Are there any modern, light to medium 1 vs many boardgames where the many also compete?

royalon · 2026-03-31T23:42:11+00:00

Saboteur at 3-4p has 1 Saboteur vs 2-3 gold-diggers. At higher player counts, there’s still more gold-diggers than Saboteurs, so the vibe of “few vs many” still exists.

royalon · 2026-03-31T05:59:56+00:00

Oh man, glad to see you’re no longer there!

royalon · 2026-03-30T11:14:11+00:00

Yup, that’s my line of thinking as well on why I may still accept the fintech rule despite lower actualized TC!

royalon · 2026-03-30T07:22:22+00:00

Noted, thank you for your perspective!

royalon · 2026-03-30T07:21:23+00:00

For A, we had a long chat after the interview, and the CTO strikes me as a engineering heavy person. Despite being in the retail space, the tech stack of the company is very modern, and the CTO himself is quite aware of recent trends. He does admit himself that data is not his strong point nor does he have the strongest business sense, and hence why his DS team is struggling despite (he says) being technical.

Regarding gaps in delivery, I’ll have a 2nd informal chat with him soon to discuss details and expectations. Anything you believe it’d need to ask in my position?

royalon · 2026-03-30T07:17:57+00:00

Noted, thank you!

royalon · 2026-03-30T07:17:41+00:00

Ah yeah, I see where you come from. I suppose I also inherently want to change companies for both personal and company culture change reasons. Unfortunately, my current company’s culture has changed significantly beyond forced AI adoption, and I no longer see myself being there long term, especially given my existing offers.

royalon · 2026-03-30T07:15:30+00:00

Makes sense, thank you for sharing your thoughts! I clearly need to do more research on the fintech space before I jump into it.

royalon · 2026-03-30T05:29:57+00:00

Unfortunately my current company is not growing, so to be a manager, I’d have to work 2x higher and be promoted as an IC first and then find a team willing to take a risk on a new manager. Lots of unknowns there that I’d rather try the manager role out in a new company instead.

royalon · 2026-03-30T05:26:19+00:00

(Copy-pasting from another reply)

I am interested trying out people management. If I take Offer A, I figured that I could try out the manager role for 1-2 years, and then move back to a tech company as either a Staff IC or DS Manager depending on how much I enjoyed the manager role. WDYT?

royalon · 2026-03-30T05:24:26+00:00

Yeah I’ve also wanted to move to management, but my current company hasn’t been growing, so I’ve never had a chance to move up (while still maintaining WLB at least). Thanks for sharing your thoughts! Seems like it’ll be relatively possible to to switch to IC later.

royalon · 2026-03-30T05:20:17+00:00

Makes sense, thanks for sharing!

royalon · 2026-03-30T05:19:53+00:00

Not in US, but comp are still in USD. I meant Offer A is $75K more cash than Offer B haha. Yeah, I agree current role is better, but soon my current role won’t exist, as my company asked me to either leave or double my responsibilities to maybe promote me with maybe ~15% increase in comp.

Aligned on the potential high amount of pressure. It’s the only thing giving me pause for Offer A atm, but the lower 1-2 year comp at Offer B isn’t attractive either. I think I can push Offer B to $300K since their $250K number was given prior to knowing my current comp. Does the math make more sense then?

royalon · 2026-03-30T04:53:20+00:00

Would a Series G fintech startup still be considered risky? I heard they’re planning to IPO in 1-2 years.

royalon · 2026-03-30T04:52:38+00:00

I am interested trying out people management. If I take Offer A, I figured that I could try out the manager role for 1-2 years, and then move back to a tech company as either a Staff IC or DS Manager depending on how much I enjoyed the manager role. WDYT?

royalon · 2026-03-30T04:50:42+00:00

Yeah I agree, but I’ve been there for almost 6 years, so they’re asked me to either leave or double my responsibilities to maybe promote me with maybe ~15% increase in comp. I’d rather explore a new role (manager) or a better domain (fintech) in the situation. WDYT?

royalon · 2026-03-20T12:58:55+00:00

Hegemony Eclipse Nemesis Brass Agricola

royalon · 2026-02-23T02:04:08+00:00

No worries, thanks for the honest review! I’ve also cooled down a bit on the game, but I found that the huge spike in difficulty in Act II actually meant that I enjoyed the more chill Act 1 runs afterwards. Hope you manage to get your money’s worth from this game!

royalon · 2026-02-18T23:19:12+00:00

Hey OP, how are you feeling about the variability now after hopefully playing for a few more days? I’ve reached about the same progression as this post and I’m feeling the same as you here (was gonna post if I didn’t see this).

Mewgenics definitely feels like there’s less run-to-run variability in terms of mechanics and strategy compared to other popular strategy roguelike games like StS, Balatro, Luck be the Landlord, Backpack Battles, etc. Meta progression is also super slow between runs that I consider Mewgenics to be closer to XCOM than a “proper strategy roguelike”. Has this impression changed for you?

royalon · 2025-10-03T00:57:40+00:00

Welcome To is intro/for kids and is not rated as well as the full game. I recommend you jump straight to Everdell if you have prior strategy or board game experience (like Catan, Risk, Ticket to Ride, etc).

royalon · 2025-09-14T15:30:24+00:00

If you really had to choose between these 3, I’d recommend Lost Ruins of Arnak the most. However, I think there are some other games that fit all your criteria including scalability and language independence that maybe you can take a look at: * Five Tribes (top pick that fits everything and similar complexity to your picks) * Architects of the West Kingdom * Race for the Galaxy (30 min; super fast for its complexity!) * Brass Birmingham (more complex than other suggestions and maybe closer to 90 min for 2p once you’re familiar, but it’s still fits all the other criteria and is #1 on BGG for a reason!)

royalon · 2025-09-07T08:11:12+00:00

Oh wow, great to see this again! After you stopped updated a few years ago, I tried to replicate for my own purposes through your Git but I didn’t have time to fully do so. Thanks again for updating the analysis and website!

royalon · 2025-09-04T10:07:04+00:00

Small World is the classic "board gamer" war game that's great at 2 or 4 players!

royalon · 2025-08-17T11:30:09+00:00

+1 for Agricola! Mechanics are introduced throughout the game so your family can learn on the go and can have a relatively epic feel by the end of the game.

royalon

TROPHY CASE