While I like the concept of the game, I find the amount of key words and rules to juggle cumbersome and my GF was unable to get a handle on what to do.
What's your experience with sticking with the game? Any tipps that helped you internalize the gameplay?
PS I've already tried in solo but it's even more fiddly that way.
I think it got easier for me over time, I guess thats just learning by heart.
For new players I'd recommend picking one of the easy rated civs (romans, macedonians) and stick to them for a number of games with side A civ card. Focus on really learning your cards and what they're about, what ar the key words, what's your civs card bonus (focus on it for your first games), then switch to the B side, only switch to higher rated civs if you really understand what's the game about.
Yeah its not a casual game.
One more thing, although I never played it with more than 2 players total, I think Tom Vasel on Dicetower said the downtime with 3 and 4 is crazy long.
Have fun with your group and hopefully with your GF too!
Including teaching we got our 3 player game done in a little under 3 hours. This is just about still tolerable. I would nnot play this with 4. My friends have reserved their judgement till after next time but so far it wasn't a huge success or failure either way. While we had the gameplay pretty much down pat towards the end of the game, we're still grasping for anything remotely like a strategy though...
GF mentioned that she will probably try it again with me seeing as we didn't hate it...
Yeah I've read that as a common criticism. That's why I tried it solo first which was meh, then with just my GF. Tonight we should only be 2 or 3 to play so hopefully it wont be too bad.
How is it for re-learning after a break? Does it "internalize" well or do you find yourself having to consult the rulebook whenever you get back into it?
For example RFTG or Mottainai can be difficult to get into at first but I have no trouble jumping right back in even if I haven't played them for a while.
I think since we have it we played it at least twice a month (even more so after we now got Legends too), so can't really tell for longer breaks. I played Roll for the Galaxy, not Race, but had the same experience there you described about getting back easily after a longer break. I would imagine it similarly for Imperium, but guess thats also a personal thing.