Ecos | Rahdo's Final Thoughts

[@chriswinston1223]

No problem at all in a 2-player game if you simply ignore the 2-player addendum at the end of the rulebook. We have played multiple times now and don't detect any difference between starting with 12 cards or 18. We did add a pretty nifty scoring mechanism to speed up the 60 to 80 point games for 2-players. What we do is reward points for completing cards based on the number of leaves on those cards. Often, a one-leaf card will be hard to complete and offer lots of points and rewards. You would only score one bonus point for a one-leaf card. But a 4-leaf card, which would obviously take four rotations to complete, gives you 4 points. This vastly improved the game for us.

[@mattgoldman1193]

Thanks for another awesome review! I am also a primarily two players gamer. This seems to have a lot going for it and so I’m wondering what would be lost if you just played with 12 cards (or even less)?

[@rahdo]

basically a big part of the game is dealing with the constantly evolving and changing world. that happens naturally with more players, but much less with only 2, unless each of the 2 players is pursuing 2 agendas... :)

[@chriswinston1223]

@@rahdo 2 agendas? Not sure what you mean here. 12 cards or less really doesn't matter if you are using those cards to completion and gaining additional cards as you play. Again, not sure what you mean by "agendas" though. I won a game today just working two cards successfully in combination if that's what you mean.

[@humanaffectation9021]

It seems easy to me that this game would have been easy to make a 3rd/4th player automa by flipping a red card and adding a cube to it for each pull from the bag to create another force adding to the world.

[@eepopgames2741]

Maybe it would be worth breaking out of your usual review mold and do a 'How to design successful 2 player rulesets' video.

[@rahdo]

that is a really interesting idea, though tbh it would be more "how to design 2p rules that my wife and i enjoy". i'm sure there are plenty of folks who think the ecos 2p rules are just fine as is :)

[@filipapt1674]

This game looks great! Great runthrough as always. And even though I'm a 2p count only gamer as you, I wan to have this game and house rule the first plays with less cards :)

[@femgoth]

Agricola's a heavy euro?

[@rahdo]

3.6 on BGG's scale, which is certainly in the medium-to-high range. not as heavy as brass (3.8) or maderia (4.2) , but higher than troyes (3.4) or vasco da gama (3.2) :)

[@raider363]

What triggers the end game state? that might affect my thoughts in the game.

[@rahdo]

it's a race to hitting 80 points (or 60 for the short game) :)

[@raider363]

@@rahdo ah thank you!

[@CG_Hali]

Tried a 'how to play' video first, but it said nothing about the game. At 0:30 'Tiling Bingo!' Ah, now that's what I'm talking about lol

[@AlexandreOliveiraMCZ]

Really curious about this one it seems gorgeous, also waiting on your Ragusa Review, I backed on Kickstarter so I already got my copy and it was a unanimous opinion in my gaming group that it is an excellent game, much like it's predecessor, Calimala. Well , thanks for the video, all the best.

[@rahdo]

ragusa should happen next month if all goes to plan :)

[@AlexandreOliveiraMCZ]

@@rahdo awesome, you should give Calimala a chance, it's great, it felt really rewarding.

[@rahdo]

@@AlexandreOliveiraMCZ 3p minimum unfortunately :(

[@AlexandreOliveiraMCZ]

@@rahdo ish! Had forgotten completely about it, well there will always be a convention try it out. ;)

[@Fissi0nChips]

Couldn't you just house rule down to 13 cards?

[@rahdo]

check faq.rahdo.com #24 :)

[@chriswinston1223]

@@JohnQSpartan Yes to your yes.

[@dramajoe]

So. Play with less cards. Fixed it for you.

[@rahdo]

see faq.rahdo.com #24 :)

[@mattlowder]

I agree with Joseph here. And the idea on #24 is one I philosophically disagree with. I know I'm not changing any minds, and Mister Hamm is often politely passive as hell here, but I'm gonna lay it out anyway. If you value your time, I recommend you not engage with me. LOL. Okay, look . . . When I buy a game, while I want to play it as strictly to the core rules and possible, I ultimately spent that money to have fun. And if I change a few small things so my group or wife can have more fun, I'm going to do it in my house. Variants don't take hours to play test at home, unless you're OCD. The argument that one would not do house rules because they take too long to balance and work on doesn't hold weight to me. I don't care of a major publisher spent six months or up to three years playtesting a game. They mess up sometimes. Or, on a rare occasion, they make it perfectly, but I just want the game to be 15 minutes shorter. So I play six rounds instead of 7. I make the end trigger 35 pts instead of 40. Whatever it may be. An experienced gamer takes 15 minutes after playing most games twice as written in the rulebook, then can easily identify what you would change or tweak for your group. No one I know is spending hours and hours making up a little house variant for something that you're going to play (at most) a couple times at the table ever. Almost everyone I know with collections over a hundred games, which is the majority of my friends at this point who play games, are getting even their favorite games to the table only a few times a year. 2-5 times tops. Spending too much time on a variant is obscene and uncessary. A rulebook is not gospel. If I publish the game, and someone was playing it differently than how I have written it in the rules, as long as they're having a blast, they are playing my game correctly. A smidge of a variant like "leave out some components" or "take out 4 cards per player" or "start with 3 resources instead of 2 to speed up the early game" or "leave this challenging card in the box" is easy for a game you might, might play five times this year. I'm a serious gamer who doesn't take it that seriously. That's my opinion. These are games. Tweak 'em.

[@chriswinston1223]

@@mattlowder We actually start with 6 only, and it works perfectly.

[@GGdeTOURS37]

So many games are great for 3-4-5 players but the designers absolutely want to sell it for 2 players too so they add "2 players (stupid) rules".

[@chriswinston1223]

Not this one. it works fine for 2 players. Try it yourself if you can. Remember, Richard is just stating his opinion. We've played it about 20 times since Thursday at Essen and we just changed it up a wee bit and it was fine. I needed to reduce the cards to six to make it easier for my wife to dive in. Otherwise, it was great.

[@mattlowder]

@@chriswinston1223 great at 2. Excellent at 3.