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Hell in King's Quest V when you walk into a tavern in the beginning area of the game you have about three seconds, probably less, to throw a boot at a cat before it catches a mouse. It's so fast that it looks like some background animation. Didn't do that? Oh, well then in the very final area of the game you will die. Not only will you die because you're tied up and no one will come to rescue you (the mouse will, if you saved it), but you're given a bit of time to wriggle about and try to click on stuff to try to escape before the bad guy arrives to kill you, even though it is completely impossible to do anything to save your hide. But if you didn't have a guide, maybe you'd think you're just missing something in that room? Early Sierra games were trash. Anyway, board games? Hell, at least FCM will signpost your failure to do anything well before that.
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Nov 14, 2019 16:18
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al-azad posted:On the grand list of bad design on beloved games like first player getting two actions in T&E or no interest loans in Wealth of Nations, recruiting girl is pretty low.
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Nov 14, 2019 16:24
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al-azad posted:On the grand list of bad design on beloved games like first player getting two actions in T&E or no interest loans in Wealth of Nations, recruiting girl is pretty low. I don't even consider this a bad thing in Container, considering that it's entirely driven by player action and can be to someone's benefit to force.
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Nov 14, 2019 16:30
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Chill la Chill posted:Is that how it was? I’ve been playing 1st turn one action for so long, likely due to how it’s implemented in TTD. Must’ve been a later game that acknowledges the problem. The rules as written have always been first player two actions but it has been (rightfully) such a longstanding house rule that it may as well be official.
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Nov 14, 2019 16:38
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al-azad posted:The rules as written have always been first player two actions but it has been (rightfully) such a longstanding house rule that it may as well be official. Yeah that house rule was used on the BGG online version and made the first player win rate drop back down to a reasonable number, it was north of 70% with two actions lol.
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Nov 14, 2019 16:42
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Westphalia looks doooppppeeeee.
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Nov 14, 2019 16:43
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I wish they had kept the handwritten region names from the prototype.
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Nov 14, 2019 17:25
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taser rates posted:I don't even consider this a bad thing in Container, considering that it's entirely driven by player action and can be to someone's benefit to force. Again, it's one of those systems where experienced players know the deal but to a bunch of newbies it is completely opaque. I find tanking your game and not understanding why to be more detrimental to learning than picking a suboptimal opening and losing alone. I've had too many conversations that end up being "Container? That game took like 3 hours and nobody had any money it sucks" and that just breaks my heart.
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Nov 14, 2019 17:26
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Everyone talking about Ketchup's milestones but I'm really interested in how the new modules affect the area control aspects like coffee nickel and diming desired routes and noodles profiting off of unmet demand.
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Nov 14, 2019 17:30
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Morpheus posted:Hell in King's Quest V when you walk into a tavern in the beginning area of the game you have about three seconds, probably less, to throw a boot at a cat before it catches a mouse. It's so fast that it looks like some background animation. Obligatory: http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/77.html
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Nov 14, 2019 17:32
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For Container it's more about how much the players understand economic theory. If you are into economics, its pretty clear that the money supply in Container matters, and player actions can cause both an inflationary spiral or a deflationary spiral. I think The Estates does a better job of maintaining a bell curve. At the beginning of the game, actions don't matter as much since so much of the board is undetermined. At the end of the game, everyone is almost locked into their positions with no chance to pivot from their previous strategy. But the mid-game is where much of the action occurs.
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Nov 14, 2019 17:50
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golden bubble posted:For Container it's more about how much the players understand economic theory. If you are into economics, its pretty clear that the money supply in Container matters, and player actions can cause both an inflationary spiral or a deflationary spiral. I think The Estates does a better job of maintaining a bell curve. At the beginning of the game, actions don't matter as much since so much of the board is undetermined. At the end of the game, everyone is almost locked into their positions with no chance to pivot from their previous strategy. But the mid-game is where much of the action occurs. The chances of you getting five newbies who are into economics to play Container are rather low, yes? It's one of the reasons I don't like the game that much. While the 'scripting' in FCM is limited to one turn, you basically have to guide newbies through a game of Container and that doesn't feel fun to me.
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Nov 14, 2019 17:56
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Sidereal Confluence: Trading and Negotiation in the Elysian Quadrant is another game that requires some basic understanding of economics. To the average Euro player, it seems perfectly reasonable to trade for the minimum inputs you require to run your engine and to stockpile your other cubes for later use. You also might want to only trade if you get the better end of the deal. But if everyone does this, it leads to a boring, low-scoring game. Capital investment in other players opens opportunities up for everyone.
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Nov 14, 2019 18:50
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The balance in a game of FCM should, IMO, feel a bit like a bunch of rock paper scissors with momentum to overcome, where you can't do it all and have to use others' actions for your benefit to pick up the slack (and can't help but allow others to benefit from your own) in order to do more with less. The better you can look ahead and the better you can adapt to player and board changes, the better off you'll be But playing feels more like it's all about building juggernaut orgs that price war downward with huge volume and demand... and that's about it. Long games with max reserve only all competing for the same business plan is the only game that gets played and is just sort of the meta that has happened online. In theory it should be possible to subvert or undermine the meta by going left if every other player at the table is logjamming right, but if it can be done I'm not smart enough to figure it out. All I've managed is to either make a temporary pest of myself by snagging milestones from them (which I'm later unable to properly exploit) or pull off an occasional Island win.
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Nov 14, 2019 18:59
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Morpheus posted:Early Sierra games were trash. King's Quest V isn't an early Sierra game. It was released in early 1990 and Sierra made games all through the 80s. Quest for Glory was released in the previous year and two best Space Quest games (3 and 4) came out the year before and the year after King's Quest V. The real problem was Roberta Williams, who sucked rear end and made garbage games.
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Nov 14, 2019 19:16
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Modern Art does the semi-closed economy really well. If players are buying their own auctions money flows out, but the sales at the end of each season guarantee the economy won't dry up. I think Modern Art is my favorite auction game now. Ra is really great as well but its a hybrid of set collection and push your luck driven by auctions, whereas Modern Art is just pure auctions to the max.
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Nov 14, 2019 19:45
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There were three simultaneous games of Bus at our meetup group last night. I enjoyed it for what it was, and the design was very clean and well-presented, though it didn't really do much for me gameplay-wise. What was entertaining was coming up with the story of our city (we ended up with roughly half of the city covered in nightclubs and bars, so everyone was always out partying it up except for the one guy who slept in his office). I ended up winning, though I didn't expect to. It turned out that because there were so many bars, we'd neglected to build nearly enough houses for the people who came to live here.
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Nov 14, 2019 20:00
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Bottom Liner posted:Modern Art does the semi-closed economy really well. If players are buying their own auctions money flows out, but the sales at the end of each season guarantee the economy won't dry up. I've never played Ra but I absolutely love Modern Art, it's a legit great game. I know old Reiner gets some poo poo but he's eternal top tier in my book because of MA.
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Nov 14, 2019 20:08
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:I've never played Ra but I absolutely love Modern Art, it's a legit great game. I know old Reiner gets some poo poo but he's eternal top tier in my book because of MA. Old Knizia (and arguably new, since he's hitting a big Reinerssance) is probably the all time greatest game designer. Old hits, all fantastic: T&E Ra Modern Art Samurai Taj Mahal High Society Lost Cities Amun-Re Battle Line Stephenson's Rocket Blue Moon (Legends) Winner's Circle and lately: Blue Lagoon Y&Y Quest for El Dorado Definitely seek out Ra, it's pretty unique in the auction genre and creates some beautiful tension and stand up moments.
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Nov 14, 2019 20:28
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Quest for El Dorado is good, but it suffers from the same problem as base Dominion. The game gets rather samey without extra card variety. So if you like that game you should buy the expansion as soon as possible, just as with Dominion.
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Nov 14, 2019 20:37
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misguided rage posted:Where are you seeing these? I was curious and tried to look it up. The last 'standard' tournament I could find a thread for was in 2017, and trainer first won at least once. For the last two years all I can find is 2v2 tournaments FCM March 2016: Trainer didn't win in the games I went into on boardgamecore. I think it won once in 2017. Cthulhu Dreams fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Nov 14, 2019 |
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Nov 14, 2019 21:23
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The ongoing tourney thread from 2018 has a trainer win in one of the earlier rounds, but it's very obviously way behind RG openings.
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Nov 14, 2019 21:27
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Straight White Shark posted:The ongoing tourney thread from 2018 has a trainer win in one of the earlier rounds, but it's very obviously way behind RG openings. I think trainer is also doomed if two people take it, which is interesting.
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Nov 14, 2019 21:31
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Phelddagrif posted:There were three simultaneous games of Bus at our meetup group last night. I enjoyed it for what it was, and the design was very clean and well-presented, though it didn't really do much for me gameplay-wise. What was entertaining was coming up with the story of our city (we ended up with roughly half of the city covered in nightclubs and bars, so everyone was always out partying it up except for the one guy who slept in his office). Can you compare your feelings on it to other Splotter games? I was considering picking it up, but I might hold back now.
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Nov 14, 2019 22:00
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Megasabin posted:Can you compare your feelings on it to other Splotter games? I was considering picking it up, but I might hold back now. Well, the only other Splotter games I've played have been FCM and Indonesia. Bus is definitely more straightforward and shorter (which I appreciate!). I've only played the other games once, but FCM I have no desire to touch again, while Indonesia was chaotic fun, though a bit on the long side even with 5 players. I'd recommend Bus if you're looking for a relatively shorter game that still has room for strategy, and works well if your group is a bit unpredictable and not too serious. I also appreciate the rulebook graphic design!
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Nov 14, 2019 22:10
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Phelddagrif posted:Well, the only other Splotter games I've played have been FCM and Indonesia. Bus is definitely more straightforward and shorter (which I appreciate!). I've only played the other games once, but FCM I have no desire to touch again, while Indonesia was chaotic fun, though a bit on the long side even with 5 players. What didn't you enjoy about the gameplay? You mentioned it didn't do much for you.
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Nov 14, 2019 22:17
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silvergoose posted:So! LobsterTrap was last week, always the highlight of my year, four days of gaming, made even better by the kids being older and having in laws in town for babysitting. Yo, any other suggestions for small-to-medium sized cons in the New England area in the coming months? I keep saying I want to do something small but I never get off my duff.
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Nov 14, 2019 22:54
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Magnetic North posted:Yo, any other suggestions for small-to-medium sized cons in the New England area in the coming months? I keep saying I want to do something small but I never get off my duff. There's a quarterly event in Natick, unity has returned as Reunity, my very own VlaadaCon is in the summer... I don't go to many cons though, mostly just lt. TotalCon is hit or miss, I've heard granite games is fine.
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Nov 14, 2019 23:05
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Megasabin posted:What didn't you enjoy about the gameplay? You mentioned it didn't do much for you. Just that there wasn't a lot of variety in the kind of things you could do - you're laying down routes, upgrading your busses, adding new buildings and passengers, and delivering people for points. Not bad by any means, but more modern games have developed additional mechanisms that make it feel like you're building an engine that does more and more for you. For instance, we followed that up with Rajahs of the Ganges , a worker placement dice game where it's possible to daisy-chain actions together and have big, exciting turns. Bus doesn't have anything like that - it's much more straightforward. It's not a bad game and everyone who played it seemed to have a good time! It's just a 20-year old one, and that's not for everyone.
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Nov 14, 2019 23:07
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Rajahs of the Ganges is one of the most mediocre and forgettable games of the decade though!
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Nov 14, 2019 23:09
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Bottom Liner posted:Rajahs of the Ganges is one of the most mediocre and forgettable games of the decade though! Yeah I'd have to agree with this.
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Nov 14, 2019 23:16
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I took one look at Rages of the Ganjas and moved on. It didn't seem offensively bad or anything, it's just not exciting.
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Nov 14, 2019 23:19
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We did use the expansion fwiw. That said, I was just offering my thoughts in response to questions. I didn't claim to have good opinions!
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Nov 14, 2019 23:26
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I'm also a fan of the older worker placements. Bus and Caylus have very limited turns so each action counts. Newer WP like to provide a plethora of options that water down the restrictions placed on the WP genre. They do feel more like a sandbox or allow more of an engine to be built, but it loses the compelling part of the genre. At one point I did enjoy Caverna, but recognized this problem. Argent is the only one out of the newer style of WP I enjoy, and it's a big, unwieldy mess I only tolerate because of the theme.
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Nov 14, 2019 23:28
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Phelddagrif posted:We did use the expansion fwiw. That said, I was just offering my thoughts in response to questions. I didn't claim to have good opinions! If you like the concept of a euro with chaining actions check out Neuland
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Nov 14, 2019 23:29
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Bottom Liner posted:If you like the concept of a euro with chaining actions check out Neuland Neuland is incredibly good but you must play with the 1st edition rules, which sadly isn't included with the 2e game but is available on BGG.
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Nov 14, 2019 23:33
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Phelddagrif posted:We did use the expansion fwiw. That said, I was just offering my thoughts in response to questions. I didn't claim to have good opinions! You are allowed to like and play whatever you want. This thread loves to tell people they are wrong.
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Nov 14, 2019 23:37
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Rad Valtar posted:You are allowed to like and play whatever you want. This thread loves to tell people they are wrong. You're wrong, this thread doesn't love to tell people they are wrong. So very wrong. Ah, that felt good.
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Nov 14, 2019 23:53
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Magnetic North posted:You're wrong, this thread doesn't love to tell people they are wrong. So very wrong. Well poo poo, self owned.
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Nov 14, 2019 23:56
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Rad Valtar posted:You are allowed to like and play whatever you want. This thread loves to tell people they are wrong. There are good games and opinions and posts and there are bad ones 😼
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Nov 15, 2019 00:02
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