Empires End - Board Game Review - "No Thanks" Did It Better

[@clvrswine]

Excellent art, storage, and overall high quality components. It's a gamer's game. Something very different and clever where it feels like you are hurting yourself and in decline at all times. Is that fun? It didn't feel like it in the 3 plays my group tried. I think we are forcing ourselves to find a way to enjoy this one. Too many other titles to bring out rather than tackle this again. I am disappointed that I didn't go nuts for it.

[@TheBrokenMeeple]

Excellent art?

[@richardhutnik]

Years ago, the game Gloria Mundi had a similar mechanic of having what had getting torched by barbarians.

[@Skyrodin]

I told you last time that I love your videos. Because you don't try to be "objective" come hell or high water. Your overview is detailed and informative and I think I get to know the game very well and then I get an opinion on the game itself that I value highly. I can still form my own opinion by playing the game. In this case I don't think I need to play the game many times since it doesn't seem to be for me but I very much appreciate the production with the insert and the rule book. And who knows, maybe I like it more than No, Thanks because I kind of like the part where you get innovations for "sacrificing" your locations. Completely unrelated but I noticed a kind of funny thing while watching your videos on my phone. Usually I can't minimize the app and get a small pop out window still showing the video since I don't have KZbin premium. But for your videos - and only your videos - I can do that. Anyways... loved the video. Can't wait for the next one.

[@TheBrokenMeeple]

Odd, not sure what I can do on that as it sounds like a YT issue.

[@tuntemon]

I got this game because I did believe the reviewers. I Have played it a few times. Two is okay, four is was too much so I agree that three is the sweet spot. There are just too many disasters when playing with four. It sounded quite intresting at first. Since most games have you start from nothing, build up the empire and make sure not to many bad things happens. However it is still ends the same with the one who has most points. I'm someone who sleeves my games, so I was a bit bummed out that the insert didn't support sleeved cards. Everything else was great when it came to the insert. I also got the nice player mats. Unfortunately, I don't know if this is a game I will keep for much longer, since it very much overstay its welcome. I much rather play something else that it's shorter or keeps me engaged the whole time.

[@TheBrokenMeeple]

Agreed - and shame that you were misled by them! I had a feeling a long time ago that this one was likely going to be a forgotten game and now I can see why.

[@Mauricio_Castaño]

The game sounded nice, the idea of dealing with those crisis, but then, yeah, was like, mmmh, guss not.

[@S.Kapriniotis]

The only Brotherwise game I have and enjoy is Call to Adventure. Everything else I just don't find any reason to even try. With the amount of fantastic games around, old and some new, spending time with mediocre ones is such a waste. Cheers for the wonderful video as usual!

[@TheBrokenMeeple]

Agreed!

[@roza44channel]

Can you review AQUA: Biodiversity in the Oceans - i'm really interested your pov on this ? :)

[@TheBrokenMeeple]

I have never even heard of it!

[@roza44channel]

@@TheBrokenMeeple It is quite fresh, guess from 2024. check on bgg - this is like Cascadia, just better...at least for me :)

[@Punkve1987]

I have ywt to enjoy a gane by John D. Claire. Not saying he is not a great designer, bjy for sone reason his designs doesn't speak to me. This one hasn't convinced me to get it either. I do consider getting Last Kingdom though, as that one really looks like a good one!

[@grassnibbler2026]

It's one of those games that I played once and I didn't feel the need to play it again. I could see the optimal path that I'd take every time, there wasn't going to be a great deal that was new or surprising so it ended up as a big meh. No interest in pulling it off the shelf over other games. I might have even gone a bit lower than 5/10.

[@uziekiele]

I like this game but I don't know how long it will stay in my collection because the punishing nature makes it hard to get played. I sold Year of the Dragon for the same reason. If you think it drags on too long there is a shorter variant where you start the events on the lightning bolt symbol. I forget what the variant is called.

[@TheBrokenMeeple]

To be honest, that game has more issues for me than just that.

[@bushibayushi]

I've played it with 4 players and I hated EVERY second of it, I wish it was over half-way through the game. And I'm talking as a huge fan of Antiquity and In the Year of the Dragon (two highly punishing games). I just loathe the randomness that occurs here. My god, never again. It's literally a 2/10 game for me, ultra bad time.

[@TheBrokenMeeple]

Ha ha fair enough and I can totally envision many hating it.

[@shawns3911]

I wanted to really like this, but there are production issues . and this game is interesting and unique….but stressful and not really fun…probably too long and so brutal

[@bullfrog417]

Oh, I wish I'd have watched this before I bought the game. Couldn't agree more. Too long for the luck and randomness. I like what was tried for but the execution was just not great.

[@TheBrokenMeeple]

If only I had looked at this at the same time as the other critics.

[@MyWifeHatesBoardGames]

Hmm... Not to be contentious, but I don't think I'm buying the narrative here. Is there actually such a large gap between the critics and the people as this review suggests? BGG users give an average rating of 7.028. The average of all other critical reviews that I've found is 7.583. (Dice tower gave 7.5, 8, 8.5; BoardGameCo gave 3.5/5 -> 7; Board Gaming Ramblings gave 7, 7.5.) Based on average ratings, it seems that the people agree more with other critics than they do with The Broken Meeple: 7.028 is a lot closer to 7.583 than it is to 5. (And what critic rated this game a 9/10? I can't find a single video review with that score, but maybe I'm missing it.) Anyway, I believe Dice Tower Chris's score of 8.5 is just as genuine of a rating (not playing into hype) as Luke's 5. Both are outliers from the average BGG user's rating, and both reviews raise substantive points about why the reviewers like/dislike the game.

[@MyWifeHatesBoardGames]

But I should be clear that I thought the content of the review itself was very informative as usual. Thanks for all the hard work putting it together. :)

[@TheBrokenMeeple]

Thank you! And I don't use decimal ratings. If someone rates a game 7.5, it's a 8, if they rate it 8.5, it's a 9. There's no justification for decimal ratings because it's impossible to come up with a clear designation for all 20 points of the scale. To use decimals is to not be willing to make the call from one number to the next.

[@MyWifeHatesBoardGames]

⁠@@TheBrokenMeeple​​⁠​⁠Haha, well if you are going to round other critics’ scores up on their behalf, don’t be surprised that they are higher than the average unrounded user score. This “everyone rounds up” score is still closer to the BGG average score than your score of 5, though! (Even more so if you apply this “everyone rounds up” logic to all BGG user ratings.)