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What's Tiny Epic Defenders like? The rating on BGG is 6.64, not very high, but I'm wondering what you guys think of it. I know Tiny Epic Galaxies wasn't very well received here, but Tiny Epic Kingdoms got at least some praise. I'm asking because my collection is missing one of those short games that you can play on a very small table (like love letter or coup). Seems like Tiny Epic Defenders fits that bill, sort of.
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Nov 4, 2015 14:12
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Because I'm bored of Coup and I don't think Love Letter is a very good game. Haven't played it yet but from what I saw on TableTop it looked like something that would get boring fast. You're right about TEG vs TEK though, I had them mixed up.
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Nov 4, 2015 16:10
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Hmm, some of you mentioned the evolving meta, I hadn't considered that. It's a thing that happens with Coup as well, except that it gets pushed into a certain corner (everyone bluffing Duke at the start, always bluffing Captain when you get Captained, etc) which is very hard to get out of. I got bored with it because we've been stuck in the same meta for a while now. Replacing Ambassador with Inquisitor helped a little but not for very long. The point is, if the meta in LL keeps moving naturally, that's a plus. And the game being 'unsolvable' works a long way towards fast play and replay value. Which is important for a game that fits into this niche. Anyway, lots of mixed signals ITT, which is a good thing of course. If I see LL in a trade list on BGG I wont hesitate. Also added to the shortlist: Bohnanza (played ages ago, liked it), Skull, Sushi Go, Biblios. Thanks for the tips y'all! homullus posted:"From what I saw on Tabletop" is about as much research as "from what I saw on Fox News." Fox News does indeed report news, and Tabletop plays games. You can learn things from them. You are totally taking crazy pills if you think either of those counts for forming a semi-educated opinion on something. Don't worry, that's why I'm here asking for opinions, right?
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Nov 4, 2015 22:01
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Fat Samurai posted:Pity the only strategy is "walk the least amount of spaces possible each turn". Does the expansion fix it? I thought it was "walk the least amount of spaces possible each turn while also trying to keep your opponents from taking the spots that will help them the most, taking into account that they are doing the same". This creates a sort of next-level thinking feedback loop. Mind you I could be way off here as I haven't played the game, I gathered this from watching TableTop *cue people raging about using TT as a source of information on boardgames*
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Nov 6, 2015 14:43
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CaptainRightful posted:I Hate Zombies is a fast-playing party game where zombies fight humans via rock-paper-scissors. The humans have modifiers (some of which seem really broken), but that's the whole game. If you get turned into a zombie halfway through the game, then the zombies win, do you consider that a win or a loss for yourself? Who cares! The party micro-game field is getting crowded, so I can't imagine ever wanting to play this one again either. I brought this to a party and it absolutely bombed. Complaints were as follows: - rock-paper-scissors is lame - humans not being able to attack zombies is lame - humans can't win - You stole 5 minutes of my life and I want them back! Part of that is my fault for putting this on the table while everyone was still fairly sober. I think we would have needed about 4 more beers each for this game to work. I tried for a second round later on but people were soured on it.
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Nov 8, 2015 11:17
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Had a weird experience today. We were playing a 6p game of History of the World. End game (last round), me and another player were trailing behind, and a third player (X) was halfway between us and the three leaders. I drew a bad nation (Holland) and opted to hand it to X. As soon as X revealed his nation, everyone started to accuse me of kingmaking the current leader. I could understand that the guys in second and third place would react this way, but even the player behind me was miffed, to put it lightly. I don't understand their response. For me, the relevant play was to try and catch up to X, so that's why I gave him a bad nation. The other players vehemently disagreed. I tried to explain it to them in the following way: imagine you're playing 3p Carcassonne and you're third in points, with little hope of catching up to the leader but some hope of becoming second. There are about two or three tiles per player left in the stack. You draw a tile that can screw up someones large city. Both opponents have such a city. Do you mess up the middle guys plans? Or the leader? I chose to screw the middle guy as that gives me the best chance at second rank. To me, that is the opposite of kingmaking. They didn't agree. Am I way off base here? Sanity check my reasoning please.
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Nov 11, 2015 22:55
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Selecta84 posted:I'm missing a hidden movement (looking at Specter Ops or new Fury of Dracula) and a traitor (can't stand BSG anymore) game from the top of my head... Dark Moon might be a good BSG replacement for you. It's basically the same game but condensed to the minimum, so it hits most of the same notes but is much quicker paced. Lacks a bit of theme in comparison though, and if you hate dice or they hate you, stick to BSG. You didn't mention the reason why you can't stand BSG anymore, but if it's game duration, definitely look at DM.
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Nov 17, 2015 14:40
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Impermanent posted:What are the best, simpler ameritrash games? From 2015: Mysterium, Blood Rage, Dark Moon (only if you don't have BSG and are ok with traitor games) Older: Eclipse, Space Alert (not really ameritrash but it's not a euro either and man is it thematic!), Chaos in the Old World
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Dec 10, 2015 19:46
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LCG's are like M:TG in a box, right? Just build a couple of decks beforehand and only take those to game night with your buddy?
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Dec 13, 2015 21:30
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I feel your pain. I recently got rid of Dice Duel myself because I'm in the same situation. But no way in hell I'm selling Space Alert. I'll find 3 people to play it with. Some day. Hopefully before I die.
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Dec 14, 2015 00:40
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Fat Samurai posted:Play solo. The truest Space Alert experience. I've considered this. I should check out the rules for this again, but from what I've gathered, it's basically insane. I guess it will at least help with the rules explanation, which is the first hurdle towards getting people to play this with me.
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Dec 14, 2015 11:06
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taser rates re:Keyflower posted:Losing bids can be moved elsewhere, but have to stick together. A buddy and me recently got this game demo'd at a small con. The above rule was left out by the dude that gave us the rules explanation. I made some risky bids in the first rounds on tiles that had 6 workers on them, and got outbid on all of them, locking my meeples in with no return whatsoever. So in the second round, my opponent had more meeples than me and could easily outbid me on the tiles that had my workers on them, which he did. By third round, I guess he had about 3 times more meeples than me. I passed after about 4 actions while he kept using his engine to make more green meeples. Final round was me trying to upgrade some tiles for points and him scooping up 6 winter tiles and flipping all his village tiles to the points side. Final score was about 25 vs 140. I don't like keyflower. In fact I hate it. I rationally know that we played with the wrong rules and that's why it was so broken, but the whole thing was such a frustrating experience that I don't know if I'll ever be able to play that game again without getting angry.
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Dec 16, 2015 14:23
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golden bubble posted:Wait, how did he have more Meeples than you in the 2nd round? You don't lose meeples if they lose a bid. Looks like he made more mistakes than you thought. No no, we knew that lost bids came back to their owner at the end of the round. It's just that I had first used some meeples as workers, and later on I bid on those tiles with my left over meeples to get the workers back and get the tile. But I was outbid by my opponent, and we didn't know that I could move my losing bid over to somewhere else during the round. So at the start of summer, I had less meeples and I think only 1 new tile in my town while he had 3.
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Dec 16, 2015 23:14
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I've played a couple of 2p and 3p games of it yeah. I like it. It's reasonably short so you can bang out multiple games or use it as a filler. It has good depth, every decision you make changes your opponents' options and you need to work through most of them to make sure nobody can screw up your plans. I think there's a fair bit of overlap with low player count 7 wonders as going deep in 1 color can give good results and you need to predict which cards your opponents want to have, except you're taking turns drafting from a set of open cards. The theme is ok but the art on the cards is a bit bland in comparison. If they'd gone full macabre/horror it might have worked better. Don't get it for the solo mode, it's just a 'beat X points' progression where you try to best your previous game until you can't anymore. It also loses a lot of strategic depth. edit: If you're looking for a portable card game with about the same player count, you should also look into Greed by Donald X. It seems to have flown under the goon radar. theroachman fucked around with this message at 00:12 on Dec 17, 2015 |
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Dec 17, 2015 00:05
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I believe I've read about a house rule that has you draft the objective cards from a card row, but I don't remember exactly how that worked. It adds some direct conflict to the game because you know what your opponent is building towards so you can try to block him. I like the game RAW though.
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Dec 22, 2015 19:07
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I guess the shortest optimal path from Codenames to Viticulture looks something like this: Codenames, Ticket to Ride, Stone Age, Viticulture. You have to reel them in slowly!
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Dec 25, 2015 10:33
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I once got the 5-6p expansion for Catan Seafarers as a birthday gift. I only had the base game, so I would have needed to buy base game 5-6p expansion and Seafarers to make use of it. Needless to say, that never happened.
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Dec 25, 2015 22:37
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Mojo Jojo posted:So all in all, probably much easier than Dixit but still makes me wonder how they manage in day to day life I think the easiest way to go about explaining games like that to people who start nagging about complicated rules is just don't. Dixit, Codenames, even Mysterium ... You can just set up the game and tell every player what to do once their turn comes up. Example for Dixit, choose the most vocal crybaby out of the lot and tell him the following: You have a hand of cards. Choose a card you like and describe it vaguely enough so about half of the people at the table could pick it out of a lineup. Then put it on the table face-down. The player will probably say something way too literal, along the lines of: a woman in a multicolored dress. You tell the other players: choose a card from your hand that matches that description as closely as possible. Don't worry if you don't have anything that matches, just dump a card you don't like. After the hidden voting, just score the round. If the second player hasn't caught on yet, they probably will after your turn. That's it, you've successfully explained Dixit.
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Dec 26, 2015 14:50
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7 Wonders Duel, Tiny Epic Galaxies, Agricola, Loyang are all excellent 2 player games with economy and no real 'gently caress you' mechanics. Or if you really want to go full hog: Through the Ages 2nd edition. It does have direct conflict but you can play with aggression turned off if you want.
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Dec 26, 2015 23:40
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Bottom Liner posted:Don't forget Patchwork and Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small, two of the best two player games. Also, 7 Wonders Duel has plenty of "gently caress you" since the whole game mechanic is designed around taking what you want vs not letting the opponent take what they need. A lot of plays are selling off a big card your opponent needs, and a lot of the wonders actually let you destroy a card of your opponents when you build it which can be a huge setback with as tight as resources are in the game. It's still great, but it's not really "nice". Oh right. That's what I get for recommending a game I haven't played yet (I did read the rulebook a couple of times). Afaik though, selling cards your opponent needs costs your turn and doesn't really further your own board apart from the money, so it's just delaying them while also delaying yourself. Not really a direct attac in my book. However destroying a key resource is. But that can be played around by planning for the alternative cost (i.e. chaining) or just buying the resource with gold, right? The alternative win condition on the military track might help mitigate resource denial too I guess, if they require resources that are different from the main win condition. Anyway, not the best fit, I agree.
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Dec 27, 2015 02:04
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Vivian Darkbloom posted:They (my family) actually gave me Dixit for a gift, so I might be able to get them to play it. Will give that a shot. Keep in mind that it is a fairly passive-aggressive method because you're screwing the first player out of 3 points from the get go. Best to only use it if the normal rules explanation doesn't work.
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Dec 27, 2015 20:40
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Yeah we had a game of Codenames with colleagues when one spymaster indeed went "oh, gently caress" in the middle of his team discussing. I reminded him to keep a pokerface or forfait the game (wasn't his first offense). His team chose the assassin as their first guess.
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Dec 28, 2015 13:10
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Oh do tell. 
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Dec 28, 2015 15:06
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Indolent Bastard posted:Marsupial, cloaca, Australia. All avoid duck fairly well. Platypuseseses are monotremes. They have a cloaca, as do ducks.
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Dec 28, 2015 20:16
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plester1 posted:I got Mysterium and Blood Rage for xmas. Any first-timer tips for these games, like rules that often get missed? Easily missed Mysterium rules: - the v/x tokens don't always come back to you after use. I think you only get them back if you guess correctly. - when someone guesses their object correctly and their pawn is put on the final board, they get clairvoyance points (or whatever those are called) equal to the remaining hours on the clock - when the ghost uses a crow, he doesn't have to dump his full hand, he can choose how many cards to discard. He then draws back up to 7. - ghost discards are not public information (you can houserule this to play with difficulty level) House rule we did after a couple of plays: We don't use the timer, but we do have the dream cards all revealed at the same time. We originally didn't, but our players were too tempted to do implied communication. (i.e. one player goes "oh boy it's one of these two guys for sure, if only I got some dream card with metal on it, then it would be obvious!"...ghost hands him a card full of nuts and bolts)
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Dec 29, 2015 12:30
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 fake edit: Alien Frontits....Fisterium
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Dec 29, 2015 20:04
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homullus posted:Hey, a friend's wife asked for board game recommendations for her husband. Things he likes, in no particular order: History/engine building: Through the ages, Steampunk rally (more like alternate history, but whatever) Maps/co-op: Mage Knight (also has an engine building aspect), though depending on his daughter's age the game might be too complex. Pandemic is a very good fit for this category and a lot less complex.
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Dec 30, 2015 17:21
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homullus posted:The daughters range from like 7 to 17. Two are in high school, though, and they want to play games with their dad. Keyflower it is then! 
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Dec 30, 2015 20:13
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Poopy Palpy posted:I heard you guys like boardgame storage porn: Sorry to sort of necro-quote, but since I'm looking into making some storage solutions for my games, I must ask this question: are those...box joints?  I'm talking about the right hand side mainly. If those are not box joints, I can't imagine why you would break up the walls of all those little sections instead of making one big section and divide it up. It loses a lot of structural strength that way.
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Dec 31, 2015 00:30
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Poopy Palpy posted:I know jack poo poo about woodworking, so my foamcore techniques are probably pretty shoddy. Basically, I make a lot of tabs and slots. Any wall of significant length has tabs that plug into slots in the base. Where two walls intersect, one has a slot cut from the underside and the other's slot is cut from the top. At the corners I guess this amounts to the laziest box joint in history, with only two fingers. Maybe a butt joint would be better, but things have held together well enough for me that I haven't felt the need to try something else. Well I'd say your techniques are more advanced than the stuff I see in most how-to videos, as they all just use butt joints, and pins to fixate them while the PVA glue cures. How do you make your slots and tabs?
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Dec 31, 2015 11:10
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Jedit posted:Kill: 2 is the best I can come up with. Depending what else is left Golden: 2 might work as well. Yeah I was gonna say handshake 2 but golden is probably better to get to parachute. Kill is still better though.
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Jan 2, 2016 12:39
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The cheating doesn't happen on the first time you use such a clue. It's when you explain what you did afterwards that you're actually cheating. From then on, you've made sort of a contract (like in Bridge) with your team on how they should interpret your clues, which adds more information to your clues than is allowed by the rules of the game. That said, this is such a corner case (it won't come up often) that I don't think it will matter. But hypothetically speaking, I'm sure with enough of these contracts established, you can start to get an edge over spymasters that don't use them. Edit: ah, found one. There are 40 or so key cards in the game. Assign a word to each of them. You can convey each of the possible orientations by saying 11, 12, 13 or 14. For instance, aardvark: 12 denotes the first key card, rotated 90° clockwise. Congratulations, your team of savants guesses all of your words on their first turn! theroachman fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Jan 2, 2016 |
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Jan 2, 2016 21:47
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My boardgaming history is Catan and Carcassonne in the late 90's, early 2000's. Then I got hooked into MTG around Lorwynn, which meant I started hanging out with gamer types and the FLGS owner who has a collection of over 1k games. They showed me Eclipse, Loyang, BSG, 7 Wonders. I got Small World Underground for my birthday, bought 7 Wonders, Dixit, etc. Stumbled into this thread (well, previous incarnation). Bought Space Alert because it was all the rage at the time (still unplayed  ), Mage Knight, Galaxy Truckers, etc. Last year was my first visit to Spiel Essen, spent way too much money. This year was my second visit, spent even more money. It's a slippery slope... Collection is starting to look decent though!Which brings us to the storage issue. My gaming cupboard is full. I bought 3 sheets of foamcore earlier this week, currently in the process of consolidating 7 Wonders and all expansions into the base game box. It's a bit of a  puzzle but I think I have it figured out. Next up: Mage Knight! Anyone think there's more expansions for that on the way?
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Jan 8, 2016 22:18
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Jedit posted:I take it you mean your first visit was 2014 and your second was 2015? We're in a new year. Jedit posted:And also, where the gently caress were you when we were trying to arrange a Goonmeet at Spiel? Oops, totally missed that. Was that in this thread? I have to admit, I let the thread slip a little (1200 posts?) during the summer so I skipped quite some pages, most likely the whole of September/October. It's a shame, pre- and post-Spiel discussion is probably a goldmine. Did you have a Goonmeet? I'll certainly try to join
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Jan 9, 2016 01:23
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I once asked my friend during a game of WoMH if he was a werewolf. He answered truthfully. Villager victory! So we had a few laughs, and the guy concedes to the fact that you need to lie to win as a werewolf. Cool, game on. Next game, his wife asks him if he's a werewolf. He says he's not. She asks if he'd swear on the heads of their children that he is not a werewolf. He reveals his role card and claims that question isn't fair.
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Jan 10, 2016 21:23
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Fat Turkey posted:I kinda get it with that last example though. While I don't quite get how someone can just outright not want to play the bad guy in a themed game when it's just passing or failing a mission with no details in, the swearing question is a bit off. Yeah, we all agreed that asking people to swear on their kid's life is going too far. We've had some real shouty, emotional games of werewolves. Once our narrator had to bang the table and declare the game over so some hotheads would stop yelling.
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Jan 11, 2016 20:24
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Lorini posted:Um, anyone in for a Codenames thread? Just askin' Oh, absolutely.
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Jan 11, 2016 21:51
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Countblanc posted:Space Cadets: Dice Duel is indeed fun on a bun, and I wholeheartedly recommend it. But it should be noted that I'm incredibly biased toward team games. This was a complete dud in my group and I traded it away out of spite. If your group contains people that hate real-time games and/or think dice hate them, this game is not for you. Otherwise it's awesome though. Now that the thread is in Q&A mode, I have a question too: has anyone played Xenon Profiteer? I discovered its existence today and it sounds good. I have a buddy who's a chemist who will probably like that the game contains mechanics that mimic actual real life chemistry, and he loves Dominion. Also it seems like it's hard to find, only 2 entries currently on the BGG market, but as it happens one of those is 35€ shipped. So all signs point to yes, I just need a goon opinion on the gameplay.
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Jan 14, 2016 23:23
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Consider the above suggestions seconded, but if you're looking for something lighter/shorter than MK, give The Bloody Inn and Tiny Epic Galaxies a look. Both games have a solo mode which is quite compelling.
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Jan 17, 2016 23:56
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7 Wonders: Duel trip report! Finally found an occasion to bring this one out while sipping scotch with a friend. I originally bought it to play with my girlfriend, but I didn't want to learn the game and teach the game at the same time as it's always advisable to make her first impression of a new game be as smooth an experience as possible. The rules are very clear and easy, especially so if you already know 7 Wonders and its expansions. Use of symbols is largely the same. My friend is fairly competitive, so we were consulting the card overview in the back of the manual during play. It's great that they added this, as knowing what cards can still come out in the hidden rows or in the next age is basically a must if you want to make informed strategic decisions. It's a bit of a learning process if you don't want to look it up every turn, but there seems to be a 'system' that can help you remember: - There's only 2 of each scientific symbol in the game. The Law symbol exists only on a Progress token to help with scientific victory, there's no matching Law symbol on a card. - Age 1 scientific symbols have their matching symbol in age 2, not in age 3. - There are 2 pairs of Age 3 scientific symbols. - All chaining cards have their chained card in the next age except one red and yellow in Age 1 - Blue Age 1 chains run through the three ages, all other chains end in the next age As for replayability, setup will vary for the following elements: - only 8 of the 12 wonders are used in a game - only 5 of the 10 progress tokens are used in a game - only 3 of the 7 guild cards are used in a game (but you don't know which ones until you see them in Age 3) - only 20 of the 23 cards in each age are used in a game (this is more for adding a chance of a missing card rather than variable setup, but the effect is still there) The recommended beginner setup uses 4 specific wonders assigned to each player. It seemed fairly balanced, we ended with a civil victory (no military or scientific supremacy) with less than 10 point difference. I wanted another go but my friend was getting 'tired' (drunk). Though he assured me he likes the game as much as I do. Next step: teaching my girlfriend!
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Jan 18, 2016 17:06
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