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And the original rule was like "you can't show people cards but you can tell them what you have anyway" which works in games with time/dexterity elements but was preeeeetty easy to get around in Pandemic
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Oct 2, 2015 02:17
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golden bubble posted:For example, on Boardgame Arena, there's an unwritten rule that players discard the rightmost/oldest card in your hand unless a clue states otherwise. This means you can wait to give a clue about having a five until the five gets to the rightmost position. That's only good play, since it's the card least likely to be playable. Many groups come up with that same rule independently, along with things like playing the card you just picked up if that and another are clued together. Personally I feel that shouldn't apply to the starting 4-5 cards though, since they have the same age - so I play those in a random order, adjusting for clues of course.
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Oct 2, 2015 02:19
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Gutter Owl posted:They removed that rule in the second edition. I have the latest edition and it's there. 
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Oct 2, 2015 02:21
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Krazyface posted:Apparently the Twilight Struggle digital version is going into beta, is anyone here in on that? I am, haven't received the beta code yet so we'll see when that arrives
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Oct 2, 2015 02:25
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I have it, menus give the vibe exactly as terrible as you suspect for people with a board game who want to randomly make it a video game. I joined a game someone else made and it says "waiting for player" and I have no real clue what will change that. We picked "30 minute" game so who knows what that means. It doesn't support offline yet so who actually knows what the game is like. I'm just hyped for my collectors edition, video game is bonus but I expect it to be "hot garbage, but at least you can play twilight struggle on the internet"
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Oct 2, 2015 03:35
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Cocks Cable posted:I have the latest edition and it's there. Sorry, you're right. They made it an optional rule. Still, Countblanc posted:And the original rule was like "you can't show people cards but you can tell them what you have anyway" which works in games with time/dexterity elements but was preeeeetty easy to get around in Pandemic
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Oct 2, 2015 03:57
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The crux of Hanabi discussion is as follows: It's possible to organize a metagame of choreographed plays and subtext that communicates outside of the verbal limitations of the game. It is possible (but not definitive) that this is cheating. If you do not do this, then the game comes down 85% or so to luck. I don't think very highly of Hanabi.
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Oct 2, 2015 04:12
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hito posted:I'm just hyped for my collectors edition, video game is bonus but I expect it to be "hot garbage, but at least you can play twilight struggle on the internet" The vassal module is actually pretty great, and automates most things that can be automated.
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Oct 2, 2015 04:43
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Broken Loose posted:If you do not do this, then the game comes down 85% or so to luck. Two player hanabi has a lot of luck because you have so little total handsize, try with three or four instead.
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Oct 2, 2015 04:46
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quote:The crux of Hanabi discussion is as follows: It's possible to organize a metagame of choreographed plays and subtext that communicates outside of the verbal limitations of the game. It is possible (but not definitive) that this is cheating. If you do not do this, then the game comes down 85% or so to luck. I suppose you could cheat in Codenames too, but it'd be dumb. It's even dumber in Hanabi where you're only fooling yourself. For us, the rules are clear - you can have whatever pre-communication you want about how you'll respond to certain situations or whatever (and understanding what people will do is a big part of the game's strategy), but you can't do any communication once the game starts (other than what the rules allow). You can arrange your cards in your hand to remember things, but you can't do it to signal. You can scratch your nose, but you can't do it to signal. I don't think there's anything that's really unclear, unless players are being willfully dense or are trying to subvert the rules (which, again, seems kind of silly in a co-op game). It's not that hard to stop communicating - you just have to show some restraint, just the same as you do while your team argues about the clue in Codenames. Whether you win or lose can come down to luck, but you can evaluate yourself based on how well you were able to do with what was given to you. You remember the great plays, when you trusted a whole chain of things to happen based on how well you know the people you're playing with. You remember the times when someone told you something, and you took it completely the wrong way and blew up. I agree the game would be better if difficulty was more consistent, but I think it's fine how it stands. It's not my favorite game, and the lack of variety means we haven't played it in my normal group for a while, but it's a clever, simple game that everyone should at least try - and I think people overstate the problems with cheating. Also, I'm surprised people haven't tried to build out more complex games with the same core mechanic, it supports a kind of true co-operation that's rare in co-ops. Edit: Yeah, and it sucks with 2; I'm not sure I'd bother playing with less that 4, honestly.
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Oct 2, 2015 04:50
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Honestly I think there's a pretty clear line between "cheating" and "not cheating" in Hanabi. Imagine you wrote down every game action taken by a player in the game on a piece of paper. Any information that's on that bit of paper, or could be deduced from what's on that bit of paper - e.g. "what's the oldest card I have no information about?" - is fair game. If it's not something you could deduce from that bit of paper, it's cheating. As an example, discarding the oldest card you have no information about is not cheating. It's also not cheating for the other players to assume you'll discard the oldest card you have no information about, and using that to decide whether to give you a hint. But it is cheating if, say, there are multiple such cards and you tell everyone which of those cards you'll discard first. Ultimately it's like Bridge - you can only use legal game actions to convey information, but you don't have to just take that information at face value.
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Oct 2, 2015 04:55
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Codenames has a severe quarterback problem because one person can tell the others what the clue giver meant and dictate the guesses. Or they can discuss the situation and agree on a plan. See how that same situation can be framed as a problem or an exercise in cooperation? Also note how a particularly annoying player could make it really bad and make the game seem lovely? Amazing.
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Oct 2, 2015 05:57
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Krazyface posted:Apparently the Twilight Struggle digital version is going into beta, is anyone here in on that? I'm in. The client is... well, I just hope they plan on making a few more passes at making the UI more appealing, because right now it's pure programmer art. Haven't actually played a game yet. There's no single-player component to experiment with, so I'll have to jump in to a live game as soon as I actually find someone else online, I guess.
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Oct 2, 2015 06:11
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So, my birthday came around and my friend got me a copy of Argent. I just played a round of it. Jesus christ on a stick that was a really good and tense game, and we were only playing two players. It's supposed to be even better at higher player counts, right?
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Oct 2, 2015 07:06
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Bottom Liner posted:Codenames has a severe quarterback problem because one person can tell the others what the clue giver meant and dictate the guesses. Or they can discuss the situation and agree on a plan. See how that same situation can be framed as a problem or an exercise in cooperation? Also note how a particularly annoying player could make it really bad and make the game seem lovely? Amazing. I'd say the obvious difference between Pandemic and Codenames in that regard is that strategies in Pandemic seem far more cut and dried...it's not a 100% solvable game, but it's vastly different than Codenames' "guess what crazy-rear end word association the Spymaster is trying to do to link these three words together," and a person with 100 games of Pandemic under their belt (who isn't, like, completely terrible at games) stands a much better chance of being "objectively correct" about telling people "hey, if you want us to win then go here, here, and here, do these things" then someone who's played 100 games of Codenames and confidently instapicks the Assassin because the Spymaster didn't think "Tomato" counted when the clue was Fruit: 2. This is completely orthogonal to the issue of lovely players making even good games lovely. Trasson posted:So, my birthday came around and my friend got me a copy of Argent. I've played Argent at 3, 4, and 5 players. Five seemed a bit excessive to me, and even though the expansion allows up to 6 I don't think I'd ever feel the urge to try it out. In my experience 3 or 4 players seems like the sweet spot.
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Oct 2, 2015 07:15
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Everyone, take a $20 out of your wallet and go buy Valley of the Kings and Mottainai now. Two small, cheap games that hold up with any big box, expensive game out there. They both work great at two players too. PS, don't combine both sets of VotK and play a 7 player game. I saw a group do that last night and it took them over two hours to play.
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Oct 2, 2015 07:22
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Valley of the Kings is just ok. I wouldn't rush out and buy it unless you've completely played out the other good deckbuilders and really need a new deckbuilder.
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Oct 2, 2015 07:24
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So Dominion, Eminent Domain, and...? Those are my top three deck builders, and of the the three VotK is the most accessible. It requires one small purchase to get the full experience, instead of lots of big boxes or an out of print expansion. It's great, and if you're all Dominioned out its probably the best deck builder.
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Oct 2, 2015 07:33
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Is there a review post.
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Oct 2, 2015 07:36
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Bottom Liner posted:So Dominion, Eminent Domain, and...? Those are my top three deck builders... Puzzle Strike? (And Mage Knight, insofar as that counts.) Granted, I've not played VotK yet, so I don't know how it stacks up compared to EmiDo and Puzzle Strike.
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Oct 2, 2015 07:46
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Krazyface posted:Apparently the Twilight Struggle digital version is going into beta, is anyone here in on that? Oh, hey, turns out I'm in on that.
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Oct 2, 2015 08:15
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Bottom Liner posted:Everyone, take a $20 out of your wallet and go buy Valley of the Kings and Mottainai now. Two small, cheap games that hold up with any big box, expensive game out there. They both work great at two players too. Huh? I thought VOTK was only a 2-player game. Am I mistaken?
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Oct 2, 2015 08:22
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Base game plays 2-4 out of the box, not sure if afterlife is the same.
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Oct 2, 2015 08:56
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Valley of the Kings seems really great after one playthrough. It is the only deckbuilder I have tried that seems to give something Dominion doesn't do better. Unless you count games with deckbuilding as one part of a greater whole, like Mage Knight and Rokoko. Is it better than a good Dominion kingdom against a skilled opponent? Probably not. But it is good and unique enough to stand on its one. Maybe further plays will make me regret those words, but I doubt it.
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Oct 2, 2015 10:01
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Nique posted:Base game plays 2-4 out of the box, not sure if afterlife is the same. It is. You can even combine the two to play 5-6 like Dominion Base + Intrigue, but I assume that'd be a bad idea just like Dominion. Speaking of which, played Valley of the Kings: Afterlife for the first time last night 3-player, and yeah, it's pretty good. It's got the same balance Dominion has where you have to figure out the best time to entomb cards without ruining the effectiveness of your deck too much. Definitely want to pick up the other one at some point.
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Oct 2, 2015 10:23
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Unless, I'm missing something, the best time to entomb cards is "every turn unless you have a good reason not to (i.e. an engine)" I've mainly played VotK:Afterlife's solitaire mode, which you win by getting a perfect score and you can only entomb using card effects, no free entomb per turn. The only way to win is to entomb as soon as you are able to. The couple times I played regular mutiplayer usually ended up with a ridiculous score disparity because of how aggressively I trash my deck. (last game ended up being 110 pts vs 67 pts) The attack cards in Afterlife seemed designed to mitigate the 7 card deck strategy but that just means you'll keep your deck hovering around 11-15 cards instead of 5-9 (until the last 3 turns of the game where you just trash your entire deck for those last extra points)
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Oct 2, 2015 10:35
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Well yeah, you want to get the bad cards out of your deck as efficiently as possible. I think the point that people are making is when to stop engine-building by clearing out the chaff, in favour of entombing the high-scoring (yet powerful) cards that are making your deck work.
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Oct 2, 2015 11:14
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Bottom Liner posted:Codenames has a severe quarterback problem because one person can tell the others what the clue giver meant and dictate the guesses. Or they can discuss the situation and agree on a plan. See how that same situation can be framed as a problem or an exercise in cooperation? Also note how a particularly annoying player could make it really bad and make the game seem lovely? Amazing. Hey guess what, codenames is amazing 2v2, for all the really weird hate it gets.
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Oct 2, 2015 11:31
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silvergoose posted:Hey guess what, codenames is amazing 2v2, for all the really weird hate it gets. Had more fun with it 2v2 than 4v4. Might have had a bit to do with the level of the players. And quarterbacking. Some people really weren't playing the game in 3v3. Everyone was engaged in 2v2.
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Oct 2, 2015 12:51
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It's almost as if you have to come up with bizarre contrived arguments to defend the objective flaws of quarterbackable co-op games. Once quarterbacking ceases to be an optimal play it ceases to be quarterbacking, and it's often sub-optimal in Codenames because you can't ever assume the clue giver followed the same line of thinking as any one of their team mates.
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Oct 2, 2015 12:53
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It's a pretty strange definition of quarterbacking that people are managing to apply to codenames
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Oct 2, 2015 13:03
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Mojo Jojo posted:It's a pretty strange definition of quarterbacking that people are managing to apply to codenames I blame Bottom Liner
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Oct 2, 2015 13:05
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Totally wasn't being sarcastic.
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Oct 2, 2015 13:06
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Bottom Liner posted:Totally wasn't being sarcastic. Sarcasm don't come into it mate. You were using a non-analogous and nonsensical example to try to support your earlier claim: Bottom Liner posted:Coop games like Pandemic are based around the team discussing the situation and deciding on how to best handle it. If you play with no table talk or suggestions you'll have a hell of a time winning (other than he vanilla game maybe). New players don't mind help either, since they need suggestions until they grasp the game. We always talk about what needs to be done, but leave it up to the individual player to decide what's best during their turn. Emphasis mine.
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Oct 2, 2015 13:20
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Quarterbacking is maybe not the right word. Let's just say that in many cases, only one person on each team was actually playing. The rest just sat and said "yes".
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Oct 2, 2015 13:42
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Tulpa posted:Unless, I'm missing something, the best time to entomb cards is "every turn unless you have a good reason not to (i.e. an engine)" This is true, but how and what you entomb changes as you play the game more. In a 2-3 player game, you ideally entomb all your starter cards but the table before you entomb anything else. In a 4 player game, you just don't have time. You have to start entombing set cards (entomb the crappy 3-cost ones if you can) or you won't really be able to get a full set put down in time, and you won't be able to take advantage of cards that require set cards in your tomb.
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Oct 2, 2015 14:11
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Mega64 posted:It is. You can even combine the two to play 5-6 like Dominion Base + Intrigue, but I assume that'd be a bad idea just like Dominion. Yeah I enjoyed it as well despite the fact that he beat the hell out of us and then also proceeded to rack up a massive score in Concordia in his first game.
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Oct 2, 2015 14:49
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Bottom Liner posted:So Dominion, Eminent Domain, and...? Those are my top three deck builders, and of the the three VotK is the most accessible. It requires one small purchase to get the full experience, instead of lots of big boxes or an out of print expansion. It's great, and if you're all Dominioned out its probably the best deck builder. Isn't Arctic Scavengers supposed to be pretty good?
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Oct 2, 2015 15:18
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CaptainRightful posted:Isn't Arctic Scavengers supposed to be pretty good? If you're Quinns.
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Oct 2, 2015 15:26
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Lichtenstein posted:If you're Quinns. I really hate it when Quinns is in love with a game. His enthusiasm is so infectious, but he also seems completely blind to glaring errors in those games. Tales of Arabian Nights really needs some better mechanics around its brilliant storybook.
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Oct 2, 2015 15:33
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