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Betrayal and Mansions are kind of the only options you have if you want a co-op "story" experience. Tales of the Arabian Nights kind of falls into this category but isn't exactly co-op and isn't horror themed if your group is into that.Robust Laser posted:...how is Mansions of Madness anyways? I mean, not mechanically. I'm sure people could go on for ages about how the mechanics suck or whatever but like, what if I am looking into it for the 'experience'. As a story generator i kind of like Mansions actually. The Keeper (bad guy) is the one that picks how exactly each scenario will play out. There are 5 stories in the base game but the motivation of the villains or the secret behind everything will different each time assuming you pick different story choices. Only The Keeper knows what the ultimate goal is so it's up to the players to explore the creepy house until they find enough clues to find out what they have to do to win while The Keeper tries to kill/delay the heroes as long as possible because the longer the game goes on the nastier the events get until the last one that usually ends the game and the Keeper auto-wins or the heros will be told what they have to do but since they took so long it'll be way harder for them to accomplish their goals. This gets a little bit into mechanics but The Keeper also puts all of the items will find out into the house so while you technically have free roam of pretty much the entire map from the start, you will eventually run into a locked door that needs a key you get elsewhere. Only by actually paying attention to the story will the heroes find out where they are going. You might for instance start out by reading a paragraph that ends with the heroes hearing a scream come from upstairs, which leads them to checking the upstairs rooms where they find a key of some kind and the clue that advances the plot. The big problem as i mentioned is the amount of tokens and cards you get with it, 5 scenarios with 3 different variations for each leads to a lot of extra poo poo and a vast majority of the cards are all the same super small size but with different card backs that you have to keep track of. Also as has been mentioned there is a long set up time since The Keeper needs to pick which variation of the story they are doing and they all have different cards that are need in about 90% of the rooms on the map so this game is something that you maybe set aside an evening for, maybe even setting up everything in advance before everybody comes over if you want things to go smoother. Oh also the rulebook sucks but that's to be expected from FFG at this point 
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Jul 23, 2015 07:01
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JohnnySavs posted:Is there anything out there conducive to “constructing a compelling narrative" that does it better or at least more consistently than Betrayal? Is Dead Of Winter as good as it gets? Playing Captain Planet villains in Power Grid or cops and killer in Letters from Whitechapel is fine, but the one time in five you got a decent horror movie plot out of Betrayal really hit the spot as far as "taking me on an adventure" without breaking out a proper RPG. Just play Once Upon A Time for the ultimate in storytelling. Or break out something like Junta and play it as a roleplaying thing where you have to act out your roles.
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Jul 23, 2015 07:56
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Mansions requires a big time investment and for many people the payoff isn't worth it. A lot of people claim the Call of the Wild expansion resolves a lot of issues. My view is that the game is really hard on the GM guy but pretty good for the players.
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Jul 23, 2015 11:31
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JohnnySavs posted:Is there anything out there conducive to “constructing a compelling narrative" that does it better or at least more consistently than Betrayal? Is Dead Of Winter as good as it gets? Playing Captain Planet villains in Power Grid or cops and killer in Letters from Whitechapel is fine, but the one time in five you got a decent horror movie plot out of Betrayal really hit the spot as far as "taking me on an adventure" without breaking out a proper RPG. What your after is Tales of the Arabian Nights https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/34119/tales-arabian-nights
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Jul 23, 2015 12:07
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Morpheus posted:Hey, I'm not sure if this has been posted - certainly not recently, but did you guys see that Keyflower's new printing has a Kickstarter? I just came across this. I only just got Keyflower and have only played a couple of games with the wife, so I'm looking at this for the expansions really. Are they worth it? Our game group tends on the lighter side so I wouldn't want to add much more "complexity" than their already is. OTOH the wooden animals will go a long way to getting this on the table regularly.
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Jul 23, 2015 12:39
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Last night I played Imperial Assault for the first time. I'm really used to 2nd edition Descent and have all the expansions (even though I barely get to play) so I was familiar with most of the mechanics. It's got some good points over descent and some bad ones but overall I feel like it was a little worse. Here's a rundown of the changes because why not. Abilities In Descent your heroes have two abilities. One which is always on and can be used throughout the game. The other is a oneshot that you can use once per quest. This - as any RPG player will know - means it just never ever gets used. I've had a few games with the secondary abilities fired off but it's rare as hell. Imperial Assault you have two abilities. Often one is usable and one is a passive one. They're not one shot and they're always around. So they both get used. I like this a lot better and is probably the biggest good change in the game. Descent also has you pick a class for your archetype. Some heroes are warriors, some are healers, some are mages, some are rogues. There's a selection of classes with weapons and abilities to choose from. One ability is free and you always have it, the others you get as you level up. Imperial Assault gives you cards that are specifically for your character. You have a set weapon and then abilities you get as you level, but no free one. Presumably this balances out with giving the characters two abilities on the character sheet. For me this meant less choice. There's nothing wrong with it and it makes first time setup a lot faster I just didn't like it as much. Line of Sight In Descent the game board is squares. It is in Imperial Assault too. From these squares you need to be able to draw a line from any corner to any corner of the enemy square. It sometimes makes line of sight a little illogical and it's something people mention a LOT when cricitising Descent. Imperial Assault makes you draw a line to TWO corners. I see why the change happened here but it didn't make a lot of difference when it came down to it. We only did three missions so perhaps it does make a difference on some of the others. Defence Dice Both games have two dice. One is grey/white and the other is black. When you attack or are attacked these are the dice that you or the enemy roll in response to the attack. In Descent almost all player characters roll the white dice. The black dice there is better - it has more shields per side and you have a better chance of a good roll. Imperial Assault mixes it up a little. The white dice has a mixture of shields and things that cancel out the opponent's surges. It also has a face that completely ignores all damage from the attack. The black is straight up defence, as it is in Decent. Player characters tend to be white dice for the more roguish ones and black for the tankier ones. It made it feel a little swingy. That said there's no "Miss" for attacks in Imperial Assault so perhaps they decided that it was more fun to get a defence roll of 'I dodged your attack' than an attack roll of 'I didn't hit'? I think it makes sense. The Overlord The overlord runs the show in descent for the monsters. The scenario tells you which monsters you can pick from and where to put them and where abouts they come onto the board if they're being reinforced after dying. Remembering here that Descent isn't about killing the enemies but doing the quest, the monsters are mostly there to block the heroes off and make life as hard for them as possible. Imperial Assault changes this quite a lot. You instead have a dial that ticks up "threat" which The Overlord/The Empire can use to buy more monsters to put onto the board. The cards have a cost in the corner and it doesn't matter which monsters you're buying, Imperial Assault doesn't restrict which ones each level can take like Descent does. Moreover the turn order is changed in Imperial Assault. In Descent the heroes all take their turn then the Overlord takes their turn. In Imperial Assault a hero takes their go, then a monster group does, then a hero does and etc. This often meant our overlord could buy a monster and use it in the same exact go, right next to your heroes. Death is also changed - apart from in the last level in Descent when you die you're just losing an action. This can be major since you often have a time limit to beat levels in but you're still around. If you die in Imperial Assault you flip your card over to the other side and you lose one of your abilities, some of your movement, etc. If this happens again your character leaves the board. Again it's a direct response to people saying death doesn't mean enough in Descent. I found these three changes made the Overlord a shitload more powerful. In Descent I'm always the Overlord and for the most part you'll find the quests are slightly tuned towards the heroes. Only slightly though. In all three Imperial Assault missions it felt like we were about to be overwhelmed and at times it wasn't really a lot of fun. Yes it works thematically but there's a reason why a lot of advice for Descent is not to be too hard on the heroes as the overlord. There's four of them and only one of you, losing all the time is kinda poo poo. Skirmish Imperial Assault has a skirmish game. I didn't play this but it allows you to basically do one versus one games on other maps. A lot of the stuff that FFG have released since the game came out for Imperial Assault is for this mode. Overall It's definitely worth playing. Especially if you like Star Wars more than you enjoy fantasy. I just feel Descent is a slightly more fun game. There's a lot more variety in the Descent monsters too but of course that's mostly because of how long it has been out. Taear fucked around with this message at 13:16 on Jul 23, 2015 |
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Jul 23, 2015 13:12
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The thing is that most of the things you mention are actual, bona fide fixes for Descent's worst features:quote:Line of Sight Mostly, this allows units to better take cover behind obstacles or other units. Before, it was a little more difficult to set up a defensive line, especially in a corner. Now it's much easier to do that provided you can get into position. It also prevents the really stupid way you could shoot diagonally through a rock wall. quote:Defence Dice Nothing was more swingy than a 1/6 chance of missing every attack. Imperial Assault's damage is higher but more consistent, and you have way more HP and ways to recover to make up for that. On top of this, 'missing' is a negative feeling - but 'dodging' is a positive one, making the game more satisfying. quote:Imperial Assault changes this quite a lot. You instead have a dial that ticks up "threat" which The Overlord/The Empire can use to buy more monsters to put onto the board. The cards have a cost in the corner and it doesn't matter which monsters you're buying, Imperial Assault doesn't restrict which ones each level can take like Descent does. These changes were absolutely critical. Reinforcements in Descent 2nd were effectively a non-issue because all you could generally do was dripfeed a single monster onto the table per turn. A hero could easily wipe out your reinforcement capabilities by setting next to the spawn point and killing the monster before it got anywhere. Giving the overlord the ability to save up several turns of reinforcements not only allows them to provide a concerted attack and a means to ensure that reinforcements are actually a threat, but also allows for thematic moments where they get large groups out onto the table. e: Additionally, reinforcement points are fairly fixed, so if you're getting a group spawn right next to you maybe you should be moving out of the way! Similarly, the turn order made it too easy for one side or another to get into an active position, forcing the other team into a reactive position - given the nature of Descent levels, this tended to make a situation snowball towards a victory for either side. In Imperial Assault, the alternating turns make it much easier for both sides to continue advancing towards their goal, and means that both sides also have to think a little about which group or hero might be about to activate next. I've seen some excellent steals made because one team had the sense to make a pincer formation towards their goal, meaning that the other team couldn't wipe out both threats in a single activation. The Imperial player is tougher than the Overlord in Descent, it's true - but at the same time the levels are much less about purely winning or losing, they're much more kind towards partial successes and they will tend to reward the players on a much more 'fair' scale in terms of credits and advancement than Descent ever did. You're not expected to clear out every mission, you're expected to meet a partial goal and if you get more than that, great. The Descent 2nd overlord, if he was facing a group who knew what they were doing and who deliberately prioritized gold over mission success, usually ended up incredibly toothless very quickly, especially near the end of the game. Stelas fucked around with this message at 13:55 on Jul 23, 2015 |
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Jul 23, 2015 13:48
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Robust Laser posted:...how is Mansions of Madness anyways? I mean, not mechanically. I'm sure people could go on for ages about how the mechanics suck or whatever but like, what if I am looking into it for the 'experience'. Mansions is a great game to play with my friends who aren't boardgame nerds. The mechanics are simple and easy to learn, it's atmospheric, it's fun, and it tickles the imagination. Mansions is an awful game to play with my boardgame nerd friends, because the mechanics are simple, easily exploitable, and after about three games everyone has pretty much seen everything the game has to offer. Geisladisk fucked around with this message at 14:26 on Jul 23, 2015 |
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Jul 23, 2015 14:21
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Stelas posted:The Imperial player is tougher than the Overlord in Descent, it's true - but at the same time the levels are much less about purely winning or losing, they're much more kind towards partial successes and they will tend to reward the players on a much more 'fair' scale in terms of credits and advancement than Descent ever did. You're not expected to clear out every mission, you're expected to meet a partial goal and if you get more than that, great. The Descent 2nd overlord, if he was facing a group who knew what they were doing and who deliberately prioritized gold over mission success, usually ended up incredibly toothless very quickly, especially near the end of the game. I did mention for all the other changes why it was done and that I get why. Even the missing/dodging that you quoted then didn't quote the bit I'd said about how I understand it! But I get that. I know it gets very swingy and once one side starts to win it means they're going to keep winning when you're playing a campaign. But when you're playing one off levels it's much less of an issue (with a few exceptions in some levels) and I just felt like we were getting squashed. Yes we won one but mostly on a technicality. Perhaps we didn't play the levels where partially winning counts towards something. The damage thing in IA really made me feel like almost every turn we'd need to rest. It's not too bad in the levels that aren't timed. I felt like...every time we took some damage we really needed to rest because now you've got 4 health left which is quite likely to be a single blow. In Descent we had the healers to keep you going and resting was far less needed. The mission that we failed most horribly was one where you had to turn on 3 terminals. They were down 3 seperate corridors and had a test when you reached them that you weren't sure about until you got there. The master dog animal (neru? Something like that.) pretty easily delayed two of us because it took around 3 turns to kill it while it was doing enormous damage. When you've got seven turns, four of you and a big pile of monsters to get by that are more easily replaced it's suddenly extremely hard. Like I say I understand the changes. It's just some of them seem strange at the same time. Dodge is almost definitely better than missing but why then make it so the defence dice is so much weaker generally? It's nice having to actually plan out our turns as heroes because some of us need to move before certain enemies but it feels like it's moving the focus of the game to the enemy troops. Suddenly those two trandoshans are extremely strong and dangerous, more so than they would be with the same monster in Descent. Taear fucked around with this message at 14:42 on Jul 23, 2015 |
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Jul 23, 2015 14:33
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HOOLY BOOLY posted:Betrayal and Mansions are kind of the only options you have if you want a co-op "story" experience. Tales of the Arabian Nights kind of falls into this category but isn't exactly co-op and isn't horror themed if your group is into that. The horror is watching a homeless, possessed, blind guy who's lost in the desert bumping into a genie that sends him home, winning them the game
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Jul 23, 2015 14:41
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Stelas posted:The Imperial player is tougher than the Overlord in Descent, it's true - but at the same time the levels are much less about purely winning or losing, they're much more kind towards partial successes and they will tend to reward the players on a much more 'fair' scale in terms of credits and advancement than Descent ever did. You're not expected to clear out every mission, you're expected to meet a partial goal and if you get more than that, great. Can you please explain or give examples of Imperial Assault's rewards for "partial success"? I'm most of the way into a campaign and I don't believe we have seen any missions with partial victory conditions; the rebels either succeed and get a bigger reward, or fail and get a reduced reward. Your post makes me worry we have been missing something.
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Jul 23, 2015 15:07
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There's a fair number of missions that require you to hold out until X time, or try to sabotage Y consoles. If you do that, great - if you last longer than X or destroy more than Y, you start getting a bonus on top of the usual mission reward. They're not guaranteed but in general mission rewards are much better than in D2nd. e: There's also some missions that give you a whole new adventure if you completely demolish the situation, but I don't tend to consider missions an explicit reward because by and large they all start off on even footing. Taear posted:The master dog animal (neru? Something like that.) pretty easily delayed two of us because it took around 3 turns to kill it while it was doing enormous damage. Why not double-move through it to get some distance, and then stage a fighting advance? You're very rarely blocked entirely in Imperial Assault now that you can potentially blow movement moving through enemies. Getting good weapons is pretty critical, I'll totally admit that, but you're more likely to have the ability to get those weapons now that you're guaranteed more credits than D2's gold. Stelas fucked around with this message at 15:18 on Jul 23, 2015 |
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Jul 23, 2015 15:10
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On the topic of Descent-like games, Privateer Press (the people behind Warmachine/Hordes, Omega Protocol and High Command) just posted the rulebook for their new adventure game. Kinda reminds me of the D&D Adventure System. http://files.privateerpress.com/boardgames/IKUndercityRulebook_forWeb.pdf
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Jul 23, 2015 18:13
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I guess it leaked that FFG is reprinting Fury of Dracula when they accidentally exposed a product page for it briefly.
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Jul 23, 2015 18:58
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fozzy fosbourne posted:I guess it leaked that FFG is reprinting Fury of Dracula when they accidentally exposed a product page for it briefly. this game sounds cool but then i read it has like a 3 hour playtime??? no thanks
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Jul 23, 2015 19:08
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burger time posted:this game sounds cool but then i read it has like a 3 hour playtime??? no thanks Jesus, are you really Zee?
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Jul 23, 2015 19:18
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I like long games, but not long hidden movement games. vOv
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Jul 23, 2015 19:28
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Played a game where Dracula's location was discovered first turn. Dracula still won.
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Jul 23, 2015 20:06
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cool let's play a deduction game that takes hours and is decided by a die roll at the end
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Jul 23, 2015 20:24
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bobvonunheil posted:cool let's play a deduction game that takes hours and is decided by a die roll at the end In some cases, Tragedy Looper is like this too. The last game I played, the protagonists got to the Final Guess and had to coinflip for one of the roles. Disclaimer: I have not played Fury of Dracula, so I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to.
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Jul 23, 2015 20:26
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Some Numbers posted:In some cases, Tragedy Looper is like this too. The last game I played, the protagonists got to the Final Guess and had to coinflip for one of the roles. That's a little different; in Fury of Dracula the hunters literally can't win if they roll poorly. It's a little at odds with a deduction game.
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Jul 23, 2015 20:37
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I finally got a chance to play 2v2 Tash-Kalar. We played High Form, and I think we all liked it this way. I was wondering, though, if you all would recommend High Form or Deathmatch for team play?
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Jul 23, 2015 20:50
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medchem posted:I finally got a chance to play 2v2 Tash-Kalar. We played High Form, and I think we all liked it this way. I was wondering, though, if you all would recommend High Form or Deathmatch for team play? High form high form high form, deathmatch was an afterthought to allow 3 player.
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Jul 23, 2015 20:54
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Looks like they are revamping the combat in Fury of Dracula with some simultaneous action selection via cards, maybe like Kemet/GoT? https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2015/7/23/fury-of-dracula/ Maybe they will go full on Yomi/BattleCON and Dracula will be Dimitri from Darkstalkers fozzy fosbourne fucked around with this message at 20:59 on Jul 23, 2015 |
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Jul 23, 2015 20:55
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medchem posted:I finally got a chance to play 2v2 Tash-Kalar. We played High Form, and I think we all liked it this way. I was wondering, though, if you all would recommend High Form or Deathmatch for team play? High Form all the way.
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Jul 23, 2015 20:56
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 Caylus reprinthttp://www.coolstuffinc.com/p/135680
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Jul 23, 2015 21:28
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Foehammer posted:
Yeah, this was already at my FLGS a couple of weeks ago. Buy the game, it's excellent.
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Jul 23, 2015 22:00
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medchem posted:I finally got a chance to play 2v2 Tash-Kalar. We played High Form, and I think we all liked it this way. I was wondering, though, if you all would recommend High Form or Deathmatch for team play? High form, yo.
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Jul 23, 2015 22:02
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Fury of Dracula is a seriously cool game. Yes, it's a deduction game where finding the hidden player doesn't mean you automatically win. That's awesome. You know why? Because the hidden player isn't just running away, but is more like the Predator - trying to isolate hunters and pick them off one by one during the night, then fading away by day. Combat was the biggest gripe people had in this game, so it'll be interesting to see if FFG have really improved it.
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Jul 23, 2015 22:13
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I got to play Euphoria. Some neat concepts and I appreciated how the theme fits some of the mechanics. At its heart it's a worker placement + resource exchange/conversion game. Some board elements progress and get better/different but it's stuff that people have to semi-cooperate on to get anywhere. You kind of want to balance helping out (so things actually happen) versus trying to reap the benefits others have worked for. I suppose I'd play it again but honestly I felt like I was floundering most of the time. I felt like I was always on the wrong side of everything, but then again I'm a weak strategic player so this might have just been me getting all "I know the rules but I don't know how to play" like I sometimes do in this kind of game. Everyone else seemed a little ambivalent about the game too, though. We called it at 7 stars (VPs) instead of 10 and moved on.
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Jul 23, 2015 22:50
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Looks like I might need to work on an insert for Argent this weekend. Anyone have a component list for the expansion? I want to make it big enough to fit everything, but I don't have Mancers of the University yet. Any help would be appreciated. Usually BGG has component lists, but nothing in this case.
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Jul 24, 2015 01:40
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RE Tash-Kalar: it might be worthwhile to play a 4p deathmatch if people aren't familiar with the game, but High Form is just better. Are there any deceptive or unintuitive rules for Forbidden Stars?
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Jul 24, 2015 02:33
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Krazyface posted:Are there any deceptive or unintuitive rules for Forbidden Stars? Haven't played it but it's made by FFG so yes.
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Jul 24, 2015 02:42
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Krazyface posted:Are there any deceptive or unintuitive rules for Forbidden Stars? Yes, the entire combat phase. Refer to the steps of the phase often until you get it down.
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Jul 24, 2015 02:59
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QnoisX posted:Looks like I might need to work on an insert for Argent this weekend. Anyone have a component list for the expansion? I want to make it big enough to fit everything, but I don't have Mancers of the University yet. Any help would be appreciated. Usually BGG has component lists, but nothing in this case. I think go7gaming has one or Broken Token. You can always leave a geek mail for Brad from Level99.
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Jul 24, 2015 03:30
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Has anyone posted newbie Eclipse tips in the thread before? A friend bought it and I'm the guy that rules duties generally fall on. I assume playing all Terran is a good idea for the first game. Is 4 player ok? Any variant rules to use? Edit: Someone on BGA is accusing their opponent of cheating in Tzolk'in by moving the gear twice in one go, loving 
Bubble-T fucked around with this message at 06:28 on Jul 24, 2015 |
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Jul 24, 2015 06:20
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Got in another game of Dark Moon tonight, this time with 6. Lasted a bit long at 2 hours, but we got into a lot of accusatory arguments and had a lot of tough decisions with the much rougher even-count deck. Infected lost due to one infected player getting outed off of refusing a first round Blood Test by the other infected. He got quarantined and the other player played too deep cover and we coasted through all 4 events. We were XOing him constantly and he kept repairing stuff! Sometimes two at a time! Everyone really enjoyed it though, which is great because I'm really impressed with it. Looking forward to getting to be an Infected at some point. Echophonic fucked around with this message at 06:29 on Jul 24, 2015 |
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Jul 24, 2015 06:23
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Tonight I played a game called Stuff and Nonsense at my FLGS and I had the oddest sense of deja vu, only realizing now it was from James Ernest's how to play video 10 months prior. (Though the rules have changed since then.) Anyways, it's a light little set-collection game. After the success of Professor Elemental's imaginary Polar Expedition in the salons of London, it's the fashion to tell amazing adventure stories, but of course you need certain props. The game comes with 6 suits of 14 cards each: photographs, interesting facts, recently-deceased heroes, odd artifacts, riveting anecdotes, and intriguing plant and/or animal specimens. Shops for the 6 are placed radially around the adventurer's club and flea market, eight cards are dealt out and distributed appropriately, a Professor Elemental pawn starts on one random shop tile, and the game begins with everyone starting in the center. On your turn you may move and take an action where you land. You can always move to any of the two buildings in the center - the market lets you discard a card from hand and draw one blind from the deck, the club is where you score - and always from the center to any shop, or from any shop to the two adjacent. At a shop you pick up the card you want and then deal another from the deck. Numbers in the bottom corner tell you whether Professor Elemental then moves clockwise, depending on the number of players. Professor Elemental is a bit of a hazard, and in addition to moving when the deck says (which is maybe a third of the time, less for more players) he always moves when someone tells a story. If you move to a spot where he is or have him land on you, you either discard a card to placate him or lose one point for every card in your hand as he critiques them mercilessly. It's your choice and you can go negative. How do you score? Well, there are five possible remote destinations: Africa, Mt. Everest, China, the South Pole, and the Amazon. Everything you pick up could potentially play to two or three of these destinations, with variant points for each - often 1 or 2, rarely 3. When you go to the Adventurer's Club, you turn in your story, at most one card per suit, and all the cards have to score at least one point for their destination. In addition, there's a minimum set for each location, though you can collect more: 2 for Africa, 3 for Everest, 4 for China, 5 for the South Pole, and all 6 for the Amazon. Each story is also worth a number of bonus points - at the start of the game there's room for the bonus to rise once or fall twice. So, for example, Everest's bonuses go 2-3-4-6 and the Amazon's go 6-8-11-14, and they start at 4 and 11. When you tell a story the club's interest wanes in that location and the bonus moves down one step, then you roll a d6 and on a 2-->6 you bump Africa->the Amazon up one step, assuming there's room. If your story cleaned out your hand, draw a card, and then Professor Elemental moves, possibly landing on one of your rivals. So if I put together a collection of, say, 6 cards for the Amazon, worth 1-2-1-1-2-2 points, and go when the club's interest is highest, that's worth 23 points. Game is to a variant number of points depending on players - we played with 4 players so it was to 50, and this is a Cheapass Games production so get some poker chips or something to keep score. I managed to hit 50 points exactly to win, after tales of adventure to Mt. Everest, the Amazon, the South Pole, and finally Africa. The cards are comedic fare as is usual for Cheapass Games, with funny drawings and flavor text, and you do not have to tell a grandiose story beginning with "There I was, in the very heart of" when you score your cards, but you also do not have to drink anything but water. I didn't see any explicitly problematic cards and we got through most of the deck, but it is kind of Orientalism: The Game, even if you're lying outrageously about fakes produced in and around London that might be tied to anywhere in the world. Glazius fucked around with this message at 06:57 on Jul 24, 2015 |
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Jul 24, 2015 06:51
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Bubble-T posted:Has anyone posted newbie Eclipse tips in the thread before? A friend bought it and I'm the guy that rules duties generally fall on. I assume playing all Terran is a good idea for the first game. Is 4 player ok? Any variant rules to use? Four player is good. Some form of Plasma Missile nerf is good if you aren't playing with the expansion, but I always play with the expansion so I dunno which house rule to suggest. All-Terran, IME, tends to leave players thinking the game to be much more dry than it actually is. I almost didn't go back to Eclipse after playing all-Terran twice to start with, yet it's one among my favorite games. Just don't let people wreck themselves by picking Orion or Eridani (they require knowing what you're doing) and you should be fine for races. Also, some strategy for new players: explore. Early exploration is like drawing your opening hand in a card game - you can't really play, or plan, without it. Further, there is no such thing as a bad start. There are ways to take advantage of every possible exploration draw. I've seen new players get really frustrated exploring a start that I'd be thrilled to play from. Explore your vicinity and think about how to take advantage of it. Lots of Ancients? Combat VP ahoy - tool up the shipyards! Lots of materials? Time to build a fleet and go take the middle and/or start punching faces around the board. General solid economy? Probably time to tech up into some variation of the late game.
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Jul 24, 2015 07:19
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Corbeau posted:Four player is good. Some form of Plasma Missile nerf is good if you aren't playing with the expansion, but I always play with the expansion so I dunno which house rule to suggest. All-Terran, IME, tends to leave players thinking the game to be much more dry than it actually is. I almost didn't go back to Eclipse after playing all-Terran twice to start with, yet it's one among my favorite games. Just don't let people wreck themselves by picking Orion or Eridani (they require knowing what you're doing) and you should be fine for races. Thanks  I guess I'll take a look at the races and decide if we should use them.
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Jul 24, 2015 07:24
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