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silvergoose posted:. First, what *are* some good combinations that should be built towards? And second, what do I call that mechanic, I want a short one or two word pithy phrase. The scorpion and the tile that gives you prayer points for kills.
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Nov 14, 2015 15:30
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it's called "being frontloaded as gently caress"
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Nov 14, 2015 15:32
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I don't have extensive Kemet strategies because I don't play it often enough, but two powerful tiles are the red one that auto-kills two people before you attack someone (though you don't get a victory point if you wipe out a two-unit troop beforehand) and the blue one that nets you a victory point whenever you win a battle as defender (which is maybe more useful to deterring people from attacking you and weakening your troops). I think in general it's recommended to focus on two colors since they do a good job complementing each other. The expansion also probably changes things as well I personally grab the power that makes raising pyramids cheaper when I start out, since it's an easy way to get points and lets you dive toward the higher-end tiles more cheaply, though it'll be slower than people going for them outright. drat, now I want to play Kemet again. May try to get it on the table today if I end up with five people at some point.
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Nov 14, 2015 15:36
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Lichtenstein posted:it's called "being frontloaded as gently caress" Thanks! Probably frontloaded for the general term, essentially "I don't like games that are too frontloaded". Cools.
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Nov 14, 2015 15:44
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silvergoose posted:Thanks! Probably frontloaded for the general term, essentially "I don't like games that are too frontloaded". Cools. The biggest problem for me isn't the frontloading itself, it's that the game only comes with a single visual aid (multilanguage doesn't count!) describing all the tiles. If you're going to frontload that much, at least have the courtesy of having individual player aids or something.
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Nov 14, 2015 16:12
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taser rates posted:The biggest problem for me isn't the frontloading itself, it's that the game only comes with a single visual aid (multilanguage doesn't count!) describing all the tiles. If you're going to frontload that much, at least have the courtesy of having individual player aids or something. I printed these out (double-sided). Makes a big difference for new players. https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/98915/player-aid-all-power-tiles-and-di-cards CaptainRightful fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Nov 14, 2015 |
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Nov 14, 2015 17:17
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taser rates posted:The biggest problem for me isn't the frontloading itself, it's that the game only comes with a single visual aid (multilanguage doesn't count!) describing all the tiles. If you're going to frontload that much, at least have the courtesy of having individual player aids or something. Being a total cheapskate, I've hand-written the tiles' powers and taped it in to the foreign language versions, so I've now got 4 copies.
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Nov 14, 2015 17:32
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The most powerful tile in Kemet is the free pyramid level every night. It essentially doubles your pyramid action and does it for free. You end every game with every pyramid at level 4, you have free range of the tiles you want when everyone else is stuck in the color they rushed, etc. I've never lost with that tile. That said, every color in Kemet is strong and you can easily win with any color combination. The meat of the game is all about managing your money and making the most of movement actions (always do them at the end of the day). Oh, and permanent points matter a whole lot more A good beginner strategy is to do the 2-1-0 start with your pyramids and spend the first day doing this Level pyramid 2-3 Pray Buy level three tile (beetle, etc) Move Move
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Nov 14, 2015 17:59
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The most important tiles in Kemet to aim for at the start are: Slaves (-1 cost to upgrade pyramids) Hand of God (Free pyramid level) Scarab (+2 power +2 move) Legion (troop size 7) Those four tend to go extremely fast, since they've got really major earlygame strength and scale well into lategame. Scarab and Hand of God require upgrading, Slaves can be picked up on a 2/1 and will let you upgrade to a 3 or 4 in a different color on the first turn without needing to upgrade white first, and legion is generally strong and lets you use your recruit > camp one of the spots that requires you to kill troops with significant safety bonuses. If you do start 1/1/1 you want to buy three times, preferably leading with Priestess to get the -1 cost to all your upgrades on the first turn. Other than that, be flexible and grab what you can because the game rewards good tactics very highly. Leveling to 3 on the first turn is nice for Red (Scarab) and White (Hand of God) but basically useless for Blue since its power is concentrated heavily into levels 2 and 4.
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Nov 14, 2015 18:14
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My favourite tile is the base white tile that makes every other tile purchase 1 cheaper. I always get that and usually spend most of my game getting white tiles that make stuff cheaper, so I can do anything for free (but my armies are useless and I lose horribly).
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Nov 14, 2015 18:43
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Jedit posted:Do you by chance mean the orignal FFG edition? In the 1980s game you rolled for initiative, but you did it before choosing your chit.
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Nov 14, 2015 19:21
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silvergoose posted:I'll post a bigger report after the con is over, but Kemet is a fabulous game that I absolutely hated. The two problems I had: first, I played badly at the beginning, and basically was screwed out of getting any points at all in the first few turns, and then two people were running away with it without attacking eachother and so I had no shot. Kemet does not have a lot of luck so it can be tough for a new player to not end up getting trounced by the older players who know a lot of combinations. Also, it sounds like you were playing 3 players which makes it easier for the experienced players to complete their power combinations without any interference. One of the keys to Kemet is realizing that it's more of a resource management game than anything else. This becomes especially important with moving costs (do you pay for movement points to move later for free, or do you rely on teleporting all game at a cost each time?). Also, being able to recall troops for prayer points is very important because leaving a decimated troop on the board is basically a free VP for any player that plays after you. Also, sometimes turn order is very important (going 1st gives you first dibs on tiles to purchase, going last gives you the last move in order to take over a key temple). Tekopo posted:Nope, second edition, where you had a combat roll after showing cards. I was exaggerating slightly, because some card combination do still damage even when you 'lose' the roll, but it's still a lovely system. Afaik, the new edition is almost totally deterministic in combat, with a better rock/paper/scissors system in place. I hardly remember anything about the 2nd edition combat except that I really hated it and thought every time it came up it ground the game to a screeching halt.
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Nov 14, 2015 19:25
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Tekopo posted:Nope, second edition, where you had a combat roll after showing cards. That is the original FFG edition. 1st edition is the 1987 Games Workshop.
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Nov 14, 2015 19:36
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Oh yeah, and blue has the other strongest tile in Kemet with the gold action token, giving you three move/attack actions per round, or recruit/move/move. It's incredibly strong and will absolutely swing games in the final day.
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Nov 14, 2015 19:42
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Jedit posted:That is the original FFG edition. 1st edition is the 1987 Games Workshop.
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Nov 14, 2015 19:45
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Not sure if that tile is better than initiative but it's definitely top 3
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Nov 14, 2015 19:56
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How much is Codenames supposed to cost?
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Nov 14, 2015 20:19
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Dr Tran posted:How much is Codenames supposed to cost? Around $13-15. If you're paying more than $20, you shouldn't be.
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Nov 14, 2015 20:23
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Andarel posted:Not sure if that tile is better than initiative but it's definitely top 3 I won last game by going blue red, rushing initiative then grabbing the silver and gold action tokens from blue. It was ridiculous.
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Nov 14, 2015 20:32
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Gimnbo posted:Around $13-15. 20 is list price
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Nov 14, 2015 20:35
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I'm really surprised to see two people that think Hand of God (free pyramid level every night) is one of the best tiles; I've always thought it was decent, but not amazing. Here's a strategy I run if I want to upgrade my pyramids quick that I think is miles ahead of anything you could do with Hand of God: Turn 1: buy Slaves (1 ankh discount on pyramid upgrades), upgrade white from 2 to 4 for 5 ankhs Turn 2: buy whatever that one tile is called (1 ankh discount on everything), upgrade blue to level 4 for 3 ankhs (normally this costs 1+2+3+4, with your double discount this becomes 0+0+1+2) Turn 3: upgrade red to level 4 for 3 ankhs Cheap, simple, and it lets you quickly pick up the sphinx and a +1 VP tile for an easy 5 point lead out of the gate. For general Kemet chat, white has most of the tiles that enable strategies in other colors. The get ankhs for kills tile lets you turn an otherwise red focused strategy into a very economically powerful one (though, note that the two free kills from Initiative happen before battle, so you don't get prayer points for them). All the white tiles that give you more DI cards and more choice over your DI cards work great with the red tile that lets you pitch DI cards for strength and the blue tile that forces your opponent to play their combat card first. Outside of those, there aren't many tile combinations that are hugely synergistic, in general everything is useful and works together fine. Kemet is all about creating situations where you have a strength advantage, the best tiles for this are the 5 monster tiles (I'm not counting the elephant because it only gives +1, but I am counting the snake because canceling an opponents monster is effectively +2). The thing is, these tiles don't stack and it's unlikely you'll be shut out of all of them, so you probably want to pick up some of the other strength bonuses first. +1 strength while attacking, +1 strength while defending, +1 strength across the board, Initiative, and Legion are all less powerful than a monster, but they stack with one, so they're good to pick up early.
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Nov 14, 2015 20:35
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Played new through the ages, with two newbies. They both really enjoyed it and I'm finding that people seem much more positive in terms of enjoyment than original. Played Coup Guatemala and it has some really bad cards. The anarchist especially: you don't need to claim it to attack someone and the only way to not lose the life is to claim Anarchist. So basically there is no risk for the attacker and if you have one influence you HAVE TO claim anarchist or otherwise yo lose anyway. It's an awful card.
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Nov 14, 2015 20:58
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quote:Turn 2: buy whatever that one tile is called (1 ankh discount on everything), upgrade blue to level 4 for 3 ankhs (normally this costs 1+2+3+4, with your double discount this becomes 0+0+1+2) This doesn't work (well, it doesn't work as well as you think, you should been spending 6 for this rather than 3) - from the FAQ: quote:5.4: If I am increasing several levels of a pyramid at the same time, and I have Priest of Ra, do I save one prayer point per level? Edit: Whoops, I did the math wrong too - with slaves and priest, it should be 5, not 6 (but still not 3). 1+2+3+4 = 10 - 4 for slaves - 1 for priest = 5. jmzero fucked around with this message at 02:30 on Nov 15, 2015 |
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Nov 14, 2015 21:58
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That's for Priest of Ra. Slaves does save you one per level. https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/961339/kemet-official-faq , see 5.5 Andarel fucked around with this message at 00:15 on Nov 15, 2015 |
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Nov 15, 2015 00:11
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Andarel posted:That's for Priest of Ra. Slaves does save you one per level. Yes but that is taking two off per level so it assuming both slaves and Ra.
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Nov 15, 2015 00:17
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Is Cuba any good?
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Nov 15, 2015 01:12
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silvergoose posted:I'll post a bigger report after the con is over, but Kemet is a fabulous game that I absolutely hated. The two problems I had: first, I played badly at the beginning, and basically was screwed out of getting any points at all in the first few turns, and then two people were running away with it without attacking eachother and so I had no shot. Yeah, I feel the same way - I hate opening the box and thinking "great, time to look over these for half an hour to make any sort of choice." I can't help but feel like that's a lazy aspect of game design, to just say "Well, we can't think of any way to balance the introduction of these over the course of a game, gently caress it, all at once." I realize Kemet's a really fun game, I just can't stand it because of that mechanic.
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Nov 15, 2015 05:18
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Emminent Domain is a deck building game with a (discounting the Planet deck) public tableau of options of which to build your engine. I get that people can get overwhelmed by it, but personally I find that learning to build an engine is pretty fun.
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Nov 15, 2015 06:18
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Kemet probably could have been designed so that some condition had to be met before players could raise pyramids to 4 and buy level 4 powers, which would reduce choice a little, at the cost of game speed. The flatter and more front-loaded design is faster for experienced players. I don't think it's lazy design per se, but it's definitely a barrier to accessibility. I feel Eclipse is even worse for this, since there's an extensive tableau of techs and upgrades AND it gets bigger. As others did, I had duplicates of the English handout made, and had them laminated. I would not play a teaching game of it today without those or without pointing out some basic observations about strategy (holding two temples is hard, consider recalling your mans even if you win, these few tiles here often go on the first turns). Even if they're crappy photocopies, your games will go so much faster if people can be looking at their choices without looming over the board and fighting over the one English copy.
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Nov 15, 2015 06:45
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Gutter Owl posted:So Lorini (and anyone else who picked it up), now that you've had Food Chain Magnate for a little bit, how strongly do you recommend it? For how early it's been out, it's quickly becoming my favorite Splotter* design (by proxy one of my favorite euro-designs). Great Zimbabwe is quicker (with low player counts...), but Food Chain Magnate is so many good things. Beyond all the clever mechanics, FCM's biggest accomplishment is despite the game having no random play elements (aside from turn order and board setup), none of the gameplay feels like it leads to the standard resource thing in euros of "optimal strategies." Between the different setup layouts and that everything the other players do greatly affects what you do; you're never going to go down a set obvious path at any point during the game. Closest I feel other games come to this achievement is in 18XX's in how non-random they are yet incredibly emergent via player choice; except Food Chain Magnate dodges the whole "group think because we know the board now" problem with modular setups. Dominant Species is one of my all-time favorite games; I won't be surprised if I continue liking Food Chain Magnate more than DS even after FCM's honeymoon period is over. Some caveats: paper money; the card pool is the biggest footprint I've seen a board game do with card piles; incredibly unforgiving even if it isn't as Roads & Boats / Antiquity "you built the wrong production building now you're out of the game" harsh. Oh and I'm incredibly full of hype for this one so I'm probably blinded to some other flaws or something (I guess how measuring distance in this game is weird to understand). *other Splotter Spellen games to compare are Roads & Boats &cetera, Antiquity, Greed Incorporated, Indonesia, and The Great Zimbabwe
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Nov 15, 2015 07:26
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Lorini posted:I have a question for you guys, which comes to mind after playing all these new Essen games. Also to respond to this from forever ago, but I don't know if this was gleaning rules before play or your group being incredibly good at managing The game more or less has you using employees (i.e. more or less playing a hand of cards similar to deck-building) that grant actions. The actions, no matter how the employees are played, go off in an exact order (the steps). For example, first turn of the game your only card can just hire one employee (i.e. get a basic card from supply). Training, marketing, cooking, etc. all ignored. The game doesn't divide actions into mini-turns like a worker-placement but neither does Dominion (even if Food Chain gets more complicated). I'd argue Through the Ages has longer player turns. Of course downtime and analysis paralysis vary and such, but Food Chain Magnate is not much worse than other Heavy Euros™ EDIT: Also a bunch of people followed up the actual point of that post (short but lots of turns versus few longer turns) saying "micro-turns" are better; I'm not sure of that. A lot of players I game with tend to AP in a way that pretty much that they'll take, say, four times the normal amount of time on a small turn (i.e. placing a worker) but only twice as long on a full turn. It's like no matter how many things you do before the next players' turn, the analysis paralysis adds around a minute no matter what. When you have turns that shouldn't be taking more than 15-30 seconds, a worker-placement will take aeons longer compared to games with more blocked-in turns. Or maybe it's just harder to tell a person to make their move if it hasn't been even a minute yet. Analysis Paralysis is dumb. Trynant fucked around with this message at 07:49 on Nov 15, 2015 |
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Nov 15, 2015 07:42
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I really want to play Dominant Species and FCM.
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Nov 15, 2015 07:48
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Countblanc posted:I really want to play Dominant Species and FCM. I'm going to make a point to not have life crises happen when going to conventions where I harass goons with these.
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Nov 15, 2015 07:50
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bowmore posted:Is Cuba any good?
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Nov 15, 2015 07:50
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homullus posted:Kemet probably could have been designed so that some condition had to be met before players could raise pyramids to 4 and buy level 4 powers, You mean like requiring a lot of limited actions and prayer points and multiple rounds?
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Nov 15, 2015 07:52
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Trynant posted:Of course downtime and analysis paralysis vary and such, but Food Chain Magnate is not much worse than other Heavy Euros™ This is to anyone to answer, I just quoted the most recent post about it, but why is this game so expensive?
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Nov 15, 2015 08:01
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EvilChameleon posted:This is to anyone to answer, I just quoted the most recent post about it, but why is this game so expensive? Splotter Game. Lots of components. Very limited print run. Huge reputation.
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Nov 15, 2015 08:07
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Accusing Kemet's design of being lazy when it seems pretty clearly intentional to me is kinda weird, like okay, it's cool if you don't like it but there's nothing lazy about it. Like Bottom Liner said there are already conditionals and hoops you have to jump through to get more advanced tiles, they aren't all valued the same in terms of cost and you have limited resources (both cash and actions) to do stuff. It's absolutely possible to jump straight to Hand of God on the first day, can't nobody stop you unless they buy it first, but you're incurring multiple opportunity costs to do so (having to pay to upgrade your white pyramid simply to be able to buy it, having to buy the tile, losing the chance to upgrade any of your other two pyramids that day). Gating upgrades behind progressive introductions would be to the game's detriment because it would do nothing but narrow the scope of everyone's strategies and make the game much more rote. Yeah, it's a lot for a new player to take in. Even with handouts, which I agree should have come in the box, nobody likes to be stuck with their nose buried in a cheat sheet in order to play a game. Kemet isn't a game I'd drop on unsuspecting/newer players without first making sure that they were really loving stoked to play it (and I did in fact veto playing it last Tuesday when a guy kept insisting that we introduce his friend to it who very clearly looked uncertain at the prospect, we eventually settled on some lighter fare and she seemed to enjoy that a lot more). Nonetheless there aren't that many power tiles, 36 with a number of repeats across the colors and duplicates within. You don't need to be prepared to lose your first 10,000 games before you can start putting strategies of your own together.
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Nov 15, 2015 08:36
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Had my first run at Nippon tonight, and I really enjoyed it! Thanks for the exchange, Lorini! The worker "takement" aspect is pretty neat, and I like the flow of taking actions and "consolidating" to refresh your money and resources. I'm really looking forward to playing it again!
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Nov 15, 2015 08:40
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The End posted:Splotter Game. Lots of components. Very limited print run. Huge reputation. Reputation for... being expensive? Why do companies do this? Don't they want people to play their games?
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Nov 15, 2015 09:50
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