Brettspiel-Forum

Hallo an alle,

eine kleine Info zu Essen.... ;)
(ich weiß...ist noch`ne Weile hin bis Essen, dennoch geb`ich mal die Info weiter....)


Ich schrieb Smartass Games (die heißen wirklich so.... ;) ) wegen "Battlefields of Olympus" an und wollte mal ein paar Infos über ihr Spiel haben, da mir das Spiel rein optisch sehr gut gefällt, das Spiel auch nicht zu lange dauert, zudem die Anleitung sehr übersichtlich ist und mir zudem das Spielprinzip gefallen könnte. Hinzu kommt noch, dass es thematisch an den Film "300" angelegt ist. Das Kartenspiel ist ein reines 2 Personenspiel.
http://www.smartassgames.com/products.html
Die Anleitung/Spielregel kann man sich auf der Seite ebenfalls anschauen/downloaden.

Weshalb ich das nun hier poste?!
-> Sollte jemand auch Interesse an dem Spiel haben, dann gebe ich einfach mal die Mail bzw. Auszüge von dieser vom Designer Peter Grant weiter:

"Smartass Games will not have a booth at Essen this year, so we will have to make arrangements to meet closer to the event....We were too late to get a booth.... We are currently looking for arrangements. I still have to check with our North American distributor to see if they will be there.....but we can set a copy aside for you......We will have a limited number of copies at Spiel'08 and if someone wants a copy, he/she should reserve one so we have enough copies on hand....."

Also: Sollte jemand auch Interesse an dem Spiel haben, einfach proaktiv bei den Jungs sich melden contact@smartassgames.com
....und sie bringen dann das reservierte Spiel irgendwie nach Essen....

Gruß
Braz

Hiho, danke für die Info!

Die Grafik sieht ja wirklich wunderschön aus!
Derart inspiriert habe ich mir die Regeln angeschaut, die sind ja wirklich kurz (2 Seiten). Bis auf die Ereignisse, die allerdings sehr wichtig sind, ist das Spiel ja auch sprachunabhängig, wie mir scheint. Eine Referenzkarte würde also wahrscheinlich schon reichen um das Spiel mit Mitspielern spielen zu können, die kein Englisch können.


Leider sagt mir das Spiel selbst nicht zu. Es erinnert mich ein wenig an Blue Moon in der Hinsicht, dass man sich abwechselnd mit Kriegern Schläge abtauscht.
Blue Moon punktet hier mit diversen Fähigkeiten, die interessante Kombinationen zulassen.
[i]Battlefields of Olympus[/i] hat leider nur einige Ereignisskarten, 8 Verschiedene um genau zu sein.
Zentral scheint für das Spiel also zu sein, seine Kartenhand taktisch geschickt einzusetzen.

Das klingt immer noch ganz nett, ist mir aber keine 17¤ wert (25$ grob umgerechnet).
In dieser Kategorie (simples Kartenspiel mit Schlagabtausch im wörtlichsten Sinne) fällt für mich auch ein [i]En Garde[/i], welches auch eine sehr schöne Aufmachung hat.

Vielleicht würde ich feststellen, dass das Spiel dennoch einfach genial ist, wenn man es spielt (was ich allerdings nicht erwarte) - dafür müsste man es allerdings anspielen.
Andererseits soll es ja Leute geben, die Spiele auch vorbestellen, wenn sie nichtmal die Regeln gesehen haben... viel Glück! ;)

Hi Tyrfing,

I do apologize for not being able to speak in your native language.

Firstly, thank you for your candid evaluation of Battlefields of Olympus. I always appreciate feedback.

I thought I would drop in and clarify a few things about the game. Battlefields of Olympus was meant to be easy to pick up and play. Like Chess, Hive or Pick&Pack, our game has only a few unique actions, but the gameplay is not limited to them. The deeper strategies form out of hand management, the interaction of all the cards, and ultimately, the game flow. For example, Warriors cards are a resource and can quickly run out if you aren't careful. You must manage your reserve pile! Also, there are decisions to be made regarding the type of land you battle over. 3 land cards with the same colour symbol allow you to have a Mercenary card. 3 land cards of the same type give a 2 point bonus during scoring.

As for luck, I've reduced it greatly by allowing players to discard Warrior cards, and by allowing them to exchange Actions for Warrior cards. I've also restricting the number of Warriors in hand to 4 so that players may catch up after 3 turns. Also, the losing player receives 2 Warriors at the end of battle. This can be used as a strategy to build up your forces for later battle. I tried to use randomness to create new situations, instead of putting player's at a disadvantage because they don't have the perfect set of actions. Many Actions only influence one card for one turn and must be used with forethought.

I'm working on an expansion and have already posted two new rules for playtesting on www.boardgamegeek.com called: "Fortify" and "Sacrifice". Fortify allows you to place a single Warrior card on your won land trophies. This protects against attacks from the Raid! Action and the new Sacrifice rule. Sacrifice allows you to sacrifice a won Land trophy to battle your opponent for one of his land trophy cards. The sacrificed card goes to the bottom of the land pile. In addition to the new mechanic rules, I will be creating new cards: titans, heroes and spirits of battle.

On a side note, the game is meant to be a great travel game, taking little space when playing. In my opinion, if you have trouble finding someone to play a true wargame, Battlefields of Olympus makes an excellent substitute.

As for our game price, how much does two decks of Magic the Gathering cards cost in Germany? We are putting a high quality deck of cards together (not in a tuckbox) and it is being manufactured in the USA.

A playtester testing our game over VASSAL posted a review of our game on BoardGameGeek. Check it out!

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/327473

If you have any question or concerns, please feel free express your thoughts either here or via email: contact@smartassgames.com. I look forward to hearing from you!

Best Regards,

Peter

> Firstly, thank you for your candid evaluation of Battlefields
> of Olympus. I always appreciate feedback.
The evaluation is based on the rules and my experience from other games only yet. So I'm sorry there are things I can't judge properly without playing it.
Congratulations on the superb graphics, if the material match its quality the game looks gorgeous!

> I thought I would drop in and clarify a few things about the
> game.
Thanks for your effort! I'm quite surprised to see the english designer answering a german statement in a german forum. Maybe I would have expected this on BGG but I didn't expect it to see it happen here.
I'm always thankful for "first hand information" - this doesn't mean that I want to distrust or devalue the info given by Braz.

> Battlefields of Olympus was meant to be easy to pick up
> and play. Like Chess, Hive or Pick&Pack, our game has
> only a few unique actions, but the gameplay is not
> limited to them.
Judging from the rules I wouldn't directly compare the game to Chess or Hive - both games where all information are completely open to all players, whereas in BoO the game has hidden cards none of both know in advance.
But I agree to you, that the game is an easier one, simple to teach and to learn which isn't a bad thing at all!
I can't judge how strategical deep it is without playing it but I see what you're pointing at.

> In my opinion, if you have trouble finding someone
> to play a true wargame, Battlefields of Olympus
> makes an excellent substitute.
In my opinion the theme may be a wargame but I don't consider the game and it's mechanisms to be "wargame-like". Just like "Battle-Line" is here themed as "Schotten-Totten" with a scotish clan competition and not war.
This shouldn't imply that the game is not enjoyable for wargamers though.

> As for our game price, how much does two decks of Magic > the Gathering cards cost in Germany?
> We are putting a high quality deck of cards together
> (not in a tuckbox) and it is being manufactured in the USA.
Two MtG Themedecks cost around the same as Battlefield of Olympus, so you're right. Compared to Magic it's not that expensive but I wouldn't compare the cost of a non-trading game to magic because magic is a huge money sink!

The background of my statement was more because I compared the price to the prices of "Lost Cities","Schotten-Totten" (which is equal to "Battle-Line") or the games for 2 players from Kosmos. All of them cost around 10¤ here.

> A playtester testing our game over VASSAL posted a review of
> our game on BoardGameGeek. Check it out!
Be sure I will.



After all my first impression of the game is not a bad one at all. What hinders me from buying it yet is
1) I've not played the game myself
2) the price tag (see above)
The game is comparable to a game I've seen at Essen'07. This game was a simple card game which had strategical elements but was really easy to teach and learn as well.
Nonetheless there were some tactical choices to be made as well (perhaps some less than for BoO) and the graphics were gorgeous too!
It was the Ferti Edition of En Garde (BGG ID:169).
At the last my girlfriend bought the game after playing it but we thought about that for a while too.
Maybe BoO will share it's fate... we'll see.

Tyrfing schrieb:
> The game is comparable to a game I've seen at Essen'07. This
> game was a simple card game which had strategical elements
> but was really easy to teach and learn as well.
> Nonetheless there were some tactical choices to be made as
> well (perhaps some less than for BoO) and the graphics were
> gorgeous too!
> It was the Ferti Edition of En Garde (BGG ID:169).

I will just keep english, ok?!

To be honest, I don`t see that much parallel points between En Garde and BoO.
Reason: En Garde is not having specific effects/events at all. You have more different cards in BoO, that you do have at En Garde.
I don`t mean this in a negative way: En Garde looks perfect for me and -at least for me- makes a lot of fun in being a realy light strategy game. On the other hand I don`t get that impression from BoO. For me it seems more strategic.

Have you tried it online?!

I will do it the next days.... ;)

regards,
Mario

P.S. I know from Peterm, that he is right now at the GenCon. So maybe he will read the postings later on...?! ;)

Braz schrieb:
> To be honest, I don`t see that much parallel points between
> En Garde and BoO.
> Reason: En Garde is not having specific effects/events at
> all. You have more different cards in BoO, that you do have
> at En Garde.

Ah, sorry. I missed to explain why I see En Garde quite similar to BoO.
That is mainly because I think both are easy games
(En Garde is even easier) and both have an gorgeous graphic.
Both have a price tag that causes me to make second thoughts about buying it so I compared them to each other.
The whole purpose of the comparison was that I don't want to judge the price as too high to buy - as we did buy En Garde too.
But at least its high enough to let me think about buying it a second time.

I've not have tried it on Vassal yet.
(btw.: Playing a game on Vassal without at least one of the players owning the game is marked illegal, isn't it?)
It's sad that you just can preorder the game for Essen but not try it there so one have to try it with Vassal to get a better impression so maybe I'm going to do it anyway.
I think the modules is just published for that exact reason...

Maybe you can tell me when you're going to try it so I could join you online?

Hi Tyrfing,

I'm not asking you to like the game. ;) My wife constantly reminds me that it won't be for everyone.

It's hard to know what a game is without trying it. Hopefully playing on VASSAL might give some idea. I'm not sure what the policy is for VASSAL, but I do not have a problem with people playing online without purchasing a copy first. To me, the experience is best face to face anyway. But if that isn't an option, online is the next best alternative.

Regards,

Peter
* Writing from GenCon *

If only you were here, at GenCon. :) Again, I don't have a problem with people playing on VASSAL and I won't tell. :-))

Of course, I will let you try before you buy at Essen. I will have a limited capacity to bring copies from Canada, so if someone wanted to guarantee one at Essen, they must reserve a copy in advance. That being said, I may have enough on hand for impulse purchases as well! ;)

Also, I might have a deal with an online retailer in Germany. You might be able to get a copy before Essen from them, assuming the printer can get it completed in the next 4 weeks that is. Also, the deal with the retailer is not done yet and must wait until I return home this weekend.

Stay tuned!

Peter
* Still writing from GenCon *