Episode 194: Excavation Earth
April 19, 2021
Episode 196: Ginkgopolis
May 17, 20211) The Pegs discuss their recent game plays including Troyes Dice, Mandala Stones, Oros and many more;
2) All the Pegs review After the Empire; and
3) Look back at Paladins of the West Kingdom.
Show Notes
00:01:12 – Trivia: WALL-E
Banter
00:05:29 – Testing our Immune Systems
00:07:50 – Christina Goes to Texas (not the Alamo)
00:15:30 – Golden Geek Nomination
00:17:46 – Robb Updating his Top 50 List
00:21:34 – Gametopper 3.0
00:23:30 – Knock Knock Joke Contest
00:27:50 – Ecos: New Horizons Expansion
Plays
00:29:34 –Mandala Stones * – Board&Dice; Designer: Filip Głowacz; Art: Zbigniew Umgelter;
00:39:01 – Troyes Dice * – Asmodee; Designer: Sébastien Dujardin, Xavier Georges, Alain Orban; Art: Alexandre Roche;
00:49:47 – Oros – Aesc Games; Designer: Brandt Brinkerhoff; Art: Brandt Brinkerhoff;
00:57:32 – Imperial Settlers: Rise of the Empire * – Portal Games; Designer: Joanna Kijanka; Art: Aga Jakimiec, Roman Kucharski;
News
01:06:57 – Galaxy Trucker reprint
01:12:33 – My Father’s Work Kickstarter
01:16:35 – Hand Games 21
01:21:14 – Werewolf the Movie
Review: After the Empire
01:26:07 – Rules Breakdown
After the Empire is a 2 to 4 player worker placement, tower defense game designed by Evan Halbert and Ryan Mauk, with art by Yaroslav Radetskyi, and published in 2021 by Grey Fox Games. In After the Empire, players will recruit refugees and building to their walled city, add to its defenses, and then every round face increasingly larger threats from the invaders outside the walls.
After the Empire plays out over two main phases: the actions phase, and the combat phase. During the actions phase, players will place workers on various locations on the main board, their personal player board, or building cards they may have collected over the course of the game. These actions do a wide variety of things, but largely involve either recruiting new refugees (characters who grant special ongoing abilities), buildings, resources, or fighters to their kingdom. A single action, the Stockpile action, allows the players to do any number of things to improve their castle, including healing it from previous damage, improving its construction from wood to stone, or add defenses.
After all player have taken their actions, the game moves on to the combat phase, which can occur simultaneously for all players. First, a number of cards are revealed indicating the type, number, and attacking direction of the invaders. Throughout the game, only the first card of the coming attack is known at the start of the round – all other invader cards are hidden until the attack begins. A Siege card will also be revealed that might execute special attacks against the players’ defenses or provide special abilities for the invading forces.
Then, each player executes a number of steps in order, resolving various methods of ranged and melee combat, their own attacks, special defenses from turrets, and so forth, simulating the invading forces attacking from the four sides of the player’s castle. Over the course of combat, invading forces will be discarded, a players soldiers will be wounded and mercenaries discarded, and their walls may become damaged or even destroyed. Combat will repeat these various steps until either all the invading forces are eliminated, or the player has no defending forces left and at least one invader is inside the castle walls. Players in the latter situation are considered sacked, which comes with its own series of penalties, including a potentially significant loss of points. After all combats are resolves, the surviving players with the most current points wins the flag for the round – representing end-game points.
Then, all players earn income based on their remaining castle pieces and feed their soldiers.
The game plays out over seven rounds, with the number of invaders attacking each round increasing. At the end of the game, players add their existing coins (which double as points), any end-game flags, and coins from refugee and building cards, along with any other end-game scoring opportunities they may have. The player with the highest score wins the game.
01:28:58 – Review
01:57:29 – Ratings
ReRoll
02:17:16 – Paladins of the West Kingdom * – Renegade Game Studios; Designer: Shem Phillips, S J Macdonald; Art: Mihajlo Dimitrievski;
Check out our original review for Paladins of the West Kingdom during Episode 170.
* Disclosure: These titles were received free of charge by the publishers or distributors. If you are interested in submitting a title for review, please read our Review Policy.
