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Bubble-T posted:I finally played Caverna yesterday and just found it weird. You're avalanched with resources all game from spaces that give you 3 different things at once, you can put them almost anywhere you want, and while adventuring dwarves feels pretty fun it's also basically just shopping for anything you need and can't get with the game's God resource (rubies). Final scores where 79-80-82 which makes me worried that it's too easy to just do whatever the hell you want with every path being balanced to roughly the same numbers. But they're PUNISHINGLY difficult by comparison, and for an introductory game, Caverna is just much, MUCH more forgiving and thereby, less likely to turn people off the hobby. My first try at Agricola nearly killed worker placement for me, because I got my rear end kicked just by the game board, let alone the other players. It just wasn't fun. These days, it's a toss-up and I'll happily play any of them, but as a beginner? Nope. And in terms of theme, Caverna wins hands down. And those two things were what the discussion was about homullus posted:I only play it full co-op, so we always help with each other's turns. Also, if memory serves, the rules actually allow for some limited re-doing, as long as you haven't revealed new information. Yeah, co-op Mage Knight best Mage Knight. I wouldn't play it otherwise, the downtime is just too much.
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 18:33 |
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# ? May 23, 2024 16:28 |
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fozzy fosbourne posted:It's fairly fascinating that a game about Robinson Crusoe is ranked 3rd overall on the "Thematic" game rankings on Boardgamegeek (12th overall on uncategorized rankings) Robinson Crusoe only has the thinest connection to the book, they just picked that name because it has some brand awareness and is out of copyright. It's really more of a generic "desert island survival" game with a bunch of different kinds of scenarios (including a zombie island one). I think it's so high on the ranking list because it's both thematic and a really clever game. It has just the right amount of randomness to keep you on your toes but lets you plan around it if you're smart.
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 18:34 |
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Backing up a bit: LeHavre has two major problems which is why I sold mine and problems Caverna doesn't have. I'm spoiling it in case you want to find out for yourself. Loans are ridiculously overpowered, unless you are playing four player it does not make sense to actually produce food, just get loans instead. And even then only the fourth player should produce food, everyone else should get loans. There's really only two strategies in the game, ships or shipping steel/coke. That's about it. You need to play a bit to find this out, but I was really disappointed. Caverna doesn't seem to have these issues (yet).
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 18:34 |
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Mister Sinewave posted:My only problem with Mage Knight is that the combat is so brain-burny for anything past small fights. It makes sense to plan the combat out in your head before committing (since once you start there are no re-do's so it benefits you to have it all planned before you go in) but that translates to a huge time sink and a lot of brain burn. Anyone else feel the same way? Maybe it's just us and how we play. You missed the "do-overs and take-backs are totally okay unless you revealed something new" rule. It's actually pretty explicit that you should avoid having to think everything through in your head because that's impossible.
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 18:37 |
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Yeah. Per the manual: REVERTING 1. Unless you agree otherwise (not recommended), players may take back any actions and decisions they make during their turn. It is faster to playout your turn and change your mind than to attempt to plan everything in your head. 2. You cannot revert to a moment prior to any new information being revealed (a map tile, enemy token, or card), a die rolled or another player reacting speci´ cally to the player’s actions (usually in Player vs. Player combat). a. Once this happens, all decisions, moves, played cards, used Skills and Unit abilities, spent mana etc. have to remain exactly as they were. I had a lot of turns just playing cards in various combos to figure out how to maximize my turn.
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 19:04 |
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Sgt. Anime Pederast posted:Seriously though I just want to play simcity the board game. I guess a 4x might be better for that though. Suburbia is good and it is basically Simcity the board game, so I think you'd probably be alright going down that route. That said, I like Castles more (although I've only played it once) and I think it's probably better designed on the whole. For Suburbia, tile placement is generally just about adjacency and planning for future expansion. Castles has all of that, but extra spatial considerations piled on top thanks to the oddly shaped tiles. The master builder mechanic is pretty interesting too, and I think it helps to alleviate the multiplayer solitaire feel that Suburbia has. That said, both games are really good and I don't think you'll go too far wrong by just picking on theme.
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 19:17 |
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So I got to play the new edition of Viticulture this week, and really liked it. The look of the game is great (the art and the wooden components), and the gameplay is pretty fast once everyone grasps what all the actions can do. I really like the two separate placement phases (summer and winter) which forces you to hold back workers if need be. It also has that slight feeling of city/factory building with each player having their own winery board. I was able to get a few people who were dead set on playing Lords of Waterdeep to play this instead, and they all enjoyed it as well (although one bitched that the theme wasn't "fantasy", which was weird because every other person who saw the game loved the theme). I sudden realized that the closest thing I have to a worker placement game is Spyrium, so I went ahead and ordered my own copy (after making sure it was the new edition).
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 19:45 |
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Paradoxish posted:Suburbia is good and it is basically Simcity the board game, so I think you'd probably be alright going down that route. That said, I like Castles more (although I've only played it once) and I think it's probably better designed on the whole. For Suburbia, tile placement is generally just about adjacency and planning for future expansion. Castles has all of that, but extra spatial considerations piled on top thanks to the oddly shaped tiles. The master builder mechanic is pretty interesting too, and I think it helps to alleviate the multiplayer solitaire feel that Suburbia has. Yeah, seconding this - if you want SimCity the Board Game, that's Suburbia, basically. It lacks some of the elements - like laying water pipes and what have you, or volcanoes suddenly annihilating your poo poo - but at its core, suburbia is a very good city-building game.
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 19:49 |
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enigmahfc posted:So I got to play the new edition of Viticulture this week, and really liked it. The look of the game is great (the art and the wooden components), and the gameplay is pretty fast once everyone grasps what all the actions can do. It's been very fast when I've been doing Automa, but it's incredibly slow when you're playing with 5 players and a few aren't familiar with worker placement games and the others are highly prone to AP. Once things got rolling, I started pushing people to do the same poo poo we do with dominion and start their turns while the previous person is finishing things up just to speed things along. I'm sure with 4 players that knew wtf they are doing it's faster, and with the tier 1 expansions thrown in you'll probably save a few turns as well
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 19:56 |
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enigmahfc posted:(although one bitched that the theme wasn't "fantasy", which was weird because every other person who saw the game loved the theme). To be fair, most worker placement games have very non-nerd themes, and some nerds are way too into themes, to the point that they will not venture outside of them. This has nothing to do with whether the theme they're exposed to is good or not, it's enough that it has no dragons or aliens.
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 20:06 |
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Deceptive Thinker posted:It's been very fast when I've been doing Automa, but it's incredibly slow when you're playing with 5 players and a few aren't familiar with worker placement games and the others are highly prone to AP. I did play it once with 5 other people, 3 who were new to worker placement type games. I had to coach them somewhat , but once they understood the flow they were fine. The game lasted longer than it should have that time because no one pay attention all at once when I was explaining the rules so I had to go over everything like 3 times, and no one was paying attention when their turn came up so I had to pretty much let everyone know when their turn was (and of course they hadn't planned a drat thing before that second). This stopped pretty quickly after another player (who was also new to the game but was actually paying attention) and myself both threatened to quit the game unless people paid the gently caress attention. After that, things went fine, and it's amazing how much quicker a game plays when people actually play the loving game instead of socialize around a board. None of what I said reflects on the quality of the game, however; just the players. Earlier in the day, my wife and I played our first game of Viticulture with 2 other people and even with all four of us learning some of the rules as we went along, the game still took less than an hour and a half. BonHair posted:To be fair, most worker placement games have very non-nerd themes, and some nerds are way too into themes, to the point that they will not venture outside of them. This has nothing to do with whether the theme they're exposed to is good or not, it's enough that it has no dragons or aliens. that's true, it was just strange having one person actively dogging on the game's theme because it wasn't fantasy while everyone else found it a plus specifically because it wasn't fantasy. I usually don;t care one way or the other about the theme*, I just want a fun game. *except trains. I usually hate every game that centers around trains. TTR is the only exception to this unwritten rule so far. enigmahfc fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Jan 5, 2015 |
# ? Jan 5, 2015 20:06 |
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I just got Viticulture and Tuscany also and am liking it so far. Our next game we are adding the first of the expansion stuff so I am looking forward to see how the game changes as we add stuff. If you are buying the game do yourself a favor and get the Metal Lira Coins that they offer. They are so worth it. Something so simple adds so much to the experience. Trastion fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Jan 5, 2015 |
# ? Jan 5, 2015 20:30 |
Trastion posted:I just got Viticulture and Tuscany also and am liking it so far. Our next game we are adding the first of the expansion stuff so I am looking forward to see how the game changes as we add stuff. I got this just before Christmas, so I've been playing it a lot. The base game is good but I immediately saw how certain aspects of it could be frustrating, so we've been burning through Tuscany, which has really improved it a lot.
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 20:45 |
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BonHair posted:You missed the "do-overs and take-backs are totally okay unless you revealed something new" rule. It's actually pretty explicit that you should avoid having to think everything through in your head because that's impossible. We play correctly, we just find the combats (later-game ones) to be extremely thinky and time-consuming. Stuff like a lot of "Oh wait I see now that if I wounded HIM instead of HER in an earlier stage of the fight then I can avoid having to X let me go through that again." I don't think the new information reveal part is a significant part of that, not sure why I phrased it the way I did. It's been a while since the last game (which was 8 hours but flew by) I think I was just misremembering exactly what about the fights made them the #1 brain-burny time consuming part.
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 20:48 |
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Max posted:I got this just before Christmas, so I've been playing it a lot. The base game is good but I immediately saw how certain aspects of it could be frustrating, so we've been burning through Tuscany, which has really improved it a lot. I played it at an all-day meet up, and the person who owned the game (who was also the organizer) asked that I open the base game and learn it because he was too busy to do it himself on that day, but specifically asked that I not open the expansions yet because he wants to master the base game first. I can't say I blame him, but I really wanted to break out those metal coins.
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 20:51 |
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Mister Sinewave posted:We play correctly, we just find the combats (later-game ones) to be extremely thinky and time-consuming. Stuff like a lot of "Oh wait I see now that if I wounded HIM instead of HER in an earlier stage of the fight then I can avoid having to X let me go through that again." Oh good! And yeah, it is still pretty complicated and brain-burny to do all the calculations. I love going through different scenarios to figure out the best way of dealing with enemies. Speaking of, how do you guys deal with summoners in complex combats? Technically, their attacks are not revealed before the block phase, and so you have to decide on what you want to range attack before revealing. But what if I made an unrelated mistake somewhere?
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 21:01 |
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enigmahfc posted:I played it at an all-day meet up, and the person who owned the game (who was also the organizer) asked that I open the base game and learn it because he was too busy to do it himself on that day, but specifically asked that I not open the expansions yet because he wants to master the base game first. I can't say I blame him, but I really wanted to break out those metal coins. My other friends that were playing other games at the time seemed concerned that the game was taking too long, and I've been concerned that it will avert them from wanting to play. Since the first tier of expansions increase the amount of money/cards/VP you can get early on in the game; it likely has the result of shortening the game significantly. Our next play through I'm thinking that adding the whole tier (rather than 1 at a time) will improve the speed enough to make people see how much quicker it can actually be - and won't add too many new things to confuse anyone that hasn't played it yet
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 21:07 |
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BonHair posted:Speaking of, how do you guys deal with summoners in complex combats? Technically, their attacks are not revealed before the block phase, and so you have to decide on what you want to range attack before revealing. But what if I made an unrelated mistake somewhere? For my group: If the play is still legal (e.g. you miscounted your attack, or played a card you meant to save for later), then the play stands and you have to suffer the consequences of your mistake. If the play is illegal, and quickly cannot be made legal (e.g. you assaulted a city and forgot to pay the movement, but have a march in hand), then you back up and shuffle the brown token into the pot.
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 21:10 |
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BonHair posted:Speaking of, how do you guys deal with summoners in complex combats? Technically, their attacks are not revealed before the block phase, and so you have to decide on what you want to range attack before revealing. But what if I made an unrelated mistake somewhere? I don't really remember, it's been a while since we played However what Gutter Owl said sounds like what we'd do. If you screwed up but the play you made is legal, it stands.
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 21:24 |
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Trasson posted:On 7 Wonders expansions: Pretty sure there is no penalty for choosing not to fund a Great Project, unless you mean the penalty of not getting good stuff while everyone else does. Otherwise solid write up of everything 7 Wonders. Grab the iOS scoring app if you have and iPad and like 7w, it is interesting having a statistical breakdown of your games.
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 21:53 |
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Does anyone know which game this is from? I went to visit a load of friends with extensive game collections and accidentally acquired it.
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 22:54 |
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I'm quite certain those are from The Resistance.
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 22:56 |
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dishwasherlove posted:Pretty sure there is no penalty for choosing not to fund a Great Project, unless you mean the penalty of not getting good stuff while everyone else does. EDIT: i wasn't playing it wrong I just briefly forgot the rules I swear SuccinctAndPunchy fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Jan 5, 2015 |
# ? Jan 5, 2015 22:57 |
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OmegaGoo posted:I'm quite certain those are from The Resistance. Thank you
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 23:07 |
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SuccinctAndPunchy posted:There's a penalty if you don't fund it and then the project is funded by other people. You only take the penalty if you don't contribute and it fails. If it succeeds and you didn't contribute, you just miss out.
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 23:08 |
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I played some more Galaxy Trucker yesterday with my brother-in-law and one of his friends who had never played before. Brother-in-law and I played with three rough roads cards of handicaps, and in round one we got TORN UP by meteoric inversion and piercing projectiles (also our ships were crap because of "Somersault," but we never hit open space). Brother-in-law lost everything, while I limped into port with one crew cabin attached to a piece of armor plating. Newbie made it through alright but he had forgotten to put any cargo holds in (despite my reminding him to do that when I glanced over during building). Next round, newbie made a ship with one engine and a whole bunch of shields, shield boosters, and batteries. Literally that was it. He didn't take advantage of the junkyard to get any money in exchange for getting shot at. Didn't do anything or even try, then declared the game boring. In conclusion, the people who don't like Vlaada games are self-sabotaging morons who hate fun.
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 23:18 |
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Lordy Jesus I love Galaxy Trucker but three rough roads is a little much.
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 23:31 |
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Lorini posted:Backing up a bit: LeHavre has two major problems which is why I sold mine and problems Caverna doesn't have. I'm spoiling it in case you want to find out for yourself. I'm not sure this is entirely accurate. For one, I think depending what strategies all the players are pursuing, there are some big variations in terms of how you get to steel/coke or ships and what else you complement them with when other players are competing for them, and I also think you can rack up big scores focusing on buildings depending what everyone else is doing. I agree loans are a pretty major part of the game but I think they are just one of several ways to clear the food obligation in a high efficiency way - some methods will use one or two actions up front to clear food requirements early, loans postpone the actions until later (assuming you are using the building that clears loans later in the game). Edit: just to clarify as I am phone posting and using horrible grammar. Coke/steel financed with loans is without a doubt the dominant strategy in Le Havre, just like the extra workers are fundamental in Agricola. However, in a competitive four player game where everyone knows this it can be very difficult for anyone to pull it off to its most efficient extent, especially if the key cards are buried. This opens up other options, and generally forces most people to diversify strategies to some extent. All that having been said this is a big issue with the game in that new players are at a massive disadvantage until they see a coke/steel strategy generate a ton of points (although as I said, buildings can do this under the right circumstance too, but it's easier to block). Le Havre is almost two different games at the new and experienced player levels. Blamestorm fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Jan 5, 2015 |
# ? Jan 5, 2015 23:40 |
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e: I am an illiterate moron please ignore
Lottery of Babylon fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Jan 5, 2015 |
# ? Jan 5, 2015 23:48 |
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Blamestorm posted:I'm not sure this is entirely accurate. For one, I think depending what strategies all the players are pursuing, there are some big variations in terms of how you get to steel/coke or ships and what else you complement them with when other players are competing for them, and I also think you can rack up big scores focusing on buildings depending what everyone else is doing. I agree loans are a pretty major part of the game but I think they are just one of several ways to clear the food obligation in a high efficiency way - some methods will use one or two actions up front to clear food requirements early, loans postpone the actions until later (assuming you are using the building that clears loans later in the game). You of course are entitled to that, but we played dozens of games and now no one wants to play it again. Loans are just super efficient. What was disappointing (and this is with the original game) is that the late game cards that were supposed to add points and another way of winning couldn't hold a candle to the outlined above strategy.
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 23:48 |
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What's the point of this post? They had the newbie not use Rough Roads but they did in order to make it more interesting.
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 23:50 |
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It sounds like the experienced players handicapped themselves with Rough Roads but the newbie didn't have to deal with that. Assuming you are pointing out the "don't use this to teach new players" line. EDIT: too slow
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# ? Jan 5, 2015 23:52 |
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Gumdrop Larry posted:Lordy Jesus I love Galaxy Trucker but three rough roads is a little much. We like to play with escalating Rough Roads. Start with one card in the first round, and add an additional card for each extra round. Sometimes we keep the previous cards out and just turn up a new one each round, sometimes we deal one, two, or three new cards each round. Good times.
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# ? Jan 6, 2015 00:02 |
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Yeah sorry I misread that because I'm a dumbass.Gumdrop Larry posted:Lordy Jesus I love Galaxy Trucker but three rough roads is a little much. The thing about rough roads is that they're super inconsistent in how dangerous they are. Most are very mild, and can either be played around fairly easily (Infected Goods? Just include the aliens you wanted to include anyhow) or ignored entirely (Union Ship). On the other hand, a few of them will single-handedly ruin your ship: Defective Connectors, Meteoric Inversion, Somersault, the Intruders cards. And then there are the Lose More cards that won't ruin your day on their own but will tear you apart if combined with any of the ones that are nasty on their own, like Piercing Projectiles or Worker's Comp. Because of that, you could cruise through space easily with four rough roads if you drew toothless ones, or you could die horribly from just two rough roads if you drew Meteoric Inversion and Piercing Projectiles together.
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# ? Jan 6, 2015 00:40 |
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gently caress poo poo GUYS WHY THE gently caress ISN'T EVERYBODY EXPLODING ABOUT THIS?? http://myemail.constantcontact.com/...aid=17aPfDgMspI PICTOMANIA PREORDERS ARE LIVE, GAME COMES OUT IN MARCH
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# ? Jan 6, 2015 01:01 |
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Broken Loose posted:gently caress poo poo GUYS WHY THE gently caress ISN'T EVERYBODY EXPLODING ABOUT THIS?? Because reading Chvatil's rulebooks is bad enough without having to draw the loving thing as well.
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# ? Jan 6, 2015 01:28 |
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I'm pretty sure I'm playing Galaxy Trucker wrong somehow because my ships rarely ever get too damaged, even my first few times playing. I really need to convince my friend to pick up the expansions for his copy, I guess. e: How does Pictomania actually work, gameplay-wise? Already looks tempting considering Vlaada and how much my group likes Telestrations (despite/because of one or two people intentionally loving up clues/drawings). Mega64 fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Jan 6, 2015 |
# ? Jan 6, 2015 01:30 |
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Mega64 posted:e: How does Pictomania actually work, gameplay-wise? Already looks tempting considering Vlaada and how much my group likes Telestrations (despite/because of one or two people intentionally loving up clues/drawings). http://www.shutupandsitdown.com/blog/post/review-pictomania/ there are also existing bgg reviews and stuff from the old english version from 2011
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# ? Jan 6, 2015 01:48 |
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What's the reprint cycle on something like Dungeon Lords -- I know they just did an anniversary kickstarter, but will the actual game be like impossible to find at a decent price for a while?
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# ? Jan 6, 2015 02:25 |
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# ? May 23, 2024 16:28 |
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T-Bone posted:What's the reprint cycle on something like Dungeon Lords -- I know they just did an anniversary kickstarter, but will the actual game be like impossible to find at a decent price for a while? There's no way to tell, as it depends on a ton of factors.
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# ? Jan 6, 2015 02:29 |