Flashback Friday - Chaos in the Old World - Love It or Hate It? Do You Still Play It?

I have mixed feelings about all these assymetrical DOAMs.

Root strikes me as too assymetrical, in the sense that the factions are fundamentally somewhat unbalanced and the players must take on the burden of re-balancing the game after they have played at least a few games.

Rising Sun superficially has a lot of options but ultimately seemed a bit scripted.

Cthulhu Wars was almost great, but I feel that the race for VP undercuts the sense of the setting.

I suppose that's my biggest complaint is that these assymetrical DOAMs (aside from Root) tend to fall short of expressing the setting and sense of dramatic narrative by abstracting certain elements in a mechanical way.

The real gold standard for this type of game is Dune, and all of these games fall short of the innovative and dynamic brilliance of Dune.

I think a separate point you bring up, Shellhead, is that these games do really want repeated plays with the same players or at least equivalent experience levels. The table needs to grow together and when it doesn't it can be rough to have a differently experienced player(s) thrown into the mix.

I would not be sad to spend an entire weekend playing various DoaM games. Definitely my favorite genre.

I think CitOW is the best game Fantasy Flight ever produced. I've used it to snare Euro-types who didn't like games-formerly-known-as-Ameritrash; Warhammer Fantasy players who claimed to not like board games; and random passersby in a local bar who then became serious boardgamers. It's that good.

I can see the comparison to Root because both of them require repeated plays to really engage with. If you're Khorne, you need to recognize what Slaanesh is doing in those specific areas and get in there and fuck up his business. But I think where Chaos is superior to Root is that you're still playing the same game. I think Root has reached the limit of so-called "asymmetrical play", where you often don't even feel like you're playing the same game as the Aerie vs the Riverfolk. CitOW's thematics and the fact that you're competing against the game itself don't let you reach that point.

hotseatgames wrote: I would not be sad to spend an entire weekend playing various DoaM games. Definitely my favorite genre.

Didn't do a whole weekend, but had a couple really awesome DoaM games today, including the oft-mentioned Cthulhu Wars, which doesn't really replace Chaos for me, given that one is all about board-maneuvering and the other involves significant card play, which CW lacks.

I really like it and I think it's, by far, the best Eric Lang design.

The interesting thing about it is that it's an Eurogame with direct attacks. Not just interaction, direct attacks between players. And this creates a very unique dynamic between controlling the board and achieving your goals. There's quite a bit of pushing, nudging and sneaking in that is rare in other games and I like the way your actions can be either symbiotic (Promote ruination), poisonous (Force Khorne to move in) or parastic (Get cheap kills).

Vysetron mentions the game is on rails and I don't agree but I know where he's coming from. Here's the issue: The game is not that well-nalanced and while the four factions are on the same level, upgrades and other cards are not. There are upgrades that are downright unplayable, others that are must have (Like Nurgle's VP for ruination) and some cards may very well be dead draws. But the game itself is varied and rich in decisions, which I appreciate.

I'm one of the few that wasn't impressed by Root, for the record. I just haven't found it very interesting.

Shellhead wrote: The real gold standard for this type of game is Dune, and all of these games fall short of the innovative and dynamic brilliance of Dune.

Dune plays in another league. It's such a brillant game in so many ways that CitoW and others just can't compare. I mean, Dune would already be the best game of its kind based on its combat mechanism and it has like 10 other mechanics on the same level. It's one of the best games ever made, hands down.

This was one of my worst gaming experiences, through no fault of the game. I had played somewhere between 5 and 10 hours of Heroscape tournaments earlier in the day at GenCon, and a friend decided to give this one its first spin at around 11 PM. I think I was Nurgle, and waited for it to end. From that day I on I've vowed to never play a brand new to everyone game late night at a convention unless it's dead simple like Codenames or Cobra Paw.

I haven't had a chance to give it another try.

Still in my all time top 5 after a decade. I have a few copies still in shrink since it’s (very probably) never getting reprinted and I’ve already worn through a copy already.

I'm not a huge fan of DOAM and as much as I do enjoy CitOW, I'd much rather play Nexus Ops.

I just played it yesterday and had a very unusual game with three newbies. Khorne won by victory points after all regions were destroyed. I didn't get any nobles nor heroes so I tried to focus on corruption but Nurgle wasn't having it and Khorne was dominating the board.

I always wish the game had gotten one more week of balancing. Tseench got a clogged hand and I got 4 cards that affected the non-existing nobles. I also believe Khorne walked into a trap (he got the Grat Demon upgrade over the little guys doing damage one) though he won on the back of it so who am I to say.

The game was fun, though the two eurogamers (Nurgle, Khorne) weren't too hot on it. They enjoyed themselves, which is more than I expected, though. I find it harder for the average eurogamer to play trashier games than the opposite.

^I find the same thing.

I enjoyed CitOW, but got rid of it in favor of CW.

I love games with card play and events, which I miss with CW. I think that CW has more in its favor, on balance. The incredible variety, the streamlined gameplay, the ability to play with more than four; all of these push it beyond its forebear. I like how the dial victory of the “original” was changed to be required, in combination with victory points, to win the game. The “dial” conditions also became more varied (6 one time requirements instead of 1 requirement to be met multiple times).

I'm quite fond of Chaos in the Old World, but Khorne is absolutely busted in the game. The sad thing is that I've heard a number of people say that the Horned Rat expansion fixed some of the problems with the game, but have you seen how much that goes for now? 0.0

The expansion situation being so expensive is tough... reminds me of the clash of cultures expansion which is also overwhelmingly expensive. At least the clash expansion doesn't have as much of a fix or overhaul element, at least.

Yes, still play it, particularly with the expansion. I've played over 200 times with the expansion + over 50 times of the base game. I'm getting a little sick of the base gmae (it's much more samey), but the dynamic expansion i don't think will ever get old, especially when it plays good and completely differently at all player counts.

I like Cthulhu Wars but don't really get the "replacement" thing, I don't really categorize them that closely, unless I'm only trying to own one dudes on a map game (I'm not). Chaos in the Old World is a delicious mixture of card play + area majority, while Cthulhu Wars has none of that and feels much more casual and less nuanced -- it's a simple VP race with leader bashing, dressed up in a fancy asymmetric costume.

oberael wrote: I'm quite fond of Chaos in the Old World, but Khorne is absolutely busted in the game. The sad thing is that I've heard a number of people say that the Horned Rat expansion fixed some of the problems with the game, but have you seen how much that goes for now? 0.0

He's really not, and while I think the expansion is the more fun experience, if your complaint with the base game is Khorne being strong, you'd be disappointed by the expasnion -- he's relatively stronger in that =P

I played two games over Tabletop Simulator last week and it was a complete blast. The module is pretty fast and easy to use, and the game is just wonderful. We played with the base game gods and cards, and in the second game we all had a shot at winning in the final turn. I think this is one game I'm going to keep playing online after the crisis is over. I would, of course, rather play it face to face, but when running a discord sound channel at the same time the experience was not far from a "real" game.