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potatocubed posted:What would you lot say is the most accessible 18XX game? 89 is very straightforward and shorter than the bigger games while still being the full experience. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joshuastarr/shikoku-1889 you can get a late pledge from this great and very affordable production soon
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Mar 12, 2022 22:48
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Just got home from a birthday that ended in five player Junta. It's a very old game, and both mechanics and components heavily reflect this. It's unbalanced and clumsy all the way. But it doesn't matter, because the meat of the game is just light-hearted backstabbing and more or less obvious self enrichment. And with the theme (putting foreign aid into a Swiss bank account), it just works, if your group engages with it like this one did.
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Mar 13, 2022 00:30
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potatocubed posted:What would you lot say is the most accessible 18XX game? Depends how you define accessibility I guess. 1830 is the most broadly available but it's a bit longer than some of the other stuff I will recommend. It does have some big advantages: A) it's maybe the best 18xx ever made (this is arguable obviously but it's in the conversation for sure) B) it's one of the first and cleanest designed ones, so a lot of 18xx games start with 'well it's 1830, but you can also' C) because it was the most commonly available one for some time there are print and play 18xx games (e.g. 1836JR) that are based on having the 1830 tiles, station markers etc and you print out a new map. If accessibility is defined as 'best one for a new 18xx gamer to start with' I'd honestly consider 1830 still, but 1889 (set in Japan and referenced previously) would be my pick. Other alternatives here are 18Chesapeake and 1882 if you happened to see a copy kicking around. Most of the games deaigned as a good introduction for new gamers to 18xx are rubbush: Posideon is one of the worst games I have ever played. I do like 18MS quite a bit but I wouldn't start there, not is it for everyone. The other 18xx that has had a huge print run over the years is 1846 published by GMT. I would not recommend it, but lots of people like it. Cthulhu Dreams fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Mar 13, 2022 |
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Mar 13, 2022 03:50
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I started with 1846 and I turned out ok
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Mar 13, 2022 03:59
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IDK why 46 is considered a good intro other than being the only one that was readily available for so long.
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Mar 13, 2022 04:03
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Bottom Liner posted:IDK why 46 is considered a good intro other than being the only one that was readily available for so long. The draft for sure helps over a waterfall auction imho. I just don't like 1846 very much but lots of people do.
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Mar 13, 2022 04:14
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If I was learning from scratch it would be 1830 or 89. Problem is 1830 is way to long for an intro game, but it does feels pure. If you can convince your group to survive one or two games of 30 it'll all click into place. Novelty option is MS, fixed ORs so it doesn't drag. Or hit up the train channel in the Discord for a game of 1889 on 18xx.games
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Mar 13, 2022 04:30
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Yeah if I had a copy of 1889 and 1830 in front of me and you asked me to teach a new player I'd start with 1889. But the fact that you can find a real physical copy of 1830 fairly regularly has to give it a platform in this discussion. Conversely if you are haoky to wait, 1889 is maybe my personal favourite 18xx long term and a good introduction game.
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Mar 13, 2022 04:40
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Bottom Liner posted:IDK why 46 is considered a good intro other than being the only one that was readily available for so long. This. ‘46 has issues as a beginner game. My favorite beginner 18xx game is 18Chesapeake. All the flavor of ‘30 without the wonky values.
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Mar 13, 2022 04:58
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Infinitum posted:Nemesis Nemesis has turned into one of my group's favorite games, right up there with Spirit Island; we loving love us a good theme. It's the perfect player count for our usual gathering, but we don't often try to take the evil rear end in a top hat route so it's mostly stayed a co-op game. I'd love to try it where becomes a bit more PvP but even without agreeing ahead of time, my friends always decided to band together for the good of the ship. Which means one of these days I'm venting the soldier to space alongside the alien queen so I can chalk it up as 'acceptable losses.' We've looked at the expansions but Jesus they're expensive, and they don't seem to actually add much of what we liked about the game to the game. Unfathomable, though, kinda looks like smaller scale C'thulu Nemesis and I'm looking forward to buying it and trying it out. quote:Quacks of Quidellenberg So the guy in our group who owns Nemesis used to own Quacks, and he absolutely and utterly HATES any kind of luck based game, because he feels he has really bad luck. Yet he keeps buying or accepting gifts that are press your luck games, and he will bring them to the table and he will bitch the entire time and for awhile afterwards about how his luck is bad and he shouldn't play those kinds of games, yadda yadda. But he's also the sort to absolutely refuse to turn down a game, especially if it might be someone's first time playing it, and he is insanely reluctant to sell or give up any of his games unless he absolutely hates them to their very core, but it takes a LOT to get him to that point. After probably five or six times of him bitching about the game and refusing to part with it, I decided, you know what? gently caress this, gently caress listening to his whining. I am going to absolutely destroy in a game by cheating like a motherfucker and ruin any love he may have left for the game. I used to do a lot of close up magic because for whatever reason I thought it was super loving cool as a teenager, so I palmed just enough white tokens to make sure I never ever busted, and would always slip them back in before he decided to check my bag or call me out on cheating. I never got caught and the game went fast, and he was so, so sick of it by the end that he immediately gave it away and has not mentioned it since. That's my Quacks story, thank you for coming to my TED talk.
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Mar 13, 2022 07:47
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John Dyne posted:Nemesis has turned into one of my group's favorite games I have a lot of questions
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Mar 13, 2022 08:05
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Bottom Liner posted:I have a lot of questions In this case, 'luck based games' are things involving dice heavy mechanics, pressing your luck on a draw that can end in a bust, or anything where 'bad luck' basically puts you at the back of the pack. So he hates games like Abomination: Heir of Frankenstein because he can spend multiple turns building his monster and lose entire pieces to a bad dice roll, but Nemesis has enough buffer through planning with others and retaining cards that he doesn't consider it 'luck based.' 
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Mar 13, 2022 09:03
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Bottom Liner posted:I have a lot of questions Are two of them "Cigarette? Blindfold?"
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Mar 13, 2022 10:01
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BinaryDoubts posted:Quacks has one of the easiest DIY "deluxe" upgrades - 21mm coin capsules fit the ingredient chips perfectly and makes it way more satisfying to pull them from the bag. Definitely worth a look if you plan on playing a lot (it also helps stop chips getting stuck in the bottom corners of the bag). Yeah chips getting stuck in the corner was something I noticed a few times with the bag. I will look into this. PRADA SLUT posted:Or the baller Bakelite tokens My players pretty much looked up a bunch of Quacks chip holders almost instantly after the game, and commented how good it would be with Azul quality tiles in the bag. I had seen the Geekup Bit Set for Quacks a while ago. Honestly not sure how often I'm gonna get this to the table, but considering I won it for free I may look into grabbing this John Dyne posted:Unfathomable, though, kinda looks like smaller scale C'thulu Nemesis and I'm looking forward to buying it and trying it out. I own both, and they are both excellent. Would happily play either at a drop of the hat. In Unfathomable you know at least one person at the table is working against the crews best interest, and combat + events are much more 'forced' coop focused (so you need to be subtle if you're going to mess around) In Nemesis it's a lot harder to discern who to trust as everybody is working on their own individual interests rather than the groups as a whole; and maybe those interests will align... and maybe you just really need to make sure Player 3 is stuck in that room for a bit Unfathomable at 6 players is a blast, but 5 is probably the sweet spot. quote:So the guy in our group who owns Nemesis used to own Quacks, and he absolutely and utterly HATES any kind of luck based game, because he feels he has really bad luck. I'm known for being extremely lucky and my potion bubbled over on all but the final round - Which I was fine with because it was a learning game. During Chinatown I declared I made a deal on the cheap for a property I needed on the provision that if I didn't draw a 20 or 22 on the next round that player got choice of one of my properties I pulled the 20 out 
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Mar 13, 2022 11:37
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Bottom Liner posted:IDK why 46 is considered a good intro other than being the only one that was readily available for so long. It was considered a good intro while it was unavailable too - people even contemplated having Tom Lehmann release the rights ($5k to public domain it IIRC). As mentioned draft >>> auction, additionally it's on the shorter side, has more intuitive rules, and is just more fun (tm). Here's a 2011 post from Eric Brosius on this topic - who had only played it 39 times at that point (I'd expect he's over 300 now). Also, nostalgia for the year-long backlog at DTG actually being true.
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Mar 13, 2022 11:55
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I’ve never played an 18xx but a kickstarted copy of 1860 is theoretically going to land at my house in the future. no idea if that’s a terrible first one to play or not!
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Mar 13, 2022 14:24
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Jedit posted:Are two of them "Cigarette? Blindfold?"
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Mar 13, 2022 14:26
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John Dyne posted:In this case, 'luck based games' are things involving dice heavy mechanics, pressing your luck on a draw that can end in a bust, or anything where 'bad luck' basically puts you at the back of the pack. Abomination's dice system sucks rear end. You have an otherwise lowish-variance worker placement that you then throw random-rear end dice rolls to the end. Like, imagine Agricola, except when you went to build your house, you rolled a D6 to see if the room actually collapses instead and you have to re-collect your resources and try again. Infinitum posted:Yeah chips getting stuck in the corner was something I noticed a few times with the bag. I will look into this. The Geekup sets are nice, I have them and the fancy bags with the player colors that have a round bottom so you don't get chip edge cramming.
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Mar 13, 2022 16:50
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rchandra posted:It was considered a good intro while it was unavailable too - people even contemplated having Tom Lehmann release the rights ($5k to public domain it IIRC). I think 18Chesapeake is a better on-ramp to The 18XX Hobby, because it simplifies 1830 in ways that soften the edges without fundamentally changing the system. But 18Ches wasn't around in 2011 and the pre-1846 commonly-cited intros were mini-games like 18AL. 1846 was novel as an 18XX game that was comprehensible and playable to newbies without being very boring after a couple plays. 1846 is still fun but no longer the obvious entryway into the hobby due to its various divergences (partial cap, 1D stocks etc). 1846 is still well worth getting if it's the most appealing version to you in form or function, but not specifically as an intro game. If you want a First 18XX get 18Chesapeake. If you want one 18XX game forever then get whatever game's mechanics/gimmicks appeals to your tastes, whether it's 18Ches, 1846, 1862, 1849, 18CZ, etc.
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Mar 13, 2022 17:35
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PRADA SLUT posted:The Geekup sets are nice, I have them and the fancy bags with the player colors that have a round bottom so you don't get chip edge cramming. I still need the fancy bags, but I went a pretty hardcore route for bit upgrades - https://www.etsy.com/listing/680729994/baseexpansion-quacks-of-quedlinburg-game?click_key=d505b1104fde6473863c7841143e883288788f44 - 3D printed holders that you have to glue your bits into. They are big and chonky and feel great to pull out of the bag, and there's a great added bit of drama in that the values only show on one face, so when you're sitting at 6 and afraid of busting and you pull a white chip out, backside up, you have another dramatic moment of flipping it over to see if it's a 1, or if you've gone bust. They're so big that they would make any insert/trays a virtual impossibility, and as a result they definitely jack up the amount of table space needed, so there's a pretty huge trade-off for them, but I can still fit the base game, the chonky bits, and both expansions into the base game box.
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Mar 13, 2022 20:44
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dwarf74 posted:It's pretty drat fun! Yeah, we (wife and I playing two-player) just finished our first game of it. Overall took about an hour to get set up and then about 3 hours to play but one of those three hours was figuring the game out; I expect it to clock in pretty closely to 2 hours each time from now on.  We played the recommended first starting scenario and figured out some decent combos so it wasn't particularly challenging, but I can see several obvious ways the difficulty could be ramped up, and it was fun in terms of theme and all the components were high quality; overall look and feel of the game was top notch, the game design was solid, etc. It's not Pandemic and it's not Gloomhaven but I think it's going to be a great game for the "invite a couple of friends over for an evening and play something vaguely fantasy-hero themed" space without having to teach the guests how to play Descent or coach them on how to build Gloomhaven characters. Overall probably something I'd recommend more to fans of fantasy themed board games, specifically, more than to general board game fans. Very much a theme game and one you're gonna spend a good chunk of the evening on, but a fair bit of fun if you're willing to let yourself enjoy the theme. Strongly recommend using a tablet for the app, it would've been annoying on a smaller screen. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 05:56 on Mar 14, 2022 |
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Mar 14, 2022 04:50
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potatocubed posted:What would you lot say is the most accessible 18XX game? Nobody asked an important question: how many people will you try to play with at start, and how many do you think will stick with it? If you think 3-4 is the max then 1889 for sure, if you think 5 is likely then 1830 is probably better. 1889 can do 5 but its a much different game Also when you go to sell friends/family: The games are definitely not for everyone, but everyone should try them at least once. Because if you do like them it will actually change your (hobby) life. There’s nothing else like them and they are a crazy engaging experience, especially when you learn how to do the big robber baron dunks.
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Mar 14, 2022 05:20
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Currently organising Nemesis Round 3  Lads only this time, so gonna see how vicious we can make it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOy6hqzfsAs Man I don't know why I have such a visceral hatred of boardgames with app/smart device integration. This looks like it'd be a blast, but it's always in the back of my mind "Will this thing still work in 5 years time?" My one gameplay complaint, and it's the same as the new edition of Paris, isn't it a pain in the arse looking behind the tower in the middle? And seeing game state?
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Mar 14, 2022 09:11
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Infinitum posted:
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Mar 14, 2022 09:31
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Infinitum posted:
It wasn't a problem last night but my wife doesn't mind me standing up and moving around. It would be a problem playing the game solo, you need at least two people to cover both halves of the board. I've seen some reviewers say they think it's annoying and others say they felt it minimized backseat driving / dominant player problem. The app is pretty "clean" -- it basically replaces what would be a bunch of fiddly decks of cards, like Gloomhaven used for its events and monsters. Overall it makes the game a lot less fiddly than it would have been if the same functions were using material components -- without the app the game would be significantly more complex to run than Gloomhaven is. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 11:58 on Mar 14, 2022 |
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Mar 14, 2022 11:49
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This is technically only boardgame adjacent, but Dorfromantik is an early access game on Steam that's pretty much a Euro tile laying game adapted for single player, pretty nice and chill.
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Mar 14, 2022 12:04
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I got to try Anno 1800 boardgame yesterday, and turns out one of my friends had been part of the playtesting! (He's QA at Ubisoft Montréal) It was also fun and I won by 2 points. Made me want to try the compute rgame and lol it's like 140 bucks for everything.
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Mar 14, 2022 13:22
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Infinitum posted:Man I don't know why I have such a visceral hatred of boardgames with app/smart device integration. And yeah, the tower 100% blocks your view. You really do need visual coverage among 2+ players.
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Mar 14, 2022 13:37
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MonsieurChoc posted:I got to try Anno 1800 boardgame yesterday, and turns out one of my friends had been part of the playtesting! (He's QA at Ubisoft Montréal) It was also fun and I won by 2 points. None of that poo poo matters, just get the base game and have fun. I think I got it on sale for $30.
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Mar 14, 2022 14:24
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MonsieurChoc posted:I got to try Anno 1800 boardgame yesterday, and turns out one of my friends had been part of the playtesting! (He's QA at Ubisoft Montréal) It was also fun and I won by 2 points. Computer game goes on sale two or three times a year. I will disagree with the previous recommendation and say to get all the season passes too (on sale).
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Mar 14, 2022 15:08
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If you don't want to give abusive/NFT assholes money, Ubisoft is fighting for #1 with Activision/Square Enix (depending) in the video game space.
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Mar 14, 2022 15:09
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Bottomliner, did you get your Ginkopolis on? I got to learn and play Teotihuacan (base game) and I have mixed thoughts. First off, the production is tremendous. I cannot believe they went with actual giant Mahjongy blocks for the temple, the meeples/resource tokens are great, and the cardboard chits are all decently thicc. Just disappointed the cocoa is so boring for some reason. Gameplay-wise I really liked the dice combo-wombo system of them getting stronger and stronger and better when used in multiples. Really neat, especially when you ASCEND your 6ers. Overall, really enjoyed it. My only criticism comes from personal experience but that I cannot understand why the Noble's space works as it does and unlike every other board, punishes you for taking the action repeatedly in the form of making the points gained for going up on the track of the dead or whatever it's called worse by a vast degree. There's even a technology that rewards you with extra VPs for building the houses but you're also gimping yourself down the line by taking advantage of this, so I just figure because it's vaguely easier to do they wanted to make it less beneficial, even though you still need multiple workers there to really get bigger points. And also it seems like locking in to "worship" at certain spots was a total waste of time. Masks are such garbage and take forever to acquire sets that make it worth while unless you are a masochist and enjoy spending spare cocoa or entire turns to free workers from their prisons. One fellow just got gold, every tech, and climbed the tracks of the red and green (I think) god tracks and ended up with like 50 more points than everyone else. Absurd.
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Mar 14, 2022 16:13
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FulsomFrank posted:Bottomliner, did you get your Ginkopolis on? Optimize your play  and Mr gold player will not end up with ahead by 50 points. If you want more help I can give it as we've played this game a ton of times and it's one of our all time favorites. However if you want to learn on your own, you have a lot to go for
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Mar 14, 2022 16:53
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Mayveena posted:Optimize your play Did... did you just tell me to git gud?? I'm kidding but curious what you'd advise. The fellow who taught it really likes it and would probably try to get it on the table as frequently as possible so having some guidance would be appreciated if at bare minimum to speed the game up because I think it took us 3 hours to finish and some turns felt like agony and totally disconnected.
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Mar 14, 2022 17:22
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FulsomFrank posted:Bottomliner, did you get your Ginkopolis on? Yep! Played 2p and 3p now. It's a really clever little system that flows super smoothly after the first round or two. The teach was a little touch and go with the iconography and different card play options, but once it clicked for us all it was off to the races. Gameplay wise, there is a lot of good tension of how to play your cards and differing goals that are almost at odds with one another but tied together. The engine building has a good ramp to it. So far I've had multiple good options almost every turn, which I take as a sign of depth. The closest thing I can relate it to feel wise is Res Arcana, though they're nothing alike from a design perspective.
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Mar 14, 2022 17:31
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FulsomFrank posted:Did... did you just tell me to git gud?? Alrighty let me look at the board again (been awhile since I've been consumed with 2021 Essen games but I'll get back to you. If I forget (as this is a way busy week for me) remind me.
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Mar 14, 2022 18:02
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Bottom Liner posted:Yep! Played 2p and 3p now. It's a really clever little system that flows super smoothly after the first round or two. The teach was a little touch and go with the iconography and different card play options, but once it clicked for us all it was off to the races. Gameplay wise, there is a lot of good tension of how to play your cards and differing goals that are almost at odds with one another but tied together. The engine building has a good ramp to it. So far I've had multiple good options almost every turn, which I take as a sign of depth. We hated the end of the game which is why I got rid of it. I forgot what we didn't like but it seemed an obvious problem at the time. How do you find it?
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Mar 14, 2022 18:03
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Mayveena posted:We hated the end of the game which is why I got rid of it. I forgot what we didn't like but it seemed an obvious problem at the time. How do you find it? Do you mean the end game scoring? I liked it, the area majority aspect of it was something someone told me to watch out for so it wouldn’t be a surprise so I made sure we kept that in mind throughout. It was the main thing I found tension in when deciding which card to play and how to use it because building that presence was often at odds with the other things I wanted to do. Not unlike using a tile versus bidding to own a tile in Keyflower.
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Mar 14, 2022 18:47
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Played a rock-solid game of Sidereal Confluence over the weekend. You know you've got a good group when a 7-player game with two new players gets rules rodeo and the game done in four hours.
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Mar 14, 2022 19:09
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I did get Anno 1404 and 2070 in sales years ago, I should try them at some point lol.gschmidl posted:If you don't want to give abusive/NFT assholes money, Ubisoft is fighting for #1 with Activision/Square Enix (depending) in the video game space. That is true.
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Mar 14, 2022 19:59
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