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Xiahou Dun posted:How’s John Company? How heavy/crunchy is it? It looks extremely my poo poo, but I have no idea how likely I am to get people to play it. I’ve only managed one play but I think it’s really tough to get to the table, you need people who really want to play it. It’s not THAT heavy but the manual isn’t great and it’s definitely a tricky learn conceptually. Maybe if you have it absolutely down yourself before introducing it to others it would be ok, but you pretty much need to play one game for everyone to learn it, and expect it to be a long session. It’s also better for players who want a more narrative esque historical experience - it feels more like a wargame that way - super competitive people who prefer high skill / minimum randomness abstracts etc might find it frustrating. Definitely in our play one person got frustrated at some stuff that derailed them which they felt they had no control over. Blamestorm fucked around with this message at 06:30 on Oct 23, 2023 |
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Oct 23, 2023 06:25
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O so it’s exactly to my tastes, perfect for me in every single way, except I will never, ever get it to the table. Another one of those. Thanks for the answer though.
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Oct 23, 2023 06:36
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Perry Mason Jar posted:Relatedly, I am absolutely begging designers to stop releasing "After Dark" versions of games. Oooo, sex and drugs. Ooooohhhh. Grow up! Sheriff of Nottingham: After Dark
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Oct 23, 2023 06:40
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Xiahou Dun posted:O so it’s exactly to my tastes, perfect for me in every single way, except I will never, ever get it to the table. It is a really interesting game but the sandboxy nature makes it very fragile. You’re supposed to negotiate a lot and engage with each others turns but that also blows out the playtime. I think for four of us the first game took like 5 hours including teach? I reckon it would be a lot faster a second time. That said I can’t even imagine getting it out casually. I think it’s also basically just a four player game (maybe three) - five feels like it would take too long and you need the group dynamic. I’d be interested if anyone else here has alternative views though because I’d love to get it out again, just not sure it’s worth the effort.
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Oct 23, 2023 06:52
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I played CAH family edition with my 10 year old nephew and my family and I enjoyed it a lot more because it was basically poop and pee level jokes and taking off the edgy poo poo made it better
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Oct 23, 2023 07:59
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max temkin is the justin roiland of board games
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Oct 23, 2023 08:42
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the holy poopacy posted:I mean, you can still actually make jokes in CAH and if you're not playing with people who will just automatically pick Auschwitz or Big Black Dick in every context it can be fun enough. You're still skating uphill against the game design and I don't know why you wouldn't just play a better game to begin with, but if the company is good there are certainly worse games you could be playing. In what context is Auschwitz or Big Black Dick the right answer exactly? Because those are the card you're gonna get to make the big laughs from.
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Oct 23, 2023 08:49
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Xiahou Dun posted:How’s John Company? How heavy/crunchy is it? It looks extremely my poo poo, but I have no idea how likely I am to get people to play it. As someone said its conceptually hard and your big challenge is going to be explaining how to actually win and how the diffent roles play into that. It's not terribly clear how important it is to be in a position to be promoted is. But once you do a run through game it's actually pretty easy and not even that long. The play time is pretty consistent because it's the same actions every game irrelevant the number of players. I said earlier I the thread that SidCon is the best negotiation game at 5+, John Company is the best at 4 and very close to SidCon at 5. It really is an absolute banger with the right crowd. If you have folk who don't enjoy the rough and tumble of negotiationa and betrayals or has serous AP then maybe a poorer pick.
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Oct 23, 2023 08:56
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panko posted:max temkin is the justin roiland of board games Especially true if you follow what problematic behavior came out about him and the cah staff in the mid 2010s. Or maybe that was the joke, in which case , my b
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Oct 23, 2023 09:54
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Oct 23, 2023 12:57
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Tekopo posted:I played CAH family edition with my 10 year old nephew and my family and I enjoyed it a lot more because it was basically poop and pee level jokes and taking off the edgy poo poo made it better
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Oct 23, 2023 13:11
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One perk for John Company is that the rules are really siloed. For the teaching game, "how ships move" is only relevant in one part of the round, and only one person can move ships. So (as the teacher) you only need to make sure one person (in the first round) understands the rules, and the person moving the ships only needs to keep it in their head for that moment of the game. Repeat for about half the rules. Relative to its complexity it seems like an easy teach (if one person knows the rules really well - can't speak to the rule book). John Company is probably my favorite game that I don't own.
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Oct 23, 2023 14:21
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I have had Snake Oil backfire with humorless nerds. Me:"I'm a bartender! Sell me something!" Them:"Glasses" Me:"Your supposed to use two selections" Them:"I don't need two, bartenders need glasses to serve drinks" Me:*long sigh* as I realize how dull my friend is
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Oct 23, 2023 14:51
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Perry Mason Jar posted:Relatedly, I am absolutely begging designers to stop releasing "After Dark" versions of games. Oooo, sex and drugs. Ooooohhhh. Grow up! You scoff but my release of Spirit Island: After Dark (all the spirits have their dicks out) will sell millions
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Oct 23, 2023 16:01
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Morpheus posted:You scoff but my release of Spirit Island: After Dark (all the spirits have their dicks out) will sell millions I don't like that game. Finding-the-Clitoris is a guaranteed win even if not everyone can play it properly and Multiple-Partners is very swingy.
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Oct 23, 2023 16:10
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Jedit posted:I don't like that game. Finding-the-Clitoris is a guaranteed win even if not everyone can play it properly and Multiple-Partners is very swingy. 
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Oct 23, 2023 16:37
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Jedit posted:I don't like that game. Finding-the-Clitoris is a guaranteed win even if not everyone can play it properly and Multiple-Partners is very swingy. Lol
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Oct 23, 2023 16:47
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Jedit posted:I don't like that game. Finding-the-Clitoris is a guaranteed win even if not everyone can play it properly and Multiple-Partners is very swingy. Clitoris' sacred site must be Isolated because no matter how many explorers I send out I SPCA's never find it.
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Oct 23, 2023 16:50
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On the other side of the balance issues, I-Want-An-Open-Relationship is a guaranteed loss.
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Oct 23, 2023 16:57
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Jedit posted:I don't like that game. Finding-the-Clitoris is a guaranteed win even if not everyone can play it properly and Multiple-Partners is very swingy. 
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Oct 23, 2023 17:22
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Had a four player competitive game of Voidfall on the weekend. It's rather good. The action selection and tight economic management definitely puts it in the more thinky end of the space 4x pool, and despite first impressions, the game rewards aggressive play quite well, so playing well will mean not just colouring away in your own corner. Eager to play it again. My one bit of advise is that explaining the rules focuses on going through what each focus card does, and then explaining systems as they go. Learning all the systems and then going through focuses is bonkers.
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Oct 23, 2023 20:56
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Nemesis Lockdown got pulled out last night much to my dismay and everyone else's enthusiasm. No one likes the guy at the table who complains all the time about the game though - so I took the spicy route and chose Hacker in the character draft after seeing one of my hidden objectives was to make sure everyone else died. This was probably the most I've enjoyed playing it or the original and the character choice was perfect. Everyone started off fairly well but once people start splitting up the game gets much tricker and people need to actually collaborate and communicate to help stop the place burning down. I was able to use the character to provide useful, legitimate information to the other players whilst simultaneously not doing anything to help them when they got into a sticky situation. It's the absolute best part of a hidden role game when you're watching everyone die in a section full of monsters and knowing that I could help turn the pwoer back on... but I won't. First person (and the guy who chose to play it tonight  ) died fairly quickly to an unlucky larvae event. The other two guys who'd been following him around also ended up getting overwhelmed and one died quickly without immediate support, the other just locked himself into a room and tried to run the timer out.Meanwhile at the other end of the base, I'm helping the last guy get to his objective, but lucky card draws meant I was able to escape to the surface rooms and activate the vent controls to kill the Queen (blocking my escape) .. and then vent the room my buddy was in . There might have been a little bit of a payback aspect to that as he'd rampaged through me exclusively at our previous session playing Eclipse 2e. The last player died to his wounds and then I stroll out the front door to victory.I think there's actually the bones of a decent game in there but my god does it need an edit. The 90-180 minute timer on the box is some absolute crap if everyone stays alive the whole time. The designer has good taste in games according to his BGG profile (Agricola, Through the Ages, Sid Meier's Civilization, Eclipse and Galaxy Trucker) but sadly the tight and snappy aspect of them hasn't carried over to this. Anyway, the experience generator has now had me throw a grenade into a populated room and eject someone out the airlock, but the cost is having to memorise 16 pages of rules and slog through a few 4 hour sessions to do it.
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Oct 23, 2023 23:56
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93% of people who own a copy of John Company will never get it on the table. The other 7% are just lying if they say they did. This is a fact. (I count myself in this number. Which one though???)
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Oct 24, 2023 01:29
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I've played JC maybe 3 or 4 times now (not even lying). Sadly about 50% of the group love it and 50% loath it and refuse to play ever again. One player had a game where his pieces refused to retire so he felt like he never had agency in scoring points. I on the other hand had a blast wheeling and dealing, only to betray everyone at the perfect moment to destroy the company and win the game. It's a very divisive game from my experience, you either love it or you hate it and there isn't much in between.
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Oct 24, 2023 01:57
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FulsomFrank posted:93% of people who own a copy of John Company will never get it on the table. The other 7% are just lying if they say they did. This is a fact.
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Oct 24, 2023 02:56
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FulsomFrank posted:93% of people who own a copy of John Company will never get it on the table. The other 7% are just lying if they say they did. This is a fact. It's me, the statistical anomaly. I've played John Co probably 20+ times. I feel like people just need to bite the bullet and play it. It is a beast to learn, but only one person needs to understand all the rules, most aspects that players interact with are actually quite simple. It's so procedural that you can play and strategies and do well without ever knowing the intracacies of the elephant's march or how a private firm functions. I have one friend who has won multiple times by just investing in private firms, he's never actually run one himself. When teaching, I hand-hold everyone through the first round so they can see what levers do what, and people are pretty capable of wheeling and dealing by the second round. I'll also make some blatant extortion attempt that inevitably fails, to show everyone what sort of deals and schemes you can make. I'll also rig the initial set up so experienced players are starting Chairman and PM, as those are the roles most liable to analysis paralysis.
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Oct 24, 2023 03:24
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Johnco Georg was an outlier, adn should not have been counted.
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Oct 24, 2023 03:28
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The End posted:Had a four player competitive game of Voidfall on the weekend. It's rather good. The action selection and tight economic management definitely puts it in the more thinky end of the space 4x pool, and despite first impressions, the game rewards aggressive play quite well, so playing well will mean not just colouring away in your own corner. Eager to play it again. It’s good but holy poo poo it has the worst rulebook even by Mindclash standards. Took almost six hours to do the tutorial
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Oct 24, 2023 03:30
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Mindclash has the curse of iconography. Everything looks really good on the printed assets and it takes loving forever to learn them all for the first time
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Oct 24, 2023 03:35
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joco is good. six games under my belt. protip, get rich
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Oct 24, 2023 04:26
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PRADA SLUT posted:It’s good but holy poo poo it has the worst rulebook even by Mindclash standards. Took almost six hours to do the tutorial Yep, there was a lot of "pass me the glossary" going on. The rulebook is written mainly for reference and desperatey needs a 'learn to play' book. Paul Grogan's rule video could be used as anaesthetic.
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Oct 24, 2023 07:41
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I have played JoCo once, with goons, on tabletop simulator. It was a really good time and the game wasn't too difficult to play once you've had a quick run through. It definitely felt like a game for a niche of a niche though so it would never see my physical table which is something of a shame. If I was going to buy one game that would struggle to get played regularly due to having a fun time playing it online with goons I'd still go with Brass: Brum ahead of JoCo. Very, very different games, but I might actually get some people to play the latter and it's also incredible.
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Oct 24, 2023 08:58
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Captain Theron posted:It's me, the statistical anomaly. I've played John Co probably 20+ times. You are Cole Wherle and I claim my 5 pounds!
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Oct 24, 2023 09:05
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Aramoro posted:You are Cole Wherle and I claim my 5 pounds! Lol, I wish. I am a huge fan of his work though, looking very forward to Molly House, An Infamous Traffic and the fake game turned real 1819 Singapore.
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Oct 25, 2023 05:00
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Another terrific little advice video from Jon Purkis: 10 Pitfalls Board Gamers Should Avoid I'm sure most thread denizens are familiar with most of these, but it's nice to see someone not cult-of-the-new-ing everyone to death. edit: vvv I am also a sleever, but I agree to a certain point: don't sleeve every game. Only consider sleeving games that you love and want to keep forever, won't get reprinted, are old or damaged, or have a lot of shuffling (like Dominion levels of shuffling, and even that is doubtful because it's expensive). Magnetic North fucked around with this message at 09:58 on Oct 25, 2023 |
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Oct 25, 2023 09:14
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The sleeve section was the only bit I really disagreed with.
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Oct 25, 2023 09:54
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Magnetic North posted:Another terrific little advice video from Jon Purkis: 10 Pitfalls Board Gamers Should Avoid I'm sure most thread denizens are familiar with most of these, but it's nice to see someone not cult-of-the-new-ing everyone to death. He also simps for Knizia, what a lad.
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Oct 25, 2023 12:35
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Oh poo poo, he goes to the same convention I go to. Small world.
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Oct 25, 2023 12:38
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FulsomFrank posted:93% of people who own a copy of John Company will never get it on the table. The other 7% are just lying if they say they did. This is a fact. The best weekend I've had in years was the recent weekend at MegaMooseCon where I got to play John Company twice.
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Oct 25, 2023 13:33
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yo,. bought a copy of eclipse 1e in the noble knight games sale and ive heard that theres an updated rules pdf tht effectively updtates it to 2e. anyone got a line on that? also wht expansions should i be lookin for?
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Oct 25, 2023 16:11
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