Arcs Review | Leder's Magnum Opus? or Misplaced Ambition?

[@justinvamp15]

To be clear, all you need to surpass is to play a higher suited card than the lead card. You do not need to play a 7 in the example at 1:30. Since the lead card was a 2, you can surpass with a 3, 4, 5, or 7. Not sure if that was just an error in the explanation here or if you played the game that way, but that would make a HUGE effect on the game and would make the cardplay seem much more harsh and random than it actually is. Also I'm confused by 25:27, the ambitions don't flip when they "don't score". The lowest one flips at the end of each Chapter, and all the ambitions reset at the end of each Chapter. If you need your agents or ships back, just declare that ambition and you'll get them back. I understand wanting to "do something on defense" as well, it's a different feeling than a lot of other dice combat games, but in reality Arcs just takes the offense and defense roll and combines them into one. Lots of dice combat games are just roll-offs, for instance Eclipse or Twilight Imperium. Sure you get to roll dice as the defender, but at the end of the day it'd be the same result if the attacker rolled the die in terms of agency. So sure you might not physically roll the die in Arcs but it's just quicker and not actually much different in terms of "ability to defend".

[@BoardGameRundown]

We played surprassing correctly and perhaps my example is poorly worded. Passive defense just isn't as interesting. Declaring an ambition I can't score on that would give others points just to get agents back would once again fall into the feels bad, suboptimal part of this game that doesn't make it always fun. - Mike

[@justinvamp15]

@@BoardGameRundown Fair enough!

[@cafecomescrita]

Great review, absolutelly on point! There is much to not like in the design, and the worst part of it is that some people are so distressed after a couple of matches that they don't want to explore it further - meaning you may end up being the only guy wanting to play the game in a group of 4. So even if you like the game it may end up not being a good investment, and people should be aware of this before buying it. Either you have the group for this, or you don't.

[@tyrantula222]

I do think one of the biggest mistakes is marketing this as "trick-taking". When I taught it for my first game, I called it trick-taking adjacent. Knowing trick-taking will give you an idea of how that part of the game works, but there's still all sorts of nuance that turns it into something not quite trick-taking (can't play lower number cards of the same suit, some cards played face up some down, etc). It's close, but I think there's an expectation of what that is when it's called trick-taking, and it's just not quite that in function.

[@trevorames889]

I came into this review hearing "trick-taking", and I was hugely skeptical. I like Bridge a lot, but that's the extent that I want out of it. Glad I watched the review, as it taught me that the excess stuff I don't care for either.

[@FBracht]

Arcs is not marketed as trick-taking. You won't see any mention of the words "trick taking" on any marketing material for this game. It does have a trick-taking card game as the core from which the rest of the game grows (every single system and mechanism in Arcs is tied to or accessible from this card game), but it doesn't mean that Arcs IS a trick-taking game. And it's not marketed as such.

[@tyrantula222]

@@FBracht @FBracht true "marketed" is not the right word, as Leder games doesn't push that narrative anywhere. It doesn't change that it's largely how it's described by anyone talking about it. That it plays using trick taking mechanics, which I hold is only partly accurate. And not putting a kind of disclaimer about that definitely gives you a wrong idea about it.

[@tyrantula222]

Also, just to add, I think a lot of the hype around Arcs is built around the campaign expansion more than just this base game. Of course if you just kinda bounce off the base game I doubt it turns it around for you, but the the stories that can evolve from all the changes that get brought into the game in that are what I feel like is particularly exciting.

[@Exozik]

I saw a lot of positive reviews and excitment based on the base game + Leaders & Lores. Many of those pointed out that the campaign is not for everyone and more convoluted than the base game + L&L.

[@jasonsmith1133]

I don’t want to keep playing games that I don’t like. Sure there could be some puzzle that I have not discovered but I would rather play games that I like and don’t frustrate me. Life is too short for that.

[@judgemario]

Ditto. 👍

[@patrickolmstead1557]

Playing Arcs tonight. This is the first content I’ve watched for the game. We’ll see. FWIW, I appreciate the candor. First, that it’s graphically designed in a way that you can get the rules wrong. Second, that there are a lot of suboptimal turns. That actually helps my mindset - now I know that pivoting is “fine” since suboptimal turns are expected. (And, I appreciate sharing how Mike could have got his agents back by forcing that scoring condition.)

[@BoardGameRundown]

Thanks, Patrick. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this thing. I found it can be one of those games where coming in second in everything might be better than coming in first in one thing. So watch those opponents closely and leap on what you can! Lol -Dan

[@FBracht]

Heads-up for those who care: this review apparently has been recorded after TWO plays, one of which with incorrect/incomplete rules. In my opinion, it is absolutely not enough experience for an accurate (good or bad!) review of this game. As anyone who has played enough Root, Oath, Pax Pamir, or John Company knows, Cole Wehrle is a designer who makes games meant to be explored over numerous plays. One or two plays will not be enough to form a solid opinion - much less an opinion you call a capital R Review and stick a number at the end.

[@BoardGameRundown]

Also worth noting that many people will never get to that play count because of similar experiences. - Mike

[@justinvamp15]

@FBracht It's enough plays to say you didn't enjoy them but not enough to make blanket statements of fact such as "there's too much luck", or "if you don't draw the right cards then you can't do what you need to do". With more experience those are simply not issues. If the first few plays don't grab your attention or you just don't want to dive deep enough to get to that point then that's totally fine, but making definitive statements about the nature of a game that's barely explored is definitely a take. It's like if you go into your first game of Brass Birmingham wanting to go for beer but draw no beer cards. You can either say: "this game is too luck dependent, if you don't draw what you need then you'll lose, or you have to waste an action swapping for the wild cards but then you are down a full action which is a feels-bad." But then as you play more you realize that you can either go more with the flow of what your hand allows you to do, or that swapping for wilds can drastically improve your game, or that there are other ways to still get that beer down if you really want to force it (play a location card), or just ignore beer and use someone else's. Pretty much all of those have analogous mechanics in Arcs, and similarly after one play might not be readily apparent. But once you've played a few times you realize that there is nowhere near the restriction that it feels the first couple of playthroughs. Of course, Arcs is more restrictive than Brass, but the same idea of making sweeping statements like that as if they are fact stands. And to be frank the same can apply the opposite direction, there are plenty of people who give a game one or two plays and then hail it as the greatest game ever, or "very well balanced", and then with more plays it turns out that a mechanic that seemed fine for newbie players is actually incredibly broken and makes the game worse the more you play it because it is such an obvious or necessary strategy. So the knife cuts both ways.

[@justinvamp15]

@BoardGameRundown Yup! Cole and Leder games have stated that their mission is not to make games for everyone, but to make games that are some people's absolute favorite games. A lot of people will bounce off their games after a small number of plays due to the non-traditional and genre-breaking mechanics that they tend to have, as well as the large play and effort investment needed to really master and get the full enjoyment out of their games. They create games to fill spaces that have never been explored before, and to have a depth to their games that many of the most popular games that come out today just don't have, and have said they'd rather have a smaller audience that goes incredibly deep than try to appeal to everyone and end up having their fans just drift to whatever newest game comes out.

[@BoardGameRundown]

They are very good at what they do. There just happen to be a lot of people in this hobby that do not replay games enough to experience this depth. Many content creators fall into that category, us/me included. Fwiw I thoroughly enjoy Root but haven't experienced nearly as many factions as I'd want to. - Mike

[@BoardGameRundown]

I'm sorry you feel that way, but a review is not a stated fact of a god. It's simply someone's opinion on a topic. Nowhere do we say this is an in-depth analysis that everyone should base their purchase on. We played 3 times. Yes, the first time we played a few rules incorrectly... just like most people do with most games. Simply put, reviews are made so that people can state their opinion, and people who don't already have opinions can listen to multiple reviews and form one from them. They are not meant to convince someone who already has an opinion to change it. -Dan

[@solskido]

I played this at GenCon 2024 and had picked it based on the hype, the designer's reputation, and the trick-taking action system. I did think the action system was very interesting (probably the best part of Arcs overall), but your complaints about it came up when I played as well so even the trick-taking was a disappointment. The rest of the game, though, fell really flat for me. It didn't take long for me while playing to realize I didn't care about most of the things I was doing on the board anymore.

[@jacobjslee]

Great review!

[@mshahrukh92]

"Get Good. You guys suck at this game!" That's what a wehrle fanboy would say lol 😂. I have the same feeling about the game. I like it but it doesn't have staying power because of all the randomness. I hope there will be an expansion that fixes issues.

[@Foxbat131]

Arcs 2.0 🤣

[@Foxbat131]

I can see this game get crazy erratas in the future too..

[@justinvamp15]

What level of randomness is acceptable in games for you? And what would the "fixes" be that you'd want to see in an expansion?

[@elqord.1118]

Cole’s designs are fascinating and mechanically super interesting but seldom fun

[@FBracht]

"…to me". There, your comment was missing a couple words there at the end, hope this helps.

[@elqord.1118]

@@FBracht goes without saying, not like I claim to speak on behalf of everyone? There is no university truth to opinions. Do you walk around and add „in my view“ or „to me“ to all of your statements? How absolutely annoying

[@benlauson555]

Fantastic review guys. Keep up the great work!

[@BoardGameRundown]

Thank you so much :) -Dan

[@l-Citr0n-l]

As others Arcs fans would probably state a lot of the complaints described here disappear and become great features once you understand the intricacies of the card play and the game. Same with the combat dice feeling random at first but actually awesome once you understand how to play around them and work around the odds. Personally took me like 4 plays to feel like "this is an awesome game". As you mentioned this is a leader game and just like root you're not gonna get the most out of it after 2 plays. That being said it is a fair criticism to point out that this game doesn't feel good the first few plays and that might not be for everyone. not everyone has the time and space to "work" for a game to get good when there are so many other things to play. But if you think you will be able to give this game enough plays with your group then I would disregard the "negative" points made in this review.