coordination with the other players, especially Merwin on the other side of me, and Ian "took one for the team" that cost him. And this was perhaps the element that I least liked about the game. Though player elimination is impossible, since the home planet is immune from attack, a player can be so crippled as to have a negligible chance of winning. This is fine in a 90-minute game, but not a 300-minute game.
Galactic Emperor has the role-selection and theme of Race for the Galaxy with combat and units not unlike Nexus Ops. Merwin disliked what he called the Risk-like nature of the battles, but I think we all appreciated the direct conflict and empire construction that was missing from RftG. Personally, I need to play it again. The duration bothers me a lot and I'm hoping a second play will get it down to 2 hours; if not, I cannot see us playing it again. Plus, we made several rules-related and tactics-related mistakes that would have made some critical differences in how the game went. For example, Zach was rolling half the dice he was supposed to be in defending against Merwin's fateful early attack. In hindsight, we should have agreed to a shortened practice game, perhaps a full round (with everybody having a chance to pick a role), to get all the rules down and get a feel for the game. But without that agreement, Zach's knee-jerk decision to quit was just bad form.
Labels: Other Games
posted by Patrick at 7:22 PM
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