Board Game Thread 4e: The Call of Catan

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

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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Malloreon posted:

7 wonders is a bad game. The cool thing is that you can play it with up to 7 players; unfortunately, it's best with 3-4, and is too random at 5+. And if you're going to play with 3-4, there are hundreds of better games.

Uh, what? So I partly agree with the last part but I disagree. It's hardly a bad game, it's actually very good because it's easy to teach, cards are intuitive (arrows point the directions, color coded, etc), scales very well with any number of players and is relatively fast. I don't see how it's more random at 5+, it's virtually the same regardless of number of people due to scaling. Last night we had a group of 6 and the only options we had was 7 Wonders and Eldritch and it was everyone else's first time playing 7 Wonders and they all loved it and wanted to play it again.

However, I do agree that if you have a smaller 3-4 people group, there is a wide variety (dependingly) "better" games to play. Though it still fits a nice niche and it's a staple everyone should have, if only for those 5+ group nights or when you're playing with "casual" people and want to start off with something light-ish.

Xaris fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Dec 15, 2014

# ¿ Dec 15, 2014 00:28

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# ¿ May 4, 2024 14:22

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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Megasabin posted:

Why is Kemet so expensive right now? Is it out of print? It's 55-70 dollars on Amazon.

MM has it for $45. Plus No Sales Tax (which saves about 10% since I live in California). Only 6 copies left in stock though.

http://www.miniaturemarket.com/catalog/product/view/id/34641/s/asmkem01/

Downside is shipping is about $10, but go spend another $55, which is way easier than it sounds. :getin:

I blacked out and somehow ended up getting Kemet, Love Letter, Hanabi, and Temporum in my cart being shipped to my house.

The secret is "Amazon" is actually pretty loving expensive when it's sold out. And I put that in quotes because you'll notice it's actually not sold by Amazon but by third-party "Only 4 left in stock.
Ships from and sold by AreYouGame. Gift-wrap available.". It's rather hidden but that's why when there's a lot of deals, prices tend to suddenly jump and it's not that the deal is dead per se, but rather they ran out of and showing prices from some 3rd party without making it explicit and then there's usually shipping cost.

Though when it's from Amazon directly, they still do include shipping inherently so it's about $5+ than a base price from things like MM/CSI/BGW (but not always).

Xaris fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Dec 16, 2014

# ¿ Dec 16, 2014 23:31

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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cyberia posted:

My wife bought me an original version of Mindtrap from a thrift store from my birthday because I "like boardgames and it had a really cool looking box"

Hey that was a p cool trivia game back in the early 90s and I still own it. I remember playing that with my cousins over Christmas around 95 or something :3:

# ¿ Dec 18, 2014 23:52

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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Gimnbo posted:

If you're talking about Sheriff of Nottingham, it's a bluffing game that manages to still be enjoyable for people who can't bluff. I believe that I've read that people in this thread don't like Matt on SU&SD but I actually do agree with his assessment that the scoring system kind of gets in the way of the main enjoyment of the game, which is being an abusive rear end in a top hat when you're the sheriff. I don't know how I would fix it since you kind of need a scoring system for any of the smuggling to be meaningful.

It plays in about 30-45 minutes. I enjoy it and I hate games like Coup since I suck at bluffing. I don't know how enjoyable it is if you're really trying to win. I feel like the designer had a super great concept and kind of struggled to find a good way to build a game around it.

I don't know know if you're talking about the same scoring problem, but I agree it's not so good. I love the artwork, concept, and almost everything, but hot drat it really needs some work with how things are scored and its kind of a fundamental problem that isn't so easy to fix.

From what I can tell and most people seem to have gleaned from our rounds, the best strategy is to be honest and nearly always say you have 5 and come as drat close as you can to putting in 4/5 of a good. At best the Sheriff will get burned for 10g a pop and at worst you have to stuff another legal good in there so you're out 2 pts at the most. Maybe if you've burned him enough you can try to sneak 5 contraband across though it's usually far safer/better to try to grab those King/Queen bonuses more than getting a few contrabands across. Which makes the game honestly pretty boring as long as everyone is mostly telling the truth with 4-5 of a kind.

I usually dislike house rules, but since it's really such a cool game idea that it's a shame that it will probably wither on my shelf except for the occasional time were we're getting old relatives or new people into the game. So has anyone had any success with some sort of house rule to improve it?

Xaris fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Jan 29, 2015

# ¿ Jan 29, 2015 04:59

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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bobvonunheil posted:

I had a great time with Sheriff of Nottingham generally being a sneaky bastard and offering money to the Sheriff to open my bag, goading him into opening clean bags or outright admitting there was contraband in my bag and that the Sheriff was allowed to have one of the cards if he let me through, and so on.

It really does feel like it needs less of a penalty on the Sheriff for inspecting clean bags though, especially when they get big. In a hypothetical situation where 4 players put out bags of 4 goods, 2 of which are clean and 2 of which contain a single contraband (but are otherwise clean), the Sheriff will lose out on inspecting all bags while even the smuggling players who are caught will come out ahead. I think in that sort of situation the Sheriff should break even or come out ahead, otherwise the main 'game' of negotiating with the sheriff over a bag of unknown (to him) stuff just doesn't happen

My proposed fix: The sheriff can only be penalised for a maximum of 5 coins per player.

Maybe, but I don't think an artificial limit like that is gunna help much, and it would be sort of tacky. I've considered taking a significant % portion of the Legal Goods to make it a bit harder to actually get 4/5 of a kind, there's plenty of cards as it is. I may try that next time. Sadly I think the problem is too deeply rooted to really do much about it

Xaris fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Jan 29, 2015

# ¿ Jan 29, 2015 20:38

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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These Loving Eyes posted:

What is the goonsensus on Abyss? From what I have read, it has been criticized for a lack of real strategic choices on your turn, so that some options are obviously better than others. I am also afraid it will feel too repetitive too quick. On the other hand, our group loves short to medium lenght games that strike the balance between light enough for chit-chatting but not meaningless in terms of player choice (e.g. Libertalia, Condottiere, 7 Wonders or the trick-taking game Wizard). Therefore, it could be engaging enough for our gaming habits.

It's not talked about too much because well, it's a alright game, it's has some very amazing artwork, it's perfectly playable, easy to teach/setup, and lasts about ~40-60 minutes. But it's mechanically not memorable. Had it come out 6 years or more ago it would have been a bit more popular, but as it is it's well, an non-offending nor memorable game.

It does have some mostly minor (although very obvious after you'all get it) balance issues, and really doesn't offer that much choices but there are some still to be made but given it's mostly a light good-looking game, these aren't too much of a problem except once everyone else starts to get the same realizations. I think it's good for a half-dozen sessions or so before it starts to get repetitive, although I wouldn't play more than one round of this a night; however, it wouldn't hurt to have it in your collection if it's on the cheap.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2015 05:17

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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Played some Steam Park since it was on clearance from MM for ~$20. Pretty nice pieces which goes along way (i.e. the Splendor-effect), but its kind of.... just ok. Plays pretty similar to Castles of Burgundy, except with better pieces and a more interesting theme. Rounds are over pretty quick which is nice and it was pretty easy to teach compared to CoB imo. I can't say I'd particularly recommend it unless it's still on sale or if you really really like CoB.

Also finally whipped out Kemet since having it in the box since Christmas. Was pretty cool and whoever recommended printing extra sets of the reference, THANK YOU! That pretty much made it much more bearable. How many game is it going to take before we don't need to refer to this nearly every turn?

# ¿ Feb 9, 2015 11:08

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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ThaShaneTrain posted:

Played some games:

Pandemic: The Cure is the dice equivalent to pandemic. It is less complicated, more random, more action, and faster. No matter what you do a dice game is a dice game so it will always have that threshold of complexity and predictability.

If asked I can break it down more but here's the short summary. 6 areas can get disease, you have actions that let you send cubes back in the bag or capture cubes to find the cure (then you must roll at least 13 with the dice collected). At the end of your turn you roll dice from the bag to infect areas. If too many dice get in an area they outbreak, too many outbreaks or not enough dice in the bag and you lose, find the 4 cures and you win.

There's more to the game than that when you start actually playing it. The characters all have their own dice and special abilities that make them all very different from each other and there are event cards you spend dice to use. The game takes any nervousness that you would have felt in Pandemic when you hope that 1 card doesn't get drawn but it is amped up because the dice could all roll the same and turn a place that was A-OK to a disaster zone. The group all agreed that we'd rather play this over vanilla pandemic now because of it being faster to the core of the game (the parts of Pandemic we like) and each character/team feels very different. There are some clever ideas in the game and as far as dice games go this fills any need I ever had for a co-op.

Thanks, I didnt even know that existed but it sounds good. I like Pandemic but it always feels a bit too predictable and easily deterministically solved. This sounds pretty cool though

That reminds me, is there a site that keeps price history of board games across websites (MM/CSI/BGW)? I.e. like Camelcamelcamel for Amazon or isthereanydeals for Steam games?

# ¿ Apr 6, 2015 20:20

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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Kai Tave posted:

I'm gonna toss out a quick caveat re: Kemet which is a game I really dig. Kemet is a medium-weight game, but it only becomes one once everyone playing it knows, say, what all the power tiles do and such. I don't think I've yet managed to play a game of Kemet that didn't run for 2+ hours, fun though they may have been.

Yeah seriously. Most of our games run at least an hour, but usually 2+ when new people are involved. Even then we don't play it hardly enough so we're always looking at the printed out cheatsheets (and thankgod I took the advice of printing out 5 more) and its pretty slow.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2015 05:35

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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TheCog posted:

Since I trust goons more than I trust the general internet: what's the minimum number of people to play captain sonar and have a good time?

I'm curious too. I have it coming from CSI and I hope it gets here before my New Years Party (supposedly coming 12/31 :ohdear:

)

I also wish I could have got Junk Art in time too, except CSI/MM/et al is Out of Stock, and there's one place that has it but I'm not paying $70 for it

# ¿ Dec 29, 2016 00:43

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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Speaking of organization, are there any good small-ish organizers for games with smaller variety of pieces and/or also cards? Maybe something like 6-8ish spots? I have some Plano boxes for some games that have an insane amount of pieces, but I didn't see any more (obvious) small to modest sized ones, and of course even the smaller cards never fit in them (I've taken an exacto knife to some of my Planos to do so but it's kind of a pain in the rear end).

# ¿ Jan 2, 2017 06:45

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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I ended up playing that for the first time in several years last night and I forgot how meh it is. Not even sure why we still own it, we barely have storage for anything

. Ended up busting out Dominion instead :hellyeah:

At least is an ok introduction that even people who mostly play Monopoly-level games can get into a really basic economic-engine game and it's not entirely mind-numbing even if you're experienced with much better games.

I don't think Tokaido is much good for anything in that respect.

e: basically what silvergoose said

# ¿ Jan 2, 2017 07:21

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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GrandpaPants posted:

Yes.

Speaking of, what is Vlaada working on nowadays?

Making Codenames variants ad nausea for the rest of time since they actually make a lot of money :v:

(Probably actually isn't involved in those and is working on tablet stuff or something else, but it's fun to imagine him chained to a basement by CGE churning them out)

I played the After Dark one, it's kind of fun but it also gets old pretty fast once being drunk and childish loses its appeal since there's only so many ways that sex/drink clues can go on. Base one is still the best.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2017 02:26

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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al-azad posted:

This is me but instead of ruining everyone else's time I'll raid your fridge for beer. The Resistance is stupid.

Resistance is a much better executed Mafia-like game and I wouldn't call it "stupid", but I still don't like those really except very specific mood and occasion. Someone brought out some Werewolf game which was basically a 1 round mafia, that was a really loving terrible game so I just spent the game drinking and laughing manically and being a dick pretending to be the werewolf even as a villager.

I do like Coup/Love Letters tho which are fun little in between games, unfortunately I'm mostly alone there

# ¿ Jan 5, 2017 04:57

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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What are people's thoughts on Inis? My only other similar game is Kemet, which sadly doesn't get quite enough play as I want. Does Inis play well at 2, 3, or 4 people?

# ¿ Jan 11, 2017 21:56

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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What's the chance of Sherlock Holmes getting a reprint and how much does it usually go for when it does? I'm seeing an offering on Craigslist for $50 which doesn't seem unreasonable given it's out of print, but not sure if I should just wait till it does get a reprint at some point?

# ¿ Jan 12, 2017 22:04

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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Papes posted:

Consulting detective? I'm pretty sure there is a reprint right around the corner to go with the expansion.

Yeah that one. Thanks for the heads up, I'll just wait for that then.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2017 22:18

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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angel opportunity posted:

Go look up Rahdo on youtube. His main thing is that he likes two player games he can play with his wife that are not "mean." You can look his "final thoughts" on games that interest you. Almost without fail if he thinks the game is "too mean" he will mention it and say it's not for him.

Yeah Rahdo runs are decent if you understand what he likes. I have some problems with many of his videos but hes one of the better "reviewers" compared to the typical Vassel trash.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2017 22:56

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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CaptainRightful posted:

What kind of games do you like or dislike? CoB is pretty highly regarded by most boardgamers, but when I look over my collection, I never want to play it more than something else.

What kind of point salad-worker-ish placement game would you rather play? Honestly curious what similar games there are that are much better.

I have CoB and my girlfriend really likes it, i'm just sort of yeah it's fun and fine but it just never comes up as something i'm totally engaged in.

We also just got the card version of it and played a few games. Really pretty much drat near identical except a little faster and quicker to setup. I think I prefer the original more just for the feel of more tiles/dice/etc but it's fine too with a little less AP

# ¿ Jan 15, 2017 05:17

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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Has anyone here played the Kraken Expansion for Abyss? My gf and I dusted off Abyss today and played several rounds, prior to that only having played it a bunch a couple years ago and then collected dust since then. After playing a few rounds, we realized why we kind of just stopped playing it since it feels a bit off and wee bit unbalanced and kind of unexciting with just 2P--especially exploration aspect. Does the expansion drastically change much in a 2P experience?

Forgot how pretty the game is though, really nice eye candy.

Xaris fucked around with this message at 09:25 on Jan 15, 2017

# ¿ Jan 15, 2017 09:22

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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Synthbuttrange posted:

http://www.votemonopoly.com/

Have you voted on the new tokens yet?

Is this like some out of touch 60 year old exec over at Parker Bro's idea to get millennials to buy their lovely games as good likes TTR eat their lunch?

# ¿ Jan 16, 2017 08:36

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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angel opportunity posted:

I played Settlers of Catan with my Chinese in-laws who don't speak a word of English. I got Sushi Go to play with them, and Catan is the only game that I have a Chinese edition of. I haven't played Catan in probably 4-5 years, and I never really wanted to play it again.

Playing it again with total non-gamers who are 60+ reminds me that it is a great gateway game, and also that it is not a good game.

Yeah pretty much everyone comes to that conclusion. I think the worst game that finally broke everyone's back on it is someone decided to play the 6-player expansion and we have never ever played it since. That poo poo lasted forever

You can kind of house-rule improve some of it by roll 2 = 12, reroll 7 if its the the persons first three turns (had a game once where the robber came up way too often the first few turns and it was god-awful and probably added 30 minutes onto the game), higher max hand cap penalty, and placement of dice chits after everyone's placed their starting buildings. Last one is kinda iffy if you want to rng out some of the rng of rolling to see who goes first and I wouldn't necessary recommend it but it did make for a hilarious game, but at the very least a 2=12 is fair if the only ore or important option left is like a 2/12, which seems to always happen.

But it's still not good.

FulsomFrank posted:

Its time length is the greatest complaint. For such a so-so game, the fact that it can drag for hours depending negotiations and decision making and rolls of dice is unforgivable. I get a craving for Catan every now and then, just like KFC, and they always end in regret.

Yeah basically this. If it was like a 20 minute game it would be fine.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2017 22:01

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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Krazyface posted:

When we play Sheriff of Nottingham, people in my group will try to bribe the sheriff to get their own bag searched.

How does that even work? Here's 4 coins and you have to open my bag? idgi

al-azad posted:

I have completely fallen through on A Feast for Odin to the point where I'm ready to call it a "bad game." Nothing about it feels competitive unlike, say, Agricola where everything is tightly grouped that taking one action can directly set back another player. Without occupations you

I've got two more plays before I can log it in the 10x10 for 2017. I don't want to see it for a long time.

Would you be interested in selling it after? I really want to get it but every place is out of stock though I might have the same complaints you do but we'll see.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2017 02:55

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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Jabor posted:

The level 1 strat is that your bag is legit, so you pay the sheriff to open your bag (when he otherwise wouldn't) and you get it all back plus more.

The level 2 strat is your bag is full of contraband, but just by offering the bribe in the first place you make your bag seem legit.

I guess if they suspected the first bag to be worth opening then just not take the bribe and open it just in case it wasn't? idk but that's the point I guess because Sheriff is cool mind gently caress game like that. Like going legit 3x in a row so surely the 3rd time has to be bad! Muwahaha no it was actually legit pay up.

We played it hard over the first month after it came out and now mostly getting dusty. I think we just got burned out since it has some problems that can't quite put the finger on and also probably just overplaying it.

# ¿ Jan 17, 2017 04:32

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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So I guess there's a Defense Grid board game in the Kickstarter works. Kinda weird seeing all these Video Game pseudo-cross over stuff recently. Not really sure how I feel, I enjoy TD games on the PC but I just can't see myself having fun with a type of game like this. The nice thing about video game is it eliminates all the tedious setup and such which seems like it'd be a beast on this type of game. Not to mention seems more of a solo game or barely co-op with one person understanding it and everyone else just following orders. Rahdo was generally positive on it though but I have to wonder how "nice" people are when they get prototype copies for review.e

# ¿ Jan 17, 2017 08:31

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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I have Castles of Mad King Ludwig coming in the next few days since I couldn't resist how cheap it was on Amazon and pretty excited, been wanting to get it for awhile now and looks right up my alley.

But I'm currently putting in a CSI order and just need to spend about $15 more for free shipping so is Castles of Mad King Ludwig Secrets expansion any good? I suppose I should really just play the game first to see if I like the base game but I'm pretty sure I will.

I guess the other option is that one of the items in my CSI cart is Tash Kalar and I see there's some expansion decks I could just drop a few in to get it up, but I'm a little more iffy if we'll like Tash Kalar. But if so are those worth getting?

Xaris fucked around with this message at 03:05 on Jan 18, 2017

# ¿ Jan 18, 2017 03:02

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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Lord Hydronium posted:

In the genre of "somewhat orientalist games where you move bunches of tokens around a random grid of cards", what are people's thoughts on Istanbul and Five Tribes? Replay value, player interaction, accessibility, and suitability for two players are a few of the things I'm wondering about.

My girlfriend really likes Five Tribes. I'm ok with it though not as enthusiastic. It's sort of a mancala game w/ point salad. Player action is mostly beating players to other things and thinking about how your moving pawns might set up someone after you for a sweet play so you want to avoid that. It also has bidding to go first which is kinda cool since sometimes you might want to pay 10 coins to go first if the board has some sick setups, but usually I find most people just put down the bare minimum to avoid even paying 1 coin because sometimes it's better to go last. I don't really think it's that great as a 2-p game because you have like double turns and then rebid for turn order so you're usually just swapping around the same places and that's not that exciting but ymmv and it's definitely not bad for 2-player.

But in the end, it's a point salad, there's a ton of different ways to get points that are fairly easy to score up at the end but will take you severals games to be able to pay attention to what other people have scored so far in terms of what things are worth and such. I'd say it's decent replay wise since you randomize the meeple placements and everything can go different, but not sometime I'd want to keep playing over and over.

e: I think if you can buy it fairly cheap used, go for it. I don't know if I'd drop $50 on it new though. There are some expansions which I have not tried that might change the game a bunch too but idk about that.

They have a new game coming out called Yamatai that looks pretty sweet, I've preordered it from CSI so we'll see.

Xaris fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Jan 18, 2017

# ¿ Jan 18, 2017 18:30

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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sector_corrector posted:

This seems like a pretty optimal way to get introduced to the game. It gets rid of the handful of lovely trap cards in the game, gives you the base expansion (which teaches the basic ideas of the game) and then complicates it with the more interactive Intrigue mechanics.

Is there a summary of Dominion 2nd Big Box vs Dominion? Curious what these lovely trap cards are and if there's a way just to upgrade/build an optimal fun box of dominion stuff that I can easily pull out. I have Dominion + Intrigue + Prosperity but I haven't actually played with the last expansion yet, and honestly haven't played Dominion as much as I would like over the years but I'd like to get back into doing so.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2017 21:05

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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Sounds like I could just buy the Dominion -> 2nd ed upgrade pack for $10 and I'd be good to go then? I guess I could also get Intriuge 2nd ed upgrade but doesn't really seem worth it atm.

Side note: Did everyone else get headache inducing smell with all of Donald's games? Dominion, it's expansion, and even Temporum all had this god awful smell to them that gave both my girlfriend and I an awful headache. We had to stick them outside/in another room for several days before it wasn't as bad.

Haven't had a problem with any other game except his.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2017 21:33

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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e: ^That looks good. Now I want a new bookcase :|

The Nastier Nate posted:

Finally fixed up the shelf for my meager collection. I never realized how big the Lords of Waterdeep box that it wouldn't fit on the lower shelves. In due time I'll need to expand to another wall.

One of us... One of us...

That's how I started, now I have one of these (IKEA bookshelf for like $40?) and am going to go to IKEA to get another one soon because I have like 5 games coming (Patchwork, Castles of Mad King, Santorini, Steampunk Rally, Pandemic Iberia) and a couple preordered whenever CSI gets them in stock (Terraforming Mars, Yamatai) and several I'm just waiting to get back in stock (Junk Art, A Feast for Odin, Scythe, Sherlock Holmes, and Targi) which will probably take another few months. I'm kinda unhappy with the organisation but oh well.

Of course many people here have like 10x that amount.

We've sworn that once the 2nd bookcase gets full that we're done... I swear!

Xaris fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Jan 19, 2017

# ¿ Jan 19, 2017 23:15

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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Yeah...... that's probably stupid but I live in a small 1br with my gf and so we don't have much else to put them, I've tried wobbling it and it's pretty stable but it'll probably get knocked over at some point.

Anyways Amazon had a pricing mistake on 10-pack of 20"x30" black foam core boards for $5 which was supposedly going to ship in 1-2 months, but just got here in time for a nice rainy weekend :toot:

I wasn't really happy with using Plano boxes for some of the games, so I'm going to make a bunch of foamcore inserts for some of my games that have garbage inserts and where Planos just don't cut it. Not sure if anyone cares but I'll be documenting dimensions and such if anyone wants to make their own afterwards

# ¿ Jan 19, 2017 23:48

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
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Kruller posted:

Which games are you doing? There are a few I have that don't have Broken Token type inserts available, or are just a mess of poo poo in a box, and I love organizing the insides of boxes almost as much as I love playing the games.

Honestly not sure yet, going to go through each box and see which ones are really bad and need an entirely new ones, or just make some mini-trays, and then just have a fun little arts and craft day this weekend (when it's supposedly going to be pouring rain.)

I'll probably try to model some after Broken Token (from their pictures), they seem like did some cool stuff, but I can't justify spending $30 on cheap balsa-wood box inserts when game themselves are like $30-50.

Chill la Chill posted:

So do any of you guys posting pictures of your game collection condense the games at all or are they all displayed there?

Mine are all just displaced there. I think it would drive me crazy if I was putting games inside other games. Exception I guess would be expansions where I don't mind. I'm going to combine my Dominions into one box but that's one I need to make some stuff for.

I think if I really had to choose between games to keep out or not I would probably just take the underplayed ones and put them in the back of a closet or something instead of combining it. But that's just trading space one place for another.

Xaris fucked around with this message at 00:52 on Jan 20, 2017

# ¿ Jan 20, 2017 00:49

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
Lucky there's a man who positively can do
All the things that make us
Laugh and cry

Bottom Liner posted:

Also, I need a replacement Phoenix for my copy of Kemet, anyone have an email address for the company's customer service. I didn't lose it, my box was just missing the piece and I'm tired of using a DnD mini that sticks out like a sore thumb.

My instruction book lists contact@matagot.com
Give that a shot? I Dunno if theirs customer service exactly but they might be able to help you.

That reminds me, I need to print out a bunch of the colored cheat-sheets for the tiles and laminate them with my work's fancy new laminator :getin:

Was using some garbage black and white copies for everyone else.

E: If anyone wants anything (rules/cheatsheets/whatever) laminated + cut, I'll mail you as much as you want if you just shoot me postage.

Xaris fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Jan 20, 2017

# ¿ Jan 20, 2017 01:07

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
Lucky there's a man who positively can do
All the things that make us
Laugh and cry

God damnit, I was all excited that Castles of Mad King Ludwig got here, and I noticed the plastic wrap around the room cards was slightly tore and the top card had the surface slightly scruffed. Not a big problem, but I looked at the rules and I should have 50 room cards and I have 49. gently caress

At least I got it from Amazon and they have good support so I've already thrown up an exchange and should hopefully get it Sunday with any luck.

It pays to always check your pieces to make sure they match when unboxing--never really had to do it before. I should probably be more diligent about that in the future.

Xaris fucked around with this message at 05:51 on Jan 20, 2017

# ¿ Jan 20, 2017 05:48

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
Lucky there's a man who positively can do
All the things that make us
Laugh and cry

Rutibex posted:

If you have a wood shop why are you making board game inserts out of lovely foam? You should have custom wooden boxes for all your games!

I wish I could totally sperg out and do this. my dream is to get a house with a shed or garage I can just setup to do woodworking. But for now I'm stuck paying $1800 for a small 1br apartment with my gf and dog :sigh:

My dad also owns a giant CNC laser-cutting he bought cheap off that can be used to engrave and cut wood (up to 1/8" thick) and I just pop in a cad or illustrator file and it does its magic. I made a Catan obsessed friend a wooden board that ended up looking like this (but not quite as good cause I painted the titles and the paint job didn't work out as nice).

e: found a WIP of mine before I ruined it, but you can see some uneven burn marks and such but otherwise was fine

Haven't had any inspiration to use it for anything else yet or other games but I'm sure I'll think of something.

If anyone has any ideas for something that would be neat to engrave and cut, let me know. Biggest problem is kinda hard to find good (big sheets) of 1/8" wood and the one I used was a little warped so the engraving was a little uneven but it was more of a spur of the moment idea. I'm down to work with you on creating Illustrator/CAD file for design and stuff if it's a game that would benefit from being wood-ized, but I'm actually terrible drawer so I'd mostly just show you how which line-colors designate different depths or full-cut and stuff.

Xaris fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Jan 20, 2017

# ¿ Jan 20, 2017 20:49

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
Lucky there's a man who positively can do
All the things that make us
Laugh and cry

What are peoples thoughts on the Ta-Seti expansion for Kemet? I love Kemet though I do have a few issues with it. Does it do anything revolutionary or fix anything major, or is it just kind of some some unncessary sort-of-exists thing?

# ¿ Jan 21, 2017 21:38

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
Lucky there's a man who positively can do
All the things that make us
Laugh and cry

Lord Hydronium posted:

I went to my local board game cafe with a friend today and tried a bunch of different games I've been meaning to take a look at: Patchwork, Five Tribes, Hive, Forbidden Desert, and Letters From Whitechapel. Five Tribes and Whitechapel were the biggest hits with the two of us, with the former in particular being incredibly fun and one I need to pick up for myself ASAP. I thought it was a nice mix of short term tactics for the immediate situation on the board and long term strategy for what point sources you want to focus on. And it's pretty remarkable for a game with so many points available and so many ways to get them that it can come down to a relative few points on just a couple of the last turns. Also it's a very aesthetically pleasing game, which shouldn't matter in theory but does actually add to the experience IMO.

If you like Five Tribes, you might also want to keep an eye out for Bruno's latest game, Yamatai with rules on their site and is available for preorder with release semi-soon. It's another gorgeous looking point-salad-y game with many similar FT elements though not sure how it's going to land compared to Five Tribes once newness wears off. I like FT but I think it does have some minor niggling problems, and with 4-people is quite different than 2-player.

But yeah I agree games that aesthetically pleasing just make it go that much better. Like Abyss is sort of just a decent Bruno game that exists, but the artwork really pushes it into the next level. I think I'd have probably gotten rid of it if was much more plain boring euro themed.

Anyways, I have Clank! coming which I've heard little about but just saw a Man vs Meeple on it and now sold with the idea of a deck-building dungeon-treasure push-your-luck looting game. Should be getting it in the next few days so I'm excited.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2017 05:18

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
Lucky there's a man who positively can do
All the things that make us
Laugh and cry

Well the fixed copy of Castles of Mad King Ludwig got here and played 3 rounds with my gf. First round or two we completely missed that the Foyer and stairs count as completing the Corridor Bonus, and I think we hosed up a few other things but realized later. I guess the only leftover question is for the depleted stack bonus at the end, whatever is left on the market at the end doesn't matter as long as there are no more pieces left in the stacks right? Seems the logical thing but just wasn't clarified for sure. Surprisingly simple despite a few weird scoring quirks that are easy to overthink but really are not.

Great game, but we both agreed it felt really short with just 2P and just as it was beginning to be interesting since 22 cards gets used up real quick. I've seen some suggestions somewhere is just use the 3P setup for 2P. Does it actually work better that way?

Looking forward to getting some 4-player games out of this soon.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2017 06:24

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
Lucky there's a man who positively can do
All the things that make us
Laugh and cry

Yeah that's what I figured. The Sleeping Room seemed stupid at first and then was like :aaaaa:

once we got Bonus cards that were specifically for like a room size or depletion at the end.

Probably going to give the 3-player setup a go next time to see if we can get just a little longer game out of it. My castle must growww!

e: I had also talked about making some inserts a few days ago, ended up kind of disastrous since my knife was lovely so it ended up mostly getting ragged torn around the edges. Got a nice metal square and new blades and knife coming so I'll give it another shot this week. Castles of Mad King definitely needs a good insert because gently caress all those plastic bags and Plano won't cut it for sure. Going through a lot of my games, most are actually not bad but planning on doing one for Kemet, Castles, Roll for the Galaxy, Steam Park, and maybe a few others.

Does anyone have any good recommendations for storing multiple Dominion expansions in one box? I'd rather not pay $20-30+ if there's a simple DIY solution.

Xaris fucked around with this message at 07:08 on Jan 23, 2017

# ¿ Jan 23, 2017 06:32

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# ¿ May 4, 2024 14:22

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
Lucky there's a man who positively can do
All the things that make us
Laugh and cry

djfooboo posted:

I am doing what I call a "wall of shame challenge" this year. My goal is to play all the games I bought and left unplayed 3 times before buying any new games (excluding GenCon). Some will be near impossible (ASL), some will be easy (Onirim).

https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/220838/matt-hugheys-wall-o-shame

That's a cool idea. I've been interested in Targi there but haven't heard of like 99% of your list.

We've kinda of done something similar (2player) and been replaying a bunch of games that have sat a bit too unused over the past couple years (not that we've never played them). Its fun to revisit them after long breaks, but I've also still splurged a bit this past week or two since I didn't spend a single dime on games in 2016 so I feel that's ok to keep buying games while still replaying some old ones. gently caress you CSI $100 free shipping :argh:

But doing so has helped us realize we do have a lot of good games, but also a lot of games that are 'good" (CoB, Steam Park, Seasons, Kingdom Builder, Abyss, Temporum, 7W, etc) just not that exciting or have a few flaws that make it more of a special occasion "oh yeah what about that game?" or intro-mechanic games. I don't like the idea of getting rid of games unless we absolutely hate somtehing (haven't so far) but we could probably put them somewhere depe in storage if we need to make prime board game shelf-space.

The only game we've literally never played on our shelf is Netrunner because by the time we try to figure out how to play we're just like uhh lets make dinner. One of these days though :sigh:

# ¿ Jan 23, 2017 08:51

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

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