Would love to watch your campaign. It would help fill the cavernous hole in my soul caused by not getting to play my copy as much as I would like (i.e. every day of the week).
Ok, first of all: this Game is amazing. Im definitly getting it as soon as it is translated in Spanish But added yo that: you guys make the BEST GAMEPLAY STREAMS out there, is just ashtonishing how easy is to follow the text on the cards, the display of coins and secrets and warbands, the different cameras that show every detail. Thanks!!! P.D. I watched Episode 6 fist, and now Im back ready to see the full series!!
I keep seeing this mentioned but what does a campaign really mean? Is it just a series of plays or does the campaign have some sort of ending based on some criteria?
Campaign vote seems already strong, but I'll add mine to the pile just in case! Love to see some lore developing for returning powerful denizens or some chronicle molding chicanery.
Loved it. You guys pull off a gameplay where everything is clear, we can follow every detail, you are thematically engaged, and you don't make too much distracting off-topic conversation as some groups do. 5 stars!
Watching this was an excellent way to prep for hosting my own first game of this. I really got a feel for the game and I'm glad you all kept so thorough in explaining everything.
A Pleasure to watch your stream as always Edward. At start, any face-up sites without denizens do not get any warbands apart from the Cradle - so in your game the Mountain & the Rocky Coast. Also a Citizen always resets supply to that of the Chancellor and then gains any saved supply beyond this. All sites have a defence of one.
I started playing this with my gaming group a few weeks ago. I didn’t really “get it” until watching this stream. You all are amazing at explaining what’s going on and why. Thanks!
This is so good! I’ve had the game on my shelf for a couple months now without having had a chance to get it on the table, but watching the stream is the next best thing :)
My inkling in this one (very late) is that Shrey ought to have dug for the 3rd vision opening up the win for Edward on Ro4 - but pressing Chancellor Ken to make an aggressive move against Edward to prevent that win. That might have kept the balance of power in check. Game is very cool. Thanks for the playthrough!
Amazing play through. It’s unfortunate that it felt like a 3 player game since Shrey was not able to find a direction throughout the session. Must have been very frustrating!
Don’t know if your still looking at these comments but I just stumbled across this video and would love to see a campaign! Fun group dynamic with a great game as your sandbox.
IMO having played two games at 3p, one at 4p, and one at 5p, I think 4p is much better than 3p or 5p, but that it is pretty decent in all three of those counts. It goes to 6p but I think the downtime would become absurd in 6p. However, our first game was 3p, and we followed the playbook (which has only four players in it) with the first three players. I think this is a grave mistake. The playbook sets things up with the chancellor in an extremely strong position after their first turn. Then second and third player ignore them, leaving fourth player to actually attack, and the RNG is set up so that their attack will work. We felt that it was very hard for an exile to win in this situation and indeed the chancellor won that game. As an aside, the chancellor actually won the second game as well, and "voluntarily abdicated" to the new player at the start of our third game (not a real concept from the rulebook, but easy to implement). So from my limited experience, imperial dominance seems like a real risk in the 3p game. Anyway, as a resolution to this defect of the 3p game, one suggestion is to play the first player (obviously), the second player, and the fourth player. You can't really skip from 2nd to 3rd because 3rd player's script reacts directly to what 2nd player did, but this plan should generally work out, although you might need to twiddle the deck a bit to get the draws to work out. Second player will end up in a pretty strong economic position but that's alright. Another resolution is to run the 4p playbook turn in your teach, just running all four characters together, and then hard reset the game. I think this is what you have to do if your starter group is larger than 4.
My idea Is play solo with all players switching between them and using multiplayer rules, no solo rules. Yes it's Crazy but what's your opinion about It? Is It possible? Id like to buy It but no friends to play It. Thanks
It's tricky with hidden information, but it just comes down to how well you're able to compartmentalize your thoughts when playing each faction. Give it a go and let us know how it went!
Good game everybody, and I know I'm years late, but I have to mention this - the Key to the City denizen was criminally underused by both Alyssa and Shrae here. It's an insanely easy way to conquer sites with basically just movements, and it would've given either an easy early win to Alyssa, or prevented an early win from Ken. Just something to consider.
At 1:37:55 the defender added in the Oathkeeper defense due even though the pawn was not being attacked. Is this correct?? We have only added that in if the pawn was attacked.
Rule 2.11 says that the defense is always added - The Oathkeeper must add one defense die in Campaign as defender (5.5.2), and the Usurper must add two.
You can only trade or Muster where your Pawn is. The sites you rule just allow you to use their special action (or battleplan) even when your Pawn is not there -just like you can use the special action of other cards that your Pawn is at (except battleplans, only the ruler can use any battleplans).
I think you might have started a "new" chronicle with a random denizen from the world deck per revealed site. This is how the officially blessed TTS mod does it, and it makes sense with regards to simulating a real chronicled deck. I would assume a completely empty map to be rare.
the look of this game is beautiful and so well crafted, but, for me the turns are too long and tedious, with a lot of "have to do it" type actions and with few real tactical combination actions.
The entire Chronicle goes like this (the parts relevant to your question in bold): If an Imperial player won, they may build or repair an edifice. Discard denizens at all sites the winner doesn't rule. Then remove these sites, unless they have an intact edifice, in which case ruin the edifice and set the site aside, together with any sites that the winner ruled that have ruined edifices. Slide the sites the winner ruled (other than any that were set aside) up. Put sites with ruined edifices in the Hinterland from the bottom up, continuing into the Provinces if there are 4+ ruins. I think the order of the ruins will be the reverse of the way it was in the game, although I find this particular detail a bit unclear from the text. Fill remaining gaps from the site deck. Discard the *losers'* advisers. *Do not discard the winner's advisers* . Add six cards from the Archive to the new world deck (not to the discarded cards) based on the suits on the winner's advisers. If you fail to completely do so, instead add six cards from the most abundant suit in the Dispossessed to the world deck and add the rest of the Dispossessed back to the Archive. Draw six discarded cards to put in the dispossessed. Assemble the new world deck.
Sorry man, solo play is passable, but if that's the only reason to get it, I would stay away. Great at 3-4-5, even better with the same group weekly, but not so great solo.
Oath, big game, big adventures, lot of fun for many players, but why not discover an other serie, that : This Wednesday at 4 p.m. (5pmCET) Amarna Mega bundle on Kickstarter! 1-5 players, competitive co-op, duo, legacy, 4X rpg and much more!
I'm sure this game is great for some. But the teach is just too much for me. Nothing this game is trying to teach me is sticking with me. I love Root and other more complex games, but this is just so strange to me.
It gets better the more experienced the players are. Each turn shouldn't take more than a minute or two if everyone's played the game before. Once everyone knows how to play, you shouldn't have to wait more than 6 minutes for your turn to come around. And besides, It's not like you can't enjoy all the action, roleplaying, and negotiations that go on during other people's turns anyway. Watching the board change between turns and thinking about how to capitalize on it is half the game.
Legacy game with the possibility of having to roll a dice to win... Love most of Cole's games, but this is a hard pass. Campaigns are my least favorite game mechanism, and it is not even close. I'd much prefer to play (and watch) multiple separate single game sessions.
It's not really a legacy game. The Chronicle is not really so much part of the game as it is part of setting up the next game, allowing the initial setting of the games to drift a bit more slowly than it otherwise might. New players can jump into an existing campaign without knowing any of the prior history and still have a good time even if they miss some references. But if you really wanted to, you could make up some house rules for setting up the game using all the cards and play it as a single session game. That said, I'm kinda with you on the dice. They can be frustrating for sure. The purple die is not so bad IMO...you really want to deny as many purple die rolls as you possibly can. But the defense dice can be truly absurd as you push into 5+ dice, and this really does come up in realistic situations. (For example if you have a citizen with the darkest secret oath then you are likely to see fights over the Grand Scepter).
You know, there's this really neat concept for mature adults that play board games called House Rules. It means, if your group doesn't like a written rule, they can agree to ignore it or change it. Then they can all enjoy the game for it's other great aspects...
@@TruckDrivinGamer Wow a very 'mature' reply... Strangely enough not everyone has the same tastes in games, and this one doesn't seem to have enough redeeming features to warrant house-ruling a weirdly luck dependent element in an otherwise fairly euro-style game.
"fairly euro-style game" is the very last description I would use to describe Oath. I'm not even sure what about Oath would even remotely look like it's a euro, when so much about it is reminiscent of wargames. On that note: the purple die exists in the game for the same reason historical games & wargames use randomness to simulate the unpredictability of history & war. Some even use it as an endgame trigger: e.g., Mark McLaughlin's classic Napoleonic Wars can end with a die roll. Politics, war, and history are not euro-y optimization puzzles & chance is often involved. Oath is a game about politics, war, and history. From those themes alone, I would never suppose it is "fairly euro" at all. As a mechanic: although it may not interest you, designer Cole Werhle has written about why the purple die is in the design & essentially it is to push ambitious play in the late game. The die is ONLY rolled if the Empire is keeping the Oath. So if players outside the Empire are concerned about that, they are in control of that. In this game, the reason the Chancellor player won is not because he rolled a die...but because deliberate, non-random choices were made, meaningful choices, that led to the roll being possible at all. The player before him was a Citizen (& can only win if the die is rolled) and the Exile player before that did not do anything to take the Oath (focusing on the Vision instead). While the players had options to be more ambitious, these are still fairly bold moves, and fortune favors the bold...risks get taken & things are "weirdly luck dependent" in politics, war, and history. (...none of this is in the tone of persuasion: it's clear that Oath is not to your taste & that's 100% okay.)
@@malexander4094 You are right 'euro' is definitely not the right term. I probably should have said 'strategic', this game is not about optimisation at all. I was only replying quickly to a comment I found rather rude and immature. As you said this one is definitely not to my tastes, as 'King Making' like that at the end and the inclusion of significant luck elements are not my style.
@@rndbits8276 All good. :) For what it's worth, I do think Oath is Cole Wehrle's most strategic game, or rather better put, the one with the most satisfying strategic possibilities, pay-offs, and inertia. At least for me.
Would love to watch your campaign. It would help fill the cavernous hole in my soul caused by not getting to play my copy as much as I would like (i.e. every day of the week).
Ok, first of all: this Game is amazing. Im definitly getting it as soon as it is translated in Spanish
But added yo that: you guys make the BEST GAMEPLAY STREAMS out there, is just ashtonishing how easy is to follow the text on the cards, the display of coins and secrets and warbands, the different cameras that show every detail. Thanks!!!
P.D. I watched Episode 6 fist, and now Im back ready to see the full series!!
I would love to watch a campaign with your table!
I keep seeing this mentioned but what does a campaign really mean? Is it just a series of plays or does the campaign have some sort of ending based on some criteria?
@@EakEmk multiple games in sequence, each one dependent upon the last
Campaign vote seems already strong, but I'll add mine to the pile just in case! Love to see some lore developing for returning powerful denizens or some chronicle molding chicanery.
Loved it. You guys pull off a gameplay where everything is clear, we can follow every detail, you are thematically engaged, and you don't make too much distracting off-topic conversation as some groups do. 5 stars!
Watching this was an excellent way to prep for hosting my own first game of this. I really got a feel for the game and I'm glad you all kept so thorough in explaining everything.
A Pleasure to watch your stream as always Edward. At start, any face-up sites without denizens do not get any warbands apart from the Cradle - so in your game the Mountain & the Rocky Coast. Also a Citizen always resets supply to that of the Chancellor and then gains any saved supply beyond this. All sites have a defence of one.
I started playing this with my gaming group a few weeks ago. I didn’t really “get it” until watching this stream. You all are amazing at explaining what’s going on and why. Thanks!
Beautifully explained. Please continue your campaign!
This is so good! I’ve had the game on my shelf for a couple months now without having had a chance to get it on the table, but watching the stream is the next best thing :)
I would also like to see more of the chronicle!
Best presentation - rules explanation and playthrough of Oath - excited to see more of you playing Oath - big thumbs up!
Thank you. Hugely looking forward to the ongoing campaign.
Super stuff! (just learning the game, so came here first!)
Really good rules breakdown. I’ve looked at a few videos without really getting it, but now I kind of get it.
I have seen playthroughs of this game, but was eager to see you and your crew play it. Great video as always. I'd love to see a campaign.
This was exactly the type of video I was searching for, thank you!
Glad it helped. Cheers!
I've been waiting for your playthrough and am very glad you’re doing a campaign.
More please!!
Thanks for the great playthrough!
Great playthrough! Can't wait to see the next game!
Thank you for making this. Would love to see more.
In the setup only sites with denizens or intact edifices (1.12) should start with purple warbands.
Seems like they forget to add starting denizens
It would be amazing to watch a campaing, love the vids btw.
My inkling in this one (very late) is that Shrey ought to have dug for the 3rd vision opening up the win for Edward on Ro4 - but pressing Chancellor Ken to make an aggressive move against Edward to prevent that win. That might have kept the balance of power in check. Game is very cool. Thanks for the playthrough!
Amazing play through. It’s unfortunate that it felt like a 3 player game since Shrey was not able to find a direction throughout the session. Must have been very frustrating!
I definitely would follow your campaign 👍😉
Aw man how did I miss this? Gotta watch this!
Don’t know if your still looking at these comments but I just stumbled across this video and would love to see a campaign! Fun group dynamic with a great game as your sandbox.
Not sure the game is for me, though I do love a game with no victory points and found the stream entertaining. Thanks, you four!
loved it
Great stream!
Great stream team!!
You beautiful, beautiful people, I literally went "f*** yes" when I saw this pop up in my feed.
We need a campaign!!
I would love to watch a campaign
I agree with everyone else, please campaign!!!
You can’t put the Alchemist in the Hinterland because its part of the Shadow Kingdom.
Worried about not seeing this Chronicle play out... Did I miss anything on Twitch? Will future vods end up here?
I’ve never seen anything like that Chancellor first turn.
All in for a campaign.
I would like as much oath as I can get.
Missed the livestream and before buying it, how is Oath with 3 players? If you played a 3 player game let me know! Thanks!
IMO having played two games at 3p, one at 4p, and one at 5p, I think 4p is much better than 3p or 5p, but that it is pretty decent in all three of those counts. It goes to 6p but I think the downtime would become absurd in 6p.
However, our first game was 3p, and we followed the playbook (which has only four players in it) with the first three players. I think this is a grave mistake. The playbook sets things up with the chancellor in an extremely strong position after their first turn. Then second and third player ignore them, leaving fourth player to actually attack, and the RNG is set up so that their attack will work. We felt that it was very hard for an exile to win in this situation and indeed the chancellor won that game. As an aside, the chancellor actually won the second game as well, and "voluntarily abdicated" to the new player at the start of our third game (not a real concept from the rulebook, but easy to implement). So from my limited experience, imperial dominance seems like a real risk in the 3p game.
Anyway, as a resolution to this defect of the 3p game, one suggestion is to play the first player (obviously), the second player, and the fourth player. You can't really skip from 2nd to 3rd because 3rd player's script reacts directly to what 2nd player did, but this plan should generally work out, although you might need to twiddle the deck a bit to get the draws to work out. Second player will end up in a pretty strong economic position but that's alright.
Another resolution is to run the 4p playbook turn in your teach, just running all four characters together, and then hard reset the game. I think this is what you have to do if your starter group is larger than 4.
My idea Is play solo with all players switching between them and using multiplayer rules, no solo rules. Yes it's Crazy but what's your opinion about It? Is It possible? Id like to buy It but no friends to play It. Thanks
It's tricky with hidden information, but it just comes down to how well you're able to compartmentalize your thoughts when playing each faction. Give it a go and let us know how it went!
Good game everybody, and I know I'm years late, but I have to mention this - the Key to the City denizen was criminally underused by both Alyssa and Shrae here. It's an insanely easy way to conquer sites with basically just movements, and it would've given either an easy early win to Alyssa, or prevented an early win from Ken. Just something to consider.
At 1:37:55 the defender added in the Oathkeeper defense due even though the pawn was not being attacked. Is this correct?? We have only added that in if the pawn was attacked.
Oathkeeper defense is special in that you always add it in, regardless of what’s being attacked
I found this unclear from the rules..
Rule 2.11 says that the defense is always added - The Oathkeeper must add one defense die in Campaign as
defender (5.5.2), and the Usurper must add two.
Great video, my only ask is please use a different cup for rolls, my poor ears!
Sorry! We thought the audio compressor we use would take care of it. So we'll change it up going forward! Cheers.
Yes pls campaign 👍🏻👍🏻
Yes to campaign
For trading and mustering - does it have to be at the site your pawn is at? Or any site you rule? Or both?
Great video.
You can only trade or Muster where your Pawn is. The sites you rule just allow you to use their special action (or battleplan) even when your Pawn is not there -just like you can use the special action of other cards that your Pawn is at (except battleplans, only the ruler can use any battleplans).
This game looks so good except for that dice rolling mechanic in the last few rounds... If I were in Edward's shoes I'd never want to play again lol
We Demand a campaign! GLORY TO ROME
campaign would be good
do a campaign pls
Campaign please
I think you might have started a "new" chronicle with a random denizen from the world deck per revealed site. This is how the officially blessed TTS mod does it, and it makes sense with regards to simulating a real chronicled deck. I would assume a completely empty map to be rare.
the look of this game is beautiful and so well crafted, but, for me the turns are too long and tedious, with a lot of "have to do it" type actions and with few real tactical combination actions.
What happen to the winners advisers??
The entire Chronicle goes like this (the parts relevant to your question in bold):
If an Imperial player won, they may build or repair an edifice.
Discard denizens at all sites the winner doesn't rule. Then remove these sites, unless they have an intact edifice, in which case ruin the edifice and set the site aside, together with any sites that the winner ruled that have ruined edifices.
Slide the sites the winner ruled (other than any that were set aside) up.
Put sites with ruined edifices in the Hinterland from the bottom up, continuing into the Provinces if there are 4+ ruins. I think the order of the ruins will be the reverse of the way it was in the game, although I find this particular detail a bit unclear from the text.
Fill remaining gaps from the site deck.
Discard the *losers'* advisers. *Do not discard the winner's advisers* .
Add six cards from the Archive to the new world deck (not to the discarded cards) based on the suits on the winner's advisers. If you fail to completely do so, instead add six cards from the most abundant suit in the Dispossessed to the world deck and add the rest of the Dispossessed back to the Archive.
Draw six discarded cards to put in the dispossessed.
Assemble the new world deck.
I wonder if this game worth it, to get only for solo play?
Look here, with more links to exactly this topic:
boardgamegeek.com/thread/2688544/worth-it-solo
I think you lose a lot by not having other players to politick off of, so I would not get it for solo play
Sorry man, solo play is passable, but if that's the only reason to get it, I would stay away. Great at 3-4-5, even better with the same group weekly, but not so great solo.
@@Yogington Ahh man...im sooo sad. this game is soo appealing to me...but thats life :-( No gaming group.
Oath, big game, big adventures, lot of fun for many players, but why not discover an other serie, that : This Wednesday at 4 p.m. (5pmCET) Amarna Mega bundle on Kickstarter! 1-5 players, competitive co-op, duo, legacy, 4X rpg and much more!
I'm sure this game is great for some. But the teach is just too much for me. Nothing this game is trying to teach me is sticking with me. I love Root and other more complex games, but this is just so strange to me.
Downtime for this game is abysmal. I would fell asleep mid game.
It gets better the more experienced the players are. Each turn shouldn't take more than a minute or two if everyone's played the game before. Once everyone knows how to play, you shouldn't have to wait more than 6 minutes for your turn to come around. And besides, It's not like you can't enjoy all the action, roleplaying, and negotiations that go on during other people's turns anyway. Watching the board change between turns and thinking about how to capitalize on it is half the game.
Legacy game with the possibility of having to roll a dice to win... Love most of Cole's games, but this is a hard pass. Campaigns are my least favorite game mechanism, and it is not even close. I'd much prefer to play (and watch) multiple separate single game sessions.
It's not really a legacy game. The Chronicle is not really so much part of the game as it is part of setting up the next game, allowing the initial setting of the games to drift a bit more slowly than it otherwise might. New players can jump into an existing campaign without knowing any of the prior history and still have a good time even if they miss some references. But if you really wanted to, you could make up some house rules for setting up the game using all the cards and play it as a single session game.
That said, I'm kinda with you on the dice. They can be frustrating for sure. The purple die is not so bad IMO...you really want to deny as many purple die rolls as you possibly can. But the defense dice can be truly absurd as you push into 5+ dice, and this really does come up in realistic situations. (For example if you have a citizen with the darkest secret oath then you are likely to see fights over the Grand Scepter).
Funnily enough Cole actually called this a " Hate letter to Legacy games "
2:50:09 and that made me never want to buy this game, and perhaps never bother even playing it...
You know, there's this really neat concept for mature adults that play board games called House Rules. It means, if your group doesn't like a written rule, they can agree to ignore it or change it. Then they can all enjoy the game for it's other great aspects...
@@TruckDrivinGamer Wow a very 'mature' reply... Strangely enough not everyone has the same tastes in games, and this one doesn't seem to have enough redeeming features to warrant house-ruling a weirdly luck dependent element in an otherwise fairly euro-style game.
"fairly euro-style game" is the very last description I would use to describe Oath. I'm not even sure what about Oath would even remotely look like it's a euro, when so much about it is reminiscent of wargames.
On that note: the purple die exists in the game for the same reason historical games & wargames use randomness to simulate the unpredictability of history & war. Some even use it as an endgame trigger: e.g., Mark McLaughlin's classic Napoleonic Wars can end with a die roll. Politics, war, and history are not euro-y optimization puzzles & chance is often involved. Oath is a game about politics, war, and history. From those themes alone, I would never suppose it is "fairly euro" at all.
As a mechanic: although it may not interest you, designer Cole Werhle has written about why the purple die is in the design & essentially it is to push ambitious play in the late game. The die is ONLY rolled if the Empire is keeping the Oath. So if players outside the Empire are concerned about that, they are in control of that. In this game, the reason the Chancellor player won is not because he rolled a die...but because deliberate, non-random choices were made, meaningful choices, that led to the roll being possible at all. The player before him was a Citizen (& can only win if the die is rolled) and the Exile player before that did not do anything to take the Oath (focusing on the Vision instead). While the players had options to be more ambitious, these are still fairly bold moves, and fortune favors the bold...risks get taken & things are "weirdly luck dependent" in politics, war, and history.
(...none of this is in the tone of persuasion: it's clear that Oath is not to your taste & that's 100% okay.)
@@malexander4094 You are right 'euro' is definitely not the right term. I probably should have said 'strategic', this game is not about optimisation at all. I was only replying quickly to a comment I found rather rude and immature. As you said this one is definitely not to my tastes, as 'King Making' like that at the end and the inclusion of significant luck elements are not my style.
@@rndbits8276 All good. :) For what it's worth, I do think Oath is Cole Wehrle's most strategic game, or rather better put, the one with the most satisfying strategic possibilities, pay-offs, and inertia. At least for me.
im sorry it is a cool game but 40+ minute teach i could play a game i enjoy much more in that 40+ mins.
Campaign please