Yeah, I agree both with it is kind of fun to learn at your own pace and that once I read about that Factions expansion, the core game feels incomplete (says a guy who just learned how to play this game on the same day). While I appreciate that a good tutorial can get you up and running quickly, it often means a lot of time spent, "Click here" or "Drag and drop here" with often no way to skip ahead to the parts you DO want clarification on without having to sit through everything that comes before it.
Wow. What a great game! Picked this up a few hours ago. I've never played the board game so there is definitely a learning curve but -- as pointed out by others -- this is no more than the curve you meet learning the physical game. No more but rather less, thanks to the software's enforcement of the rules. Recommended!
I also believe, much like say a cartoon that can be enjoyed at multiple levels by children and adults, the same sort of idea applies to learning how to play this game. I quickly picked up how to work the satellites and what I needed to do to make more colonists. If I can land all of my colonists before the opposition I have a decent chance of winning or at least placing pretty highly. Which region effects would best benefit me, the effects of the various alien artifacts, and the whole special fields sub-game was something I didn't really get into until a few games in. I mean, sure, I used the alien artifacts I came across and took advantage of whatever regional effects I owned, but it was much more of a, "Cool, what does this do?" after I got them and not some well thought out, "Well if I claim this region it will help me obtain that alien artifact which I can then use to knock at that player over there..."
This is what Clint said on BGG: So not cheating as much as screwing you over, which is smart. Think of it as a bunch of newbies deciding to team up against you because it's only you who ever wins.
Yup, just finished a four player game with a pirate and it is not fun... In a good way. It was clear that it was smart enough to see how it could stop my VP lead by moving another players colony on my territory even though it put that player in a position to beat me by one point It's tough but that kind of AI is a welcome addition
It's definitely a welcome addition, and making it the only AI that 'cheats' means you can always have the older AI interaction by using the other levels more. However, I don't think I'll play against the AI at all once the async update hits. The game is implemented so beautifully that it will be an absolute joy to play this against other humans. I can see this becoming a cooldown euro as compared to Le Havre, something the upcoming Stone Age might be too.
Just took this one, despite the fact apple has decided to increase prices in Europe and that annoyed me Back to the game ... Only reading the instructions kind of killed me. I am at a total loss here.
Honestly, just read the general way a turn is played, and immediatly try to play once. Don't bother with alien cards, just go back to the rulebook when you need to know what a satellite is doing and what bonus a planet gives. By the time you win, you'll have a more or less complete understanding of the game (which is really simple despite what you may believe at first). And then you can bother with the cards and add more players to the game. At least, it worked for me and given the fact you play quite a lot of boardgames, should be no problem.
The rulebook is a little daunting, it could have been better formatted with an index and individual sectioned pages. Just try to think of it in terms of your dice, the two resources and your colonies for starters. You roll dice, place them as restricted by the various locations, and do those actions. Most of the actions require the two resources and the board does a great job of clearly showing how many resource tokens you'll need and what the rules are for placing the dice. Your final goal is to keep placing your colonies on the board until have placed them all, at which point the game ends. You can ignore the alien tech cards and the field generators your first few games, those alter the rules in fun ways. The game is deceptively complex because everything is laid out on the board in such a compact manner. When you strip it down it's a light worker placement euro with dice, like Kingsburg. You only have two resource types, limited number of locations you can go to. The Factions expansion increases the depth of the game manifold. But even in its current state, the streamlined nature of the game means there's a lot more straight player interaction with locations being blocked, resources being stolen, ships being removed and ships being destroyed.
thevagrant is right it shouldn't have happened. But out of curiosity, FPE, do you remember which AI did it?
Did he steal the Holo Decoy? As I recall it isn't that you can't be stolen from but that if anyone does raid you, the Holo Decoy is the only thing they can steal.
That sounds buggy then. You lose a ship if you ever use that 1 die colonizer in the upper left outpost. There might be other means as well.