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HampHamp posted:Thanks for all the Too Many Bones replies! We just decided to jump in and deal with things as they come up, it does seem to be a fun game. And yeah after getting over the initial hump it's not too difficult to play apart from edge case interactions, and there are a lot of FAQs available. There’s a kickstarter up now for a second printing.
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Feb 11, 2022 17:11
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Infinitum posted:There's blinging out your game, and then there's this: I've definitely considered replacing the units with bolt action or other 3d duders, this is definitely next level.
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Feb 11, 2022 19:42
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Ra getting that O'Toole treatment
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Feb 11, 2022 20:07
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Am I missing something in Pax Pamir 2E? I’ve lost 3/3 now in a two player game (no Wakhan). In both cases my opponent was threatening victory on the first dominance card, so I switched to the dominant coalition so I could at least profit a little off the dominance card. The trouble is, there’s absolutely no room for error after that. Losing even one more unsuccessful dominance check ends the game. Losing even two unsuccessful checks in a row loses the game. What am I missing here? It seems like losing the first dominance (whether successful or not) shouldn’t put you in such a deep hole. Do I just suck at this game? I also find that the tabula rasa that occurs after a dominance check still favors the victor since the winner will usually have the bigger court, and so they get to hit the next phase of the game running, whereas second place is just lagging behind with a smaller action economy.
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Feb 11, 2022 20:16
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It's hard to diagnose what (if anything) you're doing wrong, but that's certainly not been my experience of the game. One immediate rule you might have missed is the final scoring being doubled, which is a strat stolen from cheap gameshows to keep things competitive till the end. I don't necessarily see that an empires favourite will have a larger court - there aren't that many Patriot cards. I guess if you're throwing away a lot of losing patriots when switching sides, that might cause it. But why would you invest so heavily in patriots if you're uncontested? And if your court is composed entirely of patriots, the smart move might be to let that scoring round pass (if you can't claw it back to the non-dominance scoring) and win the next ones. e: it's very possible for PPam to be not for you, but I've not heard the complaint that the players can get an unshakeable lead. If anything, it's the reverse. Mr. Squishy fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Feb 11, 2022 |
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Feb 11, 2022 20:28
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Claim your free Bingo slot. https://twitter.com/Superdillin/status/1492167439534202892
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Feb 11, 2022 20:43
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:Also its coop so just make up a sensible ruling on the spot and go for it imho. This alone has enhanced my coop gaming experience so much. Much easier to wing it on a rule rather than mill about rule books for 5 minutes trying to find one sentence that may or may not resolve the question.
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Feb 11, 2022 20:46
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Jewmanji posted:Am I missing something in Pax Pamir 2E? I’ve lost 3/3 now in a two player game (no Wakhan). In both cases my opponent was threatening victory on the first dominance card, so I switched to the dominant coalition so I could at least profit a little off the dominance card. The trouble is, there’s absolutely no room for error after that. Losing even one more unsuccessful dominance check ends the game. Losing even two unsuccessful checks in a row loses the game. What am I missing here? It seems like losing the first dominance (whether successful or not) shouldn’t put you in such a deep hole. Do I just suck at this game? The game is designed in 2p that if one person is able to hold total dominance then yes, they are in an incredibly strong position pointwise. 2p is almost a totally different game then 3p. The more normal scoring will have a first place/second place split of points either due to unsuccessful dominance or a last minute loyalty swap. Either way, when you split points it takes several rounds to secure a win, swap the playing field so that you win where they couldn't compete. In 2p that pace is just faster . I also don't see how someone winning means they automatically will have a bigger/better court, that comes down to what suits you are playing. If they are placing a lot of blocks for dominance, they are playing military or econ cards, which don't grow your court. If they're econ, your military can destroy the roads. If they're heavily military, then play the political game, gain ownership of regions to tax them directly or assassinate out of the blue suit. I feel like a lot of the success in pax Pamir is deciding what game to play based off both what you and your opponent have available If you can't beat them head to head with military, each other suit offers strong paths to victory; tax them out of the zero sum economy, assassinate their cards, etc. Flexibility is key. Edit: I do think in a very extreme head to head game where you only score a few times, winning two rounds in a row is a pretty strong show of dominance and it makes sense to end it there, so I think the point system is doing its job. Most games I've played 2 or 3p all balanced on the knifes edge. The runaway games usually occurred when someone got some fatal momentum that the other players didn't pivot to in time, especially good economic control of the market row. I and another player had invested heavily in military to win dominance, and my wife just sat on the sidelines and taxed away until we had no money and she just bought Afghanistan, it was amazing. threelemmings fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Feb 11, 2022 |
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Feb 11, 2022 20:52
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So I posted earlier about ordering Radlands from Roxley games direct; I made a mistake and thought they were delaying a game i ordered which was said on their website to be available. I sent a small feedback email before realising my mistake (nothing scathing, just explaining what i thought had happened), and then a followup email to correct myself a little later. Within 4 hours or so they had responded, offering me an alternative (all game components but not the big box), cobbled together from available components in the UK. Even though it was my fuckup, they thanked me for the feedback as it may help them make things more readable on the website. Just thought it would be nice to acknowledge good customer service! Hopefully I'm not gonna get milkshake ducked.
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Feb 11, 2022 21:19
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Jewmanji posted:Am I missing something in Pax Pamir 2E? I’ve lost 3/3 now in a two player game (no Wakhan). In both cases my opponent was threatening victory on the first dominance card, so I switched to the dominant coalition so I could at least profit a little off the dominance card. The trouble is, there’s absolutely no room for error after that. Losing even one more unsuccessful dominance check ends the game. Losing even two unsuccessful checks in a row loses the game. What am I missing here? It seems like losing the first dominance (whether successful or not) shouldn’t put you in such a deep hole. Do I just suck at this game? Just a rule check too, but are you clearing the blocks off the map after each dominance check? Are you leaving too much money for your opponent to grab off cards? Are you playing with the favoured suit properly (ie. switching suits at best time, grabbing relevant cards etc.) to maximise bonus actions off your tableau? Are you locking down regions and forcing the classic "gently caress you, pay me" bribes? Are you misreading the market-row and letting your opponent grab patriots and cards that let them throw down corresponding blocks to achieve dominance without contest? Pax Pamir is such a wild game that there's a million things that could be going on at one time. Everything is extremely fragile too for EVERYONE so it's about knocking their poo poo down and keeping yours up for just long enough to count. Lovely game but also frustrating to play with new people at higher counts because misplays are costly especially if like the last game I played, someone is just feeding the player after them with money and good cards. Impossible to climb back from.
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Feb 11, 2022 21:38
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Oh poo poo. I love Knizia and Ian O'Toole so this might be my jam. Do I have room for Modern Art, High Society AND Ra? Only time will tell!
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Feb 11, 2022 23:24
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We played our first month of Pandemic Legacy s1 and it was great fun, we'll definitely keep going. I wanna ask a component question though. Gonna spoil it since it's a Legacy game, but it's definitely not a spoiler: Are there a lot of scratch cards? Is there a good method to reveal them easily? We kinda ruined the first one to the point that it was unreadable, though luckily it was easy enough to look up what it does. We'll be more careful next time, but we can't seem to find a method that works right. It's strange, component quality seems really high otherwise.
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Feb 12, 2022 02:26
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Elman posted:We played our first month of Pandemic Legacy s1 and it was great fun, we'll definitely keep going. I wanna ask a component question though. Gonna spoil it since it's a Legacy game, but it's definitely not a spoiler: Sorry, but they're crappy in my experience. At least Pandemic S2's scratch cards are better!
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Feb 12, 2022 02:39
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gschmidl posted:Claim your free Bingo slot. It's gone. What was it?
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Feb 12, 2022 02:56
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Jedit posted:It's gone. What was it? WOTC MTG NFTs
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Feb 12, 2022 03:01
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Elman posted:We played our first month of Pandemic Legacy s1 and it was great fun, we'll definitely keep going. I wanna ask a component question though. Gonna spoil it since it's a Legacy game, but it's definitely not a spoiler: Use a sharp knife for all of that.
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Feb 12, 2022 05:30
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canyoneer posted:WOTC MTG NFTs Well, at least my dates are accurate.
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Feb 12, 2022 09:37
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CommonShore posted:Use a sharp knife for all of that. We'll give that a shot. We've also seen people recommending screwdrivers, erasers and everything in between (  ).Are there a lot of them though? If it's only mission rewards or at least disposable stuff it shouldn't be too inconvenient, but I'm worried there might be an important component that happens to be one of these.
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Feb 12, 2022 11:26
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Elman posted:We'll give that a shot. We've also seen people recommending screwdrivers, erasers and everything in between ( (Pandemic Legacy Season 1 very minor component / mechanical spoiler) To my recollection, the scratch cards themselves are not important or reused, and instead relate to other components when they have to. You won't have to, say, shuffle that card into a deck or something. However, it has been a while since I played so it is possible I have forgotten. This reminds me that I should add a spoiler warning to the OP. Board games have narratives which can be spoiled nowadays, but it's still kinda new so sometimes gamers forget.
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Feb 12, 2022 11:40
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OrthoTrot posted:I once played a game of Railroad Tycoon with a housemate of mine and a mutual gaming friend we used to play with relatively frequently. Our friend was quite a backstabby kind of player who would sometimes do zero sum style spiking moves that didn't directly benefit him but screwed the opposition. Sure enough he blocked some long railroad building action my housemate was trying to complete. There's nothing wrong with being aggressive in a train game. But if players are being random agents of chaos, or going all out against targets based on external motives, then playing the game feels a bit pointless. Ultimately it's up to the members of the group to agree upon and accept the social contract.
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Feb 12, 2022 15:46
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I am seriously becoming a Capstone fanboy. What is the guess on the next Iron Rails?CAPSTONE GAMES NEWSLETTER interesting bits I picked out posted:New Products on the Horizon
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Feb 12, 2022 19:09
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SAR maybe? That may be wishful thinking rather than actual theory though.
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Feb 12, 2022 19:18
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Got root+underground expac for my birthday, got my first game (base 4 races+map) next weekend, I'm very excited 
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Feb 12, 2022 20:00
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Brian Boru is a wonderful trick-taking area control game. Only played it with 3 players but everyone had a hoot. The King is Dead was also pretty good, but didn't have the same wow-effect after few games, I might sell it forward because my shelf space is limited and I'd much rather play Brian Boru when I have friends over. Peer Sylvester makes some pretty sly games, I gotta say! High Tension Wire fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Feb 12, 2022 |
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Feb 12, 2022 20:15
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High Tension Wire posted:Brian Boru is a wonderful trick-taking area control game. Only played it with 3 players but everyone had a hoot. If you haven't, I recommend playing The King is Dead in teams, I think it's one of his best games played like that.
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Feb 12, 2022 22:15
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Thank you for all of the replies!Admiralty Flag posted:Another game that comes to mind that might be relevant is (IIRC title) Brittania, an Avalon Hill bookcase game IIRC. 3-5 players control various cultures in Britain, and these cultures go through ebbs and flows. E.g., one of the initial cultures is the late Romans and they automatically die out by turn 3 or 4, but the player who had the late Romans takes over a new culture and continues, having earned VPs/accomplishments based on how the late Romans did under their control. Sorry, it's been like 25 years since I've looked at the game and never actually played it, but it might have ideas. About the last thought - yeah I've been debating having the effects be worse depending on some factors, like how many techs you have, how big your cities are, or how many cities you have. Could try to have it be something that affects the leaders more (scaling effects or something) and then the players that are behind would be able to cosplay being the "sea peoples" or the cultures that had been under the thumb of the powerful that are no longer oppressed/suppressed. Llyranor posted:I like extinction events in Evolution: Climate. The players can nudge the climate into too hot (hurts bigger species more, food abundance) or more cold (hurts smaller species more) until you hit the extremes which leads to mass starvation and extinction, and only species with specific traits will survive both the climate (fur, or living underground, etc) and the lack of food sources (carnivore, scavenger, fat reserves, etc). The majority of species get basically wiped out from the board. But because it's an extreme that the majority of players will have to want to nudge towards, it also gives you time to prepare and mitigate. taser rates posted:This is a central mechanic in the 18xx genre pretty much. There are pre-defined moments at which old trains will "rust" (ie disappear) from the game, somewhat modelling the obsolescence of technology, and learning how to navigate that is one of main questions in each game. I've also seen this implemented through increasing maintenance costs as opposed to outright removal, but the same principle is there. Worth taking a look at 18xx-adjacent game Rolling Stock as well for this. homullus posted:Depending on how "big" the event is in your imagination, this is anywhere from very rare to extremely common. And if you're modeling the Bronze Age Collapse, you should probably start by deciding what people are even doing before, during, and after it. Is your game about political states? Family dynasties? International trade? Cultures? It makes a difference, because while the Usual Measures of Mankind's Progress took a big hit, people were generally still farming, weaving, et cetera. The region lost kings making stone monuments to themselves and big cities centralizing trade, but people kept talking, singing, and thinking. At the very least, you could force players to pivot from the Usual Measures of Mankind's Progress to other kinds of development.  In any case, you make a really good point about the fact that people were still going about their lives and the top strata that were affected the most. Tresham civ has you start the game with 1 pop token on a map of the ancient world (Fertile Crescent, Egypt, Anatolia, Balkans, Tunisia, Italy). Every turn your pops on the board double and you can move them around to claim more land so you can continue to double (each region has a pop limit). You bring a bunch of pops together in one region to build a city, which produce trade goods. With the trade goods, you take a breather from playing god-emperor of your faction to be a wall street trader, striking deals with players to trade away some of your trade goods to acquire others so you can build sets. You trade in the sets for a certain amount of value points that you then spend to buy tech. The techs help you survive Calamities, build cities better/cheaper, and other "play the other parts of the game better" kinds of things. I'm essentially making a spiritual successor built on the back of the quadratic pop growth model because I like it and I love Tresham civ but the map causes me physical pain and there are some other quirks I think could be worked out. Also it takes too long to play and I'd love to find a way to make a game that embodies the feel of Tresham civ without needing 5+ hours (it can probably go faster but it depends on how you want to do the trading and calamity resolution, and also the people you play with).
AAAAA! Real Muenster fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Feb 12, 2022 |
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Feb 12, 2022 22:32
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Somewhat unrelated, but the colelctors edition of the remake of classic snes jrpg Live A Live apparently comes with a board game. https://www.siliconera.com/live-a-live-collectors-edition-includes-a-full-board-game/ I want it.
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Feb 12, 2022 22:41
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taser rates posted:If you haven't, I recommend playing The King is Dead in teams, I think it's one of his best games played like that. Would you recommend playing with just the basic cards or with the cunning plans in teams? Have to try that, I guess. 
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Feb 12, 2022 22:48
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I have the "Gibson Cover" version of Britannia, purchased in England some time around 1990. I recall it being interesting from a historical perspective, but not especially well designed. The last time I broke it out was in the late 90s and one playthrough was enough for everyone involved. However, there are newer editions with revised rules, so it may be considerably better now. Reviews seem generally positive. So my point I guess is that if you buy it used, buy one of the 2nd edition or newer versions, not the old 1986 version.
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Feb 12, 2022 23:00
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A friend brought Parks and Project L to the table today. I found Parks to be a really cozy game with at least a little bit of interaction. The variable game board and the mechanic for moving pieces gives you quite a lot of options. It did feel a bit long for its weight maybe. Project L is a really nice lite-engine builder. Even simpler than Parks but it was a lot of fun placing your little Tetris pieces and you still had to think hard about your last move. We played without any expansions, seems like they add some depth. They did remind how much I prefer more complex games and higher interaction, though. There's just not the same engagement when you're fiddling with your own board for half an hour.
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Feb 13, 2022 00:18
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This is not a huge name in the industry, but board game designer and publisher (under the brand Cwali) Corné van Moorsel, creator of the Factory Fun games and co-designer on Nova Luna, has been spouting off some Covid-19 conspiracies. This seemingly hasn't really found mindshare as far as I can tell. I found out from the Discord, based on this very recent tweet from the rando who collected the receipts seemingly of their own volition, having known the issue before. I bring it up for the same reason as everything else: to let you make the most informed purchasing decisions possible. I don't really have anything to add except that you, the person reading this, should probably get the vaccine or a booster if you can and have not already. I don't know if this person is notable enough to warrant inclusion in the OP, but I doubt I will have the time to write up anything soon anyway. Magnetic North fucked around with this message at 09:00 on Feb 13, 2022 |
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Feb 13, 2022 00:38
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Magnetic North posted:This is not a huge name in the industry, but board game designer and publisher (under the brand Cwali) That's a shame since Habitats (which is what Uwe based Nova Luna on) is a real cool game. But yeah, Cwali is really small publisher and their games are not really widespread even in Europe. They sold the publishing rights for Habitats and other games to another company that just last year run a kickstarter for a new version of some of their games (Factory Funner maybe?). They are supposed to do a new version of Habitats soon on KS. It's a shame since I am/was really interested in that.
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Feb 13, 2022 01:59
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I had one single interaction with this guy at Spiel when Powerboats was released and he was such an unpleasant, conceited piece of poo poo that I did not buy from him ever again. I can't say I'm surprised. Truly a shame he couldn't hock his overpriced garbage ceramic minis at Spiel last year. e: spoke to a friend who worked with him and he concurs. gschmidl fucked around with this message at 16:39 on Feb 13, 2022 |
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Feb 13, 2022 07:31
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My copy of Factory Funner should be arriving on Monday. I look forward to a masked up, outdoor gaming experience, wherein I tell my friends not to bother checking out his other stuff.
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Feb 13, 2022 08:46
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High Tension Wire posted:That's a shame since Habitats (which is what Uwe based Nova Luna on) is a real cool game. But yeah, Cwali is really small publisher and their games are not really widespread even in Europe. They sold the publishing rights for Habitats and other games to another company that just last year run a kickstarter for a new version of some of their games (Factory Funner maybe?). They are supposed to do a new version of Habitats soon on KS. It's a shame since I am/was really interested in that. Oops, I missed that it was a co-design, made a quick edit. That sucks for Uwe and BoardGameTables to accidentally get into a working relationship with this type of person, but I guess it happens.
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Feb 13, 2022 09:02
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HampHamp posted:So I posted earlier about ordering Radlands from Roxley games direct; I made a mistake and thought they were delaying a game i ordered which was said on their website to be available. I sent a small feedback email before realising my mistake (nothing scathing, just explaining what i thought had happened), and then a followup email to correct myself a little later. On a similar note, I ordered an expansion pack for Bottom of the 9th from Greater Than Games that their website said was still in stock. Two days later they emailed me saying they were sorry but they couldn’t find the pack, so they would be refunding me the money and sending me something at no charge for my troubles. Within 24 hours I was refunded and got a shipping notice on the package. Package arrives and it was a promo pack and the giant neoprene mat for the game! About a month later, I get another package from them and it was the pack I originally ordered with a note that said they found it when they were cleaning up the warehouse. So GTG are some top notch folks.
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Feb 13, 2022 16:37
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If only they could find that drat great heartland hauling promo I have wanted forever 
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Feb 13, 2022 20:30
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High Tension Wire posted:Would you recommend playing with just the basic cards or with the cunning plans in teams? Have to try that, I guess. Never played with them, didn't seem necessary.
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Feb 13, 2022 21:37
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Bottom Liner posted:If anyone was still tempted by Puzzle Strike 2 it got a pretty thorough thrashing by SVWAG. Tons of downtime, overly fiddly, can't plan your turns ahead of time because of the influx of gems at the start of each turn, etc. I have been quite a Sirlin booster in the past. I once tried to get a thread going for his games. I own Yomi and Puzzle Strike, both fully expanded, and remain very happy with them; I backed both on KS without hesitation because the games were known quantities, with not just the rules available but online implementations that ensured I knew exactly what I was buying. Puzzle Strike 2 has also been available to try online, at Tabletopia. I shied away from backing Puzzle Strike 2. I will credit it for feeling even closer to Puzzle Fighter than the original now that you have different types of gems you must shift around to form blocks for increased power. I thought it was interesting that the market row determined how gems sent to your opponent pour down, and changing traditional prices to buy deep in the row into taking additional pressure onto yourself is a neat seed of an idea too. But the end product is basically what SVWAG says, far as I can tell from a handful of games. You get benefit from being under pressure, which in Puzzle Strike 1 was and is one of its excellent points, but here means the "cost" of buying deep in a market row isn't much of a "cost" and then you're just looking at unmitigated market row nonsense. It doesn't help that far as I can tell the cards tend to be pretty much universally useful, so it's not like you / your opponent won't be incentivized to snap up a good thing the moment it shows. Without a traditional "money" sort of system the classic rush / defense / econ strategy triangle does not seem to exist. Yeah you might make your market row buy to adjust the way gems will pour down, rather than buy the hottest card available, but then the market row goes and flips something random on the end anyway. So the gems coming in are drat near random and you can't prepare a game plan the way you can in Puzzle Strike 1. The game takes off like a rocket and before turn 3 you're probably taking turns with your opponent watching each other bullshit out of 20-30 sent gems. It feels extremely swingy to me in a way Puzzle Strike 1 never is; sure in 1 I've seen many an endgame where we alternate comboing out of 10+ gem attacks, but those end games come after a lot of wind-up and deck construction and you feel like you've made a plan for this. I quickly felt like I was just riding the nonsense wave. This post comes too late to make a difference for anyone about the PS2KS but there it is. I will be playing it more but I'm not warm on it right now.
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Feb 13, 2022 23:25
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Five player learning game of scythe was a bad idea…
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Feb 14, 2022 00:16
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