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Speaking of sushi go party, is it going to bore my socks off if I'm a magic drafter or even like 7 wonders well enough? I'd like an easy friends over drafting type game but not if.it's super dull after a few plays for everyone.
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Sep 5, 2017 14:20
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Sushi Go Party has a fair bit of variety in its cards, and I think it translates to varied gameplay decisions reasonably well. I'd say you're not going to be able to get much deeper drafting with a game this casual.
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Sep 5, 2017 14:26
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ShaneB posted:After our discussion here and listening to the heavy cardboard review of Scythe, I'm officially uninterested. What are some really good midweight strategy games where it's not multiplayer solitaire? I could get a ton of heavier games but then never really play em. I have Concordia on order already as well. Go all in, get kemet. There's no solitaire there, and if someone
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Sep 5, 2017 14:59
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ShaneB posted:After our discussion here and listening to the heavy cardboard review of Scythe, I'm officially uninterested. What are some really good midweight strategy games where it's not multiplayer solitaire? I could get a ton of heavier games but then never really play em. I have Concordia on order already as well. Again, I guess the question is what interests you about Scythe, and what you'd like to see more of. If you want to put little wooden buildings on a hex-board with asymmetric player powers then check out Terra Mystica. If you want to play a game about gathering and exploiting resources, and negotiating over deals with other players then Archipelago is definitely worth looking at. If you want a political war-game where every player cheats at the game in a different way then Rex: Final Days of the Empire looks very good. And if you want a territory control where every decision you make is hugely meaningful then Inis has a great card-drafting element.
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Sep 5, 2017 15:14
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ShaneB posted:Speaking of sushi go party, is it going to bore my socks off if I'm a magic drafter or even like 7 wonders well enough? I'd like an easy friends over drafting type game but not if.it's super dull after a few plays for everyone. Maybe? It's hard to say, but Sushi Go is far more accessible than 7 Wonders since you don't have to dick around with the science scoring. Party! has a lot of variety as there are 4 "courses", but each game you randomly select each course out of a bunch of different potential ones. Personally, I like Sushi Go better than 7 Wonders as it does the same thing as 7 Wonders but is less fiddly. The box it comes in sucks bigtime though.
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Sep 5, 2017 15:15
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Crackbone posted:Personally, I like Sushi Go better than 7 Wonders as it does the same thing as 7 Wonders but is less fiddly.
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Sep 5, 2017 15:17
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Does the Eclipse implementation on Steam suck? The reviews seem pretty mixed and I seem to remember people slating it here when it came out, but i'm getting an itch and want to see if its worth my money.
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Sep 5, 2017 15:35
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MikeCrotch posted:Does the Eclipse implementation on Steam suck? The reviews seem pretty mixed and I seem to remember people slating it here when it came out, but i'm getting an itch and want to see if its worth my money. If it's like the iOS version it doesn't contain the expansions.
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Sep 5, 2017 15:49
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Zark the Damned posted:A Few Acres of Snow. Essentially your deck clogging up represents the confusion of war and bureaucracy interfering with your efforts. Isn't that the game where the British are utterly invincible if you know what you're doing? I thought that was the counter-thematic game where you get stronger during a siege via trashing.
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Sep 5, 2017 15:51
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golden bubble posted:Isn't that the game where the British are utterly invincible if you know what you're doing? I thought that was the counter-thematic game where you get stronger during a siege via trashing. True the game has balance issues, but the overall theme of your army getting more units at the cost of being mired in bureaucracy stands.
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Sep 5, 2017 15:59
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Yeah IIRC sieges take troops out of your deck to represent being committed to a siege but becacuse it's a deckbuilder the best way to play is to get your entire deck outside of a few money cards tied up in a siege and then rinse and repeat. Vanilla British are literally incapable of losing with this strategy, I think they patched it so that it's less one-sided but that's still the dominant strategy
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Sep 5, 2017 15:59
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StashAugustine posted:Yeah IIRC sieges take troops out of your deck to represent being committed to a siege but becacuse it's a deckbuilder the best way to play is to get your entire deck outside of a few money cards tied up in a siege and then rinse and repeat. Vanilla British are literally incapable of losing with this strategy, I think they patched it so that it's less one-sided but that's still the dominant strategy Nah, they didn't, at least up to the second edition. They just put a disclaimer in the rulebook saying that "some strategies" were dominant and that it was better if the English player didn't try to win as hard as possible.
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Sep 5, 2017 16:11
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Fat Samurai posted:Nah, they didn't, at least up to the second edition. They just put a disclaimer in the rulebook saying that "some strategies" were dominant and that it was better if the English player didn't try to win as hard as possible.
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Sep 5, 2017 16:28
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golden bubble posted:Isn't that the game where the British are utterly invincible if you know what you're doing? I thought that was the counter-thematic game where you get stronger during a siege via trashing. Remove the Halifax Hammer.
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Sep 5, 2017 16:41
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Triskelli posted:Again, I guess the question is what interests you about Scythe, and what you'd like to see more of. If you want to put little wooden buildings on a hex-board with asymmetric player powers then check out Terra Mystica. If you want to play a game about gathering and exploiting resources, and negotiating over deals with other players then Archipelago is definitely worth looking at. If you want a political war-game where every player cheats at the game in a different way then Rex: Final Days of the Empire looks very good. And if you want a territory control where every decision you make is hugely meaningful then Inis has a great card-drafting element. Thanks for the insight!
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Sep 5, 2017 16:48
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Tekopo posted:Look SU&SD said that if you always try to do the Hammer, you are just a ultra-nerd, and only an ultra-nerd would be able to find this strategy in the first place. I've heard this used at face value and tried to find the post where some goon or other discovered the basis of the Halifax Hammer just by reading the rules or before playing the game or something and couldn't find it. 
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Sep 5, 2017 16:51
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Played Archipelago again over the weekend. The game changes so much as your fellow players begin to understand the game better; we played a medium game in the same time it used to take the short game. People were more willing to negotiate, kept their eyes on the endgame and victory conditions, and made much better use of the markets. The final frontier seems to be turn order -- I bid for turn order almost every turn unopposed. They still complain about how the actions they wanted were taken, but aren't willing to bid even a single florin to change that.
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Sep 5, 2017 16:57
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Fat Samurai posted:I've heard this used at face value and tried to find the post where some goon or other discovered the basis of the Halifax Hammer just by reading the rules or before playing the game or something and couldn't find it.
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Sep 5, 2017 17:10
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yeah if you're at least mildly capable at deckbuilders (As in, learned one of the basic lessons of dominion) it is not a hard thing to find.
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Sep 5, 2017 17:23
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A bunch of words about A Few Acres of Snow and about board game reviews in general: https://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/9073/few-acres-snow-and-critical-silence-biggest-flawed
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Sep 5, 2017 18:01
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Toshimo posted:A bunch of words about A Few Acres of Snow and about board game reviews in general: https://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/9073/few-acres-snow-and-critical-silence-biggest-flawed I read this article a while back but never saved it. Thanks! Should start spamming this article everywhere on BGG FB but it'll probably get drowned out by the typical shouts of elitism for daring to criticize the media you consume.
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Sep 5, 2017 18:07
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StashAugustine posted:Yeah IIRC sieges take troops out of your deck to represent being committed to a siege but becacuse it's a deckbuilder the best way to play is to get your entire deck outside of a few money cards tied up in a siege and then rinse and repeat. Vanilla British are literally incapable of losing with this strategy, I think they patched it so that it's less one-sided but that's still the dominant strategy That's incredibly anti-thematic. Sieges are suppose to be grinding affairs that sap both sides of strength, not a way to make your force more efficient. Who ever heard of an army gaining strength in a siege without reenforcements?
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Sep 5, 2017 18:08
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Holy crap A Few Acres of Snow came out in 2011. Where the hell did time go?
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Sep 5, 2017 18:21
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ShaneB posted:After our discussion here and listening to the heavy cardboard review of Scythe, I'm officially uninterested. What are some really good midweight strategy games where it's not multiplayer solitaire? I could get a ton of heavier games but then never really play em. I have Concordia on order already as well. Kemet has been mentioned. If you don't mind the conflict theme, I'd put in a very strong recommendation for Inis. The fighting mechanics are as Euro as can be, and both the drafting and action phases have some really deep decision making, with a fairly low rules overhead. It's just a great game all around, with the extra benefit that it's also one of the pretties games out there.
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Sep 5, 2017 18:24
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Fat Samurai posted:Nah, they didn't, at least up to the second edition. They just put a disclaimer in the rulebook saying that "some strategies" were dominant and that it was better if the English player didn't try to win as hard as possible. I thought they'd managed to get an alternate setup or something so it's still a mad military rush to the opponent's capital but wasn't literally 100% British, but I might even be wrong about that
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Sep 5, 2017 19:09
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According to the linked article there was a balance tweak that placated the people who didn't care in the first place, or rather gave them ammo to fire back "see it's fine, shut up" when people complained. But apparently it did little to actually fix anything and that's when the creator doubled down and basically said all 2-player games are inherently broken because given infinite time one person will find a dominant strategy(???????).
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Sep 5, 2017 19:15
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Countblanc posted:According to the linked article there was a balance tweak that placated the people who didn't care in the first place, or rather gave them ammo to fire back "see it's fine, shut up" when people complained. But apparently it did little to actually fix anything and that's when the creator doubled down and basically said all 2-player games are inherently broken because given infinite time one person will find a dominant strategy(???????). That seems like a really strange thing for a designer of the calibre of Wallace. Maybe he just didn't give a gently caress or something? But it still appears odd that he wouldn't have gone back and made some changes of some sort but perhaps the problem was too deep and fixing it would require a complete overhaul of the entire game, something no one had the will to do? Who knows!? I got to learn and play Terraforming Mars and Through the Ages: A New Story this long weekend and enjoyed both. TM was a lot of me and my GF just doing whatever for the first few rounds before we had a clue of what we were actually trying to do strategy-wise. We did the drafting variant because I think this thread recommended it and I do not think I would do it any other way based on how much we liked the interactivity of it. nTTA was a bit of a slog at first, but after we fixed a couple of rules we were loving up (only trashing and refreshing the board on one person's turn: d'oh) we were rolling. I got beaten fairly handily and since it was only the first-time version as recommended in the manual we didn't have any of the aggression stuff, but I really really liked it and minus the shitload of time it took to learn and play, I would be very happy to try it again soon.
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Sep 5, 2017 20:24
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I decided I needed some shorter games in my collection (can't play Twilight Imperium all the time, sadly), so I picked up Unearth and Celestia this weekend. Unearth is pretty cool. I was worried it wasn't going over well during our first playthrough (where I messed up how scoring worked), but the group tried a couple more games and it turned out to be quite fun! I'm not sure how deep the strategy is in the long term, but there are plenty of interesting decisions to be made about where and how to use your dice. There's a bit of opportunity to screw with other players, but at the same time there's usually a consolation prize for the person you're messing with, so it doesn't feel like a super mean or aggressive game. It seems like going for wonders was the best strategy, it's more reliable than collecting sets even though it doesn't pay out quite as much. The named wonders add some fun quirks to the game too. Finally the art style reminds me of Hyper Light Drifter which is always a good thing. We only played Celestia once, so I don't have a verdict on it yet. It is incredibly simple and plays in about half an hour, so a good filler at least. I didn't find the push your luck mechanic to be terribly exciting but we were also tired after gaming all day and basically just using it to kill the time before heading to a different get-together.
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Sep 5, 2017 20:50
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Countblanc posted:basically said all 2-player games are inherently broken because given infinite time one person will find a dominant strategy(???????). Every completely deterministic 2-player game which will definitely end is impossible for one player to lose if they play perfectly. So, like, in every setup of Patchwork there is one player who could play perfectly and not win. But a) that's just mathematically closed, not necessarily graspable by a human intellect, and b) A Few Acres Of Snow is not completely deterministic because there's a deck of cards involved.
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Sep 5, 2017 21:08
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I mean I get it, but it's such a baffling and stupid thing to say that I can't imagine satisfied anyone but the most insane pedants.
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Sep 5, 2017 21:57
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It's weird as well as a super simple fix would surely be to add 1+ totally dead cards to your deck for every siege you are in?
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Sep 5, 2017 22:24
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Dancer posted:I was looking into buying Greenland on sale (then didn't), and the game explicitly has a mechanic for stealing other tribes' women. The stealing women thing always creeps me out. In my mind and when I explain how to play, I change it to: "send your best hunter and his entourage to woo a neighbouring princess. defending family members in the village may choose to keep you from marrying her by telling her about that time you got drunk and made out with a seal" in non-sabine-raid-related news, I got my first play of The Quest for El Dorado. Obviously I liked it (see av). I actually surprised because Reiner hasn't made anything really great this... decade? But an SdJ nomination's gotta mean it's better than Too Many Cooks, so I went for it. It's a deckbuilding race game where you build a deck to move guys across a map. Your deck is small, fluid, and lean like a greyhound. There are only 3 cards of each type and interesting ways to trash so you can be more flexible about what's in your deck turn-to-turn. Most of the map tiles are wide open, but it's your deck that forces you to go into directions, so you can build to go a particular way or block someone you think is going to get pigeonholed into a track due to his previous buys. In all it felt more reactive and interactive than a standard engine-building deckbuilder without resorting to take-that cards to do it. 4 Reiners out of 5. -1 for being too grounded in theme and not a math professor's abstract with pasted on wallpaper.
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Sep 5, 2017 23:26
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:It's weird as well as a super simple fix would surely be to add 1+ totally dead cards to your deck for every siege you are in? How does that Hands in the Sea game handle it? That was getting rave reviews last year.
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Sep 6, 2017 00:07
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Blisster posted:We only played Celestia once, so I don't have a verdict on it yet. It is incredibly simple and plays in about half an hour, so a good filler at least. I didn't find the push your luck mechanic to be terribly exciting but we were also tired after gaming all day and basically just using it to kill the time before heading to a different get-together. I was skeptical of Celestia with it's steampunk theme, but I ended up really liking it and it's one of my go-to filler games. It's also been a hit with everyone we've played it with, including family which can be a particularly rough sell.
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Sep 6, 2017 01:19
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If y'all want a short and simple but deeper than it looks game, check out Oh My Goods! by Great Western Trail's designer Alexander Pfister. I introduced it to 6 people this weekend and every single one of them liked it. It's a tableau builder where you're building chains of production building hoping to get large amounts of goods to trade in for money to buy even more buildings. There's also a cool push your luck mechanic where you know some of the resources you'll be able to use for production that round before you make your worker placements, but not all of them. the entire game is 110 cards, so you can take it pretty much anywhere. Fate Accomplice fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Sep 6, 2017 |
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Sep 6, 2017 01:31
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ketchup vs catsup posted:If y'all want a short and simple but deeper than it looks game, check out Oh My Goods! by Great Western Trail's designer Alexander Pfister. Port Royal is also a good small-box push your luck game by Pfister that's lighter than Goods and generates a lot of fun schadenfreude moments. It's easy to teach to non-strategy-gamers and has always been a hit for me. pretty much everything I've played with Pfister's name on it has been excellent, really.
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Sep 6, 2017 01:52
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coworker got his Shadows of Brimstone backer rewards in.
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Sep 6, 2017 02:44
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ketchup vs catsup posted:Oh My Goods! It's funny, because I looked into this game a while back, and I heard a fair bit of negativity. People saying that the game barely began and then it was over, that it was impossible to build the bigger buildings so the game became a mad dash to build something, anything... Then I remembered hearing about an errata that may have helped that. This post on BGG, which includes comments from the man himself, though the link from that link is in German. As far as I can tell, these are the current rules? I need to re-look into this one, the second edition specifically, because this game sounds like it is extremely my poo poo.
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Sep 6, 2017 02:55
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Magnetic North posted:It's funny, because I looked into this game a while back, and I heard a fair bit of negativity. People saying that the game barely began and then it was over, that it was impossible to build the bigger buildings so the game became a mad dash to build something, anything... Then I remembered hearing about an errata that may have helped that. This post on BGG, which includes comments from the man himself, though the link from that link is in German. As far as I can tell, these are the current rules? The rules tweak in the second edition helps with the randomness, but you're still drawing from One Big Deck. You can be, and players in my games have been, screwed by not drawing the right kind of cards. It can create a really sour experience. Other than that I really dig the game, and it has a cool co-op/solo expansion.
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Sep 6, 2017 03:06
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al-azad posted:How does that Hands in the Sea game handle it? That was getting rave reviews last year. From memory, Hands in the Sea has a time limit for all fights; four turns for fights in the open, six turns for fights against fortified cities. There's not as much point in dumping crappy cards into a fight that will just have them all dropped back at your feet a short time later. Also, while the turn limit will end the fight in a draw if no-one is winning, it will award a win to one side or the other if they are winning when time runs out, which gives a slight advantage to the defender. If they can push the fight to their favour on the last turn, the attacker can't respond and will lose the fight. If the attacker been using the fight to dump location cards and no units, then you won't lose a card, but the winner does get a victory point out of it. The game also lets you throw anything back to your Faction or Neutral decks, including locations, and put any cards, including locations, into your Reserve. If you want to thin your deck, go nuts, but doing it via battle isn't going to be effective. The way the map works means you can't make a bee-line right for the enemy capital. Both sides realistically need fleets to effectively threaten the other's capital, or risk being cut off from supply, and they don't come cheap (and sink a lot through events). There is an automatic victory for capturing all of Sicily, which is more realistic, but involves grabbing a lot of deck-gumming territories. And each turn (each time Carthage cycles their deck) developed cities generate you cash, and captured neutral and enemy locations generate you VPs, so ignore expansion and development at your peril. If one side gets too big a VP lead, they'll win an automatic victory, so you'll need to keep up. Trashing in Hands in the Sea is definitely something you'll do to keep your deck under control, but it's not a game-winning strategy by itself. Ubik_Lives fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Sep 6, 2017 |
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Sep 6, 2017 05:26
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