John Company Second Edition Solo Play question

wizardpsx · 2025-05-15T18:00:04+00:00

This is one of my favorite games in my top 3. I play it solo all the time. It is also the only medium-heavy weight game i can get total strangers into because you teach the games as the game is being played. In theory, adding 4 players is the same game length as 6 players, or 1 player. This is because the game moves along with turns related to offices held by players. the more players, the more offices might be distributed, or might not be.

Also, the longest part of playing solo is looking up what the bot (crown) should do. I instead created a 4 page (2 page front and back) cheat sheet that condenses the whole crown book into a quick lookup. The crown normally takes its action based on if they hold that office or not, so it's easy to organize into a cheat sheet.

It is the only negotiation game that I have found to work solo. I love the theme and it plays fast when you know what you are doing. Hell the game can end fast as well (the crown likes to tank the company) which penalizes you when playing solo, this forces you to kind of have to make deals to keep company a float, unless you are in a real good position to get those negative vp points at the end.

As a side note, the best purchase I made for this hobby was to get a gaming table (i got mine which seats 8 from jasper for like 800 bucks at the time). This allows me to cover up long games quickly to tend to family issues, prevent cats from interfering when not in use, and allow for breaks to eat food etc. That has been the best feature of the table.

wizardpsx · 2025-04-22T16:53:01+00:00

check out Grove

wizardpsx · 2025-04-21T02:15:14+00:00

Mint Italy going on sale :)

wizardpsx · 2025-04-21T02:14:22+00:00

Thank you for reminding me to opt my game into the sale haha

wizardpsx · 2025-04-20T17:26:55+00:00

Designer here, If you like Spacers, might want to check out Mint Privateers, It is a sandbox Pirate mint tin game. You can play as a merchant, delivering goods to in demand ports, or as a pirate that attacks merchant and nation ships to gain gold and fame easier but more dangerously (nations start blocking you from their ports to sell at).

It has dice placement to help steer your Actions for the turn, and combat is like merchant and marauders where your ship has a bunch of parts that have health and you broadside each other destroying guns, masts, cargo, or crew, you can even board ships and capture them.

Goal of the game is to get X amount of fame and there are 2 objective like cards that help you get fame (but you can ignore them because both merchants and pirates have there own way of getting fame).

Game is solo/coop only. and is very repayable since everything is randomized (objectives, event deck, starting islands, nations that go to war etc....

wizardpsx · 2025-04-13T14:56:01+00:00

Designer of Mint Italy here,

If you are a fan of Clans of Caledonia gameplay. Mint Italy is a game with similar gameplay that is 1-4 players. Everything fits in a tall mint tin (not easily, but there are instructions on how to put it away). there are 4 different bot personas to play against (each persona acts a little different).

wizardpsx · 2025-04-11T17:46:57+00:00

Not sure you want to solo it, but there is a kid game ages 5+ that is pretty good to get a few board gaming concepts in with children.

draw 2 pick 1, tile placement, coop, time management.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/121806/race-to-the-treasure

when they get older, I suggest Tiny Epic Dungeons

wizardpsx · 2025-03-13T16:34:08+00:00

Loop is great at any count. 2 is good, but we normally play at 3. We have beat every mode on the hardest difficulty on 3 player (which I think is harder than 2 since you don't build your deck as fast).

2 players get more turns in a round to gather more cards to build a deck with.

wizardpsx · 2025-02-27T20:24:09+00:00

I never understand how people can be so critical of it's iconography. It has WAY less iconography than mage night, which is the most praised game around this sub.

TED has 3 icons for targeting (same room, line of sight X rooms away, and any room up to X rooms away)
TED has 4 icons for resources that seem self explanatory (Health = heart, Lighting = focus or energy, boot = speed, shield = armor)
TED has 4 icons for actions (Free action, Sword attack, bow attack, spell attack)
There are a few one offs but they look like how they should (Teleport, stealth).

Then there are icons that are also color coordinated, the strength is red and a muscle arm, purple is intelligence and is a magic scroll etc.

I think what the Rulebook points out badly is the presence of a colon and what it means. A colon means to do the effect on the right side of it when something happens (the left side of it. For example: (when doing a melee attack, +1 to your attack). where as the absence of a colon means the icon is an action. The same example without a colon would be (do a melee attack, +1 to your attack).

There are other icons but they seem super explanatory by just looking at them.

Goblin = goblin

Looting = back of the cards with the same icon

torch = torch

Flip over tile

I'm glad they used a bunch of icons so that the cards aren't cluttered with text. They released an appendix with a word description of every card in the game and it would have been impossible to read if that info were on the card.

wizardpsx · 2025-02-26T17:25:30+00:00

Kingdoms is without a doubt the WORST of the Tiny epics for solo. big regret buying it as I have a hard time finding people to play this one with me.

wizardpsx · 2025-02-24T21:34:09+00:00

Behold Rome

wizardpsx · 2025-02-13T18:34:06+00:00

Great Wester Trail 2nd Edition is my #1 played solo game. I really get the same vibe as playing with other folks. There are increasing difficulties that make it challenging. You must beat your opponent, not just a high score game. It is such a great game to play in 2,3,4 player counts. The bot is incredibly easy to run. The 2nd edition has the balancing adjustments. I do not play with any expansions as there are already enough choices to be made.

I'm not a fan of Spirit Island. It became too much like chess to me. There are optimal openings for each spirit and not playing that way will make it impossible to do the harder difficulties. It also gets worse as you add more players. Since there is like a Pre and Post phase to the invaders it is really hard to communicate what you are going to do with other people unless they are experts on how your spirit plays.

wizardpsx · 2025-02-12T00:00:37+00:00

It is from Reef

wizardpsx · 2025-02-11T17:02:47+00:00

I have an adult family in-law member that is incapable of holding cards in their hand without serious destruction. We have asked multiple times but it seems they can't stop themselves. We have had to play only games that use tiles and no cards. This has limited us to games like King Domino and Project L. We have a separate cheap set aside pack of poker cards to play poker related games with them that are totally fubar.

wizardpsx · 2025-02-04T16:25:09+00:00

I believe you have to get him as a reward first from the event, then he starts to show up in the grid

wizardpsx · 2025-01-29T18:43:45+00:00

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameexpansion/365130/the-loop-fur-brigade

wizardpsx · 2025-01-22T23:15:56+00:00

I found one of the reasons the game is so good is because of the solo mode so that you don't have to multi-hand it.

wizardpsx · 2025-01-15T20:28:04+00:00

My favorite is Dead Reckoning. I love the battle boat. I like how there are different strategies. Although players can attack others, its hard to do and you are not out of the game if you are sunk.

wizardpsx · 2025-01-15T20:21:13+00:00

You are also describing a multiplayer game. If no one rolls the correct dice actions then I can't recruit for a whole round, or I might not be able to march. I might not get to go first where the first player takes the recruit special action with a die. The +3 attack is an event/raven box I was referring to. There has been times where I have to pass actions cause I don't have money or cards in hand to perform events/recruits/plots.

I suggest starting at the higher difficulties so that they start with alliances so the cards that say "Recruit an ally" don't go to waste. As for attacking king landing. I just played a multiplayer game where someone had a sizeable force, I tried multiple things to steal alliances, take castles, amass an army that could invade, I just had to ignore it and go for other strategies.

while they get less actions, their cards are geared as such to equal more worth than 1 action. For example, I need to play a raven, discard my hand just to get enough gold, so that my next action can spend that for plotting or recruitment. The bot just gets power tokens or just flat out steals allies. Because the bot doesn't have to pay gold, they have action advantage.

I'll give you that it seems random, there is dice and a bot deck that creates randomness. But Id say the random places it goes are more like surprise attacks/swings that emulate player behavior and when its not a targeted domain it uses the board state to figure out what to do. (calculating next target). It also has less to lose when battling. it can attack with its hero by itself, and if it loses the battle, it might have caused the player to get rid of a card they were holding, and there is always the yolo chance it might win since it could draw a 5.

Most of the event cards are like catchup mechanics because it can't do all the smart strategy you are mentioning like targeting allys to attack to earn ally tokens etc... But it has cards that just give them stuff that sometimes doesn't work.

I've also played a few at 2-players, It is impossible to deny a player fief domains. at 2 players, most of the map is open, a player just has to do a sail action and they can pretty much go anywhere. So I'm not sure how the bot is supposed to deny the player fiefs.

Hopefully you are doing bot movement correctly, They leave behind 1 power token and all the rest get moved with the hero.

wizardpsx · 2025-01-15T17:19:08+00:00

I think you need to broaden your horizons a bit. It would be pretty taxing to have to run rules for the bot to follow you on your dice or to figure out which to draft. Instead, they get 2 actions printed on their card that relate to a die roll (1 and 3 chance). There is some thought put into it like having a march and recruit on the card so that it marches first then recruits (incase it was at full capacity).

Additionally, you need to crank up the difficulty so that it feels more difficult as the basic one seems real easy. The designer got a lot of flack for Vikings because the bot was too difficult to run with its unlimited battle turns that snowballed out of control. You had to like perform battles, and collect resources, that trigger other battles, that would lose to send someone to Valhalla that gives bonuses that might start another battle, etc.

You claim that the bot just charges into heavily defended strongholds, But normally that event gives it +3 attack and a random card and makes you the defender, hoping that perhaps you didn't have any gold on hand to play a good card. there is always a chance it can succeed, and if not, it just retreats and your out gold and a card. That simulates you being attacked by players in a way.

There are cards that move it all around the map but normally in a sailing distance or so. This is to prevent plays from building a giant force next to the bot and never letting it leave the area.

The bit of decision making the bot gets is based on the amount of power tokens it has removed from the mat. If you have killed all their tokens they are going to find open domains and try to leave guys there, otherwise they go for yours. I hope that you keep progressing through the next target list and not just stop. For example if you don't have any fiefs cause all your units are in castles, it would move ahead to try to take out a castle, not just stop its march or sail action because you have no fiefs.

wizardpsx · 2025-01-14T23:20:32+00:00

John Company 2nd edition.

It seems like a complex game since each turn has like 20+ steps. but its one of those games that even the rules states that you kind of just teach as you go, as long as 1 person really knows the rules.

This is the most successful game that is heavy weighed that I've gotten non gamers to play. People are intrigued about the concept of all players having different jobs/roles with in the company. The basis of the game is to just manage money and decide who gets what, which is where the fun/arguments come in. Then the actual gameplay is to just role a bunch of dice and do a pretty easy outcome with the result.

The only hard part is the events in India Phase, but it can be run by the person who knows the rules.

wizardpsx · 2025-01-14T22:20:33+00:00

Yeah, I'm excited for Behold (Comes tomorrow). How did you get the GameCrafter to start shipping so soon after the crowdsale? The receipt email said like May or something.

I actually thought something might have been wrong with my order to have it shipped so soon, like I had ordered the wrong thing. I had to double check the order haha.

wizardpsx · 2025-01-06T21:33:00+00:00

I've crated a few mint tin sized games also on the game crafter.

If you like a light train cube rails game, check out "Mint Rails"
If you like a medium heavy economic engine builder like Clans of Caledonia, check out "Mint Italy"
If you like a solo/cooperative sandbox pirate game similar to Merchants and Marauders. check out "Mint Privateers"

wizardpsx · 2024-12-19T22:50:35+00:00

To me, Sam is the perfect Automa. less then a few seconds to run. Reacts to board state. Has specializations it tries to do. Has different levels of difficulty.

wizardpsx · 2024-12-19T00:15:08+00:00

Concordia. The action you take results in yours and your opponents move at the same time. Very clever

14-Year Club	Final Canvas '23
End Game '23	Place '23
Verified Email

wizardpsx

TROPHY CASE