Excellent review. I feel like someone should be paying you for the quality of work you do. So organized, clear, informative, and paced so it's never boring. I have zero criticism!
Hey Jon! perfect explanation like everytime! You just forgot to mention one little thing : If a player has no surviving species at the end of a round he gets one new species. So @ 6:40 the player without a species should get a free one. Keep up the very good work! :)
Oh wow, I missed that when reading the rules! That would definitely help the negative point I made about having a hard time getting back into the game. Thanks for pointing that out!
really enjoyed your run down. Pos, Neut i have been on the fence about this game and you helped pushed me to the "buy" side. You didn't talk about price. A suggested game to review is Waggle Dance. I think it is a really cool game. keep the great reviews coming.
Hi! I have a question I hope you can help me with, when I evolve a Carnivorous trait, what happens to my non carnivorous traits already in play please? And may I evolve a non-carnivorous trait on a carnivorous animal, Hard Shell and Scavenger for instance, please?
Unfortunately I do not remember the specifics of this game enough to be able to help you here. I suggest going to the boardgamegeek page for Evolution and asking there in the forums.
Another option to consider when it comes to the super predators could be to house rule a minimum size they can attack, say 3 or 4 below the body size. My reasoning: a squirrel is clearly smaller body size than a T-Rex. Thanks to the extreme size difference, the T-Rex would spend so much time and energy chasing down enough squirrels to even begin registering in its stomach that it wouldn't be worth it. Nature is the living embodiment of efficiency and the Law of Conservation of Energy. Just a thought.
I don't think Pack Hunting is over-powered. I used to worry about it being under-powered, but over time I've grown to believe that it is nicely balanced. You said that Hard Shell is the only card that defends against an early Pack Hunting. What about Burrowing, Horns, Climbing, and Defensive Herding? Not to mention Symbiosis and Warning Call in conjunction with some of those other traits? I think you are also over-looking one of the most important tools which allows you to get back in the game when there is a dominant Carnivore on the table: Don't play a new species unless you can be certain that it will stay alive. I've never had to wait more than one round (that gives you a minimum of 8 cards to chose from). The other player gets a few extra points and perhaps an extra card that round. No big deal. And you might be able to starve out the Carnivore in the end. I've seen a big Carnivore die off all of a sudden on more than one occasion.
Interesting points. The argument I was trying to make is pack hunting feels overpowered in the early stages of the game. As you mentioned, there are many traits that can deal with it but I've found that pack hunting early can squash a player and catapult that carnivore up super fast. I figure there must be group think ways to starve out a big carnivore, but when I've tried to make that happen it hasn't been successful. As you mentioned, we have tried stopping speciation but then the carnivore player made a feeder species for themselves and suffered no starvation while drawing even more cards while those of us who tried to starve him didn't. All that being said, the reason I put this as a "neutral" point is because I don't think it hurts the game overall, but it's something that has happened often enough that I think it's worth mentioning. Thanks for the feedback!
Agreed, there are plenty of traits to negate Carnivore traits...unless the Carnivore is smart and has cards to burn, having any defensive trait that he can't negate (climbing, burrowing, etc) will protect you from even pack hunting.
Seems to me Pack Hunting should be modified to; +1 Body Size if Population 2, +2 Body Size if Population 3 or 4, +3 Body Size if Population larger then 4. Thematic and weakens it in the beginning.
Pack Hunting is overpowered. I've played this twice with two and have absolutely no desire to play this ever again. As you said, it's hard to come back against a strong hand because you're entirely at the mercy of your card draws. Granted every card game is like that, but being a 45-60 mins, it's a terrible feeling to know you've lost from the second round onwards. Honestly, the only thing going for it is the excellent theme and the art, otherwise I'd recommend people to play munchkin instead.
+Will Ang munchkin can have the same problem, so you focus with the other players to take that guy down, surely there are ways to evolve from being the weakest link
Excellent review. I feel like someone should be paying you for the quality of work you do. So organized, clear, informative, and paced so it's never boring. I have zero criticism!
Hey Jon! perfect explanation like everytime! You just forgot to mention one little thing : If a player has no surviving species at the end of a round he gets one new species. So @ 6:40 the player without a species should get a free one. Keep up the very good work! :)
Oh wow, I missed that when reading the rules! That would definitely help the negative point I made about having a hard time getting back into the game. Thanks for pointing that out!
I adore this theme so much that I keep watching reviews of the game. I wish more games presented science in various ways.
really enjoyed your run down. Pos, Neut i have been on the fence about this game and you helped pushed me to the "buy" side. You didn't talk about price. A suggested game to review is Waggle Dance. I think it is a really cool game. keep the great reviews coming.
Hi! I have a question I hope you can help me with, when I evolve a Carnivorous trait, what happens to my non carnivorous traits already in play please? And may I evolve a non-carnivorous trait on a carnivorous animal, Hard Shell and Scavenger for instance, please?
Unfortunately I do not remember the specifics of this game enough to be able to help you here. I suggest going to the boardgamegeek page for Evolution and asking there in the forums.
Another option to consider when it comes to the super predators could be to house rule a minimum size they can attack, say 3 or 4 below the body size. My reasoning: a squirrel is clearly smaller body size than a T-Rex. Thanks to the extreme size difference, the T-Rex would spend so much time and energy chasing down enough squirrels to even begin registering in its stomach that it wouldn't be worth it. Nature is the living embodiment of efficiency and the Law of Conservation of Energy. Just a thought.
I don't think Pack Hunting is over-powered. I used to worry about it being under-powered, but over time I've grown to believe that it is nicely balanced. You said that Hard Shell is the only card that defends against an early Pack Hunting. What about Burrowing, Horns, Climbing, and Defensive Herding? Not to mention Symbiosis and Warning Call in conjunction with some of those other traits?
I think you are also over-looking one of the most important tools which allows you to get back in the game when there is a dominant Carnivore on the table: Don't play a new species unless you can be certain that it will stay alive. I've never had to wait more than one round (that gives you a minimum of 8 cards to chose from). The other player gets a few extra points and perhaps an extra card that round. No big deal. And you might be able to starve out the Carnivore in the end. I've seen a big Carnivore die off all of a sudden on more than one occasion.
Interesting points. The argument I was trying to make is pack hunting feels overpowered in the early stages of the game. As you mentioned, there are many traits that can deal with it but I've found that pack hunting early can squash a player and catapult that carnivore up super fast. I figure there must be group think ways to starve out a big carnivore, but when I've tried to make that happen it hasn't been successful. As you mentioned, we have tried stopping speciation but then the carnivore player made a feeder species for themselves and suffered no starvation while drawing even more cards while those of us who tried to starve him didn't.
All that being said, the reason I put this as a "neutral" point is because I don't think it hurts the game overall, but it's something that has happened often enough that I think it's worth mentioning.
Thanks for the feedback!
Agreed, there are plenty of traits to negate Carnivore traits...unless the Carnivore is smart and has cards to burn, having any defensive trait that he can't negate (climbing, burrowing, etc) will protect you from even pack hunting.
+JonGetsGames that's the creator you replied too btw :D
but yeah you need to evolve your gameplay and adept to your enviroment and your enemies
this looks very similar to evolution origins from 2011, are they related? or was it inspired from it
+Grimstringer I believe this is a heavily modified take on the 2011 release.
Seems to me Pack Hunting should be modified to; +1 Body Size if Population 2, +2 Body Size if Population 3 or 4, +3 Body Size if Population larger then 4. Thematic and weakens it in the beginning.
It looks like they had a similar idea, here are the tweaks for the second edition : www.northstargames.com/pages/evolution-2nd-edition-changes
Pack Hunting is overpowered. I've played this twice with two and have absolutely no desire to play this ever again. As you said, it's hard to come back against a strong hand because you're entirely at the mercy of your card draws. Granted every card game is like that, but being a 45-60 mins, it's a terrible feeling to know you've lost from the second round onwards. Honestly, the only thing going for it is the excellent theme and the art, otherwise I'd recommend people to play munchkin instead.
+Will Ang munchkin can have the same problem, so you focus with the other players to take that guy down, surely there are ways to evolve from being the weakest link