Re: Just bought "Revolution!" and it's good fun
 

"Find a two-player game, instead." is probably an even better answer. csm wants to play games with his wife, I'm not sure a third player would even be welcome. :)

Re: Just bought "Revolution!" and it's good fun
 

That is true, and I apologize.

Hey, csm, did you see that we're bringing out a new edition of Awful Green Things?

Re: Just bought "Revolution!" and it's good fun
 

For csm, a good two player board game is Munchkin Quest.

The original Munchkin card game really isn't good with just two players, but the board game version is designed to be good fun with two players.

Re: Just bought "Revolution!" and it's good fun
 

Yeah, we picked up Munchkin Quest. I'm just looking for other games to ensure SJGames is flush with cash add to our collection. Revolution looked like an intriguing game, but the third player requirement is making it a harder sell for me. No biggie, though.

I won't hijack the thread for hints on good two player games, though. I'll start another one. EDIT: The thread is over here

Thanks!

Re: Just bought "Revolution!" and it's good fun
 

The problem with 2 player Revolution isn't the number of influence spaces, it's the lack of competition in the bidding.

You have 12 spaces to fight over, with 3-4 people. That's 3-4 "spaces" per player.
Drop to 2 players, and that jumps to 6, which means it's possible for both players to bid on 6 different spaces (the max) and not conflict at all.

There's also far less board manipulation possible with the Apothecary. It pretty much turns into a weak Spy instead.

Revolution is a great game, probably my favorite SJG.

It's also wonderfully intuitive and self-teaching. Every time I demo it, I have a group of people with blank stares and mumblings of "This is confusing"

I assure them, they only need to play 2 turns to understand what's happening. (I also tell them to not bid on Spy or Apothecary for the first few turns)

Every single time, without fail, the game "clicks" for everyone by the end of the second turn, and the game suddenly becomes cutthroat.

Re: Just bought "Revolution!" and it's good fun
 

That's why I'd think you'd want a randomized dummy player instead (or better, just play a two-player game).

Re: Just bought "Revolution!" and it's good fun
 

Better to play a 2 player game. There are a LOT of really good 2 players out there, and most of them are pretty cheap too.

This thread got me thinking about ways to work 2 players though.

The best idea I have involves basically barring certain spaces from play.
By removing them, you shrink the bid board (which increases competition for the remaining ones) as well as reduce the amount of influence spaces in play. It can also help block chained combos.

I'm thinking if you removed
Captain
Magistrate
Merchant
And either Priest or Printer...

It might be workable.

Re: Just bought "Revolution!" and it's good fun
 

The problem with playing without a dummy is that you only have to outguess one other player. What's wrong with my dummy solution?

Re: Just bought "Revolution!" and it's good fun
 

For me it's 1) too much effort in having to roll multiple times every single turn just to fill in the dummy bids and 2) there's no 'outguessing' involved, it turns into random luck if the dummy player (ie dice) wind up blocking my bids or not. That might be OK for you, but it's not what (IMO) this game is about.

I do like Palmer's idea of removing some bidding spaces. I'd drop the Printer, Apothecary, & Mercenary. I might try that the next time my only option is a 2 player game.

Re: Just bought "Revolution!" and it's good fun
 

Just got the expansion too - I found a FLGS that actually lived up to the "friendly" bit and they ordered it in for me.

This big ol' box of game will make it to a few parties and we'll see how it goes over with the gaming group.