I think when I was boring you with pseudo techie speak about how I was going to write this matching engine to allow me to rank my games, I threatened to write posts about some of the match ups. Sadly for you I’m carrying through with that threat at least once.

Our first match up in this series (more threats I’m afraid) is Kodama: The Tree Spirits vs Odin’s Ravens (second edition).

The winner of this match up was Odin’s Ravens. So how did I arrive at this choice?

Both games are very attractive to look at. Both theme wise are completely different. Racing ravens verses growing trees and tree spirits.

Odin’s Ravens is a two player only game. While Kodama plays two to five players. Although I have only so far played Kodama as a two player game.

Kodama is the more “complicated” of the two games. And probably the harder of the two to pick up and play after a long gap between plays. Looking back at the post I wrote when I first played (and only time at the moment) the game there was confusion over how the scoring worked. And I feel that may be the case again when this hits the table next time.I have played Odin’s Ravens more than Kodama (not by much). But even so it only takes a minute to refresh the memory on how to play after a gap between plays. And that refresh is mainly on the setup.

I think what swung it for Odin’s Ravens was it has a take that element. Using the Loki cards it is possible to interfere with your opponents progress. However doing so has repercussions for yourself (potentially) because you too will have to negotiate the hurdle you threw in the way of your  opponent. It’s not much interaction but it’s there, which is more than there is in Kodama.

There you have it. That is how I chose Odin’s Ravens over Kodama. Which would you have chosen and why?