After watching the trailer, crossreading the rules and reading some posts here, it feels like the game's a bit "World of WarCraft" and "Arkham Horror". I am very cautious about the fact that three players are fighting one in seperate games. I disliked WoW the boardgame because the two groups rarely, if ever, interacted with each other. Now when we have the fact that is a 3vs1 game, such games tend to have one leading player on the one side basically making all the moves for the others, a problem you face in games like Arkham Horror, while the fourth (evil) player is excluded from most of the social interactions that go along with such games, a problem you face in games like Doom or Descent.

So I am really not sure if I would buy an expensive game here that later rots in the cupboard because it is too lentghy for the fun it brings to the players, as it was the case with WoW or AH. Can anyone of you fill me in on that account?

Honestly? I think you're better off with BSG.

Thanks a lot! I don't want to invest too much money in a game I never play. Did that with WoW and regretted it ever since.

3v1 is just one way to play. I've found 1v1 to be very satisfying.

Even so, I don't expect there is too much of an issue with one player micromanaging the team. You are not allowed to show each other your cards, and any discussion will be heard by Sauron. The best you can do as far as ordering is say something like, "Try to get to Woodland Realm to discard that plot." The specifics of how to get there and which cards to discard doing so are still up to the player, and he may decide not to go at all (maybe he doesn't even have the right cards). Disclosing your entire hand just so someone can tell you exactly what moves to make will just help Sauron out as he knows exactly what to expect if you get into a fight.

And I don't really get the arguments saying that this is a long game. Our first game took less than three hours INCLUDING set up and lengthy rules explanation. I'm confident that we can get that under 2 hours now that we are familiar with the game. BSG routinely takes 2 hours even when everyone in the group has plenty of games under their belt. MEQ is not an especially long game.

OK, thanks. I'll read the rules in earnest and will watch the topics.

MasterDinadan said:

Really? I dont find that to be the case at all. In our group the average game is 30-90 minutes (the quickest game being a 15 minute crushing victory for the cylons)

Regardless, this thread isn't about BSG.

I think there are plenty of opportunities for a more vocal player to boss people around on the team. Being told "go here to collect favors then kill this plot" can be very constricting since the whole point of the game is collecting favors and killing plots.

Hypothetically speaking, if we were playing "Last Night On Earth" and i told you on your turn, "Go to this building and draw a card" I'm still telling you what to do, even if im not counting the spaces for you to use.

Melonball said:

While BSG is also a co-op game it is much more cutthroat in my opinion, since at the start of the game you don't even know who the Cylons are. MEQ does pit 1 to 3 players against another player but you know that from the outset of the game, there is no traitor element.

The Sauron player has an almost GM like quality to it. The Sauron player will have more influence on the layout of board and will often determine what the Heros need to accomplish to either win or prevent Sauron from winning. I think that there is actually more interaction between the Hero players and Sauron then there is between the Cylon players and Human Players.

Completely different. In Last Night on Earth your ability to move depends on a random die roll which everyone can see. In MEQ, your ability to move depends on cards you are holding which only you know about. Unless you tell people exactly what you have, they can't tell you where to go because they don't even know where you CAN go. The best you can do is give them suggestions.

The same applies to combat. In Last Night on Earth, you combat abilities depend almost entirely on your weapons (which everyone sees) and random die rolls. I can look at your weapons and tell you how likely you are to win a fight. In Middle Earth Quest, only you know how good your hand of cards is. I'm not going to tell you to charge through a bunch of monsters and minions if I don't know what's in your hand. It's a choice only you can make, so I will let you make it.

There's no way I can tell you how to use your resources if I don't even know what resources you've got.

Perhaps a "Council" House Rule that allows players to view each others cards when they are all on the same locaiton? Or something like that...

MasterDinadan said:

I cant tell you specifically how to spend resources, but i can tell you what I want you to spend them on.

If I tell you "go to X" you can start making your way over there. Maybe you sluff more cards than is ideal, or maybe it will take a few turns, but i still can say what i need you to do. Its just as bossy.

Well, if the other players LET one player boss them around, shame on them!...

After two games played (each took 3 hours, and I think we can get the next ones down to 2 hours 30mn), my general feeling is that it is a B+ game. I like the material, I like the concepts and the card management on the players' side.

Here are a few things that came to our mind when we played our first two games:

- Regions and colors in the board are really hard to pick, especialy for color blind guys. Some of the colors are way to close to each others..

- Finale should offer possible interaction between players on the good guys' side. Its not very fun for players sitting on the side once the finale fight starts.

- Rules we missed on our first games:

• Secrete missions only resolve when at the finale stage (that was a stupid beginner mistake)
• 4th sauron action token remains in place
• Minions cant be moved twice with the same action
• A gollum plot card can't replace an already placed gollum plot card.

Misc suggestions:

- Mistrusted corruption card is hard to get rid of if this is the first card you get as a player.. Cost to remove could be equal to current stage (i.e. only one favor early in the game, and harder at stage 3)

- Rules mention that plot cards not kept can be replaced on the bottom of the deck in any order, but the Sauron player can only draw 2 at a time, and keep one.. what is the point?

- There seem to be a very random aspect on how the sauron player can move his story markers.. if he get plot cards that are spread between the three different markers in the first two turns, I do not see how he can come back on the story track. Some of the plots conditions are really hard to get, and in a 9 turns only game (effectively 7 turn for the plot card to be useful to Sauron) some of the plot card conditions or shadow pool requirements are not likely to happen... Just a first impression, though, and more games may dispell that.....

One of the weird thing in this game is that when you read the rules, you have a feeling that there are a lot of choices to make for the players, which is good, but when you do play the game, and you draw three cards, the choices are usualy non existant, because most of the conditions on the event/peril are restricting to one card that can be played only.

Still I am looking forward to play more of this game. I like how it can easily be played with two or three players only.

I actually started my game with three different token moving plot cards for a few turns. Then I got a 2 ring move plot down early to mid game, followed by another 2 ring move plot card late game, causing 2 turns of me moving it 4 spaces which had me catch the Hero marker right at the end...

Thanks again. That helps a lot. Seems worth a view after all, if one manages really to stay silent about one's cards.