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Pimpmust posted:(Star Wars: Twilight Struggle would have been amazing) The alien races in Star Wars don't seem to be very autonomous outside of the Republic/Empire, I don't think Twilight Struggle would work. Star Trek themed on the other hand....
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Nov 12, 2015 17:56
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Rutibex posted:The alien races in Star Wars don't seem to be very autonomous outside of the Republic/Empire, I don't think Twilight Struggle would work. Star Trek themed on the other hand....
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Nov 12, 2015 18:00
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Pimpmust posted:(Star Wars: Twilight Struggle would have been amazing) FFG already rethemed a cold war game with the Star Wars license. A game that does a good job of emulating a tense time where the sides are trying to further their interests while avoiding nuclear armageddon doesn't really map well to an active rebellion where one side is willing to destroy a planet as a show of power. Rutibex posted:The alien races in Star Wars don't seem to be very autonomous outside of the Republic/Empire, I don't think Twilight Struggle would work. Star Trek themed on the other hand.... Twilight Struggle is a different game from Twilight Imperium. Poopy Palpy fucked around with this message at 18:06 on Nov 12, 2015 |
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Nov 12, 2015 18:03
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Poopy Palpy posted:Twilight Struggle is a different game from Twilight Imperium. 
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Nov 12, 2015 18:09
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Poopy Palpy posted:FFG already rethemed a cold war game with the Star Wars license. A game that does a good job of emulating a tense time where the sides are trying to further their interests while avoiding nuclear armageddon doesn't really map well to an active rebellion where one side is willing to destroy a planet as a show of power. I think when people say "Star Wars Twilight Struggle" they mean "Star Wars card-driven wargame with an emphasis on politics over smashing ships together"
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Nov 12, 2015 18:32
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Rutibex posted:The alien races in Star Wars don't seem to be very autonomous outside of the Republic/Empire, I don't think Twilight Struggle would work. Star Trek themed on the other hand.... Yeah, I remember how the Hutts and the Trade Federation were basically an arm of the Empire. Twilight Emperium in Star Wars could work, you just need the Chiss, the Hutts, the Sith (either the race or the bad guys, or both) and so on to get fleshed out a little. Of course, with the complete dismissal of the EU, and the desire to make money, this will likely not happen. But there are plenty of factions and races that could work in a Twilight Emperium style game. This post brought to you by sperg.
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Nov 12, 2015 18:36
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BonHair posted:Yeah, I remember how the Hutts and the Trade Federation were basically an arm of the Empire. Twilight Emperium in Star Wars could work, you just need the Chiss, the Hutts, the Sith (either the race or the bad guys, or both) and so on to get fleshed out a little. Of course, with the complete dismissal of the EU, and the desire to make money, this will likely not happen. But there are plenty of factions and races that could work in a Twilight Emperium style game. The Hutts are a gang not an imperial power. That's like saying bikers are going to fight the US military
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Nov 12, 2015 18:54
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Rutibex posted:The Hutts are a gang not an imperial power. That's like saying bikers are going to fight the US military Just disregard the Empire/Republic then, everyone else are roughly at the same power level. It could even have interesting individual goals. Also bikers fighting the military was pretty much a right wing talking point a few months ago.
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Nov 12, 2015 19:12
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Played the first month of Pandemic Legacy with some friends who had no idea what it was. The legacy mechanic adds a level of tension and focus to everyone at the table that I've never seen from them in other games. Great stuff.
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Nov 12, 2015 19:22
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Fat Samurai posted:But yeah, SU&SD are specialists in finding the good parts of a game and enjoying it a lot. They are so goddamn adorable that it's difficult not to get excited, too. Oh yeah, I'm definitely aware of the SU&SD ability to love mediocre games and make them sound amazing. That's why I brought it here for the reality check. Seems it's still a bit too early to say, but I will stay cautiously enthused.
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Nov 12, 2015 19:40
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SUSD's ability to really critique less accessible games (i.e. ones that require a few plays to click) has really declined, now that they're publishing content every week. You can see from their recommendations now versus early on - they're all about social games and short games. Heavy games tend to get short shrift.
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Nov 12, 2015 21:38
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On the other hand, the really early reviews had their own kind of biased bullshit. A combination of "we're fairly new to this boardgaming thing, everything seems so fresh and clever" and "this is the stuff that really got us into boardgaming, it must be great". In the past, I'd say their mistake was putting the newcomer's perspective (whom the early susd was heavily targeting) above the actual critique, but that kind of mellowed out along with them getting generally more settled into boardgame world, so now I consider this aspect to be only somewhat exaggerating their own dumb newbie biases. Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Nov 12, 2015 |
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Nov 12, 2015 22:03
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Lichtenstein posted:In the past, I'd say their mistake was putting the newcomer's perspective (whom the early susd was heavily targeting), but that kind of mellowed out along with them getting generally more settled into boardgame world, so now I consider this aspect to be only somewhat exaggerating their own dumb newbie biases. ...if SU&SD lasts another few years, long enough for them to have that realization, it's gonna turn into something great. Edit Poison Mushroom posted:I still enjoy SU&SD, but definitely through the lens of "this is how a new/inexperienced board gamer would feel about this game after one play", which can be a dangerous loving route to take. (See: My dust-gathering copy of Tales of the Arabian Nights.) girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Nov 12, 2015 |
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Nov 12, 2015 22:09
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If the people watching SUSD are mostly the types to constantly buy new games and play them once or twice then there's no problem.
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Nov 12, 2015 22:53
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PerniciousKnid posted:If the people watching SUSD are mostly the types to constantly buy new games and play them once or twice then there's no problem. That's not far from being spot on really. If you only ever dip your toe into most games, your experience will generally match theirs.
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Nov 12, 2015 23:02
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The End posted:That's not far from being spot on really. Thanks, I guess! Edit: vvv 
PerniciousKnid fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Nov 12, 2015 |
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Nov 12, 2015 23:22
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PerniciousKnid posted:Thanks, I guess! Sorry, wasn't trying to make it sound backhanded. Read it more like 'Yeah, pretty much this!'
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Nov 12, 2015 23:25
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Czech Games just released the 'How to Play' book for Through the Ages - 4th edition, including a handy 'what's changed' summary at the back. http://czechgames.com/files/rules/through-the-ages-new-story-handbook-en.pdf
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Nov 12, 2015 23:49
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BonHair posted:Yeah, that's being a dick, unless everyone is waiting for the game to end. But you shouldn't even have begun playing Munchkin then. Spartacus actually, and unfortunately I have one of those frustrating groups that always wants to accommodate everyone even when that results in 45 minutes of sitting around discussing what to play next. Slowly drilling in the message that it's ok to split up though, which is nice. Ralp posted:About 5 years ago I made a deliberately unfavorable trade in Catan just to try to end the game sooner, and I unironically still feel a little bad about it. Thing is Spartacus encourages this kind of dodgy dealing by basically saying "make any deals you want whenever you want, but remember they are not binding" so it wasn't even like the person was deliberately gimping themselves. It just happened to push one of the two people jostling for the lead into what turned out to be an unassailable position. On a separate occasion I ended our last game before that with a huge wet fart because nobody in the game saw Solonius' (I think?) house rule which is sell one each of Guard, Gladiator and Slave for 1 VP, and I was sitting at 9 VP with 3 of each. I basically just said "ok, for my turn I do this three times and win the game, sorry". I'm convinced the game is just flaky, between that sort of stuff and the arena.
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Nov 13, 2015 00:14
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Win. If you cannot win, kingmake. If you cannot kingmake, spoil. These are the three ways of gaming 
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Nov 13, 2015 00:23
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I once broke one guy's longest road with a settlement smack in the middle of it to give another player an immediate win. On purpose, because the game was past the 2 hour mark. The affected player was mega pissed, but everyone else thanked me. That was the last time we ever played Catan, so mission accomplished 
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Nov 13, 2015 00:36
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The End posted:Czech Games just released the 'How to Play' book for Through the Ages - 4th edition, including a handy 'what's changed' summary at the back. THANKS! Wonder if playing partner will go for Through the Ages + Signorie + The Gallerist tomorrow. Probably not 
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Nov 13, 2015 00:54
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Lorini posted:THANKS! Wonder if playing partner will go for Through the Ages + Signorie + The Gallerist tomorrow. Probably not That's about eight hours of gaming, and The Gallerist is very crunchy. I wouldn't want to play it at the end of a long session.
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Nov 13, 2015 01:37
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Electric Hobo posted:Everyone with a screwed up copy of Tash-Kalar Nethervoid or Galaxy Trucker Missions should go here https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1uZ1yHF1CaQxBjnsX7yTkjKwUfyUUKBmwm0ujJiIKE9E/viewform?c=0&w=1 to get replacement parts. Thanks for this, I had no idea they were even doing that (although CGE have always been hella cool by me, so I'm not super surprised) Can't seem to find what was wrong with GT though, and haven't picked it up. What was the deal with that, if you know?
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Nov 13, 2015 01:41
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Single Tight Female posted:Thanks for this, I had no idea they were even doing that (although CGE have always been hella cool by me, so I'm not super surprised) There was a printing error on the cards, also affected TK. It was only a small lot that was affected though, they said none of the ones going to the US will have that problem.
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Nov 13, 2015 02:13
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So what's this mean for Nethervoid? Should I wait?
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Nov 13, 2015 02:14
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PerniciousKnid posted:If the people watching SUSD are mostly the types to constantly buy new games and play them once or twice then there's no problem. It's me. I'm the one who does this.
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Nov 13, 2015 02:28
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Kai Tave posted:So what's this mean for Nethervoid? Should I wait? I think CGE said that they plan to have this fixed for the US release.
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Nov 13, 2015 02:30
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taser rates posted:There was a printing error on the cards, also affected TK. It was only a small lot that was affected though, they said none of the ones going to the US will have that problem. Ok well I'm UK which is how I ended up with the naff Nethervoid set and could still end up with the old GT set, so good to know what I'm looking out for. Cheers!
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Nov 13, 2015 03:19
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Jedit posted:That's about eight hours of gaming, and The Gallerist is very crunchy. I wouldn't want to play it at the end of a long session. We'll start with it for sure, then take a break and then try Signornie. I also got Air Alliances, Tides of Time, Stockpile and the new Power Grid expansion, but I know those will have to wait for other days.
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Nov 13, 2015 03:23
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So Lorini (and anyone else who picked it up), now that you've had Food Chain Magnate for a little bit, how strongly do you recommend it? Like, I get that it's a good game, but is it "$105 after shipping" good? It's going to be competing with Dungeon Lords/Petz, Argent, and Dominant Species for table time. (And about 40 other games, but let's just focus on the long-form diceless euro category.)
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Nov 13, 2015 04:43
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Gutter Owl posted:So Lorini (and anyone else who picked it up), now that you've had Food Chain Magnate for a little bit, how strongly do you recommend it? It's as good as Dominant Species. Mechanically I'd say it's better than Dungeon Lords/Petz. it's very different from Argent. Food Chain Magnate may be the best game in its class because of the way that you can both create your engine and still interfere with what others are doing, both tactically and strategically. It's a little challenging for me because I'm not that spatial, and you really need to understand the map in order to find and exploit advantages. I'd say it's certainly worth $105 as long as you think you can get it to the table. Note that with 5 players it probably will take 4 fours.
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Nov 13, 2015 04:48
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The End posted:Czech Games just released the 'How to Play' book for Through the Ages - 4th edition, including a handy 'what's changed' summary at the back. Man, they sure do love their triple-column format with tiny text.
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Nov 13, 2015 06:13
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It's a computer screen, you can zoom in instead of having to squint.
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Nov 13, 2015 06:58
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While I'm telling people what to download, go grab Brass Mobile. It's a good port.
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Nov 13, 2015 08:04
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Jabor posted:It's a computer screen, you can zoom in instead of having to squint. MY GOD, I NEVER KNEW.
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Nov 13, 2015 08:34
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So hey, since I'm picking up Mysterium and Pandemic: Legacy soon, I've been thinking about grabbing Carcassonne as well. My usual group has BB4, but I could use a copy of my own for playing with other people and all I have is Hills & Sheep from last year's Secret Santa. If I look at getting expansions too, which ones should I be looking at? Is BB5 worth it if I have Hills & Sheep? Should I just try and hunt down another copy of BB4 for my own use? 
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Nov 13, 2015 09:07
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Trip report of A Study in Emerald: I can't believe this is a simplified version of the first edition one. It took longer to explain the different actions than actually playing the game. Slightly longer stuff: it's a majority game complicated with loads of extraneous stuff. At the most basic, you gain VPs in one of three ways: By purchasing cards, by killing other players' agents and by killing Big Bad creatures. Each of the city locations (9 in total) has 1 city card, worth a lot of points, 1 Big bad and 3 normal cards, which can give special actions, VPs, etc... There are two types of resources (Influence and Agents), both of them counting towards the majority you need in one location in order to purchase or kill, with the Agents helping you to kill and the Influence being a requisite in order to buy. The fun part is that there are three kind of VP, neutral, Reformationist and Loyalist, and each player, being either a Loyalist or Reformationist, can only use neutral or their own kind of VPs. There is a bluffing component in getting the other kind of VP to hide your role, because otherwise they are useless for you. Killing other players' agents gives Loyalists points (as long as the killee was a Restorationist ), and Killing Big Bads grants Restorationist points. There are also Restorationist and Loyalist VP tracks, which a player can increase to grant VPs to their team, and trigger the end game if they rise high enough. There are incentives for having your team perform well, because the player who gets less VPs penalizes their entire team, but in the end only one player can win. The deckbuilding part feels tacked on. Each card is used as a "price" for taking actions. You need to discard a card with a given symbol to buy a card, discard a card with a different symbol to move an agent, to raise a VP track, to kill something... but in general they don't give you more options. With any given card having up to 5 different symbols, it's basically impossible to build an engine or focus on something. For Example: You can Discard Sherlock Holmes to move an agent, place an Influence cube, gain an Influence cube or buy a card. You can Discard Mina Harper to place 2 Influence cubes, regain 1 Influence cube or pay for an assassination. Exciting differences that I'm sure make every decision an interesting one. In general the cities give you more points but less options, so there is some kind of "greening" going on, but not enough to really differentiate the cards. There is also a second reserve for influence cubes, sanity discs, actions that can only happen first in the turn, and some other minor stuff. A few things I liked/disliked: - There's still way too much stuff going on. Purchasing a card involves 1) Placing at least one influence on a city 2) Buy the card 3) Using another action to get your cube back into the reserve. Three actions means 1,5 turns, and we got around 20ish turns each. - This, and the way the cards work, means that deckbuilding is unimportant. I won mainly by purchasing 6 City Cards, which go into your deck and still give you some options. I feel that more radical "greening" and bigger differences between cards would improve this part. - You get VPs for everything, no matter the side, and that can trigger the end game if you need to. At the end of the game, you deduct the VPs that go against your role, but it gives you options. This is a good choice, even if it complicates the final counting and require a lot of fiddling each turn. I had to recount a couple of times to make sure I was where I should be in the VP track. - The theme is pasted on: The cards have pretty pictures and famous Victorian names, I guess. - It's quick, which lets me forgive a lot. 1 hour for a 3 people game, all of them new players, is pretty good in my group. - The two factions mechanic is okay-ish. There are ways of fishing out what roles other people have. I won by goading my fellow Restorationist into raising the Restorationist VP track enough that I could end the game that way. I was in a pretty poor situation with absolutely no piece of mine in the table, but had a VP advantage, so without that I would have been pretty much stuck. tl;dr, It's not a great game but it didn't overstay it's welcome. I dread playing it 5 players, though, because I feel that the game isn't interesting or controllable enough to keep me engaged during other people's turns.
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Nov 13, 2015 09:18
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I think the balancing changes for the new TTA cards are pretty good. There aren't instant picks you have to have anymore (fex napoleon if you are doing a military strategy) and most of the under-used leaders and wonders are gonna see more use. Hammurabi and pyramids is gonna be pretty strong now without crippling your ability to defend yourself.
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Nov 13, 2015 09:21
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Ettin posted:So hey, since I'm picking up Mysterium and Pandemic: Legacy soon, I've been thinking about grabbing Carcassonne as well. My usual group has BB4, but I could use a copy of my own for playing with other people and all I have is Hills & Sheep from last year's Secret Santa. If I look at getting expansions too, which ones should I be looking at? Is BB5 worth it if I have Hills & Sheep? Should I just try and hunt down another copy of BB4 for my own use? BB5 has Inns and Cathedrals, Traders and Builders and The River which are the only expansions you need really.
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Nov 13, 2015 10:24
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