|
I played Guns of Gettysburg last night, with three others (team game). I read the rulebook a good dozen times before attempting to teach it to the others. It was slow to start as I explained everything, but it turned into a pretty good time, even though I'd been worried that a couple would be intimidated by the games opacity. The main point I took away from the game stems from its various unique mechanics. Learning GoG was like learning to play board games all over again, and it turns out that as an adult with responsibilities it's really hard to learn board games from scratch. I guess what I'm saying is, I learned some respect for people who think board games are hard.
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 16:55
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 14, 2024 08:11 |
|
|
Radioactive Toy posted:I'll be learning, and then teaching, Chaos in the Old World later today. Anything I should be aware of like commonly missed rules, misconceptions, or other stuff? Units can only be placed in or adjacent regions containing units of the same color. Cards may be played in any open spot on the map. Each time a player fulfills their dial advancement condition, they get a token. Getting one token is worth one advancement, but tokens beyond the first are useless unless the player has more than anyone else. At most, one player can turn their dial twice per turn. Khorne is not the easiest god to play, he's actually the second hardest; Nurgle is the simplest and most straightforward. Khorne requires a lot of knowledge of what the other players can do and if Khorne is played poorly, one of the other gods will run away with the game.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 17:07
|
|
|
Keyflower is pretty loving tight. Just saying.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 17:10
|
|
|
The only game of Cosmic Encounter I've played ended in an n-1 victory because holy poo poo it had been four goddamn hours and I just wanted it to be over already, so I invited everyone else in on the attack against the player I'd been randomly chosen to fight against. We could have just rolled a dice at the start to see who lost and saved the hassle.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 17:10
|
|
|
Crackbone posted:Keyflower is pretty loving tight. I think it's his best game by far and really deserves a space in nearly any Euro player's collection. What I like best is how easily it transitions from 2 players to 6 players. Also the auction is different from most auctions, you feel like you have some control but other players can interfere as well. Note that I only play it without hidden trackable information, as described in The Farmers expansion.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 17:29
|
|
|
Trying to decide between Keyflower and Dungeon Petz. It's agony 
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 17:42
|
|
|
Mega64 posted:Round 6 comes along, and L1z1x takes Bureaucracy and draws the Game Over card. After he claims an objective, we're both at six points with Sol guy at five. I needed the "Spend 10 influence objective" to hit 7 and win, since we both had equal objectives and L1z1x would win "most planets" tiebreaker (I had the sole marker on "I control Mecatol"). If I lost either of two planets next to Mecatol, I was toast, which was the L1z1x guy's plan. So as a desperate gambit, I declared I was going to kingmake the Sol guys in a hope to get the two against each other and have them ignore me (and hey, the Sol guy was upfront the entire game about wrecking my poo poo and was a newbie, so I'm still an rear end in a top hat), since Sol would've gotten 6 and was close enough in planets to win tiebreaker. The amazing thing is that this worked, as the L1z1x guy got nervous and decided to take planets instead of take my first planet with his War Suns (though the five Dreadnoughts I had there was a helpful deterrent, and I had the "Repair damaged ships" card so I probably would've won that one), and then the other two players attacked each other to gain each others' planets, arranging it so that neither could reach my other planet, leaving me with the influence needed to get my seventh and win the game. Sneaky, underhanded and pretty drat scummy thing to do, but hey, it got me the win. Wowzers... uh I hate to break it to you but you lost that game. L1z1x won and you guys played really, really wrong. The "Game Over" card (Imperium Rex) is not "declare a winner at the end of the round". It is "end the game right now, I mean this instant motherfucker". You don't wait for the end of round, hell you don't even finish processing the bureaucracy card. The instant that card hits the table face up everything comes to a complete stop and a winner is declared. If you guys were tied on points but L1z1x had more planets when that card hit the table then he won the game. There should not have been any play past that point. edit: Actually I'm trying to make sure I'm deciphering this correctly. He claimed an objective after Imperium Rex hit that table? And that put him at six points? If that's the case then it was an illegal but also totally nonsensical move based on misunderstanding. It basically means he chose to play a card that directly made you the victor with no other effect. At that point the scenario is so clogged with rules errors/misunderstandings that I would declare the game a wash. Meme Poker Party fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Jan 25, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 17:47
|
|
|
Radioactive Toy posted:I'll be learning, and then teaching, Chaos in the Old World later today. Anything I should be aware of like commonly missed rules, misconceptions, or other stuff? Edit: ignore this. Apparently I was taught wrongly as a joke. Zark the Damned fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Jan 25, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 17:54
|
|
|
tarbrush posted:Trying to decide between Keyflower and Dungeon Petz. It's agony I think Keyflower will generate far more analysis paralysis, if that's something that can be a problem with your group. I really like Keyflower but at any given time you're juggling tile auctions/meeple counts/your village/other people's villages/trying to move goods.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 17:55
|
|
|
tarbrush posted:Trying to decide between Keyflower and Dungeon Petz. It's agony This also depends on the group of people you are planning to play with. Keyflower would look much less intimidating to newbies than Dungeon Petz since it starts with a very small footprint. But then again you can charm a good number of people by just showing a couple of petz...
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 18:06
|
|
|
Some Numbers posted:Units can only be placed in or adjacent regions containing units of the same color. Cards may be played in any open spot on the map.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 18:06
|
|
|
Jabor posted:The only game of Cosmic Encounter I've played ended in an n-1 victory because holy poo poo it had been four goddamn hours and I just wanted it to be over already, so I invited everyone else in on the attack against the player I'd been randomly chosen to fight against. How the hell does a game of Cosmic Encounters last four hours? I play most of my games with at least 50% people who are easily distracted or AP-tastic and I think one time we might've had a two hour game.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 18:09
|
|
|
AMooseDoesStuff posted:So what's the consensus of Cosmic Encounter? Worth playing in the same way that the original 1960s Star Trek & Dr. Who series are worth watching. Most aspects of it are conspicuously very clumsy by modern standards, but I think it still has a lot of heart and panache, and it's interesting seeing how much of an influence it was on later games (like MtG; Cosmic Encounter pretty much invented the idea of emergent/synergistic effects between different abilities). Basically it's not super deep or balanced, but I think it still has a nice sense of fun and style. Worth trying if you get a chance (at a cafe or whatever) but probably not a good candidate for a blind buy.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 18:10
|
|
|
Poison Mushroom posted:If I'm reading this right, you subtract from each die individually. Okay, yeah, that's stupid. But then, I expect as much from Flying Frog. There's a reason I didn't back Shadows over Brimstone even though on paper it's everything I could possibly want in a boardgame.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 18:11
|
|
|
ThisIsNoZaku posted:I've only played the skirmish mode once, so I looked up the rules. Loading strain onto a hero is all about taking their options away. If you don't feel confident about making them wounded/dead in a mission, forcing them to burn an action to rest just so they can use abilities or strain-move is a decent option. Doubly so if they're under the gun for a time-sensitive mission.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 19:04
|
|
|
Zark the Damned posted:Each individual figure can be summoned once per round. You don't have to summon from your supply of dudes. If you only have one guy on the map (and they haven't already been summoned this turn) you are allowed to summon that dude off the map and put them back down anywhere (by paying their summon cost), which can be useful if you're getting backed into a corner. Fat Samurai posted:A bit of a weird rule: when moving the last unit out of a region, that region still counts as occupied by you until you place down the unit you just moved. Basically, you can always move a figure on the board to an adjacent region. Zark is incorrect on both counts. First, there is no rule preventing you from summoning and resummoning the same figure multiple times. If you want to spend your entire round hopping a single Bloodletter around the board, you're welcome to. Second, Fat Samurai has the correct interpretation on summoning from the board, according to page 11. The resolution order for a summon action is
gutterdaughter fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Jan 25, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 19:04
|
|
|
Gutter Owl posted:Zark is incorrect on both counts. I just double checked, and you're right. I can only blame the numpty who taught me the game in the first place
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 19:27
|
|
|
Played Roll for the Galaxy yesterday with people who disliked the original Race for the Galaxy and they seemed to like it. It played quickly, even on our first time though, strategy seems fairly fluid, and in general, we all enjoyed ourselves. The dice add enough randomness to make you consider options you normally wouldn't consider, but at the same time, the ability to choose what two of your dice do regardless of what side they're showing starting on turn 1 makes it so that you aren't screwed by a bad roll. With four players we pretty routinely activated 3 phases, we activated four phases once, and we activated two phases twice. It helped quite a bit that I gave them some advice about the sorts of phases various players probably would (and should) call based on their board state.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 19:31
|
|
|
Suburbia should add little global condition tokens that you could place on your borough board. Then, when someone gets a restaurant and needs to see who has a tile with a condition they could just scan each borough card for tokens. Played it twice yesterday, once with expansion and once without and had a ton of fun but feel like it could benefit if it went a little faster. Edit: maybe a variant could be designed with multiple markets that you bid from and pass back and forth like in 7 Wonders. And then simultaneous placement and effect phases, with just places tiles in opponent boroughs not being valid yet or something. fozzy fosbourne fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Jan 25, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 19:38
|
|
|
Gutter Owl posted:First, there is no rule preventing you from summoning and resummoning the same figure multiple times. If you want to spend your entire round hopping a single Bloodletter around the board, you're welcome to. Oh thank goodness. For a second there I thought my favorite stalling tactic with Nurgle was against the rules.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 19:45
|
|
|
I finally got a chance to play Game of Thrones over the weekend, and I enjoyed it. I'm terrible at strategy games, so I didn't do very well (I was on the way to being wiped out as Stark when someone made a drive to claim two castles and get 7 points). I like how its like an updated version of Risk with a lot of the bad parts of Risk removed.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 20:07
|
|
|
Gutter Owl posted:Second, Fat Samurai has the correct interpretation Played Smallworld Underground during the weekend. I don't particularly like the first one, with the politicking and the long time reading all the stuff races can do, which is quite a lot of setup for a supposedly light game. But Underworld is in dire need of a better FAQ. There is lot of skills that contradict each other, and even the usual "denial powers take precedence over powers that let you do stuff" didn't help in some cases (for example, whether a race being Martyrs due to a location gains a coin when losing that location). I know the answer is going to be Kemet, but I'll ask anyway. What game should I push my friends towards, so we stop playing Smallworld?
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 20:40
|
|
|
Played LoW with Skullport for the first time and I quite liked it. The theme is better integrated in the expansion and the added player interaction/risk management (via corruption) made the WP decisions more meaningful. Xanathar seems a bit underpowered as a lord - might need a house rule to use him. The game went really smoothly (I ended up winning by two points). My group is getting less green. I should probably introduce them to a mediumish WP game soon since they love the mechanic but the next thing up I own is Dominant Species and it's dying to be played. I dunno, I'm pretty sure I'm going to buy Dungeon Lords but that seems around the same heaviness as DS. T-Bone fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Jan 25, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 20:50
|
|
|
Fat Samurai posted:I know the answer is going to be Kemet, but I'll ask anyway. What game should I push my friends towards, so we stop playing Smallworld? Kemet if you want to focus on the fighting, Fief or Game of Thrones if you want to focus on the politicking.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 20:52
|
|
|
Played three games for the first time yesterday. My very early opinion on One Zero One is that it's fun, but pretty swingy and luck based. Though, that means you're never really out of it, and getting lucky with when you draw the right thing can bring you back into it. Which is totally fine, as the deck is 16 cards and a game lasts 5-10 minutes. Played Red Dragon Inn later on. Pretty fun time, but it's a nothing game, and I have no interest in playing it again. Blockus rules though. I don't really have much else to say about it, but it's a great game.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 20:58
|
|
|
Gutter Owl posted:First, there is no rule preventing you from summoning and resummoning the same figure multiple times. If you want to spend your entire round hopping a single Bloodletter around the board, you're welcome to. The only exception to this is Nurgle's Cultist upgrade, which allows each Leper to be summoned for 0 power once per round. But that's a pretty corner case.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 21:04
|
|
|
sector_corrector posted:I finally got a chance to play Game of Thrones over the weekend, and I enjoyed it. I'm terrible at strategy games, so I didn't do very well (I was on the way to being wiped out as Stark when someone made a drive to claim two castles and get 7 points). I like how its like an updated version of Risk with a lot of the bad parts of Risk removed. How hard is it to teach to a rotation of new people? The problem with fiddly FFG games and their rules is having to teach them to a constantly rotating group of people we play board games with. BSG doesn't take all that much I suppose, but Game of Thrones looked like it had more mechanics to have to deal with.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 21:08
|
|
|
Shes Not Impressed posted:How hard is it to teach to a rotation of new people? The problem with fiddly FFG games and their rules is having to teach them to a constantly rotating group of people we play board games with. BSG doesn't take all that much I suppose, but Game of Thrones looked like it had more mechanics to have to deal with. It's not the most complex game in the world. Make sure everyone knows how each action marker works, with special emphasis on starred actions and how they're different. The three bidding tracks are relatively straightforward, but everyone always loses any influence bid, regardless of win or loss. The size of armies/supply/muster should be well understood and communicated. Combat is pretty straightforward as well. It can be picked up by new players very quickly if taught by an experienced player, but may take a whole game to sink in if everyone's new to board games.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 21:17
|
|
|
Shes Not Impressed posted:How hard is it to teach to a rotation of new people? The problem with fiddly FFG games and their rules is having to teach them to a constantly rotating group of people we play board games with. BSG doesn't take all that much I suppose, but Game of Thrones looked like it had more mechanics to have to deal with. Just make damned sure that the people you play with want to play a board game and aren't just there because they like the show. It's not a light game in any way, and when I played with a group of three people who seriously played the game and the rest who didn't care, the game wasn't very good.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 22:06
|
|
|
Buying Keyflower + Farmers from Amazon UK, plus shipping, was cheaper than buying from Game Salute, who doesn't allow online discounts or have it in stock now. gently caress you, Gamesalute. Crackbone fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Jan 25, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 22:06
|
|
|
I just went to look up the Fief rules on BGG, and apparently the publishers won't post the rules in any language on pdf? Something about "Then people will use their old version with the new rules and we'll lose money!" as well as "Certain languages are more expensive, and they'll just buy the cheaper language versions with a digital download of their language's rules!" At least, that's the gist I got from the bgg forums. How can there be no rules posted for a new game in 2015.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 22:18
|
|
|
Shes Not Impressed posted:How hard is it to teach to a rotation of new people? The problem with fiddly FFG games and their rules is having to teach them to a constantly rotating group of people we play board games with. BSG doesn't take all that much I suppose, but Game of Thrones looked like it had more mechanics to have to deal with. I was the only player who had never played it. I hosed up a few times because of my misunderstanding of how the game is played, but i'd feel fairly confident going into it again.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 22:57
|
|
|
Sadsack posted:Okay. It looks like Descent 2e is the winner. Mage knight looks cool but it seems a bit more complex than we're ready for. I had a look at SoB but the old west setting really doesn't do it for me. I would love to get Imperial Assault, but my house can only hold so much Star Wars crap. I know this is a page back, but at least give Claustrophobia a look. It's really good. It came out in 2009 and I didn't play it until early last year because I heard it was "simple" and was turned off by their being only two kinds of monsters. I'm 90% convinced that the goofy setting and the lack of "50 minis in the box!" makes people overlook it, and that's why it's flown under the radar all these years. It is a great two player dungeon-crawler and I was really impressed with it. http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/36932/claustrophobia Michael Barnes is a dumbo doofus in a lot of ways but the man can write about board games. I mostly agree with everything in this review: http://www.nohighscores.com/2014/12/04/cracked-lcd-claustrophobia-in-retro-view-including-furor-sanguinis/
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 23:01
|
|
|
Fat Samurai posted:Well, that's a first. Underground is actually worse than the base game, it's quite a feat.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 23:13
|
|
|
Shes Not Impressed posted:How hard is it to teach to a rotation of new people? The problem with fiddly FFG games and their rules is having to teach them to a constantly rotating group of people we play board games with. BSG doesn't take all that much I suppose, but Game of Thrones looked like it had more mechanics to have to deal with. GoT is actually relatively simple mechanically. It's a good ruleset.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 23:16
|
|
|
I haven't gotten to play either yet, but I just recently bought Quantum and Eight Minute Empire:Legends as my "not Smallworld" light area control games based on good reviews here and elsewhere.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 23:19
|
|
|
Ravendas posted:I just went to look up the Fief rules on BGG, and apparently the publishers won't post the rules in any language on pdf? Something about "Then people will use their old version with the new rules and we'll lose money!" as well as "Certain languages are more expensive, and they'll just buy the cheaper language versions with a digital download of their language's rules!" At least, that's the gist I got from the bgg forums. It's not strictly speaking a new game; it's a refined reimplementation of an older game. I don't know if you can retrofit the original game's components to the new rules, but the makers seem to think so. As for the language thing, they did full runs in English, German and Spanish but only a small run in French. If half the French backers had downloaded a rulebook instead of buying a French edition, it wouldn't have been financially viable to print it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 23:33
|
|
|
So, I said earlier I'd do a better write up for Mythotopia by Martin Wallace, so here goes: Mythotopia is an area control grand strategy war game, with a deckbuilding mechanism, similar to A Few Acres of Snow. It draws together aspects from A Study in Emerald as well - combat takes place over multiple turns and is only resolved when one side has a clear advantage. Capturing a province adds its card to your deck. There is also a market of cards that add powers to you deck, and there are game changing cards and victory conditions that don't necessarily come out each time (i.e. that add a new element to the board, or alter mechanisms significantly). Where it becomes clear that Wallace's experimentation with deckbuilding seems to really bearing fruit is through three key mechanisms: 1. Improvements (cards bought at market) generally slow down your deck, contributing no resource themselves but grant significant power - for example, 'benefits' are very powerful cards - 'Water Wheel' doubles the resources yielded by a single card, but itself takes up valuable hand space. Other improvements might break ties or end wars, but again, have no other value. 2. Each province yields one of four specific resources, so you need to be judicious about what you fight over and add to your deck. 3. Every player can reserve cards (more by building cities) ala Dominion: Seaside - sacrificing a turn now to yield a specific outcome later and mitigating bad luck with card draws 4. Deck thinning is a key mechanism that all players can do - as an action, trash one or two cards from your hand. This is probably one of the most critical discoveries Wallace has made, better late than never. As a result the game plays intuitively and smoothly. The thematic elements are undercooked and the art generic as hell, but it surrounds a core that is a very good game indeed. The End fucked around with this message at 03:05 on Jan 26, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 23:37
|
|
|
Really hope when Dungeon Lords finally gets through customs there will be people reselling that wooden box edition. I don't care if there's mock up I need that box in my collection 
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 23:48
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 14, 2024 08:11 |
|
|
The End posted:So, I said earlier I'd do a better write up for Mythotopia by Martin Wallace, so here goes: A guy at my gaming group got it over Christmas and has been trying to push for it to be played, I may take him up on it on Wednesday unless I get people for Dungeon Petz
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2015 23:49
|
|
