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Yeah suburbia has a flaw of constant bookkeeping of a lot of different figures and types of interactions of tiles. The base game also has limited shelf life and is pretty easily solved strategy wise and comes down to the draw of the tiles a lot. I can’t speak on the expansions at all though. I enjoyed it but 7-10 games was all we got out of it.
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Dec 2, 2019 22:50
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Aramoro posted:Also, and this might be a specific problem, I found Decrypto a lot easier with a mixed group of people with English as a second language and all different first languages. Yeah this is another scenario where Codenames does not work well at all.
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Dec 2, 2019 22:52
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I can't imagine wanting to play Codenames but even more niche, in the case of Marvel, Disney, Simpsons etc. Like by now every Simpsons character must be so interconnected to the extent you can't give a clue that includes some and excludes others. Monikers has treated us well as a party game that requires basically no explanation. Being able to hand a thick deck to someone and go "pick 5 of these you like, I'll explain later" is a great start. I only wish I could easily get the expansions. A not-inconsequential proportion of the cards are either too American or too old for my friends to know, which just means the card catalogue is smaller than it first seems. SU&SD gave a glowing review to Don't Get Got. Anyone have any experience with it? It looks neat but it'd suck having a social gathering degenerate into just responding to everything with "is this for the game?"
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Dec 2, 2019 23:03
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I'm looking for some recommendations. Planning on getting my sister and her two kids a game for Christmas. The kids are both girls, aged 10 and 13. I want the game to have at least some interaction between players, have an appealing theme (or at least be colorful), not just decided by luck and not take too long to play. Cool if it is good with both 3 and 5 players. Maybe even 2. I bought them Sushi Go a couple of years back, that was a decent hit. Games I have considered/am considering: Ticket to Ride, but might be too long/ not enough social interaction. Just One, probably not as fun with 3, the 10-year old might get tired of the focus on reading and writing. Bang The Dice Game, not great with 3, some semi-complicated rules for the youngest. Splendor, one of my favourite games to introduce new players to, but I'm fairly tired of it myself. Azul, can get mathy, might be too abstract. I'm also bringing Skull, Fake Artist and maybe a couple of other games over for when I'm staying there.
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Dec 2, 2019 23:20
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The Narrator posted:SU&SD gave a glowing review to Don't Get Got. Anyone have any experience with it? It looks neat but it'd suck having a social gathering degenerate into just responding to everything with "is this for the game?" I think someone mentioned in the Reddit discussion thread that the official rules say you fail one of your own missions if you ask that and it's not part of the game. But yeah, fundamentally I think if anyone is taking winning seriously in that game it's going to be miserable.
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Dec 2, 2019 23:58
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Bottom Liner posted:Yeah suburbia has a flaw of constant bookkeeping of a lot of different figures and types of interactions of tiles. The base game also has limited shelf life and is pretty easily solved strategy wise and comes down to the draw of the tiles a lot. I can’t speak on the expansions at all though. I enjoyed it but 7-10 games was all we got out of it. The first expansion with borders is great, you can mix and match the A-C tiles and make a more interesting set. 5-star isn’t good, the tiles are parasitic and I’ve never wanted to play it with 5. al-azad posted:Are you talking about the Gandhi COIN? Because I wanna hear. Note to self: make MarsXX 
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Dec 3, 2019 00:04
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Bellmaker posted:Note to self: make MarsXX If it doesn't have a giant metallic rover priority marker, no deal.
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Dec 3, 2019 00:09
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uncle blog posted:I'm looking for some recommendations. Planning on getting my sister and her two kids a game for Christmas. The kids are both girls, aged 10 and 13. I want the game to have at least some interaction between players, have an appealing theme (or at least be colorful), not just decided by luck and not take too long to play. Cool if it is good with both 3 and 5 players. Maybe even 2. I bought them Sushi Go a couple of years back, that was a decent hit. My kids (girls, 10 and 13) love: Tiny Towns Machi Koro Legacy Century: Golemns Smallworld Magic Mage Ice Cool Cockroach Poker Apples to Apples.
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Dec 3, 2019 03:07
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Bellmaker posted:The first expansion with borders is great, you can mix and match the A-C tiles and make a more interesting set. 5-star is kinda bad, and I haven't played Nightlife yet.
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Dec 3, 2019 03:19
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SoftNum posted:Magic Mage wow Mage Knight is a bit advanced for these kids don't you think? also I would add Railroad Ink and Kingdomino as good for that age group
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Dec 3, 2019 04:51
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uncle blog posted:I'm looking for some recommendations. Planning on getting my sister and her two kids a game for Christmas. The kids are both girls, aged 10 and 13. I want the game to have at least some interaction between players, have an appealing theme (or at least be colorful), not just decided by luck and not take too long to play. Cool if it is good with both 3 and 5 players. Maybe even 2. I bought them Sushi Go a couple of years back, that was a decent hit. Anecdotal evidence, but I've been buying games for my nieces and nephew for a few years, and was just with them at Thanksgiving (ages 16, 14, 10, 8). I'll exclude the 16 year old for your sake (she loved Galaxy Trucker). Biggest hits are Forbidden Island and Dixit Biggest miss was Magic Maze Fake Artist, Sushi Go Party, and Not Alone were enjoyed All but the youngest like playing Carcasonne and Catan with the adults They all love One Night Ultimate Werewolf, but don't exactly play by the rules (the youngest two always want to be a specific character). If I had to narrow it down to one recommendation to fit your criteria, it would be Dixit without question.
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Dec 3, 2019 05:39
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Tekopo posted:The decrypto army is growing strong. Also I kind of forget to post my analysis of the games I played in a big boardgaming weekend. Most of it was that John Company, Irish Gauge, Vinhos and Gandhi were good, the Terra Mystica expansion and Letter Jam were alright I guess and that On Mars sucked loving rear end. Wanna request some words on Gandhi.
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Dec 3, 2019 05:52
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Tekopo posted:Okay, the TM expansion: The central premise of the game is to do more things with rivers/lakes (there are new maps that come with the expansion). The way that the mechanisms work is that you can now get boats: these are usually built by building a new tech 3 building, basically a shipdock/port that allows you access to a new action that builds ship for resources. The ships have actions that allow them to move and if they reach another player's settlement, you get points based on the type of building you "traded" with, along with bonus resources. You use a marker to mark that you have traded with them as well. There is also some faction balancing since the new extra boards that have the dock piece also give you bonuses/maluses based on which faction you are. Other additions are stuff like new favours, new objectives (trying to trade the most for example). I played a 4p game of the expansion with its designer (he lives here in NC) a few months ago, and had basically the same impression. I do like that it gives the potential to start a new settlement in a place you couldn't otherwise reach, but the trading mechanic felt clunky, as you said. (Also it was hard to judge how it affected the outcome compared to the base game, since he's played hundreds and hundreds of games of TM so I wasn't anywhere near competitive).
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Dec 3, 2019 05:59
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CaptainRightful posted:They all love One Night Ultimate Werewolf, but don't exactly play by the rules (the youngest two always want to be a specific character). Well, if there's any hidden role game where you can get away with openly choosing your role, it's that one
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Dec 3, 2019 07:56
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I played Don’t Get Got and it was pretty silly but felt good to come up with schemes to do your mission. As something to do during parties, it hits the mark. Although the box that I got for the game is one of the worst storage solutions I’ve seen in a while.
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Dec 3, 2019 08:04
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Llyranor posted:Sounds like a similar problem with Dixit. Where people who know each will refer to specific things to others will not be privy to. Dixit is the best games of watching couples argue as one misses an "obvious" personal reference from the other
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Dec 3, 2019 12:35
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uncle blog posted:I'm looking for some recommendations. Planning on getting my sister and her two kids a game for Christmas. The kids are both girls, aged 10 and 13. I want the game to have at least some interaction between players, have an appealing theme (or at least be colorful), not just decided by luck and not take too long to play. Cool if it is good with both 3 and 5 players. Maybe even 2. I bought them Sushi Go a couple of years back, that was a decent hit. Seconding Tiny Towns. If your requirement for a 5-player option is, well, optional, then Iquazu would definitely appeal as it's Better Ticket to Ride with a dragon. Barenpark and Gingerbread House would also work for similar reasons.
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Dec 3, 2019 13:15
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Mojo Jojo posted:Dixit is the best games of watching couples argue as one misses an "obvious" personal reference from the other That was one of my best ever games of Mysterium with my wife's cousin and her, at the time Fiancé *. She was playing the Ghost and saying like, 'yeah he's going to get it, we're on the same wavelength' and he had absolutely no idea about any clues she was giving. * They got married this year
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Dec 3, 2019 13:44
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Alright, Gandhi (yes, it's the COIN): It's good. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. Alright, bit more detail. The main variance in the game is the introduction of the Non-Violent factions (the Indian Congress and the Muslim League). The other factions are the British Raj and the Revolutionaires (that represent Azad Hind or other violent revolutionaries in India). I can't account for the historicity of the game as I'm not very knowledgeable about the era (about the only thing I know are the actions of Azad Hind in Burma during the war). The way that NV factions work is quite innovative and I think it's a good change for the system, and works within the confines of the game. Basically you can send out your activists out to regions, but they can't really do anything unless there is a protest within the region or city in question, upon which they immediately become active. The revolutionaries only become active as per standard COIN mechanism and largely act like any other revolutionary faction. The way that NV faction function is that they want activists on the board, then hope that the Raj doesn't arrest them, and then perform non-cooperation ops in order to shift support to opposition. So it's somewhat easier for a NV faction to shift support/opposition when compared to other factions in other COINs, but they can only do it in specific areas of the board and if they lose all the activists in an area, the protest marker is removed. I think the main interesting thing about the game, apart from how the NV factions work, is the tracks for the game. There's a British Restraint marker: it both affects the number of protests that can be on the board as well as the cost of Operations for the Raj: the more protests there are, the lower the restraint and the cost of ops for the Raj is lower, and vice versa. This usually goes up or down based on events and when the NV factions run Non-cooperation Ops. The other track is Unity, which represents how united the Muslim League and the Congress are. The lower it is, the less spaces that both factions can select 'for free', but there is an incentive for the Muslim League to lower it, since at the lowest levels it's easier for them to turn regions into Muslim States, which is one of the win conditions for the Muslim League. Both tracks reset down to the remaining number of propaganda cards, so the track steadily lower, representing the diteriorating condition of the country. I played the Muslim League and it was quite interesting to play them: the score for them is 1x the population in muslim areas in opposition + 2x the population of Muslim States on the map. Since opposition (no matter where) is the victory condition for the Congress, it's clear that to win as the Muslim League it's usually better to get points from Muslim States than from Opposition, which I guess it's meant to mirror the growing rift between the two factions. The game was overall relatively quick: only 4 propaganda for the full game. Overall I really liked the system and it worked well with the addition of NV factions, they are well thought out and constructed and, at least from my own ignorance of the history, seemed to hit some of the crucial points of the conflict. For the bad, the game is kind of swingy due to the victory conditions swinging quite widely if you aren't careful. The events are quite powerful as well, as far as I can see, although that's not necessarily a bad thing. Taking stock of who controls an area is also quite weird: only the Raj can really control an area and only active units (either from the revolutionaries or NV factions) actually contest control, but bases are always considered active, which can lead to some weird swings in control. There's also areas on the board that can't be controlled by the Raj because they are States, and if a region becomes a Muslim State they also lose control, no matter the number of pieces (a Muslim State is different since it doesn't necessarily start as a state, at the start there are no Muslim States, since they are created by the Muslim league, and there can be a State that is in a Muslim region but isn't a Muslim State). it's no where near as fiddly as Pendragon though. Overall would recommend.
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Dec 3, 2019 14:08
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uncle blog posted:I'm looking for some recommendations. Planning on getting my sister and her two kids a game for Christmas. The kids are both girls, aged 10 and 13. I want the game to have at least some interaction between players, have an appealing theme (or at least be colorful), not just decided by luck and not take too long to play. Cool if it is good with both 3 and 5 players. Maybe even 2. I bought them Sushi Go a couple of years back, that was a decent hit. TTR plays well 3-5 (for 2, you might need Nordic Countries or Switzerland maps), and there is good interaction in terms of blocking/stealing train routes. Plays in 90-120 min. Carcassonne plays well 2-5 out of the box. 60-90 min playtime. It can be relaxing tile placement game where players are building their own pasture and towns to get the most point, or an extremely cutthroat game where players fight to the death to steal other other's grand structures.
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Dec 3, 2019 15:02
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Tekopo posted:Alright, Gandhi (yes, it's the COIN): Great write up, thanks. Where do you put in terms of complexity and if you had to rank COIN games by your favourite where would it sit?
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Dec 3, 2019 15:13
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It's difficult to pigeon-hole. It's a big-map COIN, it doesn't just have the standard factions so it's more complex than ADP, but in terms of length, it is much shorter and gives you less time to develop the board. I think newbies are gonna struggle because you have to learn 3 very distinct different types of factions, and the Raj is difficult to handle because it doesn't play like normal COIN Gov factions either. I think after 1 play I would rate it highly. CT and ADP are still top, I would put it just after them along with Falling Sky, and just above AA.
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Dec 3, 2019 15:42
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Is Cuba Libre a good intro to COIN?
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Dec 3, 2019 17:13
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pospysyl posted:Is Cuba Libre a good intro to COIN?
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Dec 3, 2019 17:37
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My girlfriend isn't into board games but super into deck building games. We got dominion and played the poo poo out of it and thinking about grabbing expansions. We also bought the harry potter hogwarts battle against the dark arts game for my daughter. Turns out that's a deck building game and we play it more than dominion now. Is there any other really good deck building games out there I should be looking at? We are definitely gonna snag a bunch of the Dominion expansions, but I'd love to see what else is out there.
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Dec 3, 2019 18:47
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poemdexter posted:My girlfriend isn't into board games but super into deck building games. We got dominion and played the poo poo out of it and thinking about grabbing expansions. We also bought the harry potter hogwarts battle against the dark arts game for my daughter. Turns out that's a deck building game and we play it more than dominion now. Valley of the Kings. I'm really itching to get Promenade to the table, but I'm finding it hard.
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Dec 3, 2019 18:50
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poemdexter posted:My girlfriend isn't into board games but super into deck building games. We got dominion and played the poo poo out of it and thinking about grabbing expansions. We also bought the harry potter hogwarts battle against the dark arts game for my daughter. Turns out that's a deck building game and we play it more than dominion now. Joke answer:
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Dec 3, 2019 18:54
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poemdexter posted:My girlfriend isn't into board games but super into deck building games. We got dominion and played the poo poo out of it and thinking about grabbing expansions. We also bought the harry potter hogwarts battle against the dark arts game for my daughter. Turns out that's a deck building game and we play it more than dominion now. Aeon's End is my fav coop deckbuilder. It's basically a boss raid in bgame format
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Dec 3, 2019 19:00
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Llyranor posted:Aeon's End is my fav coop deckbuilder. It's basically a boss raid in bgame format Aeon's End Legacy might satisfy her love of deckbuilding and my love for legacy games at the same time... Thanks for the recommendations everyone.
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Dec 3, 2019 19:05
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Getting really excited to get Crystal Palace to the table for the first time tomorrow night. I think some of my players may initially groan that it's "just another convoluted dice placement game" but something about the way the various mechanisms interlock really sings to me. I also just happen to like its potential mean-spiritedness. Still can't believe how many games Capstone sold to me this season. Here's hoping Cooper and Maracaibo get shipping notices over the next week or so.
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Dec 3, 2019 19:18
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Triskelli posted:Joke answer: Why is this a joke answer? ToC is really good.
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Dec 3, 2019 19:22
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poemdexter posted:Aeon's End Legacy might satisfy her love of deckbuilding and my love for legacy games at the same time... AE Legacy is a good intro to the series because it slowly introduces various gameplay elements. Plus, a good chunk of the content can be mixed with the rest of the series when you're done with the campaign.
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Dec 3, 2019 19:53
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Terminally Bored posted:Why is this a joke answer? ToC is really good. Time of Crisis is super good, but it’s a war game with a deckbuilder-ish action selection, not a “deck building game” ... And there should be a deck builder about suburban dads building decks 
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Dec 3, 2019 20:14
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Triskelli posted:Time of Crisis is super good, but it’s a war game with a deckbuilder-ish action selection, not a “deck building game” There (kinda) is: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/175846/deck-building-deck-building-game . But it's not good.
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Dec 3, 2019 20:25
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Shipbuilding deck builder when? You can even tie logistics into it or maybe even a timer so it plays like space alert
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Dec 3, 2019 20:42
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poemdexter posted:My girlfriend isn't into board games but super into deck building games. We got dominion and played the poo poo out of it and thinking about grabbing expansions. We also bought the harry potter hogwarts battle against the dark arts game for my daughter. Turns out that's a deck building game and we play it more than dominion now. Dominion is the best "pure" deck building experience. For deck building focused hybrids I like El Dorado a lot.
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Dec 3, 2019 20:45
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Memnaelar posted:Getting really excited to get Crystal Palace to the table for the first time tomorrow night. I think some of my players may initially groan that it's "just another convoluted dice placement game" but something about the way the various mechanisms interlock really sings to me. I also just happen to like its potential mean-spiritedness. Beware the downward spiral. I got into that and couldn't get out. I'm looking forward to playing it again to see how I could have done better (also note it's Vital Lacerda's favorite game of 2019).
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Dec 3, 2019 20:51
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Mayveena posted:Beware the downward spiral. I got into that and couldn't get out. I'm looking forward to playing it again to see how I could have done better (also note it's Vital Lacerda's favorite game of 2019). Crystal Palace definitely looks like a game where you could go into loan hell if you have a bad/unlucky time of it. I personally find that prospect kind of a thrill and enjoy it when I just crash and burn in a game. I'm thinking of just straight up playing with the turn order variant suggested on BGG. I can totally understand why the designer argues it ultimately doesn't matter if you go 2nd or 4th after fighting out who's first player, BUT this is one of those things where perception trumps reality. Players hate spending a ton of money and then winding up last in turn order by virtue of where they sat, EVEN if there's a strong argument to be made that being last might be more advantageous to them (which I actually believe to be the case in CP) Also, not sure how I feel about Vital's endorsement. I got off the On Mars bandwagon after backing most of his projects from big-box projects from The Gallerist on. I feel like he's so close to giving me what I want in games, but then takes a hard turn into "not fun" with most of his projects that I own.
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Dec 3, 2019 21:07
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SoftNum posted:Dominion is the best "pure" deck building experience.
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Dec 3, 2019 22:13
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Memnaelar posted:Also, not sure how I feel about Vital's endorsement. I got off the On Mars bandwagon after backing most of his projects from big-box projects from The Gallerist on. I feel like he's so close to giving me what I want in games, but then takes a hard turn into "not fun" with most of his projects that I own. While I initially liked his designs, I agree. He’s like Vlaada but without the restraint Vlaada shows in his games. It’s funny that only 5 years ago people were complaining about Vlaada’s convoluted designs. But, his heavy euros aged well in a way I don’t think Lacerda’s will. Add to that the Italian atelier design trio. I think it was Luciani who manages to restrain the designs so you end up with Tzolkin, Marco Polo and Grand Austria Hotel. Without him? Teotihuacan. Then again, he was involved with Barrage. But the verdict on that one is still out
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Dec 3, 2019 22:15
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