Well ... I just finished writing a post about my first playthrough of Viticulture: Tuscany Essential Edition and for some reason it wouldn't let me post it, then I lost it. 😖 It's like something was corrupted on my pc. Hey! Speaking of corruption ... 😉
I got Expeditions with the Gears of Corruption expansion back to the table today for my second playthrough with the expansion. Yesterday's playthrough was great, however I would sometimes forget to take the corrupted mechs turn... 🙄 Today was much smoother - and what a game it was! But first thing's first, gotta pick my character, companion and mech:
I drew Gunter & Nacht with the Highlander mech. I love these mech cards. Notice on the top of the card? These are your starting "resources" if you will; I started with 3 Power, 3 Guile and a hero (wild) worker.
Before we get into the game, I have to say I really love these new map tokens. The expansion comes with 14-double sided map tokens. Each one with an immediate bonus on the back, when you discover a new territory. Awesome! So every game, 2-tokens are not used in setup. But ALL map tokens (old and new) can be used as map tokens are collected/gathered throughout the game.
I also can't carry on without mentioning (as I did when I first played the base game) how BEAUTIFUL Jakub's artwork is. Here are just four of the new cards to shuffle into the deck. Total fluke that I took a pic just of item/upgrade cards. 😂
AND I should mention that the expansion comes with 6 (I think it was six), 2-value vanquish tokens. The base game didn't have 2-Value tokens. So what you say? This means that often (from my two plays so far with the expansion) you end up with MORE corruption you need to vanquish from a territory. Yikes! It's not a world for the feint of heart let me tell ya!
Speaking of which, here (at the start of the game) is what will eventually be "the corrupted mech". The "Scarecrow" mech was my choice today (it doesn't matter which unused mech you pick). And you can see the corrupted mech deck beside him, ready to cause trouble. 😳
The corrupted mech turns up in one of two ways:
When you (the player) places your first start (from boasting)
OR
When the Automa reach the corrupted mech space on their tracker (see pic below). When their tracker cube reaches the mech icon... uh oh!
And look where the bugger turned up... (Remember - the Corrupted mech is the Red one. My HIghlander is in the middle. And one of the Automa's roaming mechs is just to the West of me. Crap!)
This happened when the Automa did find the corrupted mech before I placed my first star. When this happens the corrupted mech emerges in an adjacent territory to you (the player) with the highest value number in the corner. Not to mention, because I was in a North-Western territory here - there was only the one adjacent territory left. 😏
When the corrupted mech arrives, 5-cards are drawn from his deck. At the bottom of the cards you can see the cost to vanquish some of the corruption (the top card for example costs 2-power to vanquish that card). Like vanquishing on a territory, if you are able to / want to vanquish more, you can.
In the top left corner of the top card is the corrupted mechs movement each turn. Just below that is the penalty if the corrupted mech decides to move into your territory, at which point he stays where he is but takes a little something from you. In these case of the top card here, I would lose 1-guile.
Each time the corrupted mech takes their turn, a new card is drawn from the mechs deck and placed on top.
When a player vanquishes corruption from the mech, the card is kept with that player and counts just as vanquish tokens from territories do:
You can boast and place a star once you have 7+ vanquish tokens/cards
AND
Each vanquish token / card is worth $2 at the end of the game.
Here's an example of just ONE of the times this mech was causing me grief. Here as you can see on its card, it wants to move one space to the North-West. Notice however, how there is no such territory. Therefore, you look to the next territory in clockwise order - CRAP! That's where I am. So here I lost 1-power. Oh BUT WAIT! Notice this card has the corrupted mech moving twice??? Notice where it wants to move now??? CRAP CRAP!!! Another power gone. 😝
Depending on the cards drawn the corrupted mech sometimes will spend a bit of time in a corner of the map moving back and forth. This makes it great for keeping him at bay, BUT if you want to vanquish corruption from that mech, or if the Automa wants to, you have to be in an adjacent territory. It's a risk you have to take - move close to vanquish corruption and possibly rid the land of it OR risk the corrupted mech causing you harm. It's a great decision making aspect added to the game.
Not to mention like all mechs on the board, no more than one mech can be on a territory at a time. So the corrupted mech as more barriers to your plans throughout your expedition.
In this pic above, the corrupted mech moved North after 3-4 turns down in the South-East corner.
Today's game was the best engine-building experience yet for me playing Expeditions. It really comes down to not just your choices, but where the map tiles are, cards that are drawn, items you gather... plenty at play. It was in my favour for sure!
I was gaining power and guile ALOT today and vanquishing more corruption than I have in any playthrough so far. These were the remaining four corrupted mech cards (above) that I vanquished in one turn to completely shut down his corrupted, no good wandering of Northern Siberia.
And here is the result....
Done! When all corruption is vanquished from the corrupted mech (no matter which player / automa does so) that mech is out of the game. Any remaining cards in his deck are also out of the game.
Speaking of the game, I won with a personal best score of 93 today! Unreal! Here's a shot before tallying my final score of my mech (player board). Notice I melded 4 meteorites (bottom 4-cards) to my mech AND had 4-upgrades to my Highlander as well (row of four to the right of my mech). You can also see the big pile of corruption cards I collected from the corrupted mech (to add to my already 6-corruption tokens I vanquished from the lands).
What a game today!
Final Expansion Thoughts
As always, Stonemaier expansions are MORE greatness added to games I love. This expansion however, "fixed" things with the base game that I didn't even feel were broken. It increases the speed that the game starts (by allowing you to do more, more quickly vs gathering over the first few turns) and it adds more thinking to the game between options and crowding the map more. While adding extra cards, mechs and character/companion pairings.
EXCELLENT!
Thorough and interesting, as usual, Derek. I had to look-up guile. 😄