I suppose the dice matter is a question of personal tastes. I find *nothing* strategic in not being able to choose your actions.

But, if it were just the dice...the problem is, the whole game is ruled by randomness. You have the cards, the dice, the treasure tokens, the Conan adventure, the objectives...EVERYTHING is determined randomly, so that you end up struggling against the chance. And since this game has ambitions to be strategic, well believe me that leaves really little room for strategy.

Apart from the above - which, for some obscure reasons, you may still like - I hope you will at least agree that the theme of the game is extremely weak.

Armies are all the same, save for some cards which don't put in so much difference anyway.

Conan adventures are all the same, just "put the obelisk there" and then just draw abstract treasures.

Magic is *completely* abstract and really poorly implemented.

Auctions are one of the most abstract and less inspired methods I've ever seen in a game. You have this 5 tokens which represent...nothing at all, but for some reason they influence Conan. And the same for artifacts.

The artifacts cards are not balanced at all, and you can quite easily predict where they will end. You wil likely end up with a totaly useless one, because of your (random) treasures.

Cities and towers are an abstract part of an abstract placement game. They have almost *nothing* of what a city/tower is supposed to do in a themed game like this. Diplomats well complete this part.

The map is simply not balanced, due to its shape.

The idea of ending the game at 3rd era with the gambling is weird, but is one of the few marginally stratgeic parts of the game.

Combats are...you bet, double random, as you have weird combat dice + combat cards. You soon learn the one and only "strategy": attack with 5, and hold cards as long as you can, to be used in the rounds following the 1st. And, of course, pray to roll well. Woho, what a strategy.

Of course you can argue that all the above makes for a challenging environment where you can really put your strategic ability to the best, as you have to constantly face random odds and adapt your strategy. You can say that, and well, that's simply ridiculous :) because the game is, de facto, very minor strategy + very abstract mechanics. You can like it or not, but the result is NOT what you'd expect from "the strategy boardgame in the world of Conan". Not at all. And this is what I can't stand...

bSol_Invictus said:

You're right, people have different tastes. Hope I didn't come off too snarky. For me it's better that a game has randomness, because in a normal, pure strategy game, you can get to a situation where people have analyzed the game to death and each game follows the same pattern because that is the most effective way of playing/winning. With Action Dice, you have to adapt, work with what you get, not follow a set path every single game, every single round.

bSol_Invictus said:

Can't really comment on the theme as yet, since I have no first hand experience with the game. But I wasn't expecting it to focus on Conan anyways, definately not in a way Conan CCG did.

 bSol_Invictus said:

I don't think a game needs 5+ different army types for it to work. Granted, Infantry/Cavalry division would've been nice. WotR worked no problem with just 2 types on Troops.

bSol_Invictus said:

What are they supposed to do in your opinion?

bSol_Invictus said:

Hmm, after reading the rules, I've been pondering the pros/cons of doing rush-attacks and/or forced marching, especially when an Age change is about to happen. Also, playing it safe aka only attacking with 5 might leave you lagging behind on points. You gotta play the odds sometimes. Furthermore, sounds like you really dislike any randomness at all. How do you find Arkham Horror, which isn't in your top-5, but is listed as a game you have?

No, I do not dislike total randomness. I *hate* those German games where there is zero or so randomness, as they look like math exercices.

I do like some degree of randomness in a game: as you can see my top is TI3 which has a good degree of randomness, but also has a large part of decent planning. Unless you are insanely unlucky with dice, cards, etc. your long-term strategy is going to work, more or less.

Conan doesn't work like this. Or, it works like this maybe 10% of the time, as chaos is what mostly rules it. And I don't think that's funny.

But, in particular, bear in mind that I'm angry to FFG because they are selling this as "the strategy game of Conan", while this game has absolutely minor strategy and mediocre theme. As a prototype without a title, I wouldn't probably hate it so much, but I strongly believe that if they produce a game with a certain name and theme, they do it for one only obvious reason: to sell it thanks to that famous name. And it's very unfair and "hypocrite" to sell a game of "strategy+Conan" that lacks both elements. Thus my displeasure and resentment for this product.

About Arkham Horror: I simply hate it but not for the random part. I like traditional dungeon crawling with lots of dice and stuff, I simply can't stand AH. I sold my copy long ago.

When people think of Conan, they largely think of "Wanton Violence+Conan": a raging barbar with a big honkin' sword.

At least that's what I think of him anyways (despite his cunnings, kingly potential, and what not).

...so I don't think it's unfair or hypocritical to somewhat lack in the strategy department.

Maybe I didn't made myself understood

Despite what people think about Conan, I think it's safe to assume that they actually expect "Conan stuff" to be present in a game about Conan. And this game has such a weak theme that it doesn't really have any strong bond to Conan. Just the names, and almost nothing else. And if you think that's enough to make a themed game..well, sorry, it's not the way.

I'm not going to repeat what I already wrote. I, as a fan of Conan, am perfectly sure and aware that the theme is weak and disappointing. You can like it of course...I don't, and explained you why, and I have more than one good reason for it.

I think we can close this discussion, as we have used more than enough time and forum space for this. I wrote what I wanted to write, everyone will make his own choices as usual.

bSol_Invictus said:

I think your expectations do not meet what the game ever intended to be. It's not "CONAN", it was from what I've read, never meant to focus solely or even in a major way on Conan. For me it's WotR in Conan's time/realms.

Also, regarding your point about the game not being a "strategy game of Conan", again, I focus on "Age of Conan", with "Strategy Board Game" part being of secondary importance.

Sol Invictus - Thank you so,so,SO MUCH  for your opinion !

 You disillusioned me about the game (and I was interested in it since maany months). My expectations can not be fulfill with sth like that. You've saved my 80$ ! :)

Glad to hear that, you are very welcome: I'm happy my words were at least useful to someone who actually wanted to hear them

bSol_Invictus said:

Heh...maybe a $part of my psyche  really wanted to find a negative comment & not buy this game

i think the game is going to be great i have read the rules a few times and no one can change my opinion

and i agree with everything dam has said

I actually bought the game last week, and at £60 it wasn't cheap!

I've only played 2 player so far, and while I don't think the game is terrible, I do agree with some of the points b_Sol Invictus raised.

I should point out that we did have fun with the game, but none of us are master strategists by any stretch, we're mostly into roleplaying games with the odd boardgame as a break. As such, I guess I'm not considered a serious strategy gamer, so bear that in mind when reading my comments below.

Taking the first game as an example, I played Stygia, the other player was Aquilonia. I know the rules recommend Aquilonia vs Turan for a 2 Player game, but I always liked the Stygians, so we chose to ignore that, and that may have had an adverse effect on game balance. I started out with the Cobra Crown, the Aquilonia player had the Heart of Tamuz. He also won the bidding for control of Conan at the start of the game.

Now, a word about Conan. Throughout our game, he didn't have a very great effect on proceedings. That might be just because we were both a bit rubbish and didn't use him properly, but he basically served one of two purposes - a means to grab Adventure Tokens, or a means to drop Raider Tokens. The randomness that Sol mentioned was definately a problem here, cos the first adventure we drew was The Frost Giant's Daughter, which kept Conan pretty much out of the way of both of us initially, and later draws sent him into Turan, similarly out of the way. I know we could have moved him towards our own realms, but that would have meant sacrificing Adventure Tokens which are needed later.

Some odd rolls of the Fate Dice kept the military actions very limited, with Court+Conan and Intrigue being the majority of our moves. This led to a lot of cards being drawn and a couple of towers being built. The proliferation of Court+Conan dice (which happened more than once) also meant that the adventures were being completed pretty quickly, again a nod to Sol's complaints about the random nature of the game.

Kingdom Cards are a definite must in this game. I had a couple of Play On The Table ones, Personal Guard Of The Ivory Throne and Holy Soldiers of Khemi were pretty heavy deciding factors in battles and campaigns respectively.  Sorcery Tokens, too, are a must. I started with two, and the advantage gained by having a complete re-roll was a decent one.

We actually found we weren't really coming into conflict with each other an awful lot though, I think we only contested Western Shem and Argos during the entire game - again though, that may be an artefact of the 2 player game itself.

Suffice to say, the game ended with myself as the winner, even though the Aquilonian player successfully crowned Conan as King. This leads me to a final grumble - the crowning of Conan doesn't have much of an effect on the final outcome unless both players are very close in Empire points. An extra 3 points and the removal of the ability to win points by having the most treasure tokens didn't make up for the fairly large gap that had opened between us.

Finally, yep, the game was fun, the Kingdom Cards have the Conan flavour to them, even if some of the other elements don't, and it might be a bit simplistic for the more tactically minded folks out there, but we kinda liked it.

Finally Conan hits stores...and now after reading the above play experiences I'm not so sure I want to invest in this game. Maybe I need to play this once before making a blind purchase.

Ruvion said:

hmmm.. I'm not some hardcore strategy fan, so it still seems intriguing enough.

I'll get it as soon as I get the chance.

@bSol:

Thanks for your posts.  I am still hoping this game is good for me but not you.  Just to help me gauge your opinion, do you like other luck/strategy games of conquest such as Titan, Risk 2210, Axis & Allies, Cosmic Encounter, Shogun, History of the World, etc?  I've never played WotR  :(

Thanks again!

-Luke

crimhead said:

Blasphamy