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Jedit posted:It's not about Mrs Aramoro winning, it's about her beating him. Oh no not just me, everyone. To be honest I feel similar, what's the point if you can't actually win the game. quote:I am amused by the comments from annoyed BGG users asking "how do you know that more complex games aren't inherently superior " Those comments just lend weight to the data that there's a complexity bias on BGG, which there is.
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Nov 20, 2019 16:13
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The 'tail of spite' makes me laugh. People holding a grudge against pick-up sticks.
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Nov 20, 2019 16:18
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Aramoro posted:Oh no not just me, everyone. To be honest I feel similar, what's the point if you can't actually win the game. I guess you and I have a different definition of winning then. Both legitimate, but different. “I win if I beat all the other players. If I can beat the game but not the other players then that’s not winning, it’s a waste of time.” Versus “I win if the rules say I’ve won. If I share a win then I’ve won. If the rules say we have to have a lamb-kebab cook off for the tiebreaker then I will host a cook-off. Any time spent playing is time well spent.”
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Nov 20, 2019 16:27
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Aramoro posted:Those comments just lend weight to the data that there's a complexity bias on BGG, which there is. There definitely is. I've found myself these past couple years shying away from the complexity of most newer euros even though I've kept a single Lacerda game (Lisboa) due to the theme and stupid desire for a convoluted Concordia. But a lot of these newer euros feature much more complexity for no real benefit. The simple but compelling style of Knizia and company are gone. It doesn't boost kickstarters that look impressive with 50 tracks, worker placement (with a twist!), and dizzying mechanics promising to give you depth of play. I adore Gaia Project and Trajan's subtlety and timing game, but I recognize these are good examples of the types of euros I just scoffed at. It also doesn't help that the heaviness rating is interpreted as both "depth" and "complexity" in different mixtures for people. I really wish it split it into two, but many people won't even bother rating anything but a thumbs up/down, a 10/1. One of those comments compared it to film buffs and I think there's a real connection there. However, I think film buffs look for more depth than complexity. Period dramas and arthouse films don't have the technical complexity as your average Michael Bay or superhero film with 50 jump cuts, eyes wandering to focus everywhere, and pyrotechnics and special effects all over the place. Arguably, the rise in mechanically complex games means BGG viewers want more of the latter.
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Nov 20, 2019 16:35
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Triskelli posted:I guess you and I have a different definition of winning then. Both legitimate, but different. Winning against an AI doesn't feel that impressive. Unless the game is sufficiently difficult, like +3 difficulty on Gloomhaven or legend in Vermintide, you don't feel particularly clever like you would outsmarting an opponent. Of course, you could always play against particularly bad players but as you said, some people mainly want the thrill of victory. Over time, I personally grew to enjoying the interesting parts of the game more than the winning. Calling a game early once the interesting bit has finished and someone's emerged as the victor should be more regular. Or teaching your friends the important bits of strategy to have them catch up quicker and get to the higher-level play faster. Chill la Chill fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Nov 20, 2019 |
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Nov 20, 2019 16:37
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Triskelli posted:I guess you and I have a different definition of winning then. Both legitimate, but different. Yeah it's the difference between playing a single player and a multi player computer game. One you beat the system and one you beat the other players. They're both valid, I just personally prefer competitive games.
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Nov 20, 2019 16:38
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Chill la Chill posted:It also doesn't help that the heaviness rating is interpreted as both "depth" and "complexity" in different mixtures for people. I really wish it split it into two, but many people won't even bother rating anything but a thumbs up/down, a 10/1. One of those comments compared it to film buffs and I think there's a real connection there. However, I think film buffs look for more depth than complexity. Period dramas and arthouse films don't have the technical complexity as your average Michael Bay or superhero film with 50 jump cuts, eyes wandering to focus everywhere, and pyrotechnics and special effects all over the place. Arguably, the rise in mechanically complex games means BGG viewers want more of the latter. I think this is a real key point that people conflate weight with depth. That a game that has lots and lots of moving parts is is incredibly complex so it must be incredibly deep. I've been playing a bunch of Russian Railroads recently, and I like it, it's a good game. It's a very complex game but it is not a deep game at all and is not going to hold up to that many plays I don't think because of that.
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Nov 20, 2019 16:41
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Aramoro posted:I think this is a real key point that people conflate weight with depth. That a game that has lots and lots of moving parts is is incredibly complex so it must be incredibly deep. I've been playing a bunch of Russian Railroads recently, and I like it, it's a good game. It's a very complex game but it is not a deep game at all and is not going to hold up to that many plays I don't think because of that. For sure. I like RR but it's not a deep game. My favorite games tend to be much more deep than complex. NT, shogi, adv civ, go, riichi.
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Nov 20, 2019 16:54
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silvergoose posted:For sure. I like RR but it's not a deep game. Same here, l prefer a little simple game that offers many tough decisions to make. For me Arboretum is the perfect definition of this. I struggle over every decision in that game.
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Nov 20, 2019 16:58
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Riichi is a great example actually, because nearly every decision is relatively easy (draw tile, useless, discard) but you have to constantly pay attention to what people are discarding, gauge how close they are to assembling a hand, decide how fast you want to aim at vs going for a big hand, and all these factors affect those tiny, easy decisions. Basically the key is that there needs to be depth in your decisions, but being able to read the gamestate is vital for those being interesting decisions rather than complex decisions. See my constant complaining about card tableaux games with text I can't read. How am I supposed to read the gamestate at all??
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Nov 20, 2019 17:05
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The rate at which many groups are buying and playing new games precludes investigation into deep/emergent systems. Whereas with a lot of solitaire Euros you can more or less get the gist of the game within a few plays, even if their high initial rules complexity gives the illusion of depth. Boardgaming itself has a hard time supporting deep/emergent systems by its very nature. It's hard to get four or five people together to consistently play Container for an entire year (unless you're clearclaw). And even then, you're going to want to see a deep game from many different POVs to truly explore it. Thus, by necessity, a lot of the real investigation of a game comes from its online community (see: 18xx, Splotter, TTA, Dominion, Agricola, etc). The level of play online is vastly higher than it is on the board for any game that supports both mediums.
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Nov 20, 2019 17:11
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Rad Valtar posted:Same here, l prefer a little simple game that offers many tough decisions to make. For me Arboretum is the perfect definition of this. I struggle over every decision in that game. Really? I find that there are not many decisions to make in Arboretum, and the ones there are boil down to which card I discard. I get the impression that BGG users split into two main groups these days (excluding the grogs). There are those who have gamed for years or decades and survived the Euro/Ameritrash Wars on one side or the other with some grudging mutual respect, and those who just discovered this great game called Exploding Kittens/Cards Against Humanity/Munchkin and want to tell you all about it. The divide takes the form of the former group trying to install a grating across the top of the rabbithole instead of the Goon-preferred option of pushing the latter group into it.
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Nov 20, 2019 17:11
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Jedit posted:Really? I find that there are not many decisions to make in Arboretum, and the ones there are boil down to which card I discard. Same really, I find the game too short to make that many real choices. I don't see that as a bad thing really. Short game so there's little penalty for poor choices. I really like the depth in Power Grid, each phase has real meaningful choices in it and really thinking about your game state and other peoples. But you can also be eating your takeaway and chatting without ruining it. It's one of the reasons out of the hundreds of games we have that one still gets to the table.
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Nov 20, 2019 17:26
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Jedit posted:Really? I find that there are not many decisions to make in Arboretum, and the ones there are boil down to which card I discard. Choosing what card to discard is a tough decision and you have to do it every round so I would say that it's simple but had lots of depth. Unless you don't care about stopping your opponent from scoring. Maybe it’s just because me and my wife have played it so much together that we try to optimize every turn to screw each other over. Most of our games get very cutthroat. Rad Valtar fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Nov 20, 2019 |
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Nov 20, 2019 17:27
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When I first got into the hobby, I was getting into heavier and heavier games. Nowadays, I've actually been gravitating back towards lighter (well, relatively, which to me is medium weight games) games. There's only so many heavy rulesets you can store in your head, and teaching complex games can be a chore For me, El Grande is still the king of 'simple to teach, but deep' elegant games. On a sidenote, been getting into Nusfjord. It's such a smooth fast playing experience without feeling like baby's first worker placement. That Uwe Rosenberg magic.
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Nov 20, 2019 17:35
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Llyranor posted:When I first got into the hobby, I was getting into heavier and heavier games. Nowadays, I've actually been gravitating back towards lighter (well, relatively, which to me is medium weight games) games. There's only so many heavy rulesets you can store in your head, and teaching complex games can be a chore I get the feeling a lot of people who get into the hobby do this. I started out getting a lot of big board games that take up lots of space and have lots of bits and now I’m at the point where I don’t want to take 30 minutes to set up a game that much anymore unless it’s a game night with lots of people and no kids. I have been interested in Nusfjord but I heard that the scoring cards not being revealed until late can really screw you over. Any thoughts on that?
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Nov 20, 2019 17:40
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silvergoose posted:Basically the key is that there needs to be depth in your decisions, but being able to read the gamestate is vital for those being interesting decisions rather than complex decisions. This is it. Much of the criticism against Lacerda and baroque euros primarily has to do with this. You're spinning plates while trying to drive a stickshift; that doesn't mean the race is somehow more interesting than using a "normal" manual race car. Jedit posted:I get the impression that BGG users split into two main groups these days (excluding the grogs). There are those who have gamed for years or decades and survived the Euro/Ameritrash Wars on one side or the other with some grudging mutual respect, and those who just discovered this great game called Exploding Kittens/Cards Against Humanity/Munchkin and want to tell you all about it. The divide takes the form of the former group trying to install a grating across the top of the rabbithole instead of the Goon-preferred option of pushing the latter group into it. I try to do my part. You like dominion and the funny food art appeals to you? Sounds like you're ready for FCM. Llyranor posted:When I first got into the hobby, I was getting into heavier and heavier games. Nowadays, I've actually been gravitating back towards lighter (well, relatively, which to me is medium weight games) games. There's only so many heavy rulesets you can store in your head, and teaching complex games can be a chore Same here. When I look at my collection now, aside from some outliers they're mostly midweight or easier games. Yes I'm counting 18xx, Splotter, and even OCS in here. They're all easier to understand than the typical mid-heavy euro game. There's a lot of poo poo to take in with Teotihuacan or Coimbra compared to "if my tanks don't have fuel, they're gonna starve." The idea's been percolating for a bit, but I think sometime last year it was between Teotihuacan, Lisboa, and Gallerist that really did it. Chill la Chill fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Nov 20, 2019 |
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Nov 20, 2019 17:41
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I played Teotihuacan for the first time on Monday, with the expansion, and it's like the designer made a bet with someone to design a game that consisted of nothing but tracks to advance on, it was absurd. Up there with Newton as far as Tracks The Game.
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Nov 20, 2019 17:48
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Chill la Chill posted:This is it. Much of the criticism against Lacerda and baroque euros primarily has to do with this. You're spinning plates while trying to drive a stickshift; that doesn't mean the race is somehow more interesting than using a "normal" manual race car. The funny thing about this analogy is that my taste in racing games is the opposite of my taste in board games. I prefer rally racing (complex courses, multiplayer solitaire) to NASCAR (as simple as a race can get, extremely focused on competition).
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Nov 20, 2019 18:04
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Rad Valtar posted:I have been interested in Nusfjord but I heard that the scoring cards not being revealed until late can really screw you over. Any thoughts on that? I didn't feel like this has been a problem when we played it. The last game was like 36-34-34-28-26 or so and one of the 34 points player didn't have any c buildings at all. Just try to not focus too much on one aspect and you should be able to build at least one scoring building in the turn you get it. I think trying to set up combos with the initial buildings and the available elders is much more important. I never felt screwed over when I got my scoring cards. They feel more like something you can so along the way instead of focusing your whole strategy around them.
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Nov 20, 2019 18:05
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E: wrong thread
Buck Wildman fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Nov 20, 2019 |
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Nov 20, 2019 18:07
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taser rates posted:I played Teotihuacan for the first time on Monday, with the expansion, and it's like the designer made a bet with someone to design a game that consisted of nothing but tracks to advance on, it was absurd. Up there with Newton as far as Tracks The Game. No no no, Tapestry is tracks the game.
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Nov 20, 2019 18:27
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Rad Valtar posted:I have been interested in Nusfjord but I heard that the scoring cards not being revealed until late can really screw you over. Any thoughts on that? I looked into this as well before buying the game. I feel like the issue may have been overblown because a few reviewers (rahdo, Paul Grogan) mentioned it as an issue, but it's unclear how often a game gets played before it gets reviewed. This BGG thread about the topic from players with many sessions seems to suggest it's fine https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2021067/really-problem . And I've also read that the publisher's statement on this is that the rules are to ensure that players cannot focus too much on the C building strategy from the beginning because some of them would be too strong, so this encourages players to be more diverse/flexible in the first 3 rounds.
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Nov 20, 2019 18:29
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taser rates posted:I played Teotihuacan for the first time on Monday, with the expansion, and it's like the designer made a bet with someone to design a game that consisted of nothing but tracks to advance on, it was absurd. Up there with Newton as far as Tracks The Game. I thought people here liked games with lots of tracks.
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Nov 20, 2019 18:38
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Rad Valtar posted:
I think you’re conflating the design of the game with your play styles because 2p Arboretum is basically zero sum and cutthroat, and unless you cheat and make an agreement to not compete over suits then it’s always going to be mean. And I like Arboretum but agree it has a shorter shelf life due to the false choices. The path building is extremely on rails and easily optimized and it leaves you with only the choice of where to draw and what to hold/discard. If you want a similar game that I think has a lot more depth, try Lost Cities Rivals. The auction mechanic and closed economy that resets throughout the game let you do some nasty plays.
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Nov 20, 2019 18:47
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The board game deals thread pointed out that The Estates is being sold again. Would this be the second edition or is this clearance of the first edition? (phone posting so linking is hard)
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Nov 20, 2019 18:50
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Jedit posted:I thought people here liked games with lots of tracks. Yeah train games are pretty popular 
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Nov 20, 2019 18:52
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GrandpaPants posted:The board game deals thread pointed out that The Estates is being sold again. Would this be the second edition or is this clearance of the first edition? This is the latest printing from Capstone Games. I just got their email about it.
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Nov 20, 2019 18:58
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Selecta84 posted:I didn't feel like this has been a problem when we played it. I will have to grab it next time I trade or buy something because it always looked interesting and I like Rosenberg designs but that one issue concerned me.
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Nov 20, 2019 19:02
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I have found that recently my favorite games have been trending more and more towards Knizian low rules high complexity too. With the exception of certain co-ops, where complexity and randomness helps to obfuscate the puzzle enough to make it feel more 'alive', my favorite games to play recently have been the estates, modern art, and roads & boats.
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Nov 20, 2019 19:58
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Impermanent posted:I have found that recently my favorite games have been trending more and more towards Knizian low rules high complexity too. With the exception of certain co-ops, where complexity and randomness helps to obfuscate the puzzle enough to make it feel more 'alive', my favorite games to play recently have been the estates, modern art, and roads & boats. In The Estates you randomly draw roofs. Bullshit randomness, in my game? 0 /10 game.
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Nov 20, 2019 20:26
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T-Bone posted:Boardgaming itself has a hard time supporting deep/emergent systems by its very nature. It's hard to get four or five people together to consistently play Container for an entire year (unless you're clearclaw). What is the deal with Clearclaw? Is he a household name? All I know about him is that he has a condescending 25,000 word bio on his BGG page and that he has very strong opinions about poker chips.
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Nov 20, 2019 20:32
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SettingSun posted:This game is hilariously bad. On your turn, you have to play a trail card representing your journey west. You have to play one if it is possible to do so, and most of them make you draw from a Calamity deck. Several of them, such as Snake Bite or Dysentery, just kill you. No choices, no recourse. Draw and be eliminated from the game. and it's lol random but nary a "peperony and chease" reference. 0/10
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Nov 20, 2019 20:36
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Bottom Liner posted:I think you’re conflating the design of the game with your play styles because 2p Arboretum is basically zero sum and cutthroat, and unless you cheat and make an agreement to not compete over suits then it’s always going to be mean. For me, that feels like the argument that the racing phase in Galaxy Trucker has very few real choices or how Chicago Express rail-laying is easily optimized. The core of the game was always the other phase (card selection, ship-building, share auctions), you make choices in the other phase constantly, and this phase just exists to provide a cool scoring structure to the main game.
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Nov 20, 2019 20:51
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Gilgameshback posted:What is the deal with Clearclaw? Is he a household name? All I know about him is that he has a condescending 25,000 word bio on his BGG page and that he has very strong opinions about poker chips. What do you find condescending about his bio? E: Not trying to gotcha, he just has a different way that he approaches looking at games and he spells it out there. You don’t have to agree with him! Describing his viewpoint as condescending is pretty dismissive and is projecting some nonexistent tone on his words imo. Fellis fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Nov 20, 2019 |
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Nov 20, 2019 20:52
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Gilgameshback posted:What is the deal with Clearclaw? Is he a household name? All I know about him is that he has a condescending 25,000 word bio on his BGG page and that he has very strong opinions about poker chips. He has a certain tone that he uses in all his writing but he's got some good taste on excellent euros. The winsome games (Chicago express, Pampas, etc.) has good opinions as well but don't read the 18xx stuff unless you want to delve into the rabbit hole. He's very active on 18xx twitter if you're curious. Fellis posted:What do you find condescending about his bio? The terseness and jargon codes as condescending. This is a frequent criticism of clearclaw.
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Nov 20, 2019 21:13
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golden bubble posted:For me, that feels like the argument that the racing phase in Galaxy Trucker has very few real choices or how Chicago Express rail-laying is easily optimized. The core of the game was always the other phase (card selection, ship-building, share auctions), you make choices in the other phase constantly, and this phase just exists to provide a cool scoring structure to the main game. I think it complicates an otherwise great design of majority scoring that other games do much better (Startups, Biblios, etc). When teaching the game people always really struggle with the path laying and scoring rules. Again, I still like Arboretum, but I think it’s pretty overrated due to its hype after being out of print so long. And the foil cards suuuuuuuck right chill
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Nov 20, 2019 21:16
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Chill la Chill posted:The terseness and jargon codes as condescending. This is a frequent criticism of clearclaw. I’ve only heard that criticism from people who disagree with him, so I still think it is projecting. Being terse and using (defined) jargon is a component of good technical writing. Sure maybe not the most E: word choice Fellis fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Nov 20, 2019 |
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Nov 20, 2019 21:32
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Foil cards are bad. But the tension when dealing with double majority scoring in the form of your hand and your paths is the heart of what separates Arboretum from other majority scoring card games. Lost Cities Rivals captures some of that magic. But since the "hand" in that game is shared between all players, it's not quite the same. In a way, its like the King is Dead/King in Siam with it's double area majority scoring.
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Nov 20, 2019 21:33
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golden bubble posted:Foil cards are bad. But the tension when dealing with double majority scoring in the form of your hand and your paths is the heart of what separates Arboretum from other majority scoring card games. Startups is basically this without the spatial puzzle of path building. Good bit easier to teach and faster to play and has an interesting revolving meta so far for us instead of a funneling meta that Arboretum devolved into.
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Nov 20, 2019 21:40
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