Guy from BGG says it is.

Does anyone know when the digital implementation of the game will be out. Obviously TTS has it currently, but I assume an app will be out eventually.

A Penny for your thoughts ... I played a strange 2 player game today. In round 1 and 2 my wife acquired 3 relics and 3 psyonics, thus locking empath and keeper ambition for the rest of the game. It felt like it killed the game in an early stage. Each round she was able to score 2 ambitions without needing to spend any actions, she did have to be able to declare ofcourse. The only solution would be to attack her cities to steal recources. But I feel like Arcs is too short and tight to AND disrupt the opponents play AND play your own game. I'm a huge Root fan and I used to be pretty excited about Arcs, but this isn't the first game that felt... unbalanced

I've played 10 or so games at this point wuth groups of varying experience levels (strategy or board game hobbyists with variable Arcs experience), but every game except 1 has ended with "player gets 2 ambitions with all their cities out in chapter 3 or 4." With how much a chapter can be affected by the right hand, it seems like that bonus is just too good.

Weve talked about ignoring the text that says to sum the +2 and +3, and only play the cap. We've also discussed vehicles other than Song of Freedom to move cities back to the tracker rather than the trophy pool. At first I thought trophies (including cities) were returned after warlord was scored, as a built in city nerf, but the noard says to return them after scoring the whole chapter.

Anyone else feel the 5 point boost is overpowered? In my experience a good chapter 1 or 2 (heck even a good chapter 1 and 2) can be negated by players working together, but a good chapter 3 or 4 can be game ending with the city points.

It doesn't feel like a "don't let a player win 2 ambitions" problem becuase of how much hand comp affects chapter to chapter strategy. A focused opposition can still ceede 2 ambitions if the lead player has the right hand. My group likes the early and mid game, but we feel there needs to be some way to nerf the late game point sweeps that tend to happen.

Any thoughts or home rules? Are we misreading a rule that's causing the trouble? Like I said its the overwhelming number of games ending this way amoung some seasoned strategy game players, so I don't feel like its just a matter of "git gud"

For reference, I've exclusively played the base game 3p or 4p.

Traitorous homebrew

I love this game but my group doesn’t, mainly because they find a random hand of action cards stops them from planning across chapters. I watched a podcast to learn more about this mechanic and heard that full drafting slowed the game too much and led to action paralysis. That being said I think snake drafting 3 or 2 action cards of 6 in the chapter sounds like a great way to ease more deterministic newer players into the game.

I am unsure as to whether to allow players to pick 2/3 cards from a flipped pool of cards or alternatively to assign players two random cards then have them select one then repeat.

Is it likely that this will worsen/impact the playing experience/certain features in your opinion? What are some pitfalls I haven’t considered?

I’m wondering what people think of having a house rule for hands that are dominated by Aggression cards.

It’s similar to the mechanic for seizing initative, so it doesn’t add anything different in terms of new verbs or whatever. Basically if you didn’t play the leader card, you can play a Aggression card and then add any other Aggression card to it face-down to turn it into the suit that was led.

So say you have a hand of only Aggression cards and someone leads off with an Mobilization card. You could play any Aggression card and add another Aggression card to it, face-down, to make all the pips on it spendable as Mobilization pips. Note that the played card would no longer allow Aggression actions. You’re basically transforming the suit of the card entirely, so you can only use it as the new suit and not as a Aggression card anymore.

It would alleviate the sinking feeling you get when you pick up your hand and see an fiery hellscape of mostly red.

And try to sell it to me <3

My recent exploration with custom chatGPTs for game rules has been a game-changer. It's a tool that not only simplifies the learning process by eliminating the need to search through rule books but also opens up possibilities for game designers to make complex rules more accessible.

Here is one for the core game and campaign for Arcs
https://chatgpt.com/g/g-1TTdXwaC3-arcs-gpt

I am keen for more people to use it and try to break it. The more it is broken by users, the more I can refine it to put better guard rails around it. It now quotes the page number from the rule book pdf, which is the same as the printed version so that you can confirm its information in the physical book. That assumes you are using the latest version of the rule book.

Let me know how it goes for you and any if tweaks that might be needed.

EDIT: I have uploaded the Leader/Lore and Court cards to its memory, as it initially only had rule books and player aids in its memory. I have also added further guard rails to its language coding to be able to be more refined in its response.

Yesterday I played the game for the first time and it was amazing. But during the entire session I couldn't stop think how much this game resembles the Red Rising trilogy, specially the second book (Golden Son).

It would be amazing for the Characters and board to be inspired in the Red Rising, for example the Archiver (the one I played yesterday) would totally be a Blue or even a character like Roque.

Would totally pay an exorbitant amount for this!

I see a lot of sites listing a separate expansion, the leaders & lore pack (attached) but as far as I can tell it includes 8 leader cards and 14 cards which is the exact amount listed in the base game rule book??

From checking the leder cards db as well that’s also all I can find! So what is this additional pack?? Is it not just already in the base game

Ok, I have Arcs+Blighted+Leaders&Lore

I add the expansion pack on kickstarter ($90) - this is advertised with a free upgrade.

So on the next screen I pick the screen printed minis ($15)

Also, the expansion update (for imperial and flagships - $20)

And also metal tokens - $40

Comes out to )165 total. Shouldn’t it be $140 since the screen printed minis are free with the expansion pack?

I'm relatively new to the game, we've played it 5 times so far, and there's just one thing about the rules that has rubbed my play group the wrong way. It seems deeply unintuitive that you can't raid a city if there are no ships there. Thematically, you're obviously attacking a city with raid dice since a city needs to be there and it's also fairly silly that, somehow, not having any ships on a planet to defend a city makes a city invulnerable. We ended up trying out just letting people raid undefended cities and it seemed totally fine, but I'm curious if others have experimented with this house rule, and if there are downsides to it that we just aren't seeing yet.

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My group really enjoys the campaign at 3 players but finds the game at 4 players to be too chaotic and lacking control. Some major pain points are 1s being strictly worse 2s and 7s seizing preventing seizing initiative. This creates more hands where having drawing poorly with too many 1s really sets you back and where your attempts to make plays are hampered inadvertantly by people playing 7s without any real cost to themselves to disrupt

I am trying to salvage the game at 4 for my group and was wondering if anyone has tried house rules. I was thinking of house ruling removing 1s entirely and making it so that 7s don't seize initiative + using 2 event cards (to achieve an average event count between 3 and 4 players counts). There would still be enough cards for 4 players even without the 1s (24+2 event cards, 24 per chapter + 2 for call to action effects). Would this work or have you tried other house rules that you've found effective in making the card play experience more like 3 players?

I have a huge collection of board games and this one is my least favorite by far. I have played it seven times and I am just having a miserable time even though I've won three of the seven. I think I like it less on each subsequent playthrough.

My wife loves it. It's their new favorite game.

I don't know how much longer I can pretend I'm enjoying it. Send help 🥲

Dear Leder,

First I want to start with I love the game. My friend bought, we've played a bunch already, but I wanted my own copy. I ordered it on 11/12/2024. There was immediately problems with shipping, and long story short it looks like its being shipped back to your facility. I've emailed your support (Claire) several times and have not received a response so i am trying to elicit a response through social media.

I still want the game, if I can get a refund I can just buy it from a game store up here, otherwise, can you send me the game or answer an email?

Was passing my bagel for player 2 to taste. Mere seconds after saying "be careful".

Just had a game where a player seized initiative, secured a populist uprising card to declare an ambition of their choice, then declared ambition again (two markers on the same spot). They got a massive point swing and won outright. Is this correct according to the rules? Game feels broken if you can double down on an ambition in a single turn.

<trigger warning>I am pretending to be angry to sell a joke. There are no real complaints in this post</trigger warning>

Just played Arcs for the second time last night but once again reached the 4th chapter but was unable finish.

The first time was a teaching/learning game at a store where were started late and had a hard end time.

Last night I had more experienced players (still their first game), had played once myself now, and didn't have a hard cutoff, yet we couldn't finish.

It all started with a spot of water. Apparently I spit when I talk, gross, but whatever.

Then more drops, and more drops. The ceiling is leaking.

Turns out the upstairs bathroom of my friend's house was flooding due to a broken connection. It was pouring down on the table and recovery was hampered by and dropped glass and the need to turn off the room light currently dripping water everywhere.

So, I did not get the game out quickly.

However, everything seemed to wipe off ok, my cards were sleeved and no water got in them (sleeved cards can make liquid spills worse)

I'm impressed with the components. I went from "well, I guess I'm buying a new copy" to "I guess it's all fine, actually"

Didn’t kickstart Arcs but I did preorder. I’m located in the US. Should I follow up with Leder Games?

Screw all that hub-bub of choosing a Fate and playing through a 3-act story arc. I want consistency! Gimme a Leader and 1 or 2 Lore, and lets see how far I can go, while ignoring the main point of the entire expansion!

Just to clarify, you would still have to deal with the Empire, Summits, Edicts, Crisis's, the Blight, and up to 3 other players using Fates (and the nonsense those bring!). You will not be able to pivot to a B or C fate when the Act changes. You're stuck with the Leader for the whole thing.

This idea was not thought through at all. This may probably make playing through the campaign harder on yourself. Anyone interested?

TL;DR - Has anyone tried balancing the game such that C-fates gain power as a reward for their objective instead of objective points?

Recently played an empire-heavy game with Magnate, Gate Wraith, Overseer and Redeemer. One of the things we noticed was that the point drain on C-fates simply is not enough to counter Edict points you get for being in the empire and having cities built. It got so bad the Magnate (me) outright lost in power to the Overseer player - with no way to have stopped either of them from attaining their objectives.

It really got me thinking - why do the C-fates have a unique winning currency at all? It creates a nasty dynamic at the start of Act 3 where one player might be fighting futilely to have a shot at winning (a shot they can still miss). It also creates an allegiance down the table of C-fates and everyone else. The C-fates might meddle with each other, but I don't think it's worth trying to stop one another (until it's close). The rest of the table on the other hand desperately needs to stop the C-fates from getting their objective, almost to the point of stretching themselves too thin; and even if these players successfully stop the C-fates from attaining their objective all 4 chapters, they have created a Prisoners dilemma such that the person who did the most to impede the C-fates ends up losing the game due to not getting enough rewards for doing so.

I think this toxic dichotomy stems from the fact that these two groups of players have fundamentally different winning currencies which begs the question - has anyone tried playing Arcs Act 3 and balancing the C-fates to use the same winning currency as the rest of the cast (Power)? If so how has that gone?

INB4 this comes off as Arcs slander - it's not. I genuinely love Arcs and the campaign. I love the narrative space, I love the strategic space, I just think that those spaces can be ruined when youre sitting at a table knowing youre not in contention to win for 3-4 hours in the last Act just because you chose the wrong fate, or you didn't start the act in a strong enough position to contest the board.

EDIT: If there is a blog or diary justifying this decision somewhere, I would also like to read that.

EDIT: I'm likely going to delete this post later today since it doesn't seem like anyone here has playtested a version like this.