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Panzeh posted:Imperial Struggle's extended example of play dropped if you want to see it in action. So here's my super scientific breakdown of IS. Drawing on the map, near-final rules, and that example of play. The rules could be clearer in places, but what else is new? I assume the playbook will include EEOP and more stuff about how to learn the game, so it will be possible to skim the rules, follow the playbook examples, and start playing really badly until I know the cards. I'm pretty excited about the map. At first glance I thought all the space types and weird connections looked overly complex, but it allows for interesting wargame-style development as the game goes on. I hope that like in Twilight Struggle, players will be stretching their resources both to their own scoring priorities and to foiling their opponent in whatever region looks important at the moment. The dotted connections outside Europe indicate possible lines of conquest, and while conquest is restricted to what the War Displays allow (as in the War of the Spanish Succession seen in the EEOP) there is some interesting dynamism here. It looks like many alliances unlock special abilities (the pentagon-shaped spaces connected to the diamond political spaces), which should be interesting but aren't explained anywhere I've noticed. The Investment Tile business is an interesting twist on the CDG system that means a lot more information is in the open and you don't have to worry about setting off bad events. The ability to use Debt or Treaty Points as wild points might lead to some AP issues, I think. The way of scoring after each (peace) turn is a little point-salady (including the 4 awards for controlling the most spaces in each theater, +2 VP for having the most prestige spaces in Europe, and then VP and other stuff from controlling the 3 random goods in global demand. Looks like the wars involve few decisions during the conflict. You also you flip your war tile on the previous turn, so you should have a pretty good idea how strong each side is going into each war. War resolution is the game aspect we have the least info about, because the War Displays aren't available yet, though you can get an idea from the low-res one in the example of play. It's cool to see a wargame represent the limited wars between large powers in this period, in that losing a war or two doesn't totally undo a player and even the losing side gets some concessions, such as treaty points and the ability to pay a bunch of VP to prevent having your territory taken by conquest. I never get to play weighty 2p games but I'm still going to pick this one up.
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Feb 27, 2020 20:04
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Jedit posted:Monopoly is a sub-60 minute game if you play by the correct rules, so that's right by play time. I've played Monopoly by the rules lots of times and I still don't see how this is correct. Auctions will tend to add time, and the "distributing properties" phase isn't even the longest (or most tedious) it's the "waiting for everyone else to finally go bankrupt." I realize injecting extra money into the game isn't helpful, but I don't feel like that's most people's house rules.
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Feb 27, 2020 22:27
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SoftNum posted:I realize injecting extra money into the game isn't helpful, but I don't feel like that's most people's house rules.
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Feb 27, 2020 22:33
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SoftNum posted:I've played Monopoly by the rules lots of times and I still don't see how this is correct. Auctions will tend to add time, and the "distributing properties" phase isn't even the longest (or most tedious) it's the "waiting for everyone else to finally go bankrupt." Going through an auction gets property into play way faster than waiting for someone else to land on it. Mandatory auctions also siphon off money faster since players will have to cough up money to keep opponents from getting dirt cheap property, and putting property into play faster means rent becomes more of an issue (the net impact of rents is zero sum, but luck means there will be winners and losers) and opens up trade possibilities faster.
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Feb 27, 2020 22:44
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Doctor Spaceman posted:I thought putting money on Free Parking was the most common house rule. I feel like far and away the most common house rule is "don't auction properties" Straight White Shark posted:Going through an auction gets property into play way faster than waiting for someone else to land on it. Mandatory auctions also siphon off money faster since players will have to cough up money to keep opponents from getting dirt cheap property, and putting property into play faster means rent becomes more of an issue (the net impact of rents is zero sum, but luck means there will be winners and losers) and opens up trade possibilities faster. In my experience this only takes a few "laps" off the playtime, and is zero effect once you're in the "please someone lose" phase. I used to play with my brothers on gameboy which was full rules enforcement AND calculated rents for you and it would still take 60+ to finish a game...
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Feb 27, 2020 22:54
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SoftNum posted:I feel like far and away the most common house rule is "don't auction properties" Maybe because you're playing on gameboy? Monopoly has a death spiral. Once one person busts it funnels enough money money and properties so that the next poorest player has a higher chance of auto-busting on the next property they hit.
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Feb 27, 2020 23:44
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Here's a dominant species tip: The balance on the action board is loosely achieved through the order that actions are resolved. The actions at the top are the least powerful, and the ones at the bottom are the most powerful. The trade-off is that if someone chooses a powerful action that other players can see that and react to it or outmanouvre it with less powerful actions, or if someone delays a low-board action for the sake of that manouvreing that they might miss out. It's pretty slick and the loss of that system is what has me a bit skeptical of DS:Marine
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Feb 28, 2020 00:14
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The latest SUSD video on teaching people how to play board games is really good. It starts out with very basic stuff like "read the manual before game night", but quickly moves on to very helpful pedagogical theory.
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Feb 28, 2020 01:36
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pospysyl posted:The latest SUSD video on teaching people how to play board games is really good. It starts out with very basic stuff like "read the manual before game night", but quickly moves on to very helpful pedagogical theory. I gotta teach '46 or '62 to a newbie to 18xx and then teach him 1830 so I was considering doing a full SUSD style playthrough and see how it goes. Which do you think is faster people, 1862 (simple varient, no train variation) or 1846? (No, Joe Huber won't be here unfortunately silvergoose)
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Feb 28, 2020 02:17
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pospysyl posted:The latest SUSD video on teaching people how to play board games is really good. It starts out with very basic stuff like "read the manual before game night", but quickly moves on to very helpful pedagogical theory. Yeah it was really good.
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Feb 28, 2020 02:23
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I haven't played '62 but I taught '46 to some friends relatively quickly with a few passes through the rulebook when my memory got rusty.
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Feb 28, 2020 02:25
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62 is too weird for newbies. 46 is the base for which everything else only gets more complex.
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Feb 28, 2020 02:31
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I'm about to play what will most definitely exhibit itself to be an OK game of Diplomacy. We're starting in the early evening with people (including myself) having work the next day. But! Pros: Everybody is super chill and keen and doesn't expect a full game. I'm looking forward to the Experience.
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Feb 28, 2020 02:55
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Mayveena posted:I gotta teach '46 or '62 to a newbie to 18xx and then teach him 1830 so I was considering doing a full SUSD style playthrough and see how it goes. Which do you think is faster people, 1862 (simple varient, no train variation) or 1846? (No, Joe Huber won't be here unfortunately silvergoose) Ah too bad. He does love his train games! In other news, I got to play games two nights in a row!?!? Sorry, I have young kids, this is very rare. Anyway, played: Hansa Teutonica 4p, I hadn't played in forever, one player was basically new to Euros. I've wanted to try this again, I only played once like ten years ago. It was great! Weird game of it, from what I can tell, very low scoring (50, my 44, 39, new player in the teens), the double route to the extra actions was weirdly blocked and accelerated the points enough that the game ended fast. Still, I liked it, it's the heart of cube pusher as a genre. Biblios Mark on Board Game Barrage literally puts this as his top game of all time and I hadn't played it and wanted to given that his taste isn't awful, and we needed a fast game since the new-to-euros player had to go soon. I'm bad at auctions but I had a great time with the gifting phase. So uh I hoarded one suit, took all the cards to boost it, tore everything else down, and ended up with a 6 to people's 5, 3, 2. Sure! Very fast, good enough, I'd totally play again. New player had to go, and we hemmed and hawed about what to play and settled on... Hansa Teutonica 3p yeah turns out not having to learn any rules means this game is lightning fast. I want to say it was 45 minutes setup to teardown. I loved it. I got to max actions, neglected to toss a cube onto there for points, and let the other two players catch up. Final scores were 91 (made it across the red to red and got max keys), my 81 (kind of a mix), to 69 (nice). Okay so yeah I want to try whatever expansions or maps or stuff HT has, because that was such a solid game for its length.
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Feb 28, 2020 05:05
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silvergoose posted:Okay so yeah I want to try whatever expansions or maps or stuff HT has, because that was such a solid game for its length. I mentioned it a few days ago but I have an extra East map I'll send ya for the cost of shipping if you're in the US. Should fit in a padded envelope or med flat rate box.
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Feb 28, 2020 05:16
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Those HT scores seem insanely high compared to all the games I've played. Must be a completely different meta.
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Feb 28, 2020 05:22
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Bottom Liner posted:I mentioned it a few days ago but I have an extra East map I'll send ya for the cost of shipping if you're in the US. Should fit in a padded envelope or med flat rate box. lmao wasn't my game! If I ever get it, I'll hit you up.  Doctor Spaceman posted:Those HT scores seem insanely high compared to all the games I've played. Must be a completely different meta. No idea! The second game someone had a giant build across the map with max keys so I mean, huge score.
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Feb 28, 2020 05:52
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People who like Hansa, how do you deal with the randomness of the action disks? You have some control of where you put it, but after the midpoint of the game anyone doing well can pretty easily fill most roads up in one go, so you can be rest assured the disk you slap down on the board isn't coming back to you. If you randomly draw the +3/+4 action disk well you just handed someone a monster turn that will snowball. This issue made such a large impact multiple times that we stopped playing the game. We only ever played on the base map. I remember someone in this thread said the action disk problem is handled better by some of the expansion content? If true, I might think about picking up that big box that is slated to be coming in the next year or so.
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Feb 28, 2020 07:23
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al-azad posted:62 is too weird for newbies. 46 is the base for which everything else only gets more complex. If it's their first game, they don't know that '62 is weird. Also, '46 is in no way the base. It's arguably a good entry because of its euronical nature, but it's got a fair degree of flim flam baked in the rules, you must admit. I would argue neither are a great primer for '30. I would instead suggest playing '30 twice.
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Feb 28, 2020 13:04
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I was thinking alot about the depth/heaviness thing on my cycle in this morning and I think I've worked out my thoughts on it. For me weight of a game is based on how many decisions I have on my turn, how many different actions am I choosing between. At one end of the scale there's Snakes and Ladders, there's no choice you just roll a dice on the other hand something like Chess* there's 20 possible moves first go. So that's my weight scale, what am I choosing between. For depth it's the impact of those choices on the game. Take something like Russian Railroads I've got lots of choices, but the result of those choices pretty much shake out there and then, I score some more points, whilst going back to chess of those 20 opening moves some of them are just bad, and whilst they might be some theoretical novelty they're probably not. Weight and depth are independent, and also independent of rules complexity. Lots of rules tends to mean there's lots of choices, like Terra Mystica where the rules are pretty complicated and that's what makes all the choices, so it's not the rules that make the game weighty but the decision space those rules create. *You could argue that Chess has fewer choices to make as there are standard opening and counters and you're just memorising those and deducing your opponents plan. But there's still 1300 openings and variations which is plenty.
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Feb 28, 2020 13:19
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Mr. Squishy posted:If it's their first game, they don't know that '62 is weird. Also, '46 is in no way the base. It's arguably a good entry because of its euronical nature, but it's got a fair degree of flim flam baked in the rules, you must admit. I would argue neither are a great primer for '30. I would instead suggest playing '30 twice. Aside from trains not instantly rusting in 46 what is there in the game that's monumentally different from other 18xx's?
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Feb 28, 2020 13:42
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I've watched the SUSD video about teaching and I largely agree with it. Some of the tips is stuff that I've been doing already, but it was good to get confirmation and get new ideas. As an example, Dungeon Petz is probably the game I have taught the most and I have a very set pattern of teaching the game: I start with the theme and who we are, then proceed to explain how pets work (and go through an example of fulfilling the needs of the pet), then go through the action mechanism and turn order, in which I get people to put their imps/money in random groupings and then reveal them and go through how the turn order sequence works, and finally scoring of pets through exhibition/selling. I've been quite effective through the years this way (or at least I like to think so). There is one tip, however, that I don't necessarily agree with, and that's the one in regards to winning/not winning as the teacher. I find a lot of times that the reaction of new players to winning or losing the first time around can vary quite considerably, so I don't think that the tip is going to work in all situations. My personal reaction to getting taught a game and winning the first time can sometimes be that the game doesn't have enough scope for interesting strategies, and this is especially true if the person that taught the game is very experienced at it. My experience, however, is mostly with teaching and being taught games in public meetups, so I guess the advice might be more relevant to groups of friends that want to regularly play together. Still, I do think it's important to keep in mind that your friends might have a negative reaction to winning as well as a negative reaction to losing (or, specifically, the most experienced player winning).
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Feb 28, 2020 14:12
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Tekopo posted:There is one tip, however, that I don't necessarily agree with, and that's the one in regards to winning/not winning as the teacher. I find a lot of times that the reaction of new players to winning or losing the first time around can vary quite considerably, so I don't think that the tip is going to work in all situations. My personal reaction to getting taught a game and winning the first time can sometimes be that the game doesn't have enough scope for interesting strategies, and this is especially true if the person that taught the game is very experienced at it. My experience, however, is mostly with teaching and being taught games in public meetups, so I guess the advice might be more relevant to groups of friends that want to regularly play together. Still, I do think it's important to keep in mind that your friends might have a negative reaction to winning as well as a negative reaction to losing (or, specifically, the most experienced player winning). I find that winning as the teacher is fine, the key is to not trounce the other players in a way that they don't understand. When I'm playing a game I've just teached, one that I've perhaps played a good amount of, I'll often walk through each of my decisions and why I'm making them. I'm not particularly secretive or backstabbing or whatever, but if an opportunity comes up to dunk on another player in a way that really benefits me, I'll do it but explain my reasoning, perhaps saying stuff like "look I've got a card here that's exceptionally helpful if you're not in that area, and I'll play it immediately after getting rid of your dudes" or whatever. But if you're in a hyper-competitive state and doing your best to win against people who are just learning the game, that's a problem.
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Feb 28, 2020 14:33
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I think it can be reliant on the game as well. Let's say you are playing Games of Thrones, Twilight Imperium or any game that has a heavy layer of politics required to actually play it. In those situations, I agree that taking advantage of less experienced players in order to win will sour them quite a lot and make them have a negative opinion of the game. For games that have less direct competition, however, I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with trying to win as the teacher: if I'm mostly doing my own thing in Caverna, and so is the new player, they'll feel like they have accomplished something and had fun even if the final score is quite disproportionately in my favour.
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Feb 28, 2020 14:40
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One thing I like to do when teaching is to check if people have questions. Helps to reduce interruptions (once people realise they'll get to ask later) and it helps people to know they aren't expected to get everything straight away.Tekopo posted:There is one tip, however, that I don't necessarily agree with, and that's the one in regards to winning/not winning as the teacher. Yeah it's a complex thing that's going to depend on the game and the group. What if some people at the table have played before and some haven't? What if it's your first or second game and you don't know what you're doing either? Does it matter if the game is mulitplayer solitaire or highly interactive?
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Feb 28, 2020 14:45
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Seems like the guys behind March of the Ants managed to evade a global disruption of manufacturing and supply chains by the skin of their teeth, and I will be getting my Ants (and all expansions and a billion wooden ant meeples) within the next few days.
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Feb 28, 2020 14:47
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Tekopo posted:For games that have less direct competition, however, I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with trying to win as the teacher: if I'm mostly doing my own thing in Caverna, and so is the new player, they'll feel like they have accomplished something and had fun even if the final score is quite disproportionately in my favour. In that case I mostly gonna try to use a new/harder strategy to see how good I can implement it.
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Feb 28, 2020 14:52
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dwarf74 posted:Seems like the guys behind March of the Ants managed to evade a global disruption of manufacturing and supply chains by the skin of their teeth, and I will be getting my Ants (and all expansions and a billion wooden ant meeples) within the next few days. Oh poo poo, lucky. I'm in Canada, and will have to wait another few weeks or so. Selecta84 posted:In that case I mostly gonna try to use a new/harder strategy to see how good I can implement it. Same, I'll use the opportunity to try some gameplay path I wouldn't have normally that's unlikely to win, but at least should be interesting.
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Feb 28, 2020 14:52
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The don't win tip is definitely highly conditional but tbf I think part of the larger point was that you should be more focused on making sure everyone is having a smooth first game than on figuring out your own plays.
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Feb 28, 2020 14:53
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Morpheus posted:I find that winning as the teacher is fine, the key is to not trounce the other players in a way that they don't understand. I think this is key, don't win because you're doing something that someone didn't understand. Don't do things which make you win because your opponents didn't notice/know what was going on. Still do the move but explain why you're doing it and the implications.
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Feb 28, 2020 14:54
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I tend to not describe how to win in my teaching frameworks. I like to emphasize pulling levers and figuring out the game anyway, you're not gonna do well so don't focus on it. See how the interlocking systems work
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Feb 28, 2020 15:01
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The video is a mix of good general advice and things that are just specific to getting your friends to play boardgames for the first time. I believe SUSD likes to think of themselves as people's entryway to the hobby, so I guess that fits. I'm surprised they didn't explicitly include "hey idiot, not everyone knows what 'worker placement' is" as a tip. You forget that not everyone knows how to place a worker. I'm also sceptical of the "play badly" tip, mostly because if someone gets upset or angry that they lost, I don't really wan't to play games w/ them. Though I can get behind the "you should dedicate your attention to keeping track of other players, which may cause you to play badly." Chill la Chill posted:I tend to not describe how to win in my teaching frameworks. I like to emphasize pulling levers and figuring out the game anyway, you're not gonna do well so don't focus on it. See how the interlocking systems work Sure, but say, Container. "How to win" is have the most money. Let them discover how to make the most money on their own, but you should tell them that they want to be doing it up top. Otherwise they're just pulling levers to indeterminate ends. al-azad posted:Aside from trains not instantly rusting in 46 what is there in the game that's monumentally different from other 18xx's? The allocation of privates, the $20 charge for all track lays and upgrades, the powers unique to share company, and the whole share price situation. I would agree that those are more superficial than '62 loving around w/ how routes are calculated, I just reject the notion that '46 is foundational.
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Feb 28, 2020 15:09
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We have a pretty good understanding that you probably won’t win your first game and the teacher is not expected to pull any punches because we like to see what is possible. We try to speed through first games and feel the game out quickly so we can go again “for real”. Both of these are obviously not for everyone but I really appreciate it about our group.
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Feb 28, 2020 15:25
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Morpheus posted:I find that winning as the teacher is fine, the key is to not trounce the other players in a way that they don't understand. ^^^^ This is it, right here. Nothing will sour people's taste on a game faster than utterly demolishing them without them understanding what happened at all and having your opponent/student just looking around dazed and confused. Luckily this is rarely a problem for me since I rarely win at games. But I've had it happen to me many times and it drives me crazy and makes me actively not want to play certain games with certain people because I don't understand it, they aren't teaching it well, and it's just an excuse to turn me into a punching bag.
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Feb 28, 2020 15:30
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Selecta84 posted:In that case I mostly gonna try to use a new/harder strategy to see how good I can implement it. I don't like to go too far off the beaten path because I don't want new players to see what I'm doing and try to imitate it. I do occasionally throw out an odd move I wouldn't otherwise, both for the sake of demoing more of the game mechanics and to avoid running up the score. e.g. if I'm teaching Dominions I might buy a couple more actions than is optimal for Big Money, but I'm still mostly buying silver/gold so that people see "wow, apparently buying lots of silver/gold is really good."
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Feb 28, 2020 15:56
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Morpheus posted:I find that winning as the teacher is fine, the key is to not trounce the other players in a way that they don't understand. Whenever I try playing Innovation at a meet up everyone says they tried it once and hated it, and I can't help but suspect that whoever taught them how to play pulled some dick moves on them.
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Feb 28, 2020 16:23
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pospysyl posted:Whenever I try playing Innovation at a meet up everyone says they tried it once and hated it, and I can't help but suspect that whoever taught them how to play pulled some dick moves on them. Nah it's because the entire game is pulling dick moves because reading your opponents tableau is really hard so you can never know everything your opponent can do. I uh kinda hate innovation after playing it a dozen or more times...
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Feb 28, 2020 16:27
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Yeah, there's plenty of reasons to hate Innovation. I'm also not sure how you would go about playing it nicely. The rudest thing you could do is play it w/ four players, I guess.
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Feb 28, 2020 16:32
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pospysyl posted:Whenever I try playing Innovation at a meet up everyone says they tried it once and hated it, and I can't help but suspect that whoever taught them how to play pulled some dick moves on them. The dick move in question being "knowing what the cards do". I don't expect to win every game I play the first time I play it, but Innovation I didn't even feel capable of playing it because I didn't know what I could plan towards. The other newbie at the table felt the same way. We played once, and we both hated it.
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Feb 28, 2020 16:51
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FulsomFrank posted:^^^^ This is it, right here. Used to know a guy who taught games and then used rules he 'forgot' to mention to beat us. Finally figured out why I didn't like any of the games he taught....
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Feb 28, 2020 16:51
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