|
Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Nobody answered this so I guess I will. I'll start by saying that I don't find Archipelago to be very fiddly. Now I define fiddly basically by "how much poo poo do you have to look up/potentially forget?", not by weight of game. So for example Arkham Horror is a very fiddly game because you can forget that the Terror Track has closed the shops, or that you were supposed to get a dollar because you have a special piece of equipment, or whatever. Some people use "fiddly" as synonymous with game weight, but I don't believe in that. If things are distinctly phased, well laid-out and easily referenced then that, to me, is not fiddly. Archipelago is great because I get to be a dick and say that I'm way behind everyone else and convince the rest of the table to pay for me in a crisis. That is easily the best part of the game.
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2015 19:27
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 16, 2024 04:27 |
|
|
I've only played King of New York once and I've got no real desire to play again. At least it was fairly fast I suppose. The winner got lucky and then snowballed to victory. I didn't see much to indicate that that was an unusual outcome.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2015 19:28
|
|
|
Mojo Jojo posted:I've only played King of New York once and I've got no real desire to play again. At least it was fairly fast I suppose. King of New York is Kaiju Yahtzee. It is a light game where your decisions at least matter, not as much as the die roll mind you, but at least they matter somewhat. Its a great beginner game because it is simple, and though someone really good at the game is more likely to win, the dice keep the experience advantage to a minimum. Its not a game I would choose to play frequently, but when coaxing people with fragile newbie egos into the hobby, its great.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2015 19:31
|
|
|
S.J. posted:Out of curiosity, do you automatically get access to the characters online when you buy those characters physically? How does that work? No, unfortunately the two are completely separate entities.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2015 19:35
|
|
|
Countblanc posted:No, unfortunately the two are completely separate entities.  Do the online characters cost as much as the physical ones?
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2015 19:51
|
|
|
S.J. posted:
You can't actually buy the characters individually online, because Sirlin loves arcades or something. Your options are either: 1) Buying "gold," where 10 gold = 1 play and you get 800 gold for $8 (or larger amounts for bundles). Additionally, every day you get a single purple coin which is worth a single free game, and are awarded another purple coin on your first win of a day. You also get them randomly from "critical hits" where basically the game just decides to give you one arbitrarily; This happens roughly once every 4 games, assuming you're landing hits. Purple coins expire after 24 hours, but for what it's worth I've been riding the same 800 coins since summer due to effectively getting 2-3 free plays a day and only playing maybe another 2-3. Gold/coins are good for any of the games on the site if you decide to play those. 2) Getting a subscription, which is $9/mo, and grants unlimited plays of every character across all games, including the beta test versions of any of them if any changes are being tested (pretty sure none are right now, nor are any planned, but it was neat before 2.0). I did this for a while and definitely played more than I do now. 3) Buying character bundles, which are $15 for all of the Yomi 1.0 or 2.0 characters. This gives you unlimited plays with whichever characters you buy, but doesn't carry between the different games.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2015 20:22
|
|
|
Well gently caress if I was interested in playing Yomi online I'd just buy the bundle. drat.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2015 20:26
|
|
|
They're pretty new, Sirlin (or whoever decides pricing/bundles) has sorta flip-flopped on that. Originally you could buy individual characters for I think $5 but bundles weren't a thing - this was a while ago - and then later it was just coins and the subscription, and now it's sorta both. If I wasn't still rocking like 400 coins I'd probably invest in one of them, but no reason to before I run out.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2015 20:30
|
|
|
Shes Not Impressed posted:The group I play with is exceptionally good at negotiation and "playing" the game. Chinatown was a blast recently after I snabbed a copy off eBay. It was the first time a personal issue came up between my partner and I, which I think was a result of the negotiations being TOO open in terms of beg, borrowing, and stealing tactics. But I think Archipelago might be the perfect mix of all these things to create an awesome experience in my grad student gaming group. You're not helping in my wanting to play, but I fear the rules will be such a clunky mess to teach that it will dissuade them. If they've played BSG, Resistance, Chinatown, and a few other lighter games, how much of a hurdle do you think the fiddly pieces and mechanics will hold progress back? If you choose to play (which you really should), my recommendations are to start play a 'fake' turn which doesn't count where you have each player go through the process of using one of the action spaces (for the first action, don't give them a choice, just have everyone pick an unoccupied action) and going through a sample crisis and buying phase. Make sure that the crisis shows off the importance of turn order (since whoever is first in the turn gets to stand up meeples using the public resources rather than their personal resources) Doing this and then handing them prepared cheat-sheets, makes the front-loaded rules less intimidating. Also, as has been said before, really stress the benefit of trading for resources rather than using the markets. Second, the hidden objectives are really tough in the first game. Give your players a cheat sheet that lists all of the potential options. For the first game, I also normally deal out a number of objectives equal to the players +1 face up -- making sure that the pacifist is removed and that the separatist is present. I discuss every one (both how it ends the game and how it scores), set up a check-list for possible game ending conditions (that I update as we go along) and then shuffle those and hand them out to the players. Although this defeats some of the ambiguity of the hidden objectives, my personal opinion is that the first round can be overwhelming and that no one will pay enough attention to objectives unless you really put it in their faces. It also makes the ending of the game feel less random. With all that being said, it really is an amazing negotiation game.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2015 20:31
|
|
|
Countblanc posted:They're pretty new, Sirlin (or whoever decides pricing/bundles) has sorta flip-flopped on that. Originally you could buy individual characters for I think $5 but bundles weren't a thing - this was a while ago - and then later it was just coins and the subscription, and now it's sorta both. If I wasn't still rocking like 400 coins I'd probably invest in one of them, but no reason to before I run out. A new account starts with 500 coins, doesn't it? So at a minimum you get 50 games + 1 game/day without spending anything. More if you play with the rotating free character. If you play that much Yomi and still want to play a lot more Yomi, $15 for 10 characters seems pretty reasonable.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2015 20:54
|
|
|
DirkGently posted:making sure that the pacifist is removed and that the separatist is present. I discuss every one (both how it ends the game and how it scores), set up a check-list for possible game ending conditions (that I update as we go along) and then shuffle those and hand them out to the players. The first couple games I played with this, I made the mistake of leaving out the Separatist since I thought it might simplify things a bit. DO NOT DO THIS. The threat of the Separatist is essential for game balance, since otherwise people would be toeing the line of revolution and may just choose not to fulfill crises. It definitely changes the dynamics of the game when there exists a possibility that your selfishness is helping to further someone's end game.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2015 20:59
|
|
|
I have recently been getting into board gaming and have been slowly introducing new friend groups to a few different games. I'm at the point now where I have a consistent 6-8 people who want to meet every week or so and the game that has been best received so far is 7 Wonders. My friends love 7 Wonders but I am getting a bit burned out on it so I'm looking for something else to add to my collection that can scale easily from 3-7 players, is fairly easy to learn but tough to master, and has some variety to it. Any suggestions?
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2015 21:05
|
|
|
Arnm616 posted:I have recently been getting into board gaming and have been slowly introducing new friend groups to a few different games. I'm at the point now where I have a consistent 6-8 people who want to meet every week or so and the game that has been best received so far is 7 Wonders. My friends love 7 Wonders but I am getting a bit burned out on it so I'm looking for something else to add to my collection that can scale easily from 3-7 players, is fairly easy to learn but tough to master, and has some variety to it. Any suggestions? I don't think what you're asking for exists: Some social deduction games (like The Resistance) meet the easy to learn/tough to master criterion and can support large numbers, but won't play well (or at all) with 3. Other strategic games that play well with 3 or 4 either won't play at all or won't play well with 7. The advice we regularly give on this thread is to split a group of 6 to 8 into two groups of 3 to 4. You will have many more options in that case.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2015 21:15
|
|
|
Arnm616 posted:I have recently been getting into board gaming and have been slowly introducing new friend groups to a few different games. I'm at the point now where I have a consistent 6-8 people who want to meet every week or so and the game that has been best received so far is 7 Wonders. My friends love 7 Wonders but I am getting a bit burned out on it so I'm looking for something else to add to my collection that can scale easily from 3-7 players, is fairly easy to learn but tough to master, and has some variety to it. Any suggestions? Unfortunately, 7+ is a tough number, there are a few Euro's that support 6 players, Ground Floor, Agricola, Caverna. However most boardgames have a range of somewhere between 2-5 players, so its almost always best just to split the table, as has been previously mentioned.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2015 21:27
|
|
|
The most beautiful thing about 7 Wonders is the simultaneous play. It's what allows 7 players to play at once and not get bogged down. I'd echo the above suggestion to split into two smaller groups if you want a more complex game, as otherwise turn times are unbearably long.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2015 21:33
|
|
|
thespaceinvader posted:Viticulture I really enjoyed, and I'm looking forward to adding the expansions. It played quickly (with 3, on a first game) and had some good choices, interesting interactions, seemed fairly balanced (albeit the Visitor cards seem a bit iffy in balance in places). It adds to a good stable of WP games I enjoy. Overall, I think I'd probably prefer this to Caverna. One of the expansions upgrades most of the visitor cards by giving them two functions, so it's not likely you'll find yourself holding a completely useless card.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2015 21:35
|
|
|
Arnm616 posted:I have recently been getting into board gaming and have been slowly introducing new friend groups to a few different games. I'm at the point now where I have a consistent 6-8 people who want to meet every week or so and the game that has been best received so far is 7 Wonders. My friends love 7 Wonders but I am getting a bit burned out on it so I'm looking for something else to add to my collection that can scale easily from 3-7 players, is fairly easy to learn but tough to master, and has some variety to it. Any suggestions? Eldritch Horror can kinda fit the bill, but honestly I would go with recommendations to either play The Resistance and its derivatives as well as splitting the group.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2015 21:48
|
|
|
What's the best number of players for Archipelago? The box says "plays 2-5", but is it a Game of Thrones style bullshit number?
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2015 21:48
|
|
|
LuiCypher posted:Eldritch Horror can kinda fit the bill, but honestly I would go with recommendations to either play The Resistance and its derivatives as well as splitting the group. Thanks for the replies all, I have played The Resistance with some of the group and have been trying to get either Coup or Castle of the Devil out to the table but there is some hesitation when it comes to bluffing games. Do any of the Galaxy Trucker expansions add to the player count?
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2015 21:58
|
|
|
Arnm616 posted:Do any of the Galaxy Trucker expansions add to the player count? The Big Expansion comes with a 5-player variant, but the rules get a little more complex to make the adventure cards scale. (They're mostly intuitive. Each abandoned ship/station can be visited twice, for diminishing returns. Each purple enemy has to be defeated twice, but gets weaker after the first "hit." Each combat zone affects the first and second place positions. One planet on each planet card can be visited a second time for a smaller bonus.)
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2015 22:05
|
|
|
And you need to add somewhat more complex ship tiles that come with the expansion. The base game doesn't have enough ship pieces to play 5. So it increases the complexity a bit.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2015 22:16
|
|
|
Arnm616 posted:Thanks for the replies all, I have played The Resistance with some of the group and have been trying to get either Coup or Castle of the Devil out to the table but there is some hesitation when it comes to bluffing games. In addition to what Gutter Owl said above (yes, the expansion supports a fifth player), you can also play 'team' Galaxy Trucker -- which is one of my favorite variants to play when we have multiple couples. Everything is exactly the same except that 2 people build a single ship rather than one. Each player must take turns placing a piece and absolutely no communication is allowed between them (although angry expletives will slip out). It actually works way better than you would think and trying both to build a good ship and to figure out whatever the hell your partner is doing is surprisingly fun.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2015 22:23
|
|
|
Glazius posted:One of the expansions upgrades most of the visitor cards by giving them two functions, so it's not likely you'll find yourself holding a completely useless card. It wasn't that they were useless, ever, it was that they were useless, now. I got two 'do X for a worker' cards after I had all my workers, when my opponent got 'pay 9 money for 3 points'. Does the expansion fix this? We're probably playing at least some of the expansion tomorrow so I guess I'll find out!
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2015 22:24
|
|
|
DirkGently posted:In addition to what Gutter Owl said above (yes, the expansion supports a fifth player), you can also play 'team' Galaxy Trucker -- which is one of my favorite variants to play when we have multiple couples. Everything is exactly the same except that 2 people build a single ship rather than one. Each player must take turns placing a piece and absolutely no communication is allowed between them (although angry expletives will slip out). It actually works way better than you would think and trying both to build a good ship and to figure out whatever the hell your partner is doing is surprisingly fun. Oh that sounds awesome, I think that would go over well with my group, thanks!
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2015 22:29
|
|
|
Arnm616 posted:Thanks for the replies all, I have played The Resistance with some of the group and have been trying to get either Coup or Castle of the Devil out to the table but there is some hesitation when it comes to bluffing games. Samurai Spirit is a co-op game that plays up to seven in a not-too-ridiculous amount of time. It feels a lot like a lighter, more forgiving Ghost Stories, and it has gone over well with most of the groups I've played with. But the real advice is to pick up one more group member and play two tables with four players each, which like 99 percent of games worth playing will support.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2015 22:35
|
|
|
WhiteHowler posted:How do your friends feel about cooperative games? I really like Samurai Spirit and it definitely fits the bill for what he was asking for. On a completely unrelated note though, I feel like it needed a bit more playtesting before release (or some more control on what cards get placed in the deck). Playing with 4 people in the Kickstarter version, we have twice generated a completely un-winnable situation where the cards we randomly drew didn't have enough of one type of icons on them (once related to protecting the villager's house and once to protecting the villagers themselves, I think). This meant that through no fault of our own, with perfect play, the bad guys whittled down one of the vital resources enough to win. .Funnily enough, one of those times was playing on 'easy' which reduces the number of cards in the bad guy deck -- making the problem much worse. Probably there are unwinnable situations in Ghost Stories too but it always felt like we failed because of something we did (including occasionally being screwed by the dice) rather than the cards that the game drew. This may very well be a result of the fact that Samurai Spirit is so streamlined, rules-wise, that it is easier to see when the game itself screws you -- whereas Ghost Stories is just a much more complicated and obfuscated over all. Then again, maybe we are just super unlucky or maybe we got a rule wrong or should be using the full compliment of characters each time (rather than using 4). But don't let that detract from the game, I certainly always enjoyed playing it and was eager for a second round... although apparently we are really bad at it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2015 23:37
|
|
|
I just spent the last two days home sick, and hammering out a Pokemon hack for HeroQuest of all things, to get some online friends to dip their toes into other board games. This is my life, these are my choices. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2015 23:56
|
|
|
I never really liked Ghost Stories. I like the idea fine but there is like zero room for loving up and roll lovely a couple times and it's all Oh Well Better Luck Next Time (literally).
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2015 00:07
|
|
|
Madmarker posted:Unfortunately, 7+ is a tough number, there are a few Euro's that support 6 players, Ground Floor, Agricola, Caverna. However most boardgames have a range of somewhere between 2-5 players, so its almost always best just to split the table, as has been previously mentioned. Agricola only supports 5 even with the expansion, Caverna actually supports up to 7 so that might be a good choice. Poison Mushroom posted:I just spent the last two days home sick, and hammering out a Pokemon hack for HeroQuest of all things, to get some online friends to dip their toes into other board games. I like that you are more ashamed of the Heroquest than the Pokemon.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2015 00:08
|
|
|
Rutibex posted:Agricola only supports 5 even with the expansion, Caverna actually supports up to 7 so that might be a good choice. I've played Caverna with 6 and it was unbearably slow. Never playing with more than 4 again. Of course, if your group is not AP prone and plays fast you could probably make it work. I'd recommend printing out some cheat sheets detailing the various furnishings for the players as well.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2015 00:11
|
|
|
Rutibex posted:I like that you are more ashamed of the Heroquest than the Pokemon.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2015 00:13
|
|
|
Caverna with 3 was already slow enough, I can't imagine playing with 7.Mister Sinewave posted:I never really liked Ghost Stories. I like the idea fine but there is like zero room for loving up and roll lovely a couple times and it's all Oh Well Better Luck Next Time (literally). You could just give yourself some extra life or tao tokens at the start. I think the game is pretty winnable on novice difficulty anyway.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2015 00:18
|
|
|
DirkGently posted:I really like Samurai Spirit and it definitely fits the bill for what he was asking for. On a completely unrelated note though, I feel like it needed a bit more playtesting before release (or some more control on what cards get placed in the deck). Playing with 4 people in the Kickstarter version, we have twice generated a completely un-winnable situation where the cards we randomly drew didn't have enough of one type of icons on them (once related to protecting the villager's house and once to protecting the villagers themselves, I think). This meant that through no fault of our own, with perfect play, the bad guys whittled down one of the vital resources enough to win. .Funnily enough, one of those times was playing on 'easy' which reduces the number of cards in the bad guy deck -- making the problem much worse. If you want to avoid it entirely, you could always build the bandit deck by adding X (number of players) of each icon to the deck, and then fill in the rest randomly. In Ghost Stories, you lost because you decided to play Ghost Stories. (I love the game, but it is a complete rear end in a top hat.)
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2015 00:20
|
|
|
Rutibex posted:I like that you are more ashamed of the Heroquest than the Pokemon. Pokemon is an incredibly well designed game that works well at a bunch of different levels and styles of play. HeroQuest is poo poo. Die monster, you don't belong in this world.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2015 00:23
|
|
|
Quick rule question for Kemet: If you move and attack someone, can you keep moving after the battle?
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2015 00:25
|
|
|
The Supreme Court posted:Quick rule question for Kemet: If you move and attack someone, can you keep moving after the battle? Negative, unless you've got a power that says otherwise (I don't think there's a power that does that, but I don't remember offhand)
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2015 00:29
|
|
|
No. Per page 6 of the rulebook:quote:Attack!
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2015 00:30
|
|
|
Cheers! That's how I've played it so far, but wanted to be sure. e: thanks parasyte.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2015 00:30
|
|
|
Bubble-T posted:You could just give yourself some extra life or tao tokens at the start. I think the game is pretty winnable on novice difficulty anyway. That's very true. We use the iOS version though and it's been a while but I don't think it has the flexibility to let you fiddle with the starting tokens. At least the setup time is insignificant.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2015 00:40
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 16, 2024 04:27 |
|
|
The Supreme Court posted:What's the best number of players for Archipelago? The box says "plays 2-5", but is it a Game of Thrones style bullshit number? It works with any number, but 4 is probably optimal.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2015 00:42
|
|
