Most GMT games still take me at least two shots, unless it's something in a familiar line e.g. another COIN game. (But sometimes even then.) SpaceCorp took me a

Most GMT games still take me at least two shots, unless it's something in a familiar line e.g. another COIN game. (But sometimes even then.) SpaceCorp took me at least three but maybe it's three games so that doesn't count. I consider myself above-average at learning games but I doubt I could front-load all of Mr. President. But I agree that for the median or even p90 game demoing at Essen, even if there's "a lot" going on, you can get it easily in one game if you have any experience with hobbyist games. I don't think there's as big of a difference as you're drawing between "knowing the rules" and "knowing the tactics". To take one of Amabel's games as an example, I recall the rules for Aurelian being easy to understand in a literal sense (esp. having played Charlemagne), but I also recall it taking three games before I didn't wipe out disastrously just a few rounds in. I also think if you rule any of these out you miss a lot of really interesting games.