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I kinda like terraforming mars and even then the card art is comically bad
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May 2, 2022 13:41
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May 2, 2022 13:58
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Ausgoons, if you are in Sydney and are interested in 8 player Twilight Imperium on the 14th hit me up. I've had 2 players pike
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May 2, 2022 14:26
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I've got a small board game herd-thinning in SA-Mart if anyone's interested. Robotech: Brace for Impact, Nefarious, Brexit, Buzzed, Punderdome, and Exploding Kittens. Don't be like me and stock up on board games when your local crew isn't big on 'em, kids! https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=1&threadid=4000942&pagenumber=1&perpage=40#post523174785
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May 2, 2022 14:55
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The Kniz is back tomorrow. https://twitter.com/25thCG/status/1521128993046638592 Tigris and Euphrates getting the same treatment shortly as well.
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May 2, 2022 15:14
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I picked up Ark Nova at the LGS and played it a few times over the weekend. My initial impressions are that its a good but not great game. It definitely feels like something where the designer took bits from a few other games and put them together. I think that my biggest worry is that theres not a lot of variety in path to victory. Each of the games felt like they played pretty similarly. Player interaction feels extremely limited and I think not having a shared board like Terraforming Mars removes a lot of the pressure there.
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May 2, 2022 15:32
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Grundma posted:I picked up Ark Nova at the LGS and played it a few times over the weekend. My initial impressions are that its a good but not great game. It definitely feels like something where the designer took bits from a few other games and put them together. I think that my biggest worry is that theres not a lot of variety in path to victory. Each of the games felt like they played pretty similarly. Player interaction feels extremely limited and I think not having a shared board like Terraforming Mars removes a lot of the pressure there. As mentioned proper working of the break can have a significant impact on your opponents and watching the break will significantly affect your choices. You'll eventually find that racing for the simplest conservation points is also significant because the jump from needing 2 to needing 5 is inherently unbalanced ie you get more out of having 2 of something than you do at having 5 of it. It's fine not to like the game, however there is more interaction than what you'll see playing for the first time, especially if all players are new to the game.
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May 2, 2022 16:11
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I'm finding it hard to get excited for medium-heavy games now that I basically use the litmus test of: Does this look different enough or better than any of my regular lineup-- Brass B, Gaia Project, Feast for Odin, Gallerist, Splotter Logistics Game of Your Choosing, 1889. I watched videos from Weather Machine & Autobahn and neither looked interesting enough to make the cut. Weather machine just looks like an amalgamation of Lacerda's previous designs. Autobahn looks like a way less interactive Brass. The last game I bought was Barrage, which did have authentically unique gameplay, but ultimately my group gave it a thumbs down for it's highly unbalanced asymmetric factions. Unfortunately Cranio did not have the foresight to print double sided player boards that would allow for identical faction independent playthroughs. I did back John Company & Mind Mgmt since they look to deliver very unique experiences, but it sounds like it will be many months before those are ready. Anyone have some new unique or interesting medium-heavy games on their radar? What excites you about them?
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May 2, 2022 17:55
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Megasabin posted:I'm finding it hard to get excited for medium-heavy games now that I basically use the litmus test of: Does this look different enough or better than any of my regular lineup-- Brass B, Gaia Project, Feast for Odin, Gallerist, Splotter Logistics Game of Your Choosing, 1889. That's always tough because nearly any Euro can be described as Just Another Souless Euro. If you go on the BGG page for the games you like, you can scroll all the way down and see what others who like the game you like also like. I would suggest Imperial Steam for you, it's pretty different but still in the wheelhouse of the games you like.
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May 2, 2022 18:07
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I liked the concept of the search for planet X but was very sus about the game’s need for a mobile app to function. having finally played it, I’m completely sold and want to play it again. the app didn’t feel intrusive at all and crossing off possibilities on your map as you gain information/make connections is very satisfying. It probably wouldn’t work with many groups/mindsets though as there’s absolutely no direct interaction, everything’s inference based on what other people choose to do
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May 2, 2022 18:16
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Gay Rat Wedding posted:I liked the concept of the search for planet X but was very sus about the game’s need for a mobile app to function. having finally played it, I’m completely sold and want to play it again. the app didn’t feel intrusive at all and crossing off possibilities on your map as you gain information/make connections is very satisfying. It probably wouldn’t work with many groups/mindsets though as there’s absolutely no direct interaction, everything’s inference based on what other people choose to do The latest rules describe how you can use a GM instead of the app. The app is great though, really helps with keeping the mistakes down.
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May 2, 2022 18:18
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Megasabin posted:I'm finding it hard to get excited for medium-heavy games now that I basically use the litmus test of: Does this look different enough or better than any of my regular lineup-- Brass B, Gaia Project, Feast for Odin, Gallerist, Splotter Logistics Game of Your Choosing, 1889. Lisboa
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May 2, 2022 18:29
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Megasabin posted:Anyone have some new unique or interesting medium-heavy games on their radar? What excites you about them? The solution is to go back in board game history and find weird stuff like Neuland. A lot of modern euro design is everything becoming derivative and homogenized, but there are still some weird and good designers and publishers out there like Peer Sylvester, Paolo Mori, and Devious Weasel (though that's more a merge of euro/ameritrash).
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May 2, 2022 18:29
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Bottom Liner posted:The solution is to go back in board game history and find weird stuff like Neuland. A lot of modern euro design is everything becoming derivative and homogenized, but there are still some weird and good designers and publishers out there like Peer Sylvester, Paolo Mori, and Devious Weasel (though that's more a merge of euro/ameritrash). While I understand what you are saying and why you are saying it, but games like Neuland, while unique, are too hard to get to the table unless you have a committed board game group who is interested in unique and different games. Also as a note, I think Founders of Gloomhaven is a better implementation of the concepts Neuland was going for, but still has some fairly serious graphics issues which makes it hard to get to the table as well.
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May 2, 2022 18:57
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Thanks for the suggestions. I've heard of both Imperial Steam & Neuland before, but haven't really checked out either.
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May 2, 2022 19:14
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Memnaelar posted:I've played another couple of games and I think I've got a pretty good grip on it. It's a co-op 4x with an interesting problem where you've got a central empire in the middle of the map expanding out towards you and the forces of chaos converging in at you and you have to manipulate player scores by beating up on both so that all players are above the scores of both Chaos and Empire at game end -- if either Chaos or Empire scores more than any player, then everyone loses. To make things even more interesting, Chaos and Empire do NOT get along and will clash and potentially score points off one another if you don't intercept them -- which, in some instances, you don't WANT to do as you may be okay with a low-scoring Chaos picking off a dominant Empire legion or two to save you the troops and effort of trimming that particular branch of their tree. I really appreciate the quick response here. I tried this on Tabletop Simulator (it has a really well-done mod) and it seems like the kind of game my wife and I would enjoy. I'm not adverse to dice swinginess, and I quite enjoy the look of the game. I'll have to do a bit of thinking before the campaign closes.
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May 2, 2022 19:59
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Radioactive Toy posted:I really appreciate the quick response here. I tried this on Tabletop Simulator (it has a really well-done mod) and it seems like the kind of game my wife and I would enjoy. I'm not adverse to dice swinginess, and I quite enjoy the look of the game. I'll have to do a bit of thinking before the campaign closes. No problem - I think Uprising is probably better than I sold it as when I said I liked it, not loved it. I really like it and think it's a very solid first effort from a design team that really goes out of their way to communicate their love for their work and fans to their audience. Even with my misgivings, I'm definitely backing the current expansion on Gamefound. 
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May 2, 2022 20:26
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Anyone else getting the cosmic encounter campaign game?
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May 2, 2022 21:21
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Had a productive and fun board gaming weekend. Got to promote Lost Cities from out of the shrinkwrap club and give it its first play. It was fun! Loved the semi-secret climbing card element and managing the draw deck to dictate the game pace. We also explored a different lost city, by spending an afternoon painting the storage boxes I printed for a friend's copy of Lost Ruins of Arnak. I used this guy's models from thingiverse and painted it all in Inland PLA, bone white color on my reliable ol' Prusa mini. I have only played Arnak one time, but that friend loves it. The storage insert for Arnak is totally nonexistent. CGE should take notes from Stonemaier Games on how to make a decent organizer insert. Hey, even the one included in Codenames is better, but I digress. As a surprise for that friend, I spent a few days printing out all the components. The models the guy provided are fantastic. The game is themed as a mid 20th century Indiana Jones-esque pulp adventure exploration vibe. So naturally, the storage containers should all be wooden crates, and the locations should be crumbling, overgrown ancient architectural marvels evocative of Angkor Wat, Tikal, or Machu Picchu.  We painted the crates with colors matching the tokens or cards that will be housed inside, bold golden text, and hit them all with a brown wash to pop the detail on the wood. The crate lids either lift off (card piles) or slide off (tokens). Some of the tiles got stored in some ruins! We layered several earth and stone tones onto the walls to add texture, drybrushed some gold on the mosaics, freehanded some overgrown vines, and added some moss to the lower layers and the watercourses.   I consider myself a well-taught but inexperienced novice painter, and my friend had never painted miniatures before. I'm really proud of how they turned out, and now setup and takedown of the game is going to be less than 5 minutes each, rather than the 15 or 20 he is accustomed to. Faster setup means more time actually playing games, which is the only goal in life.
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May 2, 2022 22:21
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I really enjoy Western Legends but I feel like duelling is overpowered as hell. If you assemble a decent hand of cards you can get tonnes of points per turn by picking on a weaker player. If you lose the duel, they get no points. I kinda want to just limit PvP to arrests and robberies because you can't do those repeatedly.
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May 2, 2022 22:52
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Quote-Unquote posted:I really enjoy Western Legends but I feel like duelling is overpowered as hell. If you assemble a decent hand of cards you can get tonnes of points per turn by picking on a weaker player. If you lose the duel, they get no points. Just wait till you discover the broken strategies.
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May 2, 2022 23:08
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Aramoro posted:Just wait till you discover the broken strategies. Well there is the ridiculous loop you can do with mining/bank/cabaret if you get a specific card combo in hand but in my experience you do that once and then everyone beats the poo poo out of you forever because you just spunked off your good cards.
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May 2, 2022 23:10
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Orange DeviI posted:Anyone else getting the cosmic encounter campaign game? I just got back from a weekend trip where I played Cosmic Encounter with my old gaming group. My only regret was that thanks to two relative newbies the games were slower, plus we were delayed by a tornado warning (!), filled a lot of potential playing time with catching up and bullshitting, had six players, and had to end relatively early, so we only had time for two rounds. I stand by my assessment that while it may not be the greatest game ever, it's an amazing experience generator. I'll be getting it so long as it's not solely a campaign game (which the few early reviews I've seen don't seem to say it is).
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May 2, 2022 23:14
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Cosmic encounter isn’t a good game but it’s fun, it’s like the pizza at a pizza night
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May 2, 2022 23:25
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Ark Nova won heavy GOTY at the Golden Geek https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2859849/16th-annual-golden-geek-winners-2021
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May 2, 2022 23:43
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Megasabin posted:Thanks for the suggestions. I've heard of both Imperial Steam & Neuland before, but haven't really checked out either. Vanuatu might be another one that has a very interesting and mean auction mechanism.
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May 3, 2022 01:21
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That cool rear end Lost Ruins of Arnak insert edging me ever closer to a 3D printer.
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May 3, 2022 01:28
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Orange DeviI posted:Cosmic encounter isn’t a good game but it’s fun, it’s like the pizza at a pizza night If Cosmic Encounter were consistently fun it would be a good (if not particularly strategic) game. There are too many cases where you spend an hour with a bad hand. If your ability is only active on your turn and you only get a couple turns where it isn't relevant, too bad for you. Sometimes the game is about as fun as having an empty hand in Settlers of Catan, although I'd say the whimsy elevates CE above SoC.
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May 3, 2022 01:33
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The theme of Ark Nova is way more interesting, to me, than Terraforming Mars. I kinda want to get it but i already have games i haven't played yet
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May 3, 2022 11:43
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My FLGS is celebrating their 10 year anniversary and sent out 30% off coupons that work for an entire transaction, so it's time to stock up! My backordered copy of Hansa Teutonica is showing up this week, so that's one, but what else do I get? They have a copy of Ark Nova that I would be tempted to get just because of the discount, but I know it will never ever hit the table with my current play group. Beyond the Sun looks really interesting to me, but I feel like it's going to have the same issue with being too long and heavy for my group. Nidavellir has gotten me curious before, it looks interesting and a reasonably quick play? How about the new Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest? I never played the original. Anything else new I should keep an eye out for with a good decision space and theme that can play in around an hour? I looked at Cascadia but I already have Isle of Skye, Azul, and Carcassone that seem to scratch that itch. Gotta spend my store credit!
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May 3, 2022 13:01
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:Vanuatu might be another one that has a very interesting and mean auction mechanism. Just read up on this and it actually sounds like an amazingly cut-throat take on worker placement. Anyone in the thread play it and have elaborated opinions?
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May 3, 2022 14:58
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Megasabin posted:Just read up on this and it actually sounds like an amazingly cut-throat take on worker placement. Anyone in the thread play it and have elaborated opinions? youre correct op
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May 3, 2022 15:02
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Megasabin posted:Just read up on this and it actually sounds like an amazingly cut-throat take on worker placement. Anyone in the thread play it and have elaborated opinions? Yes, and yes. A personal favorite, played it a couple times years ago and then several on boiteajeux during the pandemic with good folks here. The map board area is a somewhat standard thing. First player puts down some new map tiles, you move your ship around, fish up some fish, dive up some treasure, build market stalls, sell fish. The action selection/worker placement part is incredible. There's eight actions. Each player puts down two of their five pawns down, on one or two spots. Then do it again. Then put your last one down. Then, in the same order, players do the following: if they have the majority on at least one spot, they choose a spot they have a majority on, take their pawns off, take that action. If they're on more than one, they choose, otherwise forced. If they're *not* the majority on any, they choose one they're on, take their pawns off, and do nothing. Ties are always broken by player order. So if (say) someone camps the move spot and is earlier in turn order than you, you might get hosed if they take another action first, then you lose one of your actions entirely. Some turns you might be so greedy you get nothing! Getting four or five useful actions in a turn is one of the most satisfying feelings there is. I call it action denial. Your goal is always to do the stuff you want to do, but there's a constant assumption that if you can (without any or too much harm to yourself) deny someone else an action, you do it. Always. So there's also no real hard feelings on it, because you assume if you miscalculate, someone's gonna destroy your plans, it's just guaranteed. Fantastic game. Highly recommend.
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May 3, 2022 15:07
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I really like the idea of, mechanics, and art/components for Unfathomable but it seems so overtuned against Humans that the only thing unfathomable about it is a Human victory. Last night we played a 5p game (so two Hybrids, no Cultist) and the Hybrids literally only contributed one off-suit card the entire game, and still handily won at 11 distance just by waiting for our supplies to dwindle and choosing to spend our last two food on an event card on their turn. They contributed a fair amount to passing most skill checks, just playing like Humans. They weren’t even going out of their way to burn resources - nobody used the Galley to risk food even once. That….doesn’t really make for much of a satisfying traitor game. I don’t know what the best fix would be - the obvious idea would be to make the Humans win for another Arrival after 10 instead of 12, but that might skew it too hard in the other direction.
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May 3, 2022 15:09
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All this talk about Vanuatu reminds me that it hasn't been in stock forever, at least not that I can tell at my usual hunting grounds 
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May 3, 2022 15:13
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Viper915 posted:Nidavellir has gotten me curious before, it looks interesting and a reasonably quick play? Nidavellir has a really interesting auction mechanism and is fairly quick. My problem with it is that the scoring is fairly rudimentary set collection. Others I’ve played with really enjoy it.
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May 3, 2022 15:41
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Viper915 posted:Beyond the Sun looks really interesting to me, but I feel like it's going to have the same issue with being too long and heavy for my group.
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May 3, 2022 17:13
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Does anyone know anything about this new Uwe game? https://gamefound.com/projects/spielworxx/oranienburger-kanal?ref=homepage-topactive_4
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May 3, 2022 18:53
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FulsomFrank posted:Does anyone know anything about this new Uwe game? It's a 1 / 2 player game where you build buildings in a grid and surround them by pathways, roads, railways and canals. When you surround a building you can activate it. Later you can connect the buildings with bridges and activate them again. Ressources are tracked on a wheel like in Glass Road. You also turn it to produce higher level ressources. There is a tabletopia modul but I haven't tried it. Uwe himself compares it to FoA complexity wise. There are like 7 actions but there is a lot of depth coming from timing the building activations and so on. Backed the German version. He wanted to try crowdfounding for this one as the doesn't think it will be that popular regarding player count and theme Selecta84 fucked around with this message at 19:53 on May 3, 2022 |
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May 3, 2022 19:27
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Some thoughts on newish games I've been played lately: Beyond the Sun - I like the tech tree turned into a full game idea but this is one of those euros where you're constantly stressed for the right balance of resources, not unlike Through the Ages. A lot of my turns felt wasted just getting a resource here and there, and while I know that would be improved with more play, it didn't hook me like I thought it would after 2 plays. 3/5 GWT 2nd - Mostly the same with some slight changes mechanically (exchange tokens are a nice boost when needed) and thematically (thankfully). Playing on BGA has made me realize that I do still like the game but not enough to deal with doing the setup and all again. 3/5 Cascadia - Another abstract/draft/puzzle game with pleasant art and components. Less interaction than Azul but a better puzzle, much like Calico. Not as brain burning as Calico either, I think this will be the sweet spot for a lot of folks that are bored with Azul. The best part is balancing the biome race with still accomplishing your animal goals and the way that informs your draft choices. 2.5/5 Furnace - Pure draft + engine building in a really satisfying way. Takes about 2 minutes to teach and 30-45 minutes to play thanks to simultaneous resolution. The drafting has a good twist where a losing bid means you get compensated with resources multiplied by the value of your bid (bids only go 1-4). The production phase is a good puzzle of managing input and output of each part of your line. Skip the beginner variant and go straight to the advanced mode where you can't rearrange cards, only insert new ones. I've seen the smallest machine win by getting a lot of compensation and pumping a tight engine and I've seen a monstrously huge tableau crush the rest of the table too, so I think there's some good balance and depth here. 3.5/5 Imperium Classics/Legends - Pure deck building turned into a meaty experience with crazy asymmetric factions (16 in total). It has a really satisfying arc of starting as barbarians and working through your unique deck to become a civilization and each of the factions interact with the systems and resources in dramatically different ways. The Vikings for example never become a civilization and going through their deck just ends the game. Atlanteans start as a civ but have to manage flooding. The historical based ones aren't as complicated generally but still have unique mechanics. I thought it would be Age of Empires but it's more StarCraft in design which is great. Not much interaction, but still satisfying. 4/5 Long Shot the Dice Game - Takes the best parts of Camel Cup and Winner's Circle and puts it into a faster playing experience that plays up to 8 well. Easily one of the top roll and writes now. Has a good variety of strategies to try and seemingly well balanced. Plays quickly enough to do 2-3 back to back once people get it. 4/5 Also got March of the Ants and Samurai for steals from trades and flea markets, looking forward to playing both.
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May 3, 2022 20:11
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