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The big question is: Is it better than Terra Mystica (the game the designer kept referencing as its inspiration)?

petewailes 10y ago
Short answer: no (but I'm a big TM fan) Long answer: Terra Mystica works precisely because it doesn't have combat. It's about gaining points to win, and to do that you have to do other things, each with their own costs and cost centers. It works because it's about management of what you've got, when you play what actions, and taking advantage of the strengths of your particular peoples. Scythe by comparison is very beautifully produced, and overall it's a good game, but not a truly excellent one. It's just not at the same level as something like TM or Kemet, for something else similar. My main gripe with it is that too much of the game is dictated at the start. It'd be like playing chess with the first 5 moves dictated to both sides. TM has a similar setup in that it's a static starting map, with factions that have static benefits, but the map starts changing fast because of what's available with bonus cards each turn, what can go where (or not), so you have to improvise. There's no real benefit to improvising on Scythe - indeed it's generally going to make things go worse for you. You're sort of railroaded into a certain way of playing. Overall I'd give it a 7.5/10
fsiefken 10y ago
It think it's a bit shorter and a bit more simple to explain which means that it can be more practical for a gaming night with 4 or 5 players. I clocked a 2 player at 1.5u and a four player game at 3h, with experience that'll go down. More importantly this is with a 9 year old who picked up the game quicker then I did as a experienced board gamer and kept beating me. I personally like the theme a bit more. On boardgamegeek there's a thread going about possible downsides, but I can't really comment on that as I've only played 5 games, and thoroughly enjoy that. I played a lot (> 100) of 2p Puerto Rico, another highly rated game - with the same person and as we know eachothers favorite strategies we actively try to block them, with randomization of the buildings (and expansions) we still like the game. I think that although the openings might tend to get scripted there might be enough variety for future replayability. I like it more then Terra Mystica personally. The discussion thread about it is here: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1612607/scythe-are-people-really-so-blind-its-faults http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1612607/scythe-are-people-re...

Short answer: no (but I'm a big TM fan) Long answer: Terra Mystica works precisely because it doesn't have combat. It's about gaining points to win, and to do that you have to do other things, each with their own costs and cost centers. It works because it's about management of what you've got, when you play what actions, and taking advantage of the strengths of your particular peoples. Scythe by comparison is very beautifully produced, and overall it's a good game, but not a truly excellent one. It's just not at the same level as something like TM or Kemet, for something else similar. My main gripe with it is that too much of the game is dictated at the start. It'd be like playing chess with the first 5 moves dictated to both sides. TM has a similar setup in that it's a static starting map, with factions that have static benefits, but the map starts changing fast because of what's available with bonus cards each turn, what can go where (or not), so you have to improvise. There's no real benefit to improvising on Scythe - indeed it's generally going to make things go worse for you. You're sort of railroaded into a certain way of playing. Overall I'd give it a 7.5/10

fsiefken 10y ago

It think it's a bit shorter and a bit more simple to explain which means that it can be more practical for a gaming night with 4 or 5 players. I clocked a 2 player at 1.5u and a four player game at 3h, with experience that'll go down. More importantly this is with a 9 year old who picked up the game quicker then I did as a experienced board gamer and kept beating me. I personally like the theme a bit more. On boardgamegeek there's a thread going about possible downsides, but I can't really comment on that as I've only played 5 games, and thoroughly enjoy that. I played a lot (> 100) of 2p Puerto Rico, another highly rated game - with the same person and as we know eachothers favorite strategies we actively try to block them, with randomization of the buildings (and expansions) we still like the game. I think that although the openings might tend to get scripted there might be enough variety for future replayability. I like it more then Terra Mystica personally. The discussion thread about it is here: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1612607/scythe-are-people-really-so-blind-its-faults http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1612607/scythe-are-people-re...