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GoneWithTheTornado posted:Going to try Food Chain Magnate today. Any beginner tips? what are good choices for first turn hiring besides recruitment girl and trainer? Other feasible openings exist, but as a new player I wouldn't dare gently caress with them. They're all super delicate.
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Jun 4, 2016 20:50
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Shadow225 posted:As someone who hates most dice based games and 'thematic experiences,' I think Eldritch is solid as long as you're not the one who runs or sets up the game. The victory conditions change based on the Old One chosen for each game, but generally you spend time either enhancing stats, fighting monsters, or solving mysteries. You roll dice to resolve anything, but the game is split on resolution. You either aim to roll a certain number of successes, or you aim to roll a single success by rolling dice equal to your stats. I feel the game gives you options to mitigate your luck enough that you don't feel screwed. I like a lot of what EH is doing but I disagree with your last point. I've lost every single game of EH I've ever played and it almost completely came down to the dice failing us (with a side of badly timed brutal Mythos cards, but mainly dice). The issue as I see it is that a lot of the dice mechanics are imported straight from Arkham Horror, but in that game you have larger dice pools to start, more ways to increase them, and you get way more clue tokens with far less fuss and have significantly fewer places you need to spend clue tokens that aren't rolling extra dice on failed rolls. In Eldritch, I don't think the math works. The Focus action added in a couple of the later expansions does help a bit, but since one of the most limited resources you have are player actions and it's only one die worth of reroll by default, it's not really enough.
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Jun 4, 2016 21:30
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Funny that you should mention EH as I recently bought Signs of Carcosa and Under the Pyramids. It's my go-to game for friends that enjoy fluffy boardgames, as this means I don't have to play Betrayal or Exploding Kittens or what have you. But I hosed up. Because my insert I made a little while ago barely fits the Carcosa small box expansion, what with all its extra cards and stuff. So many loving mythos cards! And this is even before the Pyramids expansion with its eight new adventurers and tons of new cards. Nuts.
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Jun 4, 2016 22:13
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EH is absolutely winnable but the players have to a) do things according to their stats - Lore and Will for gates, Strength and Will for fighting, Observation for clues, and b) remember that spells and combat are far and away the things that need the most successes because they're the only thing in the game that cares about multiple successes. People assigned to those roles should be getting bonuses stacked on them asap by the rest of the party if need be. After that it becomes knowing what the really useful things are - Plumb the Void, improvement loops (which a number of expansion characters have), etc. The whole 'most things only need one success' is why we've found the game drastically easier than Arkham Horror, despite Arkham having higher dice pools. Even the worst gate and event checks in Eldritch give you a 33% chance of passing because you can always chuck a 5 or 6 on a single die. I'm recently getting tempted to run a PBP with expansions up to Strange Remnants, because I just found out there's a vassal module I can modify into getting me nice scans for a thread.
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Jun 5, 2016 00:03
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Saw one copy of Food Chain Magnate at the local store for $140. I am eager to play, but I guess not $140 eager.
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Jun 5, 2016 00:30
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Xelkelvos posted:The problem with Jack in Letters or Drac in Fury is that stalling is a perfectly viable move on their side just to mess with the other players which has the same effect as the Overlord going hard on the heroes I think this depends on how competent your opponents are. Every time a Jack has tried to stall or worse, showboat around, it has backfired horribly and we've caught him.
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Jun 5, 2016 01:39
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Stelas posted:Even the worst gate and event checks in Eldritch give you a 33% chance of passing because you can always chuck a 5 or 6 on a single die. Which is important, because you'll be chucking a lot of single dice. (But also someone's usually Cursed pretty quickly and down to a 1 in 6 chance.)
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Jun 5, 2016 02:16
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malkav11 posted:Which is important, because you'll be chucking a lot of single dice. (But also someone's usually Cursed pretty quickly and down to a 1 in 6 chance.) Not ... really? Unless you're deliberately throwing the wrong people at the wrong checks (the manual even tells you what stat does what, though I admit it's tucked away in the Reference Manual) you shouldn't really ever have 1 dice on a gate or skill check unless it's one of the rare wonky ones that throws Strength or unusual requirements at you. If you're tossing that dude with 2 Will 1 Lore into a gate then you deserve everything you get. Again, this is something that's compounded in Arkham - not only do you need multiple successes, the game's a lot more lousy with (Stat)-2 (Stat)-3 rolls that just aren't there in EH. e: I've run 3 EH games on the forum that players have won - the only one players didn't was Kerro's King in Yellow mod, and that was down to unfortunate interaction with Mythos cards. My win rate with people around a table is more like 60%, if only because there's less time to weigh up options since you kinda have to keep the game going. Stelas fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Jun 5, 2016 |
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Jun 5, 2016 02:36
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Today I played Wealth of Nations using the 2nd edition rules that shorten the game. Played it 3 player, though I was hoping for 4-5. It's an abstract tile-laying economics game with 5 resources + cash and player driven markets for each one. Each resource is critical in some way to generating the others (food powers tiles, energy powers blocs, labor allows exploration/building, ore powers blocks/building, and capital is required for most buildings). It was an interesting game that I'd like to play more of, but it falls into a trap I've seen with other economics games that allow players to take out loans - in many cases, the dominating strategy seems to be racing to take out as many loans as possible to seize a huge advantage at the beginning and use it to render your opponents toothless. In particular, in WoN, loans give you $20-#ofLoansYouHave and if you don't pay them off (at $25 each) by the end of the game, you lose 3 VP. Trouble is, every $10 you have at the end of the game is worth 1 VP, so paying back a loan (to avoid losing 3) costs you 2.5. I've seen some games make it so that a player with outstanding loans can't win, but that doesn't seem like the right fix.
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Jun 5, 2016 03:08
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Having the dominant strategy be about taking loans to fund your growth doesn't seem like a bug - the entire functioning of a modern capitalist economy is about borrowing capital (whether from investors, or from a bank) to fund expansion that will pay back more than you borrowed. If loans are just going be a "you hosed up, here's some money so you can keep playing but can't really win" thing then the game probably shouldn't have them in the first place. If I was designing an economic game I'd start the players with absolutely nothing so that they have to take a loan just to get started - which wouldn't affect anything mechanically (because everyone takes the same loan), but would emphasize the intended interaction. The bigger issue is that loans cost exactly the same amount regardless of how long they're outstanding, which is what encourages the "borrow as much as possible at the very start of the game and only consider paying it off at the end" tactic. You could consider a house-rule such as loans giving you the full $25 but at the end of every turn you pay $1 for each outstanding loan (taking more loans if necessary to cover the interest).
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Jun 5, 2016 03:28
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Mega64 posted:Also since this issue will likely continue through the summer, what are some good two-player games you'd recommend? The extent of my two-player games right now are Hive and Summoner War (and War of the Ring but doubt I'll ever want to learn that thing again). I'm not sure how you expect anyone to ever respect you again after that parenthetical.
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Jun 5, 2016 03:58
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I was taught Trajan today, and I didn't like it at all. The winner had played before and got about 108, while I got second with 94, beating the other person who had played before, and another newbie. I couldn't stand how the action selection worked with the mancala mechanism. It demands more forethought than I enjoy to follow through with a plan, and I felt like I was fighting against it the whole game. I couldn't take a rough idea of what I wanted to do, and then just work towards it. You have to plan moves that seed the mancala to take the actions you in addition to dropping the right colours in the right bowls for the Trajan tiles. I can't easily plan more than one action in advance, so it was just painful, instead of enjoyable. It was the same feeling as Tzolk'in with counting corn and turns. Small errors in planning can completely screw you, as opposed to simply delaying you a turn. I probably wouldn't play it again.
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Jun 5, 2016 04:31
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unpronounceable posted:I was taught Trajan today, and I didn't like it at all. The winner had played before and got about 108, while I got second with 94, beating the other person who had played before, and another newbie. I couldn't stand how the action selection worked with the mancala mechanism. It demands more forethought than I enjoy to follow through with a plan, and I felt like I was fighting against it the whole game. I couldn't take a rough idea of what I wanted to do, and then just work towards it. You have to plan moves that seed the mancala to take the actions you in addition to dropping the right colours in the right bowls for the Trajan tiles. I can't easily plan more than one action in advance, so it was just painful, instead of enjoyable. Mancala is a pretty complex game just on its own, layering a euro game on top of it sounds like it would just be too complex. That might be a good thing, a game like that will have a high skill ceiling, but of course it will feel frustrating to beginners. I'm imagining Chessgricola, where the spaces of an Agricola game are mapped onto a Chess board. Players can only collect the resources they need (and take actions) for their farm by landing on the chess spaces. But of course you are playing chess as well so your workers can be captured if you put your pieces in vulnerable areas 
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Jun 5, 2016 05:14
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Could someone help me remember the name of a old card game I remember playing back in middle school (mid 90s). It was a card game where it had terms like Hail Mary and Roundhouse for attacks. I remember the other cards are named after fighting terms but man I can't recall what it even is.
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Jun 5, 2016 05:15
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I just got three COINs at once, but I can't play them because like half the group is out of town after the 17th, and we need to get through eight months of Pandemic Legacy before then. Any first-game advice for Cuba Libre? I get the impression I ought to play the government, is that about right?
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Jun 5, 2016 05:16
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Rirse posted:Could someone help me remember the name of a old card game I remember playing back in middle school (mid 90s). It was a card game where it had terms like Hail Mary and Roundhouse for attacks. I remember the other cards are named after fighting terms but man I can't recall what it even is. is it Lunch Money? Themed around a schoolgirl brawl.
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Jun 5, 2016 05:40
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Stelas posted:Not ... really? Unless you're deliberately throwing the wrong people at the wrong checks (the manual even tells you what stat does what, though I admit it's tucked away in the Reference Manual) you shouldn't really ever have 1 dice on a gate or skill check unless it's one of the rare wonky ones that throws Strength or unusual requirements at you. If you're tossing that dude with 2 Will 1 Lore into a gate then you deserve everything you get. It's been my experience that a heck of a lot of checks in EH are at -1, and most characters start with stats in the 1-3 range except for one or two specialties, so there's a lot of 1 or 2 die rolls. There weren't nearly as many -2/-3 checks in Arkham on average and a -2 penalty to a skill you might have 6-7 in is a lot less devastating than a -1 to a skill you have 2 or 3 in. We weren't aware of the Will/Lore to gates and Observation to research ties (I haven't seen any consistent pattern in what checks are required in what circumstance, aside from actual combat, but I'll take your word for it), so we might be able to improve our odds there, but that doesn't cover general/city or expedition skill checks, the former of which are significantly more common than gates or clues and still potentially quite dangerous, and the latter are, at the very least, quite important to certain Mysteries and still very rewarding the rest of the time. Besides which, the movement is so slow and threats/clues so spread out that it's really not very practical to consistently match the person with the best skill in that type of encounter with every encounter of that type. Or at least not at our player count (usually 3). Maybe you play with more and that helps?
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Jun 5, 2016 05:51
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malkav11 posted:but that doesn't cover general/city or expedition skill checks, General/City - Influence (though this is less stringent than the others) Expedition - Strength and Observation (Reference book, Page 11, 'Skills'. Which, yes, is a really dumb place to put it rather than the Beginner's Guide.) Try playing with a dummied 4th character - 3 is arguably the hardest number of players to play with because, like you say, you're spread a bit thin. The rules for how many components you place are exactly the same as 4 players, so it's kind of a handicap to have an odd number of players. To trivialize the game, make your 4th player Charlie Kane and have him shopbot for everyone while travelling to Istanbul to beef up his influence. Also the 'tutorial' Elder One might be the hardest to win against. Try Shubby. Stelas fucked around with this message at 06:18 on Jun 5, 2016 |
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Jun 5, 2016 06:13
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rchandra posted:is it Lunch Money? Themed around a schoolgirl brawl. Yeah I think that might be it. The art does match what I remember. Thank you.
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Jun 5, 2016 07:16
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unpronounceable posted:I was taught Trajan today, and I didn't like it at all. The winner had played before and got about 108, while I got second with 94, beating the other person who had played before, and another newbie. I couldn't stand how the action selection worked with the mancala mechanism. It demands more forethought than I enjoy to follow through with a plan, and I felt like I was fighting against it the whole game. I couldn't take a rough idea of what I wanted to do, and then just work towards it. You have to plan moves that seed the mancala to take the actions you in addition to dropping the right colours in the right bowls for the Trajan tiles. I can't easily plan more than one action in advance, so it was just painful, instead of enjoyable. I'm on the fence with Trajan - I dig the Mancala action wheel and I haven't seen anything else like it (or anything Mancala like) and it gives you something to occupy yourself with during the other player's turn. I don't like how it feels like a bunch of isolated mini-games that discourages/prevents player interaction. Cool concept, ordinary execution.
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Jun 5, 2016 07:29
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Big McHuge posted:I think this depends on how competent your opponents are. Every time a Jack has tried to stall or worse, showboat around, it has backfired horribly and we've caught him. The person who typically plays Jack has pretty much mastered the game to the point of needing a houserule forcing him to dick around for five turns before going back into hiding.
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Jun 5, 2016 07:56
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Stelas posted:Try playing with a dummied 4th character - 3 is arguably the hardest number of players to play with because, like you say, you're spread a bit thin. The rules for how many components you place are exactly the same as 4 players, so it's kind of a handicap to have an odd number of players. Heads up that this was changed in the latest official errata to be better balanced for odd numbers. Not sure why they didn't include the errata'd reference cards in the newest expansion though. We generally really enjoy EH even though some games have been lost due to a string of bad rolls. Picked up the newest small box expansion and I love how they are mostly adding depth of content to existing decks and features instead of the Arkham Horror problem of "new expansion means 6 new decks that you'll never use." I recommend having another player read your encounter cards and stop after telling you what check you are rolling for without knowing the pass/fail results. The theme flows a lot better this way and it becomes a pretty good balance for spending clue/focus tokens when you don't know the result of your failures ahead of time.
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Jun 5, 2016 08:09
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Radioactive Toy posted:and it becomes a pretty good balance for spending clue/focus tokens when you don't know the result of your failures ahead of time. Eldritch Horror has problems, but "spending clue tokens to reroll is overpowered, we need to make it less effective for balance" sure as hell isn't one of them.
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Jun 5, 2016 10:35
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Krazyface posted:I just got three COINs at once, but I can't play them because like half the group is out of town after the 17th, and we need to get through eight months of Pandemic Legacy before then. Having just recently played my first game of Cuba Libre, I wouldn't recommend any faction over any other--they all have unique quirks. It would be helpful to maybe run through a practice Propaganda round before starting the real game. Those rounds can include huge swings in terms of resources, deployment, and opportunities to reverse support/opposition that has been gradually built over many turns. Also, make sure everyone understands how cash markers work and why they're so valuable. Capabilities and Momentum are very tempting, but oftentimes an Op + Activity is the better choice. Other than that, you can learn as you play since everybody gets a player aid that shows all factions' options.
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Jun 5, 2016 14:14
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Malloreon posted:Today I played Wealth of Nations using the 2nd edition rules that shorten the game. Played it 3 player, though I was hoping for 4-5. The fun thing to do is trade other people your loans. Someone's about to take a 5th loan for $16 and you offer them $18 or $20 to take one of your loans instead. Everybody wins!
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Jun 5, 2016 15:27
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Radioactive Toy posted:Heads up that this was changed in the latest official errata to be better balanced for odd numbers. Not sure why they didn't include the errata'd reference cards in the newest expansion though. New decks are actually great, because you can slot them in when you want to use them and ignore them the rest of the time, and they just do the thing they're supposed to do. The big problem with Arkham expansions was that a lot of their mechanics fired in the Mythos and Other World Encounters decks where adding more than a couple of expansions at a time would dilute them to the point that they never really got going. The Act mechanic from the King in Yellow stuff, for example - if you never get any King in Yellow Mythos cards, that stuff just...doesn't do anything. Whereas Eldritch has thankfully compartmentalized that stuff into Ancient One specific content and everything else is just more variety for decks. Particularly since they ditched the idea of the gates leading to specific Other Worlds and made the whole gate experience one card at a time.
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Jun 5, 2016 15:58
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rchandra posted:is it Lunch Money? Themed around a schoolgirl brawl. From the description I was expecting a cartoony sort of style. Instead the art is whatever the gently caress is going on here.
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Jun 5, 2016 17:39
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joebob posted:Who doesn't get fried rice at an American Japanese restaurant? What really? I don't even see fried rice on the menu at Japanese places. Unless you count as Japanese those, uh, "pan-Asian" junk joints in malls and stuff that sell you "sushi" and "potstickers" and "pho" all from the same fryer.
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Jun 5, 2016 17:46
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SuccinctAndPunchy posted:From the description I was expecting a cartoony sort of style. Instead the art is whatever the gently caress is going on here. Lunch money's theme is "goth schoolgirl Fight Club." In spite of that it's a surprisingly tight fighting game simulator. So far as I know no one has replicated the idea for a theme that isn't so ridiculously nineties.
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Jun 5, 2016 18:02
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SuperKlaus posted:What really? I don't even see fried rice on the menu at Japanese places. Unless you count as Japanese those, uh, "pan-Asian" junk joints in malls and stuff that sell you "sushi" and "potstickers" and "pho" all from the same fryer. That's what "American Japanese" would imply, yeah.
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Jun 5, 2016 18:02
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malkav11 posted:New decks are actually great, because you can slot them in when you want to use them and ignore them the rest of the time, and they just do the thing they're supposed to do. The big problem with Arkham expansions was that a lot of their mechanics fired in the Mythos and Other World Encounters decks where adding more than a couple of expansions at a time would dilute them to the point that they never really got going. The Act mechanic from the King in Yellow stuff, for example - if you never get any King in Yellow Mythos cards, that stuff just...doesn't do anything. Whereas Eldritch has thankfully compartmentalized that stuff into Ancient One specific content and everything else is just more variety for decks. Particularly since they ditched the idea of the gates leading to specific Other Worlds and made the whole gate experience one card at a time. Whoops yeah it's been a few years since I've played Arkham Horror so i forgot that deck dilution was the problem there. I don't miss that game at all. One of the new characters in Signs of Carcosa is my new favorite. Jenny Barnes starts with 6 dice to roll for an Acquire Assets action and can shrug off bank loan debts. I think I had 10+ assets on her before she succumbed to madness trying to act out The King in Yellow.
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Jun 5, 2016 18:02
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My wife and I bought our first board game. Been wanting to get into board games with her for a while, finally convinced her to check out a local game store in Wilmington, NC. Pretty nice store. My board game experience is limited to having played Carcassone on my iPhone so I went in planning to get that or Catan. We browsed a bit and she immediately liked the look of Ticket to Ride so we got it. We've played several games already and really like it. That's my board game story.
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Jun 5, 2016 18:03
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FastestGunAlive posted:My wife and I bought our first board game. Been wanting to get into board games with her for a while, finally convinced her to check out a local game store in Wilmington, NC. Pretty nice store. My board game experience is limited to having played Carcassone on my iPhone so I went in planning to get that or Catan. We browsed a bit and she immediately liked the look of Ticket to Ride so we got it. We've played several games already and really like it. That's my board game story. Good poo poo. Anything else you guys saw that looked interesting? There's a lot of good stuff out there.
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Jun 5, 2016 18:10
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S.J. posted:Good poo poo. Anything else you guys saw that looked interesting? There's a lot of good stuff out there. Carcassone will probably be my next purchase. TTR had an ad for Small World in the box, looks fun but my wife isn't much for directly "battling" each other. Definitely needs to be good for 2p, as we haven't met any other couples yet where we've just moved, and definitely nothing that takes more than an hour.
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Jun 5, 2016 18:57
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FastestGunAlive posted:Carcassone will probably be my next purchase. TTR had an ad for Small World in the box, looks fun but my wife isn't much for directly "battling" each other. Definitely needs to be good for 2p, as we haven't met any other couples yet where we've just moved, and definitely nothing that takes more than an hour. Sounds like patchwork would be a good fit for you.
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Jun 5, 2016 19:02
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Papes posted:Sounds like patchwork would be a good fit for you. This man knows what's up.
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Jun 5, 2016 19:08
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FastestGunAlive posted:Carcassone will probably be my next purchase. TTR had an ad for Small World in the box, looks fun but my wife isn't much for directly "battling" each other. Definitely needs to be good for 2p, as we haven't met any other couples yet where we've just moved, and definitely nothing that takes more than an hour. Try Jaipur, also!
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Jun 5, 2016 19:15
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FastestGunAlive posted:Carcassone will probably be my next purchase. TTR had an ad for Small World in the box, looks fun but my wife isn't much for directly "battling" each other. Definitely needs to be good for 2p, as we haven't met any other couples yet where we've just moved, and definitely nothing that takes more than an hour. Patchwork, 7 Wonders Duel, Lost Cities, Welcome to the Dungeon, Ticket to Ride Nordic Countries (a smaller map than the base game), Dominion and Takenoko are probably the games I play most with my girlfriend, who likes games on the lighter side too.
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Jun 5, 2016 19:32
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Zurui posted:Lunch money's theme is "goth schoolgirl Fight Club." In spite of that it's a surprisingly tight fighting game simulator. So far as I know no one has replicated the idea for a theme that isn't so ridiculously nineties. Lunch Money even gets the "you can't really start to play until you knows the game inside out" aspect of fighting games by not printing what cards do on the cards.
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Jun 5, 2016 19:42
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deadwing posted:Patchwork, 7 Wonders Duel, Lost Cities, Welcome to the Dungeon, Ticket to Ride Nordic Countries (a smaller map than the base game), Dominion and Takenoko are probably the games I play most with my girlfriend, who likes games on the lighter side too. Another vote from me for Patchwork, Dominion, and 7 Wonders Duel (I enjoyed it more than full 7 Wonders).
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Jun 5, 2016 20:50
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