Tawantinsuyu: The Golden Age Expansion - Straight Up Solo with John LaRuffa

[@cristiandidyk9379]

Where did you buy the blue card holders? Regards

[@JohnLaRuffa]

I ordered them from the boargamegeek store.

[@cristiandidyk9379]

@@JohnLaRuffa Thanks!

[@daniellelauzon3172]

Great review as always! With the static board, what are your thoughts on the variety and replayability ?

[@JohnLaRuffa]

The fixed board does not really play into the variability give or take at all because you do change up how you orient the center tile which will have a bit of an impact on making things different every time. What plays the biggest role is that your color workers and how you arrange them drives you into different moves as does the different buildings, cards, etc. What it comes down to is that every game feels different enough that you will never “solve” it by any means but the overall feel of playing the game remains similar from game to game.

[@morkar90]

This is an interesting expansion. The base game is already bursting at the seams with great mechanics, depth, and complexity - but this expansion made me ask the question, "when is a big euro too much?" I'm not criticizing, I'm genuinely dwelling on it. I really like the multicolored meeples, the modular temple track (that's sheer genius), and the square tiles for the four different conquest regions... but at the same time it's sooo much. John, when playing, to what extent did it the additional mechanics feel well integrated? How much more tricky does the expansion it make the game? I don't mean to be critical, I just can't help but feel a bit overwhelmed now looking at it all (and I am a big fan of the base game).

[@JohnLaRuffa]

Oh I totally understand what you are talking about. For example, I have said this before about the expansion for Paladins of the West Kingdom, that expansion pushed me just over the edge. In retrospect, I could have done without it. In this game, I don’t think that it made the game more convoluted. It did add more choices to consider with regards to the strategy, but I don’t think any of those choices were brain melting. The best thing about the expansion was the revamped solo bot and if you didn’t want to play the other modules, you could use that and the temple track with probably a net reduction in complexity because of the streamlined effect that this updated bot has. I did that for my first game to refresh my experience. However, I can say that when I added the other two modules to the game after that, I didn’t feel overwhelmed. That is just my 2 cents. If you love the base game, this will not make it feel like too much. If the base game was just OK to you and was already a bit overwhelming, you may want to pass on this.

[@morkar90]

@@JohnLaRuffa Thanks John, insightful answer

[@jimpaek]

I really, really love this game, but I utlimately sold it. The bot was great but a whole level of overhead over an already very deep game. And I had to relearn it over and over. Is the new solo really that streamlined compared to the original one?

[@JohnLaRuffa]

It’s easier to manager for sure and what it ends up doing is largely taking mostly priest actions during the second half of the game. However, it still is a lot of overhead. If you sold the original because of the bot, I doubt it would be enough of a step to warrant buying it again and buying the expansion for it.

[@joshcapehart8269]

Cardboard weight lifting! :D

[@JohnLaRuffa]

It’s heavy cardboard 😊