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I picked up Keyflower from my FLGS last night. I keep hearing rumblings about it becoming difficult to find, and it looks like a comfortable way to transition friends whose only strategy/resource games have been Settlers and TTR. Question is, should I pick up expansions for this while I have the chance, before I've decided if I like it (it looks like I can get either one for normal retail right now)?
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Jan 18, 2015 19:38
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PerniciousKnid posted:Black Market is a good promo card; a goofy gimmick that's good for a laugh once in a great while. Agreed, Black Market and Stash are great promos for that reason. In contrast, Envoy and Walled Village seem like they could have been printed in a regular expansion without anyone batting an eye, and were just chosen arbitrarily to be promos because the publisher suddenly wanted promos right this instant. thespaceinvader posted:Black Market's actual mechanic (play treasure outside the buy phase) is interesting. I wonder if there's a way to make a card that has a good reason to use that mechanic but doesn't let one player get the only Witch. Grey Market (Cost $4) +$2 You may buy one card immediately, putting it into your hand. Action Lottery of Babylon fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Jan 18, 2015 |
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Jan 18, 2015 19:53
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Diosamblet posted:I picked up Keyflower from my FLGS last night. I keep hearing rumblings about it becoming difficult to find, and it looks like a comfortable way to transition friends whose only strategy/resource games have been Settlers and TTR. Get a couple of plays in first. It's supposed to be a great game on its own, so get some experience before you invest anything more. The expansions will still be in stock once you've got a couple games in.
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Jan 18, 2015 19:57
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Broken Loose posted:You're thinking of Thunderstone, whose creators touted it as the "Dominion-killer" and claimed the problems of Dominion were that (A) they literally couldn't buy anything they wanted and win with any deck and (B) there wasn't enough killing. Thunderstone was awful and the only reason why I remember it better is because Ascension is literally a worse version of it. Ascension isn't building on Thunderstone's design and skips most of the issues I had with Thunderstone, most notably that it was really easy to have a village setup that had no way to deal with the mechanics the dungeon cards were invoking. (I think that's what those were called, at least.) There's also no stalling the game because the first couple of dungeon cards that come out are way too powerful to be taken on in the early game, no wonky as gently caress experience mechanic, etc. It certainly has its own issues, but for my money it's a better game than Thunderstone - and shorter, too. Which is damning with faint praise, but there you go.
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Jan 18, 2015 19:58
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Lord Frisk posted:Get a couple of plays in first. It's supposed to be a great game on its own, so get some experience before you invest anything more. The expansions will still be in stock once you've got a couple games in. The designer chimed in on BGG this morning about whether it was going out of print, too: Sebastian Bleasdale posted:The plan is to keep Keyflower in print as long as there is sufficient demand. However, because it's being printed in Germany, and because shipping to the US is not instantaneous, and is most efficient when done in bulk, there may be temporary blips in US availability. Panic averted for now.
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Jan 18, 2015 20:13
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esquilax posted:Just because you prefer Dominion doesn't mean other games haven't added anything. Sometimes I want to play Dominion, sometimes I want to play Star Realms. Likewise, actually. Star Realms has been a big hit with me and mine, I just didn't mention it because every time it comes up, someone talks about it being luck based (which is true). And to be fair, once it came up, it did get mentioned so  Anyway, for content, I played a new-ish deckbuilder last night called Valley of the Kings. Each player is a noble in Ancient Egypt attempting to fill their tomb with the most impressive stash for when they eventually take up permanent residence. At it's heart, it's a common-market deckbuilder, but the market works differently. 6 cards are revealed, in a 1-2-3 pyramid, but only the three cards at the bottom of the pyramid can be purchased. Don't worry if it sounds like it's ripe to become a logjam: one of the base cards lets you rearrange two cards in the pyramid or sacrifice one (this game's version of Dominion's trash, to a zone called the Boneyard). Also, if a player's turn does not include removing of any cards, they must choose one card from the bottom to sacrifice. Once a card is removed for any reason, the cards fall down the pyramid as they would logically and are replaced from the deck. (If the center card of the bottom is broken, the player who caused that chooses how it 'crumbles'.) Each card has three main uses: first, it can be used for it's value in Gold to purchase cards from the pyramid. They are added to your discard pile as in most deckbuilders. Second, each can be used as an action. The actions vary from card to card, such as getting other cards for free, messing with your opponent's hands, and entombing your own cards. What's entombing? This is the third use of a card, and arguably the most important. As an action once per turn or when a card allows it, you can put cards in your hand into your tomb, represented by a card in front of you. Cards in your tomb are the only way you get victory points. If something is in your deck at the end of the game, it doesn't help you, but then again, if something is in your tomb before the end of the game, it's not directly helping you either. Your starting items are worth 1 VP each, and some special items are worth straight VP values as well, but most of them (Sarcophagi, Canopic Jars, Statues, Books, etc) are instead the square of the number of different types of cards from that category you have entombed. For instance, if you entomb one Inner Sarcophagus and two Middle Sarcophagi, you only get 4 points (2 squared). Each type has a specific number of different versions (which is indicated on each card), so for instance there are only 3 types of Sarcophagi and 4 types of Canopic Jars. (I don't know if the deck actually has more or less of each, or if it's the same number but spread among the variations.) Once it's entombed, you can't get it back unless a card says so, so you lose the ability to use its gold value and play its action. The game ends when the supply of cards has run out, the pyramid is empty and everyone has had an equal number of turns. Whoever has the highest value among cards in their tomb wins. It's interesting, but I have to give it a few plays before I can really say what I think about it. It's not as breezy as Star Realms, but I feel it could have a bit more of that "Take that!" element in it with more tactical depth. The everchanging market is nice, though it makes it hard to establish well laid plans. Also, because you're sacrificing stuff and entombing stuff so commonly, you're probably going to have a very small deck; it's almost more of a pool management game than a deckbuilder. On the plus side, since you can't just destroy all your opponents authority or buy province 8 on turn 14, having a mechanically sound five card deck doesn't mean anything if you don't have your tomb full of pimp swag for the afterlife. The fact that it has a definite end is probably a good thing too. Also, the flavor of the game is quite strong, and the game has very interesting semi-educational flavor text. If you like anthropology more than space pew-pew and being Real Estate Agency Century 13, then it's worth looking into. It also seems to be fairly cheap, which is nice.
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Jan 18, 2015 20:19
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Lottery of Babylon posted:Agreed, Black Market and Stash are great promos for that reason. In contrast, Envoy and Walled Village seem like they could have been printed in a regular expansion without anyone batting an eye, and were just chosen arbitrarily to be promos because the publisher suddenly wanted promos right this instant. Yeah one of those "Secret History" articles/forum posts pretty much says as much. He hates the idea of promos; if it's something cool and awesome, why is it being walled off behind a promo that not everyone will have reasonable access to? If it's dull and boring, why was it made at all? Add to that that under the Dominion model, every promo is going to be an 11 card packet, and you've got yourself a little bit of a problem. Something you can dodge on the first count is to make promos things that are exclusive without being game mechanics; like alt-art cards or playmats. I'm surprised a Trash mat (as opposed to a card) isn't a promo.
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Jan 18, 2015 20:22
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Lottery of Babylon posted:Agreed, Black Market and Stash are great promos for that reason. In contrast, Envoy and Walled Village seem like they could have been printed in a regular expansion without anyone batting an eye, and were just chosen arbitrarily to be promos because the publisher suddenly wanted promos right this instant. Governer definitely needed to be a promo, it's way powerful. Prince could probably have gotten away without being. It's interesting.
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Jan 18, 2015 20:26
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thespaceinvader posted:Black Market as a card (access all the things) is really, really bent if not outright broken due to the amount of cards out there where getting the first one is absolutely vital. Picking up King's Court on the right board is ridiculous, picking up Rebuild similarly so. Or Mountebank or Familiar or Witch when there's no other junking. And conversely, it can be utterly hilariously useless. Picking up Treasure Map, say, or the other couple of examples that i can't quite recall... it's a solid card but the 'play everything' part is silly. You can always just not put certain cards in the Black Market deck. Making interesting sets of 15-20 Black Market cards is kind of a fun minigame.
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Jan 18, 2015 20:59
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Diosamblet posted:The designer chimed in on BGG this morning about whether it was going out of print, too: I wonder if they will reprint the promos. The only one I've ever seen available besides the Celeste promo is a Storyteller tile for sale for $95 on eBay,  Promo cards and tiles that aren't evergreen on the BGG store or something are pretty much the worst god drat thing, but I also have a broken baby man brain that gets inflamed whenever I see mention of those and I can't have them
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Jan 18, 2015 21:12
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Elysium posted:Just use the blue backs. Just think of it as another small bonus to buying a black market card. We also use the blue backs, then if someone wants to purchase the card they have to get it from the relevant box. It is not ideal but it is better than building the deck, and there are a lot of times you just want the extra $2 from black market and nothing appealing comes up in the draw. Nowadays we usually only pull 3-ish sets out at a time so that makes it even easier to just use the unused randomizers and pull from those 3 boxes.
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Jan 18, 2015 21:35
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thespaceinvader posted:Legendary works better if you think of the players as the SHIELD agents/Jarvises/Oracles (or equivalent) directing the action from behind the scenes and giving orders to one group of heroes, I think. Yeah, which I don't mind. I think the system is pretty solid, if swingy to impossible if you do complete random. I haven't played with the new Guardians of the Galaxy pack which I heard adds the Infinity Gems that change the mechanics a bit from what I've heard. PerniciousKnid posted:This theme still doesn't quite work. When four players are successively playing the same superhero, the game turns into Marvel Office Space. Well this is going to be stuck in my head for awhile I love this comparison
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Jan 18, 2015 23:17
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fozzy fosbourne posted:I wonder if they will reprint the promos. The only one I've ever seen available besides the Celeste promo is a Storyteller tile for sale for $95 on eBay, I got all the Keyflower promos a couple of months ago and they didn't cost half as much total. For a couple I bought a German language issue of Spielbox magazine (I don't speak German), two I ordered from a shop in Canada and the last one from BGG Store. malkav11 posted:Ascension isn't building on Thunderstone's design and skips most of the issues I had with Thunderstone, most notably that it was really easy to have a village setup that had no way to deal with the mechanics the dungeon cards were invoking. (I think that's what those were called, at least.) There's also no stalling the game because the first couple of dungeon cards that come out are way too powerful to be taken on in the early game, no wonky as gently caress experience mechanic, etc. It certainly has its own issues, but for my money it's a better game than Thunderstone - and shorter, too. Which is damning with faint praise, but there you go. Whenever we played Thunderstone this happened. Some of the strongest monsters camped the brighter steps of the dungeon and medium ones on darker ones at the very setup. So until we spent long turns preparing, we weren't able to anything. The Legendary line of games has the baddies walking through a similar path, with bad results for all ensue if they get out. So you are in a hurry to deal with them. In Thunderstone just they sit on their hands, not doing anything at all. The excitement is supposed to come from fierce competition with the other players but I never feel that with Thunderstone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrkgGmBLZ_8 The store I'm preparing an order for Tash-Kalar: Arena of Legends – Everfrost + upgrade pack has a copy of Medina and I wonder if should grab a copy. What are the opinions on it? It kinda looks like a sequel to Through the Desert to me. echoMateria fucked around with this message at 01:07 on Jan 19, 2015 |
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Jan 19, 2015 00:33
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Special report! Our group's AP guy even gets AP in King of New York
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Jan 19, 2015 00:53
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thespaceinvader posted:Back to discussions about building on the theme of Dominion, I've just been sorting out my second edition printing version of Paperback (I'm giving away my original KS edition to my hackspace) and I feel like it could be said to be a genuinely interesting expansion on the concept - crossing Dominion with Scrabble, basically. It's quite simplistic without a lot of expansion potential, but where I really see it having value is as a gateway game - people who are used to word games can play it and get used to the idea of deckbuilding strategy and tactics, and people who are used to Dominion can enjoy it too. I had the chance to play this last night at Mox Boarding, and it was a ton of fun. My wife hates scrabble and still had a blast. Also, they have copies of Keyflower if you're local to Seattle and looking.
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Jan 19, 2015 01:36
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Why the hell is Glory to Rome still out of print? It's a card game for crying out loud
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Jan 19, 2015 02:55
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fozzy fosbourne posted:Why the hell is Glory to Rome still out of print? It's a card game for crying out loud Looks like you said "Rome demands Glory to Rome." and the publishers are just sitting there saying "Glory to Rome."
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Jan 19, 2015 03:01
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deadly_pudding posted:Special report! Hey, there's a lot going on. "I could get points, I could get hearts, I could punch other people, I could smash this hospital, I could try to get the Supastar! card..."
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Jan 19, 2015 03:32
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echoMateria posted:I got all the Keyflower promos a couple of months ago and they didn't cost half as much total. For a couple I bought a German language issue of Spielbox magazine (I don't speak German), two I ordered from a shop in Canada and the last one from BGG Store. Yeah, that's my experience of Thunderstone in a nutshell: either you get the tough monsters up front or everything is impossible because of monster mechanics there's no way to counter. I don't think I've ever not had that happen, although I did stop playing it pretty quickly. You can really slowly build up a deck that can take that stuff on anyway, but it takes forever and the game is dull as hell until that logjam gets cleared. And I know there was a "breakthrough" mechanic on some of the really big bads but I forget how that triggered. It wasn't on any sort of time limit, I know that much.
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Jan 19, 2015 04:22
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Broken Loose posted:Basically, the only good thing Black Market does is interact with Tactician. Black Market can be pretty fun with certain Cornucopia cards, by which I mean Fairgrounds. Edit: I should add that I've only played with BM on isotropic so I have no idea how annoying the setup is.
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Jan 19, 2015 05:30
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I'm always interested in not just how different games work and how different designers approach different problems, but particularly in co-op. Co-op games can't take advantage of "intelligent opposition" (i.e. an actual person playing against you) so they have some interesting problems to solve. I have been playing some Legends of Andor lately, and let me tell you I'm quite pleased so far. It's a 2-4 player co-op and I'm going to say nice things about it  I was expecting something maybe Defenders of the Realm-ish but it's impressing me much more so far. Rules are straightforward and not grognardy. Nice artwork and piece design. And it has something going for it besides semirandom monster flood & random events which helps to make it more coherent. The "thing" about Legends of Andor is that you play scenarios (Legends) which are pre-baked adventures, which are revealed via cards that get turned over via various triggers. I had heard that there is limited replay once you know what the legends are and how they progress. This is somewhat true based on the fact that you play the Legends "blind" for the first time so it has a DM-less RPG session feel to it. But I was pleased to see that they aren't completely pre-baked and have some variable elements to them that would make some replay possible. You'd know what happens at a high level the next time around, but not exactly how or where or necessarily in what order. Broad strategy is re-usable but not more than that, because so far as we've played there is no time to do any butt-scratching. You feel the time and resource pressure. It's not like, for example, Eldritch Horror where I can frequently remember having some breathing room. Legends of Andor feels (so far) - like you're outmatched and have not quite enough time -- but there is still a fighting chance. I like that. The feeling that you have a fighting chance. Anyway, a bit more about the feel of the game. In a legend there are normally hordes of monsters encroaching on some important location and you lose the game if you allow it to be overrun -- but clobbering monsters and stacking them like cordwood is (so far) almost incidental to the actual jobs you have to do as the heroes and if you do it more than you need to it's actually counterproductive. While you're winning the battles, you're losing the war. In a way, it's (so far) not your job to wipe out the monster armies - it's your job to complete your tasks despite the monster armies. The other thing I'll say about the game is that learning it was a snap. The first Legend is basically a tutorial that explains concepts and play. This continues somewhat in some later legends. I don't think I've ever seen a playable tutorial for a board game done to this extent. Just read the bare minimum How To Play quickstart, do exactly what it says to set up, and you're off to the races to learn as you go. We're enjoying it so far, and I'm much more impressed with it than I guess I expected. Dude put a lot of work and effort into things. The Eyes Have It fucked around with this message at 07:18 on Jan 19, 2015 |
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Jan 19, 2015 06:04
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Does anyone know where I can find a good quick reference for Caverna? For most of my more complex games I usually print out the Universal Head quick references but there isn't a UH Caverna quick reference available. Board Game Geek doesn't have anything that comes even close to the quality of UH. Handing out a good quick reference is the only way I can get away with introducing heavier games to people (or games with lots of pieces).
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Jan 19, 2015 06:58
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fozzy fosbourne posted:Why the hell is Glory to Rome still out of print? It's a card game for crying out loud Cambridge Games hate both money and fans of Glory to Rome.
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Jan 19, 2015 07:07
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Mister Sinewave posted:... It has a bunch of expansions to help with running out of story campaigns. But for some reason none are available in English. Every review I heard about it were positive so I wonder why. echoMateria fucked around with this message at 08:22 on Jan 19, 2015 |
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Jan 19, 2015 08:09
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Mister Sinewave posted:I have been playing some Legends of Andor lately, and let me tell you I'm quite pleased so far. It's a 2-4 player co-op and I'm going to say nice things about it My friends bought this for my birthday but it's in German but after hearing this I think I'll have to start brushing up my German and get this beast on the table. Thanks!
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Jan 19, 2015 08:36
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SolitarySolidarity posted:Does anyone know where I can find a good quick reference for Caverna? What sort of stuff are you looking for that isn't on the player reference cards? A list of buildings and stuff?
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Jan 19, 2015 08:37
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fozzy fosbourne posted:Why the hell is Glory to Rome still out of print? It's a card game for crying out loud The last person who tried reprinting Glory to Rome lost his house because of it. Admittedly because he was too successful and promised too much, but the Black Edition has kind of tainted the well because now that's what people expect it to be. The original edition is so loving ugly that the guy in our group who owns it can't get anyone to play it.
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Jan 19, 2015 09:21
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Jedit posted:The last person who tried reprinting Glory to Rome lost his house because of it. Admittedly because he was too successful and promised too much, but the Black Edition has kind of tainted the well because now that's what people expect it to be. The original edition is so loving ugly that the guy in our group who owns it can't get anyone to play it. The foreign editions look so good though 
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Jan 19, 2015 09:51
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Mister Sinewave posted:I have been playing some Legends of Andor lately, and let me tell you I'm quite pleased so far. It's a 2-4 player co-op and I'm going to say nice things about it I quite liked how combat fit into the wider strategy of this game, and it hit us a completely unexpectedly the first time we played it. We were all 'man, these monsters are easy! Let's smash them all down!' and then we realised we needed to get to the tree on the other side of the map in 2 turns without so much as touching another monster if we were to have any chance of winning. Definitely an interesting take on standard co-op type games, where you are just trying to stave off the inevitable until you win.
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Jan 19, 2015 10:47
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echoMateria posted:
I liked Medina, it scratched a similar itch to TK for me. I played it as 4 players though, think it would probably work better with more. Got to play with the TK expansion finally. A 3 player deathmatch, there didn't seem to be many combat moves available, and there were quite a few cards that set up little tricks like the mirror or the switching of pieces but I could never use them properly. May need a few more tries, or better in High Form. My local game shop is selling that Shadow Crossfire game for £20, which seems quite cheap and I think that's the one that was Rahdo's game of the year, and if that means he plays it with his wife, I could play that with my partner and that would be a Good Thing.
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Jan 19, 2015 12:10
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You know those gaming horror stories? I thought they were fake, or at least had the truth stretched somewhat. I was wrong, so very, very wrong. A friend of mine invites me to his house Saturday night for games. I'm like, "Sure, why not?" I get there after work, and they are playing a 6 player game of Catan. An auspicious start to the night to be sure. They finish an hour later and I'm wondering what games they want to play next. I suggest Small World and Castles of Burgundy, but they won't have any of that as it would be "no fun" to split the seven player group. So what do we do? They bust out a 20 year old Risk board. But Risk is for six players you say. Well lucky for me they happen to have Risk 2142, Risk Lord of the Rings, and Starcraft Risk as well. So one of them takes the zerg tokens and we start our 7 player Risk game  The best part was that, beyond my friend, none of other five people at the table have played auctual Risk - they all played with home rule abominations like no army stacking above 12, and being able to reinforce anywhere with any amount. We start, and I being the petulant child that I am, resolve myself to attack every turn and not worry about holding any continents. Despite my hope of being eliminated first, and set free, no one expected someone to attack. I end up eliminating 2 players in four turns, and then proceed to steam roll the rest of them over the course of the next three. Now people are pissed at me for ending the game (one guy got so butt hurt that he rolled only a single defense die as I crushed his 67 man army), or are just astonished because, "Wow I've never seen a Risk game seen to conclusion, and I figured we would just pack up and leave when it got super late." I also hear some suggestions that we should play Monopoly next time as we are picking up. I wish I was making this story up, or embellishing it, but it was real, and was just as enjoyable as you would imagine. And I know I am a whiney poo poo for posting this, but it I needed to vent. Durendal fucked around with this message at 14:35 on Jan 19, 2015 |
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Jan 19, 2015 14:33
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Have you talked with your friend to see whether or not he understands what good games are?
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Jan 19, 2015 14:35
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silvergoose posted:Have you talked with your friend to see whether or not he understands what good games are? I have, but he is one of those guys who would rather play CaH or Monopoly. He says my games take too long, or aren't as "classic". Edit: I mean if that's what he enjoys, that's what he enjoys. I'm not going to fault him for it, but I'm not going to stick around for those game either. Durendal fucked around with this message at 14:49 on Jan 19, 2015 |
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Jan 19, 2015 14:41
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Durendal posted:I have, but he is one of those guys who would rather play CaH or Monopoly. He says my games take too long, or aren't as "classic". Take too long, you say. Take too long.
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Jan 19, 2015 14:46
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Durendal posted:He says my games take too long, or aren't as "classic". jesus christ.
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Jan 19, 2015 14:47
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i can't. i loving can't!
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Jan 19, 2015 14:47
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small world? nah, that takes too long *suggests monopoly* *gets mad when a game of risk actually ends*
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Jan 19, 2015 14:48
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Yeah, I guess now my question is, have you tried asking him why his opinions literally contradict with eachother?
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Jan 19, 2015 14:51
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Broken Loose posted:small world? nah, that takes too long *suggests monopoly* *gets mad when a game of risk actually ends* To be fair, he wasn't the one complaining about that. silvergoose posted:Yeah, I guess now my question is, have you tried asking him why his opinions literally contradict with eachother? He has really bad AP, and I think this is his way of telling me he doesn't enjoy euro games. Durendal fucked around with this message at 14:58 on Jan 19, 2015 |
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Jan 19, 2015 14:51
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Holy gently caress. Sever.
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Jan 19, 2015 15:01
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