by curtc
Update: I was wrong! Turns out, I did play this again. Not only once, but twice in a week.As I mentioned on the outset, there are some things I really liked about the game. When the revised edition came out, something about it nagged at me, beckoning to give it another go. Finally I broke down and bought it, only for it sit on my shelf for a year or so. Then finally during this holiday break I got it on the table for a game day. And I do mean day. It took six hours again. Not including rules / setup. But folks enjoyed it. One player even commented that he rarely enjoys long games, but he didn't feel the time drag at all. There were other players who wished they could have got in on the game. So a few days later, we did it again, again with two new players, but with all the rules fresh in my head. This time it took 7 hours again.
In the second game, I found myself feeling worn out, not really excited or engaged. The last two years in particular felt like a real slog. The winner was pretty well understood, even if he didn't have 6 dragon runes and thus the ability to give the one-year warning. I think part of it is that we created a weird map, with a couple key choke points, which led to a not-very-dynamic control of the map.
I was on the verge of raising my rating after the first of the two games, but after the second I'm more sure of my original rating. As one experienced gamer at the second game put it, the problem isn't so much the overall game length; it's that the mean time between interesting decisions is rather long. Obviously which decisions are "interesting" is highly subjective.
Anyway, now I'm really quite sure I'll never play it again... at least until the next edition. :D
On the sale pile it goes.