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Mayveena posted:There are a ton of old conference tables going for cheap where I live on Craigslist so that's what I'm doing We are stalking Facebook marketplace for a suitable dinner table to convert.
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May 29, 2021 19:37
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Jedit posted:They're no less insane for the people who make tables, and those costs will be passed on to the consumer. yes, that was the point of the post Control Volume posted:Took Gaia Project out for a spin on TTS to see if it was better for my colorblind friend than Terra Mystica, and not only was this the case, everyone enjoyed the game significantly more than TM which is already well-regarded. The moral of this story is that Ive already got a physical copy heading my way https://www.boardgamers.space/ pretty great site if you want to play online. Much faster and and cleaner than TTS.
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May 29, 2021 19:40
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I made my wood covered with foam and velvet hex table, with corner slideouts, a few months back during the pandemic and haven't actually used it for a game night yet :| https://twitter.com/Ravendas16/status/1301522137635794950 It's 4' wide side to side, the chairs are just kinda oversized so they make it look smaller than it is. Tweet thread has a few more pics.
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May 30, 2021 02:03
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Just a heads-up that the current print of Tales of the Arabian Nights is the very last one for Z-Man. https://www.zmangames.com/en/news/2021/5/28/love-at-first-matrix/ The batch seems already out in British stores, and is up for "late-preorder" in the US. quote:Disclaimer: This game includes some content of an offensive nature. We want to acknowledge its content and impact. We remain committed to supporting diversity and inclusivity in our games and in the gaming community and will continue to work toward a more inclusive future together.
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May 30, 2021 09:49
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SelenicMartian posted:Just a heads-up that the current print of Tales of the Arabian Nights is the very last one for Z-Man. Note that the article says only that it's the last Z-Man printing, and that Eric Goldberg is planning a reboot based on Arthurian myth with another publisher. The only reasons to specifically want this printing is if you want the "content of an offensive nature", or if you're willing to ignore it because you prefer the setting. By the by, I'm selling off a large chunk of my collection and I'm happy to give UK-based goons first crack at them. I'm still compiling a full list with prices, but things people here might be interested in include: Leading Edge's Aliens game with its expansion; Brass Lancashire Deluxe Edition; 1st editions of Fury of Dracula, Horus Heresy, Tide of Iron (with Days of the Fox and Normandy expansions), War of the Ring, Claustrophobia (NIS) and Starfarers of Catan; and Roads & Boats 4th edition with & Cetera.
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May 30, 2021 13:10
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If shipping from the UK wasn't disgusting as poo poo from how expensive it is, I'd probably hit you up about Fury of Drac 1st Edition.
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May 30, 2021 16:22
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Infinitum posted:If shipping from the UK wasn't disgusting as poo poo from how expensive it is, I'd probably hit you up about Fury of Drac 1st Edition. Yeah, tell me about it. I went looking for you and couldn't find a quote much below £35 on a game that I'd sell to you for that much.
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May 30, 2021 17:08
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Finally got around to my first board game night since COVID, and we played Wingspan for the first time. My feelings seem to be consistent with what I've seen posted in this thread- a beautiful game of solitaire with pretty limited depth and a shallow learning curve. I don't want to rag on a game that clearly has pulled some more people into the hobby, but I was startled at the lack of player interaction. I haven't played another game that leans so heavily on the theme/art to overcome mechanical tedium. I turned to my spouse afterwards and said that I had fun but wasn't interested in buying it, but she's a more casual board game who loves the theme and urged me to pick it up. I think I'd pick up Oceania to see if that would entice my dad, who is not a board gamer, but is a Australian and is a bird enthusiast. Seems like for people who enjoy Wingspan the expansions are more or less no brainers? I wasn't thrilled to buy another Stonemaeier game, but I'll take new board games where I can get them I suppose.
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May 30, 2021 21:27
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I'm going to our (NZ) big gaming convention this coming weekend. It has a ridiculously huge games library, so I'm keen to try and find and play some recent games that I haven't had a chance to play before. At the moment my favourite games are far-and-away the more heavily interactive euro games, particularly those that have forms of symbiotic or parasitic interaction (like Brass, Barrage, Hansa Teutonica, Caylus) and definitely not anything area majority (I discovered I definitely don't enjoy stuff like El Grande, The Expanse). I have my eye on Pipeline and Wildcatters to try, but can anyone recommend any other games from the last 5 years or so that might be worth checking out?
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May 30, 2021 23:28
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Kerro posted:I'm going to our (NZ) big gaming convention this coming weekend. It has a ridiculously huge games library, so I'm keen to try and find and play some recent games that I haven't had a chance to play before. At the moment my favourite games are far-and-away the more heavily interactive euro games, particularly those that have forms of symbiotic or parasitic interaction (like Brass, Barrage, Hansa Teutonica, Caylus) and definitely not anything area majority (I discovered I definitely don't enjoy stuff like El Grande, The Expanse). I have my eye on Pipeline and Wildcatters to try, but can anyone recommend any other games from the last 5 years or so that might be worth checking out? Concordia seems to fit the bill, although it's a bit older than five years now.
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May 31, 2021 00:48
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SelenicMartian posted:Just a heads-up that the current print of Tales of the Arabian Nights is the very last one for Z-Man. Not saying it's wrong to be called out, I just haven't played it since before I knew better about these things.
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May 31, 2021 00:57
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Jedit posted:Concordia seems to fit the bill, although it's a bit older than five years now. Thanks for the suggestion. I maybe need to give it another go, I've only played it twice (once with teams) and both times I still felt like I was largely doing my own thing rather than getting the kind of totally interdependent interaction in some of those other games I mentioned (or even in one of Mac Gerdts other designs, Imperial which I also like).
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May 31, 2021 00:57
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Kerro posted:I'm going to our (NZ) big gaming convention this coming weekend. Jealous, I was seriously considering flying up from chch for it.
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May 31, 2021 02:06
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I like pipeline. I played it at PAX a few years back and went home with a copy.
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May 31, 2021 02:20
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xiw posted:Jealous, I was seriously considering flying up from chch for it. I am flying up from Christchurch for it 
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May 31, 2021 02:31
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You guys, sidereal confluence is fwikken awesome! Thanks everyone encouraging me to pick it up!c I thought it sounded good, but it's even better in practice. I find engine builder games are often sorta It's utterly fascinating how it's an economy game, not just trading. The different factions are really fun and interesting, I really want to try them all, but also I want to play the same one again a bunch of times to get better at it! Really good sign. It could take expansions really well, but it definitely doesn't need any. Anyone know how annoying the Xef (or whatever, the mafia faction) actually are? We've avoided them so far. !Klams fucked around with this message at 23:21 on May 31, 2021 |
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May 31, 2021 02:32
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girl dick energy posted:It's been years since I played TotAN. What, specifically, is getting called out? Or is it just the whole 'theme park version of Arabia' thing in general? It's not so much 'overtly' offensive, as it is the publisher trying to move away from depictions of slavery / women's roles / disabilities / etc. Some of the events can leave you enslaved or disabled or sex changed (and explicitly prevented from winning until you resolve it, hence associating those things with being "bad"), and there's a few stories of women being useless side characters, or other generic adventure tropes. I'd even say the depiction of Arabia is more just pulling in thematic elements like Djinns, Camels, and magical Oases that you could easily replace with like the Lady of the Lake, Horses, and a Wishing Well. So, nothing I would say is explicitely offensive, just that publishers are trying to avoid the above themes "just in case" (see: Frosthaven). It was also written in the 80's, so the like "man hero, woman love interest" was more prevalent, and games weren't as evolved as they are now, so most everything is two-dimensional anyway. e: I can see from a publisher standpoint to want to avoid any drama over it and just slap a warning label on it for one last run for the handful of collectors who want a copy still. It's a game from the 1985 that isn't particularly well-received by modern game standards, and is more just "read a story where dumb poo poo happens to everyone and then pick a winner at random and hope the ride was worth it". It can make for some Dwarf Fortress-ian memories at game night, but the game itself is pretty flawed from a mechanical and gameplay standpoint, story content-aside. PRADA SLUT fucked around with this message at 03:09 on May 31, 2021 |
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May 31, 2021 02:38
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God drat it. I finally had a board game night since getting Pax pamir and had 4 of us to play it. Got all the rules right except the most important part of cleanup. I had us binning both left most column cards every turn instead of only discarding event cards in the left most column. Sped the game up so much more than it should have, we were all wondering what we were missing till the end of the second game when multiple people read through those rules again and realized.
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May 31, 2021 05:20
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Kerro posted:Thanks for the suggestion. I maybe need to give it another go, I've only played it twice (once with teams) and both times I still felt like I was largely doing my own thing rather than getting the kind of totally interdependent interaction in some of those other games I mentioned (or even in one of Mac Gerdts other designs, Imperial which I also like). Concordia can feel a little solitaire-y sometimes, but only if you're not playing it right. Interaction with other players is the key to a good score: share as many provinces as possible with as many other people as possible to ensure a constant flow of resources from their Prefects, and use Diplomats and Consuls to get maximum benefit from their actions. You can win by grabbing two or three Minerva cards and specialising, but that's a strategy that can fail depending on the distribution of cities and will fail at higher player counts if the cards get taken from you.
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May 31, 2021 07:33
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Jedit posted:Concordia can feel a little solitaire-y sometimes, but only if you're not playing it right. Interaction with other players is the key to a good score: share as many provinces as possible with as many other people as possible to ensure a constant flow of resources from their Prefects, and use Diplomats and Consuls to get maximum benefit from their actions. You can win by grabbing two or three Minerva cards and specialising, but that's a strategy that can fail depending on the distribution of cities and will fail at higher player counts if the cards get taken from you. Yeah, I definitely did that both games I played. I think what made it feel a bit drier than I would have liked is that even when you are sharing provinces as much as possible, it doesn't force other players to adapt their actions to nearly the same degree as say blocking someone in Barrage or placing a new coal mine in the middle of the network in Brass (or buying out a country in Imperial) can do. Conversely, I rarely felt like I had to change my plans because someone else started sharing territory with me, except in those occasional instances where another play might benefit nearly as much or more from an action as I would, but that really only changed on a fairly incremental basis - it never felt like a single move could drastically alter the next turns as was the case in some of those other games. I guess it felt like fairly passive piggybacking. Again though I've only played it twice so maybe with more cutthroat players it would become more apparent if there were ways to pressure other players or force them to make plays that benefit you etc.
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May 31, 2021 07:41
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Kerro posted:placing a new coal mine in the middle of the network in Brass 
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May 31, 2021 08:01
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Magnetic North posted:So, this may seem slightly out of left field, but did you ever play V:TES back in the day? If so, how do you feel the randomly selected rivals works as compared to the Predator/Prey system from V:TES? Have not played VTES. Interesting point you raise. I may be misunderstanding you but isn't there similar potential for a situation where a player is advantaged due to deck choice even with the Rivals on the left approach?
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May 31, 2021 09:00
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pbpancho posted:Have not played VTES. Interesting point you raise. I may be misunderstanding you but isn't there similar potential for a situation where a player is advantaged due to deck choice even with the Rivals on the left approach? Here's a simple example: let's say I want to use Smoke 'Em Out on my rival, when there is a different player with the Turf War agenda. We'll use the same ABCD to indicate player order. If I am A and B is my rival, when I send their characters to the street, they will be there for my only turn. The return in the Beginning phase of their turn. If I am A and C is my rival, when I send their characters to the street, they will be there for the entirety of B's turn, which might matter because the lose their Secrecy from their haven. Now, this may be beneficial or detrimental. If I need B to damage them for me, that is good. If B could benefit prestige from that, that is bad. Let's extend it to a full table with rivals as such: A -> C, C -> B, B -> D, D -> A. If C were to send B's characters into the street, they'd be there for all 3 of their opponents. On the other hand, if D did it to A, they would return to the Haven in the next turn. The result of this is that player D would have zero risk of affording opponents an opportunity to capitalize on Turf War. Similarly, player A is only in trouble if player B is playing Turf War. Wheras, player B cannot avoid helping the Turf War player, unless that player is also their rival. I certainly don't know if this is a problem; the chaos might even be good. It's just something I noticed as I tried to understand the rules.
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May 31, 2021 13:10
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Finally my Keyflower video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGtOvPefUGc
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May 31, 2021 16:19
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Got a (mostly) first play of Oath in last night via TTS. The rules overhead was absolutely brutal. The amount of poo poo to keep track of from the get-go was deeply confusing and I think exacerbated by the digital implementation (I find it very difficult to get a quick understanding of the board state between zooming out to see everything and the text disappearing/holding alt for a blow-up, versus zooming in close to read stuff and then not seeing everything, all the while becoming nauseated from whipping the camera around). After about three rounds the game started clicking though and my take-away was that it felt like a mix between Root and Pax Pamir. I did not understand what I was really doing totally but at least figured out mostly how to do it. We also had a nasty little set up that involved the alchemists showing up in the top Hinterland spot next to the Elders. Unsure what veterans would say about that but what happened in our learning game was that a miniature economic engine formed wherein you traded two bucks for a secret and then immediately burned it to activate the alchemists to generate four more bucks. By the third round every pile was empty except for the Nomad favours until someone used a denizen that "ate" that card and replaced it. Looking forward to playing it in person and with a steady group that can learn it together. I can see this being something that people really have to embrace the sense of being ganged up on, which might require holding back some tears and avoiding taking things personally. FulsomFrank fucked around with this message at 17:31 on May 31, 2021 |
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May 31, 2021 17:13
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It's not as mechanically clean as Root, but I think the decision tree and player interaction is a lot more interesting. Root, especially with good players, feels like an exercise in collective whack-a-mole, and it feels bad when players miscalculate who is in the lead or decide who wins at the end. The kingmaking in Oath isn't nearly as painful, because it's often just as much about the theme. For instance, last night I had a game where (as exile) I collected the cage that captures half of the enemy soldiers not killed and the cauldron that "turns" the warbands you kill into your own soldiers. Basically my emergent "faction" was some sort of necromantic slavers from the marshes. The combo was pretty broken, but it drove the other players to gang up on me, and it was the player who took the cage and freed the soldiers from me that ended up being the winner. The turns also went really smoothly and quickly, whereas depending on the faction some player turns can be very long while others are finished in a minute or so. It definitely isn't for everyone. A mixture of Root and Pax feels pretty accurate, but it also feels like an "inverted" Root: flexible victory conditions, (mostly) symmetric starting positions, and asymmetry that evolves through your tableau rather than being baked into your faction.
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May 31, 2021 17:46
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Yeah, inverted Root is a good way to put it. I was saying on Discord it’s really the game a lot of people want/expect Root to be with the political negotiation and table talk and alliances, but a lot of people coming from Root and expecting similar are going to bounce off hard. It’s much more like Cole’s other games than Root beyond aesthetics. It’s deeply unfair by design, and a lot of the game is about a powerhouse card or combo showing up and fighting over it as mentioned above, and that is what will make it have staying power over time given how much the setup changes from game to game and players being able to influence that. Reviews of it are going to be fascinating and I expect entirely inadequate at really tackling the game given the nature of the design and the approach of most reviewers.
Bottom Liner fucked around with this message at 19:33 on May 31, 2021 |
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May 31, 2021 19:31
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Just wrapped up a 4 day gaming getaway. Played about 25 games in all. Some highlights/reflections: (4 players) Finally played my copy of Starcraft. Since it was our first time, left Brood War to one side. It's pretty great, and it's definitely the bigger and longer version of Forbidden Stars. The way combat is reliant upon forming a hand of combat cards means you do need to prepare for battle more carefully, and it can be quite difficult to determine match-ups - the 'average power' figures on the player reference really isn't enough info and I'll need to investigate player aids. But it is nice to have a bigger, more 'brawly' version of FS, and they can coexist in my collection. Had a 5 hour game of Oath that was the highlight of the weekend. Normally our games of Oath are a little quicker, but the late game saw a very desperate Chancellor (Oath of supremacy) forced to recruit the Exile player who was doing the worst, handing him almost everything he needed to win the game as successor, (including the scepter!) just to get some help fending off the remaining exiles (me and another player). I was last in turn order, and had been trailing for about 4 turns, but had made an all in dash for the vision for people's favour, while the player before me had the vision of darkest secret. This meant we saw multiple 'conquer 3 sites in one hit' battles, and the darkest secret changed hands many times thanks to strategic use of the Charlatan (burns all the secrets on DS). Eventually, we made it to turn 8 and the Chancellor was able to regain Oathkeeper status, meaning neither me nor the other exile could be usurper. The citizen secured his successor win, and neither of us exiles could regain our visions, even if we could retake the oathkeeper. On my final turn, I had few resources, but control of the denizen that allowed trade. The chancellor decided that while he could bankroll me to win the game and deprive his upstart successor the win, to just finance a final campaign to reduce the empire to a single site, based out of the slums. It was swingy, epic and brilliant. Was great to see the game firing on all cylinders. Root with Cats, birds, crows and moles - liked it a lot better than vanilla Root. Can't see us using the Vagabond ever again. Merchants Cove - no meaningful player interaction, just busywork. Fine, but would play any number of games ahead of it. Haka Onna - J horror themed game. A random, arbitrary mess with tedious pacing. I was already having a bad time, then I got turned into a ghost and my agency in the game was reduced to deciding where to move every 5 or so minutes. Lost Ruins of Arnak - I liked it, but it's a bit simple for the length and setup/teardown burden. I think people who claim this is the better hybrid deckbuilder over Dune Imperium are mad. Res Arcana - Very clever design, but multiplayer solitare. Just another engine builder It's a Wonderful World - What if you took 7 Wonders and made it too busy to read other player's tableaus so hate-drafting is no longer viable? This is it. Don't really want to play it again. This War of Mine - They have some balls calling this a multiplayer game. It really is a solo game where 'multiplayer' is just discussing everything before carrying it out. Given that, and the fact that it so closely emulates the video game, it's hard to see why it exists. Other games played: Northern Pacific, Beyond the Sun, For Sale, Stockpile, Tulip Bubble, Codenames, Saboteur, Red Rising, Crows Overkill, 6 nimmt!
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May 31, 2021 22:28
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PRADA SLUT posted:sex changed (and explicitly prevented from winning until you resolve it) Ah, silly little me and my "cis" friends seeing that rule and thinking "I don't get what's so bad about getting changed into a woman, we can just ignore that rule."
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May 31, 2021 23:12
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The End posted:Just wrapped up a 4 day gaming getaway. Played about 25 games in all. Some highlights/reflections: (4 players) Ahhh, that's really interesting. I've always had a tough time getting Starcraft to the table because we always leave it so long between plays and all everyone remembers is the big rules overhead. (And not the rules.) I kept it, because the BW expansion always looked so cool to me, and because there is so little out there like it. I was really stoked about Forbidden Stars coming out coz I'm always looking for games where you build up armies and bases where your armies are totally asymmetric. I was gutted to find out then that it was a starcraft reskin, but you reckon they're different enough to warrant both, which makes me wonder if maybe FS is the one for us? I'm kind of keen to sell SC, not so much for cash or space, but just because I suspect it's probably someone's grail game and I'm just here hoarding it.
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May 31, 2021 23:33
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I want to play starcraft again so badly. I think I've only played it twice? Such a unique game.
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May 31, 2021 23:45
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Has anyone here tried Into the Black? A bundle of eveything from the KS is on sale for 50% off, and the theme looks right up my alley but reviews are thin on the ground.
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Jun 1, 2021 04:01
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We started playing Pandemic Legacy Season 0 and it's really well done. It's both similar enough to Pandemic Legacies that if you liked them (and we did) you'll like this, but the whole design feel considerably more smooth and tightened up, and the gameplay and structure is also different -- in a good way. The adaptation of the basic elements of Pandemic Legacy to height-of-the-cold-war espionage works pretty well. And it's kind of neat that objectives no longer carry over; they are now all one-and-done for every month. Don't know what it'll be like as we progress, but it's kind of nice that it feels like there is a lot less to keep track of and manage components and setup-wise than there was in Season 2. And choosing portraits and layering accessories stickers to build passport photos & disguises might be purely for fun and has no game impact, but it's honestly is pretty fun to do.
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Jun 1, 2021 06:42
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The End posted:Just wrapped up a 4 day gaming getaway. Played about 25 games in all. Some highlights/reflections: (4 players) Holy smokes, what a getaway for you. I've had a copy of FS sitting on the shelf forever that I bought on impulse because I heard FFG was losing the license and it'd potentially be another Chaos in the Old World situation. I need to trick my GF into learning it with me so I can inflict it on other groups. She uhh, doesn't care about the theme at all.
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Jun 1, 2021 15:52
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Actually got a couple games played yesterday. Dixit, 6p, including my 6 year old. He did great! Gave a good clue, guessed correctly a few times, didn't come in last, thought the cards were amazing. Pix, 5p, also including the 6yo! He was given leeway to draw new cards if he didn't understand a card, and ask his teammate what something was before drawing, but other than that, he played perfectly well, and even made the best looking anchor out of the group. It's pretty exciting to actually be able to include him in games with other adults.
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Jun 1, 2021 16:29
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I've been able to get in a few sessions now that my friend and I are both fully vaccinated. Undaunted: Normandy is an okay game. I don't like dice heavy games that much and this isn't good enough to be an exception. We've played 6 of the scenarios and about half of them came down to one side (me) rolling extremely badly. That said, when the dice are being reasonable it is fun. We've had a great time playing The Search for Planet X. I think my favorite thing about it is the peer review track, where you put in guesses for what you think is in a sector, but you have to wait several turns before you see if you're right or wrong. It adds a bit of comedy to the game where you see what you guessed 10 minutes ago and know before you even check the app that you were wildly incorrect. Watergate was interesting, but so much of the depth of it lies in knowing what your opponent is capable of that I don't think we got the true experience on our first play through. It felt like Calvinball at times.
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Jun 1, 2021 17:06
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I think Watergate has longevity and depth worthy of playing more. It’s continually impressed me and won over fans I’ve shown it to. I would go as far as to say it’s the best thing I’ve played from capstone games that’s not a Splotter reprint.
Bottom Liner fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Jun 1, 2021 |
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Jun 1, 2021 18:44
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!Klams posted:Anyone know how annoying the Xef (or whatever, the mafia faction) actually are? We've avoided them so far. They're nice to include in the game because they're a great source of black cubes. The thing about the Zeth is that their stealing engines are really inefficient until they get their "emissaries" on you, and even then they're not going to want to devote resources just to punish you for ignoring them. Usually, just a single cube is a good enough tax to keep them off your back if you can't come up with a good trade. pospysyl fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Jun 1, 2021 |
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Jun 1, 2021 19:41
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Bottom Liner posted:I think Watergate has longevity and depth worthy of playing more. It’s continually impressed me and won over fans I’ve shown it to. I would go as far as to say it’s the best thing I’ve played from capstone games that’s not a Splotter reprint. Yea my wife kind of liked it initially and then after the third play it totally clicked and now it’s one of the most fun games we play together. Once you have two people who know the game well, it’s an incredible push and pull
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Jun 1, 2021 19:45
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sportsgenius86 posted:Yea my wife kind of liked it initially and then after the third play it totally clicked and now it’s one of the most fun games we play together. curious if you two prioritize initiative over all else of if that's just a meta we've fallen into? game seems really tightly balanced all things considered.
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Jun 1, 2021 21:40
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