Skip to content
Login / Register
Menu
Kickstarter – Gamefound
Board Games
Strategy
Family and Children
Party
Adult
Thematic
Ελληνικα Παιχνιδια
LCG
Arkham Horror: The Card Game
Marvel Champions: The Card Game
The Lord of The Rings: The Card Game
RPGs
D & D
Pathfinder
Gamebooks
Others
Accessories
Game Mats
Bags
Dice
Sleeves
Sapphire Sleeves
Paladin Sleeves
Other
Novels – Books
Plunder boxes
Marvel: Crisis Protocol
Search for:
Home
/
Shop
/
Board Games
/
Thematic
Add to Wishlist
John Company: Second Edition (Kickstarter)
90m - 240m
1 - 5 Players
Ages 13+
Dice rolling in a game can be used for many things, randomness being the most obvious. Dice can also be used as counters. The dice themselves can be unique and different sizes, shapes and colors to represent different things.
Dice Rolling
Voting allows players to influence the outcome of certain events within the game. The vote may be all or nothing, choosing a target for an effect, or to determine the results of certain situations. Players’ votes may not have equal weight, and blocking a player from voting can be a valid tactic.
Voting
This mechanism requires players to select individual actions from a set of actions available to all players. Players generally select actions one-at-a-time and in turn order. There is usually(*) a limit on the number of times a single action may be taken. Actions are commonly selected by the placement of game pieces or tokens on the selected actions. Each player usually has a limited number of pieces with which to participate in the process.
Worker Placement
98.00
€
30 day low:
Out of stock
Search for:
Kickstarter – Gamefound
Board Games
Strategy
Family and Children
Party
Adult
Thematic
Ελληνικα Παιχνιδια
LCG
Arkham Horror: The Card Game
Marvel Champions: The Card Game
The Lord of The Rings: The Card Game
RPGs
D & D
Pathfinder
Gamebooks
Others
Accessories
Game Mats
Bags
Dice
Sleeves
Sapphire Sleeves
Paladin Sleeves
Other
Novels – Books
Plunder boxes
Marvel: Crisis Protocol
Login
Cart
Your cart is empty!
Return to shop
Skip to content
Open toolbar
Accessibility Tools
Accessibility Tools
Increase Text
Increase Text
Decrease Text
Decrease Text
Grayscale
Grayscale
High Contrast
High Contrast
Negative Contrast
Negative Contrast
Light Background
Light Background
Links Underline
Links Underline
Readable Font
Readable Font
Reset
Reset
bcnevan
A refined second edition that ultimately succeeds in bringing John Company’s best to the table. Gameplay, theme, presentation, and meaningful variation from play-to-play are all present. Most of my initial quibbles with the experience wash away as I play the game more and as the players gain experience with how John Company sails the corrupting seas of empire. And its sense of corruption, exploitation, and self-interest are exemplary. Also greatly contributing to the resolving of my initial issues is the framing put forth by one person in my play group: John Company is a press-your-luck game. I agree with a small refinement: John Company is negotiation by press-your-luck. If Sidereal Confluence is a prime example of negotiation by way of resource conversion, John Company is a prime example of negotiation by way of press-your-luck. Within a session of John Company, there are many channels of chance and many table-dependent moments to tack within those channels. And as compared to the first edition of John Company, the second edition brings much more sophistication to its press-your-luck, more immediate grounding to its setting, and more ease to its playability. John Company second edition is one of the, if not the, best negotiation games I’ve played. I still greatly prefer the full deregulation scenario over the “short” 1710 scenario. The full deregulation scenario brings a few more layers to the questions asked of the players. The full scenario also creates competing incentives that help the negotiation and overall experience of the game. Learning the contours of those incentives over successive plays and approaching each play with a bit more knowledge of those contours has brought more enjoyment with each play. I’m still likely to relegate the “short” 1710 scenario to learning games (firms of the deregulation scenario do add a large rules load to the inexperienced). The impact and critical timing of retirement rolls still heavily weigh on the experience of the short scenario (but less than the first edition). I do occasionally contemplate a fairly insulting analogy of this scenario to Catan’s “negotiation” space, but in the end, the story John Company is trying to tell and what it asks of the players makes that analogy more than a bit unfair. The 1710 scenario still has a bunch to offer in story, moments, and authorial expression. But the full deregulation scenario is strictly superior in all aspects, especially in game play experience. Even further, the full deregulation scenario isn’t guaranteed to, and occasionally won't, go longer than the 1710 scenario.
ajewo
Will I like it? This is very much not a game for everyone. If you like negotiation games, games about history, business simulations, or wish your political games were less about fantasy/scifi empires and more about wearing nice looking hats, you will find a lot to enjoy here. Is there as much luck as in the first edition? There is less, though still much more than your average eurogame. How easy is this game to learn? It's an interesting teach. Unlike many of my other games, the design sort of teaches you how to play as you play it. It is dramatically easier to learn than the first edition but still takes time. I think it's best learned at a sort of leisurely pace as you play through your first two turns. There's a good chance we'll include a walkthrough of some kind. Are there still wild negotiations, marriages, and drama both petty and grand? Yes. This game generates at least one Victorian novel worth of drama each play. Is it a negotiation game? Basically everything in this game is tradeable and players can be quite creative in their deals. However, the negotiations in this game are very different from other negotiation games. In games like Catan or Sidereal Confluence, players trade because of comparative advantage. There's a lot of room for win-win deals that help both parties and getting good at those games is often about knowing when you can push your positions. In John Company, negotiations are more often about raw leverage. That is, players are trying to find points of leverage against each other. This means rather than making deals, you're more often asking for permission to do something you'd like to do.
brewsaki
Wow. This game was funny, frustrating, and exhilarating. I never thought dice rolls would be fun, but it just works. One of the reasons is that you have agency over how much you want to spend to reduce the risk of a failure, and then everyone's in the same boat, which means someone's failure might impact other players as well. It's a fantastic shared-incentive game, much like 18xx games. I heard Cole say this was like an 18xx RPG, and I get why. It has the scope and grandiosity of Oath, but the reward for playing is a hundred times better. I want to play it again soon and try to get the company to succeed.