Welcome to the latest episode of Cult of the Old!
Each episode your hosts Iain McAllister, Matt Thrower, and Nate Owens are going to turn back the clock to look at games that are at least 10 years old. They’ll give their own critical impressions, tell you about the history of the game and its impact, and what relevance these games still have in the modern hobby landscape.
Dear listeners, it is once again time for us to part ways. As we come to the end of our third season, let us reflect on the games we have covered. From the family friendly Ticket to Ride, to the genre defining titles like El Grande and Dominion, and the brutal chance of Blood Bowl we have covered a wide range of genre, mechanism, and complexity. However, no game this season has the reputation for sheer scale and difficulty of our final title.
Not only did our last title this season establish its designer as a powerful voice, but it took a venerable genre and turned it inside out. The civilisation style of board games is almost as old as the hobby, and our final title took this genre, stripped out a lot of the fundamentals and made a game that took the world by storm. Join us for one last time this season as we go Through the Ages.
Show Links
Below are links to the games and anything else that the team mentions during the course of the cast. We will be linking to BGG for games, designers, artists, and publishers as that is a good place to start for raw information about the game in question.
Games Mentioned
Six Sojourns - Eight Minute Empire
Other Mentions
Team Links
Iain
Matt
Nate
Support us on Patreon
Email us at cultoftheolduk@gmail.com
Welcome to the latest episode of Cult of the Old!
Each episode your hosts Iain McAllister, Matt Thrower, and Nate Owens are going to turn back the clock to look at games that are at least 10 years old. They’ll give their own critical impressions, tell you about the history of the game and its impact, and what relevance these games still have in the modern hobby landscape.
Nate: Well Iain we are almost at the end of the season
Iain: That’s right Nate and the teams have all to play for
N: Teams?
I: Yes Nate, teams. In no other sport do we get to see the sheer physicality and natural brutality brought out in such a glorious manner
N: This isn’t a sports podcast Iain, it’s a board game podcast
I: Can’t it be both?
N: I guess it could. If we covered a board game from at least 10 years ago that happens to be focused on sport
I: How about a fantasy sport?
N: Tell me more Iain
I: Well Nate, let me tell you about a sport that is not only an allegory for the animosity between many fantasy races but also stands as one of the icons of the British gaming scene.
N: Is it from a famous British Publisher?
I: You took the words right out of my mouth Nate
N: Meat Loaf?
I: No thanks I’ve eaten.
N: Enough of this, let’s get on with the show
I: You’re right Nate, let’s tell these fine folks about Blood Bowl.
Show Links
Below are links to the games and anything else that the team mention during the course of the cast. We will be linking to BGG for games, designers, artists, and publishers as that is a good place to start for raw information about the game in question.
Games Mentioned
Football Strategy Avalon Games
Terror of the Lichemaster (warhammer campaign)
Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game
Other Mentions
Tabletop Simulator Mod we used
Team Links
Iain
Matt
Nate
Support us on Patreon
Email us at cultoftheolduk@gmail.com
Welcome to the latest episode of Cult of the Old!
Each episode your hosts Iain McAllister, Matt Thrower, and Nate Owens are going to turn back the clock to look at games that are at least 10 years old. They’ll give their own critical impressions, tell you about the history of the game and its impact, and what relevance these games still have in the modern hobby landscape.
Sometimes you hear about games by reputation. The epic length of Twilight Imperium, the complexity of Vita Lacerda designs, the seemingly simple mechanisms behind the games of Reiner Knizia. These reputations can attract or repel in equal measure, and sometimes they are undeserved. The folklore around some games can be a hindrance to their uptake. However some folk tales are firmly based in reality.
The game we are covering tonight is one of those games that I knew by reputation alone. Dry, excruciating downtime, with very little in the way of redeeming features. Despite that description this is a game that has always been available, an evergreen in more ways than one. Now that I have played the game, what do I think? We will get to that. As to what my fellow hosts think, well they are in the ring and ready to fight over the classic that is Power Grid.
Show Links
Below are links to the games and anything else that the team mention during the course of the cast. We will be linking to BGG for games, designers, artists, and publishers as that is a good place to start for raw information about the game in question.
Games Mentioned
Other Mentions
The story of Power Grid - https://opinionatedgamers.com/2016/07/11/funkenschlag-at-fifteen-the-story-of-power-grid/
Team Links
Websites you can find the cast on
Iain
Matt
Nate
Support us on Patreon
Email us at cultoftheolduk@gmail.com
Welcome to the latest episode of Cult of the Old!
Each episode your hosts Iain McAllister, Matt Thrower, and Nate Owens are going to turn back the clock to look at games that are at least 10 years old. They’ll give their own critical impressions, tell you about the history of the game and its impact, and what relevance these games still have in the modern hobby landscape.
A large part of the culture of the tabletop hobby is tied up with games emulating history. From HG Wells’ Little Wars to the early days of Avalon Hill and the modern expressions of the form in GMT Games, wargames are undoubtedly a large part of tabletop gaming’s history and present. We have covered one of the icons of this genre with Twilight Struggle in Season 1, a game that sat atop the BGG rankings for many years.
Our next game this season has never had such an accolade, but has still been a massive presence over the years. Taking the more complicated wargames that were available at the time and distilling them into a fast card driven experience, it crossed the aisle into more mainstream hobby gaming. Soon it was on gamers shelves everywhere and spawned numerous, and we do mean numerous, expansions, campaign books and more. Pull up a chair and reminisce with us as we look back at Memoir 44.
Show Links
Below are links to the games and anything else that the team mentions during the course of the cast. We will be linking to BGG for games, designers, artists, and publishers as that is a good place to start for raw information about the game in question.
Games Mentioned
Other Mentions
Team Links
Websites you can find the cast on
Iain
Matt
Nate
Support us on Patreon
Email us at cultoftheolduk@gmail.com
Welcome to the latest episode of Cult of the Old!
Each episode your hosts Iain McAllister, Matt Thrower, and Nate Owens are going to turn back the clock to look at games that are at least 10 years old. They’ll give their own critical impressions, tell you about the history of the game and its impact, and what relevance these games still have in the modern hobby landscape.
Over the last two and half seasons of Cult of the Old we have covered some absolute classics. From the brutal farming of Agricola that kicked off our very first season to Catan that began our second we have looked at games venerable and revered, and some that are just past their prime Some of those games still hold their place in the hobby, but many have been surpassed as designers take the original ideas and improve on them ten fold.
This is not the case for the game we are covering tonight.
Hitting the scene in 1995, the same year as Catan, our next title quickly became a watch word for area control. Though many games have followed in this Grand Dames footsteps, none have managed the combination of simple mechanisms, devilish decisions, and twists of fate that this title nailed. Pick up your caballeros and send them into the depths of the Castillo as we explore El Grande.
Show Links
Below are links to the games and anything else that the team mentions during the course of the cast. We will be linking to BGG for games, designers, artists, and publishers as that is a good place to start for raw information about the game in question.
Games Mentioned
Other Mentions
Team Links
Iain
Matt
Nate
Support us on Patreon
Email us at cultoftheolduk@gmail.com
Welcome to the latest episode of Cult of the Old!
Each episode your hosts Iain McAllister, Matt Thrower, and Nate Owens are going to turn back the clock to look at games that are at least 10 years old. They’ll give their own critical impressions, tell you about the history of the game and its impact, and what relevance these games still have in the modern hobby landscape.
The three of us on this cast are purveyors of words. We use them to communicate our thoughts on games in the written or audio form. In doing so we hope to convey the emotions, feeling, and mechanisms behind games we love and loathe.
Words have a long history of association with games. From Victorian parlour games to modern expressions of the form in games like Codenames and Paperback Adventures. Of course here on Cult of the Old we are not interested in the modern expressions so much as the origins of word games.
We aren’t going to go back as far as the Victorians this episode. We are instead going to go back to the early 20th century. Then a game that was originally called Criss-Cross words was brought to a wider audience. It is then when it took on its modern name which you will already be familiar with. Scrabble.
Show Links
Below are links to the games and anything else that the team mentions during the course of the cast. We will be linking to BGG for games, designers, artists, and publishers as that is a good place to start for raw information about the game in question.
Games Mentioned
Tigris & Euphrates - Episode Link
Other Mentions
Team Links
Iain
Matt
Nate
Support us on Patreon
Email us at cultoftheolduk@gmail.com
Welcome to the latest episode of Cult of the Old!
Each episode your hosts Iain McAllister, Matt Thrower, and Nate Owens are going to turn back the clock to look at games that are at least 10 years old. They’ll give their own critical impressions, tell you about the history of the game and its impact, and what relevance these games still have in the modern hobby landscape.
Games come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. As consumers and critics of the form we try and categorise, quantify, and contemplate the flaws and virtues of these forms. We have tackled many games over the first two seasons of Cult of The Old from the heavier economic stylings of Brass, the negotiation heavy stylings of Cosmic Encounter, and the gentle , if grim, farming of Agricola. One category we haven’t touched on so far is that of the party game.
These games tend to take a large number of players and lie at the lighter end of the mechanical spectrum. Although not the originator of this style of game, the title we are covering today is arguably one of the most influential. Coming in a blockbuster year of titles it was the lightest of that crop to make a mark, and it didn’t really take off properly until a couple of years later. A game that allows the players to express themselves through art, interpretation and surreal imagery. Welcome to the dream world of Dixit.
Show Links
Below are links to the games and anything else that the team mention during the course of the cast. We will be linking to BGG for games, designers, artists, and publishers as that is a good place to start for raw information about the game in question.
Games Mentioned
Other Mentions
Team Links
Websites you can find the cast on
Iain
Matt
Nate
Support us on Patreon
Email us at cultoftheolduk@gmail.com
Welcome to the latest episode of Cult of the Old!
Each episode your hosts Iain McAllister, Matt Thrower, and Nate Owens are going to turn back the clock to look at games that are at least 10 years old. They’ll give their own critical impressions, tell you about the history of the game and its impact, and what relevance these games still have in the modern hobby landscape.
Many of the games we have covered over 3 seasons have an important place in the hobby landscape. From Catan at the birth of the modern board game renaissance, to the success of Monopoly, and the influence of Agricola we have covered many big titles.
The game we are covering this episode has one of the farthest reaching impacts of anything we have covered so far. Coming out in 2008 this box of cards took the hobby world by storm, spawning numerous expansions and countless imitators. The mechanism it spawned is still everywhere in the hobby, and continues to be innovated upon. Let’s get shuffling and dealing as we dive into the phenomenon that was, and is, Dominion.
Show Links
Below are links to the games and anything else that the team mentions during the course of the cast. We will be linking to BGG for games, designers, artists, and publishers as that is a good place to start for raw information about the game in question.
Games Mentioned
Other Mentions
Team Links
Iain
Matt
Nate
Support us on Patreon
Email us at cultoftheolduk@gmail.com
Welcome to the latest episode of Cult of the Old!
Each episode your hosts Iain McAllister, Matt Thrower, and Nate Owens are going to turn back the clock to look at games that are at least 10 years old. They’ll give their own critical impressions, tell you about the history of the game and its impact, and what relevance these games still have in the modern hobby landscape.
Amongst the thousands of games that are released each year into the tabletop hobby, it can be hard to stand out as a designer. Your name rings out less than the games you make, making it hard to carve a space for yourself, let alone a career. For the designer of our next game, this has not been a problem. Dr Reiner Knizia was designing games before the hobby as we think of it today existed and is regarded as one of the best of all time.
How do you know what games are his best though? Which game shows off that particular Knizia magic? When did he come to the attention of the wider community? Well the game we are covering on this episode is considered by some to be his masterpiece. A game that sat at the top of the BGG rankings for several years, has been reprinted numerous times, and is the perfect example of some of Knizia’s most famous design tropes. Let’s dip into the refreshing water of Tigris & Euphrates.
Show Links
Below are links to the games and anything else that the team mention during the course of the cast. We will be linking to BGG for games, designers, artists, and publishers as that is a good place to start for raw information about the game in question.
Games Mentioned
Other Mentions
Tigris & Euphrates video part 1 - other parts can be found from there
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRCub6Xxng0
Team Links
Websites you can find the cast on
Iain
Matt
Nate
Support us on Patreon
Email us at cultoftheolduk@gmail.com
Welcome to the latest episode of Cult of the Old!
Each episode your hosts Iain McAllister, Matt Thrower, and Nate Owens are going to turn back the clock to look at games that are at least 10 years old. They’ll give their own critical impressions, tell you about the history of the game and its impact, and what relevance these games still have in the modern hobby landscape.
The tabletop hobby has many niches within it. Maybe you are a miniatures person, battling over the table with painted models and buckets of dice. Just boardgames for you? No problem. How about being a dedicated card game player? Within these subcultures things get even more niche, but out of these specialisations seismic shifts can emerge.
The 18xx genre of games is a complicated, byzantine, and often misunderstood section of the hobby. These games see players buying, selling, and building trains and train companies in a variety of different ways. The fascination with trains in the tabletop hobby doesn’t stop with this particular class of games though. When our first game this season hit the tables, it became a household name, being translated into 33 languages and, as of 2024, selling 18 million copies worldwide. I’ll be checking your travel pass as we get on board withTicket to Ride.
Show Links
Below are links to the games and anything else that the team mentions during the course of the cast. We will be linking to BGG for games, designers, artists, and publishers as that is a good place to start for raw information about the game in question. We will also link to previous episodes where we have one.
Games Mentioned
Ticket to Ride - Legends of the West
Other Mentions
Around the world in 80 games book
Team Links
Websites you can find the cast on
Iain
Matt
Nate
Support us on Patreon
Email us atcultoftheolduk@gmail.com