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ashez2ashes posted:How big would be a good board game table? I'm buying a home and I want to make sure I can put a decent size table in the kitchen for gaming. I like an 8 person square table best myself. Maybe with a leaf to turn into a huge table.
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Jul 21, 2015 01:43
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QnoisX posted:My vacation is coming up. If some of you guys want to buy me a plane ticket I'll fill a suitcase full of whatever games you want and come on down for a visit. Going to Gencon first, so if you want me to pick up some games there too, just let me know. Haha cheers for the offer, but I'm visiting home in a few months so I'm going to take a huge suitcase just for bringing back games. And book depository has already responded saying they'd resend the missing order to my parents house there. Book depository has pretty ace customer service. Still, I'm tempted by the us$180 forbidden stars I saw the other day.
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Jul 21, 2015 01:44
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ashez2ashes posted:How big would be a good board game table? I'm buying a home and I want to make sure I can put a decent size table in the kitchen for gaming. I have a 54" round table that I have been extremely happy with. Here's two pictures of it from when back when I was assembling my "tabletop den".   Pros: -Comfortably seats 6 for Twilight Imperium (although a small side table for token repository and the scoreboard and such is still useful) -Easily portions off the standard 3' x 3' or 4 x 4 ' (or whatever) spaces for miniatures games with room for misc stuff all around -All players can comfortably reach the center of the table from any seat The only time it's a little inconvenient is when you are play games with very small footprints like three player Seven Wonders or something, but then you can just use any regular table if that's the case.
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Jul 21, 2015 01:57
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If you don't get a round table, it's probably still worth getting a table that doesn't have legs at the corners, so you can fit people wherever if needed.
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Jul 21, 2015 02:23
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I don't like round tables as a rule, but yes if you play TI3 then a round table is nearly mandatory.
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Jul 21, 2015 02:55
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Harvey Mantaco posted:As you progress through the game certain cards are added to the decks while your characters gain items, levels and permenant daily-esque tokens that give various advantages. If you didn't take all the difficult-level cards out of the encounter deck and monster deck, and your characters haven't had a chance to git gud, that may be why. Ah, thank you! I didn't realize that we were supposed to take out the Advanced cards until I'd already shuffled them in, and the whole table's thought on the matter was "Eff it, we're good at this series anyway, it'll be fine." Knowing that the campaign is balanced towards working up to the Advanced cards makes me feel much better about things, 'cause we got rolled hard.
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Jul 21, 2015 03:33
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Achmed Jones posted:Ah, thank you! I didn't realize that we were supposed to take out the Advanced cards until I'd already shuffled them in, and the whole table's thought on the matter was "Eff it, we're good at this series anyway, it'll be fine." Knowing that the campaign is balanced towards working up to the Advanced cards makes me feel much better about things, 'cause we got rolled hard. Yeah, some of the late game encounter cards can do insane poo poo like 3 (or 4!) damage to everyone on a tile. Or even worse destroy those items you had to save up for and buy. Save those vetos.
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Jul 21, 2015 03:42
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Just got Forbidden Stars in the mail. Holy moly is that a tall box.
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Jul 21, 2015 05:05
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Lorini posted:Cacao is supposed to be similar to Carcassone. I don't have extensive experience with Carcassone but I feel like I have a bit more control over my outcome in Cacao. It is still tile laying with some level of randomness, but you get a few choices instead of "play this tile you got, hope it works out." You also get turd tokens.
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Jul 21, 2015 05:57
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I'm sure this post will out me as an idiot, but me and my friends have played 5 games of 4 player Gear of War by Corey Koniezckcza. We don't even get to the 2nd set of tiles and get stomped every time. I feel like there is some core conceit we are missing to make us not be bad. We play cards, try and shoot dudes, and just end up running out of cards/life/ammo from attrition since non-overcharged gun attacks don't seem to do much and more enemies keep spawning faster than we heal and/or resupply/advance. One of the guys wanted to give it one last try a few days ago and the same thing happened. We just played Shadows over Camelot after so we could play a game someone might win.
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Jul 21, 2015 06:42
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The gears of war board game is all about accomplishing your objectives as quickly as possible without getting bogged down in fighting. You actually want yo avoid fighting and mostly just rush past enemies. It is still a very hard game to beat.
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Jul 21, 2015 07:35
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hoiyes posted:Haha cheers for the offer, but I'm visiting home in a few months so I'm going to take a huge suitcase just for bringing back games. And book depository has already responded saying they'd resend the missing order to my parents house there. Book depository has pretty ace customer service. Darn, was looking forward to a free trip to South America. Oh well. Btw, anyone that's been waiting around for it, Dungeon Lords: Happy Aniversary is the Daily Deal on CSI again. http://www.coolstuffinc.com/p/210445 I picked it up last time and still haven't gotten to play it yet. I hear it's good though and the component quality is excellent.
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Jul 21, 2015 09:38
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So The Voyages of Marco Polo should be in the mail today and I hope I get to play it this week. I watched some playthroughs and people were complaining about the characters. Mainly that some of them were too strong and imbalanced. Could that be a concern when introducing that game to other players? Or are the characters balanced and the folks were just exaggerating?
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Jul 21, 2015 09:55
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Ojetor posted:This is what I do. Just keep on playing the tutorial mission instead of ending it as soon as the city is found, which is just when things are getting good. I've found that with the tutorial either. Like I said earlier it's all I've ever got to play and people get somewhat frustrated with it just suddenly ending. There's a lot of info about the expansion on the BGG forum - one of the developers posts there about it. It has new abilities (for monsters) and a Druid hero.
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Jul 21, 2015 10:14
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Lorini posted:I don't like round tables as a rule, but yes if you play TI3 then a round table is nearly mandatory. Why out of curiosity? It it just the aesthetic or you've found them to be not as functional for games?
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Jul 21, 2015 12:22
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I don't know about Lorini but personally I find that round tables maximize floor space taken up while minimizing the size of the central, shared area for all players. In exchange for this, everyone gets plenty of elbow room and personal directly-in-front-of-you space, and everyone is equidistant from the central shared area. Good for some games, not as great for others. Also the smaller the (round) table the more likely everyone gets a knee-knocker table leg. The Eyes Have It fucked around with this message at 12:39 on Jul 21, 2015 |
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Jul 21, 2015 12:35
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Lorini posted:Cacao is supposed to be similar to Carcassone. Cacao is a little bit like Carcassone in that it's a tile-laying game, but you're not trying to make contiguous features. You're using everyone's worker tiles to make a checkerboard with the public action tiles - hand of 3 worker tiles with different numbers on the faces, 2 publicly available action tiles at any time, put down a new action tile when there'd be workers on two sides - and when worker touches action, worker does action. It's much harder-core into territory control than Carcassone is, so if you liked the gameplay of jockeying to get yourself in on a big structure somebody else was building, that's there in Cacao.
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Jul 21, 2015 13:10
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Cacao is a pretty good gateway game but I don't think it remotely has the longevity of Carcassonne. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of depth to Cacao, you just optimise the use of your meeples to get you as much cash as possible, which just comes down to maxing your water and getting decent trades where possible.
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Jul 21, 2015 13:19
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We played Forbidden Stars last night - It was our third game. It's really, really, really good. They've taken the good bits from the old Starcraft game and polished the bad bits. The overall experience is fantastic. I particularly like how the races are very assymetric, yet very balanced. Orks feel a little more powerful right now, but I'm reasonably certain that this is simply because they are the most straightforward and we're still new to the game. All the other races have tons of slippery shenanigans, while the Ork cards all boil down to "more shooty" or "more armor".
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Jul 21, 2015 15:00
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Got Cave Evil to the table this weekend. It's the best black metal themed dungeon crawler/brawler there is. Nate Hayden could poo poo in a box and I'd buy it.
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Jul 21, 2015 15:45
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I was always kind of curious about Cave Evil but for some reason kind of expected it to be, well, not much of a game really.
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Jul 21, 2015 15:55
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Mister Sinewave posted:I was always kind of curious about Cave Evil but for some reason kind of expected it to be, well, not much of a game really. Well, I enjoyed the hell out of it. Summon critters, dig tunnels, summon gear and spells for your critters, collapse tunnels on your enemies, fight enemies to turn them into a shower of Gore that you use to summon more critters, hope the Evil Black Old Goat doesn't notice you and eviscerate all of your squads before you can take it out. It's unabashedly old-school with the potential for player elimination which a lot of people don't like nowadays, but it plays smooth as hell and made 3 hours seem like 15 minutes.
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Jul 21, 2015 16:01
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Selecta84 posted:So The Voyages of Marco Polo should be in the mail today and I hope I get to play it this week. The awesome thing about Marco is that your choice of character is a strategy just like any other strategy. When you are playing with all new people, they will tell you who gets which character depending on player order. However that in fact can lead to an unbalanced game depending on what cards are dealt on the various sites you can visit. So yes, if you have no clue about game design, you'll panic over your first play and go around screaming unbalanced. However if you actually look at the characters and the cards and the board, you'll realize that certain characters are better for certain situations and certain characters are not as good. You also need to adapt your strategy to your character. If you have the guy who gets bonus points for traveling everywhere then you'd best focus on travel instead of trying to pick up 2 contracts every round. What's fun is to see people's faces when you give them (as the new player) the character that lets you set your dice to whatever you'd like, while the rest of the players roll. This seems overpowered on its face, but it certainly forces your strategy in a way that optimizes die rolls instead of perhaps getting other benefits. No one that I know who has played Marco several times has any issue with the balance of the characters.
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Jul 21, 2015 17:02
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ashez2ashes posted:Why out of curiosity? It it just the aesthetic or you've found them to be not as functional for games? Round tables don't optimize space as well as well as rectangular tables. Try it if you ever have a chance. Set up Argent for example on a rectangular table and then set it up on a round table of the same basic size and the game (which takes up a ton of space) will be far more optimized on the rectangular table. Round tables are better for RPG's and other games where stuff doesn't have to be set up in a particular way. For example, in a four player game, Argent uses like 10 tiles. Those tiles have to be set up side by side in rows. You can't put two tiles in one part of the table, and three in another, and five somewhere else. Whereas in RPG's, stuff can be anywhere, doesn't matter. It's why at our game cons, rectangular tables are used for the board gaming and round tables are used for the RPG's. Just a much better use of space.
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Jul 21, 2015 17:07
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MC2552John posted:I'm sure this post will out me as an idiot, but me and my friends have played 5 games of 4 player Gear of War by Corey Koniezckcza. We don't even get to the 2nd set of tiles and get stomped every time. I feel like there is some core conceit we are missing to make us not be bad. We play cards, try and shoot dudes, and just end up running out of cards/life/ammo from attrition since non-overcharged gun attacks don't seem to do much and more enemies keep spawning faster than we heal and/or resupply/advance. One of the guys wanted to give it one last try a few days ago and the same thing happened. We just played Shadows over Camelot after so we could play a game someone might win. Was this always the first scenario? I know one of the most commonly missed rules in the first scenario is that you are supposed to close all of the spawning pits except for the last one before starting the mission. It makes an already pretty difficult game much harder.
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Jul 21, 2015 17:56
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Yeah, I don't like round tables as much either. I maintain that the perfect board gaming table is rectangular and has a leg or legs in the center of the table so people can sit at the very edges. An IKEA Norden or the outdoors version makes for a pretty cool table for occasionally playing outdoors or by a big glass door without always being in the way
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Jul 21, 2015 18:00
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Lorini posted:The awesome thing about Marco is that your choice of character is a strategy just like any other strategy. When you are playing with all new people, they will tell you who gets which character depending on player order. However that in fact can lead to an unbalanced game depending on what cards are dealt on the various sites you can visit. So yes, if you have no clue about game design, you'll panic over your first play and go around screaming unbalanced. However if you actually look at the characters and the cards and the board, you'll realize that certain characters are better for certain situations and certain characters are not as good. You also need to adapt your strategy to your character. If you have the guy who gets bonus points for traveling everywhere then you'd best focus on travel instead of trying to pick up 2 contracts every round. That's great to hear.
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Jul 21, 2015 18:53
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fozzy fosbourne posted:An IKEA Norden or the outdoors version makes for a pretty cool table for occasionally playing outdoors or by a big glass door without always being in the way. Hey that is a nice table! If I ever get real funds to spend on gaming, that would be a perfect table for like 18OE.
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Jul 21, 2015 18:56
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For tables, I have one of these: http://www.ikea.com/ca/en/catalog/products/20116778/ It's pretty awesome, especially since the leaf actually folds underneath the table automatically, with no need to store it. Cons are, of course, that the legs are at the corners, which limits the number of people to, typically, four (or six, with the expanded table). Maybe more if they're willing to get tight. But if I had the option today, I'd pick up this: http://www.ikea.com/ca/en/catalog/products/80217072/ Which, as far as I can tell, is the same thing, only with the legs in a more convenient location. Once I save up the money I'm picking up a geekchic though.
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Jul 21, 2015 20:07
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Radioactive Toy posted:Was this always the first scenario? I know one of the most commonly missed rules in the first scenario is that you are supposed to close all of the spawning pits except for the last one before starting the mission. It makes an already pretty difficult game much harder. It was not the first scenario. We have played the first scenario and it is the only one we have beaten. E: Our next game is Forbidden Stars. How long does the game take with the pre-built board for a person's first game? 3 people will be playing.
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Jul 21, 2015 21:13
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Morpheus posted:Once I save up the money I'm picking up a geekchic though Make sure to order a year in advance of when you want it.
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Jul 21, 2015 21:17
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MC2552John posted:E: Our next game is Forbidden Stars. How long does the game take with the pre-built board for a person's first game? 3 people will be playing. Including rules explanation, my first play through was almost 5 hours.
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Jul 21, 2015 21:45
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Morpheus posted:But if I had the option today, I'd pick up this: http://www.ikea.com/ca/en/catalog/products/80217072/ This is also what I want. Round tables with expansion leaves are the best tables, and you make a good point on the legs.
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Jul 21, 2015 21:49
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MC2552John posted:E: Our next game is Forbidden Stars. How long does the game take with the pre-built board for a person's first game? 3 people will be playing. Took me 4 hours, but play sped up a lot as the game went on. Once you figure out how combat works (and reference the combat order steps frequently), things go a lot smoother.
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Jul 21, 2015 21:49
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I know they're not really all that similar but for those who have played both, which do you like more: La Granja or Voyages of Marco Polo? I'm looking to pick one of them up when they come out, leaning more towards Marco Polo. Iit gives me a bit of the same vibe Istanbul did and we played the poo poo out of that, but we're starting to get a little tired of it and MP looks like a good replacement with more variety and depth. La Granja looks great because of the multi-use cards, but I've already got Mottainai on the way and I'm not super feeling another farming game, but it sounds pretty solid overall.
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Jul 21, 2015 22:56
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Mage Knight is coming by the end of the week 
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Jul 21, 2015 23:03
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Diving into Terra Mystica tomorrow for the first time, anything I should know offhand? Easy to forget rules or whatnot. I think i have the game somewhat figured out from reading the rules and watching a Rahdo.
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Jul 21, 2015 23:53
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Sloober posted:Diving into Terra Mystica tomorrow for the first time, anything I should know offhand? Easy to forget rules or whatnot. I think i have the game somewhat figured out from reading the rules and watching a Rahdo. Burn mana early to get a manageable amount to cycle every turn through passive bonuses.
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Jul 21, 2015 23:55
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The things my group would consistently forget in Terra Mystica in the first few games was just stuff related to cycling power. Make sure to never forget the offer to cycle power in exchange for victory points whenever enemy buildings get built adjacent to yours, and also don't forget or be timid about straight up trashing some power tokens to maximize your resources or grab a super important spell when you really need to.
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Jul 22, 2015 00:15
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Don't forget the 1 town key per top of cult track rule. A common tactical mistake is to not anticipate getting power after your third bowl is full, which is wasted. If you can predict those situations and prior to that turn some of that power into another resource like gold, you should do it. There is some small errata here: https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Terra_Mystica_FAQ
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Jul 22, 2015 00:18
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