John Company

I'm in, it's autobuy for me no matter what. KS kicking my ass this spring between this, Root, and Phantom Division if that goes up later spring/summer.

Cole made a background/explanatory post at BGG: www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/2612410/whats-all-then

Great post from Cole on his perspective in creating the game and the message that he's hoping it delivers: www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/2622692/des...diary-1-going-empire

Excellent article, thanks for sharing. I'm not sure if I appreciate Cole's designs or the thoughtfulness of his designer diaries more. I really wish he had a site I could track all of these instead of subscribing to all of his games on BGG.

Here's a stream with Cole teaching the current play test of JC: www.twitch.tv/videos/944843316 . The teach itself takes about an hour and a half. I watched it at 2X and skipped the rest of the game but maybe someone here will enjoy the whole thing

It sure plays different, if that's Guerric's stream.

I appreciate Cole upping the volume on the satirical artistic elements. I think the imperial critique was in 1st ed gameplay but I think it needed to have the volume increased presentationwise.

I feel the same way about imperial struggle, incidentally, which I just think needs to turn up the volume a bit on the presentation of what you're doing and what seizing a sugar space means visually/artwise to function in a more up-front intentionally thoughtful space... and contrast that violence with the completely orthogonal reasons you're performing it.

The only thing I would disagree with in Cole's article is the assertion in his closing statement (albeit one that is borrowed from Shashi Tharoor) that post-colonial revisionism in the UK is a product of the last thirty years. It has instead been going on for at least a century. I am so fucking tired of hearing people swell with Elgaric pride about a complete fantasy that never was let alone will never return.

Adam Curtis (another plug) also addresses this in the third episode of his living dead documentary, with Churchill's juvenile fantasy of a return to the days of British Empire that he used to stoke nationalistic pride during the war then being repeated and further abused down the years, most egregiously so by Thatcher.

Now THIS is a design diary: www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/2626545/designer-diary-2-board

Pretty fascinating stuff. KS in one week.

I like the new play I saw for the most part, but I don't especially care for that new wheel in the upper corner and its mechanics so far.

There have been a variety of rondel-type objects up in that corner, Cole seems obsessed with using some variant of that mechanism. Here's hoping that during the next stage of development it will go the way of the victory point track and combat chart in Oath - I imagine there is still a lot of tweaking to come.

He just posted an updated TTS this afternoon and the rondel thing is still there. Some of the playtesters sound like they're still a little thrown by it, so I don't think it's final, but he did say today's kit is pretty close to what'll be posted when the KS launches.

Was going to make a comment but actually just testing a forum bug that I've been having.

2nd edition KS just launched.

Msample wrote: 2nd edition KS just launched.

To no surprise, I'm in. The fancy coins are really testing that completism, though. Much steeper than usual.

Yeah, I priced up the extras (Sleeves and Coins) for both Pamir and JC and realised that I could just set that aside for the An Infamous Traffic KS next year instead...

Yeah, I'm just waffling over the coins, they're pricey but I ended up getting them a kickstarter later for Pamir 2nd. Skipping the sleeves for sure.

Otherwise, as expected. Interested in being really surprised by this one with the huge raft of changes, very different game.