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I only play Carcassonne with people who are better at scoring farms than me, so I'm fine with the river. This may be part of why I've never won a game of Carcassonne, but that's not really relevant.
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May 8, 2013 16:13
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Kiranamos posted:Shadows over Camelot is designed to make you feel like poo poo. I mean, the core mechanic is that at the start of your turn, you can either draw a card that ruins everyone's day, or lose 1 hit point, so, of course, everyone chooses to lose hit points so that they can actually finish something successfully for once. There's also the part where moving somewhere takes up your whole turn, which goes into what malkav said about being able to do very little at a time. I've played this game twice. The first time I hated it, but i thought that may be chalked up to two players having bad AP (between their three loving decisions), one being a whiny prick because we weren't "helping him" enough, and another who got all pissy because we didn't "role play" enough, whatever the gently caress that means. Second time i realized that, no, i just loving hate this game. A hour in I started accusing people of being the traitor just to advance the game and let the board win.
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May 8, 2013 16:26
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Verdugo posted:What are people's opinions on "The River?" I personally dislike it because it encourages mega farms, and farms are my least favorite scoring phase in the entire game. My wife and I love playing Carcassonne but tallying up and figuring out farms sucks badly. The farms aren't the problem, it's whoever draws the monastery or city river tile. Even worse in a two player game when the same person gets both. I think the expansion is best in 3+ because it encourages farms. Farms are a really important method of scoring in multiplayer games whereas a 2 player game it turns into "Did you dominate farms? You win."
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May 8, 2013 16:35
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al-azad posted:The farms aren't the problem, it's whoever draws the monastery or city river tile. Can you explain why this is?
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May 8, 2013 16:39
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In our game, the cloister/monastery linked up all the farms and made them into a giant super farm and pushed out everyone but the two winners who had 3 separate farmers all linked up.
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May 8, 2013 16:41
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silvergoose posted:Can you explain why this is? Whoever gets that cloister piece off the river is practically guaranteed 9 points. I've never played a game where that cloister wasn't finished. The city with the road across the river is also a beneficial spot because the rest of the map will usually follow that road or build off that city.
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May 8, 2013 16:52
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McNerd posted:I try to restrain my impulse to make fun of common board game superstitions, at least when they seem to somehow add to enjoyment of the game. But if an entire group would actually take it as far as eliminating someone from the game on no evidence because they were the traitor in prior games, jesus gently caress what the hell. It's just one of the things that come with having a long standing group. I've been called the Cylon despite (or because of) the fact I played BSG every 2-3 weeks over the course of a year and never once was a Cylon. It's a university board gaming club so it's interesting to have people shuffle through each year and change the social dynamic of the games we play. The moral of the story is don't play Shadows Over Camelot.
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May 8, 2013 17:06
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Gimnbo posted:It's just one of the things that come with having a long standing group. I've been called the Cylon despite (or because of) the fact I played BSG every 2-3 weeks over the course of a year and never once was a Cylon. It's a university board gaming club so it's interesting to have people shuffle through each year and change the social dynamic of the games we play. Whoa whoa whoa, back up. You've played more than 100 games of BSG and you've NEVER been a Cylon? That is a statistical impossibility. I know that it's technically possible, but seriously, the odds against that are astronomical.
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May 8, 2013 17:23
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Some Numbers posted:Whoa whoa whoa, back up. You've played more than 100 games of BSG and you've NEVER been a Cylon? That is a statistical impossibility. Every 2-3 weeks, not 2-3 times a week. That's 15-25 games, not 100+.
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May 8, 2013 17:26
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Some Numbers posted:Whoa whoa whoa, back up. You've played more than 100 games of BSG and you've NEVER been a Cylon? That is a statistical impossibility. "every 2-3 weeks over the course of a year" is only about 20 games of BSG! e;fb
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May 8, 2013 17:27
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Quote is not edit.
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May 8, 2013 17:27
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Some Numbers posted:Whoa whoa whoa, back up. You've played more than 100 games of BSG and you've NEVER been a Cylon? That is a statistical impossibility. Every 2-3 weeks, not 2-3 times a week. It's really drat unlikely to play 20 games and never be a Cylon, but not impossible. Edit: boardgoons are on the ball about picking nits. Who knew?
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May 8, 2013 17:28
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Deviant posted:
What's the story with this game? I feel as if there's more story than just "This is a bad game with a bad theme"?
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May 8, 2013 17:41
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Some Numbers posted:I know that it's technically possible, but seriously, the odds against that are astronomical. If the universe if infinite, there's countless other Earths out there with exactly the same people in exactly the same situations, only difference is your dice have all been rolling 1's. I can win the game if my one unit kills your 30, ergo somewhere in the universe, I have already won. Note: this argument does not actually hold a lot of water
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May 8, 2013 17:45
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With all this Shadows over Camelot hate going around, I just wanna distinguish that Shadows over Camelot: The Card Game is a completely different game with different mechanics and is actually pretty fun and light. I suppose if you were an expert casino card-counter it might be child's play, though.
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May 8, 2013 17:55
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Dang, ARES Games pulled a Cool Mini or Not and has this monstrous miniature coop game on Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1402889231/galaxy-defenders-co-op-sci-fi-miniature-board-game?ref=live It actually looks kinda cool, all the sci-fi ripoff stuff aside.
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May 8, 2013 20:24
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al-azad posted:Whoever gets that cloister piece off the river is practically guaranteed 9 points. I've never played a game where that cloister wasn't finished. The city with the road across the river is also a beneficial spot because the rest of the map will usually follow that road or build off that city. I disagree. It's extremely easy to trap meeples in the river's features. The best way to play on the river is to try to get farmers in on the ends. It's almost impossible to box in the entire end of the river with roads.
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May 8, 2013 20:25
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cbirdsong posted:I disagree. It's extremely easy to trap meeples in the river's features. The best way to play on the river is to try to get farmers in on the ends. It's almost impossible to box in the entire end of the river with roads. I agree with this. The meeples placed on the river tiles are often coming off very late. And if someone places a farmer there, it gets boxed in quite early. When we only had River I, we houseruled that the farms do not connect around a single corner of the well and lake. Now I have River II as well, and a tile from the mini expansion, so there is a road, castle or volcano to block off farms on all beginning and end points. Overall, for me, the River spreads things out more in the beginning: there is always some place where you can start your own castle or road. Without the River, it is a bit cramped in the beginning.
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May 8, 2013 20:31
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GrandpaPants posted:What's the story with this game [I am Vlad]? I feel as if there's more story than just "This is a bad game with a bad theme"? I'm not sure, but from what I've seen, it sure looks like a bad game with a bad theme, and the antithesis of fun.
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May 8, 2013 20:56
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quote:It actually looks kinda cool, all the sci-fi ripoff stuff aside. I've been kind of thinking of doing one of these big stupid mini Kickstarters for a while; turns out it's this one. X-Com, the board game? Could be good, though it's impossible to really tell. Surely there will be something in there that works - I mean, they've promised pretty much everything in terms of gameplay options: rules for an overlord, rules for a bloodbowl(?!?) type game, a "sophisticated AI" (well, a card deck) for the co-op - and cards and tokens and maps and figures 'til the cows come home. I'm also expecting wookie, Jedi, pony, Avatar, Garfield & Odie, and Firefly stretch goals (there's already BLATANT Aliens, Robocop, and Predator figurines.. and the rest are only vaguely more creative). So go back it, all you, so I can maximize the raw weight of this game I'm never going to play. Edit: Reread that last sentence I wrote there, realized it was absolutely true, and cancelled my pledge (so there's an early-bird slot open again if you want it!). I want to like one of these miniature tactics games, but I don't think this is it. I spent a little more time looking at the rules, and it just doesn't look like much of an interesting game. The sad part is that that almost certainly doesn't matter in terms of sales. It seems like manipulating backers with early-birds and stretch goals and bonuses and options is the actual key to getting one of these to go crazy. Give people enough options and they'll get lost trying to pick the best one, rather than deciding whether they actually want any of it. jmzero fucked around with this message at 01:12 on May 9, 2013 |
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May 8, 2013 21:20
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How many boobs? This is critical for its success.
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May 8, 2013 21:22
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I don't suffer from AP while playing but holy poo poo I got my store credit today in addition to that 5% coupon on CSI. It is going to be a long night 
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May 9, 2013 00:57
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What's everyone's opinion on dice in games? I know people who can't stand the idea of rolling one, and I know people that can't grasp a game without having a die roll being used at some point.
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May 9, 2013 01:46
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There is nearly nothing that dice can do that cards can't do better.
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May 9, 2013 01:48
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Broken Loose posted:There is nearly nothing that dice can do that cards can't do better. Agreed. And generally the less chance there is in a system the better I think. Or at least randomness of the "make the best out of what you have" variety rather than the "you have to make this roll or you're screwed" variety.
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May 9, 2013 01:52
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As a huge fan of coop games, I don't think it's possible to make a replayable cooperative game with no adversarial player and no random elements. What's more important, in my opinion, is that you be able to make meaningful decisions that balance the randomness. I.e., that player skill play at least as much role as luck.
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May 9, 2013 01:56
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Zombie #246 posted:What's everyone's opinion on dice in games? I know people who can't stand the idea of rolling one, and I know people that can't grasp a game without having a die roll being used at some point. My favorite dice games are both games that have Vegas in the title but they are very different. Las Vegas is just a starter to a game day, light and quick. Lords of Vegas is more involved dice game, but still we have had so many laughs at the way the dice can roll. I'd recommend both of these games.
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May 9, 2013 03:00
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Broken Loose posted:There is nearly nothing that dice can do that cards can't do better. You are not allowed to have an opinion on this. Also, Games with dice that would not work with cards in place of them: Las Vegas Lords of Vegas Button Men To Court the King Zombie State: Diplomacy of the Dead Rallyman Deviant fucked around with this message at 03:05 on May 9, 2013 |
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May 9, 2013 03:03
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I prefer dice to have a defined role (IE workers) rather than determine success or failure. Binary dice just don't work in a competitive atmosphere and coups are my least favorite aspect of Twilight Struggle.
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May 9, 2013 03:24
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Broken Loose posted:There is nearly nothing that dice can do that cards can't do better.
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May 9, 2013 03:34
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Broken Loose posted:There is nearly nothing that dice can do that cards can't do better. I couldn't see cards working better than dice in a game like Stone Age.
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May 9, 2013 03:46
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al-azad posted:I prefer dice to have a defined role (IE workers) rather than determine success or failure. Binary dice just don't work in a competitive atmosphere and coups are my least favorite aspect of Twilight Struggle. Forgive this newbish question, but can you give me an example or two of this sort of system? Would dice be used to gain a certain amount of resources, which players then turn around and convert to useful things?
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May 9, 2013 03:47
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Ya'll hating on dice are CRAZY. If everything was done with cards, if you wanted a random number between 1-6, with a consistent and equal probability with each draw, you would need six cards that would be constantly shuffled after each draw. That would be dumb. 
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May 9, 2013 03:48
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BlueInkAlchemist posted:Forgive this newbish question, but can you give me an example or two of this sort of system? Would dice be used to gain a certain amount of resources, which players then turn around and convert to useful things? Dice can be used for resource generation (like Stone Age) or as worker placement where different combinations of numbers can do certain things (Alien Frontiers). The idea behind games like Lords of Vegas or Castles of Burgundy is that you're using the best of a random number but you always have several options available so even if you don't get that number you really wanted there's always second best or third best. Making dice a pass/fail scenario leads to situations where you feel powerless to bad rolls.
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May 9, 2013 03:53
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quote:At least I don't have to sleeve my dice. Actually, does anyone have a good solution for sleeving dice? I looked around for a good coating when our original King of Tokyo set was wearing out - didn't find anything. The only games we play now with prominent dice are King of Tokyo (which, uh, needs dice), Castles of Burgundy (which I really like, but has kind of been eclipsed by Trajan and its much stronger action selection mechanic), Eclipse (which I quite like - but where I wish they'd come up with something else for combat as the dice are lame), and Alien Frontiers (which doesn't table often these days). I won't categorically say I hate dice, but I do think it's rare they're used well in a game. I can't think of any game where I like them as a "success/fail" check (which is how they're often used) and I'm not a fan of "random resource generation" (a la Settlers of Catan anyway) either. jmzero fucked around with this message at 04:28 on May 9, 2013 |
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May 9, 2013 04:24
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Kiranamos posted:http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1402889231/galaxy-defenders-co-op-sci-fi-miniature-board-game?ref=live Lol at lovely rock music and Stephen Hawking narrator.
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May 9, 2013 04:27
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Dice do well when you're going to have to simulate inherently probabilistic events many times during a game, too. Not that we'll see many games in this thread that this applies to, but the prototypical example would obviously be tabletop baseball games like Strat-o-matic or Pursue the Pennant.
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May 9, 2013 04:43
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Why the hell does the Dungeon Lords rulebook refer to a website to look up (admittedly optional) rules?
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May 9, 2013 06:12
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I played D&D and Warhammer before I really got into board games so dice are kind of just a normal way of life for me. I acknowledge that they're random and people can feel like the world is against them by having a string of bad rolls, but statistically over time the numbers should even themselves out. If you want a situation in a game where something has a 35% of happening successfully, I really can't think of a better system than saying someone needs a 14+ on a d20. Plus, rolling a big handful of dice is a lot of fun. Sure sometimes you roll crap, but sometimes you roll crazy good and most of the time you roll average. I see where people who hate on randomness in games are coming from since it is nice to have your success or failure determined by your choices rather than probabilities, but a lot of times there is a lot of fun to be had by weighing the odds and coming out on top by throwing down a handful of little plastic polyhedrons that go clackity clack. And if you don't succeed, it's just the way it goes.
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May 9, 2013 06:14
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Dice work in tabletop games because there's usually a lot of things modifying them. Traditional methods are being modified in modern design like Fantasy Flight's dice system and FUDGE dice with FATE games. They just suck in board games because it's almost always a roll-or-fail condition with no leeway. Sometimes it's even "roll-or-your-opponent-succeeds" which is even worse.GrandpaPants posted:Why the hell does the Dungeon Lords rulebook refer to a website to look up (admittedly optional) rules? Probably because it makes a hard game even harder and they didn't want people using the system out of the box (you have to take a test before you can download it although the answers don't matter). I know that's not a very good excuse but it's there.
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May 9, 2013 06:23
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