Epic Game Chronicles

A great 9 player game in the West, with 3 new players - Hobie, Scott (The king) and Scott (The Bro). Fortunes rose and fell, with the Celts, Hellas, Rome and Iberia contending for first place. In the end the Celts achieved Cultural Dominance and Provincial Empire to secure their win.

Another hard-fought game in the West! We played the Expert AST to round 18 with one more round to go as the winner stalled twice. With 8 players the calamities were fast and furious with everyone getting knocked down in some fashion every round. With that being said, almost everyone managed to stay within a few points of each other except for Egypt which got hit hard and then lagged in getting sufficient trade goods to get them into the early bronze age until late in the game. The end was a close race between Hellas, Rome and Assyria, with Rome and Assyria not advancing only due to having insufficient cities in the final round.

Here are the results of our last game. We played the Expert AST to round 18 and finished the game in 10 hours. As usual everyone is richer when you play with the full 9 nations and the extra set of trade goods. Lots of people had tons of civilization advances and even the last place player had over 100 points! I must say though that Maurya and Dravidia struggled hard against calamities. Note also the three-way tie for 6th place! Congratulations to Don for emerging the clear winner. His Rhetoric strategy really paid off. Please also take a moment to appreciate just how nice the new playmat is to play on. I also want to thank Stephanie and Cédric for making the drive from Gatineau to come play. We hope to see you again in Toronto another time!

Thanks everyone for coming out to play yesterday at the Guild House and a thanks especially to the three new players who dove into what proved to be a chaotic game. When there are two complete sets of calamities circulating, some very dramatic reversals of fortune can happen! I will mention that Andre as Hatti and Jayto as Saba showed what you can do with the more “aggressive” 200-level cards. Provincial Empire as Hatti is really strong and Universal Doctrine is very good when there are two Piracy calamities in the game.

Here are the results of our last game. We played the Expert AST to round 16 (17 is the last round) and it is astounding how much richer everyone is when you play with the full 9 nations and the extra set of trade goods. Lots of people had tons of civilization advances. And I finally won! :) I say it’s because Allister wasn’t playing.

Thanks everyone for coming out for the game yesterday! As expected at 11 players the calamities were coming out fast and furious. We tried playing the 12 player setup but without Nubia, and I think it went well. The winner was Allister as Egypt, with Jonathan as Parthia very close in second. We ended at turn 15, one turn away from the finish, which is to be expected when we had 3 new players. I think the most dramatic moment of the game was when Tyranny struck Rome and Assyria took control of the Roman capital. They promptly tore down the Colosseum and turned in an additional 77 points of Herbs for purchasing civilization advances. This likely knocked Rome down from a top contender and helped Assyrian fortunes after a series of devastating Civil Wars, Famines and Epidemics.

Thanks everyone for coming out for the game yesterday! As expected at 11 the calamities were coming out fast and furious. The winner was Niser as Persia who survived a civil war and still come out on top. Very impressive as both a new player and playing a middle civilization. Persia reached the end of the Basic AST track to trigger the end game before the 10 am deadline.

Thanks to everyone who came out to play today - our first game of 9 for Eastern Empires! I’m not sure if we’re getting better or things are way easier at 9 with the extra trade goods, but almost everyone was at 7,8, and 9 cities many times during the game. We ended the game on the expert AST 1 turn away from the end!

We played on the ‘Expert’ AST - I personally liked it because it allows you to build a much larger civilization card set, but it is much more punish getting into the mid-tier ages, you really must be working to build complete sets. But I do think it would be a challenge for us to complete a full game in our allotted ~11 hours of play time. Maybe the extra goods at 9 players would help, maybe not. I’d like to hear other people’s thoughts on it. Kasia’s points came more from civ advances while mine came from AST order. While I was leading by far on the AST, I had now stalled very hard, while Kasia stalled earlier (and regressed twice) and now had the criteria to enter the early iron age if the game had continued. You’ll also note 2nd to 5th place scores were very close and Minoa, Hellas and Hatti were going to catch up and pass me given they were ahead of me on civ cards points. BTW, Kasia got hit by Epidemic three times, yet still managed to win the game. Which just goes to show you it’s your trades that wins you the game. Though in retrospect, Carthage (me) should have swept in and taken territory when Rome was laid low. I think I’ll correct that error in future games.

Thanks to everyone who made it to yesterday’s game. It was certainly a game with big swings in fortunes and a Minoa who was showing just how powerful Astronavigation can be. We made it to the end of the AST with Don and Rob both crossing the finish line. Kudos to Kasia for being the only civilization with their monument on the board, and she would have been at the final if it wasn’t for a turn where she was reduced to zero cities. We also saw 2 Regressions (Kasia and Aaron).

Thanks to everyone who came to the game and welcomed our two new players to the game. It was cool to see so many nations sustaining 8 and 9 cities consistently this time around. Also, much thanks to Don for drawing and buying many of the high-numbered calamities. It always helps everyone else to have a calamity magnet.

Thanks everyone for another game of Eastern Empires. We’re now 2 in a row for finishing the game in time, with many people making it much further up the AST. Congratulations to Don for quietly working away in his corner as Parthia for the win, despite Allister’s last minute attempt to stall him. Don was never stalled once on AST advance. Also kudos to Eric for losing most of Babylon to civil war and barbarians but still managing to turn in commodity sets and get advances. The consensus at the table is we are going to play Eastern Empires again before considering going back to Western Empires.

Thanks everyone for the great game - our first in the East, and the first to actually complete! We saw a lot of 200 level cards being purchased and complete sets being turned in. This was because of many turns where everyone was at 6 to 8 cities. (Hint - peace pays!) It was a very interesting game. Kushan was hit hard with early calamities and Morry was a trooper staying in the game as long as he could. Persia had an early lead, but after a series of devastating calamities never managed to recover. Indus similarly was brought law by disaster. Parthia and Babylon kept insisting on building by a very active volcano. Saba quietly cruised toward victory, but was facing being stalled at the last step when an opportune Tyranny suddenly gave him the cities he needed to advance and win! The board is certainly an interesting one and I think we’ll play it again at our next game on November 26th, it would be great to have Nubia and the Indian sub-continent in play.

Fun was generally had but I think we can all recognize that the rest of us benefited from Egypt’s massive bad luck in drawing multiple devastating calamities, not just once but multiple times. Thank you Carey for giving it a try and Chris for sticking it out when faced with the devastation of Egyptian flooding - not once, but twice!

Our second hard-fought battle! This time Hellas dominated the Mediterranean until all their neighbours decided to take them down a notch but it was too late to prevent the win.

Our inaugural game after a 2 year delay due to the covid-19 pandemic. There was a hard fought war between Assyria and Egypt, with Egypt finally blunting Assyrian aggreesion. Everyone had a great time and were eager for the next game.