|
SlyFrog posted:Thinking about getting 7 Wonders Duel (plus expansion). Reviews on this are pretty wildly different, with some “favorite two player game, period” type reviews, but also a lot of “meh” reviews. No one seems to hate it, but a lot seem to find it pretty uninspired (but again, that’s against those who absolutely adore it). It's good and relatively fast, lots of good decisions and opportunities to actually play against your opponent. The expansion does a great job of mixing it up, but I wouldn't call it absolutely necessary starting out. Burn out on the base box first. E: Looking at some BGG reviews, I think the game is better balanced than people give it credit for. We've played probably a dozen games each without and with the expansion, and the game really wants you to spend as much time thinking about your opponent's turn and board as your own. This isn't dueling solitaire and trying to play it that way will make the non-point win conditions feel overpowered. Huxley fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Jan 11, 2018 |
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 19:00
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 00:31 |
|
|
I'll say that Overseers is a hidden gem. It's a pretty standard draft, but with an element of bluffing added. You lay down your drafted cards at the end of every round, some face up, some face down, and all players vote for who they think'll get the most points. The bluffing is that you want it to look like you're getting the most points, but actually be a few point behind the highest scorer, since that'll let you draw two more cards to add to your combination. If you fail in your bluff, you'll lose cards from your combination which'll lower your points. I think it's a pretty neat little game. I don't know where to place Blood Rage since it's actually a pretty simple drafting game with a lot of fighting and nonsense going on. It's actually probably a hobbyist game because of all the nonsense.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 19:04
|
|
|
one time i met a guy at a board game meetup who said splendor was his "favorite game ever" and he was a jeweler
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 19:05
|
|
|
SlyFrog posted:Thinking about getting 7 Wonders Duel (plus expansion). Reviews on this are pretty wildly different, with some “favorite two player game, period” type reviews, but also a lot of “meh” reviews. No one seems to hate it, but a lot seem to find it pretty uninspired (but again, that’s against those who absolutely adore it). Have it, but didn't know about expansion. It does exactly what it promises (offers quick and fast drafting experience for two people) but it's not the kind of a game you'll be super excited about having an opportunity to play. I think technology and military are cooler than in base 7 wonders (again, no experience with expansions). It occupies roughly the same spot as Patchwork, in my opinion.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 19:08
|
|
|
I think it's the kind of game you'll either end up never playing, or play an insane amount of. The nature of two player games. I enjoy it, but would rather play Patchwork.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 19:13
|
|
|
Codenames: Duet has become our default 2 player.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 19:15
|
|
|
I think Patchwork has a lot more play to it than 7 Wonders, but they're both on the top of the heap of the small-box two-player games. Patchwork 7 Wonders:D Jaipur Caverna:CvC ACB&S Lost Cities Of the ones we've played a bunch, off the top of my head. Huxley fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Jan 11, 2018 |
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 19:16
|
|
|
Same until our copy of gloomhaven arrived and now we play nothing else 2p.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 19:17
|
|
|
Trynant posted:Though I play worker placements way more than drafting: 100% of Seasons is drafting. It's been described as a game where you spend 20 minutes playing then 60 minutes finding out who won. Having played it, I can't disagree.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 19:22
|
|
|
Can't get Patchwork, because my brain is not good at, and hates, spacial arrangement games.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 19:23
|
|
|
SlyFrog posted:Thinking about getting 7 Wonders Duel (plus expansion). Reviews on this are pretty wildly different, with some “favorite two player game, period” type reviews, but also a lot of “meh” reviews. No one seems to hate it, but a lot seem to find it pretty uninspired (but again, that’s against those who absolutely adore it). I am so bad at it, but I think it is a very good two player game. It doesn't take too long to play and there is enough strategic depth to keep things interesting. I also like what the expansion brings to the game.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 19:27
|
|
|
I picked up Nevermore at GenCon a few years ago because I love drafting games, but it really wasn't that good. I'm worried that I'm going to misremember some of this (I haven't played in years), but I believe the main mechanic was that there are like 4 or 5 actions you can take, and the cards that you're drafting correspond to those actions. At the end of a draft whichever player has the most cards of a type gets to take that action. That mechanic seemed fairly interesting and could maybe have made for a fun game, but there were special 'spells' you could perform with one of the action types and I just remember those being awful. Tons of rewind-the-gamestate style gently caress you cards. I can't really remember a game of it where the pacing didn't feel super off.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 19:27
|
|
|
Shamefully I enjoy Seasons. I feel like there's more decision making going on in the extended endgame of that game than people are giving it credit for but I can't really dispute that yes, 75% of the outcome of the game is determined in the first 15 minutes. I guess it's just the cute art and the big, colorful, chunky dice that does it for me.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 19:27
|
|
|
I've actually never played Patchwork irl. We sat on the couch and played the app for a week nonstop, but when my wife moved on I didn't and got too good at it to actually buy it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 19:38
|
|
|
Jordan7hm posted:I think it's the kind of game you'll either end up never playing, or play an insane amount of. The nature of two player games. Nah, I don't really see the potential for binging until burnout like, say, Twilight Struggle. I could see a game night aperitif eating a whole evening in a prolonged series of "just one rematch" though.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 19:52
|
|
|
SlyFrog posted:Can't get Patchwork, because my brain is not good at, and hates, spacial arrangement games. I'm bad at spacial arrangement games too, but I love the planning aspect of patchwork. If it's close with somebody who's good at spacial stuff, I'll lose, but I can usually make it up on better play through the first 75% of the game. e: ^^^ I'm thinking more like Lost Cities, the kind of game that's just really easy to play a game here or there with the SO because it's so short. And then you look up two or three years later and you've played literally hundreds of games. Where Lost Cities probably has both patchwork and 7w:duel beat is that they take a bit more table space than Lost Cities.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 19:53
|
|
|
My favorite thing about Patchwork is how it is often 100% correct for both players to pass their first 3-4 turns of the game. It's so unintuitive, but kind of a revelation when you start to work the game out.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 19:57
|
|
|
The best entry level drafting game is definitely Between Two Cities. It's fast and easy to teach, but with a good bit of meat there, especially with the expansion added in. The game has something of an unusual structure, you're drafting tiles to build one city in conjunction with the player on your left and another with the player on your right. You're literally between two cities, with your final score being the weaker of the two (meaning you have to try and improve both equally to score well). This structure gives the whole thing a very light and approachable atmosphere and new players can be helped along by their neighbors. I don't think I've ever pulled this game out and only played one game.xiw posted:I really wanted to love this game but we all found that the reaching out to the table and moving things around while people had their eyes closed was too easy to just tell from table movement / chair shifting etc - even the advice about having everyone tap the table and move around and make noises just didn't seem to work well. You should have everybody stand up for the night phase and maybe move some people around so that the furthest from the center are those with longest arms. Additionally, once everyone has seen their card, slide them towards the center cards so that everybody can reach everything easily. Fenn the Fool! fucked around with this message at 20:52 on Jan 11, 2018 |
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 20:47
|
|
|
Re: Drafting chat, Is this being limited to drafting in the traditional TCG sense of simultaneous pick-and-pass hand drafting? I think games like 7 Wonders: Duel, Cat Lady, and even The Networks which all utilize a face-up market from which players take turns collecting cards can all fit into the "drafting" genre. I'm not sure if there's another term for that style of gameplay/mechanism, but at worst it's a close cousin of traditional drafting.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 20:50
|
|
|
Fenn the Fool! posted:The best entry level drafting game is definitely Between Two Cities. It's fast and easy to teach, but with a good bit of meat there, especially with the expansion added in. The game has something of an unusual structure, you're drafting tiles to build one city in conjunction with the player on your left and another with the player on your right. You're literally between two cities, with your final score being the weaker of the two (meaning you have to try and improve both equally to score well). This structure gives the whole thing a very light and approachable atmosphere and new players can be helped along by their neighbors. I don't think I've ever pulled this game out and only played one game. I'll second this. I busted it out at a party once with a full eight player group and it ended up being a huge hit we played for over an hour. Very easy to teach and learn and interestingly the players who consistently did the best were the ones with very limited board game experience, which was a nice break for them since they kind of got stomped at most of the other games we played.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 21:02
|
|
|
Merauder posted:Re: Drafting chat, I'd say that's actually a more pure, or at least original, form of drafting. MTG popularized the "simultaneous choice" drafting style, but "Rotisserie draft" has been the mainstay of fantasy sports teams for decades.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 21:10
|
|
|
Merauder posted:Re: Drafting chat, I'm not familiar with the latter two choices, but I would absolutely say they count. Once you take a resource, that specific resource is no longer available for any other player.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 21:16
|
|
|
I haven't had a chance to play Cat Lady yet myself, but I've seen it referred to by some as a Sushi Go killer. As mentioned it uses public/table drafting instead of passing cards, but features similar scoring ideologies in various types of set collection (most of X, pairs of Y, specific count of Z, etc.), while also adding some extra "game" to it with having to collect resources (food) for your collected cards (cats) to ensure they score. The method it uses to draft cards from the table looks interesting too, using a marker to select a row or column from which to take cards, after which it's refilled and the next player chooses, but has to move the marker to a different row/column. The Networks would be more in the hobbiest category, but there's four types of cards laid out each round that players take turns drafting from: TV shows, Stars, Ads, and Action cards. Players take turns drafting these to their personal TV Network tableau of sorts until everyone passes, and then resets into the subsequent round. Merauder fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Jan 11, 2018 |
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 21:21
|
|
|
I never liked Seasons but my group used to play it a lot. That is, until I did a machine that did nothing but sucking points from other players, I won with only five points. We stopped playing Seasons ever since 
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 22:22
|
|
|
Merauder posted:I haven't had a chance to play Cat Lady yet myself, but I've seen it referred to by some as a Sushi Go killer. As mentioned it uses public/table drafting instead of passing cards, but features similar scoring ideologies in various types of set collection (most of X, pairs of Y, specific count of Z, etc.), while also adding some extra "game" to it with having to collect resources (food) for your collected cards (cats) to ensure they score. The method it uses to draft cards from the table looks interesting too, using a marker to select a row or column from which to take cards, after which it's refilled and the next player chooses, but has to move the marker to a different row/column. Cat Lady isn't amazing, but it's very reasonable. The cat marker works well (you can even use a Spray Bottle to chase it off), the theme is well done (though a version with more unique cat art would go a long way), and it's very accessible (my 7 year olds all like it, and have probably sold a bunch more copies to friends/family). And yeah, I'd definitely still call this drafting - it just has a single public market (unlike 7 Wonders or MtG booster draft), with non-simultaneous picks (unlike Galaxy Trucker), and continuous replacement (unlike MtG Rochester draft). I wonder what variations on this exist in games already - like, are there any games where you pass around hands and keep refilling them over time? Or maybe a game with a hidden tech market that has a limited, diminishing set, but where you can only see what's in there when you buy?
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 22:43
|
|
|
I am a fan of Fairy Tale as far as pure drafting games go. It's simple, sure, but there are a lot of one-off effects, nothing is entirely intuitive, and planning anything on your first 5 plays is difficult. I don't know where it falls. Medium filler?
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 22:52
|
|
|
Impermanent posted:A definite Hidden Gem Drafting game is Steampunk Rally. I've never seen it mentioned anywhere other than this forum, but it's a great game. It takes the drafting mechanic and uses it in a funky tableau-building way where your tableau is an invention you use to race other players to the finish line. It's fun, uses dice in a novel way, and supports like 8 players without going too long. It's a perfect game for the monthly "I have 7 people coming over to play board games tomorrow how can we all hang out without splitting up" question. Just want to endorse this, this has been my most useful purchase of 2017 pretty much. Taught it to 8 players starting at 10:45 at a new years party outside with terrible lighting and they finished and had a good time by 11:30.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 23:00
|
|
|
xiw posted:Just want to endorse this, this has been my most useful purchase of 2017 pretty much. Re: Steampunk Rally - I've had mostly good experiences with this too. My only complaint is that it has some bad feels potential because it's so easy to cheat unintentionally - there's tons of moving parts, simultaneous actions, and a few fiddly bits. This is probably OK for your regular group - but if you play it with randos, there's a good chance you have one guy who wasn't really paying attention when you explained how venting works, or forgot whether he'd already picked up dice for X or changed his mind about Y but didn't put the dice back. That can be mildly annoying - but if you also have one rando who's a rules inspector, and thinks dude #1 is cheating on purpose, you can end up having a bad day (without anyone actually meaning to cheat). Naturally I bring this up because it happened to me. But yeah, it's a reasonably solid game with lots of good properties (fun theme, simultaneous play for lots of people, usually some story developed and/or funny implosions).
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 23:09
|
|
|
CaptainRightful posted:Same here. I've played Churchill several times and enjoy it, but I still haven't managed a full scenario of Pericles. I get the debate side just fine, but I can't wrap my head around the relationship of the 4 army factions (which don't map one-to-one with the 4 player factions) and when I would want to build forces in, attack, or defend any particular area. Part of that is less familiarity with the war in question, part is that advancement in Churchill is incredibly straightforward, and part is that drat Pericles rulebook. I don't know, I think Pericles rulebook is pretty good from when I read it over. Some parts i had to read a few times, but it overall made sense. Then again I'm a Classical history nerd so a lot of it makes sense to me. I can't get the game to the table because I can't get the people, but I pretty much know how the rules work. Churchill's book is terrible though, it took us like four plays to get the rules right for that game. Oh, and from what I can gather the use for league forces in Pericles is to different for the two factions. For Athens league forces hold territory or die in battles that you don't your City-state forces to participate in. If you're Sparta league forces are to get pieces where you can't otherwise because Athens has its navy's boot on your throat and in the case of their boats to die gloriously in battle slowly wearing the Athenians down through attrition, which is a serious problem for the Athens player. You should build league forces when you need to do one of those.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 23:13
|
|
|
jmzero posted:Re: Steampunk Rally - I've had mostly good experiences with this too. My only complaint is that it has some bad feels potential because it's so easy to cheat unintentionally. But yeah, it's a reasonably solid game with lots of good properties (fun theme, simultaneous play for lots of people, usually some story developed and/or funny implosions). when I teach this game I pair off people to be 'rules buddies' (ideally experienced with inexperienced players, but it doesn't matter too much). Each person does their turn explaining it to the other player in each phase. I think this is recommended in the rule book, but I'm not sure.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 23:13
|
|
|
According to the BGG forums, the strength of the hardest AI in the Patchwork app is based upon your computer/device speed. Since it is programmed to stop searching through decision trees after 10 seconds, a faster computer will allow the AI to look deeper into future turns. The "developer" claims that Uwe is near unstoppable on a i7 Kaby Lake processor. https://boardgamegeek.com/article/26651262#26651262
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 23:15
|
|
|
While I also wholeheartedly recommend Steampunk Rally, I don't think drafting in particular is it's strongest suit: you each take one card from four separate decks covering different elements, ensuring you're never truly hosed with a draw. This works well to make the engine-building and managing part of the game run smoothly, but makes the draft fairly fangless. It's a great game nevertheless, but you should think of it as dice placement with a draft, not the other way around.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 23:24
|
|
|
Notre Dame is an interesting hobbyist-level game with a simple drafting mechanic: every turn you draw and draft three cards from your deck of 9 different actions, then play 2 cards out of those 3. Every time you take an action it gets better, up to the limit of total deployed guys you have, and every turn there are 3 visitors which are communal actions that everyone can spend money to take one, and also they determine the level of plague you have to deal with. Take 3 passes through your deck, some visitors upgrading every pass, and that's game. It's neat in that everybody's action board is a geomorph and they connect together with Notre Dame at the center, however many players you have.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 23:26
|
|
|
Merauder posted:Re: Drafting chat, why is literally nobody mentioning Dominion? I mean I realize it's a bit of dinosaur but there's a reason it's so popular and has so many expansions: people love it and it's fun to play, even people who don't play a lot of games. Am I just misunderstanding how"drafting" games are defined and it doesn't count? Kinda depends on how we're defining "entry level" -- is this a game for people who are entering the hobby, or a game that encourages people to enter the hobby?
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2018 23:39
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:why is literally nobody mentioning Dominion? It's not a drafting game. It is the undisputed reigning champion of deckbuilders though
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2018 00:08
|
|
|
The End posted:It's not a drafting game. Ah, ok, so there's a distinction between "drafting" games and "deckbuilding" games? Because you draft cards into your deck . . . oooooh it's because there are ten copies of each card instead of 1, gotcha
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2018 00:10
|
|
|
The End posted:It's not a drafting game. It is if you're playing w/ Masquarade 
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2018 00:10
|
|
|
golden bubble posted:According to the BGG forums, the strength of the hardest AI in the Patchwork app is based upon your computer/device speed. Since it is programmed to stop searching through decision trees after 10 seconds, a faster computer will allow the AI to look deeper into future turns. The "developer" claims that Uwe is near unstoppable on a i7 Kaby Lake processor. Yeah, that's how we wrote checkers AI's in class way back when. Decision trees of every possible move, then decision trees for each of those possible moves, deeper and deeper until either a determined depth is reached, or a time limit is reached. Then, figure out which of those endpoints is the best, or which branches have the top x% endpoints, or however else you want to evaluate it, then climb back up the tree to take that move in the first tree.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2018 00:12
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:Ah, ok, so there's a distinction between "drafting" games and "deckbuilding" games? Because you draft cards into your deck . . . oooooh it's because there are ten copies of each card instead of 1, gotcha
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2018 00:14
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 00:31 |
|
|
Bobby The Rookie posted:Drafting as a mechanic usually refers to being dealt a preexisting hand of cards, selecting some to keep, then passing the rest to a different player. Deckbuilding is purchasing cards from a communal market and cycling through your deck continuously while building it up with bigger and better cards- generally speaking. Ok, makes sense. I've done a fair bit of CCG type drafting (mostly via Hex) but that's it, so I think I was conflating the two categories in my head because in both you 1) pick cards, then 2) put the cards together in some kind of deck, so I didn't realize there was a distinction. Thanks! :bows:
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2018 00:20
|
|