by colinmarsh
willadams33 wrote:
A big question I know, but I’ve heard such varied reviews as tompuzzl me exceedingly. To give some sort of context, I am familiar with legacy games. Games like Through the Ages, Terra Mystica or Eclipse often make their way to our gaming table - but my concerns are thus:
The rules seem an absolute mess; how on earth did this get through editing?
The games are very long, not like Pandemic where you can get through two or three moths at a time.
Will my gaming group buy in to a game that will take so long and, depending on who you listen to, isn’t even worth it?
The game is said to be unbalanced in terms of ways to score glory (although I’ve heard it argued that this is okay because sometimes achieving a milestone may take two games of planning, so they deserve the points).
Anyways: have at it...
The rules seem an absolute mess; how on earth did this get through editing?
The games are very long, not like Pandemic where you can get through two or three moths at a time.
Will my gaming group buy in to a game that will take so long and, depending on who you listen to, isn’t even worth it?
The game is said to be unbalanced in terms of ways to score glory (although I’ve heard it argued that this is okay because sometimes achieving a milestone may take two games of planning, so they deserve the points).
Anyways: have at it...
based on Terra Mystica & Through the Ages I'd say no but I love both Terra Mystica & Seafall so it's certainly possible. a group that really loves Euros though is unlikely to enjoy Seafall. regarding the points you bring up:
1. the rules aren't quite as bad as you hear. they aren't good and they aren't well written but generally they are good enough to start your campaign. the issues is that there are just a lot of edge cases that come up as the new rules are revealed. with the FAQ that's out there you'll be fine but you will need to consult it and probably during a game as boxes are opened and rules revealed.
2. this comes down to players. if you play a lot of TM here's who I'd describe it. if your 4 player TM games take 90 minutes to 2 hours so will your Seafall games. if your TM games take 4 hours (I don't understand how this is possible but I've read about it enough places to know it's true) then your Seafall games likely will.
part of what makes the game seem long at times is that downtime can be an issue if you have slow players.
3. our campaign was pretty competitive with 4 of the 5 players leading at some point during it but some of the games will be swingy.