by clydeiii
DaviddesJ wrote:
dond80 wrote:
My .02 - Trajan and vinhos both suffer from a high degree of complexity like terra mystica.
Why not benefit from?
I'm not really sure. We have games like Go or Chess or any of the Gipf games which are very deep and with which you can spend a lifetime studying.
Vinhos, TM, Trajan, each of these games puts together many small subgames into one big mashup of a game that are also themselves quite deep, but have a much, much steeper learning curve. I taught someone TZAAR last night in 2 minutes. Ben (chally) did an amazing job of teaching Terry Mystica to me on Saturday, but even his excellent rules introduction took about 15-20 minutes.
Is that a good thing? I don't know. It's certainly a marvel of game design, that you can cram all of the interlocking systems together and the engine works. But I do sometimes wonder why I don't spend more time playing the TZAARs of the world instead of learning the Terra Mysticas of the world.
Having said that, I think they're both great games. Also, I wish I got to play Vinhos as often as I get to play GIPF games, but the learning curve is far too steep for most players. And I think maybe that's why John thinks the trend isn't a welcome one.