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[LibraryAdventurer]

Today, my Empires game came in the mail, so we played a 4p game this evening with my family. I chose a kingdom with half Empires cards with a representation of each of the new mechanics, and the rest cards from Adventures and Base. 1st impressions: I love this Expansion even more than I expected to (tbh, I was less excited about this one than I was about Adventures, but my lack of excitement was unfounded.). Colonnade makes more difference that I thought it would (in a good way). Villa is very fun (as I knew it would be).
I didn't win this game.

[Titandrake]

Piggybacking-ing here to say I played my first Empires game as well. 3 player, also with 5 Empires cards and 5 from the rest.

Engineer, Settlers/Bustling Village, Enchantress, Gladiator/Fortune, Temple,
Gear, Oracle, Cutpurse, Smithy, Expand

Landmarks: Colonnade, Tomb

Tomb was absurd. Temple is a lot better in 3 player, especially when everyone picks one up. I managed to buy it for +6 VP at one point because everyone kept missing $4, then got another 2 VP from Colonnade. I got an early lead but ended up losing because I bought a Bustling Village over Expand. I was worried about not getting enough of the only +Actions, especially in a 3 player game with only 5 Villages, but the 3rd player never contested them and it turned out 2 Bustling Villages was enough. You didn't need a lot of money on this board because Fortune was the only +Buy, making money past $16 pretty worthless. The player next to me got Fortune a turn later than I did, but had better draw setup. They triple-Provinced with Expand and Fortune too many times too quickly and managed to catch up just in time.

It was a kind of boring board (Settlers + Bustling Village are literally the only non-terminals), but it was still fun.

[FishingVillage]

@Titandrake: that experience sounds awfully familiar in a game with the same setup that played out exactly the way you described...

I think if I had picked up even 1 Bustling Village during that game, it would've given me room for a Smithy, which I hoped I didn't need. The entire game was me playing like an idiot though.

- Enchantress was my first $3 but it hardly hurt either player and was made trivial by Settlers. I think the other player managed to actually capitalize off of it by using a terminal as a cantrip. I've struck out in every game when I bought an Enchantress, which makes me sad.

- I was triggering Colonnade in unnecessary ways in order to get the points, and I ended up with too many terminals in my deck.

- I Expanded one of my Temples into an Expand; that should've been a Gold.

- And of course me not contesting for Bustling Villages lol. Even without any Settlers, +3 actions is not something I should've overlooked. Especially with the number of terminals I had left in my deck at the end.

[Titandrake]

It was a bit of weird game, but yeah, I don't think avoiding Bustling Village was doable in that game. Fortune and Expand are good enough reasons to try to build the engine, and there's plenty of draw.

One thing I didn't mention is that Temple is good at trashing the extra Temples you pick up from contesting that pile, which was doubly good with Colonnade in this kingdom.

[Chris is me]

Stack Wild Hunts. Use Charm to gain extra Wild Hunts and Royal Careiages or Bustling Villages or Charms or like whatever. Raze can handle the Estates. Enchantress can go eat a dick, so probably open with two of those especially in four player. Buckle up.

[LibraryAdventurer]

My 3-player game today:




It was the first time I had played with City Quarter, Triumph, and Tomb. Fun board. With plenty of trashing and draw, the catapult/rocks pile got sold out, and we put those rocks to the use they were meant for. And there was the bonus that with every play of catapult, we got a VP because of tomb. The downside of buying rocks here was lowering the action density for City Quarter, and once I drew City Quarter with no action cards. OTOH, I was the only one who bought more than one city Quarter, and I won with 5 provinces and over 20 VP tokens. We never spammed +buy cards, but Rocks, Forum, and Amulet also work as Triumph enablers. I think Triumph was bought four times, and the only one who didn't buy it was the one who came in 3rd. I
LF's Charlatan was put to good use this game. At least 6 extra coppers were bought this game because of its attack.
Each of us bought a Generous Benefactor as well, and it worked well this game. It's coin for other players helped people pay off debt more than once.

[trivialknot]

Doesn't Charlatan have a rules contradiction with debt?  It says players must use all their buys, but if you have debt then you are not allowed to use buys.  How was this resolved?

[LibraryAdventurer]

Doesn't Charlatan have a rules contradiction with debt?  It says players must use all their buys, but if you have debt then you are not allowed to use buys.  How was this resolved?

We actually didn't notice that because we didn't have a turn where someone didn't fully pay off debt while someone else had a Charlatan in play. So we didn't decide how to resolve this. I guess LF could make a ruling about this since Charlatan is his card.
(There was only one turn in the game where someone didn't fully pay off their debt from last turn and that was when I had a dud turn after buying a City Quarter. No one had Charlatan in play that turn.)

[math]

Doesn't Charlatan have a rules contradiction with debt?  It says players must use all their buys, but if you have debt then you are not allowed to use buys.  How was this resolved?

We actually didn't notice that because we didn't have a turn where someone didn't fully pay off debt while someone else had a Charlatan in play. So we didn't decide how to resolve this. I guess LF could make a ruling about this since Charlatan is his card.
(There was only one turn in the game where someone didn't fully pay off their debt from last turn and that was when I had a dud turn after buying a City Quarter. No one had Charlatan in play that turn.)

If debt takes precedence, that could create interesting strategic plays.  For example, if you have $6 and 6 debt, it's probably often best to pay off exactly 5 debt so you don't have to buy a Copper.

[LastFootnote]

Doesn't Charlatan have a rules contradiction with debt?  It says players must use all their buys, but if you have debt then you are not allowed to use buys.  How was this resolved?

We actually didn't notice that because we didn't have a turn where someone didn't fully pay off debt while someone else had a Charlatan in play. So we didn't decide how to resolve this. I guess LF could make a ruling about this since Charlatan is his card.
(There was only one turn in the game where someone didn't fully pay off their debt from last turn and that was when I had a dud turn after buying a City Quarter. No one had Charlatan in play that turn.)

If debt takes precedence, that could create interesting strategic plays.  For example, if you have $6 and 6 debt, it's probably often best to pay off exactly 5 debt so you don't have to buy a Copper.

Oh man, guys, let's move this portion of the conversation over to the Variants Forum, what do you say?

[Timethief]

I played my first 3 empire games yesterday, 2p.

we played the all empires variant, though i must admit the basic intro was more fun than the advanced (but im sure we didn't check all possibilities).

the third game was tomb of the rat king with dark ages. This was, at least for me real fun to play. rats and fortress make a great vp source. he gave up eventually when i had a solid vp lead (20/25) and was about to start greening.

[LibraryAdventurer]

(9th kingdom card was a fan card: Chapterhouse by RobertJ from the 1st Hinterlands contest. )

We figured out an interesting trick this game: Inherit Villas. Later, play bridge (or highway/bridge troll). Then empty the estate pile in one turn.
Estates cost $1 with bridge in play. Then, with Villa's on-gain effect, they can give you the $1 back immedietely. (Both of us Inherited Villas this game.)
I bought a couple Chapterhouses, but it didn't have much impact on the game despite working pretty well with Villa. Just when I got my engine running my opponent piled out the estates and courtyards. Bridge was already empty.