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There are two true things about this thread. 1) Nothing will derail quicker than arguing over the definition of "fiddly." 2) Suburbia is the one game everyone can agree is fiddly. It's got a lot of fun interaction and ideas and it moves smoothly, but there are about a hundred different ways to mess up scoring triggers based on the board state of every player, and I doubt I've ever played a game of it where we ended up with every player's score correct at the end.
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Jan 25, 2019 15:36
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TorakFade posted:Any opinions on Suburbia? I've seen a deluxe definitive edition on Kickstarter and the game looks intriguing, and the original 2012 version is all but impossible to find locally (or costs almost as much as this kickstarter ed. but the latter has all expansions, metal coins, wooden tokens and so on) I love Suburbia but it isn't for everyone. Like Huxley said, it's fiddly because every time you drop a tile down there's going to be a lot of things happening as far as adjusting tracks and counting various triggers and it can get tedious quickly keeping track of them. BUT, once you get a feel for it the administration becomes a lot less cumbersome than it appears and you can really get into the meat and potatoes of playing your own version of Sim City, which often results in some hilarious looking towns. I guess ultimately it boils down to: do you like tile laying games and/or do you like city building games? And if you said yes to one of those I would say at least try it at a cafe. If you said yes to both just grab it.
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Jan 25, 2019 15:41
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I see, thanks! Well with our group we play plenty of Agricola, so fiddliness and complicated poo poo doesn't really scare us. We also play Carcassonne, which I like but is waaaay too simple and random for my taste, and I would really gladly see it go out of rotation in favor of a better tile laying game. Other big hits are Power Grid, Azul (I don't like it but I'm the only one), Puerto Rico, Viticulture and to a lesser extent 7 wonders (I love it for casual gaming, but I seem to be the only one, the others tolerate it  ) - so you could say we like engine builders a whole lot  it just seems to me that Suburbia could scratch a few itches pretty well while been different enough from what we have, and thematically I think it would be well appreciated by our group. Plus I'm a sucker for metal / wooden / "deluxe" components so I guess I'm going to get it - if it has a solo mode, it won't be wasted money since I like playing solo too By the way, we want to try our hand at coop games too. I own Eldritch Horror but the theme isn't liked by my group, and Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island which we plan to play soon(ish), but never tried til now. Buddy of mine has Forgotten Island too, but that's it - what other coop games are worth a shot, also considering the kinds of game we like as outlined above? TorakFade fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Jan 25, 2019 |
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Jan 25, 2019 16:07
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ZeroCount posted:Finally got round to playing my very first game of Spirit Island, something I've really been looking forward to. Me and a friend chose spirits randomly so we wound up with Rampant Spread of Green and Shadows Flicker Like Flame which I suspect in hindsight isn't the best combo for a 2-player game, especially when both of us had never played the game before. Even against the basic bitch invaders it was a big struggle and we only barely won. This game's got a lot of depth to it and a lot of room to get better so I'm looking forward to playing tomorrow. Yeah I would def advise against picking any but the four basic spirits for your first and maybe second game. Played Teotihuacan for the first time yesterday, ended up handily winning by stockpiling immense quantities of stone and rushing out eight pyramid constructions in a row. Seems like the actions that lock in your workers are too low of a benefit for the cost to unlock them. I ended up doing those twice in the entire game, once as the very last turn. Maybe the cocoa cost to unlock should be based on the number of locked workers and not just a flat three.
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Jan 25, 2019 16:28
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TorakFade posted:By the way, we want to try our hand at coop games too. I own Eldritch Horror but the theme isn't liked by my group, and Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island which we plan to play soon(ish), but never tried til now. Buddy of mine has Forgotten Island too, but that's it - what other coop games are worth a shot, also considering the kinds of game we like as outlined above? You mean coops that you'll like based on the three there that you haven't played, or based on liking Agricola and Carcassonne?
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Jan 25, 2019 16:33
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Suburbia is great, but in all honesty Castles of Mad King Ludwig does everything Suburbia does but better. On top of that, Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig does what Castles of Mad King Ludwig does but even better.
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Jan 25, 2019 17:07
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Jedit posted:You mean coops that you'll like based on the three there that you haven't played, or based on liking Agricola and Carcassonne? Well I mean any coop game really, possibly that is in some ways similar to games we already play so it would be a "safe" choice... for instance, I'm now looking at Spirit Island and whoa, that looks like plenty of fun. My birthday's coming up so I'm trying to come up with a list of possible gifts as suggestions for my parents / family, I don't want another drat tie or sweater, I want games and luxury items 
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Jan 25, 2019 17:08
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TorakFade posted:Well I mean any coop game really, possibly that is in some ways similar to games we already play so it would be a "safe" choice... for instance, I'm now looking at Spirit Island and whoa, that looks like plenty of fun. Spirit Island is OK. City of Kings is good and you might be able to find someone who had backer's remorse from the second KS campaign, which just fulfilled. Likewise with the Ragnarok edition of Yggdrasil, although I think the publisher still has a few copies left. Also you should get The Faceless if you can find it, for the creep factor and the uniqueness value.
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Jan 25, 2019 17:42
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Spirit Island is great and widely considered one of if not the best coop ever designed by those with correct taste
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Jan 25, 2019 17:43
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Bottom Liner posted:Spirit Island is great and widely considered one of if not the best coop ever designed by those with correct taste I've played it over 100 times with my current gaming group and we still look forward to getting together to play it every week. Game is good.
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Jan 25, 2019 17:48
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KPC_Mammon posted:I've played it over 100 times with my current gaming group and we still look forward to getting together to play it every week. Game is good. I do agree with Walker from SVWAG. It can be too easy to win. I have never lost a game of Spirit Island. I like it, but either my players are amazing or the game may not be hard enough.
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Jan 25, 2019 18:02
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Frozen Peach posted:Suburbia is great, but in all honesty Castles of Mad King Ludwig does everything Suburbia does but better. On top of that, Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig does what Castles of Mad King Ludwig does but even better. I enjoy all three games. Suburbia is easily the best two player game out of the group. Between Two Castles is a good game but it's really different from base Castles in that the economy/auction portion is completely gone.
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Jan 25, 2019 18:07
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TorakFade posted:We also play Carcassonne, which I like but is waaaay too simple and random for my taste, and I would really gladly see it go out of rotation in favor of a better tile laying game. You want either Fresh Fish or Tigris and Euphrates. As an avid Carc fan, I looked for the best tile laying game for years when the answer (T&E) was in front of me all along. Fresh Fish is also fantastic as a fan of power grid - play with new or old edition box but don’t use the new edition rules.
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Jan 25, 2019 18:12
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Indolent Bastard posted:I do agree with Walker from SVWAG. It can be too easy to win. I have never lost a game of Spirit Island. I like it, but either my players are amazing or the game may not be hard enough. Is there a spirit combo that you tend to use or do you choose them arbitrarily? Also the game has something like 17 different levels of difficulty so it would depend on which invaders/scenarios you use, etc.
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Jan 25, 2019 18:15
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Indolent Bastard posted:I do agree with Walker from SVWAG. It can be too easy to win. I have never lost a game of Spirit Island. I like it, but either my players are amazing or the game may not be hard enough. I can usually win against difficulty 10 opponents if I'm playing two spirits solo that I know how to use together, but that falls apart in multiplayer games. We don't usually go above difficulty 7 or 8 as a group. Do you have any advice for properly coordinating while playing the highest difficulties (10+)? These days we've been playing a lot with an extra board against medium level opponents. edit: Second wave with an extra board, seeing how far we can go is a lot of fun. edit 2: I think Walker is full of poo poo, honestly. I doubt he has played anything past the tutorial difficulty. KPC_Mammon fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Jan 25, 2019 |
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Jan 25, 2019 18:16
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Overheard FLGS patron pronounce Gloomhaven "Gloomhavin" as if it were a contraction of "Gloomhaving." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ydg9QjVpm1w People ruin everything.
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Jan 25, 2019 18:30
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Chill la Chill posted:You want either Fresh Fish or Tigris and Euphrates. As an avid Carc fan, I looked for the best tile laying game for years when the answer (T&E) was in front of me all along. Fresh Fish is also fantastic as a fan of power grid - play with new or old edition box but don’t use the new edition rules. I really gotta give T&E another chance. EDIT: VVVV Depending on where you are and how much is too much, the bang for your buck from GH is unbeatable. That said, if you don't think you'd play it that much or get your wife/friends to play, I'd hold off. FulsomFrank fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Jan 25, 2019 |
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Jan 25, 2019 18:33
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deadwing posted:I enjoy all three games. Suburbia is easily the best two player game out of the group. Between Two Castles is a good game but it's really different from base Castles in that the economy/auction portion is completely gone. Ah, thanks for this insight. We mostly play 2 players (me and my wife) or 4 players (me+wife, friend+wife) so the ideal game plays well at both counts, 2 player preferred because we have 1 night a week to play 4 player games with friends, but potentially 7 nights a week to play 2 player games without even leaving the house Thanks everybody for all the suggestions, I'll get a good look at all the games mentioned, this thread is really great  Also I want Gloomhaven but it's expensive, hard to find here, and I would basically have to play solo for a number of reasons  talk me out of spending a crapton of money on it please
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Jan 25, 2019 18:36
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Indolent Bastard posted:I do agree with Walker from SVWAG. It can be too easy to win. I have never lost a game of Spirit Island. I like it, but either my players are amazing or the game may not be hard enough. This is still the weirdest criticism because the game has insane scaling of difficulty from “you won’t lose” to “you won’t win” and the amount of fine tuning you can make in between those two for your taste is so well done. When anyone says it’s too hard or too easy, they’re just not using the scaling difficulty correctly. That could be the games fault a bit, it could do a better job helping players find their ideal difficulty.
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Jan 25, 2019 18:45
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TorakFade posted:Also I want Gloomhaven but it's expensive, hard to find here, and I would basically have to play solo for a number of reasons Unless you want to spend a bunch of time or money getting it organized, it's a big pain in the rear end to set up, and while there's an insane amount of content there, that doesn't mean it's worth your money if you don't end up playing most of it. It's my favorite game, but also a game I rarely play because I'm too lazy to pull it out and pack it back up on a regular basis and don't want to throw even more money at it to fix the problem. I'm admittedly a far less organized person than most, so it might not be quite that bad for everyone else, but the game certainly does demand an investment that goes beyond just the upfront cash.
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Jan 25, 2019 18:47
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Chubbs posted:Is there a spirit combo that you tend to use or do you choose them arbitrarily? The choice tends to be to select them arbitrarily. I know it has higher difficulty levels and I guess I should have been clearer. It is my intent to ramp that up as even the middle tier stuff seems too easy. KPC_Mammon posted:I can usually win against difficulty 10 opponents if I'm playing two spirits solo that I know how to use together, but that falls apart in multiplayer games. We don't usually go above difficulty 7 or 8 as a group. My only advice for properly coordinating is just talk it through as a team. Discuss how you can buff each other and what you will be capable of tackling in the coming turn. Walker has played well past that. Mark loves the game and it sees the table often. Bottom Liner posted:This is still the weirdest criticism because the game has insane scaling of difficulty from “you won’t lose” to “you won’t win” and the amount of fine tuning you can make in between those two for your taste is so well done. When anyone says it’s too hard or too easy, they’re just not using the scaling difficulty correctly. That could be the games fault a bit, it could do a better job helping players find their ideal difficulty. It was intended as more of an observation. As I said above I should have added that I intend to up the difficulty next time. It may be a side effect of a new player or two at the table. We are reluctant to play at upper tier difficulty so won't they feel lost and ask for too much coaching. Either we need an all veterans game, or just play with a newbie and warn them about what we are doing.
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Jan 25, 2019 19:15
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There's also the digital version coming out soon that might be similar enough and not totally suck.
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Jan 25, 2019 19:15
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Bottom Liner posted:This is still the weirdest criticism because the game has insane scaling of difficulty from “you won’t lose” to “you won’t win” and the amount of fine tuning you can make in between those two for your taste is so well done. When anyone says it’s too hard or too easy, they’re just not using the scaling difficulty correctly. That could be the games fault a bit, it could do a better job helping players find their ideal difficulty. tbh the game's published difficulty scale doesn't really cope with experienced players using the stronger spirits in effective combos. It's still a weak criticism because you can still just... not play those spirits/combos, it's not like there's any shortage of alternatives.
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Jan 25, 2019 19:19
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Straight White Shark posted:tbh the game's published difficulty scale doesn't really cope with experienced players using the stronger spirits in effective combos. For us the problems were: 1. As difficulty goes up, it rewards a lot of planning and detailed co-operation. It ended up being either "too easy" or "too long" - especially with >2p. 2. There's a lot of variety on the player side, but the opposition feels very bleh. I would have liked to see the opponents vary in more interesting ways, with unique mechanics or something.
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Jan 25, 2019 19:42
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jmzero posted:For us the problems were: That's fair. We wound up playing against Brandenburg-Prussia a lot once we got into the higher difficulties to keep the playing time down, but that doesn't help the adversary variety at all.
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Jan 25, 2019 19:58
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If you haven't played Tigris & Euphrates and are considering it I would recommend going straight to Yellow & Yangtze. It improves the game by cleaning up a few bits but more importantly to me it makes every tile have some kind of functional action beyond just placing on the board.
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Jan 25, 2019 21:22
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"Spirit Island developer blog" posted:Types of colonization (or, Why you probably won’t see Spain anytime soon) I really want to see Conquistadors appear as an enemy for a Spirit Island expansion focusing on the Dahan. I'm not exactly sure how you'd model them, but the British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company should also be added for variety's sake.
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Jan 25, 2019 21:40
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Indolent Bastard posted:Walker has played well past that. Mark loves the game and it sees the table often. I don't know them personally and I'm a couple of weeks behind on the podcast but from what I'd heard he has only played it on two occasions and had a really negative impression because it was too easy. Second time it sounded like he was looking for reasons to dislike it. If you are actually gaming with them and this isn't the case apologies for my strong language but that wasn't conveyed in their podcast.
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Jan 25, 2019 21:45
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It's fun that certain adversaries in Spirit Island completely kneecap some spirits at higher difficulties. Playing any difficulty of England immediately destroys the Keeper of Forbidden Wild's primary advantage, for example.
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Jan 25, 2019 21:47
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al-azad posted:If you haven't played Tigris & Euphrates and are considering it I would recommend going straight to Yellow & Yangtze. It improves the game by cleaning up a few bits but more importantly to me it makes every tile have some kind of functional action beyond just placing on the board. This is part of what i thought enfeebled it. You say "placing it on the board" dismissively but that's enough for me as that's the whole game (though can't you also commit tiles as reinforcements?). Instead each tile has some power of variable usefulness which is a large ding in terms of purity and ease of teaching.
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Jan 25, 2019 21:51
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SettingSun posted:It's fun that certain adversaries in Spirit Island completely kneecap some spirits at higher difficulties. Playing any difficulty of England immediately destroys the Keeper of Forbidden Wild's primary advantage, for example. I thought Keeper's primary advantage was an obscene presence track and the ability to drop two presence every turn. If any spirit is brokenly overpowered it is Keeper. I don't even bother with sacred sites anymore when I play Keeper unless it is a solo game. Draft a major to replace Towering Wrath early game, spread out your presence as much as possible, and have no weaknesses.
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Jan 25, 2019 21:51
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I was referring more to its ability to lay down wilds which keeps its part of the island totally clear. Unless you're playing England, where they'll build in empty spaces if there's enough buildings in adjacent spaces.
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Jan 25, 2019 21:55
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KPC_Mammon posted:I don't know them personally and I'm a couple of weeks behind on the podcast but from what I'd heard he has only played it on two occasions and had a really negative impression because it was too easy. Second time it sounded like he was looking for reasons to dislike it. No worries. Walker likes to be cantankerous from time to time and he leans into it in the podcast. He has played it since those first plays, but needs to be coerced into playing it now (sadly). At least he wears his biases on his sleeve
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Jan 25, 2019 22:14
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Mr. Squishy posted:This is part of what i thought enfeebled it. You say "placing it on the board" dismissively but that's enough for me as that's the whole game (though can't you also commit tiles as reinforcements?). Instead each tile has some power of variable usefulness which is a large ding in terms of purity and ease of teaching. Yeah it’s kinda dismissive. The whole point is that there’s a lot of actions and you can’t do enough of them. T&E and Stephenson’s rocket (and TTD for that matter) don’t need special tile power ups. Getting one point for a tile “investment” is enough of an incentive in such a low scoring game.
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Jan 25, 2019 22:19
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SettingSun posted:It's fun that certain adversaries in Spirit Island completely kneecap some spirits at higher difficulties. Playing any difficulty of England immediately destroys the Keeper of Forbidden Wild's primary advantage, for example. Eh, yes and no. England just isn't anybody's friend, there's enough going on at higher difficulties that everybody is getting hosed one way or another (or five.)
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Jan 25, 2019 22:20
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SettingSun posted:I was referring more to its ability to lay down wilds which keeps its part of the island totally clear. Unless you're playing England, where they'll build in empty spaces if there's enough buildings in adjacent spaces. I just don't think losing out on that feature "kneecaps" Keeper. Even without that particularly good innate you are still looking at one of the best presence tracks in the game (if not the best) with a spirit that can easily place two presence a turn. Once you stop trying to make Towering Wrath work you open up some really powerful possibilities. I try to replace it turn 2 or 3.
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Jan 25, 2019 22:35
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Mr. Squishy posted:This is part of what i thought enfeebled it. You say "placing it on the board" dismissively but that's enough for me as that's the whole game (though can't you also commit tiles as reinforcements?). Instead each tile has some power of variable usefulness which is a large ding in terms of purity and ease of teaching. I disagree. Y&Y cleans up a lot of the exceptions from T&E which is a net positive in improving the overall flow of the game. The biggest thing for me is separating the duties of temples and settlements. In T&E the temples are necessary for both leader placement and resolving revolts, but in Y&Y the settlements are for placing leaders and temples for fighting conflicts. Each tile has its own distinct role like blue tiles chain down rivers (makes thematic sense) and green tiles let you draw from an open market (again, a good design decision because blind draws aren't favorable). They also cleaned up the weird exceptions in T&E for example the king sort of counted as a wild, collecting victory points if there's no like colored leader in a kingdom but Y&Y discards that to just add a wild resource which constantly drives the conflict forward. And lastly they greatly clean up conflicts especially wars where it's now kingdom vs. kingdom and you only get victory points for destroyed leaders, speeding up the game but also adding a small diplomatic element as a single player could have a vested interest in both kingdoms and has to choose which one to defend. Y&Y feels like Knizia applied all his design elements from Samurai (IMO Knizia's best game flat out) into T&E. T&E's pacing can be all over the place because so much revolves around your draws and the timing of when tiles come out. Y&Y's pacing is far tighter and every design element makes every turn feel impactful. Even if you don't have a good play, one of your tiles is guaranteed to do something important. e: If you want to talk about teaching, I sat down and taught Y&Y reading straight from the manual because everything works intuitively. Teaching T&E, even with a veteran player doing it, was a nightmare of "okay this thing works a little differently and is kind of weird, bear with me." al-azad fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Jan 25, 2019 |
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Jan 25, 2019 22:52
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I consider Y&Y just a step up in complexity specifically because every tile has more unique things they can do. I’ve had a lot of success teaching T&E to less experienced board gamers with no real problem and find that it teaches pretty fast. The only hangup is internal/external but I just setup a quick example and make sure they see the difference. Hex tiles also scare off people for some reason but that’s not really something I’d fault Y&Y for. Also Y&Y is easily the more forgiving game for new players even if I think it’s slightly harder to teach (though still not bad). Speaking of Knizia tile layers, I got trounced in a 2p Blue Lagoon the other night when the other player basically ignored goods except for opportune steals and just went full spread to islands and cut me off. It was refreshing and awesome as most of the games so far have been races for goods while also trying to spread. Bottom Liner fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Jan 25, 2019 |
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Jan 25, 2019 23:47
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The biggest reason that I didn't like Y&Y as much as T&E was due to being forced to use specific tiles for attacks. Being able to attack with all tiles in some way makes for a much more interesting game if you play aggressively (which I do). One of the issues with T&E is that if you don't draw red tiles, you can't do internals, and the issue is even worse with Y&Y because this issue also applies to externals.
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Jan 26, 2019 01:14
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Tekopo posted:The biggest reason that I didn't like Y&Y as much as T&E was due to being forced to use specific tiles for attacks. Being able to attack with all tiles in some way makes for a much more interesting game if you play aggressively (which I do). One of the issues with T&E is that if you don't draw red tiles, you can't do internals, and the issue is even worse with Y&Y because this issue also applies to externals. But on the flip side, because everyone with a leader in a city has a say in that external conflict you can force a battle just to disrupt the status quo or soften it for a counter attack because only red tiles matter. I find the game even more aggressive but instead of having to rely solely on the number of like tiles I randomly drew I can usually expect another players' support if engaging a conflict means they get something out of it, or even better, if losing the conflict means they get screwed over. It reminds me a lot of forced mergers in Indonesia, one of my favorite mechanisms in a board game, and I'll instantly gravitate to any game that lets me politicize the game state.
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Jan 26, 2019 02:37
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