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I'm kind of interested in Voidfall since it's supposedly a bit of a spiritual cousin to Omega Centauri which is a great game, but yea, I'm unlikely to ever actually get a chance to play it.
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Oct 5, 2023 02:50
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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 managed to solve this problem by being very bad at the game, works a treat! Anyone in this thread have thoughts on how it measures up to Flamme Rouge? The jaunty french bicyclists theme appeals to me juuust a bit more.
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Oct 5, 2023 07:00
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Memnaelar posted: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?" This is why I cancelled my pledge in the end. And now I go for simpler games that still have some level of depth.
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Oct 5, 2023 09:13
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El Fideo posted:I managed to solve this problem by being very bad at the game, works a treat! It's a bigger game than Flamme Rouge with more going on. Flamme Rouge is like 30mins, nice quick and simple game. Heat is 60+ mins and a more involved process as the Heat cards are resource that you manage unlike the exhaustion cards in Flamme Rouge
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Oct 5, 2023 13:13
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Aramoro posted:It's a bigger game than Flamme Rouge with more going on. Flamme Rouge is like 30mins, nice quick and simple game. Heat is 60+ mins and a more involved process as the Heat cards are resource that you manage unlike the exhaustion cards in Flamme Rouge I can't say other than our one learning game at 5 players, we've ever had a HEAT game go for an hour or more. Even at 6 players we get through a game in 40-45
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Oct 6, 2023 01:08
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Miniature Market has Heat in stock, probably not for long - https://www.miniaturemarket.com/dow9101.html
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Oct 6, 2023 17:12
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SettingSun posted:I'd let my mom cheat at Carcassonne; I'll hold viciously preventing cities from closing for my boardgaming friends. Yeah it doesn't really bother me that she cheats; it's a fun exercise for me to catch her when she's doing it. And of course if she's having a complete shocker of a game, I won't say anything at all. When I was growing up, she was very much the paragon of making sure things were fair - compeltely against any sort of cheating to gain an advantage. She doesn't have a manipulative bone in her body and is not someone I would have ever described as competitive, so it's hilarious to me to see the lengths she'll go to in order to try and win an extremely low-stakes game. I on the other hand, will mericlessly drop the 4 sided city tile on my father's almost-closed city. Really, it's his fault for being so greedy 
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Oct 7, 2023 00:55
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Also you guys weren't joking about the Too Many Bones rulebook being a complete piece of poo poo.
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Oct 7, 2023 01:37
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falls into that "not actually that hard but what the gently caress to understand the first time"
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Oct 7, 2023 04:41
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million dollar mack posted:Also you guys weren't joking about the Too Many Bones rulebook being a complete piece of poo poo. I can never get over how the rules on how to set up the game for specific difficulty levels are at the back of the book, and if you follow the setup at the start of the book you're playing on the hardest difficulty. That, and the way around a third to half of the rules aren't in the book at all, but in one of five supplement sheets. It's a pretty good game when you know what you're doing, but you really need to watch a full playthrough online from someone who already knows or you're hosed.
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Oct 7, 2023 10:39
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Quote-Unquote posted:I can never get over how the rules on how to set up the game for specific difficulty levels are at the back of the book, and if you follow the setup at the start of the book you're playing on the hardest difficulty. That's because it's the "normal" difficulty of the game. The other options are like for playing with children or whatever.
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Oct 8, 2023 00:11
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Got a good game day in Tiger and Dragon: Have had this on my list of want to play since I heard it was coming out. Clacky mahjong-but-tiny tiles attached to a very light game. You have a hand of tiles 1-8 with there being n tiles of each value n, plus the eponymous Tiger and Dragon which are wild for evens and odds. Play a tile, next person has to block with that value or pass, if it goes all the way around you get to tuck a tile beneath and attack again, if they block they attack. Whoever goes out gets points for whatever their last tile is. It was okay, felt very dependent on getting those dang wilds though. Fresh Fish: I managed to basically get knocked out in the first few turns, everyone basically conspired to make my bad moves turn into a 15 distance shop and I couldn't recover. Still a good game, but goddamn it's easy to make impactfully bad moves early. Circus Flohcati: Ridiculous little card flipping game, ten suits, you're trying to get a big card of each suit in your hand while making sets of three of a kind you can put out like rummy games, but there's random attacking cards, push your luck if you flip a card of the same suit that's already out it gets discarded and you get nothing. Funny, but winning did not feel like I did anything well. Samurai: Finally played this in person after async triqqy made me kind of dislike it. Much better on the table, easier to actually consider what's going on. Good, but I prefer TTD and T&E. Broom Service: I had played witch's brew an age ago, this was fun but a lot of chaos at 5. Lot of laughter of trying to play cards for their greater effect then getting it stolen away by the next person. Medici: I really do think this is my favorite of Knizia's auction games, even above Ra. We played with the version that has backgammon score tracks for some reason, which had people move the wrong amount multiple times. Why has it become a running joke that there's zero editions with good usability. Why. Had a great time, I won by not overspending and tied with someone who bid high a bunch to win the big 30 point round bonus a lot.
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Oct 8, 2023 11:52
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https://steamforged.com/en-eu/blogs/brands/medici-returns-2024 There is another contender. They are adding characters for each player for some reason. The money track is more legible than the Grail edition at least.
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Oct 8, 2023 12:07
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silvergoose posted:
quote:Medici: I really do think this is my favorite of Knizia's auction games, even above Ra. We played with the version that has backgammon score tracks for some reason, which had people move the wrong amount multiple times. Why has it become a running joke that there's zero editions with good usability. Why. Had a great time, I won by not overspending and tied with someone who bid high a bunch to win the big 30 point round bonus a lot. Admiralty Flag fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Oct 8, 2023 |
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Oct 8, 2023 16:02
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I think medici is a fine game but I hold modern art, high society, and ra in higher esteem. never played dream factory but it’s nice of knizia to shout out another great bidding game on the tokens
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Oct 8, 2023 17:59
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I quite enjoy Hollywood blockbuster yeah. Honestly don't really care for modern art or high society, myself, but it's just a taste thing.
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Oct 8, 2023 18:04
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Proud of myself today for finally getting Teotihuacan to the table and playing through my first game. It is only the second medium-heavy Euro that I have played, after Carnegie, and despite the fact that both games have a near-identical weight score on BGG I was able to jump right into Carnegie whereas Teo's board and manual appeared much more daunting to me. But I stuck it out, watched a half-hour How to Play video from Rodney, and had a lot of fun as I played a two-player game by myself to learn the rules and mechanics. As someone who leans a lot more towards narrative / co-op games primarily, this was a pleasant surprise. I really enjoyed the "dice as workers" implementation, are there any other games that do something similar, using the die value to indicate worker power level? On a surface level the theme and art of Carnegie were much more appealing to me, so I was surprised to find that Teotihuacan felt a lot more intuitive once I learned what the various sections of the board did. Despite seemingly having a lot more going on, the interactions between resources and different turn actions all kind of clicked for me in Teo whereas Carnegie felt a bit disjointed. Next up is playing some actual solo against Teotibot, for which it looks like there are at least two good online implementations, and then taking a look at mixing in the first two expansions which were included with the used copy of the game I bought.
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Oct 8, 2023 22:29
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Parker Lewis posted:Proud of myself today for finally getting Teotihuacan to the table and playing through my first game. Alien Frontiers has you roll your workers and they can do slightly different things based on what you roll. Kingsburg has you roll dice and get resources based on what you roll by playing specific values either as a single die or using the sum of multiple dice.
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Oct 9, 2023 00:25
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I've been trying to give 7 Wonders: Architects a chance on BGA, but man it's just not very good. Your primary decision is to draw one of three cards available to you, of which one is (usually) completely blind. In my most recent game, I ended up behind in military with 2 military techs on either side, so I focused on the top face down deck and miracled out 5 science tokens and completely whooped everyone. It has all the frustration of a center market deckbuilder where drawing a card to expose a gold is just always bad because they will always take it. The inclusion of a wild resource when the goal is to get Equals and Not Equals is a bit weird, but whatever. It's far too random. Sure, it's 7 Wonders you could play with a child, but who was asking for that? It also plays slower than the original on BGA, so there's especially no reason to do it there.
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Oct 9, 2023 00:39
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Played The Great Machine, was not impressed. One of those games that ostensibly supports four players but probably only is actually fun at two.
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Oct 9, 2023 00:49
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Heat seems to be showing up everywhere now - I nabbed a copy from GameNerdz, but seems like most OLGS, and even quite a few FLGS, just got shipments. I'm guessing they officially announced an expansion at Essen?
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Oct 9, 2023 03:16
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Parker Lewis posted:I really enjoyed the "dice as workers" implementation, are there any other games that do something similar, using the die value to indicate worker power level? I'll never pass up an opportunity to recommend Troyes, which does just this, though I understand it's an acquired taste due to the iconography not always being that intuitive and the game being a lot meaner than many other Euros (figuring out the most optimal way to take dice away from other players is a major part of the gameplay)
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Oct 9, 2023 10:29
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I'm thinking of grabbing sub terra for spooky month. A) is it good, B) is it spooky, C) does it work well for two players, and D) is there any quarterback mitigation other than my wife threatening to punch me in the nuts.
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Oct 9, 2023 10:48
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Parker Lewis posted:
Praetor does this, with the extra twist that workers increase their value each time they are used and retire when they reach value 6 - although there's a couple of ways to tempt them out of retirement if you need a job done really well. Euphoria also uses dice in this way, except the die value indicates intelligence rather than power. A smart worker will do a better job, but is also more likely to realise that he's living in a shithole dystopia and run away. Luckily you can reduce your worker's intelligence with electroshock therapy and drugs... It was the first game from Stonemeier, but don't hold that against it - it's OK.
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Oct 9, 2023 11:12
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Splicer posted:is there any quarterback mitigation other than my wife threatening to punch me in the nuts. Is that what americans mean when they talk about "sacking the quarterback"?
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Oct 9, 2023 13:21
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Splicer posted:I'm thinking of grabbing sub terra for spooky month. A) is it good, B) is it spooky, C) does it work well for two players, and D) is there any quarterback mitigation other than my wife threatening to punch me in the nuts.
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Oct 9, 2023 14:46
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!Klams posted: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!) ... Also, the tts module kinda sucks (beyond the fact that it's a tts module) so I hope I can find a copy at retail.
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Oct 9, 2023 19:19
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SettingSun posted:Based on your attestation I learned this over the weekend and pulled it up on tts to play 3p. Based on our (very long) learning game, we like it. There's a lot going on and most things have a thematic justification behind them which I really like. But it's pretty hard. It reminds me a bit of Aeon's End, where the game is a Barely Surviving simulator where winning is a blessing. We didn't win, but we got pretty close and we *probably* got all the rules right. Definitely one of those games where I wish time and stamina were infinite so we could immediately play a second time now that we know how to play. Oh nice! Glad you enjoyed it! I'm kinda bummed I didn't go harder on the kickstarter now, I want all the other bits! Let me know if you do find it anywhere. Hah, yeah, it's HARD, for sure, and what's funny is whenever you're not sure how something works, it always ends up being worse for you than you imagine, all the corner cases kick you in the shins. It's odd as well, there are two expansions, one is 4 new factions, and some even harder enemies to make the final round much harder (?!) and the one I've got which is two new factions, mercenaries (powerful characters you can buy at the sea towers), and also Banes, which are little tokens you're supposed to add to legions and hordes when they come out that... make them harder?! I guess there's something to be said for improving the longevity by making it more difficult. We finally beat the game after I think 6 plays, but we were playing with mercenaries, which just straight up makes the game easier. I hadn't really clocked just how good they are until we played with them. They cost a lot (like 6 salt or so each) but you buy them during your hero activation (doesn't end your turn). Being able to buy extra wounds, whatever the cost, is such a huge bonus. Never mind the fact that they're actually good at combat! Means you can make multiple combats in a turn where you might not have been able to otherwise. We also got very lucky with items coming out that matched our skillset well. I can see us getting better at it though.
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Oct 11, 2023 12:06
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Magnetic North posted:I've been trying to give 7 Wonders: Architects a chance on BGA, but man it's just not very good. Yeah it’s bad
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Oct 12, 2023 03:53
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Tim Cain, video game developer arguably most famous for the first two Fallout games, has a YouTube channel where he muses a lot. It's mostly about video games and software development, and some of those are proclicks. Well, today's video is about Board Games, so I figured I'd share. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I37RXM71qmU There are some unsurprising choices for favorite games, but it's still interesting.
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Oct 12, 2023 15:52
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His video about being gay in the 90s game industry is a great watch, too.
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Oct 12, 2023 16:29
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My monthly board gaming group has played Sidereal Confluence for the last 5 sessions and it's been a real hit with them. Even the guys who have found it a bit dense to approach still really like playing it, which is a testament to the nature of the game. After the most recent night, I ordered Sidereal Confluence: Bifurcation. I'd assumed that people were getting a little fatigued, so we would play a different game for a few months first - I wanted to avoid another Oath situation where one person is loving it but everyone else hates it. So after giving something else a go, then I can pull out the expansion out to get everyone keen again. I punched the pieces out and then posted a pic of it in the group chat (mostly as a whinge about HOW poo poo IT IS THAT THE EXPANSION BOX DOESNT HAVE AN ORGANISER) and then next minute I have 4 DMs asking if we can play it again immediately, if they can be race X and will I support them if they try a new strategy out? Why yes, yes we can. 
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Oct 16, 2023 00:14
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I think SidCon has one of the biggest changes in how people feel about it before and after playing. It's quite hard to understand how it works before, and harder to see how your factions wins. But after a play people are well on board. Is it the best 5+ player game made? I'd say yes.
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Oct 16, 2023 08:03
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It's also a highly interactive game that rarely feels mean. The player that does the best is often the one that can make the most deals, not the best deals. It has some forced socialization pressure that's not in most games, but that's the only real problem I can see anyone having with it.
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Oct 16, 2023 08:23
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I think in the realm of 5+ player games socialising is a must really. If you really want you can just sit and make purely symmetrical trades and run your machines like a multiplayer solitaire game without locking everyone else into the same drudgery.
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Oct 16, 2023 08:35
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Yeah that's what I mean. Similar to social deduction games, some folks really don't like the negotiation aspect of Sidereal Confluence: Trading and Negotiation in the Elysian Quadrant which is fair. It's an issue most trading games have, but again, it helps a lot that the trades in this game feel more cooperative than competitive when folks are willing to really get things rolling.
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Oct 16, 2023 09:23
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Aramoro posted:I think in the realm of 5+ player games socialising is a must really. If you really want you can just sit and make purely symmetrical trades and run your machines like a multiplayer solitaire game without locking everyone else into the same drudgery. Not necessarily. There's, say, 18xx games at 5 where you don't have to socialize or negotiate, not with words, only with your actions. And some euros, like El Grande or Medici. But there's virtually nothing good above 5-6 that isn't in some way full of negotiation, yeah.
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Oct 16, 2023 12:11
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Tried two new games over the weekend. Four player War of the Ring: The Card Game. I want to play it a few more times so I can confirm my initial feeling that it's a stinker. Four new players, all veteran board gamers. I can't point to any one rule and say "that's bad", but they all combine into an experience that felt far too limiting. It's a game that chose theme over game play to its detriment. I think every player felt unnecessarily constrained, and not in a "ooh fun tight choices" way, but in a "yup, another turn where I can't really do anything" way. Drawing three cards and being unable to play any of them (even to reserve) was just woefully underwhelming. It's got a lot of cool ideas but most of them conflict with each other. There's a good game in there somewhere but it's not in the box. Played my first game of Take Five as well (rest of the group knew it). Enjoyed it immensely. Strong recommend for filler. Aramoro posted:I think SidCon has one of the biggest changes in how people feel about it before and after playing. It's quite hard to understand how it works before, and harder to see how your factions wins. But after a play people are well on board. Is it the best 5+ player game made? I'd say yes. I don't know if I've used this analogy, but for me SidCon is like a robust workout. Every time I play I feel like a million bucks, but if you ask me the next morning if I want to do it again I just shake my head and whimper.
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Oct 16, 2023 13:32
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Hey, just wanting some input if anyone could spare a moment. So to provide some background, my parents, my partner and I often play the copy of Tsuro I gave my parents years ago, as it's a super chill tile-laying game. Mostly playing it standard/as intended, but we tend to play a few rounds each time we catch up and often the final play or two will be a gimmick round to shake things up. (e.g. 'one tile only' where you have one tile in your hand, not the usual amount) I'm just wondering though, if there are other similar games that don't force too much complexity or time-per-play on the player. I've played Seas of Tsuro (IIRC?) before with other people, which could be good if it comes with enough standard tiles to be able to ignore the special ones (and the accompanying dice rules) most of the time, so that we don't have to deal with the storm tiles unless we're feeling it. But it's not too highly regarded, I gather. Ships are cool, though Other than that though, I'm not sure... I'm aware that they made a phoenix-themed Tsuro, but I remember someone in here mentioning that it's quite bad. More importantly, I also noticed a game called Indigo at a store recently, which looks similar? Not sure how similar though - BGG has it rated at about the same weight. Would this be worth getting, maybe? Otherwise, not sure... I wouldn't mind some additional (preferably optional) rules to spice things up a little, but my parents definitely lean towards sticking with what they know, for the most part. (So ideally, we'd probably start each session with a very 'vanilla'/Tsuro-esque game, then in subsequent plays spice it up in different ways)
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Oct 17, 2023 00:51
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Check out Acquire? The tiles have no special rules, they just go into the spot they say they do. The stock-purchasing is really simple too. The new edition by Renegade Games has apparently been very well-received. Maybe also Qwixx, it's a solid roll and write game from before everyone decided what they wanted was bad roll and write games.
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Oct 17, 2023 01:02
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