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Thanks for all the recommendations guys, I've got a lot to check out now
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Jan 4, 2015 02:55
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Does anyone here play Mice and Mystics and have a few tips for mitigating the luck factor (or house rules to do the same)? I joked with my wife that I like everything about the game except the gameplay. And that's not really even true, because I do like playing it for the majority of the game, but we've been badly screwed over by unlucky dice rolls each of the three times we've tried to complete the first mission. The most recent time we were about as dominant as I think one can be, but got super unlucky rolls against a centipede on the Courtyard tile and ended up losing everyone to either the centipede or an unlucky roll of 1. I've been thinking of maybe a house rule to use a cheese to reroll one die, which would at least someone help against things like an enemy killing you in one hit. It's such a shame because I really love everything else about the game. It's light and interesting, has a great theme, etc. etc. I'm sure that some of it is us just getting unlucky, but it seems to me this would happen fairly often.
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Jan 4, 2015 04:06
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I tried to use forums search but couldn't find anything about Zeppelin Attack! Any opinions and/or reasons it's broken or something, wise and venerable goons? What do you guys think about Love Letter vs Lost Legacy?
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Jan 4, 2015 04:25
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Gzuz-Kriced posted:
You actually don't like the gameplay. It's predicated on rolling D6s. You're being charmed by the theme.
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Jan 4, 2015 04:55
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fozzy fosbourne posted:I tried to use forums search but couldn't find anything about Zeppelin Attack! Any opinions and/or reasons it's broken or something, wise and venerable goons? My group likes Love Letter, but I think I prefer Lost Legacy. I'd need some more time to play Lost Legacy to really feel it out and make a final call, but it's a LOT better 2-player than Love Letter is. Legacy kind of fell flat in comparison in 4 player on its first outing. It kind of backloaded the guessing compared to Love Letter, at least with Flying Garden. Both are getting a spot in my gaming bag, though. I threw both Lost Legacy sets into a deckbox with the rulebooks and such.
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Jan 4, 2015 06:09
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Malloreon posted:Dune is a fantastic game. FFG has released Rex, a mechanically equivalent re-theme set in the TI Universe. It is also excellent. Rex is quite a bit better. It's almost mechanically equivalent, but they removed some of the useless ballast from the original game. By "useless ballast," I really do mean "useless," such as action cards that don't do anything and spaces on the board that serve no purpose. The action cards are simpler (and more effective, generally), the board is simpler without changing the gameplay much at all, and there's a minor tweak in that in Rex the sandworm (Sol Offensive, in Rex) eating your dudes and the opportunity to make alliances are disconnected, so that you no longer get eaten by a sandworm and then forced to try and bargain from your now weaker position. Other than those three things it's pretty much unchanged, as far as I recall. Also, it has the added benefit of the spaces on the board not being named completely retarded things like "oh gap."
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Jan 4, 2015 06:20
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Unfortunately, they also removed the one thing that made Dune work: the Dune license. You really have to stretch to get the mechanics and flavor to mesh in a TI setting.
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Jan 4, 2015 06:27
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fozzy fosbourne posted:I tried to use forums search but couldn't find anything about Zeppelin Attack! Any opinions and/or reasons it's broken or something, wise and venerable goons? If you like player elimination, get Love Letter. If you like deduction, or like the idea of expanding the game, grab Lost Legacy. Love Letter is generally quicker by the round, whereas Lost Legacy is less prone to unlucky draws. The investigation phase in Lost Legacy feels like a wet fart compared to the rest of the game. Gun to my head, I'd probably get Love Letter as it's easier to pump out like 4 fast rounds while someone grabs food, but I prefer the game of Lost Legacy more.
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Jan 4, 2015 07:50
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I am brand new to this thread/sub-forum and only just started looking around, so I apologize if this has been asked a thousand times (though I did read the OP): My wife and I just finished up four games of Risk Legacy with two close friends of ours and we loved it. I am psyched especially because I really enjoy this stuff and she usually hates board games entirely, but she really dug this, mostly for the feeling of investment she had (I think the changes you make to the board added to that, but honestly it was more that she got to play as "Bear People.") For reference, she also has played Settlers of Catan and disliked that, I think because there wasn't anything to connect to outside of just colors and buildings. So, I'm looking for any decent two-player game we can play where a player can feel invested in a faction beyond the desire to compete and win (which she isn't high on.) Silliness is great. So like, running a nation of walruses would be a selling point. Space Alert and Tash Kalar from the OP seem worth checking out, but I'm wondering if any of you fine folks have any good ideas?
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Jan 4, 2015 08:19
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DontMockMySmock posted:Rex is quite a bit better. It's almost mechanically equivalent, but they removed some of the useless ballast from the original game. By "useless ballast," I really do mean "useless," such as action cards that don't do anything and spaces on the board that serve no purpose. The action cards are simpler (and more effective, generally), the board is simpler without changing the gameplay much at all, and there's a minor tweak in that in Rex the sandworm (Sol Offensive, in Rex) eating your dudes and the opportunity to make alliances are disconnected, so that you no longer get eaten by a sandworm and then forced to try and bargain from your now weaker position. Other than those three things it's pretty much unchanged, as far as I recall. As far as I remember from reading about Rex, didn't they remove some of the more interesting asymmetric player powers/win conditions?
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Jan 4, 2015 08:29
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Megasabin posted:As far as I remember from reading about Rex, didn't they remove some of the more interesting asymmetric player powers/win conditions? Nope, they're all exactly the same, or near enough that I didn't notice when looking through my roommate's copy of Dune.
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Jan 4, 2015 09:52
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I had great fun playing Rex, but I was slightly concerned that it wouldn't hold up to repeated plays. I can't remember why. I should play again.
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Jan 4, 2015 10:32
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Captain Magic posted:I am brand new to this thread/sub-forum and only just started looking around, so I apologize if this has been asked a thousand times (though I did read the OP): Sounds like she wants something thematic. I'd throw Pandemic out, maybe?
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Jan 4, 2015 10:34
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Captain Magic posted:I am brand new to this thread/sub-forum and only just started looking around, so I apologize if this has been asked a thousand times (though I did read the OP): Space Alert is a four to five player game, unless you're experienced at it possibly. Tash-Kalar is great, but it's mostly just coloured disks on a grid, so not very connectable. The cards do have dudes (and boobtrees) on them, but they kind of feel tacked on, and they don't really stay on the board. Agricola might work with the family rules to keep it simple, you have a family that you have to keep fed and also you have to build a farm for them and keep them fed. Also they will starve. You should get invested in making your family happy and not starving, and also their awesome crib with the oven and the clay house and the cattle. Also, the little wooden animals are awesome. For three to four players, I'd definitely recommend Primordial Soup. You're building amoebas that swim around and live off each other in different ways, with various genes for sale that give you various advantages, like eating the other guys, multiplying faster, eating less or moving better. You basically build personalities for your little dudes, and it's awesome. I think it's a light version of Dominant Species in terms of theme, without having ever played that.
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Jan 4, 2015 10:48
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If she liked Risk, maybe she'd be down with Twilight Struggle, the two player cold war game. Thematic, but requires at least one person to invest some time reading and understanding the rules.
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Jan 4, 2015 14:44
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Captain Magic posted:I am brand new to this thread/sub-forum and only just started looking around, so I apologize if this has been asked a thousand times (though I did read the OP): What you are after is Small World. It's like Risk but much better in every way and it has awesome zany factions: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/40692/small-world http://www.daysofwonder.com/smallworld/en/ 
Rutibex fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Jan 4, 2015 |
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Jan 4, 2015 15:03
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I'd suggest Caverna (definitely this over Agricola, it's IME a better game, and the theme is a lot more obvious and fun), Galaxy Trucker, Dungeon Lords/Petz, Feudality, Belfort, Flash Point Fire Rescue as all being reasonable-to-excellent games with strong, fun themes. SmallWorld is good for theme but a fairly poor game unfortunately.
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Jan 4, 2015 15:26
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I'm getting rid of my copy of Small World and several of its expansions over in the trading thread if you decide that would scratch the itch. Gameplay is fairly similar to Risk, which might make an easy jump from Risk Legacy.
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Jan 4, 2015 17:23
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DontMockMySmock posted:Rex is quite a bit better. It's almost mechanically equivalent, but they removed some of the useless ballast from the original game. By "useless ballast," I really do mean "useless," such as action cards that don't do anything and spaces on the board that serve no purpose. The action cards are simpler (and more effective, generally), the board is simpler without changing the gameplay much at all, and there's a minor tweak in that in Rex the sandworm (Sol Offensive, in Rex) eating your dudes and the opportunity to make alliances are disconnected, so that you no longer get eaten by a sandworm and then forced to try and bargain from your now weaker position. Other than those three things it's pretty much unchanged, as far as I recall. What I think works in Dune's favor, I often hear as "improvements" in Rex. The things that create favor of Rex over Dune is that in Dune there are rules that don't make sense because the design team favored theme over mechanics. For more mechanical players, this is always a problem. For example, the "useless cards." In the optional rules from the original rulebook (Dune is basically defined by optional rules and house rules), the Bene Gesserit get to use the useless cards as Karama cards which basically means that they can do more Bene Gesserit things. These rules also expanded the Karama powers which lead to a bit more furious of auction rounds. I always felt like those cards were fantastic in terms of the theme given that winning an auction in the Dune universe meant a thousand years of pain. I don't know if I like personally like the Sol Offensive. The way the Sandworms worked and the way the storm worked tied to the theme of Arrakis not being a hospital place. The worms themselves (the source of the spice) were holy objects. It made sense that if Shai Halud showed up that people would sit down and think about some poo poo.
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Jan 4, 2015 17:33
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Small World is not a great game, but is a great gateway game. When you know of good games, it feel simple and random and it has too little choice and too much downtime. But when I first got into board games, those thing did not matter so much, so I loved it. The rules are fairly straightforward, and the game does force you to attack, so there's some political stuff, but moderated heavily by the best placement option.
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Jan 4, 2015 17:39
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PerniciousKnid posted:If she liked Risk, maybe she'd be down with Twilight Struggle, the two player cold war game. Thematic, but requires at least one person to invest some time reading and understanding the rules. I haven't played twilight struggle but holy gently caress it's got a dense rule book and seems like it takes a bit to learn.
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Jan 4, 2015 18:30
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MildManeredManikin posted:I haven't played twilight struggle but holy gently caress it's got a dense rule book and seems like it takes a bit to learn. It really isn't that hard. The basics are:
2a. Soviet player plays card 2b. American player plays card 3. Repeat step 2 until six cards have been played (7 including headline) 4. Get a new hand, it's the next turn
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Jan 4, 2015 18:38
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Edit: ^^^ an advantage of a card driven game like TS is that a significant portion of the complexity is metered out via the cards. Instead of choking down a bunch of rules up front, you get a nice drip feed. FWIW, I'm pretty sure I had an easier time teaching Twilight Struggle than most Vlaada games, for example (not hating; they are traditionally a lot of rules to choke down up front). My wife enjoyed Twilight Struggle but we ramped up with non-confrontational stuff like Dominion, Thunderstone and 7 Wonders first. She hasn't played a Gladwell's Outliers 10,000 hours worth of nerd game poo poo like me so we did better starting out with games that are not head to head. I'd recommend Dominion or maybe Legendary Encounters: Alien if you need a theme. I haven't played the latter but I've played Legendary: Marvel and I hear the Alien version is significantly better. Does the thread have any strong opinions on Seasons? fozzy fosbourne fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Jan 4, 2015 |
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Jan 4, 2015 18:42
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fozzy fosbourne posted:Does the thread have any strong opinions on Seasons? I found the the base game to be bad. As in, I felt that after the initial draft of cards, the game was done, and the remaining hour~hour and a half was a waste of time. The expansions did wonders to fix that for me, and now I enjoy the game.
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Jan 4, 2015 19:44
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My friend who introduced me to Small World is of the opinion that it plays better by passing around an ipad/laptop hotseat style, rather than setting up the physical board. There's a lot of fiddly tokens, and not anything in the way of hidden information; it's not a game where the physicality of the components is a big thing.
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Jan 4, 2015 20:21
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OmegaGoo posted:I found the the base game to be bad. As in, I felt that after the initial draft of cards, the game was done, and the remaining hour~hour and a half was a waste of time. The expansions did wonders to fix that for me, and now I enjoy the game. Could you elaborate a bit on that? I also played the base game and was pretty turned off on it but never got the chance to try the expansions.
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Jan 4, 2015 20:32
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I had my birthday party yesterday and I was stunned by the generosity of my friends, I was likewise stunned by the fact that they actually payed attention when I rambled on about board games. I recieved Battlestar Galactica, Archipelago, Legends of Andor, Nautilus and 7 Wonders: Cities. Of these only Nautilus was unknown to me, I've read the rules but I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. I'm really looking forward to both Galactica and Archipelago, next week we're getting together so let's hope we have enough time to play some of them.
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Jan 4, 2015 21:37
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S.J. posted:Could you elaborate a bit on that? I also played the base game and was pretty turned off on it but never got the chance to try the expansions. To be honest, not really. The expansions add a number of cards that actually give you something to do on your turn and special powers that actually give you some tactical choices during the game. I just feel that with JUST the basic cards, it's really just an engine game with no set up time. There's a reason games like Dominion and Agricola tend to end about the time engines get going; setting up the engine is most of the fun, rather than playing it out. The expansions to Seasons add cards that allow you that sense of discovery and creation during the game, rather than being done after drafting. I feel like I'm spouting nonsense here. It's a distinct possibility that if you didn't enjoy the base game, the expansions won't fix anything. I liked the concept of Seasons, but the base game's execution felt lacking to me.
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Jan 4, 2015 22:18
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h_double posted:My friend who introduced me to Small World is of the opinion that it plays better by passing around an ipad/laptop hotseat style, rather than setting up the physical board. There's a lot of fiddly tokens, and not anything in the way of hidden information; it's not a game where the physicality of the components is a big thing. Your VP/coins are supposed to be hidden information, to make it slightly harder to dogpile the leader. No, it doesn't really work.
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Jan 4, 2015 22:24
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OmegaGoo posted:To be honest, not really. No, that's exactly the thought I had. Actually playing the core game felt like I was just going through the motions outside of deciding what resources to trade and when, which was entirely dependent on dice rolls from what I remember. I'll try and check out some other reviews though.
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Jan 4, 2015 22:41
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How well does the 7 Wonders box insert handle expansions? Having looked at the content lists on Leaders and Cities, it looks like it'll hold everything...but I haven't sleeved my cards yet, and I want to know if I need to be investigating other storage solutions.
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Jan 5, 2015 00:07
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The insert can't handle more than the wonder pack, and you might be in a lovely boat when you end up sleeving. That said, the leaders and cities expansions boxes are exactly half the width of the game box, so you can stack them right atop the main box.
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Jan 5, 2015 00:10
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jivjov posted:How well does the 7 Wonders box insert handle expansions? Having looked at the content lists on Leaders and Cities, it looks like it'll hold everything...but I haven't sleeved my cards yet, and I want to know if I need to be investigating other storage solutions. It fits. Just. The card slots in particular are a veeery tight fit for sleeved cards (area-wise, they are already deep enough). Really, the main problem is with the score pads, but if you've finished off a few of those, they'll fit reasonably well too.
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Jan 5, 2015 00:12
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I found that 7W+L+C managed to fit in the box fine, but once I sleeved it and added the Wonder Pack, I had to take out the box insert to get it all in.
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Jan 5, 2015 00:14
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Thanks for all the suggestions! I've got a lot to look into.
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Jan 5, 2015 00:19
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On the topic of 7 Wonders, how recommended are the expansions? I picked up just the base game recently and so far it's been a big hit with my friends and family. It's getting a lot of play already so I'll probably be wanting to expand it sooner or later.
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Jan 5, 2015 00:25
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ThaShaneTrain posted:Super Munchkin with at by Rob Liefeld I would be down for this just because I'm a sucker for the art you find in lovely 80s/90s CCGs (ask me about the RIFTS CCG I bought for $1 from my FLGS recently).
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Jan 5, 2015 00:27
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Tippis posted:It fits. Just. Yeah...that's what I've just discovered; the cards baaaaaaaarely squeeze into the slots now that they're sleeved. Chomp8645 posted:On the topic of 7 Wonders, how recommended are the expansions? I picked up just the base game recently and so far it's been a big hit with my friends and family. It's getting a lot of play already so I'll probably be wanting to expand it sooner or later. The only times I've played 7 Wonders so far have been at my FLGS' game night, and the lady bringing the game has all the expansions. It really feels like there's a lot going on which Leaders and Cities, and when we added Babel last time, it almost felt like too much. But I'm willing to attribute that to my relative inexperience with the base game. It seems to me that adding the expansions in order, after getting really familiar with the game as it stands in between each one, will give a nice feeling of progression.
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Jan 5, 2015 00:49
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Chomp8645 posted:On the topic of 7 Wonders, how recommended are the expansions? I picked up just the base game recently and so far it's been a big hit with my friends and family. It's getting a lot of play already so I'll probably be wanting to expand it sooner or later. Leaders owns. Cities is OK. Haven't had a chance to try Babel but I have it.
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Jan 5, 2015 00:50
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Myrmidongs posted:Leaders owns. Cities is OK. Haven't had a chance to try Babel but I have it. Based on my experience with Babel, I would recommend starting with only one of the two mini-expansions contained in Babel, then try the other, then combine them together into the full Babel experience. There's just a bit too much going on to dump it all in at once.
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Jan 5, 2015 00:53
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