Do you prefer light accessible games, or crunchy heavy ones?

Thanks for your great video, I always love them! I totally agree, that for those seeking for a lighter and shorter game than e.g. Maracaibo, CloudAge should work very well, those looking for high complexity, will stick to Maracaibo or GWT. It was my design goal of this game, to make our great hobby more accessible to casual gamers. And afterwards they might like to play Maracaibo 😀. By the way, I really wanted to make water, metal and energy feel differently, so with water you finance projects, with metal you upgrade your ship and energy is needed for your production and combat.

I like that this is lighter. I don’t want all my games to be heavy. Makes it harder to pull those out and replay them months later. So credit to Alexander.

Great job! Easy to understand, easy to follow, and y’all are a joy to watch. Just got this game in the mail recently, and I’m really itching to get it to the table now. Thanks!

This was one of the best teaching videos I’ve seen on this game. Very clear, cogent and helpful. Keep it up!

So excited because I'm picking up CloudAge tomorrow and this video's definitely adding to the hype! Thanks for a great video

This was a great video and you guys were fun to watch!

This helped me so much for the teach tonight. Thank you both!

My wife and I have never played a Pfister designed game. I played a little of Great Western Trail at a "learn to play session" at a local Board Game Cafe but not the full game. The fact that this game is lighter in complexity and mechanisms actually is what draws me in. I'm actually glad they went this direction with a lighter more accessible game.

Thanks you guys. We played the first scenario today, stumbling through a bit. We had watched this video and it was a help. But after we played, we watched again, it it was a HUGE help in understanding it all. We will play scenario 2 tomorrow! Great job!

Thanks for review!; just bought CloudAge and it’s our first Pfister game. Going to play it this weekend for first time.

Another great playtrough 🙂. Every time I am hesistating about the game I am interested in, I am watching you playing it and you always help me to make a decision. And I have to say I was never disappointed. You are doing a really excellent job for all board gamers in the whole world ❤️. Thank you guys 😘

Great video. Thank you for providing your opinion on player count/scaling. Many reviewers simply don't mention it at all.

Excellent review, congratulations!

I’ve been thinking about getting this game for a few months now. Now I understand there’s a second print coming in a few months with no more stickers (even though less varied cloud sleeves), less “tutorial” chapters in the campaign ad a revised rulebook. I hope it’s also getting translated into Italian, that would tremendously help to bring it to the table and not just play it mostly solo. It’s a fascinating setting and the cloud sleeves mechanism is great 👍 I don’t mind lighter games now any then, I don’t want to melt my brain every time I sit playing. Great video as usual and great design Alex 👏👏

Thank you for the video this looks like quite an interesting game

OOOHHHH - you should definitely have a closer look on the city cards again. It is not just luck. You can pretty good assume how much resources you will get. The biggest region will give you the most resources and you can most of the time see were you will get the bonus action! I am so sorry that you have missed that, that´s the most innovative part of the game! Thanks for the video I really love how precise your playthroughs are!

Love your guys' videos! Thanks for the review on this. I was similarly disappointed thinking this would have a lot more meat on its bones than it does.

I like the camera set up for this one. This game and Dune imperium are on my wish list this week. But, that list is always changing.

Totally fair review I think. And I can very much comprehend how it falls a bit flat after Maracaibo. But I think this is the game I can use to train friends and make them want to play heavier games with me in the long run :-D It teaches more turn steps, resource management while tableau building and doing all that most efficiently. All in all a very good next step after Concordia to prepare people for more complex games. Therefore it is a game I am happy to own.

I think the best part of the game is the beautifully illustrated cover :D I am looking forward to the newly announced GWT series thou!

Nice teach and play! I’m intrigued but not sold yet. I’ve never played a Pfister game and haven’t followed the rest of the designer spotlight series, but the weight looks aligned with some of the games we’re playing now. Might be on my radar for a while.

Thanks for this great description and review! I like this theme much more than those of some his ones like driving cows to slaughter (as I am vegetarian) in GWT or colonialism in Mombasa and Maracaibo. I like midweight games best and have liked his Port Royal and Isle of Skye a lot, so I hope to try this game soon! Really enjoy your videos! Thanks

I just heard about your channel for the first time the other day so I decided to check you out, and lo and behold, you decided to cover a game that is very high on my anticipation list since I love Maracaibo and Great Western Trail. I'd heard that the game was lighter than those two, and I can see a little of that from the playthrough. However, I've seen you and other people refer to it as a light game, and I don't get that impression at all. While I would say it is lighter THAN the aforementioned games, based on what I've seen it is by no means a light game. For instance, I don't think I would ever use this as a gateway game like Ticket to Ride or King of Tokyo. I can see it filling a nice niche in the middle for when I want to play a Pfister game in a shorter time period and with less melting of the brain. All that said, thanks for the great video. I now have a much better understanding of the game, and it will more likely than not enter my collection by year's end. Count me in as a new subscriber!

Just played this with 4p for the first time yesterday. Took us about 2.5 hrs including the teach. Started at Ch. 3. After a while, we ended up doing all our actions simultaneously for builds.

Thanks for the video and I hope these series that you started continue with covering future releases of games from Pfister and Lacerda. To be fair to Alexander, he did mention that the game was going to be lighter and compared it to Isle of Skye, so I guess that's why my opinion on the game differs to yours in one aspect, which is expectation. I knew it was going to be lighter and thus expected to like it less. I agree with all the other points you raised in your review. I'm hoping Cloud Age gets the same treatment as Isle of Skye and gets an expansion or two to ramp up the complexity.

Yall should keep up the airship theme and review whistlemountain!

I think this is a good intro to more complex games. I have to convince people to play heavier games, but because CloudAge looks interesting and is not super complex, it'a easier to get on the table.

On our first playthrough, my husband and I took your advice and used the 5x multipliers from the outset :) Great video as always! Thank you!

This game look so fun. I can't wait to until it's safer to meet people so I can get my friends together and try it out.

If you add the third scenario does it increase the weight / crunchiness / add more interesting decisions? Do you expect playing through the campaign would have a similar effect? Thanks!

If you like the puzzle-part aspect of the player boards you should check out Taverns of Tiefenthal; very cool. Good to see Naveen (sp?) win for once.

The water is the currency in the game, so it makes sense if you are buying project you are paying someone for something (a solar panel, a gun, etc), as opposed to making it yourself by upgrading your ship with metal (and there is a promo project card that costs metal, fyi!).

Nice review. I spotted a mistake in the gameplay: It's not deciding in the end, but Naveen doesn't get the 10 points for the card he built around 1:20:30.

Great video. What mat are you playing on?

I really like your play through videos it would be great to have your top 100 or 50 best game ever for each of you thanks

I really love your videos guys, I would love to see an Agricola Playthrough, it's one of my favorite games but my gaming group says it hurts their brain. LoL

At the final building action could Naveen build the other way around and get the water that was missing?

I am okay with heavy games from time to time, but a light game is preferred with my wife and with my game group. Whenever we are allowed to have game groups again. :-( I am certainly more of a social gamer than a strategy gamer, but thankfully they make games for everyone!

Have you two ever played any 18XX? I would love to see a video of you two playing 18Lilliput!

Did Monique just call Naveen a "disastrous stickerer?" 🤣😜

My group and I really like Great Western Trail. I want to purchase another Pfister game for my collection, I think I would prefer Maracaibo to this offering.

When are you guys gonna cover Maracaibo? :)

I still don't understand the benefit the card sleeve gimmick. Because they could just put the number on the back of the card and on the front have the effect and resource. I guess having it in the deck would give you an advantage to know what's coming next, but it's just so minor

I like both light and crunchy games, but I'm always more satisfied after a big crunchy game even if I do horribly. The last time I played Trickerion I was destroyed because I could not get to the locations I needed two rounds in a row and with only 7 rounds that was devastating, but it was still incredibly enjoyable. But Cloud Age looks less satisfying for a lighter game. If it's light then I want it to be interesting or silly fun, but this isn't hitting either of those for me.

The theme - post-apocalyptic steampunk - is indeed original, so kudos for that. Regarding the rest, it does appear to be one of those more accessible games. I suppose this is a case where Alexander Pfister's reputation works against him, as expectations were for a crunchy euro. I will be grateful if you could try the campaign and say if it changes anything mechanically, though it appears unlikely. I suppose I am kind of divided on this - on one side, I like the various upgrades and project cards (and I agree about cost variety), but I find the map actions kind of lacking, especially the growth tiles. Sure, the book part also doesn't look particularly engaging. The navigation deck resembles the modifier deck from Gloomhaven a little bit, by the way. All in all, it is a fine a game, but I feel it could have been more. I get that the goal was a simpler game, but I cannot escape the impression that there are mechanics and ideas that allow much more than there is on the table. Like a video game where designers didn't have enough time so they cut on some features (those playing video games can think of a very good recent example).

I’m primarily a solo gamer. I’ve played Maracaibo 3x and found that it was way too point salad for my taste to where it felt directionless. The fairly themeless feel of it also made it difficult for me to connect to the rules and the game itself (the art is terrible imo). For some reason I’m more drawn to this game than Maracaibo did. One, I think because the theme seemed to match the mechanics well and two, there seems to be more clearer direction in the decision space. Maybe I’m more of a lighter gamer? But then again I really do enjoy heavy games as well (Lisboa, brass, barrage)

(Warning! Super-nerdy comment) The production board looks a lot like the computer memory modules from the Apollo lunar lander. I wonder if that was intentional.

A couple of issues with this game I noticed: visible Victory points. I knew who's gonna win like halfway through. Secondly, the cloud sleeves are a nice gimmick, but once you get familiar with the cards, you might know what resources you're gonna get. The allure of that is gonna wear off quickly. And I always like to see whose ass I'm kicking (or getting mine kicked by), especially in a post-apo. No enemy cards with graphics, that's a big no for me.

So what happened exactly in terms of losing your Maracaibo video files? And what happened with the little technical glitch near the beginning of this video? Sorry you're having such bad luck recently. I know how infuriating, and time-consuming, that can be. 😫

makes perfect sense to make a lighter game for all the folks out there who "envy" missing out on Pfister's heavier games

I watched your Red Cathedral video and you explained it so clearly. I tried watching two other vids and just couldn't get it. Maybe it's Monique's voice, it just enters my brain in a good way, hehe. I was happy to see the 'fantasy' theme of this game as the racist aspect of Maracaibo turned me off from playing it

Really cool game, if you are looking for a gamer gateway game, but I feel it has really low replayability. After two 4 player games, I feel I saw everything. The card are samey, 5-6 types with small variation. The campaign is...well, take it or leave it, nothing special. Anyhow, good game, but not great.

This review feels a bit unfair as you are really saying the game is not what you want not that it is bad. I say this as someone who does that a lot! If someone designs "the best game ever" then designs another game it is incredibly unlikely to be as good even if it is way above average. That's regression to the mean. Your mistake was to have hope - hope is the first step on the road to disappointment. (Praise the god emperor!) Anyway it tells me it is one to play the copy someone else in my group buys and not to gat my own so thanks for that.