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It mystifies me that Waterdeep is such a frequently recommended gateway game. It's so boring. There are so many better worker placement games.
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Jan 15, 2015 22:55
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The End posted:It mystifies me that Waterdeep is such a frequently recommended gateway game. It's so boring. There are so many better worker placement games. Don't worry, it has D&D words in it, so it's actually good.
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Jan 15, 2015 22:57
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The art is good, and he's already interested in it. I wouldn't make the recommendation cold, but I think it would work well in this case.
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Jan 15, 2015 22:58
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Lord Frisk posted:The art is good, and he's already interested in it. I wouldn't make the recommendation cold, but I think it would work well in this case. Yeah I joke but basically this. If someone sees a game that looks super cool to them and it's just sorta mediocre, I think that's fine. Now if they came in and were like "I'm in charge of getting a light game for 7-9 people and I hear good things about this Werewolf thing..." then maybe I'll protest a bit more. LoD's biggest sin is just being entirely milquetoast.
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Jan 15, 2015 23:01
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztVMib1T4T4 Someone should send the Packers better board games now that they've caught the bug lets see how deep we can push them. Also does this mean we can expect a Green Bay edition of Catan now?
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Jan 15, 2015 23:03
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People should just get Caylus and then swap out the pieces with Game of Thrones miniatures or something and make up a bunch of 'thematic' rules so they'll be able to play a cool game.
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Jan 15, 2015 23:04
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Bobby The Rookie posted:People should just get Caylus and then swap out the pieces with Game of Thrones miniatures or something and make up a bunch of 'thematic' rules so they'll be able to play a cool game. "Ok so the green cubes represent money, and the pink cubes represent incestuous lust. The provost is a dragon or something, idk, I've never seen lord of the rings."
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Jan 15, 2015 23:06
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Bobby The Rookie posted:People should just get Caylus and then swap out the pieces with Game of Thrones miniatures or something and make up a bunch of 'thematic' rules so they'll be able to play a cool game. You're the one king Philip is scowling at.
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Jan 15, 2015 23:06
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"Oh no, watch out, Tyrion is moving the provost- er, I mean white walker in front of Littlefinger's whorehouse!"
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Jan 15, 2015 23:07
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The End posted:It mystifies me that Waterdeep is such a frequently recommended gateway game. It's so boring. There are so many better worker placement games. The keyword here is gateway. It is a worse game than Agricola, but it's simple enough to grasp, and it doesn't feel like you're on the brink of losing all the time because your family is dying. The decisions may not be meaningful to someone experienced, but inexperienced players can't figure out what the best option is as easy as you can. But yeah, other than that, get a co-op if you're playing with the same people every time. I am going to risk recommending Pandemic for newbies: The theme is accesible and it's fairly simple to understand, but challenging to master. And if everyone is equally good, quarterbacking will not be a real problem.
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Jan 15, 2015 23:08
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ASMODEE group needs to reprint Caylus. $70 for a secondhand copy?
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Jan 15, 2015 23:09
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Bobby The Rookie posted:People should just get Caylus and then swap out the pieces with Game of Thrones miniatures or something and make up a bunch of 'thematic' rules so they'll be able to play a cool game. This but unironically. There are a lot of good euros with a generic theme and it's hard for me to keep track of which ones sound interesting.
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Jan 15, 2015 23:10
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What, you don't like building castles in France?
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Jan 15, 2015 23:12
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The End posted:It mystifies me that Waterdeep is such a frequently recommended gateway game. It's so boring. There are so many better worker placement games. It doesn't seem boring to me. I also like that the rules and and actions are clearly illustrated on the board (it would help get my gf to play it). Stone Age seems cool too, but LoW seems like a smoother experience. But again, I have not played any of these games and have simply watched way too many videos. Countblanc posted:Don't worry, it has D&D words in it, so it's actually good. Lord Frisk posted:What, you don't like building castles in France? Carcassonne is a top contender for baby's first board game, but I don't think my gf would find it appealing. Also the final point tallying is a bit messy. I am definitely getting it at some point though. Frijolero fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Jan 15, 2015 |
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Jan 15, 2015 23:27
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My friend just got his copy of Scoville (a Kickstarter game), and due to travel schedules it made sense for him to have it shipped to my place since he'll be here in a couple days. He told me to go ahead and open it up so I did, and... gah. I've don't think I've ever opened up a game and been less interested. The theme is boring, the humor is lazy, and I just feel like learning it will be pain I'd rather not bother with. I'll probably roped into playing it no matter what, so hopefully it will end up being more interesting than it looks. At least the first day of his visit is already set aside for six player game of Twilight Imperium. I suppose after that I'll be in good enough spirits for anything.
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Jan 15, 2015 23:30
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Chomp8645 posted:My friend just got his copy of Scoville (a Kickstarter game), and due to travel schedules it made sense for him to have it shipped to my place since he'll be here in a couple days. He told me to go ahead and open it up so I did, and... gah. I've don't think I've ever opened up a game and been less interested. The theme is boring, the humor is lazy, and I just feel like learning it will be pain I'd rather not bother with. Man, this is the first negative I've seen said about the game. It's high on my list of games I'm eager to hit retail since I missed the KS. The theme may be hit or miss depending on the person I guess, but I hear that the actual gameplay is really good. Hopefully that turns out to actually be the case!
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Jan 15, 2015 23:35
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It's been a few weeks since I did some impressions, so here is what I've been playing lately: Temporum continues to see a lot of plays, but catching up is Samurai Spirit. It can suffer from quarterbacking as all co-ops can, but it hasn't been a problem in my group. I've played this one about 6 or 7 times so far, with varying group sizes, and it *seems* to work well at any size, but I'm worried about taking too many cards out of the deck with fewer players. Also we're really bad at this game, as we haven't made it to the end of the third wave yet (and had a few games that ended at the end of the second wave). I do need to look up some rules clarifications on BGG though, as we always seem to have something come up that isn't explicitly covered in the rules. I was able to get in 1 session of 4 player Panamax, and my initial impression is fairly positive. There's a lot going on in the game, but once it gets going it's not too bad. It also seemed short, despite the game taking a while to play out. Unfortunately we messed up a rule early on (allowing more than one dice on a ship during a placement), which gave a huge advantage to the first two players since they were able to load up the San Juan and push it through on round 1. We fixed the rule but didn't want to go back to the start of the game. I'm pretty sure it made a big difference, but it'll take another play for me to figure out for sure. There's a lot of interesting mechanics at work in this one, however I was really disappointed at the end when our hidden scoring cards were revealed. There are a couple that are flat-out better than the others, and not by a small amount. I was expecting a little bit better from a game of this caliber, but it's not enough to dissuade me from playing again. I'll probably end up just house-ruling the problem cards. Last night I got a chance to try out Spyrium. I won, by a large margin, and I'm still trying to figure out how exactly I did that. It's an interesting game, but I'll need a few more plays before I'm willing to call it a good game. Not a fan of the steampunk theme, but I can overlook that if the game under the hood is worthwhile. And oh, oh oh.... Roll For The Galaxy. I was excited for this one, as I love both arcs of Race. Holy poo poo, what a letdown. At the start of the game, you get two tiles to start your tableau, a size 1 and a size 2. At that point you're pretty much locked into whatever strategy you are dealt. There are 9 different size 2 tiles, and the game supports up to 5 people. Why the gently caress would they not include a 10th tile and let you pick from 2? One of my initial concerns with Race that was addressed through expansions was being able to look at your starting hand as well as starting planets before making decisions on what to keep. Why wouldn't there be a similar mechanism in the dice game? The game is also... kinda boring. Not that Race is particularly exciting, but at least it feels fast-paced and I never feel like I'm really struggling to do things. I'm never more than a turn away from drawing enough cards to put out whatever planet or development is sitting in my hand. But in Roll, getting additional dice is a struggle, let alone getting the dice you want, which you have to just luckbox into through exploration. Sure, that planet you have available would help a ton, but it might be 3 turns before you are able to settle it. With Race, I always feel like I'm on the road to *somewhere*, and even if I don't know where that somewhere is, I'm making progress towards it. With Roll I felt like I was stuck in traffic and eventually, mercifully, succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning as the game ended. I can't think of any reason why I would ever play Roll instead of Race.
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Jan 15, 2015 23:46
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Big McHuge posted:Temporum continues to see a lot of plays, but catching up is Samurai Spirit. It can suffer from quarterbacking as all co-ops can, but it hasn't been a problem in my group. I've played this one about 6 or 7 times so far, with varying group sizes, and it *seems* to work well at any size, but I'm worried about taking too many cards out of the deck with fewer players. Also we're really bad at this game, as we haven't made it to the end of the third wave yet (and had a few games that ended at the end of the second wave). I do need to look up some rules clarifications on BGG though, as we always seem to have something come up that isn't explicitly covered in the rules. I talked about my experiences with SS earlier this week, but I've since played it two more times. Of the four plays, one of them was completely busted (with 5 players) because we only had 4 "cottage" cards in the entire deck and we lost in the second round for obvious reasons. The other three plays went quite well - Risky but winnable - I just worry of using it as an intro game since I know I'd probably never want to play again if my first experience was a practically unwinnable thing regardless of how you played.
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Jan 15, 2015 23:50
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Lord Frisk posted:ASMODEE group needs to reprint Caylus. $70 for a secondhand copy?  and with the original cover art while they're at it. I really want one.
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Jan 15, 2015 23:53
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I agree, if you're just going to get one get Dominion. I guess you could say it .. dominates .. the board game .. domain  . Get the Lords of Waterdeep app with the expansion though if you have a thingyAlso, just got my copy of Keyflower  . Managed to snag one that appeared on Cardhaus a couple weeks ago. It's probably going to be missing pieces or something horribleedit: the LoW expansion makes it a lot more interesting imo. Again, the app is pretty sweet way to see if you like this sort of thing fozzy fosbourne fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Jan 16, 2015 |
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Jan 16, 2015 00:02
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Frijolero posted:It doesn't seem boring to me. I also like that the rules and and actions are clearly illustrated on the board (it would help get my gf to play it). Stone Age seems cool too, but LoW seems like a smoother experience. But again, I have not played any of these games and have simply watched way too many videos. Well, make sure you're invested in the theme because at some point, you'll have the realisation that the game is 'I get some cubes. I have cubes that match this card so I get points. I play this card that fucks up the other player. I get more cubes.' I'm perfectly fine with lack of theme when the mechanisms are interesting, but this game aint. EDIT: Anyone played Roads and Boats? I can get a copy and it's very tempting, but I'd like to have some opinions before I drop a lot of cash on it.
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Jan 16, 2015 00:05
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Big McHuge posted:Last night I got a chance to try out Spyrium. I won, by a large margin, and I'm still trying to figure out how exactly I did that. It's an interesting game, but I'll need a few more plays before I'm willing to call it a good game. Not a fan of the steampunk theme, but I can overlook that if the game under the hood is worthwhile. How many people were you playing with? I'm trying to evaluate my copy since I've only gotten to play it once so far. It was 2 players and I pulled ahead on the last turn by 2 points. I've heard that the number of players changes the nature of the game, with money becoming less of a concern the more players you add. I bought the game hoping to use it as a trojan horse to get people in my group into meatier games.
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Jan 16, 2015 00:13
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Countblanc posted:I just worry of using it as an intro game since I know I'd probably never want to play again if my first experience was a practically unwinnable thing regardless of how you played. This is the reason I don't really care to pick up any Vlaada games. From the outside looking in, it sounds like everything but Mage Knight, which looks long and fiddly, and Tash Kalar, which looks awesome, is designed to screw you. I cannot convince myself it sounds appealing.
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Jan 16, 2015 00:26
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Shadow225 posted:This is the reason I don't really care to pick up any Vlaada games. From the outside looking in, it sounds like everything but Mage Knight, which looks long and fiddly, and Tash Kalar, which looks awesome, is designed to screw you. I cannot convince myself it sounds appealing. Eh? I guess it depends what you mean by "screw you." And, I'd like to add to your list Graenaland, Prophecy, Dungeon Petz, Pictomania, Travel Blog... (hint: Vlaada has a very, very wide range of games, and not *that* many are in the "you have to be able to laugh while your stuff gets wrecked" category)
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Jan 16, 2015 00:30
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Shadow225 posted:This is the reason I don't really care to pick up any Vlaada games. From the outside looking in, it sounds like everything but Mage Knight, which looks long and fiddly, and Tash Kalar, which looks awesome, is designed to screw you. I cannot convince myself it sounds appealing. The difference is that in most Vlaada games (Space Alert and Galaxy Truckers being the main ones I'm thinking of), losing is part of the appeal. That may not be a goal per se, but an unwinnable state is shared in Space Alert and not that big an issue in Galaxy Trucker because you still get to make your probably janky ship and watch it fall apart. The fun is in playing the game, not just being able to win it. Dungeon Lords and Petz lose this quality a bit, but I don't think they're necessarily designed to screw you over any other player. Everybody is in the same screwboat. Big McHuge posted:Last night I got a chance to try out Spyrium. I won, by a large margin, and I'm still trying to figure out how exactly I did that. It's an interesting game, but I'll need a few more plays before I'm willing to call it a good game. Not a fan of the steampunk theme, but I can overlook that if the game under the hood is worthwhile. Spyrium seems really underrated. It's not the greatest game in the world and it's not something I clamor to play, but I'd suggest it once in a while and never really regret spending the hour or so playing a game. I think it's a great intro game since there aren't too many variables or high level strategies and the rules are simple, but a lot of its mechanics are different than most other games. I don't get what's to hate about the "steampunk" theme though since it's not at all there and everything is basically all industrial age stuff. You can literally replace the word spyrium with like coal or something and it would be literally the same game.
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Jan 16, 2015 00:34
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Countblanc posted:I just worry of using it as an intro game since I know I'd probably never want to play again if my first experience was a practically unwinnable thing regardless of how you played. This sort of thing completely ruined my opinion of Descent really fast because the first game of it we ever played resulted in a TPK and then subsequent game loss before the game had even managed to go a full turn cycle through an immense bad storm of poo poo luck. We then played again with the condition that Conquest Points could go into the negative without losing the game and eh, still wasn't happy with it. Removing the loss condition honestly probably made it worse since now clearly hosed games were forced to drag on to their conclusion anyway. it helps that descent isn't a very good game anyway but I loving hated that game very passionately for a time because of how poo poo a first impression it made on me
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Jan 16, 2015 00:34
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Shadow225 posted:This is the reason I don't really care to pick up any Vlaada games. From the outside looking in, it sounds like everything but Mage Knight, which looks long and fiddly, and Tash Kalar, which looks awesome, is designed to screw you. I cannot convince myself it sounds appealing. Through The Ages isn't. Basically every other one I've tried is, but trust me when I say, having played most of them, that despite being insanely difficult and designed to screw you to a ridiculous extent, every single Vlaada game I've tried has been hella fun, and more importantly, very well designed to be engaging, interesting, and keep you into the game til the very last tile flips. They're all very different, but not a one of them is bad. If Vlaada has a theme for me, it's games that are great fun even when you're losing horribly, and for me that's the mark of a great game. If I can come away from a full 8 hour gaming marathon having lost everything I played but still having had a whale of a time and looking forward to playing those games again... those are good loving games. E: but yeah, even if oyu don't get anythign else, buy Tash Kalar.
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Jan 16, 2015 00:36
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On that same point, winning is pretty hollow if you don't really know how you got to it. When I played Five Tribes 90 minutes of my life disappeared and I came out winning convincingly but I don't actually remember anything I did that game.
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Jan 16, 2015 00:42
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Frijolero posted:So I've always liked board games, but I've never played anything other than mainstream Parker Bros. stuff. After watching way too many TableTop episodes, I think I want to start with Lords of Waterdeep. I love strategy games and I feel it's cool and flavorful enough to get my girlfriend interested in it. One historian to another, If you only have limited funds and intend to buy just one game skip LoW. Buy Agricola instead. You can play the family mode and it's basically the same thing as LoW, but Agricola comes with 3 more level of complexity above that. You will get infinitely more replay value from Agricola. You are literally me about one year ago: watching Tabletop and buying Lords of Waterdeep as my first designer board game. It collects dust now, learn from me and just get Agricola.
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Jan 16, 2015 01:28
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Bruiser posted:Okay so I've got a question. You can count my wife and I as one of the people who got into board games by the show Table Top. And yeah, we own most of what was shown on the show. We also have Twilight Struggle and the huge dominion set. I just finished catching up in the thread and there seemed to be some hate because he doesn't show real games. I guess my question is, what are some of the deeper games that we can get into? The negativity regarding Table Top is mostly about the guests then the games I believe. Some of his guests are quite fun to watch, but some others are plain torture. Moving on, after playing three digits of other board and card games, I finally got the chance to play Caylus this Tuesday and I liked it more than I thought I would based on things I heard about it on this thread (and its previous iterations). I read many times about how dry it is compared to the games made in the ten years following. But it didn't feel dry to me at all. I can see it being a bit too cutthroat for fainthearted and beginners into the hobby with provost cancelling actions left and right. But otherwise I might even get it if they re-print it this year to celebrate the 10th anniversary. I also laughed seeing how straightforward was Carson City on its "inspiration" from it. echoMateria fucked around with this message at 01:44 on Jan 16, 2015 |
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Jan 16, 2015 01:29
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Rutibex posted:One historian to another, If you only have limited funds and intend to buy just one game skip LoW. Buy Agricola instead. You can play the family mode and it's basically the same thing as LoW, but Agricola comes with 3 more level of complexity above that. You will get infinitely more replay value from Agricola. You are literally me about one year ago: watching Tabletop and buying Lords of Waterdeep as my first designer board game. It collects dust now, learn from me and just get Agricola. You can always trade or sell games. BGG is full of people that want your game.
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Jan 16, 2015 01:54
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Is Chinatown ever going to come back into stock? I was hoping my FLGS would have it dusty on a shelf, but it's all Munchkin and $100 for Caverna. Maybe I should just give in and get Archipelago finally.
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Jan 16, 2015 01:58
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Gimnbo posted:How many people were you playing with? I'm trying to evaluate my copy since I've only gotten to play it once so far. It was 2 players and I pulled ahead on the last turn by 2 points. I've heard that the number of players changes the nature of the game, with money becoming less of a concern the more players you add. I bought the game hoping to use it as a trojan horse to get people in my group into meatier games. 5 players. I had the tech that lets you re-use a building, and the building that gives 15 points for 2 workers and 5 green. I was able to use that building 3 times over the last 2 turns, which is what did it for me. Also, it's a game that could potentially induce AP in some players. As awesome as my gf is, the more games she plays, the more AP prone she has become. I feel like I need to be a lot more delicate when telling her to speed up as opposed to most of my friends.
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Jan 16, 2015 02:00
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Shes Not Impressed posted:Is Chinatown ever going to come back into stock? I was hoping my FLGS would have it dusty on a shelf, but it's all Munchkin and $100 for Caverna. Maybe I should just give in and get Archipelago finally.
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Jan 16, 2015 02:03
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Gimnbo posted:On that same point, winning is pretty hollow if you don't really know how you got to it. When I played Five Tribes 90 minutes of my life disappeared and I came out winning convincingly but I don't actually remember anything I did that game. This is me with every point salad game until I've played it like 10 times
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Jan 16, 2015 02:11
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Dungeone Lords is not very mean if you pay without the blue event cards. I taught it to three newbies last week and we were all at 17-20 points, with me coming last on a respectable score despite losing 2 rooms and 3 tunnels in the second year. I can't imagine Dungeon Petz is all that mean either. Tash-Kalar and Through The Ages don't go out of their way to have the game screw you, they just let your opponent do it instead. If that's preferable to a penalty for not paying your taxes.. ok.
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Jan 16, 2015 02:18
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So just got Eminent Domain. I've only played one game so far with my cousin. The rules didn't mention pulling any cards out of the decks to make the game go faster...and it took around 2 hours. I ended up winning by having a massive number of planets but only 6 influence tokens. He comboed the tech to get 2 influence per resource with mostly fertile planets and ended up with 18 influence tokens. I think he had 6 planets total. We both ignored warfare for the most part. I did conquer two planets from occasionally getting ships if I had nothing else to play as my action. It was a long game after all. It is a good game and it seems there are a bunch of different paths to victory. Even though I did win, I don't think I played it that great. My cousin started trashing Survey cards which really sucked because I couldn't follow to nab more planets. I had improved Colonize, but never got to use its action. It seems really hard to get a bunch of face down planets down quickly so you can work on more than one at a time. I did get the double Survey tech that's action let's you take the top planet, it was handy. Any tips on when you should start trashing? I trashed a grand total of one card, a Warfare. I have the expansion, but probably won't add it in for a while. Unless I get a game going with 5 players I guess.
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Jan 16, 2015 03:01
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QnoisX posted:So just got Eminent Domain. I've only played one game so far with my cousin. The rules didn't mention pulling any cards out of the decks to make the game go faster...and it took around 2 hours. I ended up winning by having a massive number of planets but only 6 influence tokens. He comboed the tech to get 2 influence per resource with mostly fertile planets and ended up with 18 influence tokens. I think he had 6 planets total. We both ignored warfare for the most part. I did conquer two planets from occasionally getting ships if I had nothing else to play as my action. It was a long game after all. Absolutely start using the expansion. The base game will wear out its welcome very very quickly, but the expansion does a lot to extend the game's shelf life.
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Jan 16, 2015 03:09
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What's the consensus on Orléans? The kickstarter for it ends the 29th, and after watching Rahdo do his thing, I'm very interested in the game. Game looks fantastic (same artist that does Uwe Rosenberg's games), and has a really interesting combination of deck/engine building & worker placement. It may just be another point salad, but drat am I not excited for it 
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Jan 16, 2015 03:18
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The thing that had me discouraged was Rahdo's description of having the same kingdom every time and then maybe removing cards from it? I guess I'm not clear on how the kingdom is generated since I wasn't playing close attention and should probably look it up. My worry from watching the final thoughts was whether it would get old quick without an expansion. But I guess that's probably true of every deck builder, which sort of makes me hesitant to buy them until an expansion has actually shipped Edit: I guess Paul from SU&SD is moving from London? So that's a bummer if it means they won't do co-reviews, although the silver lining is I think I prefer their written reviews and non-review content anyways fozzy fosbourne fucked around with this message at 03:34 on Jan 16, 2015 |
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Jan 16, 2015 03:31
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