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GrandpaPants posted:Cuba Libre is getting an expansion? That's sorta weird. For some reason, I like the idea of COIN games being "complete," unlike other games which could very easily have expansions (Forbidden Stars, for example) if needed. Just very...huh.
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Aug 19, 2015 20:43
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GrandpaPants posted:Cuba Libre is getting an expansion? That's sorta weird. For some reason, I like the idea of COIN games being "complete," unlike other games which could very easily have expansions (Forbidden Stars, for example) if needed. Just very...huh. Sounds more like an alternate campaign, more than anything else. I think it's a good idea to squeeze some more games of you are somehow lucky enough to play CL enough to be bored of it
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Aug 19, 2015 20:44
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Azran posted:What does COIN mean, by the way? I've seen it mentioned on post Cold War military talkd but Google is failing me. COunter INsurgency
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Aug 19, 2015 20:46
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If the game is fast enough to permit it, I like to pare out elements during the teaching playthrough. This is especially helpful when there are cards or abilities that are allowed to "break" the rules. Take King of Tokyo, for example. It helps to play through some turns without the mechanic of the upgrade cards or energy cubes. That way, players learn the core interactions without getting confused about the card interactions ("You can't heal with hearts past 10, unless you have a card that lets you") The Resistance Avalon is muuuch easier to follow for players without the special character cards/Lady of the Lake.
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Aug 19, 2015 21:32
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A lot of COIN games on that website say they need between 1 and 4 players to play - is that true? Can you play Cuba Libre or similar with three or two players or is it Not As Good?
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Aug 19, 2015 21:38
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Impermanent posted:A lot of COIN games on that website say they need between 1 and 4 players to play - is that true? Can you play Cuba Libre or similar with three or two players or is it Not As Good? You still need all 4 factions, but the game comes with an AI flowchart that lets you fill in missing factions if you don't have enough players.
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Aug 19, 2015 21:41
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Skyl3lazer posted:twitch.tv/theislandgames Oh, TI3. Hours spent so far: 6. Number of viewers: 1, soon to be 0.  Dre2Dee2 posted:I always use someone's video on the internet, it's just the best way. The two games I bought recently had Watch It Played instructionals, but I don't think they had the tech setup to show it even if I wanted to try and introduce my group to Rodney. Also, I had never actually played either before, despite being familiar with the rules. So, I read through the rulebooks of both, because I had to refresh myself as well as others. I think that reading the rulebook aloud has something of a bad wrap. I mean, I know a lot of people do not have great diction or reading comprehension, so it can be dull. However, for moderately complicated and/or long games, I would rather be bored for an extra 30-45 minutes once than play through a chunk of a game or two and then have someone go "Oh no, I forgot about XYZ, that's actually really important welp welp" One thing I will say: the Sheriff of Nottingham rulebook is quite excellent for clear and readable rules, providing examples and introducing some strategies. The Specter Ops rules, not so much.. which I suppose is to be expected considering it is way more complicated and the rulebook is probably half the size. We had a problem as to whether someone could drive the car 10 spaces and then get out. I'm sure the answer is out there, but we just agreed to go 9 and step out.
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Aug 19, 2015 21:41
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Impermanent posted:A lot of COIN games on that website say they need between 1 and 4 players to play - is that true? Can you play Cuba Libre or similar with three or two players or is it Not As Good? The games come with flowcharts for the factions to play themselves, or you can group up related factions. The flowcharts do a decent job of handling the factions (some more so than others) and while they're not near as fun as having a human player they can fill in if you're short a person.
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Aug 19, 2015 21:43
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The AI does and will win games, as well.
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Aug 19, 2015 22:08
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I insist on reading aloud from the rulebooks. (For Space Alert, Galaxy Trucker, and Dungeon Plordz.) (For the parts that are narrative.)
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Aug 19, 2015 22:21
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cenotaph posted:COunter INsurgency Which is weird because some use blocks rather than counters.
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Aug 19, 2015 22:26
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homullus posted:Which is weird because some use blocks rather than counters. 
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Aug 19, 2015 22:50
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homullus posted:Which is weird because some use blocks rather than counters. I hate you.
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Aug 19, 2015 22:53
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Regarding solo play in Mage Knight, what makes cards 17-20 "competitive", and thus needing taken out? They seem normal enough... 17 Into the Heat 18 Steady Tempo 19 Diplomacy 20 In need
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Aug 19, 2015 22:54
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That's the advanced actions deck you're looking at. It's spells 17-20 you remove.
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Aug 19, 2015 22:57
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You should probably remove In Need anyway.
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Aug 19, 2015 22:58
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It got buffed in Lost Legion!!!! Note: may still be terrible
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Aug 19, 2015 23:00
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Well poo poo, I'm an idiot 
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Aug 19, 2015 23:29
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Soothing Vapors posted:It got buffed in Lost Legion!!!! Note: may still be terrible It is. It's a card you take on level up because you took like eight wounds between you and your army and are next to a monastery or village. It's still helpful then, but it might as well be a wound itself for how useful it is the rest of the game.
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Aug 20, 2015 00:00
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Watching the Watch it Played videos for Arcadia Quest my takeaway is that it looks too swingy for my tastes. So much of it was well I hope I can get some hits here *rolls all the wrong side* or man I could use some defense here *rolls all blanks.* I get that the game Rodney and his son were playing was like a fresh start where you haven't leveled/geared up or anything, but even if things get better later on feel like this is an example of "random done wrong." So what are the decent games out there that do the whole dungeon crawling, monster fighting, leveling up thing? I know about Descent and Imperial Assault already. I've heard good things about the D&D boardgames (Wrath of Ashardalon et al) but have no hands-on experience with them. And I've heard mention of a game in this thread called Claustrophobia which I see is only a two player game but seems to be well regarded.
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Aug 20, 2015 00:06
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I picked up a bunch of KMC Perfect Fit sleeves for way cheap (usually 3c each, I got them for like 1c)-- they seem really nice for sleeving a bunch of stuff at once, like I am doing with my new copy of Arctic Scavengers. I am curious why I don't hear more people don't seem to use them for sleeving stuff more often. I know they are meant for inner sleeves, but do they split a lot or something when used as the only sleeve? They seem pretty loving nicely cut for normal sized card games, as they are nice and thin. jeeves fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Aug 20, 2015 |
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Aug 20, 2015 00:13
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jeeves posted:I picked up a bunch of KMC Perfect Fit sleeves for way cheap (usually 3c each, I got them for like 1c)-- they seem really nice for sleeving a bunch of stuff at once, like I am doing with my new copy of Arctic Scavengers. I've never used anything but the Ultra Pro penny sleeves 
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Aug 20, 2015 00:17
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jeeves posted:I picked up a bunch of KMC Perfect Fit sleeves for way cheap (usually 3c each, I got them for like 1c)-- they seem really nice for sleeving a bunch of stuff at once, like I am doing with my new copy of Arctic Scavengers. I use these all the time, as an "inner sleeve". They're designed to be such a nice fit that you can put a second normal sleeve over them in the other direction, and basically seal the card in. Great for small bar games like Love Letter, etc where drinks may be spilled. They're also nice when a game has an insert that works really well for everything but sleeved cards (ie Lords of Waterdeep)
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Aug 20, 2015 02:01
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jeeves posted:I picked up a bunch of KMC Perfect Fit sleeves for way cheap (usually 3c each, I got them for like 1c)-- they seem really nice for sleeving a bunch of stuff at once, like I am doing with my new copy of Arctic Scavengers. Kmc hyper mattes feel a lot better in my goony hands
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Aug 20, 2015 02:11
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jeeves posted:I picked up a bunch of KMC Perfect Fit sleeves for way cheap (usually 3c each, I got them for like 1c)-- they seem really nice for sleeving a bunch of stuff at once, like I am doing with my new copy of Arctic Scavengers. I sleeve all my poo poo in those and haven't had any problems with them. Serious sleevers tell me they're really not meant to be the main sleeve but vOv they're way better than the penny sleeves I used to use for not much more fozzy fosbourne posted:Kmc hyper mattes feel a lot better in my goony hands definitely, but they're way more expensive
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Aug 20, 2015 02:27
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jeeves posted:KMC Perfect Fit sleeves I use these for Mage Knight and Thunderbolt-Apache Leader. I find them almost as easy to shuffle as unsleeved cards (penny sleeves are unusable to me), without adding the bulk that nice sleeves like Dragon Shields do - and they're transparent, letting me appreciate the backs of the cards. Haven't had any split, and the MK ones get shuffled a fair bit.
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Aug 20, 2015 02:39
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Diosamblet posted:They're also nice when a game has an insert that works really well for everything but sleeved cards (ie Lords of Waterdeep) The first thing you should do after purchasing Lords of Waterdeep is bag/planobox everything and toss out that god awful insert.
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Aug 20, 2015 02:54
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Why do people hate Star Realms so much? What makes it inherently less skillful than Dominion?
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Aug 20, 2015 04:17
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Played a game of Forbidden Stars as Chaos and ended up in last for various reasons including I'm bad at strategy board games. Took about four hours and I was the newbie to the game also. I'd probably try it again just to see if I could play better since most of the individual decisions were simple enough to parse through and I made a number of obvious play mistakes. It does take a while and I doubt there's anything to avoid that, but it's relatively simple compared to other 4X games. Probably because 1 of the Xs are gone and another isn't really all that necessary. The other game played tonight was Epic Spell Wars and we did three players in 45 minutes.
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Aug 20, 2015 04:19
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Who said I also didn't hate dominion?
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Aug 20, 2015 04:21
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The one concern I'd have with perfect fits is having the one exposed edge getting worn because the sleeve isn't quite long enough. I think that's the main concern with them being designed to be used with other sleeves - they're certainly well-made and I wouldn't really be worried about them splitting. Honestly for a board game like Dominion where you're more worried about not letting cards get marked than you are about preserving ~~resale value~~ or whatever they're probably totally fine, I'd definitely use them over penny sleeves if I felt like sleeving up that many cards.
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Aug 20, 2015 04:27
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S.T.C.A. posted:Why do people hate Star Realms so much? What makes it inherently less skillful than Dominion? When you're going to make a purchase out of the center row, there is typically a clear-cut Best Card for you to purchase. If, by the luck of the draw, the Best Cards for you to buy are better than the Best Cards your opponent are able to buy, your opponent will win. For example, there's a very high chance that your opponent may get plenty of cards that allow him to Scrap and trim his deck down to a lean, mean killing machine. You might not get any of these cards because of the way the center market works. This is unlike Dominion, where if Chapel is on the board, everyone can trash cards from their deck. In Dominion, everyone has the exact same toolset to work with, and the skill is being able to look at that toolset and created the most well-balanced deck. In Star Realms, everyone has a completely different toolset to work with and the winner is typically the player who had the best toolset randomly available to them.
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Aug 20, 2015 04:31
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quote:Why do people hate Star Realms so much? What makes it inherently less skillful than Dominion? There's a good amount of skill involved in playing Star Realms. The absolute skill cap is probably higher than Dominion, to be honest, as the game state is very complex and for perfect play you'd need to work out some painfully complicated probability based on what's left in the deck. People may say it's not a skill game, but for the most part this is a confused complaint about the amount of luck in the game. And there's a heavy component of luck. Most egregiously, one player will often come out of their first turn with a tremendous advantage (especially when playing with gambits; first turn acquire a Freighter and put it on top of my deck, you get Explorers.. second turn buy Brain World... uh... do we need to play this out?). Barring something like that, a very strong player will defeat a poor player usually, but games between reasonably matched opponents will swing hard based on what cards come up. You're in blue/red and those colors dry up? Whoops, you lose hard (assuming your opponent is in different colors and has similar skill). On the other end, sometimes you do get a reasonable set of cards, but even the right cards can be hamstrung by not coming up together (the ally mechanic is very luck dependent). Even for a short game, the amount of luck in Star Realms makes it unsatisfying to play (compared to a game like Dominion). Other complaints (I'll speed-round these, since there's lots): too many turns have auto-pilot decisions (or no real decisions at all). Usually you have almost no decisions while playing cards - you don't even have an action economy or something - so the only decisions are "what to buy" and even that's easy most of the time (though it can sometimes be very skillful, this isn't often). The game is fiddly to play in real life (lots of stuff to mess with and keep count of on long turns). Card balance is really poor, even within the main set. Game state can be really abusive (eg. unlimited discard can lock one player out of playing long before the game ends), and often the game will end with someone "going off" in a really boring long turn. There's also a real lack of variety (as every game you're playing with the same chunk of cards), and the limited selection of what to buy limits players agency in trying new things (ie. you can't really try going "Heavy X" or whatever, because you're at the mercy of what the market shows). The game often falls into repetitive ruts as people aim for the kinds of decks they've aimed for before, and the outcome comes down to chance. Anyway, I don't hate Star Realms. I sometimes knock out a few games on my phone. But there's lots of better games out there, even among casual, loosely designed games (eg. while I don't love Hearthstone, it's a better design). jmzero fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Aug 20, 2015 |
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Aug 20, 2015 04:39
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S.T.C.A. posted:Why do people hate Star Realms so much? What makes it inherently less skillful than Dominion? It's a far simpler game with a much larger random component due to the way the cards come out. It also doesn't give you a ton of choices (although I'd argue that Dominion often doesn't either for most of your turns). The two really shouldn't even be compared though. Star Realms goes for $15 and is competing with microgames, not Dominion.
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Aug 20, 2015 04:52
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Played a game of Dominion last night with someone who had all the expansions. Rats ended up being part of the kingdom. The only thing approximating a synergy piece with Rats was Philosopher's Stone. Someone kept Swindler-ing everyone's stuff into Rats. Beat him with Rats-Stones  The third player beat both our combined scores because the Swindlers barely affected him so he stocked up on Stash, Harem, and Provinces/Gold 
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Aug 20, 2015 05:15
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RE Star Realms: read this tournament report from the semi-finals of the BGG league (so presumably a reasonable standard of play) and note how many times the key point is good cards being shuffled on to the bottom of the deck instead of near the top. The classic unfair example of Freighter --> Brain World actually loses because Brain World is shuffled to the bottom. Star Realms is almost entirely a game of buying better cards than your opponent from a random offering and hoping you draw them early enough or in the right combinations to matter. This is exacerbated by almost every card being way better than a 'Silver' equivalent so you the game accelerates hard and early shuffles are crazy important. Finally any remotely close game will come down to a really swingy end-game by design, the game might as well be a coin flip for a large range of skill differentials.
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Aug 20, 2015 05:36
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Bubble-T posted:RE Star Realms: read this tournament report from the semi-finals of the BGG league (so presumably a reasonable standard of play) and note how many times the key point is good cards being shuffled on to the bottom of the deck instead of near the top. The classic unfair example of Freighter --> Brain World actually loses because Brain World is shuffled to the bottom. Nonsense, there's plenty of skill in Star Realms. It just so happens that the skills required to win consistently are the same skills that are required to perform amateur magician card tricks.
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Aug 20, 2015 06:20
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Star Realms is terrible 1 on 1 but pretty fun in a group, at least in my experience.
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Aug 20, 2015 06:32
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Oh also Rob Dougherty admitted on BGG that he didn't know whether first or second player had an advantage which always makes me laugh. These guys were MTG hall of famers, if they don't have the stats to answer that question it means they either didn't playtest their game at all or they did and just half-assed it.
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Aug 20, 2015 06:41
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Bubble-T posted:Oh also Rob Dougherty admitted on BGG that he didn't know whether first or second player had an advantage which always makes me laugh. These guys were MTG hall of famers, if they don't have the stats to answer that question it means they either didn't playtest their game at all or they did and just half-assed it. They definitely half assed it. Star Realms and ascension are a joke.
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