CabinCon 2022 - Part IX
We're nearing the end, y'all! I think this recap will total ten parts, so that makes this the penultimate recap post! I've really enjoyed writing these and I'm sad to think how long it'll be before CabinCon 2023, but hopefully, I'll be hitting Adepticon and NOVA next year as well, so I'll have that much more to write about!
Anyway, next up is Eclipse! This was very high on Ryan's list and it felt like a good fit for the group because it plays up to 6 and so Ryan could sit this one out and basically mentor all of us through the game, which was super helpful. I kind of just chose the Eridani Empire because they're traders and money is always useful in a 4x game. But my undoing really came from my being unable to get out of my own TI headspace. Eclipse is similar enough to Twilight Imperium that I found myself pretty lost for a while because I think I know what my priorities are, but it turns out I'm wrong. So it took me a little while to sort of figure out what I needed in order to win the game (which I most assuredly did not!). For anyone familiar with the game, we played the second edition of the game. For anyone unfamiliar with it, basically, each player controls an interstellar civilization looking to explore new star systems, research technology, and build spaceships in case you need to do battle against any other civilizations.
You'll definitely need to do battle against other civilizations.
Again, it's strikingly similar to Twilight Imperium in concept, though not in execution. So I really just ended up spinning my wheels for a bit trying to unlearn what I'd learned about TI. But speaking of TI, I do have to mention this - the economy system definitely helps keep the game moving! And I appreciate that the storage system not only helps set the game up faster, but even though it’s a big game, the footprint acdtually feels smaller because all of my components have their own tray. It's really pretty cool! All of that said, I am not a huge fan of the combat system. I'd need to play it again to see if it was just an initial fundamental misunderstanding (which happens, obviously!), or if it's just wonky enough that it managed to confuse more than half of us at the table, despite being avid gamers. Specifically, the bonkers amount of damage that red dice can do seems a little overwhelming. Sure, dice can still roll poorly. But when damage output is that high, I find it difficult to justify not researching weapons like that. Which brings us back to just how much do I need to invest in combat in order to win the game? Is this one of those situations in which it seems as though we've got plenty of options as players, but in order to be successful, we really don't have as many options as we think? I don't know. One game of Eclipse just isn't enough to tell me. One game of Eclipse was enough, however, to teach me that moderation is important.
Ryan is busy contemplating how it is that I'm so handsome; personally, I think it's the hat that makes me handsome. But saying as much just makes Josh chuckle a little bit.
The end game! Mostly.
See, Josh tore into the central system with his Interceptors at speed 5 and they'd been upgraded to toss red dice. It was an absolute horrorshow, as Josh's Interceptors annihilated two of Drew’s Dreadnaughts easily, then dealt 20 damage to the War Sun. Twenty. That's pretty substantial. Josh was threatening literally everyone else from the center of the board when suddenly, he couldn’t pay for anything and his entire civilization collapsed, eliminating him from the game. He finished with 9 VP. It was such a fast turn of events that all of us had to be treated for whiplash. Well, everyone except Ryan, who could see what was unfolding and that there would be consequences. So the argument might be that he overextended, paid the price, and combat isn't as unbalanced as it perhaps felt to me. But honestly, I think the weapons upgrades are just get exponentially better instead of leveling off, so if one is going to invest in combat at all, it sort of makes sense to me that one would also invest all the way to the end of the line. Which I don't love. But I also need to play the game several more times before I feel comfortable drawing such a conclusion. With Josh eliminated, we (mostly) peacefully concluded the remainder of the game.
I absolutely had plans to get aggressive in the last round and use a wormhole technology to swoop in and gobble up some of the territory Josh had left behind when his civilization collapsed, but this was anticipated. I can't remember who, but somebody ratted out my plans to the table and someone else incidentally got in the way of my intentions. I ended up going to battle over it, but couldn't roll any hits and so couldn't do much more. When the game ended, the final standings were thus:
- Drew - 31 points (38 resources to break the tie)
- Johnny - 31 points (33 resources)
- Mike - 28 points (47 resources to break the tie, and it wasn't even close)
- Chris - 28 points (I had maybe 3 resources to my name by the end?)
- Suf - 23 points
- Josh - 9 points
I had fun playing and it mostly felt cleaner than TI, but it was so much like TI that I just couldn't quite get out of that mindset early enough to steer my game in a stronger direction. I would play Eclipse again, but I also don't personally feel as though it's a big upgrade to Twilight Imperium in the way that pushes me to go out and buy my own copy of the game, you know? I'll also give a huge shoutout to Ryan for teaching us the game and then doing a lot of hand-holding throughout. Had he not done so, we'd have spent quite a lot of time with our noses in the rulebook, to say nothing of screwed up at least a couple of game-changing rules. Glad this was one of our bigger games for the weekend!
Afterward, I got started on dinner. I decided to make Maui-style ribs with mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli. I had decided on a fairly easy meal to prep and the ribs had been marinating since the previous night. But I was also sort of used to cooking them at home and it wasn't going as smoothly at the cabin. So a big thanks to Mike who helped me make sure they were cooked and didn't poison anyway! While we were waiting for the ribs to cook, Suf, Mike and myself got into a couple of games of Flapjacks and Sasquatches. I hadn't played before, but it was fun! A simple little card game, definitely luck-based, but also amusing. Mike won the first game handily. Suf and I did what we could to stop him, but honestly, we were just speedbumps on his way to the inevitable. I lucked into some great cards in the second game and so won that one. Then either before or just after dinner, we played Coup. Well, everyone but Johnny played Coup while Suf and Ryan acted as a team because Ryan says he's not good at bluffing. So he sat on the couch while Suf stayed at the table, kept Ryan up to speed, and then carried out his commands. Despite being an agent of chaos at heart, Suf can make for a fairly good minion! Mike won the first game and Josh won the second. I really enjoy Coup, but I'm writing about these games a bit later than I anticipated, so I don't remember any specifics. I will say that I always have fun playing Coup, even if I'm bounced early. I can easily play up to 4 or 5 rounds before tiring of it.
I think it's the simplicity of Coup that makes it a fun game for me. I'm mostly not a big fan of bluffing games. I often find them a bit frustrating and I don't have a great poker face. The more familiar I am with a game, the more I can lean into it. But the longer my bluff needs to run (such as in Resistance: Avalon), the more likely it is that I'm going to be found out (or, more likely, give myself away). But Coup is fast enough that I can usually keep up with the clock. Plus, cards change hands and so we have more options to bluff as the game state changes. I might've been bluffing a Duke earlier to get coins, but I don't need to bluff the Duke anymore if I'm trying to assassinate someone. Do you really want to get eliminated by calling me on an Ambassador I maybe don't have? All I'm doing is trading cards; how invested are you in my swapping cards with the deck? Same with Love Letter - cards are changing all the time, so what we're bluffing changes too. We don't run into that with games like Resistance or Battlestar Galactica. For those games, I (mostly) need to be in it for the long haul if I'm bluffing. And I think that's where my interest kind of evaporates. I get tired of playing bluffing games when they go on for too long because it just kind of feels like holding my breath and I'm not really one to hold my breath for as long as possible *just because.*
Next up will be Dune: Imperium and then the final two games of my CabinCon 2022 experience! Besides Dune, what are the last two games I played before leaving those Misty Mountains to head back to the Lou? Hope you'll tune in next time to find out!
**Also, if anyone reading this is interested in this most excellent group of adventurers and their exploits, you should check out their Twitter! They're the Champions of Valinwood!
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