|
The End posted:Is SUSD hilariously funny? No. Pretty much this. I take some issue with their crowbarring mention of issues in like it's on a SUSD drinking game, or their cutaways that's are deliberately awkward... ...but the reviews (that aren't solo Paul) are usually engaging to watch and they make the attempt to show what runs through your mind or what the game feels like. Since everyone else practically follows the Intro Dry summary of rules over a static aerial shot of board Cut back to personality for whether they liked it with very iffy descriptions model, I appreciate that SUSD videos have a ton more close ups, moving shots, interesting voice overs and the rest. If a board game show were to make it on TV I'd want it to be (or be like) SUSD. That doesn't mean I agree with their reviews or find everything funny. But generally good eggs.
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2018 05:40
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 30, 2024 07:57 |
|
|
al-azad posted:I don’t know anything about the game but wha\t rules are you reading? The one posted on BGG as the retail editions tells you to return the small tiles which are distinct from the large tiles. Just took a peek and that is most definitely not the same as the rulebook I have. It actually lines up with the French copy of the rulebook that came with it, though, so I guess the French version is up to date but the English rulebook I got was not. Some other oddities about the rulebook: It is a trifold brochure like this.  But the layout is strange. Using that as an example, I'll do a quick mockup of the layout.  What this means is that when you look at the instruction booklet, the cover is page 1, then you open it up and page 2 is on the right and page 3 is on the left. Also, for some reason the outside of the rulebook is smooth but the inside feels rough, like they printed it on a very light light piece of sandpaper.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2018 07:49
|
|
|
Trifolds are very specific tools, design-wise. They aren't six chunks, they are three one chunks and one three chunk, and you can't ask readers to leap between them. You have to arrange the content to the design, not the other way around.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2018 13:48
|
|
|
People saying Mottanai is good. How's Mottinai Mini?
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2018 14:33
|
|
|
It’s the same exact game just one deck as opposed to two copies of the same deck you use for larger player counts. It’ll play 2-3 players and the deluxe will play up to 6.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2018 14:38
|
|
|
Fat Turkey posted:People saying Mottanai is good. How's Mottinai Mini? Same game with one deck instead of two. In theory you can shuffle the two decks of the regular Mottanai release together to play more, but you’ll never want to play with more than 2-3. The player mats are also a little smaller but if you’re interested, it’s the same game.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2018 14:40
|
|
|
Bottom Liner posted:I’ve heard wildly varying thoughts on Gaia, but very few if any saying it’s flat out better than TM. Surprised to see it so high on any large list. Im personally holding out on that new Terra Mystica expansion that adds all new races not compatible with the originals. It sounds like an upgrade to a second edition more than a typical expansion. I enjoy Gaia a lot, TM -> GP feels like the difference between Agricola -> Caverna to me. The biggest problem with Gaia for me is getting 3 other friends together at once for 4p games going right now, and there's no online equivalent for GP yet. The solo mode in GP is top-tier for those that like that. I am eager to see the new expansion for TM, it looks like it could really mix things up. New favors and factions alone are worth the price of admission.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2018 15:24
|
|
|
al-azad posted:Baby's First Game: hire a waitress. With the waitress milestone you can now afford to pay one advanced person and waitresses work towards breaking ties at dinnertime. Basically, don't ever do opening #1. It's a good milestone to grab, but under no circumstances should it be first & at the expense of one of the other two. Maybe ok as literally your first game, in which one player will do it to take one for the team and highlight why you shouldn't do it (and then end the game early).
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2018 15:52
|
|
|
Cool, I picked Montainai Mini up. I've played Glory TO Rome once and liked it so if this can distill it to 20 minute games, that should be good
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2018 16:18
|
|
|
Isn't there an early milestone for like, first to hire some number of people or something? I remember the opening hiring girl leads into a specific milestone that if you're doing that opening you want to get asap but I forget what it is.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2018 16:26
|
|
|
Glagha posted:Isn't there an early milestone for like, first to hire some number of people or something? I remember the opening hiring girl leads into a specific milestone that if you're doing that opening you want to get asap but I forget what it is. Yeah, it's for being first to hire three people in one turn, and that's basically what you're aiming for by opening Recruiting Girl. That's why it's important to pick up a second one as one of your turn 2 recruits.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2018 16:33
|
|
|
Spirit Island is available for $55 free shipping on Walmart, with a discount for local pickup. I think this may be the first appearance of the new printing wave. Easily my favorite coop and probably game of 2017 overall. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Greater-Than-Games-Spirit-Island-Board-Game/340519514
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2018 16:39
|
|
|
https://www.pcgamer.com/acram-digital-games-removed-from-steam-after-review-manipulation/ posted:Indie developer and publisher Acram Digital’s board game adaptations have been removed from Steam following an announcement from Valve confirming that the company engaged in review manipulation. Acram had two games on Steam: Eight-Minute Empire and Steam: Rails to Riches, both adaptations of well-regarded board games. Frustrated with negative reviews, it appears that a member of Acram’s staff, Grzegorz Kubas, took it upon himself to post multiple positive reviews for their games. Smart moves there. Had been eyeing the digital version of Steam a bit but negative reviews kept me from buying it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2018 17:06
|
|
|
Lunsku posted:Smart moves there. Steam with a bunch of maps is on tabletop simulator.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2018 17:18
|
|
|
I can vouch that the android version of steam is great for playing an AI game in 15-20 minutes, and I must've played hundreds by now. It's pretty, it has few bugs... the only problem is that the AI is rather weak (but not like, pathetic). I'd totally recommend it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2018 18:13
|
|
|
it's been too long since we had a pedantic definitional argument. are through the ages and/or eminent domain classified as 4x games- discuss
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2018 19:11
|
|
|
In theme sure, in practice only in a very abstracted way.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2018 19:15
|
|
|
StashAugustine posted:it's been too long since we had a pedantic definitional argument. are through the ages and/or eminent domain classified as 4x games- discuss The "explore" element of TTA is extremely limited.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2018 19:16
|
|
|
StashAugustine posted:it's been too long since we had a pedantic definitional argument. are through the ages and/or eminent domain classified as 4x games- discuss TtA is meant to evoke 4x games but I'd say is not one itself. Eminent Domain is a tableau builder and role selection + deck builder. I would not classify it as 4x in any way.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2018 19:18
|
|
|
eminent domain does have exploration, expansion, and sorta exploitation, but no 'exterminate' phase
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2018 19:19
|
|
|
StashAugustine posted:it's been too long since we had a pedantic definitional argument. are through the ages and/or eminent domain classified as 4x games- discuss Haven’t played ED but definitely TTA. the presence of military plays pretty much like Civ for PC. You don’t really need a map to show how much rear end is being kicked by total military force alone. CaptainRightful posted:The "explore" element of TTA is extremely limited. You explore every time you build a new building, not just when you send units for foreign conquest. Where else would that area for it have come from?
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2018 19:20
|
|
|
Chill la Chill posted:You explore every time you build a new building, not just when you send units for foreign conquest. Where else would that area for it have come from? idk id say for exploration to 'count' there has to be some sort of differentiation between the lands- colonies definitely count but they're more of a side system in tta
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2018 19:27
|
|
|
4x is a bad identifier. As long as you have four things that vaguely meet those definitions you can call anything a 4x game. Explore a haunted house, expand your collection of random items, exploit the poorly worded rules, exterminate your friend who rolled poorly.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2018 20:01
|
|
|
Personally, I think that the "feel" of a 4x game doesn't really have much to do with any of the x's specifically, but is more associated with the overall theme of starting small, growing peacefully until you start running into others, and then fighting those others in order to continue to grow.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2018 20:11
|
|
|
Played 11 hours of Gloomhaven yesterday. It's been well over a decade since I last played any single game for that much time straight. Honestly, probably longer; the last time was probably Magic in my teens.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2018 20:14
|
|
|
Corbeau posted:Played 11 hours of Gloomhaven yesterday. And it was amazing!!
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2018 20:25
|
|
|
Bottom Liner posted:Spirit Island is available for $55 free shipping on Walmart, with a discount for local pickup. I think this may be the first appearance of the new printing wave. Easily my favorite coop and probably game of 2017 overall. Walmart is sold out already but Amazon has some copies for $62.50 direct from Amazon themselves not a third party https://smile.amazon.com/Greater-Th...s=spirit+island
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2018 23:08
|
|
|
Going to type way too much about FCM openings because it's probably my favorite piece of boardgame design that I've come across. I really like to think of FCM as an RTS game like Broodwar. You cannot DIRECTLY make 1:1 comparisons, but you can try, and if you understand how resource management, the stages of the game, build orders, etc. work within an RTS, then FCM openings start to make a lot of sense. Again, these are not perfect parallels, but it can help to understand why the two standard openings work and how to play them effectively: Recruiting Girl = Command Centers and SCVs. They are your command center + workers. Management Trainee etc. = Supply/Food + expansions. Trainer and Trained Units = Tech Buildings Food/Drink Producers = Barracks Food & Drink = Military Units Turn Order = Scouting/Fog of War Milestones are really interesting in that they act as the race/faction you choose, as well as an overall pressure/attack you can hit your opponents with. I said that Food & Drink are your units, but milestones act sort of like different attacks you can pull off. You see this when you play a lot, because you always start to feel threatened that certain players are going to take certain milestones. If you just sit there and twiddle your thumbs while ignoring what milestones are being snagged, it's the equivalent of just dying to a rush or a mid-game timing push in Broodwar because you decided to just build whatever you felt like and not pay attention to what the other player is doing. Before I go into the standard openings, let's look at a non-standard one that actually can work on certain maps with certain restaurant placements. Advertising Trainee Opening. If you have a setup where you are closest to houses which can have a billboard touch two (or ideally three) houses, then you can do this opening. It's similar to in Broodwar how you might decide to rush on a certain map where the distance from base to base isn't very far. A rush is going to potentially give you an insurmountable lead if you do enough damage, but if you fail to do enough damage, your opponent(s) who open standard and survive the early pressure will overtake you with their stronger economies/infrastructure. It's high risk but also potentially high reward. You also really want to add the lowest reserve, and hope that another player is going to do so as well. The lower reserve, the better chance this opening has. Turn 1: Advertising Trainee Turn 2: Place Billboard for drinks where it hits 2+ houses which are closest to you. Hire Errand Boy. Turn 3: Produce two drinks. Make $30. Your next hire is going to vary based on what is happening on the board at this point. You need to figure out if anyone is trying to sink your opening, and if so do damage control. If everything looks on course, you likely will want to grab a recruiting girl next. Whenever you do a non-recruiting girl opening, you basically need to get one as soon as possible after your initial build does its damage. In an RTS you immediately start building workers behind a rush that has done damage but not killed–same deal here. At this point your opponents who are doing standard openers have been doing the RTS equivalent of just building a lot of workers and/or rushing toward a tech. You are producing units and getting ready to pressure by grabbing the first to $100 milestone. You are also pressuring by stealing some of the best milestones away from all the other players. Any player who chooses to deviate from their standard opening to match your Errand Boy opening is going to very likely fall behind the other players who just stay the course against you. It would be possible for a player to aggressively try to shut down your opening by stealing the supply you create, but they will need food production AND price reduction to do it, and all this will do is sink both of you. You will both end up with bad starts and lose to the players who just play standard. This is a big downside to this opening, because one player who doesn't care that you'll both lose could do this and make your opening just dead. Still, the smart move for everyone else is to just let you have that frist drink sold milestone alone, so for the rest of the game drinks are going to be less attractive to every other player. This is initial damage you've done which will last all game. Future Turns: Assuming you just make $30 per turn, it's $60 on Turn 4, $90 on Turn 5, and $120 on Turn 6, getting you the CFO bonus. You have to play smart to make sure no one cuts you out of any sales. It's possible via waitresses or additional production/advertising to get that extra $10 and make the CFO bonus happen even earlier. The key thing though is that you want to use minimal resources to guarantee the CFO bonus while pivoting the build into something that can leverage the bonus. If you get the CFO bonus and have a bunch of useless garbage, you're not going to benefit from it. You need to stay in the game and be able to control supply/demand/production after you get the CFO bonus. Recruiting Girl Opening is like a standard Broodwar opener e.g. 9 pool --> 12 hatch, Rax --> CC–basically just a well-rounded opening that gives you a strong economy while guarding you from any early rushes or pressure. In the case of FCM, the early pressure is milestones. The RG opener makes sure you are poised to grab some milestones for yourself. If it weren't for milestones, you could probably get greedy and not bother to produce or sell any food early and instead just build up huge infrastructure to make a stronger late-game pivot, but because of milestones you have to keep up with the other players. RG opening will let you pressure and punish any player who tries to get greedy by either rushing or teching too hard. The first to train milestone acts mostly like a fast expand in an RTS. You make a lot of workers (Recruiting Girls) and then you get a new base quickly (The free management trainees). This puts you into the midgame able to do mostly whatever you want. You can start teching, you can try to attack other players, you can turtle and build up more infrastructure, etc. One of the main tricks with a RG opening is figuring out when to start training. You need to have money to train, since in a game with competent opponents, someone else took the trainer milestone. Going for the waitress milestone is really inefficient and not really worth it for solely supporting trained employees. Hiring and having a waitress at work just to avoid firing people is a bad stop-gap solution. It is going to lose to people who just sell food instead. If you train too much too early and get cut out of food sales, it's equivalent to just dying to a mid-game timing push while teching up against someone who just makes units. If you wait too late to get trainers, you can find yourself cut out of most options. The longer you go without getting trainers, the harder it gets to stay in the game. You will be up against opponents who have so much more flexibility and raw ability to produce food and create supply that you'll struggle to sell much food at all, which makes it harder to continue teching, which makes it harder to...and so on until the game ends and you lose. The Trainer Opening is really similar to something like a Protoss 1-base tech opening where you block the ramp and go straight for corsairs or reaver/shuttle. Your opponent knows you are teching, but they don't know to what. You are going to break out at the exact perfect time and hit them with the edge of your tech advantage, making up for the early game presence you sacrificed. The key thing to note about a trainer opening is that you should know exactly what you are teching toward. If you get out the player aid and look at good targets to tech to, there are not a whole lot of them. Keep in mind that a trainer opening is going to mean you are not selling food early. The trainer milestone is floating you while you tech up, but you need to enter the mid-game with something that immediately gives you a significant advantage toward selling food. You can't just tech straight to Executive VP, because by the time you start trying to sell food, someone else will have filled the vacuum you created and gained a huge lead. The main tech options are: Guru, Brand Manger --> Brand Director, or just Straight to Brand Director. You may be able to open with Coach in some situations, but Guru is likely going to be better in most all cases. If you use your early tech-ups for low-tier stuff, you will gain a slight advantage early game and maybe outsell your opponents briefly, but their RG openings will snowball and just kill you with flexibility. If you grab a pizza chef early, then they will just make drinks or burgers, then you'll have to start over teching to something else...and you just wasted the point of your opening. It's the same deal with any of the earlier options–none of them give a game-breaking advantage that can't just be dodged or ignored by people who opened RG. Guru is maybe the greediest option because it slows down your pressure even more, but it also gives you the absolute strongest advantage provided you are able to start selling food after the transition. Brand Director gives you radio + milestone, which is insanely strong, though if it is countered by strong play, you can find yourself unable to swap your production fast enough to keep up with the demand you create without something like a Guru to jumpstart your production. Still, getting the radio going a full turn earlier than Guru --> Brand Director is a big deal and often worth it. When you open Trainer, you are already delaying your "board presence" for so long as is, that spending that one extra turn to get a Guru can be too much extra delay in many cases vs. just getting radio ASAP. The other tricky part of playing a Trainer opening is that you have to very carefully balance your other training actions. You are operating with one single Recruit action per turn until you hire another Recruiting Girl. My absolute favorite part of this game is when you have these nerve-wracking decisions that snowball so hard. On a Trainer opening, you GENERALLY want to get a recruiting girl as early as you can possibly afford to do so. Every single game I've ever played with a Trainer opening, I've had to struggle with this timing. There is almost always this feeling of "I just need this ONE more hire so I can fight on the board...THEN i'll get a recruiting girl next turn." Getting the recruiting girl will almost always cost you significantly: you'll lose a milestone, you'll lose a food sale, you'll weaken your early sales with the radio, or you'll lose a setup for a future option. Still, the longer you delay the recruiting girl hire, the more behind you end up getting. A recruiting girl is like creating more workers in an RTS, and you will never win an RTS (save for an all-in rush) without creating workers. You eventually just have to sacrifice that one turn advantage knowing it will pay off long-term. As soon as you have two recruiting girls, it becomes infinitely easier as you have doubled your hiring actions and can now "split focus" somewhat. The recruiting girl issue is compounded because of management trainees. You will need more management slots as well, and the first RG you hire can actually allow you to start increasing management size while doing other stuff with the other hire. If you skimp on this, you'll often find yourself tempted to send your second "big tech up" to work as a manager just as a one-turn stop gap. For instance you have your radio running, you skimped on hiring a RG, and now you are teching up another management guy to be a guru or something else later on. Since you have no extra hires, you need to send the guy you actually want to train again to work just so you can do some random thing for one turn using extra workers at work. This puts you further and further behind as time goes on, as you are squandering the whole point of your build. I think FCM is a really great game, but if you actually read all this you can see there are some serious issues. A lot of this tight design depends on everyone playing logically or on all cylinders while being around the same skill level. For all its tight design, it's rarely played (and not even designed really for) 1v1, which is what separates it the most from Broodwar or any of the few other good RTS games. You run into problems where one player brainfarting or being just weaker than the other players gives a random player a huge boost that could snowball them to victory. People always say this game has an issue where you can lose on turn 1. This is true, but you can also lose on turn 6 or 7 or 9 because one person forgot to send a certain person to work, and that gave your main competitor the CFO bonus, and now you have no chance of keeping up. angel opportunity fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Jun 4, 2018 |
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2018 02:45
|
|
|
Never played chess seriously before but I'm guessing the brain hurt I get from FCM of trying to think one or two steps ahead of what you can currently do, and figuring out what your opponents will do and trying to counter their moves while also figuring out how to their counters and if they will counter, is close a enough feeling to it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2018 04:01
|
|
|
I can totally buy the FCM RTS comparison after that post. Great write up.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2018 04:15
|
|
|
Are there any good box organizers sold anywhere for Tash-Kalar? I just got all the expansions and am terrible at handicraft so I definitely don't want to like foamcore it myself, I just want to buy a Broken Token style thing if possible. Also my pal and I just played Nethervoid and Etherweave, respectively, for the first time and he kicked my rear end. I underestimated the power of the portal and didn't exploit a lot of the recursion/bouncing effects of the Etherweave cards enough.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2018 04:20
|
|
|
Splotter games are notable for making turn order the crux of the game. There aren’t many games I can think of where turn order is something I spend more than 5 seconds thinking about, a Splotter game it may be the single most important key to your strategy.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2018 04:43
|
|
|
Turn order in Winsome games and 18xx tend to be a big deal as well.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2018 04:58
|
|
|
The problem with any opening other than recruiting girl or training is that you are likely to get crushed if noone else goes trainer turn 1 For example if you hire the advertising trainee, then everyone else goes recruiting girl, you are about to get extremely wrecked. Everyone else goes RG, hires a trainer and another RG, then gets the first to train and first to recruit three people milestone.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2018 06:19
|
|
|
Cthulhu Dreams posted:The problem with any opening other than recruiting girl or training is that you are likely to get crushed if noone else goes trainer turn 1 I actually like not getting the first to train milestone if I open RG (though I won't pass it up if the opportunity arises), because the first to $20 in salaries milestone is phenominal. Being able to chain basic trainers (or coaches) to boost a just-hired manager all the way to the top in one turn enables flexibility that makes people sweat when the try to consider your options.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2018 06:39
|
|
|
angel opportunity posted:Going to type way too much about FCM openings because it's probably my favorite piece of boardgame design that I've come across. Just an awesome post. Thanks for this. Got me all fired up to play some more FCM asap now.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2018 07:46
|
|
|
Dirk the Average posted:I actually like not getting the first to train milestone if I open RG (though I won't pass it up if the opportunity arises), because the first to $20 in salaries milestone is phenominal. Being able to chain basic trainers (or coaches) to boost a just-hired manager all the way to the top in one turn enables flexibility that makes people sweat when the try to consider your options. Yeah, but someone who's gone marketing trainee -> errand boy is going to get wrecked against Recruiting girl-> recruiting girl plus trainer imho. Maybe the fast CFO is enough pressure Vs what is now a slow start to get on the board, but they can hire a discount manager and an errand boy while training a management trainee and now you're in trouble as you will be down to 15 income Vs 8 and the other guy has a lot more actions to really pressure you.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2018 07:58
|
|
|
Cthulhu Dreams posted:Yeah, but someone who's gone marketing trainee -> errand boy is going to get wrecked against Recruiting girl-> recruiting girl plus trainer imho. Like I said, I will never pass up the first to train milestone if I open RG, but I like how the game flows if I don't and I get the first to $20 instead.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2018 08:19
|
|
|
I don't think that opening is great in most cases, but I did see Jeroen specifically mention it as situationally good on some BGG post. I've only won with it once or twice, and usually it gives me a strong midgame lead, but the reserve cards are rarely low enough and I eventually get overtaken
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2018 12:05
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 30, 2024 07:57 |
|
|
angel opportunity posted:I don't think that opening is great in most cases, but I did see Jeroen specifically mention it as situationally good on some BGG post. I've only won with it once or twice, and usually it gives me a strong midgame lead, but the reserve cards are rarely low enough and I eventually get overtaken Yeah it's interesting. I've noticed reviewing games in the competitions on BGG it's 75-80% RG openings.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2018 13:13
|
|