by Cadellon
Thanks for your feedback everyone. I will be writing a review for BoW (that I hate) shortly.
ionas wrote:
I didn't find the balance to be too good. I found the balance of the game as well as options to rebuild and stuff like that a lot worse than Starcraft while very similar in other regards. I did like the components like 100% (only the small plastic minis sometimes are of bad quality but then... there are 192 of them.
So for me it was more like 3/3 components. 2/2 theme. 4/5 mechanics (actually the only thing sucking heavily because it is tons of luck are tactical cards, heroes and quests), 2/5 balance and 5/5 replayability. It is not a bad game but it did not pass my gameplay quality assurance tests.
So for me it was more like 3/3 components. 2/2 theme. 4/5 mechanics (actually the only thing sucking heavily because it is tons of luck are tactical cards, heroes and quests), 2/5 balance and 5/5 replayability. It is not a bad game but it did not pass my gameplay quality assurance tests.
I do agree that Runewars holds quite a lot of with similarities with Starcraft when it comes to mechanics. Having never played the game I can't speak about balance. I'd be interested to hear about what you find so imbalanced. The luck can usually be mitigated, e.g heroes can train their skills for questing, most tactics appear several times and heroes with tons of items will usually be great targets for other heroes.. Of course this is less true in 2p as there aren't enough players to gang up on the leader..
Barry Kendall wrote:
I agree in all points, with the exception of balance. This may be due to my relative lack of ftf play experience in complete games (under ten) but I've not seen the demons win one yet (in fairness, though, in one case, the "lose a city" card came up early and was played on the demons, setting them hopelessly behind for the balance of the game; I favor a house rule placing this card in the bottom half of the deck).
Yes the game did feel at first quite unbalanced but as we played more games and used different tactics most apparent unbalances vanished.
The demons can have a great first 3-4 turns if they take all the opportunities that are given to them by their large amount of Tactic cards. Their army is also the most balanced and adaptable in the game as they are the only ones to posses one unit of each type and each of their units is quite useful (compared to say, the Sorceress of the Bowman).
"Raze a city is not crippling if you know how to deal with its effects. Cities are weak points in your defenses because strongholds cannot be built in a city tile. I have found myself voluntarily playing that card on one of my cities to replace it with a stronghold. There are in fact much more crippling tactics that can be played early on such as a "Lost City" near your home kingdom combined with a recruitment. It's all about being able to seize the opportunities provided by your situation and using the metagame to your advantage . There is a big problem with 2p because someone can get a huge head start if they have the right tactics and there will be no one else to balance it by attacking the lead player.