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Toshimo posted:A friend has asked me to poll the gooncensus for Lords of Waterdeep. Bearing in mind that I don't have an extensive history of playing worker placement games, here's my assessment: it's not terrible but it's not very good either. It's pretty much the quintessential "game with theme pasted on" since none of the D&D trade dress actually comes into play in any interesting way, so the appeal is pretty much there for folks who won't try anything unless it has recognizable fantasy names plastered all over it. It's a basic worker placement game but scoring points relies on a randomly generated tableau of "adventurers" that you send your colored cubes, excuse me, your fighters, rogues, wizards, and clerics on. The problem with this is that it becomes very hard to plan anything because you'll be building up the appropriate force of cubes to complete this or that objective and then someone will snatch it out from under you, then a new adventure will flip and it needs things you don't have which means more waiting. There's also a deck of "screw you" cards you can draw from which can make things even more frustrating. All in all it's an extremely forgettable game without a lot of depth to it in my opinion. It could be a good way to introduce certain people to worker placement games in the hopes of easing them into better offerings in the genre but I wouldn't buy it just for that reason.
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Aug 7, 2015 18:06
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The "screw you" deck (aka intrigue cards) is actually the most interesting part of the game and other than mandatory quests works pretty well. Everything else is just basic shuffling of resources for VP by placing workers.
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Aug 7, 2015 18:08
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On an unrelated note, if you had to pick examples of different levels of theme on say... A 0 to 5 star scale where 0 is totally abstract and 5 is Themasauras Rex, what would your go-to examples be?
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Aug 7, 2015 18:16
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Radioactive Toy posted:Do you live in Illinois? I've been shopping at The Gaming Goat which sounds just like that. I love being able to pick up games for Amazon prices at a local store. Close, Ontario. I wouldn't be going to Canadian Amazon if I didn't have to  Toshimo posted:A friend has asked me to poll the gooncensus for Lords of Waterdeep. Don't bother with it, skip straight to Agricola. Toshimo posted:On an unrelated note, if you had to pick examples of different levels of theme on say... A 0 to 5 star scale where 0 is totally abstract and 5 is Themasauras Rex, what would your go-to examples be? 0)GO 1)Chess 2)Dominion 3)Pandemic 4)Arkham Horror 5)Tales of Arabian Nights Rutibex fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Aug 7, 2015 |
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Aug 7, 2015 18:18
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2 and 4) Tigris and Euphrates
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Aug 7, 2015 18:31
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silvergoose posted:2 and 4) Tigris and Euphrates
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Aug 7, 2015 18:34
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Toshimo posted:A friend has asked me to poll the gooncensus for Lords of Waterdeep. Use it to get D&D players into proper board games. Otherwise, skip it.
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Aug 7, 2015 18:39
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Gimnbo posted:So tomorrow I'm going to try to get The Voyages of Marco Polo to the table. It will be our first game and I'm wondering about whether I should take the manual's advice and use Raschid ad-Din Sinan. This isn't because I think he looks unbalanced but because I've read of people thinking that taking the dice rolling away can make the game kind of boring for the Raschid player. Does anyone who's played the game have any input on this? I would still use RAschid in the first game. Makes the game much easier.
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Aug 7, 2015 18:46
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Re: Lords of Waterdeep I assume, from the text I got, that some friends that are more into lighter, more "intro" games found it in some sort of thrift shop or bookstore used. I told them to get it, since at least that will give them a taste of worker placement, which they haven't done yet. Thanks, duders.
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Aug 7, 2015 18:48
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Toshimo posted:Re: Lords of Waterdeep Honestly, it's probably not a bad deal if you can get it at a discount. Like it's not Thunderstone bad or anything, it just doesn't really go above serviceable.
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Aug 7, 2015 18:50
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Toshimo posted:On an unrelated note, if you had to pick examples of different levels of theme on say... A 0 to 5 star scale where 0 is totally abstract and 5 is Themasauras Rex, what would your go-to examples be? 0 - YINSH, Quarto, etc. - Form over function, 100%. Mechanics are clearly just for mechanic. 1 - Chess, Dominion, Waterdeep, -tafl, Fairy Tale, Castles of Burgundy, etc. - Pieces have descriptive theme but gameplay does not really sync up with it. The theme is there and someone could probably pick it out, but that doesn't mean it'll happen. 2 - Caylus, Pandemic, Among the Stars, Hanabi - Pieces have descriptive theme and the game is clearly pretty abstracted in terms of mechanics, but things feel about right. Rather than just doing stuff and the theme justifying it you're actually a bit informed by the theme: managing your work team and planning buildings in Caylus, getting around and treating patients in Pandemic even though city cards are super abstract, planning your space station in Among the Stars, or trying to get your other firework planners to get off their confused asses and pass you the right thing in Hanabi. Still not terribly thematic but it sorta works. (Hanabi should be like a 1.75.) 3 - Agricola, Chicago Express, Escape - The Curse of the Temple, Space Cadets: Dice Duel, BattleCON, Panamax - The theme might not be super clear, but the feel of the game is definitely identifiable and the theme matches it. A lot of Knizia games hit at this point, as do the more interesting realtime games. They're still not simulationistic, but they spend a lot of time making the players think in the way the theme would want you to think. In Agricola you need to grow your farm and get food to survive, in Chicago Express you need to figure out which rail companies will get you good ROI and how cutthroat you want to be with your partnerships, in Escape and SC:DD you need to organize with your team how to maneuver and achieve your objective under serious time pressure. 4 - Eldritch / Arkham Horror, Twilight Imperium, Mage Knight, etc. - At this point the mechanics are strongly integrated with the feel the game is trying to get across, and the game itself serves to try and push you into a certain narrative crafted around the theme. The mechanics may be a bit abstracted and usually aren't true simulations (card play or action point allotment) but they serve to improve gameplay and get the player in the right mindset. Carving out your bit of the space empire is one thing, but TI3 forces you to deal with opportunistic scoring, the threat of intergalactic sucide blitzes, and a near-fanatic devotion to keeping your homeworld safe. Eldritch Horror and Arkham Horror nail that supernatural countdown towards the end of the world and how you stop it - sometimes by looting the corpses of monsters and running around the decrepit down full of evil and sometimes by grabbing your notes and firearms and heading off on a globetrotting adventure. And Mage Knight, despite really being about score, has you jump into a fantasy world and see what the best record of your achievements are going to be. 5 - Magic Realm, 18xx (at least 1830), Diplomacy, true simulationist wargames, etc. - Finally, games who are built around not just theme and getting the players to have about the right feel but games designed to show the players a piece of the world they're trying to create even at the cost of efficient gameplay or clever mechanisms. These have the theme completely integrated and range from extremely complex (wargames, magic realm) to surprisingly straightforward (diplomacy) but their game is going to be something unique to the setting they are trying to convey and every bit of the game is pointed straight at that. Magic Realm lets you set your own victory conditions and explore the randomized world with rules for anything you might want to do and how it might help or hurt before the month is out. 18xx games are quite literally experiments in managing railroad infrastructure, and you've got to watch for very realistic concerns and see how cutthroat you are going to be (and how well that works out) while dealing with your companies and more importantly your bottom line. And Diplomacy is quite simply a game about just that - micromanage your map, sure, but the game is absolutely and in every way a game about wheeling alliances and knowing who might screw you (and when and how to deal with that) - sticking you solidly in the role of the diplomatic tactician. Andarel fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Aug 7, 2015 |
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Aug 7, 2015 18:53
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Toshimo posted:Re: Lords of Waterdeep Agricola I think would be better as a purchase since the "family" game is pretty stock standard worker placement while still forcing you to think about things like long term strategy and getting some semblance of a food engine going, but you can expand it with the Minor Improvements and Occupations. For Lords of Waterdeep, I almost felt that I was reacting to what was available on the board, rather than following some sort of strategy devised and designed by me. Also, depending on how tolerant you are of random luck being a factor in victory/failure, after a few games it gets really tiresome because someone happened to get a bunch of quests in their color/got the good intrigue cards/didn't get mandatory quested, etc. In a genre like worker placement that typically minimizes luck of the draw, it gets kinda aggravating. Honestly, Caylus isn't even that complicated as a game, it just has a tendency to get rather vicious/spiteful with the Provost, which is sometimes an element people don't like when they're tilling the fields or whatever the hell excites Europeans. If you're in the Bay Area, I have a copy of Stone Age I've been trying to unload for, uh, ages!
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Aug 7, 2015 18:57
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Toshimo posted:Re: Lords of Waterdeep It's solid, it's playable, it's just not... good. It's definitely not BAD, and the quality of it is excellent in terms of component and graphic design etc. It's just... bland and uninteresting.
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Aug 7, 2015 18:58
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Toshimo posted:I assume, from the text I got, that some friends that are more into lighter, more "intro" games found it in some sort of thrift shop or bookstore used. I told them to get it, since at least that will give them a taste of worker placement, which they haven't done yet. Yeah, seems perfectly reasonable. Then get them to play Caylus! Kai Tave posted:Honestly, it's probably not a bad deal if you can get it at a discount. Like it's not Thunderstone bad or anything, it just doesn't really go above serviceable. I feel like accusations of how bad Thunderstone is are often drastically overrated, but Thunderstone Advanced made so many things so much better that I sometimes forget how much normal Thunderstone sucked.
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Aug 7, 2015 18:59
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Toshimo posted:A friend has asked me to poll the gooncensus for Lords of Waterdeep. Easy for beginners to pick up. Has some luck components to it, but generally strategy will win. It's a favorite among my friends, and with the expansions you can get six people in on it. It's not horrifically deep and most of the other criticisms are valid, but there's fun to be had there. Hits the table fairly often around here either way. The box insert though, its a thing of beauty. Not the most compact, but the layout is simply majestic.
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Aug 7, 2015 19:00
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Frush posted:Easy for beginners to pick up. Has some luck components to it, but generally strategy will win. It's a favorite among my friends, and with the expansions you can get six people in on it. It's not horrifically deep and most of the other criticisms are valid, but there's fun to be had there. Hits the table fairly often around here either way. Whoever designed the base game box needs to be thrown to the owlbears though. It's an excellent mix of easily damaged and extremely unforgiving towards mild damage. I've long since chucked my original insert and keep the entire game in a plano in the expansion box.
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Aug 7, 2015 19:02
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Andarel posted:Whoever designed the base game box needs to be thrown to the owlbears though. It's an excellent mix of easily damaged and extremely unforgiving towards mild damage. I've long since chucked my original insert and keep the entire game in a plano in the expansion box. Yeah, granted that the box not going all the way down is an unfortunate, if stylisitc choice. My friend who owns it keeps it pretty pristine though, so I never would've thought of it if you hadn't mentioned. Are Agricola or Caylus that much better? Since my friend owns waterdeep, if I wanted to nab something in the genre which would be better?
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Aug 7, 2015 19:08
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Toshimo posted:On an unrelated note, if you had to pick examples of different levels of theme on say... A 0 to 5 star scale where 0 is totally abstract and 5 is Themasauras Rex, what would your go-to examples be? 0 - Go I guess? There would be few games I consider to be totally abstract, and I don't think I play any of them. 1 - Trains. It's basically a re-skin of Dominion with an added dimension to score points in which can be mostly ignored at times. Plus a fair number of the game effects don't tie in very well to what the cards are representing. 2 - Lords of Waterdeep. The game has a bunch of D&D trappings, but the setting could be changed and the game rebranded without feeling like it was forced. Just a weak connection between the theme and gameplay, even though I like the theme and I think the game elements themselves tie together in a good way. 3 - Paperback. A game that takes Dominion and Scrabble and then makes its own thing. You couldn't easily change the game's intent or setting without requiring a massive overhaul of the gameplay. Still has a major disassociation with the gameplay and what you as the in-game character are meant to be doing to win, so the victory condition feels abstract in a way. 4 - Mage Knight. It eventually makes you feel like a powerful wizard but some things feel disassociated, like not being able to move freely every turn. While it makes perfect sense for the game, it doesn't necessarily jive with being a spellcasting savant. 5 - Dungeon Lords, it's dripping with bits of flavor and most of that ties back into the actual gameplay. If you've played it, you know how. If you haven't, go find an open copy somewhere and someone to teach you. It's great!
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Aug 7, 2015 19:10
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Where would you guys rank Caverna on the worker placement totem pole? I enjoyed it and like the never-random startup and different available strategies for cave/field so people can't easily block you out. I ended up buying it for $80 last night since it came with the token organizer too. At worst, if/when our group ever tires of it, I'll have an organizer and components for practically any game lol
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Aug 7, 2015 19:12
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Frush posted:Yeah, granted that the box not going all the way down is an unfortunate, if stylisitc choice. My friend who owns it keeps it pretty pristine though, so I never would've thought of it if you hadn't mentioned. I throw my games in my backpack all the time since I travel a lot and take public transportation to all of my games meetups. Once the corner frayed on the top of that tiny lid the whole thing came apart really fast. Both are far better games than Waterdeep, though they're also just good games in general. Caylus has been the best pure worker placement since it was released (Keyflower gives it competition but that's got all the auction and pick-up-and-deliver and tableau building going on) and I don't expect that to change anytime soon - it's got the most player interaction, great mechanics with no randomness, and it plays pretty quick (90 min for 3p if people aren't stalling out, much faster once they're experienced) and lets you have a nice mix of interesting position play and crazy huge power turns where you're fighting players for the right spots on the build cycle. Really nothing like it, though Agricola does a bunch of good stuff with respect to engine building and setting up an interesting house and buffs and playing around the harvests. If you're around Sunday, might be able to get games in online - they're both available for free if you know where to look (I forget agricola but caylus is on bga) and both pretty easy to learn.
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Aug 7, 2015 19:13
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Andarel posted:I feel like accusations of how bad Thunderstone is are often drastically overrated, but Thunderstone Advanced made so many things so much better that I sometimes forget how much normal Thunderstone sucked. I'm assuming that the game I played was Thunderstone Advanced, in which case no, Thunderstone (both versions) is actually that bad.
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Aug 7, 2015 19:13
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Tekopo posted:I like how you think That's because it's your argument! 
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Aug 7, 2015 19:14
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Andarel posted:Yeah, seems perfectly reasonable. Then get them to play Caylus! Clearly we did ourselves a favor by going directly to t:a
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Aug 7, 2015 19:14
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Kai Tave posted:I'm assuming that the game I played was Thunderstone Advanced, in which case no, Thunderstone (both versions) is actually that bad. thunderstone advance has advance in huge letters on the box
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Aug 7, 2015 19:15
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Chill la Chill posted:Where would you guys rank Caverna on the worker placement totem pole? I enjoyed it and like the never-random startup and different available strategies for cave/field so people can't easily block you out. I ended up buying it for $80 last night since it came with the token organizer too. I think Caverna is a simpler, easier game than many WP games - and for me, that makes it also a better game as well. I find the likes of Agricola way too punishing. My favourite WP game is Tzolk'in though, so...
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Aug 7, 2015 19:15
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Chill la Chill posted:Where would you guys rank Caverna on the worker placement totem pole? I enjoyed it and like the never-random startup and different available strategies for cave/field so people can't easily block you out. I ended up buying it for $80 last night since it came with the token organizer too. Caylus > Keyflower (only slightly) > Agricola > Caverna (only slightly, personal preference here) = Tzolk'in > Village >> Waterdeep = Euphoria > Stone Age > The Manhattan Project If you're including weird poo poo, Madeira should be up with Tzolk'in and Caverna and Fields of Arle with Village. Alien Frontiers either around where Village is or below Manhattan Project depending on how fast your group plays.
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Aug 7, 2015 19:18
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Haha that reminds me: I got Stone Age years ago and forgot it was even a worker placement cuz of all the dice. The cup still smells awful after all this time and I think Caverna might be he proper upgrade replacement for it. I'll look into Caylus, thanks.
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Aug 7, 2015 19:22
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If you want to do crazy poo poo with workers and action dice Madeira is really good and people should play it at least once. Also Roll for the Galaxy but that's definitely a different sort of game.
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Aug 7, 2015 19:23
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Captain Foo posted:thunderstone advance has advance in huge letters on the box Some quick Google searching confirms that we were in fact playing Thunderstone Advanced based on card layout and terminology. It's still pretty bad.
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Aug 7, 2015 19:26
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Kai Tave posted:Some quick Google searching confirms that we were in fact playing Thunderstone Advanced based on card layout and terminology. Which set(s)? I usually run Epic Thunderstone using Towers of Ruin, Caverns of Bane, Worlds Collide, and Into the Abyss. It's not all that great but it's not bad and people enjoy it even if it takes longer than it should (a problem all Thunderstone sets have had). Can't really complain, people like it when it hits the table a few times a year. Captain Foo posted:Clearly we did ourselves a favor by going directly to t:a You're not missing much. And the only really awesome poo poo from OG thunderstone has been reprinted in Worlds Collide / Into the Abyss anyways I think. Edit: Except Flame. Flame was cool. Andarel fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Aug 7, 2015 |
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Aug 7, 2015 19:29
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Andarel posted:Which set(s)? Lord I have no earthly idea and no desire to try again and find out. The game was such a miserable go-nowhere slog that we had to start passing around an active player token because we were forgetting whose turn it was to play, a thing that has never happened in any other game I've ever played before. We spent two hours and change passing our turns accomplishing gently caress-all save for random luck and were nowhere near the part of the monster deck where the boss was hiding.
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Aug 7, 2015 19:33
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Soothing Vapors posted:My man. Oh, you best believe I've got that Mage Knight set up downstairs. Because it's darker there, and when I inadvertently look into the mirror that backs the wet bar, it is harder to see the tears streaming down my face as I flip chits alone. SlyFrog fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Aug 7, 2015 |
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Aug 7, 2015 19:41
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E: ^^ hahahaha I just picked up Eminent Domain: Microcosm, the 2p micro game in the same universe as EmDom. I am excited to try it out, but I was also excited to see that it comes with some promos for Eminent Domain that are starting setup scenarios. I think that is a feature added in the Escalation exp (which I don't have) so this way I can kind of get that aspect until the KS delivers the expansions to me!
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Aug 7, 2015 19:43
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Andarel posted:If you want to do crazy poo poo with workers and action dice Madeira is really good and people should play it at least once. I've had my eye on Roll for the Galaxy for a couple months now. I'm probably gonna pick it up soon. My girlfriend refuses to play Race for the Galaxy because she has trouble understanding the "cards as currency" rule (  ), but Roll looks a lot easier to understand, what with your currency being the dice faces that you ended up with.
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Aug 7, 2015 19:46
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I read through the Keyflower thread and it looks pretty good. Just wonder if it's worth it to get the two expansions along with it on the Kickstarter or just get the base game? It's more than double the price to add the expansions and I've read that you can really only play with one at a time or it'll get too muddled. So maybe it's just better to pick one if you don't go base only? The promo tile looks like it only goes with Farmers. That shouldn't be a decider, but suppose it's something to think about. So Keyflower fans, which is your favorite expansion? Or are you all about that base? I've been wanting a tile based game for a while, but after my group played Suburbia at Gencon, it was vetoed. Keeping track of all of the little changes each tile makes to the board is a real pain in the rear end. Didn't help that the guy running the demo disappeared. Plus the one guy with us that hadn't had a chance to play the app version made bad choices and ended up in a death spiral of negative income. He eventually left to go to an event and we just made his suburb a huge lake, removing the last tile each turn. Looks like Castles will win that prize. That means I don't have to buy it since another member of our group already said she wants to get it.
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Aug 7, 2015 19:58
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Farmers is okay, best if you think you'll play 5p or 6p a lot. Merchants is good, but really best if you're playing 2p or 3p a lot. Merchants is definitely the better of the two. Game has plenty of life even without expansions so I wouldn't worry too much about it.
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Aug 7, 2015 20:10
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So since i am going to be one of the first ones into the new Mage Knight expansion when it gets here, is it like Lost Legion where you just add it in to the base game or is this stuff you keep seperate? It kind of sounded like it was separate considering how different the mechanics are. Hopefully i don't get a bad copy 
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Aug 7, 2015 20:16
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HOOLY BOOLY posted:So since i am going to be one of the first ones into the new Mage Knight expansion when it gets here, is it like Lost Legion where you just add it in to the base game or is this stuff you keep seperate? It kind of sounded like it was separate considering how different the mechanics are. You can add some to the base game. You can choose to use the Dark Crusader/Elemental enemy bonuses or not. The other pieces are more suited for the expansion scenarios. I plan on tossing the new enemies in the main game. sonatinas fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Aug 7, 2015 |
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Aug 7, 2015 20:21
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So for people with the Mage Knight expansion what are you doing about the smaller token size? Just ignore it? I was really excited until I heard about the printing issues. All of my cards are sleeved so that isn't really an issue for me.
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Aug 7, 2015 20:23
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Kaddish posted:So for people with the Mage Knight expansion what are you doing about the smaller token size? Just ignore it? I was really excited until I heard about the printing issues. All of my cards are sleeved so that isn't really an issue for me. I actually need to see if I got a bad copy or not. If so, I'll just use bags. I think I'm going to try it this weekend. I do like the Lost Relic scenario because sometimes you just want to play a short game and 1 day / night sounds pretty good. And you start off with additional cards.
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Aug 7, 2015 20:26
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