I really love watching AH playthroughs, because I feel like everyone approaches it very differently as a game. I really like your theming as trying to make it as cooperative as possible. However, I do have a couple of thoughts. I think AH is often considered a less cooperative game than Lord of the Rings simply because of the inevitable comparisons drawn between the two. I also think that while this can be true, it is built as coop as LoTR. I want to also point out I've played far more AH than LoTR, and it's been a while since I've played LoTR, having switched entirely to AH. In LoTR, assisting each other was easy because everyone was basically considered to be in the same location, meaning it was never an issue to play cards on each others parties. You were always considered nearby enough, so to speak. On top of that, the theme itself subtly encouraged it due to it being groups of people helping other groups of people. AH has not only additional space between players in the form of locations, but also that each player is a solitary character, which thematically lends a subtle air of isolation. However, I think the large difference in the cooperative nature between LoTR and AH is that LoTR is far more directly cooperative, whereas AH is more systematically cooperative. To give an example, direct coop is like Sentinels of the Multiverse when you play a card from your deck saying "Give an ally +1 Damage for the turn". You're literally effecting another player directly. Inversely, in competitive games, Magic is a heavily direct competitive game; you're targeting another player directly with just about every card you're playing. System coop is like Pandemic. "Oh, you two need to trade London? I'm going to go clear out cubes in Asia because they're about to outbreak". It's things which help each other involving the game state. It's why often, going back to the quintessential system coop Pandemic, you often have one person just running around clearing cubes in hot spots. Because you need to cure diseases, yes, but no one gets to if three cities chain outbreak repeatedly. Similarly, going back to theme, because you each only control one person in Pandemic, it gives an air of isolation which manifests as you against a world on fire. If you played as a roving medical band, it wouldn't have quite the same feeling. AH is far more systemic coop than LoTR ever was when I played, which coupled with the vague air of isolation only one character offers gives it a very coop-lite feel for many LoTR players. But I think you've shown in this video why playing it as extremely direct coop doesn't always work; sometimes the clues needed to find the cultists are in location A, but the cultist you just found is in B. Other scenarios similarly just work better if you split up, like needing 3i clues when the Agenda deck only needs 1i doom to turn. On the other side of that coin, many scenarios just plain work better if the party sticks together, employing a ton of direct coop to work through the map. I love watching this series, because I haven't seen anyone else purposely try to lean into the direct coop aspects, and I don't think them separating necessarily defeats the purpose. Daisy was directly helping Leo by getting clues to get Cultists; Leo was directly helping Daisy by clearing monsters and defeating cultists. That's beautiful teamwork.
Man, amazingly well said! I fully agree that having me put out one fire and someone else put out another on opposite sides of the board is still “cooperation”, but it’s been fun to do this series so far and try to stay together as much as possible. It should be easier in the final scenario. But this one strongly forces splitting up like you said.
@@OneStopCoopShop Murder a cultist, check their address book, go to the first suspicious one, murder whoever you find there, look at their address book, etc etc etc.
Think how embarrassed I was when I discovered that it wasn’t a cult at all! They were just throwing me a surprise party with really scary piñatas. My mistake...
Neither Resign nor Parley actions incur attacks of opportunity. I'm surprised you never upgraded Beat Cop, that's always my first choice when playing a guardian.
Thanks! I knew parley didn’t trigger one, but good to know resign doesn’t either. And yes, love beat cop upgrade. Probably could have skipped the talents for one.
Looking forwards to the grand finale! Out of curiosity, do you know if Collin has any plans to continue his playthrough of AH, the scenario about the King in Yellow? He started it a while back and I've been hoping to see it completed.
Considering that he sort of... rage quit the game after a really bad Forgotten Age playthrough, and sold all of his cards, I don’t think he’ll be finishing it any time soon. Sorry! But I’ll cover as much as I can :)
Looking for the Devourer chapter. Did it never happen?
I really love watching AH playthroughs, because I feel like everyone approaches it very differently as a game. I really like your theming as trying to make it as cooperative as possible. However, I do have a couple of thoughts.
I think AH is often considered a less cooperative game than Lord of the Rings simply because of the inevitable comparisons drawn between the two. I also think that while this can be true, it is built as coop as LoTR. I want to also point out I've played far more AH than LoTR, and it's been a while since I've played LoTR, having switched entirely to AH.
In LoTR, assisting each other was easy because everyone was basically considered to be in the same location, meaning it was never an issue to play cards on each others parties. You were always considered nearby enough, so to speak. On top of that, the theme itself subtly encouraged it due to it being groups of people helping other groups of people. AH has not only additional space between players in the form of locations, but also that each player is a solitary character, which thematically lends a subtle air of isolation.
However, I think the large difference in the cooperative nature between LoTR and AH is that LoTR is far more directly cooperative, whereas AH is more systematically cooperative. To give an example, direct coop is like Sentinels of the Multiverse when you play a card from your deck saying "Give an ally +1 Damage for the turn". You're literally effecting another player directly. Inversely, in competitive games, Magic is a heavily direct competitive game; you're targeting another player directly with just about every card you're playing.
System coop is like Pandemic. "Oh, you two need to trade London? I'm going to go clear out cubes in Asia because they're about to outbreak". It's things which help each other involving the game state. It's why often, going back to the quintessential system coop Pandemic, you often have one person just running around clearing cubes in hot spots. Because you need to cure diseases, yes, but no one gets to if three cities chain outbreak repeatedly. Similarly, going back to theme, because you each only control one person in Pandemic, it gives an air of isolation which manifests as you against a world on fire. If you played as a roving medical band, it wouldn't have quite the same feeling.
AH is far more systemic coop than LoTR ever was when I played, which coupled with the vague air of isolation only one character offers gives it a very coop-lite feel for many LoTR players. But I think you've shown in this video why playing it as extremely direct coop doesn't always work; sometimes the clues needed to find the cultists are in location A, but the cultist you just found is in B. Other scenarios similarly just work better if you split up, like needing 3i clues when the Agenda deck only needs 1i doom to turn. On the other side of that coin, many scenarios just plain work better if the party sticks together, employing a ton of direct coop to work through the map.
I love watching this series, because I haven't seen anyone else purposely try to lean into the direct coop aspects, and I don't think them separating necessarily defeats the purpose. Daisy was directly helping Leo by getting clues to get Cultists; Leo was directly helping Daisy by clearing monsters and defeating cultists. That's beautiful teamwork.
Man, amazingly well said! I fully agree that having me put out one fire and someone else put out another on opposite sides of the board is still “cooperation”, but it’s been fun to do this series so far and try to stay together as much as possible.
It should be easier in the final scenario. But this one strongly forces splitting up like you said.
The card upgrades definitely make sense.
I feel like 4 cultists is the sweet spot. Getting 5 or 6 is REALLY hard.
I got 6 ONCE, and that was with solo Roland. He would get clues every time he killed cultists, so it was kind of crazy.
@@OneStopCoopShop
Murder a cultist, check their address book, go to the first suspicious one, murder whoever you find there, look at their address book, etc etc etc.
Think how embarrassed I was when I discovered that it wasn’t a cult at all! They were just throwing me a surprise party with really scary piñatas. My mistake...
@@OneStopCoopShop
Yikes!
Great game! Thanks for sharing.
Neither Resign nor Parley actions incur attacks of opportunity. I'm surprised you never upgraded Beat Cop, that's always my first choice when playing a guardian.
Thanks! I knew parley didn’t trigger one, but good to know resign doesn’t either.
And yes, love beat cop upgrade. Probably could have skipped the talents for one.
Looking forwards to the grand finale!
Out of curiosity, do you know if Collin has any plans to continue his playthrough of AH, the scenario about the King in Yellow? He started it a while back and I've been hoping to see it completed.
Considering that he sort of... rage quit the game after a really bad Forgotten Age playthrough, and sold all of his cards, I don’t think he’ll be finishing it any time soon. Sorry!
But I’ll cover as much as I can :)
@@OneStopCoopShop
Ouch, that's unfortunate. Thanks for the reply!
But encyclopedia is not a free action...