by MarshalN
prael wrote:
Great review.
I think I agree with the gist, which is that CoB isn't heavy. Agreed. But that's ok, isn't it?
CoB isn't PowerGrid in another, related, way: CoB involves a lot of incremental decisions rather than fewer big ones (as you suggest when you talk about the few that make or break a game of PG).
I think that for many this is a plus. Each decision (at least) seems less consequential, and that makes for a decidedly different feel. Many Feld games are like this: they feel more sandboxes where so many things are possible, but over the long haul those incremental decisions wind up deciding matters. It might not be your style, but it *is* pretty amazing as game tech. He's taken the idea of the mini-game (a worker placement staple) and blown it up. I'm thinking here particularly of Trajan.
Again, great review.
I think I agree with the gist, which is that CoB isn't heavy. Agreed. But that's ok, isn't it?
CoB isn't PowerGrid in another, related, way: CoB involves a lot of incremental decisions rather than fewer big ones (as you suggest when you talk about the few that make or break a game of PG).
I think that for many this is a plus. Each decision (at least) seems less consequential, and that makes for a decidedly different feel. Many Feld games are like this: they feel more sandboxes where so many things are possible, but over the long haul those incremental decisions wind up deciding matters. It might not be your style, but it *is* pretty amazing as game tech. He's taken the idea of the mini-game (a worker placement staple) and blown it up. I'm thinking here particularly of Trajan.
Again, great review.
Good points. I think we all agree that CoB isn't a "heavy" game by most definitions, and it does involve a lot of small decisions that add up. Maybe it's when I play a game and lose, I'd like to know how I lost - and the only times in CoB when that's obvious is when I lost control of first player and because of it, losing some important tiles.
Never played Trajan (or really any Feld game other than this one). I probably should get on with that.