Category: Syndicated

I only see “play as the alien queen” and get interested. Hopefully no silly competoop, though, but a real coop against pesky humans.

Scythe maybe? War isn’t the Prime Focus, though, it is just one Tool to use or not to use.

Scythe maybe? War isn’t the Prime Focus, though, it is just one Tool to use or not to use.

An alternative to the multitude of coop game suggestions you probably will get (which are all fine, don’t get me wrong) could be the GMT COIN games. They give a nice historic background and a really strategic game that can be played with 1-4 players. They all have asymmetric factions (current COIN games all have 4 factions) that can be played solo, with the other factions run by flowchart-driven bots. Currently easily available should be Cuba Libre (Cuban Revolution), A Distant Plain (Afghanistan conflict), Falling Sky (Gallic tribes vs. Caesar). Cuba Libre or Falling Sky would be great starting points, as they are the simplest of those games. A Distant Plain is quite heavy, I wouldn’t get that as my first COIN game.

I myself havbe Cuba Libre and love it, and have Liberty or Death, which I haven’t yet played (but man is that game gorgeous to look at, I could almost hang the map on the wall as a picture 😉 ). LoD is about the american war of independence.

Play time for the full scenario can easily go up into the multi-hour range (4+ hours) with the bigger COINs, but with the smaller ones (CL and FS) and with selecting smaller scenarios, you can get down to 1-2 hours. And yes, they are heavily strategic. They sit on the border of war games and euro games, my feeling is they are more leaning towards the euro genre, but they keep the theme up very well. And hey, you might even learn a bit about history!

An alternative to the multitude of coop game suggestions you probably will get (which are all fine, don’t get me wrong) could be the GMT COIN games. They give a nice historic background and a really strategic game that can be played with 1-4 players. They all have asymmetric factions (current COIN games all have 4 factions) that can be played solo, with the other factions run by flowchart-driven bots. Currently easily available should be Cuba Libre (Cuban Revolution), A Distant Plain (Afghanistan conflict), Falling Sky (Gallic tribes vs. Caesar). Cuba Libre or Falling Sky would be great starting points, as they are the simplest of those games. A Distant Plain is quite heavy, I wouldn’t get that as my first COIN game.

I myself havbe Cuba Libre and love it, and have Liberty or Death, which I haven’t yet played (but man is that game gorgeous to look at, I could almost hang the map on the wall as a picture 😉 ). LoD is about the american war of independence.

Play time for the full scenario can easily go up into the multi-hour range (4+ hours) with the bigger COINs, but with the smaller ones (CL and FS) and with selecting smaller scenarios, you can get down to 1-2 hours. And yes, they are heavily strategic. They sit on the border of war games and euro games, my feeling is they are more leaning towards the euro genre, but they keep the theme up very well. And hey, you might even learn a bit about history!

Man I’d so be over another Coop lcg! Especially one where the Lore is not so tightly constructed as in LOTR (it always Bugs me if I put Steward of Gondor on anyone but a Gondor noble). And well, after they Finish the main Saga for LOTR, I guess it is maybe another cycle of their own non-saga stuff and then they will run low on story Content. Sure, they can do even more of their own Content, but I guess the amount is kinda limited.

Man I’d so be over another Coop lcg! Especially one where the Lore is not so tightly constructed as in LOTR (it always Bugs me if I put Steward of Gondor on anyone but a Gondor noble). And well, after they Finish the main Saga for LOTR, I guess it is maybe another cycle of their own non-saga stuff and then they will run low on story Content. Sure, they can do even more of their own Content, but I guess the amount is kinda limited.

I wasn’t really enarmored by the solo play, but I only have the Nemesis solo card. It doesn’t feel like playing the game at all, because the Nemesis is just something that punishes you every turn and you try desperately to survive. It’s not the back-and-forth you would have with a real opponent or even the AI from the app. It is very puzzly, so normally would be something I enjoy, but in the case of the Nemesis it is just too punishing. And quite a few abilities of your cards just plain don’t matter (anything related to opponent discard). Felt more “meh” than “yay” to me.

I wasn’t really enarmored by the solo play, but I only have the Nemesis solo card. It doesn’t feel like playing the game at all, because the Nemesis is just something that punishes you every turn and you try desperately to survive. It’s not the back-and-forth you would have with a real opponent or even the AI from the app. It is very puzzly, so normally would be something I enjoy, but in the case of the Nemesis it is just too punishing. And quite a few abilities of your cards just plain don’t matter (anything related to opponent discard). Felt more “meh” than “yay” to me.