Episode 25 - Basilica: Angry Carcassonne

Thanks for joining us for this month's episode!

We go a bit more niche again this time as we appraise the duel of architects that is the tile laying / worker placement hybrid Basilica (the 2022 reissue to be precise).

We examine the components, shelf life and fun factor, highlight the impressive meanness to be found here, and assess its place in the pantheon of 2 player duel games.

Transcript

Unknown 0:00

Music

Al 0:16

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Bored With Each Other, the board gaming review podcast that looks at board games and asks the question, how well does this play at two? Whether that's with your significant other, your BFF, or that really annoying other builder that keeps putting scaffolding up at everything you attempt within the cathedral that you've been commissioned to build. Today we are...

Hannah 0:38

I'm glad you didn't go down the priest street.

Al 0:39

Yeah, yeah, so am I. Took a high road there. I am joined, as ever, by my wife, my co-host, and my playmate, And today we are reviewing Basilica or as I like to call it Angry Carcassonne. I'm going to pause for the laugh track. Basilica is a tile and worker placement game where you take the role of a builder or an architect that is building a basilica. It includes the name. You build your cathedral by taking up to three actions on your turn. These can include taking a cathedral tile, so you have a marketplace of three colored tiles, some of them have two colors on, which are wild tiles, and placing it down on the cathedral, which is basically your playing space.

Hannah 1:30

So five by

Al 1:31

five? Yeah, it's five columns or rows or whatever across, and you just sort of build down across the table in those five columns. Or you can take an order from the order tiles. All of the tiles are double sided, so one side has cathedral tiles, the color of the cathedral, the other has orders on them. And again, you have an active marketplace of three of these. Or if you have just placed a tile down, you can place a builder on that tile for your second action. So that's where that sort of worker placement comes in. When you place tiles down, some of them have a plus one marker on them. And this means that you move a queen pawn across the scoreboard. The scoreboard has 30 points on it. Every time the queen reaches a tens space, a 10, 20, or 30, you undertake scoring.

Hannah 2:18

Immediately ends the round. Yeah,

Al 2:19

immediately ends the round, even if you only take one action. Scoring works by area majority. So you basically draw an invisible circle around all of the adjacent tiles of the same colour, including wild tiles that have two colours on, and you count how many builders each player has in that area. The one with the majority wins one point per tile in that area. The one with the minority gets one point per builder. So far, so Carcassonne. Where this game is a bit more complicated is through the orders system. So the orders allow you to do a variety of things. They allow you to move your builders around, of which we have five, by the way. They allow you to destroy tiles, as long as somebody's builder is not on them. They allow you to promote your builders, and this... variety of promotions that you can apply to them. So for example, you can apply a promotion that makes your builder count as two people. You can apply one that means you win any ties, for example.

Hannah 3:18

On some of your orders, there is a little coin, and that means that if you play, for example, to promote your builder, your opponent can then pay a coin to also promote one of their builders.

Al 3:34

In a different promotion

Hannah 3:35

style. In a different promotion. You only start the game with one coin, and that coin goes back and forth between the players.

Al 3:41

You each have one coin. You each have one coin. So somebody can end up with two.

Hannah 3:44

Yes.

Al 3:46

The game continues until the queen pawn has reached the 30 space or you have exhausted the entire stack of tiles twice. That brings the end of the game.

Hannah 3:56

Probably an important thing to note is that the stack of tiles are always played with the order face up.

Al 4:03

So

Hannah 4:03

you can always see what your next, both colour will be and also what the next order is. But

Al 4:08

only one. And you refresh the marketplace as soon as you take something so it cycles immediately basically. There are a couple of extra things to mention. You can place staying glass on tiles when you make if you put stained glass on a tile it adds a value of two to the area and it doesn't matter who wins so if you place it down your opponent gets a majority they get the points and the game the addition that we've got is a reprint of the original that they released a couple of years ago and it comes with a mini expansion which is around altars and you can put altars down which basically prevents your pawns from being messed with and also doubles the value of any stained glass on their area if that's all there is to it in terms of expansion. At the end of each, perhaps it is called a round when you reach 10, 20 and 30, the top two rows of the cathedral basically get wiped.

Hannah 5:01

Really shoddy builders.

Al 5:02

Yes, it just all falls down. But yes, scaffolding. Do you want to tell everyone about scaffolding?

Hannah 5:10

So yes, you can take a scaffolding order which allows you to put down two scaffolding tiles and that can be quite helpful if you're trying to block off an opponent from making it. this huge, big, massive swathe and that just blocks off those two routes. Yeah, and builders also can't

Al 5:24

be put on scaffolding tiles. So, for example, you have an order that you can take a builder back and then move one of your opponent's builders and you can actually use scaffolding to stop that happening in a way.

Speaker 01 5:34

You

Al 5:34

can block off them being moved out of an area that way. So, yeah, it's got quite a few uses. So, yeah, run time. How long are games? How long should games be?

Hannah 5:47

What does it say on the box? 45 minutes. I mean, I don't think that's... Yeah, that's about right. 45 minutes to an hour, I reckon.

Al 5:55

Yeah, I would say so. And although we haven't mentioned it yet, this is a two-player only game. This is a duel. Yeah. Okay. So, I mean, I picked this up on a whim in the great Game UK has gone mad sale of 2024. It's just a deal of the shelves. Oh, okay, I'll get that. You know, building cathedrals, tile placement.

Hannah 6:17

This

Al 6:17

will wind up my wife

Hannah 6:19

yeah I think you did set it to me as Carcassonne but a bit more involved and a bit more of an option to fuck with your opponent yeah

Al 6:28

you may want to go back to our episode on Carcassonne for some additional reference on Hannah's opinions about Carcassonne

Hannah 6:33

Carcassonne's not my favourite

Al 6:36

so yeah this was a complete woman based purchase because nothing wows your wife like coming home with a board game about cathedral building

Hannah 6:43

I mean to be fair you also brought one home about building tram lines so you know

Al 6:48

Again, San Francisco, another episode for context there. Not had a good hit rate with that sale. No. So anyway, is there anything you want to mention before we crack on with scoring?

Hannah 7:01

Let's just crack on, shall we? So under our general scoring categories, the first one is components, and that includes things like setup, board space, and obviously the actual parts themselves. So it's got some really lovely, nice little wooden...

Al 7:18

The pawns.

Hannah 7:19

The pawns. I think they're really lovely, and they're quite sturdy and chunky, and they're nice. I like them. What really irritates me is the queen is just an oversized... porn.

Al 7:29

Is that not what a queen is though? This is a politics podcast. Let's move on.

Hannah 7:35

But it annoys me because she's the same colour as the ones that you play

Al 7:38

with. She is, yes. And that just annoys me. She should be a different colour. She should be a different colour. I mean it's a weird thing to get annoyed about but you do you. I mean I was actually really pleasantly surprised when we cracked this open because it's actually quite well made. It's really nice. Particularly the, as you say, the player pieces. And the coins are of these really like thick, chunky, wooden, tokens it's just it feels a little bit deluxe

Hannah 8:04

anything that comes in wood I think automatically just feels a little bit nicer and also a little bit more sustainable I think possibly maybe I don't know yes I take that back actually I don't know about the sustainability of wood versus cardboard let's just move swiftly along shall we

Al 8:15

okay all right yeah again um different meeting um but it's also one of those games that the insert is completely custom built for the game and everything fits back exactly in its right spot you know there's no baggies required anything like that it's just all fits neatly in to the box which is always a plus from me

Hannah 8:33

one of the things that does annoy me is we talked about this huge stack of pieces it is a very large stack you have to have them all in a row because obviously you have that's the way the game works and you have to be able to see what's on top um but because of that it's quite easy to knock over

Al 8:50

yeah it's huge

Hannah 8:51

and it's huge and In some ways, you kind of feel like you want a bag, but obviously you can't have a bag because you need to be able to see. And I just... That doesn't work very well for me.

Al 9:02

No, I have to agree with you. It annoys me as well. I mean, it's this enormous stack. It's very precarious. It is an absolute nightmare to shuffle them.

Speaker 01 9:10

Oh, yeah.

Al 9:10

Because you're basically trying to shuffle a huge big stack of tiles. It's just... It's really unwieldy.

Speaker 01 9:16

Yeah.

Al 9:17

And it is by nature... It's not like you can fix this by doing a bag or a bowl that you could dip into because the nature of the game is... You need to be able to see what's coming next. So there is no real solution for it. It's just annoying. But that aside, I mean, setup is super quick, that aside. It's just that shuffling of that massive stack of tiles that's a real pain.

Hannah 9:36

Do we talk about theme here? I think we ask this question every time.

Al 9:41

Well, I think theme can come in anywhere, and I was going to talk about theme, yeah. Okay, you go for it. Okay. I have no idea what this has got to do with building a cathedral.

Speaker 01 9:52

No, no.

Al 9:53

I'm just going to straight up say it. Maybe I haven't been in enough basilicas, but

Hannah 9:58

there's weird things... Because you've not been around enough priests.

Al 10:00

No, I'll just try and avoid them. Um... This mishmash of randomly coloured tiles in some groupings and some not, it may as well be anything. I fail to see... You know, in Carcassonne, you can see you're building a landscape, and it looks... You know, the tile placement thing, it looks pretty at the end of it. And you understand what your cities are doing. You're building a quilt. You understand what it is. It looks like the thing it was meant to be. This is just... Oh, it's colours. And I just... I don't... I don't understand.

Hannah 10:34

Isn't it always supposed to be building a stained glass window?

Al 10:36

No. No,

Hannah 10:37

it's an actual cathedral.

Al 10:38

No, because as far as I understand it, basilicas have these multi-coloured... floors or walls and things like that. It's

Hannah 10:46

a bit of a stretch isn't

Al 10:47

it? It is a bit of a stretch and also they are very evenly placed whereas this you're grouping them so it's just the splotches of colour and I don't it just does not translate at all for me I don't get it

Hannah 10:58

and here's the other thing so it relies very heavily on iconography and we've talked about this a lot in the past once you get your head around the iconography then you're away sometimes that can be a bit of a learning curve still after all these games I still do not understand the iconography on the order cards and I think that's because it just bears no relevance to what we're doing

Al 11:18

yeah I think a lot of them are way too similar as well like when you're like ten turns deep I've often confused things for other things and not done things because I've been like oh no that's that and then I've realised oh no wait that's the other one

Hannah 11:31

so you're placing a builder moving a builder withdrawing a builder they all look very very

Al 11:36

similar yes yeah they do all look very very similar and I think by the nature of some of them especially with what happens when you pay a coin or trying to make an extra rule clear so for example the destruction one where you remove a tile has a builder on there with a with a no sign through it but it just looks it just makes it cluttered like when you see the builder on there you think it's to do with something to do with the builder not to do with

Hannah 11:59

really you can only withdraw a tile that has a water bill

Al 12:02

yeah which is should be just served by the rule book yeah it's yeah it's not as clear as it should be and i have to agree with you for some reason the icon iconography takes a lot longer to sink in which should be quite simple

Hannah 12:13

it really should be and it and it It should be a lot more straightforward than it actually is. You've also got your promotion tokens as well. And... you've got like a jester hat on there and that's just bizarre I mean what's a jester got to do with anything

Al 12:29

exactly so yeah it's really it's really mixed it doesn't the theme seems to be the art style seems to be very little to do with the theme and a lot of the things just seem very sort of out of place why would builders be destroying other tiles within a cathedral

Hannah 12:46

that's why it falls down that's why you lose your first

Al 12:49

floors exactly

Hannah 12:50

it's also just not very pretty

Al 12:52

no No, it's not. It tends to look very clunky and just these washes of colour with no real purpose. Again, the tiles look more like cushions than they do a floor.

Speaker 01 13:05

Yes.

Al 13:06

So yeah, the art style is whack. Yeah, it's whack. Okay, sure.

Hannah 13:14

The 80s are calling.

Al 13:16

So yeah, I have to agree with you there. Which means it's a real big spag for me, because I think components-wise, it's it's really well made it's nice it's a decent package but it's massively let down by the art style and the connection between theme and art style and theme and gameplay to a certain extent like it is so abstract I just can't really put the two together yeah so what did you give it

Hannah 13:38

a six

Al 13:39

I also gave it a six yeah

Hannah 13:43

So on to our next category, and that's complexity. So as always, it's not about how complex it is or it isn't, but it's how well the complexity serves the gameplay. We also talk about things like AP and how much we argue about the rules. I think... In itself, it's not particularly complicated. No. I think we've already kind of hit on the things that make it more complicated. So the fact that order tokens are really abstract and it's not always necessarily... I've made numerous mistakes because I just don't understand the order tokens. But actually, it is fairly easy and straightforward to teach.

Al 14:19

Yes, it is. Again, it's one of these rule books that comes across as much more liberal

Hannah 14:23

than the actual game should be. Explaining the promotions that there is like... three pages I think dedicated to explaining how the motions work which is just a little bit overkill it's not that complicated

Al 14:34

yeah I think they could have done a much better job with the rules because it is a simple game at its core it is not a heavy game however do you want to talk about AP

Hannah 14:43

oh Christ yes oh my gosh it is brutal

Al 14:47

yeah

Hannah 14:48

it is absolutely brutal and I mean I can spend I could spend 45 minutes I think just thinking about one turn

Speaker 01 14:57

yeah

Hannah 14:58

It's not because you've got a huge amount of options that you can... You've only got three things that you can do on your turn. They're relatively limited, but there is this element of having to, again, think about what the best move is for the current board state. It's

Al 15:15

optimisation all the time.

Hannah 15:16

Yes, optimisation all the time, but also whilst trying to block you, but also make things open for me. And I definitely really, really struggle and, again, have to make a very conscious decision not to.

Al 15:27

Not to get locked

Hannah 15:28

into that headspace. Not to get locked into that headspace. And that's quite difficult for me, I think.

Al 15:33

I've seen you struggle really badly with this one.

Hannah 15:35

Yeah. Like really, really badly. I think it would be one of the worst ones that I've come across for a really long time. Yeah, I would

Al 15:39

agree with that. This one really gets you, doesn't it? Yeah. You just get completely locked into your thoughts. Yeah. So yeah, if you are prone to that...

Speaker 01 15:49

Watch out.

Al 15:49

Definitely be careful here because it has a propensity for that. Absolutely. I think in terms of the scoring and winning the game and what I I think the complexity is fine. I think the scoring gets a little while to get your head round, but I think once you get your head round it, it's okay.

Hannah 16:06

I was going to talk about this out of fun.

Al 16:08

Okay, fine. But from my perspective, complexity-wise, I think that's all right. But I think we've touched upon it. There seems to be... an iconography problem here, and perhaps a little bit of overwroughtness in a way, that adds a little bit of unnecessary complexity to this. I mean, you joked about the jester hat. I've still never used that. You have once. Yeah, you

Hannah 16:30

did, and you scored massively because of

Al 16:32

it. Okay, fair enough. I'll stand corrected then. But there are bits to it that almost seems like a bit too much at times.

Hannah 16:39

And yet, I think that's what makes this interesting, Potentially... Or has the potential to be so much better than Carcassonne... Because you have those orders... That allow you to deliberately fuck with other people... I just think it's the way that it's been written... And the way that it's been presented... Rules wise... It just makes it more complicated than it needs to be... Or more off-putting than it needs to be...

Al 17:01

Yeah, I think so... Like I said, this is a reprint... I think the original is over 15 years old now... And I think things have come along quite a way... But I think there's been a lack of care... with updating the new version because I was incredibly confused when in the setup it talks about everybody getting four promotion tokens and it took quite a lot of research to find out that no indeed in the new version you only have three but they haven't updated the rulebook to reflect that so it's little bits like that where I think the rule book could have been rewritten, strummed down, a bit more care taken with the reprint to actually go, oh no, this is a bit over, the rule book's come across a bit overwrought, let's strum this down. Things have moved on quite a lot in the last 15 years and I don't think it's captured that for some reason.

Hannah 17:44

Yeah. I don't think, though, I think that's a components issue really particularly. Yeah. Really more than, you know, the actual rules itself. Yeah, fine.

Unknown 17:55

But,

Al 17:55

But yeah, so what did you give it for complexity then?

Hannah 17:59

So I scored it quite high despite the AP. Okay. So I scored it a seven because I think it has the potential to be a really, really good game. And I think I'm aware that AP is my issue, you know? Yeah, that's fair enough. So I didn't really want to mark it down because of that. So I scored it a seven.

Al 18:15

Okay, I gave it a six. Okay. Because I do think it's a bit overwrought.

Hannah 18:20

Okay.

Al 18:20

I think it's got a couple of rules it doesn't need.

Unknown 18:23

Yeah.

Al 18:23

And I think that's to its detriment. Yeah. Okay. What about shelf life and value for money then?

Hannah 18:30

Well, I think it always helps if we start by talking about the price points. What does this retail at?

Al 18:33

25 to 30, depending on where you go.

Hannah 18:38

So I'm just going to put my hands up here and say this is not my favourite game ever. We'll come to the reasons why it's not my favourite game ever. So I think, you know, for me, am I going to play it again? Probably not. Do I think it's worth that in terms of value for money? No. Maybe.

Al 18:57

I think this at full RRP is skirting the boundary of what I prepared to pay for it, I have to say. I think while it's nicely made, I can get much more bang for my buck for that

Hannah 19:08

amount of money. I think 25 is reasonable. I think if you go anything above that, then probably not great value for money. However, again, I don't like this straight off the bat. But I don't think it's a bad game. And I think for other people, there's a huge amount of replayability behind it. Because what I've also noticed is that every time we play, we both get better and better. And it's that constant, I think, you're learning and you're growing together. And for that reason, I think probably some people would really, really like it. Yeah, I think your mileage

Al 19:41

may vary. I do like this kind of game. I am bored of this.

Hannah 19:47

Oh really? Is that because you have to sit there and wait 15 minutes for me to place one tile? It

Al 19:52

might be part of it, but I don't think it's the whole story. I would go back to Carcassonne a hundred times. I don't think I will ever go back to this.

Hannah 20:04

Do you know, I would rather play this than Carcassonne.

Al 20:07

Fair enough, but not for me. I just think once you've seen all the mechanisms working... you will reach a fork in the road where you either love how it plays to a point that you're willing to take the dive in and keep playing and getting better and better, or you might just get a bit bored. And I think one of the issues for me with this, and I'll say it here instead of in fun, is I think it goes on too long. I think it's too long for what it is. I think if the game was half the length, I would probably return to it a lot easier. But it eats up an entire evening of board gaming, usually.

Hannah 20:47

Yeah, but I think that's, again, because I sit there and deliberate and pontificate so long. I think what's really interesting is that first round... if you like that takes the longest because it's such an open clean slate I think yeah it does speed

Al 21:00

up as you go on

Hannah 21:00

yeah it speeds up as you go on and because I've already got a footprint actually that free form open worldness is gone so actually it's a lot easier and it's a lot quicker for me and so I think and that's when it becomes more fun to then start messing with your opponent or being more combative and that's where I think

Al 21:21

yeah but I mean it is what it is and it is the way I feel and I have no interest in returning to this, which is unusual for me, because I'm usually the one that will stick with things, games, a little bit past where...

Hannah 21:34

Yeah, I think it's really telling that we, again, had to kind of force ourselves through...

Al 21:39

doing our due diligence yeah doing our due diligence numbers of plays we've played the six times and I'm done and that's quite rare for me usually I want to play something at least ten times before I go I am officially done with this

Hannah 21:52

so

Al 21:52

yeah I've given it a three because of that

Hannah 21:54

oh really so I felt because I have a problem with this game for other reasons which we will come on to I felt that I couldn't really score this fairly, so I gave it a five.

Al 22:03

Okay, bang average.

Hannah 22:05

Yeah.

Al 22:05

Yeah, no, I gave it three because of the fact that it doesn't pull me back in and it doesn't make me want to play it again. And I do think it's skirting the borderline of being poor value for money if you pay full price for it. So, yeah, three.

Hannah 22:17

Okay, so on to, is it any fun?

Al 22:20

Is Basilica any fun? A moderate amount?

Hannah 22:25

So... I think that we have discussed this, and I think I've firmly established now that area of control games are not my forte.

Al 22:33

Area of control, yeah. No, they're not, are they?

Hannah 22:36

They're not. I find them really intensely confusing. I can't understand how the scoring works, despite the fact you've explained it to me numerous times. And I'm not stupid. I just have this mental block when it comes to area of

Al 22:49

control.

Hannah 22:49

And I just can't do it. And I think that then adds to my AP as well. And then it adds to my sheer fucking furies when I think I've got something and you're like no and it just makes me want to

Al 23:04

table flip

Hannah 23:05

it's the same thing with Scythe I think

Al 23:07

it's

Hannah 23:08

the same sort of similar principle I just don't think my head works in that way and as a result it's an incredibly infuriating experience for me and we just don't have much fun

Al 23:19

I'm just going to keep ordering just to wind you up we have to review it Hannes for the podcast No, I have a moderate amount of fun playing this. I'll start with a good. What I like about this is the ability to mess with your opponent.

Hannah 23:36

Oh, you really, really enjoy that.

Al 23:38

But I like that kind of thing. I'm a huge fan of take-that mechanics. I am obviously an arsehole at heart because I just enjoy making the other player suffer a little bit. It... I love that in board games. I always have. And you can spectacularly mess with people in this. And that is fun for me. I really enjoy that.

Hannah 23:59

From simply just removing a tile, so it means their huge, big, massive swathe is interrupted, to moving your opponent. There are lots of ways to be able to mess with them very, very simply. And it's non-recoverable. You can't fix it. Once it's done, it's

Al 24:17

done. And you can be planning something and you own it all the bubble going oh I'm going to do this and this and this and this and the opponent comes along with one order and just screws the entire thing up and you have to start from square one basically but that's also a point of caution because some people will hate that some people will really really hate that this is quite a mean game

Hannah 24:34

yes and what I would say is when you've got somebody like me who's struggling with just being able to work out where to place a tile you then come in and then fuck up my game plan it's a

Al 24:42

little bit like kicking a puppy at

Hannah 24:44

times it is yeah yeah it is a little bit I think it should be kinder to me

Al 24:47

yeah it should be I am all the time I'm except when we're playing games. So, yeah. I really like that about it. I enjoy that aspect of it, but your mileage will very much vary because I know that's very much a personality type thing. Some people absolutely hate that and they will walk away from this immediately. So if you're a person that gets bothered about somebody else playing aggressively, because that's the other thing in this, you have to play aggressively. If you try and play defensively, your opponents are going to roll all over you constantly. You have to try and take areas. You have to get up in each other's grill because if you don't, you'll probably lose.

Hannah 25:25

So I want to talk about that a bit more under competitiveness. Okay, fine. You

Al 25:29

can shelve that and talk about it there. We'll come back

Hannah 25:33

to it. So what did you score it then?

Al 25:34

Well, that was the good. I haven't talked about the bad yet. Oh, okay. Just like the real life game. I was trying to rush through this review.

Hannah 25:43

No, but I don't know. I spent hours...

Al 25:45

Drawing it out. No, that's the good side of it. The bad side of things is that... With all of the strategizing, it can also feel a bit rote depending on what's coming out on the table. You can have a strategy in your head, but it is very much the mercy of the marketplace. And I have seen it happen to you quite a few times where you've been playing a really good game, but I've just got a run of three tiles that I needed to exact that moment. And I've undone all your plans and made a massive advantage of mine. And... That's just happened.

Hannah 26:22

It's really interesting because you like luck in games more than I do. And yet what you're talking about is not liking luck in this game.

Al 26:28

No, exactly. Yeah, and it's a weird one because I feel like this game is on the cusp of being a very heady, purely strategic battle of the minds. But that scuppers it a little bit because it can fall that way. And there's not much you can do to mitigate that. It's the nature of the game. and it makes it very difficult to plan more than two moves ahead as a result, which kind of undercuts a little bit of the strategic element of it that I think I'd really enjoy if there was a bit more There was a bit more steadiness to that. There was a way to mitigate that somehow.

Hannah 27:06

I mean, I've been in a situation where I've just been pulling orders just in the hope that I get the order that I need in order to be able to do what I want. And that seems a bit wasted.

Al 27:16

Yeah, I feel like there could have been something there around pay your coin. to nuke the row nuke the marketplace for example there's no mitigation there if you get a bad run or your opponent gets a good run there's nothing you can do about it and that deflates it a little bit for me And that's from somebody who enjoys luck in games. But I enjoy luck when it feels fair. This can often feel very unfair to one person or the other.

Hannah 27:41

Perhaps because your marketplace is relatively small. You only have a marketplace of three for each of the

Al 27:45

rows. I mean, I think if you compare it to something like Carcassonne, where you don't have a marketplace, you just have one tile in your hand, I think the difference there is there's not much you can do to really mess with your opponents. But yeah, if you get a run of three good orders at the right time, you can completely take the game away from them. And I just feel like that deflates it a bit for me. So, I mean, overall, I have a bang average time playing this. I've given it a five as a result.

Hannah 28:13

Yeah, so I gave it a generous two. Oh,

Al 28:15

wow,

Hannah 28:15

okay. Yeah, I did actually not like this game. No fun to be had for you. No, not fun for me. No, okay. And I think actually... in terms of scoring, I don't think I've won a single match.

Al 28:26

No, you haven't.

Hannah 28:28

That's how much I hate this game. Which is a

Al 28:30

real rarity for us. We usually go to 15. No, no, no. You've been way too kind to me. Long-time listeners to the podcast will know this. Hannah is better at board games than I am and tends to win about two-thirds of the games that we play. Not my game. No, definitely not your game.

Hannah 28:48

Alright, so should we add those up?

Al 28:50

As always, we average those out and that gives us a general score of five so bang average

Hannah 28:58

yeah

Al 28:58

yeah completely middle of the road

Hannah 28:59

all right so then let's talk about this is a two-player game

Al 29:03

indeed so as you know one of our criteria is around how does this play with more uh in cases like this where it is a two-player game or a duel we just excise that completely so it's a na yep

Hannah 29:14

But under our first, under our two-player rating scale, we have table talk. So that's how much discourse we have at the table, getting to know you, shouting at each other,

Al 29:25

telling

Hannah 29:26

people to hurry the fuck up.

Al 29:28

Yeah, so those latter two things happen more than the

Hannah 29:31

other things

Al 29:32

in this one.

Unknown 29:33

Yeah.

Al 29:34

It's mostly Hannah shouting at me and me telling her to hurry up.

Speaker 01 29:38

Yeah, I mean, pretty much.

Al 29:39

Yeah. If that's your idea of a good time, a table talk, then...

Hannah 29:44

Tenner. 10

Al 29:45

i mean if i think we're being a bit unfair to it yeah i think it is quite an interactive game

Hannah 29:53

not the most interactive it's when you play it at a speed it's supposed to be played at

Al 29:57

yes yeah yeah i catch up on my reading when we play so there's that um no but in in general it is quite an interactive game so i think the the likelihood of having some decent banter is probably quite high if you are having a good time which often the case of this particularly one of us as you can see from the previous score is not so I think that covers a bit but I'm trying to be a little bit objective here about the game itself and you know how much interactivity you have it's not a multiplayer solitaire by any means it definitely is a duel you are definitely interacting directly with each other as I said you have to play quite aggressively in this and I think again that can lead to some quite good bantery times if you're that way inclined. What are your thoughts?

Hannah 30:43

So I don't think there is a huge amount of table talk. So even when we talk about other games that are competitive you might end up explaining what it is that you're doing or the actions that you're taking.

Speaker 01 30:53

Well

Hannah 30:54

you aren't necessarily doing that with this. It's definitely head to head and I think you're definitely really engaged with each other and what the other person's doing. It's a shared board space after all. Yeah. But no, and I think, yes, there is opportunity for banter, because again, you get to mess with your opponent, but I think those are small, small moments, and perhaps not all that... Not that they're not all that common. I just don't think it's a main feature of the game.

Al 31:27

No, no, it's definitely not a main feature. And I think I've scored that accordingly. But I think it is there. It is there. This is not a complete play in silence kind of

Hannah 31:37

game. Oh, no. But I think you probably could.

Al 31:40

I don't think so. I think there's too much interactivity for that.

Hannah 31:43

No, I think you probably could.

Al 31:44

I disagree. Anyway. Agree to disagree. What have you scored

Hannah 31:49

with that? So for...

Al 31:50

I gave it a five, so I'm not scoring it massively highly, but I do think it's there, so I'm not going to give it sort of one, two kind of in the spectrum. I think it's, again, average.

Hannah 31:58

Okay. And then how competitive it is.

Speaker 01 32:03

Hmm.

Hannah 32:03

so yes it is fiercely competitive you are definitely head to head and you again it's the same board space that you're playing over and you are fighting over area of control so there is a huge element of competitivity competitiveness

Al 32:21

competitiveness

Hannah 32:22

competitiveness And again, because you can mess with your opponent, that I think automatically adds that real competitive edge to it and that real like, aha, kind of sensational feeling. Like when you do something, when you do strip a tile away or something like that happens, you just think, yeah.

Al 32:41

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's a very good competitive game. Is it a game that you can get better at? Yes. Is it a game that is satisfying to win? If you're having fun, yes. Those are usually my criteria for this. I don't find this immensely satisfying to win, mostly because you're not having a great time when we play it.

Hannah 33:02

And I also just don't think that we're on equal footing either. I think there is just a mental block for me, and I think... because of that yes I imagine it does feel like you're kicking a puppy

Al 33:12

a little

Speaker 01 33:13

bit

Hannah 33:13

yeah however what's really interesting is you said oh you have to be really aggressive I don't know that you have to

Al 33:21

is this why you've not won a game yet no

Hannah 33:23

I try and go off and do my own

Al 33:25

thing. Shade.

Hannah 33:27

I just try and leave you to your big old massive thing.

Al 33:30

Winning the game, yeah. You're in. Lies my evidence.

Hannah 33:36

I don't understand how to compete. So I try and leave my own thing. And then you must sign on it. And I'm like, go away. I'm building my own thing. That's

Al 33:44

exactly my case in point. You can't do that in this.

Hannah 33:47

Oh, okay. I want a

Al 33:49

rematch. No, I'm good. Yeah, I... 100% stand by it you have to be very very aggressive in this game if you try and do your own thing you're giving the other person way too much control and they will win as has been the case I don't

Hannah 34:08

understand how many builders I need to have in the area.

Al 34:14

More than the other person. Hence the aggressiveness.

Hannah 34:18

You've got all these multipliers on and then you've got altars and stained glass windows and it's all just very confusing.

Al 34:24

Yeah, well, okay, fine. I mean, you can play Arkham Horror. I don't really understand why you find this one so

Hannah 34:30

hard. I don't get it either. It's not my game, is it?

Al 34:34

No, it's not. But no, I still you have to be very very aggressive in this and if that's not if that's not what floats your boat in games again beware if it is what floats your boat in games by all means give this a shot because I think two very engaged people could have some absolute like, Humdinger's matches with this one. You know, like, I think if you find somebody that's on equal footing to you, you could probably have a really good time with this. Yeah. I would agree with that. I just think that that's not panned out for us for whatever reason. But that doesn't make it less competitive. I think it is a very, very good competitive

Hannah 35:06

game. Yeah. And I think there are competitive games where you can feel really competitive and you're at, sort of like, at odds with each other and you're really fighting for control. But... somehow don't feel quite so hostile as this

Al 35:19

yeah this is a very very mean game it's one of the meanest games i've played

Hannah 35:22

yeah

Al 35:23

um and it's really surprising you know it's a typical like oh tile placement pretty colors you don't really expect it but it's it's really

Speaker 01 35:30

church building

Al 35:31

church building yeah it's it is really really cutthroat um i didn't expect it to be as mean as it is at the box we started playing i was like wow okay you can really just destroy everything somebody's been working towards this this is great but yeah um downsize for me

Speaker 01 35:47

are

Al 35:48

two number one the luck thing which I've talked about already so I'm not going to belabor that point but I do think that's a negative the other thing I have an issue with and it's won me several games but I have an issue with it is the times two I think it is way too powerful. Not, anybody can

Hannah 36:11

use it. So let's just explain what the times two thing is.

Al 36:14

So there's an order that you can give a promotion to one of your builders. One of those promotions is a times two, which means that if you win the area, it is worth double points. The problem is, is it's just too extreme in comparison to everything else that goes on in the game, which means that if you just get one of those in a big area, the game's completely your runaway leader. especially if you do it in the last round like there's no chance it feels unbalanced and this is me saying this as somebody who's won three out of our six games via this very mechanic I just think the swings are too massive and even if you were to do it and fail and the other person were to steal it from you it's still such a massive swing that it upsets the balance of the game completely

Hannah 36:57

and I think you have to bear in mind that quite often you do end up with very very large areas because you're both vying for control of this one thing so it might be a huge swathe of green and actually having a base score of 8-9 is not unusual that's quite common and then you

Al 37:14

double that 18-19-20 you chuck a stained glass window in there it's too big a swing to the point that if I did play this and we did actually like this and we played this more often I'd probably house rule it and take it away because I don't think it adds much to the game it takes something away So yeah, those are my downsides.

Hannah 37:33

Although I played it in the last game and I almost clawed back some of the space between us.

Al 37:39

But again, should you be able to do that through essentially one move? Three squares

Speaker 01 37:43

as well.

Al 37:45

I just think it upsets the balance. I don't think it belongs there and I don't know why they put it in there. It feels like one of those things that just lacks a bit of playtesting, I guess. So yeah, that's marked it down a little bit for me. But saying that, I've still given this a seven.

Hannah 37:57

Yeah, so I gave it a seven as well because I do think you're right when you talk to Angry Carl on I think is a really fantastic way of describing it absolutely is and I think it's I think in principle, it really could be something quite special.

Al 38:10

Yeah, it could be.

Hannah 38:12

It just needs a bit of tweaking.

Al 38:13

Yeah, could do with a little bit of tweaking rules-wise, a little bit of tweaking iconography-wise, perhaps a theme that makes a vague amount of sense, and getting rid of that times two thing, because I think that really hurts it. Yeah. Do all that, and I think you're on to a winner here, but in its current form for us, I don't think so. And as a result, I find it quite difficult to recommend in general.

Hannah 38:34

Okay. Right, so let's add up those scores and see where that leaves us. Okay,

Al 38:37

so we add those up and average them out, and that gives us an average of 5.7, so we're round to a 6.

Hannah 38:42

So interestingly, we think it's a better two-player game than we think it's an overall game.

Al 38:46

Well, it is a two-player game, so that kind of makes sense.

Speaker 01 38:50

Okay, all right.

Al 38:51

But it's because basically, I mean, scores are scores, whatever, but it's a lot to do with the fact that it is a good competitive game, and that's pushed it up a little bit. And we don't have a third category, which could bring it up or down, you know, whatever. I'm sure the real proof is in what we've talked about and you should be able to tell from that whether it's for

Hannah 39:09

you or not yeah

Al 39:11

so great thank you for joining us uh as always and until next time have fun be good to each other and play lots of board games