Mage Knight

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Mage Knight

Post Post #0 (ISO) » Thu Jul 25, 2019 7:48 am

Post by popsofctown »

Someone did a play-by-forum of this board game once, and I really liked it, and I've played it with my friends three times. It's just like, a really, really fun board game?
It's a deckbuilder in that you buy cards and add them to your deck and use them to move around the board and fight monsters and persuade people. But it differs from other deckbuilders in a meaningful way in that you don't reshuffle when you run out of cards in your deck, you have to pass the round if that happens. So then part of the strategy is how fast to go, if you hold onto your cards for the perfect situation you won't use all your cards before the round ends, but if you play all your cards all the time so you can draw more cards you'll run out of deck while the round is still going and feel silly.
The game is probably too unwieldly to play-by-forum again, aside from that not being the best way to enjoy a board game. And my human relationships are pretty scant and week as of lately, so it is hard for me to get to play this game. But I wonder if anyone on site has ever played it.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #1 (ISO) » Thu Jul 25, 2019 12:45 pm

Post by Vi »

I knew someone who had it, and purchased it partly because of its single-player mode. I don't think they ever actually played it during the years I knew them.

The rulebook was an interesting read though.
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Post Post #2 (ISO) » Thu Jul 25, 2019 12:58 pm

Post by popsofctown »

The rulebook is a -long- read which is part of the difficulty in getting a group for the game.

Though the core design is good there's a little bit of "complexity for complexity's sake" in the rules that should have been smoothed over.

A golden example is that in one of the expansion scenarios, there's a rule about rolling a die at the end of a turn to see if a monster spawns, and it says, "during night, roll the die, and if you get one of the cool colors (blue, black, or green), spawn a monster. During the day, roll the die, and if you get one of the warm colors (red, white, or gold), spawn a monster).
That could have just been one rule..
There's plenty of other things too.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #3 (ISO) » Wed Jul 31, 2019 1:14 pm

Post by hitogoroshi »

I have played Mage Knight solo like a dozen times lmao. It whips ass.

although there's a digital adaptation in the works and if it's any good I'll probably just stick to that, it's a LOT of setup/teardown time
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Post Post #4 (ISO) » Wed Jul 31, 2019 3:23 pm

Post by popsofctown »

So solo turns out to be worth it? I'm surprised. Do you have a recommended scenario? I haven't tried solo yet.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #5 (ISO) » Wed Jul 31, 2019 5:16 pm

Post by hitogoroshi »

I usually just do plain old Conquest. It's kind of easy relative to Volkare, but it's just nice and low-maintenance, which is good in solo because a lot of board micro is super tedious when you're playing alone.
"Don’t buy a dozen eggs if you just want a hardboiled egg. Don’t buy a head of lettuce if you just want a salad. Don’t buy eggs and lettuce if you want egg salad because those are not the right ingredients." -Julius Bloop
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Post Post #6 (ISO) » Wed Jul 31, 2019 6:01 pm

Post by popsofctown »

That's good info because I was going to assume Volkare would be more fun. I will still try both but I will try Conquest first to best understand whether I enjoy solo play period.


If someone brought Mage Knight to a scummeet that was the day after Christmas I'd probably buy the plain ticket and if no one did I'd probably skip it even if the ticket was free, I'm really wild about the game.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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Post Post #7 (ISO) » Wed Aug 14, 2019 6:00 am

Post by GreyICE »

I like it, Volkare is definitely more fun. That being said, I always have to have the rules reference next to me when I play. It is not an easy game to learn.

If I were bringing games to a scummeet, it definitely wouldn't be this one. It fails just about every test I have for a meet game - it's super long, it's complex, it's a table hog, it's unfriendly to new players, it plays best at a low player count, it's a beast.
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Post Post #8 (ISO) » Thu Aug 22, 2019 1:08 am

Post by Dunnstral »

I'd be interested in learning and playing this if it were to happen over the internet
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Post Post #9 (ISO) » Fri Aug 23, 2019 12:50 pm

Post by popsofctown »

It CAN be played by forum but it's intense, not sure I'm up to it.
"Let us say that you are right and there are two worlds. How much, then, is this 'other world' worth to you? What do you have there that you do not have here? Money? Power? Something worth causing the prince so much pain for?'"
"Well, I..."
"What? Nothing? You would make the prince suffer over... nothing?"
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