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Eraflure
Oct 12, 2012


Every few weeks I think to myself "AFFO+Norwegians is such a great game, I wonder when the Danes will finally arrive" and then I go to the BGG forums hoping for good news and all I see is a thread named "Developers diary: Historical background to horses in America"

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FulsomFrank
Sep 11, 2005

Hard on for love

Poopy Palpy posted:

I've played a handful of games of Agricola in the past few months after several years away from it and goddamn, it is a masterwork. It's got rough edges that a more recent design would have sanded down, but without them it wouldn't be as good.

So we release a special mini filled edition of agricola is what you're saying? Really show off the paintjobs on your subsistence farmers. I think we can start printing money here.

Bottom Liner
Feb 15, 2006


a specific vein of lasagna

FulsomFrank posted:

So we release a special mini filled edition of agricola is what you're saying? Really show off the paintjobs on your subsistence farmers. I think we can start printing money here.

They already released repainted minis to replace meeples that include special cards. They’re actually pretty nice, I picked them up on a big clearance and like them a lot.



Chicken Lady is the matriarch, obviously

Bottom Liner fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Apr 5, 2024

silvergoose
Mar 18, 2006

IT IS SAID THE TEARS OF THE BWEENIX CAN HEAL ALL WOUNDS




Eraflure posted:

Every few weeks I think to myself "AFFO+Norwegians is such a great game, I wonder when the Danes will finally arrive" and then I go to the BGG forums hoping for good news and all I see is a thread named "Developers diary: Historical background to horses in America"

You've successfully summed up why my excitement is dwindling, lol

Dr Kool-AIDS
Mar 26, 2004

Elysium posted:

I know a lot of people who like board games, but I don’t know a lot of people that actually want to sit down and play board games instead of doing… anything else.

I did have some friends who were really into board games and organized nights for people to go over and play, but they moved away. Since then it's been pretty much this, where people might respond favorably to the idea of playing a game, or even play and say they like the game a lot, but it's still like pulling teeth to organize anything after that. I feel like some of it is just people being flakier in general than they were pre-pandemic, but also it just seems easier to get people to agree to other plans than playing board games. I know meet ups specifically for board games are an alternative, but my initial impression wasn't very positive at all, so I'll probably just go on being disappointed with my friends.

Serotoning
Sep 14, 2010

D&D: HASBARA SQUAD
HANG 'EM HIGH


We're fighting human animals and we act accordingly

Dr Kool-AIDS posted:

I did have some friends who were really into board games and organized nights for people to go over and play, but they moved away. Since then it's been pretty much this, where people might respond favorably to the idea of playing a game, or even play and say they like the game a lot, but it's still like pulling teeth to organize anything after that. I feel like some of it is just people being flakier in general than they were pre-pandemic, but also it just seems easier to get people to agree to other plans than playing board games. I know meet ups specifically for board games are an alternative, but my initial impression wasn't very positive at all, so I'll probably just go on being disappointed with my friends.

It's an old hobby/board game saying, but easier to make friends out of board gamers than board gamers out of your friends.

The Shame Boy
Jan 27, 2014

Dead weight, just like this post.



High Tension Wire posted:

Give me new ways to play the game without having to buy anything physical over Legacy-games any day.

Kinda wish I had bought MoM 2nd edition way back when, since the first edition just burned me out with its endless set up time.

Will never forget the one scenario in 1st edition MoM where you do all the tedious setup and the reward for following the obvoius breadcrumb trail is to fall into a freezer or something and fall onto an eldritch hellscape and lose the game instantly.

Why was that even one of the options given to the evil player to even do :psyduck:

canyoneer
Sep 13, 2005


I only have canyoneyes for you

Eraflure posted:

Every few weeks I think to myself "AFFO+Norwegians is such a great game, I wonder when the Danes will finally arrive" and then I go to the BGG forums hoping for good news and all I see is a thread named "Developers diary: Historical background to horses in America"

American Freckles For Odin

Gumdrop Larry
Jul 30, 2006

I think deep down even tabletop game-brained people still to an extent struggle to break free of board games as something to regard more flippantly, and as one-off type deals. Monopoly on family game night type stuff. It's definitely a really consistent thing that you'll find people who love TCGs or miniatures games and are very happy to sit down with a board game, but treat the idea of repeated plays and digging into mechanics as an insane idea to them.

The nature of the big players in the industry can ingrain the notion that more substantial games have to be a lot bigger and continued investments. I can gently caress up the perception that good gameplay value can exist in a small, self contained box and that you can get huge amounts of replays and complexity of metagames with well designed ones. I still continue to be baffled and frustrated by friends who'll happily play a learning game of something fairly heavy and then balk at resetting and trying at least one more game "for real" now that we've gotten the rules down.

Issaries
Sep 15, 2008

"At the end of the day
We are all human beings
My father once told me that
The world has no borders"

The Shame Boy posted:

Will never forget the one scenario in 1st edition MoM where you do all the tedious setup and the reward for following the obvoius breadcrumb trail is to fall into a freezer or something and fall onto an eldritch hellscape and lose the game instantly.

Why was that even one of the options given to the evil player to even do :psyduck:

That was pretty bad.
We faced that too. In my defense, I picked all the DM options randomly without reading them.
We just ended up rolling back that action and continued the game. It is a silly freezer.

Joe Chill
Mar 21, 2013

"What's this dance called?"

"'Radioactive Flesh.' It's the latest - and the last!"

Gumdrop Larry posted:

I think deep down even tabletop game-brained people still to an extent struggle to break free of board games as something to regard more flippantly, and as one-off type deals. Monopoly on family game night type stuff. It's definitely a really consistent thing that you'll find people who love TCGs or miniatures games and are very happy to sit down with a board game, but treat the idea of repeated plays and digging into mechanics as an insane idea to them.

The nature of the big players in the industry can ingrain the notion that more substantial games have to be a lot bigger and continued investments. I can gently caress up the perception that good gameplay value can exist in a small, self contained box and that you can get huge amounts of replays and complexity of metagames with well designed ones. I still continue to be baffled and frustrated by friends who'll happily play a learning game of something fairly heavy and then balk at resetting and trying at least one more game "for real" now that we've gotten the rules down.

I think it's less people think a board game offers less than most people tend to stick with what they know.

SlyFrog
May 16, 2007

What? One name? Who are you, Seal?
I've never dabbled in 18xx games because I have read too many Clearclaw posts, and I'm afraid of being stuck at a table full of people who yell at me because I didn't make the moves on Turn 1 that the flow chart says I'm supposed to.

Lottery of Babylon
Apr 25, 2012

STRAIGHT TROPIN'

The Shame Boy posted:

Will never forget the one scenario in 1st edition MoM where you do all the tedious setup and the reward for following the obvoius breadcrumb trail is to fall into a freezer or something and fall onto an eldritch hellscape and lose the game instantly.

Why was that even one of the options given to the evil player to even do :psyduck:

The first event card warns you not to touch the freezer... but the freezer is positioned so near to the entrance that you naturally open it a turn before the first event card triggers and actually gives you that warning.

Luckily it's quick to just reset and play again with a different story objective at that point, since the players have explored so little, but :psyduck:

One of the scenarios in the first box expansion you couldn't even finish setting up because it asked you to use both sides of the same map tile at the same time.

Aramoro
Jun 1, 2012




One of the rewritten adventures for the Call of Cthulhu rpg had a big house to look round but if you looked at one of the paintings it devoured your soul and you died. Sounds like MoM was pretty generous telling you not to touch the freezer.

Elysium
Aug 21, 2003
It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
Played Ark Nova yesterday. It was OK. Kind of hard to know what you are going for or could be capable of on a first play. It felt kind of like complicated Wingspan to me, at least in tone. I didn’t seem to get decent synergies early on, or did and didn’t realize it, so while the other players were like “I play a sponsor, which builds this building, which covers this bonus, which moves me on this track, which flips one of my cards” I was like “I build a building. Your turn.” “I play an animal into that building I built last turn. Your turn.” It’s not like I didn’t want to or couldn’t conceive of combo plays, I just didn’t feel like I had any. Probably the most interesting thing I did was play a card that let me release an animal, opening up a 5 enclosure to put another 5 animal in, but that seemed way weaker than the other things people were doing, since losing the tickets for releasing the animal seems to offset the other gains. Anyway, I lost.

I want to play this game, but designed by Vlaada.

SettingSun
Aug 10, 2013

To me that just sounds like the people you played with didn’t give you a chance to learn it. Flipping an action card because you advanced a track as a result of a building placed by a sponsor isn’t some big brain play. If they didn’t explain to you the value of flipping action cards and where to do it that’s on them.

Elysium
Aug 21, 2003
It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.

Elysium posted:

It’s not like I didn’t want to or couldn’t conceive of combo plays, I just didn’t feel like I had any.

Obviously I’m sure there were opportunities that I missed, but my initial cards and early draws didn’t seem well suited to cohesiveness, and I got behind early on upgrades.

I did only finish 5 or 6 points behind the other new player despite him doing a lot more “stuff”, both of us in the negative.

Elysium fucked around with this message at 15:58 on Apr 6, 2024

Perry Mason Jar
Feb 24, 2006

"Della? Take a lid"
I typed up this lengthy response before realizing you may not have any interest in playing again or otherwise care to learn strategy. But anyway, here it is in case you do, or someone else does. AN is firmly a top-two favorite game (SI competing) for me now so I love talking about it!

---

The first play is definitely tough. It's a game that requires a lot of knowledge: about cards, optimal actions, edge cases, etc. It benefits probably a bit too strongly from watching or reading strategy about the game unless for some reason it comes very naturally to you.

Sounds like you played an offline game so there's no replay for me to review, but here's a few general notes:

1. AN is a sprint, not an engine builder. You want to maximize short-term gains as much as possible. The only relevant engine is an income engine as having a high income is a huge advantage. That being the case, action efficiency is very important and the surest way to assure efficiency is upgrading your cards! In the early game you are looking to do three main things: upgrade cards, build income, and gain association workers in roughly that order.

You say you (1) didn't have good cards (2) took the build action a lot (3) took the animals action a lot. In your situation - which is counter to what might be typical - you probably want to upgrade Build, Cards, and Animals in (probably) that order. I say that it's counter to what might be typical because Build and Cards are the only two actions that don't score you points! So generally you don't want to upgrade cards until you need the reputation track upgrade, or else theres a very juice market. However an upgraded build can literally quintuple your build efficiency! (Power 5, size 2 enclosure, size 1 enclosure, Kiosk, Pavilion). It's an upgrade you'll want to take either first or second in mostly every game (again, no hard and fast rules here, I've played and won games without upgrading Build at all). Building placement is a learning curve (e.g., you'll often want to build in a way that leaves an option for an aviary/reptile house that touches water and rock, option for a size 5 that also touches one or the other etc) - as a general rule though you want your kiosks to net you at least 3 income each. I end most games with ~3 kiosks.

From what I can glean you had some playable animals so maybe Build > Animals > Cards works as well, depending on how much benefit you can get from reputation points and the market row. This option means you'll either want lots of playable animals or just some assurance that you'll be able to play animals at 5 regularly for the +1 rep. It also needs a lot more income for enclosures and animals.

Cards upgrade is pretty straightforward: you have bad/irrelevant cards and want to topdeck or grab good ones from the row. You'll be looking for an early 5 Hand university here. If your cards in hand are chaff then you're looking to avoid snapping as much as possible. In other situations you'd leave cards un-upgraded for a while and use it snap basically exclusively.

2. Opening hand card selection is one of the most important actions you will take for the entire game! A typical selection looks like 2-3 animals, 1-2 sponsors, 1 conservation project. Generally, you'll want to select animals that either combo with the sponsor(s) you keep and/or help you meet a conservation project, either base or one in your hand. If you draw a conservation project but no relevant animals, you'll probably want to discard that project.

Sounds like you had no sponsors or totally irrelevant/expensive/bad sponsors in your opening hand. So, you're looking at Animals and Projects. Keep animals that let you fulfill a project in the next round! A single animal with a relevant continent and no play conditions (or with the only play condition being partner zoo) let's you: r1 take sponsor zoo, build enclosure, play animal, r2 Association 5 fulfill project at third slot.

The game being a sprint means that taking a third slot on a conservation project is a perfectly good play. You don't want to wait around if you don't need to (though if your opponents don't have the relevant icon it might be better to!). A third slot project early is 2cp (roughly 6 appeal), a card upgrade (or worker but I don't recommend that), and a map bonus. The income map bonuses are very strong, especially the 5 money and the snap ones. On the beginner maps the CP income is S tier when taken early. More on this in a moment.

But what if your animals are all irrelevant to any conservation projects? Then you want to focus on animals with good abilities or with reputation and CP bonuses. Good abilities in the early game are: perception, peacocking, inventive. Good abilities later are: resistance, assertion, pouch, determination. Determination is the best ability in the game and if you draw an eagle into your starting hand it's usually worth holding onto even if you won't be able to play it til much later, even at the cost of spending an early Association action for the 5-card university. Perception is probably the second best ability in the game and worth holding onto at any point. Resistance probably the third, but not worth holding onto if pulled early.

3. The conservation track bonuses can be very, very strong. University and partner zoo are the two strongest then the 2x. For that reason you'll want to rush up the conservation track as fast as possible when the bonuses are juicy (not usually worthwhile for the 3-draw and Sponsor for Money ones). This is why the beginner CP map bonus is especially strong, why CP animals are fantastic, why supporting at third slots is still good, and so on.

That said, the conservation track becomes a secondary consideration to Appeal once the good bonuses are gone (so after 8 CP typically). Then you want to gear towards appeal moreso than CP in most situations.

Also worth keeping in mind your income, if you're not so hot on kiosks or income sponsors then you'll want to focus on appeal early until your income is decent (about 20 money or else within 10 money of the leading income).

Releasing a 5-sized animal is (3x5)-Appeal points. It's always a net gain. It's important to mind your income, sure, but a 5-size release in the second or third round is among the best plays you can make. It means you get: card upgrade (or worker), the 5 CP bonus, a map bonus, and a free size-5 enclosure for an animal. If the 5 CP bonus isn't a partner or university certainly less so! But if it is then it will likely mean two card upgrades plus the rest, at just the cost of an association worker.

4. The bring Action card to level 1 for an X-token is not a noob trap or an "I'm broke and out of workers" consolation prize. It can be the latter but it's not infrequently a strong turn.

Perry Mason Jar fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Apr 6, 2024

Glazius
Jul 22, 2007

Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.

Clapping Larry
Funny story, because I had a game of Ark Nova this weekend that I lost because I ended it too early. I'd done the last break and had a choice of animal plays - one would put me one ticket over the markers crossing, one would leave me one ticket short. I had 5 points with an association action on tap at the time, and after I pulled the trigger it turned out everybody else had one good scoring action, but not the two I was afraid of.

I suppose "don't end the game if you've got significant points in hand" is a good heuristic, but maybe more is that it's probably pretty rare for someone to be able to notch significant points three actions in a row, at least without a big pile of X tokens.

Also had a 3-player game of vanilla Innovation that ended kind of amusingly. We had all fought pretty hard to deny each other the last winning achievement, and were out of achievements except for two special ones that were a bit of a way off for everybody. So the person with the lowest score played Fission and went nuclear, and the first flip off the 10 stack blew up the world, leaving total ruin and the 10 stack the only thing standing.

After that it was just random who'd topdeck the 10 that would let them score the most points before the cards ran out. So it was an entertaining experience, at least for me.

Glazius fucked around with this message at 03:23 on Apr 7, 2024

Perry Mason Jar
Feb 24, 2006

"Della? Take a lid"
That's where the interaction of the game is really noticeable, because whether or not you cross depends not just on how many points ahead you are, but also on how much money your opponents have, where their action cards are, and whether or not they can score on projects.

In a recent game I spent two tokens to Associate at 5, map bonus Determination, play a basic animal to cross and finish with a relatively puny 106 total. But my opponent had no money, animals at 5, and the ability to break with his next turn. So if I stalled I was running the risk that he'd break and close the lead down with his animals. If he had an eagle or elephant in hand he could've won, so I ended when he was too broke to (potentially) play them even if it meant I couldn't do some other higher scoring combo.

But in other games I've stalled, calculated to 99, caused the break myself, and then done some big combo. I feel like I used to stall more but knowing when to cross is another learning curve decision.

Still, if you're thinking sprint over engine the decision to cross is simpler cause you can be a few dozen points ahead and it's pretty clear that they can't close the gap in a single turn.

GreenBuckanneer
Sep 15, 2007

I wish Twilight Imperium had a single player option so I could play it all the time

silvergoose
Mar 18, 2006

IT IS SAID THE TEARS OF THE BWEENIX CAN HEAL ALL WOUNDS




GreenBuckanneer posted:

I wish Twilight Imperium had a single player option so I could play it all the time

Have you heard of Twilight Inscription?

haddedam
Feb 19, 2024

by Fluffdaddy
I enjoy my solo games where I play against myself and take actions that would benefit the side I'm currently on the most.

silvergoose
Mar 18, 2006

IT IS SAID THE TEARS OF THE BWEENIX CAN HEAL ALL WOUNDS




So you know how some of us "joke" that all board game mechanisms are actually auctions?

Mogul
The newer version, there's five suits of shares that you bid on No Thanks style where you're putting in a chip to stay in, final two get the share or to sell a different color share, final person chooses which of those two to do. Shares are worth however many are currently in front of people, so you're incentivized to sell several at once that others have, devaluing their shares. Minor action if you don't want to sell is to go up a track of that color for points instead. It was fine, I liked the no thanks part and didn't like the fact that you can't really control what you're selling when. Ends when a certain card near the bottom is drawn.

Fresh Fish
My third play, I'm godawful at blind bid auctions, but it was fun, I came in third of four, someone wrecked us with plus 2.

Senators
Flip four cards, everyone bids on them separately in turn order, auctioneer chooses to pay the high bidder and take the card, or have the bidder pay them for it. Then there's a weird extort-cards action where you can mess with what people previously won, and cash in to trade in sets for money and buy actual points. It was...fine, too, I quite liked the bidding, it felt like price setting of Mad King Ludwig but in reverse, and I didn't much like the rest. Ended precipitously with no player involvement, which was kind of a bummer.

Big Top
Taiki game. Draw a card, choose that or the other card you already had in your hand to auction, if you bid one of the values on cards you already won you fill it in with a coin from your supply, if you finish a card you get the coins back and it's worth points (or special power, or a star that everyone needs at least one of). If you bid a value on the face up card, the bank puts a coin on it. So it's an odd duck of bidding certain values without actually necessarily wanting to win the card at that value. Winner pays auctioneer. It was fine, the bidding part was cool and the cards were wildly unbalanced so some people drew great cards that everyone wanted to bid on so they got tons of money, and some people drew stuff no one wanted and so had no chance to get money. Same ending as Senators, basically.


So, literally played four auction games, and only Fresh Fish was particularly good, the rest had something cool with stuff I found grating. Made me want to play Goa, to be honest.

terebikun
May 27, 2016

Poopy Palpy posted:

I've played a handful of games of Agricola in the past few months after several years away from it and goddamn, it is a masterwork. It's got rough edges that a more recent design would have sanded down, but without them it wouldn't be as good.

Counterpoint that I'm pretty sure I've made before: Brew Crafters sanded down the rough edges and is in fact better

The Shame Boy
Jan 27, 2014

Dead weight, just like this post.



Lottery of Babylon posted:

The first event card warns you not to touch the freezer... but the freezer is positioned so near to the entrance that you naturally open it a turn before the first event card triggers and actually gives you that warning.

Luckily it's quick to just reset and play again with a different story objective at that point, since the players have explored so little, but :psyduck:

One of the scenarios in the first box expansion you couldn't even finish setting up because it asked you to use both sides of the same map tile at the same time.

It's been so long I don't even remember it being so close to the start as well! That is so mean lol.

I do like that second edition exists to manage alot of the fiddleness with the app and it keeps the best part of having actual puzzles to solve. But I can't for the life of me ever think of a time where I've actually finished a game of 2nd Edition.

mikeycp
Nov 24, 2010

I've changed a lot since I started hanging with Sonic, but I can't depend on him forever. I know I can do this by myself! Okay, Eggman! Bring it on!
personally i just really do not like app-enabled games

part of why i like board games is because they aren't digital, don't jam digital in there imo

Magnetic North
Dec 15, 2008

Beware the Forest's Mushrooms

mikeycp posted:

personally i just really do not like app-enabled games

part of why i like board games is because they aren't digital, don't jam digital in there imo

There are some digital aspects that I am willing to accept in my board gaming, in theory.
  • Secret keeping like Alchemists and The Search for Planet X
  • Additional puzzles or generative content like Turing Machine
  • Solo-enabling / Coop-proctoring like Mansions of Madness
I am admittedly less enthused about Return To Dark Tower or Descent: Legends of the Dark and The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth despite doing the MoM 'dungeon mastering' for you.

I'm medium on it in Chronicles of Crime; the app gives you the freedom to ask anyone about anything, which is quite freeing. It'd require a very large book, but it would be possible to contain that information. In fact, the Adventure Games series has something similar with just a booklet where the information is encoded by concatenating two integers. It's not perfect, and it's slightly more limited, but me and mine liked the one we have played. We were much more engaged than with 1400. Also, 1400 has a stupid gimmick about looking around a room with your phone and wheeeeee it uses the orientation sensor wheeee. Look, it's 1998 and I'm playing Journeyman Project 3 again except it's one room and poo poo.

I'm pretty down on it in Unlock, though I've only played one box and thought it was pretty bad. Needing to ask the app to confirm things feels like such a bummer. Again, Kosmos is doing it better because Exit is fully analog and they are just plain better. Better puzzles, more satisfying mechanisms, they're great. (Except Theft on the Mississipi, which was pretty bad.)

Xcom uses its app to randomize things, where the increased terror level can cause phases to change order or something. Sure, it sounds very Xcom. But who. Gives. A. poo poo. That does not feel like an essential and irreplaceable aspect that is so elaborate that a computer is simply required How about roll a die, if it's higher than the terror level, roll some other dice to figure out what phases get changed? Also, I have to keep telling the app "this is my terror level in Africa" which is tiresome. Sure, having the app roll dice for you sucks too, but that's just a natural response to people trying to minimize the amount the app has to be told. If you app needs to be told poo poo or to roll dice for me, just go one step further and make a full app that contains the entire playable board game as a loving video game.

I'm sure there are other examples, but basically: If an app is adding more content to the game or is handling secrecy so a player doesn't have to, I'm willing to consider it.

The Eyes Have It
Feb 10, 2008

Third Eye Sees All
...snookums
I think of Mansions of Madness 2e as the best kind of app enabling. Game state tracking (especially hidden information) but with zero game rule enforcement.

Oops that monster should be at one less health point? Or removed entirely? Go ahead, do it. Want to take an extra action? Go ahead. App don't care. Anything you could do to the board game state on pure cardboard, you can still just do. Game rule enforcement is just not in its scope, which is how it should be :colbert:

Anonymous Robot
Jun 1, 2007

Lost his leg in Robo War I

The Eyes Have It posted:

I think of Mansions of Madness 2e as the best kind of app enabling. Game state tracking (especially hidden information) but with zero game rule enforcement.

Oops that monster should be at one less health point? Or removed entirely? Go ahead, do it. Want to take an extra action? Go ahead. App don't care. Anything you could do to the board game state on pure cardboard, you can still just do. Game rule enforcement is just not in its scope, which is how it should be :colbert:

Arkham Horror LCG has a third-party app that is excellent. It does this type of campaign tracking, helps with setup, contains a filterable card library that streamlines deckbuilding a great deal, and even includes errata and FAQs for all cards that have them. But during the actual game, it hooks in only in the limited circumstances when it makes sense (like containing a repository of the diary logs normally accessed via the campaign guide etc.)

Ohthehugemanatee
Oct 18, 2005

silvergoose posted:

Have you heard of Twilight Inscription?

In the words of one of my friends, “This looks like TI4, but it is missing everything I love about TI4 and I hate everything about it.”

mikeycp
Nov 24, 2010

I've changed a lot since I started hanging with Sonic, but I can't depend on him forever. I know I can do this by myself! Okay, Eggman! Bring it on!

Anonymous Robot posted:

Arkham Horror LCG has a third-party app that is excellent. It does this type of campaign tracking, helps with setup, contains a filterable card library that streamlines deckbuilding a great deal, and even includes errata and FAQs for all cards that have them. But during the actual game, it hooks in only in the limited circumstances when it makes sense (like containing a repository of the diary logs normally accessed via the campaign guide etc.)

Yeah I use this one, but only for campaign and deck xp tracking. I still read everything out of the books and use a physical chaos bag and flip through my actual cards when I'm building

I'm also a bit of a luddite, so any more than what i use that app for is distasteful to me.

Anonymous Robot
Jun 1, 2007

Lost his leg in Robo War I
It can be real nice to check the built-in probability calculator for the chaos bag when the game is on the line, too.

mikeycp
Nov 24, 2010

I've changed a lot since I started hanging with Sonic, but I can't depend on him forever. I know I can do this by myself! Okay, Eggman! Bring it on!
on one hand that does seem nice, otoh i kinda like not knowing, since awful things you can't know is kind of the theme of the game

!Klams
Dec 25, 2005

Squid Squad

Ohthehugemanatee posted:

In the words of one of my friends, “This looks like TI4, but it is missing everything I love about TI4 and I hate everything about it.”

My friend got gifted it, and as huge TI fans we were both like "OH COOL WHAT'S THIS" and read the back of the box and then both kind of looked at each other and said "...shall we play it then?" ..."Nah".

It's odd how viscerally it missed the mark. I actually think attaching it to TI in this case was a mistake. Because rather than think "Oh cool, it's in that setting I like", like your friend says, it just invites the terrible contrast. You read it and think "Well, this seems like a LOT of busywork" and then you think "God, imagine a full day game of TI4 but reduced to a spreadsheet" and it just sounds HORRIFIC.

girl dick energy
Sep 30, 2009

You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

!Klams posted:

"God, imagine a full day game of TI4 but reduced to a spreadsheet"
Who is this game even for? The people who like that kind of thing are already spending all day playing EVE Online.

FulsomFrank
Sep 11, 2005

Hard on for love

SlyFrog posted:

I've never dabbled in 18xx games because I have read too many Clearclaw posts, and I'm afraid of being stuck at a table full of people who yell at me because I didn't make the moves on Turn 1 that the flow chart says I'm supposed to.

Assuming you aren't sidling up to a small group of people over 50 at a convention huddled over a table with a stack of vaguely homemade looking mostly white board game boxes with strange combinations of letters, numbers, and geographical regions, some of whom are wearing engineering overalls... you're probably fine. And even in that case they'd probably be excited to have new blood in the mix because it signals that the games aren't going extinct. Most people, even die hards, are thrilled when someone wants to get a taste of their obsession hobby.

With my group(s) and victims I am overjoyed when someone new is tricked into playing because it's fascinating seeing them break up the meta and seemingly obvious choices. The only problem is that with certain games and with certain people who have played something a thousand loving times, you are going to get into situations where accidentally or not, they've optimised how to play it and between crushing you or getting furious when you withhold for no goddamn good reason in one of the last sets of ORs to buy a train when you've clearly lost and it's not going to make a bloody difference either way and you're just kingmaking, there can be some hard feelings if they forget it's a goddamn game and to just relax, man.

It's worth learning, I mean it. The games are so much fun and even if playing them obsessively online kind of dulls the experience, you forget how much fun it is playing in person.

an actual dog
Nov 18, 2014

Glazius posted:


Also had a 3-player game of vanilla Innovation that ended kind of amusingly. We had all fought pretty hard to deny each other the last winning achievement, and were out of achievements except for two special ones that were a bit of a way off for everybody. So the person with the lowest score played Fission and went nuclear, and the first flip off the 10 stack blew up the world, leaving total ruin and the 10 stack the only thing standing.

After that it was just random who'd topdeck the 10 that would let them score the most points before the cards ran out. So it was an entertaining experience, at least for me.

Nuking the world in Innovation owns. I did it once and then in the aftermath I got the monument achievement to win, which felt very funny to me.

armorer
Aug 6, 2012

I like metal.
Is "Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective" the line that folks in this thread think highly of? There are several of them included in the Target buy 2 get 1 free sale.

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PRADA SLUT
Mar 14, 2006

Inexperienced,
heartless,
but even so

armorer posted:

Is "Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective" the line that folks in this thread think highly of? There are several of them included in the Target buy 2 get 1 free sale.

I liked it. Feels a little old in terms of “look this passage up” and read the story but it’s in my (objectively the correct and best) 3x3

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