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Lorini posted:I have a question for you guys, which comes to mind after playing all these new Essen games. I've really come to like micro turns over long turns. Long turn games incentivize AP prone people to try to analyze more and more. On top of that, a lot of long turn games often have the board state change enough that it's quite difficult to plan for your next turn during your downtime. I recently played a game of Burano that lasted for 5 hours. One guy (who was already 40 points ahead) felt it was necessary to spend twenty minutes agonizing over every turn. That snowballed into complete disengagement for me. I'm not sure that Burano is terrible given that my particular experience, but I know that it incentivized and rewarded a very dull style of play, in large part because of its long turns.
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Nov 2, 2015 15:30
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TM is my board shame. All my friends love it, but I've never found it to be very exciting and I always win by a wide margin. The last time we played an extra player dropped in unexpectedly right as we were getting started. I split my attention between chess with him and the TM game, and still won the latter. I feel bad about not liking a game everyone else really enjoys, but I have some bizarre tallent with those kinds of resource management puzzles and so I don't find the game at all challenging or interesting.
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Nov 2, 2015 15:35
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Fenn the Fool! posted:TM is my board shame. All my friends love it, but I've never found it to be very exciting and I always win by a wide margin. The last time we played an extra player dropped in unexpectedly right as we were getting started. I split my attention between chess with him and the TM game, and still won the latter. I feel bad about not liking a game everyone else really enjoys, but I have some bizarre tallent with those kinds of resource management puzzles and so I don't find the game at all challenging or interesting. I have a friend like this. The reason she doesn't like Dominion is because to her the card picks are always obvious and there's no challenge for her in the game.
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Nov 2, 2015 15:39
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I prefer games that allow a player to do as much calculation as possible during other players' turns, regardless of actual turn length (though these tend to be shorter). A lot of Stefan Feld games* are good about this. A particular favorite in this regard is Trajan -- 95% of the time you can have your entire turn laid out before it gets back around to you. Occasionally another player's action will force you to re-strategize, but most of the time we're able to fly though sessions with experienced players. Dominion is another great example -- having players draw their hands at the end of each turn probably cut average game time in half. Can you imagine how awful the game experience would be if you couldn't see your new cards until it was time to play them? Then there's stuff like Alien Frontiers, where you can't even begin figuring out your turn until it comes around. Fortunately, it's also a simpler game, but I feel like a few mechanical tweaks could have shortened game time without sacrificing any complexity or fun. * (Of course, you haven't lived until you've played Macao with a super-AP person who refuses to even look at the board before her turn. Good lord, that game took nearly five hours. For Macao. I stopped trying to make optimal decisions around turn five, and just sort of randomly threw my cubes out each turn to try to keep the game moving.)
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Nov 2, 2015 15:50
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WhiteHowler posted:Dominion is another great example -- having players draw their hands at the end of each turn probably cut average game time in half. Can you imagine how awful the game experience would be if you couldn't see your new cards until it was time to play them? Isn't this this official rule? Otherwise cards like Militia (discard down to 3) would literally do nothing. edit: Yes that's the official rule, but now I'm not sure if you were saying that in your post as a design consideration Foehammer fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Nov 2, 2015 |
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Nov 2, 2015 15:56
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Foehammer posted:Isn't this this official rule? Otherwise cards like Militia (discard down to 3) would literally do nothing.
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Nov 2, 2015 15:57
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Ok, just threw me off as I read it as "try this one weird trick to make Dominion better!"  Donald X Vaccarino hates this
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Nov 2, 2015 16:00
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The problem with games where you can plan out your next turn completely while other people take theirs is that they must by definition be weakly interactive. If other people can affect your turn, then you can't plan.
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Nov 2, 2015 16:02
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Jedit posted:The problem with games where you can plan out your next turn completely while other people take theirs is that they must by definition be weakly interactive. If other people can affect your turn, then you can't plan. Did you not see the "unless their actions make you change what you do" part?
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Nov 2, 2015 16:02
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More importantly, it's generally a good idea to have a plan B or C in place that you can fall back on due to Player Interaction (TM) in case unless opponents do something really crazy.
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Nov 2, 2015 16:07
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silvergoose posted:Did you not see the "unless their actions make you change what you do" part? A few posts got between mine and the one I was replying to.
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Nov 2, 2015 16:09
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Jedit posted:The problem with games where you can plan out your next turn completely while other people take theirs is that they must by definition be weakly interactive. If other people can affect your turn, then you can't plan. For example, I consider Eclipse to be one of the more interactive games my group plays, but you can often plan your turn in advance fairly well. Of course, things can change if you get invaded or something. That's fine. Trajan's actually pretty good about it. In a lot of cases, another player's action will make your selected action less optimal, but it won't always make you reconfigure your turn ("Well, okay, I'll take this slightly crappier tile, but it's still my best move based on my rondel."). There can definitely be a balance. I'm more annoyed by a game hiding important information than having to react to another player's move, but sometimes it's unavoidable.
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Nov 2, 2015 16:20
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I think just about every Euro I really like has micro turns (Terra Mystica, Twilight Struggle, Hansa Teutonica, Argent, Steam, Keyflower, Chaos in the Old World, Kemet, Dominion, Tzolkin, Tigris & Euphrates, and Concordia all being top 10 contenders) but I can't think of many long turn games that I truly hate so it could just be an exposure thing. There can be a lot do on your turn in Mottainai which is really odd for any card game I've played outside of MTG but I do enjoy it. Speaking of complex card games has anyone played Pax Pamir yet?
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Nov 2, 2015 16:22
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I think the only people who have Pax Pamir are those who got it at Essen. I think it's shipped, but it's a long trip from there to the USA sadly.
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Nov 2, 2015 16:24
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Fun fact about Mottainai, it was designed so that other players never had to act during your turn for app purposes with async multiplayer. Unfortunately it never reached that stretch goal.
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Nov 2, 2015 16:26
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Ahhh. Does Sierra Madre generally have a decent stock on their website for new releases (if I wait till Xmas to pull the trigger will I be hosed?)?
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Nov 2, 2015 16:26
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Eklund only got the games on Friday, so he's still shipping them out. He's posting pictures on Facebook, and apparently the packing crew is composed of two guys (Eklund included), a 10-year-old and an infant. It's been on VASSAL for ages though if anyone's itching to try it out.
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Nov 2, 2015 16:28
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Fenn the Fool! posted:TM is my board shame. All my friends love it, but I've never found it to be very exciting and I always win by a wide margin. The last time we played an extra player dropped in unexpectedly right as we were getting started. I split my attention between chess with him and the TM game, and still won the latter. I feel bad about not liking a game everyone else really enjoys, but I have some bizarre tallent with those kinds of resource management puzzles and so I don't find the game at all challenging or interesting.  Ok Bobby Fischer, maybe we can set up a game of four dimensional Mage Knight to challenge your mega intellect.
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Nov 2, 2015 16:53
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They made an anime featuring multidimensional chess once. It was very confusing. Also I feel like the trick might be to play complex games with opponents of comparable skill level.
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Nov 2, 2015 17:24
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Yeah if you're consistently winning any game then you're probably getting something important that your friends aren't. Even in the most non-interactive of games your opponent's skill matters. Maybe you should let them in on your pro strats.
Impermanent fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Nov 2, 2015 |
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Nov 2, 2015 17:27
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Andarel posted:More importantly, it's generally a good idea to have a plan B or C in place that you can fall back on due to Player Interaction (TM) in case unless opponents do something really crazy. When i played little league baseball as a kid, I learned the important lesson of "before every pitch, you should know what you are going to do if the ball comes to you." You've got a contingent flowchart in your head based on the current state of the field and runners on base. It's frustrating when players don't pay attention to the state of the game, and get stuck processing all the scenarios on their own turn rather than in realtime. Had some funny moments in Codenames this last weekend (we played a LOT of Codenames). Clue was Bigfoot, and the two teammates were discussing options.  Well, she could mean DINOSAUR, because that's also a fictional creature. Except dinosaurs are real, so....Another player was struggling to tie together a clue for PIANO and LIFE. After the game ended both his teammates suggested in unison that they would have gotten both if "Stevie Wonder" was given as a clue. I don't know if it it's the same with y'all, but we didn't keep consistent teams between games. It was more like rotating the clue-givers and then creating teams ad hoc depending on who was sitting where at the table at that moment. So I can't tell you whether I won or lost more games last weekend, but that also means that nobody can prove I didn't win most of them 
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Nov 2, 2015 19:49
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Merauder posted:He pulls out "Chez Cthulhu", citing that it's "thematic because Halloween!" and "it's like Munchkin but better!" Chez Geek (or Cthulu) is nothing like Munchkin. However, it is quite a bit better, in my opinion at least. Though I probably wouldn't follow Mad King Ludwig up with it without making it really clear that we're in for a major context switch. And making sure that people are prepared for bad puns. Chez Geek is silly, and with the right group (which for me has turned into 30-something guys joking about being undergrads again), it can be lot of fun, but yeah, that guy sounds like a real doofus.
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Nov 2, 2015 19:51
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canyoneer posted:When i played little league baseball as a kid, I learned the important lesson of "before every pitch, you should know what you are going to do if the ball comes to you." This is the thing that makes all of my Kemet games take so long as it seems like "figure out your likely plan for the next turn in the time it takes everyone else to complete their turns" is one of those things that just escapes some folks.
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Nov 2, 2015 20:05
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I have played with people who actually can't contingency plan like that. Out-of-game experience shows me that they can't hold more than one thought in their brain at a time, though, so that makes sense. ... at least, until it turns out that these people are not the people with AP problems. 
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Nov 2, 2015 20:17
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Andarel posted:They made an anime featuring multidimensional chess once. It was very confusing. Regular chess is multidimensional chess 
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Nov 2, 2015 20:27
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MrL_JaKiri posted:Regular chess is multidimensional chess How often are two-player games considered multiplayer games, though?
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Nov 2, 2015 20:29
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OmegaGoo posted:How often are two-player games considered multiplayer games, though? Basically all the time (eg computer games, esp back in the early days when 2 players was all you got)
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Nov 2, 2015 20:32
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OmegaGoo posted:I have played with people who actually can't contingency plan like that. Out-of-game experience shows me that they can't hold more than one thought in their brain at a time, though, so that makes sense. Well there are two ways you can avoid AP. You can either A). plan your stuff in advance or B). just forge ahead regardless of what everyone else is doing and hope it all works out for the best.
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Nov 2, 2015 20:38
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I think having the game divided into mini-turns can backfire. When I play Agricola, players tend to either be trying to plan out all their turns with contingencies anyway (making the game drag), or they wing it and constantly say things like "oops I forgot I needed to get an animal to butcher at some point". Not that Agricola would work better with long turns, that's just the example problem that popped into my head.
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Nov 2, 2015 21:15
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I like games with "follow" actions like Eminent Domain (obviously not the first to do it). Keeps engagement up off-turn.
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Nov 2, 2015 22:17
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WhiteHowler posted:Then there's stuff like Alien Frontiers, where you can't even begin figuring out your turn until it comes around. Fortunately, it's also a simpler game, but I feel like a few mechanical tweaks could have shortened game time without sacrificing any complexity or fun. This gets laid at Alien Frontiers' doorstep a lot but there is still plenty you can do on your turn planning-wise; I think the reason this comes up is because in AF it's 100% possible to literally ignore the entire game until the beginning of your next turn and not really lose out on anything as a result. That doesn't mean that's the way to roll. It's also possible to have an overall strategy in mind and know a top three (for example) directions you want to go in by the time your turn rolls around so your "possible actions to take depending on availability" pool is considerably smaller than [total # of all possible actions]. The biggest time sink in AF in my experience has been games that involve the kinda-AP guy who is also a combo-builder - the more he can do on his turn (productive or not) the better, like he's going to find some magic game-breaking infinite combo in there that will win him the game or something. If we're not playing with him (and we don't any more) then an average turn should be less than a minute unless it's nearing (or at) endgame, or someone is getting tired and slow. The Eyes Have It fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Nov 2, 2015 |
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Nov 2, 2015 22:18
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This all seems like a version of the "Strategy vs. Tactics" discussion. I can have a consistent strategy in place, but may need to alter my tactics depending on my opponent's actions & how heavily interactive a game is.
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Nov 2, 2015 22:32
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Also I learned that the only thing worse than an AP player is an AP player whose "thing" is to expand his or her options and available decisions as much as possible whenever possible 
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Nov 2, 2015 22:38
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Mister Sinewave posted:Also I learned that the only thing worse than an AP player is an AP player whose "thing" is to expand his or her options and available decisions as much as possible whenever possible When I played tcgs I knew people like this, who were incapable of making quick decisions but still refused to play anything but the most control-heavy archetypes because it let them roleplay as a genius mastermind despite never actually doing well. Fortunately I see it pretty rarely in board games, if not just because most modern designers seem to emphasize fewer available choices at a given time (and no deck construction obviously).
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Nov 2, 2015 23:07
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Also those people leave board games quickly because they tend to be designed not to give continual losers the elusive carrot of winning against someone who has been manascrewed.
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Nov 2, 2015 23:09
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Mister Sinewave posted:Also I learned that the only thing worse than an AP player is an AP player whose "thing" is to expand his or her options and available decisions as much as possible whenever possible But that strategy can't win, like ever. When inducting new players into a game that risks heavy AP, I tend to favor games where you can focus on a core strategy, but occasionally have to branch out into other strategies to set up better plays later, or allow yourself to block or get points now that might not be available later. Feld's Trajan has a lot of this. You can't spread yourself too thin, but the mancala mechanic means you can't overly specialize either. I still struggle with Agricola's strategies, so I'm terrible at introducing other to it.
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Nov 2, 2015 23:29
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MrL_JaKiri posted:Regular chess is multidimensional chess I only play one dimensional linear Chess
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Nov 2, 2015 23:44
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Rutibex posted:I only play one dimensional linear Chess Pawn to 4, Pawn to 5, stalemate. I like it. EDIT: Lorini posted:Is it a 10thh time rating or a first time rating?? The strength of TM is how all the factions on the board affect each other in both direct and subtle ways. Once you understand the game and how it really works, there is simply no way you are comparing it to Small World. It's highly rated because those faction impacts are intricate and subtle and different every time. Now it might not be everyone's number 2, but it has a right to be in the top five. This is why I will never buy Terra Mystica. There's one person in my group who claims it is his favourite game, but isn't good at all. Even if I did like the game enough to buy it, I won't be able to play against a skilled enough opponent for the depth to truly come up. unpronounceable fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Nov 2, 2015 |
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Nov 2, 2015 23:55
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Countblanc posted:When I played tcgs I knew people like this, who were incapable of making quick decisions but still refused to play anything but the most control-heavy archetypes because it let them roleplay as a genius mastermind despite never actually doing well. Fortunately I see it pretty rarely in board games, if not just because most modern designers seem to emphasize fewer available choices at a given time (and no deck construction obviously). I still see it sometimes. There's a player that we play with that often collapses in an explosion of AP when there are too many options, but is attracted to forking/village-dense Dominion decks, high clientele Glory to Rome builds, Double Time decks in EmDo, all the extra actions in Kemet, etc like a moth to flame. There's probably an argument to be had that she would do better with more linear strategies, but there's also the issue that when she becomes overwhelmed we need to help walk her through her turn and it's tedious. It's like walking up and taking a massive bong rip and then needing to be looked after for the rest of the night.
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Nov 3, 2015 00:15
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I'm still grateful that this thread recommended Concordia for me. This past weekend, my wife and I played it 4P with another couple that doesn't play a lot of strategy games. The husband is the kind of player that wants to figure out a winning strategy and score points, but the wife tends to lose focus on the objective of whatever game we are playing and develop her own meta-goals, things like "get all the purple ones" or "get enough pieces to arrange in a fun shape" or whatever. That usually means she lags behind, but it turns out that her meta-goals for Concordia were things like "buy all of the Jupiter cards" and "build in all of the food/wheat cities (she had the Farmer card)". She ended up doing really well and said she really enjoyed it.
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