Earth: Abundance Review - Expansion Review + Base Game Thoughts

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Channels I Recommend (Not a comprehensive list by any means)
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Earth: Abundance is an expansion for Earth that allows you to enhance the rich gameplay of that award-winning board game with new player interactions and opportunities to curate your hand.


TimeStamps:
0:00:00 - Overview
0:04:15 - Base Game Thoughts
0:06:40 - Expansion Thoughts
0:10:31 - Wrapping Up

5.0 - My absolutely favorite games. You can pry them out of my cold dead hands.
4.5 - Love this game! At the same time missing something that would make it a 5. Could be hard to table, lacking variability, a little light, etc.
4.0 - Really great game, almost always keeping, although has meaningful complaints as to what takes away from the experience.
3.5 - Really enjoyed, don't love it, may lose out to better games but the idea of never playing again is a bit sad.
3.0 - A good game, would play and suggest with the right people, if I never played it again wouldn't lose any sleep.
2.5 - A game I'd play again , but will never suggest it myself
2.0 - A game I don't want to play again
1.5 - A game I can't find any reason to recommend
1.0 - A game that is just bad.

My Game Table (Non Referral)

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[maxjay]

Fair assessment, but i personally like these kinda game where you are not specifically hunting for an OP card and try to strategize with what you have. Make your best move to min max. It also doesnt punish newer player for not realizing certain strategy just because you played it 4 times vs a new player...

[dchan]

Any thoughts on the increased player interaction? some of the new flora cards have you gain benefits and also the other players (all or some). You didn't mention this in your review so just curious. Thanks

[karldoughty]

5/5 for me. Love Earth and can't wait to add the expansion (being able to store sprouts right from the start is another great addition).

[kimklisiak]

I'm curious to hear what you think about their $1 newsletter signup. They are running it during the campaign, not before, so its not really a fomo tactic, but for me, I still hate being asked to go to a seperate website to give my data and pay a $1 to save $7 on the expansion. I want this bad enough (need upgraded bits to match the bits from the first campaign) that they are not losing me as backer, but I refuse to do the $1 and will remain grouchy about it.

[shannimarmen]

Launchboom being used for this campaign...

[tonybowers]

Thanks for sharing and for your honest opinions.

[elqord.]

Sadly doesn’t improve my biggest gripe with the game. The absolute flood of victory points from so many sources. Scoring several hundred points makes decisions such as ‘do I play this card for 3 points or play this for maybe 7 points later’ seem completely trivial. It’s possible to look back at a game and understand what you would have needed to do beat the other players. Scores mean nothing in comparison. So whatever interaction it offers seemed meaningless to me as we are fundamentally playing different games. Also, play this back to back all games blurr. It was impossible for me to tell the sessions apart. Sold it and this expansion does nothing to get me back.

[CamObscura]

10:10 Meg, that sounds like a 7.5/10 😬

[quashmonkey]

Similar to race for the galaxy actions.

[bryanwinston]

You couldn’t pay me money to go up in player count, that’s the last thing this game needed. But the seed mechanic was/is a major improvement to the base game.