Just finished a #boardgame of "Oath". Still figuring it out after seven plays with most games being a roller coaster of "I've got this...", "No... no, I do not...". Tonight was no exception, with an early usurper, me agreeing to become a citizen to give us a couple rounds of breathing space, a secret vision, more crazy dice rolls and the final "the Chancellor wins, so I win and he loses" based on the number of relics I had collected as a Citizen. So far it's been a very unstable history over seven games with only one of us managing to hold onto the Chancellor role from one game to the next.
Board at beginning of tonight's game:
@pauldavidson it is a tricky one. For us game play tends to either be chaotic or someone getting into a position where no one can stop them. Definitely in "the journey is its own reward" sort of category where it's less about winning and losing and more about "what just happened?" and having a good laugh about it.
We played a bit of "Root" before this and while play isn't asymmetrical like "Root" it often ends up with each player pursuing their own path to victory and you end up having to drop everything to deal with a player who will suddenly win at the start of their next turn while still moving your own goal ahead.
What convinced us to get give it a try was Tom Brewster's review of it for "Shut Up & Sit Down" where he encapsulated the weirdness of the whole experience.
Hope you get a chance to give it a try at some point (though the other tricky part is that it takes a few plays to really start to shine as you try out different victory conditions and the game shifts with cards added and removed from the world deck).
@rpfennig Thanks for the overview. Tom Brewster's review is also one of the reasons I want to try it so badly.
An additional challenge for playing negotiation games (which I love) is that the gaming community here is multicultural, so language barriers are sometimes a problem.
@pauldavidson my gaming group consists of my middle son (it's his copy of "Oath") and a friend a few doors down from us. We tend to do a deep dive on a few games rather than covering lots of games. We just finished a round of "Terraforming Mars" going through all the different expansions and combinations plus "Ares Expedition" for comparison which was a solid 3-4 months before we started on "Oath". We'll probably spend a couple more months with it but it might get bumped for "Frosthaven" when that shows up.
My son and I were able to attend the SHUX this year and during a signing session he got Tom, Quinns, Ava and Pip to sign his "Oath" rulebook (Matt was sick for a chunk of the conference and missed the signings). Ava was the first to sign and added "Don't worry if you're behind" which Tom countered with "Worry if you're behind".
@rpfennig I'm so envious of everyone who got to go to SHUX. I've been following those guys since the earliest Quinns and Paul days.
@pauldavidson luck of geography for us. Was a bit later to watching their videos but found out about SHUX in 2019 and had a "huh?" moment... "You're based in the UK but you have a board game conference in Vancouver?" Made a bit more sense later and besides not complaining since it was just a short trip on transit to attend each day when we finally managed to go this year. So... just extremely lucky that they've picked Vancouver as the place to hold SHUX and hoping they continue to.
@rpfennig I want to try this game so badly, but I don't really have the right gaming group to make it worth buying.