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Kai Tave posted:Kemet Go here and print out however many copies of the first link (rules and various summaries) you think you'll need. It will save you much headache when somebody wants to buy powers and they don't know what anything is (which will be the case since it's just a poo poo load of pictures and symbols with not a lot of meaning to it at first glance. You will not want to pass around the 1 English player aid that comes with the box (unless you're only playing 2 players i guess) http://www.orderofgamers.com/games/kemet/ If you get lots of blank looks i would tell them that Red=Attacking Blue=Defending and White=Economy If you're playing with 2 or 3 people, don't get confused like i did and assume the big,flashy,blue temple at the top of the map is the Temple of All Gods (which is not actually considered a temple in terms of the "have dudes in 2 temples at the end of a round" VP condition, in the case of both a common pitfall AND misinterpreted rules)! because that building isn't on the 2 and 3 player side of the board, that would be the Delta Temple! Which does almost exactly the same thing except you get like 4 or 5 Pray Points for 1 dude instead of a VP for 2. Also get into the habit of knowing to give yourself 2 Prayer Points and another Divine Intervention card at the start of every new round, at least in my first game i was kind being overwhelmed with so much information and was to busy thinking about tactics and what powers i wanted that i routinely forgot that i had 2 more points than i thought i had. I would also consider watching this video series if you want to get an idea of how a round goes https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHvfN_pNBj_GRUlSc4RaJSbwwHHtdpgoT
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Dec 24, 2014 09:50
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HOOLY BOOLY posted:Go here and print out however many copies of the first link (rules and various summaries) you think you'll need. It will save you much headache when somebody wants to buy powers and they don't know what anything is (which will be the case since it's just a poo poo load of pictures and symbols with not a lot of meaning to it at first glance. You will not want to pass around the 1 English player aid that comes with the box (unless you're only playing 2 players i guess) Perfect, thank you. I was going to type up summary sheets myself but you may have just saved me a whole bunch of time and effort, much appreciated. On the subject of misinterpreted/unclear rules, what happens to units that are killed in battle? Do they go back to reserves? I ask since there seems to be a difference between "killed" and "pulled back to the reserves" and so I'm wondering, is it possible to fully deplete a player's manpower to the point that they can't muster armies anymore? quote:I would also consider watching this video series if you want to get an idea of how a round goes And thanks again, I'd forgotten to ask if there were any videos that showed how the game worked in action. I'll definitely be watching these.
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Dec 24, 2014 09:58
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Kai Tave posted:Perfect, thank you. I was going to type up summary sheets myself but you may have just saved me a whole bunch of time and effort, much appreciated. Any unit that is killed in battle/sacrificed/taken out of the game in any way go back to your reserve so that you can recruit them again later (or even put right back in your city if you have the points to spend on a recruit action right after a battle!) It's totally possible to completely wipe out the units somebody might have deployed but between always getting at least 2 points a turn on top of the various powers that can increase how much you generate you're almost never completely out of a game. It's bit more of a problem in a 2 player game since there is nobody else to gun for but the other guy so you can concentrate on murderizing him but it's still a good way to at least get individual players familiar with mechanics before throwing them into a 5 player bloodbath. The Shame Boy fucked around with this message at 10:15 on Dec 24, 2014 |
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Dec 24, 2014 10:10
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I may have gone a little too far bringing games home for the holidays. Incidentally, you can fit Dixit (minus board), 7 Wonders, Avalon, Coup, Dominion, Hanabi and Letters from Whitechapel in the box of Letters.
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Dec 24, 2014 11:03
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Weekly game night with friends tonight went awesome. Played Istanbul which I absolutely love, Five Tribes, and Splendor, followed by some winding down with 8-person One Night Ultimate Werewolf (+Daybreak). Nothing much to say about any of them that hasn't been said before, but drat, just what an enjoyable night. Play all of these games, people. Fat Samurai posted:I may have gone a little too far bringing games home for the holidays. Incidentally, you can fit Dixit (minus board), 7 Wonders, Avalon, Coup, Dominion, Hanabi and Letters from Whitechapel in the box of Letters. This is an excellent thing, do not be ashamed.
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Dec 24, 2014 11:04
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HOOLY BOOLY posted:
It's the 2/4 player side of the board that doesn't have the Sanctum of All Gods. You're confusing the issue because 2 and 3-player games don't use the East Bank. The Sanctum is on the West Bank and is most certainly used in three-player games.
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Dec 24, 2014 11:21
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This weekend I'm hopefully getting to play Twilight Struggle, Guns of Gettysburg, Le Havre and Keyflower
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Dec 24, 2014 12:02
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I played Keyflower the other week. Enjoyed it a lot despite losing horribly. Would play again.
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Dec 24, 2014 12:36
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Kai Tave posted:Anyway, I'm telling you that story to tell you this one, I was so annoyed by that first hour being a waste that in a convoluted fit of pique I bought a copy of Kemet off the shelves then and there, resolving to do everything I can to learn how it works and learn how to effectively teach it so that when next Tuesday rolls around I can do a better job of teaching everybody a new game than that dude. I've never played Kemet before, so those of you with experience please impart upon me your wisdom. Things to bear in mind, common pitfalls, easily misinterpreted rules, anything, I want it all. Also what's the best way to go about teaching it to new players, if you have any special tricks for that? I see the instructions have rules for a quick "Beginner's Mode" and I have next Tuesday free so I can go to the store early and get in a two-player game with the owner to give him a feel for how things work before other people show up. Of that http://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/91982/universal-head-kemet-rules-summary-reference, I printed 5 copies (one for each potential player, ) of the last 4 pages into A4's and folded them in he middle (making them smaller, since game already takes a huge space on the table). Rest of the PDF isn't something they would need to look at much, but everyone needs their own copy of those other 4 pages (more like 3 but why leave the backside of one blank). Even after everyone is familiar with all the power tiles, it saves time from getting up and trying to see what tiles are there, since the game has a huge footprint on the table and tiles are probably placed at the other edge of table from you. Also either print this http://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/89841/comprehensive-faq-all-threads-date or have it ready at hand on a tablet/smartphone. Having a pdf of the rulebook there as well wouldn't hurt. It is always much faster to search for a keyword then shuffling pages and searching manually. Take time explaining that Determining the Winner of a battle is done before Counting the Casualties. Seen newbies assuming otherwise if not emphasized enough. Tell people to put their power tiles to a place visible to other players and not stack them. It isn't fun to attack people and encounter combat modifying power tiles popping out of nowhere. Explain people when they can use their Divine Intervention cards while showing the 5th of the Universal Head KEMET Rules Summary & Reference with them on. New players always mix Play in Day phase, in player’s turn (except in a battle). / Play in battle phase. / Play in an opponent’s turn.
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Dec 24, 2014 13:52
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Any goons want to give their thoughts on Village and Five Tribes? I'm starting to think about post-christmas board game sales. Think I might hold out on Castles of Mad King Ludwig - at the moment the cost of the game + shipping in Australia will rack up close to $100, so I think I'll just wait it out for the game to become a bit more widespread and see if I can't get it cheaper later. I very much like the worker placement styles of Village, Dungeon Petz, Agricola, T'zolkin, etc. etc., I just can't decide between them because they all seem like strong games in their own right. Ideally I'd be able to get all of them, but it seems I have an interesting decision. I'm not exactly asking for a recommendation of one over the others here, just peoples' thoughts on what each game has going for them individually. Agricola is the granddaddy to an extent of the genre and I know it is fairly commonly recommended, I'm just mulling it all over. Five Tribes thoughts are just for my own interest. I only recently learned how Mancala-style games work and have been playing Kalah on my phone. I'm not sure if I'm very good - the style of the game in general does my head in when it comes to actually thinking of "strategy". SU&SD seemed to enjoy the game's ideas but didn't really appreciate the Mancala mechanic itself because they felt it didn't allow for any significant strategic planning. Is this a common criticism of that style of game?
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Dec 24, 2014 14:55
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I'll put in a word for Dungeon Petz because it is my favourite worker placement game of the lot. One of the big advantages of Dungeon Petz is that it has very strong cohesion to its theme (although village/agricola/t'zolkin also aren't bad), it has wonderful art and it has a very interesting worker placement section. The base mechanism is that it is a hidden bid/worker placement hybrids, where you are trying to make groups of imps/money, with the larger groups going first and smaller groups going last, with ties decided by whoever has the first player marker. This really opens up the decision space because you have to think about what the other players need, if you really need to go first to grab something crucial to you, if you need lots of small things that are unlikely to go immediately etc. Let's say I decide to make all of my groups three strong, for example: I might lose the first picks, but after that, if the other players don't have many 3 groups, I would get to have several placements in a row. You also need to keep some imps in the shop though to entertain pets/ensure that they don't run away/clean poop (did I mention there are poop tokens in this game?). Actually looking after pets is a real risk/reward decision. Bigger pets have bigger needs but score you more points, so you have to strike a balance between a pet becoming unmanageable and actually being able to score loads of points. Although the needs of the pets are somewhat unpredictable (you draw them from differently coloured decks, which each deck having a prevalence of one particular need), it does also encourage planning in advance, because you keep a number of cards through the turns and you might need those cards to score big in later turns. Overall, I love it: it's kind of high in terms of complexity and has a lot of fiddly rules (like a lot of Vlaada games), but once you understand the game it makes sense. Also, there is an expansion out for it that takes the risk/reward formula in overdrive and I love it.
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Dec 24, 2014 15:08
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Tekopo posted:I'll put in a word for Dungeon Petz because it is my favourite worker placement game of the lot. The theme of Dungeon Petz is obviously what grabbed me at first, even before I really knew what the actually game of it was. Even though as a Vlaada game it has these odd little rules, they are so strongly tied to the theme that I can envisage it being easy to explain in thematic terms e.g. needing two imps to carry an enclosure back home. Another positive is how much the theme stands out - while the gric is a classic, I sort of worry that it might seem too dry to catch the attention of my friends/SO so I can teach them the game. I think I may be a little overhyped for Village - reading about it further, it sounds like the game suffers in that you can be very successful by sticking to only a couple of scoring opportunities. Is that accurate? So let's put that one aside for now.
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Dec 24, 2014 15:21
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I was very sad to learn Dungeon Petz only does 4 players 
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Dec 24, 2014 15:22
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CNN Sports Ticker posted:This weekend I'm hopefully getting to play Twilight Struggle, Guns of Gettysburg, Le Havre and Keyflower I convinced my friend who owns Gettysburg on DVD and read the books to ask for Guns of Gettysburg, so I should get to play it sometime after Christmas I hope. I more excited about that than anything I'm getting myself.
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Dec 24, 2014 15:23
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The Narrator posted:The theme of Dungeon Petz is obviously what grabbed me at first, even before I really knew what the actually game of it was. Even though as a Vlaada game it has these odd little rules, they are so strongly tied to the theme that I can envisage it being easy to explain in thematic terms e.g. needing two imps to carry an enclosure back home. Another positive is how much the theme stands out - while the gric is a classic, I sort of worry that it might seem too dry to catch the attention of my friends/SO so I can teach them the game. 
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Dec 24, 2014 15:26
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Gort posted:I was very sad to learn Dungeon Petz only does 4 players You learned wrongly. It does 3 and 2 players, but needs dummy players to work with smaller numbers. My first game was with three and seemed to work fine.
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Dec 24, 2014 15:32
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Tekopo posted:I wasn't enamored of Village. It felt like a perfectly decent worker placement and it has a few interesting innovations (your people dying off and giving you points), the 'generations' of meeples, the way that you pick a slot by selecting a resource etc. It was perfectly alright, it just didn't excite me at any point and there wasn't the stress of the 'Gric or Dungeon Petz. It was just sort of alright That sounds fair enough. SU&SD went bananas for it, and I think Rahdo really liked it. As we've established, though, Rahdo likes most every game he plays (or mostly only plays games he will probably like) and SU&SD are more entertainment than deep critique (though even then they've been dipping in the former lately). Speaking of, Quinns' waxing philosophical on retirement in the "Wet Retirement Special" came off as a bit strange - they seem to have run out of steam somewhat in the last 6 months and I get the sense they maybe don't really enjoy the schedule of playing + reviewing games in quick turnaround any more? It's a bit of a shame, as SU&SD (along with this thread) helped get me interested in the hobby when I first started out this year, so to see their rise and decline as the videos have gone on is a bit uncomfortable.
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Dec 24, 2014 15:38
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thespaceinvader posted:You learned wrongly. It does 3 and 2 players, but needs dummy players to work with smaller numbers. My first game was with three and seemed to work fine. I think he's more bothered that it doesn't go above four.
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Dec 24, 2014 15:41
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thespaceinvader posted:You learned wrongly. It does 3 and 2 players, but needs dummy players to work with smaller numbers. My first game was with three and seemed to work fine. Four players maximum, I mean.
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Dec 24, 2014 15:41
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Ah, yeah. Even the expansion doesn't add players I don't think. It's a shame, I'm sure that it could work with 5, but it would need a lot more bits - more pets, as well as a different play board and an extra set of player bits.
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Dec 24, 2014 15:50
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The local NPR affiliate was doing a designer boardgame hour (!!!) and someone mentioned a game that sounded like Space Alert-lite, with an app that dictated action, but I can't remember what it was called. Does anyone know the name of that game, and can they provide opinions on it?
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Dec 24, 2014 16:48
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sector_corrector posted:The local NPR affiliate was doing a designer boardgame hour (!!!) and someone mentioned a game that sounded like Space Alert-lite, with an app that dictated action, but I can't remember what it was called. Does anyone know the name of that game, and can they provide opinions on it? Could be Spaceteam? It's a multiplayer app that syncs up to all the players on local wi-fi. Everybody has an assortment of devices on their screen, and the orders that display on their screen reference devices that are on other peoples' screens. So, you have to announce the order that appears for you, hoping somebody else can figure it out. Activating the wrong devices moves the ship toward the exploding star or whatever, activating the correct devices moves it away. While all this is happening, everybody's control panels are constantly malfunctioning and falling apart, and the time window in which orders must be executed is getting progressively smaller.
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Dec 24, 2014 16:52
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Probably the new X-COM game from Fantasy Flight. I don't think it's generally available yet.
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Dec 24, 2014 16:53
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deadly_pudding posted:Could be Spaceteam? Spaceteam sounds right. It sucks because I was hoping it was run from a single app that acted as the DM instead of something that was required by all players.
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Dec 24, 2014 17:10
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sector_corrector posted:Spaceteam sounds right. It sucks because I was hoping it was run from a single app that acted as the DM instead of something that was required by all players. I'm pretty sure the app is free. There's some DLC, but the base game was perfectly adequate last time I played it. It's cross-platform, as well (android and ios), as it relies on the local wi-fi for its multiplayer.
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Dec 24, 2014 17:16
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My copy of Red7 just showed up and they did a very impressive job making it colorblind friendly.
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Dec 24, 2014 21:05
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Dungeon Petz is out of print sadly. Been that way for more than a year now. I placed an order for it at the place I shop regularly, the guy scoured all his sources and finally placed a backorder for it... and its been a year since, or more. I guess they'll do a Kickstarter for it with a bigger box like Dungeon Lords instead and that's why they haven't printed it again for so long.
echoMateria fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Dec 24, 2014 |
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Dec 24, 2014 21:11
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I assumed CGE were going to start reprinting stuff like Dungeon Lords and Petz themselves next year, since they had the falling out with Z-Man.
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Dec 24, 2014 21:13
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Bobby The Rookie posted:I assumed CGE were going to start reprinting stuff like Dungeon Lords and Petz themselves next year, since they had the falling out with Z-Man. Dungeon Lords Anniversary Edition Kickstarter was from Czech Games Edition (CGE) with Mr. B. Games acting as the US host. Maybe it wasn't just a falling out with Z-Man over one thing but was coming all along.
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Dec 24, 2014 21:21
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echoMateria posted:Dungeon Petz is out of print sadly. Been that way for more than a year now. I placed an order for it at the place I shop regularly, the guy scoured all his sources and finally placed a backorder for it... and its been a year since, or more. I guess they'll do a Kickstarter for it with a bigger box like Dungeon Lords instead and that's why they haven't printed it again for so long. The recent kickstarter for Lords also included reprinting Petz. Don't know whether that translates into another printing though.
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Dec 24, 2014 23:56
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Kai Tave posted:Forbidden Island was all right. Is it quarterbacking when everybody is quarterbacking everybody else all the time? Or does that just wrap back around to cooperative? That's perfectly fine. I had one game of Pandemic where the three of us sat there muttering to each other for ten minutes, declared the game won in eight turns and then played them out to prove it. As long as everyone's on the same page it's great, the issue with co-op is just that if one person's more or less aggressive than the rest they can take over or get shoved out of existence without anyone meaning to.
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Dec 25, 2014 01:50
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I got myself Lagoon: Land of the Druids for Christmas. Saw it has a solo bot option, and gave it a go. drat fine game, despite having little in terms of wow factor (notwithstanding beautiful artwork ). It just simmers in a calm, cerebral way. The gist of the game is that you have a bunch of dudes running around, laying down and ripping apart (for scoring) tiles in one of three colors. It has that cool Pax Porfiriana thing where players manipulate the game to define what actually counts as VPs (in this case, decided by the majority color of the remaining tiles). The meat of the game lies in various abilities that the tiles provide to your dudes. The thing is, about 80% of them are really unexciting. Most red ones allow you to move dudes more efficiently, yellow ones to refresh them (usually to do something after they moved) and blue ones to move tiles around to make shortcuts. So it seems like a one big movement puzzle with a lot of roundabout ways to do the same poo poo. I knew I was missing something about the potentially cool combos this game was supposed to be about - and felt there was little reason to bother with the blue tiles, as compared to the other options. The thing clicked for me on a playthrough where the AI semi-randomly put itself in a killer position, bursting with ridiculous amounts of blue energy (necessary to score the yellow tiles), ready to obliterate everything in the path of the great blue blob waaay faster than I could keep up with. I took a look at my options and it dawned on me that the true utility of tile-moving is to create gamestate blocking the potential targets (the game has a Hive-style rule, where all the tiles must form a single blob) and undoing it the second you are ready to score them. Similarly, when I started to carefully move stuff around, rather than just spawn dudes and have them run at targets to score, more opportunities appeared where re-activating an effect referring to a particular tile is no less useful than moving and scoring a tile with a single pawn. What I'm trying to say is that the combo puzzle is really cool, but there's little in terms of flashy Timmy plays. It's more about clever little maneuvers. I guess it's telling I can't really frame it in an interesting way, but it feels good. Also, the solo rules are very good, which is doubly nice because it is a game suited for just sitting down and spergin' about ekeing out optimal plays, providing a combo puzzle that shifts each turn. The bot is simple to manage and hits the sweet spot between uncertainty and manageability. It apparently also scales in difficulty quite a bit, but I can't really comment on that. Pros: being a cool game. Elegant design. Feels very fluid, in a good way. Cons: about as thematic as Tash-Kalar. Do not buy if you live in AP Danger Zone.
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Dec 25, 2014 02:23
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I just learned Temporum and played a couple turns single player. I have zero idea what I'm doing. There's no cohesion to it. Gonna play an actual game tonight
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Dec 25, 2014 02:54
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Bruceski posted:That's perfectly fine. I had one game of Pandemic where the three of us sat there muttering to each other for ten minutes, declared the game won in eight turns and then played them out to prove it. As long as everyone's on the same page it's great, the issue with co-op is just that if one person's more or less aggressive than the rest they can take over or get shoved out of existence without anyone meaning to. Also known as "playing Arkham Horror." That Khemet playthrough video series was just the thing HOOLY BOOLY, it answered a bunch of question I had and simplified things greatly. I kinda wish he'd gotten to illustrate a few more features like the gold/silver action tokens and how that plays out but it seems fairly straightforward so I'm not too concerned. I'll bear in mind the order of combat resolution and such, once you watch a few combats play out it's pretty simple. Now all I need to do is print some stuff out, find some baggies for pieces, and punch out a shitload of tokens. Hey, what other board game review/playthrough videos are out there worth watching? Assume I already know about Tabletop and the issues thereof.
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Dec 25, 2014 02:59
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Malloreon posted:I just learned Temporum and played a couple turns single player. There's a LOT of cohesion... once you get past the initial "I have no idea what's going on" phase. Because this game smacks you in the face during that phase.
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Dec 25, 2014 03:15
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Kai Tave posted:Also known as "playing Arkham Horror." I will tentatively suggest Rahdo Runs Through. First thing I should mention, however, is that he A) is often AP-prone, B) makes mistakes (which lately are pointed out by annotations) and C) does looooong videos; he generally releases two ~30-45 minute videos of gameplay as well as a "final thoughts" video. Also due to his/his wife's preferences, they tend to focus on indirectly-competitive games over confrontational ones. But I do have a soft spot for him. He explains the game setup and runs through a few turns of a two-player game between him and his wife. He also gives a running commentary of sorts to explain the strategy behind his decisions, while also attempting to show off all the aspects of a game. One advantage of the video lengths is that he can certainly be comprehensive. If you just want his take on a game, you can skip ahead to "final thoughts" videos (hint: he probably likes the game if he's playing it). Edit: worth mentioning is that he does hand-recording, which may be a problem if you're susceptible to motion sickness. Lately, though, he has been filming static-cam versions of his videos simultaneously. Considering the guy is doing this as a hobby of sorts and not to make money, I really appreciate the guy's commitment to his work. The Narrator fucked around with this message at 04:27 on Dec 25, 2014 |
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Dec 25, 2014 04:24
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thespaceinvader posted:The recent kickstarter for Lords also included reprinting Petz. Don't know whether that translates into another printing though. It did? I don't see that anywhere on the main page or in any of the updates. Did they say something about it in the video? (I never watch KS videos.)
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Dec 25, 2014 06:07
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I have a storage question; what's a good way to organize and store the mini cards for Eldritch Horror? I have 3 four-compartment dragon shield boxes for the full size cards, but the best I've been able to come up with for mini cards has been folded over ziploc bags, but those are getting really full and hard to manage with all the Forsaken Lore and Mountains of Madness cards.
jivjov fucked around with this message at 06:48 on Dec 25, 2014 |
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Dec 25, 2014 06:33
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I'd love a better storage system for those American Mini cards. I have tuckboxes I put together for Battlestar Galactica, but other games are a problem.
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Dec 25, 2014 07:10
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I'm considering getting Mage Knight, as my understanding is that it can be played solo. Can someone give me the rundown on the pros and cons of the game? Does it work well solo? Conversely, does it transition well to multiplayer?
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Dec 25, 2014 07:13
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