Ultra Tiny Epic Kingdoms
Finally got this set up and played for about…I don’t know, a third of a game? Three players, 45 minutes, pure learning thing.
It’s pretty good, don’t know that it’s great. Each player draws a random fantasy race (orc, lizardmen, dark elves, etc.), and a second card from the same draw for their home territory, which is a map on the backside broken up into regions. The individual maps make up the entirety of the game world. So then you go round-robin choosing from a menu of actions, which everyone can do or they can gather resources based on where their army cubes are sitting on the map cards. Game lasts until someone has maxed out their race’s special abilities, or built the largest tower, or their last army cube. Then you add up victory points for…stuff.
There’s lots of variety in the faction cards, and that’s nice. And there’s some good PvP action without too much beatdown (there’s no player elimination and not a lot of direct rewards for combat). I mean, jeez: there’s a lot of game packed into the space of a playing card deck. So it’s great for travel or a dorm room or whatever. But having not played through to the end, I’m not sure the game is great so much as…pretty good, considering.
If it’s anything like later games in the Tiny Epic line, it’s probably grindy-thinky and prone to AP, which cracks me up because the whole production is like 20 cards and a handful of cubes.
It is a pretty grindy thinky game with no random elements. Once everyone gets up to speed there isn’t much room for error. You basically have to know exactly what you are doing each round because you don’t have time to explore different strategies. It’s a good game, but I don’t find it to be a great game.
What does AP stand for?
Aaron Berger : AP = Analysis Paralysis, i.e. how some people get paralysed when faced with the vast quantity of options to analyse (especially in a game).
We play TEK quite a bit, but, for us, it’s a light 4x that we try to get through in about an hour.
Of course, we’re playing more for fun than to win, so that impacts how we play. In that arena, we find it a cracking little game, with a small (table) footprint, but plenty of interesting decisions.
I also find it funny that they had to make a tinnier version, because the original could still fit in a pocket.
It’s in my collection of itty bitty games I’ll bring to conventions for fillers, although I never seem to find the time to play them.
Do you have TEGalaxies? I like that one, but have only played it multiple times with one opponent (and solo).
Still trying to find a body for TEWestern
Yeah, Galaxies was my first. I like it too but it’s insanely grindy past three players. We did five, once, and it was a three hour slog. Still backed the expansion of course.
Western is nice, I really like it other than some of the gross tropes. But also a good reminder of the tropes.
I personally enjoy TEG more, I have TEW but haven’t tried it yet. I enjoy the random element in TEG and just find it overall to be a little more interesting because of the variable and hidden nature. I also find it’s more friendly for new players for those reasons.
Galaxies is my favorite so far as well.
I may give TEG one more try with 5 players, as the first time was a disaster of a slog fest. But we’ve played several 4 player games since then and they’ve gone well. So maybe our first 5 player game had a horrible combination of planets or we may have been messing up a rule at the time. I’m willing to give it one more shot though because the 4 player games have been going really smoothly.
I have played 2 games one of them solo. I enjoyed it.
youtube.com – Yahia games
Cool