Hello all,

New player here. Girlfriend got me the basic Arkham Horror game for Christmas, and we've since played 1 1/2 times -- the half to familiarize ourselves with the basic rules, and then a full game with three other friends. We put up a valiant fight, and none of us were driven insane or knocked unconscious during the game, but ultimately we couldn't halt the advance of the doom track and YOG-SOTHOTH devoured us one by one. A very Lovecraftian ending.

I absolutely love the game. I think all of the elements are incredible: the artwork, the atmosphere, the vast range of encounters, how closely the material reflects the mythos, etc. I'm never going to read all of the cards and spoil the fun; I'm waiting until I encounter each one.

But admittedly it does seem quite difficult. I'm not one of those players who demands to win each time -- it's the experience of playing that's paramount. But we all lead busy lives, and it's not all that often that I get to draw together a group of friends to play. When I do, I want to present them with a fairly strong chance of winning. The game is fun by itself, but if you constantly set aside 3-4 hours with little to no hope of success, I imagine it will be difficult for me to interest the same group of friends in playing frequently.

I put together a flow chart that I'll post with my next comment. Based on the info I learned from it, I have a few assumptions, and I want you to tell me what you think -- especially whether I missed any important aspects of gameplay that could heighten our chances. (I've read the suggested house rules, and though I'm likely to adopt a few, most of them don't seem focused on easing the difficulty of play.)

My main assumption is that you essentially have to throw an investigator at a gate each turn, beginning with the very first turn, if you have any hope of keeping down the maximum number of gates before the Ancient One automatically awakens.

Even when you do so, the number of gates open each turn will automatically be three. So you're essentially banking on luck -- the mythos card not opening a new gate either because there's already a gate in that spot (though this does cause a monster surge), or because there's an Elder Sign there.

Are there any other tactical aspects I'm missing? Techniques that could reduce our reliance on the randomness of the mythos deck? In our first game, an investigator had a card that allowed her to return to her Arkham Gate at once, as well as an Elder Sign. This saved a couple turns, but there are only 4 Elder Signs in the deck.

I've also identified one Ancient One who seems a bit easier to take on than the rest, Azathoth. True, the world's just plain over when he arrives, but until then you have 14 doom track spaces. Plus, he doesn't seem to have any of the nastier permanent abilities that other Ancient Ones have. I think we'll go after him next.

Note about "Unique Unstable Locations" there are 11 unstable locations on the board, so the Unique Unstable Location metric imagines a situation in which each turn, a new gate opens at a location where there has not yet been a gate (and thus it has to open because there's no chance of an Elder Sign being there to permanently seal it).

Going to post this on the Arkham Horror forums and see what their feedback is.

Arkham Horror

Player 1

Player 2

Player 3

Player 4

Player 5

Unique Unstable Locations: 11

Start (Turn 0)

Initial Start (Mythos Card): Gate 1 Opens

[Total: 1 gate open (Gate 1)]

Unique Unstable Locations: 10

Turn 1

Player 1: Enters Gate 1; encounter on Gate 1, Other World 1

Mythos: Gate 2 Opens

[Total: 2 gates open (Gates 1, 2)]

[unique Unstable Locations: 9]

Turn 2

Player 1: Encounter on Gate 1, Other World 2

Player 2: Enters Gate 2; encounter on Gate 2, Other World 1

Mythos: Gate 3 Opens

[Total: 3 gates open (Gates 1, 2, 3)]

[unique Unstable Locations: 8]

[Note: With five players playing, the Ancient One is automatically awakened if there are 6 open gates. By the end of Turn 2, there are 3 open gates and a zero percent chance of the mythos card encountering a location sealed by an Elder Sign until Turn 3).

Turn 3

Player 1: Closes Gate 1

Player 2: Encounter on Gate 2, Other World 2

Player 3: Enters Gate 3; encounter on Gate 3, Other World 1

Mythos: Gate 4 Opens

[Total: 3 gates open (Gates 2, 3, 4)]

[Closed: Gate 1]

[Gates Potentially Permanently Closed: 1]

[unique Unstable Locations: 7]

Turn 4

Player 1: Enters Gate 4; encounter on Gate 4, Other World 1

Player 2: Closes Gate 2

Player 3: Encounter on Gate 3, Other World 2

Mythos: Gate 5 opens

[Total: 3 gates open (Gates 3, 4, 5)]

[Closed: Gates 1, 2]

[Gates Potentially Permanently Closed: 2]

[unique Unstable Locations: 6]

Turn 5

Player 1: Encounter on Gate 4, Other World 2

Player 2: Enters Gate 5; encounter on Gate 5, Other World 1

Player 3: Closes Gate 3

Mythos: Gate 6 opens

[Total: 3 gates open (Gates 4, 5, 6)]

[Closed: Gates 1, 2, 3]

[Gates Potentially Permanently Closed: 3]

[unique Unstable Locations: 5]

Turn 6

Player 1: Closes Gate 4

Player 2: Encounter on Gate 5, Other World

Player 3: Enters Gate 6; encounter on Gate 6, Other World 1

Mythos: Gate 7 opens

[Total: 3 gates open (Gates 5, 6, 7)]

[Closed: Gates 1, 2, 3, 4]

[Gates Potentially Permanently Closed: 4]

[unique Unstable Locations: 4]

Turn 7

Player 1: Enters Gate 7; encounter on Gate 7, Other World 1 (there are some hearty motherfucking investigators!)

Player 2: Closes Gate 5

Player 3: Encounter on Gate 6, Other World 2

Mythos: Gate 8 opens

[Total: 3 gates open (Gates 6, 7, 8)]

[Closed: Gates 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

[Gates Potentially Permanently Closed: 5]

[unique Unstable Locations: 3]

Turn 8

Player 1: encounter on Gate 7, Other World 2

Player 2: Enters Gate 8; encounter on Gate 8, Other World 1

Player 3: Closes Gate 6 (pants permanently stained with urine at this point)

Mythos: Gate 9 opens

[Total: 3 gates open (Gates 7, 8, 9)]

[Closed: Gates 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

[Gates Potentially Permanently Closed: 6]

[unique Unstable Locations: 2]

[Note: This is the first turn during which it’s possible for the investigators to win simply by having placed 6 Elder Signs on the board, either by spending five clue tokens in each case or one Elder Sign card. However, it’s extremely unlikely that each investigator would have had 5 clue tokens at that point, and there are only 4 Elder Signs in the vanilla game’s set – each can only be used once during that game.]

Turn 9

Player 1: Closes Gate 7

Player 2: Encounter on Gate 8, Other World 2

Player 3: Enters Gate 9; encounter on Gate 9, Other World 1

Mythos: Gate 10 opens

[Total: 3 gates open (Gates 8, 9, 10)]

[Closed: Gates 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]

[Gates Potentially Permanently Closed: 7]

[unique Unstable Locations: 1]

Turn 10

Player 1: Enters Gate 10; encounter on Gate 10, Other World 1 (dude is clearly insane by this point, functionally if not literally, to enter so many gates)

Player 2: Closes Gate 8

Player 3: Encounter on Gate 9, Other World 2

Mythos: Gate 11 opens

[Total: 3 gates open (Gates 9, 10, 11)]

[Closed: Gates 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8]

[Gates Potentially Permanently Closed: 8]

[unique Unstable Locations: 0]

And so on.

9-Jack-9 said:

First of all, welcome to the carnival! I'm glad you enjoy the immersive experience of Arkham Horror and the world of Lovecraft's mythos. Since it's based on such a dark theme, this game isn't easy to win when you start out. However, it's definitely very beatable once you get the overall strategy down. Here's the basic strategies I adopt whenever I'm playing.

1) Never, I repeat, NEVER do you try to enter a gate if you have a chance of sealing it. When the first gate opens don't chuck someone in immediately. Instead starting from the first player, I send each of my investigators to an unstable location to scrounge for clues. Once an investigator gets at least 5 clue tokens, I send him or her to the gate to attempt to seal it. While that investigator is traveling through that OW, the ones back in Arkham shouldn't just sit there. Keep on getting those clues! More is good.

2) While the mythos deck is very random and unpredictable, certain unstable locations have a higher likelihood of gates opening there. The Black Cave is a very good example of a very unstable location. Meanwhile the Historical Society and Science Building barely have any activity going on there. It proves helpful to keep these things in mind.

3) Focus on the ultimate goal of the game: Seal six gates, and if the Ancient One awakens, send it back to the abyss! Unless you got nothing else to do, you can occasionally stop by a shop and buy stuff or visit a (mostly) pleasant stable location. But other than that, you should be out killing monsters, gathering clues, and sealing gates. Exploring Arkham leisurely often results in serious consequences as the terror level will climb rapidly, the doom track will be filled, and the streets are going to be filled with so many drooling monsters you would want to hide in the General Store for the rest of the game.

4) And last but not least, know the Ancient One's statistics and prepare accordingly. Stockpile a whole bunch of physical weapons if you are going to fight against Yog-Sothoth. Gather monster trophies to brace yourself against Shub-Niggurath's onslaught. Prepare yourself any way you can so that you can at least put up a good fight.

Those are just a few good pointers above. Just get use to the rhythm of the game and you should soon find that you won't lose so often.

Speaking of opened gates, this is what to do:

- Always seal gate at : Independance Square (11) , Unvisited Isle - Witch House - Woods (10)

- You should seal, at least for the win, : Unnamable - Graveyard - Black Cave (6)

- Don't seal except for win the gate at : Hibb's RoadHouse - Science Building - Silver Twilight (2), Historical society (1)

Between parenthesis are the number of cards which open a gate in those places.

So, if you're just closing gate in places very unstable, that's bad. Seal those places and you'll make a great step.

Yeah, everything said until now is very true. Remember, the game is about gates, not about monsters. So you should focus on the gates. You have 4 high frequency locations (locations where gates are the most likely to appear), which are The witch house, Independence Square, The unvisited isle and The woods, and three low (Historical society, Science building, Hibbs roadhouse). If you need to close gates because you're near to the gate limit and do not have enough clues, go & close gates on any of the low frequency locations. If you have clues for sealing, go for a high frequency one. Remember that clues *are* vital. Sometimes, in the first game, people tend to send clues for adding dice to skill checks allowing them to draw some items. It's just a waste of resources. Focus on the gates. As soon as you seal some of the major ones, you'll have some rounds of Mythos not opening anything, simply because the depicted location has an Elder Sign on it. Do not send any player immediately in the first open gate if you don't have clues for sealing, it'll open again later on, and you'll have to add another doom token to the doom track. Remember that in the base game you have only 11 unstable location, and that most of the AO have a doom track of 12 or more. So, unless you close without sealing a gate and then later on another gate appears in the very same location, it's impossible to have the AO awakening because its doom track fills. You have to care only about the gate limit, but being a little careful with the frequency of the locations, you should be able to seal the most important ones and be safe. Do not worry about the game being too difficult; in fact, the base game is not difficult at all, you just need to become a little more accustomed to its mechanics and then everything will become easier :.smiling:: And yep, welcome to the Carinval We're a strange family, but I hope you'll feel at home ::smiling::

mi-go hunter said:

Shouldn't this read, "if you DON'T have a chance of sealing it"?

He probably did mean that, but even then that's not true.

Say you've got a couple seals down, and there's only one or two open gates on the board, and you have as many investigators available. Send them in! If no more gates manage to open up before the investigators return, then you might be able to close those remaining gates and win by closed gates (so long as you have enough gate trophies).

If you fail, there will probably only be one new open gate, so send someone into that gate. Everyone who's not involved in this fiasco will spend time gathering clues so that their gate-jumps will result in seals.

The Old Man said:

Oops! Good catch Old Man. That's exactly what I meant.

And you're right Tibs. If there are very few gates left and you have a sufficient amount of gate trophies, you probably should dive into OWs as soon as possible. It's best if you could try and seal them though, just in case.

mi-go hunter said:

Once in a multi-investigator game I hopped in the only gate open while one person went shopping, another clue-hopping. Turns out I got two clue encounters in the OW and emerged, and sealed! Albiet you shouldn't rely on that, but it was kinda fun, at least!

EcnoTheNeato said:

In times of desparation we do take a chance and send an investigator through a gate with only 4 clue tokens and hope for some good fortune (especially if we have Gloria Goldberg in play).

That also brings up some good advice - look at what special abilities your investigator has and work as a team to get the best results. Perhaps look at tooling one of your investigators up to be a slayer of beasts to keep the number of monsters in Arkham low, whilst the remaining players look to close & seal gates.

Ah, good call. Not only abilities, but also skills and allies! Weapons and money can be traded, but those other things cannot! So chances are the one with Bravery or Marksman will be your Streetsweeper, the guy with a Credit Rating Skill can be the shopper, and whomever with the most clues can be your gate-closer. The roles can change mid-game, of course, but those things can help determine what you might expect a certain Investigator to do right off the bat!

EcnoTheNeato said:

Unless McGlen gets Expert Occultist. You shouldn't make this guy cast spells if he receives such a useless skill.

Heh, that's, well, also true. Maybe he can read tomes with Revelation of Script? Sometimes people like Jenny Barnes gets Stealth or Sneaky and those go to waste, too...

Just wanted to thank everyone for the advice. Those tips about the frequency of gates opening at specific unstable locations are exactly what I'm looking for. Didn't realize that gates opened so infrequently in the Science Building and Historical Society. That'll be very helpful for prioritization (we did have a gate in the science building last time around, from what I recall).

One other question I didn't see addressed in the manual: When can you sell items? I assume you have to be in a shop to do so, but does it have to be the shop that normally deals in those items? Common items in the general store, unique items in the curiositie shoppe, etc.?

You can only sell items if you get the right encounter. Unique Items can probably be sold in the Curiositie Shoppe, and both types of items can probably be sold in either store.

Once in a while somebody might buy something off you at Hibb's. I can't remember if that was an expansion encounter though.

mi-go hunter said:

I strongly disagree with this. A) when you have a very large number of investigators, you might want to close one gate per game without sealing, early on, just to try and prevent yourselves from getting knocked out by a bit of bad luck and the gate limit (plus you'll get a nice trophy out of it early on, potentially useful for getting a good ally early). B)certain gates are extremely low frequency, and if you seal them, it can actually be a bit of a waste (especially if clues are scarce) targeting a medium or high frequency gate is a much better idea (since it will slow down the flow of monsters). Statistically, I think you're better of possibly closing one or two low frequency gates without sealing, unless you're swimming in clues, or if for some reason if you just don't mind leaving it open (because you have the gate limit under control, or you're running out of time).

Also, generally speaking, you may find this helpful.

http://www.arkhamhorrorwiki.com/Basic_Strategy

mi-go hunter said:

Actually, The Black Cave is a medium frequency location ;'D sorry to disillusion you.

Oh, you're about to find that the base game is going to become disgustingly easy. So, if you want to make it harder, either get an expansion or message me. I've made some base game variants that fix its difficulty levels once you understand the base game mechanics.

Tibs said:

And there's a pawn shop on one of the expansion boards.

Im finding the base game far from easy

H.P. Lovecraft said:

Then you either don't understand its strategic mechanics or are playing it RPGishly. It's really easy to break it if you understand it. You can get sealing victories with a single investigator over 50% of the time. With two investigators it just becomes hellishly easy.

Avi_dreader said:

But if we just play to win and analyse the strategy and check out gate opening frequency before we play then it seems to me this just takes away the actual fun of playing. This game is fun to play, thematically rich and immersive (one of the best, if not THE best of the boargames around) and I mean fun to play WIN or LOSE...

Agreed, I wasn't equating it being hard for me so far, to it not being fun to play, to tell the truth I never played a RPG game...maybe thats why its more difficult for me personally, this is the only board game of this type that I have ever played, which Im sure also has something to do with it. I think maybe Im playing it too much like a regular board game, having no expirience with cooperative type games.

Elendil23 said:

THANK YOU, Elendil23.

Avi! No! Bad metagamer! >THWAP<

All kidding aside, Arkham is one of the most accommodating games ever. It supports roleplayers, feeds rulebook lawyers, and welcomes bring-it-on game crushers. Play for the theme, play for the mechanics, the wins, the losses, the tales around the 19th Hole. You'd be hard-pressed to find two veterans who play it the same way, or even talk about it the same way.

.........but it's still fun to hit Avi with the paper. Woo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo!

Elendil23 said:

I agree with your statement, Elendil. If you play Arkham Horror by just numbers, statistics, and probability, it won't be fun anymore. But I still value the aspect of playing to win. And it's even more fun that no matter how hard you play, your plans end up futile as the Ancient One crushes you like ants!

I play two different ways: When I play by myself, I play to win. It's not fun if I don't, otherwise :-p I, of course, don't always win, but it's still fun.

When I play with my friends, it's mostly for RP and enjoyment. Sometimes I jump into a gate without 5 clues just because. Why shouldn't Tommy Muldoon wanna throw himself into the abyss if he thinks it'll help the populace? The games are longer when I play with others, but it's still a completely different experience!

Oh, and HP and other newbies, don't sweat it! If you lose or find things confusing, it's okay. After a while you'll be able to know all the rules, as well as the trick/keys to winning (though some of them have been spoiled in this thread!).