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Broken Loose posted:Okay, so I typed out a really loving long and thoughtful post to respond to this once already and then Chrome ate it. So, excuse me if I'm a little short. You seem way too mad about Hasbro. I think Hasbro is a good company.
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Aug 29, 2015 19:09
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Broken Loose posted:Okay, so I typed out a really loving long and thoughtful post to respond to this once already and then Chrome ate it. So, excuse me if I'm a little short. I read your post, and the one this quote came from. There didn't seem to be anything hard to understand about them. You are heavily invested in the game scene & it as a growing industry and don't agree with some of this directions this growth has taken and the impact you see it having & continuing to have on the industry as a whole. The Hasbro contest pushes all the wrong buttons and in all the wrong directions. You don't shrug and think "whatever, not for me" because you are heavily invested in Games. Being Invested (time, money, attention, feelings, work done... it all counts) leads to feeling Entitled (in the dictionary sense, not the snarky dismissive one) about what's going on, which is why you wrote two recent (three counting the one Chrome ate) long thoughtful posts on how Hasbro's contest is not just something that exists in a vacuum to be taken or left - it is actively harmful because it encourages, legitimizes, and perpetuates many of the things that have gone wrong and continue to go wrong in the industry's growth. I also think you're extra invested (and frustrated) by your experiences in bringing your interesting game to life, and you see the state and direction of the industry as obstacles and contributing factors. But I might be talking out my rear end on that, I'm not a mind reader. I think I understood. I also think you read more into my post than I put there. My bone to pick was with people focusing so much on scary-sounding & out of context legal language as evidence that something was bad. In anything complex (and everything that involves things that haven't happened yet, even more so things that aren't physical "things") you're gonna find them and they are probably not just there to trap you. Do or don't do business with someone for whatever reasons you figure get you into heaven, that's your business. Some of the posting touched a nerve because I have dealt with people on both sides who are so legally paranoid and so jealously guarded about their secrets (or of being taken advantage of) that nothing can get done and it's frustrating as hell. You could say I see it as a real problem in the creating-new-things industry, in which I am invested. By the way, unrelated to anything really but as a point of interest between IGG and KS, IGG is by far the more outgoing and exploratory / experimental of the two organizations. It's not surprising they were willing to try this out with Hasbro whereas KS probably went "eh what we're doing seems to be working just fine so  "
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Aug 29, 2015 19:10
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Xelkelvos posted:You seem way too mad about Hasbro. I think Hasbro is a good company. He has a point though. It's really weird that this contest boils down to "run a successful crowdfunding pitch for your game" because if you could do that then presumably you don't need Hasbro to swoop in at the last minute, you could just publish your game yourself. I say this even knowing of the many myriad tradgame small publishing fuckups out there, but there have also been plenty of successes too so I dunno, reading over the contest and what it entails I don't immediately come away from it thinking "wow what an amazing opportunity!" even if it isn't a sinister scheme for Hasbro to kidnap your IP rights and also your dog. Also it's kind of weird how it's specifically an Indiegogo campaign. I wonder if they tried reaching out to Kickstarter first and KS, for whatever reason, told them no.
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Aug 29, 2015 19:14
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Has anyone heard about/tried Star Trek Five-Year Mission? It's a co-op with real-time elements where you have to stop red threats from destroying your ship... Seems like it could have potential. But it's also a dice placement game that might be way too simple. Anyway, need some goon reviews.
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Aug 29, 2015 19:36
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Sounds like you need to be more of a Hasbro and less of a Hasbron't. I finally got Smallworld to the table and it was a hit. We really liked the art and accessibility. Everything you needed to know was right there for you. Not a terrible amount of down time and the mechanics seemed natural. People are eager to play again and see new combinations. It's definitely the lightest wargame in my collection, but we just moved and I'm fostering a new community. Also nice to just have some beers and play something small and casual. People are still pretty intimidated by some of the heavier stuff, so it was a good confidence builder. Picked up the Be Not Afraid expansion so we'll throw that in next time. The criticism about the game being "solvable" is pretty accurate. You can absolutely try to min-max your way through it, and you can definitely step away from the table, make the most efficient move, and walk away. But sometimes you need to. It was nice to watch other people and chip in on where they should go or who to pressure. Plus the lore/traits made some fun interactions. I'm also not a huge fan of static maps, but they have their place. Overall a lot of fun. A nice lightweight add.
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Aug 29, 2015 20:11
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Kai Tave posted:He has a point though. It's really weird that this contest boils down to "run a successful crowdfunding pitch for your game" because if you could do that then presumably you don't need Hasbro to swoop in at the last minute, you could just publish your game yourself. You're right - do you NEED a publisher? No. But publishers do have something to offer. They can bring a lot of very real advantages to things like production, marketing, and fulfillment - which applies to post-crowdfunding. The end of a KS campaign (aka fundraising) is the beginning of the REAL work in many ways and maybe you want to do something with your weekends like take your kids to the park instead of working 
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Aug 29, 2015 20:29
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The Mantis posted:Sounds like you need to be more of a Hasbro and less of a Hasbron't. Smallworld is like the Splendor of Wargames. It's the water mark with which you can measure that entire genre. I've been thinking of picking up the Tales and Legends expansion but I really haven't heard a lot about it.
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Aug 30, 2015 00:05
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The Mantis posted:I finally got Smallworld to the table and it was a hit. We really liked the art and accessibility. Everything you needed to know was right there for you. Not a terrible amount of down time and the mechanics seemed natural. People are eager to play again and see new combinations. If you don't hate Small World, it's absolutely worth it to pick up all the army expansions (Cursed, Grand Dames, Be Not Afraid, Royal Bonus, Spider's Web). Base Small World has a problem where the Elves are clearly the best race, but once you add in Gypsies, Kobolds, and the other top tiers the problem levels out. Sadly, Dwarves are still terrible and will never get good (even if you house rule them*). *Quote The General: "gently caress house rules. I literally paid money for somebody else to write the rules."** **That said, if Dwarves get a bonus coin on Mines and Mountains (stacking with each other), they come slightly closer to playable, but they still have way too few tokens to actually be worth using.
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Aug 30, 2015 00:37
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why is boardgamewarehouse's website so tremendously lovely? Every time I've ever tried to visit it or order something it takes upwards of 5 minutes for every. single. request. I've been trying to place an order for 52 minutes now, knowing exactly what items I want. Searching for an item or adding it to the cart takes a ridiculous amount of time for each and every one. I would just order from somewhere else, but they're the only one I've found with the specific things I want in stock at one place. edit: I should add I tried to make this same order earlier, but my cart timed out and emptied everything before I could actually complete the order. i give up Hauki fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Aug 30, 2015 |
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Aug 30, 2015 00:46
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Myrmidongs posted:Smallworld is like the Splendor of Wargames. It's the water mark with which you can measure that entire genre. I've been thinking of picking up the Tales and Legends expansion but I really haven't heard a lot about it. I have Tales and Legends, but haven't played with it yet. You deal a deck of cards for however many turns there are. Each turn you have an active card and can see the next turn's card. These cards are (usually) one turn modifiers to the rules. They'll be things like "Everybody has the Commando trait this round", "all forest territories get an extra coin this turn", or "cannot conquer swamps or lakes this turn." Maybe it fixes the problem of the game being "solvable"
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Aug 30, 2015 00:49
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The Mantis posted:Sounds like you need to be more of a Hasbro and less of a Hasbron't. Smallworld: Realms has a set of hex tiles to make custom maps and a book of scenario maps to try out with alternate rules. They're not all super balanced, but making Heroes of Might and Magic-esq maps to play on with alternate rules sound like something you might like if you feel the base map is getting stale. New factions also help a lot to make games different.
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Aug 30, 2015 01:50
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Broken Loose posted:If you don't hate Small World, it's absolutely worth it to pick up all the army expansions (Cursed, Grand Dames, Be Not Afraid, Royal Bonus, Spider's Web). Base Small World has a problem where the Elves are clearly the best race, but once you add in Gypsies, Kobolds, and the other top tiers the problem levels out. Sadly, Dwarves are still terrible and will never get good (even if you house rule them*). My friend swears up and down Skeletons are far and away the most broken and he actually takes them out of the game. Is this actually true or is there something he's missing re: rules/strategy?
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Aug 30, 2015 01:55
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PopZeus posted:My friend swears up and down Skeletons are far and away the most broken and he actually takes them out of the game. Is this actually true or is there something he's missing re: rules/strategy? They're not Elves.
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Aug 30, 2015 02:23
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PopZeus posted:My friend swears up and down Skeletons are far and away the most broken and he actually takes them out of the game. Is this actually true or is there something he's missing re: rules/strategy? (A) You can't kill Elves. (B) This is doubly notable because Elves are a hard counter to Skeletons, since they don't spawn more. Skeletons are a trap race for new players. They discourage players from declining, which is the primary way to score huge points, without making up the difference like Gypsies do. The only time I've seen Skeletons actually win is once in 2p when I specifically tried a risky and dumb strategy (Wealthy White Ladies + Soul Touch second race, decline, take Wealthy bonus again) that cost me an entire turn's worth of economy, which had nothing to do with my opponent's Skeletons. Basically, turns are a resource. The cost of making new Skeletons is immense compared to the actual amount of cash you can realistically get back from them, when a blitzkrieg > decline > second blitzkrieg will get way more money in the long run, especially given that you're not committing to a single race and can shore your losses by swapping out.
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Aug 30, 2015 03:01
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I know that Pathfinders isn't exactly well liked around here, but from reading about it (and the description from someone that it is a "diablo 3 the boardgame") it seems like something my wife and I would like quite a bit, up to and including that it's a bit easier than other co-op games. We are pretty forgiving about certain flaws though I'm interested what some of the bigger issues may be. My main question is - should I get one of the character expansions, and if so, which? With most co-op games like this we generally play 2 characters each, which I'm assuming would be viable here as well. So if one of the expansions has a particularly fun/interesting character then I'll probably pick it up at the same time.
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Aug 30, 2015 05:58
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Gzuz-Kriced posted:I know that Pathfinders isn't exactly well liked around here, but from reading about it (and the description from someone that it is a "diablo 3 the boardgame") it seems like something my wife and I would like quite a bit, up to and including that it's a bit easier than other co-op games. We are pretty forgiving about certain flaws though I'm interested what some of the bigger issues may be. Are you talking about the Pathfinder Card Game? I would recommend against it. My main complaint is that it is extremely random. The entire game is essentially Talisman: move to a place, draw a card, roll a dice against a number on the drawn card, repeat until you win or lose. There is basically no strategy involved. The supposed draw of the game is the leveling aspect, but you have almost no control over what goes into your deck. Do you want your fighter to get a better sword? Well you better hope you randomly draw a better sword during a game and don't flub a dice roll or it's gone forever. Meanwhile the actual stat level ups are basically a bunch of +1s to the various dice rolls you make which is the height of  Similar but better games: LotR LCG, Shadowrun: Crossfire, probably the upcoming Warhammer Quest Adventure Card Game. As for your question, the character pack has the Barbarian, Druid, Monk and Paladin. I found the Druid to be one of the funner classes to play. If you're really set on getting the game, you should probably get the character pack just for the variety.
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Aug 30, 2015 06:35
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Ojetor posted:Are you talking about the Pathfinder Card Game? I would recommend against it. My main complaint is that it is extremely random. The entire game is essentially Talisman: move to a place, draw a card, roll a dice against a number on the drawn card, repeat until you win or lose. There is basically no strategy involved. The supposed draw of the game is the leveling aspect, but you have almost no control over what goes into your deck. Do you want your fighter to get a better sword? Well you better hope you randomly draw a better sword during a game and don't flub a dice roll or it's gone forever. Meanwhile the actual stat level ups are basically a bunch of +1s to the various dice rolls you make which is the height of Should have clarified, yes I meant the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. Good to know. My understanding was that there was a mechanic that made you want to stay in a level longer to "loot" in hopes to get that random item. I think I'm okay with that aspect. To give an example of maybe why this won't be a big deal to us: we like Legend of Drizzt (and the others) but don't like that there's really no progression between missions. There's other issues I have with that game, but that about sums it up. I'm not sure there's a lot of strategy in Drizzt beyond that either, at least on a battle by battle basis, but we still have fun with it. It sounded like Pathfinders was sort of similar, albeit more random because of the deck drawing. We own Lotr LCG and a few of the expansions, but we haven't played it in years due to it beating us down a few too many times. It just was more frustrating than fun, even though I really want to like it. The final straw was me looking up strategies and having a lot of suggestions for deck building end in us having to buy another core set, which I had no desire to do. I'm sure we'll bring it back out again at some point. edit: For some reason, despite the reviews I read, I never looked at the pictures itself. For whatever reason I thought it was a game you move characters around a board and such, but I guess not. Gzuz-Kriced fucked around with this message at 06:50 on Aug 30, 2015 |
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Aug 30, 2015 06:43
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Broken Loose posted:(A) You can't kill Elves. It seems a little contradictory to note that Elves are powerful because you can't kill them, and then claim Skeletons are bad because they replace their losses to maintain their numbers and trick players into not declining. And Elves do not counter Skeletons in any particular way or prevent Skeletons from spawning.
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Aug 30, 2015 06:51
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Gzuz-Kriced posted:edit: For some reason, despite the reviews I read, I never looked at the pictures itself. For whatever reason I thought it was a game you move characters around a board and such, but I guess not. There isn't a board or anything (the game is entirely cards) but your characters do move between locations. Basically each location is a deck of cards and you move between them in order to draw from different location decks.
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Aug 30, 2015 06:56
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Ojetor posted:There isn't a board or anything (the game is entirely cards) but your characters do move between locations. Basically each location is a deck of cards and you move between them in order to draw from different location decks. I have no idea why I thought it was. I think when I first heard about it they had mentioned some game with a board along with it. Considering that, does anyone have a recommendation for a co-op game? We just moved so we were using that as an excuse to get a new game. I was going to ask for something that was similar to what I thought Pathfinders was (move along a board, complete quests, level up, etc.) but I realized we actually own quite a few of those so I'm not sure there's a lot more out there. I guess it doesn't have to be co-op but it can't be a game where players directly effect others through attacks, and it would have to be something good with 2 people.
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Aug 30, 2015 07:14
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The real problem with the Pathfinder Card Game is that it's dull as poo poo. For the sheer number of games you're expected to play to make up a campaign, there's not enough new stuff to put into your deck, and if you get good stuff out the gate your deck will stay static for about 15 games. Which is a shame because it's a neat idea and if they just made it a bit more complex it'd be great. I was wondering if Skulls + Shackles would actually accomplish that, but I don't want to drop that much money to find out.
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Aug 30, 2015 07:23
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PerniciousKnid posted:It seems a little contradictory to note that Elves are powerful because you can't kill them, and then claim Skeletons are bad because they replace their losses to maintain their numbers and trick players into not declining. Derp, I don't know why I seemed to remember the Elves not producing Skeletons. I'm sure I haven't made that mistake ingame, though. I remember it applying to a different situation, but I can't remember what it was. No, the first issue is that you can still kill Skeletons. It's possible for stupid people to allow Skeletons to grow in number, but they will only have a surplus for a single turn at most. If the point of the Skeletons is that they're really powerful defensively, they're still a much shittier version of Trolls or anything with an immunity power like Halflings. Additionally, since their defenses aren't automatic like Encampments, Fortresses, Troll Lairs, Heroes, or whatever, they're no better off than most other races in that matter. You can still outnumber them the old-fashioned way, the odds of them taking a huge hit is high due to the action cost of getting more Skeletons, and they don't have a means to protect themselves when they spread out due to trying to play the long war. Offensively, they don't generate enough tokens to compensate for the lack of a battle power. Tritons, for example, can cream a few coasts in their first turn-- each one corresponds to essentially a free token, and they start with 6 just like Skeletons! Skeletons don't get good until you've spent at least a turn building them up, and even at that point their only strength is easily taken out by just opponents playing the game regularly. Finally, and this is major, they don't have an economy power in addition to not having an offensive or defensive power. They're just shittier Ratmen. The difference is that Ratmen are the equivalent of Skeletons who have already been on the field for a turn (and didn't get touched by any opponents in the process). Even Sorcerors do it better, because they at least get to immediately use the tokens they gain and score with them. Skeletons absolutely do not "replace their losses" at a speed comparable to Elves never losing dudes. It takes 3 Skeletons to make another Skeleton! The moment you start losing Skeletons, your ability to make more Skeletons is absolutely tanked. Skeletons are actually one of the worse races in Small World. They're not Dwarves bad, but they're White Ladies tier. They absolutely rely on a good special power to make up for their basic unimpressiveness.
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Aug 30, 2015 08:08
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So coup:rebellion is apparently the definitive version of coup at this point. Also one night revolution looks like a lot of fun. Apparently I got the full kickstarter editions from pax prime  Even has a neat fast and simple version of the resistance in each one. Also thinking of getting star realms. Also picked up superfight too. I wish I had the money to get the pathfinder card mats, figurines (more cards!), and the class packs. Wrath of the righteous is better simply for not having a loving ship. GreenBuckanneer fucked around with this message at 11:18 on Aug 30, 2015 |
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Aug 30, 2015 11:15
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Bottom Liner posted:That sounds great. How would you rate it at the various play counts? Does it scale well? It's a little strange at 3 but there's no player count that it doesn't work. It's one of the few games that I've played where the scaling feels right - for example I won't play Eclipse with just two players. The only problems I have with smaller player numbers is when you're building maps the player who places their tile first has an advantage against the player who puts down second. This is because you have to put objective tokens down on each tile you place until you run out. So it means the first player puts down their homeworld then you put a token down on the world next to it. Now there's only 6 squares so it's not a huge deal but the map often looks like this: [E][E] [x][U] [x][U] Where U are ultramarine objectives, top right is the Ultramarine homeworld and bottom right is the Eldar one. And E are Eldar objectives. It always feels a bit strange, but it works. And again as for Tyranids unless you're okay with one player being totally different to everyone else and totally dominating the game I can't see how it'd work. Surely everyone would have to band together against them to prevent them straight up destroying planets? I've just ordered Runewars from Book depository because it's around £40 which is a pretty good deal and I've always wanted to play it (since I love Runebound and Descent). Does anyone know where I can find Banners of War for less than £30?
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Aug 30, 2015 12:12
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With the latest Machi Koro expansion out, I tried a homebrew market row thing and it worked out well enough that I thought I'd share. THE SETUP: a 12-card market row. The 4 leftmost cards are 2 coins cheaper, the next 4 are 1 coin cheaper, the rest are full price. The farthest leftmost slot will decay after every player's turn. I laid out a 4x3 grid with a 20 by the top row, a 10 by the middle row, and a renovation token at the top of the left column DEALS AND DECAY: After every player's turn, if the farthest leftmost slot wasn't bought out, discard one card from it. This might not empty the slot, which is fine. Slide the cards to the left to fill any holes, then replenish the market row up to 12. Cards enter at the bottom right of the market row, and International Exhibit Halls and Gaming Mega Stores return to there when they're used. Even discarding a single card moved us through a pretty big chunk of the deck, and the discounts made for many fewer stalled-out turns.
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Aug 30, 2015 12:37
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I was away for the weekend, so I'm replying a bit late.Rutibex posted:Eldritch Horror QnoisX posted:Codenames, Bang StashAugustine posted:Dominion, Coup, The Resistance, Space Alert, Galaxy Trucker, Cuba Libre Thanks for the suggestions!
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Aug 30, 2015 15:08
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What does everyone think of The Duke? I played yesterday, and it seems a nice 2 player game somewhere between Hive and Chess. I haven't played Tash-Kalar, but they look similar? The tiles feel great, I'm thinking about picking up a copy as another travel game.
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Aug 30, 2015 16:02
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Snake Oil is just plain fun. Works super well, a better CAH. Recommended with beers or alcohol. Fun.
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Aug 30, 2015 16:04
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Bottom Liner posted:What does everyone think of The Duke? I played yesterday, and it seems a nice 2 player game somewhere between Hive and Chess. I haven't played Tash-Kalar, but they look similar? The tiles feel great, I'm thinking about picking up a copy as another travel game. The Duke has really nice components, like Hive. It's cute and unoffensive. It's closer to Hive than Tash-Kalar. That stated, I'm going to make you play Tash-Kalar next time we meet. Or I guess somebody could just teach you on BGA? Eh.
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Aug 30, 2015 16:16
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Gzuz-Kriced posted:I have no idea why I thought it was. I think when I first heard about it they had mentioned some game with a board along with it. Its not a coop game, but if you are looking for a game similar to Pathfinder Cards with a board to move around on you should check out Talisman: Magical Quest Game. The expansions for Talisman are much more interesting and come with many more character classes than Pathfinder.
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Aug 30, 2015 18:10
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Gzuz-Kriced posted:Should have clarified, yes I meant the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. Good to know. My understanding was that there was a mechanic that made you want to stay in a level longer to "loot" in hopes to get that random item. I think I'm okay with that aspect. To give an example of maybe why this won't be a big deal to us: we like Legend of Drizzt (and the others) but don't like that there's really no progression between missions. There's other issues I have with that game, but that about sums it up. I'm not sure there's a lot of strategy in Drizzt beyond that either, at least on a battle by battle basis, but we still have fun with it. It sounded like Pathfinders was sort of similar, albeit more random because of the deck drawing. I really really really want to like LOTR LCG more than I do, but I find it way too hard for my group's liking, and way too fiddly when you add expansion cards to the core set. I wish there was something similar but just slightly simpler. I also don't enjoy deckbuilding
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Aug 30, 2015 18:26
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I played two new stock-trading games yesterday and I'd recommend trying both (but not buying either yet, if you can avoid it). Tesla vs. Edison has an interesting and well-realized theme along with great artwork. We had 5 players and I was Charles F. Brush, one of the 3 inventors who got screwed out of marquee billing. You each have one action per round to spread across 4 systems: setting up power in the city network; developing your scientific abilities (in 3 separate tracks: bulbs, AC power, and DC power); buying and selling stock; and propagandizing. The game lasts for 6 rounds, and every 2 rounds you bid on a partner from the auction row. Each partner can do an action. Obviously, you don't have enough actions to develop all 4 areas--you can even double up your inventor and any number of partners to really advance a particular action, but that limits your focus even more. After only one game, it's difficult to see whether a variety of strategies are viable. Early on, you need to commit to a strategy and if that fails you might be screwed in the long run. It seems like shrewdly speculating on the stocks (you get 4 permanent shares in your own company and can buy up to 4 shares in each of the others, which you can sell later) could be more effective than focusing on building a large network or getting caught up in propaganda wars. The AC vs. DC mechanic is clearly an important part of the theme, but only AC can power Level 5 cities. We all felt that set up a clear imbalance and disincentive for anyone to focus on DC development and propaganda. Once you know the rules, the game should play fairly quickly. A few parts seemed needlessly complex, the limit on number of actions per round seems too strict, and the inventors' unique abilities seemed imbalanced. That said, I'd love to play it again. Stockpile was much simpler. We played with the "advanced" board that has each stock advance differently, but without the unique player roles. In this game, you start with 1 stock, some cash, and a simple board to stack your regular stocks and split stocks. Each round, you get a secret tip on how stocks will perform this round and everyone sees one public tip. Then you get 4 cards dealt to you and 1 card dealt to an auction stack (1 per player). Each player plays 1 of their cards face up and 1 face down on whatever auction stack they prefer, then you bid on each stack until 1 goes to each player. Then you play all the action cards, raise or lower the values of the affected stocks, collect dividends, and sell off whatever stocks you choose. After a certain number of rounds, whoever has the most money wins. This was very easy to learn and also seems like it could play quickly. I won, but feel like that was due to a very fortunate start: my free stock, Epic Electric, was also in my first secret tip, which raised it by 4. Since people had so little information to go on during the first round, I nabbed 2 more EE stocks and by the third round they split. This gave me such a huge early lead that no one else with more volatile stocks could catch up. One player had 4 or 5 Laboratory stocks that all had to be trashed when that stock hit zero, which killed his chances of recovery. I suppose having variables that are almost impossible to anticipate adds to the realism of the theme, but that may make it too random for some people. That said, I'd like to play it more to see whether better knowledge of the mechanics allows you to anticipate and avoid the random aspects.
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Aug 30, 2015 18:43
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Bottom Liner posted:What does everyone think of The Duke? I played yesterday, and it seems a nice 2 player game somewhere between Hive and Chess. I haven't played Tash-Kalar, but they look similar? The tiles feel great, I'm thinking about picking up a copy as another travel game. I've been wanting to try it for a bit since it sounded up my alley, but I already have my chess themed game in For the Crown, a chess deckbuilder. For the Crown is pretty good, too.
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Aug 30, 2015 19:05
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Finally got to try Dungeon Lords. It's been tough to get it to the table since the last few times our gaming group has met we've had 5-6 players and it's limited to 4. Hard to convince one or two people to sit out when you want to play a 2 hour game that no one has played before. Ended up taking longer than that obviously. I think everyone enjoyed it, even though most of us ended up with terrible scores. I think it ended up 31, 6, 5, -5, or something like that. We got completely dominated by one player. Though the guy that ended up with 5 points would have done much better, till we got to the bottom of the score card and had to subtract all of his conquered tiles and unpaid tax cubes. He was the most evil by a massive margin and ended up dealing with the paladins and all of the best adventurers. So 7 of 8 conquered tiles, but he did manage to capture the paladins both times along with half the adventurers. My first year was a complete disaster. I somehow screwed up and had only 1 goblin and a couple of traps to deal with the party. Still managed to save one tile with the pit trap, but the Rogue negated all of the damage. The second year I had the room that lowered all of the adventurers stats, plus all of the weakest adventurers (no rogue), so I held them all there with a slime while I waited out the first spell and then captured the whole party in the second round. Clearly I should have been paying more attention to the titles, because I won none of them. Either way, the player that won by a massive margin had a decent defense the first year, only lost two tunnels. Then used the magic room to breed a massive army of imps. Managed to stay just nice enough to get the second weakest adventuring party, including no wizards either year. Second year, she completely destroyed the adventuring party, so got 16 points just from captured adventurers. Also got around half the titles and had the room that gave +2 for every exclusive title. Generally just cleaned up. Good times. Hopefully next time we play I'll do better. Already devising a strategy to farm money and then try to buy monsters every turn by paying the extra coin to put that action in the first slot. I know I might end up with the third choice a few times, but figured if I always put it in the first slot, I might scare people off from using that action as long as I don't go last in turn order. So hopefully I would get at least the 2nd choice some of the time. I dunno, feeding time might end up being a little rough unless I bought only evil monsters. Either way, buying up the weak monsters would be good so I could feed them to the demons in year 2. I'm sure the game won't take 3 hours next time. Really sucks when people ask me a question about the rules, so I go to look it up in the booklet, and then they're all like: "Are you going to hurry up and issue your orders?" Shut up rear end in a top hat, I'm looking up his rules question. Guess next time I could just throw that book at them and make them look it up themselves.
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Aug 30, 2015 19:34
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QnoisX posted:Finally got to try Dungeon Lords. It's been tough to get it to the table since the last few times our gaming group has met we've had 5-6 players and it's limited to 4. Hard to convince one or two people to sit out when you want to play a 2 hour game that no one has played before. Ended up taking longer than that obviously. I think everyone enjoyed it, even though most of us ended up with terrible scores. I think it ended up 31, 6, 5, -5, or something like that. We got completely dominated by one player. Though the guy that ended up with 5 points would have done much better, till we got to the bottom of the score card and had to subtract all of his conquered tiles and unpaid tax cubes. He was the most evil by a massive margin and ended up dealing with the paladins and all of the best adventurers. So 7 of 8 conquered tiles, but he did manage to capture the paladins both times along with half the adventurers. My first year was a complete disaster. I somehow screwed up and had only 1 goblin and a couple of traps to deal with the party. Still managed to save one tile with the pit trap, but the Rogue negated all of the damage. The second year I had the room that lowered all of the adventurers stats, plus all of the weakest adventurers (no rogue), so I held them all there with a slime while I waited out the first spell and then captured the whole party in the second round. Clearly I should have been paying more attention to the titles, because I won none of them. Either way, the player that won by a massive margin had a decent defense the first year, only lost two tunnels. Then used the magic room to breed a massive army of imps. Managed to stay just nice enough to get the second weakest adventuring party, including no wizards either year. Second year, she completely destroyed the adventuring party, so got 16 points just from captured adventurers. Also got around half the titles and had the room that gave +2 for every exclusive title. Generally just cleaned up. The tax cubes are a real killer. I don't think I've ever won when I was forced to take any of them. One important thing to learn is that getting conquered sometimes isn't that big a deal. I can't tell you how many times I've played through that game thinking I did the best because I did the best job fighting back the heroes just to get beat because somebody else had the most tunnels, the most imps, etc etc. I've rarely seen somebody win by such a large margin as that, so she must have been doing something right! I do think getting a good production room early can make a huge difference, because that way your imps never go to waste. As for your strategy, a monster heavy defense can lead to trouble if you accidentally face a good cleric or two. Also, if you try to buy a ton of monsters you could get screwed on monster pay day when you don't have enough food to feed them all.
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Aug 30, 2015 20:01
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I finally bought Imperial Assault because I'm a big smelly nerd. Looking forward to shelling out :tenbux: every week from now on for new figs.
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Aug 30, 2015 20:10
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The Mantis posted:I finally bought Imperial Assault because I'm a big smelly nerd. Looking forward to shelling out :tenbux: every week from now on for new figs. "Well, I've got too much to comfortably fit in the box, and the insert sucks, guess I'll buy a few planos and a gun case for the figures." "Man, these would look a lot better pained. Guess I'll buy some brushes and some paint and some more paint and some more paint and..." I have spent so much goddamn money on that game now 
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Aug 30, 2015 21:29
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drat Dirty Ape posted:The tax cubes are a real killer. I don't think I've ever won when I was forced to take any of them. One important thing to learn is that getting conquered sometimes isn't that big a deal. I can't tell you how many times I've played through that game thinking I did the best because I did the best job fighting back the heroes just to get beat because somebody else had the most tunnels, the most imps, etc etc. I've rarely seen somebody win by such a large margin as that, so she must have been doing something right! I do think getting a good production room early can make a huge difference, because that way your imps never go to waste. Yeah, the player that came in last had 4 tax cubes and only one title I think. Barely captured any heroes. The other guy that should have come in second had 3 tax cubes also. Both of them used their imps to dig out a bunch of tunnels right before Tax Day. I was baffled by it myself. I only had one tax cube because I really needed food and thought surely someone else would get food first. I did it as my last action, but still had to pay 1 gold for 2 food. It wasn't worth it. Yeah, the winning player did pretty much everything right. She waited till after Tax Day and then dug out a bunch of tunnels with her massive army of imps to win that title. She kept plenty of gold on hand by using her army of imps again to find gold. The Magic Room is just really good! Only thing she fell short on was food. Used it all up to feed her monsters and couldn't pump up the troll during combat. Didn't matter, she didn't have a wizard to cast the shrink spell, so it was fine. I had the Mint production room and kept it safe throughout, but it sort of under performs compared to the dig for gold action. Wish I could have gotten the Mushroom farm instead, but I picked second.
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Aug 30, 2015 21:41
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So, I had an all-day game thing yesterday... Started with Barony. I still think it's a good game. It's an abstract strategy game, so if you don't like those, you won't like it. Next was Fire in the Lake. It was the first COIN game for the other 3 I was playing with. Interestingly the one person who I thought would like it (ex-military, huge fan of TS) didn't like it much at all. His wife thought it was great and was really disappointed when the other two called it after the second coup round. I was irritated as well, but poo poo happens and I'd rather not play a game with miserable people. It doubly stinks because I was pretty sure I was going to win as the ARVN on the next coup... We played Dark Moon next. I pulled Commander and Infected and won. I still don't really care for hidden traitor/sorta-co-op games, but this one was much better than any others I've played because it was over in about 45 minutes. The aforementioned ex-marine pulled out Lords of Vegas next. I rolled some dice and rolled low and couldn't do anything about it really and so I lost the game. Bleh. One of the four players had to leave at this point, so the host pulled out his copy of Castles of Burgundy since he and his wife have never gotten around to playing it and wanted me to teach it to them. They enjoyed it. I won. That's not saying much though - you get 200 points if you play CoB and 150 if you don't.
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Aug 30, 2015 22:14
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If you talk to people about Pathfinder the Card Game, you'll mostly talk to people who tried Rise of the Runelords, the first campaign, and not to its completion. That's not necessarily the best set of people to talk to. I played Rise of the Runelords till its completion, and a lot of scenarios were the same (I.e. Lack of diversity in the objectives) and I think overall, we lost maybe twice. At some point, I was already halfway through it, and I just stuck through it. It did get slightly more diverse and slightly harder later, but not enough to justify me recommending it to others and not enough to justify me continuing with the next campaign. So, if people gave up on it halfway through, then yeah, you'll hear about how boring it was. Now, I did manage to get an awesome deal on Skull and Shackles, so I decided to try it out. I'm more than halfway through it and it is more diverse and harder than the first campaign. So, overall, I'm pleased with it. The ship mechanism is kind of clunky and it just seems unnecessary though. I did get a chance to play Wrath of the Righteous one time, and I think they fixed even more things by adding more diversity and tougher scenarios. I've read it's by far the toughest campaign and it might be too tough since the next campaign is supposed to be easier. So, I would recommend getting Wrath of the Righteous if you've never played it. It will be hard and you'll have to re-do scenarios, but that's ok. I'd still wait to get it used so you can get it cheap. I think a whole campaign should cost you no more than 60-70. Also, play with 4 characters since that's the sweet spot. I play with one friend and we play 2 characters each. As far as complaints about it being completely random, I highly disagree. You do have to look at the contents of the location and the closing requirements to determine who can best handle that. Don't send your big dumb warrior to the Library and have him fail getting good spells. The later campaigns and items also provide more ways to peek at the top card of the location or whatever so you can plan ahead. There are many mechanisms to buff your rolls so there are plenty of press your luck decisions. For example, my one character can set aside a weapon and blessing from his hand until the start of his next turn to buff someone else's check by 2 per card set aside. So do I spend all 3 of my blessings/weapons for +6 or stagger it out in anticipation of what others will need later? In later campaigns, they value skills and items more evenly whereas in Rise of the Runelords, you could easily ignore items, armors, stats like Constitution, etc.
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Aug 30, 2015 23:04
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