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I don't even think it should be favorites. Lists of commonly accepted best in category makes more sense. I loathe Carc but it's a great entry into the hobby.
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Jul 31, 2013 18:50
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James The 1st posted:Brass is very very good, play it. For only having one map, it has amazing re-playability. This man speaks the truth. At least about the "very, very good" part. I've only played twice so I can't vouch for long-term replayability, but it certain seems like a deep game. One thing, though, is you might find yourself disappointed reading the rules. For everything I'd heard about it, when I first bought it and read through the rules, I was like "that's it?" It really seems quite simple, and you're not sure where the tough decisions are going to come from. But once you start playing, you find that it really embraces the game design ideal of elegance, wringing the maximum potential out of a relatively small number of moving parts. It's a game that really has to be played to be appreciated, I think.
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Jul 31, 2013 18:51
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xopods posted:Chess and shogi intimidate the hell out of me, and I love Go. The biggest hurdle for me in Go was having no idea what to do in the early game. Like, once there are a bunch of stones on the board you can come up with a plan of attack (even if it sucks,) but to a newbie, the early game just looks like random stones in random places, and there's just horrible AP issues. Once I read up on Go opening theory, though, the game really opened up for me.
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Jul 31, 2013 18:55
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Hammerite posted:No, but "uninterested" was what XyrlocShammypants meant. Uninterested and disinterested are synonyms... so I meant disinterested. They have been synonyms for over 400 years.
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Jul 31, 2013 19:24
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Speaking of Avalon, is it worth looking at Werewolf if I already own this or the original resistance?
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Jul 31, 2013 19:34
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Radio Talmudist posted:Speaking of Avalon, is it worth looking at Werewolf if I already own this or the original resistance? No, it's the same game with plyaer elimination. It is bad.
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Jul 31, 2013 19:35
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Radio Talmudist posted:Speaking of Avalon, is it worth looking at Werewolf if I already own this or the original resistance? If you're interested in Werewolf, you would be better off signing up for one of the Mafia games here on SA. There's usually six or seven on the go at a time, so a new one starts once or twice a week.
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Jul 31, 2013 19:41
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Crackbone posted:I don't even think it should be favorites. Lists of commonly accepted best in category makes more sense. I loathe Carc but it's a great entry into the hobby. Hmm yes, instead of calling it favorites lets call it something else and pretend they're not just your favorites in x anyway~ (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jul 31, 2013 19:45
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Jedit posted:If you're interested in Werewolf, you would be better off signing up for one of the Mafia games here on SA. There's usually six or seven on the go at a time, so a new one starts once or twice a week. Yeah, it's a game that's better played on forums, since when you get eliminated you can just check in on the thread less frequently and spend your time doing other things or sign up for another game or whatever. I don't have the same hate for player elimination as most other gamers, but Werewolf can be very long, and getting lynched/nightkilled at the beginning of the game sucks.
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Jul 31, 2013 20:02
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So yeah, Lord of the Rings LCG is god drat hard. I don't really want to go build decks to specifically combat single Scenarios but christ it's hard to build decks that work across multiple ones. I'm not even trying to do very difficult scenarios and this game is handing me my rear end. I'm doing 2/1 color ratios, is it worth it instead to just focus a single deck on a single color? Thoughts?
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Jul 31, 2013 21:53
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PaybackJack posted:So yeah, Lord of the Rings LCG is god drat hard. I don't really want to go build decks to specifically combat single Scenarios but christ it's hard to build decks that work across multiple ones. I'm not even trying to do very difficult scenarios and this game is handing me my rear end. I'm doing 2/1 color ratios, is it worth it instead to just focus a single deck on a single color? Thoughts? Different scenarios have different requirements. Quests have different ratios of enemies, treacheries and locations, not to mention different quest requirements. Do you just have the core set, or do you have any of the adventure packs?
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Jul 31, 2013 22:01
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Yikes, didn't mean to be exclusionary at all. Maybe 'S.O.-friendly' is a better term. It is a really woolly definition, so maybe it doesn't bear up to scrutiny. Anecdotally (i.e. based on my wife and the partners of friends), SO-friendly would encompass... - No player elimination - Limited conflict - Clear player actions (i.e. quick to get started - not necessarily simple though) - Coop is favoured For example: From unsuitable to suitable would be: Risk < Power Grid < Archipelago < Agricola < Agricola: Creatures Big and Small Maybe this category is far too situational. Just spit-balling ideas really.
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Jul 31, 2013 22:47
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I don't think there's that much need to split hairs. Do a "gateway game" level, a "intermediate level", and a "grognard" level. Add in a couple pertinent details about each (like Dominion: low conflict/theme-light). It's not like we need to limit it to a top 5 anyway - I can think of 10 games I'd recommend as good gateways without a true "dud" in the bunch.
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Jul 31, 2013 22:51
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mongol posted:Different scenarios have different requirements. Quests have different ratios of enemies, treacheries and locations, not to mention different quest requirements. 2 Core Sets + everything that isn't from the Mirkwood Cycle. Boy I hope they get around to reprinting that! I'm trying to build decks that play off one another. We survived Watcher in the Water but Massing at Osgiliath took us a couple tries to not get wiped on the first turn due to having the hardest scouts in play. Once we got allies on the first turn that we could lose to reshuffle the wargs, and take some hits to knock out the other stuff we had a much easier go of it. Just getting traction on those first two turns was really difficult. I know Massing is one of the really tough scenarios so I wasn't really expecting that you shouldn't need a very focused deck to handle it, but I was more curious if we should be reading all the adventure cards and then metaing against the deck, or it that just makes it too easy.
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Jul 31, 2013 22:54
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Initio posted:What makes a game SO friendly though? I have the feeling that this list would be pretty specific to the individuals in question. The problem is that everyone's S.O. has different game interests. For instance, my wife plays a lot of games with me/our group, but she specifically doesn't like games with a ton of rules. The sort of complexity that a game like Dominant Species has is uninteresting to her because she isn't interested in committing that much time to getting good at a game. Though she'll play and enjoy Puerto Rico because it's fairly simple. She's a smart lady (has a PhD), but gaming isn't where she wants to focus a lot of time getting good. She likes to win, but ultimately it's something she does for fun and to socialize. Theme matters to her (she still talks poo poo on Talisman after we played it once with some friends 5-6 years ago), but if your S.O. was into Dungeons and Dragons type things, this would be a non issue. Where you overlap probably also varies a lot from couple to couple. I'm a pretty competitive player who plays games to win. I want to hang out with friends, but I also want to best them. We both like 7 Wonders (which might not be surprising), but we also both love Shadow Hunters -It's probably in my top 3 and might be her number 1. I think a better way to go about it is just using categories that describe what games are like "stream-lined" or "simple" rules is a much more useful descriptor than S.O. Friendly because I have no idea what your S.O. likes.
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Jul 31, 2013 23:37
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Karnegal posted:The problem is that everyone's S.O. has different game interests. For instance, my wife plays a lot of games with me/our group, but she specifically doesn't like games with a ton of rules. The sort of complexity that a game like Dominant Species has is uninteresting to her because she isn't interested in committing that much time to getting good at a game. Though she'll play and enjoy Puerto Rico because it's fairly simple. She's a smart lady (has a PhD), but gaming isn't where she wants to focus a lot of time getting good. She likes to win, but ultimately it's something she does for fun and to socialize. Theme matters to her (she still talks poo poo on Talisman after we played it once with some friends 5-6 years ago), but if your S.O. was into Dungeons and Dragons type things, this would be a non issue. Where you overlap probably also varies a lot from couple to couple. I'm a pretty competitive player who plays games to win. I want to hang out with friends, but I also want to best them. We both like 7 Wonders (which might not be surprising), but we also both love Shadow Hunters -It's probably in my top 3 and might be her number 1. This is exactly why I don't like 'wife friendly'. Wives like different things in gaming. So define what you mean in the categories.
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Aug 1, 2013 02:46
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PaybackJack posted:2 Core Sets + everything that isn't from the Mirkwood Cycle. Boy I hope they get around to reprinting that! What we like to do is play an adventure, see if we can beat it with the decks we have. If we lose, we'll look at what went wrong, and then adjust accordingly. If you have the Against the Shadow packs, you should be able to build an Outlands deck, which are fairly powerful once they get going.
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Aug 1, 2013 04:14
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mongol posted:What we like to do is play an adventure, see if we can beat it with the decks we have. If we lose, we'll look at what went wrong, and then adjust accordingly. If you have the Against the Shadow packs, you should be able to build an Outlands deck, which are fairly powerful once they get going. Seems reasonable. I'm trying to keep the deck building as scaled down as possible because the people I play this with aren't really into that aspect, in that they don't have the cards so they don't know what everything does. I'm hoping once we learn the game well enough I can bring all the cards out and do stuff like that. Right now I'm basically building some decks that will work with 2-4 players and then we choose a scenario and go. I figured for the Nightmare variants and the Gencon decks they were probably required a really focused deck, but some of the standard scenarios can just be downright brutal. I felt like it would be a bit like cheating to look at the adventures ahead of time to see what is going to happen in the deck and what the advancement conditions were.
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Aug 1, 2013 05:16
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I just started a game of Brass over at http://brass.orderofthehammer.com My first game ever of Brass actually. Has anybody had much experience playing there? What's vital for me to know going in first time? Any goons wanna play in my game?
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Aug 1, 2013 06:57
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My problem with Seasons is that you have to design your engine right at the very start, and then simply run your engine all game with little mental input. And some of the cards seem quite unbalanced. For example, making a Kairn the Destroyer engine, where you're constantly taking energy and spending it for his power to damage others' crystals seems very strong. Maybe I've not noticed any advanced strategies, but I've played it a fair few times and it seems like that's the truth of it.
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Aug 1, 2013 08:51
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EddieDean posted:My problem with Seasons is that you have to design your engine right at the very start, and then simply run your engine all game with little mental input. And some of the cards seem quite unbalanced. For example, making a Kairn the Destroyer engine, where you're constantly taking energy and spending it for his power to damage others' crystals seems very strong. Maybe I've not noticed any advanced strategies, but I've played it a fair few times and it seems like that's the truth of it. Are you using both decks in the base set? The advanced cards can shake things up a bit.
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Aug 1, 2013 09:07
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EddieDean posted:My problem with Seasons is that you have to design your engine right at the very start, and then simply run your engine all game with little mental input. And some of the cards seem quite unbalanced. For example, making a Kairn the Destroyer engine, where you're constantly taking energy and spending it for his power to damage others' crystals seems very strong. Maybe I've not noticed any advanced strategies, but I've played it a fair few times and it seems like that's the truth of it. The thing about leaning on Karen the Destroyer is that all someone has to do to counter you is start digging for cards like the Runic Cube, whose entire purpose is to empty out your pool of points and keep them in solid form on your board, where they're significantly harder to touch. Everything capable of messing with cards already played generally gives the controlling player the choice of what they want to bounce back to hand/let die. People playing a transmutation game might not appreciate you horning in on their profits, but since you can only activate a given card once per turn you'll need a lot of points-hate to actually shut down someone who's found reliable sources of mana and transmutation, and Karen alone isn't really going to provide you that.
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Aug 1, 2013 10:14
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Just picked up Libertalia (and Mage Knight, but I'm putting off learning that game this week), would people either recommend sleeving up Libertalia immediately, or will it be fine without?
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Aug 1, 2013 12:37
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xopods posted:Chess and shogi intimidate the hell out of me, and I love Go. Teehee. Yeah, if I really put some effort into learning opening strategy and playing a few dozen quick games, I'd probably start enjoying it a lot more. As I said, though. Not enough hours in the day.
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Aug 1, 2013 13:15
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I got to play Galaxy Trucker for the first time this weekend, and everything I've heard about it is true. The game is absolutely hilarious and fun from the word "go." My favorite bit was when we got to round 3 and decided to use the Enterprise ship (3A) because we didn't know better. The very first event was a commando, and hit the two sections holding the front of my buddy's (the guy who actually owns the game) ship on. After we finished laughing, we decided that a design with that many choke points was a terrible idea, and resolved to only break it out with new players. My least favorite bit was a turn 1 slavers encounter, where due to my friend's saboteur I only had five crew. I had to drop out on card one, which sucked because apart from that one encounter I would have sailed through without a single problem. Still, it was fun watching his ship get torn to pieces from the sidelines. I didn't really feel like I was being left out of the game because of the early knockout, since half of the fun is watching bad things happen to your friends' ships. The other half is watching bad things happen to your own.
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Aug 1, 2013 13:29
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Huh. I had no idea that Seasons involved things like "Kairn the Destroyer" and Runic Cubes. The title led me to assume it was some sort of bland Eurogamey thing that would have no possible interest to me. There's at least one other game - possibly a videogame, though - where I had to realign my thinking like this based on a terribly boring title that turned out to disguise a pretty awesome theme, but I can't remember what it was. What I'm saying is, designers need to pick better names for their games. 
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Aug 1, 2013 13:49
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Wazzu posted:Just picked up Libertalia (and Mage Knight, but I'm putting off learning that game this week), would people either recommend sleeving up Libertalia immediately, or will it be fine without?
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Aug 1, 2013 14:29
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echoMateria posted:I'd recommend sleeving your games right away. If you don't like the game and decide to sell it after some plays, it'll still be brand new and you'll keep your sleeves to use for another game. If you like it and decide to keep it, it will always be brand new. Save some trees by losing the "I can always buy a new copy if it gets too trashed." mentality! Keep in mind that games do go out of print and you might not find a new copy a few years later too. My mentality is exactly the opposite -- sleeving can make a game MUCH more expensive (and make it not fit in its box), and you'll know reasonably soon whether it's a keeper if you can get it to the table. Saving trees, sure, but in return for putting more petrochemical plastic in the world? Not sure you can go environmental on games either way, they are a luxury. Games do go out of print, but new games also come out that improve on previous designs and mechanics, so . . . meh.
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Aug 1, 2013 15:04
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I had a chance to play Terra Mystica and except for the fact that everyone was playing the game like we were in the grand-final of some globe-spanning tournament (ie extreme, unecessary AP), the game wasn't too bad. It didn't blow me away but it has some smart ideas nestled within it. It is pure euro, but there are some nice choices in deciding to upgrade or not and at least the different races do provide some slightly different flavour/strategies. I'll probably play it a few more times, it's probably not something that I'm gonna specifically sign up to play but if someone had a free space to play I wouldn't say no. I'm just wondering how much replayability there is in the design, although the difference objectives within the rounds do help. Also, I've been playing more and more GoG and I love this game to bits. Now that I'm familiar with it, it does seem easier to play than NT (just in terms of attacking, which is much more direct in GoG). My last game I lost as the Union after a nailbiter of a fight: one of my objective markers was right in front of Cemetary ridge since I hadn't managed to get it back in time, meaning that I was forced to create a line in the largely featureless space between Cemetary and Seminary ridges. The game ended at the last hour after McLaws division made a last minute attack which finally cracked my lines and took my defenses: it had been a back-and-forth affair before then and when we revealed our remaining forces we were both surprised how paper-thin both of our forces were. My favourite moment was surprising my opponent with the Iron Brigade on my right flank, holding an assault against cemetary ridge, before withdrawing the entirety of Reynold's Corps and marching it to reinforce my rapidly-crumbling left flank. The look on my opponent's face when he saw the iron brigade unexpectedly on my left rank was priceless.
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Aug 1, 2013 15:10
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homullus posted:My mentality is exactly the opposite -- sleeving can make a game MUCH more expensive (and make it not fit in its box), and you'll know reasonably soon whether it's a keeper if you can get it to the table. Saving trees, sure, but in return for putting more petrochemical plastic in the world? Not sure you can go environmental on games either way, they are a luxury. Games do go out of print, but new games also come out that improve on previous designs and mechanics, so . . . meh. Why not just use penny sleeves? They're not the most durable things in the world, but they'll protect your cards from grease/cheetos/minor scratches just fine. They also don't really add that much to the cost of the game, especially one like Libertalia where there're a couple hundred cards at most.
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Aug 1, 2013 15:22
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echoMateria posted:I'd recommend sleeving your games right away. If you don't like the game and decide to sell it after some plays, it'll still be brand new and you'll keep your sleeves to use for another game. If you like it and decide to keep it, it will always be brand new. Save some trees by losing the "I can always buy a new copy if it gets too trashed." mentality! Keep in mind that games do go out of print and you might not find a new copy a few years later too. On the other hand, I've spent at least $150 on sleeves for Dominion (not counting the misguided foray buying penny sleeves that only lasted like 2 months) when a few copies of the Base Cards expansion would have been sufficient to replace the only cards that would see any wear once they started to. Granted, that wasn't an option until recently, but it sure as hell is now.
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Aug 1, 2013 15:27
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GrandpaPants posted:Why not just use penny sleeves? They're not the most durable things in the world, but they'll protect your cards from grease/cheetos/minor scratches just fine. They also don't really add that much to the cost of the game, especially one like Libertalia where there're a couple hundred cards at most. Edit: Had the price wrong. I'm still not sure it's worth the investment, though, with cheap stuff!
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Aug 1, 2013 15:33
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I got to try Dixit last weekend and I was thinking of buying it. Original, Odyssey or Journey?
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Aug 1, 2013 15:36
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homullus posted:Edit: Had the price wrong. I'm still not sure it's worth the investment, though, with cheap stuff! The secret is playing a CCG. I have drawers full of retired Magic sleeves.
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Aug 1, 2013 15:40
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malkav11 posted:Huh. I had no idea that Seasons involved things like "Kairn the Destroyer" and Runic Cubes. The title led me to assume it was some sort of bland Eurogamey thing that would have no possible interest to me. There's at least one other game - possibly a videogame, though - where I had to realign my thinking like this based on a terribly boring title that turned out to disguise a pretty awesome theme, but I can't remember what it was. The main mechanic is that there are four different seasons that the players move through. I don't think it's the designers fault that they picked a really good name and you assumed that the game was bland.
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Aug 1, 2013 15:51
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Had a good little session tonight. Started with Love Letter, which, like Resistance Avalon, packs a helluva lot of game into it's short play time and straight forward mechanics. Utterly brilliant. Very chancy and light, but the breeziness makes it work. Then hit up Space Alert, progressing into Simulations for the first time and getting stomped by forgotten screen-savers that mean that we dealt an enemy frigate a trival 5 damage instead of the 8 needed to kill it. Absolutely gagging to play it some more, but living in terror of full missions. Then on to Sentinels of the Multiverse, with some expansion stuff thrown in for good measure. It's a solid game. I quite like a lot about it... but too often the cards play you. This would be fine for the shared experiences and memorable stories... but some of the games can take soooo bloody long. Either the game needs to be balanced for shorter sessions, or there needs to be a way to give players more options and ways to manipulate the deck. Some characters really are just there to hit one key combo and spam it ad nauseum. Finally, Castles of Burgundy... what can I say but wow. What an elegant and clever euro. It evokes my favourite economics bits of Powergrid combined with the cool town building of Carson City without being mechanically similar to either (which probably makes no sense at all), and also neatly sidesteps AP players with it's simultaneous dice rolls. Really feels like it has depths that go on for miles and miles. Best hobby.
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Aug 1, 2013 16:10
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Karnegal posted:The secret is playing a CCG. I have drawers full of retired Magic sleeves. On a similar note: it's much easier to save your pocket change if you buy a solid gold piggy bank!
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Aug 1, 2013 16:11
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Elos posted:I got to try Dixit last weekend and I was thinking of buying it. Original, Odyssey or Journey? People are going to say Odyssey, which is the best choice if you find the old big box printing of it, which you won't because that copy is out of print. They've since re-released it as a card-only expansion. So that leaves you with Dixit and Journey, which are exactly the same except for the artist that illustrates each set's cards. Dixit's artist is the same that illustrated the other expansions, while Journey's artist is slightly cleaner and more "American." Get either, or both!
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Aug 1, 2013 16:37
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The End posted:Finally, Castles of Burgundy... what can I say but wow. What an elegant and clever euro. It evokes my favourite economics bits of Powergrid combined with the cool town building of Carson City without being mechanically similar to either (which probably makes no sense at all), and also neatly sidesteps AP players with it's simultaneous dice rolls. Really feels like it has depths that go on for miles and miles. That's a new one: I've never heard Castles of Burgundy compared to Power Grid before! As for depth: be sure to try the alternate board variants -- I find those much more satisfying to play on.
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Aug 1, 2013 17:07
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apostateCourier posted:I got to play Galaxy Trucker for the first time [...] The very first event was a commando You were using Intruders in your first game? Ouch. They're from the second expansion and (like pretty much all expansion components) are designed to make things way harder once you've gotten used to the base game. Hilarious, but really rough - I keep introductory Galaxy Trucker games core-only.
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Aug 1, 2013 17:23
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