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Rutibex posted:
If you can memorize it, most of the game of chess has been worked out.
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Jun 20, 2014 14:42
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Saboteur is one of the games on BoardGameArena.com, so you might as well try it before you buy it.
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Jun 20, 2014 14:53
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Lampsacus posted:Sorry that was a terrible joke post. Although the genuine opinions on the games were interesting. You need to play with the other role cards for some additional upheaval. Merlin and assassin gets kind of old with that many, and the extra roles add unknowns to the gameplay.
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Jun 20, 2014 14:54
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Rutibex posted:Sure Caylus may be technically deeper/better than Chess but what do I do once I master it? There's no international league of Caylus grandmasters. Chess isn't perfect by today's haughty standards but I could play a game with anyone in any country; it's main strength is how universal it is. What exactly are you argueing here? Yes, Chess is old, ingrained in world culture, and has people who've dedicated their lives to mastering it. So what? That has nothing to do with my point that boardgame criticism is largely non-existent. Also, the fact that chess has been successful doesn't make it unassailable. That's classic argumentum ad populum. I'm not qualified to go deep into it's flaws though, someone else will have to do that. quote:It's not exactly deeply flawed ether; it's literally been play tested by billions of people over hundreds of years; the major bugs have been worked out. Aside from the fact that I never said deeply flawed, when you say the bugs have been worked out, do you mean that flaws with the game have resulted in rules changes or that strategies have adjusted to flaws? Those are two very different things and I'm asking because I honestly don't know.
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Jun 20, 2014 14:56
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Not the same person, but I'd interpret him to mean the former. Piece movements have definitely evolved over the course of the game's history.
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Jun 20, 2014 15:01
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Bubble-T posted:I love Castles of Burgundy too though two things about it bother me ever so slightly: Here are two ways we've organized Castles that make set up really quickly. 1. I bought plano like boxes and put all the tile types in their own box except the castles, boats, and mines. They are in their own space. I'll just put my hand in there and shuffle the pieces around without looking and place them on the board. 2. My friend bought plastic cupcake holders and just puts them all in separate ones like above so different players can place the tiles if they want to. We also use it for Puerto Rico and Agricola. Setup is pretty short.
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Jun 20, 2014 15:09
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Rutibex posted:
I knew Scene It was the best game in history. Suck it, guy on the bus! 
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Jun 20, 2014 15:26
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Rutibex posted:
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Jun 20, 2014 15:30
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Bosushi! posted:Also, the fact that chess has been successful doesn't make it unassailable. That's classic argumentum ad populum. I'm not qualified to go deep into it's flaws though, someone else will have to do that. It's not a logical fallacy to say that it is better to master a game where you might be able to find people to play against. There are literally thousands of games as deep as Chess but I'm not going to dedicate a lot of time getting really good at them if I have no one to play with once I do. Bosushi! posted:Aside from the fact that I never said deeply flawed, when you say the bugs have been worked out, do you mean that flaws with the game have resulted in rules changes or that strategies have adjusted to flaws? Those are two very different things and I'm asking because I honestly don't know. Chess started out as a 4 player Roll&Move game for one. The pieces have evolved quite a bit over time; the Bishop (or courier as it was originally called) is actually a pretty recent addition. Original chess: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaturaji Prairie Bus posted:If you can memorize it, most of the game of chess has been worked out. Chess has somewhere like 10^54 possible board states. Even a computer couldn't "memorize" that. Rutibex fucked around with this message at 15:48 on Jun 20, 2014 |
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Jun 20, 2014 15:37
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Rutibex posted:Original chess:
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Jun 20, 2014 15:58
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Rutibex posted:It's not a logical fallacy to say that it is better to master a game where you might be able to find people to play against. There are literally thousands of games as deep as Chess but I'm not going to dedicate a lot of time getting really good at them if I have no one to play with once I do. It's a logical fallacy because we're not talking about how easy it is to find an opponent, we're talking about the quality of the game. You're derailing into different territory. quote:Chess has somewhere like 10^54 possible board states. Even a computer couldn't "memorize" that. This is disingenuous because: A) A significant % of those possible board states will never happen B) The primary way of gaining mastery at high levels in Chess is memorizing board states and gambits Chess is not a good game by modern design standards.
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Jun 20, 2014 16:04
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Rutibex posted:Chess has somewhere like 10^54 possible board states. Even a computer couldn't "memorize" that. Learning and memorizing the game of chess - its gambits and endgames, and the ability to look several spaces ahead and gain insights on your opponent's actions - has absolutely nothing to do with memorizing every discrete board state and only responding to whichever state you happen to be in right now. Unless your definition of strategy is 'rote memorization and short-term response' you're just arguing in bad faith again. If it is then I see why you champion Talisman so hard. (and I enjoy Relic ffs) Stelas fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Jun 20, 2014 |
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Jun 20, 2014 16:05
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Rutibex posted:It's not a logical fallacy to say that it is better to master a game where you might be able to find people to play against. There are literally thousands of games as deep as Chess but I'm not going to dedicate a lot of time getting really good at them if I have no one to play with once I do. I wouldn't necessarily say "better" but I agree that it's perfectly valid to choose to learn Chess because you'll have more opportunities to play it. The number of people playing is still not a commentary on the quality of the game, though. quote:Chess started out as a 4 player Roll&Move game for one. The pieces have evolved quite a bit over time; the Bishop (or courier as it was originally called) is actually a pretty recent addition. Thankyou, this is interesting.
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Jun 20, 2014 16:09
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Rutibex posted:Chess and checkers are babies in the history of board games. This Senet set was found in the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun who reigned over Egypt from 1341 BCE: Senet is cool (maybe, could be a diceroller for all we know) and all, but it's not really part of the western culture like chess is. I didn't include Mahjong either, even though that's old as gently caress too, because few people outside of Asia plays it, which is kind of a shame. The trouble is that unlike movies, there is no demand for new games outside of our nerdcircle. If your friends feel like playing a game, they will gladly whip out Catan or Trivial Pursuit (or similar) or monopoly, all of which have enough replay value to keep regular people going for years and years. Compare this to the replay value of movies: Seeing something three times is way too many repeats, so you need new stuff all the time, which means you need to be told what is good and what isn't, which means there is a market for critics. Unless boardgamers can somehow convincce the world that you need to buy a couple of new games per year, there wont be a real market for critics. I suspect there may be a similar situation regarding poetry and other niche stuff for the same reason. I agree that from a competitive standpoint, chess is your best bet, even though it is not the best game. Basically, it comes down to deciding on a standard and sticking with it if you want a large following. Football is not the most exiting possible sport, but since everyone knows the rules, it's a good choice for tournaments. Same with chess, and one might mention MTG here as well. Fortunately, I play games more to have fun with friends than to win serious competitions. Also, I don't really think that most games have the kind of dynamics that make that many replays at a pro level interesting.
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Jun 20, 2014 16:47
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Crackbone posted:B) The primary way of gaining mastery at high levels in Chess is memorizing board states and gambits Chess is less a game about memorizing exact board states (and especially gambits; for those of you who ever followed SC2/BW, they're basically the equivalent of cheese in those games), and more a game about pattern matching. Like, even as an amateur who was never particularly good at the game (at my best which was years ago, I was 1950 USCF), I can look at most board states and tell you a decent strategy and roughly how to execute it, although I will get a ton of the exact details wrong.
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Jun 20, 2014 17:04
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One of the games I received recently is Pandante, which I'm finding enjoyable so far and looking forward to playing with higher numbers of people. I like the clean art design but there's a slight glitch - when the card backs are flat red with a little white text (i.e. not patterned in any way) even small defects show up glaringly on the backs. As a result there are four cards in my deck that have manufacturing or printing defects that mean that those cards are "marked". The one with the white blob mark is a "1", the deeper red "birthmarked" card is a "6", etc. Example:  Camera doesn't pick it up too well but there's a white dot on one and a "birthmark" of deeper/extra red ink on the other. They're both much more obvious in person than the photo makes it look. A couple other cards have less immediately apparent but still noticeable defects. Interestingly if the card backs were patterned like most decks of cards it would be much less apparent, maybe not even really noticeable. But when your card backs are so stark even minor defects stand out like a sore thumb. It's an example of a practical issue arising from the graphical design. When there's a lot less happening on the card, slight printing gotchas will stand out far more. And if it's happening on the backs of cards (which rely on looking identical to one another) then that can be a problem - printing quality X that works fine for card design A might not "work" for card design B. The Eyes Have It fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Jun 20, 2014 |
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Jun 20, 2014 17:20
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Barono posted:Saboteur is played over rounds so it can be about as short as you like, but it's not that good. It's a hidden roles game where what you do makes it pretty obvious what your role probably is. The expansion to Saboteur fixes this problem by adding a bunch of roles with overlapping agendas. Instead of one team trying to get to the gold and one team trying to prevent it, it's more like two teams trying to get to the gold while cutting the other team out from getting there, one guy who wants the smaller of those two teams to get to the gold, two teams that don't care about the gold and want the least amount of other players to win, and the team trying to prevent anyone from getting to the gold. Plus there's a bunch of cards that can steal points from other players or prevent them from sharing in a win. I'd almost recommend getting Saboteur 2 right away if you pick Saboteur up.
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Jun 20, 2014 17:28
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That's what I heard as well: I tried Saboteur but although I liked the idea, the base game with Saboteur 2 is really lacking. I have to try the expansion at some points, though.
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Jun 20, 2014 17:30
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Saboteur is awful; there's almost no way for the Saboteurs to win. If you're not helping, you're instantly a Saboteur and the other players will prevent you from doing anything. Also, the Saboteur's win condition is running the deck out. I've never seen that happen. Saboteur 2 is better; the additional roles give enough of a smokescreen that you won't instantly be identified as a Saboteur and the game is just more interesting. I still don't really like it. Any one player's impact on the game is pretty minimal, the game is pretty insubstantial and it takes a while.
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Jun 20, 2014 17:40
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quote:Chess is not a good game by modern design standards. I wouldn't go that far. I think Chess has a lot of good properties, and (though it wasn't "designed" by any one person) is generally a good design. To justify that, I'm going to write a huge wall of text about properties of 2 player abstracts. Here's some good stuff about Chess: 1. Clarity. Even new players can quickly gain a sense of the immediate possibilities for each player: most pieces attack the same way they move (though not the pawn), and most move in a very clear way (though not the Knight). Similarly, even new players can usually pick out who's winning based on who has more pieces (or, as a next step, by using the Rook=5 points heuristic). There's a very natural progression for players to be able to see further ahead in the game; Chess progresses in a way that works visually for humans, and lots of action is "local" in a way that allows players to analyse the board in manageable chunks. 2. Tactical/Strategic Balance. New players see will usually feel as though Chess is dominated by tactical considerations, and clearly tactics are very important. The mechanics of Chess provide a good way for players to learn tactics - starting at "don't put your Queen there or he'll take it", and progressing through 2 move tactics like forks or pins, and further and further. The tactics of chess are rewarding enough that many people do "chess puzzles" for fun. There's opportunities for calculation, but also for discovery and creativity (and, in some cases, even a kind of bluffing). On the strategic side, new players start with a general idea of "developing pieces", but can quickly figure out generally what an open position looks like, or what a proper defensive position generally involves. 3. Limited rules. There's a few odd bits (eg. en passant, castling), but otherwise things are pretty clean and don't provide too much barrier to entry. 4. Good pacing. Other than quite high level play (where forced draws are common) most games of Chess will progress steadily towards a winning finish. Players in advantageous positions can often push the pace by forcing trades; it's hard to stall against and advantage. However, there's also potential for extended interplay between players while the advantage remains less clear (though, again, normally such play will still progress towards a finish through attrition). Even beginner players have heuristics for "closing out a game" that are easy to grasp (eg. advancing a pawn up to become a Queen, or slowly forcing the king to one side using your two Rooks). 5. Rewards of Skill. Chess produces a fairly clear player ordering. If we say that A>B if player A beats player B 75% of the time, we could produce a very long chain of A>B>C>D>.. for human players. However, the results of games between players with general similar skill will still be unpredictable. Chess strikes a good balance here. 6. In-Game Variety. The stuff you're doing at the beginning of a chess game is very different than the stuff you're doing at the end. It's very easy to make a two player, symmetrical abstract game that basically works as a game - but it's very hard to get all of the above (and even Chess sees more problems with the above at higher level play). I look at a lot of new abstract games that pop up, and most have much more serious problems. People make a game that's "easy to learn, difficult to master!" (for me, this is pretty much the faintest possible praise for an abstract), and think they're done. Many of these games are very unclear, and sometimes offer no clear heuristic to even see who's winning. As a beginner, your play is often essentially random because your first order goals are so unclear. Or, if there is a clear first order goal, you play "greedy" and do whatever gets you the most points now (for example, starting Othello/Reversi players will often just do whatever flips the most pieces for them right now). In many abstracts, there's not real "footholds" on your path to better play. Better play is either just vaguely, slowly growing your ability to recognize a positive state - or it's just naked calculation of possibilities. Many less tested games have huge traps that would spring with repeated play: problems with stalling, or simple dominant heuristics. Clearly Chess doesn't have such glaring problems - what are the problems with Chess? 1. Lack of Starting Game Variety. The fixed opening position of Chess means that the beginning of the game is often a repeat - and this artifact gets worse and worse with higher level play (where opening books can become more and more important). You could do Fisher style randomization, but there's not a natural way to do it with the game pieces (and, practically, for many Chess players there's an overriding value to be playing "orthodox Chess" that trumps mere gameplay concerns). You could get this variety another way perhaps, like players taking turns choosing starting positions for each piece, but I have no idea how that would turn out. And perhaps it would just make "memorization" problems worse at high levels (now you have to memorize 90,000 openings!). 2. Weak Game Stories. For starting players, many games are going to have really boring stories: "I blundered and lost a Rook, then we traded until he won". Reading a game recap of a higher level game, you might be drawn to certain interesting tactical plays - but it would take very deep involvement with Chess to see a clear narrative most of the time. You can't "try going Plasma Cruisers against Quantum Knights" in Chess. Outside the opening, or general strategies, you can't think "ooh, I want to try X next game". You can't have a game where your family just squeaked by eating raw grain on the last round. This isn't just a matter of theme, it's a matter of the mechanics not supporting these kinds of stories. Whatever theme you could imagine for Chess, there's not mechanical foundation for interesting narratives and most games will be completely forgotten other than "how long did it take"", "was there any particularly impressive/bad plays?" and "who won?" 3. Rewards to Analysis. The clarity of Chess means that good players can see moves progressively further down the tree, and as such players can often do better by thinking longer. In competitive play, this can be solved by timers - but timers feel pretty extreme in more casual play. Games with hidden information, less clarity, or randomness can avoid this potential issue. 4. Low Skill Match Range. There's a small range of skill at which two players can have a reasonable game of Chess; with a moderate gap, better players will beat worse players consistently, and often quickly enough that the worse player often won't even learn anything (or will "learn" bad ideas that only prolong losses). Players purposefully playing poorly doesn't really work, and starting piece/move advantages in Chess would be fairly degenerate (ie. even a small piece advantage will tend to amplify quickly, and generally distorts the game in a way that prevents learning). Other abstract games, like Go, can have handicaps that work more naturally - while other games are simply unpredictable enough that better players are still beatable. Chess isn't perfect, but it's a solid game... that I have absolutely no interest in playing (just as I have no interest in playing Go). I'd way rather play Tash-Kalar at 2P, but that's a matter of matching what I want out of a game, rather than a question of design quality.
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Jun 20, 2014 17:50
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Some Numbers posted:Saboteur is awful; there's almost no way for the Saboteurs to win. If you're not helping, you're instantly a Saboteur and the other players will prevent you from doing anything. Also, the Saboteur's win condition is running the deck out. I've never seen that happen. Saboteur is just trash, with or without the expansion. If you want to play it with the needless fluff stripped out, have everyone pick a role card three times. The person who gets the most Geologists wins. Alternately, just set the box on fire and play Mascarade or The Resistance by the warm, soothing light.
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Jun 20, 2014 18:01
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sector_corrector posted:I'm looking for fun short games along the time lines of Flea Circus or Cheeky Monkey. So, like 10 to 20 minute playtime, simple rules that allow for strategy, and light hearted themes. Bohnanza's solid but definitely not a 20 minute game. If you're looking for something that takes 20 minutes and is very simple I'd suggest Love Letter. It's fast, turns go very quickly, and pretty enjoyable. It plays 2-4 people.
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Jun 20, 2014 18:18
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The End posted:I'm not sure what you'd call a 'god awful hand' in TS. I got 4 scoring cards in one hand. I think that counts.
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Jun 20, 2014 18:21
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jmzero posted:chess Really cool post, thank you. Have you read anything about, or maybe tried, Sirlin's Chess 2? His criticisms of the base game are somewhat different than yours (though there's definitely some overlap), here's the incredibly tongue-in-cheek description of the game: quote:Chess 1 was a hit, no doubt about it. Chess 2 seeks to build on the greatness of the original while addressing a few problems and also going in a new direction. There are now SIX ARMIES to choose from, rather than just 1, creating 21 matchups instead of just 1. There's a new win condition for crossing the midline of the board with your king (in addition to your grandpa's checkmates). There's also a double-blind bidding mechanic called dueling that makes memorized openings even more impractical, and emphasizes adaptation and reading the opponent's tendencies. I actually really like it, as someone who isn't particularly great at Chess (but good/experienced enough at strategy games to beat other bad people). The different army match-ups are a lot of fun, and the alternative win condition seems to make the game go much faster without the aid of a timer. e: It's also free, so it's not like he's making money off the institution of Chess. Countblanc fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Jun 20, 2014 |
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Jun 20, 2014 18:40
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Countblanc posted:I actually really like it, as someone who isn't particularly great at Chess (but good/experienced enough at strategy games to beat other bad people). The different army match-ups are a lot of fun, and the alternative win condition seems to make the game go much faster without the aid of a timer. Chess 2 is a pretty neat chess variant, the multiple armies are really cool (Two Kings owns) and I like it a lot... except for the dueling mechanic. It's really unnecessary and is the largest additional source of complexity in the variant. It's essentially the clash system from Injustice, but it can happen way more often.
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Jun 20, 2014 19:13
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Mister Sinewave posted:One of the games I received recently is Pandante, which I'm finding enjoyable so far and looking forward to playing with higher numbers of people. Turns out when your graphic design philosophy is "remove everything you don't need, then remove since more" you end up short of what you needed. I shouldn't enjoy watching Sirlin's screwups as much as I do, but he makes it so easy.
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Jun 20, 2014 19:33
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Playing several daily games of Dominion against bots on my phone without regular human competition has turned my skills into trash. I really miss iso.
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Jun 20, 2014 19:50
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Goast posted:Who cares what anyone else thinks. This is true to a certain extent, but I must admit that seeing people in this thread hate on Sentinels of the Multiverse was a great relief to me. Apparently, this game is very popular, but I played this at PAX this year, and it was the worst game I played/saw demo'd by far, and that included a lot of stupid party games. I was honestly worried I was missing something, but no; there's no deckbuilding, there's very little agency or choice, and as far as I can tell the cards are painfully generic.
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Jun 20, 2014 20:02
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Also, saying "who cares what anyone thinks" basically ignores everything sociologists and psychologists have been telling us for 100+ years.
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Jun 20, 2014 20:05
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Sentinels has the ugliest art.
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Jun 20, 2014 20:09
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Mister Sinewave posted:My Pandante cards are marked! Is there a reason why you can't just sleeve them?
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Jun 20, 2014 20:32
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Schizoguy posted:Is there a reason why you can't just sleeve them? A game as printed should make you want to sleeve it, so that it lasts longer, not make you need to sleeve it, so that it can be played at all.
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Jun 20, 2014 20:34
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I just want to say that there has been some pro posts in this thread recently and it rules. Also I think card games are an excellent entry point to board gaming and everyone should play Tichu.
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Jun 20, 2014 20:45
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Schizoguy posted:Is there a reason why you can't just sleeve them? The only sleeves I know of are the clear ones people put their Magic or whatever cards into so they don't get scuffed, etc. Wouldn't solve anything. Pandante cards are oddly sized, as well. Anyway it's not so much  as it is noticing and pointing out that it's Exhibit A of a specific kind of Design <-> Manufacturing interplay. It's said that Manufacturing is where you reap all that you sowed during Design, but it's not always easy to see some things coming.
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Jun 20, 2014 20:49
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dishwasherlove posted:I just want to say that there has been some pro posts in this thread recently and it rules. Also I think card games are an excellent entry point to board gaming and everyone should play Fixed that for you. Hate Tichu!
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Jun 20, 2014 20:50
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Mister Sinewave posted:The only sleeves I know of are the clear ones people put their Magic or whatever cards into so they don't get scuffed, etc. Wouldn't solve anything. Lots of sleeves for Magic have opaque backs. The strange sizing is a real problem, however.
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Jun 20, 2014 20:51
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If you have only 3 players and want to play a trick taking card game, Bottle Imp is incredible. It's an extremely smart trick taking game.
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Jun 20, 2014 20:52
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burger time posted:Chess 2 is a pretty neat chess variant, the multiple armies are really cool (Two Kings owns) and I like it a lot... except for the dueling mechanic. It's really unnecessary and is the largest additional source of complexity in the variant. It's essentially the clash system from Injustice, but it can happen way more often. I had an idea once to do collectable chess pieces; like HeroClix. Each piece would have a different point value and different special powers so you could make up custom armies and have asymmetrical matches. There are tons of "fairy" chess pieces out there that do really neat things. Taikyoku Shogi alone has 253 unique piece movement types to draw from; and there's other even more exotic stuff like the Jester (that takes on the movements of the last pieces played) or the Reflecting Bishop (that can bounce off the side of the board like a mirror). I gave up on it when I couldn't figure out a good metric the assign the pieces point values. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_chess_piece http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taikyoku_shogi jmzero posted:chess This is a pro post.
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Jun 20, 2014 20:53
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Lorini posted:Fixed that for you. Hate Tichu! I started learning Bridge this month. It's rather fantastic, though I'm learning I don't understand trick-taking games as well as I thought.
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Jun 20, 2014 20:54
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Does anyone play euchre, by the way? It's a simple trick-taking game which is mostly popular in the Midwest, from what I can tell.
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Jun 20, 2014 20:56
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