The games critic to be wrong with
Strategy and guides for your favourite games by critic Erik Twice. Learn how to improve as a player and how to beat even the toughest competitors.
Stefan Feld is known for his tight euro games which focus on precision and efficiency. One might think this would make his games impervious to issues of balance, but that hasn’t been the case. Over several editions, Castles of Burgundy had to be tweaked several times, strengthening some of its weaker pieces and toning down the strongest. But one small mistake gave way to the most broken tile in the game.
Ark Nova‘s scoring is a strange one. We count two sets of points, each from a different end of the board. When their markers meet, the remaining players take an extra turn and then the game ends. This unusual setup, as well as the final calculation involving “target numbers” left many baffled, giving ground to all sorts of misconceptions and theories. But, surprising even myself, these twists are a disguise for one of the simplest scoring mechanisms.
Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan is one of the best and most accessible wargames in the market. However, that doesn’t mean we’ll do well in our first try! If we are new to the genre, we might struggle to keep our samurai in place. In order to make that transition easier, I have written this beginner strategy guide, with the best tips to take over Japan.
