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GreenBuckanneer posted:Trip report I tied for third... I thought I could get multiple public VP a turn... you can not... poo poo, that's actually one of the rules people forget including myself all the time.
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Nov 6, 2023 14:39
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had a good weekend, made some great frosthaven progress with the boys. everyone else has retired at least once but I made the mistake of starting a long-haul calendar based personal goal late so I'm nearly level 6 bannerspear. it gets to be a real powerhouse by that point and I'm usually the one who gets sent off to do things solo when the group needs to split up on something hoping I can actually retire and try something new soon tho
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Nov 6, 2023 16:24
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Buck Wildman posted:had a good weekend, made some great frosthaven progress with the boys. everyone else has retired at least once but I made the mistake of starting a long-haul calendar based personal goal late so I'm nearly level 6 bannerspear. it gets to be a real powerhouse by that point and I'm usually the one who gets sent off to do things solo when the group needs to split up on something  Drop on by the Gloomhaven thread btw! A lot of us nerds congregate there.
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Nov 6, 2023 19:32
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dwarf74 posted:If it's Aesther Outpost, as long as you did the first one relatively early on, it ain't bad it is the outpost and I did not, lol
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Nov 6, 2023 19:33
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Playing 8 player TI weekend after this. Fully expect it to be a shitshow and take 13 hours. Can't wait.
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Nov 6, 2023 20:28
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NmareBfly posted:Playing 8 player TI weekend after this. Fully expect it to be a shitshow and take 13 hours. Can't wait. the real game is the saloon-scale brawl that breaks out among the players halfway through
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Nov 6, 2023 20:35
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I would bet money that a full 8 player game of TI will take all weekend. A long, exhausting weekend. Make it a 14 point game and make it take all week. 
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Nov 6, 2023 20:53
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bring a squirt gun to spray anyone who even thinks about looking at their phone
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Nov 6, 2023 21:00
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better yet, just collect phones at the door and take hourly breaks to let folks check their, I'm sure incredibly important, messages
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Nov 6, 2023 21:04
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Voidfall: the better TI
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Nov 6, 2023 21:14
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tokenbrownguy posted:better yet, just collect phones at the door and take hourly breaks to let folks check their, I'm sure incredibly important, messages Arriving to game night with a Morse buzzer in my shoe like an 80s vegas shark
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Nov 6, 2023 21:19
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PRADA SLUT posted:Voidfall: the better TI Nah, but Voidfall is pretty neat on its own merits. Also one of the toughest games I've ever come across to learn and then teach.
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Nov 6, 2023 21:23
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NmareBfly posted:Playing 8 player TI weekend after this. Fully expect it to be a shitshow and take 13 hours. Can't wait. It's around 10-11ish hours for my group, but that includes lunch and dinner breaks. Make sure there's someone at the table cracking the whip on player turns. 8 players has a lot of downtime on turns, which leads to a lot of inattentiveness by way of "Whose turn is it?"
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Nov 6, 2023 21:27
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some players are more distractable than others
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Nov 6, 2023 22:09
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Just played Apiary this weekend and I really don't know what to think about it. The game itself is pretty to look at, but I feel almost like the design is the main attraction? The game itself is fine, but like overly convoluted in places, and isn't very dialed in to me on first play. I sorta like the concept of getting your workers bumped, but it feels like the game was built around the idea that actually blocking people in a worker placement and having to decide when you take all your workers back feels bad, so you almost never have to do it. Then there's so many tiles you can build, it is hard to see what others are doing, so you really only care about bumping them if they're a level 4 because that is what the clock is based off of. There are so many tiles, and so much stuff, I wish it was like half size, here are the core buildings or mechanisms you care about, because of how random it is some cards felt so powerful, and some were basically just there. Maybe it would work better with a built deck, so you can scale up the power of the buildings over time? There was a lot to like though, I thought the worker evolution then retirement system was interesting, having a little area control for vps was cool too. I liked the idea of custom resource conversion in theory more than practice, but it's a fun idea. The limited resource holding was nice too, I wish there was more to explore there. Just overall I'm not sure who this is for. It has a great look, and is very large, even at 3 people it took over the table. But then there's so much going on and it is very complicated, but feels very loose. Like if you're going to make a big game that takes a while, I'd appreciate a sharper design space where you're interacting with folks. This was a bit off for me.
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Nov 6, 2023 22:12
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sounds like another Stonemaier
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Nov 6, 2023 22:18
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Oh hey I played games at a convention and I tried to play stuff I mostly never tried before. Rats of Wistar: I liked the theme and I'm glad that the Root meeples found a new home. On the other hand, it felt like a very standard worker placement and resource exchange game and there wasn't any sort of draw to the game that I could find. I'm slowly starting to believe that I am compl;etely over MWEs that have similar game experiences game to game and limited replayability. I really like asymmetry and I think the weekend kind of solidified that fact for me. The theme of the game is that you are basically Secret of Nimh rats that have wild technology and have to invade a house or something, it was cute. The worker placement gimmick is that there's a rondel that turns around and it affects both the number of spaces of a spectific action as well as extra bonuses you get. It's a pretty standard worker placement game. Not enough excitement for me to consider playing it again. Space station Pheonix: This game seemed really daunting when I first saw it layed out, but it turned out to be pretty simple in the end, although there is a lot to take in at first because of the huge number of unique tech pieces you can pick up. You are building a space station for aliens, but the theme was whatever. The crux of the game is that it's a worker placement game where a spot is blocked if you go on it and you have to waste a turn to unblock it. Everyone has a menu of actions and you can place on opponent spaces (by giving them money), which adds to the interactivity/blocking of actions. Another novel thing is that one of the major ways to get one of the most important resources in the game is by destroying your action spots, which means usually by the end game, the number of actions is lower and tighter, which made for some difficult decisions. I think I liked it more than Rats of Wistar although it still felt like a pretty standard MWE, but it felt tuned much more tightly so I enjoyed it more. It has minimal asymmetry though. Hegemony: You play a social class (workers, middle class, capitalists or state) in an unnamed country and score points for helping out your class. The teach for this game was horrendous (not the fault of the teacher though), and I decided to just learn my side and that's pretty much it. I played the capitalists and their game plan seemed pretty easy. The asymmetry in this game is really cool and it does feel like all the players are playing a different game, which was appreciated. The game also has a lot of levers and subtle interactions being the different sides and doing some actions will have deep consequences in terms of what will happen in the game. I really enjoyed it and managed another game of it where I was playing the Working Class, which also was fun to play. I would like to try all sides and see how they shake out, but in both games I played the state came first and the middle class last, so I'm not sure how the balance of the game shakes out. Also, the game felt weirdly fragile as well, so I wouldn't be surprised if someone piped up here and told me it was actually broken. Age of Innovation: This kind of fires Terra Mystica for me. Although I like the fixed sides in TM, I think the replayability present in AoI really adds something to the game, although at the same time all the sides feel a tad more homogenised. I was dead last in both games that I had of this because I played in shark tanks with people that have literally played thousands of games of TM. Still, it was really enjoyable and I think the addition of how talents are handled as well as the books works well in the context of the game and adds even more friction within the sides. BattleCON: Two games of this, Kallistar vs Wardlaw (me) and Eligor vs Demitras (me). Kallistar beat my rear end after we had a 50/50 beat that ended in a checkmate (rip Wardlaw and your lack of Start trigger movement), but I beat the Eligor since I kept being able to heal myself and poke him out with some Chip damage. Overall still one of the best games in my collection. Brian Boru : Pretty cool area control game with drafting/trick taking elements. I'm not a huge fan of those genres so I probably won't play it again but it was fun enough. The balancing system of low value cards vs high value cards was also interesting, as well as the ancillary mechanisms of having to fight off raiders, sending your kids to marriage or building monasteries. A game in which the theme was levereged pretty well for what turns out to be just an area control game. Factory Funner: I think this is a notable improvement over Factory Fun. The base mechanisms of taking tiles and trying to fit them within your factory in real time still stands, but there are notable improvements that make the game much smoother. The bonus/malus for last/first players is nice and adds an extra layer to tile selection. The hexagonal boards allow for much more open pipe-laying (get your mind out of the gutter) and much more inventive solutions. Not being able to move machines after placing them also forces much more careful planning in the starting stages of the game as well, and the simplification of the machines themselves is needed. I heard the designer had some lovely views though so caveat emptor. The estates: Still one of the most dickish games I have experienced in a while. I came dead last (this was a recurring theme for me during the weekend), but still enjoyed the game a lot. I'm so bad at it though. Azul: This was the original and it's still a neat little game. Not much to say about it. Still allows for a lot of dicking people over. Neat little game. The Crew: Deep Sea: I had a chance to play this finally with people experienced with playing The Crew and what a difference. One of the few games where I am considerably jealous of the designer, since creating such a smart little coop gem packaged within the mechanisms of trick taking is a pure delight. Deep Sea is the superior iteration at least for experienced players because the variety of possible mission combinations is outstanding, although some are real head-scratchers in terms of how to get them to actually work, and there are the occasional impossible setup. I think I overwhelmingly prefer this to Planet X, although I think the original is a smoother experience with people that aren't overly familiar with the game. Dungeon Lords: I haven't played this in years. Came in dead last (but still positive) after I got utterly dicked in the last season, ending with only one action actually being valid. I think the setup of monsters I had was also kind of bad and I got kinda screwed in the first year after taking the Paladin unexpectedly. Still really enjoyed it and one of my favourite games. First in Flight: I kinda liked this. It's a game simulating the first airplanes to take to the sky, and it uses a combination of deck building and push-your-luck elements that work surprisingly well, since you do feel like you are trying to push your rickety airplane as much as possible while not crashing. There seemed to be a couple of different strats to the game as well, which was novel, and deck composition can be pretty important. The only issue I had is that in my final flight I had to keep drawing cards since otherwise I would lose anyway and crashed early for the loss. Still, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.
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Nov 7, 2023 00:33
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Tekopo posted:Oh hey I played games at a convention and I tried to play stuff I mostly never tried before. I'd love to play Dungeon Lords again, it's been years but it's so daunting to introduce to people. Introduced Crew: Deep Sea to some friends the other day, including a friend's partner whom we had never met. They really enjoyed it - I've never actually followed the campaign book though, I think every game in the 20+ games I've played has been us going "Okay what difficulty do we want...4? 8? Let's try that." It's such a good game. Shame they couldn't just release a small deck of missions to replace the ones in the previous game, oh well. And the Estates, yeah, holy poo poo that game is so dickish but in such a good way that isn't just based around take-that mechanics. I've played at least one game where I've earned no control of companies and still won at the end of the day by loving over everyone in my bids, having no streets completed and therefore leaving everyone with negative points. I was grinning like the jackass I was for that game.
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Nov 7, 2023 02:11
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Great writeup, not surprised by really any of it? lords is still so loving good yeah...
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Nov 7, 2023 02:15
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Did Vlaada take his Codenames money and gently caress off into the woods or something
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Nov 7, 2023 02:28
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interrodactyl posted:Did Vlaada take his Codenames money and gently caress off into the woods or something Yeah had some kids around the same time so living it up. Good for 'em.
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Nov 7, 2023 02:35
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BattleCON really is a good game. I only played it once so I might be thinking of it kinda rosy but it sang and really impressed me. The different fighters all felt very different to play, too.
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Nov 7, 2023 03:18
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interrodactyl posted:Did Vlaada take his Codenames money and gently caress off into the woods or something CGE put out a video series about their process of game design. Vladda has an amazing brain and hopefully he will be back designing hobbyist games once his kids are a bit older.
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Nov 7, 2023 03:27
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Morpheus posted:I'd love to play Dungeon Lords again, it's been years but it's so daunting to introduce to people.
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Nov 7, 2023 09:35
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Tekopo posted:Hegemony: You play a social class (workers, middle class, capitalists or state) in an unnamed country and score points for helping out your class. The teach for this game was horrendous (not the fault of the teacher though), and I decided to just learn my side and that's pretty much it. I played the capitalists and their game plan seemed pretty easy. The asymmetry in this game is really cool and it does feel like all the players are playing a different game, which was appreciated. The game also has a lot of levers and subtle interactions being the different sides and doing some actions will have deep consequences in terms of what will happen in the game. I really enjoyed it and managed another game of it where I was playing the Working Class, which also was fun to play. I would like to try all sides and see how they shake out, but in both games I played the state came first and the middle class last, so I'm not sure how the balance of the game shakes out. Also, the game felt weirdly fragile as well, so I wouldn't be surprised if someone piped up here and told me it was actually broken. Played it recently and it is pretty cool. 4p, I was the State. I feel like it's the weakest class, maybe not in terms of VP potential, but I dunno, the least interesting to play? Seems like all other players had tools to change the rules of the game in their favor, but between the agenda and event cards, I was mostly just reacting to external circumstances and trying to not run out of money. But on the other hand, I get that the State having its own political goals would skew the game too much in favor of one of the classes, and the puzzle of fullfilling all those randomized conditions in addition to keeping the other classes happy is interesting in its own right.
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Nov 7, 2023 12:43
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Yeah the game for the State didn't seem as interesting: you are providing benefits for the other classes but you have less overall control over what happens to both you and other players. You have quite limited involvement in the voting/policy phase (although still some), manipulation of the job market (which is one of the most important mechanisms in the game) is out of your control as well, since it's set by the aforementioned voting phase. I'd still like to give it a try but it didn't seem as interesting as either capitalist, working class or middle class (the latter of which I believe is basically a mix of capitalist and working class objectives/tools).
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Nov 7, 2023 13:12
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Infinitum posted:It's around 10-11ish hours for my group, but that includes lunch and dinner breaks. We do it so that whoever is The Speaker is in charge of calling numbers / strategems for turns. (And then we call them out when they're doing a bad job of it). It means it doesn't always just fall to the same person to keep the day going smoothly, and anyone who feels aggrieved that it always falls to them has a legit opportunity to yell at other people for not pulling their weight, in a way that's not hurtful. (Because it's just telling them they have to follow the rules of the game).
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Nov 7, 2023 13:18
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Tekopo posted:You should try to go through the log: it mixes up the missions. It has things like assigning all tasks to a single player, or novel tasks that aren't in the cards, or making communication tokens less effective or giving you less of them. It really mixes up the game even more and provides a gradual ramp to higher difficulties. I would recommend trying it from the start. Oh I know, I'd love to, but I'm always playing the game with a different group and knowing that we're only going to play half a dozen missions at most, I can't really justify going through just the first few scenarios. I think if I pulled it out with a group that already new the game that I'd open the log.
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Nov 7, 2023 14:03
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The BattleCon talk is bringing this to mind: anyone have any thoughts on Sakura Arms? I backed it (yikes, three years ago) but have not gotten it to table.
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Nov 7, 2023 18:39
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It's great. Easily the other contender for best fighting dueler with BCON. The terminology seems a little opaque but you'll have it down by the end of the first game.
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Nov 7, 2023 18:44
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Admiralty Flag posted:On Mars trip report: 4P, one had played 3-4 times, one had played once, and another guy and I had played about half a game yesterday to get ready for today... So where am I going with all this? Last weekend, as a noob who had played barely half a game as practice, I beat someone who had played once before and someone who had played somewhere between 3-4 times before (granted, I beat this guy by only one point). Part of my win was everyone else misremembered the scientist scoring rule and got the "wrong" scientists (or just didn't get scientists). When we scored scientists, everyone was like, "oh poo poo, that's right, scientists work that way," and lamented their missed points. I mean, I did a lot of other things right and was always thinking, "how is this move going to get me OPs?", but this was a big miss for everyone else and the final score could easily have been significantly different. My ultimate point, I think, is that I'm dissatisfied on some level with On Mars because the system mastery required to play it at a proficient level seems to require more than a couple of plays, and I wonder whether the experience required to play it at a baseline level is worth the effort to get there, if that makes sense. (A corollary is that the game seems to take too long, but I'm willing to chalk that up to inexperience.) But I'm already signed up for it next weekend, so we'll see how it goes. I suppose that my wife and daughter, who aren't as hardcore as I am about gaming, have similar feelings on the rare occasions they agree to play Brass. And newbies experiencing Catan, and any number of other permutations.
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Nov 7, 2023 20:55
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Lacerda games exacerbate that problem to the extreme because of the relatively small number of turns/choices you have in a game with that many systems. The system mastery required to make a "good' play is high and the payoff/feedback on your choices is not immediate. You might not even realize you made a mistake until that end game scoring (like the scientists you mentioned). It's like trying to spin plates through a series of gears arranged in a maze so you can't even see which gear spins which plate, and you only get one chance to keep that wobbly play going. I vastly prefer "heavy" euro games that give feedback early and often, but still have long term repercussions for your choices. Splotter games are great at this, on top of being much simpler in rules and providing many more opportunities for players to make important choices, pivot when needed, etc.
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Nov 7, 2023 21:13
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Admiralty Flag posted:My ultimate point, I think, is that I'm dissatisfied on some level with On Mars because the system mastery required to play it at a proficient level seems to require more than a couple of plays, and I wonder whether the experience required to play it at a baseline level is worth the effort to get there, if that makes sense. (A corollary is that the game seems to take too long, but I'm willing to chalk that up to inexperience.) But I'm already signed up for it next weekend, so we'll see how it goes. This is something that has been rattling inside my mostly empty skull for years now. How many games are like TV series where they get good after the first couple of lovely seasons? I think it's totally fair to say wtf am I doing with my life if you're playing something you hate but eventually (I promise!!!) reveals its mysteries and magic after a dozen plays because you're playing a game, something meant to be enjoyable. It's a mark of a Good Game that you don't have to grind out tedious playthroughs before you are able to enjoy it. And while fun is subjective I think most people here will agree that no matter their definition of it, not having it for a while under the condition that if you commit to enough suffering you'll get some (really I mean it this time!!!!) seems like a bad trade when there are actually Good Games that either keep the opportunity for mastery and let you have fun leading up to that nirvana, or are just great from the get go. The other side to this I guess are games that do require a bit of extra thinking and time and That Guy who says gently caress it, game sucks because he didn't bother thinking about it but honestly I find that way rarer than the aforementioned whining I did. The problem I think is that outside of a few exceptions, there are very games I've played recently that remotely justify their time length and rule complexity and it kind bugs me because it feels vaguely disrespectful of my time and patience but maybe I just feel even more irritable lately because I have a small child and no time to do anything so god dammit this game better be good especially if I have to learn it and it's going to take 4 hours. (I think Here I Stand, High Frontier, and Pax Ren are the most complicated games I have ever played just for perspective)
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Nov 7, 2023 21:18
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FulsomFrank posted:
I think the process of system mastery is a big part of why people do like heavier games, but there's a sweet spot of complexity while still being able to meaningfully engage with those systems even on a first play. That's why I think the feedback from your choices is so crucial. Pax Pamir 2 has the intermittent scoring rounds, FCM gives the immediate payouts each round to gauge where you're at, etc.
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Nov 7, 2023 21:25
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A road to system mastery is one of the marks of a good game but it shouldn't be barricaded by the game being dull or confusing to play on the way. Gaia Project is a game I love but am very bad at. I have lost way more than I will ever win. But the turn-to-turn is both interesting and fun, and was from the very first play. I never bought into the idea of suffering to get to the good part in any medium. I board game fails my group if I have to convince anyone to play it a second time.
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Nov 7, 2023 21:38
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FulsomFrank posted:This is something that has been rattling inside my mostly empty skull for years now. How many games are like TV series where they get good after the first couple of lovely seasons? I think it's totally fair to say wtf am I doing with my life if you're playing something you hate but eventually (I promise!!!) reveals its mysteries and magic after a dozen plays because you're playing a game, something meant to be enjoyable. It's a mark of a Good Game that you don't have to grind out tedious playthroughs before you are able to enjoy it. And while fun is subjective I think most people here will agree that no matter their definition of it, not having it for a while under the condition that if you commit to enough suffering you'll get some (really I mean it this time!!!!) seems like a bad trade when there are actually Good Games that either keep the opportunity for mastery and let you have fun leading up to that nirvana, or are just great from the get go. Like, the ideal game is "pretty good" or better for the person who shows up, says gently caress it, drinks three beers during rules rodeo, and is there to have fun, and is also just loving sublime when you've played it north of ten times. I think the best you're going to get for really complex sublimity is a game that requires invested rules-readers to be good at the outset.
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Nov 7, 2023 21:45
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SettingSun posted:A road to system mastery is one of the marks of a good game but it shouldn't be barricaded by the game being dull or confusing to play on the way. Gaia Project is a game I love but am very bad at. I have lost way more than I will ever win. But the turn-to-turn is both interesting and fun, and was from the very first play. I never bought into the idea of suffering to get to the good part in any medium. I board game fails my group if I have to convince anyone to play it a second time. Yeah, some games have fun building/exploration in their own right and it's a delight just interacting with them even if scoring is completely over your head.
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Nov 7, 2023 21:48
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I'm just finish ip my first game of Ark Nova on BGA. I went in 1v1 and totally blind. Focused on African animals and generally just getting the sense of how it all fits together while refusing to read a single rule. It's pretty fun! Seems very complex. Is this an mwe or a heavy?
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Nov 7, 2023 21:57
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I'd put it as MWE, cause there's a lot of RNG involved due to deck size and you gotta be ready to pivot your strategy early game.
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Nov 7, 2023 22:31
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Parkreiner posted:The BattleCon talk is bringing this to mind: anyone have any thoughts on Sakura Arms? I backed it (yikes, three years ago) but have not gotten it to table. Having the same currency used to track health, mana, and distance between the combatants is quite ingenious. The way you organize cards coming from your deck isn't great: action cards you played go face-up in your "played" pile, and cards used to pay for actions go in your discard pile, which is face-down and rotated 90 degrees within your played pile. Your discard pile is a subset of your played pile and I don't like it. Your special cards--the powers unique to the characters--hang around face-down until activated, which isn't great for learning the game. Complaints aside, I think it's good, and I wish more dueling games had clever takes on Ye Olde Hitte Points.
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Nov 7, 2023 22:47
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