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Indolent Bastard posted:WWI
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Sep 28, 2015 22:30
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Aghama posted:Memoir '44 looks like it would probably fit the bill, the fact that it recreates real battles I think is a big plus. But what is so abstract about it? It's a game in the Commands and Colors series which is used for everything from ancients to fantasy to mech battles. It uses a left/center/right board division system which doesn't exactly map to 20th century warfare. I don't think there's much else on the market suitable for the age group, though.
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Sep 28, 2015 22:47
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1812: the Invasion of Canada is a pretty good beginner wargame about the War of 1812.
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Sep 28, 2015 22:49
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Finally finished my Eminent Domain mod for Tabletop Simulator. Is there a way to post it to the workshop, but only allow my friends to access it? I just want to play with them, but it would be easier if I could just point them to the file and let them download it ahead of time. It's a little over 20 mb of stuff to download first.
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Sep 28, 2015 23:04
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fozzy fosbourne posted:TGS also adds a solo game. I would normally play the PC version but I know Rutibex enjoys himself a solo game with some cardboard so that might be something worth considering. I have no experience with the solo mode in TGS, myself Ah perfect, this makes the first expansion choice easy. Thanks everyone for your advice!
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Sep 28, 2015 23:16
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cenotaph posted:It's a game in the Commands and Colors series which is used for everything from ancients to fantasy to mech battles. It uses a left/center/right board division system which doesn't exactly map to 20th century warfare. I don't think there's much else on the market suitable for the age group, though. Combat Commander: Europe isn't dramatically more complex, but has much more wargamey-ness to it. Might be worth a look.
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Sep 28, 2015 23:37
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Found a copy of Marco Polo, no regrets.
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Sep 28, 2015 23:45
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The End posted:Combat Commander: Europe isn't dramatically more complex, but has much more wargamey-ness to it. Might be worth a look. I'm a huge CC fan but I would definitely look at the rule book and get a sense of what you're getting into before you introduce it to a nine year old. I'm not one of those "hur hur kids are dumb" people but I'd approach it with caution. Obviously Aghama knows the kid better than us random internet schmos.
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Sep 28, 2015 23:48
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canyoneer posted:Bunch of cocksure posters here As a lover of bad puns I refuse to let this go unacknowledged.
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Sep 29, 2015 01:50
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Rutibex posted:So I just got Race for the Galaxy in the mail (gee thanks Amazon, where is my Dominion? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_IlNbsILLE Alien Artifacts is the best expansion.
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Sep 29, 2015 04:03
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). It was a toss up between that and Star Realms, I wanted some kind of cheap single decked space game.
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Just wanted to give another shout out for Concrete Jungle. Very well made and fun city building, deck-builder hybrid with some great puzzley gameplay. There's a ton of content with a huge variety of cards, different characters with their own skill trees and unique abilities, a campaign and multiple game modes. Not sure if there's multiplayer but there's a competitive vs. AI mode that is surprisingly fun.
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Sep 29, 2015 05:44
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Played Isle of Skye yesterday. It is fantastic. Has anyone had multiple plays of it? Does it get old? I like it a lot more than Carcassone which I guess would be its closest comparison. I played Tzolk'in for the first time today and goddam, where has this game been all my life? It has the soul-crushing no-food dilemma of Agricola with the tracks and some of that Caylus feel. I will definitely be playing this game again. Does the expansion do much for the game? Does the game hold up to many plays? To those of you who have gotten to play Forbidden Stars, how fast do your games of 2 players go at this point? I read 4h is probably where it'll start, but people who know/learn it can maybe get it down to 2 or even 1.5h? How does the game handle 3 players? It seems 4 is fine but 3 has some weird tensions and gang-ups? I really like how this game looks but I dunno that I can convince anyone to play it with me with its huuuuge playtime  Finally, is Forge War still cool or are people done with this? The thread was raving about it for a bit and then there was Codenames and Forbidden Stars and no one has said anything. Is it still cool / are people still playing it / should I be looking into this?
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Sep 29, 2015 07:08
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EvilChameleon posted:I played Tzolk'in for the first time today and goddam, where has this game been all my life? It has the soul-crushing no-food dilemma of Agricola with the tracks and some of that Caylus feel. I will definitely be playing this game again. Does the expansion do much for the game? Does the game hold up to many plays? You're fine for a bunch of base game plays but the prophecies in the expansion throw a wrench in certain repeatable strategies (especially at 2P) and the variable player powers are a nice touch. We play with 5 sometimes so the added player count was nice too. It's a very good expansion.
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Sep 29, 2015 07:25
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EvilChameleon posted:To those of you who have gotten to play Forbidden Stars, how fast do your games of 2 players go at this point? I read 4h is probably where it'll start, but people who know/learn it can maybe get it down to 2 or even 1.5h? How does the game handle 3 players? It seems 4 is fine but 3 has some weird tensions and gang-ups? I really like how this game looks but I dunno that I can convince anyone to play it with me with its huuuuge playtime Haven't played 2p head to head yet, but I can't imagine it taking anywhere near as long as 4p. With a 2p game, you'll hit a tipping point and one player will be weaker. I can't imagine it going the distance too often, and even when it does, you'll be resolving considerably less combats than even a 3p game.
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Sep 29, 2015 07:51
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T-Bone posted:You're fine for a bunch of base game plays but the prophecies in the expansion throw a wrench in certain repeatable strategies (especially at 2P) and the variable player powers are a nice touch. We play with 5 sometimes so the added player count was nice too. It's a very good expansion. The tribe powers are by far the best part of the expansion since they enable insane strategies that were impossible in the base game. But yeah you probably need a bunch of base game plays before tossing them in to really appreciate what they do.
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Sep 29, 2015 07:56
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Bubble-T posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_IlNbsILLE Is it? I've only played the first two expansions and while I liked the addition of the new cards I can't say I was a fan of the new mechanics they introduced.
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Sep 29, 2015 08:06
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Cenotaph mentioned a C&C mech game, so I went looking and found Abaddon, the game he was talking about. It's got two decks (three maybe?) and dice for activation, so no LCR stuff. It looks ... interesting? Has anyone played it? I'd love a mech warfare game that I could play in under three hours and without rulers.
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Sep 29, 2015 10:06
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Lord Frisk posted:Cenotaph mentioned a C&C mech game, so I went looking and found Abaddon, the game he was talking about. It's got two decks (three maybe?) and dice for activation, so no LCR stuff. It looks ... interesting? Has anyone played it? I'd love a mech warfare game that I could play in under three hours and without rulers. You need to play Battletech: Alpha Strike using hex maps 
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Sep 29, 2015 12:00
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Yeah, I've done it. I'm just wondering if there's any alternatives. Crushing lances with PPCs is awesome, but I gotta know if there's contenders.
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Sep 29, 2015 12:02
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With the Kickstarter soon closing, has anyone here tried the pnp or online demos of Gloomhaven? It looks super solid and inventive.
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Sep 29, 2015 13:05
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tofes posted:Is it? I've only played the first two expansions and while I liked the addition of the new cards I can't say I was a fan of the new mechanics they introduced. The mechanics added in expansions are always ways for people to mess around with the game, but the core game's pretty much just the cards. Goals in The Gathering Storm are the only exception to that, really? Problem is that art is expensive so they could never justify a card-only mini expansion with their quality standards at a price people would accept and Tom encourages people to mess around with new ways to play the game that make various things a bit more interesting. As far as cards go, AA has the best set pretty handily. Ojetor posted:The tribe powers are by far the best part of the expansion since they enable insane strategies that were impossible in the base game. But yeah you probably need a bunch of base game plays before tossing them in to really appreciate what they do. Haven't played with them, but they fell flat around here. People found them not that interesting and kinda unbalanced... EvilChameleon posted:Finally, is Forge War still cool or are people done with this? The thread was raving about it for a bit and then there was Codenames and Forbidden Stars and no one has said anything. Is it still cool / are people still playing it / should I be looking into this? Don't play it much but if I'm down for a 3-hour euro Forge War is very high on the list, fun game.
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Sep 29, 2015 13:48
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Played Letters from Whitechapel and caught that loving pervert.  Gave us the runaround on the first night by running back and forth through his own tracks though.
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Sep 29, 2015 14:20
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lordsummerisle posted:With the Kickstarter soon closing, has anyone here tried the pnp or online demos of Gloomhaven? It looks super solid and inventive. Gloomhaven looks really good, but I see no point in Kickstarting it at this point since it will most assuredly have at least a few normal print runs next year. The only reason I would back it now is that you can get a cheaper copy that comes with cardboard character stands instead of minis which won't be available at retail, but that will probably still be more expensive than the regular game from an online retailer next year.
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Sep 29, 2015 14:36
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Radioactive Toy posted:Gloomhaven looks really good, but I see no point in Kickstarting it at this point since it will most assuredly have at least a few normal print runs next year. The only reason I would back it now is that you can get a cheaper copy that comes with cardboard character stands instead of minis which won't be available at retail, but that will probably still be more expensive than the regular game from an online retailer next year. Seeing as Forge War still hasn't come out in this country, I kind of doubt it will get imported. lordsummerisle fucked around with this message at 14:40 on Sep 29, 2015 |
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Sep 29, 2015 14:38
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Man, I'm itching to play Archipelago again. Gonna try face-up objectives and see if we can finish a short game in under three hours this time.
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Sep 29, 2015 14:45
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Playing Forbidden Stars on Friday, where was that list of easily missed rules?
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Sep 29, 2015 15:02
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EvilChameleon posted:To those of you who have gotten to play Forbidden Stars, how fast do your games of 2 players go at this point? I read 4h is probably where it'll start, but people who know/learn it can maybe get it down to 2 or even 1.5h? How does the game handle 3 players? It seems 4 is fine but 3 has some weird tensions and gang-ups? I really like how this game looks but I dunno that I can convince anyone to play it with me with its huuuuge playtime Two-player can absolutely be done in 2-2.5 hours, but both players are going to have to be super-engaged. As I'm sure you know, there's just so many choices, and a few seconds of AP can really add up. I always preface my games with "there is no downtime. find something to look at." The game is boss. Andarel posted:Playing Forbidden Stars on Friday, where was that list of easily missed rules? BGG has a nice one-pager you should print out, along with a Q&A summary. This thread has some common ones, though it gets pretty lawyery. Not their fault because there's hella exceptions/confusion atm. Probably the biggest one: During an Advance Order, all ground units move simultaneously. This means that all legal paths are determined before moving any ground units, but after ships are moved.
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Sep 29, 2015 15:48
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I think I just had the boardgame equivalent of a Vietnam flashback.
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Sep 29, 2015 15:57
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lordsummerisle posted:Seeing as Forge War still hasn't come out in this country, I kind of doubt it will get imported. Definitely makes sense to look in to backing it then! Sorry I haven't played it but it seems to scratch my coop and Legacy-style game itch so I'm pretty excited for it. I haven't played Forge War either but it seems extremely well regarded, seems like the designer has a lot going for him.
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Sep 29, 2015 16:29
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We've just played our first game of Dominion and are a bit... nonplussed, I guess. We were all rather unsure how to go about winning, apart from buying Treasure and Victory cards, and ended up building what I suspect were massive, unwieldy decks - it took maybe an hour and a half, when the box suggests half an hour, which even for a first game seems long. And it seemed oddly uninteractive (we were using the recommended "first game" set so only Militia and Moat affected other players). Any tips for beginners or will it just take a couple more plays for us to get the picture? My main take-away was that small decks are where it's at.
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Sep 29, 2015 16:44
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The first deckbuilder I ever played was Ascension and I didn't "get it". Sounds like maybe you didn't "get it" either  Buying more isn't necessarily always good. The more you buy, in a way the less you can use and the fewer and further between what you already have becomes. Playing the Big Money strategy might help you "get it" if that's the problem. The game has a gear shift at some point where you shift your focus from buying things that let you do things (or things that hassle opponents), to buying things that let you win (VPs). The worthwhile VPs are expensive so you need to get your deck built up with things like money before you can afford them. Since the only thing that matters in the end are VPs, your entire game should revolve around 1) getting them efficiently and 2) getting them more efficiently than whatever you opponents are doing. If your opponents are doing something that looks better then your approach, then either change your approach or throw a monkey wrench at them somehow.
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Sep 29, 2015 16:56
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lordsummerisle posted:With the Kickstarter soon closing, has anyone here tried the pnp or online demos of Gloomhaven? It looks super solid and inventive. Tried the intro scenario on Tabletop Simulator last night and I liked how the complexity comes more from how you control your hand of ability cards than various rules for LOS, zones of control, etc. Scenarios are fast too.
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Sep 29, 2015 16:59
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Yeah, my biggest criticism of Dominion is the vp cards and scoring. In other games they do something, but in this, to win you have to fill your deck with them and spend your last few turns not doing much. It peaks in the mid game when your deck is running full steam, then it shutters to a stop at the end. I think Valley of the Kings is the best deckbuilder with regards to scoring. In VotK, it's a race to entomb your best cards so they can score (you can entomb once per turn), but anything left in your deck is still a powerful card with effects and value.
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Sep 29, 2015 17:03
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House Louse posted:We've just played our first game of Dominion and are a bit... nonplussed, I guess. We were all rather unsure how to go about winning, apart from buying Treasure and Victory cards, and ended up building what I suspect were massive, unwieldy decks - it took maybe an hour and a half, when the box suggests half an hour, which even for a first game seems long. And it seemed oddly uninteractive (we were using the recommended "first game" set so only Militia and Moat affected other players). Any tips for beginners or will it just take a couple more plays for us to get the picture? My main take-away was that small decks are where it's at. Small decks are usually good, but large decks aren't always bad, Dominion is very much a "it depends" kind of game, based on what the game setup is. As far as interaction goes, the game is a race to the finish, either by emptying three piles or Provinces, so interaction generally falls in the realm of slowing down other people via cards like Militia or Witch, or by contesting certain cards. The first basic strategy you should all be getting past is what's called "Big Money", which is buying nothing but Silver and Gold until you can consistently hit 8 coin per hand, then switching over to buying Provinces. It's a baseline strategy that averages 4 Provinces in 16 turns, so if you're not doing better than that, you need to rethink your plan. If you like reading, Dominion Strategy is the site to check out, this article might interest you in particular, since it specifically covers the First Game setup.
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Sep 29, 2015 17:04
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House Louse posted:We've just played our first game of Dominion and are a bit... nonplussed, I guess. We were all rather unsure how to go about winning, apart from buying Treasure and Victory cards, and ended up building what I suspect were massive, unwieldy decks - it took maybe an hour and a half, when the box suggests half an hour, which even for a first game seems long. And it seemed oddly uninteractive (we were using the recommended "first game" set so only Militia and Moat affected other players). Any tips for beginners or will it just take a couple more plays for us to get the picture? My main take-away was that small decks are where it's at. I played the recommended starter setup a couple of times then swore off Dominion as an engine without a game. I'm coming around now though, after playing both a lot of Star Realms (which is poo poo, but a lot more gamey) and after trying out Dominion again playing the Big Money setup. I still haven't played a lot though, partly due to my freinds being in the "there's no game in it" boat. The recommended base game seems to introduce various different individual mechanics, but doesn't have much to guide you towards an engine. Big Money does that a lot better basically. What you want is, as you said, lean decks full of gold basically. Trashing is super good basically, as is upgrading cards. Our playtime, both for a game and for individual turns sped up to frantic paceso n Big Money too, because the strategy was less "what card do I want now" and more general tweaking of the deck engine. So instead of "I guess militia is cool, lemme try that", we went "I want to get rid of copper and get gold, so I need to buy gold, mines and one chapel". Basically: Try again, it does work.
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Sep 29, 2015 17:05
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House Louse posted:We've just played our first game of Dominion and are a bit... nonplussed, I guess. We were all rather unsure how to go about winning, apart from buying Treasure and Victory cards, and ended up building what I suspect were massive, unwieldy decks - it took maybe an hour and a half, when the box suggests half an hour, which even for a first game seems long. And it seemed oddly uninteractive (we were using the recommended "first game" set so only Militia and Moat affected other players). Any tips for beginners or will it just take a couple more plays for us to get the picture? My main take-away was that small decks are where it's at. You're pretty much dead on with everything and on the right track: Buying treasures and victory points is your main goal, the other action cards are there as catalyst for that, you generally shouldn't be buying every one of them but usually a subset of them (depending on what is out there). Small decks are where it is at, although it's more about efficiency than size. The direct interactivity does come from attack/interactive cards like you mentioned although there is also the fact that you are sharing the same board and racing to see who can get the most VP the fastest. An hour and a half is a long time even for a first game although it's not completely absurd, people usually spend their first game spinning their wheels and building big unwieldy decks which do a lot of cool stuff but not very efficiently. You should at least have fun buying stuff, doing crazy combos with your deck, messing with other players through attacks; if you aren't after the first few games I would say that is a problem. Otherwise it seems like you guys are experienced with games enough that you are sorting skipping the total beginner phase of just being fascinated with the core of the game and going right to the second stage of trying to wrap your head around how to get to those higher VP cards faster.
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Sep 29, 2015 17:06
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lordsummerisle posted:With the Kickstarter soon closing, has anyone here tried the pnp or online demos of Gloomhaven? It looks super solid and inventive. I'm backing it for the cheaper standee option, it sounds awesome. Seems like the streamlined Mage Knight I've been wanting for awhile, combined with a legacy system and unique fantasy setting? 
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Sep 29, 2015 17:13
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I'm the bestest evil anime puppeteer with time powers that ever wielded a script and now my friends hate me because I keep gloating over their pitiful efforts to break my trap. Buy Tragedy Looper.
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Sep 29, 2015 17:38
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Andarel posted:Playing Forbidden Stars on Friday, where was that list of easily missed rules? The only one not in the learn to play guide is that you can only have up to 3 of a token type. The other thing I got wrong in my first game was that you can only start a single conflict with an advance order.
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Sep 29, 2015 17:41
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House Louse posted:We've just played our first game of Dominion and are a bit... nonplussed, I guess. We were all rather unsure how to go about winning, apart from buying Treasure and Victory cards, and ended up building what I suspect were massive, unwieldy decks - it took maybe an hour and a half, when the box suggests half an hour, which even for a first game seems long. And it seemed oddly uninteractive (we were using the recommended "first game" set so only Militia and Moat affected other players). Any tips for beginners or will it just take a couple more plays for us to get the picture? My main take-away was that small decks are where it's at. You win by buying cards. There's a strategy that is just buying victory and treasure, called big money, but only in very, very marginal cases is this ever the key to victory. In nearly every case you're going to need an engine to boost yourself past big money, and end the game in ~16 turns or so. Let's start with a few misconceptions: Dominion is uninteractive. Totally, absolutely false. The main way that you're interacting with other players is by buying up the resource that ends the game: Provinces, or failing that, three other stacks. Manipulating the flow of the game while scoring points is how you interact with other players, and if you're not paying attention to what your opponents are doing to the gamestate, then you're going to lose. Attacks offer the ability to negatively effect your competition, but over all the goal is to stop them from controlling the tempo of the game. People who don't understand high level strategy call this a lack of interactivity, but it's really just a lack of flashy theming. The interaction that's taking place is sort of invisible, but understanding your opponent's strategy and responding to it is the core of the gameplay, even if there's not a single attack or reaction on the board. There's a degenerate strategy: nope. Big money going against a well built engine is nearly guaranteed to lose. Big money is a way to hedge your bets on probability but the board cards are a way of manipulating probability. Just looking at the starter game, you can run modified big money with smithy. That makes your hands go from averaging ~4 to 5 to 6 to 8. Of course the hard part is knowing how to build a deck to maximize that probability and mitigate against terminal collision (e.g. two smithies sitting uselessly in the same hand with no action building cards like village). Once you start throwing Villages in there you're running into the problem that you have to buy a lot of cards to draw, but you're not actually hitting the money required to make use of that. This article: http://dominionstrategy.com/2012/07/30/building-the-first-game-engine/ goes over the essentials of the starting board, which is amazingly complex given the simple archetype cards that are on it. Dominion is a game of managing probability. The core VP being dead weight is an essential piece of that, because you have to judge each buy carefully in terms of your score / the timer on the game / future ability to buy cards. Put another way, time is the greatest resource in Dominion. Treasure and actions cycle back up, but you only get so many buys per game, and you have to make them count. I would play your next game with Chapel and the advice to try it out. That's when Dominion really started to open up for me. Also, get Intrigue as your next expansion. It builds interactivity and has some of my favorite cards in it. Also, prebuilt boards are cute, but the real meat of the game is figuring out a strategy from ten random cards. Buying more sets just opens the game up that much more.
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Sep 29, 2015 17:44
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