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al-azad posted:There are some usual answers but I’ll take this opportunity to drop Adrenaline, an area control game where the players are the area. Adrenaline is fun but not sure it quite fits the bill. The answer is clearly Power Grid.
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Feb 9, 2020 10:18
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Chill la Chill posted:So just how convoluted is Barrage? A new train friend I met said she wanted to bring it sometime, but said she's up for FCM/18xx so I'm hesitant and want to just keep jamming more splotter and 18xx games as much as possible. I saw the board and....it's just the worst of contemporary heavy euro design that immediately turns me off. Looks like it has individual rondels and tracks and more tracks and my eyes just glaze over. I've heard people say it's a "heavy economic" game but it looks like it's just a resource conversion game that likes to use the wide umbrella term of "economic." There isn't a supply/demand market, nor negotiation, nor share purchasing/dumping. Money is just another resource which you need to build infrastructure and place workers. I wouldn't just call it resource-conversion though. It has a lot of euro-style player interactivity. That being said, it is most definitely not in the Splotter "easy to learn, hard to master" camp. It's "hard to learn, hard to master".
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Feb 9, 2020 11:39
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Control Volume posted:Does anyone know a game that does what Scythe attempts to do with aggressive area control and resource management and all that? As much as I want to love Scythe, its just really, really bad at 3 players when everyone has enough space to never be in conflict Less resource management, but Kemet. Hyperborea is another possibility as you have to plan both your action programming and your resource generation in advance.
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Feb 9, 2020 12:01
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Chill la Chill posted:So just how convoluted is Barrage? A new train friend I met said she wanted to bring it sometime, but said she's up for FCM/18xx so I'm hesitant and want to just keep jamming more splotter and 18xx games as much as possible. I saw the board and....it's just the worst of contemporary heavy euro design that immediately turns me off. Looks like it has individual rondels and tracks and more tracks and my eyes just glaze over. I've heard people say it's a "heavy economic" game but it looks like it's just a resource conversion game that likes to use the wide umbrella term of "economic." Let her bring it, play it and see what you think. Its one game, let her play the game she wants to play with you then you can go back to playing the games you want to play. You might like it, and even if you dont at least you gave it a shot and let her bring the game to the table.
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Feb 9, 2020 12:10
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Finally got to play Root yesterday. We used the four base factions, and I was the Woodland Alliance. I had a good time. It started out stressful, as there was a period when I had 3 officers, all 7 warriors protecting two adjacent bases and I felt completely stuck, which was bad feels. Literally every other adjacent clearing had 3 warriors in them so spreading additional sympathy was too expensive. Eventually I ran into a clearing, attacked and ran back to break up the clog. Next turn, I sympathized the clearing, cleared out the rest and made a ton of points to start catching up, which went a long way to feeling better about my position. We didn't attack the vagabond for most of the game as he was behind for a while, but right at the end he squeaked to exactly 30. I'd have won on my next turn but I imagine that is quite common. The cats probably built too many recruiters but he had like six of those fuckers at every clearing which was terrifying. Getting the larger die makes it really hard to attack the WA though; he threw away a lot of good cats for very little reward in attacking my bases. The birds has a great decree until it finally couldn't recruit in a bunny clearing, caused by the vagabond to prevent victory, but they seemed pretty drat sweet. I am helpless as far as programming games, so I don't imagine I'll enjoy them, but gaining points per roost each turn seems nuts. He also would have won if I wouldn't have won on my turn if the vagabond hasn't won on his turn. It went from WA and V with 2-4 points and MdC and ED with 12-15, and in one turn the gap between everyone was 3. It didn't feel swingy or random, instead it was exciting. So, as for a mild strategy questions: I don't understand why one would spread sympathy into a clearing with 3 warriors in it, since they can just squash the dissent and only give me one card in return for the 2-3 I spent. I guess I should instead send a warrior there to get killed, but I only had 7. I will say that I feel I overvalued bases/revolts and undervalued sympathy because the latter was extremely profitable later in the game. Also, I did not craft anything until the vagabond had basically all they needed because I didn't want to give him stuff like gold stacks and hammers. Is that a bad idea? The other players were playing ball. I did not draw much I could use for many turns outside of 'items' for the Vagabond except a less-useful Tax Collector and some Armorers who made people very, very hesitant to attack me. Very much looking forward to playing this again. It's been said a million times, but I just cannot get over the presentation. "I have a bake sale. See it's a carrot cake!" "I'll play this card with a fox who is about to murder some motherfucker."
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Feb 9, 2020 13:34
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I'm not sure Barrage is hard to learn, or even particularly trackful.
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Feb 9, 2020 13:56
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Take another look at the WA military ops. They can sacrifice a warrior to put down a Sympathy. That means you can use three mil ops (per your three officers) to recruit a warrior, march it to one of those hostile clearings, and convert it into Sympathy, without spending a single card. Your sympathy will probably get killed, but you'll still get points for doing it, and if you get a few more officers you can start to do it several times per turn. That's how the Alliance works late game.
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Feb 9, 2020 13:57
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Mr. Squishy posted:I'm not sure Barrage is hard to learn, or even particularly trackful. No individual system or mechanic in Barrage is particularly complex, there are just a lot of them, including multiple layers of asymmetric player powers. "Hard to learn" is relative to the person so we could argue this forever, my point was that I don't feel it's as elegant as games like FCM.
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Feb 9, 2020 14:05
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Krazyface posted:Take another look at the WA military ops. They can sacrifice a warrior to put down a Sympathy. That means you can use three mil ops (per your three officers) to recruit a warrior, march it to one of those hostile clearings, and convert it into Sympathy, without spending a single card. Your sympathy will probably get killed, but you'll still get points for doing it, and if you get a few more officers you can start to do it several times per turn. That's how the Alliance works late game. Also cards are cheap. Sympathy gives you vp (the only thing that matters), it costs other players their action economy to remove, and you can just dump your hand into the sympathy pile if you’re low. If WA has an opportunity to drop sympathy they should almost always do it.
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Feb 9, 2020 14:14
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Thanks for the advice. I'm sometimes in the mood to play whatever when the group doesn't have plans set up (and the rest of the group is more neutral than me) so I could play it on one of those nights. Might be a good diplomatic move to have an 18xx regular that isn't a grognard.Control Volume posted:Does anyone know a game that does what Scythe attempts to do with aggressive area control and resource management and all that? As much as I want to love Scythe, its just really, really bad at 3 players when everyone has enough space to never be in conflict Neuland. Especially at 3. If you get the version with the good Klemens Franz art, however, you'll need to get the first edition rules from BGG because they are so much better. Fresh Fish is also another great alternative. Same deal, you'll need to get the first edition rules cribbed from one of Clearclaw's BGG posts.
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Feb 9, 2020 14:52
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It looks like there's a good chance I will be receiving March of the Ants before I get Root. I might skim through a rules PDF to get a feel for the game again. I haven't been able to play a 4X game in so long that I'm looking forward to trying it out. My weekly game night is a 3 hour session, what are my chances of getting a game taught and played in that window? Will I have to be a little Draconian in the number of players that can take part? Then I can use Root on my normie friends and sucker them in with it looking cute and cuddly before I drop ants and Pax Pamir on them!
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Feb 9, 2020 15:36
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One more Root question: If you go into turmoil, do you still score for your roosts? You go to evening, so that is what it seems like.
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Feb 9, 2020 16:05
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Redundant posted:It looks like there's a good chance I will be receiving March of the Ants before I get Root. I might skim through a rules PDF to get a feel for the game again. I haven't been able to play a 4X game in so long that I'm looking forward to trying it out. No problem at all, just make sure people are paying attention when it's not their turn so you can call out the reactions.
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Feb 9, 2020 16:12
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Magnetic North posted:One more Root question: If you go into turmoil, do you still score for your roosts? You go to evening, so that is what it seems like. You do.
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Feb 9, 2020 17:26
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Yeah, unless you're super invested in Bird cards and/or only have 1-2 roosts up the points loss from collapsing isn't actually that bad, you just effectively lose a turn.
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Feb 9, 2020 18:16
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The new Root rulebook weighs each faction based on map space needed/used and recommends a base value for mixing them at various player counts, which is useful and I definitely recommend everyone use it now that we have so many possible combinations  I think they should have also put a limit though, because Cats, Duchy, and any other faction with even moderate building needs (lizards, eyrie) will make for a claustrophobic map where people feel like they can’t do anything. Bottom Liner fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Feb 9, 2020 |
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Feb 9, 2020 18:22
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rchandra posted:No problem at all, just make sure people are paying attention when it's not their turn so you can call out the reactions. Yeah, Match of the Ants is about a 45 min game, but all players will (should) be actively playing the entire time. Players who tend to reach for their phone as soon as their turn is over will turn this game into an agonizing slog  If I were to do it all over again, I'd just tell people that in this game, it's basically always your turn.
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Feb 9, 2020 18:33
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Control Volume posted:Does anyone know a game that does what Scythe attempts to do with aggressive area control and resource management and all that? As much as I want to love Scythe, its just really, really bad at 3 players when everyone has enough space to never be in conflict I was going to answer this with a pitch for March of the Ants, and then this came along: Redundant posted:It looks like there's a good chance I will be receiving March of the Ants before I get Root. I might skim through a rules PDF to get a feel for the game again. I haven't been able to play a 4X game in so long that I'm looking forward to trying it out. March of the Ants is an easy teach, partly because almost everything you need to know is printed right on the player mats. The solid mechanics and unusual theme have made it the easiest 4x for me to get to the table with strangers. The size of the meadow scales to the number of players, since it only grows when a player takes an explore action. There are more incentives to fight or otherwise screw with other players than in Scythe. The one big catch is that there is essentially zero downtime. Every action a player takes allows every other player to react, so if people aren't paying attention you have to keep prodding them (Imagine every player in Scythe having all the recruits from the beginning). And since reactions are different from actions, it will take a little while before people are clear on what exactly they can do when. But again, all that info is printed right on the player mats! MotA deserves a lot more exposure.
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Feb 9, 2020 18:38
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Friend on Discord: Do you guys want to come over to play boardgames with two friends who are tired of boardgames? Us: Uh no?
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Feb 9, 2020 19:23
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I've got my March of the Ants kickstarter slated to come around the end of the month (probably early March, all things considered), and I'm looking forward to it.
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Feb 9, 2020 19:27
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Cooper Island what the gently caress
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Feb 9, 2020 20:24
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ketchup vs catsup posted:Cooper Island what the gently caress I like la granja well enough, what's up with Cooper island
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Feb 9, 2020 20:26
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How the gently caress are you supposed to do anything?! Like what the gently caress even is this game?!
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Feb 9, 2020 20:41
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What's the power ranking for spirit island characters? My friends think the ocean is the best one but we're playing at too low difficulty levels so we really have no idea.
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Feb 9, 2020 20:50
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ketchup vs catsup posted:How the gently caress are you supposed to do anything?! Focus on 1 achievement in your second round for a worker and work from there. Easiest for me so far: First Island tile for a second coin, first action for three cartographer steps and another coin, second action to build your first income boat with your three coins and maybe use a few steps from the cartographer to get the needed wood. As for your boat, use the one with the coin. Now you get 1 from it immediately. Use the step you get from buildung your boat to hop over your Island tile to get a coin. Beginning of the second turn you get a third coin from your income boat. Use your cartographer or the double landscape tile you can place during income phase to get the wood for another income boat. First Action of the second round is to build your second income boat. I prefer the one that lets you draw a landscape tile. Hope that helped. Won me my first game.
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Feb 9, 2020 20:55
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S tier Heart of the wildfire F tier Whatever the names of the other spirits are
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Feb 9, 2020 20:55
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Bottom Liner posted:The new Root rulebook weighs each faction based on map space needed/used and recommends a base value for mixing them at various player counts, which is useful and I definitely recommend everyone use it now that we have so many possible combinations IMO Cats/Moles and WA/Crows shouldn't coexist because they prioritize similar things which can neuter their pacing if on the same map.
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Feb 9, 2020 20:58
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nrook posted:What's the power ranking for spirit island characters? The most common consensus is Ocean's Hungry Grasp/Thunderspeaker/Spread of Rampant Green/Keeper of the Forbidden Wilds at the top, Shadows Flicker Like Flame at the bottom, and everyone else vaguely somewhere in the middle depending on the situation. The spread isn't terribly huge, though. The top tier might win >95% of the time in a random team vs. max level Brandenburg-Prussia or France (max level England is generally acknowledged as being harder than the other adversaries) and most of the rest of the pack might cluster somewhere around ~80-85%.
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Feb 9, 2020 20:59
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plus team composition is going to affect spirits a lot. Bringer is a lot stronger with Oceans in the game, for example.
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Feb 9, 2020 21:10
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al-azad posted:IMO Cats/Moles and WA/Crows shouldn't coexist because they prioritize similar things which can neuter their pacing if on the same map. Cats, Moles, and Birds should co-exist with at one other of them because they prioritize similar things.
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Feb 9, 2020 22:33
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admanb posted:Cats, Moles, and Birds should co-exist with at one other of them because they prioritize similar things. Nah, the board gets overcrowded and inhibits the smaller factions like WA or Lizards or it completely overpowers the Otters who now have nearly infinite currency to play with. Root's dynamic is very specifically meant to evoke core COIN concepts of a regular army, an irregular army, and a third party that bounces between them. Two "governments" shouldn't be on the map at the same time because they'll just choke each other while someone else runs away with the game.
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Feb 9, 2020 22:39
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ketchup vs catsup posted:Cooper Island what the gently caress Yeah my copy is up for No Ship auction right now.
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Feb 9, 2020 23:01
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Speaking of Spirit Island. Do people play with the thematic side or the more well balanced side of the board? My group prefers the thematic side but it does feel like you can get screwed more easily.
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Feb 9, 2020 23:05
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I played the thematic side once just to see what it was like. It was okay but tough to read.
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Feb 9, 2020 23:19
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SettingSun posted:I played the thematic side once just to see what it was like. It was okay but tough to read. My group's also tried it once, but we also tried playing against France for the first time, and got rocked. It's kind of scared them all off trying it again.
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Feb 9, 2020 23:27
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Krazyface posted:My group's also tried it once, but we also tried playing against France for the first time, and got rocked. It's kind of scared them all off trying it again.
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Feb 9, 2020 23:38
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God I fucking love Diablo 3 gold, it even paid for this shitty title
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OrthoTrot posted:Looks like exactly what I was thinking of. Thanks. It's one of my faves, but it's got a lot going on compared to some other 18xxes. It's got three types of trains, the ability to merge companies together for fun and profit, and some oddities that don't show up in many other 18xxes (you can own up to 100% of a company, can dump a company fully into the market at any time, you can only count a city/offboard location once regardless of how many trains run to it). There's also a lot of math counting up routes, it's the anti-18Ireland 
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Feb 10, 2020 00:00
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Control Volume posted:Does anyone know a game that does what Scythe attempts to do with aggressive area control and resource management and all that? As much as I want to love Scythe, its just really, really bad at 3 players when everyone has enough space to never be in conflict Gonna throw out an oldie with Nexus Ops. Income is based on mines you control on the board, buy units, complete objectives (usually area-control or combat related). Uses dice for combat but I don't mind it as much as it doesn't overstay it's welcome (60-90 minutes). Kemet and Inis are also amazing.
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Feb 10, 2020 00:08
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Eric Reuss said the thematic side is roughly like raising the difficulty by one step, but like many things in SI, that could be a lot more impactful with certain adversaries or scenarios. I like teaching the game on that side because it does make it just a bit tougher instead of being an auto win most times.
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Feb 10, 2020 00:08
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The thematic island board is slightly more difficult, but more notably, MUCH more swingy since land groups are bunched together and starting dahan/invader placement is asymmetric. I like it as a change of pace, but definitely wouldn't want it to be the norm.
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Feb 10, 2020 00:12
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