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Krazyface posted:There's too many heavy games (i.e. thread favourites) in my collection. Splendor came up on a lot of 2014 best-lists, is it any good? Splendor is quite literally my baseline. If I play a game and it compares favorably to Splendor, it's a decent to good game. If it's worse than Splendor, I am never touching it again.
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Mar 17, 2015 13:58
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This + Skype/Mumble works quite well. The only downside is that you can't make private rooms so you have to constantly kick people who randomly join, but it's been a while since I've used it so that might not be a thing anymore.
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Mar 17, 2015 14:16
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Madmarker posted:Honestly, Splendor reminds me the most of Dominion, in that there is a pace car strategy where you just buy middle row tiles, however assessing the board, figuring out whether that is going to be most effective, and turn order all heavily influence your decisions. I would agree with that, except the "pace car" strategy is almost impossible to outrun. Half the nobles can be picked up at the same time as you become able to acquire middle row cards from the board for free, and the rest require little more investment. So the middle row strategy earns 1-3 points per turn and accelerates towards nobles and better buys in the process, while any top row strategy has to spend 1-2 turns obtaining enough gems to earn 5 points and a single card.
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Mar 17, 2015 14:18
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Jedit posted:I would agree with that, except the "pace car" strategy is almost impossible to outrun. Half the nobles can be picked up at the same time as you become able to acquire middle row cards from the board for free, and the rest require little more investment. So the middle row strategy earns 1-3 points per turn and accelerates towards nobles and better buys in the process, while any top row strategy has to spend 1-2 turns obtaining enough gems to earn 5 points and a single card. I would agree with this statement, if it weren't possible for people to reserve and screw with you. If everyone is just busy playing their own boards and not countering someone whose getting ahead, then the middle card strategy is nigh unbeatable. Splendor really becomes a much better game when you are paying attention to what other people are gunning for, reserving that card and buying it either the next turn or the turn after. Also, you are neglecting the boards where the middle row all has 1 point cards out. In those cases its often better to buy some of the 1 row non point cards as they cost half as much, and you don't waste all your coins on a sub par pick that simultaneously reveals a better card. It is a very fast pace car, and often times it is just better to ride it, but a lot of the gameplay is tactically reserving cards to strand a bunch of useless coins in your opponents hand so that they have to waste them on bad cards.
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Mar 17, 2015 14:35
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It's impossible to really screw people because of how the board immediately refreshes. I lost a game by a mile because every time I bought anything the exact card the next player needed came up. Really turned me off of the game.
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Mar 17, 2015 14:44
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Also the "pick up a card" strategy basically means that you're slowing your own economy down for the sake of "screwing" someone else since 1 gold token < 3 colored tokens. Still a better game than Dead of Winter, which is cardboard that could have been spent packing and shipping better games to me.
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Mar 17, 2015 14:49
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If somebody recommends Dead of Winter I just immediately assume they're a troll or don't have any standards. I mean, whatever, it's fine not to have standards. Just don't pretend that your opinion means anything.
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Mar 17, 2015 14:53
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GrandpaPants posted:Still a better game than Dead of Winter, which is cardboard that could have been spent packing and shipping better games to me. I lol'd irl.
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Mar 17, 2015 15:01
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TwoShedsJackson posted:Dead of Winter was miles better
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Mar 17, 2015 15:21
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Broken Loose posted:Just don't pretend that your opinion means anything. Requesting this be the thread title.
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Mar 17, 2015 15:27
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Sorry to jump in a little late on this one, but I just don't understand the incessant caterwauling about the 'air in the box' of Splendor. 1: This isn't a bag of potato chips or pick 'n' mix bulk candy: when you buy a board game, you aren't buying fun by volume or weight or anything. What do you care if there is air in the box? The only situation where that matters is if you own enough board games that storage space is actually becoming a problem. I admit, that aspect has some legitimacy, because I'm sure you play every one of those two hundred games every few months, right? 2: Splendor comes with a very nice insert (except that it doesn't hold sleeved cards, which is a separate problem) that makes set up and clean up easy. Compare that all the other games that leave it to the player to devise their own organization, a state that is so commonplace that multiple businesses exist to sell people inserts. So, even if you believe that you are somehow paying for that air, just consider that you're not paying someone else to make an insert for you or spending time devising your own. 3: Just as an example, consider that King of Tokyo isn't that much better if you take the insert out and compare the volume, and yet no one bellyaches about it. It's also an extremely popular game, but maybe it gets a pass because its on-the-face silliness immunizes it from criticism. (There are probably much better examples than that, but it's the first one that game to mind). 4: I don't know where I heard this or if it's actually true, but they say that publishers want big boxes because bigger boxes take up more real estate and are more likely to be taken seriously by board game consumers. That doesn't make it right, but it's important to remember that the way the box is shipped is going to be a publisher's decision, and not any reflection on the game itself. If you want to see smaller game boxes then you should buy and enjoy more small games. 5: If your car goes off a bridge into a lake on your way to board game night, you can survive for several hours slowly sucking the air out of your Splendor box. Who knows how many lives have been saved?
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Mar 17, 2015 16:38
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Magnetic North posted:Sorry to jump in a little late on this one, but I just don't understand the incessant caterwauling about the 'air in the box' of Splendor. Speak for yourself, I like my games to have a respectable weight:price ratio.
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Mar 17, 2015 16:44
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It does seem kind of wasteful. The game could fit in a baggie. Like Hanabi, but at least Hanabi is a teeny little box that barely fits everything. But non-trivially speaking it was and still kinda is a thing that North Americans tend to feel they (we) are somehow not getting our money's worth if the box is small. It's one of those cultural things, but I think it is and is continuing to become less and less true nowadays.
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Mar 17, 2015 16:47
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Also designing and having made a new box for every game is expensive and wasteful. People said the same thing about Tash-Kalar, so it's not really just dog-piling known mediocre game Splendor.
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Mar 17, 2015 16:52
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Rutibex posted:Speak for yourself, I like my games to have a respectable weight:price ratio. I pay money for cards. I play games that are literally just a stack of cards. Glory to Rome is basically a couple deck boxes but it's amazing. From my perspective, the material cost of a game is a less significant factor than whether the game is enjoyable and whether I want to invest in this designer and encourage further work by supporting their chosen livelihood. Games are meant to be experienced, not sit in boxes  *rides circles around the thread on his High Horse, screaming "YAH! YAH!" like Christopher Walken in sleepy hollow* *looks at his shelf of x-wing ships and falls off horse*
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Mar 17, 2015 16:53
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The size of the box is always going to be determined by how much you need to charge for the components, not the size of the components. Splendor could have come in a smaller box if it had cardboard tokens instead of the nice chips, but considering how often component quality is cited as one of Splendor's selling points, they probably made the right choice.
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Mar 17, 2015 16:53
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Echophonic posted:
I'm just hoping I can fill it with expansions.
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Mar 17, 2015 16:56
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I like the big Tash-Kalar box because it's standing there proudly on my shelf of other games, never to be forgotten.
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Mar 17, 2015 16:58
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sonatinas posted:I'm just hoping I can fill it with expansions. That's what happened with Among the Stars! The box was way too drat big, now I'm not sure I'm going to be able to fit everything with the new expansion.
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Mar 17, 2015 17:01
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Same deal with Race for the Galaxy Edit: Eminent Domain is $20 on Amazon with Prime. With the caveat that the expansion is almost required. fozzy fosbourne fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Mar 17, 2015 |
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Mar 17, 2015 17:09
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BTW I got to play Tash-Kalar last Thursday and it was a blast. It's basically Reversal of Fortune: The Game.
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Mar 17, 2015 17:11
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Madmarker posted:Splendor is quite good, the gameplay is entertaining and the components are top-notch. The theme is pasted on, but it doesn't serve as a distraction.
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Mar 17, 2015 17:19
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GrandpaPants posted:Also the "pick up a card" strategy basically means that you're slowing your own economy down for the sake of "screwing" someone else since 1 gold token < 3 colored tokens. But you need gold tokens anyway, especially in games with fewer players, in order to afford cards where there aren't enough resources otherwise. Also since you can only hold 10 tokens, it's often a good idea to get 1 golld than have to throw back tokens you can't keep.
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Mar 17, 2015 17:24
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I think the thread verdict on Splendor should be: Absolutely find a way to play it for free before you consider buying it. There is a lot of hate for the game but at the same point there's a lot of people who like it too. Because it's divisive and the MSRP is pretty high, 'try before you buy' is the best and safest way to find out which side you fall on. Personally, I tried it at PAX East 2014 before it was cool (hipster glasses), and I had a great time. Hopefully, any potential buyers will have a similar opportunity.
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Mar 17, 2015 17:31
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:BTW I got to play Tash-Kalar last Thursday and it was a blast. It's basically Reversal of Fortune: The Game. It is possible (and in fact, the trick of the game as I can see it) to keep someone low enough on pieces to press an advantage but close enough to prevent flares. Bulldozing through the opponent pieces without a plan is probably a bad idea, moving them away so they are ineffectual but still count against your opponent is great. I love that positions become either critical or worthless, and that any piece that is not working for you RIGHT NOW is actively detrimental. I've seen several people overextend in order to get a Diagonal Line objective just to have his pieces moved out of position by a Hypnotist. Disclaimer: I'm not a good player, so maybe I'm missing the point completely and keeping your opponent at two pieces is the way to go, flares be damned.
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Mar 17, 2015 17:46
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Hypnotist seems like a Really Good Card. Also, I'm waiting for the day when some geek posts a picture of their custom TL miniatures conversion
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Mar 17, 2015 17:54
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Big Ol Marsh Pussy posted:What's the best way to play a regular good guy in Avalon, because a majority of our games have ended in good team winning but the bad guys knowing who Merlin is, and I don't think it's due to a super obvious Merlin so much as it is the good team not being able to cover for him. BL already responded to this, but I'll add in my own two cents. First of all, like mentioned, as a role-less Good Guy, you have literally nothing to hide. Great! Under no circumstances do you act like that. The minions are going to spend their time doing two things. One, trying to look innocent. Two, trying to figure out who Merlin is. They already know who they are. If there's four Knights and only one of them is looking shifty and acting like they know something the others don't...he's gonna get a knife to the brain. Speak up! Guess! Accuse blindly! Whatever you do, don't sit there, be quiet, and wait for Merlin to point things out. Importantly, as soon as you have a bead on whoever's evil, reject every team they're on. Point this out to everyone else (but not over the top). Stare that bastard down, and you let your eyes tell him that you've known he's a Mordred loving rear end in a top hat from the start. Of course, you also need to figure out who's evil. Study voting patterns. Don't approve a team early on just because. Every vote is more information cast, and it's a powerful way for Merlin to let you know who's evil. If you see someone who always rejects a certain player also always be on winning teams, they're likely Merlin or they're a Minion trying to masquerade as Merlin. Chances are, for a new group, it's the first. You'll know you've done your job when at the end of the game, the Assassin confers and everyone all thinks you're Merlin with certainty, and they were, of course, dead wrong. Naturally, you got a knife to the brain, but hey, you won! Bonus points if you pull this off when there's an actual Percival (Knight who always knows who Merlin is) in the game. If you're still finding Merlin getting shanked too much after that, strongly consider adding in Percival. While Percival on his own tilts the balance towards Good, that's okay. The manual says that for a reason, it's so you know what you're affecting. Do some runs with Percival, then you've got a player who knows exactly who Merlin is and can play out the best way to shield him. Be sure to do post-game discussions if you're the sort of group who loves going over the events of the game and going "hey, I did this", "yeah, that's when I did that". Not only is it fun, it lets people who didn't get to experience your role pick up ideas. The biggest advantage to adding in Percival is that it'll give the more passive players some direction, as well. Sometime the problem is that someone looks at their card, sees no special abilities, and doesn't feel as though they've got to try anything. Avalon is, for better or worse, a game where you often need to make your own fun-the cards won't tell you how. Percival helps with that. However, Percival on his own will definitely cause more Good wins. Not just because of protecting him from getting killed, but also because he's got a bit of info the rest of the Good team doesn't have: one person who is definitely not evil. This is the much more subtle and powerful part of the Percival card, and it won't be long before your group figures out how to use it. At this point, you have two options: go back to just Merlin/Assassin now that people have a feel for what it means to cover for Merlin, or add in Morgana. If you've got the people for it, definitely add in Morgana. Morgana is a standard Minion who appears as Merlin to Percival. She doesn't get to do too much more over being evil, but it'll definitely make Percival's job a lot harder. This should tilt the balance back to an even match. Failing all that, at least trying out the different roles will extend the life of the game some as you're trying something new, so you won't feel as though you spent money on something not getting played.
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Mar 17, 2015 18:27
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FFG announced a 40k version of their Starcraft game - https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2015/3/17/forbidden-stars/ (kinda fitting since Starcraft is essentially a 40k RTS with the serials filed off). OK the game may be quite different but the order stack is the same.
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Mar 17, 2015 23:08
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werdnam posted:Was this the newly released second edition? I think the guy who brought it mentioned something like that.
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Mar 17, 2015 23:32
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Trasson posted:BL already responded to this, but I'll add in my own two cents. Every time I do this in Avalon the entire team becomes convinced I'm a bad guy and it loses us the game. But that's probably due to the people I'm playing with because everyone else is a goddamn wallflower.
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Mar 17, 2015 23:36
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Zark the Damned posted:FFG announced a 40k version of their Starcraft game - https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2015/3/17/forbidden-stars/ (kinda fitting since Starcraft is essentially a 40k RTS with the serials filed off). I'm actually moderately excited about it. Starcraft had quite a few neat ideas going on (like, pre-Dominion deckbuilding) buried in a horrible FFGesque bloat. It'll be interesting seeing what lessons they've learned.
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Mar 17, 2015 23:45
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bobvonunheil posted:Every time I do this in Avalon the entire team becomes convinced I'm a bad guy and it loses us the game. I played Resistance about a month ago for the first time in a while and the guy who brought it to the table was utterly shocked (and visibly frustrated) at how readily people gave the OK to whatever team composition was proposed, and also that no one would say a word unless they were 100% sure of something*. I had to explain to the poor guy after that I was basically the only person in that group who actually understood how to play and that there was a reason I stopped bringing it to the group despite everyone clamoring to play it whenever its around for some reason (probably because it plays 7+ people and I've learned more players = better than to a lot of board game people), it was just really frustrating. Said group would also shower me in complements about having a "perfect poker face" and being unreadable and, well, that is absolutely not true lol *they were never right, because they were bad players
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Mar 17, 2015 23:56
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Am I only person less excited by yet another 40k game than a theoretical second edition of the Starcraft one?
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Mar 17, 2015 23:56
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Poison Mushroom posted:Am I only person less excited by yet another 40k game than a theoretical second edition of the Starcraft one? You're not alone. In fact, I would be really excited by Starcraft 2E but the 40k license is actively turning me off to the game. edit: Hahahaha they changed the combat from card-based to dice-based. Instant nope.
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Mar 18, 2015 00:10
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Broken Loose posted:You're not alone. In fact, I would be really excited by Starcraft 2E but the 40k license is actively turning me off to the game. But Julius Caesar? Anyway, I can't tell the difference between space marines, so I'm just gonna file it in the "don't care" bin.
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Mar 18, 2015 00:17
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Zark the Damned posted:FFG announced a 40k version of their Starcraft game - https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2015/3/17/forbidden-stars/ (kinda fitting since Starcraft is essentially a 40k RTS with the serials filed off). 100 dollars?! 
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Mar 18, 2015 00:22
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100 dollars? That's nothing
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Mar 18, 2015 00:25
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It's a common misconception that 18XX refers to the time period, but it's actually the suggested retail price.
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Mar 18, 2015 00:27
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Tekopo posted:100 dollars? That's nothing quote:Product Dimensions: 29.8 x 23.5 x 14 cm  I think I may be in love, that's twice the weight of Terra Mystica!
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Mar 18, 2015 00:34
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Rutibex posted:
Big deal, I'm over 20 times as heavy as Terra Mystica and am maybe twice as fun.
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Mar 18, 2015 00:36
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