AToE Game Balance: Too Easy or Too Hard?

[loremasterstl]

For the record, I've played "Touch" about two dozen times. The villain only won (track reaching zero) twice. This has me concerned that the villains in ATOE are too easy--at least the ones that come with the basic game. I cannot speak for the Something Wicked expansion, since I don't have it (...yet), but the downloadable Nutcracker is significantly tougher. I can think of several reasons why the villains "might" be too easy.


For one, most of the games that I have played were cooperative NOT competitive. My wife in particular, dislikes the competitive backstabbing and takes it personal, so we try to stick to games that minimize that. But if the other players that usually play cards to assist you (like to prevent wounds or to trade items) are playing cards to help the villain kick your butt, that's a whole different story. But it still seems like villains don't have enough life, even when say, four people are playing; numerous times have we knocked out a 23-Wound vampire or horseman with hardly a death.

Another reason may be our familiarity with cards. Since I play with gamers who customarily play games like Dungeons & Dragons, World of Warcraft and Magic: the Gathering, our groups are experienced in finding unexpected advantages and "gaming" the system, learning of the likely variables and having a plan in place to respond to them. The token minions can be difficult, but the villains themselves seem not to be mighty enough when a team of players has had time to rip through the Event deck at least once, stockpiling goodies until the town goes into the red, then totally crushing the villain. We have had games where we introduce all four villains, one after another, but there are enough resources for all four to go down in quick succession (uh, I believe we called that a Major Victory).