Dominant Species: Marine - 4p Teaching, Play-through, & Roundtable by Heavy Cardboard

[@Feldmrschl]

Wow! What a close game! Mechanics look very interesting. Looks like a high replayability game, too.

[@Kristian_Jensen]

What a great comeback by Alyssa,. Tense last few turns but it just shows it aint over til the last cephelapod dances.

[@ArnoVdVelde]

Always great to have an actually discussion at the end. That game length seems 100% on taking out 10 cards, which you could do with the original I suppose. Curious to give it a spin soon myself.

[@HainishMentat]

Thank you for the stream, and especially, as always, the excellent excellent teach. You've helped me get my head around what was a bunch of rules, and now I feel more confident about getting it to the table and teaching it myself (after some practice on my own).

[@tomw4955]

Dominant Species was one of my earliest addition to my collection. Never knew about marine. I love the changes. It makes it easier to teach and the flow of the game seems more fun. Esp. For more normy gamers. Me and my friend are hex and think freaks who get excited for combo and plans in games. I need more friends who buy big heavy boardgames I neither have the space nor time to play them. T.T Love the gameplay. Great tight teach. I was for cephalapods by looks and colour alone.... and then he took the bird ability. My fave from og game, ( i once migrated in last turn to nearly all tundra and scored so many points it was disgusting. )

[@robertcrist6059]

I want an update from Ken after 5 plays of Marine, to then 5 plays of original DS and lets us know his thoughts. Marine will suffer from original fans because they knew that first. Marine is different in many ways to stand on its own, but for fans of the original you stick with what you know, you have so much history with it and I think Ken will provide some great insight going the other way. If you don't think that is case see Star Wars, HP, Avatar (cartoon) or most other major ip that is redone (people are inevitably going to point out those are movies/books and not games but the sentiment is the same).

[@robertcrist6059]

TLDR: there are enough changes you could own/play both and they play differently, while still provide similar feel. Personally, I think most of the changes aren’t better/more fun from a gameplay standpoint than original Dominant Species and why I got rid of my copy. Marine is a good change of pace for those who want it. Newer players to the world could take to this more easily potentially. It’s just not for me. Coming back after 2 years, wow. Just watched the latest Dominant Species upload on 6/13/24 there about. Ken’s comments in that video made me want to come back to this one and see what was said then. Funny enough 2 years ago I asked Ken to get 5 plays of DS:M and DS to compare them/his thoughts. I don’t think those numbers have been hit but in the latest DS video he much prefers DS:M to the original. This is curious because Marine was the first version he played, and like most of us original DS is what we played first and we tend to like that more. I launched Marine and played it twice before getting rid of it. For me I think the changes can be good, but they aren’t for me. Going down a list of points, Speciation: why is drawing random tokens and potentially not getting the type you want/need more fun than having one of each available and thus feeling the tension to go there first in a round, or wait it out while you sneak in other action(s) hoping someone else doesn’t go there, compared to not being able to go at all b/c a token didn’t come out - I wager the latter is more fun and rewarding from a gameplay aspect Wanderlust: the game wants you to place tiles next to similar ones for better scoring, but why is that a fun decision? Originally you could place any tile any where and score similar points not needing restrictions. Sure, you can say that isn’t a choice, just go after the highest scoring tile, but you have a choice to make in the temptation to go for it right away or just go do other plans - probably a neutral point but choosing the more tactical placement and earning less points b/c it’s not next to similar tiles isn’t a fun feeling Action pawn placement: part of the fun in the original game is thinking you had a plan, only for your opponents to do x number of things to mess you up. Some say that is random chaos and to me that is what the game is, while you strategically maneuver it. In Marine, taking an action immediately and opponents responding to it more directly is like many euro games, not a bad thing. The thing Marine adds is the hook not being able to place to the left and above your pawns, but only to the right and below. Why is that a fun game play decision? You could take a low action(s) and recall quicker, but then you just waste a turn every few turns compared to people who work down the board. It’s clunky. Tectonics: with one spot (unless special pawn) makes the whole survival strategy nerfed. Yes you can push your luck and hang out on them hoping a card flips up with the symbol, but maybe you are wasting turns just waiting for the three cards at the bottom of the deck when the other four got removed in the 10 random (numbers just made up). It removes an entire play path to winning for what reason, the special pawn scoring I bet. Competition: isn’t taken all that much anyway, but doing 1 species in 3 spaces in the original was more tactful than doing 3 in one place in this game. Plus, again you are left with random tokens as your potential spots to attack, which may not even apply to the spaces you need them to. Restricting an already not looked at action isn’t fun. I won’t totally bash the game because the special pawns are a cool fun feeling. Asymmetric powers are a fun and cool thing. Scoring tiles and tying which one based on the card spot you can take is interesting, in that you may want the 4th card but you score a tile only getting you 2 points, as opposed to being first in turn order and getting the first domination spot and getting any card you want in the original.

[@robertcrist6059]

As far as tracking dominance in the original I have seen online people use dice on the tiles to show visually what their domination score is currently. Could be something you try out.

[@fredericbarbe]

Who’s yawning during the teaching section 😆

[@TorIverWilhelmsen]

It seems like it is easy to ignore the light blue "while in play" effects, e.g. you appeared not to deduct points from extinction events while that card was in play.

[@decakjeisaozasuncem8843]

this is amazing game with depth but if you really want to be a winner then you must do a lot of thinking and strategy, this game will exhaust you more than playing tennis for 5 hours

[@dblane1989]

At 2:20:38 during the solar radiation event all those species should have gone back to their owner's gene pools, not in the eliminated pot!

[@dramajoe]

Love this game and enjoyed the playthrough, but I do have one concern: if you feel that you need to reassure your students that various mechanics are "pretty simple" 16 times during a teach, it starts to feel very suspect.

[@sirpercivale]

Is it better than DS or not?

[@KZsZs]

You should watch the Roundtable part from 3:09:57. They talk about their impressions and what they like more or like less in Marines compared to DS. In Marines there is more randomness, but less upkeep and calculations (Dominance checks in DS), less tension in the action sellection system, but more chance for the low point land tiles to play a bigger role, faster rotation of special cards, endgame scoring is more intuitive but does not force you to make hard judgement calls. Also Edward states that "this does not replace Dominant Species for me but they are different enough that I can make a case of having them both. [...] I don't know if I would feel compelled to get this if I love DS, it is just a different flavour of it." Of what I make out of this is: - if you love/like DS for the cool actions, ruthless area controll and chaotic board state changes, go for Marines, because it offers more randomness, special powers, rule breaking worker spots and overally a faster pace, while not being significantly shorter. - if you love/like DS for the tense action sellection, the exhausting but rewarding constant calculations, and the forward planning that is often need readjustment, stay with DS. - if you never played DS, I would recommend Marines first, because it offfers more playfulness and less exhausting elements, while still providing a simillar heavy experience. In summary: What would you like to fill up your belly with: a heavy steak or a huge sellection of seafood?

[@HainishMentat]

I actually thought it was unfortunate that most of the roundtable was about comparing the two. I've never played DS, and I was hoping more time could be devoted to just rating the aspects of this game on its own.

[@KZsZs]

@@HainishMentat I see your point. It is hard to evaluate something that is this similar to something you love and think highly of, and the similarities/differences are sticking out due to the fact that the 2 games share at least 70%-80% of their DNA.

[@HainishMentat]

@@KZsZs I mean, I certainly don't blame DS afficionados for spending time on the comparison, but I just wish there could be more time spent rating it on its own.

[@fmoros]

I agree. We know how good both games are.... and want to know which one to buy! thanks