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Lead the Netherlands into the Industrial Age in the latest version of the cooperative classic! It is the dawn of the Industrial Age in the Netherlands. For centuries, the country has relied upon a series of dikes and wind-powered pumps to keep it safe from the constant threat of flooding from the North Sea. But this system is no longer enough.
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Like it but the game has some design issues which keep me from loving it. Everything about this production is beautiful, except they filled a map with tiny regions that are not very user friendly. Gameplay is either a walk in the park or ridiculously hard. There's no middle way, and this my main complaint about this game: it doesn't have a steady build up of tension. Rather, there's no tension at all and then all of a sudden you lose. Just like that. The reason for this: - Basic goals are very easy. - Extra goals are extremely hard, especially if you draw more than one. - Water cubes run out very rapidly. I've had games where we lost on turn 1 because too many cubes had to be placed during setup! - You rarely run out of cards, hence, no tension. - The balance between cube management and card management is distorted. Still, I very much like all the 7 roles, all of the events, the water flow, the pumps etc. If you can finetune the difficulty, look past the map and don't mind losing on turn 1 once in while, this game is very solid. Otherwise it's either boredom (too easy) or frustration (too hard). Despite its shortcomings, I find it more interesting than Pandemic but less pleasant than Fall of Rome.
CHRISDH
*7*(Initial Plays) Good stuff. Has a different feel to it than the typical Pandemic. Building dikes, pumping water, and watching it all flood is what to expect. It will still have the dominant player aspect to it but I enjoyed my first play.
booned
I like the water spreading mechanism, it works very well, and I love that the board has character. Not in terms of art (although that's fine), but in terms of gameplay. Every region has a different feel which gives the game personality and makes me want to play it repeatedly to learn how to play best on it. As opposed to generic Pandemic which doesn't have much appreciable difference between all the different regions. The only advantage of the original, to me, is ease of teaching (but I'd prefer Forbidden Island for that, anyway), and the setup is a lot easier and quicker.