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drat Dirty Ape posted:To be fair, the owner of the game had never actually played it before. He thought he read and understood the rules, but he was wrong. Ahahahahahahaha AH's rulebook is horrible. You might as well quote Broken Loose's old post about its rules. That is a game where you have to be prepared as gently caress to teach effectively (or be prepared to say "gently caress it" and wing it when something questionable happens since I doubt the game's properly balanced anyway) since there's so much fiddly parts to it. Honestly the only part I like about AH is when you fight whatever boss you end up going at when you fail the gates part, and that's merely rolling buckets of dice while relying on the one or two characters with broken enough weapons/abilities to actually do all the damage while everyone else acts as meat shields. Definitely not something that's good game design and ends up being effectively the same as playing a game of King of Tokyo, except you have no choices or any real agency of any kind unlike KoT. So I guess if anyone wants to play AH then I suggest play Tales of the Arabian Nights followed by King of Tokyo/New York. Or I guess Eldritch of course.
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Apr 24, 2016 15:56
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House Louse posted:That's not just about AH though is it?
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Apr 24, 2016 15:59
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AMooseDoesStuff posted:Just play Eldritch. Eh. None of my group owns it, and I'm not going to buy it when I'm already lukewarm on the experience overall. One of them got Elder Sign and boy that game is intensely mediocre.
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Apr 24, 2016 16:27
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Just a reminder, the SANTORINI kickstarter is in it's last 3 days. It's unlocked a large number of stretchgoals, but some of the stretchgoals will be put into an expansion upon retail release, so it looks like a good deal to jump on it now, because backers get everything for the base price. Seems like a pretty sweet game, if you like abstracts.
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Apr 24, 2016 16:31
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Deathlove posted:Thanks for these - game went really smoothly! Three of us were obliterated by a fourth who just got a couple key milestones early and then hung in until the end because he rushed an early Zeppelin (because Zeppelin) and could just generate a ton of drinks. Good, good game, dang, though. Good to hear. Key early milestones is a pretty big deal.
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Apr 24, 2016 16:39
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House Louse posted:That's not just about AH though is it? That's odd. The bonus for Apollo is actually great. We learned early on not to knock anyone down to one island because they would chain Apollo for a few turns and outproduce everyone. Sitting on one island became a preferred strategy pretty quickly - get rich, drop a metropolis your entire army is sitting on top of (and that no one can attack unless it's their victory move) and then hop over and take someone else's to win. The next became obsessively taking Zeus every fricking turn (your game will take forever but you will win on turn 20 or so and then everyone will agree to never do it again). And don't think of Apollo as sitting out a turn - think of it as not wasting a ton of resources for extremely marginal gains. A lot of the stuff you see people doing with Poseidon and Ares are complete wastes of turns and resources. Were you playing with two players? I've never played at that number but I guess I can imagine that might end up skewed. If you were playing with more players though, I wonder if you guys might have had some rules wrong. I really can't see how anyone could be crushed without a chance to get back up in Cyclades. Its a game with a strong rubber-banding effect. If anything I thought it was a bit too strong because you never get a snowball effect to push someone over the edge into victory. By the end, usually everyone is one good turn away from victory and it's a game of I block him, he blocks you, you block me over and over and over until someone slips up. Archenteron posted:My first, last, and only game of Cyclades, my two opponents perpetually shut me out of anything useful for the entire game, so I spent most turns on budget Poseidon activations to spite kill their Navy and block movement. On the last turn of the game, they were focused on upgrading their last cities to win and let me grab Aries, marching my until now unusable doomstack across multiple islands to take enough of their cities for a win. I had only figured out that opening the turn prior and legitimately felt useless the entire time prior. I refuse to play it again. This is pretty much my experience. Even someone who thinks they're locked out is usually one good action from victory once there's even a single metropolis on the field. Which leads to the reason I don't really play Cyclades any more - it costs a lot less and is far easier to steal someone else's metropolis than it is to build your own. Our games devolved into everyone actively avoiding the victory condition and started taking forever. Ohthehugemanatee fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Apr 24, 2016 |
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Apr 24, 2016 16:50
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Mega64 posted:Ahahahahahahaha Yeah. I'm not the kind of person who refuses to ever play a certain game again, but AH almost made 'the list'. I think I'd give it another try but only with someone in charge who knows it inside and out, and maybe with less people. (Our group jokes about a game going on 'the list', which is basically everyone's personal list of 'hell no I won't play that game ever again'. Usually it's only used jokingly by the loser(s) of a new game the first time we play it.) On a side note, last week I played Dead of Winter for the very first time. I actually didn't hate it, but that's mostly because I was with a group of friends and we had fun just playing up the theme of it. Having read a lot of commentary in this thread about it, I understand and agree with most every gameplay mechanic complaint. I mean, I basically was the sole reason for our groups failures just because I rolled a couple of 'tooth' results that ended up killing a bunch of people, which was pretty much as random as anything that happens in a game like Talisman. Still, my group tends to always have fun when we can constantly accuse each other of being traitors. After that we played Game of Thrones and I completely screwed myself over as House Baratheon by misunderstanding the rules (I vacated my home city, thus losing the ability to recruit some boats I was planning to put there and allowing the Martell player to take me completely out of the game by turn 3. I mistakenly believed that capital was always considered occupied and could have troops recruited there). The first time I had played it a year ago I enjoyed it, but this time I effectively got to do nothing every turn so it wasn't really any fun. Also, because of my complete failure and a similar failure by the Greyjoy player the game pretty much just turned into a land grab by the other 4 players, resulting in a pretty terrible game with little to no intrigue, alliances, or politics. Finally we played Codenames which was pretty awesome and everyone had fun (surprise surprise).
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Apr 24, 2016 17:01
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The Silver Snail posted:Just a reminder, the SANTORINI kickstarter is in it's last 3 days. It's unlocked a large number of stretchgoals, but some of the stretchgoals will be put into an expansion upon retail release, so it looks like a good deal to jump on it now, because backers get everything for the base price. Seems like a pretty sweet game, if you like abstracts. Speaking of Kickstarted abstracts, there's also Tak based on the fictional game on Patrick Rothfuss' The Wiseman's Fear. Place bets on what will come out first, this game or the third book.
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Apr 24, 2016 17:11
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drat Dirty Ape posted:After that we played Game of Thrones and I completely screwed myself over as House Baratheon by misunderstanding the rules (I vacated my home city, thus losing the ability to recruit some boats I was planning to put there and allowing the Martell player to take me completely out of the game by turn 3. I mistakenly believed that capital was always considered occupied and could have troops recruited there). The first time I had played it a year ago I enjoyed it, but this time I effectively got to do nothing every turn so it wasn't really any fun. Also, because of my complete failure and a similar failure by the Greyjoy player the game pretty much just turned into a land grab by the other 4 players, resulting in a pretty terrible game with little to no intrigue, alliances, or politics. You always keep control of your home area, even with no units, unless an opponent has taken control. Game of Thrones Rulebook, page 24 posted:Controlling Home Areas
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Apr 24, 2016 17:24
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The Silver Snail posted:Just a reminder, the SANTORINI kickstarter is in it's last 3 days. It's unlocked a large number of stretchgoals, but some of the stretchgoals will be put into an expansion upon retail release, so it looks like a good deal to jump on it now, because backers get everything for the base price. Seems like a pretty sweet game, if you like abstracts. I'm about 80% positive I need this game the game play and quick set up look perfect for my wife and I.
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Apr 24, 2016 18:48
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I've avoided a lot of these problems by never playing games that have a Cthulhu theme. Ever.
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Apr 24, 2016 19:04
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S.J. posted:I've avoided a lot of these problems by never playing games that have a Cthulhu theme. Ever. A pretty good generalization, although I've made one exception.
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Apr 24, 2016 19:45
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Foehammer posted:A pretty good generalization, although I've made one exception. uhhhh ummmmmmmmm talk to me
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Apr 24, 2016 19:45
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House Louse posted:Played Cyclades for the first time last night. The auction mechanic was neat (although shuffling the god boards was unnecessarily annoying) but I ended up being crushed with no way to get back up - the bonus from Apollo just isn't big enough to make it worthwhile. Making losing players sit out a turn sucks. Is it worth trying again? My first two games I was knocked down to one island early and ended up winning both times. Being able to build up your economy and a couple buildings without fear of being invaded is great, and the three bonus gold you get for Apolloing with only one island is even better. Taking Apollo and building up your cash isn't really sitting out any more than taking Zeus and building up your auction-discounts is, or taking Athena and getting stuff that does nothing at all. Yeah, you can't buy monsters with Apollo, but you'll also be the richest player next turn and can do basically whatever you want.
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Apr 24, 2016 20:12
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Fat Samurai posted:What happened to your Russian Civil War with Vodka and a crocodile AAR, BTW? It turned into a vodka and vodka LP. The crocodile went on to have a career in pro wrestling. None of this is a joke. Durendal posted:You should do an LP of Fields of Fire. He did. He managed to get to the second mission before deciding he's unable to process the situation on the board after three MGs chopped the company to pieces.
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Apr 24, 2016 20:21
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Missing Fox posted:You always keep control of your home area, even with no units, unless an opponent has taken control. Yeah, and it would have worked out ok with a card that let me muster in places I own. My plan instead was to use the 'crown with an asterisk' token to muster some boats at that location, but because I did not have an army there I couldn't put the order token there and so I was stuck. It was a pretty dumb situation. Also, the person playing Dorn was married to the person playing Highgarden so he was pretty much going to all out attack me anyway.
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Apr 24, 2016 20:55
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This may seem like a odd question, but I'm looking to improve my laundromat games. What are some 2-player card games without chips or boards, preferably that take a little while to play? Requiring a table or pen and paper is fine. Right now it's mostly Fluxx and Quiddler, mostly because the person I am going with mostly owns full size games.
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Apr 24, 2016 22:23
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Mottainai is a good candidate for you, also Carcassonne.
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Apr 24, 2016 22:24
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Magnetic North posted:This may seem like a odd question, but I'm looking to improve my laundromat games. What are some 2-player card games without chips or boards, preferably that take a little while to play? Requiring a table or pen and paper is fine. Right now it's mostly Fluxx and Quiddler, mostly because the person I am going with mostly owns full size games. Not a card game, but Hive Pocket Edition was made for this.
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Apr 24, 2016 22:26
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We got the Dominion Adventures expansion. I am trying to figure out if there is a good engine with Ranger or Giant in the recommended beginner kingdom. These are cards that require you flip a token and then their effect varies based on the side of the token. I thought I could set something where I basically flip that token twice each turn and get the prize, but it takes too long. I decided the math on them are not so good. A Giant is basically 3 coins on average with a slight attack, and Ranger is an extra 2.5 cards on average... assuming you have the actions to keep using them. A gold and an attack card would be 3 coin and a consistent attack, which is more consistent. Against Ranger, a Smithy beats it straight up. Well, that is if it is out. Still, having Hirelings just increase the draw limit is probably just better.
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Apr 24, 2016 22:43
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Magnetic North posted:This may seem like a odd question, but I'm looking to improve my laundromat games. What are some 2-player card games without chips or boards, preferably that take a little while to play? Requiring a table or pen and paper is fine. Right now it's mostly Fluxx and Quiddler, mostly because the person I am going with mostly owns full size games. San Juan is crack. Mottainai will take longer, but San Juan is one of the few games that we play multiple times. Edit: I should add my wife collapsed San Juan into a container like this: http://amzn.com/B00FEKGL2W That makes it really small, and puts it in a nice, sturdy case. Just about anything is fair game if you can cram it into a case like that. Rocko Bonaparte fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Apr 24, 2016 |
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Apr 24, 2016 22:45
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Good lord is it frustrating to go from a 3 player game of Food Chain Magnate in 2.5 hours to a 4 player game of My Village that took 4 hours. I really need to never play games with people with AP ever again.
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Apr 24, 2016 22:47
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Magnetic North posted:This may seem like a odd question, but I'm looking to improve my laundromat games. What are some 2-player card games without chips or boards, preferably that take a little while to play? Requiring a table or pen and paper is fine. Right now it's mostly Fluxx and Quiddler, mostly because the person I am going with mostly owns full size games. My usual two-player travel games are Mottainai, Arboretum, Biblios, and Valley of the Kings. They're all compact, low-setup strategy games with good challenge and depth for their size. They're all cards, except Biblios uses five dice as counters (no dice rolling) and Mottainai uses postcard-sized player boards to arrange the cards.
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Apr 24, 2016 22:51
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:We got the Dominion Adventures expansion. I am trying to figure out if there is a good engine with Ranger or Giant in the recommended beginner kingdom. These are cards that require you flip a token and then their effect varies based on the side of the token. I thought I could set something where I basically flip that token twice each turn and get the prize, but it takes too long. I decided the math on them are not so good. A Giant is basically 3 coins on average with a slight attack, and Ranger is an extra 2.5 cards on average... assuming you have the actions to keep using them. A gold and an attack card would be 3 coin and a consistent attack, which is more consistent. Against Ranger, a Smithy beats it straight up. Well, that is if it is out. Still, having Hirelings just increase the draw limit is probably just better. Giant's attack is pretty nasty if you can set it off every turn, and that kingdom has a lot of good engine enablers going for it, with Amulet and Ratcatcher for trashing, Dungeon and Scouting Party for cycling, Port as your village, and probably a Duplicate to accelerate your gains. Ranger does have +Buy as well as the card draw, so it's still worth making space for at least one, as a Giant enabler if nothing else. Hirelings are okay, but you get nothing the turn you play it and it's terminal, so it might be hard to find the time for one. Money decks are probably going to be decent in that kingdom too, between Amulet, Treasure Trove and Scouting Party
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Apr 24, 2016 23:33
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Magnetic North posted:This may seem like a odd question, but I'm looking to improve my laundromat games. What are some 2-player card games without chips or boards, preferably that take a little while to play? Requiring a table or pen and paper is fine. Right now it's mostly Fluxx and Quiddler, mostly because the person I am going with mostly owns full size games. If you've got the space to play Quiddler then check out Odin's Ravens, that and Jaipur have been the go to games for 2 players and 15 minutes
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Apr 25, 2016 00:46
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Lottery of Babylon posted:My first two games I was knocked down to one island early and ended up winning both times. Being able to build up your economy and a couple buildings without fear of being invaded is great, and the three bonus gold you get for Apolloing with only one island is even better. It's basically sitting out a turn because I wouldn't do anything in a turn. I had to choose Apollo and had to put the cornucopia on that island. Meanwhile the other players were making as much money as me with the Apollo bonus and had much larger reserves, so I'd probably have to sit out two turns to make enough money to make it worthwhile. And even then, I'd either be spending all my money to outbid them or they'd be letting me win the auctions, both of which suck. (E: Also, the rulebook says Apollo is like sitting out a turn, so...) Ohthehugemanatee posted:Were you playing with two players? I've never played at that number but I guess I can imagine that might end up skewed. Three players. Maybe we had some rules wrong, it was a first play. But by the end I had one fleet and one coin, while another player had a ton of gold, a metropolis with the Minotaur on it, and was working out how to invade the third player's island to get himself a second metropolis. He'd gone with a strong Zeus strategy, which seems overpowered, as you said. Rocko Bonaparte posted:We got the Dominion Adventures expansion. I wish my friends liked Dominion. Safety Biscuits fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Apr 25, 2016 |
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Apr 25, 2016 02:08
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taser rates posted:Giant's attack is pretty nasty if you can set it off every turn, and that kingdom has a lot of good engine enablers going for it, with Amulet and Ratcatcher for trashing, Dungeon and Scouting Party for cycling, Port as your village, and probably a Duplicate to accelerate your gains. Ranger does have +Buy as well as the card draw, so it's still worth making space for at least one, as a Giant enabler if nothing else. Hirelings are okay, but you get nothing the turn you play it and it's terminal, so it might be hard to find the time for one. Money decks are probably going to be decent in that kingdom too, between Amulet, Treasure Trove and Scouting Party How can I quickly get it to set off every turn? I would have to draw a hand that has two giants, or a ranger and a giant. I also need a port or other action enabler. So I have spoken for 3 of the 5 cards in my hand. That's after copper/estates. I have to do a lot of junking, and I have to somehow keep the show going once I start loading up on end-game property. I also need each money in hand on top of the giant attack to turn +5 coin into a province. I mean, it can get me a duchy, but I don't know if I can end the game quickly enough gobbling them up--plus what they do to my deck. I can use dungeons to improve cycling, but that's about it. House Louse posted:I wish my friends liked Dominion.
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Apr 25, 2016 02:46
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goons posted:Mottainai, Carcassonne, Hive Pocket Edition, San Juan, Arboretum, Biblios, Valley of the Kings, Odin's Ravens, Jaipur Great choices. Hive and San Juan are the two I'm most interested in. I like VotK from what I've played, but it is already owned by someone in the group. (To be fair, someone might have San Juan as well?) I love Jaipur, but I don't want to lose any tokens there, and my laundry partner doesn't like it as much as I do.
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Apr 25, 2016 03:09
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Magnetic North posted:This may seem like a odd question, but I'm looking to improve my laundromat games. What are some 2-player card games without chips or boards, preferably that take a little while to play? Requiring a table or pen and paper is fine. Right now it's mostly Fluxx and Quiddler, mostly because the person I am going with mostly owns full size games. Love Letter is just cards and some cubes, but it only takes maybe 15 min. Eminent Domain has a fairly small footprint and is a Good Gametm. I have also enjoyed Citadels as a 2-player game.
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Apr 25, 2016 03:19
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Cyclades becomes a much faster game with a bit of experience and becomes harder for any player to run away with it. The game is potentially winnable much faster than people initially assume and, in practice, often depends on the final couple of auctions and some of the more powerful Zeus cards. The expansions address the cards to an extent but I think if one player seems to have a massive lead it might also signify the game has run on too long or several players were really doing the wrong thing. Once everyone has a good understanding about exactly how many steps it takes to win via any of the main strategies it should both speed up a lot and generally not enable run away leaders. It also becomes a lot more tense, and, for some players frustrating (like other auction games) as the really important auctions/turns begin to emerge and player politics becomes a bit more of a factor when two players are competing over a single action and the decision of a third makes or breaks it.
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Apr 25, 2016 03:22
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:How can I quickly get it to set off every turn? I would have to draw a hand that has two giants, or a ranger and a giant. I also need a port or other action enabler. So I have spoken for 3 of the 5 cards in my hand. That's after copper/estates. I have to do a lot of junking, and I have to somehow keep the show going once I start loading up on end-game property. I also need each money in hand on top of the giant attack to turn +5 coin into a province. I mean, it can get me a duchy, but I don't know if I can end the game quickly enough gobbling them up--plus what they do to my deck. I see the following points for a good engine here: 1) contesting Ports early, so you have space for Giant and Ranger plays. Probably at least six, though more is better of course. 2) early trashing with Amulet/Ratcatcher, though you want to make sure to keep some coin around so you can afford your first giant. 3) distant lands, which let you ignore traditional victory cards for a long time; three DLs on your tavern mat are worth two provinces, and they don't mess up your deck 4) cycling/hand stacking with Dungeon/Scouting Party. So, just a guess here, your ideal is probably a deck of like X ports and X pairs of giants and rangers. Every turn, get as many journey giant plays in as you can manage, then buy a SP and distant lands.
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Apr 25, 2016 03:42
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Couple of pics. My finished tree in the kickstarter game Kodama: The Tree Spirits. Pretty game! Will probably pick it when it officially comes out.  Signed copy of Knit Wit. Neato. 
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Apr 25, 2016 04:49
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Gzuz-Kriced posted:Couple of pics. Seems like you already own it. Why would you buy it twice?
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Apr 25, 2016 04:50
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VelociBacon posted:Seems like you already own it. Why would you buy it twice? It was a friends copy.
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Apr 25, 2016 04:51
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PyroDwarf posted:Love Letter is just cards and some cubes, but it only takes maybe 15 min. Eminent Domain has a fairly small footprint and is a Good Gametm. I have also enjoyed Citadels as a 2-player game. When you say Eminent Domain, do you mean the original or Microcosm? Because we have the latter and it's pretty meh.
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Apr 25, 2016 04:52
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Gzuz-Kriced posted:Couple of pics. Neat! I always liked the idea of using cards to make a structure but not just laid out like a grid.
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Apr 25, 2016 04:57
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Magnetic North posted:When you say Eminent Domain, do you mean the original or Microcosm? Because we have the latter and it's pretty meh. The original. It's fairly well received, especially with the expansion. Also, Welcome to the Dungeon can be an amusing game of chicken between two people.
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Apr 25, 2016 05:57
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Foehammer posted:A pretty good generalization, although I've made one exception. This isn't Tragedy Looper.
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Apr 25, 2016 06:31
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PyroDwarf posted:Eminent Domain has a fairly small footprint and is a Good Gametm. Eminent Domain requires space for at least seven stacks of cards in the supply plus each player having an area for their deck, discard pile and each planet they have in play. It takes up as much space as a full-sized boardgame.
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Apr 25, 2016 07:57
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Asked in the Battlestar Galactica thread but thought I might ask here as well, does anyone have a sleeve recommendation for Battlestar Galactica? People on BGG etc seem split on Mayday vs FFG sleeves. Also what sleeves (size/brand) are best for Dominion?
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Apr 25, 2016 10:04
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