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Mayveena posted:Kluge. This definition says it's limited to hardware or software but at least here in SoCal it means anything that's patched together to solve a problem. My dad uses kludge, he picked it up from American's when he was working on the Oil Rigs in the 70s so it's definitely not restricted to Computers.
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Mar 9, 2020 10:02
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I'll make a left at the corner.
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Played the 2nd Edition Eclipse last night and the QoL improvements are really great. Cards for everyone with what the technologies do, the trays for things to sit in so you can pass someone the research board etc. Some rules changes and re-balancing as well which is good. Game is only 8 rounds, you get 2 money for passing first, you can move through your allies empty territories without it being an attack, you don't have to place an influence disc to claim a discovery tile. You can actually really be eliminated now though unlikely. Other than that most tweaked costs and requirements on techs, like Plasma Missiles take 1 power now etc. We did a 5 player game in about 3 hours including eating food so not bad really. Very close game with top 4 being covered by 4 points with the only outlier being the guy who walled himself into a space oubliette of his own making. Unfortunately for him I discovered the Jump Drive and Rift Cannon so created the greatest ship I've ever made in Eclipse, a Suicide Strike cruiser. I could attack him but never retreat as I used the Jump Drive to get to him. With that an a few Space Granddads in my back field squeezed out a win with the Descendants, Broccoli boys second followed by the Robots. All in all seems like a good update for the game, makes it all run a lot smoother.
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Mar 9, 2020 11:08
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Aramoro posted:My dad uses kludge, he picked it up from American's when he was working on the Oil Rigs in the 70s so it's definitely not restricted to Computers. I'm in Europe, I've heard Kludge for decades.
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Mar 9, 2020 12:16
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Tried March of the Ants for the first time. I think if it was much longer I would dislike it, but the game does a lot in a very small package and for that, I think it deserves praise. EDIT: For people that have played before, the rulebook I received in the post said that for 3P games, you start with 2 food, but I found one online that said 3 food. Also, is the first action of the game forced march for everyone so that they can actually get ants on the board?
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Mar 9, 2020 12:23
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I picked up the reprint of Dune over the weekend because it was relatively cheap. I don't know much about the source material or the game itself but I did hear it was pretty good. After one intro game we jumped into a 5 player advanced game, leaving out the Bene Gesserit as the rulebook suggests. Man this is a complex game. No one at the table has read the book so most of the terms and names were nonsense. There's probably a lot of rules that people take for granted that only get a brief mention in the rulebook, like the Polar Sink is a safe zone no none can fight in, and the Imperial Basin is safe from the storm despite being a desert because of the Shield Wall. As with most games where diplomacy drives the action, my group has trouble making that work for them due to social reticence and their unfamiliarity with the rules. A few of the factions, namely Atreides and Fremen, had serious spice income issues, which lead to treachery card issues which lead to frustrating battle losses. Some videos I've watched emphasize that those factions can get around this by aggressively selling or exploiting the information only they know but in practice no one knows the value of anything thanks to the few plays of the game we had so far. Combat has a confusing advanced rule where units are only worth half-strength unless you reinforce them with spice (or you're the Fremen, who do this for free). This seemed to make combat more complex than it needed to be because in addition to the normal considerations of battle you also had to guess how much spice your opponent would bid for this. Also, doing the math for that made everyone constantly forget that the winner loses the forces they commit. This rule didn't show up in any of the videos I watched, but that might have been because they weren't playing the reprint. I'm strongly considering ditching this rule in future plays. Despite all that, the game was still a lot of fun and we want to give it another go very soon. Anyone have any tips for future plays?
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Mar 9, 2020 14:18
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If you're ditching the advanced combat rule, you need to reduce the amount of spice coming into the game as well, otherwise you just totally screw the balance.
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Mar 9, 2020 14:25
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Jabor posted:If you're ditching the advanced combat rule, you need to reduce the amount of spice coming into the game as well, otherwise you just totally screw the balance. I didn't think about that. Everyone usually blew all their spice overbidding (a tendency that ceases after experience I would guess). I as Atreides ever really had more than 12 at the start of bidding of any round. I'll give it more plays with those rules then and see if we come around. I brought it up because I watched a group stream a pre-GF9 PnP reprint on YT and their combat was straightforward without this reinforcement rule, but I wasn't paying any particular attention to spice injection into the game.
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Mar 9, 2020 14:40
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I've only played Rex - I've played neither version of Dune - and it's definitely a game that rewards two or three plays. It's not so deep that you need many plays, but a lot of the factions definitely require everybody to have some understanding of the game to be played well. The Fremen (I think? The Federation of Sol in Rex) definitely need people to understand their position on the board for them to be able to negotiate effectively, etc.
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Mar 9, 2020 15:09
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Mayveena, heard you got HT played, what player count and map? How did it go? (I'm still obsessed with the game ugggh want to play it)
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Mar 9, 2020 15:10
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silvergoose posted:Mayveena, heard you got HT played, what player count and map? How did it go? Five players, Eastern map. It went great, such an awesome game, so underappreciated. It's funny I've taught many new players in my three plays this year and they are all like 'why isn't this game in the BGG top ten?!' And we all know the reason it isn't higher is because it's been out of publication forever. They are finally planning a big box version but they could have been selling a lot of copies had they not let it languish.
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Mar 9, 2020 15:55
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Just ordered the Eastern Map for HT. Looking forward to try it out. Edit: How good are the 9 random city goal cards? Worth it? Selecta84 fucked around with this message at 16:11 on Mar 9, 2020 |
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Mar 9, 2020 16:06
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Mayveena posted:Five players, Eastern map. It went great, such an awesome game, so underappreciated. It's funny I've taught many new players in my three plays this year and they are all like 'why isn't this game in the BGG top ten?!' And we all know the reason it isn't higher is because it's been out of publication forever. They are finally planning a big box version but they could have been selling a lot of copies had they not let it languish. I still need to play it five player, I played 4 which was a little weird, 3 which was amazing, then 3 brittania which was also weird. How does it play 5 player, anyway? I know it's basically the ideal count, but why, what changes in the play?
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Mar 9, 2020 16:17
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Tekopo posted:EDIT: For people that have played before, the rulebook I received in the post said that for 3P games, you start with 2 food, but I found one online that said 3 food. Also, is the first action of the game forced march for everyone so that they can actually get ants on the board? I've always played with 5 larvae, 2 food, 2 cards, and 1 ant in the Great Tunnel per player, at any player count. Opening moves are usually Explores, since ruling Inner Meadow hexes means early and repeated VPs. That gets other players' ants on the board, so they are less likely to need to March.
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Mar 9, 2020 16:19
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Selecta84 posted:Just ordered the Eastern Map for HT. Never played with them. Why introduce randomness into the game??? Did not make sense to us.
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Mar 9, 2020 16:23
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Tekopo posted:Tried March of the Ants for the first time. I think if it was much longer I would dislike it, but the game does a lot in a very small package and for that, I think it deserves praise. 3 larvae/3 ants/2 food is for 1/2 player games (and those ants go in a hex). Otherwise it's 5 larvae/1 ant/2 food.
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Mar 9, 2020 17:14
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SettingSun posted:I didn't think about that. Everyone usually blew all their spice overbidding (a tendency that ceases after experience I would guess). I as Atreides ever really had more than 12 at the start of bidding of any round. I'll give it more plays with those rules then and see if we come around. I brought it up because I watched a group stream a pre-GF9 PnP reprint on YT and their combat was straightforward without this reinforcement rule, but I wasn't paying any particular attention to spice injection into the game. Was this MCDM by any chance? I've watched their playthroughs as well, and they play with double spice blow and half as many rounds as a house rule so that the game is over in a reasonable amount of time for streaming. For the new version, if you wanted to reduce the amount of spice you could do either one spice blow per round, or two spice blows for half each. The spice for battle rule also struck me as a bit weird the first time I played with it so I've been wondering about ways to drop it as well.
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Mar 9, 2020 17:25
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Aston posted:Was this MCDM by any chance? I've watched their playthroughs as well, and they play with double spice blow and half as many rounds as a house rule so that the game is over in a reasonable amount of time for streaming. For the new version, if you wanted to reduce the amount of spice you could do either one spice blow per round, or two spice blows for half each. The spice for battle rule also struck me as a bit weird the first time I played with it so I've been wondering about ways to drop it as well. It was MCDM yeah. I enjoyed it quite a bit. It was nice to see some players with experience play this type of game.
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Mar 9, 2020 17:30
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Aramoro posted:Played the 2nd Edition Eclipse last night and the QoL improvements are really great. Cards for everyone with what the technologies do, the trays for things to sit in so you can pass someone the research board etc. Some rules changes and re-balancing as well which is good. Game is only 8 rounds, you get 2 money for passing first, you can move through your allies empty territories without it being an attack, you don't have to place an influence disc to claim a discovery tile. You can actually really be eliminated now though unlikely. Have they done anythign to de-dice the combat? (Also, it was always possible to be actually eliminated, if you get superbly unlucky and over-extended playing the pirates who have no money on their home planet. I did it once.)
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Mar 9, 2020 17:34
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thespaceinvader posted:Have they done anythign to de-dice the combat? Not really, the dice have hits on them now though so there's that. It's still roll a lot of dice until someone dies. Previously you could never be eliminated, if you got everything removed from the board you just limped along with the base production. You could still take research actions for example. Now when that happens you're eliminated and can't.
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Mar 9, 2020 17:38
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I think I missed the fact that everyone starts with 1 ant in great tunnel! Will make the choices in the first turn much more meaningful.
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Mar 9, 2020 17:44
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Since the Pax Pamir 2e kickstarter is going live tomorrow I was wondering if anybody had any experience with the last one? Preferably from the EU. I'm just wondering what I can expect in terms of shipping time/costs. Thanks guys. To make this a slightly less selfish post, what's the best ever negotiation game? Chinatown, Sidereal Confluence, Santiago, Bohnanza? Any others that I'm missing that deserve a place on the list? I'm really tempted to buy Bohnanaza since it's cheap, good, quick and available but is it worth waiting for a Chinatown reprint instead?
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Mar 9, 2020 18:42
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The last KS went very smoothly ahead of schedule but they also weren't facing a pandemic. John Company is the best negotiation game I've played. The fact that you aren't just individual agents but intersect at many different points (along with binding agreements with a slight punishment for breaking) brings it above the others. Sidereal is my favorite bazaar-style trading game because of the ability to include loans and futures. Chinatown is great as a lighter choice, as some friends don't want to have to deal with the granularity that sidereal brings. Chill la Chill fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Mar 9, 2020 |
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Mar 9, 2020 18:45
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Redundant posted:Since the Pax Pamir 2e kickstarter is going live tomorrow I was wondering if anybody had any experience with the last one? Preferably from the EU. I'm just wondering what I can expect in terms of shipping time/costs. Thanks guys. The blacksmithing game I'm trying and failing to find time to design? 
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Mar 9, 2020 18:46
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Redundant posted:Since the Pax Pamir 2e kickstarter is going live tomorrow I was wondering if anybody had any experience with the last one? Preferably from the EU. I'm just wondering what I can expect in terms of shipping time/costs. Thanks guys. The only one I can think of that’s missing is Genoa, but it’s a fair bit less popular.
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Mar 9, 2020 18:48
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As I recall, 504 was super underwhelming? Did anyone actually investigate it?
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Mar 9, 2020 21:38
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Redundant posted:
Greed Inc and Rolling Stock definitely, maybe Intrigue though it's been a while since I played that one.
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Mar 9, 2020 21:47
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Some Numbers posted:As I recall, 504 was super underwhelming? Did anyone actually investigate it?
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Mar 9, 2020 23:05
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Redundant posted:Since the Pax Pamir 2e kickstarter is going live tomorrow I was wondering if anybody had any experience with the last one? Preferably from the EU. I'm just wondering what I can expect in terms of shipping time/costs. Thanks guys. Advanced Civ if you want all your friends to leave the event alive, Diplomacy if you don't particularly care about that
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Mar 9, 2020 23:44
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Aramoro posted:Not really, the dice have hits on them now though so there's that. It's still roll a lot of dice until someone dies. I mean if you get knocked off the board entirely (which as noted, happened to me, no ships or planets left) you were functionally eliminated given you had no way to gain points or make ships to take planets, so it's kind of irrelevant to say that some actions are possible at that point. The combat was the worst element of Eclipse for me, so it's probably no bad thing to know it's not significantly improved. God the combat just dragged, more games need to understand that dice are not the only way to resolve fight.
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Mar 10, 2020 00:34
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The worst part of Eclipse's combat isn't necessarily that it uses dice, but that its tedious to set up with different ship types, and most rolls are misses. It makes the randomness even more frustrating.
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Mar 10, 2020 00:44
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The Nish posted:The worst part of Eclipse's combat isn't necessarily that it uses dice, but that its tedious to set up with different ship types, and most rolls are misses. It makes the randomness even more frustrating. It's basically the same as the Columbia block wargames and I hate the combat in those. Gimme deterministic combat any day.
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Mar 10, 2020 00:46
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Redundant posted:To make this a slightly less selfish post, what's the best ever negotiation game? Chinatown, Sidereal Confluence, Santiago, Bohnanza? Any others that I'm missing that deserve a place on the list? I'm really tempted to buy Bohnanaza since it's cheap, good, quick and available but is it worth waiting for a Chinatown reprint instead?  Pit!
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Mar 10, 2020 01:59
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Diplomacy has still gotta be on the list of the greatest games of all time, right? It has huge flaws—the long play time and the incredibly specific, hard-to-manage player count stand out—but i can’t think of any game that pulls off what Diplomacy tries to do better. Almost any game that comes to mind is much more complicated mechanically.
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Mar 10, 2020 02:21
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Excited to hit my friendly local game cafe and try Tzolk'in tomorrow. My own collection has exactly zero euro or worker placement games, so I'm trying to broaden my horizons a little bit. I tried Great Western Trail last time (enjoyed it, probably a bit too fiddly to get to the table much if I owned it myself) and Concordia (thought it was fine, but wasn't remotely interested in playing another round). Might also give Quacks of Qberg or Fury of Dracula a shot too, time depending.
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Mar 10, 2020 03:58
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Aramoro posted:2nd Edition Eclipse We played it a week ago with 4 players. It was... good? The scores were horribly skewed in the end, with 2 players ending up in the low-mid 20's, and me as the plants topping out at ~51. Everyone was new, though, so it was hard to judge what was a result of bad choices, bad luck, or just testing stuff out for the heck of it. For myself, I went very isolationist, which I think is how the plants are supposed to play anyway? My closest neighbor was the robots, but he hit a string of bad tiles that had ancients on them when exploring, and kept them in play rather then toss them. That meant my first actual physical neighbor was the guys with money? We immediately formed an alliance, though that was helped by the fact that I had a couple cruisers on his border and he had almost nothing. Because my robot neighbor had hemmed himself in, it was easy enough to place tiles near him with no wormholes connecting us, and at that point it was just a matter of claiming as many sectors around my home system that I could. Snapped up metasynthesis (I think it's called, it's the rare tech that lets you populate every type of advanced planet), and grabbed wormhole gen later on as defense. Ended up with 11 tiles owned, 2 with monoliths. I'd definitely play it again with a different faction and hopefully a larger group, as I can't imagine most games go in that kind of direction.
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Mar 10, 2020 05:37
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Mayveena posted:Never played with them. Why introduce randomness into the game??? Did not make sense to us. Yeah, gonna leave those in the box then. Thanks
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Mar 10, 2020 10:33
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Phelddagrif posted:We played it a week ago with 4 players. It was... good? The scores were horribly skewed in the end, with 2 players ending up in the low-mid 20's, and me as the plants topping out at ~51. Everyone was new, though, so it was hard to judge what was a result of bad choices, bad luck, or just testing stuff out for the heck of it. Once you get a better handle on how people are doing then it balances out a lot better, plants really can run away with the game if no one tries to stop them. Alliances are made to be broken.
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Mar 10, 2020 11:16
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thespaceinvader posted:I mean if you get knocked off the board entirely (which as noted, happened to me, no ships or planets left) you were functionally eliminated given you had no way to gain points or make ships to take planets, so it's kind of irrelevant to say that some actions are possible at that point. You could research technologies to be annoying, but yeah functionally eliminated. The combat is still slow and random but we've played enough Eclipse to resolve the combats pretty quickly so it was ok. What has improved the combat is things like Computers no longer giving you initiative etc which means there are more choices to make when building your shitbucket cruiser or whatever.
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Mar 10, 2020 11:19
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Pax Pamir reprint kickstarter is live now. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1243243962/pax-pamir-reprint
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Mar 10, 2020 14:59
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armorer posted:Pax Pamir reprint kickstarter is live now. Someone sell me on this.
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