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RftG: For what it's worth I'm completely burnt out on Race - albeit after a lot of plays - and have no desire to play it again even with new expansions. Roll still feels fun to me after a comparable number of plays and I haven't even tried the expansion yet. Roll feels like it makes me think on my feet more, whereas Race has started to feel a little rote.Megasabin posted:Edit: Also should note it really needs certain expansions to hit its potential. Base game without prologues and such, is a pretty different (slower) game. So if you are gonna get it budget to pick up 1-2 expansions as well. Prelude definitely adds a lot. I was much less convinced by Venus Next, though; it tended to feel like a disconnected minigame that most players didn't have any reason to engage with.
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Feb 6, 2020 16:38
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Bottom Liner posted:Here's the arkham collection. If anyone can link me the buy/sell thread I'll post there too. Thanks Just wanted to let you know I appreciate you putting this up, it's a great price for a game and storage system you put a lot of effort into, and I can't afford to drop that kinda money on a game I've only played twice (even though I really liked it). I hope you get to move it and buy new games!
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Feb 6, 2020 17:12
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Megasabin posted:If you haven't played it yourself at least give Terraforming Mars a try. This thread is really hard on it, but outside of our little ecosystem it's considered one of the all time great board games. My dirty boardgaming secret: I bought it on Steam when it was on sale for like $5 because I didn't want to rely entirely on this thread's opinion about it. The AI is terrible (I won my second game against all Hard bots) and the UI sucks (slow animations and no undo!), but I still play it every now and then if I want a chill hour or less of messing around with engine building. Note that I said "hour or less": my understanding is that would be impossible with the actual boardgame.
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Feb 6, 2020 17:38
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CaptainRightful posted:My dirty boardgaming secret: I bought it on Steam when it was on sale for like $5 because I didn't want to rely entirely on this thread's opinion about it. The AI is terrible (I won my second game against all Hard bots) and the UI sucks (slow animations and no undo!), but I still play it every now and then if I want a chill hour or less of messing around with engine building. I would be tempted to buy a digital copy myself but if you're saying they hosed up the implementation of it I'll hold off.
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Feb 6, 2020 17:42
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CaptainRightful posted:My dirty boardgaming secret: I bought it on Steam when it was on sale for like $5 because I didn't want to rely entirely on this thread's opinion about it. The AI is terrible (I won my second game against all Hard bots) and the UI sucks (slow animations and no undo!), but I still play it every now and then if I want a chill hour or less of messing around with engine building. You can finish in an hour and a half to two hours if everyone actually plays well and doesn't durdle, but playing physically will always add time. E: oof this is on phones for 6.99 I wish I was working right now so I could justify that cost.
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Feb 6, 2020 17:47
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thespaceinvader posted:You can finish in an hour and a half to two hours if everyone actually plays well and doesn't durdle, but playing physically will always add time. Yeah, I played Preludes+base on Tuesday and it was ninety minutes. Preludes was nice, good way to get things going faster, those first few rounds are usually pretty iffy. I do think it made it a little less tableau-building, as a result, though, and more Race To Terraform Mars - the engines never really had a chance to formulate.
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Feb 6, 2020 17:54
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I got Terraforming Mars as a christmas present and enjoyed it, but did look at some of the expansions. Which ones are necessary, which ones are nice, and which ones should I skip?
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Feb 6, 2020 17:58
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TheRealMcFoy posted:I got Terraforming Mars as a christmas present and enjoyed it, but did look at some of the expansions. Which ones are necessary, which ones are nice, and which ones should I skip? I think Preludes is the only one that is really necessary. As mentioned, it helps jumpstart the game a little and gives players some early direction. The Hellas and Elysium one is nice for some board variety. I haven't felt the need to get the others.
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Feb 6, 2020 18:16
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The new Race expansion rekindled my love. It makes sense Lehman is also an 18xx designer because the guy knows how to spinoff an entirely new game from a core set of rules.
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Feb 6, 2020 18:22
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What’s the goonsensus on Watergate? Does it have the Twilight Struggle problem of “learn every card before you can actually play for real”?
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Feb 6, 2020 18:23
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Got to play Root: Underworld yesterday evening. A four player game with the Moles, Crows, Lizards, and Vagabond (Thief). I won as crows with a double-plot flip after using an Ally of the Foxes card to clear off three! fox clearings plus a Royale-something (Mandate?) bird card that gave points for ruling clearings. Cleared eleven points in one round, and felt a little dirty. Impressions on the new factions: Moles - Build up like mad, but are fragile. Somewhere in-between the cats and the birds in terms of difficulty. They get a lot of fun toys in the different nobles, but they lose them just as fast. Probably less effective in a game with other stompier factions like the Cats or Birds. Up there with the lizards in suffering from losing cards-from-hand. Crows - Hilarious. They play shell games and force everyone to participate in their stupid little plots. Guess wrong, and the consequences can range from giving up a card to everything in a clearing blowing up. They field a surprisingly large amount of warriors and a bizarre recruiting method (spend a card and put a warrior in every matching clearing, birds wild) means they can show in force pretty much anywhere. An easy faction to play that causes large amount of pain for everyone with little effort. Probably in the same category as the vagabond, in that other players need to beat them up even if it doesn't further their goals.
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Feb 6, 2020 18:26
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So in Root, is it normal for the Vagabond to sprint to the finish line by giving away a hand full of cards to someone for 2 points each and then mass murdering someone (possibly even the same someone) for even more points? Because that seems awesome but really hard to stop. Edit: I also played a game as Lizards that permafucked the Eyrie because they could never perform a move action, which was fun and hilarious. GrandpaPants fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Feb 6, 2020 |
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Feb 6, 2020 18:33
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GrandpaPants posted:So in Root, is it normal for the Vagabond to sprint to the finish line by giving away a hand full of cards to someone for 2 points each and then mass murdering someone (possibly even the same someone) for even more points? Because that seems awesome but really hard to stop. The only way to 'start' it is by giving him items. Don't do that. If someone else does, and the vagabond wins, they hosed up.
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Feb 6, 2020 18:35
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al-azad posted:The new Race expansion rekindled my love. It makes sense Lehman is also an 18xx designer because the guy knows how to spinoff an entirely new game from a core set of rules. When will that get to digital...?
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Feb 6, 2020 18:40
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TheRealMcFoy posted:I got Terraforming Mars as a christmas present and enjoyed it, but did look at some of the expansions. Which ones are necessary, which ones are nice, and which ones should I skip? Whatever the one is with the Corps, and whatever the one is with the starting bonuses (Preludes might be both I think?) Venus is also good, I think the others we've tried have gotten a little too complex and given a little too much engine durdling options. Definitely do the drafting variant though.
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Feb 6, 2020 19:30
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Re: Race/Roll, I tried Race a few times with my group and enjoyed it, but the confusing iconography and general game flow really put off one of the other players. I got Roll for Christmas and have now played it 10+ times with the same group, including the player who couldn't stand Race - Roll is now one of her favourites. Race is probably a more cohesive and "pure" design, but the tactility (all those dice!) and streamlined gameplay (produce THEN ship!) have made Roll far and away my favourite.
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Feb 6, 2020 19:36
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Selecta84 posted:Can you explain a bit more what the expansion adds? Played the base game and enjoyed it but not enought to buy it. The two main things that the expansion brings is scaling for up to five players, and the scrolls. It also adds demons as a new type of monsters, some new artifacts, monuments, mages and places of power. The way the scaling works is to adjust the amount of places of power and monuments based on the number of players, which makes for a much tighter two player game, and a four player game that actually feels fair and interesting. No more having to pick sucky magic items because the three good ones are gone. I haven't played it with five players, and probably won't unless they're all experienced players. A scroll can be picked up if you choose the Inscription magic item. They have various effects that somewhat overlap with magic items, but also introduce some cool new options, like being able to turn 3X of a type of essence into X gold, at any multiple, being able to draw a card from your discard pile. The other magic item introduced is the Illusion, that allows your monsters to pass as other types, which helps with managing the randomness of the game. I just can't imagine playing the game without the expansion.
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Feb 6, 2020 19:47
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al-azad posted:The new Race expansion rekindled my love. It makes sense Lehman is also an 18xx designer because the guy knows how to spinoff an entirely new game from a core set of rules. Xeno Invasion or is there something new? That one was pretty good. I would love to see a Race-style game built entirely around the Orb from Alien Artifacts, I found it a neat idea that struggled to fit in with the rest of the tableau.
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Feb 6, 2020 19:50
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Megasabin posted:If you haven't played it yourself at least give Terraforming Mars a try. This thread is really hard on it, but outside of our little ecosystem it's considered one of the all time great board games. It's been sitting in the top 5 on BGG for years. After ignoring it for years, I finally gave it 5 plays last year, and while I don't think it's the end all and be all, I do think it's quite good and much better than this thread gives it credit for. It's leaps and bounds better than stuff like Wingspan, Everdell, and Eminent Domain. I've played TFM a couple times and while I don't hate it, it's way longer and has a lot more setup/teardown than I'm looking for.
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Feb 6, 2020 19:51
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Bruceski posted:Xeno Invasion or is there something new? That one was pretty good. I would love to see a Race-style game built entirely around the Orb from Alien Artifacts, I found it a neat idea that struggled to fit in with the rest of the tableau. Yes, Xeno Invasion.
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Feb 6, 2020 19:51
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admanb posted:I've played TFM a couple times and while I don't hate it, it's way longer and has a lot more setup/teardown than I'm looking for. Terraforming Mars is bad. There are no real decisions to be had.
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Feb 6, 2020 19:59
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Tfm is merely milquetoast
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Feb 6, 2020 20:04
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My first play of Marvel Champions was bumpier than I expected- my friend and I ended up having a ton of rules questions, some of which led to Googling. There's a lot of specific wording and such, but I think it's all in the "you get used to it" category rather than a permanent problem. On Race vs Roll: I like Race much more as a game, but I never manage to get it out with the same group consistently, so I rarely get to play with the expansions. However, Roll's first expansion can be used right out of the box (minus objectives, which I never play with), gets people immediately rolling dice during the rules explanation (engages people), and is faster for people to grasp, so I end up playing it a lot more. I've played my copy of Roll way more than most games in my collection, and I still enjoy it every time. I never got Rivalry, the second expansion for Roll. I don't remember the thread talking much about it- does it add complexity or depth in a way that makes it more comparable to Race + expansions?
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Feb 6, 2020 20:30
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Fat Samurai posted:What’s the goonsensus on Watergate? Does it have the Twilight Struggle problem of “learn every card before you can actually play for real”? here's my initial impressions Bottom Liner posted:I tried Watergate tonight and it's a really neat little design. Feels like 7 Wonders Duel meets Twilight Struggle, if that makes sense. The abstract puzzle nature and asymmetry of the decks and win conditions all fit together really well. Every card play has really tough choices since events usually remove the card from the game for a one time effect, but the "ops" value lets you get a crucial movement on various tokens and get the card back later from the discard deck. To answer your question, no not at all. The possible card effects are strong but limited in nature of how simple the system is. The decks are also very small and easy to look through and understand before your first play. I played 3 more times now with my friend that has the game and he has about 10 plays, and these 3 games all had a sense of playing chicken with the cards with us only playing for ops value until someone played a big event then it was a lot of events flying off quickly. I think this style leans the balance towards Nixon and suspect the Editor player will have to push the game pace aggressively. Balance is exactly 50/50 over our 6 games, with each of us having 2:1 with the different factions, which is a small sample size but notable regardless.
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Feb 6, 2020 20:46
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Ogdred Weary posted:The two main things that the expansion brings is scaling for up to five players, and the scrolls. It also adds demons as a new type of monsters, some new artifacts, monuments, mages and places of power. Thanks. Sounds like I will wait until the expansion gets a German version. Right now we only have the base game.
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Feb 6, 2020 20:52
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NRVNQSR posted:Prelude definitely adds a lot. I was much less convinced by Venus Next, though; it tended to feel like a disconnected minigame that most players didn't have any reason to engage with. Venus is miserable. I bought it as my first expansion and it killed the game for me, I suffered through because friends liked it. Eventually tried colonies, bought and enjoyed it, and then separated out Venus and threw it into my pile of junk in the garage. Game's fun again.
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Feb 6, 2020 21:17
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tokenbrownguy posted:Got to play Root: Underworld yesterday evening. A four player game with the Moles, Crows, Lizards, and Vagabond (Thief). I won as crows with a double-plot flip after using an Ally of the Foxes card to clear off three! fox clearings plus a Royale-something (Mandate?) bird card that gave points for ruling clearings. Cleared eleven points in one round, and felt a little dirty. the crows feel very oppressive on first play through but take note that you can just murder their plots for points and every faction gets a 'free' action against them. For some factions (otters, for example) that action is particularly free.
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Feb 6, 2020 21:30
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Truth. That's why the Crows have the Raid plot tokens. 
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Feb 6, 2020 21:43
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TFM is good but only when you draft. It makes the game go way quicker when someone has the ability to end the game instead of having people fiddle about trying to get the perfect engine going
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Feb 7, 2020 00:40
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I went to Atlanta Game Fest over the weekend (if you're in the Southeast you should give it a try -- they do about three a year). Played lots of new and new-ish (to me) games! Villagers - This is my game of 2019. Market row drafting done right -- you never feel shut out due to turn order, and you always have options if the face-up cards aren't to your liking. Gameplay is simple: draft, build, and score. But the game is well-balanced and rewards good planning and strategy --- and even a little player interaction in the form of blocking build chains (or straight-up "hate drafting"). It's great. I love this game. The Shipwreck Arcana - A neat little cooperative deduction game. Play a tile on a logical rule to give the other players a hint about the tile you're still holding. It scratches the same itch as Hanabi, just in a different way. It may be a little too math-y for some groups, but I've enjoyed all of my plays. Azul: Summer Pavilion - I think this is my favorite Azul game so far. There's more freedom to build your board than in the original, and it flows better than the stained glass one. The formula isn't all that different from the other games, but they've refined it down to the best iteration so far. Alien Artifacts - Would you believe I passed up Isle of Cats (which I love) to play this? Bad move. It's a pretty standard "collect resource cards, spend them to buy/build increasingly expensive other cards" game. There's an engine building element, but it's too simple and never feels satisfying. The game ran two hours, and even in victory (I have NO idea how I won), I didn't have much fun with it. Dreamwell - Aww, so cute. Rescue your friends from these surreal dreamscapes before the other players do the same. Simple play, and probably not a ton of replay value, but it was a great short-form game. I'd put it on the same level as something like Patchwork or Jaipur. Paranormal Detectives - It's like Mysterium! But faster! And sillier! The general play is the same: someone got killed, is a ghost, and wants to communicate to the other players about the crime. The twist is that the detectives are actually asking questions, and then using cards to dictate how the ghost communicates; it could be choosing some tarot cards, pantomiming something, or even drawing on a player's back. Out of the box it's a competitive game, but we did the co-op variant and found it to be more fun. Escape from the Dark Castle - A cooperative choose-your-own-adventure style game, with a simple combat and skill check system thrown in. The artwork evokes the old Lone Wolf books (godDAMN I loved those as a kid), and the brutal difficulty fits the theme of 80's "cheese grinder" dungeon crawls perfectly. When we asked the owner what the game was, he said "oh, it's super dumb". And he was right -- but it was also a heck of a lot of fun! Ganges - It's... a worker placement game. With dice. Yawn, right? But somehow... it works. The systems are fun, there's room for different strategies, and collecting and rolling the dice is oddly satisfying. Randomness is mitigated by a couple of different methods of manipulating the dice, and there are uses for both high and low rolls -- kind of reminds me of Alien Frontiers in that regard. My only real criticism is the board art. Everything is drawn very dark and bold, presumably to evoke an Indian flavor, but it makes it hard to discern the playable spaces. I would have gladly taken 25% less theme in exchange for 50% more visual playability. We also played Caruba, Zoff in Buffalo, Drop It, Concept, Just One, and Deep Sea Whatever-the-hell, but none of those were new to me.
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Feb 7, 2020 00:40
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Control Volume posted:TFM is good but only when you draft. It makes the game go way quicker when someone has the ability to end the game instead of having people fiddle about trying to get the perfect engine going So instead people have more opportunity to fiddle about and try to get their perfect engine going. I cried off my gaming group last night because there were only going to be enough people for one table and the others wanted to play TFM.
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Feb 7, 2020 02:34
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Its entirely possible that your group can deliberately play like poo poo regardless, yes
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Feb 7, 2020 02:46
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Terraforming Mars is fine but flawed, this thread is prone to hyperbole when it comes to certain games. I personally can't believe it's top 3 of all time, IMO it's far outclassed by its peers in the BGG top 10.
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Feb 7, 2020 03:04
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Top 3 is definitely more than it deserves, but I do think it fits in with the other good but flawed top 100 games like Dominion, 7 Wonders, Descent, and Descent with space wizards e: Puerto Rico too, since its another game thats severely awful if people play badly e2: I also think TFM is significantly better than every other game I listed here Control Volume fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Feb 7, 2020 |
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Feb 7, 2020 03:13
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Dominion............................. flawed????????????????????????????????
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Feb 7, 2020 03:14
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Lord Of Texas posted:Terraforming Mars is fine but flawed, this thread is prone to hyperbole when it comes to certain games. ... quote:I personally can't believe it's top 3 of all time, IMO it's far outclassed by its peers in the BGG top 10. That's basically the opinion of the thread. You are part of the hivemind you seemingly have a grudge against, congrats.
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Feb 7, 2020 03:16
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TfM sure isn't my favorite but I don't mind a round of it, so long as we use turn timers. Else newer players agonize over picking one of three bad cards and it takes forever.
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Feb 7, 2020 03:17
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Impermanent posted:Dominion............................. flawed???????????????????????????????? I havent played the newer editions and Im forever scarred by chapels and minions
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Feb 7, 2020 03:17
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Impermanent posted:Dominion............................. flawed???????????????????????????????? Hey c'mon now, aside from Chapel and the Alchemy expansion, second ed Dominion is great!
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Feb 7, 2020 03:19
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Im basically the guy with 400 hours not recommending a game, when it comes to Dominion
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Feb 7, 2020 03:22
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