|
Lorini posted:You are so fortunate. Greg Schloesser is one of the nicest guys ever to play games with. Tell him Jennifer Schlickbernd said hi! I'm talking to Greg in Gmail right now, will do  Played a sort of test run of Game of Thrones last night, it was a bit fiddly for some members of my group at first but lots of fun once we got going. Can't wait to play a full game next week (and I made drat sure we're playing with 6).
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 19:33
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 18:41 |
|
|
Lord Frisk posted:Red November is basically flash point in a dwarven sub, if I remember correctly Red November is one of the most FFG games I've ever played. Just random poo poo happening at you for way too long. Also it's gnomes! There's a difference!  I'm looking at The Mines of Zavendor. Anyone have any experience with it?
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 19:34
|
|
|
T-Bone posted:Played a sort of test run of Game of Thrones last night, it was a bit fiddly for some members of my group at first but lots of fun once we got going. Can't wait to play a full game next week (and I made drat sure we're playing with 6). Good man.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 19:40
|
|
|
I think you are looking for a dwarf simulation, but FWIW I dwarf pretty hard in Lord of the Rings LCG. There's a mechanic that I think I've grown a little tired of that I'm going to try to describe. It's in worker placement and other games, where a fundamental strategy is hate drafting an action/resource that a player wants. The worst instances being a case where drafting that particular resource or not is the difference between an awesome engine vs a pile of poo poo. As an example, in Ticket to Ride, this can be two players recognizing a third's big route ticket and denying them a key node. If they don't deny it and you didn't invest resources into alternatives, you are probably going to win the game. If they do deny it, you are going to lose. And if you invest heavily in countermeasures ahead of this event, you are probably going to get a mediocre middle of the pack score. So if you want to play to win, you try and shoot the moon and either spectacularly win or fail. It's sort of like the strategy in tourney poker of going all in on a big coin-flip-odds pot early, vs the strategy of playing really conservatively in non-tourney play. The same sort of thing can occur in Agricola, where you can gamble on getting more points but potentially starving if the board colludes to starve you, vs securing food at lower efficiency but diminishing your scoring potential. However, I'm struggling to really think of games that don't feature this mechanic that aren't straight up direct conflict, co-op, or multiplayer solitaire games. I think the mechanic might be a bit passive aggressive? It's ironic, but in direct conflict games, it feels a little less .. assholey .. because you are given the option to retaliate. Additionally, in a direct conflict game, you are a shark or a tiger; you eat the other players in order to survive and no one blames you for it. Whereas in a low-interaction, action-denial euro, I feel more like I'm greedy? For example, in Chaos in the Old World, I don't feel bad being Khorne and attacking other players, whereas I feel like a dickhead when I block my aunt's big TTR route or my buddy's family starves in 'Gric. Co-op is pretty self explanatory. Multiplayer solitaire games kind of have issues but I think some of my favorite games ever have been criticized as multi-player solitaire. Dominion with certain kingdoms, Race for the Galaxy, Castles of Burgundy, Galaxy Trucker, etc. I think I enjoy games that require optimizing an engine within a random context. Finally, much like Vlaada, I'm more content to wreck people's plans in anonymous games than I am when I'm playing with friends, family, coworkers, etc. Anyways, I'm always on the look out for more really well executed "almost multi-player solitaire" games, I think.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 19:41
|
|
|
I'm looking for some solo games with high replayability. Picked up Takenoko and Dominion to try and get the gf interested but that fails I need a backup plan.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 19:45
|
|
|
So I'm considering getting Mage Wars but should I wait for the upcoming arena core pack? And does anyone have any experience with the game if it's a good one?
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 19:51
|
|
|
goodness posted:I'm looking for some solo games with high replayability. Picked up Takenoko and Dominion to try and get the gf interested but that fails I need a backup plan. Are you looking for fairly light games, or...?
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 19:52
|
|
|
Dr. VooDoo posted:So I'm considering getting Mage Wars but should I wait for the upcoming arena core pack? And does anyone have any experience with the game if it's a good one? Do you have someone you already know that has already promised to play with you? If not, I...kinda would suggest not getting it. Hard as hell to get played.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 19:52
|
|
|
fozzy fosbourne posted:
The more I've been playing Castles of Burgundy I've been experimenting on blocking tiles and it's worked out pretty well. I just have to get my poo poo settled early and just start taking certain tiles like Castles or particular knowledge tiles. Usually, I can find use for them or just throw them away. It's not optimal for your board at the time, since you want to make every action count. But it can really put the others off big time if you do it right. It's defiantly the hardest decision for me to make in the game.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 20:00
|
|
|
silvergoose posted:Do you have someone you already know that has already promised to play with you? The app came out today and it includes the ability to build a deck, points included. And I think that's going to make it a ton easier to get the game to the table. I'm waiting for the smaller box myself.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 20:00
|
|
|
The geoscape is the fun bit of XCOM! You people are crazy. That said, the whole app thing just leaves a bad taste in my mouth so I'll likely not bother.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 20:01
|
|
|
fozzy fosbourne posted:I think you are looking for a dwarf simulation, but FWIW I dwarf pretty hard in Lord of the Rings LCG. Sounds like a good time to plug my new favorite game Viticulture, the Grande worker lets you use a spot that's otherwise blocked. At first glance you'd think that ruins the tension of WP but it really doesn't because games are so short and there is so much you need to do to get points that it's always stressful. I'm just completely in love with this game right now.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 20:02
|
|
|
fozzy fosbourne posted:I think you are looking for a dwarf simulation, but FWIW I dwarf pretty hard in Lord of the Rings LCG. I'm not sure 'passive aggressive' is the right word. It's just regular-old aggressive when you decide someone doesn't get the things they need. My group loves games that let us kick each other around like that, but I totally get that being that cutthroat while playing board games isn't for everyone. Any game where you're pulling from a shared pool of resources (locations in TtR, the map in Carc, action spaces in any worker placement game) is going to have that sort of issue, I think. I'm surprised you haven't had that issue with CoB, actually. It might be worth checking out Among the Stars. It does the multiplayer solitaire thing pretty well and it's really hard to get frozen out of stuff. Echophonic fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Jan 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 20:05
|
|
|
fozzy fosbourne posted:I think I enjoy games that require optimizing an engine within a random context. I think I know what you mean, I enjoy "dealing with and trying to make the most of what you have & get" mixed with "how well can you change on the fly to still do what you need if things change". I'm far less good at "If I do this then she'll need that but I can make sure that thing is [state] so there's no way I can be stopped from  in time! Hah!"
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 20:18
|
|
|
T-Bone posted:Holy poo poo apparently there's a group in East Tennessee that gets 13-25 a meetup and they're having a session not five minutes away from me this rules: I'm part of that group (and the other mentioned group), and I don't have a bad thing to say about it. Everyone's great and friendly, and there are always a large variety of games to play. And seconding that Greg is awesome. Hope to see you there!
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 20:34
|
|
|
Mojo Jojo posted:The geoscape is the fun bit of XCOM! You people are crazy. The board game is inspired by the more recent Xcom than classic, so odds are they had to add a bunch of mechanics to make it feel worth playing as the new one is a much more pared down version of the geoscape. Waiting on some reviews and firsthand info before I decide on it, I do like realtime-ish games so it did catch a little of my interest. I don't mind the app thing, as most people have a smartphone or tablet these days.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 20:35
|
|
|
Echophonic posted:I'm not sure 'passive aggressive' is the right word. It's just regular-old aggressive when you decide someone doesn't get the things they need. My group loves games that let us kick each other around like that, but I totally get that being that cutthroat while playing board games isn't for everyone. Hmm, perhaps. Maybe what feels passive aggressive about it is the fact that retaliation isn't as easily done as a more conflict heavy game. Additionally, to use my shark analogy again: you know the shark (your opponent in Magic or Chess or whatever) is your enemy. There is no option to simply leave you alone. Whereas these games sort of make an illusion of the option of simply not interfering with other players, or only doing so coincidentally. You can play a mostly non-cutthroat game of TTR -- you choose to screw with the other players in many circumstances.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 20:35
|
|
|
Mega64 posted:I'm part of that group (and the other mentioned group), and I don't have a bad thing to say about it. Everyone's great and friendly, and there are always a large variety of games to play. And seconding that Greg is awesome. Hope to see you there! Awesome. Pming you
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 20:36
|
|
|
goodness posted:I'm looking for some solo games with high replayability. Picked up Takenoko and Dominion to try and get the gf interested but that fails I need a backup plan. "solo game with high replayability" is my favorite kind of game. There are lots! I own all of these and would recommend them to anyone looking for a solo game that won't get old: -Agricola -Mage Knight -Forbidden Desert/Island -Pandemic -Pathfinder Adventure Cards -Tales of the Arabian Nights -Robinson Crusoe -Arkham Horror Dr. VooDoo posted:So I'm considering getting Mage Wars but should I wait for the upcoming arena core pack? And does anyone have any experience with the game if it's a good one? Only buy Mage Wars if you have someone lined up to play it with you already. Finding an opponent is like finding the holy grail. Rutibex fucked around with this message at 21:32 on Jan 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 21:13
|
|
|
Mister Sinewave posted:I think I know what you mean, I enjoy "dealing with and trying to make the most of what you have & get" mixed with "how well can you change on the fly to still do what you need if things change". Yeah, exactly! One exception for me is poker although I think that might be in part because I've studied the game. And I've played with strangers when I've been serious about it. goodness posted:I'm looking for some solo games with high replayability. Picked up Takenoko and Dominion to try and get the gf interested but that fails I need a backup plan. Lord of the Rings LCG can be played solo and has a ton of depth but I wouldn't say that it has high replayability unless you invest in the expansions. Just going to throw out there playing Race for the Galaxy against the keldon AI if your gf doesn't take to it. But the downside to that is once you've played a bunch you will just wreck your gf and she'll get left behind. You can sperg and play Dominion against Big Money, but that's probably not very interesting if you don't have expansions. vvv edit: the archipelago solo expansion is hard as butt to get now. I had to order a copy from france fozzy fosbourne fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Jan 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 21:14
|
|
|
To add to the solo games with replayability pile, Archipelago with the single player expansion (like $10, it's a big ol' deck of cards) is my favorite SP board game.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 21:19
|
|
|
Just had my copy of The Hunters arrive from GMT. Now, this looks like the ultimate solo game - playing as a u-boat captain, hunting Allied shipping in ww2. Oh yeah.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 21:31
|
|
|
Countblanc posted:To add to the solo games with replayability pile, Archipelago with the single player expansion (like $10, it's a big ol' deck of cards) is my favorite SP board game. Tell me why. I love Archipelago and don't get to play it with others very often.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 21:34
|
|
|
fozzy fosbourne posted:One exception for me is poker although I think that might be in part because I've studied the game. And I've played with strangers when I've been serious about it. I like poker too, I'm good enough to lose my money slowly  Countblanc posted:To add to the solo games with replayability pile, Archipelago with the single player expansion (like $10, it's a big ol' deck of cards) is my favorite SP board game. I want to check this out, unfortunately sold out everywhere I look as well.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 21:40
|
|
|
homullus posted:Tell me why. I love Archipelago and don't get to play it with others very often. So each of the cards in the expansion is basically a starting board scenario like "you begin on the desert tile with [list of resources]", as well as an objective and time/turn limit to achieve it in. You then pretty much just play Archipelago like normal (but, obviously, without other players), but you need to fulfill the objective within the limit. The replayability comes from: a) the sheer number of cards, it's seriously a ton, and like the base game these come in short, medium, and long flavors b) each card has a rating metric - it isn't enough to simply win, but if you don't wanna be a noob scrubcasual you gotta go for gold, which is usually quite difficult c) Archipelago's inherent randomization from drawing tiles and other events I don't play it as often as I should, but it's solid.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 21:57
|
|
|
quote:Hmm, perhaps. Maybe what feels passive aggressive about it is the fact that retaliation isn't as easily done as a more conflict heavy game. Additionally, to use my shark analogy again: you know the shark (your opponent in Magic or Chess or whatever) is your enemy. There is no option to simply leave you alone. Whereas these games sort of make an illusion of the option of simply not interfering with other players, or only doing so coincidentally. You can play a mostly non-cutthroat game of TTR -- you choose to screw with the other players in many circumstances. The phenomenon you're describing is called "politics", and it's one of the more central properties of a multiplayer (>2 players or teams) game. So we end up discussing it every hundred pages or so. Politics is the measure of the extent to which a player can choose to harm or benefit specific other players. Magic and Chess obviously have direct conflict, but they're not political by definition because they're 2 player games. Once you're into multiplayer games, it's not trivial to make a game that's not either political or uninteractive (multi-player solitaire). Many of the big ideas of modern gaming are ways to build interaction that aren't political, and there's lots of approaches: - Limiting interaction to all or none: You don't choose who to attack in Dominion, generally the things you do affect everyone the same way (though sometimes it effectively hurts/helps one person more than others, and sometimes you'll know that going in). - Worker Placement/scarce resources: when you take wood in Agricola, you can't choose who you're depriving wood from. You deprive it from everyone. Still, often it can feel political when there was only one guy who wanted it anyway. This is the kind of slightly masked political interaction that feels passive aggressive. - Directly rewarding "spreading it around". You could choose to only attack a specific player in Tash-Kalar deathmatch, but you wouldn't score well doing so. You need to attack different players to get your points up in all your colors. There's also flares to limit the amount to which you can harm a player by eliminating their pieces. - Mitigating the harm/benefit done to other players - for example, Eclipse has a bunch of mechanisms that are meant to make "being attacked" less painful, so much so that combat is often close to a wash for the attackee, and sometimes even mutually beneficial. - Rotating 1vMany: In King of Tokyo, you can only control who you're attacking indirectly - you're either attacking Tokyo, or you're in Tokyo attacking everyone outside. You have a choice of how much to attack, but you usually can't choose who - so you get very "direct conflict" without it feeling political. - 7 Wonders: most of your "direct interaction' is limited to your neighbors, and the most direct "war" is not voluntary. You interact with the general table only via draft, and the general points race... but the game still feels interactive. To be clear: politics isn't all bad. It tends towards balanced games (as everyone chips away at the leader). Too much politics will tend to overwhelm other game mechanics (eg. Risk, Munchkin, etc..) - but many players don't mind that either (they like the political games of "flying under the radar", etc..). Strong politics also allows for the possibility of truly spiteful play, where players potshot another not to slow down the leader, but just to mess with somebody - or, the reverse, they play "kingmaker" by supporting/not-attacking a leading player and handing them a win. Either way, managing politics is one of the core concerns of modern game design. Except for crappy designs like Tiny Epic Kingdoms where they didn't think about it at all and so the game is garbage. Of course the other pillar of modern game design is getting art from a popular webcomic.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 21:59
|
|
|
Looks like Witch's Brew is getting a reprint. https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/172308/broom-service
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 22:00
|
|
|
jmzero posted:The phenomenon you're describing is called "politics", and it's one of the more central properties of a multiplayer (>2 players or teams) game. So we end up discussing it every hundred pages or so. Politics is the measure of the extent to which a player can choose to harm or benefit specific other players. Basically, although I meant to include a non 1v1 game as an example in the conflict category. In something like Chaos in the Oldworld, Eclipse, or Cyclades, or whatever, you have to expect some retaliation. In something like 'Gric or TTR, you can screw them out of an option and they might not be able to swing back.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 22:09
|
|
|
fozzy fosbourne posted:Basically, although I meant to include a non 1v1 game as an example in the conflict category. In something like Chaos in the Oldworld, Eclipse, or Cyclades, or whatever, you have to expect some retaliation. In something like 'Gric or TTR, you can screw them out of an option and they might not be able to swing back. A player in one of my gaming groups is bad at Agricola, or at least was, because his absolute favorite kinds of games are HIGHLY, highly political. Less political games still get the same drawing attention to/blaming others that is his key to winning political games -- justifying aggressive actions he takes as rightful retaliation, trying to get other people to attack those who have attacked him (it's kind of frustrating to play games with him sometimes, because of the reflexive posturing). In Agricola, a key thing that he took a while to learn is that going out of your way to hurt other people often costs you more than it gets you, and that you rarely want to "swing back" when somebody hurts you, even though mechanically you nearly always can in some fashion.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 22:16
|
|
|
Did Room 25 turn out to be any good? I ordered it when it first came out and didn't hear anything for months until they said "hey sorry we can't get any more copies of it ever again" and refunded my money, which was a bit odd. Also Legendary Encounters is a great game provided they give you all the cards. Mine came with all of them in the box fortunately. I've only played it solo so I haven't looked at how the Coordinate stuff works yet, but they really did well with making it feel like the movies. Whoever decided to make the deck cards belong to 6pt or whatever text is a jerk though. I didn't see it at all at first and sorted the cards by type thinking it would make setting up the decks easier (it didn't) My first game in the Nostromo was a bit easy, but Ash never showed up (technically unkillable if you are playing solo??? I think you just have to keep moving him). I blew the alien out of the god drat airlock as soon as it appeared since the airlock controls was the first card to drop from objective 3. I'm curious how well it plays with more people + the hidden agenda/Alien player thing, I'm going to try it out in a few weeks with 5 players.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 22:20
|
|
|
homullus posted:A player in one of my gaming groups is bad at Agricola, or at least was, because his absolute favorite kinds of games are HIGHLY, highly political. Less political games still get the same drawing attention to/blaming others that is his key to winning political games -- justifying aggressive actions he takes as rightful retaliation, trying to get other people to attack those who have attacked him (it's kind of frustrating to play games with him sometimes, because of the reflexive posturing). In Agricola, a key thing that he took a while to learn is that going out of your way to hurt other people often costs you more than it gets you, and that you rarely want to "swing back" when somebody hurts you, even though mechanically you nearly always can in some fashion. My impression is that actively blocking other players is a pretty strong strategy in 2-3p games of Agricola. Keeping opponents out of animal food supply and room building actions (even doing poo poo like building a fence for no reason!). I'm not a pro though.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 22:29
|
|
|
 The little bean people fleeing in terror? All the independent passion projects on kickstarter being bulldozed by this cynical cash grab.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 22:43
|
|
|
fozzy fosbourne posted:My impression is that actively blocking other players is a pretty strong strategy in 2-3p games of Agricola. Keeping opponents out of animal food supply and room building actions (even doing poo poo like building a fence for no reason!). I'm not a pro though. Blocking is quite powerful in 2-player Agricola because most resources have only one space. That means if you make an effort you could deny someone clay/reeds/etc entirely. You will develop very slowly wasting your actions grabbing all the clay; but they will starve and drown in begging cards without being able to build any kind of stove. 3-player is a lot trickier as there are alternative spaces for most resources. Most often in 3-player and up you are better off just grabbing whatever space is best for your own development rather than attempt to block people. You can also only block one person in a 3 player game. When you block you are harming yourself, it's only a useful strategy if you hurt your opponent more. In a 3-player game you will block one guy (hurting both of you) to the advantage of your second opponent. Rutibex fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Jan 22, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 22:45
|
|
|
The End posted:
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 22:47
|
|
|
Disgustingly, their one and only stretch goal is for when they hit 100,000 backers. It's not enough to be close to $2.5 million.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 22:50
|
|
|
quote:Did Room 25 turn out to be any good? I ordered it when it first came out and didn't hear anything for months until they said "hey sorry we can't get any more copies of it ever again" and refunded my money, which was a bit odd. Not really? It was good for a couple plays in each mode (there was like 9 modes) - but none of the modes really worked. Some fun ideas, but they couldn't really make it all work. quote:My impression is that actively blocking other players is a pretty strong strategy in 2-3p games of Agricola. Keeping opponents out of animal food supply and room building actions (even doing poo poo like building a fence for no reason!). I'm not a pro though. At 2 players, denial is absolutely key - and lots of the game come down to a kind of denial chicken (or, in a way, a time auction). You had the first fireplace... how many sheep will your opponent let pile up before he just releases them into the wild? It's often a really tight call, and you have to get good at judging the value of resources at different times. Despite some interesting decisions, I don't like 2P Agricola - too much positive feedback looping (if your opponent has more family, they can often use those dudes to hold you down), and too big of a swing based on when Family Growth flips... often you need to go really hard to be ready/first on round 5 and/or 6. This will either work and you'll be way ahead, or it'll pop sometime else and you've often put yourself way behind. At 3 player you have a much more normal game, where you have some risk to manage about how much you expose yourself to a spite move (especially just before feeding) - but most of your moves are going to be planned around "what do I want, and how contested are each of those things likely to be based on what other people need", rather than specifically denying other players. You can go after someone, but it's usually not worth it unless they've really played risky (again, usually this is something like "I figured I could get sow/bake as the last action in round 11, FML" or something).
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 22:51
|
|
|
I felt like I've passively colluded with others to block the third out of the reed in 3p, but again, I'm not that next-level of a 'Gric player so maybe that's just my naive impression.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 22:55
|
|
|
fozzy fosbourne posted:My impression is that actively blocking other players is a pretty strong strategy in 2-3p games of Agricola. Keeping opponents out of animal food supply and room building actions (even doing poo poo like building a fence for no reason!). I'm not a pro though. There are times when you unambiguously should block them, namely when you both want the resource in question (or family growth). There are times when you might choose this resource ahead of that one, so that you can get both AND block them at the same time. If you are blocking them in a harvest turn such that they will be forced to take begging cards, that can be a strong move. And of course it's possible that your engine and situation is so good that you have a worker that you could just do nothing with, so you may as well block. Otherwise, though . . . I'm no Agricola expert either, but I think it's better to build your "known" engine than to waste a precious move on their potential engine.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 22:57
|
|
|
The End posted:
'What have you done' seems quite appropriate really. Was talking about this in the office earlier, even my friends who mostly like casual games and enjoy The Oatmeal say it's probably going to be rubbish and not even worth it as a filler game.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 22:58
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 18:41 |
|
|
I'm pretty sure they could have just made an Oatmeal-themed set of playing cards and made the same amount of money.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2015 23:00
|
|
