Board Game Thread 4e: The Call of Catan

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Board Game Thread 4e: The Call of Catan

!Klams: Dec 25, 2005; Squid Squad

Bottom Liner posted:

Many people have said its the hardest game to learn and teach that they've ever played. Read the rule book online and get an idea if it's too much for you. Teaching others is literally a 45+ minute exercise.

It is the hardest game I've learnt, for sure. But I don't think it will super hard to teach. There are 11 different cards you can play as actions, and you choose 4 per turn. There are 6 different guilds, that you can interact with in 3 different ways each. There are resources, two of which do two things, and two of which are only used for one thing. And like, that's essentially the entire game. It's just that there's so much variation.

Every card has two ways it can work, and the conditions for which one of those two ways is completely arbitrary. The 3 different interactions you can have with a guild are all completely different for each guild. Different 'epochs' determine game length, and are based on a certain action card being played, as well as all players completing all their actions. Wildly different things happen each epoch.

So there's a lot of stuff to remember. Its obviously not very neat design, but it's not really a problem. The only actually bad part is that, yeah, the map is essentially unreadable. I've found the game really fun though! I did a huge effortpost type thing about it before, so I won't say much again (although I realise this is huge already. Sorry) except that it does clever things to make you all play with each other, and lets you be sneaky in ways that REALLY gently caress each other up. Which, you know, can be good, can be bad.

I think 5 is probably the best number. At two, you really just maximise an engine each, and soccer l whoever did it better wins. It's still fun, but it's a bit like two player caverna. At five it's really about fudging each other over!

# ? May 24, 2018 16:47

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# ? May 28, 2024 04:11

Panzeh: Nov 27, 2006; "..The high ground"

CaptainRightful posted:

So is Mark Herman. And Labyrinth is neocon fantasy. Without denying or excusing any of that, the COIN games are remarkably progressive inside the world of wargaming, where the mere existence of civilians is rarely even acknowledged. In the BGG discussion about that My Lai card description, Mark and Volko said that some playtesters were upset they mentioned the massacre at all!

Volko mostly flies under the radar because of his calm, reasonable public manner, unlike Eklund's spittle-flecked ranting persona.

I can live with vaguely neocon guys who make wargames because they aren't putting political footnotes on every page of their rulebooks the way eklund does.

IMO having a political axe to grind is fine, but leave it to the designer's notes at the end, don't jam it onto every rulebook page. The pax emancipation living rules doc is reaallly bad about that.

# ? May 24, 2018 16:48

golden bubble: Jun 3, 2011; yospos

Cerepol posted:

Hey anyone got words on Feudum, the art style is drawing me in hard. It seems to be getting good reviews but I'm not sure how much is kickstarter hype. I realize it's fairly weighty but does it do a good job of introducing you your possible moves and how to evaluate them? Another big question is, it says 2-5, wheres the sweet spot here? Is 5 players going to be a slogfest? or does it play quickly enough to not be a problem?

I think !Klams' review was pretty accurate.

!Klams posted:

Ended up playing Feudum. I can see why people say its over complicated, there are a ton of rules that just don't need to be there, its very fiddly. I don't think the actual core game is over complicated though, and its really fun! It's a really interesting example though, of a labour of love from a first time designer. The things that are fiddly, are just where inexperience has meant he didn't 'kill his darlings' so to speak.

For example whenever you receive 'sulphur', you immediately choose to either put it on a wine barrel, or in your supply. When you use sulphur from your supply, you put it on a little cardboard sack piece that each player has.
There is another resource called Saltpeter, that you can also put on the sack, for a different bonus, or without using the sack you can use saltpeter in combat. No other good ever uses this sack, so its basically just for Saltpeter which has two uses, and Sulphur which has two uses. But for Sulphur, you have this extra step of having to put it on the wine barrel immediately. There's about as much tension between which way to use sulphur as there is between the two ways to use Saltpeter, only for some reason you have to decide in advance with the sulphur, but as and when with the Saltpeter. It would have been so much more streamlined to just cut that dynamic entirely, and cut the cardboard sack, and just say "you can spend sulphur to do one of two things:" "You can spend Saltpeter to do one of two things:" "You use food for X" "You use wood and iron for Y".

The problems with the game come from these circuitous flow-charts, (You can pay two shillings to travel a ferry path, but only if there are no vehicles available to buy, but the boat can't take you down the ferry path anyway?) these frivolous extra details that just don't really add as much as they obscure. They're not a problem at all once you're familiar with them, it just makes teaching / learning it harder. But I think the core game that's there is good enough and different enough that it's worth it! I really hope it sees a second edition down the line that clears all this stuff up, because it would be so easy to do.

What's good and unique about the game is the guild system. It's pretty hard to explain (again) but pretty easy to understand once you've played with it, but essentially there are different guilds you can join, who either feed or draw from the guild next to them. Being in charge of a guild (or second in command) lets you do this push or pull action, and scores you points. But you can't push to a guild who's supplies are full, nor can you pull from one who's stock is empty. You can't possibly hope to control all the guilds, so you get this cool dynamic of begrudgingly helping each other out. Since buying something from a guild frees up space / removes resource from that guild, there's a cool dynamic there too, of, "Oh I really want to buy some rosary beads, but then that will leave space at the monastery for the noble guild to push into!" Etc. When you pay for stuff, you pay the players that own the guild. All of this means all the interesting trade / commerce dynamic, is between the players, and can be gamed!

Also cool and good, there are lots of reasons for you to want to be on the same space as other players. If someone owns a territory, you can go and join that territory as well, and become a serf there. You don't get bonuses for owning the territory, but you CAN 'farm the land' there, which can grant you resources. If you then 'join' the territory again and place another token there, you take it over, and they become the serf! So there's a cool tension there of, well I WANT to be a serf, but maybe I want to take the land from you more? And then you can upgrade places you own to the eponymous Feudums, which grant massive benefits, but come at a weird cost. Once you control any number of feudums, you have to have completed, or go on to complete successful combats to prove your allegiance to the king, or you start to lose LOADS of points. So, again, a reason to be on the same space as other people, so you can do combat (which is almost entirely deterministic, but with counterplay). And since having Feudums is a big scorer, IF you've done the combat to make it worthwhile, there's always a threat someone is going to attack you, but also a perfectly valid reason that "No, honestly, I'm not!".

This is a lot of text to discuss a game that I'm sure a lot of you would (perhaps rightly) cast off as cones of dunshire nonsense, and there's probably a little of that going on. But what I love about it, and what I was trying to convey but probably failed, is how much of the game is above the table. I like games that give you reasons to lie, and also plausible deniability, and also alternative routes. Games where you form legitimate alliances, because it's in your best interests, but that are shaky, and aren't de-facto better than not being in an alliance. I think its a subtle thing, there's probably someone with a better term for it. But, say in Twilight Imperium, they could have made it so if you control Mecatol Rex, you score a VP. But instead, you have to draft and play a specific action card. It seems like a small distinction, but it means there's a whole human element of everyone coming together to organise a way to hate-draft it away from you, or not have to, but remove you from the planet (But then YOU'LL have the action and be in control!!! etc). There's backstabbery and shenanigans abound. You TALK about how you're going to stop each other, you actually plot and scheme. And then that informs what you actually do. Its SO much better than just scoring a point, it's a whole extra game almost. I think there's a lot to be learned from Feudum about what not to do, but I think there's a ton of surprising stuff it gets really right too.

Ignore Jedit on this issue, because he lacks reading comprehension. I was commenting on how Feudum's best subsystem, the guilds system, resembled King Chocolate, and Jedit managed to think I was saying the two games were completely the same. King Chocolate doesn't have anything besides the guilds-like system, while the guilds are just one small part of Feudum's political emphasis.

# ? May 24, 2018 17:25

Bottom Liner: Feb 15, 2006; a specific vein of lasagna

Finally getting to try 7 Wonders Duel: Pantheon and curious what you all think. Is it a worthy expansion or does it add too much fluff to a quick and elegant game? It looks like it adds some really interesting choices but at the expense of more fiddly setup and table management. Part of the appeal of 7WD was always how fast it played, so I'm torn.

On that note, what would you guys say are the best and worst expansions?

Of course stuff like the Tash-Kalar decks are great, adding more without adding more, but what about things like Keyflower, which open up and really change what is a really tight and streamlined design? I've heard mixed things about them to the point that I have resisted adding either. Spirit Island's is in a similar space, adding a non-deterministic element that some people love and some people hate.

There are a few great ones that are basically necessary to complete games: Mage Knight Volkare, Eminent Domain Escalation, Agricola All Creatures More Buildings, but those feel more like fleshing out what should have been there from the start than an interesting addition.

Dominion has a few notable ones good and bad, but my favorite is probably Adventures. It really adds a lot and changes the game without ruining the elements that make it great. Pandemic's first two are great, with In the Lab being up there for my favorite expansions thanks to the lab module that I love. Roll for the Galaxy Ambition is also great, balancing the actions better and adding a good but simple talent module for more control over roll outcomes.

What about outright bad ones that ruin the game? Notoriously Machi-Koro Harbor takes it from being a barebones simple game to a trash fire. Cities of Splendor is also notably bad, both for being more expensive than the base game and having 4 dull modules that are all worse than the base game.

# ? May 24, 2018 17:31

Bottom Liner: Feb 15, 2006; a specific vein of lasagna

Also in good news, Space Goat failed their latest attempt to scam a lot of people out of money and are officially broke.

quote:

With the apparent failure of the equity crowdfunding campaign, we have taken a step back to regroup and consider a number of options. Some paths forward have been presented to us. We need a few weeks to find the best path forward. As soon as we find that best path forward, you all will be the first to know.

Sincerely, Shon Bury

From a FB quote:

quote:

$3,802 raised of $250K-$1.07M goal

Bottom Liner fucked around with this message at 17:52 on May 24, 2018

# ? May 24, 2018 17:47

Shadow225: Jan 2, 2007

The best expansions are the ones that are more of the game within the base game's systems (Mysterium, Dominion).

The 2nd to worst expansions are the ones that come with entirely different sub systems that come with additional rules baggage (what I envision Keyflower and Cash n Guns to be)

The worst expansions are modular expansions because they come with the baggage of the above, but multiplied by like 4, suggest that they weren't play tested as well, and also comes with the added issues of not being good to throw in all at once and also opening itself up to not carrying expectations across groups (Kemet Ta Seti, Camel Up)

I don't have a ranking for specific expansions, but at this point, if I see an expansion with modular expansions, I run. Expansions period I am trying to ween myself off of.

# ? May 24, 2018 17:56

silvergoose: Mar 18, 2006; IT IS SAID THE TEARS OF THE BWEENIX CAN HEAL ALL WOUNDS

Shadow225 posted:

The best expansions are the ones that are more of the game within the base game's systems (Mysterium, Dominion).

The 2nd to worst expansions are the ones that come with entirely different sub systems that come with additional rules baggage (what I envision Keyflower and Cash n Guns to be)

The worst expansions are modular expansions because they come with the baggage of the above, but multiplied by like 4, suggest that they weren't play tested as well, and also comes with the added issues of not being good to throw in all at once and also opening itself up to not carrying expectations across groups (Kemet Ta Seti, Camel Up)

I don't have a ranking for specific expansions, but at this point, if I see an expansion with modular expansions, I run. Expansions period I am trying to ween myself off of.

What, you didn't like 504?

# ? May 24, 2018 18:02

CaptainRightful: Jan 11, 2005

Shadow225 posted:

The best expansions are the ones that are more of the game within the base game's systems (Mysterium, Dominion).

The 2nd to worst expansions are the ones that come with entirely different sub systems that come with additional rules baggage (what I envision Keyflower and Cash n Guns to be)

The worst expansions are modular expansions because they come with the baggage of the above, but multiplied by like 4, suggest that they weren't play tested as well, and also comes with the added issues of not being good to throw in all at once and also opening itself up to not carrying expectations across groups (Kemet Ta Seti, Camel Up)

I don't have a ranking for specific expansions, but at this point, if I see an expansion with modular expansions, I run. Expansions period I am trying to ween myself off of.

I have to disagree about modules being the worst. Tuscany really improves Viticulture and works fine if you add all of the modules or just one of them. The Essential editions were well done because they researched how popular each of the expansion modules were.

# ? May 24, 2018 18:09

MockingQuantum: Jan 20, 2012

Shadow225 posted:

The worst expansions are modular expansions because they come with the baggage of the above, but multiplied by like 4, suggest that they weren't play tested as well, and also comes with the added issues of not being good to throw in all at once and also opening itself up to not carrying expectations across groups (Kemet Ta Seti, Camel Up)

Tangentially relevant, a friend of mine used to work as a developer at FFG on the Arkham Horror (board game) line. One of his jobs, when they were developing the Miskatonic expansion, was to play AH with just about every conceivable (and playable) combination of previous expansions to test the added cards that kind of "bridged" expansions. Or at least that's what he told me, I suspect it's hyperbole as he's still alive and mostly sane.

# ? May 24, 2018 18:09

Bottom Liner: Feb 15, 2006; a specific vein of lasagna

MockingQuantum posted:

Tangentially relevant, a friend of mine used to work as a developer at FFG on the Arkham Horror (board game) line. One of his jobs, when they were developing the Miskatonic expansion, was to play AH with just about every conceivable (and playable) combination of previous expansions to test the added cards that kind of "bridged" expansions. Or at least that's what he told me, I suspect it's hyperbole as he's still alive and mostly sane.

this is hell

Shadow225 posted:

I don't have a ranking for specific expansions, but at this point, if I see an expansion with modular expansions, I run. Expansions period I am trying to ween myself off of.

I agree that modular based stuff can be awful, but it can be great too. Viticulture is the biggest example, but you mention Kemet Ta-Seti and I've only played with the black tiles module and new end game conditions but those alone make it a good expansion. I like the pick and choose aspect modular stuff presents, letting you tailor the game to your group or experience level or just keeping the game fresh across repeat plays. I have high hopes for the Fenrir expansion for Scythe, it adds a campaign mode and a lot of accompanying modules that can be played aside from that.

# ? May 24, 2018 18:13

MockingQuantum: Jan 20, 2012

I feel like, in general, the usefulness and playability of modular expansions kind of comes down to how many "modules" are included. I cannot for the life of me come up with what game I'm thinking of, but some game out there has an expansion with three modules, which I think is a good number since a decent amount of time could be put into playtesting all three, and there's enough uniqueness that it doesn't feel like playing with the same game, only slightly altered in three ways.

It bugs me that I can't think of what game it is. I also remember the rulebook for the expansions kind of giving you a rundown of how much time each module adds to the playthrough, and it had a footnote like "Btw you can play with all three expansions concurrently, it will work fine, but... you shouldn't, really, it's too much going on."

Unrelated to the above, but Battlestar's modular expansions actually worked, insofar as some of the modules were distinct improvements over the base game, at least in my experience. Once we had the cylon deployment board we never played without it, and the CAG rules worked well in a lot of situations. But then there were absolutely terrible and overcomplicated modules that we never bothered with (I've never once gotten through a whole game with the New Caprica phase, and the one game we played with the Ionian Nebula bullshit was not fun).... so I guess it's not a great example, whoops.

MockingQuantum fucked around with this message at 18:26 on May 24, 2018

# ? May 24, 2018 18:23

jivjov: Sep 13, 2007; But how does it taste? Yummy!; Dinosaur Gum

Modular expansions are some of my favorites, if for no other reason than the extra uniqueness you can give each play of the game

# ? May 24, 2018 18:30

MockingQuantum: Jan 20, 2012

Oh I might have been thinking of Escape. I like the modular expansions for that because if you have a group that gets flustered/overwhelmed by the game (as is often the case when I play it with younger cousins or friends' kids) you can slowly ramp up the difficulty by just adding one expansion module at a time.

Same with Magic Maze, really.

# ? May 24, 2018 18:33

Ohthehugemanatee: Oct 18, 2005

Pierzak posted:

Someone talk me out of buying Sword & Sorcery. The best my conscience came up with was "why the gently caress do you need another dungeon crawler when you still haven't played or painted half of the ones you own" and it's not working.

Reviews have been extremely "meh" with frequent references to tedium.

Board game reviews are always far too kind, and if people are consistently going "eh there are better" that's code for avoid at all costs. This is a kickstarter project too. If people threw in $100, waited a year and are all going "uh, the theme is cool?" then stay away.

# ? May 24, 2018 19:06

Fellis: Feb 14, 2012; Kid, don't threaten me. There are worse things than death, and uh, I can do all of them.

MockingQuantum posted:

Tangentially relevant, a friend of mine used to work as a developer at FFG on the Arkham Horror (board game) line. One of his jobs, when they were developing the Miskatonic expansion, was to play AH with just about every conceivable (and playable) combination of previous expansions to test the added cards that kind of "bridged" expansions. Or at least that's what he told me, I suspect it's hyperbole as he's still alive and mostly sane.

He was probably there when they did the Lurker at the Threshold mini-expansion, which was easily the best one, was he involved with that? I liked Miskatonic a lot too, but it came out when I was burned out on Arkham. The game is not good, but when you have 4-5 people who know the rules well enough to play simultaneously, it�s more tolerable.

# ? May 24, 2018 19:41

FACKER: Jan 2, 2005

Bottom Liner posted:

Finally getting to try 7 Wonders Duel: Pantheon and curious what you all think. Is it a worthy expansion or does it add too much fluff to a quick and elegant game? It looks like it adds some really interesting choices but at the expense of more fiddly setup and table management. Part of the appeal of 7WD was always how fast it played, so I'm torn.

Its been a while since I've played so I don't remember all the expansion gods and their powers or the new wonders, but the best part of the Pantheon expansion is the extra decision you get during your turn in the second and third ages. You can choose to pay for one of the god cards instead of picking a card from the structure, which makes it more difficult to math out how to get a specific card later in the structure, or prevent your opponent from getting that card.
Also I like how you can get some new pieces in the first two ages which benefit you later in the game by flipping over certain face-down cards with those pieces on them. Gives you more of a benefit for revealing face-down cards instead of trying to force your opponent to do it.

One aspect I'm not sure how much I like is the new cards that were added to the third age deck. If you collect two or three of them, you get a ridiculous amount of points which seems game-breaking. But it does make you sort of have to play around those cards based on what your opponent is doing.

Overall I definitely recommend the expansion and it breathed a bit more life into the game for me.

# ? May 24, 2018 19:45

T-Bone: Sep 14, 2004; jakes did this?

So I'm going to home for a bit and the family loves escape games, which series was supposed to be actually good again?

# ? May 24, 2018 20:01

MockingQuantum: Jan 20, 2012

Fellis posted:

He was probably there when they did the Lurker at the Threshold mini-expansion, which was easily the best one, was he involved with that? I liked Miskatonic a lot too, but it came out when I was burned out on Arkham. The game is not good, but when you have 4-5 people who know the rules well enough to play simultaneously, it�s more tolerable.

Yeah he was one of the designers on it, I liked that one too. For a long time Arkham was my group's go-to "big" game, and it was fun back then, but I think we thought it was great largely out of lack of exposure to anything else. Obviously FFG is local, so they have a big presence among board gamers here, or did back then, by virtue of being the most readily available "crunchy" games for a few years. We recently pulled AH off the shelf since we're playing through every game we own in a year (hah, yeah right) and it was... rough. Not unplayable, and we played with people who had fond memories of it, so we had nostalgia on our side, but it feels pretty clunky now.

Eldritch Horror is still pretty popular among my friends though, and I enjoy it well enough. Haven't touched any of the expansions for that one, though, and one of my friends from the company has said there are some specific expansions that really do bring a lot to the game.

# ? May 24, 2018 20:04

MockingQuantum: Jan 20, 2012

T-Bone posted:

So I'm going to home for a bit and the family loves escape games, which series was supposed to be actually good again?

I like both Unlock and Exit. Unlock games are replayable and only use cards (and a timer/hint app), which is sometimes kind of clever and sometimes clunky, the Exit games are generally not replayable, for various reasons. Cheaper than an actual escape room, though.

# ? May 24, 2018 20:05

jmzero: Jul 24, 2007

T-Bone posted:

So I'm going to home for a bit and the family loves escape games, which series was supposed to be actually good again?

Get Werewolf Experiment first, or Dr. Gravely's Retreat (both are standalone, and both are significantly better than the Exit or Unlock games).

If you can't find one of those, get one of the newer Exit games - I think the Forbidden Castle was my favorite. If you must have replayability (ie. a simple reset), get an Unlock - Island of Dr. Goorse is probably the best (of a mediocre bunch).

# ? May 24, 2018 21:02

SoftNum: Mar 31, 2011

So, I'm looking for a Co-op dungeon crawler to play with my wife and kids (9, 12) in the vein of Descent. I'm sot sure if it needs to be fantasy or not. I think while typing this I convinced myself that Imperial Assault is probably a good place to start if I don't need fantasy. Is there anything else worth looking at? I've heard mixed things about mice and mystics.

EDIT: With IA and Descent it looks like there's a plethera of options. Is there like a buyer's guide like "don't start with out X expansion or Y character pack?"

SoftNum fucked around with this message at 19:37 on May 25, 2018

# ? May 25, 2018 19:35

Some Numbers: Sep 28, 2006; "LET'S GET DOWN TO WORK!!"

You're looking for Gloomhaven. Trust me.

# ? May 25, 2018 19:42

Bottom Liner: Feb 15, 2006; a specific vein of lasagna

Played some good stuff in the past week or so:

Valley of the Kings Afterlife is probably my favorite small box game. The focus on abundant and strong entomb effects makes it easy to score high and the game plays quicker than the other sets because of these powers.

7 Wonders Duel Pantheon is good. It adds a bit more icon and setup fiddlyness but I think it's worth it in the end for the extra actions that don't use a card, adding a worthwhile twist to the dynamic of wanting to force your opponent to unlock certain cards instead of you doing so.

Played a core campaign of Arkham LCG with Zoey and Rex and despite doing pretty well we got hilariously hosed by a big monster chasing us through all three scenarios (including being the literal first mythos card we drew in the second).

Finally played more Keyflower and it was a big hit as always, going to make a point to play it a lot more often. We played at two and it's so fast and immediate and I really like that. I love playing it at 4-5 for the huge variety of tiles but it's just as good at 2, if a lot more restricted (we only had one transport tile come out, for instance).

Played a few rounds of Queendomino and I'm on a big losing streak with this one and can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. I try to be aggressive with the dragon but beyond that I just keep screwing up my kingdom one way or another. It's a great simple game though, a perfect sidegrade to Carc if you've played that one out.

Tiny Epic Galaxies solo is still a great way to kill 10 minutes. The higher difficulty bots are really clever and I've yet to beat the epic one, though it feels almost like a bash your head against the wall until you get lucky rolls/draws than heavily skill reliant.

Fox in the Forest continues to be a great devious little trick taking game. I'm not a big fan of trick taking generally, but this one has hooked me.

Organized and looked through the Millennium Blades Set Rotation expansion in anticipation of playing it again soon. New cards look great (especially characters and starter decks) and I'm always surprised when I relearn the game by how drat simple and the rules are. Printed a 1 page rules reference and that's literally all you need.

Anyone played Dragon Castle from CMON? Mahjong with special powers sounds like something I'd love.

# ? May 25, 2018 19:56

Nephzinho: Jan 25, 2008

Some Numbers posted:

You're looking for Gloomhaven. Trust me.

# ? May 25, 2018 19:57

Talas: Aug 27, 2005

Some Numbers posted:

You're looking for Gloomhaven. Trust me.

Empty quoting because it's true.

# ? May 25, 2018 20:13

SettingSun: Aug 10, 2013

I'll be honest, when I first heard about Gloomhaven and everyone was gushing about it I was one of those guys who rolled their eyes. I've been burned before by overhype. It looked fiddly, and a classic example of a Kickstarter packing too much into their stretch goals. Then my friend picked up a copy (and the BT organizer) and convinced me to play it. Now I'm jonesing for the weekend because I'm two scenarios away from retiring my Cragheart and I just really want to play and throw rocks around for the last time.

Get Gloomhaven.

# ? May 25, 2018 20:17

SoftNum: Mar 31, 2011

I was worried it wouldn't be super appropriate for children but it sounds like after some googling that it's really not that bad.

I may need to pick something else up in the meantime though.

Thanks.

# ? May 25, 2018 20:29

T-Bone: Sep 14, 2004; jakes did this?

SoftNum posted:

I was worried it wouldn't be super appropriate for children but it sounds like after some googling that it's really not that bad.

I may need to pick something else up in the meantime though.

Thanks.

Cardhaus threw it up for preorder with a June 30th release date: https://www.cardhaus.com/gloomhaven/ $137 and free shipping.

# ? May 26, 2018 02:18

jadarx: May 25, 2012

City of Kings question:

Is this game supposed to be impossiblely hard. My group played the normal gather scenario with 4. By the second turn, we had a monster that could chase us around the board and one shot us. We only managed one stat update, so had no hope of killing the level 3 monster, even if it couldn�t teleport.

We did get two monsters in a row, but they seem to scale much faster than the players and the random abilities made them unable to be ignored.

Is there some commonly missed rules? It�s already dangerously close to being an expensive flop.

# ? May 26, 2018 03:27

misguided rage: Jun 15, 2010; God I fucking love Diablo 3 gold, it even paid for this shitty title

jadarx posted:

City of Kings question:

Is there some commonly missed rules? It’s already dangerously close to being an expensive flop.

I bounced off it pretty hard the first time we played, with the same experience as you. We've played it twice since and I'm liking it a little more. The biggest thing we found out is that the customization options are a trap, especially with three or four players. You need to have someone (two someones for four player, probably) pumping attack and nothing but attack, and one person pumping health, or you very quickly end up with monsters that you have no hope of defeating. Have the person immediately before the attack guy do all the revealing and you should be able to kill most monsters before they get to act.

I enjoy it enough to finish the story missions, I guess. Gloomhaven kinda ruined open information coops for me, of course it's fun to discuss options with the people you're playing with but when it comes down to it there's usually one clear move for the turn and everyone can see it. The last few rounds of our last few games have also turned into a bit of a victory lap slog, especially if you're doing the heroic/legend challenges.

# ? May 26, 2018 04:14

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

i played the harry potter deckbuilding game and the most interesting thing about it was trying to be polite about how bad it was. it hits basically every check on the bad deckbuilders list, and it's not even thematic- the closest i could match theme to gameplay was pretending that fleur delacour giving money and healing was representing the actress' heroin dealer character from in bruges. at least the people i was with were cool

# ? May 26, 2018 04:25

Corbeau: Sep 13, 2010; Jack of All Trades

Got in a couple more games of Cthulhu Wars tonight. I was expecting my interest to go down over time, but it's actually growing on me. We played much more cautiously and had much closer, much more strategic games (and Crawling Chaos finally won a game, which is a first for our group).

Cthulhu Wars reminds me of the old L5R CCG or the Doomtown LCG in an odd-but-crucial way: combat is a gigantic risk. Unless you actively spend resources to avoid engagements and put a ceiling on your losses, you can be blown directly out of the game. That's fine once you understand it, since you can stack your odds and/or avoid rolling dice for most of the game, but it's not a standard expectation. Most modern games implement all sorts of clever mechanics that limit casualties so that a new player won't immediately self-immolate. Not Cthulhu Wars. Here, you can wager your entire game at almost any time. It's up to you, the player, to be very cautious about where, when, and how you commit to confrontation. I love the player agency this creates, but there are drawbacks. Most importantly, it's easy for a new player to be turned off by luck. The most obvious move is often the most risky brute-force move, so a typical new player is going to unnecessarily and unknowingly risk their entire game before discovering the alternatives. After a first impression like that, there may never be a second impression - which would be a shame with a game this good.

e: Fun event of the evening: Yellow Sign ended a turn in control of 6 gates. Yeah. Don't ask. The rest of us done hosed up. :ughh:

Corbeau fucked around with this message at 06:53 on May 26, 2018

# ? May 26, 2018 06:50

Some Numbers: Sep 28, 2006; "LET'S GET DOWN TO WORK!!"

Got to play more Cthulhu Wars today and had a hilarious game where Yellow Sign (me) got beat up super bad the first three rounds and basically had no infrastructure and it looked like Cthulhu was going to run away with the game. Black Goat and I sniped some gates and I was able to get Hastur out and start the Elder Sign train going. Cthulhu and Shub had a big turn that left them both with no power, so I was able to very quietly end up controlling SIX GATES.

Generating 26 power feels really unfair, but incredibly awesome at the same time. Suffice to say, I won that game by breaking 40 Doom Points.

# ? May 26, 2018 06:53

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Great coincidence, or were you two playing together?

# ? May 26, 2018 07:20

Some Numbers: Sep 28, 2006; "LET'S GET DOWN TO WORK!!"

Bruceski posted:

Great coincidence, or were you two playing together?

Yeah, same group.

# ? May 26, 2018 07:33

Jedit: Dec 10, 2011; Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

Some Numbers posted:

Got to play more Cthulhu Wars today and had a hilarious game where Yellow Sign (me) got beat up super bad the first three rounds and basically had no infrastructure and it looked like Cthulhu was going to run away with the game. Black Goat and I sniped some gates and I was able to get Hastur out and start the Elder Sign train going. Cthulhu and Shub had a big turn that left them both with no power, so I was able to very quietly end up controlling SIX GATES.

Generating 26 power feels really unfair, but incredibly awesome at the same time. Suffice to say, I won that game by breaking 40 Doom Points.

I'm pretty sure power is hard capped at 20, although I've never had to find out.

And how the hell did you even potentially generate 26 as YS? 6 Cultists controlling gates plus a High Priest is only 19. You could capture four Cultists and leave the gates empty, I guess, but that's ... unlikely.

jadarx posted:

City of Kings question:

Is this game supposed to be impossiblely hard. My group played the normal gather scenario with 4. By the second turn, we had a monster that could chase us around the board and one shot us. We only managed one stat update, so had no hope of killing the level 3 monster, even if it couldn’t teleport.

Is there some commonly missed rules? It’s already dangerously close to being an expensive flop.

It sounds to me like you're missing the rule that monsters move after they attack. You should always be able to stay out of the way of a monster if you want to, and they're often easier to beat if they move - you don't have to use your hero's one move to get into LOS, so you can use it to move out of LOS after you attack. Otherwise, position everyone on the same safe space out of LOS and wait for the turn of the player who revealed it. It will fail to attack because nobody is in range. Then, everyone moves into LOS and attacks twice. If you've managed your stat upgrades sensibly you should be killing most early monsters in one round, or at worst with the loss of 1 Morale.

Also if you have three monsters on the table by turn 2, you're exploring too much. Stop when you find a monster and deal with it. And don't be afraid to lose Morale; there are achievements for beating Scenarios without Morale loss, which should be a hint that it often doesn't happen.

# ? May 26, 2018 09:46

Zark the Damned: Mar 9, 2013

Jedit posted:

I'm pretty sure power is hard capped at 20, although I've never had to find out.

And how the hell did you even potentially generate 26 as YS? 6 Cultists controlling gates plus a High Priest is only 19. You could capture four Cultists and leave the gates empty, I guess, but that's ... unlikely.

Desectrations. Assuming all 6 of those controlled gates are desecrated areas already you'd only need one other area (two without high priests) to hit 26.

# ? May 26, 2018 14:01

jadarx: May 25, 2012

Jedit posted:

It sounds to me like you're missing the rule that monsters move after they attack. You should always be able to stay out of the way of a monster if you want to, and they're often easier to beat if they move - you don't have to use your hero's one move to get into LOS, so you can use it to move out of LOS after you attack. Otherwise, position everyone on the same safe space out of LOS and wait for the turn of the player who revealed it. It will fail to attack because nobody is in range. Then, everyone moves into LOS and attacks twice. If you've managed your stat upgrades sensibly you should be killing most early monsters in one round, or at worst with the loss of 1 Morale.

Also if you have three monsters on the table by turn 2, you're exploring too much. Stop when you find a monster and deal with it. And don't be afraid to lose Morale; there are achievements for beating Scenarios without Morale loss, which should be a hint that it often doesn't happen.

So what we messed up was LOS. I missed the rule about anything using priority target needing a straight line. So that does change a lot. I'm doing a solo play today, so howfully that puts a better spin on it.

But the 3 monsters weren't all at once. It was just first explore = monster, kill. Explore again, monster, kill. Get to pre-setup resource spot. Rolled a bunch of attention. Bad luck, maybe. So by that third monster, we had 2 xp, which is only +1 stat. Knowing the right LOS rules, we could have ran away. But that scenario only has 7 turns and we still need XP to get our workers moving fast enough to deliver and still be able to deal with attention monsters (attention seems to drop really frequently).

I really do want to like this game. But it seems so stacked against you, ramps up like crazy even without random pulls.

# ? May 26, 2018 14:10

TorakFade: Oct 3, 2006; I strongly disapprove

Here's The Villagers, yet another kickstarter game.

this one, though, looks quick, fun and most importantly, cheap. Most Kickstarters are an excuse to sell a ton of minis for 80�+, this one is just 25�.

Anyone has any thoughts?

# ? May 26, 2018 14:23

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# ? May 28, 2024 04:11

Mayveena: Dec 27, 2006; People keep vandalizing my ID photo; I've lodged a complaint with HR

Hey folks do you think that the Way of the Panda is racist because it stupidly mixes ninjas and pandas? I bought it and then someone told me it was racist. I am sad.

# ? May 26, 2018 14:25

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