Somehow I can't find it anymore. Recently the games I've played is just 'Go get that clue, then go over there and fight that monster. I'll go buy some stuff from the store, grab some more clues there...'

My group's record on seals is just 2, since we can never get enough clues AND go through the other worlds in time before the awakening. One time we never even went into an other world, since we were too busy collecting clues and trying to keep the monster count in Dunwich low.

Is there anything we're missing out from the game. I find Doom a lot more fun (specially when you're playing against your own laptop, yes my laptop knows how to play as the invaders in Doom), but I know there's more to Arkham Horror. But what?

Just two seals? How many investigators are you using? How many expansion boards?

Personally I've found that only reading encounters up until a check or a decision has made the game more thematic. And currently I'm toying around with a 10-hour creepy music playlist to have in the background at my next session. (And I know you specifically know how I enjoy ambient sound.)

You could just need to bump up the mood a bit.

That was with 2 investigators and using Dunwich. We never even set foot on that village that game.

Knuckles Eki said:

Well, that's where your problem lies - too few investigators coupled with the expansion board with the most unstable locations. The obvious solutions are:

1. Increase the number of investigators, preferably to at least 4. Encounters are usually the most enjoyable things in the game and the more investigators you play, the more encounters you're going to have.

2. Remove Dunwich and replace it with either Kingsport or a smaller expansion. This gives you more time before the Ancient One wakes up.

3. Both of the above.

-Villain

Knuckles Eki said:

I somewhat agree with the above comments (I think they're overstating game difficulty, buuut). You do need to add in a third investigator if you're going to play a second board that isn't Kingsport. If you're playing with someone else, I'd suggest you both just play double investigators (just for friends sake). And make a gentlemen's agreement to not use Mandy :') don't make the game too soft and squishable if you're playing 4 vs. 1 exp board.

Nah, that game on Dunwich, absolutely nothing happened in Dunwich. It's almost as if we didn't use Dunwich board at all. Still 2 seals.

Also, how do you win at the game. By final battle combat, or by sealing? Because that last remark you made makes me suspect you normally win by final combat?

It's how we've always won, bash the Ancient One until he cries like a little girl. When we only have 2 doom tokens from awakening, we don't bother sealing anymore, save up the clues for final combat. The only time we won without final combat was when we got lucky and closed all gates from that Science Building encounter (we rolled a success on every gate) and we already have a few gate trophies from earlier turns.

Knuckles Eki said:

Yeaaaaah. That's probably the other reason why you're getting bored with the game. You're playing it on easy difficulty level.

I recommend at bare minimum two investigators, plus one for each expansion board. So if you're using just Dunwich, you should be using 3 AT THE LEAST. I'd recommend 4 or 5. Try controlling two investigators per player. I find it nice in cases where one investigator is indefinitely blocked in; the other can go on to perform his duties normally. Recall currently that I play with all expansions and no fewer than 6 investigators. The tension is high, but is not insanely skewed for or against victory by final combat versus seals.

My other recommendation is that Final Battle is supposed to be a last resort—pick up Kingsport's Epic Battle deck, and/or play with Kevin's clues-per-seals rule: during any given round of final combat, each investigator may not spent more clue tokens than there are seals on the board. Additionally, you can play with another off-the-cuff rule he threw at me: remove 6-X green Epic Battle cards from the Epic Battle deck; X is equal to the number of seals.

In my personal opinion, final battles (while being perfectly honorable victory conditions) should absolutely be last resorts. If you beat back the Ancient One, you deserve the victory trophy. But there need to be more rules and guidelines in place to make sure that you tried, at all costs, to seal the bastard first.