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Seeing as my household LOVES Castles of Burgundy, I'm looking to pick up another Stefan Feld game. Trajan looks awesome with its mancala mechanic - anyone familiar with it? Is it of comparable complexity to CoB? He's got a couple of new games in prototype that look awesome, especially this one called Bora Bora which I can't wait to hear more about.
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Sep 25, 2012 08:27
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Rudy Riot posted:Seeing as my household LOVES Castles of Burgundy, I'm looking to pick up another Stefan Feld game. Trajan looks awesome with its mancala mechanic - anyone familiar with it? Is it of comparable complexity to CoB? He's got a couple of new games in prototype that look awesome, especially this one called Bora Bora which I can't wait to hear more about. Trajan is excellent - right up there with Macao and CoB for Feld games. I'd probably rank them CoB, Macao, and Trajan, but they're all very close. The mancala system can be a little frustrating until you get the hang of it, but once it clicks, it's awesome (there's nothing like a triple Senate turn for 21 points plus another nine from a Trajan tile to make you feel clever).
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Sep 25, 2012 13:02
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I'd say Trajan and Castles are both better than Macao. Macao is alright, but the whole game feels like "work" trying to avoid negative points - similar to the feel of Agricola but even more concentrated. It's a little too stressful.
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Sep 25, 2012 14:08
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I will note, Trajan is gigantic and long, so it's not necessarily for people who enjoyed Burgen.
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Sep 25, 2012 14:42
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Thanks for the opinion on Trajan. BGG says it's got a 90 min playtime (like CoB) but it does look a lot busier. We'd primarily be playing 2 players if that makes a big difference. Mundus Novus sounds fun Countblanc, will probably snatch it up this week.
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Sep 25, 2012 17:00
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Rudy Riot posted:Thanks for the opinion on Trajan. BGG says it's got a 90 min playtime (like CoB) but it does look a lot busier. We'd primarily be playing 2 players if that makes a big difference. Most of my Trajan plays have been 2p, with a couple of 4p thrown in there. Like a lot of Feld games, the flavor of it changes significantly depending on the number of players due to the reward system. In particular, the Senate becomes less interesting since each player will get a reward tile of some sort no matter what - so we find ourselves paying much more attention to it in larger games. More players also puts more pressure on the Construction and Military areas as well. At 2p we can bang out a Trajan play in about an hour. Depends on how prone you and your opponent are to AP, though. And don't let the apparent complexity fool you - I'd say it's about at the same level as CoB from that perspective (less in some ways because there aren't as many opportunities to set up crazy chains as there are in CoB).
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Sep 25, 2012 17:12
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I played a game of X-Wing MG last night with the wife. She had 2 X-Wings, Luke Skywalker, and Bigs Darklighter. I had 2 Academy Pilots and 2 Black Sqd Pilots (One of them had Determination upgrade). for a total of 53 pts on both sides. This is the first time she had played a game with the planing movement mechanic, It was a very close game, A couple turns in I lost an Academy Pilot, then a Black Sqd Pilot, on the next turn She lost Bigs, and the following turn I lost my last academy pilot, on the last turn she annihilation my Black Sqd Pilot with determination in a single shot with 2 hits and 1 Crit. All-in-all I like it, I am not sure she liked it much but she was a good sport to play it with me. Its a very fast game (this being our first game tool less than 30 mins) if it could be adapted to a hex grid it would be faster as the rulers are really the only thing that slows it down, but its not required for enjoyment.
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Sep 25, 2012 17:15
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I got the Elias/Garfield/Gutschera book "Characteristics of Games" a week or so ago - and it's excellent. Most of the content is familiar if you've spent time thinking about games, but Garfield approaches the various subjects with an amazing clarity and mental rigor. To be clear: this isn't a book about how to design games (or at least not directly, though you'll have a better understanding of game design after reading) and it doesn't set out to be anything but educational (it originated as the textbook for Garfield's class on game design theory). The book even has some exercises to go through, though they're more of the "thought stimulation" variety than the kind of busy-work/repetition you might find in a math textbook. Anyway, I heartily recommend it (assuming, again, that you're interested in games and how they work).
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Sep 26, 2012 04:09
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After ordering Mage Wars from CSI and the core spell tome from ebay it occurred to me that the price of the spell tome with shipping and the two extra 4 sleeve binders i grabbed to be different spell books was only $10 shy of the whole core set from CSI. Should have just bought a whole nother Core Set. Oh well at this rate it looks like I'm going to get another Core set anyway just to have it because this game looks phenominal!
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Sep 26, 2012 09:09
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jmzero posted:I got the Elias/Garfield/Gutschera book "Characteristics of Games" a week or so ago - and it's excellent. Most of the content is familiar if you've spent time thinking about games, but Garfield approaches the various subjects with an amazing clarity and mental rigor. Sounds really interesting! Game theory can be pretty fascinating stuff. I'm reading through A Book of Lenses which is also about game design. I think it's more about video game design in the end, but there's tons of basic game theory stuff in there that can be applied to board games.
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Sep 26, 2012 09:46
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PaybackJack posted:After ordering Mage Wars from CSI and the core spell tome from ebay it occurred to me that the price of the spell tome with shipping and the two extra 4 sleeve binders i grabbed to be different spell books was only $10 shy of the whole core set from CSI. Should have just bought a whole nother Core Set. Oh well at this rate it looks like I'm going to get another Core set anyway just to have it because this game looks phenominal! Not sure why you need two core sets? You've already got...430 cards with the spell tome.
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Sep 26, 2012 14:35
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Deviant posted:Not sure why you need two core sets? You've already got...430 cards with the spell tome. Hyperbole, I'm probably not going to order another Core Set. At least not until I've played the game and decided I really enjoy it and then want to add in even more players to a game. It seems like the turns are pretty quick unless someone has a ton of AP choosing their spells, so a giant 3v3 game could be a lot of fun. From what I read on BGG with the Tome there's enough spells to make the 4 suggested decks in the rule book with only a few cards changed out. I figure though by the time I want to buy another Core set, they'll have new expansions out anyway.
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Sep 26, 2012 15:55
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OH MY GOD GO BUY UGG-TECT You see that? That's the loving club! It's two feet of inflatable vinyl beatdown! Club your friends when they do wrong! Club your friends when they do right! Club yourself for being so goddamn stupid! Bludgeon and grunt at your friends to stop being so stupid and oh my god alex just put the red triangle on top or i will loving tear your larynx out. Deviant fucked around with this message at 04:06 on Sep 27, 2012 |
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Sep 27, 2012 04:04
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Man I've been looking forward to that game. Is it worth waiting until it comes out in English?
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Sep 27, 2012 04:15
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McNerd posted:Man I've been looking forward to that game. Is it worth waiting until it comes out in English? It is out in English.
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Sep 27, 2012 04:17
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I think it's also worth waiting to play someone else's copy. It's a lot of fun, but is not something I could see getting a lot of play. I really wanted it until I played it - a fun thing to do once.
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Sep 27, 2012 04:48
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We were thinking of picking up Small World for our next game. How is it with 2 players? We want something that's really fun for 4~ players, but play by ourselves quite a bit and want something with lots of replay value. We debated Agricola, but our friends have it so it seems silly to buy it when they live next door and we can just borrow it for now. We're also eyeing Gloom, which seems to have high replay value because of the storytelling aspect. Any other suggestions? We're looking to stick around the $30 mark. Our next bigger purchase will be Space Alert when it's reprinted (does anyone know anything about the ETA for the reprint to hit the shelves BTW?)
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Sep 27, 2012 06:45
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2 player Small World can be a very intimately brutal game. My fiance beats me every time  (And its usually by a wide margin).
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Sep 27, 2012 06:55
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Yarrbossa posted:We were thinking of picking up Small World for our next game. How is it with 2 players? We want something that's really fun for 4~ players, but play by ourselves quite a bit and want something with lots of replay value. If you have kids, Small World is absolutely fantastic. It lacks depth, and couldn't recommend it for a group with no children or teenagers involved - although it can be fun as a filler, and plenty of adults appear to love it, we own it and when we're an all adult group we just can't have a good time with it. For kids though, it is really engaging. The cartoon style characters, the colorful map and fantasy theme really appeal to them. Having lots of counters and beating up dad's dwarves just adds to it all. Can't recommend it enough if you are trying to get your kids to have fun at the table.
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Sep 27, 2012 08:44
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Yarrbossa posted:
There's not THAT much of a storytelling aspect to Gloom. " . . . and THEN . . . he gets Bothered By Bichons!" is what I suspect happens for most groups. It IS a fun enough game and the transparent cards are a very interesting game mechanic, but it's not really a storytelling game. You might want to consider Once Upon A Time or (for two players and if you can find it) Dark Cults if the storytelling replayability is what appeals to you.
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Sep 27, 2012 12:57
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Deviant posted:OH MY GOD GO BUY UGG-TECT Wait wait this is amazing. Can you tell me a little more about the way this game is played?
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Sep 27, 2012 17:47
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pw pw pw posted:Wait wait this is amazing. Can you tell me a little more about the way this game is played? You direct people to make a construct with various shaped blocks by using grunts and the club. Rules are here: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/ugg-tect/support/HB03_RuleBook_English%20v4%20low%20res.pdf
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Sep 27, 2012 17:54
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So I picked up Space Alert a couple weeks ago and we finally got around to playing it last night. It was reasonably fun, but I think it would have been a lot better if anyone (me) had actually read and understood the rules beforehand, even for the tutorial. We were making a lot of assumptions, which always turned out to be totally wrong when we actually got to the part in the book about it. We're planning on playing again some time in the next week, and I'm hoping to get through the manual at least a couple of times before then. Hopefully it will be less nonsensical then. We also played Citadels and considered playing Galaxy Trucker, which I have had for a couple months and still haven't played. Question about Galaxy Trucker though, is there a reason that we shouldn't keep the parts tiles in a opaque bag, rather than putting them all face down on the table? My table isn't all that big and the tiles take up a huge amount of space.
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Sep 27, 2012 18:41
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I would think it would be difficult for 3 or 4 people to all reach into the bag at the same time. The ship-building is the primary time-based competitive nexus of the game, and making people take turns with the tiles sort of defeats the purpose.
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Sep 27, 2012 18:45
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You want the tiles in the middle of the table because building the ship is part of the race. Everyone is pulling from the pool of tiles at the same time. You could probably get away with a messy pile in the middle, or individual small stacks. A bag would be bad, because people would be fighting over who is reaching in. Also, having the tiles spread around is supposed to help slow down someone who is looking for a specific type of tile.
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Sep 27, 2012 18:48
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My girlfriend loves the Civilization computer game (IV), so I am looking for one of those board games with a similar theme. We will be playing it mostly with just the two of us. What is a suitable one? Through the Ages ranks pretty high on bgg and it's Vlaadaa, so I'm considering that one. You also got Sid Meier's Civilization. Are there other games like that?
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Sep 27, 2012 18:57
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Yarrbossa posted:We were thinking of picking up Small World for our next game. How is it with 2 players? We want something that's really fun for 4~ players, but play by ourselves quite a bit and want something with lots of replay value. I love Small World, and it plays great with anything from 2 to 5 players (we easily play six so long as you have the expansions.) For two plays, there is a couple of powers that need to be taken out, like Diplomacy and Peace Loving. For two players, I would recommend Dominion if you don;t already have it. Pretty much everyone in this thread can weigh in on that. Also, Rivals of Catan is a fun light weight game made for just two players. It's a card game that focuses on building your towns up with heroes, building, city expansions, etc. and you can burn down the others players stuff and snipe their heroes or dick them over on trades. Me and my wife love this game, and it takes something like 30ish minutes to play. enigmahfc fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Sep 27, 2012 |
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Sep 27, 2012 18:58
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Makes sense why not to use a bag, do you think that the box top would be big enough for everyone to reach into?. I suppose we probably don't need to have the whole game set up until after we build the ships, so there really isn't a good reason not to just put them all out on the table, we just wanted to be a little more organized about it.
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Sep 27, 2012 19:02
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My coworker introduced me to Seasons on our lunch break. The drafting, changing seasons, fluctuating energy levels, and other mechanics seemed daunting at first, but it felt easy enough to grasp once the game got started. While I lost by a margin of about 30-50 points, I was assured I did well for my first time with a final score of 132. Looking forward to playing it again.
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Sep 27, 2012 19:07
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Deviant posted:OH MY GOD GO BUY UGG-TECT This... this is beautiful. It reminds me of Og, except that Og didn't come with inflatable caveman clubs with which to bludgeon people. That reminds me of another game I played once, ages ago. Can't remember the name, but it was some kind of heist/bank robbery game where you picked who you were going to double-cross by pointing toy guns at them. Anybody know what the hell I'm talking about?
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Sep 27, 2012 19:07
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stoko posted:Makes sense why not to use a bag, do you think that the box top would be big enough for everyone to reach into?. I suppose we probably don't need to have the whole game set up until after we build the ships, so there really isn't a good reason not to just put them all out on the table, we just wanted to be a little more organized about it. Sure, I just put them all in the box top. It helps separate unturned tiles from the growing pool of right side up tiles.
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Sep 27, 2012 19:12
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GimpInBlack posted:This... this is beautiful. It reminds me of Og, except that Og didn't come with inflatable caveman clubs with which to bludgeon people. Ca$h 'n Gun$ VV 
Trastion fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Sep 27, 2012 |
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Sep 27, 2012 19:15
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^^  GimpInBlack posted:This... this is beautiful. It reminds me of Og, except that Og didn't come with inflatable caveman clubs with which to bludgeon people. That would be Ca$h 'n Gun$.
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Sep 27, 2012 19:16
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The Journey Fraternity posted:^^ Why yes it would. Thanks. Anybody had a chance to play Disaster Looms yet? I just got my Kickstarter copy, but haven't had time to do much more than look at the components. I do like that a couple of the cards have a QR code that links you to a rotated-monthly event card. I don't know how well it works in play, but it's a cool idea.
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Sep 27, 2012 19:34
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Funso Banjo posted:If you have kids, Small World is absolutely fantastic. We love it, and even my 6 yr old son enjoys a game. My wife and I play 2 player games a lot and its fun. Sure its not deep but its a quick fun game.
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Sep 27, 2012 19:44
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The only game I like with both 2 and 3+ players is Ticket to Ride. Other games including Dominion and Small World lose their appeal with 2.
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Sep 27, 2012 19:49
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PerniciousKnid posted:The only game I like with both 2 and 3+ players is Ticket to Ride. Other games including Dominion and Small World lose their appeal with 2. It's a matter of opinion but 2P Dominion has a huge online community that would disagree with this.
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Sep 27, 2012 20:01
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McNerd posted:It's a matter of opinion but 2P Dominion has a huge online community that would disagree with this. The huge online community plays two player because the downtime with more than two is a lot more interminable staring at a screen than sitting at a table. Playing Dominion with cards is barely worth the setup/teardown with 2 players.
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Sep 27, 2012 20:19
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Dominion is something we have, and buying an expansion for it is another possibility although our friends next door own all the ones we don't have so that seems silly at the moment as well. I think we might give Small World a try. Thanks for the suggestions!
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Sep 27, 2012 20:28
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Poopy Palpy posted:The huge online community plays two player because the downtime with more than two is a lot more interminable staring at a screen than sitting at a table. Playing Dominion with cards is barely worth the setup/teardown with 2 players. You're on drugs, Dominion with 2 owns.
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Sep 27, 2012 20:32
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