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Author Topic: Sentinels of the Multiverse fixed deck card game  (Read 15028 times)

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ednever

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Sentinels of the Multiverse fixed deck card game
« on: August 06, 2013, 05:52:00 pm »
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So I stumbled across this game recently.
I was looking at new deckbuilders as I do from time to time (to see if anyone ever develops anything nearly as interesting as Dominion). I heard about Marvel's Legendary. As I read about it I became less and less interested.

But through the process I heard SOFM discusses again and again. It has a lot I generally DON'T like in a game:
- Cooperative
- Lots of tokens
- "Set decks" that don't change from game to game

But there was enough positive feedback, combined with a few things I thought I would like:
- Plays different every game based on the interaction between different hero, villain and event decks
- Has card combos that you can get better at playing
- Supposedly the 'best' of the cooperatives (because each player plays separately with cards only they know about - so no one is 'directing' the game)
- Strong theme that apparently 'feels' like you are playing a superhero fighting a villain


So I picked up a copy. I played a single game last night solo (I played 3 heroes - normally there would be a seperate player playing each one - but since you aren't playing AGAINST someone, it plays very well solo)

I liked it a lot. Enough that I would love to discuss it with people here.
I searched the web for discussion about it (BGG and the company website both have some discussion). The best thing I found was an attempt to create stats for the game (which is hard to do since there is no electronic version yet [apparently coming next year], but people are collecting them manually). Here is there results: http://x.gray.org/sentinels-of-the-multiverse-difficulty-scores.html

First a quick description of how the game is played. Then some thoughts on how it could be made competitive.

How it's played:
(1) 3-5 heroes chosen (usually one per player unless you have 1-2 players)
(2) Villain and environment chosen

Each of the above gets a 'play mat' and a deck of cards

(3) Villain set up completed - they may get to start with a card in play for example
(4) Villain takes a turn: Start of turn effects, draws a card, plays that card, end of turn effects
(5) Each player takes a turn:
- Play a card (some cards have effects when played, some stay in play like Innovation)
- Activate a power (like Innovation - every hero also has an inate power that doesn't require a card)
- Draw a card
(6) Environment turn
- Start of turn effects
- Draw and play a card
- End of turn effects

And just repeat.

Since the cards have effects when played (like Dominion) and when 'activated' (Like Innovation) there are tons of possibilities.

Every hero and villain (and some of the played 'permanent' cards and environment effects) have Hit Points. The general goal is to reduce the villain to zero HP before all of the heroes are brought to zero HP (but obviously lots of variations. In the game I played with the 'basic' villain, we first had to reduce his floating platform to zero HP before we could even touch him. Then when he was reduced to zero HP, he regenerated into a more powerful villain and we had to do it again)

I played three of the more basic heroes (a Hulk clone, a Thor clone and a Captain America-type clone). In addition to normal combos you could expect within the hero decks, there are combos across decks. Which I imagine is even more fun if you are playing as a group and making them happen.

Three expansions (and lots of promo cards) out there (with apparently an extra large expansion coming soon) means for lots of re-play value.

Again: My only real critique is a fundamental part of the game: That it's cooperative so you can't go head-to-head with someone and get better at the game by seeing 'what's possible' (the way I learned Dominion).

So...


Idea for making it competitive:

There are a few half-hearted attempts to do this on the other boards (mixed with people getting mad that it is taking away something fundamental to the game. There was even a comment: "Trying to make this game competitive is like saying, "I would really like to play a first person shooter. Why don't I make Dominion into a first person shooter." - go and play a different game if you want to play competitive."

I doubt I will get that here.

So here was my thought:
What if each player took on multiple heroes (2? 3?)

Instead of attacking the villains they can attack the other player's heroes.

There may need to be some rules on targeting - just like the villain usually does damage to the hero with the higher HP, there likely needs to be a similar rule here (maybe. Or maybe the strategy is to take out your opponents strongest hero first - so you put all your effort into attacking one and leave the others alone?)

In addition, you definitely include the Environment deck - it's throwing things at the players the way it normally does.

The other idea is to also include the villain. That gets a little more nasty, since the villain will be dealing out damage, but no one will be attacking him (most of the time?). It will just make game go faster. And since he usually targets the hero with the most HP, it will counter the players attacking the ones that are weakest.


There have been related ideas listed on many of these boards. The common complaint seems to be:
- If each person takes one hero, then the heroes are very differently powered - and some are really only support roles

I think that's solved through
(1) More then one hero per team - which creates the same support needs as when fighting a villain
(2) Using the "Difficulty scoring system" to ensure that the two hero teams are roughly equal (or you could even use a handicap system to give newer players better odds against experienced players)


Anyway. I like the way the game is set up a lot. I think there is a ton of complexity that can be added to it (or may already have been added - I've only played a small % of the heroes and villains and environments in the basic set - let alone the expansions) and I think it could play really well in a competitive setting.

It's a nice combination of very simple mechanics (play, activate, draw) with a lot of potential layers.


Would love the thoughts of people on here.

Has anyone played it and been disappointed?
Has anyone played it enough to share thoughts on making it competitive player vs player?

(Obviously the combinations are not nearly as wide as Dominion. With 200-Choose-10 you will have more variations than 23 Choose 2-to-5 times 23 choose 1 times 14 choose 1. If my math is right... 2.2x10^16 vs ~500K [with 3 heroes]... But obviously many of those Dominion examples are identical, and the within-deck combos in SOTM can end up playing pretty differently within one 'version')

Ed
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DG

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Re: Sentinels of the Multiverse fixed deck card game
« Reply #1 on: August 06, 2013, 06:17:34 pm »
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I quite liked it but it doesn't hit the table much because the rest of my group were lukewarm about it. The game is clearly meant to fire on card combos but some were tiresome to work out (when damage was repeatedly reduced and redirected and whatever) or players would have games without any combos as the required equipment was too hard to put/keep in play. It's certainly worth a look though if anyone is interested.
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scott_pilgrim

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Re: Sentinels of the Multiverse fixed deck card game
« Reply #2 on: August 06, 2013, 06:39:48 pm »
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Has anyone played it and been disappointed?
Sentinels of the Multiverse seems to be one of the most popular (if not the single most popular) games in my gaming group, and I cannot fathom why.  Maybe it's just a Euro vs. Ameritrash difference?

I've played it a few times, and haven't been able to get into it at all.  The theme seems very cliche, but theme is not really the thing that I care about anyway; I don't want to start an argument on theme because I know that that's not my area of expertise.  The mechanics seem unoriginal and uninteresting, and not fun to play.  The few times I've played it, I felt like I was just constantly asking other players what I should be doing, because I didn't "know my character", or "know the villain", or what sorts of things I should be looking out for.  Not sure what the actual rules say about communicating with other players, but the way that I've played in the past, I didn't do much decision-making.  In general, it's very hard to make a "good" cooperative game, because the most skilled player tends to be playing a solitaire game while the other players move the cards and pieces for him.  If cards in SotM are supposed to be hidden from other players, then what are we allowed to discuss?  Do we just sit in silence while playing things on our own?  I think that that's better than having other players be able to tell each other what to do, but then there's a lot of pressure on the new player(s).  Having your teammates angry at you for ruining the game they were going to win seems like it would scare off a lot of new players.

A lot of plays seemed like "Do the thing that does the most damage".  In general, I hate games that rely heavily on counting, and so the generic Ameritrash HP/damage counting thing seems inelegant to me.  I guess SotM is supposed to be a tactical game, but I can't help but complain that there's not much strategy.

The pre-set decks also rub me the wrong way.  Maybe I'm just too used to Dominion, but I feel like executing a combo is much less satisfying when the designer came up with it and put it right there in front of me.  I feel like I should be the one coming up with the combo (even if the designer thought of it first; surely DXV knew about Mystic/Vagrant, but when they come up together by chance and you figure out on your own that they work well together, it's so much more satisfying).  The decks are specifically designed and set up to contain cards that interact together, which takes out so much of the fun.  If all of the cards from all of the decks were thrown into one giant pool and then drafted into decks or something, wouldn't that be more fun?  It would feel so much more satisfying to have cards that combo together nicely.  Of course, that would be inelegant and probably doesn't have a place in SotM, but there should be some way of being creative with what you do, and not just playing the decks in the way that the designers clearly want you to play them.

So anyway, the things that you say you don't like about it are also pretty big turn-offs for me.  For the things you list as positives, well, none of those are very convincing for me.  The card combos are unsatisfying because they're pre-set by the designers, I already ranted about cooperation, and the theme just doesn't seem exciting to me (maybe just a personal thing, although theme would not be enough to get me to play a game anyway).  The fact that each game plays differently is nice, but that by itself is nowhere near enough to make up for all of my other problems with it.

Anyway, sorry if that came off as a giant rant.  That wasn't intended for you as much as it was just that I had to vent about it, since my experience is that most people think SotM is fantastic, and I have never been able to enjoy myself while playing it.  I would be interested to hear what other people like about it though.  What makes Sentinels any better than other Ameritrash games?

(Also I apologize if anyone finds the term Ameritrash offensive, I don't know of another name for the genre.)
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ednever

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Re: Sentinels of the Multiverse fixed deck card game
« Reply #3 on: August 06, 2013, 07:16:59 pm »
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How do you define Ameritrash? I always thought that category included games like Monopoly and Risk, which generally have the characteristics:
- Random, limited decision making
- Long
- People get eliminated until one person is left and wins
- Negotiation and social 'dealing' is the most important 'skill'

I wouldn't say SOTM has any of those characteristics (you could argue random, and I don't know enough to disagree yet, but that is true for lots of games that aren't Ameritrash). Maybe there is another definition I'm missing?


On decision making and cooperation

Just my two-cents on how it could be played:
- Players cannot talk about the cards in their hands. They are on their own for which card to play
- Players can strategize with the cards in play (Hey Mike, you have a way to absorb damage from other players. You should use that power to take the heat when Dave attacks the bad guy and gets hit back. So now we just need a way to heal you or protect you from the damage you are going to take. Can anyone help with that?)
- Players can talk about the 'role' they want the other players to take or the strategy they want the team to follow ("Someone needs to take out the henchmen before we try to go back after the big bad guy." "No wait. I think I can take the henchman on my turn. You guys hit the bad guy.")

So basically anything goes beyond the cards you have in your hand. But the cards you have mean a lot. And thinking through how you can generate combos with what's on the board (including others) and what's in your hand can be pretty neat.


On counting
Not sure I understand your dislike. How would you make a game without counting? Isn't that what you do when you monitor your actions in Dominion? Especially when you build up your money to buy cards in Dominion.
I guess the difference in SOTM is the keeping track of HP across turns instead of only within a turn?


On strategy vs tactical

With you here. It's definitely more tactical (although I guess if you knew the game better you could plan strategies - "Ah. Dave's chatacter can do this and Mary's can do that. We should try to set up that combo that counters when the villain does Y."). But so is Innovation. In fact I have yet to see a good real strategy game other than Dominion. I would love to hear about more... (in that you need to develop a strategy for a specific game, rather than knowing a strategy that works every time and just executing the tactics - like in Chess)


Pre-set decks


Again: Agreed. I don't really consider myself a gamer. I don't play games. I just play Dominion.
I played MTG back in the early early days and really just enjoyed the deck building, not so much the playing (other than to test the decks I built). [BTW: Biggest complaint about the internet is it ruined games like MTG]
I found SOTM by looking for another deck builder (and finding the Marvel and DC games - both of which look very very flawed)

It would definitely be fun to 'design' your own hero deck using some sort of point system on what cards you could put in and what they do, trying to create something beyond the sum of it's parts. Maybe some sort of drafting method. Might be a fun add-on for a game like this.


I think in general we are agreed on what makes something good or bad (I may enjoy the superhero theme execution more than you). So it surprises me a little how little you like it. I may end up that way after I play a few more times?

Ed
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scott_pilgrim

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Re: Sentinels of the Multiverse fixed deck card game
« Reply #4 on: August 06, 2013, 08:04:55 pm »
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From BGG wiki:
Quote
Ameritrash is "a catchphrase for 'American style boardgames.' In general, this means games that emphasize a highly developed theme, characters, heroes, or factions with individually defined abilities, player to player conflict, and usually feature a moderate to high level of luck."
It's possible that I'm using the term incorrectly, not sure, but I think this confirms my usage of the term.  I think of Ameritrash as being the "opposite" of Euro; usually more theme and tactics oriented, rather than strategic.

One thing that I find to be hard to do when setting limitations on what can and can't be discussed in a cooperative game is that players feel conflicted between trying to win and trying to adhere strictly to the rules.  Since there are likely going to be lots of gray areas (e.g. can a player just say to another "If you have card A in hand, do this.  If you have card B in hand, do this. etc."?), players will generally feel tempted to stick their toe over the line if it means they can make each other do the "right" play.  Since all players are aiming for the same goal, it gives kind of an awkward feeling of "I could slightly 'cheat' here and no one would call me on it, since it would help all of us to win", but you know you're not "supposed" to.  Maybe this isn't a problem with most players, but it's something that bothers me a lot with cooperative games.  (Maybe that's why I like cooperative video games but not cooperative board games, because video games enforce the rules.  I think I've just had an epiphany!)

I probably made myself sound silly by complaining about counting.  I think my problem is with tactics, and sometimes I just complain about counting because that's where the tactical play shines through.  Most strategic games involve some counting as well, so you're right that that's not a fair complaint (unless it's really an absurd amount of counting, which I don't think SotM has).

Most games that I like are strategic, and not heavily tactical, like Dominion.  However, all games, even Dominion, remain strategic for only a limited number of plays.  Usually, this number is high enough that I'll never complain about running out of plays.  For Dominion, you could probably play tens of thousands of games before it becomes tactical.  For most games the number is much lower (double or triple digits), but it's usually enough that I won't reach that limit (especially for games with one hour or longer play time).  Most eurogames employ some mechanisms of variation from game to game, so that you can get at least a good 20-30 plays before the games become more about tactics than strategy.  In Power Grid, your strategy changes based on the board (and there's variation within the board from game to game, depending on number of players), distribution of plants in the deck, etc.  In In the Year of the Dragon, your strategy changes based on the sequence of events and the grouping of available actions.  In 7 Wonders, the wonders are dealt out differently each time (which wonder you have and which other wonders you are seated next to can have a huge impact on your overall strategy), and the cards are dealt out differently each time.  Dominion's mechanic of variation from game to game happens to be way better than any of the examples I mentioned, but that doesn't mean the examples I mentioned aren't effective at encouraging players to be creative in how they come up with their strategies.  It just means that you don't get the enormous number of plays that Dominion gives you.  I certainly think of almost all Euros as being strategic rather than tactical for that reason; even though if you played them 500 times they would probably become tactical, you're probably not going to play them 500 times.  They remain strategic up until a certain point, and, at least in my experience, I don't usually play any single game enough times to reach that point anyway.

I think in general we are agreed on what makes something good or bad (I may enjoy the superhero theme execution more than you). So it surprises me a little how little you like it. I may end up that way after I play a few more times?
It's possible that you'll end up not liking it, or maybe I just haven't played it enough, and if I played it more, I would like it.  In my experience though, games generally get worse as you play them more, not better, so it has been hard for other people to convince me to play SotM any more (I've played it maybe 5 times, and watched a few more plays of it).
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ftl

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Re: Sentinels of the Multiverse fixed deck card game
« Reply #5 on: August 06, 2013, 08:11:17 pm »
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In general, it's very hard to make a "good" cooperative game, because the most skilled player tends to be playing a solitaire game while the other players move the cards and pieces for him. 

One solution for that is the Space Alert solution of making the whole thing real-time. I think that's the only way I've seen that makes bossy co-op play basically impossible. Not really applicable to games not designed for it from the start though, you can't use it as a 'fix' to other co-op games.
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scott_pilgrim

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Re: Sentinels of the Multiverse fixed deck card game
« Reply #6 on: August 06, 2013, 08:14:50 pm »
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In general, it's very hard to make a "good" cooperative game, because the most skilled player tends to be playing a solitaire game while the other players move the cards and pieces for him. 

One solution for that is the Space Alert solution of making the whole thing real-time. I think that's the only way I've seen that makes bossy co-op play basically impossible. Not really applicable to games not designed for it from the start though, you can't use it as a 'fix' to other co-op games.
I was actually going to mention Space Alert in my post, but then I decided it wasn't really relevant to what I was saying.  It is a nice solution, although I'm not a big fan of the game, and you're right that you can't just add it to any co-op game.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Sentinels of the Multiverse fixed deck card game
« Reply #7 on: August 06, 2013, 08:16:06 pm »
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How are you defining "tactics"?  Dominion has tactics in it as well.  You look at the overall board and available cards and come up with a strategy of what you want to buy or how your deck should look.  But turn to turn, there are tactics in making the most of your current hand.  Which action should you play first?  What do you buy when shuffles are not ideal?  etc. etc.  Tactics also come into play when responding to opponent's choices, as well as with specific cards (what do you discard when your opponent plays Envoy, for example).
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scott_pilgrim

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Re: Sentinels of the Multiverse fixed deck card game
« Reply #8 on: August 06, 2013, 08:42:05 pm »
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How are you defining "tactics"?  Dominion has tactics in it as well.  You look at the overall board and available cards and come up with a strategy of what you want to buy or how your deck should look.  But turn to turn, there are tactics in making the most of your current hand.  Which action should you play first?  What do you buy when shuffles are not ideal?  etc. etc.  Tactics also come into play when responding to opponent's choices, as well as with specific cards (what do you discard when your opponent plays Envoy, for example).
Dominion certainly involves tactics, but the emphasis is on strategy.  Every game has some level of tactics, and some level of strategy.  All of the games that I mentioned and called "strategic" also involve some tactical decisions, often times very important tactical decisions, but you can tell that the overall skill involved in the game is in coming up with a long-term strategy.  When you're comparing Dominion or some of the other games I mentioned to something like SotM, I think you can feel the difference.  In SotM (at least in my experience), the main difficulty is in deciding which card to play right now, which enemy to kill, which thing will do the most damage, etc.

Would it work to say that a game can be considered more strategic than tactical if and only if computers play it poorly?  Obviously if a computer plays a game optimally it will be the same as if a human plays it optimally, but I feel like it would be much easier to write an algorithm for a computer to play Sentinels of the Multiverse than Dominion (and that's taking into account the enormous variation from game to game, in both).  I guess you can't really define what constitutes a computer playing a game poorly, or how "easy" an algorithm is to write, but you get the idea.  I think of chess as being tactical, and computers are good at it.  I think of arimaa and go as being strategic, and computers are bad at them.
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eHalcyon

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Re: Sentinels of the Multiverse fixed deck card game
« Reply #9 on: August 06, 2013, 10:20:14 pm »
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Isn't Chess usually considered one of the deepest strategy games?
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Kuildeous

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Re: Sentinels of the Multiverse fixed deck card game
« Reply #10 on: August 07, 2013, 09:44:44 am »
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I do love me some Sentinels. The theme is awesome. The gameplay isn't too bad. It's simple, though some heroes/villains can throw some serious wrenches into the ointment (such as the Dreamer).

I have most of the cards, though I haven't played with all the cards I do have. I just recently found some free time, so hopefully I can get some more Sentinels in.

To address the original post…

I'm wary of playing this competitively. As stated before, some heroes are support. Some heroes wouldn't work so well interacting with another hero's deck. For example, one of Visionary's strengths is that she can stack the villain deck. The villain play is a known quantity. When you draw those three cards, you can see which villain cards are already in play and can plan accordingly (assuming the environment doesn't screw you over, and it will). If you apply that card to a hero's deck, then the card loses some impact. Sure, you can put the Staff of Ra on the bottom of the deck, but that means nothing if the Ra player already has a Staff of Ra in his hand or even has the card that lets him sift through his deck for the Staff of Ra.

Cards in play can also be a factor. Absolute Zero relies on getting his modules out. What makes him so powerful is that the group can usually decide which cards gets discarded (unless they all go). If another player chooses which cards get discarded, then certain heroes that can get rid of cards can shut down Absolute Zero and the Argent Adept.

Also something that makes a hero strong against the villain could be shut down in PVP. If the other player knows that Wraith or Haka has damage resistance this turn, then he's just going to target the other hero.

I feel that these issues would have to be considered before you can properly pit hero against hero.

When I saw you talking about competitive play, I was thinking of which hero scores the best against the villain, similar to Legendary. This could never work with a straight-up "who did the most damage" mechanic. You'd have to have a scoring sheet for each hero. Did Haka prevent enough damage? Did Legacy boost enough damage? Did Bunker do enough damage? Did Visionary manipulate enough decks? And even then, the scoring method may not be in the best interest of the game. For example, Legacy is going last (why is he going last?) and has the tough decision of applying the last damage on the villain for victory or letting the villain win. Obviously, Legacy is going to punch out the villain, but he doesn't score points for it because he is scored on his support abilities rather than damage. So then Legacy "loses" even though his action saved the day.

Personally, I wouldn't bother with competition in Sentinels. I see it applied in Legendary, and I don't much care for that. I always ignore who "wins" in Legendary. But, you asked for some advice in competitive Sentinels, and I offered up some flaws I observed.

But I do love the game. Very fun.
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Kirian

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Re: Sentinels of the Multiverse fixed deck card game
« Reply #11 on: August 07, 2013, 10:25:00 am »
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I have never understood why some people and games feel the need to keep score and have a winner in a cooperative game.  Either you beat the villain or you didn't.  You don't need to have a winner.

Sentinels was designed as a coop game.  The players would be unbalanced against one another.
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Kuildeous

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Re: Sentinels of the Multiverse fixed deck card game
« Reply #12 on: August 07, 2013, 11:04:17 am »
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I have never understood why some people and games feel the need to keep score and have a winner in a cooperative game.  Either you beat the villain or you didn't.  You don't need to have a winner.

I gather that the reason (in this case) to have it be competitive is to better hone the player's skill through adversity:

it's cooperative so you can't go head-to-head with someone and get better at the game by seeing 'what's possible' (the way I learned Dominion).

I disagree that having head-to-head battles would be the way to get better at the game. It'd be such a different beast with modified cards (for example, villains don't have Equipment cards, so can your hero trash an Equipment card instead of an Ongoing card?), that any tactics you learn from fighting the heroes likely wouldn't work in a regular game. That'd be like playing a solo game of Dominion with Sea Hag and practicing getting five Provinces in 12 turns. When you then play a regular game of Dominion, you're going to get skunked.

The best way I've found to get better at Sentinels is to keep playing it. I might even suggest playing the same hero a few times in a row, though that doesn't match my play style; I go all over the board. Watch other players to see how their heroes stack up. I always try to talk new players out of playing Absolute Zero or Bunker at first, though Bunker is more newbie-friendly than AZ. But when you see how those heroes work, then you do get better. You know what cards are in the deck and can work to drawing those cards when you're given the chance to manipulate your deck.

Knowing the villains' capabilities helps too, though I tend to play with some degree of ignorance; I never read a new villain, which usually ends poorly for us since we don't know the optimal way of beating him.

And when you think you've gotten the hang of the game, start playing the advanced rule of one or both sides of the villain. They can really make a game more difficult (or longer, in the case of an advanced rule that says the villain takes less damage, ugh!).
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Drab Emordnilap

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Re: Sentinels of the Multiverse fixed deck card game
« Reply #13 on: August 13, 2013, 04:09:14 pm »
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Hey, if you're looking for something more competitively-focused...

https://greaterthangames.com/blog/2013/08/a-most-august-announcement

Full Disclosure: I'm one of the designers of this game. And I'm so excited omg
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popsofctown

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Re: Sentinels of the Multiverse fixed deck card game
« Reply #14 on: August 13, 2013, 06:21:38 pm »
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When I was looking for a new game this is a game i came very close to buying.

I haven't played it so I can't give much feedback on how to turn it competitive. 


[if you did a pbf, i'd be so in, just sayin]
« Last Edit: August 13, 2013, 06:22:54 pm by popsofctown »
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ednever

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Re: Sentinels of the Multiverse fixed deck card game
« Reply #15 on: August 13, 2013, 06:40:52 pm »
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Hey, if you're looking for something more competitively-focused...

https://greaterthangames.com/blog/2013/08/a-most-august-announcement

Full Disclosure: I'm one of the designers of this game. And I'm so excited omg

Very cool man. Congrats. Is this your first game?

Can you give any more details on the game, or is it all tight lipped now?
For example, are cards involved at all?

From the limited description it sounds like its a miniatures-battle game with 6-sides dice. Sounds a lot like Battletech (I'm sure others too, but that was a game I'm familiar with that I played back in the early 90s).

Ed
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ednever

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Re: Sentinels of the Multiverse fixed deck card game
« Reply #16 on: August 13, 2013, 06:44:13 pm »
0

When I was looking for a new game this is a game i came very close to buying.

I haven't played it so I can't give much feedback on how to turn it competitive. 


[if you did a pbf, i'd be so in, just sayin]

You can play pbf at both the bbg forum and the >G forum...

I just purchased the first expansion.
I'm playing with others tomorrow. In the meantime I've played 4 solo games (against each of the four villains and played each of the ten heroes (2 of them twice)). Definitely fun playing the villains the first time. In curious to see how much replay value it has.

Ed
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Re: Sentinels of the Multiverse fixed deck card game
« Reply #17 on: August 13, 2013, 07:12:31 pm »
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Very cool man. Congrats. Is this your first game?

Can you give any more details on the game, or is it all tight lipped now?
For example, are cards involved at all?

From the limited description it sounds like its a miniatures-battle game with 6-sides dice. Sounds a lot like Battletech (I'm sure others too, but that was a game I'm familiar with that I played back in the early 90s).

Ed

It's going to be my firs published game, yes.

Physical cards, yes; shuffled deck of cards, no. We're going to be running demos of the prototype at GenCon this week, so the basic mechanisms will be public-ish. So, cryptic answers ahoy!
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popsofctown

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Re: Sentinels of the Multiverse fixed deck card game
« Reply #18 on: August 13, 2013, 08:14:30 pm »
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Are you getting paid?
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Re: Sentinels of the Multiverse fixed deck card game
« Reply #19 on: August 13, 2013, 11:18:47 pm »
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You can play pbf at both the bbg forum and the >G forum...

I wanted to run a PBF here, but I couldn't find a database of the cards, and I don't want to type all that stuff in.

Do those forums have card texts already? I mean, I could just plug in the names of the cards, but that would require people knowing what the cards do. I was hoping for something more newbie-friendly.
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Drab Emordnilap

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Re: Sentinels of the Multiverse fixed deck card game
« Reply #20 on: August 14, 2013, 12:31:06 am »
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Are you getting paid?

Once the game is for sale, I will get some of the monies!
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popsofctown

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Re: Sentinels of the Multiverse fixed deck card game
« Reply #21 on: August 15, 2013, 04:53:00 am »
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Are you getting paid?

Once the game is for sale, I will get some of the monies!
I hate you
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Drab Emordnilap

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Re: Sentinels of the Multiverse fixed deck card game
« Reply #22 on: August 16, 2013, 02:25:11 am »
+3

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Re: Sentinels of the Multiverse fixed deck card game
« Reply #23 on: September 02, 2013, 11:27:35 am »
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I have only played SotM game a few times, but I really liked it.

I just wanted to say that there's an iPad app ($5) that removes the need for tokens and generally makes things run more smoothly, so if you're a fan of the game with an iPad (dno if there's an Android app), you should check it out.
« Last Edit: September 02, 2013, 11:31:57 am by flies »
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Kuildeous

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Re: Sentinels of the Multiverse fixed deck card game
« Reply #24 on: September 03, 2013, 09:15:13 am »
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I just wanted to say that there's an iPad app ($5) that removes the need for tokens and generally makes things run more smoothly, so if you're a fan of the game with an iPad (dno if there's an Android app), you should check it out.

I presume you mean the Sidekick app. It looks really nice, but it hasn't been released for Android yet. Boo.

I played a few games this weekend. Got crushed by Citizen Dawn and the Matriarch (twice!). At least Ambuscade and Baron Blade are safely behind bars.
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