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Bubble-T posted:1. Unlimited actions and buys is pretty dumb. The cost structure is basically the same as Dominion so I have no idea why they did away with the buy/action limitations. I've played Trains thrice, and Dominion a handful of times over the years, so I'm no expert. I disagree that trash discourages building on the board, since buying buildings also adds one trash and effectively another because during the game, the building is just as useless. I get that you would tend to buy them towards the endgame unlike the rails and stations which you buy along the way, thus causing less bloat in your deck. A big part of the game is dealing with the waste you get, yes, but various cards help with exactly that. My second game included the Freight Train, which lets you remove thrash from your hand for one money-thingie per card, which meant that trash was pretty easily removed, and the third game used the Dump Site (I think) to prevent other cards from generating trash. The feel of those two games were very different, but we all managed to get rid of waste efficiently enough. The board also lets you better control the timing of the game. My two last games ended with me being out of rails, and the other players not having gotten to buying buildings yet. Combined with agressive station building and invading the other players' cities, that gave me a pretty certain victory even though I didn't buy a single building.
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Jun 3, 2014 07:07
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Bubble-T posted:I'll have to give it a go with some of the more powerful waste management cards I guess. Looking through the card list I'm still concerned that there's not enough of them to create interesting board play often enough with a random setup, but maybe it's ok to make sure one of those piles is included every time. The rules explicitly recommend having (one specific) waste-removal card in play for beginners, so it fits the spirit of the rules pretty well. I also like having the board, because as one of my friends noted, Dominion feels too much like it's just a mechanic without an actual game attached. And again, playing aggressively on the board to avoid the other players getting to the skyscrapers before the game ends seemed to be a good tactic.
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Jun 3, 2014 08:01
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For fillers I like to not have to think strategically, so I would recommend something like Geistes Blitz (the german name is better, but needs creepy pronunciation). It's a quick reaction game where a card is flipped over and you grab a wooden figure. The only trouble is that some people seem to be better than others, and experience does help a lot. Otherwise I like Timeline, which really is a history trivia game, but done well and with a short playtime. It tends to get very uncompetitive. It is also great for non-gamers. Finally, if you have 4+ players you might like Tsuro if you can find it cheap. It supports up to 8 players, and has everyone laying down path tiles on the same board, which their pieces must follow. The goal is for your piece to stay on the board while everyone else is off. It's very simple, and with 4+ players it's impossible to do a proper strategy.
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Jun 7, 2014 07:36
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I got into boardgames via Munchkin. I still enjoy Munchkin with the right (roleplaying) group of friends. It is not a good game and I wouldn't recommend it to new players, but it holds some nostalgic value for me. I need a genre recommendation: Outdoor-compatible games! The weather is fine, and my apartment is from a time when windows were not structurally sound, so I want to be outside, but also play boardgames. What are some good wind-resistant games? Preferably some with a decent amount of strategy. The most important thing is no cards to blow away and not too many small fiddly bits to get lost.
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Jun 18, 2014 09:18
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Rutibex posted:Board games are a lot older than movies. Heck they are older then the Roman Empire; if they where going to take off they would have done it by now. This is only true in a certain sense. Chess, chekcers, Catan, Monopoly and a few others are part of our collective cultural history in some way, but new games as such is not a thing in the general public. Board games to most people is a closed set consisting of a few bad to low-average games. What we need is an awareness of the continuing development of games, and criticism of the actual new games instead of the genre as such.
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Jun 20, 2014 12:34
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Rutibex posted:Chess and checkers are babies in the history of board games. This Senet set was found in the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun who reigned over Egypt from 1341 BCE: Senet is cool (maybe, could be a diceroller for all we know) and all, but it's not really part of the western culture like chess is. I didn't include Mahjong either, even though that's old as gently caress too, because few people outside of Asia plays it, which is kind of a shame. The trouble is that unlike movies, there is no demand for new games outside of our nerdcircle. If your friends feel like playing a game, they will gladly whip out Catan or Trivial Pursuit (or similar) or monopoly, all of which have enough replay value to keep regular people going for years and years. Compare this to the replay value of movies: Seeing something three times is way too many repeats, so you need new stuff all the time, which means you need to be told what is good and what isn't, which means there is a market for critics. Unless boardgamers can somehow convincce the world that you need to buy a couple of new games per year, there wont be a real market for critics. I suspect there may be a similar situation regarding poetry and other niche stuff for the same reason. I agree that from a competitive standpoint, chess is your best bet, even though it is not the best game. Basically, it comes down to deciding on a standard and sticking with it if you want a large following. Football is not the most exiting possible sport, but since everyone knows the rules, it's a good choice for tournaments. Same with chess, and one might mention MTG here as well. Fortunately, I play games more to have fun with friends than to win serious competitions. Also, I don't really think that most games have the kind of dynamics that make that many replays at a pro level interesting.
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Jun 20, 2014 16:47
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Mahjong is awesome with friends as well. I picked up a set when I was in China years ago and never played it, but then I learned it last year from the Mahjong Society of Copenhagen (or something like that). I haven't played as much as I would like to, and so far we've been playing without counting scores (ie. any mahjong counts as a win, and wins are good). That makes it really casual I think, but in a good way. The feel of my plastic pieces is also amazing, since they're heavy and solid, which to me beats cards hands down. If you're in a country where the game is played, do yourself a favour and pick up a set. And from experience: Get one where there are Arab numerals in the corner of the pieces, my hounours just have the chinese signs for 1-9, which I and my friends are thus learning through handwritten reference sheets... Do any of you have any good tips for remembering the actual scoring? Besides a huge fuckoff reference sheet that is.
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Jun 21, 2014 08:50
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ETB posted:I just set up the first scenario for Robinson Crusoe to play with my friends. From studying the rules, it really seems like a hybrid Agricola + Pandemic. My body is ready to get battered by this game. Is this an accurate description? Because my girlfriend and me have been loving pandemic for ages, and she's really into Agricola for the whole "building up your little house and farm" thing, but I'm a bit more sceptic because I can't read other players at all. If it plays well with two and has a strong building feeling, I think I might get it...
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Jul 11, 2014 21:12
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Since we're talking about where to buy games, could someone tell me where I should buy my games if I'm from Denmark? I prefer having my rules and other text in English, which sucks because Germany seems cheap as hell for games 
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Jul 27, 2014 11:09
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Trynant posted:a necrophiliac necromancer with irritable-bowel syndrome (that does come into effect during game) create pregnant zombies. Imma just quote this because it's a great example of a sentence no one ever thought they'd hear. Anyway, Trip report! I've been visiting the local boardgame three week pop-up café in Copenhagen a lot lately with the girlfriend. We've really fallen in love with Jaipur, which you all know is great. But we've also really enjoyed Targi, which is a two player game of Tuareg trading thematically. A 5X5 square of cards make up the board, with goods (resource) and "tribe" cards in the middle, which are replaced when taken, fixed action and good cared in the outer level, and "raid" cards in the corners. You take turns placing three targi (workers) each on the outer cards, and then when all 6 are placed, you get those actions/resources plus the cards where your pieces lines of sight cross. the objective is to collect VPs, mostly through getting the tribe cards, which have different suits that you can collect for a bonus or mix up for flexibility, or possibly both halfway. Each round ends with a robber moving around the outer cards, blocking the card he stands at, and forcing players to sacrifice stuff in the corners. I guess it's one of the few good two player worker placement games, with a really intensive and flavourful feel to it. Also, it's really good at representing traditional culture in northern Africa without racism, and also the girls are in veils I think, sp no oversexed stuff either. Also, if you enjoy storytelling and a thin veneer of game, play Once Upon A Time. It's just a deck of fairy tale plot points and a deck of endings, and your turns consists of you telling a story with or without your hand of plot points, working towards your ending. You must keep talking or pass the turn to the next player. Basically, it makes for great stories with lots of sidetracks, character changes and randomness. It sounds like Tales does this, but with way more game for no reason.
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Jul 29, 2014 18:38
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bobvonunheil posted:In Jaipur, you can never, ever exceed the card limit. If you are at the card limit and really want a card, you need to take two cards and replace two cards, with the added restriction that you can't place back any of the stuff that you took (so, you couldn't take a leather and a gold and put back 2 leather). Wait, you can't take gold and leather and replace them with two leathers you already had in your hand?
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Jul 31, 2014 08:26
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EvilChameleon posted:How can you add Percival without Morgana? Then you just have a good guy who knows who Merlin is and you've powered up the good team. Though I guess if your bad guys are winning overwhelmingly that might not be bad. You might want to add Oberon if you keep having trouble with bad guys always winning, though I think you'll figure it out with just assassin/Merlin/Percival/Morgana. I just got Avalon to play with some non-gamer friends (who will like it I'm sure), but I wondered what the best beginner combos are? We will be between 5 and 7 players. Said friends are top-notch backstabbing and rumor-making girls, so if injecting drama into the first round is an option, that would be cool.
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Aug 19, 2014 17:16
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As others have touched upon, randomness goes a long way towards eliminating solvability in games. Basically, if you don't know in advance what all the consequences are, you can't plan for them. In a game like chess, where there is zero randomness, the guy who can think the farthest ahead wins. This of course includes knowing what moves the opponent will take, which requires insight, but can again be reduced to calculating the right moves for the other player. Obviously, the actual calculations are way too big for brains to handle, so it gets to be "whoever does most and best calculating wins". And then there's the metalevel where you play slightly suboptimally to confuse the opponent, which again the opponent can predict and correct for. But all in all, it's predictable and deterministic. Randomness offsets that by throwing a variably-sized wrench into the machinery, which means calculations will be less accurate or even useless. The size of the wrench is a matter of taste really, King of Tokyo an Agricola are both great, but with wildly different levels of randomness. The Vlaada thing is cool because he's saying "you don't want random difficulty levels, you want random challenges." So instead of having easy plays and hard plays, you get balanced plays with different parameters. Like in his version, you have "go all out on building stuff" vs "do a bit of looting and some breeding" depending on cards instead of "you need all the combat and also all of the breeding, and some looting too" vs "I guess do some looting maybe, no stress".
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Aug 27, 2014 21:50
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The Amazeing Labyrinth is awesome  . I've played it lots with a couple of friends, and it's really a good light/casual game until you get to the endgame, where it devolves into "prevent everyone else from winning", which means that it drags out without change towards the end. But other than that, it's cool.
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Aug 29, 2014 13:12
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StashAugustine posted:If you can't enjoy Diplomacy you're a broken person FTFY Also, actual content: Why doesn't every game have awesome start player rules? Power Grid just does "random player", whereas Tzolk'in has "whoever last sacrificed something" (cool but impractical), Targi has "whoever last ate dates", Love Letter has "whoever was on a date last" and pandemic has "whoever was sick last", all of which randomizes the start player a bit. Unless you play a lot of games in one sitting. Or one guy is sick or date-crazed all the time. And then there's "youngest player begins". I hate that. Some with Myrmes and "lowest player" BonHair fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Aug 30, 2014 |
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Aug 30, 2014 18:00
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What's the best (euroish preferably) game with an old norse theme? Yggdrasil was just mentioned, and I've seen Völuspá around. Are any of these or another worth getting, and does the theme shine through?
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Sep 7, 2014 17:35
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Mage Knight does technically have 2 random selections of 3 cards each. It's marginal, but it fits
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Sep 28, 2014 08:37
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EvilChameleon posted:So I played Mahjong for the first time tonight at board games night. I found it fun, even if every single rule seems completely arbitrary (I'm sure it made sense if you were a Chinese person 4000 years ago or whenever they came up with it). Would you folks consider it to be a strategy game or is it mostly just luck? (Also if this game is too traditional for this thread, you can ignore this post!) We have discussed Mahjong in the thread before, so it's fair game. I also really enjoy the game as a light game, and I think it does have some depth too. And I haven't felt the need to even add the actual scoring bit, we just play to see who says "mahjong" first. You have to figure out what the other guys are collecting and collect something else, and obviously bluff to prevent other people from doing the same. It is pretty luck based though. The basic rules (draw one then put one back, four sets and a pair to win and the various ways of taking discards) seem pretty solid to me, but there are some sillyness, such as the flowers which I strongly suspect are feng-shui related (The walls are 18 pieces long, 18=9*2, 9 is awesome energy), and the whole wall breaking dice randomness which essentially does nothing but looks cool. Edit: I keep forgetting about the mahjong dialects, but I believe I am playing Chinese standard. BonHair fucked around with this message at 09:09 on Sep 29, 2014 |
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Sep 29, 2014 09:05
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And, you know, coops and traitor games. And Dixit probably too. But the real issue is whether there are adequate incentives to not kingmake, or, in a less wankery wording, whether you can meaningfully do something for yourself instead of just picking someone else to win.
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Oct 17, 2014 11:41
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Yeah, butthurt people suck. But the more the game punishes you for being a vengeful jerk, the more stupid the jerks will have to be to not do something that actually lets them win. Of course, if I for some reason I have the choice of attacking one of two people, and one guy just won the last game, yeah, I'm going for him if the gain is roughly the same.
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Oct 17, 2014 12:03
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Galaxy Trucker is a really bad example there, because the "everyone wins" rule is clearly not meant seriously. you absolutely win by having the most points, and anyone not realizing that is playing it wrong. I mean, you could play it as a coop, but where would the fun be in that? The key difference is whether you are trying to make someone else lose or you are trying to get ahead yourself. So going all in on being third is fine, but knocking down the guy in second place so that the guy was third might get second is not. Obviously there are grey areas, such as your chance to win depends on knocking down everyone in order or a million to one chance of something happening or whatever. The point is that it's bad game design when you have no other options than a) dicking around meaninglessly until you lose, b) being a dick to one or more persons for no reason* until you lose or c) helping out one or more other players for no reason* until you lose. *no reason is subject to interpretation. In political games, I guess "I promised" would be a reason.
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Oct 17, 2014 22:06
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So, I may be teaching Mage knight to 3 friends tomorrow, but so far I have only played it solo. How long time should I expect the intro to take? And should I take out all the expansion stuff that I put in to make it simpler or is it the same amount of complexity for new players?
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Oct 18, 2014 08:25
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HOOLY BOOLY posted:Not to long since the intro scenario is over whenever somebody discovers the first city, which with 4 players running around won't take that long assuming they understand that they should be exploring a lot. So an hour or two?
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Oct 18, 2014 11:51
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Broken Loose posted:Well?! Spill the beans!! Specifically, when is the new edition out so I can get it?
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Oct 19, 2014 09:00
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Shiteating game - Pirmordial Soup It's accurate though, the game is mostly about eating poo poo
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Oct 21, 2014 20:53
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Oftentimes such games will have numbered cards, so if it's rainy tomorrow you could sort them all again. Still sucks though.
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Oct 25, 2014 14:42
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I didn't get on of the Tovak level tokens either, but I'm a huge nerd and checked through all the components before playing, so I noticed right away. I went and registered at http://wizkidsreplacementsystem.com/ and did the things, but nothing happened for a week, and it just said "pending" or something. I sent them an email, which they didn't respond to. And the one day after a couple of weeks I got a little bubblewrap envelope containing exactly one level token as specified, nothing else, not even a note. But I got my token! i did send them proof of purchase, from a Danish webstore with Danish reciepts too, so I guess they're actually somewhat chill about that. Basically, try that and be patient. As a side note, I was really disappointed in the way the components, mostly the tokens, were basically just thrown into the tray. It felt cheap and unprofessional.
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Oct 28, 2014 17:51
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It's a decent gateway game in my experience though. The core rules aren't that complicated, and everything can be explained sort of quickly, so it doesn't feel too rules-heavy on the new guys. But yeah, the downtime is way too high for not too many actually interesting decisions. Get it if you need your friends to move on from Risk and use it to get them into the actual good games. Also, the price really fluctuates, at least in Denmark, I have seen it for like 200 moonmonies and up to almost 500 moonmonies.
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Nov 3, 2014 09:33
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Sgt. Anime Pederast posted:What's the trick to the resolution phase in space alert because its long and super boring. Empathy basically. You have to feel the excitement of seeing whether you get blown to bits or you manage to kill dat space octopus, and you have to laugh at the situation when people go to check the window instead of shooting the guns. I guess if you really don't enjoy that bit, don't play the game.
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Nov 4, 2014 10:28
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Basically, you need to know the following: Movement cards are colour-coded. Use that. A button is shoot (or A for "attack") B button is either power or shields (or B for "be a wuss") C button and robot button are both "have a wank" or in other words useless Anything else should really be left to later runs. It's really rather simple in theory. Of course you need to explain the various guns and power systems, but really, if you get something wrong in the first few games, it's just part of the learning. What you will get wrong is two people shooting the same gun, shooting a gun with no power and doing stupid poo poo with your energy reserves. Also you will wank by mistake.
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Nov 4, 2014 11:03
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Zipkocks for cards and cardboard alike i say.
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Nov 8, 2014 11:50
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Bells and stuff are the worst. This is a fairly popular "multi-modal quiz game" in Denmark: See the little xylophone? The game has you find the missing note in a song that you have to play on that thing, or even trying to play tunes from memory and all of your no musical ability. I guess people have fun playing it, but anyone in the room will hate you. And it's popular in my university coffee shop. It sucks.
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Nov 13, 2014 22:31
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It's not really a kid version, it just has questions that aren't as based on answering random trivia. It still has you knowing your Michael Jackson, except now you have to play it instead of knowing the title. I guess it's for people who don't like and/or lose in straight quiz games, but would like the genre if it didn't have all those drat questions and their friends who like quiz games any old way. It's in theory a good take on the quiz genre I think, just please use a digital piano (left hand part please) on your ipad or something instead of the xylophone.
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Nov 13, 2014 22:52
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disperse posted:So, I ended up buying Sushi Go! for my 7-year-old and played several games with him and my 6-year-old nephew, my dad joined in for a couple games as well. I played it between games of Tash-Kalar saturday, and it works very well as a light filler. The key is to have one guy speed things up by shouting "hai!" the moment the last guy has chosen a card, preferably as a race with anyone who has chopsticks. It gets even more fast paced for no reason at all, which is awesome. We tried to carry over the speed to Tash-Kalar, but it sort of died out quickly... Also, what is Shogi and will I like it? I trust you guys way more than wikipedia on this.
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Nov 17, 2014 18:26
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sonatinas posted:I am ready for Dixit Horror. This unironically. Actually, just do Dixit in lots of out-of-its-comfort-zone versions, possibly also with well-known art. Oh, I also played Mage knight sunday with three newbies. It went well-ish, except I had no time to plan my own turns between answering questions. I had totally underestimated/gotten used to the huge amount of fiddly bits, and it kind of overwhelms new players a lot. They enjoyed it though, and for some strange reason, they neither questioned nor forgot "fire block against ice attack", which was a drat miracle after spending ages explaining swiftness.
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Nov 17, 2014 19:59
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Worker placement doesn't work (as far as I know) without being able to block the other guys, and that gets both political and stuff really fast. But yeah, Agricola family mode and Caylus probably work fine if that is indirect enough. Tzolk'in is great, but it might turn off your group because of the huge amount of options for what your workers can do. Also, Targi is great for two player worker placement, but the blocking aspect is really prominent. It doesn't get political per se though, so...
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Nov 18, 2014 17:48
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Seven Wonders has been a hit with pro-gaming parents in my circles, and Timeline is a big hit with almost everyone, while being short and portable too. Hanabi is a sure thing too.
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Nov 18, 2014 19:54
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Lottery of Babylon posted:What's your's guy's favorite expansion My wallets after selling. What's y'alls go-to lunchbreak game? My lunchcrew is slowly getting back to me, except for the guy who had all the games. Less than 30 minutes and portable is what I'm looking for
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Nov 23, 2014 10:48
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Oh yeah, I forgot that we have Hanabi and Love Letter and Timeline already. Hanabi is great, but it's right at the time limit and sometimes goes over, which is not good.
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Nov 23, 2014 10:53
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Istvun posted:I'll... I'll get to play Mage Knight sometime! I know I will! Just play it solo forever.
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Dec 12, 2014 17:33
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