Board Game Thread 4e: The Call of Catan

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Board Game Thread 4e: The Call of Catan

Texibus: May 18, 2008

ConfusedUs posted:

Taught my son how to play Kemet tonight.

He was a total dick and went heavy on attacking. He was able to get just about anywhere in a single turn, mopping up any less-than-full-strength troop I had on the map.

I've never been so proud. He won.

And your son will never respect you the same again.

# ? Aug 4, 2015 05:20

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# ? May 10, 2024 20:44

OneDeadman: Oct 16, 2010; [SUPERBIA]

ConfusedUs posted:

Taught my son how to play Kemet tonight.

He was a total dick and went heavy on attacking. He was able to get just about anywhere in a single turn, mopping up any less-than-full-strength troop I had on the map.

I've never been so proud. He won.

This is where you pull out the Monopoly board you hide and school him so he knows his place in the family.

# ? Aug 4, 2015 05:31

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

Lottery of Babylon posted:

Are there any good team board games? I'm specifically looking for 2v2 or a similar XvX with public predetermined teams, rather than a 1vAll game or a hidden teams game like BSG. The only one I can think of is Tash-Kalar.

fozzy fosbourne posted:

paging stashaugstine with the COIN recommendation

None of the COIN games are really team games since you're gonna have to backstab your allies at some point, but Fire in the Lake especially has a 2v2 thing going on. I've occasionally though about homebrewing up some 'secondary victory' conditions but it's difficult to come up with stuff that's both balanced and thematic.

# ? Aug 4, 2015 06:04

Shes Not Impressed: Apr 25, 2004

QnoisX posted:

Archipelago coin upgrade complete! The Bahamas is an archipelago after all. Yes, I know the colors are reversed, but they do have 1 and 5 on them and they are much different in size. Besides, gold plating is much too expensive. I checked.

This is a great idea. I browsed some game stores that do pirate themed coins that looked nice (a bit pricey) but the size is an issue, I think.

Have you come up with any remedy to the flimsy player screens? They seem to fall down often when I get the game to the table but I'm not creative enough to think of a DIY better alternative.

# ? Aug 4, 2015 06:09

Broken Loose: Dec 25, 2002; PROGRAM
A > - - - LR > > - - LL > - - -

MC2552John posted:

I have similar questions about Tragedy Looper. Should I be able to explain the rules to other players, having never played myself, or should we all read the rules before we play? How long will this first game take, with the same stipulation that no one has played it before.

If anyone has advice on how to teach either of these games, having never played myself, and how long explaining the rules would take, I would appreciate it.

Your first game of TL will be shorter than a normal game because the ingame week will only be 4 days. Your first game of TL will be longer than a normal game because you'll probably allow your players to have light discussion instead of complete silence during the loop. So... your first game of TL will be like an hour or so? The second more than cancels out the first, and you won't know the rules so I added some. My teaching games go 45 minutes depending on how slow my Protagonists are.

If you're going to be the person Masterminding, I highly recommend you read my PBP of Script #1, so you can see how the game plays out and get some ideas of what you want to do as a Mastermind. If you're not going to be Masterminding, do not read it as it will spoil Script #1. Script #1 is the one you use to teach the game to people.

# ? Aug 4, 2015 06:51

Jedit: Dec 10, 2011; Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

For those who are curious and own iPads, Xenoshyft Onslaught is now out in app form. $1.99 for the first seven days.

# ? Aug 4, 2015 08:44

Broken Loose: Dec 25, 2002; PROGRAM
A > - - - LR > > - - LL > - - -

Additional first game Tragedy Looper advice, from the depths of history:

Broken Loose posted:

For your first game of Tragedy Looper:

Allow limited table talk. In fact, do this any time you mastermind a group's first game. Allow players to say anything except for what card they are playing. If they hint at what they're playing, remind them that the actual rules are that they get to say nothing outside of the Time Spiral, so please don't abuse your kindness.

Just because you have table talk, don't forget to Time Spiral. Give them 5 minutes to study the board in its final state before starting a new loop.

Protagonist scripts while you have the chance. If you can find somebody who has the game, play the game against them. It'll acclimate you to the rules better, it'll let you experience the other perspective, and you won't be able to protagonist a script after you've played it on either side.

Refer to the Mastermind Handbook for Script #1. The actions instructed in it help you learn how to win without completely obliterating the protagonists. You can get good at the game after everybody's learned how to play it.

Give your players a Final Guess anyway. Even if you tell them "normally you'd win if you got this right but this is purely educational," it does a lot to remind players that the game is about deduction. Plus, it prepares them more properly for real scripts.

I'm beginning to let my players take notes during the game. If things get too easy for the protagonists, we can always lower the number of loops. People are less stressed out and have a more positive experience overall when they're not freaking out about forgetting things.

# ? Aug 4, 2015 08:57

nimby: Nov 4, 2009; The pinnacle of cloud computing.

ConfusedUs posted:

He was a total dick and went heavy on attacking. He was able to get just about anywhere in a single turn, mopping up any less-than-full-strength troop I had on the map.

This is why you never have a less-than-full-strength troop on the map.

# ? Aug 4, 2015 09:38

Jedit: Dec 10, 2011; Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

nimby posted:

This is why you never have a less-than-full-strength troop on the map.

Yeah, the reason you get 12 figures instead of 10 is Legion. Occasionally you'll make a 2-troop to hold someone else's pyramid or suicide in the Sanctuary, but it's rare.

# ? Aug 4, 2015 10:17

The End: Apr 16, 2007; You're welcome.

My P500 Churchill arrived today, with almost as much postage as I paid for the game plus shipping. I'm glad someone at GMT can't do maths. I'm also glad I have Churchill

# ? Aug 4, 2015 10:31

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

Protip for Tash-Kalar: Use the word Tash-Kalar like you would use the word checkmate (or even just check), liberally sprinkle the game with cries of 'Tash-Kalar!' whenever you think you've made a good move.

# ? Aug 4, 2015 10:45

Panzeh: Nov 27, 2006; "..The high ground"

Tekopo posted:

Protip for Tash-Kalar: Use the word Tash-Kalar like you would use the word checkmate (or even just check), liberally sprinkle the game with cries of 'Tash-Kalar!' whenever you think you've made a good move.

Tell all your opponents about how there's a superior TK sitting in your closet.

# ? Aug 4, 2015 11:27

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

I would if TK wasn't 150 american funbuxs.

# ? Aug 4, 2015 11:29

Taear: Nov 26, 2004; Ask me about the shitty opinions I have about Paradox games!

silvergoose posted:

Would splendor have been more exciting if the mines were weapons, the factories were adventurers, and the merchants were monsters and you were purchasing weapons, hiring adventurers, killing monsters? If so, how the gently caress would that be more exciting?

Because part of the fun of the game is creating a story in your head which is much easier when you've got a good theme over the top.

Would Forbidden Stars be as much fun to me if instead of eldar/space marines/orks it was just Alien, Alien 2, Alien 3, Alien 4? Nope.

# ? Aug 4, 2015 11:43

Ayn Randi: Mar 12, 2009; Grimey Drawer

Lord Frisk posted:

Your first game will probably take two hours, though it may go up to three, considering you guys haven't had experience with the cards and may need to reference the rule books. There's a handy breakdown sheet on how all the actions work in the box though, and basically all the meat of the game is written on those.

I knocked out 3 games in 3 hours with my boardgaming mate the first time we played, though we're good at fast play, we had a running thing of cramming as many dominion games into an hour as we could, peaked at 5 including setup and teardown of each individual kingdom. To be fair to him I took soviets in two of those games and already had a handle on the basic strategy so no game went past midwar.

In contrast, the first TS game I played with my housemate with legendary AP took five goddamn hours :shepicide:

# ? Aug 4, 2015 11:52

Durendal: Jan 25, 2008; Who made you God to say
"I'll take your sheep from you?"

Some changes in the new Through the Ages edition have been posted. Seems like they are still playtesting it so nothing is final.

Vlaada posted:

Corruption
Each player starts with 16 blue tokens in his blue bank.
Corruption is now evaluated at the start of the maintenance, before harvesting and food consumption. Check your blue bank: if the -2, -4 or -6 space is empty, you have to return that much resources. If you have not enough resources, you return all you have and then return food to cover the difference.
This change was done mostly because of playing on the table. Now, you clearly see whether you will face corruption and how many tokens you need to return to the bank to avoid it, you do not have to imagine your production and consumption. Theoretically, players now can afford to have more mines and farms, as long as they are able to consume all resources each turn... but practically, the game seems to work and feel the same, it is just easier to see everything.

Leader Change
When you replace a leader by another leader, you get one civil action back.
We made this change to encourage playing more leaders. Players are slightly rewarded for changing leaders before they die, which improves variety in the game and rewards good planning.
Btw: At one moment, we decided it is not really needed and wanted to abandon this change, but we liked it so much it stayed. The game is just more pleasant with it

Limits
There are no longer limits on military strength, science or culture growth, or science points.
We will find a solution how to mark it properly without artificial limits. And we make sure especially the military will not go that much off the charts.

Discarding Military Cards
Excess military cards are now discarded at the end of your turn (before maintenance), not at its start (after politics).
It is more natural. Sometimes, you need to know what you will do in your turn before deciding what cards to discard. You need to count whether you will have enough actions to grab a military unit tech from the row to decide which tactics to discard, etc. Also, this way you get a chance to play a tactic you drew before you are discarding cards, and increasing the amount of your military actions on your turn allows you to keep more cards immediately.

Tactics
You can play a tactic card for one military action, as usual. In addition, you mark it by your "tactic token" (a token in your color).
At the start of your next turn, you put the tactic to the middle (to the Tactic board), together with your token. You are still using it.
Any player can spend 2 military actions to copy the tactic - he puts his tactic token on any tactic card on the Tactic board.
There may be any amount of tokens on a tactic card. Each player may have only one tactic, though (as he has only one tactic token).
Tactics remains on the tactic board even when all players abandon them (either because of playing a new tactic or because of copying another tactic on the tactic board).
This is one of the biggest changes. Purpose of tactics was to increase variability of the game - without them, different types of units would have little meaning. However, what it did is rather randomizing of the game - some players do not draw a suitable tactic, some do. Or, some draw nothing but tactics - as in order to reduce chances player gets no tactics at all, there had to be relatively lots of tactics. Ability to copy tactics allowed us to slightly reduce amount of tactics in the decks.
It is thematic, a nation may copy tactics others are using, if it has good technologies for it. Also, playing tactic now have some... tactic element. You should reveal your tactic at the moment when you really utilize it, as you will have one round when noone can copy the tactic (it is in front of you, not on the tactic board).

Defense against Aggressions
When defending against aggression Defender can play defense cards. In addition, any military card can be discarded as Defense 1 (regardless of its age).
Total amount of played Defense cards and military cards discarded as Defense 1 cannot exceed full amount of military actions the player has.
The option to discard military cards should prevent early aggressions (testing whether the player got a Defense or not), and protect players that fall behind just slightly and have no luck with Defense cards. Having slight strength advantage is still good because of strength related events, but no longer for testing other player's luck with aggressions.

Sacrificing
Sacrificing of units in order to increase strength is no longer allowed in Aggressions or Wars.
Well, this was not easy decision, because sacrificing was always was part of the game. But when thinking about it and talking with players, it usually did more bad things than good.
First, we decided to disallow sacrificing to increase your attack when you play an Aggression. If the opponent countered by sacrificing also his units, you and him just lost some extra units, and other players may rejoice. Sacrificing in defense came much later, but for similar reasons - you lost your military unit or units, the attacker wasted their card, military actions and politic action, and noone gained anything - thus all other players benefited from that, especially those able to attack your weakened nation. We were keeping this option during first phases of playtesting, but then we decided the option to discard military cards weakens the Aggressions enough so we do not need this, and now, we play without sacrificing - it works well. Btw: The most cruel Aggression able to destroy three Age III buildings was changed.
And you can imagine the situation with wars, those big wars that sacrificed all military strength to get most out of the war were both non-thematic (no, victorious side does not destroy their entire army in order to get more loot) and lead to lots of king-making problems. We increased strength of the Age III wars slightly, so they are still worth to play.
Btw: It also means the un-elegant rule about disallowing of sacrificing in the last round is now gone. It was one of the facts that convinced me - wars and aggressions worked during the last round, so why to not have it this way for the entire game

Leaders and Wonders
Our intention is to add new leaders and wonders to the game, as you can know it from boardgaming online. At the same time, we wanted to balance the current leaders and wonders.
We started with them - we took exactly the same 24 leaders and 16 wonders and started to adjust them, so they are all useable and none of them too overpowered. It is taking longer than we imagined, we needed to implement all the changes, and then, we need lots of games played to see how the new card does. Also, there is some group think - the cards that were always weaker are still ignored by the players, because they remember them as the weak and avoid them.
In the end, we see we would be not able to develop and perfectly test new sets together with the basic game, because it is scheduled for this fall. However, we also decided it is not so big problem - many of the old leaders have nice new effects and players may enjoy discovering those before we will finish an expansion set.
When changing leaders, we took those who always worked well as a benchmark - the scientific ones. Aristotle, Leonardo, Newton and Einstein remained unchanged. And we changed most of the others - mostly to make those who were weak stronger.
We adjusted also powers and costs of wonders (Railroad is weaker now, Ocean Liner is stronger now... you can imagine , so they are now more balanced. And the end game wonders Hollywood and Internet got improved, so it is worth to go for them.

Technology Cards
We made some adjustments to the costs of technology cards, especially gray ones (urban buildings).
Also, there is now a bit fewer 4+ technology cards. Our statistics show that 4 player game is averagely one round longer than 3 player game, and it was not our intention. We removed some 4+ cards, so 2 and 3 player game remain unchanged, but 4 player game got shortened a bit.

Action Cards
We did some changes also to these. We made some of them more universal (who wants to build new farms or mines in age II) and removed the useless ones or merged them together. And there are more Breakthroughs . We are very happy with these changes - you will see yourself .

Tactic cards
There is slightly less of them in the game now. And their strengths were a bit adjusted.

Aggressions
They were adjusted. The early ones a bit strengthened (it is harder to get them played now), the later ones made a bit weaker.

Wars
Well... I dropped Holy war. Both because it destroys other player's play, and because I do not like and do not want to support what people do in name of religion right now in the world. There are just Wars over culture in Age III, a bit strengthened, with no sacrificing.
In Age II, only two types of wars remained - War over Territory and War over Technology.

Territory Cards
Slight adjustments.

Events
There is one new event in Age A, two in Age II and two in Age III events. We hope you will like them.

Vlaada, Nicolas & CGE Team

Card Changes (not complete list) posted:

Wonders

Colossus: 2 strength, no culture
Library of Alexandria: Costs 1, 4, 1 now.

Great Wall: 2 culture instead of 1
St Peter's Basilica: Happiness bonuses are now limited to 1 per card/building (that's how I interpret it)
Taj Mahal: No action cost to take it if you take it in a turn when you replace your leader

Kremlin: 1 unhappy face
Ocean Liner: Costs 4, 2, 2, 4 and the population is totally free now (no -5 discount)
Transcontinental: Gives 3 strength, costs 3, 3, 3, 3

First Space Flight: Costs 1, 2, 4, 9
Hollywood: Score twice the amount of culture your libraries and theatres produce
Internet: Score the amount of culture, theatres and strength your urban buildings produce

Leaders

Alexander: As a political action you may remove him from play and gain a yellow token
Hammurabi: May once per turn use a military action as a civil action
Homer: No culture production. When he leaves play you may put him under your first finished wonder and gain a happy face
Julius Caesar: May play a second political action once per game

Columbus: The colonizing now costs an additional amount of civil action equal to the level of the colony
Barbarossa: Costs a military action to do his special action now, but you gain 3 culture each time he does it
Genghis Khan: May use infantry units as cavalry for purposes of tactics. Produce 3 culture if you're one of the 2 strongest civilizations.
Joan of Arc: No culture bonus for being attacked. Strength bonus from government happy faces too. May look at the top current event before playing a political action.

James Cook: May discard of up to two military cards for a +1 bonus when colonizing (no +1 for each card). Culture bonus changed to 3 for the first one and 1 for each additional one.
Bach: 2 tech less to discover theatre technologies. No discount for building, but may once per turn upgrade an urban building to a theatre of the same or higher level.
Robespierre: Gives 3 culture when doing a revolution.
Napoleon: 2 strength for each type of military unit you have (no extra army bonus). 2 extra military actions.
Shakespeare: If you have a theatre it costs you 1 less tech/resource to discover/build libraries (and vice versa). No single culture bonus for having a library (2 for each library-theatre pair).

Bill Gates/Tesla: Now gives culture bonus at the end of the game (or when he leaves play) equal to the resources produced by your labs.
Churchill: Each turn you have 3 tech for discovering military technologies and 3 resources for building and upgrading them. If you do not use this ability you score 3 culture.

Urban buildings

Arenas: All cost 1 resource less
Computers: Costs 11 instead of 10 resources
Printing Press: Costs 3 instead of 4 resources
Drama: Costs 1 less tech and 1 less resource
Opera and Movies: 1 less resource to build

Military

Knights: Costs 5 tech instead of 4
Swordsmen: Costs 4 tech instead of 3
Cannon: Costs 6 tech instead of 7
Riflemen: Costs 6 tech instead of 5
Rockets: Costs 8 tech instead of 10
Modern Infantry: Costs 10 tech instead of 8

Governments

Monarchy: 2(8) (was 3(9))
Theocracy: 1(6) +1 strength (was 2(7))
Constitutional Monarchy: 6(12) (was 5(12))
Republic: 3(13) (was 4(14))
Communism: 5(19) (was 6(17))
Democracy: 9(17) (was 8(21))
Fundamentalism: 7(18) (was 7(19))

Action cards

Ideal building site: Renamed to City Growth and can now be used to *upgrade* urban buildings as well.
Work of Art: Removed
Revolutionary Idea: Not in Age A or I
Cultural heritage: Age A gives 1 tech and 4 culture. Age I gives 2 tech and 2 culture. Not in Age II or III
Breakthrough: Gives 2/3 tech in Age I/II. Two of each.
Rich Land: Can now be used to *upgrade* mines/farms as well.
Efficient Upgrade: Not in Age I.
Mineral Deposits: Removed.
Stockpile: Age A. Gives 1 food and 1 mineral.
Reserves: Age I/II/III gives 2/3/4 food or minerals.

Colonies

Fertile Territory: Remove 1 blue token
Wealthy Territory(I): 3 tokens and 6 minerals
Wealthy Territory(II): 4 tokens and 9 minerals

Events

Development of Civilization (A): Each civilization may increase its population, or build a farm/mine/urban building, or develop a technology. This costs 1 less food/mineral/tech than normal.
Politics of Strength (II): The strongest civilization draws 5 military cards. The weakest discards 2 cards. If it happens in Age IV 5/2 culture is scored/lost.
Prosperity (II): Each civilization gains 1 food for each of its happy faces (max 8).

Impacts

Impact of Balance: Take the lowest value of your food/mineral/tech/culture production and score double that value
Impact of Variety: Score 2 culture for each type of military unit, urban building [the workers - not the techs] and special (blue) technology.

Aggressions
Plunder (III): 7 resources gained/lost instead of 8. Costs only 1 military action.
Raid (III): Destroy up to 3 rival buildings; 1 of Age III or older, 1 of Age II or older and 1 of Age I or older. Gain half the cost, rounded up.
Armed Intervention: No change.

Thread is here: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1411795/game-changes-bgo

Durendal fucked around with this message at 12:29 on Aug 4, 2015

# ? Aug 4, 2015 12:05

Broken Loose: Dec 25, 2002; PROGRAM
A > - - - LR > > - - LL > - - -

Seriously, copying tactics and removal of Holy War are enough to make me try the game again.

# ? Aug 4, 2015 12:30

Bubble-T: Dec 26, 2004; You know, I've got a funny feeling I've seen this all before.

Broken Loose posted:

Seriously, copying tactics and removal of Holy War are enough to make me try the game again.

The military changes in general sound super good.

# ? Aug 4, 2015 12:33

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

But how will people troll BL without Holy Wars?

# ? Aug 4, 2015 12:47

Azran: Sep 3, 2012; And what should one do to be remembered?

Bubble-T posted:

This sounds like extremely my jam, I'm assuming there's no way to get this in English?

Sadly, no. I don't think there's a translated edition because it's meant for the local market and the export/import limitations means really few people want to gently caress around with customs - at least for the rest of the year. After October things may change and I'll be able to give you a definite answer in December :v:

# ? Aug 4, 2015 13:31

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

I checked the first thread (linked in the OP) for fun and found my posts within it. My first post expresses my undying love for RftG, I seem to discuss at length how much I like Arkham Horror and discuss strategy surrounding the game and talk appreciatively of Fury of Dracula. Good times!

I also thought that Caylus had really complex rule :allears:

# ? Aug 4, 2015 14:56

LuiCypher: Apr 24, 2010; Today I'm... amped up!

Played Relic at GenCon this weekend for shits and giggles. Hated every minute of it past the first 15.

Sure, I ended up being higher level than my friends. I also had worse stats than they did despite that and I got poo poo on all the time by the dice. There's no real catch-up mechanic, either. It really is very much a RNG-heavy game, and I don't like it.

I also tried Incredible Expeditions at GenCon - I have my own opinions on it, but I'm curious as to what the rest of you think. Tom Vasel doesn't seem to like it, which gives me hope.

# ? Aug 4, 2015 15:43

ChiTownEddie: Mar 26, 2010; Awesome beer, no pants.
Join the Legion.

Has anyone played Baseball Highlights 2045?? I am a baseball fiend so the theme is incredibly appealing.....if the game isn't trash haha.

# ? Aug 4, 2015 15:45

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Shes Not Impressed posted:

This is a great idea. I browsed some game stores that do pirate themed coins that looked nice (a bit pricey) but the size is an issue, I think.

Have you come up with any remedy to the flimsy player screens? They seem to fall down often when I get the game to the table but I'm not creative enough to think of a DIY better alternative.

You could buy three-ring binders in the Bahamas and stand those up.

# ? Aug 4, 2015 15:48

Bubble-T: Dec 26, 2004; You know, I've got a funny feeling I've seen this all before.

Tekopo posted:

I checked the first thread (linked in the OP) for fun and found my posts within it. My first post expresses my undying love for RftG, I seem to discuss at length how much I like Arkham Horror and discuss strategy surrounding the game and talk appreciatively of Fury of Dracula. Good times!

One out of three ain't bad.

# ? Aug 4, 2015 15:51

Poopy Palpy: Jun 10, 2000; Im da fwiggin Poopy Palpy XD

I think there's something wrong with me: I need to add $31.01 to my Coolstuff order to get free shipping and nothing is calling out to me. This has never happened before, I swear.

# ? Aug 4, 2015 15:53

T-Bone: Sep 14, 2004; jakes did this?

Poopy Palpy posted:

I think there's something wrong with me: I need to add $31.01 to my Coolstuff order to get free shipping and nothing is calling out to me. This has never happened before, I swear.

what you like, what you got

# ? Aug 4, 2015 15:56

Chill la Chill: Jul 2, 2007; Don't lose your gay

Poopy Palpy posted:

I think there's something wrong with me: I need to add $31.01 to my Coolstuff order to get free shipping and nothing is calling out to me. This has never happened before, I swear.

Get Tash Kalar and the expansion.

# ? Aug 4, 2015 16:00

Yas: Apr 7, 2009

Tekopo posted:

I checked the first thread (linked in the OP) for fun and found my posts within it. My first post expresses my undying love for RftG, I seem to discuss at length how much I like Arkham Horror and discuss strategy surrounding the game and talk appreciatively of Fury of Dracula. Good times!

I also thought that Caylus had really complex rule

I took a photo of the games I owned to show a friend on facebook a year ago. Today facebook reposted it as to remind me of "one year ago today". My collection grew from 4 games to 25 games in 12 months. :negative:

# ? Aug 4, 2015 16:00

fozzy fosbourne: Apr 21, 2010

ChiTownEddie posted:

Has anyone played Baseball Highlights 2045?? I am a baseball fiend so the theme is incredibly appealing.....if the game isn't trash haha.

You have my ~~axe~~mostly incoherent rambling:

quote:

It's pretty good! Wife loves it. It's more tactical and focused on hand management than long-term deck consistency, compared to games like Dominion. Reminds me a little bit of more traditional card games like trick-takers; more interaction than many deck builders but slightly less "every card breaks the rules somehow" than the games closer to Magic. A lot of back and forth and predicting your opponents hand to determine the order of defensive and offensive cards you'll play to close out the game. Occasionally you might need to to take a chance with a top deck and you can stash away a bomb for tight situations to play as a pinch hitter.

Mike Fitzgerald has worked on the Pokemon card games, Diamonds, the Mystery Rummy series, and some other stuff I don't recall. He's on the Ludology podcast now and sounds kind of like a classic radio baseball announcer or something

The deluxe edition has gone on sale a couple times and I would probably get that in order to have some more variety, but I guess you can get the expansions after the fact at Eagle's store. Expensive, since it's EGG.

In the end, my gut feeling is that if you like traditional card games a lot you will probably like this, but if something like Tichu or Bottle Imp leaves you cold, I don't know if this will be a hit but it's still pretty good at capturing the baseball theme and worth a look.

Edit: oh yeah, I freaking love the "futuristic baseball as imagined by the past" theme. EGG gets poo poo on a lot, but I'm pretty impressed that they have published a game about future robot baseball, dress making, a commercial fishing card game, a game about managing art galleries, etc. Maybe it's just a case of other publishers not wanting to gamble on more esoteric themes and so designers are left with EGG, as opposed to them promoting exotic themes, but whatever, it's cool.

One more interesting thing about Baseball Highlights 2045, it has two resources but the deck-building and scoring parts of the game are separate. You recruit players, play a series, and recruits some more, play a series, and so on. The cards have both an in-game value and a recruitment value, with some cards being worth more for recruiting but less effective in the actual games and vice versa.

It would be interesting to see this approach taken with a game that has more of a traditional MtG tableau building and game transforming card powers. It would take significantly longer, though. It would also be interesting if the more common dual resource deck builders like Legendary took a phased approach like this, with all cards having a recruitment and encounter strength and some being more effective in one phase vs another (maybe even similar to Mage Knight's side flipping of cards).

The more I think about it, the more a queue or stack like mechanic makes a ton of sense for a "interactive" deck builder. Baseball highlights has something like this with the bases being loaded by your opponents previous play, but only scoring if you don't counteract them.

It would be neat if there was a 2v2 team deck builder, with alternating turn order and no table talk like Tichu, where you played your cards into a last in first out stack and then resolved the stack when each player had played a card. You could signal your homey based on what you put in the stack. Play a certain card to let him alley oop a psycho jam on your opponents with his card. But later cards put on the stack could block actions. This might actually make a cool Basketball 2045 game, hmmmm

Edit: also

quote:

Vlaada, & Nicolas CAGE Team

fozzy fosbourne fucked around with this message at 16:11 on Aug 4, 2015

# ? Aug 4, 2015 16:06

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

I did some calculations as well just because (a page is the standard 40 posts):

1st Board Game Thread (ran from 2007 till 2011) had an average of 0.237 pages posted per day (1142 days, 271 pages)
2nd Board Game Thread (ran from 2011 till 2012) had an average of 0.615 pages posted per day (517 days, 318 pages)
3rd Board Game Thread (ran from 2011 till 2014) had an average of 1.115 pages posted per day (894 days, 997 pages)

This thread is currently on an average of 1.859 pages per day (234 days, 435 pages).

# ? Aug 4, 2015 16:08

sonatinas: Apr 15, 2003; Seattle Karate Vs. L.A. Karate

Poopy Palpy posted:

I think there's something wrong with me: I need to add $31.01 to my Coolstuff order to get free shipping and nothing is calling out to me. This has never happened before, I swear.

Is shipping going to cost over $30?

# ? Aug 4, 2015 16:11

Meme Poker Party: Sep 1, 2006; by Azathoth

Tekopo posted:

I did some calculations as well just because (a page is the standard 40 posts):

1st Board Game Thread (ran from 2007 till 2011) had an average of 0.237 pages posted per day (1142 days, 271 pages)
2nd Board Game Thread (ran from 2011 till 2012) had an average of 0.615 pages posted per day (517 days, 318 pages)
3rd Board Game Thread (ran from 2011 till 2014) had an average of 1.115 pages posted per day (894 days, 997 pages)

This thread is currently on an average of 1.859 pages per day (234 days, 435 pages).

How long until the thread takes over the whole forum?

# ? Aug 4, 2015 16:29

Sloober: Apr 1, 2011

Tekopo posted:

I did some calculations as well just because (a page is the standard 40 posts):

1st Board Game Thread (ran from 2007 till 2011) had an average of 0.237 pages posted per day (1142 days, 271 pages)
2nd Board Game Thread (ran from 2011 till 2012) had an average of 0.615 pages posted per day (517 days, 318 pages)
3rd Board Game Thread (ran from 2011 till 2014) had an average of 1.115 pages posted per day (894 days, 997 pages)

This thread is currently on an average of 1.859 pages per day (234 days, 435 pages).

Can you break these down by Fun quotient?

sonatinas posted:

Is shipping going to cost over $30?

I have a hard time justifying purchases if i don't qualify for free shipping.

# ? Aug 4, 2015 16:40

Deathlove: Feb 20, 2003; Pillbug

ChiTownEddie posted:

Has anyone played Baseball Highlights 2045?? I am a baseball fiend so the theme is incredibly appealing.....if the game isn't trash haha.

I couldn't find anyone with it at GenCon, but I did play Bottom of the Ninth and that was a good time.

# ? Aug 4, 2015 16:43

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

Sloober posted:

Can you break these down by Fun quotient?

Unfortunately the first thread was pre-fun war so a baseline is difficult to create, although I guess it would have a high fun quotient due to the pre-war nature of the thread. The second thread was the battleground of the fun wars so the fun quotient was extremely low as the two sides fought each other to a standstill: as befits my italian heritage, I switched sides from Fun to Anti-Fun midway through. The third thread had a negative fun quotient since the Anti-Fun troops had taken over, while now we are around zero fun quotient (slightly positive) as the situation has finally stabilized and concessions have been made on both sides.

# ? Aug 4, 2015 16:48

Dre2Dee2: Dec 6, 2006; Just a striding through Kamen Rider...

ChiTownEddie posted:

Has anyone played Baseball Highlights 2045?? I am a baseball fiend so the theme is incredibly appealing.....if the game isn't trash haha.

I played a game with 5 players, and I can say at least with that number, I didnt like it. It has a really strange way of only allowing you to affect the player who goes after you... and who that is changes from round to round. What basically happens is someone gets a lead, only one person is capable of doing anything about it, and they dont have what they need to do so, so the situation snowballs. I would like to try it again, but definitely with an even number.

Tekopo posted:

I did some calculations as well just because (a page is the standard 40 posts):

1st Board Game Thread (ran from 2007 till 2011) had an average of 0.237 pages posted per day (1142 days, 271 pages)
2nd Board Game Thread (ran from 2011 till 2012) had an average of 0.615 pages posted per day (517 days, 318 pages)
3rd Board Game Thread (ran from 2011 till 2014) had an average of 1.115 pages posted per day (894 days, 997 pages)

This thread is currently on an average of 1.859 pages per day (234 days, 435 pages).

Big ~~Money~~ Posting engine is online :getin:

# ? Aug 4, 2015 16:59

Countblanc: Apr 20, 2005; _{Help a hero out!}

Tekopo posted:

Protip for Tash-Kalar: Use the word Tash-Kalar like you would use the word checkmate (or even just check), liberally sprinkle the game with cries of 'Tash-Kalar!' whenever you think you've made a good move.

My friend refers to any time you destroy a large number of tokens in a single play as a "full Tash".

# ? Aug 4, 2015 17:19

Soothing Vapors: Mar 26, 2006; Associate Justice Lena "Kegels" Dunham: An uncool thought to have: 'is that guy walking in the dark behind me a rapist? Never mind, he's Asian.

ChiTownEddie posted:

Has anyone played Baseball Highlights 2045?? I am a baseball fiend so the theme is incredibly appealing.....if the game isn't trash haha.

I'm not really feeling it for solo play, but it was a blast the one time I got a 2p game going.

# ? Aug 4, 2015 17:21

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# ? May 10, 2024 20:44

Poopy Palpy: Jun 10, 2000; Im da fwiggin Poopy Palpy XD

sonatinas posted:

Is shipping going to cost over $30?

If I pay for shipping my the efficiency of my money-to-games engine goes down and I play to win.

# ? Aug 4, 2015 17:21

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Board Game Thread 4e: The Call of Catan

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