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I envy the people who have never had to play Catan.
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Apr 11, 2020 22:17
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Chill la Chill posted:I envy the people who have never had to play Catan. Except Starfarers of course.
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Apr 11, 2020 22:22
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Daric posted:I just played Castle Ravenloft for the first time and did it solo. Is it supposed to be ridiculously hard, especially alone?... Castle Ravenloft is regarded as the hardest D&D Adventure Game. Solo is better with 2 adventurers IMO. Your grasp of the rules is correct, that’s why people in this thread call it “D&D SWAT Team.” It punishes turtling pretty harsh.
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Apr 11, 2020 22:40
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Chill la Chill posted:I envy the people who have never had to play Catan. Some of us used to make due with battleship and clue.
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Apr 11, 2020 23:29
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It's kinda funny that you can just assume any "classic" (pre bg boom) game is bad and it usually works. It kinda makes me more impressed with handful of mainsteam games from back in the day that actually hold up. 'Acquire' would be the first one that comes my head. I played it once and had fun and then was like wait, this is from the loving 60s?
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Apr 12, 2020 00:40
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Sometimes I think that, but then I also remember that 1829 came out in 1974 and some still well-regarded wargames came around at the same time. So I think the potential was always there - it just wasn't harnessed until recently.
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Apr 12, 2020 00:53
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Chill la Chill posted:Sometimes I think that, but then I also remember that 1829 came out in 1974 and some still well-regarded wargames came around at the same time. So I think the potential was always there - it just wasn't harnessed until recently. Yeah, I'm definitely ignoring the war games, that was a whole deep well of nerd poo poo pre internet, I was thinking more mainstream tastes.
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Apr 12, 2020 01:15
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CRISPYBABY posted:Yeah, I'm definitely ignoring the war games, that was a whole deep well of nerd poo poo pre internet, I was thinking more mainstream tastes. I mean mainstream is JUST getting to pandemic, ticket to ride, codenames, etc, like much more recently than the start of the boom. In terms of mainstream games that were at all good...Careers is the main one I think of. And Stratego.
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Apr 12, 2020 01:17
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Bottom Liner posted:What's it like living at the antarctic base? I got into board games fairly recently and my first experience of "board games are awesome and I should check out more of them" was when I visited my brother to play a game of Eclipse with him and some friends. There was some Risk and Stratego when I was much younger but nothing too regular.
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Apr 12, 2020 01:21
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Cathedral is a good 2P abstract (with room for simple house-ruling if needed). Cluedo has roll-and-move but other than that it works fine as a family deduction game.
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Apr 12, 2020 01:26
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Redundant posted:I've never played Ticket To Ride either. Or Carcassonne. You name a classic gateway game and there's a decent chance I've never played it. Except for Pandemic, I have kind of crushed base Pandemic. I meant that as a joke about having game night with friends right now
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Apr 12, 2020 01:26
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Yeah I wasn’t a fan of board games until someone brought over Betrayal one night and that sent me down the rabbit hole. I know now that it’s not the greatest game and has its own issues but it was so different from Monopoly that it hooked me.
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Apr 12, 2020 01:36
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During my gateway phase I still noticed there was stuff I straight up didn't like. Codenames was bleh (Decrypto is 10/10 though), so was Betrayal. I remember being lukewarm on Carcassonne as well. Dominion and Clank were two of my bigger gateways, ironically. I think Scoville was one of my earlier "middle weight" games (even though that one kinda barely squeaks into the middle range).
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Apr 12, 2020 01:39
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Bottom Liner posted:I meant that as a joke about having game night with friends right now
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Apr 12, 2020 01:47
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Just played a cat/corvid/lizard/vagabond game in Root. He picked arbiter, started the game with 2 ambushes (drew a third one turn 2) and completely neutered all our early attacks. Ended the game 15 points ahead of everyone else. While I understand our setup wasn't the best to stop him, I have to say he's the only faction I don't like to have in my games so far. Is there anything you can do to stop him without destroying your own game in this situation ?
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Apr 12, 2020 01:47
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Doctor Spaceman posted:Cathedral is a good 2P abstract (with room for simple house-ruling if needed). My 5yo just beat me in Cathedral today, though my handicap was the nearly 3yo was picking which piece I play. She handed me a piece, I had to deal with it. As far as patenting Not-Catan, I'd like to see the information disclosure statements for it. That alone should disqualify it, and if none are ever presented, someone else just going "Hey, uhhh it's obviously this" would make it unenforceable.
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Apr 12, 2020 01:50
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Ravendas posted:As far as patenting Not-Catan, I'd like to see the information disclosure statements for it. That alone should disqualify it, and if none are ever presented, someone else just going "Hey, uhhh it's obviously this" would make it unenforceable. Knock yourself out: https://techlinkcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/US10610767.pdf It shares a lot of mechanics with Catan but differs in other ways, most notably a third type of settlement that represents a military unit in the field and can be used to directly attack the bases and regional influence of other players.
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Apr 12, 2020 02:21
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Could someone let me know what game the Kentucky governor and his kids are playing? My friend would like to know. 
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Apr 12, 2020 02:29
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fr0id posted:Could someone let me know what game the Kentucky governor and his kids are playing? My friend would like to know. Looks like the Harry Potter deck building game.
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Apr 12, 2020 02:32
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Look man it's not the strategic masterpiece but Catan is an undeniably good game that is just fun to play. Like yeah the resources aren't super balanced and it's a little random but it's engages you just enough that you can put effort into winning but you can also shoot the poo poo for an hour while playing it.
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Apr 12, 2020 04:09
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Fart Car '97 posted:Look man it's not the strategic masterpiece but Catan is an undeniably good game that is just fun to play. Fart Car '97 posted:For the most part the games come down to how the dice roll or big gambles. You already said yourself why it's not a good game. There's nothing wrong with still liking it and playing with friends and enjoying it though.
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Apr 12, 2020 04:15
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Catan is old and clunky, but cmon, it's 45-60 mins if you know what you're doing. People are being a little overly theatrical if they're acting like playing it is an intolerable hardship. There are some folks out there who have played the absolute poo poo out of it - they get to complain. But the odd random game of it here or there? It's basically a filler these days.
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Apr 12, 2020 04:53
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first time playing it was an awful slog for me
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Apr 12, 2020 04:55
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There’s always one player in the game who is resource starved and probably having a poo poo time for the entirety of the game.
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Apr 12, 2020 05:00
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Fart Car '97 posted:Look man it's not the strategic masterpiece but Catan is an undeniably good game that is just fun to play. Like yeah the resources aren't super balanced and it's a little random but it's engages you just enough that you can put effort into winning but you can also shoot the poo poo for an hour while playing it. Quality and fun are different scales. Catan is influential and important. It is also bad and sometimes fun.
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Apr 12, 2020 05:04
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I'm very glad that my intro to modern board games was Puerto Rico back in like 2006, got hooked for life. The first time I played Catan wasn't even physical, it was actually the Nintendo DS version. Absolutely hate the game.The End posted:Catan is old and clunky, but cmon, it's 45-60 mins if you know what you're doing. People are being a little overly theatrical if they're acting like playing it is an intolerable hardship. I wish. I wouldn't hate the game nearly as much if the times when I found myself playing Catan the game ended in 60 min. I won't claim to be a Catan expert but in my experience, unless someone gets super lucky and wins early, the game devolves into half the players stuck at 1-2 points from winning and the game just keeps going forever. No one can afford to score the last point or two they without a massive hand that keeps getting ruined by the robber. Particularly at higher player counts where the dice are rolled like 5-6 times between your turns, it's almost inevitable a 7 will happen in that sequence of rolls. At that point it's basically Munchkin where you just have to hope the dice align to give you the win and no one plays a monopoly to stop you from winning. The only good Catan memory I have was this one time on a nearly 3 hour Catan game I was desperate for the game to be over. So I built a settlement to break player A's longest road and immediatly give the win to player B who now had longest road, ending the game. Player A didn't talk to me for months after that 
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Apr 12, 2020 10:19
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I played my first game of GWT yesterday and it only took 2.5 hours and we both enjoyed it a lot while having a million things we would do different next time, so that’s a big win
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Apr 12, 2020 10:49
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Ojetor posted:Particularly at higher player counts where the dice are rolled like 5-6 times between your turns, it's almost inevitable a 7 will happen in that sequence of rolls. At that point it's basically Munchkin where you just have to hope the dice align to give you the win and no one plays a monopoly to stop you from winning. Catan is a 3-4 player game. (While yes, there is an expansion that allows you to cram more players in, it is not very good, for the reasons you've discovered.)
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Apr 12, 2020 12:01
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At least in my ancient version, the 5-6 player expansion allows you to engage in trade between turns to help prevent getting hosed by that.jesus WEP posted:I played my first game of GWT yesterday and it only took 2.5 hours and we both enjoyed it a lot while having a million things we would do different next time, so that’s a big win We like GWT but every time I play I feel like it goes on for one round too long - like, we all hit Kansas City and have to run the trail once more than I feel like we "should." For that last run, everyone's engines are just a little too optimized and what have you. I always feel like a game like that should end right when it feels like you're coming online. Am I crazy for feeling this way? Is it just my slight bias against longer games?
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Apr 12, 2020 13:53
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Sounds like the leader isn't being aggressive enough
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Apr 12, 2020 14:35
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Yeah I think everyone goes through the cycle of hitting every stop, and after a game or two you learn how to clamp down and really push the pace, especially if you're winning as mentioned above. Also if you haven't started, our last game I crushed it by making my first 2 or 3 deliveries to Kansas. The cash advantage you get well overwhelms the negative points as long as you're aggressive with the money and don't give people time to make money on their own.
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Apr 12, 2020 15:16
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ketchup vs catsup posted:Quality and fun are different scales. Hahaha! No they aren't!* What exactly do you think games are for? *-not in this context, anyway.
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Apr 12, 2020 15:39
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Casnorf posted:Hahaha! No they aren't!* What exactly do you think games are for? Eeeeeeeeeeeeh. Super Dungeon Explore has quality minis and good cardboard and beautiful art assets and nice flicky card and gemlike proprietary dice in a rugged box. It'd be hard do say it's not a quality product. But it's not a very fun game.
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Apr 12, 2020 15:55
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I wouldn’t say I’m having fun in antiquity or container or a slew of other games that are or can be oppressive. They are certainly intellectually stimulating, but not fun. Unless you start to stretch fun to mean “interesting” instead of the outpouring of ecstatic emotion that happens easily for dexterity and party games.
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Apr 12, 2020 16:02
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Ojetor posted:Particularly at higher player counts where the dice are rolled like 5-6 times between your turns, it's almost inevitable a 7 will happen in that sequence of rolls. At that point it's basically Munchkin where you just have to hope the dice align to give you the win and no one plays a monopoly to stop you from winning. 5-6 player catan has a rule that states that every player has the opportunity to build at the end of a turn, before the next turn begins, precisely to avoid the scenario you described. People's complaints about getting unlucky with dice, or being that one guy that gets hosed are completely valid. But you all just didn't read the rules.
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Apr 12, 2020 16:22
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"fun" is a dumb idea because it reduces the value of an activity to a singular, almost binary, quantification. And because the actual definition is so subjective and so nebulous, I'm pretty sure we'd be arguing in circles all day about it (which, honestly, I'm not really that opposed to). Because for me, arguing is fun. Board games are entertainment. They can be more, they can be all sorts of other things, but the medium of interactive entertainment is still fundamentally one of the question, "Do I want to spend my time doing this?" as opposed to "I am required to do this." "Fun" is 'emotional buy-in' or 'intellectually stimulating' or 'laughing, knee-slapping joyful mirth' or 'shoot the poo poo with my friends around a table while we are thinking about the same thing' or any of the entire gamut of reactions anyone can have to interaction. Fun and quality of game are merely a way to try to qualify whether a person can get what they were looking for out of the experience that the game attempts to provide. The closest to an objective measure of quality of a game (whether it is 'a good game' or not) is whether someone wants to play it. And since we can't read minds, the best we got is a measure of who is playing it, and who continues to. Container is fun/good for lots of people, because that intellectual stimulation is what they want out of it. The mechanical strength of the game facilitates the enjoyment. Cards Against Humanity, for all of my and our misgivings about it, is fun/good because the people who play it keep wanting to play it, they're getting what they want (presumably, an excuse to be as horrible as they usually feel like they have to repress). Decrying a game someone is already going to play is exactly the behavior that prevents this hobby and community from growing. It does seem odd to be so focused on why someone should dislike a thing instead of why they might want to love it. Oh, also, Catan in particular is still a very good game. Not only do a lot of people still thoroughly enjoy it over other games that have attempted to refine the formula, it is accessible, relatively quick, and the bits this thread complains about are pretty specifically a defense against degenerate strategies and an overwhelming experience advantage. The only real consistently powerful strategy in any version of Catan is being socially deft, and even that can be beaten if you play the mechanical game skillfully. Otherwise there's multiple paths to victory and just enough conflict to make every strategy bump into every other one. And the modular board did revolutionize board gaming on the whole, though I think the social component of the game does often get overlooked in that assessment. There is no possible way at some point in the development making the specific phrasing "I've got [wood] for [sheep]" wasn't intentional.
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Apr 12, 2020 16:52
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This a drive thru etc.
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Apr 12, 2020 17:02
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When a friend asks you to get some lunch and says they want to get McDonald's, is it wrong to suggest an alternative burger place that has much better quality? How about a better film than the latest disney marvel release? There's this idea that no game is better than a bad game, and it's perfectly fine to refuse an offer to play CAH or Catan when you can think of better alternatives. Of course you can argue that nobody can ever truly know what better is, but I'm not willing to bat for McDonald's or summer blockbusters as a bastion of quality instead of hallmarks of mediocrity.
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Apr 12, 2020 17:07
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The only game of that era that doesn't get consistently poo poo on by the board game haute bourgeoisie is Carc and I don't know why: * It's basically roll and move, or at least has the bad components of that, since you can't actually plan your turn until you see your tile. * It's gotten like a billion expansions and half of them are to fix the way the base game is fundamentally broken. * About 1/3rd of the decisions in the game are actually interesting, and you only got the chance to really attack a few times a game. I hate carc ama.
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Apr 12, 2020 17:10
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| # ? May 23, 2024 09:38 |
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I'll trade you a Sheep for these 2 screenshots Played some TTS tonight. Fugitive board is very good, as previously mentioned. Just wanted to show off the board because it's cool and good.  I am 100% grabbing a copy to play IRL based off my time with it. Very fun little game. Also played Pandemic, which I had not had a chance to play the copy I was gifted at Christmas. We lost! Games rough! 
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Apr 12, 2020 17:13
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