orange smartie
England
Oxford
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Hello. We bought this a week or so ago and we've played it a few times now. We're finding "normal" level fairly easy - is this everyone else's experience?
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B K
United States
Cincinnati
Ohio
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This is normal once you get a few plays and familiar with game play, so feel free to try the harder levels. Eventually, you can play some of the other Official Variant Tile Layouts.
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Kevin B. Smith
United States
Margate
Florida
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It should still be tense at times. If you are winning very easily every time, you might be missing a rule.
Our first couple games, we didn't realize there was a hand size limit. Other folks have gotten the card-passing rules wrong. Some people didn't realize that when the waters rise, you shuffle the already-drawn cards back to the TOP of the draw deck. Things like that.
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Grant Fikes
United States
Abilene
Texas
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My experience with the iPad app is that the Legendary difficulty level is difficult enough that any feelings of the game being too easy will be thrown out the window, but beatable with the right strategy and a little bit of luck. Hand management is crucial, because you have very little time to assemble the sets of four cards needed to claim the treasures, and balancing that with keeping the island afloat to buy yourself more time is far from trivial. Chances are you'll only have a few tiles left when you do manage to win, yielding a very exciting payoff.
So yes, absolutely try the higher difficulty levels of Forbidden Island!
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Rob Rob
United States
La Mesa
California
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Luck (good or bad) can come into play as well. Last night we tried a four player game on normal. The landing pad was on the island edge and was flooded by the initial flood draw. The start postions were all on the opposite edge of the island. Two "waters rise" draws in a row and "bang" we were done.
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yeah, a lot depends on location of the tiles and the flood deck, if the temples/treasure locations are together and the Helo pad is close, in the middle, even better
such a great game ...
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Dean Petters
United States
Ohio
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we played two two-player games tonight and lost both... on easy level.
The hand size limit really hurts in that you can't really trade cards between players. In both games the game was over before we got the third token.
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orange smartie
England
Oxford
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peakhope wrote: It should still be tense at times. If you are winning very easily every time, you might be missing a rule.
Our first couple games, we didn't realize there was a hand size limit. Other folks have gotten the card-passing rules wrong. Some people didn't realize that when the waters rise, you shuffle the already-drawn cards back to the TOP of the draw deck. Things like that.
I don't think we've got the rules down wrong. We were shuffling the already drawn cards and adding them to the top, also passing cards only when we're on the same location etc. We always seem to have a helicopter card or two in hand at the end as well....
On the other hand, the more recent games we have played have featured islands on which all the really important tiles are located fairly centrally - that does make a big difference.
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Kevin B. Smith
United States
Margate
Florida
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orangesmartie wrote:
I don't think we've got the rules down wrong. We were shuffling the already drawn cards and adding them to the top, also passing cards only when we're on the same location etc. We always seem to have a helicopter card or two in hand at the end as well....
On the other hand, the more recent games we have played have featured islands on which all the really important tiles are located fairly centrally - that does make a big difference.
Very true, although if you let all the less important tiles sink without a fight, your deck will get really small and it will be very stressful at the end. You are removing cards for sunken tiles, but not for collected artifacts, right?
The number of players can also make a difference (although I forget which direction). With 2 players, we almost always get the first 2 artifacts in our first time through the deck, and the last 2 in the second pass through (if we win). With 4 players you can work faster than that, because as a group you can hold more cards at a time, but you need to coordinate more.
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orange smartie
England
Oxford
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peakhope wrote: orangesmartie wrote:
I don't think we've got the rules down wrong. We were shuffling the already drawn cards and adding them to the top, also passing cards only when we're on the same location etc. We always seem to have a helicopter card or two in hand at the end as well....
On the other hand, the more recent games we have played have featured islands on which all the really important tiles are located fairly centrally - that does make a big difference.
Very true, although if you let all the less important tiles sink without a fight, your deck will get really small and it will be very stressful at the end. You are removing cards for sunken tiles, but not for collected artifacts, right? The number of players can also make a difference (although I forget which direction). With 2 players, we almost always get the first 2 artifacts in our first time through the deck, and the last 2 in the second pass through (if we win). With 4 players you can work faster than that, because as a group you can hold more cards at a time, but you need to coordinate more.
To answer your question, when a tile sinks, we remove the tile and its card from the game. When we collect an artifact, we have been adding the cards with which we bought the artifact to the discard pile (reshuffled in when the treasure deck runs out). Is this correct?
Pete
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Rod Wiberg
United States
Plainfield
Illinois
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orangesmartie wrote: Hello. We bought this a week or so ago and we've played it a few times now. We're finding "normal" level fairly easy - is this everyone else's experience?
Yes, if you have players that are talking through their moves and playing smart, normal is pretty easy. Honestly, I don't think we've ever lost on easy although we've been close a couple of times. I looked over all the rule issues people have mentioned here and we're doing everything right.
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Kevin B. Smith
United States
Margate
Florida
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orangesmartie wrote: To answer your question, when a tile sinks, we remove the tile and its card from the game. When we collect an artifact, we have been adding the cards with which we bought the artifact to the discard pile (reshuffled in when the treasure deck runs out). Is this correct?
Yes, I believe so.
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Graham Weaver
United Kingdom
Chester
Cheshire
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I've been wondering about this myself. I got Forbidden Island for Christmas, and I love the look and feel of the game, but it does seem very easy. We've played three games so far, the first on Novice, then Normal, then Elite: we won all the games without very much difficulty at all. The last game was a bit closer run, but I still never really felt like we weren't going to win. I've been over and over the rules and I'm certain we're not missing anything. Maybe we just got lucky on our Elite game.
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Shawn George
United States
Toledo
Ohio
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mstrwvr wrote: I've been wondering about this myself. I got Forbidden Island for Christmas, and I love the look and feel of the game, but it does seem very easy. We've played three games so far, the first on Novice, then Normal, then Elite: we won all the games without very much difficulty at all. The last game was a bit closer run, but I still never really felt like we weren't going to win. I've been over and over the rules and I'm certain we're not missing anything. Maybe we just got lucky on our Elite game.
I certainly feel like luck plays a somewhat significant factor in this game, particularly due to the completely random placement of the Waters Rise cards and of the location tiles. In Pandemic, the Epidemic cards are semi-predictable, so it's usually not a surprise when you draw one. In Forbidden Island, I've played games that are incredibly easy, and games that are literally impossible (Waters Rise, followed by Fool's Landing, followed by another Waters Rise).
As others have said, try the game on Legendary, and try one of the alternative tile layouts.
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Graham Weaver
United Kingdom
Chester
Cheshire
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Putts wrote: mstrwvr wrote: I've been wondering about this myself. I got Forbidden Island for Christmas, and I love the look and feel of the game, but it does seem very easy. We've played three games so far, the first on Novice, then Normal, then Elite: we won all the games without very much difficulty at all. The last game was a bit closer run, but I still never really felt like we weren't going to win. I've been over and over the rules and I'm certain we're not missing anything. Maybe we just got lucky on our Elite game. I certainly feel like luck plays a somewhat significant factor in this game, particularly due to the completely random placement of the Waters Rise cards and of the location tiles. In Pandemic, the Epidemic cards are semi-predictable, so it's usually not a surprise when you draw one. In Forbidden Island, I've played games that are incredibly easy, and games that are literally impossible (Waters Rise, followed by Fool's Landing, followed by another Waters Rise). As others have said, try the game on Legendary, and try one of the alternative tile layouts.
Yeah, that's what I'll do. It just seems a shame to have to do that straight away: I imagined I'd graduate to the highest level, and the alternative layouts, after months of gameplay to freshen things up, not something I'd do almost straight away to make the game at all challenging.
I still like the game: its theme is very appealing to me and it's a game I'm looking forward to playing with my kids in a few years when they are a little older.
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Kevin B. Smith
United States
Margate
Florida
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mstrwvr wrote: We've played three games so far, the first on Novice, then Normal, then Elite: we won all the games without very much difficulty at all. The last game was a bit closer run, but I still never really felt like we weren't going to win. I've been over and over the rules and I'm certain we're not missing anything. Maybe we just got lucky on our Elite game.
The game has been challenging enough for us at Normal level that it's hard for me to imagine Elite being easy, even with good luck.
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Our first few plays had us drawing a card for each line on the water marker (a few times we were doing six flood cards a draw). When you are faced with the island sinking that quick, you become really good about learning all the delay tactics (i.e. using special actions before the reshuffle,setting up "sink me home" routes with sinking tiles, etc.). We beat the game once that way starting at the normal line (Fool's landing was our last flood card in the deck, we had pilot, messenger, engineer & explorer, and we had a flood card at the bottom of the first treasure deck),
Swapping from that to elite was fairly easy =P.
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Graham Weaver
United Kingdom
Chester
Cheshire
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peakhope wrote: mstrwvr wrote: We've played three games so far, the first on Novice, then Normal, then Elite: we won all the games without very much difficulty at all. The last game was a bit closer run, but I still never really felt like we weren't going to win. I've been over and over the rules and I'm certain we're not missing anything. Maybe we just got lucky on our Elite game. The game has been challenging enough for us at Normal level that it's hard for me to imagine Elite being easy, even with good luck.
Well, like I say, maybe we've just been lucky.
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Graham Weaver
United Kingdom
Chester
Cheshire
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mstrwvr wrote: peakhope wrote: mstrwvr wrote: We've played three games so far, the first on Novice, then Normal, then Elite: we won all the games without very much difficulty at all. The last game was a bit closer run, but I still never really felt like we weren't going to win. I've been over and over the rules and I'm certain we're not missing anything. Maybe we just got lucky on our Elite game. The game has been challenging enough for us at Normal level that it's hard for me to imagine Elite being easy, even with good luck. Well, like I say, maybe we've just been lucky.
Sure enough, we played two games on Elite last night. The first we lost and the second we only very narrowly won. Seems like we did fall lucky on that first Elite game.
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