Summary
In 2024, I played less but more consistently.
| Items | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| # different games played | 94 | 47 |
| # plays | 476 | 405 |
| # game sessions | 99 | 55 |
| # play time (hours) | 709.25 | 611 |
| # ave daily play time (hours) | 1.95 | 1.67 |
Number-wise, I did manage a 10×10 this year. Though I should have aimed for a 20×5 or something.
| Game | #Plays |
|---|---|
| Age of Innovation | 97 |
| Dune Imperium | 57 |
| Cryptic | 36 |
| Dune Imperium Uprising | 18 |
| Tournament at Avalon+Camelot | 18 |
| Codenames Picture | 16 |
| Scholar of South Tigris | 14 |
| Ark Nova | 14 |
| Concordia | 11 |
| Gaia Project (5 without and 5 with expansions) | 10 |
Age of Innovation
Age of Innovation arrived late in 2023, and as predicted, my most played game in 2024. It is well-balanced, strategic, yet also tactical; the tactical part being the most important element that, after more than 100 plays combined in 2023 and 2024, might have made me favor it over Terra Mystica.
For context, there were 3 games in the Terra Mystica family. Terra Mystica is the original, tight, punishing, brainy, and tough as nail to crack. Gaia Project is the space-theme reimplementation, more tactical, less punishing, rewarding, and having random setup at the start. Terra Nova is, well, let’s not talk about Terra Nova.
Entered Age of Innovation.
In Terra Mystica, resources are hard to come by and players’ actions are much limited. So for each game, you might at most play one move out of the norm to punish your opponents, severely limiting yourself as well, with the hope that you lose less than the opponents. It feels awesome when your calculations go right.
Age of Innovation does retain some of that elements. But its key difference is that players are much richer. If Terra Mystica is about sacrificing your opportunities hoping that the opponents would have to sacrifice even more, Age of Innovation is about gaining and winning a bit less to make the opponents gaining somewhat less than you.
In Terra Mystica, you might not even have the resources to make less optimal moves even if you want to. Age of Innovation simply allows it by making resources much more plentiful. Moves are less predictable, and there are simply too many possible less optimal moves to consider, not just for yourself, but also for predicting others’ actions.
And that makes Age of Innovation much more tactical. How long would it keep the game fresh? That is still to see in 2025. I don’t see myself playing less Age of Innovation in 2025, well, except maybe for one reason…
Gaia Project with The Lost Fleet Expansion
The long awaiting expansions for Gaia Project finally arrived. 5 games in, I still don’t know how to play it. Or how I should play it.
If Age of Innovation makes resources more plentiful to make the game more tactical, The Lost Fleet achieves a similar effect by making many actions cheaper. The problem is, Gaia Project is already tactical. So there isn’t a stark contract between Gaia Project and Gaia Project with the expansion. At least not in the vein of Age of Innovation vs Terra Mystica.
But a few games in, my hunch is, I should look at Gaia Project with The Lost Fleet as a new game, not Gaia Project with updates. Because the changes and additions might not feel much at first sights, but are indeed very significant.
I would need 40 – 50 more games to gain a better basic understanding of Gaia Project with The Lost Fleet. For now, I would focus on forgeting how to play Gaia Project, so that I actually can learn how to play The Lost Fleet.
Scholars and Inventors of South Tigris
I enjoyed both games. Inventors would definitely get more plays had it arrived earlier.
West Kingdom series has Architects, Paladins, and Viscounts. Architects is a racing game for big groups. Paladins is a fanstactic option for 2p. And Viscounts is an okayish game for 3p with nice combos.
So now that all three South Tigris games are released, how do they fare?
Wayfarers is okayish. Similar to Architects, it has a racing element, and after a few plays, the game feels entirely about how to get enough scores and wrap up the game before other players pull off their big combos. The problem is it feels best at 2p and… well, as we are talking about game with racing at 2p… Ark Nova exists. And the race in Ark Nova simply feels much more satisfying.
Scholars is great. It designs around one big loop affecting all players, which means actions by one player can affect everyone else. As a result, it is one of the more interactive games in the entire series. Though it leads to situations where everyone has to play the waiting games because almost all your actions will benefit others. So you have to time your moves to make sure it benefits them the least.
Inventors further builds upon that design. It has an even simpler gameplay loop. All interactions between players result in even more positive impacts on each other. You can even help other score points in the hope that you can score some points too. So the optimal strategy is actually to set it up so that others are forced to help you score. Certain parts of the game though, allows you to not do it (the shipping track in particular), and it’s the jarring parts that I hope would be iron out in a future expansion or a reimplementation (similar to Raiders of Scythia).
My main regret was I didn’t get to play Inventors or Scholars at 2p yet. My hunch is both would be very cutthroat, especially Inventors.
Dune Imperium and Uprising
Not much to say about Dune Imperium, except I played it a lot less and didn’t enjoy it as much. It felt autonomous at this point.
Uprising didn’t get played much, though I would have love to explore it a bit more. My group simply hates it. But Bloodlines expansion is on its way. Would it have the same effect for Uprising like Rise of Ix for the original?
Into 2025
In 2025, I will stop tracking my playtime. I am at my happy place with the hobby now, so it is no longer necessary.
I don’t have much board gaming goals for 2025 either. But I have set out to do three projects related to board games. How much I would actually achieve remain to be seen, but given the current capacity, it is quite hopeful.