My recommendation to anyone struggling with this game is: Play 20 more games.

My first month with this game made me feel completely stupid. After the learning curve it’s now my favorite pastime.

To quote the Cryptonomicon

"[...] a learning curve like the Eiger."

(Neal Stephenson was referring to Unix)

2 hours ago, Etaywah said:

My recommendation to anyone struggling with this game is: Play 20 more games.

My first month with this game made me feel completely stupid. After the learning curve it’s now my favorite pastime.

20 seems excessive. I was very wary after my 1st game. It started to click a little in my 2nd.

I didn't get really into it until game 5 or 6, but you should know whether or not this game is "for you" by the 3rd or 4th.

I wonder if the OP is ever coming back...

15 hours ago, DarkHorse said:

I wonder if the OP is ever coming back...

I was wondering this too. I noticed this thread kept going even though they only posted the once.

On 11/2/2017 at 8:41 AM, kempy said:

ROTFL. Sou you say that Lion, as attacking first, with higher chances to kill province first, won everything in CCG?

Clearly I was exaggerating. No, losing one providence didn't immediately end the game for you, But losing the providence, and your 5-6 defenders against your opponents 5-6 attackers really put you in a bad place that was hard to come back from. Not impossible to come back from, but certainly at a major disadvantage.

2 hours ago, clanmccracken said:

Clearly I was exaggerating. No, losing one providence didn't immediately end the game for you, But losing the providence, and your 5-6 defenders against your opponents 5-6 attackers really put you in a bad place that was hard to come back from. Not impossible to come back from, but certainly at a major disadvantage.

5-6 against 5-6 was something like middle/late game in competetive environment so loosing such battle was for most time a crucial and final point of whole game. This game was just designed this way.

Also, depending on edition, 6 vs 6 could mean than only 2 v 2 survived till battle resolution (fe in Lotus and Emperor), etc.

In other words, exaggerating when talking about whole L5R CCG gameplay, isn't just smart idea.

On 11/3/2017 at 2:26 PM, kempy said:

In other words, exaggerating when talking about whole L5R CCG gameplay, isn't just smart idea.

My meta was obviously different then yours. It's kind of weird, Its almost as if I have my own, separate and different, experiences with the game, and that made me form my own opinions on the subject, Weird.

Snowballing was an issue with the CCG, and you cant say that it wasn't. FFG specifically put in mechanics to help prevent snowballing. And yes, while I exaggerated a little about losing one providence costing you the game, I am not exaggerating when I say that most of the games I played generally came down to one pivotal battle. Whoever won that one pivotal battle, generally won the game. Not always, but overwhelmingly enough that I thought it appropriate to mention.