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Scythe definitely has above average player interaction for a eurogame so I don't know why that's coming up as a criticism unless you're comparing it to 4x games or wargames, which are not things that Scythe is trying to be.
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Aug 23, 2017 21:28
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I really want to play a game of Scythe now goddam.
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Aug 23, 2017 21:29
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Actually, you can screw over other players, and directly impact their plans, far less in Scythe than you can in any reasonably cutthroat euro.
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Aug 23, 2017 21:30
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Yeah the constant threat of combat in Scythe is actually one of my favorite aspects of it. Especially at a bigger playercount, where players are, a lot of the times, building and moving right next to each other. There is always that risk of the guy next to you being the one who will decide your current position scares them/has valuable resources to them, but you can't really back away either.
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Aug 23, 2017 21:30
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Tales of Woe posted:Scythe definitely has above average player interaction for a eurogame so I don't know why that's coming up as a criticism unless you're comparing it to 4x games or wargames, which are not things that Scythe is trying to be. I'm not sure I agree though. I admit I've only played Scythe three times but in none of those times have I had the moments like I have in Agricola or Keyflower where my opponent visibly recoils and sucks in air between their teeth because my play both completely altered their turn and negatively affected their game state. I should revise my earlier post and say that I definitely have options to tweak my opponent's viable choices in Scythe, but often that just resulted in them loving off to do something else, probably a bit less optimal, with relatively little visceral feedback. I never feel screwed in Scythe by something my opponent does except, perhaps ironically given the rest of the conversation, when I get attacked and then get attacked by other players because I expended some of my resources. You jockey for territory and resources and the threat of violence influences your decisions, but that's like the bare minimum for being a game.
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Aug 23, 2017 21:35
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At most, Scythe combat inconveniences you by a turn or two. It's not hard to get back into position
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Aug 23, 2017 21:36
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Countblanc posted:I'm not sure I agree though. I admit I've only played Scythe three times but in none of those times have I had the moments like I have in Agricola or Keyflower where my opponent visibly recoils and sucks in air between their teeth because my play both completely altered their turn and negatively affected their game state. I should revise my earlier post and say that I definitely have options to tweak my opponent's viable choices in Scythe, but often that just resulted in them loving off to do something else, probably a bit less optimal, with relatively little visceral feedback. I never feel screwed in Scythe by something my opponent does except, perhaps ironically given the rest of the conversation, when I get attacked and then get attacked by other players because I expended some of my resources. I think having a large number of players is really vital to it to make space and resources much more of a premium.
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Aug 23, 2017 21:38
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That's possible, all of my games were with 4 players.
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Aug 23, 2017 21:39
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Kashuno posted:At most, Scythe combat inconveniences you by a turn or two. It's not hard to get back into position Sorry, I didn't mean "screwed out of winning" I meant "my turn was greatly altered and my position was compromised," which is a good thing in games for me.
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Aug 23, 2017 21:41
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FunkMonkey posted:I think you're right, even if people aren't directly interfering or diminishing someone else, they're always changing the circumstances that others will have to adapt to. I've only played a few games with only amateurs, so I really want to try some games with experienced people to really evaluate the game's strengths and weaknesses. Scythe REALLY landed for my partner, so we've played a lot of it. The thing I've noticed as my group has gained experience with it is that aggressive positioning has become more common: there's still not a lot of combat, but there are constant threats of combat. Lots of border tension, lots of people nervously moving a second mech onto a group of workers that are producing on a threatened space, lots of waffling over whether it's a good idea to go after an encounter token within reach of enemy combat units. (By the way, just in case anybody missed this rule the way we did for our first few plays: anything you get from an encounter card goes on the space the encounter was triggered on, which makes a big difference in the value of snatching encounters away from nearby opponents.) I've played a lot of two player and it's okay at that count, but I think it really shines at four or higher because the tension imposed by other players' positions is really the thing that makes it shine. I just read that tournament writeup linked above and I have to say the thing that surprised me most was that the person who triggered the end of the game was the winner less than 60% of the time. The guy doesn't go into a lot of detail about how many actual players there were, but that suggests that a lot of them either weren't very experienced or were just very bad at counting.
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Aug 23, 2017 21:43
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Having read what felt like reasonably lukewarm praise for Scythe in this thread I had not expected to enjoy it as much as I do. Having played a decent number of games now I really appreciate what it does, though completely see the criticisms that it doesn't necessarily play out as one would expect from the artwork, territorial map etc which suggests a conflictual almost-war-game. For me though I really love the sense of tension the game creates as players expand away from their home base and start to meet at the borders. As others have said, it's often not worth fighting as it carries a potentially heavy cost, even for the victor - but the fact that it sometimes is worth it, and is definitely worth it to every faction at least twice during the game means that the threat of combat is constantly there. This seems to be at the heart of the player interaction - not so much the direct back and forth of constant combat (as in Kemet) but trying to assess for each other player at exactly which point they are going to decide it's worthwhile to invade your territory - where they can do enough damage, or gain enough benefit (particularly as the game moves towards ending and everyone's suddenly trying to lock down as much territory as possible for scoring reasons). The difficult decisions in the game come not so much from optimising your engine - which is relatively straightforward for experienced Euro gamers based on your faction/player board combo, but on when and how much to invest in defending your borders, on when to make your move on other players etc. I don't think any other game captures this kind of cold war tension to nearly the same degree as Scythe, so I'm very happy to have it in my collection and to play it any time it's suggested. I don't know whether this is skewed by the fact that we've only ever played 4 or 5 player games - there's a lot more space constraints with higher player counts so I could see how some of that tension could easily be lost with fewer players. Edit: Also on the tournament stats - I think like Terra Mystica, there are definitely stronger starting boards or combos and wonder whether a bidding variant would help balance out some of that. We only ever play Terra Mystica with bidding for player boards now and I really like the extra level of strategy that it adds to the game, but does require a great deal more familiarity with it. From that perspective, I don't mind slightly imbalanced factions as long as there is an effective way to manage it. Kerro fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Aug 23, 2017 |
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Aug 23, 2017 21:43
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It's been said every time Scythe gets brought up (including this time), but is worth emphasizing: Scythe is designed around max players. Without everyone there, resources are no longer scarce, which means there's no reason to threaten or use combat. It's not quite like GoT were you can't play without all 6 people, but honestly I wouldn't bring it to the table without max players.
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Aug 23, 2017 21:45
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Yeah, basically Scythe was overhyped by the general board game crowd thanks to a massive kickstarter and a lot of people read it as a dudes on a map wargame, when in reality it's not great but not bad and it's more of a hybrid eurogame than anything else. It's basically 80% Terra Mystica 20% Kemet, but the vast majority of gameplay is farming and converting resources into building your board presence. It's definitely one of the best releases of last year, but I'd place it somewhere in the middle of similar games I've played. I will say that Terra Mystica is the better game, but that ymost people I play with enjoy Scythe a lot more because it has enough flavor and coolness to engage them a lot better. \/ It's really great at 6 and 7 as long as people plan their turns and execute quickly. One of the best large games I've played.
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Aug 23, 2017 21:47
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Megasabin posted:It's been said every time Scythe gets brought up (including this time), but is worth emphasizing: I really gotta round up the boys to do a seven player game sometime. I'm glad we've been discussing it so much, it's helped reevaluate a lot of my perspective on the game.
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Aug 23, 2017 21:47
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a 7 player game of Scythe is the best imo. While we're on about Scythe, what do y'all think of what we know so far of Charterstone?
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Aug 23, 2017 21:50
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if Scythe were 80% Terra Mystica and 20% Kemet it'd be a great game. It doesn't have the scarcity of Terra Mystica at less than max players, and building efficiently on the board isn't that important, so it doesn't really to TM well. It copies the vague form of Kemet, but loses the tile-based war-engine that fuels it, and dilutes the cardplay by making it about guessing how powerful your opponents' cards are, instead of being about which of your cards will beat the most likely card they are to play.
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Aug 23, 2017 21:51
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Glad I could kick/rekick this Scythe convo off. That being said, if I haven't bought a game not Dominion since 7 Wonders/Duel, what's the best stuff from recent years? Note I did grab Arkham Card Game and have Gloomhaven preordered. For me, "best" means pretty accessible while having some player interaction and probably a good theme to grab the casual people I would play with mostly.
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Aug 23, 2017 21:52
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If you have people that are in to cooperative games, I honestly think Mechs Vs. Minions is pretty accessible, looks nice, and everyone works together. It's pretty simple, and can be a blast in the right group. Captain Sonar is an obvious recommendation
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Aug 23, 2017 21:55
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IAmUnaware posted:I just read that tournament writeup linked above and I have to say the thing that surprised me most was that the person who triggered the end of the game was the winner less than 60% of the time. The guy doesn't go into a lot of detail about how many actual players there were, but that suggests that a lot of them either weren't very experienced or were just very bad at counting. Well he mentions that they were under a more strict time limit and that could very well have played into it. He also doesn't detail the actual tournament structure that I saw - maybe coming in 2nd was better than 4th due to seeding and so people wanted to end while they were in better positions. The data is interesting but there's a lot missing and the sample isn't really that huge (not like Dominion's supposedly insane playtesting or Yomi's matchup breakdown due to thousands of online matches), probably most importantly player skill like you mentioned. I certainly wouldn't trust my own thoughts on faction balance given my limited exposure to the game and I'd be sorta pissed if I found out that the person I was playing with took my loss as a sign that a faction was bad. e: also yeah this was a good discussion, it's part of why I like this thread so much; we acknowledge that this is all opinion and don't expect people to preface every statement with "I think" or "I feel", but we still manage to talk about design ideas and experiences. thank you blessed thread.
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Aug 23, 2017 21:56
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Kashuno posted:If you have people that are in to cooperative games, I honestly think Mechs Vs. Minions is pretty accessible, looks nice, and everyone works together. It's pretty simple, and can be a blast in the right group. How worthwhile is Captain Sonar with less than the full eight people? It sounds amazing but I doubt I could gather that many on any regular basis.
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Aug 23, 2017 22:02
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ShaneB posted:Glad I could kick/rekick this Scythe convo off. If you like worker placement at all, then you can't go wrong with A Feast for Odin. Impermanent posted:if Scythe were 80% Terra Mystica and 20% Kemet it'd be a great game. Yeah, it's less than the sum of it's parts, admittedly. Those are just the two games I see the most design influence from. That said, Gaia Project is looking amazing. I didn't get to demo it last weekend but I did watch about an hour of it. My initial impressions regarding to changes from Terra Mystica: Currency seems a bit more free flowing and you're not as strapped for resources in general. Power tokens (magic in TM) move a bit more tightly and all races can get cubes back after dumping them, but the power effects aren't as strong as TM so you will be more careful about using them. Player boards and construction costs are more similar between races, but racial powers are a lot more powerful and different than in TM. Technology track seems to have a big impact on your early game, vs the cult track in TM. The map is a set of tiles so you can change your layout instead of playing a static map in TM/expansion. Really looking forward to this one.  
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Aug 23, 2017 22:03
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Bottom Liner posted:That said, Gaia Project is looking amazing. I didn't get to demo it last weekend but I did watch about an hour of it. My initial impressions regarding to changes from Terra Mystica:
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Aug 23, 2017 22:07
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One other thing about Scythe and then I'll stop: I really like the combat. I've seen a lot of people talk trash about it, but I don't know why. Trying to read your opponent and figure out exactly how much power to spend is really interesting. The attacker can usually force a victory after the early game as power levels rise, but doing so is often disastrous in the long term. Especially if you have more than one nearby enemy, you have to be careful not to win by too much, and that balancing act and the bluffing associated with it are something I really enjoy. There's something about getting into a fight with someone when you're both at like 12 power and then both of you laughing when you reveal that you both spent very little and played low cards because you both were thinking about the third guy nearby who's at 10 with a full hand that just feels really good to me. I don't know if I can really put it into words. On the subject of Charterstone: I didn't love Euphoria because I think the multi-move when you roll multiples of the same number is too swingy, but I did love the worker bumping thing and I'm eager to see it reused in something that I hopefully like a little better. Also, I really enjoy legacy games. I have high hopes. On the subject of good stuff from recent years: This might sound strange considering I was just complaining about swingy dice rolling, but I thought Roll For The Galaxy was great. Thinking about what phase other players will be choosing keeps you paying attention to what the other players are building, and maybe it's just me but I like getting to roll a bunch of little multicolored dice. I have found the main dice placement mechanic was a little unintuitive for some of my friends who are more casual gamers, though. Speaking of little multicolored things, A Feast For Odin is very good too, sort of a union of all the things I like about Rosenberg's other games but without blocking plays feeling too punishing, but it does have a lot of upfront explanation about the big actions board that could turn some people away.
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Aug 23, 2017 22:08
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FunkMonkey posted:How worthwhile is Captain Sonar with less than the full eight people? It sounds amazing but I doubt I could gather that many on any regular basis. It's fine with six as well I think. Captain has to do a little bit more but otherwise it plays similarly to eight.
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Aug 23, 2017 22:10
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I kind of dislike Scythe because the first time I played it, the newbies were destroyed by the experienced players. I've played it a few times after that and the feeling of still missing something remains. Specially during the end game where it's always about distributing your guys around and hope you have enough popularity and no one makes two or three stars in one turn. And when that happens in my experience, it's always Crimea. I'd still play it, but it's not something I'll look to...
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Aug 23, 2017 22:10
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Impermanent posted:This looks really exciting! People were demoing it at gen-con but I didn't have the chance to try it out. I'm hoping the tile-based setup means that it'll work better for smaller player groups. I like games that work at 3 or less because it means I don't have to schedule playing games. Yeah I assume you would use less tiles for smaller player counts, which would work really well.
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Aug 23, 2017 22:11
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Sometimes I'm glad I play this game on the internet 90% of the time, because I don't know if I could do this to someone face-to-face:
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Aug 23, 2017 22:13
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ShaneB posted:Glad I could kick/rekick this Scythe convo off. Woo wee that's a big ask, mostly because "casual" really means a hundred different things - I've seen people experienced in console or tabletop RPGs described as "casual" just as much as I've seen someone's friends who reject anything more complex than CAH. That said here's some of my recent favorites in no real order: 1) Imhotep - Plays fast for a game with its amount of decisions, has an interesting enough theme, the components are fun (the giant blocks are so good), and I feel most closely matches the level of depth that you're describing. I love this dang game and I don't know why. Also the winner has to declare "I'm Hotep" at the end. 2) Archipelago - This seems like a big jump in complexity on paper but the actual actions are really simple to explain and the complexity comes from deciding how you want to interact with the mechanics. That said that's still a type of complexity that some people don't want to deal with on their casual game night. Very colorful, beautiful game too, though the tiny cubes for resources really suck. 3) Pictomania - A party game that I really only recommend sober due to the constant reaching across the table and likely difficulty with some of the words. It's still great though if you need something for a medium sized group! 4) Quantum - Not actually a favorite of mine but my roommate loves it and again I think it fits the level of complexity you're looking for quite closely, plus it's gorgeous and has an agreeable theme for a lot of people. Features direct confrontation and dice rolling (the latter can be tempered in a few ways), so if those bother you be wary. I personally recommend a house rule where everyone is dealt two of the white cards at the start of the game and can pick one to start with. 5) Samurai Spirit - Another easier game with a cool theme. This one's fully co-op and very simple to teach, but it can be pretty random at lower player counts, I really only recommend it at 6-7 players. Also pretty cheap!
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Aug 23, 2017 22:21
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I haven't played Scythe with six players so I haven't had the full experience, but it's a frustrating game to look at. Not just the "why can't I just smash these mechs together" thing but because I can acutely see *why* mechanics are set up the way they are and how they fit together to enforce the theme of an inter-war war game. I can see all that, and it just fails to click with me or my group.quote:2) Archipelago - This seems like a big jump in complexity on paper but the actual actions are really simple to explain and the complexity comes from deciding how you want to interact with the mechanics. That said that's still a type of complexity that some people don't want to deal with on their casual game night. Very colorful, beautiful game too, though the tiny cubes for resources really suck. I will also heartily recommend Archipelago, but be aware that the rulebook has some language issues (ask me about active unengaged units), it will encourage your friends to act like terrible people (slavery is a powerful card that everyone will want to use), and it requires players that are willing to haggle and negotiate constantly. Still, there are few games I've played that make me want to go over all my opponents' strategies and thinking like Archipelago. Triskelli fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Aug 23, 2017 |
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Aug 23, 2017 22:21
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Toshimo posted:Sometimes I'm glad I play this game on the internet 90% of the time, because I don't know if I could do this to someone face-to-face: Steviesplielt94 is an excellent gamer handle
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Aug 23, 2017 22:23
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IAmUnaware posted:One other thing about Scythe and then I'll stop: I really like the combat. I've seen a lot of people talk trash about it, but I don't know why. Trying to read your opponent and figure out exactly how much power to spend is really interesting. The attacker can usually force a victory after the early game as power levels rise, but doing so is often disastrous in the long term. Especially if you have more than one nearby enemy, you have to be careful not to win by too much, and that balancing act and the bluffing associated with it are something I really enjoy. There's something about getting into a fight with someone when you're both at like 12 power and then both of you laughing when you reveal that you both spent very little and played low cards because you both were thinking about the third guy nearby who's at 10 with a full hand that just feels really good to me. I don't know if I can really put it into words. I don't like that I can draw nothing but 2s and 3s from the deck while a guy just happens to rip two 5s and a 4 in his opening hand. Combat cards as a resource is really dumb because they are either useless or completely broken. Just ape Kemet's combat vis a vis and never look back. I'm cool with the idea of military power being a resource that you accrue before battle, I'm cool with one card per big unit, but I'm not cool with losing to poor draws. To the point mentioned above, if you control the factory you can often just keep it if you bring some workers with you. After a certain point you don't need the extra resources, and the workers make attacking actively bad because the attacker can lose popularity.
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Aug 23, 2017 22:23
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Bottom Liner posted:
For the most part, these all are really promising changes. I play TM competitively over at snellman and after several seasons of play, I'm wearing down on a little. Granted, if they used the bidding mechanic for races, it might be slightly better, but overall, there are some problems (the static maps and some races being clearly *better* standing out for me; I don't really mind the cult tracks) that I feel really limit the game. I like the idea of a variable map set-up quite a bit, as competitive play (at lower levels; I have a hard time grokking the highest-level play) gets to be a bit static b/c of the commonly accepted precepts about where to place and how to play on the unchanging map. I do worry about the boards being more similar (I actually like the novelty of the differences there in TM) b/c, to me, it's the racial powers themselves, not the slight differences in board abilities, that comprise the huge imbalance in TM. Darklings are always going to be better than Fakirs not because they get 2P from a Sanctuary or because they pay slightly less or more for a building, but because they flat out have a more efficient means of terraforming than Fakirs do. The devs also had to errata Shapeshifters and Riverwalkers multiple times because they didn't properly account for the potency of their terraforming abilities. I mean, it's a brilliant game and every indication is they're open to learning from their mistakes, but I'm holding my breath in hopes that they stick the landing this time.
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Aug 23, 2017 22:29
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My coworker just got back from GenCon and said the games he liked most were Last Night On Earth, the Epic card game, and new Pathfinder stuff. Needless to say, I'm no longer interested in pursuing an after-work boardgaming group.
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Aug 23, 2017 22:44
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Shadow225 posted:I don't like that I can draw nothing but 2s and 3s from the deck while a guy just happens to rip two 5s and a 4 in his opening hand. Combat cards as a resource is really dumb because they are either useless or completely broken. Just ape Kemet's combat vis a vis and never look back. I'm cool with the idea of military power being a resource that you accrue before battle, I'm cool with one card per big unit, but I'm not cool with losing to poor draws. But 2s and 3s don't necessarily lose to 5s and 4s for a whole host of reasons. You can beat a 5 with a 2 in a bunch of ways: attacking when you're freer to spend power than your opponent is (due to positional concerns, or you just having more, or whatever), attacking one combat unit with more than one of your own (which makes it hard to crack back as well, because now your units are in the same space and can defend together too), or just making your opponent think you're going to spend differently than you are. These are all things that I have done more than once and that I have had done to me more than once. Combat's not just how much power you have plus your highest card against the same numbers on your opponent's side. The player with the best cards definitely does not always win. But, more to the point and more important over the course of the entire game: Your opponent doesn't know that you only have 2s and 3s. You can still threaten and deny just fine as long as you have anything in hand and can make your opponent believe you're ready to fight. Shadow225 posted:To the point mentioned above, if you control the factory you can often just keep it if you bring some workers with you. After a certain point you don't need the extra resources, and the workers make attacking actively bad because the attacker can lose popularity. Losing popularity has zero effect on your score if you don't go down a tier, though. There are a lot situations where popularity loss is not a meaningful deterrent, including any time that a player has decided they're going to end the game in the bottom tier. I like the popularity system a lot because while popularity is potentially worth quite a few points, pursuing popularity also makes your strategy a lot more brittle, and it really is a better option sometimes to just throw that off and end the game at 0 pop. We've seen the winner be a tier below the other players a number of times, although I don't know if we've ever seen someone in the 0-6 tier beat someone in the 13-18 tier. EDIT: For some non-Scythe chat, what do people with some experience in The Colonists think about it? I've just played one two-era game but it seems pretty cool. Does it get a little solved after you've played it a few times, or does the random order of the places showing up combat that? IAmUnaware fucked around with this message at 23:19 on Aug 23, 2017 |
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Aug 23, 2017 23:13
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CaptainRightful posted:My coworker just got back from GenCon and said the games he liked most were Last Night On Earth, the Epic card game, and new Pathfinder stuff. Needless to say, I'm no longer interested in pursuing an after-work boardgaming group. Stay strong.
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Aug 23, 2017 23:21
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The colonists hasn't slowed down in my 8 or do plays of it. Really strong game imo. The variation in colonies, tiles and cards keeps it fresh.
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Aug 23, 2017 23:23
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Impermanent posted:The colonists hasn't slowed down in my 8 or do plays of it. Really strong game imo. The variation in colonies, tiles and cards keeps it fresh. How many players are you usually playing? Are you finding the playtime speeds up as well? I'm hearing in various reviews of groups getting a 3 player 4 era game down to 2.5 hours, which sounds pretty drat impressive.
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Aug 23, 2017 23:57
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Impermanent posted:The colonists hasn't slowed down in my 8 or do plays of it. Really strong game imo. The variation in colonies, tiles and cards keeps it fresh. Fuuuuck I need to play this game
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Aug 23, 2017 23:59
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I can't believe how much I'm enjoying Feast for Odin. It feels like I can play it every day for a month straight and still like it, and that's with 2, 3, or 4 players. Tomorrow I get to play it with 2 or 3 again, and I'm going to try for a whaling strategy.
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Aug 24, 2017 00:04
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Countblanc posted:3) Pictomania - A party game that I really only recommend sober due to the constant reaching across the table and likely difficulty with some of the words. It's still great though if you need something for a medium sized group! Yeah I wouldn't play this drunk. But it is fantastic as-is! CaptainRightful posted:My coworker just got back from GenCon and said the games he liked most were Last Night On Earth, the Epic card game, and new Pathfinder stuff. Needless to say, I'm no longer interested in pursuing an after-work boardgaming group.  please knock Mom! posted:I can't believe how much I'm enjoying Feast for Odin. It feels like I can play it every day for a month straight and still like it, and that's with 2, 3, or 4 players. Tomorrow I get to play it with 2 or 3 again, and I'm going to try for a whaling strategy. It really is such a fantastic game.
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Aug 24, 2017 00:24
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