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Megasabin posted:Once the game had been out for a while there was some rumblings from posters here that Food Chain Magnate might not have the depth it seems. I don't remember the exact reasoning, but I think the argument was that with experienced players the game becomes very regimented. One example is how I think there are only 2 opening moves worth doing. I discovered that 1) I really prefer some amount of emerging randomness that everyone needs to adapt to, and 2) the decisions made during Restructuring seem disproportionately important for something simultaneous in such an exacting game. I frequently found myself making coinflip choices, where I knew my opponent was going to do A or B, those were his only good options, and I simply had to guess which. FCM is not a game in which you can quickly pivot to a new stance, so depending on how large that coinflip decision is, it really can mean the game. FCM is a neat illustration of initiative in the military sense! Luckily, I have a friend who likes it more than I do, so I sold it to him and got Maria.
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Aug 17, 2016 23:34
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homullus posted:I discovered that 1) I really prefer some amount of emerging randomness that everyone needs to adapt to, and 2) the decisions made during Restructuring seem disproportionately important for something simultaneous in such an exacting game. I frequently found myself making coinflip choices, where I knew my opponent was going to do A or B, those were his only good options, and I simply had to guess which. FCM is not a game in which you can quickly pivot to a new stance, so depending on how large that coinflip decision is, it really can mean the game. FCM is a neat illustration of initiative in the military sense! Yea. I simply don't see myself paying that much for a game that could eventually be narrowed down to that type of decision making. I do have friends who own it though, which helps ease that decision. Holy poo poo Maria is 3 players! I am ALWAYS on the lookout for 3 player games since its such an awkward number. I've had Churchill on P500 order for over a year now. Is Maria always 100+ dollars or is it just out of print? Any plans for a reprint if so?
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Aug 17, 2016 23:42
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Megasabin posted:Yea. I simply don't see myself paying that much for a game that could eventually be narrowed down to that type of decision making. I do have friends who own it though, which helps ease that decision. I poked around online for a store with an online storefront that didn't turn up easily in searches and bought the second-last copy this place had. They still have one left.
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Aug 17, 2016 23:57
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Megasabin posted:Yea. I simply don't see myself paying that much for a game that could eventually be narrowed down to that type of decision making. I do have friends who own it though, which helps ease that decision. Histogames doesn't have good international presence but all of their games are bilingual. I get them off Noble Knight but you can buy directly from them and their shipping is reasonable. Maybe $70 usd total.
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Aug 17, 2016 23:59
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We have played FCM over 20 times and the only strategy we haven't demolished yet is the extremely wide strategy, and that's only because the guy who plays it hasn't been back lately. Yes, there are basically two openings, but after that things can vary a lot. And while you can't instantly respond you CAN respond to stuff on the board. Plus people have to telegraph their intentions anyway, so there are never any real surprises. Get the BGG Store accessory for FCM, it shrinks the table space significantly. Also play with poker chips.
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Aug 18, 2016 00:30
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al-azad posted:Okay, now that I understand your situation better I have to say that the game is a verbal exercise and communication should be allowed. The question master is on the fake artist's side, he wins when you win. From his perspective the title should be difficult enough for the real artists to cast suspicion on each other while the category narrows down what the fake artist is meant to do. The question master decides who draws first which is also part of the game, he shouldn't give the fake artist the first draw but if it's obvious the fake artist is the last to draw they know who it is. By default the game favors the fake artist, the real artists have to be clever in their lines and dialog. S'truth. I usually recommend picking something relatively easy for the fake's sake. Make the artists work for it. Do you know how hard it is to draw a car without giving away it's a car? A true artist must evoke the feeling of a car!
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Aug 18, 2016 00:31
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PlaneGuy posted:S'truth. I usually recommend picking something relatively easy for the fake's sake. Make the artists work for it. Do you know how hard it is to draw a car without giving away it's a car? A true artist must evoke the feeling of a car! Yeah the artists should do concepts based on the title. So a car could be the gas symbol, rear mirror, gear shift or other symbology that suggest "vehicle" but not specifically a car.
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Aug 18, 2016 00:43
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Here's a question I don't think I've seen asked about Vast: TCC. How chip-takey/take-thaty is the game? (I might need to explain. "The Chip Taking Game" was a theoretical "toy game" modeled by Dr. Richard Garfield to illustrate the problems of unrestrained direct aggression in multiplayer games. Three or more players have a stack of ten chips. On your turn, you choose another player to lose a chip. Last player with any chips remaining wins. Obviously, the mathematically-optimal play is to ALWAYS take from the player with the most, reducing the game to either a rote equation or an exercise in social wheedling. If you've played Munchkin, you've played this game.) My fear is that the roles (the Cave and the Thief in particular) seem to have an easy time taking "chips" from the other players, and I'm worried about an endgame that devolves into endless piling on the leader. Does that bear out in anyone's experience?
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Aug 18, 2016 00:44
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quote:My fear is that the roles (the Cave and the Thief in particular) seem to have an easy time taking "chips" from the other players, and I'm worried about an endgame that devolves into endless piling on the leader. Does that bear out in anyone's experience? Yes, it does! As people start to get ahead, a lot of people have discretion to start whittling them back down. I think as players get better (meaning you're better able to identify who's ahead of their curve, and what will hurt them the most) that tendency will get worse. It's a cool game, but this tendency is probably the main reason I can't see playing it a lot.
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Aug 18, 2016 01:05
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If you're playing Food Chain Magnate and are saying to yourself "I wish this game was less dependent on restructuring phases and counter-maneuvers and more dependent on long-term planning" then the game you want to play is Arkwright.
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Aug 18, 2016 02:02
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Mister Sinewave posted:I've always had a soft spot for DM-less "RPG" board games but I actually don't really know anything about Kingdom Death (is ": Monster" technically part of the title or what?) besides that there is at least one weird titty blob monster, it's expensive and rare, and the giant ton of miniatures consisting of parts on sprues ready for assembly probably means that most copies are still sitting unplayed. Regarding this and KDM: It's not good. Typical to any RPG, attacking and defending are random but the difficulty to hit and consequences of getting hit are relatively high and severe, respectively. When a player takes damage that isn't specified, there's a random hit location die that can't be adjusted or transferred to another location barring a condition that's also randomly obtained an heavily varying in severity. There's no random stats at least, just the gear that's equipped. It's likely better than the Dark Souls board game for a multitude of reasons, but it's still bad, but there's not much I can think of that does the same DM-less game with village building and crafting.
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Aug 18, 2016 06:10
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Megasabin posted:Yea. I simply don't see myself paying that much for a game that could eventually be narrowed down to that type of decision making. I do have friends who own it though, which helps ease that decision. Definitely ask them to bring it to the table more. The coin flip isn't that simple - it's often a complex bluff/double bluff thing where you can hold back a worker to move up in turn order to secure more sales, or you can go full steam ahead to try to make even more money if your opponents allow you. The other players provide plenty of randomness for me; everyone does different things by necessity, and there's no one true path to victory. The first move having only two good choices branches out so fast that it's not an issue. Everything is also extremely map dependent, and players will change the map throughout the game. If someone in your group has it, get it to the table more.
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Aug 18, 2016 06:34
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Impermanent posted:If you're playing Food Chain Magnate and are saying to yourself "I wish this game was less dependent on restructuring phases and counter-maneuvers and more dependent on long-term planning" then the game you want to play is Arkwright. If you want a combination of both try 18xx.
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Aug 18, 2016 07:29
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Hey, thanks everybody for the recommendations for my brother and I. Went to our LGS today and picked up the X-Wings because they only had that and Pandemic and I let him pick. Played a game tonight, had a blast and towards the end he seemed a little more cognizant of picking his movements carefully so a resounding success, but my wallet is probably going to hate me for it 
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Aug 18, 2016 07:46
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To add to the FCM talk I've had around 10 plays so far and I've done very different strategies in most of them, like I've done brand director radio burgergeddon two or three times since its been my favourite but everything else has been more or less a new track every game. It's true that you really want either first to train or first to recruit 3 but the game diverges rapidly after that point. It's just the nature of the decision space for early turns, turn one is always simply recruit one, turn two is recruit 1/2 and 0/1 other actions, turn 3 onward is where players start to separate, there are a lot of largely exclusive early game milestones to fight over after first to train/first to hire 3
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Aug 18, 2016 07:53
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I might be playing FCM in a bit, so which are the two non-scrub starts?
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Aug 18, 2016 09:26
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Your first turn recruit should almost always be recruiting girl or trainer. If trainer then turn 2 you recruit + train your recruit to get the first to train milestone, or if recruiting girl you get another recruiting girl so you can get first to recruit 3 on turn 3. This will also inform your reserve card since trainer lends itself to going deeper into the tech tree (since you can absorb 3 trained employees without making money to pay salaries first) or wide since you'll want to be hiring lots of lower level employees and aim for marketing and food production milestones to generate income asap, so they favour longer and shorter games respectively but that's far from a hard and fast rule
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Aug 18, 2016 09:46
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Impermanent posted:If you're playing Food Chain Magnate and are saying to yourself "I wish this game was less dependent on restructuring phases and counter-maneuvers and more dependent on long-term planning" then the game you want to play is Arkwright. Arkwright is really, really nice. It's also more accessible than it appears, although I'm starting to agree with a friend's assessment that you should teach it by playing at least a couple of turns if not a full decade.
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Aug 18, 2016 12:00
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So, 20th Century, by the same designer as Last Will, which while it's not that great a game, it's perfectly fine as a relatively light engine game with a fun setting. An auction game, with more auctions, feeling a bit like power grid but with much lower numbers and fewer interesting decisions each turn (outside the auction). You bid for land tiles that look kinda like carcassonne tiles, bid on a catastrophe with the other currency to see who gets shat on worse (and given that the theme is trash and pollution, I think I do mean that literally), then you place your tiles which all come with trash, you get a technology which helps with trash or moving stuff around or the like, then produce the two currencies plus points very similarly to through the ages, then do it all a few more times. I enjoyed it primarily because I got some early income and snowballed pretty well. My two opponents did not like it, because they didn't and therefore couldn't do much in the auctions; I'm pretty sure this means it's a bad game. Basically, if everyone gets to do what I did, choose the tiles they want, make do with the ones I got instead, not get too destroyed by catastrophes, etc etc, it would probably be fine as a lighter Keyflower or Power Grid. But as it was, they both thought it was extremely flat as a game, and I'm not sure if I can truly disagree. Anyone have any experience with the game?
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Aug 18, 2016 12:54
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Mr. Squishy posted:I might be playing FCM in a bit, so which are the two non-scrub starts? My typical play is to go Trainer first, then get a marketer and train them up to airplane level - also get a kitchen trainee and luxury manager - then try to go last on the turn where all this is ready and use your airplane marketing to market a food that other's can't fulfil and use the kitchen trainee to produce it. That'll give you a cook and you can train the marketer to the highest level next turn. This usually results in at least one of the sales bonuses, the radio marketer, and the luxury manager. If you put in a low amount in reserve you can mop up quickly. I usually play 2 player so this might not work as well with more 
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Aug 18, 2016 12:58
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silvergoose posted:So, 20th Century, by the same designer as Last Will, which while it's not that great a game, it's perfectly fine as a relatively light engine game with a fun setting. Yup, we have enjoyed it. We like the track choosing bumping too.
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Aug 18, 2016 15:52
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Megasabin posted:Once the game had been out for a while there was some rumblings from posters here that Food Chain Magnate might not have the depth it seems. I don't remember the exact reasoning, but I think the argument was that with experienced players the game becomes very regimented. One example is how I think there are only 2 opening moves worth doing. I played at gencon and one of the moves someone did was doing the whole "Hire 3 managers things" plus "Train 3 doods" achievement? This gave him a free $15 for salaries (Support 3 people) and a free manager. It was a pretty strong start!
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Aug 18, 2016 16:12
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Exmond posted:I played at gencon and one of the moves someone did was doing the whole "Hire 3 managers things" plus "Train 3 doods" achievement? This gave him a free $15 for salaries (Support 3 people) and a free manager. It was a pretty strong start! It's "train 1 dood." It's an incredibly strong start, but most players are going to go for one or the other 99% of the time. Basically the only time you'll see it pulled off in a competitive game is in a mirror match where everyone goes recruiting girl -> recruiting girl + trainer as their opening hires, in which case there's no net advantage because everybody gets the combo simultaneously.
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Aug 18, 2016 16:18
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Geektox posted:Hey, thanks everybody for the recommendations for my brother and I. Went to our LGS today and picked up the X-Wings because they only had that and Pandemic and I let him pick. Played a game tonight, had a blast and towards the end he seemed a little more cognizant of picking his movements carefully so a resounding success, but my wallet is probably going to hate me for it http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3657860&pagenumber=1 one of us, one of us, one of us
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Aug 18, 2016 16:31
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Mr. Squishy posted:I might be playing FCM in a bit, so which are the two non-scrub starts? either 1st turn get a recruiting girl and go wide, or 1st turn get a trainer and go deep.
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Aug 18, 2016 16:31
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Anyone have experience with Kemet: Ta-Seti? Is it a worthwhile expansion? Seems strange adding another pyramid/power tiles into the game and am wondering how well it meshes into the current 3.
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Aug 18, 2016 16:33
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Played some more Viticulture the other night. Turns out the game is real different when you realize that the action is harvest field and not harvest a grape you dumbass. I feel like I might be able to do better in solo play when I'm not getting a single pair of lovely grapes at a time like a dunce. Also I've been scoring animals incorrectly in Fields of Arle in the four or so games I've played. I've really been on a 'bad at rules' kick lately.
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Aug 18, 2016 16:43
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Cerepol posted:Anyone have experience with Kemet: Ta-Seti? The black tiles mesh perfectly.
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Aug 18, 2016 17:24
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I got to play Forbidden Stars and Terraforming Mars. Forbidden Stars was 4 player and the rules, especially how objectives and orders work, is snappy and well done. Two of the orders involve buying things so "shopping" happens on your turn while everyone else waits because it could affect how following orders are resolved, and combat can (should) go quick when you're familiar with everything but until then it's a spectator sport. I enjoyed it, it's definitely a game where being fluid and establishing forward bases of operation is the right thing to do; turtleing or otherwise snowballing a war machine isn't something I think you should see because killing the other players' units is never really the point - just a means to an end. Victory conditions (the objectives) are out in the open, public knowledge but you win by getting 4 of the 6 available to you. Objectives are simply tokens on worlds; be there at the end of the round, pick it up. e: It was good to have someone teach it because there are some nonintuitive bits and I don't know what the rulebook is like. I was tired when we started and felt I was approaching information overload. Terraforming Mars was interesting. I was little worried about the large number of cards because I don't really like cards in board games in general to be honest. I was worried it would be one of those games where you deploy a shitload of cards in front of you (each with small text and rules-bending effects of course) and grokking the game state (i.e. knowing what everyone has and can do) means reading and absorbing all of them in front of each player like you're memorizing a textbook. It has that only to a small extent, fortunately. Cards are technolgies/developments and for the most part, you spend resources and deploy the technology/development for an effect (usually one that affects something on your player mat or the board, like increasing production or raising temperature or placing greenery, etc) and then it's done with. Well, the card hangs around for its symbols mostly and that's it (symbols are sometimes used as prerequisites for future technologies/developments. They just need to be present i.e. previously played by you.) It's an economical game where you want to get good synergy and avoid waste. A large portion of what you do will come from cards, so it's important to focus and play to your strengths. The easiest way to waste is to buy cards that look great but you never actually play. There are two big (not that big) gotchas: 1) Everyone misunderstands the reducing costs of a card mechanic. Everyone runs into it once. (Steel and Titanium resources can be spent to reduce the costs of cards with the matching symbols. But this applies to no other resource: you cannot reduce the cost of a card with plant symbol by spending plants, etc. Steel and Titanium only.) 2) For the love of god, don't bump the table or your player card. Slick little plastic cubes on a slick player card represent your production on a tight little snug numerical track with no extra padding in the spacing, if you bump it you'll gently caress it up. The Eyes Have It fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Aug 18, 2016 |
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Aug 18, 2016 17:47
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Mister Sinewave posted:2) For the love of god, don't bump the table or your player card. Slick little plastic cubes on a slick player card represent your production on a tight little snug numerical track with no extra padding in the spacing, if you bump it you'll gently caress it up. I'd be willing to pay a few buck extra for board games if it meant they all game with the double-thickness, recessed boards from Scythe.
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Aug 18, 2016 17:50
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Xelkelvos posted:Regarding this and KDM: It's not good. Typical to any RPG, attacking and defending are random but the difficulty to hit and consequences of getting hit are relatively high and severe, respectively. When a player takes damage that isn't specified, there's a random hit location die that can't be adjusted or transferred to another location barring a condition that's also randomly obtained an heavily varying in severity. There's no random stats at least, just the gear that's equipped. Thanks for talking about it. I kind of like the idea, but to me I think the rando nature is a wet blanket that doesn't go well with a lot of boardgame setup and upkeep. Morpheus posted:I'd be willing to pay a few buck extra for board games if it meant they all game with the double-thickness, recessed boards from Scythe. Yeah, I went straight to wanting to make a clear plastic overlay for example. There's a glitch with both ideas though in that there is no spare room whatsoever on the number track, so you can't "fence in" the cubes so some kind of clever solution is needed instead (which I think I have, actually... to the workshop!)
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Aug 18, 2016 17:55
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Cerepol posted:Anyone have experience with Kemet: Ta-Seti? I've only gotten to play one game, and it wasn't with the expansion, so take this with a grain of salt. The expansion has 5 modes. 1) Black Pyramid and Tiles. This is simple enough . Choose three of the 4 pyrmaids you want in your city. You can either start 1/1/1 or 2/1/0. Easy to implement. 2) Dawn phase. Instead of choosing the turn order by lowest VP, everyone plays a combat card from hand. Highest attack goes first (or chooses order. I forget exactly). Easy to implement. 3) Path to Ta Seti. You have a side board with 3 priests on it. Any time you use a move action, you can move a priest along a track. You can either pick up an item/skill, or remain on the board. At the end of (most) paths is a temple with permanent vp. Seems solid, but I wouldn't suggest throwing it in base game until you get a few under the belt. 4) New comabt/DI cards. Easy to implement. Just be ready to update your sheets. 5) New win condition. I was glazed over when I was reading it, but if basically checks for the win conditions at the beginning of the day phase as well as the end. If you really want the black tiles and Ta Seti board, spring for it around 20-25 bucks. I don't know that it was worth the 27 I paid, as I don't I'll ever get it to the table.
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Aug 18, 2016 18:26
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Looking for a 2p thematic game that's not too intense (and doesn't cost $80, Caverna). Is one of those D&D minis games any better or worse than the other?
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Aug 18, 2016 19:22
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Cerepol posted:Anyone have experience with Kemet: Ta-Seti? The black power tiles are not so powerful on their own but make a nice supplement to other powers. They add more variety without breaking anything. The new "dawn" phase for turn order gives players more control over their own turn order, which takes some of the politics out of the game. It's maybe not the most elegant way to handle it, but it works. The new end game trigger looks confusing on paper but it basically means that you have to hold on to the lead for a bit in order to win. Used to be that you had to dogpile on the potential winner to keep them from ending the game, but now everyone has a few turns to possibly race ahead one the end is triggered. The end game trigger, and the dawn phase to a lesser extent, do a pretty good job of addressing the biggest problems I had with the game (kingmaking / smash-the-leader). I haven't tried the path/priest board because it looks entirely bolted on and not worth fussing with.
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Aug 18, 2016 19:49
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Huxley posted:Looking for a 2p thematic game that's not too intense (and doesn't cost $80, Caverna). Is one of those D&D minis games any better or worse than the other? Tash-Kalar is pretty cool, although some people might not call it thematic.
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Aug 18, 2016 19:57
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Huxley posted:Looking for a 2p thematic game that's not too intense (and doesn't cost $80, Caverna). Is one of those D&D minis games any better or worse than the other? Each of the D&D minis games is the worst one.
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Aug 18, 2016 20:00
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I had given up hope but it has finally happened: WizKids just sent me a shipping confirmation for my replacement components! 
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Aug 18, 2016 20:02
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LuiCypher posted:Tash-Kalar is pretty cool, although some people might not call it thematic. It's rather abstract. But cool nonetheless. I think I'd recommend Mice&Mystics, though you need to be ok with losing to randomness.
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Aug 18, 2016 20:05
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theroachman posted:I had given up hope but it has finally happened: WizKids just sent me a shipping confirmation for my replacement components! Wow, you got a shipping notification? I tried contacting them about it a couple times after I filed it and never got a response. It just showed up in my mailbox one day. The last time I checked my replacement request was still marked open and unresolved too.
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Aug 18, 2016 20:18
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Mister Sinewave posted:Yeah, I went straight to wanting to make a clear plastic overlay for example. There's a glitch with both ideas though in that there is no spare room whatsoever on the number track, so you can't "fence in" the cubes so some kind of clever solution is needed instead (which I think I have, actually... to the workshop!) I picked up Terraforming Mars at Gencon and have gotten 4 plays in with it so far. I have been thoroughly enjoying it but absolutely agree with your complaint on the player boards. If you come up with a good solution, definitely post it!
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Aug 18, 2016 20:27
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