Board Game Arena

It’s been fun learning the two player game and its nuances. For next season, I’m going to vote for the three player game just for a change in perspective. It would be nice to alternate between two and three player games for each new season.

Good advice there from ErikLavin. I would add that it’s good to know the distribution of cards of each civilization. There’s a file on Boardgamegeek. This will help you know a little better what to expect to appear after you draw from a side deck. Each civilization has a somewhat different character...

On the Boardgamegeek page for this game, there’s a file called card distribution that lays out the card distribution for the center deck and for the side decks. It’s very useful to know in terms of what’s more likely for each civilization.

There are probably more battles because more people are realizing what a dominant strategy it is. The other dominant strategy is drawing a good mix of green cards, but I often will choose a permanent army card rather than a green card. Keep in mind though that sometimes there are fewer battles than ...

Part of understanding the dynamics of when to draw from the side decks versus the central decks is know the card distribution differences between the different civilizations. There’s a file of this somewhere on Boardgamegeek. So Egypt is a little more likely to reveal gold and cats while Babylon and...

I wouldn’t say completely random. There are many subtleties one learns over time about understanding the pace of the game, what to recognize in different situations, and when to draw from the side decks or the central deck. Yes, luck can quite often determine who wins, but in the arena games I see s...

I think it’s the sort of game where you often can’t do much about losing by two points. What decides the game is usually something that happens earlier. So knowing the score near the end I think leads to a longer waiting time as people take more time to make decisions and leads to a less climactic e...

There are also more important things to look at in terms of tactics and strategy, and a precise running score is just distracting.

There’s really no need. Once you’ve played a lot, you can tell where everyone is. Once in a while, it’s a surprise and it’s fun that way. More quick playing and more tension when you’re a little unsure.

I think the spirit of the original post is whether the game is as random as people often say it is, or whether there is actually substantial scope for strategy and skill. I see that Iddi recently fell off the number 1 spot and now he's back on again as number 1, so he sure knows how to climb back. A...