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Bubble-T posted:Don't do this without a really good reason in the base game, military is relatively weak. Brown is the dominating strategy in the base game.
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Jul 7, 2015 03:25
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Is there a consensus about what is the most balanced RFTG+exp setup? Although, to be honest, I'm not sure if it matters with my group because RollFTG has almost entirely replaced Race.
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Jul 7, 2015 03:33
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From a fun perspective I like base game plus either Gathering Storm or just the cards from Alien Artifacts.
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Jul 7, 2015 03:45
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I don't have AA but my best (f-word, gasp) experiences have also been Base + GS as well!
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Jul 7, 2015 03:54
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ChiTownEddie posted:Is there a consensus about what is the most balanced RFTG+exp setup? Base + AA or Base + GS + RvI depending on how much power creep you want. OmegaGoo posted:Brown is the dominating strategy in the base game. Yeah it's basically Brown > Blue == Development > Military or Lost Species Ark World > Everything else
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Jul 7, 2015 04:09
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The cards from AA turn the game into a "holy jesus gently caress I'm going to get ruined" game super quick. Maybe I'm just saying that because my wife is a loving master of military strategies and I'm just sitting around trying to create fluff to make sure my contact specialists have a nice planet to live on, but even trying to 'game' her has turned from something I can win one out of every five games to "I bought this three months ago, play super regularly, and haven't won a single game."
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Jul 7, 2015 04:11
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Hiro Protagonist posted:So my fiancée is significantly better than me at euro games. Every game we play, she destroys me. I enjoy playing them still, but I want to be at least a challenge. Is there a certain mindset or way of thinking that helps people become better, do I practice a bunch, or am I just hosed and have to accept she's just better at them than me? The games in particular I'm thinking of are ticket to ride, lords of waterdeep, and race for the Galaxy, which are three of our favorites. In a very generic sense, you need to absolutely make better use of your actions than your opponents, and better use of your resources than your opponents. In worker placement games like Lords of Waterdeep, take spots that you need, and also spots that benefit you, but that your opponent needs. If you can take spots that give you an advantage and forces them into taking a suboptimal spot, you just got a slight advantage. Do that enough and you'll win the game. In RftG, never call a phase unless it benefits you more than it benefits her. Explore, for instance, is almost always a safe bet to call (unless she gets massive boosts to explore). If you do the explore +5 (looking through more cards), you tailor your hand to whatever phase she calls and theoretically benefit more from it than she does (and if you already have fantastic cards, then explore +1 card gives you a card advantage). If you both have produce/consume engines, then don't call produce/consume unless your produce/consume engine generates more points. If she has produce/consume, get some ways to benefit from her calling produce/consume (there are some developments that give cards/points when those phases are called - those are fantastic!), and get your points in another way. Be wary though, since produce/consume can generate a fuckton of cards, and you don't want to be handing her opportunities to build stuff. There's also a fantastic single-player computer version of RftG that has an insanely good AI. If you practice against that, look at what it plays and how and your game will vastly improve. I haven't played Ticket to Ride, but I imagine that what I said about LoW is going to apply to some degree. Don't just go for routes that give you points - take spots that will hinder her and help you first. Take the chokepoints that you can use to create more routes in the future, which will force her to build longer, more circuitous routes than you. In the end, for all of the Euro games you play, carefully analyze what you and your opponent are doing, and especially do a post-mortem after the game to figure out where you went wrong if you lost and where your opponent went wrong if you win. Remember that these games are a race, and your total score doesn't matter - the only score that matters is a score that is higher than your opponent's. Another option, if your fiancee if up for it, is to have an open-information game where she explains what and why she is doing during the game so that you can pick up on the strategy. Be careful not to get AP where you paralyze yourself with indecision, but I hardly think she would be too upset if you asked to do a game or two where you take a little more time to analyze each move and talk over the game state in the process. People like great competition after all!
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Jul 7, 2015 05:59
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There are no commons in the MTG board game, therefore no real reason to buy two core sets. Which is weird.
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Jul 7, 2015 06:06
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Dirk the Average posted:In RftG, never call a phase unless it benefits you more than it benefits her. Explore, for instance, is almost always a safe bet to call (unless she gets massive boosts to explore). If you do the explore +5 (looking through more cards), you tailor your hand to whatever phase she calls and theoretically benefit more from it than she does (and if you already have fantastic cards, then explore +1 card gives you a card advantage). Oh this reminds me: Settle is the 'sucker role' in RftG. Try not to call it unless you really need to or think your settle is going to be significantly better than your opponent's.
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Jul 7, 2015 06:45
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Lorini posted:There are no commons in the MTG board game, therefore no real reason to buy two core sets. The reason to buy more core sets in Heroscape was to get extra terrain. This won't be different.
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Jul 7, 2015 08:20
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Jedit posted:This won't be different. What terrain? It's a flat map except for like 5 single hex tiles.
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Jul 7, 2015 08:33
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Megasabin posted:Who bought Forbidden Stars, and what do you guys think? I love CITOW and Game of Thrones, and I keep hearing this is a mix of the best mechanics of both of those. Then again if I already own both of those games, do I really need another 3-4 player area control game? I did. Played a full 4-player game so far. It took 5 hours including rules explanation. Trying it 2-player tonight. I really like it so far. It's different enough from CitOW that they will both have a space in my collection. The combat especially is a good mix between dice rolls and skill.
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Jul 7, 2015 11:42
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GreenBuckanneer posted:So I played through the Pathfinder card game with a friend, and it took a while to learn everything, I think I understand how to play with some caveats to some situations. Ideally: it seems when you encounter a henchman or have the chance to close a location, you need to close it asap and not dawdle, otherwise you run the risk of not being able to close it later and run out of blessings. I finished the Rise of the Runelords campaign and thought it was ok. I liked some concepts, but quite a few scenarios did get repetitive and most of them were rather easy. I think we lost maybe 2-3 times the whole time. After the RotR campaign, I was sort of meh on wanting to start a brand new one with Skull and Shackles, but I got a good deal on it, so I started it. We're in the middle of adventure 3 out of 6 and so far, I'd say it's better. It's certainly tougher and there's a bit more variety on the average with the scenarios. Overall, though, it's more or less the same game. I haven't tried Wrath of the Righteous, and I don't have any desire to get it. I would say if you're curious about the game, get a hold of a demo copy or watch some videos. After that, try to get a hold of a used set. You'll get it for much less.
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Jul 7, 2015 14:57
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Ugh, it's happening again. I'm...i'm getting the urge to break out and play Android. Someone talk me down from the ledge.
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Jul 7, 2015 15:07
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MikeCrotch posted:Ugh, it's happening again. I'm...i'm getting the urge to break out and play Android. Jump and post a video of it.
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Jul 7, 2015 15:12
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Matt Thrower interviews Volko Ruhnke, designer of COIN/Labyrinth, for SUSD: http://www.shutupandsitdown.com/blog/post/interview-volko-ruhnke/ quote:It's no surprise that Ruhnke disagrees, but he disagrees with considerable vehemence. "There are major advantages to physical games over digital, not only in exploring but especially in conveying political themes. Returning to the concept of game as communication of a model," he continued. "I am transported in playing a game because I can operate the model myself, as if I were in that role in real life. I can take command of Caesar’s legions and subdue the Gauls."
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Jul 7, 2015 15:31
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medchem posted:I finished the Rise of the Runelords campaign and thought it was ok. I liked some concepts, but quite a few scenarios did get repetitive and most of them were rather easy. I think we lost maybe 2-3 times the whole time.
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Jul 7, 2015 15:51
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fozzy fosbourne posted:Matt Thrower interviews Volko Ruhnke, designer of COIN/Labyrinth, for SUSD: Aww, it's adorable how he thinks he's made his point while saying nothing of relevance. Kind of like watching a toddler emulating adults.
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Jul 7, 2015 16:09
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I thought I was following him with the whole "nah the scope of a good asymetrical wargame is wider than just the interface and also encompasses full-spectrum communication with other people, for this reason I don't think every game works as a digital version"  But then he goes into YOU CAN PROVE CRASSUS' RECORD AS A GENERAL WAS FULL OF poo poo BY PLAYING A BOARDGAME and I just sort of 
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Jul 7, 2015 16:17
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*plays war games on VASSAL* You're move 
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Jul 7, 2015 16:44
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fozzy fosbourne posted:Matt Thrower interviews Volko Ruhnke, designer of COIN/Labyrinth, for SUSD: His point about losing something by not being able to see the model in video games is valid -- but only applies to games where the calculation is done invisibly by the computer. Maybe he doesn't consider electronic adaptations of board games to be video games?
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Jul 7, 2015 17:13
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The concept of "closed source" game mechanics in many digital games vs "open source" board games is kind of fascinating to me. For example, some of my most memorable experiences with video games have been when I've discovered some comprehensive reverse engineering of the systems that power a game like Civ, Sim City, or even Dark Souls or Monster Hunter or whatever. The complete system mastery of something like Dominion vs the murky understanding of many real time systems like say Shadows of Mordor is one of the fundamental differences between popular games in both mediums Being forced to understand the model as a requirement to actually being able to execute the game is just this subtly cool aspect of table top gaming (related to the "magic circle" concept). It kind of reminds me of some of the debates about learning programming in various environments with different degrees of abstraction. It seems like this is more a ideological thing rather than a strict difference in the mediums. Nothing intrinsic to digital games is stopping Meier or Wright from publishing all their algorithms. Their IP is valuable, of course. However, it's a strict requirement for all mechanics to be published for board games. Furthermore, board games require a comprehensive understanding of the mechanics to execute them while digital games can be partially understood and the gaps will be executed by the computer Whether an opaque or transparent system is the strictly better approach for modeling real world conflicts and politics, I dunno. Edit: homullus posted:His point about losing something by not being able to see the model in video games is valid -- but only applies to games where the calculation is done invisibly by the computer. Maybe he doesn't consider electronic adaptations of board games to be video games? Yeah, I wonder how he feels about digital implementations of board games. Or digital games that have completely exposed mechanics (and don't require a fundamental understanding of c++ or whatever to comprehend).
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Jul 7, 2015 17:13
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Just because you know the rules doesn't mean you understand all the strategic implications of those rules, though. But yeah, half of why I play board games is because you get to control things yourself, you aren't stuck doing what the game was programmed to do. I'm all about house rules.
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Jul 7, 2015 17:16
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The reason why I play boardgames is because I can invite people over and be social and still play interesting, involving games 
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Jul 7, 2015 17:23
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Zaphod42 posted:Just because you know the rules doesn't mean you understand all the strategic implications of those rules, though. you should maybe swtart playing better designed games that you don't need to house rule
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Jul 7, 2015 17:24
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Fungah! posted:you should maybe swtart playing better designed games that you don't need to house rule That's acting like there's One True Ruleset™ for any given game or one best ruleset for all games. But I'm all about variety. I get bored of doing the same thing over and over, changing it up with different scenarios and alternate rules keeps things fresh for me. Its like free DLC. And it lets you play gamemaker.
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Jul 7, 2015 17:34
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I would argue that some board games, with electronic components, do have parts that are not understood by players. Space alert, for example, the soundtrack is not defined in the rules, and players don't know what rules given how many threats appear when, etc (being able to look this up or find out the framework for the app does not change the fact that most players will play the game in this situation). So it's not even that strict a difference the other way, too.
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Jul 7, 2015 17:35
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Zaphod42 posted:That's acting like there's One True Ruleset™ for any given game or one best ruleset for all games. there is, it's the one the game comes with if the game's any good. that's literally the point of the rules
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Jul 7, 2015 17:36
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Tekopo posted:The reason why I play boardgames is because I can invite people over and be social and still play interesting, involving games Do you even Mage Knight? But seriously, I agree, being social about cardboard is great, even though you don't always talk during. Another thing I like about board games is that the real time element is only used in a few cases instead of nearly every drat game, and those that do implement it tend to do it well (Vlaada). It's not really about the medium, it's just the real-time is much easier to implement in vidja games, so most of them do it.
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Jul 7, 2015 17:38
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quote:I would argue that some board games, with electronic components, do have parts that are not understood by players. The clearest I've seen this so far is in XCOM, where you sometimes don't know the right way to go because you have only a vague idea of how the app works, and when it will, say, trigger the final mission. It works in that game because it's intended to be a slightly mysterious experience, but this property does make it feel more like a video game than a board game sometimes. In non-electronic land it still happens sometimes - games like Betrayal or Tales are intended to be played without prior knowledge of their content.
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Jul 7, 2015 17:42
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Zaphod42 posted:That's acting like there's One True Ruleset™ for any given game or one best ruleset for all games. But I'm all about variety. I get bored of doing the same thing over and over, changing it up with different scenarios and alternate rules keeps things fresh for me. House rules are fine when the game isn't balanced enough that changes will negatively affect it (as is the case for more thematic games), when you are doing it in a group of friends where you are unlikely to have others outside the group join regularly, or if there is an acknowledged problem with the game that requires a house rule in order to work.
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Jul 7, 2015 17:47
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The good thing about house ruling though is it's a quick and easy way to "mod" a game To do that with a video game requires (depending on how intense the mod changes are), access to the code, source files, and can span all sorts of different applications that require custom coding. It's a huge barrier that's time intensive and difficult. With a board game all you need is to understand the rules enough to make whatever changes you want. Most of the time however house ruling is just used to try and fix a broken game  More fan expansions for games would be cool Dre2Dee2 fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Jul 7, 2015 |
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Jul 7, 2015 17:53
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Tekopo posted:Ideally, a game should have enough variety within itself that it should not require any house rules in order to add variety (this is, for example, the reason why Agricola cards exist, why the order of the actions is random within a subset etc). In most cases, good games do not require house rules because they are balanced in a way that changing the rules will negatively affect the game. As well as that, house rules, by their very existence and name, are exclusionary and can drive people away from groups. For example, house rules are simply not possible in public gaming groups, for obvious reason, and lead to arguments if house rules are forced on people that do not think the house rule in question actually improves the game: the biggest example being Galaxy Trucker, where some groups have an unspoken house rules concerning the turning of the timing dial. Yeah but this kinda overlooks expansions. Games have expansions for a reason, I mean it makes more money for the designers but it also gives you more stuff in your game. Does that mean the game was broken or unbalanced or incomplete without all possible expansions? Does that mean expansions are completely superfluous to good games and only broken games need expansions? No, I don't think so at all. I like games that are modular, I like adding more stuff and I like sometimes only playing with some of the stuff. You're treating all board games like they have to be Chess. Serious tournament games are fun too for the competition, but that shouldn't be the be-all-end-all of board games. Dre2Dee2 posted:The good thing about house ruling though is it's a quick and easy way to "mod" a game Exactly. I'm a programmer and even I don't want to work on video games half the time because its so much effort to get a single mechanic fully implemented. With a board game you can come up with fan expansions in a few minutes of design and spend all your time playtesting, or just playing your new fan expansion.
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Jul 7, 2015 18:05
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Tekopo posted:The reason why I play boardgames is because I can invite people over and be social and still play interesting, involving games Well, duh! I mean if a significant part of the experience for me were about learning new systems, I'd probably have a bunch of new games with new mechanics or that model different situations that I have only read the rules for or have only ever played solitaire or digitally.. wait *fosbourne looks at his reflection in his monitor, doesn't recognize who he sees* It's true though the most compelling part of board games for me is getting people together and exploring this structured activity as a group, but I do realize that a big part of the hobby for myself, *currently*, is discovering and understanding these new systems. If it weren't, I probably would have like 4 games and just play those over and over. That said, I'm sure a lot of people are just happy with a few awesome games that provide a social experience and have a system that's compelling enough to revisit over and over. Maybe I'll retire to that sort of attitude some day.. silvergoose posted:I would argue that some board games, with electronic components, do have parts that are not understood by players. Space alert, for example, the soundtrack is not defined in the rules, and players don't know what rules given how many threats appear when, etc (being able to look this up or find out the framework for the app does not change the fact that most players will play the game in this situation). That's a good point. It's not intrinsic to table top games that the players execute every aspect of the system, as games like Space Alert, X-Com, and even games with a deck of cards that the players aren't familiar with demonstrate. However, I think most of these systems are still 'open' in the sense that mechanics are exposed if someone chooses to study them and not driven by a undisclosed algorithm and it's reasonable to suggest that this concept is significantly more common in table top games than digital (first) games. re: house rules, let me try and make a horrible analogy to cooking. If you change the spread on a cheese burger, that's probably ok. If you know what you're doing, maybe you can change a few things while bbqing or cooking, to taste. If you change one of the ingredients or measurements of a baking recipe, then you either are making something fundamentally different or the recipe was incomplete or flawed, and you better thoroughly understand basic principles of baking before even trying.
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Jul 7, 2015 18:57
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Zaphod42 posted:Yeah but this kinda overlooks expansions. Games have expansions for a reason, I mean it makes more money for the designers but it also gives you more stuff in your game. Does that mean the game was broken or unbalanced or incomplete without all possible expansions? Does that mean expansions are completely superfluous to good games and only broken games need expansions? No, I don't think so at all. I like games that are modular, I like adding more stuff and I like sometimes only playing with some of the stuff. Dungeon Petz/Lords have good expansions. They don't invalidate what was present in the base game and indeed make a distinction between the base game and the expanded game. the base game by itself was good and the expansions add balanced stuff for more experienced players. This does not mean that the base game was incomplete, broken or unbalanced and by themselves both the base game and expansion are balanced. BSG is an example of poor expansions. The expansions replace whole mechanisms and rulings in an attempt to balance the game, which has lead to a mess of cherry picked rules and loads of fan attempts to balance a game which is now almost impossible to balance properly without excluding substantial parts of the game Expansions for good game do not impact any of the points that I made previously, because good designers know to balance the base game and only have additive upgrades. They are not exclusionary either, because it is easy to ask "do you want to use expansion stuff" and have people understand what you mean. As well as that, it is really obvious that you know little about games and especially chess if you use it as an example of something that is not house ruled. I'm not saying that all games should be chess, but I am saying that house rules are not good in any environment that isn't a tight group of friends. Considering the last paragraph you quoted, I'm not really even sure where the chess comparison comes from.
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Jul 7, 2015 19:05
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Zaphod42 posted:You're treating all board games like they have to be Chess. Serious tournament games are fun too for the competition, but that shouldn't be the be-all-end-all of board games. Serious question: Why is that people who disagrees that games should be properly designed and balanced as published so often fall back on the 'go play Chess' argument? If I complained that the newest fighting video game was horribly unbalanced, you wouldn't respond with 'not every game needs to be Pong.'
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Jul 7, 2015 19:12
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fozzy fosbourne posted:That's a good point. It's not intrinsic to table top games that the players execute every aspect of the system, as games like Space Alert, X-Com, and even games with a deck of cards that the players aren't familiar with demonstrate. However, I think most of these systems are still 'open' in the sense that mechanics are exposed if someone chooses to study them and not driven by a undisclosed algorithm and it's reasonable to suggest that this concept is significantly more common in table top games than digital (first) games. I was about to make this point, but realized that there's a key difference between the Space Alert soundtrack and the deck of cards in Mage Knight or Dominion or the dice in Catan or CoB: In the card and dice games, you know the scope of variation (one card per draw with "known" cards, dice does 1-6 or 1-20 or whatever), while in Space Alert you just know there's "a number" of enemies at "some points in time". It could easily be stated by the rules how many enemies of each kind appear, but it's not, and thus it's outside the known variation. I imagine X-Com is even more cryptic about what you can expect.
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Jul 7, 2015 19:14
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One thing I do hate now that we're talking about all this is "buffet" expansions, and it kind of bugs the poo poo out of me. Fantasy Flight is a little guilty with these as I've seen them do this a couple times. What I mean is you buy an expansion, it has a whole bunch of new stuff/mechanics to try out, but most or all of it is optional rules. The Blood Bowl card game did this and it was kind of annoying. There are new magic footballs that you can try out... if you want! We have new fields you can try... if you want! We have new crystal balls that can affect rewards... if you want! The problem with that is it feels like I'm house ruling the game, and I don't yet fully understand the implications of all these disparate mechanics (which is usually not explained), and it leaves me to having to trial and error the expansion bit possible combinations enough times to figure out what works well and what's fun. Personally I prefer a more focused expansion where you either add the whole thing or just skip it.
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Jul 7, 2015 19:16
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Tekopo posted:I think you are grossly misrepresenting what I'm saying. Nothing in the text you quoted makes it impossible to have expansions. Let me give you two examples: Okay first thanks for being a condescending dick. Second yeah, it sounds like we're both misunderstanding each other, but maybe give me a chance instead of writing me off? Or I could just write you off too, whatever. Now your argument basically boils down to "game designers know what they're doing but you don't so you shouldn't do house rules" uh okay. Some game designers do and some clearly do not. Some gamers do and some do not. If I'm having fun, who is it hurting? You seem really concerned that I might be making my friends have a horrible experience or something... let me assure you I do what I do because its fun. So don't even worry about that. Ignoring the "it is really obvious that you know little"  The reason for picking chess is because A) Everybody knows it and almost everybody knows the rules so its a good clear example, and B) its a fairly simple game rules-wise compared to modern themed board games. (Even if the skill ceiling is huge) I know there are variants of Chess but Chess is a good example for the kind of game you were talking about, a game that is played competitively to win and to better understand the game and the rules of the game, and so it benefits people to all use the same rules (within a tournament everybody has to agree, and it helps to practice for a specific variant) If I picked a game that only a third the people in this thread have played, it doesn't work well as an example. Okay? Chess is pretty universal, along with Checkers and UNO and Monopoly. Its also less lovely than Monopoly or Checkers and professional play makes more sense.I was just trying to come up with an example of what you were arguing, versus the kind of "drink beer and play descent with friends" type of gaming that I was talking about. I'm so loving sorry that Chess is a trigger for you. Paper Kaiju posted:Serious question: Why is that people who disagrees that games should be properly designed and balanced as published so often fall back on the 'go play Chess' argument? If I complained that the newest fighting video game was horribly unbalanced, you wouldn't respond with 'not every game needs to be Pong.' That's a poor comparison, Pong is a very simple game that isn't exactly super competitive. It'd be more like somebody saying "the supers in destiny are broken and everybody gets kills every so often" which is true, to which I would respond "go play counterstrike" Its not that Chess is old. Its that chess is very pure. And few people play chess as a silly drinking game, its generally played competitively, even if among people of low skill. Its not that CS is old, its that CS is designed specifically to be a competitive skill based game, while other modern FPS like COD or Destiny have skill but its less the lynchpin of the design, instead going for more of an "everybody wins, everybody has fun sometimes" approach. Like Candyland. You wouldn't play competitive Candyland. Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Jul 7, 2015 |
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Jul 7, 2015 19:23
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If you're playing games designed by people worse at game design than you perhaps you should play better games
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Jul 7, 2015 19:28
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