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Johan Haglert
Sweden
Örebro
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Jokerman wrote: Also you may not have any or many credits left to buy tiles at the end of your turn and you can swap them out if you wish to anyway.
We found our selves more often buying tiles out of the discards anyway so you can see what you get.
Its just sooo much fun passing then passing again then pulling out a 4 point hth for frank einstien and squashing a puny zombie with one hit when he thought you were spent. love it.
Everytime I play this im thinking up new strategies. I read it as a complaint but then you seem to like it?
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Robin Powell
United Kingdom
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I personally would like it to be more sci-fi/horror without going down the usual zombie killing path. Though they clearly say in the rules under the large miniatures section that more will come with expansions, so my fantasy "big deformed monster that kills everything" figure may still be coming down the pipeline, hopefully a very large one...
I have to admit I slightly preferred Doom (which this game seems to be heavily influenced by), a) because of what I mentioned above but mainly I love the way the marines have no idea what's around the corner and have no idea of what direction leads to what, with all kinds of possible shapes a board can hold with a range of different enemies and items which the rooms and corridors may or may not be loaded with. In comparison, even though the board's still constructable you stall aways seem to get the usual rectangular block of rooms with a path way around, BUT Earth Reborn is far ahead of Doom in terms of how they gave the rooms an actual purpose and use and has all kinds of a variety of objectives which Doom just doesn't have, and the variety of game boards you make IMO still far exceeds the level of variety of most other games with constructable boards I've played such as RuneWars, Twilight Imperium and StarCraft, and the Mage Knight board construction looks much less impressive than ER's.
Earth Reborn has so many positive features though it generally blows the small minority of negative ones out of context. It's surprising just how much you can do in the game other than the obvious 'shoot the guy in front of you' thing, you can torture characters, hijack mechs, drop mines, blow open walls/doors/electrical equipment, take prisoners, scramble communications, place decoys, raise zombies, use the fit girl to honey trap that guy who has a thing for her into befriending his friends, taser enemies to stop them from blowing your head off and too many other things to mention, and it still somehow manages to allow you to have that much choice and at the same time not melt your face off with complexity.
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Dennis Gadgaard
Denmark
Hvidovre
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Jokerman wrote: KenToad wrote: [q="shnar"]There's not enough people buying the game? Finding other players who want to play the game?
Honestly, I still don't like the Command Points and the voting system. I understand it all, and even though I'd prefer a different system, I can't think of a better way to implement it. It's also one of the harder things to explain to new players.
-shnar These are my big things, too. Also, the order tile/CP system is very constraining and just not flexible enough for my taste. Sometimes, it feels very stupid to have a character who tries and fails to do some simple thing, like turn something on, literally over and over. And then, on top of that, you're scrambling to find those high value Interact Order Tiles, which can be an exercise in frustration. Also, at the end of many of the Rounds (which, in a huge blunder, are called Turns in this game), both players will just pay CP's to draw a bunch of order tiles. It just feels kind of dumb. It's a game that you have to seriously invest to learn, then to not seriously invest to play, because otherwise those random failures are going to piss you off, a weird dichotomy overall, especially given the theme. You'd think that the game would be lighter, with Zombies and Mechs, and yet less Random with 44 pages of rules and 10 Tutorial Scenario Sounds like you need to be spending points during your turn to pull orders from the discards. That way you will have more powerfull orders during your turn and less chips at the end. instead of imagining your character not being able to press a button imagine them looking through a manual to work out what they need to press or recalling how the machine works or something. I think the order tile system is cool in that you have to balance activating characters with building a powerfull usefull hand of tiles. Also you may not have any or many credits left to buy tiles at the end of your turn and you can swap them out if you wish to anyway. We found our selves more often buying tiles out of the discards anyway so you can see what you get. Its just sooo much fun passing then passing again then pulling out a 4 point hth for frank einstien and squashing a puny zombie with one hit when he thought you were spent. love it. Everytime I play this im thinking up new strategies. I think some people dont want to make the adjustment to planning need before you act in this game which is fair enough.
Just a thought; If you really don't like the order token mechanic, you can try playing without it. Simply spend CP on whatever order you like up to 4 at a time, while retaining the normal constraints of max CP per turn for each character and not being able to perform more than two orders when interrupting. That would eliminate the dislike of buying order tokens as well.
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Fabio Calzolari
Italy
S.Lazzaro di Savena
Bologna
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Every one have his tastes, but i think that what a lot of poster here dont like is, in substance, the amount of asbtraction between what the player do and what the game tries to simulate.
As example, CPs are an abstract, handy way to simulate time and to break in fraction the player turns.
If you spend CPs it means that the character is spending time to do that thing. More CPs = more time spent = better result chances.
Interrupts works the same way: bidding for CPs is a later declaration of how much time the two characters have put on looking around very carefully and alerted while walking to the point they will meet.
Order tiles represent the "randomness" of a battlefield, when things can goes worse or better for a lot of unexpected, unavoidable reasons. It is just a better way of the standard "roll for initiative, winner moves first", but it is meant to simulate the same events. Spending CPs to buy Order tiles again is a mechanic that simulate a Commander reorganizing the team and thinking about what to do for a moment.
Searching is an awful mechanic, but it have a meaning: instead of drawing a card and say "oh, i got this", you have to think, manage and take decisions about what and how to search. It is too much work for a simple thing like searching? perhaps. I don't like research rules a lot but they let me "play" even during that turn moment.
So, my suggestion is just to try to envision what's happening on the battlefield, and you maybe will jump over the (uncommonly large) simulation/game mechanics gap.
And perhaps then you'll not like the game as before, but i'd not call ER mechanics "awkward", as each one have its very reasons and are almost all very original solution to a very old and overstretched genre like "skirmish on a grid" (which i like a lot) 
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Ian McCarthy
United States
Milwaukee
Wisconsin
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DenGad wrote: Jokerman wrote: KenToad wrote: [q="shnar"]There's not enough people buying the game? Finding other players who want to play the game?
Honestly, I still don't like the Command Points and the voting system. I understand it all, and even though I'd prefer a different system, I can't think of a better way to implement it. It's also one of the harder things to explain to new players.
-shnar These are my big things, too. Also, the order tile/CP system is very constraining and just not flexible enough for my taste. Sometimes, it feels very stupid to have a character who tries and fails to do some simple thing, like turn something on, literally over and over. And then, on top of that, you're scrambling to find those high value Interact Order Tiles, which can be an exercise in frustration. Also, at the end of many of the Rounds (which, in a huge blunder, are called Turns in this game), both players will just pay CP's to draw a bunch of order tiles. It just feels kind of dumb. It's a game that you have to seriously invest to learn, then to not seriously invest to play, because otherwise those random failures are going to piss you off, a weird dichotomy overall, especially given the theme. You'd think that the game would be lighter, with Zombies and Mechs, and yet less Random with 44 pages of rules and 10 Tutorial Scenario Sounds like you need to be spending points during your turn to pull orders from the discards. That way you will have more powerfull orders during your turn and less chips at the end. instead of imagining your character not being able to press a button imagine them looking through a manual to work out what they need to press or recalling how the machine works or something. I think the order tile system is cool in that you have to balance activating characters with building a powerfull usefull hand of tiles. Also you may not have any or many credits left to buy tiles at the end of your turn and you can swap them out if you wish to anyway. We found our selves more often buying tiles out of the discards anyway so you can see what you get. Its just sooo much fun passing then passing again then pulling out a 4 point hth for frank einstien and squashing a puny zombie with one hit when he thought you were spent. love it. Everytime I play this im thinking up new strategies. I think some people dont want to make the adjustment to planning need before you act in this game which is fair enough. Just a thought; If you really don't like the order token mechanic, you can try playing without it. Simply spend CP on whatever order you like up to 4 at a time, while retaining the normal constraints of max CP per turn for each character and not being able to perform more than two orders when interrupting. That would eliminate the dislike of buying order tokens as well.
Yeah, I thought about this too, but it would need more balancing that I don't want to do. For instance, you couldn't just allow any character to perform a 4 CP shoot order anytime because there are only two order tiles with a 4 CP shoot order in the game. There are only 5 order tiles with a 3 CP shoot order.
When I think about this game critically, I'm not sure if I like the CP limits. I get a lot more excitement out of Space Hulk and it's far simpler in this respect. I also think that the abstraction of Command Points just works better in Space Hulk.
For me, I think that it's related to all these limits, per round CP limits, Order Tile limits, and finally Character CP Limits (the only one of these that exists in Space Hulk). I love the idea of variable character CP limits and the rules for the reduction of those for wounded characters. But the Order Tiles and the limit on per round CP's just seem like unnecessary shackles at this point.
There is so much to love in this game, though, that I'm not going to sweat this. If someone asks, though, it's my main criticism of the game mechanics, far too gamey and limited Order Tile/CP system.
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Luke Stirling
Australia
Southbank
Victoria
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KenToad wrote: DenGad wrote: Just a thought; If you really don't like the order token mechanic, you can try playing without it. Simply spend CP on whatever order you like up to 4 at a time, while retaining the normal constraints of max CP per turn for each character and not being able to perform more than two orders when interrupting. That would eliminate the dislike of buying order tokens as well. Yeah, I thought about this too, but it would need more balancing that I don't want to do. For instance, you couldn't just allow any character to perform a 4 CP shoot order anytime because there are only two order tiles with a 4 CP shoot order in the game. There are only 5 order tiles with a 3 CP shoot order. When I think about this game critically, I'm not sure if I like the CP limits. I get a lot more excitement out of Space Hulk and it's far simpler in this respect. I also think that the abstraction of Command Points just works better in Space Hulk. For me, I think that it's related to all these limits, per round CP limits, Order Tile limits, and finally Character CP Limits (the only one of these that exists in Space Hulk). I love the idea of variable character CP limits and the rules for the reduction of those for wounded characters. But the Order Tiles and the limit on per round CP's just seem like unnecessary shackles at this point. There is so much to love in this game, though, that I'm not going to sweat this. If someone asks, though, it's my main criticism of the game mechanics, far too gamey and limited Order Tile/CP system.
The main issue when it comes to balancing this is that the players have very few models, and a game only lasts a few turns as it is. Upping the limit of any action up to 4CP at all times would make for much more deadly combat, and a game that can end in far fewer turns. Also, missions would become far less interesting if whole sides get wiped out almost every single game. So I agree this is not a simple fix.
For me, ER is something of a hybrid game, being both a skirmish combat game as well as a abstract resource management game. The CP/Action Tile mechanic is probably my favourite part of the game. I like how it adds a global resource management aspect so that my actions anywhere on the board can impact my every other aspect of my strategy as well. At the same time, almost every dice roll can swing the game one way or another, so that it is much more akin to the high drama of a wargame rather than the dryer Euro style of game. While I do enjoy other skirmish games as well, ER scratches more of my itches at once, and for that it ranks as one of my favourite games.
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Dennis Gadgaard
Denmark
Hvidovre
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I guess a less simple fix would be to calculate a probability distribution of how "big" any given order you'd like to give is likely to be and simply rolling some dice for it, if not fixing it to a less deadly static level.
However, I'm not looking to fix ER, I do like it the way it is too.
I think that if someone out there loves the game but hates the order token mechanic, they should be able to houserule it into something else and still enjoy the rest.
Just offering an idea, and... my 2 cents are up .
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Bryce K. Nielsen
United States
Elk Ridge
Utah
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DenGad wrote: However, I'm not looking to fix ER, I do like it the way it is too.
I think that if someone out there loves the game but hates the order token mechanic, they should be able to houserule it into something else and still enjoy the rest.
Oh, I like it too, just the Order/Bidding rules are the only thing... "foreign" to the game. A lot of other tactical games like this (Space Hulk, Doom/Descent, Heroquest, etc) don't really have anything like this, so it takes a while for a new player to reorient their thinking to this style of play. But everything else is familiar ground to them (LOS, Ranged/Melee attacks, turns, movement, etc).
With such a "foreign" aspect, it'd be nice to have a variant that was not Order Tile based. And to counter the 4pt action, maybe just give every player one 4CP token that can be used only once in a Turn, and all other actions can be max 3CP. Or you could come up with specific Action CP Maxes for the characters (i.e. Vazquez can do a 4CP fire action, but only a 2CP Interact action and a 3CP Move action). I dunno, just blathering off the top of my head.
-shnar
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Ian McCarthy
United States
Milwaukee
Wisconsin
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aliquis wrote: KenToad wrote: These are my big things, too. Also, the order tile/CP system is very constraining and just not flexible enough for my taste. Sometimes, it feels very stupid to have a character who tries and fails to do some simple thing, like turn something on, literally over and over. And then, on top of that, you're scrambling to find those high value Interact Order Tiles, which can be an exercise in frustration.
Also, at the end of many of the Rounds (which, in a huge blunder, are called Turns in this game), both players will just pay CP's to draw a bunch of order tiles. It just feels kind of dumb.
It's a game that you have to seriously invest to learn, then to not seriously invest to play, because otherwise those random failures are going to piss you off, a weird dichotomy overall, especially given the theme. You'd think that the game would be lighter, with Zombies and Mechs, and yet less Random with 44 pages of rules and 10 Tutorial Scenarios.
Do you know of anything similar but better in your opinion? I haven't looked at gears of wars and the likes. i don't know how like they are. Neither Descent or Blood bowl (not totally comparable I assume but you move and at least in the later case try to add to your odds  )
I believe the designer himself mentioned Space Hulk as the game that sparked his imagination to create Earth Reborn.
I think Space Hulk is a far better game than Earth Reborn, especially seeing how hard it is to get ER to the table, and, as stated, how difficult it is to rationalize all the blind bidding in the game and why characters frequently fail to do simple things, like turn on a device or hit someone with a heavy Machine Gun from 3 squares away in a hallway.
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Roderic Sisk
United States
Washington
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I won't shy away from what others have said because repeat votes add emphasis. These are based on four plays (I have won three, once as Norad, twice as Salem, scenarios 3, 5 and 6) through learning scenario 6: This is little experience on a game this deep.
THINGS I DISLIKE SO FAR ABOUT EARTH REBORN
1) Takes a long time to set up.
2) Graphic design on the board pieces went much too far down the "cool and attractive" continuum from the "usable and practical." It is VERY hard to look at the board and see at a glance lanes of fire, paths of movement, choke points, etc... More than once an engagement has been decided just because a character could move through an area one player thought was impassable. I want to spend time planning my tactics, not decoding wall location.
3) Titanium claws. So far, every game has been won by the team which ended the scenario with those claws. At this point, I don't get it.
4) Reversing my opinion from an earlier thread, I DO find ranged combat curiously de-emphasized. Also, see #3 above: The tactical nuke in this game fits on your hand and weighs, nothing.
5) Command points / Order tiles are a little fiddly.
6) Characters seem too fast / the board is too small, exacerbating Points 3) and 4) above. It is entirely possible for many/the majority of pieces to cover all/most of the board in a single activation round.
7) The colors on the cards are, indeed, awful. I very much appreciate the wounded character art on the reverse side, however, the color coding is so weak it is, again, hard to tell at a glance what status they are.
8) After only four plays in training scenarios, my original worry seems borne out: The limited character selection already feels somewhat stifling.
9) Did I mention it takes a LONG time to set up? (Please understand that I realize much of this comes from unfamiliarity. I don't know from experience which tiles can be safely substituted for others, what rooms are on the back of which tiles, etc... Regardless, the point stands: Thunderstone gets out of the box quicker than this thing.)
END RESULT:
Right now I am left with a strange, mostly unprecedented, feeling for this game. I guess I could call it cautiously optimistic, but marked, disappointment. Given the adulation here on the Geek I was expecting more by now. We will not stop playing this game, nor will I write a review, until we are well versed enough to try the full version out a couple of times, but at the moment I have to admit, it is a let down.
That is very hard, and somewhat sad for me to admit. What a profound bummer. 
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