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Anyone who says eclipse is better than TI:3 doesn't like actual politics in their game. Seriously though, playing with poltical leaders with only good politics cards saves the game and makes it amazing instead of decent.
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Oct 3, 2016 18:27
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silvergoose posted:Welcome to the thread, Bosgoon. I tried, but no one would buy any of my organs. Kashuno posted:I never realized before getting into the scene recently how deep the board game hole goes TI3 is just the vaguely murky water above the lightless abyss at the heart of our hobby. Somewhere from the depths, Campaign for North Africa keens high and soft.
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Oct 3, 2016 19:07
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Gutter Owl posted:I tried, but no one would buy any of my organs. Yet I yearn to find a group of folks in Seattle willing to sit down with me for a rousing TI3 afternoon/evening. Especially since I recently lost a large circle of friends (at least, that's what I thought they were). I'll even provide oxygen and halogen lights.
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Oct 3, 2016 19:12
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Speaking of the Napoleonic era: I've been playing through the grand campaign of Legion of Honor, a card game that simulates the career of an officer in Napoleon's Grand Armee. The designers have done excellent research and produced uniformly beautiful components but the game is an almost total disaster. The rulebook is clear in individual rules but disorganized. And there are far too many rules: two different kinds of duels (with an independent miniature card game just for duels), gambling, medical treatment, requesting transfers, interfering with other people's requests for transfer, wooing a mistress, wooing someone else's mistress, getting married, cuckolding and being cuckolded, wounds, being made prisoner, etc. etc. etc. Despite these abundant rules players make almost no decisions - most of the time you just apply the text of a card as you draw it, sometimes rolling a die to adjust amounts or to see if something bad happens. Some cards yield very bad events - in fact, it's possible in the first deal of the first round to draw a card that results in your officer being guillotined. There are convoluted rules for returning to play if this happens but it seems to me that this may not be top notch game design. Lots of other events can take you out of the action as well - serious wounds, being taken prisoner, or simply being in the wrong division of the army (if you're in the reserves in Paris you're not going to get to fight in Italy). These seem to be gestures at realism and the perils of early 19th century combat, but they don't make for a fun card game. Maybe as a computer roguelike this would be cool, but spending fifteen minutes generating your eager young sous-lieutenant only to have him almost immediately blown to pieces by the Austrians or executed by the Committee of Public Safety is frustrating. Worse is the fact that you have little control over your fate. If you're lucky enough to draw a card that grants you idle time in garrison you can request a transfer or do something else interesting; but much of the time the garrison round passes by without any decisions at all. Similarly, during battles you can choose to act bravely (earning experience and rewards) or to behave like a coward (no one will ever pick this option). That's it. There's some kind of combat strategy module that you access once you become an officer of the general staff, but it doesn't look too detailed - and if you want Napoleonic battlefield strategy there are literally thousands of other options out there. Terribly disappointing and muddled.
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Oct 3, 2016 19:28
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Played a game of Magic: The Gathering the other day where someone played some bullshit card that allowed them to play my turn - essentially as if they were in my spot, with my cards, etc. All I could think was "Most board game developer learned a long time ago that 'Lose your turn' was a bullshit mechanic out of the days of Snakes and Ladders or some poo poo."
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Oct 3, 2016 19:46
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Alchemy bad.
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Oct 3, 2016 19:55
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AMooseDoesStuff posted:Alchemy bad. You don't lose your turn when someone plays Possession.
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Oct 3, 2016 19:58
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I feel somewhat at odds with this thread, since I really dislike super complex war games that take 3 hours to play, and always tend towards more "casual" stuff that plays well at parties in under an hour.
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Oct 3, 2016 20:03
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I just noticed there's a 2016 reprint of Acquire out now. Anyone know if there's any changes from previous versions? Also, is Acquire fun?sector_corrector posted:I feel somewhat at odds with this thread, since I really dislike super complex war games that take 3 hours to play, and always tend towards more "casual" stuff that plays well at parties in under an hour. We all secretly like those too, don't worry. There's just more to talk about with more complex, "better" games.
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Oct 3, 2016 20:04
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Magic the gathering (aka wizard poker) is a 20 year old game with a legacy ruleset, yeah. It lumbers along with its popularity until it finally gets put down.
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Oct 3, 2016 20:10
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I have only played once, but for an old design, Acquire is pretty amazing and holds up well. I think it's the second-oldest game I'd still be content to play if it's all that was in the closet (oldest is Yahtzee, which isn't as good as Acquire).
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Oct 3, 2016 20:10
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sector_corrector posted:I feel somewhat at odds with this thread, since I really dislike super complex war games that take 3 hours to play, and always tend towards more "casual" stuff that plays well at parties in under an hour. Thread fawned over codenames for several months.
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Oct 3, 2016 20:11
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Morpheus posted:Played a game of Magic: The Gathering the other day where someone played some bullshit card that allowed them to play my turn - essentially as if they were in my spot, with my cards, etc. To be fair, the typical pacing of an mtg game is such that the game is well and truly decided by that point. Either you're far enough ahead that you can win despite the opponent taking your turn, or you're not and that play basically wins them the game (and perhaps you should concede to speed the process up). There are some mtg variants where that isn't the case, but they're generally considered bad except by the sort of people who only play mtg. One big consideration with mtg is that you're not actually supposed to play everything to its final conclusion. Once the game is decided, the loser concedes and you start another game, even if you're still several turns away from the final blow.
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Oct 3, 2016 20:11
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Chill la Chill posted:Thread fawned over codenames for several months. And will, correctly, still suggest it whenever anyone wants a party-ish game that isn't godawful. I mean, most of us tend towards heavier games, it's true, but heavier can just mean "at least an hour". Factory Fun(ner), for example, is pretty quick and really good!
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Oct 3, 2016 20:17
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Gilgameshback posted:generating your eager young sous-lieutenant only to have him almost immediately blown to pieces by the Austrians or executed by the Committee of Public Safety is frustrating. Board games are sometimes such fitting metaphors for the human condition.
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Oct 3, 2016 20:18
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Gilgameshback posted:Literal grognard game  I need this. It's a literal grognard game that plays as a grognard game.
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Oct 3, 2016 20:28
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Chill la Chill posted:Magic the gathering (aka wizard poker) is a 20 year old game with a legacy ruleset, yeah. It lumbers along with its popularity until it finally gets put down. Also do note wizards tried to kill of legacy cards pretty hard. Standard and (now) Modern being their big formats. Modern being the new eternal format but only dating back when they started to realize what they were becoming, and standard being the fast rotation. Either way mindslaver is a casual game sounds like a dick move.
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Oct 3, 2016 20:41
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sector_corrector posted:I feel somewhat at odds with this thread, since I really dislike super complex war games that take 3 hours to play, and always tend towards more "casual" stuff that plays well at parties in under an hour. We can talk about those. For instance... I played Spyfall on the weekend and my sister in law made gave some amazing answers as the spy. At the University, as the opening question, I asked her how long she'd been here and she said "4 years." Well, we lost that round, obviously. Spyfall is still lots of fun! If you like casual games and want something that plays well with 5-8 players, get it. Each round takes at most 8 minutes (and often more like 2 or 3).
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Oct 3, 2016 20:59
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Cerepol posted:Also do note wizards tried to kill of legacy cards pretty hard. Standard and (now) Modern being their big formats. Modern being the new eternal format but only dating back when they started to realize what they were becoming, and standard being the fast rotation. Mindslaver is only ever going to get played in a casual game because it's too slow most competitive decks, and too easily stopped. If a card has a CMC of 6 or more it could pretty much have the text "If you cast this, you win, and it'll probably feel unfair to your opponent."
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Oct 3, 2016 20:59
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CommonShore posted:Mindslaver is only ever going to get played in a casual game because it's too slow most competitive decks, and too easily stopped. If a card has a CMC of 6 or more it could pretty much have the text "If you cast this, you win, and it'll probably feel unfair to your opponent." CMC, for those of us who don't actually read magic threads or play anymore, is combined mana cost?
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Oct 3, 2016 21:01
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CommonShore posted:Mindslaver is only ever going to get played in a casual game because it's too slow most competitive decks, and too easily stopped. If a card has a CMC of 6 or more it could pretty much have the text "If you cast this, you win, and it'll probably feel unfair to your opponent." The card was quite likely actually "Emrakul, The Promised End" - and it sees competitive play in the current standard (it costs 13, but.. it's a long story). It's not really a casual appropriate card, but it's new and shiny so it'll be seen everywhere for a while. It's not that the Magic people don't know how to design well at this point; they know cards like this will be frustrating. They've just explored so much space, and have to serve so many different audiences, that they can't be too picky about the mechanics they allow through. jmzero fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Oct 3, 2016 |
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Oct 3, 2016 21:06
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silvergoose posted:CMC, for those of us who don't actually read magic threads or play anymore, is combined mana cost? Close. Converted mana cost, when you just take a numerical tally of all the colors/colorless cost of a spell. jmzero posted:It's not the the Magic people don't know how to design well at this point; they know cards like this will be frustrating. They've just explored so much space, and have to serve so many different audiences, that they can't be too picky about the mechanics they allow through. Chill la Chill fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Oct 3, 2016 |
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Oct 3, 2016 21:06
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Coup is my current light party game. Codenames is fun but it takes longer, requires more people, and I have a group that's board-gamey enough to get strategy in Coup while the wonder of Codenames is that it requires no explanation
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Oct 3, 2016 21:08
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silvergoose posted:CMC, for those of us who don't actually read magic threads or play anymore, is combined mana cost? Converted Mana Cost, so basically yeah. If you resolve a mindslaver you're probably playing EDH, and mindslaver isn't even close to the most obnoxious thing in that game, and there isn't even a guarantee you'll win. It's just as likely you'll take your opponents next turn away and do nothing else as it is that you'll cause them to lose, but there are still other players at the table. There is a combo that can have you basically take everyones turns for infinite but at that point it's literally a board state of "I win, please don't make us play this all out."
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Oct 3, 2016 21:09
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I mean I've played magic before. It was more a "don't use acronyms about a game unless literally everyone knows what they mean" but oh well. 
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Oct 3, 2016 21:12
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Gilgameshback posted:Speaking of the Napoleonic era: I've been playing through the grand campaign of Legion of Honor, a card game that simulates the career of an officer in Napoleon's Grand Armee. The designers have done excellent research and produced uniformly beautiful components but the game is an almost total disaster. The rulebook is clear in individual rules but disorganized. And there are far too many rules: two different kinds of duels (with an independent miniature card game just for duels), gambling, medical treatment, requesting transfers, interfering with other people's requests for transfer, wooing a mistress, wooing someone else's mistress, getting married, cuckolding and being cuckolded, wounds, being made prisoner, etc. etc. etc. Going to concur with you, I so wanted to fall in love with the game but never did and will be trying to unload it soon.
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Oct 3, 2016 21:12
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Quixotic1 posted:Going to concur with you, I so wanted to fall in love with the game but never did and will be trying to unload it soon. I played it for about 30 minutes until I realized it was Napoleonic Talisman
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Oct 3, 2016 21:14
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S.J. posted:literally a board state of "I win, please don't make us play this all out." Competitive Netrunner had a deck that had this as its gameplan for a while, the general counterstrategy was 'mobying'- get slightly ahead on points in the early game then read Moby Dick at your opponent until time gets called.
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Oct 3, 2016 21:14
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Sorry about the CMC thing. Essentially most big cards like that in magic are suboptimal that they only appear in in casual "Hey let's play with goofy fun cards that are too clumsy to ever see regular play" formats. Those cards would never ever appear in a regular competitive game except as a bomb in a deck that is designed specifically to accelerate to a big thing or otherwise find a creative and unusual way to get it into play. I can't think of a good board game analogy at the moment, but the best I can come up with is when you play something like Starcraft with your friends and say "no attacking for 8 minutes so we can build up cool armies and see them slug it out." StashAugustine posted:Competitive Netrunner had a deck that had this as its gameplan for a while, the general counterstrategy was 'mobying'- get slightly ahead on points in the early game then read Moby Dick at your opponent until time gets called. Not long ago Magic banned key cards from a deck called "eggs" that essentially recycled its own deck and discard pile ad infinitum while chipping away at the opponent because it would usually just leave the opponent sitting there tapping the table hoping to catch the player in a tournament procedural error to win by DQ. CommonShore fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Oct 3, 2016 |
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Oct 3, 2016 21:26
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StashAugustine posted:Competitive Netrunner had a deck that had this as its gameplan for a while, the general counterstrategy was 'mobying'- get slightly ahead on points in the early game then read Moby Dick at your opponent until time gets called. go on
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Oct 3, 2016 21:32
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CommonShore posted:Mindslaver is only ever going to get played in a casual game because it's too slow most competitive decks, and too easily stopped. If a card has a CMC of 6 or more it could pretty much have the text "If you cast this, you win, and it'll probably feel unfair to your opponent." Mindslaver is way to expensive. Classic Magic can do one better though, Word of Command is almost as good (maybe better, being an instant) and only costs two black: 
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Oct 3, 2016 22:09
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Gilgameshback posted:Speaking of the Napoleonic era: I've been playing through the grand campaign of Legion of Honor, a card game that simulates the career of an officer in Napoleon's Grand Armee. The designers have done excellent research and produced uniformly beautiful components but the game is an almost total disaster. The rulebook is clear in individual rules but disorganized. And there are far too many rules: two different kinds of duels (with an independent miniature card game just for duels), gambling, medical treatment, requesting transfers, interfering with other people's requests for transfer, wooing a mistress, wooing someone else's mistress, getting married, cuckolding and being cuckolded, wounds, being made prisoner, etc. etc. etc. So this is Single Player En Garde?
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Oct 3, 2016 22:15
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bobvonunheil posted:Expect player elimination, brinkmanship, kingmaking, bashing the leader, and basically everything that eurogames have been systematically eliminating from boardgaming for the last 20 years. I don't want to sound like I'm calling you out or anything, but one of the Spiel des Jahres nominees this year, Imhotep, is essentially brinksmanship: the game. It also looks really good, except for the cards.
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Oct 3, 2016 22:19
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Imhotep is super fun and very accessible to gamers of any kind.
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Oct 3, 2016 22:26
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Chill la Chill posted:
CommonShore posted:
That's literally what it was, a Corp that recycled its discard pile infinitely and then slowly chipped away at the Runner until they finally died while making it practically impossible for the Runner to score. The drawback is they pretty much could never actually score more than maybe one point a game and took forever to win both in terms of turns and in real time so a Runner that lucks into an early agenda could slow down the game until time got called and since they technically were ahead on points despite being close to death and not likely to get enough points to win, they'd get a modified win on time.
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Oct 3, 2016 22:33
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Quixotic1 posted:Going to concur with you, I so wanted to fall in love with the game but never did and will be trying to unload it soon. Right, it seems like it could be so good but despite the designers' enthusiasm and good intentions there's just no game there. Has anyone played any of the more conventional wargames from the same designers, like the La Bataille series?
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Oct 4, 2016 00:17
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For those of you who don't have it Scythe comes with a little achievement sheet for players to fill out after each game which is pretty cool. Our group was toying with making one for some of our other regular games like Eclipse. Past the inane 'win the game with Planta' or 'win the game without plasma missiles or improved hull' which is pretty obvious.. what other obscure achievements would be good?
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Oct 4, 2016 01:41
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I have a potential trade on BGG for a copy of Twilight Struggle, but it's a 1st edition with a set of printed updated rules. I guess I'm asking if I should value it less because it's not the latest edition. Can anyone tell me if the differences between the editions are significant? I saw something somewhere about an upgrade pack for the early editions so I could buy that if it matters.
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Oct 4, 2016 01:42
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Acceptableloss posted:I have a potential trade on BGG for a copy of Twilight Struggle, but it's a 1st edition with a set of printed updated rules. I guess I'm asking if I should value it less because it's not the latest edition. Can anyone tell me if the differences between the editions are significant? I saw something somewhere about an upgrade pack for the early editions so I could buy that if it matters. It probably has the original Aldrich Ames card, which kinda blows.
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Oct 4, 2016 01:46
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I also don't really care for really big, long, and complicated games. I especially am not big on stuff that is like a complicated war game. The most fun part of gaming to me (tabletop or computer) is trying to learn from a previous play and optimize my opening and strategy again. Games that let me do that with a higher skill ceiling while still letting my whole strategy play out in less than two hours are ideal. For a board game, I really like them specifically because friends who aren't into computer games can enjoy that same idea. Ideally a board game isn't needlessly complex or long, which makes getting someone else to play it much less likely. When Mage Knight came out, I felt like it was the ultimate board game. It's still really good and I like it quite a bit, but I feel that some of the early moves you make are too key and easy to botch for what ends up being a game that usually takes longer than two hours. The game kind of presents itself as this adventure fantasy world where you can go around and explore, but in reality you have to stick pretty hard on schedule to completing objectives which will let you keep on pace with winning the game. This issue can fairly easily be solved if the person teaching the game is aware of it and warns new players, but on top of the pretty convoluted rules, it can be overload and not particularly fun for people who aren't into huge, complicated games. Starcraft the RTS (not board game) also has an easy to botch opening, where if you mis-micro or build the wrong building in the first 2 minutes, you can lose the game. The difference in Starcraft vs. Mage Knight (or most overly complex board games) is that a mistake like that generally will lose you the game in a few minutes rather than slowly over the course of 2+ hours. I think a good thing for a game's length is if after you finish a game, you can reasonably say, "Want to play another?" A game that takes an hour and a half could be pushing it for this, but it's still a reasonable thing to ask fi you both enjoyed it. With a game that takes like three hours, unless you're just planning to game all day anyway, you're likely not going to rematch right away.
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Oct 4, 2016 02:13
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