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taser rates posted:Would also recommend Navegador at 5, I think I like it more than Concordia nowadays though I never played with Venus. Venus is a bit better than Concordia (it doesn't halve downtime in a 4 player game, but makes a big impact, and the new maps and cards are interesting), but it's not going to make people change their relative ordering of Antike, Concordia, Imperial, and Navegador imho. But if you want teams, Concordia Venus is like the only euro with support for teams lol.
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Aug 10, 2022 09:41
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:Venus is a bit better than Concordia (it doesn't halve downtime in a 4 player game, but makes a big impact, and the new maps and cards are interesting), but it's not going to make people change their relative ordering of Antike, Concordia, Imperial, and Navegador imho. But if you want teams, Concordia Venus is like the only euro with support for teams lol. Belaad: Land of Swords and Quills is specifically designed for teams. Might be tough to get hold of, though.
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Aug 10, 2022 10:25
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Keyflower good at 5 and even 6. Dominant species too. Indonesia can get faster when you add more people and works fine with 5.
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Aug 10, 2022 14:18
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The two most fun games I played at GenCon were Twilight Inscription and Cat in the Box. Twilight Inscription is very well done and gives the feel of a 4X game through Roll and Write, which I was really skeptical about initially. If you like TI but can't get it to the table often, this is a very, very good replacement. The hype was well deserved and everyone at our table was disappointed once our Demo had to end. Cat in the Box is one of my favorite trick taking games I've ever played. I'll say though, I think this shines most at 4-5. We played at three initially and it was good, but there weren't a lot of situations where people were getting stuck and causing a paradox. We got to four and five players and the more limited your hand is, the more this game does. It takes a game or two to really grasp what your goals should be since it's not always obvious on the surface level. I can see why this sold out though. I'm glad I got a copy when I did. If you like trick taking games, you really need to pick this up.
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Aug 10, 2022 14:45
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Major Isoor posted:(Kinda circumvented in Dune, simply due to how political it can be, with impromptu alliances and whatnot) To be fair, some people are down on it, and I'll be honest: sometimes you get a dud of a game, but that's because game elements (individual powers, card- based powers, etc.) are distributed at random and some combinations can occasionally lead to vapor lock, and it has a bit of a dragging problem as people gang up if there's a clear leader. Also, your group has to have a sense of humor; if Jimbo is going to get pissed when he pulls off a brilliant play only to lose a bunch of tokens to a counter play instead of laughing and calling the other player a bastard for doing it, then maybe the game's not a good match. But while these are a stroke in the negative side of the ledger, on the positive side are memories of great shaftjobs or incredible victories (or best: both simultaneously) from years ago. It may not be the best game available, but it's an incredible experience generator. It's easily my most-played boardgame and the one I have the In an afternoon, for a group of five, if you're not doing anything crazy (like multiple or hidden powers, using tech or space stations, etc.), you could get in three games assuming you don't get an unfortunate dragging combo (which would drop it to two games, and is unlikely in a single power non-hidden game). It's also expandable to up to 8 players (though this makes it take longer, of course); three of the expansions add one player color each to the game.
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Aug 10, 2022 16:26
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It's a fair rec for people who like Dune, but it is *very* chaotic random.
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Aug 10, 2022 16:32
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Essen tickets are on sale now and I got mine. I hope I can track down promo items from kickstarters and stuff for my favorite games there.
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Aug 10, 2022 17:13
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Hey, anybody got a link to the first player last order token fix or whatever it's called for Forbidden Stars, and preferably a link showing the designer commentary on such I've heard second hand exists?
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Aug 10, 2022 20:02
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Played Lure of the Deep Wilderness in Spirit Island, and I loving loved the spirit, it felt so good and thematic to play. We were just playing England level 1 since we had newbies and actually won a terror victory. I kept luring the invaders to this extremely hospitable and not at all threatening land, and for some reason they kept disappearing, wonder why: 
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Aug 10, 2022 21:12
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Crackbone posted:To be clear, saying a woman is “difficult to work with” is a loaded phrase that has sexist undertone, even if it’s not intentional. What are the non-sexist words to describe a person with whom working is difficult (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Aug 10, 2022 23:13
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Tekopo posted:Played Lure of the Deep Wilderness in Spirit Island, and I loving loved the spirit, it felt so good and thematic to play. We were just playing England level 1 since we had newbies and actually won a terror victory. all hail hypnotoad
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Aug 10, 2022 23:17
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Dog King posted:What are the non-sexist words to describe a person with whom working is difficult Tedious.
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Aug 10, 2022 23:27
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I love the little thematic touches on Spirit Island: like how the innate powers of Lure paint a story of a bunch of people just leaving their towns and cities deserted, others trying to stop them from entering the dark foreboding interior of the island, but no one can stop them, and then those people just disappear into the jungle, never to be heard from again. It’s kind of frightening to think about, to be honest. But it’s why I love the game. Each spirit tells a unique story and it’s all done with simple mechanisms.
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Aug 10, 2022 23:32
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Tekopo posted:I love the little thematic touches on Spirit Island: like how the innate powers of Lure paint a story of a bunch of people just leaving their towns and cities deserted, others trying to stop them from entering the dark foreboding interior of the island, but no one can stop them, and then those people just disappear into the jungle, never to be heard from again. It’s kind of frightening to think about, to be honest. But it’s why I love the game. Each spirit tells a unique story and it’s all done with simple mechanisms. this makes me want to play Lure/Nightmares next time I get to play
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Aug 10, 2022 23:38
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CommonShore posted:this makes me want to play Lure/Nightmares next time I get to play https://spiritislandwiki.com/index.php?title=Cast_Down_Into_the_Briny_Deep Just making an entire side of the island collectively dreams that the land sinks into the ocean, a dream so vivid that they run the gently caress away from fear and never return.
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Aug 10, 2022 23:42
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Tekopo posted:I love the little thematic touches on Spirit Island: like how the innate powers of Lure paint a story of a bunch of people just leaving their towns and cities deserted, others trying to stop them from entering the dark foreboding interior of the island, but no one can stop them, and then those people just disappear into the jungle, never to be heard from again. It’s kind of frightening to think about, to be honest. But it’s why I love the game. Each spirit tells a unique story and it’s all done with simple mechanisms. Lure is one of my favorite spirits to play, not only because it's so effective but because it's so thematic. (I love the illustration.) And it has one of the best thematic power names in the game: "Softly Beckon Ever Inward." BTW I refer to Lure's special token-stacked lands as "mosh pits." Might have heard it here first.
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Aug 10, 2022 23:42
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I now have a friend who is into classic cultural boardgames (think Backgammon, Mahjong, Othello, etc) and I'm slowly corrupting him to modern designer stuff. He managed to survive Gaia Project so I think he's sold now.Tekopo posted:Played Lure of the Deep Wilderness in Spirit Island, and I loving loved the spirit, it felt so good and thematic to play. We were just playing England level 1 since we had newbies and actually won a terror victory. Lure is such an incredible spirit to play with Ocean. Coast, you die. Inland, you die. Everyone dies!
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Aug 10, 2022 23:46
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So, after 3 days of errands and chores that involved taking my office apart where I couldn't actually keep up with the thread, I'll just say thanks to everyone posting content. I hope to post content again soon. <--- Hey it finally happened, kind of amazing considering how long I've been here and how bad my posting is.
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Aug 10, 2022 23:55
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I was looking at my shelf of games today and realized that I still have my giant Bang! bullet that I haven't actually pulled out for a group in years. Has anyone else given it a try lately? (Whenever I want a simple party game to play with people while drinking, these days it's generally Skull or Railway Ink tbh.)
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Aug 11, 2022 00:01
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Podima posted:I was looking at my shelf of games today and realized that I still have my giant Bang! bullet that I haven't actually pulled out for a group in years. Has anyone else given it a try lately? I played Bang! a couple years ago and it was such a terrible experience that I've sworn never to play it again.
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Aug 11, 2022 00:10
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Memnaelar posted:Tedious. What if they're difficult to work with in an exciting way that's different every time
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Aug 11, 2022 04:06
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Dog King posted:What if they're difficult to work with in an exciting way that's different every time an asymmetrical secret role mechanic
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Aug 11, 2022 05:20
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Tekopo posted:I love the little thematic touches on Spirit Island: like how the innate powers of Lure paint a story of a bunch of people just leaving their towns and cities deserted, others trying to stop them from entering the dark foreboding interior of the island, but no one can stop them, and then those people just disappear into the jungle, never to be heard from again. It’s kind of frightening to think about, to be honest. But it’s why I love the game. Each spirit tells a unique story and it’s all done with simple mechanisms. This jungle, it was made for me
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Aug 11, 2022 05:39
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CommonShore posted:I played Bang! a couple years ago and it was such a terrible experience that I've sworn never to play it again. we liked bang until we played with a First Nations person and then realized there was an "INDIANS!" card.
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Aug 11, 2022 06:31
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Played a few games of first rat over the last couple weeks at 2-3P. First rat has surprised me with how interesting it is. It's compelling, not to the degree of an evergreen, but decent enough. The low setup time, tempo consideration, and basic strategic considerations of more rats and efficient turns vs. faster cheevos depending on the board layout makes it interesting. Probably a game that'll wear itself out in a few more plays, but that's something I haven't said about a light euro in years. The choice of animeeples, cubes and chonky cardboard with more creative tracks - which aren't even status tracks but tempo tracks as well - elevates it over milquetoast euros in recent years. I want to compare it to Trajan or Tokaido for tempo, except everyone is symmetrical. It definitely feels like a turn-based RFTG in terms of speed. Chill la Chill fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Aug 11, 2022 |
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Aug 11, 2022 16:32
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Meanwhile I had my first game of Spirit Island with Branch and Claw and I bounced off the Events deck hard. It's not just that the Events introduce randomness to a game I have touted to learners as being far more strategic and knowable than its predecessors like Pandemic, though it is that; it's that firing off an Event card each and every turn was like adding multiple Fear cards to each and every turn. The pause to do the invader Event, and then the token Event, and then the Dahan event, with each frequently involving complexity akin to resolving a Fear card, was murderous to the pace of the game. I'll grant you this was my first play but I instantly missed the swift, nearly automated resolution of "ravage, build, explore, OK it's turtle time everyone." Additionally, on the point of randomness, I have also touted to newbies that the Fear deck is a source of fun treats. Not every card helps much but no card hurts you and sometimes you can hope the Fear deck throws you a Hail Mary pass and high five when it does. Thus it always feels good to the players. This is unlike the random cards I've seen in Spirit Island's ancestor games, and unlike the event deck. The event deck's invader side can and will gently caress up a plan you either just laid out with your hawks or had been hoping to lay out with your turtles. I consider this "post decision" randomness, meaning "bad RNG". When you play a Defend 2 on a town + explorer land so that your native buddy there will live and fight, no blight, and then the event deck says "towns do +1 damage", how can this be taken any differently than "I attack the orc" *rolls a 2* "I miss and my turn is wasted" in Dungeons and Dragons? The answer, I suppose, is that the token events and Dahan events then throw you treats. But why should I accept a penalty roughly counterbalanced with a bonus when I can just play event-less Spirit Island, and so cut to the chase (again, there is the slowdown of utilizing events)? It is said in the rulebook that the point, in part, is to prevent elite players from knowing their victory in advance. Even at my level of skill I do commonly have games where our table says "hey, look, we can win this 100% certain next turn", and I am sure better players learn to do that two or three turns into the future. I do not see the problem. Realization of checkmate always comes after however many turns of serious, strategic game play. Realizing you have won and it only remains to be technically played out just means you can save some time and start the next strategic game. It's like those engine builder games that end right when the engines are about to activate - the fun was in getting there, and when we can all see where it's going, the game is not flawed, it is simply over and it is time to play again. Another point of events is of course theme. Theme is subjectively experienced, so I'll just say I'm personally fine without and that's pretty much all there is to say there. I spent more text discussing randomness but really it was the slowdown of play that irked me. I just can't think of how to wax on about the game taking longer, is all. I will of course give the deck a fair shake and some more plays but I am very appreciative that Jagged Earth contains simple rules for ignoring it. Bang! sucks
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Aug 11, 2022 17:38
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TheDiceMustRoll posted:we liked bang until we played with a First Nations person and then realized there was an "INDIANS!" card. For mine it was that I was the 8th player in an 8th player game, and every second person was a non-gaming person and took forever to do their turn, and then I was elimiated before my actual turn. The game took 40 minutes before I "played" and 90 minutes after that.
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Aug 11, 2022 17:43
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CommonShore posted:For mine it was that I was the 8th player in an 8th player game, and every second person was a non-gaming person and took forever to do their turn, and then I was elimiated before my actual turn. This was my exact experience. Awful. Crazy to me that the game persists like a lingering sore. Sold everywhere.
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Aug 11, 2022 17:50
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SuperKlaus posted:Meanwhile I had my first game of Spirit Island with Branch and Claw and I bounced off the Events deck hard. It's not just that the Events introduce randomness to a game I have touted to learners as being far more strategic and knowable than its predecessors like Pandemic, though it is that; it's that firing off an Event card each and every turn was like adding multiple Fear cards to each and every turn. The pause to do the invader Event, and then the token Event, and then the Dahan event, with each frequently involving complexity akin to resolving a Fear card, was murderous to the pace of the game. I'll grant you this was my first play but I instantly missed the swift, nearly automated resolution of "ravage, build, explore, OK it's turtle time everyone." We're totally the opposite here. We're not amazing SI players or anything but ever since we added events we don't want to go back. I don't mind it slowing the game down since we already take forever to play. I appreciate the theme of the events and how they balance both helpful and harmful effects. It's both exciting and heartbreaking in a way that is more interesting to us than "ugh the worst Explore location just came up."
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Aug 11, 2022 18:00
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It is pretty widely accepted that the original Bang! card game has essentially been replaced by Bang! the Dice Game. It's like Yahtzee or King of Tokyo as a "roll dice 3 times" sort of game. Having played both, I can say the dice version is a huge improvement over the original and plays much faster.TheDiceMustRoll posted:we liked bang until we played with a First Nations person and then realized there was an "INDIANS!" card. Of course, this is a serious consideration as well. It's not sensitive at all, in the way of the films and media it references, and I totally understand if people don't want to touch that poo poo. I haven't played since God decided to adapt the award winning board game Pandemic to real life, but thinking on it I probably would feel weird playing it now. There is/was a Walking Dead version though I don't know if it's any different outside of theming. The arrows are replaced by zombies, which probably meshed better thematically anyway. Looks like it's still in print via The Op?
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Aug 11, 2022 18:10
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The bang dice game is a pretty good 15-minute diversion. quick enough that getting eliminated early doesn’t mean you’re sitting out for long, random enough not to take anything seriously, but the hidden roles add just enough spice to keep it from feeling pointless, even if most of the roles are usually pretty apparent after everyone’s first turn. but its depiction of native americans is definitely not good.
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Aug 11, 2022 18:17
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SuperKlaus posted:Meanwhile I had my first game of Spirit Island with Branch and Claw and I bounced off the Events deck hard. It's not just that the Events introduce randomness to a game I have touted to learners as being far more strategic and knowable than its predecessors like Pandemic, though it is that; it's that firing off an Event card each and every turn was like adding multiple Fear cards to each and every turn. The pause to do the invader Event, and then the token Event, and then the Dahan event, with each frequently involving complexity akin to resolving a Fear card, was murderous to the pace of the game. I'll grant you this was my first play but I instantly missed the swift, nearly automated resolution of "ravage, build, explore, OK it's turtle time everyone." I feel exactly the opposite. I played maybe one, two at most games of SI without both events and an adversary or scenario and they absolutely feel essential to making the game feel appropriately alive and not just a rote optimization solver that is trivially easy. Yeah, sometimes you get screwed, sometimes you get saved, playing to have some buffer on your defense or flexible slow powers is a nice addition to the game. I don't count myself an "elite gamer" (usually we play at middling difficulty, 6-7) but the base game needs the extra complications.
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Aug 11, 2022 18:23
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Gay Rat Wedding posted:The bang dice game is a pretty good 15-minute diversion. quick enough that getting eliminated early doesn’t mean you’re sitting out for long, random enough not to take anything seriously, but the hidden roles add just enough spice to keep it from feeling pointless, even if most of the roles are usually pretty apparent after everyone’s first turn. but its depiction of native americans is definitely not good. fast games are always a plus - whenever we'd bring a bunch of board games out to hang out with our friends (pre-plague), we'd always also bring stay alive (yes, the early-70s milton bradley one), and a few games of that would go by in just a few minutes, and it's a nice warmup before or palate cleanser between longer games
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Aug 11, 2022 19:14
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SuperKlaus posted:Meanwhile I had my first game of Spirit Island with Branch and Claw and I bounced off the Events deck hard. It's not just that the Events introduce randomness to a game I have touted to learners as being far more strategic and knowable than its predecessors like Pandemic, though it is that; it's that firing off an Event card each and every turn was like adding multiple Fear cards to each and every turn. The pause to do the invader Event, and then the token Event, and then the Dahan event, with each frequently involving complexity akin to resolving a Fear card, was murderous to the pace of the game. I'll grant you this was my first play but I instantly missed the swift, nearly automated resolution of "ravage, build, explore, OK it's turtle time everyone." I wish beast events were more frequent. I have been screwed many times by the event deck, and saved by it fewer times. I feel like it's +1 difficulty level to the game. I don't mind this, because I need a difficulty boost to base SI when playing with family, and they're not ready for scenarios/adversaries. (For some reason they don't believe the most important thing to do with free time is break out SI and try a new combo of spirits and adversaries.) Overall, I think it's an occasionally welcome and more frequently frustrating (usually in a good way) net positive to the game. It's important to note that you can get screwed by the fear deck too, though it's not as frequent or severe. Last time it happened (I can't remember the details well), I think had to remove a town (maybe replacing with an explorer) from a land with Dahan and sufficient Defend that was going to ravage. Granted, it was just 1 fear point, but still...
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Aug 11, 2022 19:37
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I felt the same way about events my first couple games with them, but they've grown on me. I did eventually take out Outpaced and War Touches the Island's Shores, and it looks like those are two of the three being officially removed, but most of the rest just shake things up a bit without being too impactful. You get used to the flow of pulling them every turn, usually you can resolve them quickly although yeah some of the aided-by ones with a choice to make can drag a bit.
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Aug 11, 2022 20:26
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God I fucking love Diablo 3 gold, it even paid for this shitty title
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Admiralty Flag posted:("OK. Choice 2 requires 4 energy, offset by earth. I have no earth and 2 energy. You have no earth and 3 energy. Guess we're taking choice 1.") Just checking: You do know all the ways to offset these, right? In my experience, it's a commonly missed rule and those cards get gnarly as player counts go up.
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Aug 11, 2022 20:32
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SuperKlaus posted:Hey, anybody got a link to the first player last order token fix or whatever it's called for Forbidden Stars, and preferably a link showing the designer commentary on such I've heard second hand exists? I love Forbidden Stars but have no idea what you're referencing, so if you find out what you're looking for, I too would like to know more...
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Aug 11, 2022 20:46
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I would also like to know as I have a FS game coming up this weekend. Just bought a printing of the Darkest Dawn and Galaxy in Flames fan expansions, the latter complete with minis, and this'll be the first time taking them out. 
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Aug 11, 2022 21:15
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Has anyone picked up Ultimate Railroads yet? I've seen it for sale some places like boardgamebliss, wondering if anyone here has gotten a copy with the printing issues I saw on bgg.
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Aug 12, 2022 03:48
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| # ? May 29, 2024 10:15 |
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I wouldn't play without events either, but I've played a lot of SI at very high difficulty and I understand it's not the same experience as most players. The event deck also makes the Dahan more important and more involved in general which is pretty cool since some spirits tend to completely ignore that part of the board in the base game.
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Aug 12, 2022 18:10
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