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In non boring news I'm happy to have finally tried Lisboa and wow, what an amazingly done game. It's complex as hell but has a very clear internal flow. It's not really complicated, but everything affects everything else which makes it challenging to learn and teach because no element is an island. Great marriage of theme and mechanics. Reading the designer's notes on how it all reflects the reconstruction of the city is neat as hell. The clergy and decrees I can't help but feel are a bit overdone with such a huge number of different tiles that need their own index in a multi page player aid, but that's just a first impression. By the time the game ended I had managed to do maybe half of what I think I wanted, if that 
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Apr 15, 2018 08:43
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Mister Sinewave posted:In non boring news I'm happy to have finally tried Lisboa and wow, what an amazingly done game. It's complex as hell but has a very clear internal flow. It's not really complicated, but everything affects everything else which makes it challenging to learn and teach because no element is an island. The best part is that you'll do it all in no more than 13 turns. It draws from Vinhos in that regard, much as it draws from The Gallerist in other respects. I like Lisboa a lot, but as you say the complexity of the tiles detracts from the cleanness of the play. The Gallerist is the better game and there's daylight between.
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Apr 15, 2018 09:06
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CodfishCartographer posted:I'm looking for a good coop mystery solving game. I've heard generally good things about Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, but I dunno if something better has come along since then. (or if the translation mistakes that hosed with the game have been fixed) Any advice for what to go with? Preferrably something that plays decently with 4 players. Friends of mine swear by Gumshoe (I think) witch looked to have a similar flavour to SHCD but be a little more complex with a noir flavour.
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Apr 15, 2018 10:17
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CodfishCartographer posted:I'm looking for a good coop mystery solving game. I've heard generally good things about Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, but I dunno if something better has come along since then. (or if the translation mistakes that hosed with the game have been fixed) Any advice for what to go with? Preferrably something that plays decently with 4 players. Seconding the Space Cowboys / Asmodee edition with the magnifying glass on the cover. I have played through one of the cases which was supposed to be broken, and we didn't notice anything wrong. At the same point, if you have exactly four players you could try Witness. It's basically the children's game of 'Telephone' expanded into a deduction game. I haven't played it myself, but it is fairly well regarded even with a restrictive player count and niche audience probably hurting its popularity. SUSD has a review as well, if you're interested.
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Apr 15, 2018 12:05
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I'm interested in buying Near and Far, I've seen it's had mixed reviews so far but if my group loved Above and Below would it be a solid buy? We're excited for the idea of character development mixed with Above and Below, pretty much.
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Apr 15, 2018 12:15
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Apology accepted. Not apologizing for participating in the derail however, I think it's important that the issue be discussed, just not all the time.
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Apr 15, 2018 14:31
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CAH is a bad game regardless of all the stupid humor for 12 year old boys. Don’t play it.
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Apr 15, 2018 15:08
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Finally got a chance to play the game I kickstarted Sunset over Water. I was expecting it to be super chill, but it's more competitive than I estimated. Not very in depth, but a good game to play in between heavier faire.
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Apr 15, 2018 15:22
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After a year of playing Viticulture and Tuscany into the ground, I finally bought Istanbul on a whim, and wow it is absolutely fantastic. Viticulture stayed fresh for a surprisingly long time, but the combination of the very streamlined engine that powers the game, and the limited selection of actions you can take per season meant that the "ideal" strategy seemed to emerge after only 6-7 play-throughs. Someone a few pages back posted a "formula" to winning, and while I don't take the exact same approach, I think it speaks to the limitation of its design that after X many plays, you do tend to start winnowing your options down into one specific strategy. And when the other person at the table is aiming for that same thing, it gets a little stale. Istanbul gave me such a jolt halfway through my first game. I can't quite express what it is about it that makes it so charming, but I can tell this is going to be a longtime favorite. Despite the mediocre reviews for the two expansions, its going to take a lot of restraint to avoid purchasing them at some point. Now if only I could find a way to stop my spouse from annihilating me every single time  Also picked up Azul which has proved very fun, but like Patchwork, I can tell I have to be prudent about not overplaying it too much because I do think it will get a little old after some time. I played one round of Forbidden Island for the first time last night at a friend's house, and found it sort of fun. It was a bit surreal to know exactly how to play the game after only having the game explained to me for 15 seconds based on the rules for Pandemic being ingrained in me. I thought it was fun, and I've enjoyed Flashpoint as well, but I do wish the designers could be slightly less derivative. There's limitless options out there! Why waste everyone's time re-skinning Pandemic? edit: A sidenote on Patchwork: why on Earth did this game get packaged with cardboard buttons instead of real buttons?
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Apr 15, 2018 15:47
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Can we talk about something less divisive, like how much we all enjoy Munchkin?
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Apr 15, 2018 15:58
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Played 2 player Spirit Island last night and I thought it went pretty well. We were lightning and nightmare spirits and we won on the training wheels opening game while in Terror II. What helped for my wife and me is that we play a bit of co op mage knight so we were able to get into the moving pieces quickly. I think at 4 players it might get a bit hectic though. 2 is great though. I do like how deterministic it is so we can really focus on important areas. Can’t wait to play again.
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Apr 15, 2018 16:01
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Nephzinho posted:Can we talk about something less divisive, like how much we all enjoy Munchkin? i remember playing munchkin (i was a freshman and dumb) with a woman who didn't know poo poo about fantasy rpg stereotypes and could not understand what anyone was laughing at
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Apr 15, 2018 16:07
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So Wir Sind Das Volk says you cannot trace paths through affected broken infrastructure, but the example below that says you can if the connection isn’t going through that region. What 
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Apr 15, 2018 16:14
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Jewmanji posted:Istanbul gave me such a jolt halfway through my first game. I can't quite express what it is about it that makes it so charming, but I can tell this is going to be a longtime favorite. Despite the mediocre reviews for the two expansions, its going to take a lot of restraint to avoid purchasing them at some point. Now if only I could find a way to stop my spouse from annihilating me every single time Mocha & Baksheesh is not mediocre at all, it's an excellent expansion that you should add in once your strategies start to feel a bit stale. Don't have Letters & Seals though, that one I do hear more mixed things about.
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Apr 15, 2018 16:18
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Chill la Chill posted:So Wir Sind Das Volk says you cannot trace paths through affected broken infrastructure, but the example below that says you can if the connection isn’t going through that region. What I don't understand what you mean by "trace paths". You can't put down any connections (or factories) in a province that has mass unrest. A connection is only considered to be "in" a province if it is attached to a city in that province, so there are a few places on the map where a connection appears to be in a province, but mechanically is not. For example, the connection between Köln and Frankfurt visually passes through Rheinland-Pfalz; according to the rules, it is only considered to be in the provinces Nordrhein-Westphalen and Hessen. Does that help?
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Apr 15, 2018 16:25
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Krazyface posted:I don't understand what you mean by "trace paths". Ok the latter is what it probably means. The example on bottom middle of page 4 shows Sachsen region so I thought they were trying to show an example of a path running from Thuringen-Brandenburg by way of Sachsen.
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Apr 15, 2018 16:40
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I played Vast last night and I'm pretty sure I like that game in principle even though I had a miserable game of it. I should really not play it with the players I played with (or at least one of them) It went over reasonably well but the game ended up taking 3 hours due to people just durdling their turns. The cave also spent the early game just feeding the Knight intentionally and straight up said he was trying to make the Knight win which is just the worst. He ended up turning against him though later and basically played out the cave correctly and managed to win which hey, glad the early feeding turned into an actual winning strategy even if it was on accident. Still basically the cave is an rear end in a top hat and I hate playing games with him but I'm not the one hosting the game night and he ends up getting invited a lot so it's not my choice. So I guess it turned out alright even if the game was long and painful.
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Apr 15, 2018 17:05
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Chill la Chill posted:Ok the latter is what it probably means. The example on bottom middle of page 4 shows Sachsen region so I thought they were trying to show an example of a path running from Thuringen-Brandenburg by way of Sachsen. What that example is illustrating is that the two CSSR factories have connections that pass through but aren't actually in Sachsen.
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Apr 15, 2018 17:06
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Jewmanji posted:After a year of playing Viticulture and Tuscany into the ground, I finally bought Istanbul on a whim, and wow it is absolutely fantastic. Viticulture stayed fresh for a surprisingly long time, but the combination of the very streamlined engine that powers the game, and the limited selection of actions you can take per season meant that the "ideal" strategy seemed to emerge after only 6-7 play-throughs. Someone a few pages back posted a "formula" to winning, and while I don't take the exact same approach, I think it speaks to the limitation of its design that after X many plays, you do tend to start winnowing your options down into one specific strategy. And when the other person at the table is aiming for that same thing, it gets a little stale. I can play forbidden island is very much kids pandemic. Which isn't bad if you have kids. Non-gamers I've showed it to are always amazed at how fun it is. It's a great into into pandemic. If you get a chance check out Forbidden Desert. It is Not a reskin, while still similar it has more factors to control and is much much harder. You can lose it real easy if you aren't careful.
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Apr 15, 2018 17:10
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Glagha posted:I played Vast last night and I'm pretty sure I like that game in principle even though I had a miserable game of it. I should really not play it with the players I played with (or at least one of them) I think the cave is the easiest character at first, because all you have to do to win is not have any other player be especially good. Once you actually get to understand how the game flows it becomes a lot better, and harder for cave to do dumb poo poo like that and still win. I think the knight is actually the hardest to win with though, so boosting her early is actually probably a decent strategy as cave to level it out.
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Apr 15, 2018 17:43
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SettingSun posted:Welp I bought it. drat these miniatures look good. For the record the FLGS in question is the new Miniature Market retail store in St. Louis. Apparently you can get online prices right in the store, do in store only deals (like this one) and even do next day pickup from the online storefront. I have two questions. 1) Are you still able to get a copy from the store for $90? 2) If so, would it cost less than $30 to ship a copy to me?
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Apr 15, 2018 19:35
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Folks, I'm using some of my leftover wood stain from my floors to finally make myself a nice little dice tray. End me.
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Apr 15, 2018 19:52
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Nephzinho posted:Can we talk about something less divisive, like how much we all enjoy Munchkin? Munchkin is old news, the new hot thing is Adventure Time Fluxx: 
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Apr 15, 2018 20:07
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Jewmanji posted:Istanbul gave me such a jolt halfway through my first game. I can't quite express what it is about it that makes it so charming, but I can tell this is going to be a longtime favorite. Despite the mediocre reviews for the two expansions, its going to take a lot of restraint to avoid purchasing them at some point. Now if only I could find a way to stop my spouse from annihilating me every single time As said above by someone else, 'Mocha' is an excellent expansion, almost a must-buy for me if you enjoy the base game. Here's some things I wrote about both expansions a while back in this thread: Merauder posted:I finally picked up the first expansion for Istanbul from Rüdiger Dorn/AEG. Merauder posted:I've played a couple games with Letters & Seals now. Istanbul is among my favorite games, especially with the inclusion of Mocha which I feel is practically a mandatory addition to the game. L&S I don't feel is nearly as important as M&B, but I do enjoy some of what it offers.
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Apr 15, 2018 20:19
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Cards against humanity is funny and good
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Apr 15, 2018 20:53
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Over There posted:Cards against humanity is funny and good I can only assume you're trolling after the last 4 pages. There is your acknowledgement. Goodbye. So much Spirit Island and Gloomhaven in my life right now. Co-ops be good, guys.
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Apr 15, 2018 21:06
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I really hope I can snag a copy of the Gloomhaven reprint. Board games are way cool and I like playing them, I just wish I had friends
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Apr 15, 2018 21:16
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Session Report: played Roll for the Galaxy twice with the wife. The first game I handily beat her because she didn't get set up well with planets early enough and was pretty cash poor for the first hald a dozen rounds. She immediately wanted to play again. I went for a heavy Consume based strategy trying to use up the VP chips and she wrecked me. Much more of a brain burn than what we usually play competitively (CoB and Dominion) but very fun.
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Apr 15, 2018 21:50
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ZMan removed Arboretum from it's "upcoming reprint" list completely after it was there for like the past year. I was told by a rep that it would be at Gencon, then at Gencon that they would have it to retailers by the end of the month, now this. I assume some kind of licensing issue or something but ugh, I know a ton of people want a copy and it looks to be in production limbo. https://www.zmangames.com/en/upcoming/ Also, anyone have thoughts on Akrotiri? Looks pretty intriguing.
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Apr 15, 2018 22:06
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Had a gaming session recently: Tulip Bubble isn't particularly well known or even well scored on BGG, but so far, in my last two plays with two different groups, everyone at the table loved it. It's a very tidy little market speculation game based (of course) on the real life Tulip Mania. The mechanisms are easily grasped, the market mechanisms work logically and there's lots of different avenues you can follow to try and squeeze some money before the market collapses. It's a great, highly interactive euro, and I really think it's getting a raw deal on BGG at the moment. Automobile - i.e. the quite old Martin Wallace economic game. Still a stone cold classic after all these years. So many different ways to interact with the market and to compete with other players. A real brain burner. I'm going to dig this out some more. Spirit Island is a game I'm yet to play properly. I screwed up the build rules, so have been stomped in my two solo attempts, and when I finally played four player, I replaced a player who had to leave, and they had forgotten to spill a blight when placing a second blight in a space. One day I'll play it right 
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Apr 15, 2018 22:11
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The End posted:Had a gaming session recently: I've wanted to play tulip bubble since learning of its existence.
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Apr 15, 2018 22:18
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Bottom Liner posted:ZMan removed Arboretum from it's "upcoming reprint" list completely after it was there for like the past year. I was told by a rep that it would be at Gencon, then at Gencon that they would have it to retailers by the end of the month, now this. I assume some kind of licensing issue or something but ugh, I know a ton of people want a copy and it looks to be in production limbo. gently caress you zman gently caress YOU
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Apr 15, 2018 22:18
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So Cthulhu Wars is pretty neat. Surprisingly simple and even for a first play with four people only took about 90 minutes. That is really impressive.Some Numbers posted:I have two questions. Dunno the duration of their in store only deals but the shipping on a box that size and weight wouldn't come cheap. You'll probably get a more favorable rate just ordering from the site which has it for $120 since that qualifies for free shipping.
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Apr 15, 2018 22:21
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The End posted:Automobile - i.e. the quite old Martin Wallace economic game. Still a stone cold classic after all these years. So many different ways to interact with the market and to compete with other players. A real brain burner. I'm going to dig this out some more.
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Apr 15, 2018 22:24
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SettingSun posted:Dunno the duration of their in store only deals but the shipping on a box that size and weight wouldn't come cheap. You'll probably get a more favorable rate just ordering from the site which has it for $120 since that qualifies for free shipping. That's precisely why my question was posed that way. I was trying to see if I could shave a few $$ off. I'll just hope they still have that price up when I get paid in a few days.
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Apr 15, 2018 22:50
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sonatinas posted:Played 2 player Spirit Island last night and I thought it went pretty well. We were lightning and nightmare spirits and we won on the training wheels opening game while in Terror II.
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Apr 16, 2018 00:24
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hoiyes posted:Played it for the first time with 2 and we bounced off pretty hard. I think the problem was we used the suggested power progression cards and were Earth and River spirits so we just had boring powers for ages. I think the power progression really does the game a disservice, as you need the options to try and cover spirit weaknesses, and especially the earth spirit who is defensive for most of the first part of the game and who wants to go straight into major powers. And we had basically zero fear generation so we called it after the first tier 3 card. We're going to play again with lightning and shadow because that combo looks very potent, but playing with the normal power rules. The power progression cards make things simpler and also have pretty good elements (possibly better than you'll get through drawing), but I do agree that you should swap to drawing after a game or two. Earth does suffer a bit from not getting to pull more major powers earlier, but it can still handle the tutorial difficulty easily. Sacred site (defend 3) plus Dahan will take out one of the ravages every turn, and one of your other powers can deal with the other ravage. The key with River is that your four starting cards can activate the third tier of your innate power. So once you get to four card plays, you can drop all four, wipe out a single location, and then reclaim and repeat the next turn (adding more minor/major powers as it makes sense). You can do that by turn 4 or 5 - in the meantime, just focus on pushing or gathering things into the location you plan on eventually hitting with your innate. I haven't found River's first couple power progression cards to be particularly useful. Tsunami, though, owns.
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Apr 16, 2018 01:25
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Bottom Liner posted:Also, anyone have thoughts on Akrotiri? Looks pretty intriguing. Only played it once, but quite enjoyed it. 2p market games are difficult, with the exploring it works very well.
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Apr 16, 2018 01:32
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Bottom Liner posted:ZMan removed Arboretum from it's "upcoming reprint" list completely after it was there for like the past year. Whyyyyyyyyyy? This is my number one reprint tiny game I wanted. The secondary market was already nuts, this will make it tailspin.
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Apr 16, 2018 02:21
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Bottom Liner posted:Also, anyone have thoughts on Akrotiri? Looks pretty intriguing. It's clever and I like it. Puzzling out the map/exploration stuff is pretty satisfying, but it's also slow and quiet. It was heavier than I was expecting based on the box.
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Apr 16, 2018 03:23
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