|
About to get a game of Star Trek Ascendancy on the table, with 3 people. Any suggestions to minimize downtime, or any things to watch out for?
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2023 01:43
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 07:56 |
|
|
DropTheAnvil posted:About to get a game of Star Trek Ascendancy on the table, with 3 people. Any suggestions to minimize downtime, or any things to watch out for? You can play your first two turns simultaneously most of the time, and possibly third. Play as many as you can simultaneously, tbh. In a three player, you're almost certainly going to have klingons going for your base. Plan accordingly!
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2023 01:58
|
|
|
DropTheAnvil posted:About to get a game of Star Trek Ascendancy on the table, with 3 people. Any suggestions to minimize downtime, or any things to watch out for? If someone's playing the Vulcans then they will probably win by surprise with new players since no one knows their hidden victory condition, and no one will know what their hidden victory conditions are "like" in general, and they're all focusing on their own poo poo because they're new. Vulcans will have two agenda cards, one face-up and one face-down. They win if they achieve either (if I'm remembering right.) I'd kind of recommend showing the new players a small sampling of what the agenda cards are "like" so they aren't completely in the dark about what can happen / what sorts of things the Vulcan player might be going for.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2023 02:11
|
|
|
Looking like I might finally have an opportunity to bust Rococo Deluxe out for its first spin this weekend, which I'm very excited about Anyone know if I should just slam the mini expansion into the box?
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2023 13:15
|
|
|
For the record I just meant that I spend most my time in the rules book trying to clarify things I swore I knew inside and out when doing a teach and in the interests of expediency usually end up taking whatever move feels good at that moment just to keep things moving while being laughed at by the other guys who figured things out a while ago for doing something OBIVOUSLY STUPID, DUMMY. Contrast that with non-teaching games when my AP becomes a totally different and obnoxious beast.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2023 13:51
|
|
|
Infinitum posted:Looking like I might finally have an opportunity to bust Rococo Deluxe out for its first spin this weekend, which I'm very excited about hell yeah
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2023 18:45
|
|
|
The Eyes Have It posted:If someone's playing the Vulcans then they will probably win by surprise with new players since no one knows their hidden victory condition, and no one will know what their hidden victory conditions are "like" in general, and they're all focusing on their own poo poo because they're new. We only managed to get through 1/2 of the game (Only had time for 3 hours) but I like-ish Star Trek Ascendancy. The tips really helped as everyone is either new or returning after having played the game a few years ago. The thing I am going to takeaway from Ascendancy is the cool Map system. It's entertaining to watch as people figure out how to block lanes, or block planets to protect themselves and form chokepoints. My only complaint would be the game length. Even though we are new, I think if we were experienced you would still have some downtime after your turn is done.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2023 05:52
|
|
|
Got my first live play of Heat: Pedal to the Metal on bga yesterday. What a fun game, I loved how it played and how people were able to get into it. I wish it wasn't pretty much sold out everywhere so I could actually get a physical copy.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2023 22:13
|
|
|
I'm not sure exactly what it is about the rules formula of Heat but it's a rare instance of a game that I've had a couple different friend groups deliberately asking for more of. Most of the time they'll entertain a learning game of something and enjoy it but ultimately be fairly apathetic, but Heat has had people actively asking to play it again.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2023 02:08
|
|
|
As Tom of Shut Up And Sit Down said, it does a really good job of feeling like what you want racing to feel like, instead of what it looks like. The moment when it truly grabbed me was when I realized that zero cards are fantastic, because they let you go around a tight corner in a high gear. Pity about the availability, hopefully there'll be stock by Christmastime.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2023 02:26
|
|
|
Carillon posted:Got my first live play of Heat: Pedal to the Metal on bga yesterday. What a fun game, I loved how it played and how people were able to get into it. I wish it wasn't pretty much sold out everywhere so I could actually get a physical copy. If you spam your email into all the online stores "notify me when back in stock" options, you'll likely be able to snag a copy. I did that and had a copy within about a month. It comes in stock and then sells out again at random places very quickly. There's also a thread on BGG where folks post when it comes in stock, so signing up for notifications when that thread moves is helpful as well.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2023 02:36
|
|
|
How does Heat compare to Formula D? I guess the first is a card game while the latter uses dice, so they're pretty different games. But other than that? Formula D is all about taking risks and timing your gears/dice for different turns off the track.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2023 19:47
|
|
|
Captain Scandinaiva posted:How does Heat compare to Formula D? I guess the first is a card game while the latter uses dice, so they're pretty different games. But other than that? Formula D is all about taking risks and timing your gears/dice for different turns off the track. It has the risk taking and strategy of formula d without the garbage fire that is rolling dice to move. It's a better game in every way
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2023 05:27
|
|
|
SkeletonHero posted:Pearlbrook: Easily the worst one. Adds a new resource and worker type that completely screw with the action economy, and a new set of VP awards that can only be acquired with said new resource and are worth a wildly outsized amount of points. It is very pretty though. cool, thanks. I ended up getting Spirecrest and it was a pretty good first game. I think at this point Ill just try and get cards I can put into the main deck, one of the things my group has noticed is the meadow getting really stale and not having much movement
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2023 07:22
|
|
|
Got to play Scout 3P yesterday. I can see why this would be better at 4, because occasionally two opponents can't beat a somewhat modest 3 card show. You can imagine that being a lot harder with it getting Scouted twice before the last chance to beat it. But even at that player count, it's really really something, so amazingly clever. Obviously it's been super hyped for a long while, so no surprise here.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2023 08:53
|
|
|
Tabletop Tycoon is having a sale of some kind. Complete Everdell for a mere $202 and all your shelf space. Ultimate Nemo's War for $90. Also included are preorders for blankets with Everdell art, the best use for Everdell art.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2023 09:19
|
|
|
SelenicMartian posted:Tabletop Tycoon is having a sale of some kind. Complete Everdell for a mere $202 and all your shelf space. Ultimate Nemo's War for $90. Nemo’s War is such a cool game. It has so much random, but the feel it evokes if you just accept Jules Vernes ocean is an unpredictable deadly mistress is pretty awesome. $90 seems expensive, but the product is quite luxurious.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2023 13:53
|
|
|
The End posted:It has the risk taking and strategy of formula d without the garbage fire that is rolling dice to move. It's a better game in every way I think the dice make Formula D 10x easier to explain to most people.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2023 14:02
|
|
|
Magnetic North posted:Got to play Scout 3P yesterday. I can see why this would be better at 4, because occasionally two opponents can't beat a somewhat modest 3 card show. You can imagine that being a lot harder with it getting Scouted twice before the last chance to beat it. But even at that player count, it's really really something, so amazingly clever. Obviously it's been super hyped for a long while, so no surprise here. SCOUT is amazing. The meta at my tables recently changed from people building up big hands to try to force players to pass out of a hand, to players aggressively trying to beat plays and get rid of their cards fast. This "new" way of playing has given me an increased appreciation for the game. Really what sets it apart from other ladder climbing games is that playing strong formations doesn't necessarily weaken your hand if you can line things up properly. It's all about dem combos
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2023 15:35
|
|
|
CODChimera posted:cool, thanks. I ended up getting Spirecrest and it was a pretty good first game. Yup, expansions end up being you just mixing a handful of "regular" cards in to the base game and throwing the rest of the box the trash
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2023 16:11
|
|
|
PRADA SLUT posted:Yup, expansions end up being you just mixing a handful of "regular" cards in to the base game and
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2023 16:20
|
|
|
Been playing a bit more Challengers! on BGA. Boy that game is weird. You can limp along with a terrible deck, but if you manage to get good late and maybe pick up a few fans with card abilities, you can sneak into the final match. Then, the numbers don't matter; you just need to win. I kind of wish other board games had that type of 'playoff' final, but I also can't imagine a game where it would work outside of Challengers with simultaneous, simple game play featuring direct one-on-one conflict. There's not much like it, which I think is why it's charmed so many people. I think it would be improved by mixing it with its upcoming expansion, since there's only 6 variable teams in the box and you only use 5 in a game.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2023 23:20
|
|
|
Played Age of Innovation at an event on the weekend. It was definitely good fun and most of the improvements feel really good over Terra Mystica, but I'm also not sure why this needs to exist when there's already Terra Mystica with expansions and Gaia Project. I'd have to play more to know for sure but I think for me losing the really focused nature of the TM/GP player boards in favour of the mix-and-match style in AoI is a bit of a downgrade. Would certainly lead to more variation, but at the cost of uniqueness. Maybe? It still feels like 90% the same game, so for now I don't see any reason to own it in addition to GP, but maybe with more plays I could come to prefer it. I can imagine though that if you didn't already own one of these games this might be the best starting point.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2023 23:33
|
|
|
I really like spirit island, so I was really interested in Uprising: The Last Emperor . It's a coop 4x, with a hex based board that sees enemies from the empire coming out at you from the center, and enemies of Chaos coming at you from the edges, with you caught in between. The aim is to go 4 rounds, and for all players to have scored more than both enemy teams, who both run off a different algorithm for how they operate. (They can even attack each other!) They had a kickstarter recently because an expansion came out, and having read a ton of reviews that were all positive (a long time after the hype for the og kickstarter died down no less) I bit the bullet. It came a couple of weeks ago, and after two games me and my wife, and a 4 player game; it's really fun! The game is hard. It's hard in a way, where when you flip the very first event card of the game right at the start, you go "Really? OH JEEZ" and it never really let's up. It actually seems much harder 2 player, just because there seems to be some elements without a lot of built in scaling, but there's plenty of opportunity to tweak stuff to find a good balance. Normally, adjusting stuff to 'fix' difficulty leaves a sour taste in my mouth, like as if the game isn't well tested and tuned enough so it's just left up to you. This doesn't feel like that. It feels like the game is INCREDIBLY tight, and I'm tweaking the rules to play easy mode because I haven't worked it out yet. Much like spirit island, to be honest. It has that je ne sais quois where you find yourself thinking of different strategies as you lie in bed. You have a hero unit that can explore hexes, build new bases (more resources and points) go on quests (for a variety of rewards) and they grants bonuses in combat, augmented by buffs they get each round and any items they buy. Each round you can build some doods who can go and biff the enemies. It's all fairly familiar. But it's the enemies that are the secret sauce. In the center of the board is the capital. Events (drawn each round) will spawn legions there, who will place a target one someone's home base. They might also spawn Chaos hordes, who appear on the outer rim. They each have a standee and a big card, that works a bit like gloomhaven, detailing the different abilities and dice they roll in combat. As they take more damage they roll fewer dice. (and as they gain health, they become more powerful too). Combat is dice based, with 5 different coloured dice that have a different number of attack, block and 'magic' faces. So you know a black dice is going to do a bunch of damage, or a purple dice is best for magic, etc. The expansion adds a clean rerolls system to mitigate abberant rolls, where you can spend magic gems once per roll to reroll them, with each of the 4 magic gem 'druids' refreshing only if certain criteria are met. The 4 different 'druids' also grant a different power when you use the gem (or roll magic on a dice) so you've always have a bunch of different options to help you out, but you never have enough to brute force anything. Every single enemy feels like an end boss. The components are all lovely, printed acrylic standees and lovely little plastic buildings that you can build, all that good kickstarter stuff. But it doesn't feel like too much; the money feels like it's gone in sensible places where it makes a difference to how things play. I haven't tried either of the expansion factions yet, but they looks super fun. This is a lot of text, apologies, but I've just been really pleasantly surprised. It feels like playing spirit island for the first time again where I want to show everyone! !Klams fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Oct 3, 2023 |
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2023 00:21
|
|
|
I played a little of Phantom Ink last night and really enjoyed it. It's a competitive team-based word game for 4 to 8, but I would imagine it can get a bit crowded beyond 4. Two teams are each racing to guess the same object. The guessing half of the team submit question cards to their clue-giver. The clue-giver then answers publicly, but without revealing the question. To help encode the answer, the information is given one letter at a time, until the guesser asks you to stop. For example, the word is "Clock", the question is "what noise does it make when it's working", and the answer given is T I C - cut short because the enemy team is greedily trying to garner information from your turns. Eventually, the guessers think they know the object and take the pencil and write down their guess one letter at a time - being stopped when they get a letter wrong, or completing it and winning the game. It's a solid guessing game, girded by all of the cards so that you don't have to think of other things besides playing the game. The clue-givers pick which object from a card of 5 possible objects. I didn't browse those cards too deeply, but they seemed to offer a good range of difficulty. The question cards are downright charming. There's practical ones, like "what type of store is it typically sold at?", "what has around the same cost?", weirder ones like "what field of science studies it?", "what does it taste like?", and downright whimsical ones like "what would happen to it if you buried it for a thousand years?" or "what greek or roman god is it most closely associated with?" It requires a lot of spelling, but you're all going to be carrying phones with spell-check anyway.
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2023 10:52
|
|
|
Mr. Squishy posted:I played a little of Phantom Ink last night and really enjoyed it. It's a competitive team-based word game for 4 to 8, but I would imagine it can get a bit crowded beyond 4. Two teams are each racing to guess the same object. The guessing half of the team submit question cards to their clue-giver. The clue-giver then answers publicly, but without revealing the question. To help encode the answer, the information is given one letter at a time, until the guesser asks you to stop. For example, the word is "Clock", the question is "what noise does it make when it's working", and the answer given is T I C - cut short because the enemy team is greedily trying to garner information from your turns. Eventually, the guessers think they know the object and take the pencil and write down their guess one letter at a time - being stopped when they get a letter wrong, or completing it and winning the game. This sounds great, adding it to my list. Also, has anyone played Dawn of Ulos? Space Biff just did a review of it and it sounds good even if it kind of left me going, why don't I just stick with Tigris and Euphrates?
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2023 13:30
|
|
|
Hadrian's Wall and Sky Team are in beta on BGA now if that tickles anyone's fancy
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2023 19:41
|
|
|
!Klams posted:I really like spirit island, so I was really interested in Uprising: The Last Emperor . Hey thanks for this write up! Stuff like this definitely falls off the radar but I'm always happy to hear about anything that's tickling spirit island nerve receptors
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2023 19:51
|
|
|
Impermanent posted:Hey thanks for this write up! Stuff like this definitely falls off the radar but I'm always happy to hear about anything that's tickling spirit island nerve receptors Ah, great! Yeah, that's why I thought I'd write it up, because it looks for all the world like just another 'tons of plastic minis kickstarter', and, I mean I guess it kind of is, but it's actually GOOD!
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2023 13:31
|
|
|
The End posted:It has the risk taking and strategy of formula d without the garbage fire that is rolling dice to move. It's a better game in every way I see. I played Formula D last weekend and I didn't find it too random, the intervals are pretty narrow for the dice and you've got braking and choosing different paths to mitigate the randomness. It can make a difference between taking a corner perfectly and crashing and burning, though for sure. I guess I'll have to try Heat sometime.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2023 19:27
|
|
|
My one main concern with heat is the catchup mechanic that gives you a lot of freebies. It boils down the game to the last 2-3 turns (of the racetrack, which also about equals game turns), since people will catch up and you're moving in a narrow band and stay relatively close to each other. Even if you scrub out and overheat on a turn, you're never really out of the race. Now, this does mean that you'll have more of that movie like experience of racing where it's down to the wire every time, but it's definitely a concern if you're looking at it from a more simulationist POV.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2023 20:26
|
|
|
Chill la Chill posted:My one main concern with heat is the catchup mechanic that gives you a lot of freebies. It boils down the game to the last 2-3 turns (of the racetrack, which also about equals game turns), since people will catch up and you're moving in a narrow band and stay relatively close to each other. Even if you scrub out and overheat on a turn, you're never really out of the race. Now, this does mean that you'll have more of that movie like experience of racing where it's down to the wire every time, but it's definitely a concern if you're looking at it from a more simulationist POV. I mean, if you want simulation, there's Rallyman GT or Formula 90. Heat is Formula D replacement, meant to be accessible and fun for non petrolheads. It's absolutely punishing in a real car race to fall behind the pack, as without being able to draft, unless you are running at race winning pace, you will struggle to find your way back into the race. The catch up mechanisms are a fun way to keep the backmarkers invested in the game, rather than just grinding out a last place. The End fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Oct 4, 2023 |
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2023 22:36
|
|
|
El Fideo posted:As Tom of Shut Up And Sit Down said, it does a really good job of feeling like what you want racing to feel like, instead of what it looks like. The moment when it truly grabbed me was when I realized that zero cards are fantastic, because they let you go around a tight corner in a high gear. Pity about the availability, hopefully there'll be stock by Christmastime. Yeah, I would love a board game that had more of the Formula One aspects of racing (like tires and pit stops), but every time I've seen one of those on kickstarter or whatever, my reaction is usually something like "Neat! Bet I couldn't get anyone else to play it, though..." or "Oh, this sounds tedious." Lights Out Racing kind of looked like what I wanted, but if I want simulation, I'd probably rather just play an F1 video game or something and leave board games to have a sort of abstraction of the experience.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2023 22:49
|
|
|
CellBlock posted:Yeah, I would love a board game that had more of the Formula One aspects of racing (like tires and pit stops), but every time I've seen one of those on kickstarter or whatever, my reaction is usually something like "Neat! Bet I couldn't get anyone else to play it, though..." or "Oh, this sounds tedious." Rallyman GT has "soft tires" in the expansion content (Adrenaline, I believe). They basically start out with a limit of 4 hazards but as the turns go by they degrade until they're only good for 2 hazards.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2023 22:52
|
|
|
 if you want an async game that will take a year or more
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2023 23:26
|
|
|
The End posted:I mean, if you want simulation, there's Rallyman GT or Formula 90. Heat is Formula D replacement, meant to be accessible and fun for non petrolheads. It's absolutely punishing in a real car race to fall behind the pack, as without being able to draft, unless you are running at race winning pace, you will struggle to find your way back into the race. The catch up mechanisms are a fun way to keep the backmarkers invested in the game, rather than just grinding out a last place. I've played a lot of Formula D, and and huge amount of Rallyman. It's say Heat is right up there with the best. It's way way better than Formula D as its much faster to play, less random and it has a catch up mechanic that keeps races close. You can just fall out the back of Formula D so quickly that's much harder to do in Heat.
|
|
#
?
Oct 4, 2023 23:34
|
|
|
Bottom Liner posted:
Well, I'm currently only getting to play it once per year as it stands lmao. This is actually super cool for something I can do with friends who've moved out of town. The End fucked around with this message at 00:18 on Oct 5, 2023 |
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2023 00:07
|
|
|
I sit here looking at the Voidfall box and wonder "Have I discovered that, as a 40-something professional and new dad, some games are too much game for me?"
|
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2023 00:41
|
|
|
I kind of felt that as soon as I saw an earlier poster refer to a "[way too many] pages of iconography" cheat sheet.
|
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2023 00:54
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 07:56 |
|
|
shameful board game casuals itt
|
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2023 01:21
|
|