Cursed City Rules opinions

[FireAbend]

Hey folks, so i watched the last view days some of the reviews out there and saw a good mix of opinions from different content producers.

Just wanted to chat (while waiting for the game) about some rules i could see be a bit problematic.

Ahead of the following things, i'm aware that nobody can have a "real review" currently, cause alsmost nobody finished the game completly.
And all my knowledge is based on this reviews (i've no copy, sadly  ^^ ).

Rules i want to hear some opinions about:

• Enemy groups seems to spawn always at the furthest portal from the heroes (would'n be a ambush table or something be cool)
  This allows a lot of easy killing the enemies cause the players have a lot of time to plan and prepare. 
• No range attacks from the enemies (except torgilius)
  Kiting the enemys
• Stun abilities from the heroes (e.g. Zeitengale)
  In some reviews i saw that they're stunning the enemies (is based on a role, so not guaranteed) was also easy even for the big guys. Thought it would be cooler if the big baddies e.g. ogres, Halgrim, ... also get an additional "defence-role" agains things like this?
• "Treasure" missions give you +influence and +fear: the idea is to go there for cool items while you let down the citizens and baddies, so you lose something. You remove a lot of the "realmstone" cards from the item cards and can go for them.
  But the reviewers said it feels like wasted time, cause the players can only carry one item per hero. Sure you can always drop a "bad" item for a "better" but this seems to feel verry grindy, for maybe 4 good items after ~1-2 hours. Good thing is, that this is "optional" so you don't need to do this missions iirc.
   

In all reviews the first 3 missions seems to be really easy, which i think they ment to be easy, right? 
But what makes me curious is that a lot of reviewers seems to be bored after only 2-3 missions and feeling the grind already.
We'll see.

I'm totally neutral, cause i ordered it already, so no regretting, just want to chat about the game

 

[RuneBrush]

I'm fortunate in that I've got my copy of the game now and have been reading through the rules and putting models together (the bats require the most amount of tidying up due to tiny claws and wings).

Myself and a group of friends intend to try and play some games over Zoom at some point (current plan is the bank holiday weekend), so my comments are based upon theoretical rather than practical.

The enemy spawns appear to vary depending upon the mission/quest you're undertaking.  For The Hunt quests they spawn at a Lychgate furthest away from the player party for example.  Kiting enemies isn't going to be easy because the board sections aren't particularly large!  My biggest observation is that the player party really needs to work together rather than trying to run solo.  The rules are written so that enemies favour the closest attackable target, so some coordination is required to make sure that ranged characters keep some distance and tanks are kept going.  Initial read through makes it feel a lot more like an rpg rather than a traditional dungeon bash where communication is key to a good game.

I'm not sure what reviews you've seen/read, what I will say is that the game appears to be written so that it's not over in a couple of sessions.  Equipment doesn't drop in the same way as if you were playing a computer game or past versions of quest and is meant to feel like a bit of an achievement.  It also requires the assistance of the whole party because one player might not gather enough realmstone on their own for an upgrade (and excess realmstone is lost between adventures).  Once I get some full games in, I'm sure I'll have a better idea on how it works out.

What I will say is that there's nothing stopping you house ruling things to make the game a bit more interesting (such as your stun resistance idea).  I did this loads in classic quest and would be very surprised if it's not something that's done in this version too.  Instant death is one that I'm currently not sure about in truth - I much prefer the idea that characters receive lasting injuries that slow them or some such so that players can continue using their favourite.

[TheOtherJosh]

Possibilities:

Give each of the gates a number and die roll where they come out. (Rerolling any number that doesn’t have a matching gate. IE 1-4, reroll any 5 or 6)

Create a rule where non-starting Equipment / Weapons / Armor can break. A Hero’s standard equipment they are familiar with keeping repaired, found stuff, not so much. If an item breaks, then they would need to go hunting for more equipment.

[Taxidermied]

In regards to the ‘treasure quests’ seemingly lacking in loot I’mguessing it was the Gorilla Miniatures review you were watching?  He unfortunately (and understandably as the rule for realm stone as scattered all over) got the rules the wrong way around.  You remove most of the cards from the deck for the other quests, then add it back in during the Scavenger quests.  Usual amounts we’ve seen per game is 2 in Hunts or Deliverance, and 10-12 in Scavenger runs.  We did have the Dwarf along who massively increases your Realm Stone chance by double dipping  the loot deck.