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I've been keeping my eye on this game for a while. But I'm just not sure if this is what I'm looking for, so I'd like to ask for some advice.
OK, the situation: I usually play board games with my girlfriend at the kitchen table, just to have fun, relax after the long day of work, and spend some quality time together. On rare occasions we also invite friends for a session of Carcassonne or Citadels or something like that, but primarily we're interested in 2-player games. We're both quite fond of Dominion; on the one hand we enjoy the tactics and mechanics of the game, and on the other we also appreciate the fact that the game is quick to play (we just don't have time for two or more hours of gaming anymore). And since I'm also a huge fan of Lovecraft (she's not – or better put, she hasn't read anything yet), I've been looking for a Lovecraftian game that we both could enjoy. And I'm wondering if this is it?
The thing is that we're not really interested in the "collectible" aspect of the game. Sure, we would probably buy an extension or an asylum pack or two (just as we did with Dominion), I think we'd also enjoy some (limited) deck building (I have some experience with Magic), but in the long term we don't intend to buy all the packs. We'd just like to have a nice game that's fun to play at the kitchen table right from the box.
So honestly, assuming that we buy the Core set and, say, the Secrets of Arkham extension, do you think this game would be right for us? If we forget about the whole bunch of additional packs out there, could we still have fun from a few basic sets?
Also, do you have any experience showing this game to someone not familiar with Lovecraft? What were the reactions? Do the story cards make any sense?
Thank you very much in advance for your help!
Regards,
Ben
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Enrique Carro
Spain
Segovia
Segovia
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From my experience, it can be useful to you.
I play mainly against my sister-in-law, and she knows nothing of Lovecraft's writings, but still likes the game very much. She picks the Agency (no Ancient Ones, no monsters) and just beats the crap out of my Deep Ones, Mi-Gos and the rest of the bunch.
The core set plus Secrets of Arkham is more than enough, but nowadays you can find really cheap booster boxes from the times when this was a CCG instead of a LCG, if you don't mind mixing white-bordered cards with black-bordered ones.
I'm a huge Lovecraft fan, and the theme and artwork here is great, so you'll probably are going to like it.
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Mike Niederer
Canada
Kitchener
Ontario
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It really depends how much you guys enjoy player vs. player card games. Call of Cthulhu, while one of my favourite games, has a lot of heavy elements: strategic planning every turn, awareness of what your opponent has on the board compared to what you can play, etc. I don't see it really as a light game for couples that involves the Lovecraft mythos.
You can however play the game right out of the box and further packs aren't required. As far as narrative, it does tell a story fairly well in an abstract way (I release a cultist into the streets, who is investigating a story about a museum, you counter with a security guard armed with a shotgun, etc).
Have you looked at something like Elder Sign? Lovecraftian as well, obviously, and plays quickly with a bit of tactics but is more beer 'n pretzels that CoC
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Chick Lewis
United States
Claremont
California
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It might well be the right game for you two.
However, it is very much an 'in your face' type game, where you win by directly and aggressively overcoming your opponent's deck. This might lead to ill feelings between two who are boyfriend/girlfriend, unless she has a very competitive nature, and thick skin.
If you are used to games in which the players race one another to fulfill the victory conditions, consider whether driving insane or killing your ladyfriend's carefully chosen characters might threaten her emotional harmony, and your relationship.
There is nothing 'friendly' about a game of CoCLCG.
Chick
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Mike Niederer
Canada
Kitchener
Ontario
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Also Elder Sign is co-operative, cheaper, and shorter in length, if that helps.
I agree with Chick's assessment of CoC in that it's a very aggressive game...
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David Boeren
United States
Marietta
Georgia
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Is Elder Sign really shorter? I've never played a full game of the physical version, just the iOS, so it's hard for me to say. But, Call of Cthulhu is pretty quick. Say, about 20-30 minutes?
It's definitely an aggressive game, you're directly attacking and interfering with your opponent as you struggle to capture the stories. Speaking of stories, there's not really any narrative there. It's an objective card, they all take 5 success tokens to win, and if you win a story there is a story effect you can choose to active or not. That's where the differences are, each story's effect is unique. Here are some examples:
The 9th Plague: Each player sacrifices all of his characters committed to the story.
Come the Dreamtime: After you replace this story card, rearrange any revealed stories, leaving all success tokens on the board in place.
The Opened Door: Each player may take any number of cards from his hand and exchange them with an equal number of resources attached to a single domain he controls.
Each story card also has a piece of artwork illustrating the general setting of the story. But it doesn't really tell a tale, it's just a name.
Back to your other question... Core + Secrets of Arkham will give you enough to have some variety in your games and play casually. You can swap out some cards, replace them with different ones. What you'll be short on is the ability to do more deck design or theming, as some point you'd run out of cards matching that theme and have to include some more general stuff. For instance, you can make a Cthulhu deck with some Deep Ones in it. But you can't make an all Deep-Ones sort of deck.
The main thing I think is the direct competition. Is she cool with that? If one of you loses every game, does that bother you or would it light a spark to want to improve? That's another difference with direct competition games, if one player is better than the other, they will probably win the large majority of the time. To some extent you can try to even things up by helping the weaker player tune their deck, or detuning yours. Note that "tune" here doesn't necessarily mean "make better universally", it might just include putting in specific cards to mess with your deck. For instance, your girlfriend is playing Agency and you're playing Syndicate. Your Syndicate deck has a lot of guys with the Criminal subtype. So, you might be able to improve her deck vs. yours by including Agency cards that hurt Criminals, but that same change would probably make it worse against another deck with no Criminals in it.
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Thank you for all the advice and comments!
So far we've never had any issues with competition and playing aggressively, so I guess this shouldn't really be a problem. On the other hand, I checked out the suggested Elder Sign, and I like it very much indeed! So at the moment I may even consider getting that game first... Although I've seen some negative reviews especially when difficulty is concerned, but I guess one can always come up with house rules to spice things up.
Anyway, thanks again for all the help, I'll post again when more questions come up.
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It sounds like you play similar games with your Girlfriend as I do with mine (Dominion, Carcassone, Citadels).
However I have not yet played CoC with my Girlfriend as she has no ineterest in HP Lovecraft. I instead play with my brother who has alot of experience with CCGs.
CCGs to me are alot more time consuming as you have to factor in the time and effort of building a deck. Also, I do not think that the LCG format is very different from the CCG format, as you must still invest heavily to have a useful pool of cards with which to build decks.
I don't think you can casually pick up and play CoC (or any CCG/LCG) as easily as you can other games (like Dominion, etc). They are alot more demanding, and need time & money spent on them in order to get the most out of them.
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Daleth wrote: CCGs to me are alot more time consuming as you have to factor in the time and effort of building a deck. Also, I do not think that the LCG format is very different from the CCG format, as you must still invest heavily to have a useful pool of cards with which to build decks.
I don't think you can casually pick up and play CoC (or any CCG/LCG) as easily as you can other games (like Dominion, etc). They are alot more demanding, and need time & money spent on them in order to get the most out of them. I disagree.
With just a single LCG core set you can have a lot of fun without having to do any deck-building: just follow the instructions in the rulebook to create two two-faction decks and you're ready to go.
Imho, it's the ideal way to learn the game and figure out what the factions are all about. Even just pitting each of the 21 possible faction-combos against each other will take a while (105 games!).
The only problem I can see is that mastering the game's rules is no small feat. As with all CCGs, cards can interact in all kinds of weird ways which can get tricky and suck the fun out of playing it if you aren't somewhat dedicated.
I'd therefore recommend you get a good look at the rules and especially the rules FAQ to help decide if it's for you or not.
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