Actually, I should title this thread, "Impossible to win by closing gates without elder signs?"

I'm a huge fan of Arkham Horror. I have most of the expansions, and have Innsmouth ordered and on the way via FedEx. That being said, I don't get to play often because I don't have any friends nearby that play board games. With that in mind, I've started trying out playing solo.

In doing so, the impossibility of the task of winning was struck home. I decided to go easy on myself and ran 4 investigators, all hand-picked and considered some of the most powerful ones. I also had the GOO that you couldn't fight - if he awakens, you automatically lose.

I focused entirely on closing gates, and it just wasn't enough. I was closing gates constantly, but obviously, another one would just pop up the next turn. It felt futile and it felt ridiculous. I mentioned this to a friend who has played the game as well (although only with me), and he said, "Well yeah, duh. Of course the only way to win is with elder signs."

This really put me in a funk and made my appreciation of the game drop considerably. Is this true? I would love to be proved wrong, and would love to hear how I am. Or, if one is trying to win by not fighting the GOO, does the game really devolve into sitting around and collecting cash, and just grinding through the Unique Item deck? Success via shopping spree?

What are your thoughts?

Two of four gate closing wins have come without Elder Signs (IIRC). One game only opened just the right amount of gates and surged in between (including Science Building ), the other was the snoozefest I call Kate Winthrop + Arcane Insight. De Vermiis Mysteriis can also help.

Also, when you say Elder Sign, do you mean the Unique Item Elder Sign or an elder sign (aka seal) on the board? If the former, absolutely, in many, many of my games I rarely even see 1x Elder Sign (the UI), if the latter, rarer, but doable.

Dam said:

Hmm. I'm not really aware of any distinction. One gets the UI Elder Sign in order to use it to seal a gate and have an elder sign on the board (as a seal). If there is another way to get an elder sign seal on the board without an UI Elder Sign, I'm not recalling it (which is understandable, given that I rarely get to play).

Closing a gate and then immediately spending 5 Clues also seals a location. There are also possible OW encounter (and Personal Stories?) that allow you to seal a gate.

Well, as I mentioned on BGG, I was an idiot and had forgotten you can seal the gates WITHOUT needing the Elder Sign UI. So, go me. Everything's good now!

I had a my only 3 investigator game win by gate closing. We just got a good spread of surges at the right times and everyone just jumped on in. Closed them all. I was actually amazed, as like you, I'd never seen any of my other games (usually 5-6 players) get anywhere near it.

Scelous said:

Well, as I mentioned on BGG, I was an idiot and had forgotten you can seal the gates WITHOUT needing the Elder Sign UI. So, go me. Everything's good now!

I know our group has made plenty of really stupid mistakes playing this game over the past years, but THAT'S what I call a challenging variant

I played a game today that was the shortest win I had ever seen. Against Yig and Dark Pharoah, Vincent is sent to LiTaS with the pregame mythos. 2 doom immediately, I knew it would be a short game. Kate and Jenny traipse around, getting clues and stuff. They all hop into a gate with sealing material on consecutive turns, 2, 3, 4. On turn five, after two surges at Independence, I draw the Strange Power Flux card that returns all investigators in other worlds to Arkham. Jenny threw down her Elder Sign, Vincent rolled to seal, and I won with a close victory on turn five. Took less than an hour.

That made up for the second game I played, wherein I completely forgot about what Yog-Sothoth does. Against YS and the Black Goat, a tough combination, I was fighting a losing battle after some nasty rumors, but feeling I had played it well. I realized that I hadn't been checking for two successes for gate closures, but I thought I was okay because I had Mandy and hadn't had to use her ability on several turns. It about evened out. Later, I was sighing as an investigator was sent to LiTaS... for the second time. I paused, and slowly looked over at Yog's smiling picture, and packed the game in. No point in doing it if you're not doing it right. For some reason, Yog Sothoth is the only ancient one that confounds me like that. I always forget about his abilities. Nobody else, just him.

flamethrower49 said:

Whoa. Is that true? You need two successes to close a gate?

Just against Yog-Sothoth