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Interesting article on BSG, Unfathomable, and theme vs setting in board games.
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Feb 17, 2022 22:40
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Any thoughts on Bloc by Bloc? The theme seems very interesting but it's hard to tell how the game really plays from the rules.
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Feb 18, 2022 03:47
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I seek discussion on balance and good play in Unfathomable. We're five plays in, never played BSG. 2 human wins, 3 hybrid wins, at player counts 4, 5, 5, 5, 6. That win rate balance doesn't look bad, I know, but both human wins were in games with training wheels beginner mode on (all hybrid wins were normal rules except that we accidentally gave everyone 5 cards to start) and even then seemed exceptionally narrow down to seating order of players being the clutch difference. The hybrids felt like they just The play group is grumbling that life is much better down where it's wetter. We're considering pro-human house rules. It feels like the game of having the resources needed to pass skill checks and ward off Deep Ones is, while not impossibly difficult, much too difficult to withstand the game of half of the play table being dedicated to opposing success, lurking for a chance to card-spam-torpedo a really brutal crisis and then wreak havoc as is opportune.
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Feb 18, 2022 17:13
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I tend to play Unfathomable with four players, but have only had four games so far. Humans tend to win the beginner game, hybrids win the others. I think in my use case the Cultist player tends to play too much like a hybrid, but generally speaking the game usually results in a close hybrid win, which feels like it'll self-correct. I wonder if my humans aren't using the engine room and "risk resource for result" areas like that enough. I guess a reasonable house-rule might be to raise resources by 1? It's a big buff for the human team, but if they're always losing it sounds like they need one.
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Feb 18, 2022 17:19
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The common feature has been traitors bombing brutal crisis cards. Things are going along and then wham someone tanks a crisis that makes Hydra triple activate or deals 3 ship damage or retards the travel track multiple steps while damaging the ship or something. The damage explosions in particular kick the humans' collective rear end by sick bayin' everyone and depleting their cards. Shortly after you might get a revealed traitor going on a human-shooting spree that sick bays everyone else. The pivots sting. That's another thing, the character powers and traitor reveal powers seem all over in how useful they are to a human or to a traitor. Ishmael reveals at the right time you get a fish rampage. Doctor reveals at whatever time you might lose a soul might not big whoop. SuperKlaus fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Feb 18, 2022 |
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Feb 18, 2022 17:49
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https://www.gamenerdz.com/spirit-island-jagged-earth $37 is a crazy deal. This will go fast.
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Feb 18, 2022 20:14
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Bottom Liner posted:https://www.gamenerdz.com/spirit-island-jagged-earth Wow. Thanks. Wasn’t planning on getting JE for a long time but it’ll probably never be this cheap again.
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Feb 18, 2022 20:38
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Jagged Earth is great and you should be getting it more or less as soon as you've figured out the base game
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Feb 18, 2022 21:35
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Bottom Liner posted:https://www.gamenerdz.com/spirit-island-jagged-earth Thank you for posting this!
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Feb 18, 2022 22:03
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CommonShore posted:Jagged Earth is great and you should be getting it more or less as soon as you've figured out the base game I've been waffling on it only because I suck pretty bad as SI (fun as it is), and the higher complexity spirits of JE are a bit intimidating to me. I do well enough with BoDaN and Oceans Hungry Grasp though, so who knows. I just can't grok the game well enough to play many scenarios or adversaries, and my picayune hot take about SI is that the on-card/on-player board text could use an editor sometimes. edit: Not trying to be a downer, I'm super psyched to buy it. The sheer amount of stuff in it is amazing. Can't wait to try the aspects on the OG spirits.
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Feb 18, 2022 22:27
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Yeah, if you can do ok with bodan and ocean, you should be able to do well with most. I tend to not play with adversaries when playing the physical version, mainly because of the extra rules/admin overhead anyway. So don’t feel like you’re missing out or not playing it right without them. I’ve played a bunch of the je spirits and they’re not really a step up over bodan I think. That said, haven’t tried finder/starlight yet. Anyway, definitely worth 30bux.
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Feb 18, 2022 22:38
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I just wanted to interject here while we're on the topic and say that I just love Spirit Island. However, it might be problematic for my marriage. My wife isn't as good as I am, and it takes every bit of willpower I have not to quarterback the game, which is truly obnoxious when I do it so I try so very hard not to...but the invaders are despoiling our pristine shores and killing the Dahan...please just see that you can stop that build chain with a push, don't make me say it...
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Feb 19, 2022 02:19
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Play at a lower difficult, and/or treat it as an extra difficulty modifier - i.e see if you can deal with your board plus the problems that arise in their board if they don't play optimally. I've found that works pretty well for playing with people at different skill levels.
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Feb 19, 2022 05:51
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Magpie games kickstarters will always be late. To the point where I complained about it and they got mad at me on their discord for several hours for asking “where is the thing I paid for.”
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Feb 20, 2022 09:35
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CommonShore posted:Jagged Earth is great and you should be getting it more or less as soon as you've figured out the base game I thought branch and claw was the one you wanted?
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Feb 20, 2022 09:41
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Jagged earth is more of a complete expansion. Both are good if you like the game though!
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Feb 20, 2022 09:51
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God I fucking love Diablo 3 gold, it even paid for this shitty title
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B&C was designed as part of the base and split by the publisher for a Kickstarter addon. Jagged is the first real expansion and refines and rebalances the game to a better state on top of adding plenty of new content.
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Feb 20, 2022 11:11
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also every spirit in jagged earth fuckin' slaps
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Feb 20, 2022 12:01
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Both spirits in B&C are fun and strong too. Then again, the only spirit I'd call weak is Shadows without any aspect. That being said, Jagged Earth is the best if you have to choose between the two.
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Feb 20, 2022 14:31
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I think splitting B&C off was the right call since the base game box is hardly lacking in content or complexity as-is.
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Feb 20, 2022 14:47
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Eraflure posted:Both spirits in B&C are fun and strong too. Then again, the only spirit I'd call weak is Shadows without any aspect. I don’t know. I have really not enjoyed Sharp Fangs. I find Thunderspeaker is a lot more fun in terms of having a spirit that pushes/pulls pieces on the board.
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Feb 20, 2022 14:52
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Jagged Earth does a better job of introducing the B&C elements than B&C does, IMO. B&C feels too sequestered from the base game, so when we were playing just B&C the tokens felt like more of a chore than anything. JE has more spirits interact with them and more interesting & appealing token powers.
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Feb 20, 2022 15:13
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Thats great to hear. The tokens in B&C definitely felt tacked on in a way that didn’t feel very integrated. I’m excited to get a stronger tutorial through some of the JE spirits.
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Feb 20, 2022 15:28
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Sure don't have anything nice to say about Polymorph Games still Sent them a package with a game I'm returning last month and it has just been straight up sitting in their PO Box all this time.  They've stopped responding to both mine and ibntumart's emails, and just yeah... They're either dead or they just don't give a poo poo. What a lovely company. Avoid.
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Feb 21, 2022 08:06
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There a few bad reviews popping up on google reviews as well, so it seems like there are more people who have been screwed by them. Myself included.
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Feb 21, 2022 08:35
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Jewmanji posted:I don’t know. I have really not enjoyed Sharp Fangs. I find Thunderspeaker is a lot more fun in terms of having a spirit that pushes/pulls pieces on the board. Same plus Many Minds Move as One is a better beast spirit though I've only recently played Fangs enough to get a handle on it.
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Feb 21, 2022 15:30
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Sharp Fangs does get substantially better with JE powers and JR partner spirits. The main thing is that it relies on being super proactive; build prevention + explorer kills + a strong push + fast phase damage is an incredibly good toolkit for shutting down invaders before they get established, the tradeoff being that Fangs is worse than most at dealing with heavily dug in invaders.
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Feb 21, 2022 17:44
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Play Sharp Fangs and Many Minds together and just carpet the island in beasts. Maybe you'll draw the event that generates a fear for each beast that shares a land with an invader. 
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Feb 21, 2022 18:05
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The last time i played Spirit Island, we played with a random events deck and in the second turn, another European power declared war on our lot and wiped off nearly every city, rendering the game pretty trivial after that. I can't recommend that deck. Besides any balance issues, reading, comprehending, then executing a card each turn is a lot of work that just disrupts the flow of the game more than anything.
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Feb 21, 2022 23:30
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They're actually playtesting changing that specific event to make it less swingy, cos it's one of a small handful that has been identified as potentially having too much of an impact on the game. I can definitely see the benefits of not playing with events, but after well over a hundred games I really like the variability that they introduce and on higher adversary levels I rarely if ever find them to make or break the game - even the event you mentioned while it can clear out a few coastal cities also adds blight to the board when doing so, and having one land per board dealt with by an event is unlikely to change things that dramatically if playing against many of the level 6 adversaries. As often as not they are more inclined to change one problem (an overly built-up coast for instance) with another (more blight and presence destruction). I also find that after enough plays you start to get very familiar with the types of effects that events can have, and planning around that becomes part of the game itself. Can't argue with the fact that it does take more time and interrupts the rest of the game flow, but I really enjoy the added tension of the event (and fear cards) potentially messing with your plans. All of that said, I think only introducing events if you reach a stage of finding the game too predictable would be a perfectly good way to go especially now that JE added a way to play without events while still using all the spirits and tokens.
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Feb 21, 2022 23:53
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the holy poopacy posted:Sharp Fangs does get substantially better with JE powers and JR partner spirits. The main thing is that it relies on being super proactive; build prevention + explorer kills + a strong push + fast phase damage is an incredibly good toolkit for shutting down invaders before they get established, the tradeoff being that Fangs is worse than most at dealing with heavily dug in invaders. And gets completely wrecked if you get a lot of early blight on the board, so it seems to be more dependent on how the initial explore cards play out and can have a hard time with adversaries where you want to allow blight (like Habsburg). I really enjoy playing Fangs against certain adversaries though, it has a fun set of mechanics.
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Feb 21, 2022 23:55
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War Touches the Island's Shores is incredibly swingy. A lot of people remove it from the game and it was explicitly kept out of the Steam version'Devs posted:Three event cards from the tabletop version were not included at the request of the game designer: A Strange Madness Among the Beasts, Outpaced, and War Touches the Island's Shores. I wouldn't be surprised if there is future errata to remove it (like Jagged Earth had for A Strange Madness).
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Feb 21, 2022 23:58
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Kerro posted:And gets completely wrecked if you get a lot of early blight on the board, so it seems to be more dependent on how the initial explore cards play out and can have a hard time with adversaries where you want to allow blight (like Habsburg). I really enjoy playing Fangs against certain adversaries though, it has a fun set of mechanics. True. If you see that the initial explore is not going to be favorable, gunning for major powers makes for a pretty effective Plan B; Fangs might not look like a major power spirit but you have excellent burst energy and lots of card gain from growth, and the top track elements let you trigger your main innate without needing to stay strictly on-element.
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Feb 22, 2022 00:41
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All hail the new crowdfunding leader, Gamefound because Kickstarter does not know what the gently caress they are doing https://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/128952/kickstarter-answers-questions-about-its-blockchain
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Feb 22, 2022 00:55
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Mayveena posted:All hail the new crowdfunding leader, Gamefound because Kickstarter does not know what the gently caress they are doing Good. As a consumer I really like gamefound. Better UI, easy to pick upgrades, integrated surveys, great support. I’d buy everything on gamefound over ks if offered the option
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Feb 22, 2022 07:05
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I really struggled with Sharp Fangs and thought it sucked. After reading a lot of advice, two things helped me get over the initial learning hurdle: 1. You want to be hitting the left innate as much as possible. It helps clear lands before they get too big and repositions beasts for your other powers. It gets much easier to consistently hit it if you get the first two top track elements and/or pick up one or two minors with animal/plant. 2. Don’t be afraid to use the special rule to replace your presence with beasts. I thought it was terrible, but once you actually try it you’ll be surprised how much it helps.
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Feb 22, 2022 07:11
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Yeah I usually replace a presence every turn with Fangs unless I have a really compelling reason not to. Left innate is basically essential to do well, but I still really struggle with it against Habsburg 6 cos of needing blight to be able to do anything but then it blocks your left innate, or England 6 where I just can't find a way to put out enough damage for their crazy amount of builds. It's one of only a few spirits that seems to have certain hard counters, but maybe I still just haven't mastered it.
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Feb 22, 2022 10:12
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Once you're in 6+ level adversary territory you're going to really feel it if your spirit isn't an especially strong match up, but especially in a team context all of them are eventually doable. Sometimes Fangs needs to lean in more to its secondary role as a fear spirit, it's easy to lose sight of that when you can chomp down on colonists so easily against most early adversaries. Learning to let go and let the fear deck solve a problem you can't is also something fangs and other fear spirits wind up doing on higher difficulties. It helps a lot that fangs can maneuver beasts into position because of that - it can play the odds and set up a troublesome region for success on decent odds for a good fear card. Impermanent fucked around with this message at 10:48 on Feb 22, 2022 |
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Feb 22, 2022 10:46
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Played a game that I picked up on sale a while ago but never opened, Coal Baron from Kiesling and Kramer. Lads, this was good. Couldn't believe how nicely it played. Solid MWE on the lighter side but with plenty of decision space. Crux of the game is action selection on the main board with the central gimmick being that you can go where anyone else put a worker but you have to pay one more worker for the space than whatever was there previously. So things get progressively more expensive. And then in your personal mine-shaft/board you are adding more tunnels/mine carts with one of four types of coal that you need to send an adorable elevator down and grab, each stage of the process requiring action points that you again grab from a space on the main board. You're doing all this to fulfill contracts and there are three scoring rounds with progressively more and more things being scored based on the majorities like, who has fulfilled the most yellow coal contracts and contracts that require trains and so on. Obviously some more to it but this is the gist. Overall, plays super quickly, lots of fun and tough decisions to make, and you're always left with a "Oh man, if only I had just ONE MORE worker I could do this..." feeling. Really impressed and surprised it's flown below the radar because frankly it does more in a little package than most other Euros do with a fifteen minute set up and hour long rule break down.
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Feb 22, 2022 16:35
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I really adore Nauticus and that feels similar in terms of the feel of K&K fast setup fast euro crunchy decisions no one knows about it.
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Feb 22, 2022 17:23
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