The personal metagame

Hello world! My name is Caleb and i like card games board games video games games in general. I have been playing different sorts of games my entire life and now I would like to share some of my thoughts and experiences with you. In order to do that I have to explain where this experience is coming from, so that you know all my drives and my biases.

Let’s get started.

The first serious game I was taught was bridge. I was about five years old and was already starting to grasp the intricacies of both the auction phase and the trick-taking phase of the game. Later came “old” board games like Talisman (2nd edition), Battletech, Aerotech and Fury of Dracula (1st edition). Midway through primary school I fell in love with fantasy literature, mainly the wonderful Dragonlance universe explained in many books by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis. This led to my fascination with RPGs, starting with AD&D, WFRP and a few other systems.

Then came the card games. It all started quite innocently with Doomtrooper and Dark Eden. Everything changed in late 90s when I discovered Magic: the Gathering. This enormous game fascinated me from the beginning. Sure, casually playing it with friends was awesome from the get-go, but then I attended a tournament. And another. And another. I even happened to organize a few. The more I played, the better I got at the game. After a few years I played in my first National Championships and the story escalated quickly from that point. I went to multiple PTQs, Grand Prix, even PTs and a couple of World Championships.

This game taught me much about strategy, tactics, deckbuilding, drafting, card balancing and playing competitively. It also put a very high expectation for all future games I would be playing. When I look at more modern board games (which I have been playing for the last 10 years or so) I seek almost infinite replayability, strategic depth and high complexity.

The first modern board game that caught my attention (mostly by surprise, as it was a semi-random purchase) was Agricola. I have played that game a few hundred times over a couple of years, always looking for better and better strategies. Then my collection started expanding – maybe even a bit too much. If you are interested in my general ratings of the board games I have played, you can find them on Boardgamegeek.com. Currently my most played games include also (alphabetically): Castles of Burgundy, Dominion, Imperial Settlers, Indian Summer, Pathfinder Adventure Card Game (Rise of the Runelords and Skull&Shackles) and Terraforming Mars. Bear in mind that most of my playthroughs are 2-player games and my opinion of many games mostly reflects specifically this player count.

In the meantime I was also heavily invested in PC games, ranging from Warcraft, Wolfenstein and Doom in the 90s to more modern titles. The ones that made the highest impact for me are, in random order, Path of Exile (over Diablo 2), Sid Meier’s Civilization (1 through 6, but mainly 4 and 5), XCOM (both the ones from the 90s and the modern ones), Elder Scrolls (Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim and a touch of the MMORPG one), all Dragon Ages and Divinity: Original Sin 1 and 2. Of course there were also computer card games, such as Magic Online (obviously), Might and Magic: Duel of Champions (R.I.P.), Hearthstone, Elder Scrolls: Legends and Hex: Shards of Fate.

Now that you have a better understanding of my gaming background, we can get started with the real topics.