Thoughts on the game?

[Shadewe]

I ask as, although I've only played it once and from my understanding it's still in development, I didn't care for it. It looks nice and seems like a great idea, but the play turned into one part zerg for the tech, and one part odd mash of moves.

Problems as I see them:

1) The HR is terrible. You buy a new room, but getting someone there could take 2-3 HR turns. Even if you do, most new rooms make you eject to use the room, so in a game you'll get one, maybe two uses out of it. It's just not worth it (which is what I think causes the tech zerg, which makes sense).

2) The Railroads seem to matter far more than anything else. As per 1) above, just kick out a guy to the game board and have them sit there and actually collect stuff. Now the collection is almost 100% turn-based and has nothing to do with your industry (in an industry-building game).

3) Spiteful turns. If you don't want HR moves, simply pick them too early, and now points 1) and 2) above become borderline impossible to do.

This is just me and I know many here will disagree with me, but from my point of view, I'd love to love this game as it looks like a lot of fun, but it just wasn't when I actually played it. I will watch it though, see what changes happen.

[Phoxtrot]

Hard to follow...

Picking HR moves early on does not in any shape or form make it impossible to pick HR later. There is no limit to how many times HR (or any other action) can be chosen.
If you pick HR when the token on the HR row is already on the last position, the region triggered is the first available region on the next row (or the row after that one if the next row is also completed etc..)


And the "new loby" if that's what you are talking about at the start is a very powerful department if you use missions a lot (which you probably should).

I'll say one thing: the rulebook is really hard to follow on some points and it's quite normal not to understand everything after the 1st read.

[Das Burndt]

I agree with HR departments, I used them a lot less since I realized most of them (i.e. the ones where you send employees in mission) could be played only once every 2 HR turn.

[Phoxtrot]

Uh ?
No you can use them every time.
You just have to time it right.

You have to use your "Training and Partnerships" and or "Safety and Quality" before you use the "Human Resources" department.
You can even use them on the first HR action of the game provided that you placed a meeple on the empty future location of those department during the initial setup.

It's just a bit annoying because you have to count how many meeple moves you need so that you can use all the moves form the "Human Resources" department and as little as possible from "Training and Partnerships" to get a few extra coins.


For instance, in this game:
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=144998525

On the 5th HR action, #201 I use both "Training and Partnerships" and "Safety and Quality" and I time it so that I use them again on the 6th HR action around #275.

[paramesis]

HR dominant strategies can be quite powerful. If you set yourself up to benefit from back to back HR calls, you can take control of the tempo and generate a huge amount of VP and money from HR calls that don't benefit any other players. Keep in mind that there is no limit to the number of inactive workers that can be on any space in your Company. During an HR turn that makes use of mission departments, it's generally a good idea to move workers into those departments so they will be ready to activate at the end of the turn and be ready for the next HR call.