Board Game Thread 4e: The Call of Catan

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Board Game Thread 4e: The Call of Catan

Chill la Chill: Jul 2, 2007; Don't lose your gay

silvergoose posted:

It's still in my set of "explain in five minutes, play in 30" though, with uptown, sushi go, and a couple others.

Chicago express narrowly misses this since games usually go from 30-45'. However, soon the ultimate 5'/30' game will be released: Northern Pacific.

# ? Jul 1, 2018 15:34

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 28, 2024 13:19

Tekopo: Oct 24, 2008; When you see it, you'll shit yourself.

Splendor, the favourite game of the neutrals from futurama

# ? Jul 1, 2018 15:36

silvergoose: Mar 18, 2006; IT IS SAID THE TEARS OF THE BWEENIX CAN HEAL ALL WOUNDS

Tekopo posted:

Splendor, the favourite game of the neutrals from futurama

The best description I can think of.

And yeah the size is important too.

Chill you realize I also mean "unthreatening" and chex is a stocks and trains game... :v:

# ? Jul 1, 2018 15:41

Chill la Chill: Jul 2, 2007; Don't lose your gay

silvergoose posted:

The best description I can think of.

And yeah the size is important too.

Chill you realize I also mean "unthreatening" and chex is a stocks and trains game...

There's dial gauges and pretty pictures and train minis, what's not to like? Though there is the hypothetical retheme by plunking giant Cthulhu on a corner and using Cthulhu Wars cultists as shares.

# ? Jul 1, 2018 16:00

Pierzak: Oct 30, 2010

silvergoose posted:

It's still in my set of "explain in five minutes, play in 30" though, with uptown, sushi go, and a couple others.

Please list said couple of others.

Doctor Spaceman posted:

Also it's tiny.

If you throw away the box and the insert and pack everything optimally, sure. There's gotta be at least 80% of empty space there.

# ? Jul 1, 2018 16:28

silvergoose: Mar 18, 2006; IT IS SAID THE TEARS OF THE BWEENIX CAN HEAL ALL WOUNDS

Had to look at my owned list to recall!

Codenames: Duet, No Thanks!, maybe Pictomania but it's probably slightly too long on both counts.

Basically if I want to play with more casual gamers or want to introduce games to "I love catan!" crowds, those are the six I'd bring.

Uptown, Splendor, Sushi Go, Codenames: Duet, No Thanks!, Pictomania. Good mix of party-ish, fast playing, coop, abstract, drawing.

# ? Jul 1, 2018 16:47

Chill la Chill: Jul 2, 2007; Don't lose your gay

Add some oink games in there. Deep sea adventure is the current popular game.

# ? Jul 1, 2018 18:48

silvergoose: Mar 18, 2006; IT IS SAID THE TEARS OF THE BWEENIX CAN HEAL ALL WOUNDS

Chill la Chill posted:

Add some oink games

like pick-a-pig?

# ? Jul 1, 2018 18:54

Bottom Liner: Feb 15, 2006; a specific vein of lasagna

Pass the Pigs owns

# ? Jul 1, 2018 19:00

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

Has there been a 1846 PbF recently? I wanted to see an example of play

# ? Jul 1, 2018 22:33

Rad Valtar: May 31, 2011; Someday coach Im going to throw for 6 TDs in the Super Bowl.

Sit your ass down Steve.

silvergoose posted:

Had to look at my owned list to recall!

Codenames: Duet, No Thanks!, maybe Pictomania but it's probably slightly too long on both counts.

Basically if I want to play with more casual gamers or want to introduce games to "I love catan!" crowds, those are the six I'd bring.

Uptown, Splendor, Sushi Go, Codenames: Duet, No Thanks!, Pictomania. Good mix of party-ish, fast playing, coop, abstract, drawing.

I would say Azul but at 4 it�s probably just over 30 minutes with new players. Every person I have introduced gaming to through Azul so far has went and bought it within a week.

# ? Jul 1, 2018 22:55

al-azad: May 28, 2009

I thought I was going to hate Spirit Island, and I do think it works only with 3 like Gloomhaven, but I turned around when I sank a chunk of the island and generated enough fear to win.

With that said fire whoever designed the topographic map. Put them in the same jail as Container's original graphic artist.

# ? Jul 1, 2018 23:55

Some Numbers: Sep 28, 2006; "LET'S GET DOWN TO WORK!!"

Both Spirit Island and Gloomhaven work great with 4, so I'm super curious to hear why you think otherwise.

# ? Jul 2, 2018 00:01

SoftNum: Mar 31, 2011

StashAugustine posted:

Has there been a 1846 PbF recently? I wanted to see an example of play

There's this, which is Heavy Cardboard doing a playthrough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1B0hDVtaJY

ALso if we are kibitzing I prefer Telestrations to Pictomania. Such a good game.

# ? Jul 2, 2018 00:34

Cthulhu Dreams: Dec 11, 2010; If I pretend to be Cthulhu no one will know I'm a baseball robot.

Some Numbers posted:

Both Spirit Island and Gloomhaven work great with 4, so I'm super curious to hear why you think otherwise.

Both are best with 3 recommended with 4 in my opinion. In gloomhaven the admin with 4 is annoying and in spirit Island with 4 the downtime goes up because the chance of getting someone APing hard on the turns you have totally obvious actions increases.

# ? Jul 2, 2018 00:37

al-azad: May 28, 2009

Some Numbers posted:

Both Spirit Island and Gloomhaven work great with 4, so I'm super curious to hear why you think otherwise.

Admittedly it's personal preference but I think 4 pushes both games over the threshold of manageability. There's a precarious pacing in both games that balances waiting with bursts of action. Gloomhaven is a bit more tolerable as action is staggered but Spirit Island requires far more planning. If at 2-3 the game is 20 minutes per player then at 4 it feels like 30 and it's just too long and busy for how little I felt like I was actually interacting with the game state.

# ? Jul 2, 2018 00:44

Bottom Liner: Feb 15, 2006; a specific vein of lasagna

Why is SI better at 3 than two?

# ? Jul 2, 2018 01:47

Countblanc: Apr 20, 2005; _{Help a hero out!}

I've enjoyed SI at all player counts, though 4 is definitely the one I enjoy the least. I like 2 and 3 about equally.

Also reminder that the next expansion is going to have components for 5-6 players lol

# ? Jul 2, 2018 01:49

Bottom Liner: Feb 15, 2006; a specific vein of lasagna

I�ll only accept that if it goes full Leder and let�s one person play the Dahon and one play the island.

# ? Jul 2, 2018 01:55

Countblanc: Apr 20, 2005; _{Help a hero out!}

Apparently he wants to make the Dahan a playable group but I don't think it's planned for this expansion. And he said he'd only do the 5-6 player expansion if he found a way to make those materials useful for lower player counts, so expect to see some wacky mode where you start in multiple places at once or some scenarios that require 6 boards or something.

# ? Jul 2, 2018 02:02

Chill la Chill: Jul 2, 2007; Don't lose your gay

Someone go to dice tower con and do a playtest with ignacy and tell him the same thing Vlaada said.

# ? Jul 2, 2018 18:18

Mayveena: Dec 27, 2006; People keep vandalizing my ID photo; I've lodged a complaint with HR

$400 for a game topper???

:cmon:

I'm very happy with my $10 dining room table cloth, works great.

# ? Jul 2, 2018 18:31

pospysyl: Nov 10, 2012

Finally got Sidereal Confluence to the table! At eight players, it was not the ideal introductory game, but it went well regardless. Incredibly, despite everyone picking out races based only on the art and fluff (which everyone was a huge fan of), only two people seriously bounced off of their splats. Set up was a bear and people were intimidated by the initial rules explanation, but once we got going everyone got super into it. My group ranges from serious boardgamers to Catan fans to Parker Brothers players, but when it came to scoring everyone was within shooting distance of each other. Everyone ended up feeling like despite the cluttered presentation, it's not as complicated as it seems. On a basic surface level, there are two goals on any given turn: getting the cubes to run the converters you want and getting enough cubes to invent the technologies that will give you lots of victory points. As long as you're doing that, you'll score fairly well relative to everyone else. Beyond that, I think everyone felt that there was plenty of room to grow in skill, which I think is exactly what you're looking for in a board game.

Some miscellaneous observations:
- I think the races with unique stuff to sell (Unity wild resources, Eni Et interest converters, and Yengii tech licenses in particular) are maybe a little easier to play than the designer thinks as long as you're a sociable person.

-If you're teaching the game be prepared to not do so well. During the trading phase my attention was split between rules explanations and actually playing the game, which left me at a pretty big disadvantage.

- Inventing multiple technologies in a turn seems like the next goal to achieve. Except for the Yengii, people were typically taking two turns to invent techs.

- I was seriously impressed at how well the Parker Brothers player did, finishing within the top four or five players.

- The concept that everyone had the most trouble with was the donated resources that you have to give away to other people. I think on a replay people will figure out how to turn those donated resources into value for themselves. Fortunately the Eni Et player grasped this early on, so I figure everyone else will be able to catch up.

# ? Jul 2, 2018 18:35

Ravendas: Sep 29, 2001

Lorini posted:

$400 for a game topper???

I'm very happy with my $10 dining room table cloth, works great.

You can make a very nice 4x8 tabletopper with 1/4" foam and velvet for $100 on your own even, with zero tools aside from a staple gun. Skip the fancy pullout stuff and just get tv trays to put between the players. That's what I did. Though, I have a dedicated place for games so the topper is always on the table.

# ? Jul 2, 2018 19:00

Oldstench: Jun 29, 2007; Let's talk about where you're going.

So, check it out. I don't like Gloomhaven. I don't like RPG board games, legacy boardgames, 99% of dungeon crawlers, and 99% of fantasy settings. So, if you're the other person like me in this hobby, don't buy Gloomhaven.

# ? Jul 2, 2018 19:00

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Oldstench posted:

So, check it out. I don't like Gloomhaven. I don't like RPG board games, legacy boardgames, 99% of dungeon crawlers, and 99% of fantasy settings. So, if you're the other person like me in this hobby, don't buy Gloomhaven.

...okay?

I mean based on your listed dislikes seems like Gloomhaven is an obvious pass.

# ? Jul 2, 2018 19:05

Fellis: Feb 14, 2012; Kid, don't threaten me. There are worse things than death, and uh, I can do all of them.

Oldstench posted:

So, check it out. I don't like Gloomhaven. I don't like RPG board games, legacy boardgames, 99% of dungeon crawlers, and 99% of fantasy settings. So, if you're the other person like me in this hobby, don't buy Gloomhaven.

Counterpoint: Buy Gloomhaven

# ? Jul 2, 2018 19:06

Oldstench: Jun 29, 2007; Let's talk about where you're going.

Crackbone posted:

...okay?

I mean based on your listed dislikes seems like Gloomhaven is an obvious pass.

I'm just offering a counterpoint to the constant knob-slurping this thread gives the game.

e: No offense to all y'all who love the game. Keep on keeping on.

# ? Jul 2, 2018 19:07

Chill la Chill: Jul 2, 2007; Don't lose your gay

Oldstench posted:

So, check it out. I don't like Gloomhaven. I don't like RPG board games, legacy boardgames, 99% of dungeon crawlers, and 99% of fantasy settings. So, if you're the other person like me in this hobby, don't buy Gloomhaven.

I too enjoy 18xx, the opposite of Gloomhaven.

# ? Jul 2, 2018 19:10

Rumda: Nov 4, 2009; Moth Lesbian Comrade

Oldstench posted:

I'm just offering a counterpoint to the constant knob-slurping this thread gives the game.

e: No offense to all y'all who love the game. Keep on keeping on.

also a completely pointless opinion since given your dislikes it could have cured cancer and you still wouldn't like it

# ? Jul 2, 2018 19:16

Oldstench: Jun 29, 2007; Let's talk about where you're going.

Rumda posted:

also a completely pointless opinion since given your dislikes it could have cured cancer and you still wouldn't like it

What are you on about? This thread is all opinion. You see, those things I mentioned I don't like don't preclude me from liking other games of similar ilk. For instance, I dig Mage Knight, Cave Evil, In The Shadow of the Dragon, DungeonQuest.

My opinon is that Gloomhaven isn't the cure for cancer that others seem to think it is.

# ? Jul 2, 2018 19:22

Chill la Chill: Jul 2, 2007; Don't lose your gay

Is there a considered best or top tier of Kramer/Kiesling games? Admittedly I've only played Reworld which my group has soured on after seeing how it's too easy to get the programmed rows together (even when everyone knows this, it seems like people just pick different rows for their own programs), but there's some genius lurking in there somewhere. Rahdo speaks their names in hallowed reverence. Palaces of Carrara is out of print but is spoken of highly.

I know of several games of just one or the other designer, which are great, but I'm mostly curious about the duo.

# ? Jul 2, 2018 19:25

Fellis: Feb 14, 2012; Kid, don't threaten me. There are worse things than death, and uh, I can do all of them.

Oldstench posted:

What are you on about? This thread is all opinion. You see, those things I mentioned I don't like don't preclude me from liking other games of similar ilk. For instance, I dig Mage Knight, Cave Evil, In The Shadow of the Dragon, DungeonQuest.

My opinon is that Gloomhaven isn't the cure for cancer that others seem to think it is.

It was more that you dropped your opinion with no quote or context to the rest of the page, so it�s like you just bust into a room saying �uh you know what, GLOOMHAVEN SUCKS _{if you don�t like dungeon crawling fantasy rpgs}.� Kinda jarring and needlessly contrarian with that many caveats.

I think the game design is very good and gives interesting tactical choices every turn, and I think disagreeing with that has some discussion merit. Saying you don�t like the theme is like...uh ok thanks for sharing?

Chill la Chill posted:

I too enjoy 18xx, the opposite of Gloomhaven.

18Gloom will contain hex-[caravan] trains instead standard 2/3/4, with larger/higher level adventuring party escorts travelling farther. Some hexes will require trains of a certain level to cross safely, otherwise you will lose the train after the operating round, but this can be exploited to circumvent the tight train limit (who hasn�t sent a party to their deaths, seriously). It will be a �run-good� style game

# ? Jul 2, 2018 19:33

Jedit: Dec 10, 2011; Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

Chill la Chill posted:

Is there a considered best or top tier of Kramer/Kiesling games? Admittedly I've only played Reworld which my group has soured on after seeing how it's too easy to get the programmed rows together (even when everyone knows this, it seems like people just pick different rows for their own programs), but there's some genius lurking in there somewhere. Rahdo speaks their names in hallowed reverence. Palaces of Carrara is out of print but is spoken of highly.

I know of several games of just one or the other designer, which are great, but I'm mostly curious about the duo.

Tikal and Torres are both K&K.

# ? Jul 2, 2018 19:33

fozzy fosbourne: Apr 21, 2010

I'm going to do this as Kramer and/or Kiesling:

Really like:
Linko
Azul
Palaces of Carrara
6 nimmt

Have only played app:
Tikal

Curious about:
El Grande (e: :facepalm:)
Torres
Java
Tikal
Vikings
Sansoucci
Maharaja

fozzy fosbourne fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Jul 2, 2018

# ? Jul 2, 2018 19:34

KPC_Mammon: Jan 23, 2004; Ready for the fashy circle jerk

Oldstench posted:

I'm just offering a counterpoint to the constant knob-slurping this thread gives the game.

e: No offense to all y'all who love the game. Keep on keeping on.

So people who like Gloomhaven are cocksuckers, no offense meant?

Okay.

# ? Jul 2, 2018 19:37

T-Bone: Sep 14, 2004; jakes did this?

fozzy fosbourne posted:

I'm going to do this as Kramer and/or Kiesling:

Really like:
Linko
Azul
Palaces of Carrara
6 nimmt

Have only played app:
Tikal

Curious about :
El Grande (e: :facepalm:)
Torres
Java
Tikal
Vikings
Sansoucci
Maharaja

Princes of Florence which begot:

Michael Barnes posted:

It strikes me that this game, released in 2000, was kind of the turning point where the "German game" era sort of ended and the "Eurogame" era began...and all of the really great stuff that the European designers had been doing for like, 20 years prior was suddenly undone and Eurogames began their descent into a brown morass of over-designed, linear, and anti-interactive designs.

If you go back and play some of those pre-PRINCES Eurogames, it's kind of suprising how awesome a lot of European designs were...and it's no wonder that the games attracted a new international audience because they were drat good. And original too- there was much less artistic cannibalization than there is now.

But after PRINCES OF FLORENCE, it all turned into games that look and play like something designed exclusively for grumpy, boring old men. The aesthetics, format, and gameplay styles that PRINCES mainstreamed in the hobby wound up driving Eurogames to ruination.

Throughout the 1990s, one of the single most significant events in hobby gaming was the emergence of a type of game originating chiefly from Germany that sort of challenged the concept of what a �hobby game� was or should be. These so-called �German games� from designers like Klaus Teuber, Wolfgang Kramer, and Reiner Knizia were notably simpler than the American examples of hobby games and were often characterized by streamlined gameplay, accessibility, and a more pronounced focus on simple mechanics over simulation or detail, although some had significant levels of theme and interactive elements were not yet shunned in favor of predictability and determinism. Of course, German designers and their European peers had been turning out such games for a more family-oriented market for decades and the German game invasion had more to do with international hobbyists� increased awareness of these games- thanks largely to the internet- than with anything necessarily �new�.

But looking back to the pre-2000 era of the European board game it strikes me as something very significant that the kinds of games that those early �German games� represent is something dramatically different than the typical modern Eurogame. In fact, I would almost go far as to say that those games- even commonly recognized and widely played titles such as SETTLERS OF CATAN, TIGRIS & EUPHRATES, RA, BOHNANZA, and EL GRANDE- are a practically separate genre than what the modern Eurogame represents in games such as CAYLUS and AGRICOLA. The aesthetics, mechanics, and conceptual paradigms were so different just ten or fifteen years ago that it�s almost impossible to class some of these games alongside their modern antecedents. It�s particularly interesting to go back and play the older �German games� and see how those games had so much more flexibility, interaction, and variety than the rigid structures and processional gameplay of the modern Euro would ever allow. And they were a hell of a lot more fun, too.

So where then is the dividing line between the �German game� and the Eurogame? Is there a point at which the genre effectively split into two separate sets of identifiers? I believe there is, and I think that there is one game that is almost single-handedly responsible for ruining everything great and truly exciting that the �German game� brought to the hobby. There is one game that is a manifestation of almost every single thing that went wrong with the idea of European board game design and lead future designers and publishers away from the fun, exciting, and accessible and toward the insular, esoteric, and rigid. That game is the 2000 Alea/Rio Grande Games release PRINCES OF FLORENCE, designed by Wolfgang Kramer and Richard Ulrich.

The irony here is that Wolfgang Kramer had a varied and interesting career in the pre-Eurogame era, designing a lot of extremely good games like BIG BOSS, WILDLIFE ADVENTURE, MAGALON, and TOP SECRET SPIES. Even what is perhaps his most significant pre-2000 title, EL GRANDE, had more in common with RISK than PRINCES OF FLORENCE had with his earlier designs. But with PRINCES OF FLORENCE, Kramer and practically every party involved in the creation and publication of this game set certain precedents that in a very apparent way changed the aesthetic, conceptual, and mechanical direction of European game design, setting precedents that are still being influencing Eurogame designers today, and I think the game is responsible for the epidemic proliferation of the worst qualities of the genre.

Even looking at PRINCES OF FLORENCE I see how it set a certain standard for how the Eurogame should present itself visually. Games are a visual medium and our first impressions of them are inevitably based around aesthetics. Many modern Eurogames are dramatically, pathetically ugly and seem to be designed specifically to advertise the game�s most boring qualities in an attempt to appeal to boring old men. I can�t imagine anyone under the age of 40 looking at the box cover to most Eurogames today and being attracted to or interested in playing the game, regardless of how good it�s supposed to be.

Many Eurogame boxes feature a dour-looking old man scowling amid some dour-looking Renaissance or Medieval background, probably surveying the outcome of the player�s actions to determine who has impressed them the most or simply just scowling because they�re on such an ugly box. It�s almost a laughable clich� at this point, the �brown and darker brown� color palette of the Eurogame and the oh-so-important �olde worlde� fonts. Even in terms of game contents and components, the aesthetic approach of the Eurogame has become closer to a spreadsheet and sometimes it�s tough to determine if what you�re playing is a game or a flowchart. And lo and behold, the ancestry of this aesthetic approach is rooted squarely in the villa-grids of PRINCES OF FLORENCE. When I heckle Eurogames in a broad way, making fun of how they look so drat boring and brown, PRINCES OF FLORENCE is my reference point.

The format of the game, which is common among all of Alea�s �big box� games is similar to the Avalon Hill bookshelf games and there is a similar appeal to sophistication and a sense that the game is not one to be shelved along with your other board games, but rather to be put on a bookshelf alongside the works of Shakespeare, Plato, and Dante. And I think that really speaks to the overall tone of the game, which is one of dreadful seriousness (despite the presence of jesters) and an attitude that what you are doing by playing the game is not fun but very sophisticated as it is the pursuit of learned men.
It�s a long way from the look and feel of games where the back of the box shows kids throwing dice and cheering, which is likely anathema to most Eurogamers anyway. PRINCES OF FLORENCE seems to be one of the first Eurogames where this aura of self-important, faux-historical gameplay was really foregrounded, and in a way that seemed to put fun second to seriousness.

As far as gameplay goes, there�s practically nothing to cheer about at any point in the game as PRINCES OF FLORENCE really kind of set the stage for the cold, heartless, drama-less, and passionless gameplay that many Eurogames that followed have emulated to some degree or another. Players represent masters of Renaissance-era villas that are attempting to attract artists, scholars, and poets to their towns with various things that they demand and inspire them to produce great works. �Great works�, as you might have already guessed, are victory points. There is practically zero conflict in the game aside from an auction for finite resources and the game boils down to a very tightly controlled system with very limited but distinct decision points where the idea is to maximize each turn to produce one or more works every time and to increase the number of �wants� that you can fulfill for these abstracted artisans. It�s really an efficiency engine game in disguise like many Eurogames that have followed its example; don�t let all of that left-brain art talk fool you.

�Multiplayer solitaire� games had existed before PRINCES OF FLORENCE, but I think this was the game that kind of mainstreamed the idea and more significantly cemented the concept of a game where players have virtually no affect or influence on the holdings of other players in the minds of hobby gamers. This was the first game I can think of where all player interaction was reduced to a simple auction every turn.

After all, the game comes down to pure skill, which is all the better to prove your intellectual superiority, right?
The isolationism of developing an individual player board with no spatial or geographic relation or consequence with those of other players ensures that nasty things like actual conflict or competition won�t interfere with the best laid plans, so to speak. And that�s something that a lot of modern Eurogamers see today as a positive quality. It makes me wonder if something fairly aggressive like Kramer�s earlier EL GRANDE came out in today�s Eurogames market if it would be as popular as it was in the late 1990s.

Playing a game like EL GRANDE is a vastly different experience than PRINCES OF FLORENCE. EL GRANDE had process, yet it also allowed for a lot of flexibility and player engagement with mechanics to produce a volatile and fluid game structure. With PRINCES OF FLORENCE, the freedom of decisions is greatly reduced and the game practically becomes a challenge to see which players can best or most efficiently follow the rules with the occasional setback represented by a lost auction or the unavailability of an artist card. This concept is another that many Eurogamer designers really ran with, and I can�t help but think that if they had been more influenced by Mr. Kramer�s WILDLIFE ADVENTURE or DAYTONA 500 the Eurogame genre would be in much better shape today. At least those games- both simpler family games- had blocking and some sense that you have a variety of approaches and strategies to pursue instead of rigid paths and decision patterns.

The effect of all of these things that PRINCES OF FLORENCE sort of laid out as the Eurogamer Design Bible, I think, is that not only were the earlier qualities of German games suddenly forgotten, but also that all of the promises of the Euro as a simpler, more accessible, and more fun style of game were abandoned in favor of a hobbyist focus that was every bit as esoteric and inaccessible as American hobby games had been. PRINCES OF FLORENCE is not a complex game by hobby standards, but its concept is very different than what most people consider to be a �game� to the point where it is almost unrecognizable as a game by all but the enlightened and well-informed.

There is none of the usual movement, placement, or removal mechanics that most people associate with games. Even the card play element isn�t �normal� at all. It is vague, relatively theme-less, and the only traditional game element that would be recognized by most non-hobbyists is the simple TETRIS-like placement of varying shapes of buildings and landscape features into the villa grids. And strangely enough, that is one of the few concepts that weren�t brought forward by designers emulating the more discrete elements of the game.

The thing is, PRINCES OF FLORENCE as a design is pretty interesting overall, despite its accountability for the ruination of the Eurogame genre. For its time, it was innovative and it did change the way that games are played and offered new combinations of mechanical concepts that were unique. The problem is, the changes that PRINCES OF FLORENCE precipitated in terms of design approach, aesthetics, and format didn�t turn out to be for the better and I think that the great momentum that the German games had built up heading into the new millennium was completely waylaid, particularly as a rising internet community began adopting games like PRINCES OF FLORENCE as the flagship examples of the Eurogames genre. I think it was specifically the influence of this game that drove the Eurogame idea away from what it was and laid the groundwork for the success of grossly abstracted and processional games like PUERTO RICO and CAYLUS while steering the hobby toward a more �boutique game� focus.

So then, I�ve come to realize that the old German games like PRIMORDIAL SOUP, with its colorful, poo-eating amoebas or BARBAROSSA, a game where you stick plastic arrows into your friends� awful clay sculptures, are really a different kind of game than PRINCES OF FLORENCE and its descendants. Reflecting on the past nine years of Eurogames, I�ve realized that I very much miss the idea of German games as it existed in the 1990s, before �Eurogame� meant 3-5 players silently contemplating player boards, occasionally raising a bid, and smugly grinning as they squeeze out an extra point or two from a particular play.

I miss those days when European games were a lot less brown � and when they were actually fun and exciting.

# ? Jul 2, 2018 19:52

Bottom Liner: Feb 15, 2006; a specific vein of lasagna

Oldstench posted:

I'm just offering a counterpoint to the constant knob-slurping this thread gives the game.

e: No offense to all y'all who love the game. Keep on keeping on.

"you cocksuckers

no offense"

:shucks:

# ? Jul 2, 2018 20:02

The Eyes Have It: Feb 10, 2008; Third Eye Sees All
...snookums

Gloomhaven is also 90-95% fantasy SWAT Team and like 5-10% RPG so that's another reason someone might legit bounce off of it if they think they're in it for the swordelf sim angle.

# ? Jul 2, 2018 20:09

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 28, 2024 13:19

Pierzak: Oct 30, 2010

Oldstench posted:

So, check it out. I don't like Gloomhaven. I don't like RPG board games, legacy boardgames, 99% of dungeon crawlers, and 99% of fantasy settings. So, if you're the other person like me in this hobby, don't buy Gloomhaven.

is this bait

# ? Jul 2, 2018 20:12

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Board Game Thread 4e: The Call of Catan

«‹›2842 »