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Morpheus posted:After backing this Keyflower reprint, I think it'll be a long, long time before I back another board game Kickstarter. I received a notification that my package was ready to ship, oh...9 days ago. This is after being told that it'd arrive by November. And the status has been stuck at "Shipping label has been created" since then. Sigh. I just want to play a game of hatred, spite, and meeples, is that so much to ask. That's mainly just Game Salute being lovely, but yea, you're right to be generally wary of board game Kickstarters.
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Dec 15, 2015 19:30
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Morpheus posted:After backing this Keyflower reprint, I think it'll be a long, long time before I back another board game Kickstarter. I received a notification that my package was ready to ship, oh...9 days ago. This is after being told that it'd arrive by November. And the status has been stuck at "Shipping label has been created" since then. Sigh. I just want to play a game of hatred, spite, and meeples, is that so much to ask. Should have just bought it from Amazon UK. I bought base game and all three expansions and including shipping to US it was cheaper than the kickstarter. Game Salute sucks rear end.
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Dec 15, 2015 19:30
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Crackbone posted:Should have just bought it from Amazon UK. I bought base game and all three expansions and including shipping to US it was cheaper than the kickstarter. Game Salute sucks rear end. Yeah seriously, I wish I had read up on them before backing. I just knew that Keyflower was really good.
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Dec 15, 2015 19:33
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quote:Let's say a group of people go gambling. One person pulls the lever and 5 other people watch. Now, imagine a slot machine with 6 arms and everybody had to pull one to start the machine spinning. In terms of an enjoyable social experience, is it preferable to let 5 people not be actively involved, or give everyone the chance to participate? Is it preferable to let all 5 people be involved? Now they all have to determine whose luck it was that caused the machine to give them money. They have to split the winnings. No one gets the individual dopamine rush of being favored by God that day. It has to be split amongst the group. If you wanted to win thanks to your own individual luck alone, this change would be worse. If you want to win thanks to luck in the first place, altering the rules of Betrayal is worse. If you want to win thanks to your own popularity in your circle of friends, changing the political nature of Cosmic is worse. Your contention is that a better experience is definable according to the precepts of modern game design, and they are for a select group that you and I belong to. But they do not define the limits of the ways people play games. We cannot change the minds of people who have found that they like something, especially not once the sunk-cost fallacy and the other evils of feeling identified with their purchases worm their way into their hearts.
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Dec 15, 2015 19:34
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Morpheus posted:After backing this Keyflower reprint, I think it'll be a long, long time before I back another board game Kickstarter. I received a notification that my package was ready to ship, oh...9 days ago. This is after being told that it'd arrive by November. And the status has been stuck at "Shipping label has been created" since then, in Mississauga. Sigh. I just want to play a game of hatred, spite, and meeples, is that so much to ask. Yeah, I got an email about mine being shipped yesterday. Apparently the label was printed on the 8th and it actually shipped on the 10th. It won't be here till Thursday. Currently it's about an hour away in Memphis, so it could surprise me and show up tomorrow. I still haven't received a shipping notification on my Click Clack Lumberjack kickstarter, even though apparently some people have already received theirs. I think it's because I added the golden pieces on and they didn't get them in from China when they got everything else. The pic from a couple pages ago didn't have golden pieces in it. But who knows? They very rarely put updates up on the Kickstarter page. Seems like they really don't give a poo poo.
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Dec 15, 2015 19:36
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Impermanent posted:I agree with you in your specifics, but I don't think that you really damage my argument's spirit, which is that frequently what people want out of a board game has nothing to do with well-designed rules or a coherent vision. A modernized version of Betrayal would be better constructed, but it would also tilt the scales of the game in favor of good players. People play roulette and slot machines when the option of poker is available. Why do you think that is? If this is true, it only shows that our modern understanding of game design is still incomplete. There is an art and science to making a better game that scratches the same itch as Betrayal, just as there is an art and science to making a more addictive slot machine. If a "modern designer" would be incapable of doing this, then modern designers still have something left to learn. But standard game design concepts like "interesting choices" can certainly still play a role, as I tried to illustrate in my example of how to improve on Betrayal's opening phase. I don't really agree with your point about luck versus skill, though. Lots of acclaimed modern games contain a heavy element of luck, such that the better player might only win 55 or 60 percent of the time. And if you'll excuse my tossing your own example back to you: people certainly would not play slot machines if a 10% house edge were an insurmountable barrier. Then there are other ways to avoid the frustration of being outplayed and beaten, such as cooperative games where it doesn't arise. McNerd fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Dec 15, 2015 |
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Dec 15, 2015 19:38
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McNerd posted:If this is true, it only shows that our modern understanding of game design is still incomplete. There is an art and science to making a better game that scratches the same itch as Betrayal, just as there is an art and science to making a more addictive slot machine. If a "modern designer" would be incapable of doing this, then modern designers still have something left to learn. But standard game design concepts like "interesting choices" can certainly still play a role, as I tried to illustrate in my example of how to improve on Betrayal's opening phase. My original post included examples of games where luck plays a large element, but does not dilute the most important aspect of modern game design, which is that choices matter regardless of how much chance is there. The point still stands that people will play bad games and love them as much or more than better ones because their tastes are different. You can't make someone who loves games like Zombicide get into euros no matter how much you press them. They aren't interacting with the rules: They are enjoying a mostly passive experience where they get to do a sort of fantasy play-acting. Having to think about the rules in a serious way would disrupt that experience. Well, it might not if they internalized those rules, but this kind of person likely wouldn't get to that point in the first place. I know someone who asked me if they should get Zombicide, and I pointed them toward Imperial Assault. Similar concept, better-implemented ideas, and more replay ability. Even a similar nerd theme. He ultimately turned down my suggestion because he said what he really wanted was to be able to shoot zombies, so he would get Zombicide.
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Dec 15, 2015 19:45
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Impermanent posted:I know someone who asked me if they should get Zombicide, and I pointed them toward Imperial Assault. Similar concept, better-implemented ideas, and more replay ability. Even a similar nerd theme. He ultimately turned down my suggestion because he said what he really wanted was to be able to shoot zombies, so he would get Zombicide. Which is fine. The point being is that even in his case (wanting to shoot zombies), there are some games that are better than others. Zombicide is immensely better than Zombies!!!, for example. They're nothing wrong with trying to steer people into better options when they are available. It's not about trying to make everybody play Euros. Crackbone fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Dec 15, 2015 |
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Dec 15, 2015 19:57
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Impermanent posted:The problem with Cosmic and Betrayal is that their design runs counter to most of the modern assumptions about how board games are made. This does a good job of summing it up I think. I also DM for out group of friends, and we started in 4th and moved to 5th edition D&D. We found something similar; that 4th had way, way more options and specific rules, letting you get a concept into the game a little more mechanically. I will say that it did make combat much slower than in 5th, because everyone HAD to know the rules and interactions and whatnot. I generally don't like games with high elements of randomness (I tend to lose those more, admittedly), but in a small family setting or with our experienced group of gaming friends Cosmic Encounter might have a chance for interesting politics, at the least. Thanks, sorry to stir up the "hornets nest".
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Dec 15, 2015 20:09
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Don't worry Rubitex, I already own TI3 and will be subjecting them to it over Christmas.
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Dec 15, 2015 20:22
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Oh hey Mage Knight didn't make the top 50 because the rules were too tough. What a fuckin joke.
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Dec 15, 2015 20:59
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Big McHuge posted:Oh hey Mage Knight didn't make the top 50 because the rules were too tough. What a fuckin joke. And tash kalar for ??? but it's clearly better than Go because you can summon things. To be clear, I love TK, but holy poo poo.
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Dec 15, 2015 21:05
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The kooky powers are Cosmic's greatest strength. It's really the distribution of numbers and effects in the single draw deck that is the problem, coupled with the hand management being dependent on either forming alliances or playing negotiates to lose. You can ally with people all you want to put yourself in striking distance of the lead but if you don't draw high cards you're screwed. Back when I used to play we turned it into a quasi-filler by consensus. If someone was getting close to winning we wouldn't ally aggressively to stop them and drag the game out because we just wanted to start another game and get new powers. We would crank games out in 30-45 minutes. That's the reason people play cosmic, to experience the power interactions. Of course you get that out of the way in the first few turns and then you're left with a politics-but-sorely-dependent-on-luck game that drags on. Small World sort of fixes this problem by letting you grab new powers a few times per game, but it suffers in other areas. I'm sure there's a Cosmic variant where you switch powers, but that doesn't eliminate the other bad parts. If Cosmic were published with today's sensibilities it would be a filler. It's true that randomness levels the playing field for casual players in some games but I don't buy that Cosmic is one of those games. There isn't anything to make a hand of cards all under 10 interesting. cenotaph fucked around with this message at 21:14 on Dec 15, 2015 |
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Dec 15, 2015 21:05
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Could you "fix" Cosmic Encounter by just giving everyone the same distribution of number cards plus like 2-3 Negotiates, then filling out the rest of the hand with a random draw of X cards from a deck of Flares, really high number cards (20, 30) and events?
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Dec 15, 2015 21:10
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GrandpaPants posted:Could you "fix" Cosmic Encounter by just giving everyone the same distribution of number cards plus like 2-3 Negotiates, then filling out the rest of the hand with a random draw of X cards from a deck of Flares, really high number cards (20, 30) and events? Basically, using the mechanic in Game of Thrones, Concordia, Mombasa, Get Bit, etc, where you have a specific set of cards and pick up the used cards at a specific time (when you run out, when you play a specific card, etc)? Good question! I mean, that might fix some of the single deck problems, for sure.
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Dec 15, 2015 21:14
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GrandpaPants posted:Could you "fix" Cosmic Encounter by just giving everyone the same distribution of number cards plus like 2-3 Negotiates, then filling out the rest of the hand with a random draw of X cards from a deck of Flares, really high number cards (20, 30) and events? I wouldn't include high cards in another deck, but maybe flares. Honestly I think just house-ruling the game as published is a fool's errand, it needs to be redesigned from the ground up. I would probably jettison the whole turn structure and negotiation and turn it into something like High Society or Raj to get everyone playing at once. Not that anyone sane would redesign a game that's been published for almost 40 years but another game could be made for people who want the feel of the good parts without the BS.
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Dec 15, 2015 21:20
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cenotaph posted:Small World sort of fixes this problem by letting you grab new powers a few times per game, but it suffers in other areas.
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Dec 15, 2015 21:33
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Foehammer posted:Keyflower (+expansions) are in stock at Cardhaus, fy collective i. Comes out to about $55 shipped within the US, free shipping on $125+ They have a few copies of Troyes now as well for some weird reason. Too bad they didn't get in Gink as well, I don't think I'm desperate enough to go to Amazon.de quite yet.
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Dec 15, 2015 22:00
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Big McHuge posted:Oh hey Mage Knight didn't make the top 50 because the rules were too tough. What a fuckin joke. No, that's fair criticism. I'm the guy who wonders why the hardcore Eurogamers in his group think The Gallerist is too complex, and I think Mage Knight is overburdened with rules. Played Cthulhu Wars tonight three handed. I had Crawling Chaos, the only core faction I haven't played before, with two newbies who had Sleeper and Windwalker. I won, this being my fifth game, but Sleeper was only 10 points behind and realised the mistake he'd made in spellbook ordering about halfway through and both the others would play it again. It really is a good game. It's expensive, but if you can play someone else's copy you should and if I get round to running a PBF (I hope I will) it's worth a try too.
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Dec 16, 2015 00:37
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Jedit posted:running a PBF (I hope I will) it's worth a try too. I'm in.
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Dec 16, 2015 00:42
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Friend and I are going to start Pandemic Legacy next week. Is it better to play with each of us using one player/role, or should we each control two players? We are both fairly new to Pandemic, so there's no quarterbacking issue either way. Just for the Legacy content especially, is using more roles more fun?
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Dec 16, 2015 01:14
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I disagree with a lot of Shut up and Sit Down but I think they are bang on with Mage Knight. I think it is suggested far too often in this thread - not because it isn't a good game but because the length and the depth of the game just make it massively unsuitable for many groups. The downtime and play length can be horrific, particularly with more than two players - a four player game only seems attractive with very experienced players. I view it like TI3 in that you really need special circumstances to actually get it played, only its a far less social game given the downtime, lower practical player count and relatively low interactivity. I love the game but it's only going to be a good suggestion for a tiny minority of players, many of whom will probably still find it challenging to get to the table. So depending on your criteria for a 'good game', if scalability across player counts, ease of learning, and low downtime are factors, I wouldn't rank it highly. Blamestorm fucked around with this message at 03:06 on Dec 16, 2015 |
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Dec 16, 2015 03:03
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The main problem is that a lot of people seem to think that Mage Knight isn't a solo game...
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Dec 16, 2015 04:37
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Blamestorm posted:I disagree with a lot of Shut up and Sit Down but I think they are bang on with Mage Knight. I think it is suggested far too often in this thread - not because it isn't a good game but because the length and the depth of the game just make it massively unsuitable for many groups. The downtime and play length can be horrific, particularly with more than two players - a four player game only seems attractive with very experienced players. I view it like TI3 in that you really need special circumstances to actually get it played, only its a far less social game given the downtime, lower practical player count and relatively low interactivity. I love the game but it's only going to be a good suggestion for a tiny minority of players, many of whom will probably still find it challenging to get to the table. Regarding scalability and downtime, they have plenty of two player games in the list. X-Wing, Jaipur, Netrunner, etc, so scalability is clearly not that important. Plus, playing MK with 2 also makes downtime low. In any case they said in their also ran article that MK didn't make it because it was considered too complex/heavy. At the same time they have no trouble tossing a significantly longer and heavier game like Twilight Imperium in the list. It's almost as if trying to rank every board game on an absolute scale of "goodness" is a worthless low effort exercise meant to pad out a website for easy hits. Maybe that's a bit harsh, but seriously, SUSD's bias for certain genres is extremely obvious in the list. No effort was made to be even the least bit objective about picking games outside their own personal preference. Count how many acting/bluffing games are in there: Coup, Resistance, Mascarade, Sheriff of Nottingham, Spyfall, Funemployed, Two Rooms and Boom, ONUW, Skull, Monikers. Ten games! I'm not saying some of those don't deserve to be on there but does that genre really deserve a full 20% of the list? Now look at their euros. They have Terra Mystica, Castles of Burgundy and Archipelago. But where's Agricola/Caverna? Caylus? Puerto Rico? Keyflower? Tzolk'in? Through the Ages? Dungeon Lords? By far the most offensive part of the list are deckbuilders. They have Arctic Scavengers and A Few Acres of Snow but not Dominon? That's the sort of thing that should get you tried at the Hague.
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Dec 16, 2015 05:18
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Ojetor posted:By far the most offensive part of the list are deckbuilders. They have Arctic Scavengers and A Few Acres of Snow but not Dominon? That's the sort of thing that should get you tried at the Hague.
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Dec 16, 2015 05:21
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Speaking of deckbuilders, Ascension: Dreamscape is out today, with some really interesting dream "spells" and some interesting one-time-use one-drops. Dream cards are drafted at the start of the game from a separate dream deck, and each player gets a few, available to them only. Dream Visions are like one-time use "spells" which are used as a comeback / game swing which manipulate the state of the game, and other Dream cards go to your regular deck when you buy them (with Dream tokens). Basically, you can draft a bunch of Visions to try and hedge against unfavorable game conditions, or draft regular dream cards to try and utilize synergy with them and the options you'll buy from the center row. In effect, it makes center row cards more or less valuable for certain players, depending on what their initial strategy was with their dream draft, instead of having "objectively" better or worse picks. Also, because they have different costs, you can go for a bunch of cheap ones, save for an expensive one later on, or forego trying to earn cards from your dreamscape and focus on a more "traditional" line of play. The rest of the dream deck is put aside, but you can increase the number of cards available in your dreamscape through certain card rewards / abilities.  A card with that effect normally would cost about (5) or (6), but these give you the same effect, just at the cost of only being able to use them once. Could be great even in the late-game as it doesn't increase entropy and has a useful effect, especially the lifebound and enlightened ones.  New board looks good too: 
PRADA SLUT fucked around with this message at 06:39 on Dec 16, 2015 |
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Dec 16, 2015 06:23
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Ojetor posted:Regarding scalability and downtime, they have plenty of two player games in the list. X-Wing, Jaipur, Netrunner, etc, so scalability is clearly not that important. Plus, playing MK with 2 also makes downtime low. In any case they said in their also ran article that MK didn't make it because it was considered too complex/heavy. At the same time they have no trouble tossing a significantly longer and heavier game like Twilight Imperium in the list. I don't really think they even pretend to be unbiased. They are making a list of their favorite board games.
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Dec 16, 2015 06:36
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Picked up Caverna for a great price on amazon.ca, anyone have any recommended planos or organizers that you can get on Canada for it?
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Dec 16, 2015 06:59
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EBag posted:Picked up Caverna for a great price on amazon.ca, anyone have any recommended planos or organizers that you can get on Canada for it? Broken Token
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Dec 16, 2015 07:09
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I tried put Mission: Red Planet and I'd say it's pretty much the good version of Cosmic Encounter. You have a fixed hand of actions to take, with a card that lets you refresh when you're ready. You're competing for space on rockets to Mars, area control on Mars itself, and to have the most fun sabotaging everyone else. Has a decent bit of take that like any good area control, but it's all fairly small so you can't totally gently caress someone over. I also may be based since I basically roleplayed a terrorist to get as many of my own dudes killed as possible for my bonus objective. I lost, badly, but had a good time seeing how people reacted to me being perfectly willing to murder my own guys along with theirs. If I had that goal again, I'd be smarter about it, but still blow up a bunch of my dudes to manipulate people into doing what I wanted. Overall, I'd say if you wanted to recommend something over CE that is similar, Mission Red Planet does a pretty good job. It's spacy, has nice components and art style, little plastic spacemen, but still has a good level of strategy without being too dense or particularly long. The fixed length with marked scoring rounds really helps give a sense of progress in places where CE stalls out. The only real randomness is in the missions you get and that are spawned, which I think help encourage players to focus differently and gives a bit of asymmetry. I quite liked it and I despise Cosmic Encounter.
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Dec 16, 2015 07:30
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Jedit posted:No, that's fair criticism. I'm the guy who wonders why the hardcore Eurogamers in his group think The Gallerist is too complex, and I think Mage Knight is overburdened with rules. How is Cthulhu Wars compared to Chaos in the Old World? They both seem to have a similar asymmetric play at first glance
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Dec 16, 2015 08:26
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Echophonic posted:I tried put Mission: Red Planet and I'd say it's pretty much the good version of Cosmic Encounter. Mission: Red Planet is more of a French take on El Grande. It's in space, like you said, but that's about where things end. I get that there was a lot of Cosmic Encounter talk in the thread, but to say Mission Red Planet is a "good version of Cosmic Encounter" isn't helpful to anyone when they are nothing alike.
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Dec 16, 2015 08:56
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I played a solo game of Castles of Burgundy on Monday after it arrived, just controlling two players and playing against myself. It's nice, I really like it. Reminds me of a Agricola in a lot of ways that I find it quite relaxing to play but always having to make decisions on what to get and compensate when someone takes what you wanted.
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Dec 16, 2015 09:47
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Dr. VooDoo posted:How is Cthulhu Wars compared to Chaos in the Old World? They both seem to have a similar asymmetric play at first glance CiTOW is well balanced for its four basic factions, but is a game for exactly four and its twin paths to victory can mislead newbies. I haven't tried the expansion, but I've heard people say it's not as good as a 5-player game and you can't swap Horned Rat in for one of the others without disturbing the balance. CW's four basic factions are all well balanced at three players, and the game scales well from 3 to 6 with the expansion factions (it will play 7, but I think Black Goat is at a horrible disadvantage in a 7-player game, just as Opener is in a 3-player). There's only one path to victory - most Doom points - but several ways to achieve that. Overall, I think CiTOW does one thing very well but CW has much more variety and replayability.
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Dec 16, 2015 09:50
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Jedit posted:CiTOW is well balanced for its four basic factions, but is a game for exactly four and its twin paths to victory can mislead newbies. I haven't tried the expansion, but I've heard people say it's not as good as a 5-player game and you can't swap Horned Rat in for one of the others without disturbing the balance. 5 player CiTOW works perfectly well as long as you don't use the new cards, because the Rat works kinda orthogonally to the other gods. The Rat doesn't drop Corruption, thus not speeding up the pace of the game, and none of the other gods care too much about Domination. Then you get the new Old World cards that poo poo Skaven tokens all over the place and the Rat runs away with the game, because it's target provinces are all of them. It can also happen in the base game with Tzeench and the Warpstone counters, but it's less important because Tzeentch can move Warpstone more or less at will from turn 2-3, and play cards with them from the start. Agreed on the rest of the points.
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Dec 16, 2015 10:28
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Jedit posted:CiTOW is well balanced for its four basic factions, but is a game for exactly four and its twin paths to victory can mislead newbies. I haven't tried the expansion, but I've heard people say it's not as good as a 5-player game and you can't swap Horned Rat in for one of the others without disturbing the balance. I'm hoping to get some time with CW over the holidays now that I have one extra expansion so everyone in the group can play. With regards to Black Goat disadvantage are you referring to the spell book requirement of sharing space with all other players (working off memory here, that might even be another faction, heh)? That did jump out at me as a strange requirement that gets much harder with more players.
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Dec 16, 2015 11:43
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Mr Beens posted:With regards to Black Goat disadvantage are you referring to the spell book requirement of sharing space with all other players (working off memory here, that might even be another faction, heh)? That did jump out at me as a strange requirement that gets much harder with more players. Yes, I am. Opener has a similar problem in three player games as one of his spellbooks requires either ten or twelve gates on the map, I forget which. Even with Yog-Sothoth counting as a gate, there are only 14 areas on the 3-player map. Opener can thus be easily screwed out if the other players build only two gates apiece, as Opener then has to spam build a gate every turn to have any chance of winning and even if he can do that he will be unable to defend them all.
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Dec 16, 2015 13:22
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Echophonic posted:I tried put Mission: Red Planet and I'd say it's pretty much the good version of Cosmic Encounter. You have a fixed hand of actions to take, with a card that lets you refresh when you're ready. You're competing for space on rockets to Mars, area control on Mars itself, and to have the most fun sabotaging everyone else. Has a decent bit of take that like any good area control, but it's all fairly small so you can't totally gently caress someone over. I wouldn't say it's related to Cosmic Encounter in any way, but I do love M:RP. I feel like it hits the sweet spot of complexity/strategy/time for a game.
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Dec 16, 2015 13:29
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taser rates re:Keyflower posted:Losing bids can be moved elsewhere, but have to stick together. A buddy and me recently got this game demo'd at a small con. The above rule was left out by the dude that gave us the rules explanation. I made some risky bids in the first rounds on tiles that had 6 workers on them, and got outbid on all of them, locking my meeples in with no return whatsoever. So in the second round, my opponent had more meeples than me and could easily outbid me on the tiles that had my workers on them, which he did. By third round, I guess he had about 3 times more meeples than me. I passed after about 4 actions while he kept using his engine to make more green meeples. Final round was me trying to upgrade some tiles for points and him scooping up 6 winter tiles and flipping all his village tiles to the points side. Final score was about 25 vs 140. I don't like keyflower. In fact I hate it. I rationally know that we played with the wrong rules and that's why it was so broken, but the whole thing was such a frustrating experience that I don't know if I'll ever be able to play that game again without getting angry.
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Dec 16, 2015 14:23
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theroachman posted:I don't know if I'll ever be able to play that game again without getting angry. 
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Dec 16, 2015 14:36
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