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Anonymous Robot posted:Another part of it is that board game players trend older as a demographic. Older often means more income and less time for hobbies/social opportunities, so buying a new game offers the “feeling” of engaging in your hobby, having a rule set to pore over and new trinkets to tinker with, despite that it will maybe never make it to the table. Actually, yeah, this is huge. I think though, it goes beyond that. I think that's our experience of it so the most relatable part, but I know it was also true when I was younger, did have time and friends with time, but not money, that I'd love pouring over the rulebooks online, and I think 'thinking about playing it' is just in and of itself, a big draw. You know, strategizing between games is certainly a thing, but as well I mean there's sort of a fantasizing element. Like, "Next time I play Twilight Imperium, I'm gonna get this tech, and get this relic, and that planet and that combo will be insane!" but then when you play it next time, on the day you go "Actually I'll try a different faction". You know, the thinking about it and just exploring it, that's just in and of itself part of the hobby. And, yeah for sure, new games really open up that vault more than old ones.
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Apr 28, 2023 13:30
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Gotta say that the experience of going to someone's house to play a classic euro (Caylus in this instance) that they know like the back of their hand and getting your poo poo absolutely demolished is Not Very Fun.
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Apr 28, 2023 13:34
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bobvonunheil posted:Gotta say that the experience of going to someone's house to play a classic euro (Caylus in this instance) that they know like the back of their hand and getting your poo poo absolutely demolished is Not Very Fun. I think you’re pretty much any game which isn’t completely thematic or based on luck is the same. Any time my wife wants to play a playing card game I feel this exact experience.
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Apr 28, 2023 13:52
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I don't mind getting demolished by better players, I just see it as steps towards getting better and allows me to see what they do in order to win.
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Apr 28, 2023 14:05
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bobvonunheil posted:Gotta say that the experience of going to someone's house to play a classic euro (Caylus in this instance) that they know like the back of their hand and getting your poo poo absolutely demolished is Not Very Fun. I avoid this situation by being absolute poo poo at most games I play, even those I've played a number of times
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Apr 28, 2023 14:21
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Tekopo posted:I don't mind getting demolished by better players, I just see it as steps towards getting better and allows me to see what they do in order to win. I feel that way about fighting games, because a similar massive skill gulf exists in those, but in the case of a fighting game a match lasts under three minutes and you’re reset back to a neutral position at the midpoint. Different story with an hour+ board game. I came to eventually dread playing Android: Netrunner for this reason, even though I think it’s a great game. My friend would just play me like a fiddle every time.
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Apr 28, 2023 14:35
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Anonymous Robot posted:I feel that way about fighting games, because a similar massive skill gulf exists in those, but in the case of a fighting game a match lasts under three minutes and you’re reset back to a neutral position at the midpoint. Different story with an hour+ board game. Yeah, I dont mind losing games generally, but there have been certain games against certain players I've come away from thinking "Well I never had even a sliver of a chance, and I've not learned anything other than this game isnt fun when you are being absolutely destroyed". I'm unlikely to play that game against that player a second time, and in some cases its made that game a hard sell to get me to play at all. As with a lot of this hobby it does depend a lot on who you are playing with.
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Apr 28, 2023 15:11
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Anonymous Robot posted:I feel that way about fighting games, because a similar massive skill gulf exists in those, but in the case of a fighting game a match lasts under three minutes and you’re reset back to a neutral position at the midpoint. Different story with an hour+ board game. However, fighting games require many more hours of practice as well as diminishing dexterity as you get older compared to board games where it's much easier to be brought up to speed. Tekopo posted:I don't mind getting demolished by better players, I just see it as steps towards getting better and allows me to see what they do in order to win. Yeah, one of the things I always tried to do with curating a board game group is make sure they have this mentality. One day I will find the perfect group that wouldn't mind playing container for a year+
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Apr 28, 2023 15:51
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Morpheus posted:I avoid this situation by being absolute poo poo at most games I play, even those I've played a number of times t. me SiKboy posted:Yeah, I dont mind losing games generally, but there have been certain games against certain players I've come away from thinking "Well I never had even a sliver of a chance, and I've not learned anything other than this game isnt fun when you are being absolutely destroyed". I'm unlikely to play that game against that player a second time, and in some cases its made that game a hard sell to get me to play at all. As with a lot of this hobby it does depend a lot on who you are playing with. No one likes being an obvious pincushion or punching bag with someone just looking for an easy win. That's why it's tons of fun learning a new game together with the group so everyone is kind of figuring things out at the same pace, especially stuff like 18xx.
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Apr 28, 2023 15:53
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Tekopo posted:I don't mind getting demolished by better players, I just see it as steps towards getting better and allows me to see what they do in order to win. Must be nice to be a grown up like that. But seriously, I think people put WAY too much stock in playing to win the first time a game hits the table. Where is that poster who said the first couple plays of a game will suck, because that. If I can walk away from a first play with a somewhat firm grasp of the rules and how they play out and some assurance that we actually enforced said rules correctly, I'm a happy camper for the most part. Winning and how to do it is more of a repeat play kinda thing
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Apr 28, 2023 16:51
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Yea, I spent years getting demolished in 18xx by older players, but the flipside of that was getting to watch and figure out what they were doing helped me improve my own play significantly.
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Apr 28, 2023 17:42
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I personally am totally fine losing, but hate losing and feeling like I didn't learn anything whatsoever about the strategy. I get the idea of the first play just being learning the rules and pulling levers, but I don't get much out of that, myself, just feels like I'm injecting random plays and not moving myself towards anything enjoyable to me.
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Apr 28, 2023 17:49
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offering a dissenting opinion that for most games the first few plays rock, if primarily because of novelty. the mark of a real one is if I want to replay something past three plays. I like learning for the first time with others but I also like getting smoked by a vet because the ones I play with are very candid about what constitutes a good strategy
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Apr 28, 2023 17:54
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Some games you can learn from the playing (and losing) process, but some games are kind of "the more I win, the less you get to play" and for those it's probably a good idea to pump the brakes a little and sandbag it if you're introducing new players. The fighting games analogy is very apt here. Pick a fighter at random, round starts and oh I'm dead and my fighter never touched the ground again after taking the first hit. That's just being someone's punching bag and maybe some can learn in that environment but at the very least it's not best and at the worst I never want to play again.
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Apr 28, 2023 18:10
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There's one guy who frequently plays in games I'm in via Meetup, and he's a game savant. The rest of us take it as a badge of honor to defeat him in any given game. Most of the time, I don't mind losing in games with him (much), because (1) he almost always beats everyone else, so I'm not alone, and (2) I can see what he's done and what I've done and refine my strategy. E.g., I've consistently narrowed the score in Brass:Birmingham playing against him -- still can't beat him but I'm getting closer, and of course when playing in games without him my level of play has skyrocketed. But I was playing Dune:Imperium (epic mode to 12) recently, and the leader had 13 points and I had 12, with that guy down at 10 and the fourth in single digits, so I was proud of my decent second place showing. Well, that guy flips over two endgame intrigue cards that give him 3 VP, and he wins the tiebreaker on spice. That really soured me not on playing with this guy (though, what, he needs a horseshoe up his rear end as well as that keen gameplaying mind?), but rather on the game, where I had already been annoyed by the fickleness and variable usefulness of the intrigue cards even before this. It's been a while since I played but I don't remember, e.g., the treachery cards in Dune classic being so swingy (barring lasgun/shield interaction), and that was made by the guys who designed Cosmic Encounter! (I realize there's skill required to keep those two cards throughout the game and not get cards poached by Secrets, and you're running at a disadvantage with room for only usable one Intrigue card, but still...aarrrgghhhh!)
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Apr 28, 2023 19:30
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you considered him out of contention for victory? sounds like a skill issue 
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Apr 28, 2023 19:35
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I'm playing Twilight Imperium for the first time this weekend, any hot tips so I don't spend hours regretting my choices?
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Apr 28, 2023 19:37
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Admiralty Flag posted:There's one guy who frequently plays in games I'm in via Meetup, and he's a game savant. The rest of us take it as a badge of honor to defeat him in any given game. Board gaming like nothing else has helped me appreciate that some people are just better at manipulating things in an abstract space so as to goal-seek and find local/global maximums and minimums or however you wanna put it, i.e. they are smart(er). It's definitely help me come to terms with where I stand, except for when I'm playing against them  . And usually they are like awkward or something too so ha.
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Apr 28, 2023 19:51
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For me, I tend towards new games because I like learning new games. Not so much the "learning rules" part - but I like those first few games where you feel like you're getting better quickly, and the games have a lot of variance as people try different stuff out. A game has to really grab me for me to press further, into the part where I'm not getting better fast, and where the play patterns (or consistent skill differences) become more clear.
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Apr 28, 2023 19:53
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LifeLynx posted:I'm playing Twilight Imperium for the first time this weekend, any hot tips so I don't spend hours regretting my choices? Treat it less like a war game, and more a diplomatic area control game. Have a strong military, but never over commit - always have a backup
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Apr 28, 2023 20:00
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LifeLynx posted:I'm playing Twilight Imperium for the first time this weekend, any hot tips so I don't spend hours regretting my choices? Yeah it's not Space Risk so if you play it like that you'll lose and so will whoever you pick a fight with. Make peace with neighbours and keep them happy. The NUMBER ONE THING TO DO is accomplish objectives. I cannot stress this enough. Everything you do should be in service of accomplishing objectives to get VPs. If you take your foot of the pedal you will lose if you're playing against people who know the game well. Try not to get into wars with people pointlessly either. Play to your faction's strengths. And if you are playing with any vindictive or easily offended people they are going to have a Bad Time because there is a ton of gently caress YOU in it and boy oh boy can it get personal.
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Apr 28, 2023 20:06
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LifeLynx posted:I'm playing Twilight Imperium for the first time this weekend, any hot tips so I don't spend hours regretting my choices? Read the rulebook thoroughly, as even just knowing what you're capable of will give you an edge. It's a points game first and foremost. Look at the objectives in play and figure out what it's going to take to meet them, above most other considerations. Don't give your opponents a path to your homeworld(s). If you lose control of them you lose your ability to score.
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Apr 28, 2023 20:10
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Yeah aim for points above all else Everything you do should be working towards your victory conditions. Have seen more than a few games won because a conflict is happening on one side of the table, while one player is just casually getting all the points
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Apr 28, 2023 20:19
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silvergoose posted:I personally am totally fine losing, but hate losing and feeling like I didn't learn anything whatsoever about the strategy. panko posted:offering a dissenting opinion that for most games the first few plays rock, if primarily because of novelty. the mark of a real one is if I want to replay something past three plays. I like learning for the first time with others but I also like getting smoked by a vet because the ones I play with are very candid about what constitutes a good strategy When teaching a game, I always make a point to highlight the good strategies and the traps. The player who wins this game is usually the player with the most X that they got by doing Y. You may be tempted to do a lot of Z but be aware of [non-obvious downside or risk] In base Dominion, X is "provinces", Y is "having $8 in their hand most often", and Z is "clogging your deck with too many copies of action cards that should have been a silver or gold instead" In Downforce X is "have a car finish in the top 3", Y is "buying one or more cars you have good cards for", and Z is "overpaying for a car, you better have a great reason for spending more than ~$4M on a car or for buying two" Getting clobbered on a first (or any) play is softened for me if the game tickles the part of my brain that likes building things. Didn't win on points, but look how cute and tidy my little town/tableau/deck/engine is! Playing Agricola:ACBAS with my wife, her joke is always that regardless of the final score, it's a win if she ends the game with a cow in her house. We've played Patchwork together probably 50 times and I've won maybe twice. Perhaps her eye for aesthetics is partially responsible for her great record there. The Eyes Have It posted:Some games you can learn from the playing (and losing) process, but some games are kind of "the more I win, the less you get to play" and for those it's probably a good idea to pump the brakes a little and sandbag it if you're introducing new players. So many games with competitive scenes have "control" build archetypes that are just miserable to play against even in tournament settings among equally skilled players. A lot of those same loadouts are not even very fun to play as either, so what are we even doing here? That's what was so boring about the X-Wing scene to me, many of the top meta builds were like that and it was very dull to play against the same 2 or 3 lists that for the 4 months in between releases
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Apr 28, 2023 22:00
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Infinitum posted:Yeah aim for points above all else Yeah, this is very much the case, you should take photos of the objectives so that you can keep referring to them without having to move, and so EVERYTHING that you do with them in mind. Are you playing classic or Prophecy of Kings? One of the issues that PoK fixed, is that in classic, a high percentage of the objectives are tech based (have X amount of technologies). This is a "problem" because there's nothing anyone can do to stop you having technologies, so you can just wait to score those last, and no one will be able to stop you. It also means that you need to research tech every round, even if its stuff you don't feel you need, on the off chance a tech objective does come up. One thing people have touched on, it's pretty much always a bad thing to be involved in a combat, win or lose. It uses valuable resources that none of the other players had to spend. If you're a fighty faction like barony, just bully people, but try not to fight. (I'm going to take both these tiles that we could otherwise split between us. If you protest I'll come at you with everything) etc etc. On the flipside, it's basically always beneficial to make any trade, even if its one that's hugely unfair to you, because the alternative is some other player getting that small advantage and you nothing. As long as you don't keep making lop sided deals with the SAME player, getting extra resources is essentially always good. The way that the game ends, typically has a bit of a dance, with someone trying to take the Imperium strategy while also holding rex to score the winning point, and with EVERYONE else at the table spaffing everything they've got to stop them. So, aim to try and be the second person to do that. The tactics card that let's you swap a strategy card after picks is absolute gold dust for this point in the game.
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Apr 29, 2023 00:30
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I saw at the store today Ravensburger reprinted Quest for El Dorado so I picked that up. Cool deckbuilder, but was over much quicker than I expected it to be. I'll have to review the rules again to make sure I didn't miss anything.
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Apr 29, 2023 05:00
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Azran posted:Alright, we're doing our annual math trade down here in Argentina so I wanted to ask for goon opinions on the following games: Ended up getting IAWW, Istanbul and Hive Pocket! I still wanted Res Arcana so I ended up ordering it online  hell yeah board games
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Apr 29, 2023 08:02
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I'm trying to remember the name of a card game I had growing up. The cards were the United States (at least the continental ones; can't remember if Hawaii and Alaska were included). The goal was to lay down a path across the US by having cards that were adjacent to each other. So e.g. California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia. I think score was inversely proportional to how many neighbors a state had. Does this ring a bell for anyone?
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Apr 29, 2023 12:28
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hooah posted:I'm trying to remember the name of a card game I had growing up. The cards were the United States (at least the continental ones; can't remember if Hawaii and Alaska were included). The goal was to lay down a path across the US by having cards that were adjacent to each other. So e.g. California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia. I think score was inversely proportional to how many neighbors a state had. Does this ring a bell for anyone? Welcome to the thread! It does not sound familiar to me, and a quick search turned up too many results to find much of anything. If you could estimate the time of publication or describe anything physical you remember about the cards, that might help. Funny enough, it's not the first time we've gotten a request like that recently. If no one here remembers it, what you could do is post it to the BoardGameGeek forums. In a way similar to something like Tip of my Joystick, they often have posts being like "I found this game piece under the bookshelf, but I don't recognize it." or something. Here's a recent example: Help to identify old war game pieces. In this case someone responded in literally five minutes. The alacrity at which BBG users will typically respond with the answer always amazes me. That example is of a photo of a piece, but there are also threads about your type of predicament too. With permission, I could also post this question there if you don't want to be bothered.
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Apr 29, 2023 12:42
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hooah posted:I'm trying to remember the name of a card game I had growing up. The cards were the United States (at least the continental ones; can't remember if Hawaii and Alaska were included). The goal was to lay down a path across the US by having cards that were adjacent to each other. So e.g. California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia. I think score was inversely proportional to how many neighbors a state had. Does this ring a bell for anyone? You just exactly described Mapominoes, but that seems too recent to be one you'd have growing up.
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Apr 29, 2023 13:02
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Magnetic North posted:Welcome to the thread! It does not sound familiar to me, and a quick search turned up too many results to find much of anything. If you could estimate the time of publication or describe anything physical you remember about the cards, that might help. I'll try, but this was like 20 years ago. So, it must have been published before 2000, since I remember playing it before high school. It may have had a little sand timer, and the backs of the cards were predominantly blue. I don't think there were any pieces beyond the cards, rulebook (which probably had a map to check routes), and potential timer. I'll hit up BGG if no one here can figure out my vague memory card in a couple of days. It's definitely been a valuable resource for finding new games to play! Jedit posted:You just exactly described Mapominoes, but that seems too recent to be one you'd have growing up. drat, that is very similar (although I don't remember transit options, which is why I think it may have been just the continental states). I looked Mapominoes on BGG, hoping their list of similar games would have the one I'm thinking of, but no luck. hooah fucked around with this message at 13:08 on Apr 29, 2023 |
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Apr 29, 2023 13:05
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It's presumably neither 10 days in the USA nor travel blog, both of which share some of what you described but I don't think are correct.
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Apr 29, 2023 13:54
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I played Carnegie last night. It was my first game night in nearly 4 years, and I am very out of practice learning an indecipherable iconography that expresses a soup of interconnected systems that turn actions into resources into points. There was a bit at the beginning where I wasn't sure if I was having fun or if it was time to turn in my cult-of-the-new ceremonial dagger, but I got into it. I looked up from my opening moves to see that my board state was identical to my brother's (who knew what the hell he was doing) which was a promising start. I was quick to recognize the Puerto Rico of it and the importance of making action selections not based on what I needed most but what the other players needed the least. I ended up in last place, but a respectable distance from first. There are plenty of games that I could go deep on instead of learning new ones, but that's not really what the hobby is about for me. It's exciting to see what new ideas people have for how to push cubes around and having a broad enough pool of experience to recognize mechanics from somewhere else that have been mixed up to make something that feels newer than the sum of its parts.
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Apr 29, 2023 19:37
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silvergoose posted:It's presumably neither 10 days in the USA nor travel blog, both of which share some of what you described but I don't think are correct. 10 Days in the USA is very close, although it's from 2003. It does include a game board, but the board is just a reference map and it can be played without it if you know your geography or want a challenge. It doesn't have scoring though, it's just a race to finish your connections first.
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Apr 29, 2023 19:57
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Have a lot of travel coming up with downtime to play with friends which led me to repacking my travel game box. This is what I have in the box: Blitzkrieg! RftG FCM (dry erase version seen above) Superskill Pinball The Crew Deep Sea Radlands Air Land & Sea and Spies Battle Line Lost Cities Rivals Hanabi Ragnarocks And a deck of cards to play the following: Skull Cockroach Poker Resistance Werewolf Regicide High Society* *Figured out a way to play this with a standard deck: A-10 of a suit is each players money, shuffle face cards and jokers for the auction pile. Kings are 5 points, Queens are 3, Jacks double the K&Q for that suit (Lost Cities style), and Jokers are a reverse bid round for -7 (-10 seemed too high?). Game ends when 4th King is drawn, score same as High Society where person with lowest money in hand is out.
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Apr 29, 2023 20:25
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Bottom Liner posted:Have a lot of travel coming up with downtime to play with friends which led me to repacking my travel game box. This is what I have in the box: Holy that's a stacked travel box! How does Ragnarocks compare to something like Santorini (share a designer)?
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Apr 30, 2023 04:16
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I like it more. The design is a lot more open and games can play out wildly differently compared to Santorini, even before you add in the character powers. It's a lot more akin to Go than any other abstract I can think of, with the way the area control and pressure flows. It's also my homemade version so I don't have the chunky pieces and board in this box. This is what the Rag pnp and box looked like last time I swapped games in and out:   Bottom Liner fucked around with this message at 05:08 on Apr 30, 2023 |
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Apr 30, 2023 05:05
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Ragnarocks is cool and good. Simple abstract rules, but a totally different game then Santorini.
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Apr 30, 2023 05:16
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So we had board game training for staff the other night, we were going over area control games. Unlike previous training meetings where we'd only play the game for about an hour and rotate to the next, we had to choose a game and play to the end (or well, as close to the end as we could get, we figured we'd get pressed for time and did). The three games were Blood Rage, Rising Sun, and Ankh. Hearing that Rising Sun had a betting mechanic immediately made me disinterested, and Blood Rage having drafting meant it wasn't my first choice, so I took Ankh. And I loved it. Unfortunately, I was bad at it and ended up "losing" but turning it into a massive win. I grabbed Amun, who can use two cards once during each combat, and didn't make good use of it. I tried to go for a turtle strategy and building up the area I started in and largely stayed out of combat, which was a bad idea. Without getting into combat it meant I didn't have a good method to earn Victory Points and that left me nearly at the bottom of the track when it came time to merge. Fortunately the guy I merged with and I managed to pull out a victory (we didn't actually get to the end of the game, but we were ahead at the very end) by combining the tier 3 powers that give you an extra Victory Point every time you earn one in the red area, and the one that lets you sacrifice two followers after every combat for a Victory Point, and then just got into as many fights as we could. I don't know if this strategy could have actually won it for us if we'd played a full game (we were pretty low on units when we had to call it), but the fact we were able to get that far felt really good. Which I guess is also why the guy who was familiar with the game said the catch up mechanic was bullshit. Though to be fair, he didn't say it was bullshit because of that, but because of the massive advantage the merged players get, which is being able to take actions "out of order," like being able to summon units and then immediately move them (which isn't possible for a single player, since the summoning action has to take place after moving units for them).So yeah I was pretty happy with my choice. I think I also kind of like that everyone is on mostly equal footing when it comes to combat, since everyone has the exact same combat cards and you know which ones people have played. I dunno how I feel about the expansions though, the ones that just add new gods/units seem fine, but the one that adds priests and temple rooms seems a bit much. But I guess maybe it would feel more interesting after playing multiple regular games of it. I'm now also reminded that our distributor accidentally sent us a French copy of Ankh that we have on our shelf. Dunno how we'll ever sell that one.
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Apr 30, 2023 21:39
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Ankh is great. I kind of wish it had a version with much lower production costs - tiles instead of minis, a smaller board and player mats, so it could cost 1/3 of what it does. I think oddly if it looked more like a Knizia style euro it might get a bit more respect/love, and maybe find the right audience. The scenarios and gods in the base give it a lot of variety without the expansions too.
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Apr 30, 2023 23:34
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