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Tekopo posted:Oh poo poo I meant it the other way around. I like Switzerland, it's Austria that has the lovely gimmick. You are talking about the mini off map board and its companies right? Unfortunately it looks like that still remains according to this list: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1569602/1854-changes-first-edition
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Jun 1, 2016 02:40
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1853 is really not very good. I know some people who like it as a more relaxing 18xx with less stock manipulation and more tracklaying, but there's a lot of situations where the tracklaying isn't that interesting and contracts don't work too well until everyone's played a couple of times.
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Jun 1, 2016 02:54
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MrDru posted:what's the hive mind opinion on archipelago? It was a nightmare to teach and the rule book is really bad at teaching the game. I don't have a strong opinion on the game, although it's leaning negative, but there's a lot of great ideas that just aren't executed intuitively. Trying to teach a 5 player game was an absolute nightmare. The turn bidding made no sense to them because it's meaningless in the first turn. The action execution was fine, it's a simple worker placement system, but I lost them when trying to explain how control of buildings worked and what it meant for workers to lie on their side. Then we go to buying cards at the very end of a round, that's fine, but they completely lost it when the crisis changed to replace the purchased cards. To them it was an affront to game design that you couldn't plan for a crisis the following turn. Well, we got to turn 2 and they're like "what's the point in bidding for turn order, why do I care about going first?" Okay, we have to resolve the crisis so we lay each meeple on its side and now the first player pays the crisis and stands up his choice of units "WHOAH WHOAH WHOAH WHOAH" I'd recommend teaching it to one person at a time until everyone you intend to play with knows how to play.
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Jun 1, 2016 03:02
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The trick to turn bidding in Archipelago is that you're not really bidding for first, you're bidding to be the kingmaker for the round. If you really want to be first, due to the unfriendly tie system it's generally less risky and more efficient to pay that guy than to bid. That aside, the rulebook is definitely bad at getting certain core concepts across, like how your citizens become engaged and the consequences of such, and what exactly you're allowed to do on each of your turns (the answer is 1) place an action disc, 2) use a port or market, 3) use an evolution card, in whatever order you want). The latter is even written clearly on the inside of the player blinds amusingly enough, just nowhere in the manual. Another possible caveat is that it has some unfortunate depictions of colonization and race, though it does engage with the subject in interesting ways that most Euros about colonization would gloss over. In the end though, it's a brilliant fusion of theme and mechanics, and is probably the only game to date that has done the semi-cooperative mode of play right.
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Jun 1, 2016 03:19
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Archipelago is what you get if you take the zombies out of Dead of Winter and replace them with a quality game.
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Jun 1, 2016 05:08
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Big McHuge posted:Archipelago is what you get if you take the zombies out of Dead of Winter and replace them with a quality game. Surprisingly accurate but you also replace the zombies with a problematic depiction of colonialism and denigration of indigenous peoples.
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Jun 1, 2016 05:21
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I'm not sure if I'd call it problematic so much as uncomfortably thematic. It's also one of the best representations of the tragedy of the Commons I've seen, although it's not something I really seek examples of. My biggest issue with it is that some of the iconography on the evolution cards kinda blows rear end and they should have replaced them all with words. Also I feel the rulebook really needs to emphasize the need to negotiate and trade, since doing anything on your own is super inefficient.
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Jun 1, 2016 05:38
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I do enjoy the solitaire expansion for Archipelago and the multiplayer expansion adds a good selection of cards that lean toward aggressive and combative actions. I usually divvy up the deck and let people choose what they think is best to add to the game, since everyone has their own playstyle. Some of the solo expansion quests are hard as hell too and Donald Trompe also makes an appearance.
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Jun 1, 2016 06:17
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Archipelago is one of my faves... but it's tough to get to the table  Teaching is a bear, and getting the level of play up where people are willing to attempt a medium game is a bit of a challenge.
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Jun 1, 2016 06:33
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I find teaching Keyflower takes forever and people've only just gotten a handle on things by the end of the game.
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Jun 1, 2016 06:35
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SynthOrange posted:I find teaching Keyflower takes forever and people've only just gotten a handle on things by the end of the game. Structuring the teaching a bit better drastically reduced the amount of time it takes me to teach people Keyflower. Do something like - What the glyphs mean first, with some examples, so they can understand most tiles in the game and ask if they don't - Lay out an example spring - Explain bidding on normal tiles, bidding on turn order, using tiles (mention other people's tiles), upgrading, then briefly explain what that will mean for their meeple count in general (again with examples) - Spring is resources, summer is resources and boats, autumn is point warehouses, winter is pure points - here are your winter tiles - go It's a game that's easy to meander from one topic to another if you're teaching it, so a script helps. But yes, you'll never have more than a faint idea of what's going on in your first game.
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Jun 1, 2016 06:58
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berenzen posted:Hey guys, I'm looking for a board game that I'd be able to play with my girlfriend. Our current go-to games are Tash-Kalar, Dominion and Pandemic, with the occasional Dungeon Petz. We're looking for another game to diversify the games that we can play together. Any recommendations? I will never stop recommending Patchwork. It's fast, it's cute, and it has a surprising amount of strategic depth.
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Jun 1, 2016 11:57
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SaltLick posted:Had a few rounds of Legendary Encounters: Aliens. Good stuff and hard as we got swarmed every single time. How different in the Predator version? Same basic game, different tweaks for each scenario. If you ever watched Predator and wanted to be the Predator it's the game for you. It also includes rules for hunting xenomorphs as Predators in competition with each other.
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Jun 1, 2016 13:00
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So other than one of the Splotter fellas almost dying in a freak accident, HeavyCon couldn't have gone better. We were told by some that they would choose HeavyCon over BGGCON. That was pretty awesome to hear, I have to say.
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Jun 1, 2016 14:01
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what was the freak accident?
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Jun 1, 2016 14:04
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Crushed by meeples?
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Jun 1, 2016 14:06
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For content: my GF really likes TIME STORIES. Are there any actually good games that scratch the same itch of puzzle solving and theme?
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Jun 1, 2016 14:07
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the panacea posted:For content: my GF really likes TIME STORIES. Are there any actually good games that scratch the same itch of puzzle solving and theme? Tragedy Looper. Though it has more of an anime theme than a "time travel" theme.
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Jun 1, 2016 14:14
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Did that french redesign come through? I liked the SyFy channel schlock vibes it had.
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Jun 1, 2016 14:19
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Rutibex posted:Tragedy Looper. Though it has more of an anime theme than a "time travel" theme. It has a Groundhog Day theme with anime characters.
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Jun 1, 2016 14:44
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Tragedy Looper should've had a knockoff Detective Conan instead of no-name anime high schoolers. But the theme is v good and fitting.
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Jun 1, 2016 14:46
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Recently I've been totally addicted to Food Chain Magnate (primarily playing on Boardgamecore) and I'm looking to get another Splotter game. I see Indonesia and The Great Zimbabwe are due for reprint but I mainly play 2 players and I don't think 2 players is particularly good with either of them is it? Has there been any talk of a reprint of roads & boats? it looks interesting
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Jun 1, 2016 16:40
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Roads and boats recently got reprinted. I doubt it's up for another printing soon.
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Jun 1, 2016 16:51
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Heisenberg1276 posted:Recently I've been totally addicted to Food Chain Magnate (primarily playing on Boardgamecore) and I'm looking to get another Splotter game. Zimbabwe is good with 2, can't say about Indonesia though.
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Jun 1, 2016 16:58
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MrDru posted:what's the hive mind opinion on archipelago? It's a great game, but a demanding one. My biggest issue is that it doesn't end with newbies. I've played three games and I'm convinced that if I weren't there to deliberately end the game, they'd still be going. Some end game triggers, like distributing explore tokens, are inevitable. But others aren't, like building 4 ports when each player only sees the need for one port or one market. Or emptying multiple resources from the bank when players can barely keep up with crises. Good luck building four ports by yourself to end the game.
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Jun 1, 2016 17:01
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Rutibex posted:Tragedy Looper. Though it has more of an anime theme than a "time travel" theme. It's not cooperative though if I remember it correctly.
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Jun 1, 2016 17:34
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the panacea posted:It's not cooperative though if I remember it correctly. It's 1 vs many
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Jun 1, 2016 17:36
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PerniciousKnid posted:It's a great game, but a demanding one. My biggest issue is that it doesn't end with newbies. I've played three games and I'm convinced that if I weren't there to deliberately end the game, they'd still be going. Some end game triggers, like distributing explore tokens, are inevitable. But others aren't, like building 4 ports when each player only sees the need for one port or one market. Or emptying multiple resources from the bank when players can barely keep up with crises. Good luck building four ports by yourself to end the game. Great but demanding is probably the best description. It's one of those types of games that I'm coming across more and more often that are tough enough to try and get a good grasp of with my ever-patient GF (let alone teach) but eventually we slog through and enjoy the experience. At the same time though, there are so many quicker, less dense games that don't tick all the boxes that Archipelago does but are way easier to set up and teach newcomers. My advice would to be play it a few times to figure out the mechanics solidly so that you aren't humming and hawing when someone asks you a question that is intuitive to a veteran but obtuse to a newbie. I guess this advice could apply to every game but because Archipelago is so dense and such a time commitment compared to the majority of games I feel comfortable getting onto the table I think there's an onus on the teacher really knowing this one inside and out for a smooth experience.
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Jun 1, 2016 17:50
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Esposito posted:what was the freak accident? Car wreck while returning from dinner via Uber cab. More details in our HeavyCon recap next episode.
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Jun 1, 2016 19:47
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Heisenberg1276 posted:Recently I've been totally addicted to Food Chain Magnate (primarily playing on Boardgamecore) and I'm looking to get another Splotter game. Indonesia is only a 3-5p game. Period. TGZ we enjoy 2-4 (or is it 5...been a bit there). Thoroughly love both games, but if only 2p, TGZ, Antiquity, or R&B are your options.
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Jun 1, 2016 19:50
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On bank holiday Monday we played Space Team (the board game) and Panic on Wall Street. Panic on Wall Street is good but it doesn't really work with 3/4. On the other hand, Space Team was good, really good and I'm glad I kickstarted it. I sorta changed the rules though (I know, I'm not a fan of houserules either, but it's a silly light game), where the final spaceship pieces needed to win the game were always the last card in people's malfuction/anomaly deck. This lead to really tense buzzer-beaters instead of lucking into finding the cards early.
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Jun 1, 2016 20:55
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Tekopo posted:On bank holiday Monday we played Space Team (the board game) and Panic on Wall Street. Panic on Wall Street is good but it doesn't really work with 3/4. On the other hand, Space Team was good, really good and I'm glad I kickstarted it. I sorta changed the rules though (I know, I'm not a fan of houserules either, but it's a silly light game), where the final spaceship pieces needed to win the game were always the last card in people's malfuction/anomaly deck. This lead to really tense buzzer-beaters instead of lucking into finding the cards early. I just got my copy of Panic and cannot wait to get it out. When you say 3/4 do you mean three managers four investors? Or do you mean you played with 3 to 4 people?
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Jun 1, 2016 21:10
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FulsomFrank posted:I just got my copy of Panic and cannot wait to get it out. When you say 3/4 do you mean three managers four investors? Or do you mean you played with 3 to 4 people?
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Jun 1, 2016 21:55
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Tekopo posted:On bank holiday Monday we played Space Team (the board game) and Panic on Wall Street. Panic on Wall Street is good but it doesn't really work with 3/4. On the other hand, Space Team was good, really good and I'm glad I kickstarted it. I sorta changed the rules though (I know, I'm not a fan of houserules either, but it's a silly light game), where the final spaceship pieces needed to win the game were always the last card in people's malfuction/anomaly deck. This lead to really tense buzzer-beaters instead of lucking into finding the cards early. Panic on Wall Street / Masters of Commerce (same game) are better the more players you have AND orders of magnitude better with an odd player count vs even. I would only play it with 7/9/11 players. With any of those player counts it's one of the best 1 hour games.
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Jun 1, 2016 22:03
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Seems like most of my high player count games are team games, maybe I should get Panic just for odd counts.
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Jun 1, 2016 22:52
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PerniciousKnid posted:Seems like most of my high player count games are team games, maybe I should get Panic just for odd counts. MoC/PoWS is seriously one of the best party games I've ever played. The ONLY hesitation I have in recommending it besides the player count is that you WILL be making lots of noise during the 5 2-minute 'negotiation' (read: shouting) phases. If you can't yell at someone across the table without turning heads/getting in trouble, this is not the game for you.
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Jun 1, 2016 23:09
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Rutibex posted:Tragedy Looper. Though it has more of an anime theme than a "time travel" theme. The art style is anime, the theme is time travel. Two different things, just like Munchkin and Magic both have fantasy themes despite their vastly different art styles.
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Jun 1, 2016 23:50
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Eh, all of the cases and characters are Anime tropes as well. Alien School Girls? That's about as anime themed as it gets. Art conveys theme as much or more than mechanics for most people.
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Jun 1, 2016 23:54
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Bottom Liner posted:Eh, all of the cases and characters are Anime tropes as well. Alien School Girls? That's about as anime themed as it gets. Art conveys theme as much or more than mechanics for most people. Excuse me, but the alien doesn't have the Student tag, so she's not a school girl 
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Jun 2, 2016 00:18
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Have there been any first impressions posted of the Dark Souls game? The node-based movement, and the stam resource system are both very intriguing, but the dice based combat has me a little nervous.
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Jun 2, 2016 00:36
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