|
Tekopo posted:New game by the makers of TS: Imperial Struggle: 18th century France vs Britain I hope they have replaced the DEFCON track with a "republican revolution" track 
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 00:48
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 20, 2024 19:51 |
|
|
silvergoose posted:I'm hoping for a battle of austerlitz card, myself, but when you play it you have to play a game of Napoleon's Triumph to see how much british influence gets removed. Anyone know where you can get a copy of Napoleon's Triumph for less than $200?
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 01:04
|
|
|
Blamestorm posted:Try 1989, it might suit you better? Very underrated IMO but perhaps not as intrinsically interesting a theme to some. Tekopo posted:Bulldog Trap confirmed. Gilgameshback posted:Anyone know where you can get a copy of Napoleon's Triumph for less than $200?
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 01:11
|
|
|
The original Mansions of Madness was too bloated for me to buy into, but now I should be able to get in on the ground floor of the new editio- Wait, it's already $200 to get caught up? gently caress that noise, then.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 01:35
|
|
|
cenotaph posted:"Prevent your opponent from playing the game" is obviously a terrible card that never should have been included but in many ways red scare/purge is worse. Red Scare/Purge is what killed the game for me in the end. It's just way too good for a neutral event--aligned events provide TS with a very elegant combination draw mitigation and deck management system, and RS/P shits all over it. I'll take a multi-turn quagmire over getting Purged three times in one game.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 02:38
|
|
|
cenotaph posted:There are several things I fundamentally dislike about TS so a fan game probably won't be any more to my liking. The good news is that1989 is made by one of the actual developers. The bad news is they decided to tie scoring to die rolls.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 02:50
|
|
|
StashAugustine posted:The good news is that1989 is made by one of the actual developers. The bad news is they decided to tie scoring to die rolls. Tie breakers are dumb in general. I vaguely remember one game with intentionally jokey tie breakers that ended with "play another game game, dorks."
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 03:10
|
|
|
al-azad posted:Tie breakers are dumb in general. I vaguely remember one game with intentionally jokey tie breakers that ended with "play another game game, dorks." Noted good game Keyflower
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 03:13
|
|
|
al-azad posted:Tie breakers are dumb in general. I vaguely remember one game with intentionally jokey tie breakers that ended with "play another game game, dorks." Nonits not a tiebreaker, the payout of a scorecard is literally in part tied to a die roll
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 03:14
|
|
|
SilverMike posted:I think the Classic rules/board are cleaner to play with. The new standard adds new fiddly things to keep track of that don't drag the game down, but they don't really add much to the core gameplay either. Yeah, looking at the new one I think the game is worse overall but there are aspects I wouldn't mind trying. At a minimum I'd want the demand tokens used though (an optional rule).
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 03:15
|
|
|
Sloober posted:Played an abysmal game called the target on Sunday. The goal is to get Intel to the base on either side depending on your allegiance. You do so by unlocking decks and using the cards to bomb, get Intel etc, and you unlock them by drawing random rookie cards and 3 of a kind unlocks a deck permanently. The decks and cards are color coded so it's mostly luck dependent, and you only get one card per turn on average, except when you are the target (1st player) everyone gives you a card, which plays the card effect on you which can make you lose all your cards, move the target and a variety of other effects. A friend bought this game because he likes the blurb on the back of the box or something It is honestly the worst board/card game I've ever played, I think. I'll play a 64 man munchkin tournament before I touch the target again
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 04:10
|
|
|
Shadow225 posted:Noted good game Keyflower This happened to us at Gencon but it was late and we were a few beers in, we decided to resolve it next year 
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 04:11
|
|
|
Gabriel Pope posted:Red Scare/Purge is what killed the game for me in the end. It's just way too good for a neutral event--aligned events provide TS with a very elegant combination draw mitigation and deck management system, and RS/P shits all over it. I'll take a multi-turn quagmire over getting Purged three times in one game. StashAugustine posted:The good news is that1989 is made by one of the actual developers. The bad news is they decided to tie scoring to die rolls.  Adds another game to "never play this" list.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 05:11
|
|
|
Just watched this playthrough of the new Mansions of Madness I'm cautiously optimistic about this game - it looks like everything that BatHotH, TotAN, Time Stories and other similar games are trying to be, namely a semi-procedurally-generated story with a compelling narrative hook. I like the way that player information on the game setup is obscured enough that you can't see what 'decks' results are being drawn from, and each enemy can have individually tailored responses to everything, even up to what type of weapon is used against them and which character is trying to dodge past them. My only apprehension is in its reliance on the app - it seems that almost every action, from attacking and evading enemies to examining locations, is handled by the app; I think this might get laborious during long sessions. I would also like the information to be more carefully laid out than currently - at the moment you sometimes have to read through a wall of text to work out exactly what kind of check is needed, and some carefully designed iconography and layout tweaking could fix that up so you don't have to delve into the flavour text for the fifth time you've tried to evade a cultist in a turn. Despite that I think this game could really be a good one to buy, and I fully expect FFG to put out a bazillion expansions with new content for it over the next few years.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 05:24
|
|
|
Gabriel Pope posted:Red Scare/Purge is what killed the game for me in the end. It's just way too good for a neutral event--aligned events provide TS with a very elegant combination draw mitigation and deck management system, and RS/P shits all over it. I'll take a multi-turn quagmire over getting Purged three times in one game. Red Scare/Purge is giving up 4 Ops for knocking out 6/7 Ops of the opponent if and only if their hand was filled with 2 Ops+ cards and none of them were going to be played for the event and none of them were going to be spaced but now can't. More likely, it's only going to hit 4/5 and can whiff entirely. That's not trivial when 4 Ops at once could net you a big swing in a country through placement or coup. Bear Trap/Quagmire are the same way. Sure, they could knock someone out for three turns. Or, you just spent three Ops to let them discard Grain Sales or some such. Both of these feel bad but they're not that bad to deal with and snap headlining them as events is costly and risky, especially as the game goes on.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 05:57
|
|
|
Trasson posted:Red Scare/Purge is giving up 4 Ops for knocking out 6/7 Ops of the opponent if and only if their hand was filled with 2 Ops+ cards and none of them were going to be played for the event and none of them were going to be spaced but now can't. More likely, it's only going to hit 4/5 and can whiff entirely. That's not trivial when 4 Ops at once could net you a big swing in a country through placement or coup. https://twilightstrategy.com/2012/04/23/red-scarepurge/
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 06:03
|
|
|
bobvonunheil posted:Just watched this playthrough of the new Mansions of Madness I downloaded the app to give it a peek. I liked what I saw and I'm excited to try it out - I think I'll pick it up and see how it goes.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 06:05
|
|
|
I mean, I've made worse decisions in the name of curiosity.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 06:06
|
|
|
Apart from some small UI/usability nags, I'm really happy. I played the first scenario 3 times now and the map layout was different each time. It also gives you different starting items. The overall goal stays the same though. Im already really interested to see where they will take it with expansions and at the pace they release new scenarios.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 06:17
|
|
|
1989 has some good ideas but goddamn is it annoying that the game is so drat dice reliant. I kinda liked the card minigame but then seeing if a country collapses or not based on a dice roll is stupid.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 07:39
|
|
|
Bottom Liner posted:This happened to us at Gencon but it was late and we were a few beers in, we decided to resolve it next year  I'll get you next year!
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 07:59
|
|
|
Tekopo posted:1989 has some good ideas but goddamn is it annoying that the game is so drat dice reliant. I kinda liked the card minigame but then seeing if a country collapses or not based on a dice roll is stupid. I haven't played it in a while but I didn't find it a problem, I felt the dice added some tension but never had a huge impact on game outcomes, they acted more like a variable timer given the way the game worked (like games that draw a card or roll a dice to determine whether the turn is the last one, but somewhat disaggregated throughout the game). Because you don't exactly know when on the brink countries will flip it forces you to take risks and prepare contingencies.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 08:01
|
|
|
I had issues with the fact that the Communists can get a boat load of points from preventing the fall of a country and that does rely on the dice roll alone. It's also incredibly easy for the commies never to lose to a rally on the square if they play their card rights, and that is the one way to ensure that you are going to have the country fall. When you massively control a country and you still only have a 2/3 chance to actually make it collapse, something is wrong. And since those dice rolls for collapse are not very frequent and massively important for VP purposes, the game is deeply affected by their outcome.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 08:19
|
|
|
Tekopo posted:I had issues with the fact that the Communists can get a boat load of points from preventing the fall of a country and that does rely on the dice roll alone. It's also incredibly easy for the commies never to lose to a rally on the square if they play their card rights, and that is the one way to ensure that you are going to have the country fall. When you massively control a country and you still only have a 2/3 chance to actually make it collapse, something is wrong. And since those dice rolls for collapse are not very frequent and massively important for VP purposes, the game is deeply affected by their outcome. Perhaps I didn't play it enough. Plus it has been a while. But I thought the country was still scored for presence/domination/control after the power struggle/collapse test so if you massively controlled it you should get points, you basically want the ones you have poor influence with to collapse first? The communists have the points multiplier but isn't it only relevant if they are scoring big there in the first instance? My memory is that the whole game is essentially about the Communists trying to hang on everywhere as long as possible while the Democrats try to collapse countries and erode their stability over the course of the game. I felt there were enough opportunities that if I (as the democrats) was winning power struggles with rally cards (which is what I thought gave you the 2/3 odds rather than direct control per se) you'd aim to collapse one or two weak countries per scoring opportunity. I only played the game as the democrats though about four times and I won each one, so I might not have the best memory or grasp of strategy. But to my memory there were enough chances to collapse counties and the communist scoring was kind of a loss anyway if they didn't have heavy influence to affect the multiplier, so the dice rolls weren't a huge deal.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 09:00
|
|
|
Blamestorm posted:Perhaps I didn't play it enough. Plus it has been a while. But I thought the country was still scored for presence/domination/control after the power struggle/collapse test so if you massively controlled it you should get points, you basically want the ones you have poor influence with to collapse first? The communists have the points multiplier but isn't it only relevant if they are scoring big there in the first instance? The base chance of collapsing a country as the democrats is a half (4+ on the dice). If the Democrats Raise the Stakes, that's a +1 on the roll (which is why I said they had 2/3 chance of collapsing the country). As the communists, if I was in a Power Struggle in which I knew I would lose, I would aim to fold as quickly as possible as long as the democrats haven't played a Rally in the Square (which gives them +2). From my own personal experience, avoiding losing by Rallies in the Square was pretty easy, but I haven't played the game in years now. Collapse with Rally in the Square is almost guaranteed, but it's very hard to win like that unless the Communist player is very unlucky or if he doesn't play the power struggle correctly. If the communists got VP when staying in power as a multiplier of their influence, the game would be better. But as is, the fact that they straight get VP (and a LOT of VP) based on just a few crucial dice rolls which don't really have that many modifiers is bullshit. EDIT: Alternatively if there was a bonus to the die roll if the Communist player willingly gave up maybe? I dunno. Tekopo fucked around with this message at 10:52 on Aug 16, 2016 |
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 10:17
|
|
|
I played 1989 like once or twice on Vassal and remember it mostly being loving weird. - The scoring of countries, with the dice-rolling and multipliers and whatnot felt byzantine and weird. - It's also really weird how they tried to cram TS' influence system into the new theme, resulting in this bizarre mixture of spaces representing geography and social groups all tied together in some alien, inconsistent logic, like some truther's corkboard diagram. Also, the domino theory of TS makes, like, negative sense here. - Hannibal's combat system applied to... Some loosely defined social activities over undefined period of time that might or might not lead to overthrowing the government doesn't really work, imo. I also am not a fan of the system mechanically (both here and in Hannibal), as it takes a lot of time to resolve poo poo while not giving that much room for meaningful decisions. - The mounting political crisis reaching the point of Gorbachev being deposed being a positive thing for the soviet player is some Android loving levels of narrative disconnect. The improvements to space race track were cool, though. It feels like a grab bag of mechanics from other game(s) mashed together into something that makes little sense, dare I say an act of blind fanboyism. I think that Labyrinth, for all its mechanical and thematic warts, is more of a proper successor to TS, as despite not being an good product overall, it does make some cool twists on the formula I'd like to see revisited (two axes of country's state, double-action turns, fluid hand sizes, etc.). Then again, I haven't really dug into the game, so can't comment on actual quality of gameplay.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 12:42
|
|
|
I kinda liked the linked coup/realignment mechanism in 1939, it worked pretty well. I think that's pretty much it for me though.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 12:47
|
|
|
I got to try Mansions of Madness at Gen Con and the app really turned me off to the game but I think it might be because the Fantasy Flight volunteer was reading off of it like he was auditioning for performance art piece. Also grabbed 7 Wonders Duel yesterday at of all places Barnes and Noble. I was never a huge fan of 7 Wonders but I love Duel.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 14:23
|
|
|
Sloober posted:
I'm not going to defend the Dice Tower, but they have not done any video review for this game, and I don't see Tom Vassal voting for the game on BGG.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 14:44
|
|
|
Rad Valtar posted:because the Fantasy Flight volunteer was reading off of it like he was auditioning for performance art piece. That will do it. Reminds me of a guy who used to go to my FLGS that would always play games using a voice that was 'appropriate' for the game in question (fake Russian for games with Russians, fake Wiseguy for games with mobsters). I avoided playing with him after a while.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 15:10
|
|
|
Paper Kaiju posted:That will do it. Reminds me of a guy who used to go to my FLGS that would always play games using a voice that was 'appropriate' for the game in question (fake Russian for games with Russians, fake Wiseguy for games with mobsters). I avoided playing with him after a while. I mean, that's not terrible - depends how annoying he made it (which, I guess, was pretty annoying).
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 15:12
|
|
|
Seems like the first review of the full Seafall campaign is out. "aggressively mediocre" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zszHJv_b4dg
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 15:16
|
|
|
the panacea posted:Seems like the first review of the full Seafall campaign is out.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 15:26
|
|
|
I'm now 13 minutes into the review and the mechanics sound awful.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 15:28
|
|
|
Trasson posted:Red Scare/Purge is giving up 4 Ops for knocking out 6/7 Ops of the opponent if and only if their hand was filled with 2 Ops+ cards and none of them were going to be played for the event and none of them were going to be spaced but now can't. More likely, it's only going to hit 4/5 and can whiff entirely. That's not trivial when 4 Ops at once could net you a big swing in a country through placement or coup. The problem with this assessment is that you assume that all ops are created equal, but the control mechanic means that hitting key thresholds is a lot more valuable than simple incremental increases. A 2 ops card played on a stability 1 battleground to turn it neutral can be undone by 1 op from the opponent. A 3 ops card played on that same battleground would flip it to your control, meaning the opponent has to pony up 3 ops of their own to get it back. Going from 3 ops to 2 ops completely cripples your ability to make plays in situations like this. Similarly, trying to secure a stability 2 country in a contested region using two 1 op cards in succession is vastly less effective than just playing a 2 ops card, etc. Even so, it's not the effect itself I object to: it's the fact that it's an unstarred neutral event. With Bear Trap/Quagmire and most other nasty cards, you know how many are in the deck; your bad events can be drawn by either player, which is bad for you in different ways depending on whether you or your opponent has it but also gets mitigated in different ways depending on who plays them. But neutral events are straight up coinflips, and they come back again and again. Take Bear Trap/Quagmire, or any other annoying paired event. Would TS be improved if the deck randomly varied between having 2 Bear Traps, 2 Quagmires, or 1 of each? Surely not. Note that I don't even think Bear Trap/Quagmire are a real problem--I still think the rare chance at 3+ lost turns purely detracts from the game, but the game specifically gives you means to predict and work around it, which are not in place at all for RS/P. (Also, when people are complaining about a game being swingy, saying "such-and-such power card might be completely devastating or it might do worse than nothing!" is not exactly a defense.)
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 15:28
|
|
|
zandert33 posted:I'm not going to defend the Dice Tower, but they have not done any video review for this game, and I don't see Tom Vassal voting for the game on BGG. Going by what someone said when I mentioned it. It sucks tho. Aggressively terrible
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 15:32
|
|
|
Tekopo posted:I'm hype for this being the next SABG thread 'games that everyone likes but we hate', taking the crown from Dead of Winter. Not so sure, most other videos from groups going through the campaign were along the lines of "we are 3 games in and it is somewhat interesting but a bit boring, we are really looking forward to seeing the new stuff unveiled in the next games".
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 15:34
|
|
|
the panacea posted:I'm now 13 minutes into the review and the mechanics sound awful. So far I'm 9 minutes in and the only thing he's talked about, mechanically, is that moving far distances is dull. Which is fine, but I don't give a poo poo about the writing in this board game. Pandemic Legacy's writing was dry as poo poo, for example. And he just keeps going on about 'missed opportunities'. I'll be looking for a second opinion. Also this guy likes TIME Stories apparently? Also can we get some reviewers that aren't standing in front of a busy bookshelf full of poo poo?
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 15:34
|
|
|
Morpheus posted:So far I'm 9 minutes in and the only thing he's talked about, mechanically, is that moving far distances is dull. Which is fine, but I don't give a poo poo about the writing in this board game. Pandemic Legacy's writing was dry as poo poo, for example. And he just keeps going on about 'missed opportunities'. I'll be looking for a second opinion. Naw he said he doesn't really like TIME Stories but it had some moments, as opposed of Seafall which just falls short. The whole roll to move, oops you are dead, start back on the other side of the map sounds bad.
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 15:35
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 20, 2024 19:51 |
|
|
Morpheus posted:Also can we get some reviewers that aren't standing in front of a busy bookshelf full of poo poo?
|
|
#
?
Aug 16, 2016 15:37
|
|