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Anyone else heading to Pax Unplugged? What's on everyone's list of things to see/do? It's gonna be my first time and I'm mega excited. I'm planning on muscling in on some sidereal confluence + blood on the clocktower sessions.
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Nov 26, 2022 17:11
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RandolphCarter posted:Can’t believe I forgot about this, thank you. It has an expansion too!  There's an action figure character who instead of having stuffing for health he just falls apart at the joints, basically the black knight from monty python and the holy grail or plok from plok! Also there's a free printable expansion called Lost Story 1 that you can find here. https://www.zmangames.com/en/products/stuffed-fables/ That gives you an additional scenario to play through. They also have a free coloring book to download. That in and of itself isn't necessarily that interesting, but the coloring book file also includes 2 new unnamed playable characters with their own unique abilities, as well as an empty template if they want to futz around with making their own character. You'd just need to supply your own token to act as their player marker since they don't have any corresponding minis.  
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Nov 26, 2022 18:12
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Thanksgiving report: raging success. So I actually got into board gaming because mom said bring some board games to Thanksgiving (months in advance, it's a big to-do for us) and I fell down a rabbit hole. Really only two new games were introduced: Skull and Wavelength. Both were huge hits while former family favorite, ONUW, fell out of favor. Didn't spring for retail Skull and just played with cards and napkins which didn't feel any different whatsoever. I can't see myself buying the game but it's gonna end up a staple. Easy to teach, easy to learn, fast, and exciting. Everyone was hooked and we played countless rounds with lots of shouting. Wavelength we played on the app, which is free but I bought the ("on sale") bundle for $8 after maybe a dozen games cause the base is pretty shallow. The base game alone had us cry-laughing but playing many games with the same spectrums popping up just almost inevitably lends itself to people replaying past clues for a laugh or referencing past games which is funny once and stale twice (to me). The simple spectrums on the Base make for a fun introduction though because their simplicity gives more room for interesting clues than spectrums which pin you down to, say, naming a cereal. Great app though, snappy, no fuss, intuitive, with a good tutorial. Highly recommend. (Only the Host needs to have bought packs to use them) ONUW we played like three or four games of, with Daybreak expansion, and it never "hit". Definitely not like it has before and not for anyone else at the table either by all appearances. It could also be that the group didn't fully get it or just weren't good at lying, two were children, but a lot of the game was played by trying to suss out what was heard or felt during the Night, who stood up or sat down when, what cards were heard getting swapped or picked up or looked at, etc. I tried to say it wasn't in the spirit of the game but everyone shrugged and since I couldn't think up a quick solution I let it go right away. I think the game would be much, much better if that could be totally worked around and has always been better when that's been minimal. I also brought Spirit Island along but I'm not counting it as a Thanksgiving game because I had no intention of teaching anyone how to play. I had already taught my brother and figured we could squeeze in one game. We couldn't, but we did squeeze about 3/4 of a game in before we had to abruptly end. He played Oceans, I played Bringer. Neither one of us had played our spirit before nor had either one of us tried a High complexity spirit but it went smoothly. We were into Terror 3 with only one Tier 3 invader card being flipped (last invader turn before we had to end), two cards left in the Fear pile. I'm comfortable saying our Fear victory was assured. Not much to brag about though as we went no adversary card, no blight card - it was my brother's second game ever after all, haha. Lots of fun, really enjoyed the fear synergy between Oceans and Bringer and enjoyed Bringer's playstyle overall. Edit: Oh also rather than double-post, haul report: snagged Skulls of Sedlec, ROVE, and ROVE: Crawler from Buttonshy's Black Friday. Been wanting these* for a while so I'm glad to have them on the way. *Well not ROVE: Crawler but it was on sale for $2.00. I'm told Fascinating Flora is the best expansion? Perry Mason Jar fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Nov 27, 2022 |
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Nov 27, 2022 04:48
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Nice, Oceans/Bringer is a classic combo (Oceans helps Bringer deal with its inability to kill, since anything Bringer pushes into the sea gets drowned).
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Nov 27, 2022 06:12
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A strong plan not routinely executed for having a starting presence/spiritual site as far from the coast as possible. Did manage to drown plenty despite but it couldn't be a primary plan cause of the starting position and adding presence for Bringer takes some time. Oceans seems really interesting, my brother was blown away by how thematic it felt to play with its strong tide teeming. How does he figure in solo games? My brother's strategy was to draw out Reaching Grasp to fully negate Ocean's biggest disadvantage, which was strong, but surely relying on drawing out one power can't be a good way to play (he did draw it this game though).
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Nov 27, 2022 16:31
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Perry Mason Jar posted:A strong plan not routinely executed for having a starting presence/spiritual site as far from the coast as possible. Did manage to drown plenty despite but it couldn't be a primary plan cause of the starting position and adding presence for Bringer takes some time. Ocean is deceptively strong in solo games since the energy gain from drowning scales by player count, so you get gobs and gobs of energy to throw at problems. Although to some extent it's actually easier once you start throwing difficulty modifiers in since that means more food to get going faster. The base game decks are small enough that your odds of seeing specific powers aren't bad, especially in the small majors deck (which solo Ocean does want to crack into since it has a lot of tools for blowing stuff up beyond the coasts.) Although depending on your power draws you don't even necessarily need a ton of range, sometimes you can just hammer the coasts and near-inland lands enough to get a fear victory.
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Nov 27, 2022 16:47
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I think its far more workable for major than minor, for sure. We didn't draw out all of the minors deck but maybe 3/4 of it. I guess it wasn't particularly hard to do but he's still relying on something which might not come up. Majors is more reliable cause it's smaller but I'm still guaranteed not to get a damage or fear major when I play a Defend heavy spirit lmao
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Nov 27, 2022 17:14
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Perry Mason Jar posted:I think its far more workable for major than minor, for sure. We didn't draw out all of the minors deck but maybe 3/4 of it. I guess it wasn't particularly hard to do but he's still relying on something which might not come up. Majors is more reliable cause it's smaller but I'm still guaranteed not to get a damage or fear major when I play a Defend heavy spirit lmao It can be a problem for the earth guy because its board has very bad card gain but Ocean is gaining a card almost every turn, solo Ocean can potentially go through the whole majors deck if the game starts dragging.
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Nov 27, 2022 17:17
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Some day I'm gonna get to actually play a full game of Spirit Island and I swear if some invader stands around watching a colony of ants overrun the local town and dahan village, tearing them apart in the way only a swarm of ants can, and the invader's response is "aw jeeze, I'd better get on rebuilding that" we're gonna flip lol It's like the opposite of the citizens of krikkit going "it'll have to go" in hitchhiker's guide.
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Nov 27, 2022 17:47
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If you can sink an entire island segment with Cast Down and the invaders just shrug and get the hammers, the appeal of colonization must be incredibly strong.
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Nov 27, 2022 18:52
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Oceans is actually most fun at low player counts because of the energy scaling for its innate. It does stay useful for the table generally at larger counts because more coasts it can be on = more problems it's raw presence can solve or help solve. But it feels less fun to drown a city and an explorer and get only one energy instead of 2 or 4.
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Nov 27, 2022 18:58
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the more Exit boxes we do, the more I am convinced the difficulty numbers on the box are just entirely arbitrary - the hardest ones always seem to be in the 2.5-3 star range
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Nov 27, 2022 19:30
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SettingSun posted:If you can sink an entire island segment with Cast Down and the invaders just shrug and get the hammers, the appeal of colonization must be incredibly strong. this is the origin story of the netherlands
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Nov 27, 2022 20:09
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Rockman Reserve posted:the more Exit boxes we do, the more I am convinced the difficulty numbers on the box are just entirely arbitrary - the hardest ones always seem to be in the 2.5-3 star range The difficulty rating I think mostly refers to the non-linearity of the puzzles and the number of obfuscations of the wheel. Like the hardest ones by rating will have several threads of clues going at once and a wheel that you have to translate 2 times to get the real orientations. Any box can have stupid (and I do mean stupid) difficult random puzzles that make no sense but they’ve gotta mix it up somehow.
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Nov 27, 2022 20:46
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Big fans of Azul in this house, with all the extra doodads (joker tiles, different factories, bonus tiles). I remember hearing that Stained Glass of Sintra was sorta mediocre, and now there are two more Azul games? What's the buzz on these? Also, setting aside the theme differences, what are the pros and cons of Stuffed Fables vs Mice and Mystics? This would be for a 10 year old who loves RPGs and strategy games
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Nov 28, 2022 07:16
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canyoneer posted:Big fans of Azul in this house, with all the extra doodads (joker tiles, different factories, bonus tiles). That's absolutely the best version of the system.
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Nov 28, 2022 07:50
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Reaper's president passed away 
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Nov 28, 2022 09:26
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canyoneer posted:Big fans of Azul in this house, with all the extra doodads (joker tiles, different factories, bonus tiles). I remember hearing that Stained Glass of Sintra was sorta mediocre, and now there are two more Azul games? What's the buzz on these? For my money, Summer Pavilion is the best iteration of Azul. It's less punishing but still strategic. Haven't tried Queen's Garden yet.
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Nov 28, 2022 10:12
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canyoneer posted:Big fans of Azul in this house, with all the extra doodads (joker tiles, different factories, bonus tiles). I remember hearing that Stained Glass of Sintra was sorta mediocre, and now there are two more Azul games? What's the buzz on these? I've played a fair amount of Azul, Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra and Azul: Summer Pavilion. Stained Glass of Sintra is indeed kind of mediocre. Summer Pavilion is an interesting twist and I enjoy it a lot, but I don't know that it's a significant enough departure from the original game that I'd want to have both Azul and Azul: Summer Pavilion in my collection and if you forced me to pick just one I think Azul is still the better game. No idea on Queen's Garden but would be curious to hear what people think as well.
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Nov 28, 2022 11:58
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FirstAidKite posted:Some day I'm gonna get to actually play a full game of Spirit Island and I swear if some invader stands around watching a colony of ants overrun the local town and dahan village, tearing them apart in the way only a swarm of ants can, and the invader's response is "aw jeeze, I'd better get on rebuilding that" we're gonna flip lol It's more like "Huh, like two decades ago there was a bad ant attack in this town that my dad told me about. Probably a myth or something, time to build!"
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Nov 28, 2022 14:41
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Is C:DMD actually a good game, or is it just surprising that it isn’t trash? It seems to get back-handed praise in most media I see.
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Nov 28, 2022 19:48
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It's actually legit good, imo the best one-shot dungeon crawler/dice chucker currently available.
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Nov 28, 2022 19:53
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It's mechanically solid if not exciting, but the real reason it succeeds is the scenario design is much better than similar games. It's definitely in the "way better than it should be" category for many reasons.
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Nov 28, 2022 20:08
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Queen's Garden is my favourite out of the non-original Azul games, and generally I prefer to play that over the original if I've got the time, it's more of a puzzle optimization game than a "stop my opponent from winning" game making it considerably less take-that than the original game, which some might find a loss overall. It's not totally multiplayer-solitaire, but it's not nearly as much of a knife fight in a phone booth
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Nov 29, 2022 03:42
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How good is the tutorial in Fog of Love? Can we set up, play it, and properly learn the game? And does it constitute a full game in and of itself?
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Nov 29, 2022 12:55
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OneSizeFitsAll posted:How good is the tutorial in Fog of Love? Can we set up, play it, and properly learn the game? And does it constitute a full game in and of itself? It's good and teaches you everything you need to know pretty well. It's a full game in that there is an entire story but it's short and linear, as you'd probably expect from a tutorial where all the cards are in order.
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Nov 29, 2022 13:28
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Quote-Unquote posted:It's good and teaches you everything you need to know pretty well. It's a full game in that there is an entire story but it's short and linear, as you'd probably expect from a tutorial where all the cards are in order. Great, thanks. Looking forward to giving this a go and diving back into games with the wife again.
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Nov 29, 2022 13:35
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Had a really good time with Mind MGMT over the holidays as my first-ever hidden movement game, despite accidentally giving the rogue agents double the turns they're supposed to have  In the manual there is a split between a training mission which is stripped down and the full game but we are experienced boardgamespeople so we went right to the big one. In most parts of the manual there are breakout sections to differentiate the two and the specific problem is here:  from this, I assumed that the 'activate 2' was a training game thing and the full game has them taking all 4 turns. Having now watched a playthrough on youtube, that is not the case -- they activate 2, then 2 more once the recruiter has moved again. I was wondering why I was so far off a win, but I also didn't do much immortal recruiting at all for the first few turns because I forgot so figured that would make a big difference. I guess a clue would have been the bit that says the agents can't act again until the next 'round' not 'turn' but the teach was also done after a number of festive adult beverages. Game was still a banger either way, though I think quarterbacking might be a real problem in some tables. Also played Dixit with a 6 and 8 year old but 'played' might be a strong word for how that worked out. We had a fun time looking at neat art and telling stories though!
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Nov 29, 2022 15:59
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Played a bunch o' games at the weekend. Played Twilight Imperium, tried The Nomad this time. Nomad seems like a good all-rounder, there's not really a great deal more to say than that. Kind of like a different version of Sol, I guess? I squandered my big Hero turn trying to stop someone from winning. It didn't come off, so someone else had to have a go, and they managed it. The subsequent turn, I would have won if I'd still got the ability! There were 4 of the 6 of us in contention though, so who knows what would have actually happened. A real barn-stormer. I maintain that the Naaz Rokha are utterly bullshit OP though. We played some Lords of Hellas, this time using a ton of the expansions. I'd shied away from using them initially because when reading them, it all just feels like 'more stuff'. In practice, that's very much the case, and it feels like the expansion content held on to the main game with naught but hopes and prayers. Like, you get new monsters with 'some' of the expansions. But you can't just shuffle them into the event deck, because then it's too diluted, so you have to add the quests and the extra combat cards too. But, some of those are dependent on certain game boards being out, that you can't use with certain player counts, so... what, I can use these extra monsters, or, no? The different God monuments in the expansions all have two versions, one that does a new gameplay element, or one that replaces one of the old monuments stat-upgrades. But so like that means if you replace an old monument, you either cant upgrade that stat, or you cant use the new gameplay elements. So, you have to have 4 monuments to use the new gameplay elements. But there's no concession to the fact this changes the balance of the number of places priests can go, so... I guess it just doesn't matter? And then, it means you can only have one new gameplay element at a time. But all the elements the monuments bring are quite small...? I dunno, it all just felt like a "crazy" amount of extra busywork for set up and tear down for these almost inconsequential additions. Some of them didn't feel balanced 'at all', like with the Muses, they can usurp. But you can't interact with them. So this makes winning via monuments literally impossible, as someone will just park a muse there and usurp the turn before you can win, stealing it from you, and then take the final turn and win. ETC ETC ETC. It all just kind of falls apart. The games were all really fun, and everyone enjoyed it, but it's so clearly just a bunch of silo'd systems that don't really interact well with each other. I couldn't even tell you which expansions I used, or if I even used all of one expansion or not? Played a 6 player game of Star Trek Ascendancy. I managed to pull off a sneaky Vulcan win with my secret objective by having all the shields and guns upgraded. I definitely wouldn't be able to do it again. At the start I was allying with everyone. Not being able to lie meant that when I said "I can help you if I'm allied and I can't / don't want to attack you ever" people just handed me trade agreements. The practicality of how much I could help though turned out to be marginal. People wouldn't give me that leeway again in the future, and I don't really see how without it, I could have come close. They can put out ambassadors on systems of people that you're allied with, and then once they're out, you can move them to your systems. This feels really weird, because, if no one allied with me, I'd never be able to use ambassadors, and they're a hugely integral part of the Vulcans. Seems real odd.
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Nov 29, 2022 16:14
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quote:Offboard colors and graphic design: This was a really tough choice to make for this project, but we ultimately decided that the offboard presentation had to change for visual clarity. As I was reading the update, was getting worried about making it look too much like a typical xx and still getting weird pushback from train gamers for any aesthetic advancements whatsoever. But the solution isn’t too bad.
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Dec 1, 2022 13:44
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I like that a lot better than the 'graphic update' somebody made before- the lines being a high contrast element make the map much more readable.
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Dec 1, 2022 14:04
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Chill la Chill posted:As I was reading the update, was getting worried about making it look too much like a typical xx and still getting weird pushback from train gamers for any aesthetic advancements whatsoever. But the solution isn’t too bad. Yeah it looks great. I can't wait for this. I hope there are no secret changes at the factory before they ship out. GTG is really a great company. (Now get to work on 1871 dammit) EDIT: Might as well add that I got to play another (mostly) complete game of 1867 on the weekend. We blasted through the 2 and 3Ts, which was great to see because in the past we've struggled with these guys and the beginning drags. After that it was nuts and at one point my wife was making $790 a run. My question is regarding strategy in this game because it feels like you're not going to win by looting a company or stock shenanigans and that once someone gets going it seems impossible to stop them. I am not good at incremental capitalisation games and cannot wrap my head around stopping someone. If you buy shares from them (already at a good price) sure you stop money going into the company but you're also flooding the company's coffers. Also, as that company puts out fat paydays you want more of those shares so not only is the stock climbing but so is its treasury via dividends (since cash is tight in this game IMO and most people can only afford a couple shares if any) AND via players purchasing shares. Maybe the issue is the cash tightness but I really cannot see how you get around this based on my 1/2 dozen plays to date. FulsomFrank fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Dec 1, 2022 |
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Dec 1, 2022 15:38
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Chill la Chill posted:train gamers train gamers trainamers trainamimers traimners got there
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Dec 1, 2022 15:41
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Shikkoku's going to be my first 18xx, and I am quite hyped.
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Dec 1, 2022 17:10
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FulsomFrank posted:Yeah it looks great. I can't wait for this. I hope there are no secret changes at the factory before they ship out. GTG is really a great company. 1861/67 are both mostly about maneuvering around the 4t nationalization event and the aftermath, there's not really a whole lot to do to change the situation after that. Though it also sounds like you and your players are merging at high prices which is why you're only able to afford a couple of shares at a time, try merging faster at lower prices or growing up single minors instead to take advantage of higher share count. 61/67 winners can often, though not always, be determined by an early share count lead.
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Dec 1, 2022 17:25
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taser rates posted:1861/67 are both mostly about maneuvering around the 4t nationalization event and the aftermath, there's not really a whole lot to do to change the situation after that. Though it also sounds like you and your players are merging at high prices which is why you're only able to afford a couple of shares at a time, try merging faster at lower prices or growing up single minors instead to take advantage of higher share count. 61/67 winners can often, though not always, be determined by an early share count lead. That's what's confusing me. Maybe we're somehow going a set of ORs later than we should but I felt like everyone merged their minors at the first chance they got and the natural share value of the resulting major was very high in spite of parring at the bare minimum and paying out every time. I ascended by one minor into a major but it was a dog of a company compared to theirs. I think if people were more aggressive with loans and shuffling trains between minors this might be a different story perhaps but it feels unintuitive and meta-y.
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Dec 1, 2022 18:13
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Sorry to be the bearer of this news: https://twitter.com/DEADLINE/status/1597623174295965697
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Dec 1, 2022 18:59
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Jewmanji posted:Sorry to be the bearer of this news: They already made this, it was called Total Recall.
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Dec 1, 2022 19:09
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It sounds like they just want to make a film about megacorp funded terraformation of Mars, a subgenre of sci fi not exclusive to this game.
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Dec 1, 2022 20:01
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you say that now but once the movie comes out and it is a poorly-paced slow-moving mess where no one is really interacting with each other you'll see how true it was to its inspiration
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Dec 1, 2022 21:17
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