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Annotated Games: 4 PlayersThis game was played during the game testing of the open omen cards variant. The general strategy is to observe each others' moves, deduce which cards that are kept and which cards that are returned, and move to safe areas and away from unsafe areas. The meeples are denoted with colored circles; filled in the hexes they stand in and hollow in the regions they moved from. A "round" ends either when all players have taken one turn each or when an apocalypse takes place and hexes get flipped. "Play" refers to the omen played to the table, "Discard" refers to the omen returned to the pile and "Keep" refers to the omen kept on the hand. Starting Position
Played omen cards: Mercy, Mercy Round 1Red starts with a Wrath card on the first Mercy and simply move her meeples closer to each other to be able to help each other with rescuing and pushing. Blue has two meeples next to the volcano and plays a Volcano on the second Mercy card, knowing that it will be protected by the Mercy for now. Yellow plays Earthquake and evacuates all Earthquake areas, after which Green plays West and evacuates the Western area. This leaves only Blue's meeple in the Western Earthquake area so Red chooses to trigger an apocalypse. Afterwards, she relocates the black meeple to a tile with a blue meeple.
Played omen cards: Mercy+Volcano, Round 2Red cancels the Mercy card on the Volcano with a Wrath card and then moves away from the volcano. With the reversed turn order, Green is next. She plays Flood and evacuates the flood areas. Yellow plays North to target the blue meeples there. Since Blue plays after her, she doesn't expect the blue meeples to stay there but at least be busy. Blue is unable to rescue her meeple (there isn't space enough on the adjacent land tile and no other adjacent meeples to help pushing) and she's also worried about the many omen cards targeting her meeples. She decides to play a Wrath card on the North card to force North to be picked first and then moves her meeples to safer areas. Red realizes that she has nothing to gain by triggering an apocalypse now but does so anyway rather than giving the next players more options.
Played omen cards: Round 3Red plays Wrath on the Volcano to target an area with no red meeples. Blue doesn't like any of her options but finally decides to play East and pushes away a yellow meeple to get one of her blue meeples away from the Volcano. Yellow plays Storm and moves away her meeple in the Eastern Storm area, hoping that the remaining red meeple will suffer. Naturally, Green would like to trigger an apocalypse but since that would hurt herself (having a green meeple sharing the hex of the black meeple), she decides to play Wrath on the Storm instead and move away the black meeple.
Played omen cards: Volcano+Wrath, East, Storm+Wrath Round 4Red plays Earthquake, hoping that the green meeples in the Eastern Earthquake area will suffer, and evacuate the Eastern area. However, Blue also has a meeple there and plays a Wrath card on East instead AND moves the black meeple to a hex with a yellow meeple. By this, both Storm and East have Wrath cards so Yellow is forced to trigger apocalypse there.
Played omen cards: Volcano+Wrath, Round 5Yellow is unable to rescue her meeple so she plays South to threaten the blue meeple next to the Volcano. She also spends all her moves to push away a red meeple to be able to move her yellow meeple far away from there. Blue is obviously not willing to trigger an apocalypse and also pushes her way out of the dangerous area. In addition, she plays Flood to threaten the yellow meeples in the Southern Flood area. Unfortunately, this leaves a green meeple next to the Volcano and Red seizes the opportunity to trigger an apocalypse. (This also removes all volcano cards, since the last volcano tile is flipped.)
Played omen cards: Round 6Red plays North to target the green meeples there. She also move her red meeples so that one may rescue the other if an apocalypse is triggered there. However, Blue has a blue meeple there and chooses to delay the apocalypse, play Storm and evacuate the meeple to the white meeple's safe area. Yellow had hoped to get rid of the blue meeple but since it will be isolated in the North, she triggers an apocalypse.
Played omen cards: Round 7Yellow plays Wrath on Storm, hoping to target the blue meeple in the North, and moves away from other Storm areas just to be safe. Blue counters with East and switch hexes with the black meeple to block Red from rescuing her meeple. Red isn't pleased with this and plays Wrath on East to bring down whom she thinks is in the lead: Yellow. Green is then happy to trigger an apocalypse in the East Storm area. This also seals the fate for all the meeples ending up in the sea at the previous apocalypse.
Played omen cards: Round 8Green has waited long to play cards due to the shifting turn order but now plays Earthquake, hoping that will strike the many red meeples in the South, and also moves the black meeple there to be sure. However, Red is next and promptly returns the black meeple to the hex to which the green meeple fled. She also plays West, targeting another area and hoping reduce the number of meeples enough to trigger the game end. Blue isn't willing to trigger an apocalypse in an own area so she plays a Wrath on Red's West card to force Yellow to trigger an it instead. Then she moves away from the Storm hex and also has time to return the black meeple to a red hex. Yellow must then trigger an apocalypse in the West Storm hexes.
Played omen cards: Round 9Yellow is quite happy with her position and only plays East, targeting the blue meeple there. Blue plays South, trying to get an Earthquake to take place there instead. She also pushes a yellow meeple to that area so that she may evacuate one blue meeple from there. Red also has a meeple in the Eastern Earthquake area but since her cursed color Green has two meeples there, she decides to trigger an apocalypse. This leaves less than half of the meeples on land tiles and the game ends.
Played omen cards: Red wins comfortably with 9 points before Blue and Yellow with 6 points and Green with 3 points. In defence of Green, she was unlucky with the turn order and didn't get as many actions as the other players. For this reason, the reversed turn order rule was rejected. The game shows that an open card variant is playable, although I may still prefer the classic hidden card variant. |
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