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Anyone know much about Yellow & Yangtze? T&E with hexes sounds pretty drat rad.
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Jun 11, 2018 14:40
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Triskelli posted:drat straight.  Pierzak posted:Welp, gently caress my free time. I personally like 2 better but think it's less balanced, you basically need some money source quick or you'll bleed dry, whereas 1 if you do badly, it's completely your fault and oh god I'm not very good at the game why did prussia, russia, france, AND the ottoman empire all declare war on me at the same time I was buddies with them.
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Jun 11, 2018 14:43
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Bottom Liner posted:Anyone know much about Yellow & Yangtze? T&E with hexes sounds pretty drat rad. If you want the down and brutal review of the game, for me it felt like T&E for casual babies. Most of the changes to the game are to how "war" works, the only tile you can use for war is either black for internal conflicts or red for externals, which meant that if you had any other colour in your hand you were materially weaker at waging war. War is less damaging because you can only gain a single point of the colour (IIRC) and the only tiles that are ever removed are red. Wars are also more political because anyone can chip in tiles for whatever side you are in. Leaders that are out of the board give you bonuses/discounts to specific actions, so for example if you have the red leader out of the board, you can +1 to any external war. There are any more treasures, instead there's a yellow leader/tiles. Since defeating a yellow leader meant that you gained a yellow point, there was a lot of repetitive internal fights for yellow leaders. Temples are now formed with 3 tiles instead of 2, but are only one colour. The special thing about green tiles is that if you place one down, you can get tiles from a "market". The special thing about blue tiles is that you can place as many of them on the board (as long as they chain) in a single turn, and you can also spend 2 to remove any tile on the board (this is peasant insurrection and replaces catastrophe tiles, but it doesn't make the space dead anymore). If you have the blue leader out of the board, insurrections only cost 1 blue tile. I think there was a special action about swapping tiles associated with the green leader but we never used it. Honestly it felt a little bit like a diluted T&E where everything is toned down so that people don't feel bad for losing a war and giving someone 5+ victory tokens. It's less brutal, the wars are less destructive, the internal fights are more repetitive and less interesting, and the composition of a kingdom is less important and it's harder to shift a larger kingdom because only red tiles matter to the strength of a kingdom. The game replaces the entire abstraction of having to fight for economic/religious/military supremacy to just one kind of supremacy: military. There is literally no reason to buy Y&Y over T&E apart from novelty and if your friends are gigantic loving babies that can't stand losing big once in a while.
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Jun 11, 2018 15:00
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Maybe I want a carebear T&E  Nah that’s a solid impression and I appreciate the in depth breakdown. I genuinely would like a somewhat simplified T&E but that doesn’t sound like it does it in a good way.
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Jun 11, 2018 15:09
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Bottom Liner posted:Maybe I want a carebear T&E
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Jun 11, 2018 15:21
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Thanks for the review and I’m glad I got my old wooden T&E copy. Carebear T&E is carcassonne. Even when played “mean” the sharing/stealing is telegraphed a mile away.
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Jun 11, 2018 15:22
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Tekopo posted:I gave Unlock! a try a couple of weekends before and it wasn't so bad, so I went a bought a box and we went through one of the adventures yesterday, which was pretty fun. The only issue I had with the adventure we did was that it had a bullshit end puzzle but apart from that it mostly made sense. The only other experience I've had was with Escape the Room: Doctor Gravely's Retreat which was good but I had issues with the physical puzzles, so I kind of liked the purely logical puzzles present in Unlock!, as well as the very point-and-click adventure-esque nature of combining items together. Which adventure did you go through? There is a distinct difference in quality in a number of them.
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Jun 11, 2018 15:26
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Morpheus posted:Which adventure did you go through? There is a distinct difference in quality in a number of them. A Noside Story (pretty good but relatively easy apart from some weird things) Squeek & Sausage (it was pretty good until the end where it reached "this puzzle is goddamn bullshit" idiocy that I don't understand how anyone would be able to work out legitimately). The Tonipal's Treasure (really hard for 2P only, but it has one of the more interesting end puzzles we played, although there was one puzzle we just couldn't work out and we ran out of time)
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Jun 11, 2018 15:30
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Tekopo posted:So far I've done: Haven't tried Noside Story yet. That puzzle in S&S was something I figured out completely out of the blue - I can understand it being a big 'wtf did they expect us to think', and I don't remember how the hell I thought of it, but holy poo poo I felt so loving clever when I did. Tonipal's Treasure is one of my favourites, specifically because of that puzzle you mentioned (and at the beginning of the game I was wondering "why the hell are these cards all hard right angles, and not the rounded corners of other games? Weird."). Regarding bullshit puzzles, I would not recommend Island of Dr Goorse or whichever it was - we had to look up a walkthrough to solve the final puzzle and we still couldn't figure out what the hell the game expected us to do.
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Jun 11, 2018 15:38
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Morpheus posted:Haven't tried Noside Story yet. And yeah the Tonipal's treasure puzzle was ace and probably the most inventive one of the lot, although that puzzle in particular scales badly with less players since there's a lot of busywork involved.
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Jun 11, 2018 15:44
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Triskelli posted:drat straight. When you play at higher difficulties you will realize that it's actually better to trade for raw resources than focus on extraction- you want to expand your industry well past what you normally produce and use trade to make it up, selling off finished goods to make up the difference. It's a bigger thing in 1 than 2 but trading for raw resources, even ones you have, is very critical to keeping up a good pace. If there were an Imp3, I would want something that made it easier to make routine trades in this way over multiple turns. They're also some of the few games that actually make the navy really important.
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Jun 11, 2018 16:13
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Panzeh posted:When you play at higher difficulties you will realize that it's actually better to trade for raw resources than focus on extraction- you want to expand your industry well past what you normally produce and use trade to make it up, selling off finished goods to make up the difference. It's a bigger thing in 1 than 2 but trading for raw resources, even ones you have, is very critical to keeping up a good pace. If there were an Imp3, I would want something that made it easier to make routine trades in this way over multiple turns. Yeah agreed. Buy iron and coal, get minor nations to like you so they'll sell to you first, make steel, build artillery, poo poo all over the other great powers. And also agreed w.r.t. navy, if you fall behind on galleons holy poo poo all your ports are blockaded and now you die. God I love that loving series so much.
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Jun 11, 2018 16:32
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Tekopo posted:And yeah the Tonipal's treasure puzzle was ace and probably the most inventive one of the lot, although that puzzle in particular scales badly with less players since there's a lot of busywork involved. Tonipal's Treasure is a huge outlier in terms of "amount of stuff to do" difficulty - it's the only one of these that we failed to complete on time with my work group, and we weren't particularly close. Unlock has done a good job over time of messing around with their formula; we just did Tombstone Express a couple days ago, and it had a reasonably different setup than others - kind of cheesy, but we liked the shake-up. I also liked Island of Dr. Goorse (which can reasonably be played with 4, whereas most of these are best with 2) - but I can also see how it could be frustrating and isn't a good place to start. Also note that the free print-and-play Unlock adventures aren't bad. I just did Do-Aran Dungeons and "The Elite" with the kids - neither were mind blowing but they were both fine. The newer rounds of Exit games have been solid - I'd recommend "Forbidden Castle". The Exit games are much more gimmick prone than Unlock, and sometimes require destructive leaps of faith. Short of photocopying the book (and sometimes the cards) before the game starts, most of them are problematic to replay... but they've had some good puzzles over the series. I'm sorry you didn't like Gravely's Retreat (which I've recommended a few times); it's very much a unique thing with the physical puzzles - we quite liked them, but I can see how someone else wouldn't. The Werewolf Experiment is much more of a normal "escape room in box logic puzzle thing" - but it has much nicer components and makes for a satisfying "special event" puzzle (it also resets well, so it can be passed around for multiple groups to enjoy). We really liked it with my work group and I've run it 4 or 5 times since. It has always been a hit, and I think a couple guys here have bought copies to run with other groups/parties/whatever.
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Jun 11, 2018 16:34
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Don’t get me wrong, I liked gravely’s retreat, although some of the physical puzzles were a bit “this solution feels like I’m going to rip this puzzle apart”. The worst thing about the game was missing a component that meant that we couldn’t resolve it legit and now I can’t resell the game
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Jun 11, 2018 16:46
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silvergoose posted:In other news, Imperialism and Imperialism 2 were some of the finest strategy games ever made. I was curious to see if these were on Steam, but I could only find this. The reviews indicate that the gameplay is as poorly thought through as the concept and title. https://store.steampowered.com/app/845530/Imperialism_The_Dark_Continent/
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Jun 11, 2018 17:00
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CaptainRightful posted:I was curious to see if these were on Steam, but I could only find this. The reviews indicate that the gameplay is as poorly thought through as the concept and title. https://www.gog.com/game/imperialism https://www.gog.com/game/imperialism_2_the_age_of_exploration
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Jun 11, 2018 17:10
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CaptainRightful posted:I was curious to see if these were on Steam, but I could only find this. The reviews indicate that the gameplay is as poorly thought through as the concept and title. Yeah no that's definitely, definitely not the right one. Gog it up.
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Jun 11, 2018 17:43
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Any beginner advice/strategy for Mystic Vale? My wife got it for my birthday, we played that day with four people, and she completely and utterly handed our asses to us, though even she couldn't say why precisely. I'm guessing there's some sort of card component combo that kind of let her rule the game and since we were new to it, we just didn't catch it and stop her from buying the components necessary to do it. That was almost a year ago, though, and we want to play it again, but hopefully not end up with such a gloriously unbalanced playthrough this time.
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Jun 11, 2018 18:12
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So I'm quickly realizing that my favorite games are almost all open design space (start with nothing and have a ton of branching paths), player driven/emergent gameplay, deterministic games (part of why I like modern abstracts like Tak so much). Stuff like: Kemet Tigris & Euphrates Food Chain Magnate Dominant Species What other games fill that niche at various weights and player counts (aside from 18XX)? I know most Splotter stuff does, but other than TGZ I don't see myself getting any others.
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Jun 11, 2018 18:21
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TGZ was the first one that came to mind. I know you said "No 18xxs" but I would really give 1846 a shot, it's no longer or more complex than DS. Santiago is an older game but I think it's one of the very best player driven games out there -- it's probably my favorite negotiation game. Triumph & Tragedy if you want to try a wargame is a really neat game that ticks all of those boxes. 3P asymmetric block game that's not just fighting, but also a lot of diplomacy and tech treeing. Brass would be another. Maybe Argent? The hidden win cons might bother you there though.
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Jun 11, 2018 18:37
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Winsome games for sure. Chicago Express is probably their best one, but Paris Connection, German Railways, Locomotive Werks, and quite a few others are also really interesting and commercially available as well.
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Jun 11, 2018 18:46
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T-Bone posted:Brass would be another. Brass Birmingham is on my hot list for sure. Played the original a good bit on iOS and excited to see the changes in that version. taser rates posted:Chicago Express is probably their best one Adding this to my math trade list!
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Jun 11, 2018 18:49
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Bottom Liner posted:So I'm quickly realizing that my favorite games are almost all open design space (start with nothing and have a ton of branching paths), player driven/emergent gameplay, deterministic games (part of why I like modern abstracts like Tak so much). Stuff like: Mexica is a good choice for a lighter title that checks those boxes.
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Jun 11, 2018 18:56
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Bottom Liner posted:So I'm quickly realizing that my favorite games are almost all open design space (start with nothing and have a ton of branching paths), player driven/emergent gameplay, deterministic games (part of why I like modern abstracts like Tak so much). Stuff like: Archipelago?
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Jun 11, 2018 18:58
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Bottom Liner posted:So I'm quickly realizing that my favorite games are almost all open design space (start with nothing and have a ton of branching paths), player driven/emergent gameplay, deterministic games (part of why I like modern abstracts like Tak so much). Stuff like: Betrayal fits that description other than the deterministic and "a good game in any way" parts.  A lot of abstracts would fit (go, uptown, blokus). Tigris is probably the best of the bunch, in my opinion. Eclipse, perhaps? The "build your own galaxy" set of games. Some civ games might qualify.
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Jun 11, 2018 19:23
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Bottom Liner posted:So I'm quickly realizing that my favorite games are almost all open design space (start with nothing and have a ton of branching paths), player driven/emergent gameplay, deterministic games (part of why I like modern abstracts like Tak so much). Stuff like: Hansa Teutonica?
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Jun 11, 2018 20:01
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Bottom Liner posted:Adding this to my math trade list! Also put an amazon price alert for Chicago Express and Paris connection if you are interested in those. They’ve had some crazy sales in the past, no idea if that will happen again. I got CE for like $25. Mini-Rails and Tulip Bubble are two other approachable lower-middleweight games that have player driven gameplay, but those both have a little more RNG than other stuff mentioned. The rng mostly gives weight to some of the risk/reward mechanics in those games though. I think you’ve mentioned Container, but that is a title worth repeating. Not as much strategy divergence, but extremely deterministic and player-driven. There should be copies floating around after the kickstarters delivers. 18xx.
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Jun 11, 2018 20:05
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Welp, I've preordered both Hanamikoji and My Little Scythe for pickup at Gencon. I'm not even going this year, but my friend will be coming back with a couple games for me! Uh, well, one game for me. MLS is for my niece.
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Jun 11, 2018 20:16
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Bottom Liner posted:So I'm quickly realizing that my favorite games are almost all open design space (start with nothing and have a ton of branching paths), player driven/emergent gameplay, deterministic games (part of why I like modern abstracts like Tak so much). Stuff like: Rolling stock
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Jun 11, 2018 20:21
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Bottom Liner posted:So I'm quickly realizing that my favorite games are almost all open design space (start with nothing and have a ton of branching paths), player driven/emergent gameplay, deterministic games (part of why I like modern abstracts like Tak so much). Stuff like: Neuland Antiquity Mega civilization  plays 5-18!
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Jun 11, 2018 20:32
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Fellis posted:Also put an amazon price alert for Chicago Express and Paris connection if you are interested in those. They’ve had some crazy sales in the past, no idea if that will happen again. I got CE for like $25. Queen always overprints, and then dumps stock at super cut rates. I’ve seen Chicago express and Paris connection for $12 on Amazon pretty regularly, so definitely set an alert. They’re also both great games-Chicago express is a top ten of all time for me.
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Jun 11, 2018 20:42
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Anyone checked out Farsight? It's got mechs, its got minis, That means I'm a sucker!
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Jun 11, 2018 23:25
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Bottom Liner posted:So I'm quickly realizing that my favorite games are almost all open design space (start with nothing and have a ton of branching paths), player driven/emergent gameplay, deterministic games (part of why I like modern abstracts like Tak so much). Stuff like: Taluva
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Jun 12, 2018 00:10
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Flipswitch posted:Anyone checked out Farsight? It's got mechs, its got minis, That means I'm a sucker! Mechs Minis Kickstarter = Shite. Thoroughly mediocre at best. I'd recommend trying Abbadon https://www.amazon.com/Abaddon-Boar...L70_&dpSrc=srch It's only $20, and is based off of Command and Colors system (which mean it's good some decent mechanics at its core). I wouldn't say it's great but if you need to scratch that itch you can do it cheaper (and probably have more fun) with this. Crackbone fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Jun 12, 2018 |
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Jun 12, 2018 02:04
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Arse, what makes it so meh? I'll check out abbadon though, thanks!
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Jun 12, 2018 11:46
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Flipswitch posted:Arse, what makes it so meh? I'll check out abbadon though, thanks! Sorry, I was speaking in general terms. Almost without fail mini laden kickstarters are not good games.
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Jun 12, 2018 12:14
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Crackbone posted:Sorry, I was speaking in general terms. Almost without fail mini laden kickstarters are not good games.
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Jun 12, 2018 13:10
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When did the trend of $100+ games bring kickstarted and having absurdly overdesigned components come into its own? I was a copy of Anachrony out and could tell it was a kickstarter game before I knew what it actually was, but I think that came out years ago. Also, for funsies, what’s the worst example? I played Rising Sun at a con last month and was annoyed that the game could actually be reasonably priced if they just calmed the gently caress down a bit on the Monsters. Then I found out the KS version involved even more plastic poo poo.
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Jun 12, 2018 13:21
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Boxman posted:When did the trend of $100+ games bring kickstarted and having absurdly overdesigned components come into its own? There was a huge explosion in gaming Kickstarters in 2012 (with things like Zombicide) and then a steady increase since
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Jun 12, 2018 13:31
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Boxman posted:Also, for funsies, what’s the worst example? I played Rising Sun at a con last month and was annoyed that the game could actually be reasonably priced if they just calmed the gently caress down a bit on the Monsters. Then I found out the KS version involved even more plastic poo poo. I've only played the plastic version with all the add-ons, and while there is an element of "Oooooo"...it never seems worth it to me. I enjoyed my time with the game without wanting to own it, but it seems to be expensive by choice. For all the ethical concerns that have come to board gaming and embraced, the obscene over use of plastic minis and inlays is something that I've never heard been raised.
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Jun 12, 2018 13:42
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