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Had a pretty good afternoon of board games yesterday! Root - played with 3 players, I had played the steam version once or twice so was sort of familiar with the rules but the other two players had never played. We assigned factions randomly so I ended up with the Woodland Alliance and I think I had maybe 10 points when the game ended. The Eyrie ended up trying to play a dominance card (but forgot that the victory condition needs to be met at the beginning of your turn, not the end, woops) so the cat was able to push them out of those clearings and finished their turn with 29 points. Then the Eyrie attacked again but because you get victory points everytime you remove a piece, the Cats got an extra point for defending and I guess that was the end of the game! It was over fast, the Cat just absolutely ran away with the game. But I also recognized a couple mistakes I made, like spreading as much sympathy as I could on my first turn then not having enough supporters for a revolt on my 2nd which meant I didn't get any warriors on the board until my 3rd or 4th turn. We'll play it again for sure but the base game just seems so stacked in the Cats favour. Inis - I really love this game but had only played it at 2p up until now. 3p+ is definitely way more fun. I got a little too caught up in fighting for the capital with one player while the third player just stretched himself out over enough territories that by the time I noticed he had 5 territories and a deed token, it was too late. There were some great moments though where I would have a huge turn planned just to have it foiled by either the Geis card or someone's Epic Tale card. All that countering can be pretty brutal but it also would just make us laugh as I start moving a bunch of troops into the capital just to have the defender play a card that lets him protect all 3 of his clans so I'm forced to withdraw and leave the capital territory entirely in their hands. Anyways, board games are great and fun and hopefully gonna get up next weekend for some more Root and maybe break out Concordia - another pandemic buy that's been sitting unopened on my shelf.
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Aug 9, 2021 15:21
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untzthatshit posted:Inis - I really love this game but had only played it at 2p up until now. 3p+ is definitely way more fun. I got a little too caught up in fighting for the capital with one player while the third player just stretched himself out over enough territories that by the time I noticed he had 5 territories and a deed token, it was too late. There were some great moments though where I would have a huge turn planned just to have it foiled by either the Geis card or someone's Epic Tale card. All that countering can be pretty brutal but it also would just make us laugh as I start moving a bunch of troops into the capital just to have the defender play a card that lets him protect all 3 of his clans so I'm forced to withdraw and leave the capital territory entirely in their hands. I love Inis so much but for some reason it feels almost sacrilegious playing it not in the fall or winter. The game is just so drat COZY I have a hard time getting into it when it's forty degrees and 99% humidity. Just reading your experience makes me want to crack it out again ASAP though. You need to get Concordia on the table. I think if I had to make a list of 10 games I would recommend people grab that they would never get rid of, Concordia would be one of them. I always have a great time and it does so many things so well that it hurts my head. Brilliant game.
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Aug 9, 2021 15:50
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untzthatshit posted:Then the Eyrie attacked again but because you get victory points everytime you remove a piece, the Cats got an extra point for defending and I guess that was the end of the game! I could be wrong, but I think points are only earned when removing tokens not meeples.
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Aug 9, 2021 16:02
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Spikes32 posted:I could be wrong, but I think points are only earned when removing tokens not meeples. That's correct, you don't score points for killing warriors. (It's possible that the Eyrie attacked the Marquis in a clearing with, like, one warrior and a roost, but that's unlikely).
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Aug 9, 2021 16:57
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FulsomFrank posted:I love Inis so much but for some reason it feels almost sacrilegious playing it not in the fall or winter. The game is just so drat COZY I have a hard time getting into it when it's forty degrees and 99% humidity. Just reading your experience makes me want to crack it out again ASAP though. Yeah cozy was exactly it, the art is all so nice, exploring and adding new territories to the map is super fun. Especially once we realized some territories actually have built in effects on them. The 3 of us were all just laughing and having a great time with it. Inis is definitely becoming one of my favourites now too. Phelddagrif posted:That's correct, you don't score points for killing warriors. (It's possible that the Eyrie attacked the Marquis in a clearing with, like, one warrior and a roost, but that's unlikely). D'oh, ok yeah I kinda thought we must have been missing something there cause it did seem odd to me to get victory points on defense like that. It would also partially explain why the cat quickly climbed up the victory point ladder, as they won a number of battles where we were giving them a point for each meeple & building that was destroyed.
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Aug 9, 2021 17:05
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Best way to remember is that you get points for removing cardboard, not wood. Unless you're the Vagabond, but he plays very differently.
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Aug 9, 2021 17:14
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I played Troyes for the first time with >2 people last night and it's a really different game with more rounds and a LOT more fighting over good dice. Still one of my favourites although sadly the general consensus in the group was that it's bit too mean. Maybe I shouldn't have totally hosed my boyfriend's last turn by spite buying the last red die he needed to get a bunch of extra VP.
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Aug 9, 2021 17:36
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Impermanent posted:tragedy looper is a good board game Is there anything similar in the solo space? I love the concept and execution but can rarely get people on board to actually play  ,
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Aug 9, 2021 17:55
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Chaotic Flame posted:Is there anything similar in the solo space? I love the concept and execution but can rarely get people on board to actually play Dangan Ronpa 
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Aug 9, 2021 18:28
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I'm still looking for cool Renaissance/History themed board games. I gave a look at the category on BoardGame Geeks and there's so many I don't know where to start! And I don't wanna unknowingly give money to a chud again. If only I'd waited a day or two more before my impulse purchase...
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Aug 9, 2021 18:45
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That's a pretty broad category, what kind of mechanics are you looking for? Historical stuff will often lean towards war gaming, and Renaissance will lean very pasted on theme Euro game style.
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Aug 9, 2021 18:52
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MonsieurChoc posted:I'm still looking for cool Renaissance/History themed board games. I gave a look at the category on BoardGame Geeks and there's so many I don't know where to start! My recommendations are: Condotierre Navegador Age of Empires 3, aka Empires: Age of Discovery Endeavor: Age of Sail
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Aug 9, 2021 18:55
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Impermanent posted:tragedy looper is a good board game With all the recent talk on this I decided to finally pull the trigger, but looks like it is out of print. Anyone know if there is a reprint coming at some point?
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Aug 9, 2021 19:03
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Another option for strange hidden movement is Stationfall by Matt... uh... Eklund. Ok Eklund the Younger is by all accounts not the bile-drenched problem that his father is. I've met him, he seems like an alright guy. But he doesn't exactly disavow his dad either, and still publishes thru ION Game Design so factor that into your personal moral compass however you gotta. The core conceit of the game is that there are 12-20 shady conspiratorial characters on a corporate space station quickly plummeting out of orbit. You can pay bribes to move any character on the board...but one of those characters is secretly you, and you can reveal at any time to take full control of your character. Possibly after another player has unknowingly put your win condition right in your filthy mitts.
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Aug 9, 2021 19:09
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For all the talk about Stationfall that I've happened across, no one has managed to mention that part. That sounds genuinely neat.
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Aug 9, 2021 19:12
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MonsieurChoc posted:I'm still looking for cool Renaissance/History themed board games. I gave a look at the category on BoardGame Geeks and there's so many I don't know where to start! I literally just mentioned Troyes and it's Medieval rather than Rennaisance but the art is absolutely lovely and makes what would otherwise be a fairly dry Euro game feel more immersive (the cards all being titled in French helps).
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Aug 9, 2021 19:30
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MonsieurChoc posted:I'm still looking for cool Renaissance/History themed board games. History overall as a theme covers probably half of all board games but here are some good ones near the Renaissance period: Field of the Cloth of Gold In the Shadow of the Emperor Lorenzo il Magnifico Princes of Florence Princes of the Renaissance If you want to get REALLY serious about historical simulation you can check out Here I Stand or Virgin Queen.
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Aug 9, 2021 19:31
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Huh. I guess in a very vague general sense Clans/Fae is also mildly hidden movement, in that you ostensibly are moving visible pieces but no one knows who is which color.
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Aug 9, 2021 19:33
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If Clans counts as hidden movement then check out Conspiracy as well.
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Aug 9, 2021 19:46
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Bottom Liner posted:That's a pretty broad category, what kind of mechanics are you looking for? Historical stuff will often lean towards war gaming, and Renaissance will lean very pasted on theme Euro game style. I have broad tastes, haha. But more seriously I'm willing to try a lot of different stuff, but I like co-op games (with or without traitors) and I really liked Pax Pamir and Root and similar games. Triskelli posted:My recommendations are: DogCop posted:History overall as a theme covers probably half of all board games but here are some good ones near the Renaissance period: RabidWeasel posted:I literally just mentioned Troyes and it's Medieval rather than Rennaisance but the art is absolutely lovely and makes what would otherwise be a fairly dry Euro game feel more immersive (the cards all being titled in French helps). Thanks, I'll check those out when I got the time/money! 
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Aug 9, 2021 19:46
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MonsieurChoc posted:I have broad tastes, haha. But more seriously I'm willing to try a lot of different stuff, but I like co-op games (with or without traitors) and I really liked Pax Pamir and Root and similar games. Well you clearly like Cole's designs, so look into John Company (2nd edition KS delivering next year) and An Infamous Traffic. Both are fascinating historical simulation games.
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Aug 9, 2021 19:51
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Bottom Liner posted:Well you clearly like Cole's designs, so look into John Company (2nd edition KS delivering next year) and An Infamous Traffic. Both are fascinating historical simulation games. Very true, but do we get to call the 1700s “The Renaissance”?
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Aug 9, 2021 20:01
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Bottom Liner posted:Well you clearly like Cole's designs, so look into John Company (2nd edition KS delivering next year) and An Infamous Traffic. Both are fascinating historical simulation games. Adding them to the Big List (tm). Triskelli posted:Very true, but do we get to call the 1700s “The Renaissance”? No, but I also accept broadly historic suggestions.
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Aug 9, 2021 20:47
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gutterdaughter posted:Another option for strange hidden movement is Stationfall by Matt... uh... Eklund. Yeah, although the movement is open information, the why of someone moving a given character is often opaque as the game is amazing at creating perverse incentives. In my most recent game, I was playing as the legal robot whose primary goal is to make sure that any character that leaves the station has signed an NDA before doing so. When you have legal robot in the game, most but not all of the escape pods are replaced by pods that require a signed NDA to be able to launch them. So the most obvious approach to achieve my goal would be to move the legal robot around and force people to sign NDAs, but that would give away my character. Another more effective approach then is to use other characters and destroy every escape route that does not require an NDA, so that then the other players activate my legal robot to give themselves NDAs so they can escape, fulfilling my objective in the process. The game is full of really clever ways of working towards your objective in non-obvious fashions and getting others to do your work for you. As noted, it is still published through ION games so I wouldn't blame anyone for wanting to avoid that, but it's pretty clear that Matt at least does not share some of his father's views as Stationfall has better representation of characters than most games I've played including non-binary characters which seems to sadly still be pretty rare.
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Aug 9, 2021 21:23
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Publishers still will not use 'they'. It's pathetic.
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Aug 9, 2021 21:58
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Picked up Feast for Odin for 30 bucks today. Is this what Spider Man feels like every night?
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Aug 10, 2021 01:48
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Dang, congrats on that find 
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Aug 10, 2021 01:50
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gutterdaughter posted:The core conceit of the game is that there are 12-20 shady conspiratorial characters on a corporate space station quickly plummeting out of orbit. You can pay bribes to move any character on the board...but one of those characters is secretly you, and you can reveal at any time to take full control of your character. Possibly after another player has unknowingly put your win condition right in your filthy mitts. Stationfall actually gives you two characters to choose from, one of which is a backup/plan B character you can reveal for a price if revealing your A character becomes unattractive. So you have some extra room to stay in the game if you're sussed or just hopeless prematurely. The game is really fiddly in the sense of having lots of rules about how the station works. But those fiddles are in service of giving characters lots of ways to interact and be clever. I haven't gotten to try it yet but it's on my short list. It's definitely got the appearance of a Wacky Experience game moreso than a Serious Brooding game, like BetrayalOTHOTHH but good.
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Aug 10, 2021 02:28
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The criticism that seems accurate (having not played it) is that all of that chrome gets ignored for the simplest thing to grasp and the game devolves from there with players not engaging with all of those other systems.
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Aug 10, 2021 06:20
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I haven't come across that criticism, but it seems weird to me having played about 10 or so games now in that in order to have any chance of achieving your character's objectives, you have to engage with many of the different systems, and consider different ways to achieve your goals. I can't imagine a game in which players didn't engage with them, as there's very little else to do. What's true is that not every system in the game will be relevant for every character - for example, my character might not care about data at all, whereas someone playing the Stowaway has primary goals that involve downloading and transmitting evidence to the news. To me this is a real strength of the game in two ways - firstly, it means that while the total amount of systems and rules is somewhat overwhelming, in practice you are only really focused on a few of them in any given individual game. Secondly, it creates really satisfying replayability in that different characters are focused on very different systems and therefore play very differently from one game to the next. What feels quite genius to me though is that there are almost always at least a couple if not more ways to achieve some of the more common objectives, and this is where overlap between the different systems creates tension and interesting interactions. In the example above, maybe I don't care about transmitting data, but I do care about getting off the space station and one of the ways to do that is by triggering abandon ship by knocking out the station power. However in doing so, this also turns off the station jammers which makes it easier for the Stowaway character to transmit data across the whole station, inadvertently furthering her objective while pursuing my own. The game is absolutely full of situations like this - many of the systems are sufficiently broad in their impact that doing one thing inevitably causes a series of knock-on effects that helps or hinders other characters. For a game with a lot of up-front rules explanation, it actually plays incredibly smoothly and simply once you get going, and most systems are easy to engage with since there is no complicated resolution. I actually wouldn't call it fiddly at all once you're playing as there are fairly few moving parts (the most complicated turns might see me moving only 3 or 4 components, with most common turns moving 1 or 2), it's just that you've got to digest a lot of rules to actually get going.
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Aug 10, 2021 07:15
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djfooboo posted:Picked up Feast for Odin for 30 bucks today. Is this what Spider Man feels like every night? Was this one of those vaunted thrift shop finds I always see people talk about but never appear near me? Closest I've come is finding a Big Box of Carcassonne in a junk pile on the corner of our street and snatching it up but noting it felt oddly light and is probably missing just enough tiles. I already have everything thats in this box but extra tiles never hurt and I can gift it away... More Pax Pamir at 2. It has become almost a post-work/before dinner game for us. We can set up, play, and take down in under an hour assuming no one has blown someone away via an unchecked dominance win. The games are getting tighter and tighter and the meanness is starting to show. Definitely climbing my list of all time favourites.
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Aug 10, 2021 15:11
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FulsomFrank posted:Was this one of those vaunted thrift shop finds I always see people talk about but never appear near me? Closest I've come is finding a Big Box of Carcassonne in a junk pile on the corner of our street and snatching it up but noting it felt oddly light and is probably missing just enough tiles. I already have everything thats in this box but extra tiles never hurt and I can gift it away... The thrift shop threads on BGG are a delight to read. Most of the contributors spend a huge amount of time and gasoline checking out stores, where they'll might pick up an old family game missing several pieces. And these are the expeditions they think are worth reporting ... Played Master of Orion (the boardgame) last night and enjoyed it. Didn't have high expectations of a media tie-in but it plays like Race For The Galaxy light and is not too bad for that. It perhaps feels like it could use more card variety, so there could be a longevity issue, but there's some extra play codec in with different species and advisors differentiating the sides.
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Aug 10, 2021 16:12
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Does anyone have recommendations for larger, generic playmats? I just got a new table that is the odd size of 42 by 60, 72, or 84 inches depending on the number of leaves in it.
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Aug 10, 2021 19:27
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Maigius posted:Does anyone have recommendations for larger, generic playmats? I just got a new table that is the odd size of 42 by 60, 72, or 84 inches depending on the number of leaves in it. I got mine from Big Viking Mats, they have a custom cut option in three sizes and you can opt not to have the logo, but they’re a bit expensive ($79 for up to 50x40”, $142 for up to 80x50”) and are basically just cut neoprene which you could almost certainly get for cheaper. I have a 38x50” one and it will work for most 4p games. Another solid option is the BoardGameTables.com playmat, which also comes in two sizes, the larger of which is 42x66” for $69. This one has stitched edges and a non-optional (but non-embarrassing) logo.
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Aug 10, 2021 21:24
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So I just played Bullet<3 for the first time last weekend and man, I really like that game! I think I'm pretty much always a fan of people trying to translate puzzle games to board game mechanics, and the combination of fast-paced tetris with variable player powers makes for just a really fun time. And the depth of the characters is pretty remarkable too; everyone has their own unique ability, a unique set of actions to manipulate the board, and a unique deck of pattern cards that alter how exactly they can remove bullets and send them to opponents. It really feels like there's a lot of depth to playing the game, and every character needs to be approached differently to succeed. Probably the worst thing I can say about it is that it is largely solitare, but even then I feel like it's important to take into account your opponent's character. For example, when you're facing the telekinetic ghost, she's got the easiest time sending bullets from the outermost columns, so you can probably expect more of those pieces coming at you. And, for that matter, you might want to try sending more middle columns at her, because she's gonna have a harder time removing them. Overall it's just real fun, pretty easy to teach, and the rounds are pretty short too. Just a great quick game you can pull out anytime.
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Aug 10, 2021 21:49
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Arzaac posted:So I just played Bullet<3 for the first time last weekend and man, I really like that game! I think I'm pretty much always a fan of people trying to translate puzzle games to board game mechanics, and the combination of fast-paced tetris with variable player powers makes for just a really fun time. And the depth of the characters is pretty remarkable too; everyone has their own unique ability, a unique set of actions to manipulate the board, and a unique deck of pattern cards that alter how exactly they can remove bullets and send them to opponents. It really feels like there's a lot of depth to playing the game, and every character needs to be approached differently to succeed. A favorite of ours as well.
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Aug 11, 2021 00:54
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nonathlon posted:The thrift shop threads on BGG are a delight to read. Most of the contributors spend a huge amount of time and gasoline checking out stores, where they'll might pick up an old family game missing several pieces. And these are the expeditions they think are worth reporting ... It's a solid game. Currently being sold for £15 at The Works, if you're UKian.
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Aug 11, 2021 01:01
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It's always worth keeping an eye on the works website as sometimes they can put some bonkers bargains on there. I got Lords of Xidit, Steam Time and Seasons for a combined total of £21. They were selling them for £10 each and gave a 30% discount if you bought 3 games.
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Aug 11, 2021 01:17
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I love Race for the Galaxy, so that MoO game sounds good.
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Aug 11, 2021 02:07
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FulsomFrank posted:Was this one of those vaunted thrift shop finds I always see people talk about but never appear near me? FB Marketplace. Never underestimate people’s hate of shipping games.
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Aug 11, 2021 03:58
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