This is the second part in a series, if you haven’t read it check out the first part, where I learn to play Pendragon: The Fall of Roman Britain, here: https://www.stuartellisgorman.com/blog/learning-pendragon, and my First Impressions after finishing a game of it here: https://www.stuartellisgorman.com/blog/first-impressions-pendragon.
Holy God this game is a lot easier to learn than Pendragon was. Part of that is certainly the familiarity with the system I developed over my two solo plays of Pendragon, but also there’s just a lot less going on and a lot less to keep track of! Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like Andean Abyss is a simple game, it’s more that I now see just how deep the water was where I first jumped in, and I understand why most people pick somewhere else. I know a lot of people learn with Cuba Libre, but for some reason the Cuban Revolution just doesn’t really appeal to me, so I decided that I should take a trip to South America instead. My knowledge of Colombian history is pretty limited, probably on par with a lot of Americans who are vaguely aware of the War on Drugs and its effects in Colombia but not much beyond that. I do know they have way too many hippos thanks to Pablo Escobar, but I’m not sure that will help me learn this game.
The game at set up. I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that I was annoyed the manual didn’t come with a picture of the game at set-up and only later noticed that set up is literally printed on the board.
Andean Abyss was initially extremely intimidating with its many counters and wooden pieces, but now that I know what they all do it doesn’t feel much more complicated in terms of moving parts than your standard heavy Eurogame. Strategically is another matter – see my rant about indecision below – but the complexity of Andean Abyss really does lie in how everything fits together rather than in the rules themselves. It helps that the three insurgent factions share most of their actions, with a few minor tweaks, so the number of actions you have to learn are significantly fewer than they first appear. Only the Government faction significantly differs from the others, and definitely presents the most challenging aspect of the game to learn.
For my learning game I set up the full deck, per the Playbook’s instructions, but I only played through two- and a-bit Propaganda Cards. The Playbook walked me through the first one, and I played through about 15 more cards after that, with a Propaganda Round triggered about midway through those cards. After that I felt comfortable with the process of play and the core actions in the game. I even had an idea about how to execute reasonably effective strategies as the three insurgent factions, which is more than I can say for the end of my learning game with Pendragon. I’m still really struggling to get my head around how to play as the Government, though. I understand all the individual actions and special abilities, and I understand what I need to do to win the game, but the steps in between are where I get lost. I can kind of make a short-term plan, and I know my long-term goal, but the mid-term planning is doing my head in.
Game state at the end of the first Propaganda Card - the Playbook would only hold my hand for one more turn - after that I was cast off on my own to sink or swim!
In a COIN game you really need to plan a minimum of a turn ahead of where you are now because you can only do one type of thing on each turn. So, if I want to build a base somewhere as an insurgent, I first need to get some of my guerrillas there so I can turn them into a base, which means I probably need to put more guerrilla pieces on the board and then move them to where I want before cashing them in for a base. That’s probably three turns worth of actions – although good use of events and clever play might speed that up. For the Government, though, I’m struggling to understand what steps I need to take now to get myself into the position I need to be in a few turns down the line. My play is still very reactive to what the insurgents were doing rather than executing a strategy of my own.
Part of this was also the challenge in playing this game four handed solitaire. Because as the insurgents I knew that the Government player had no idea what he was doing, I could kind of ignore myself and just fight the other insurgents who were obviously the greater threat. This meant that the insurgents weren’t posing an immediate threat I had to react to as the Government, which was the only thing, I knew how to deal with which compounded my inability to plan effectively. This is all very much my own problem, and I think the result of me letting my indecision as the Government player spiral a bit. I think what it really needs is a game reset and, ideally, some real human opponents to spare me from my omniscient incompetence.
The next Propaganda card came pretty quickly, so I didn’t actually change the game state very much in between them. I played for a few more turns before packing things up, feeling like I had a decent grasp on how to play.
I think that last part is important. I really enjoyed playing Pendragon solo even without the bots – just me making all the decisions. For Andean Abyss I enjoyed that a little less. I think I’m phrasing that a little wrong. A better way to frame it was that I missed having people to play it with more than I did with Pendragon. All of Pendragon’s complexity, as well as its extra doses of randomness thanks to more dice rolls, made it more engaging for me to puzzle through it myself. For Andean Abyss I really wanted the additional chaos of someone else making decisions. After learning Andean Abyss, I can see why people prefer playing COIN games with four players. This is a game that feels like it will shine when played with friends. For that reason, and because it’s much easier to teach, I’m planning to make Andean Abyss the first COIN game I play with my friends – and I’ve already started lining up a date when I can do that. Stay tuned to hear the results of my efforts!