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  NEVER BUY STUFF FROM WIZKIDS We have our own discord!Welcome to the new iteration of the Something Awful Board Game thread! This thread is for discussion of all sort of board games: this is a very broad definition that includes 'proper' board games along with card games (not ones using a traditional card deck, though) and some minis games as well! So whether you are an old hand at the hobby or just curious about what is out there, don't be afraid to post your opinions/questions regarding the wonderful world of board games!  Although you might have played a lot of board games when you were younger, along the lines of Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, Risk and other such staples, the sort of games that we usually discuss in this thread are known as Designer Board Games. In the past this pretty much described Board Games not published by the likes of Hasbro/Mattel/Parker Brothers and you usually could only find them in specialised gaming stores, but in the past few years the situation has changed quite rapidly. Now it is possible to find the more well-known designer board games even in mainstream shops and the choice, variety and quality of game is increasing year by year. The hobby is expanding and many think we are currently in a Golden Age of Board Gaming! In other words Board Gaming has never been this good and it is only going to get better!  These are some of the more common questions that we get asked when people are asking for recommendations to get into the hobby. The examples provided also contain a link to BoardGameGeek, probably one of the largest board game websites currently on the internet and a good source for rule questions and rule summaries/player aids that can be helpful when you start to play a new board game. What's the current hotness? Codenames: A wonderful word game where you have a grid of words and a spymaster in each team tries to point his team towards his team's words. Simple premise but it is a real brain-burner of a game! From goon-beloved designer Vlaada Chvatil. Pandemic Legacy: Like the classic game Pandemic but with Legacy mechanism, which means you make permanent changes to the board that stay from one game to the next. Twists and turns tell a story of you attempting to save the world from four deadly diseases! Currently the top game in the BGG rankings! Captain Sonar: A real time game for 8 players, where two teams of 4 command a submarine, trying to find their enemies and blow them out of the water with torpedoes and mines while avoiding detection themselves. Be forewarned that the game does require 8 players to play, and below 6 it starts to suffer. I'm a complete newbie to the hobby, where should I start? Carcassonne: Carcassonne is a tile-laying game in which you score by creating cities, pastures and roads in medieval France. It is an easy game to learn, but has a lot of hidden depth to it once you start learning some of the tactics available within the game. Dominion: Dominion is known as a deck-building game: instead of starting with a pre-built deck like many other card games, the aim of the game is to create the deck itself, by buying cards from a central market. Thanks to the expansions to Dominion, the game has incredible replay-ability, with no two games being quite the same. I'm meeting up with my family/friends during the holidays and they are non-gamers, what kind of games might they enjoy? Dixit: Dixit is like Apples to Apples but with a more creative streak: you have to make phrases based on cards with fanciful art, with the skill in the game being able to choose phrases that at least one person will get, but difficult enough so that not everyone gets it correctly. Ticket to Ride: In this game you are trying to fulfill journeys across Europe/America/Etc (depending on the map) by playing matching cards. Ticket to Ride is a good game for non-gamers because it has many elements from the classic games sprinkled with innovations from Designer Board Games, while still remaining an easy to learn game. Can you recommend any 2 player games? Tash-Kalar: Tash-Kalar is a fairly abstract game by one of the thread's favourite designers, Vlaada Chvatil . The basis of the game is making patterns on the board using your pieces and then using those patterns to summon mighty creatures that can radically affect the board, while fulfilling tasks that earn you points. Highly recommended if you are looking for something more abstract. Twilight Struggle: If you are already experienced with board games, this is THE two-player game to go for. Take the role of either the USSR or the US at the start of the Cold War and see that your side becomes the dominant world power. Ranked as one of the best games ever designed. I have a large group (5+), any recommendations? 7 Wonders: 7 Wonders is a card drafting game which plays up to 7 players. The aim of the game is to develop your civilization: militarily, culturally and economically, as well as build one of the 7 Wonders of the world. It is suitable for large groups because there is very little downtime and plays fast even with large numbers of players. The Resistance: Avalon: Avalon is a traitor/bluffing game in which the good guys are aiming to complete missions but among their midst are hidden traitors, out to sabotage their efforts. It can play up to 10 players and therefore is very suitable for large groups. Are there any other traitor/bluffing games apart from Avalon? Coup: Coup is a bluffing game in which you are given two role cards, but you can claim to be whichever role you want! Be careful though: you can be called out and if you aren't the role you claimed, dire consequences await. This game is made even better by its expansion, Reformation. Battlestar Galactica: In this game you are all part of the crew of the Battlestar Galactica, on the run from the Cylon threat. Unfortunately, there are Cylons in your midst, ready to sabotage the ship or even decrease the morale of the fleet through acts of terrorism. Will the fleet make it to Earth? I'm interested in a game where me and my friends can have silly fun while drinking/having a good time, what do you recommend? Ugg-Tect: You are all Cavemen trying to build monuments, but only one of you (the Ugg-Tect) has the plans! The Ugg-Tect must direct his fellow cavemen, but can only do so using grunts and gestures. A silly game that only becomes better when everyone is more than slightly tipsy. Cash n Guns: If you need a game where you can stare down your friends and ask them if they are 'feeling lucky', this game is for you. You are all criminals that are trying to divvy-up the loot from your latest heist, but no one is quite sure how to do it. Soon, the guns come out and only the player with the most steely resolve will go home with the lion's share of the loot. Comes with foam guns! A second edition with (debatably) worse rules is available as well. What are some of the thread's all-time favourites that haven't been mentioned in any other question? Space Alert: A co-op game in which you and your friends fly around in a spaceship built by the lowest bidder. Threats are coming from every direction, the consoles within the ships are blowing up at random and intruders are popping up, while your battle droids revolt and someone forgot to wiggle the mouse in the central computer! A tense, exciting game that features a real-time segment (that makes use of a soundtrack). Highly recommended! Kemet: Fight for a mythical egypt in which the gods of old are alive and kicking! Hire giant scorpions to your side among other beasts of war! Love Letter: A quick, simple card game in which the aim is to have your love letter reach the princess. A single round can be over in less than 5 minutes, making it perfect as a filler between more meaty games. What's with the banners? Tigris & Euphrates: Probably one of my favourite games ever: control the land between the two rivers! A difficult game but one that I consider a masterpiece.  shamelessly stolen from the previous thread Where do you buy these games? Well, support your FLGS, otherwise go here: BoardGamePrices This site lists all shops internationally and compares their prices. You can search by location or by game. Bookmark the gently caress out of this. Failing that, go to: CoolStuff is a pretty big website. Miniature Market is apparently good! FunAgain Games employs goons! This Coupons and Deals thread link keeps you up to date on cool discounts and Board Game Deals! PRO-loving CLICK Can you try these games online? Certainly! Many games are available for free play on BrettSpielWelt (including Carcassonne, Caylus, Stone Age, Puerto Rico, 7 Wonders, Pandemic, Settler of Catan, Cities & Knights of Catan, and many more) using their software or through a Java-based browser window, BoardGameArena is a browser-based place where you can enjoy many games that are also on BSW, you can play Through the Ages through your browser at (a very heavy but awesome 4X Card Worker Hybrid) at BoardGaming Online (and it supports Play By E-mail), and you can play some of the rare games as VASSAL modules if you have Java. You can also purchase many games on XBLA, the Droid marketplace, or iOS, including Settlers, Carcassonne, and Hive! Do you want to chat with other people/goons about board games? Well, you can go to BoardGameGeek to locate forums and designers of various games, plus BGG has separate regional forums for you to find local players. If you want to talk with us, though, we usually hang out at #boardgoons on synirc. Come idle with us! There are games going on and off all the time, including playtest of some up and coming goon projects! There is also a BGG Board Goons Guild (setup by The End!) Want to talk about wargame board games? Here's the thread for you! What about kickstarter games? You can talk about them here, or you can go for the Kickstarter Thread as well! Want to travel back in time? Relive the glory days? Board Games Megathread (2010-2011) Board Games Thread - We've Only Got Four Meeples to Save the World (2011-2012) Board Games: Have you heard of this Settlers of Catan thing? (2012-2014) The Catan Joke is Forbidden in this Thread! Tekopo fucked around with this message at 11:36 on Sep 21, 2020 |
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Dec 13, 2014 14:36
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A General Warning The previous threads have been the source of a lot of discussion on what are considered bad games. When someone in this thread claims that a game is bad, please don't take it as an insult! Remember, even bad games can be enjoyable in the same way that other forms of entertaining can be considered 'bad' (films, books etc) can still be enjoyable! And yes, something being considered 'bad' IS up for debate: this is the entire purpose of a a thread! Just come up with something more substantive that 'well me and my friends had fun playing it' and you should be fine In the end, play what you enjoy playing and don't worry about what some random people from the internet think about what sort of games you like! Addendum Please cut out poo poo like 'Burn the game' or 'pick up a gun and shoot your friends' or other lovely putdowns that don't actually add anything to the discussion. Reviews of other games that goons have asked me to absolutely add in the OP for some reason Castle of Burgundy: a pleasant, non confrontational euro that defines the "point salad" approach. Build your castles in the French countryside at the request of your king (surprise !) gaining victory points from almost every action. Previous player take the thing you wanted? Don't worry, there's more stuff next round. It's the only good use of dice in a modern board game. 4x games (Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate) 4x games are about... well those four things, primarily. Modern 4x games originated on PCs with the likes of Masters of Orion, and have been successfully translated to the tabletop. They tend to be multi-player, ranging from 2 to as many as 9 players (though, Eclipse is more-or-less unplayable with that many) and usually (but by no means always) involve players competing for space on a map which is generated randomly during play, building their economy and technology base, managing resources, then kicking the poo poo out of each other towards the end. Most are directly competitive, so in most cases steer clear if that's not your cup of tea. Longer 4x games (Antiquity), for example) can take whole days or even longer for some historical simulations, whilst shorter ones (Nations, Patchistory) can be played in an evening if everyone plays reasonably quickly. I cut my boardgaming teeth on 4x games starting with Civilisation, and have thoroughly enjoyed them from there. One of my favourite parts about them is the propensity towards hilarious anachronism and ageographyism. I'm always unreasonably amused when I wind up taking Napoleon to war against Shakespeare with a fighting band of spearmen in jet planes as the first space flight takes off over the pyramids in the background! So, some notable, good and/or important 4x games: Longer 4x games Eclipse: hex-based 4x IN SPAAACE. Dice-based combat resolution is a point against this game in my opinion, but broadly speaking it's got a solid, reasonably balanced base of exploration and tech-building. Plays up to NINE with the expansion, but more than about 4 and you need to rely on the slightly wonky second active player rules. And potentially has player elimination which is another point against it. But it's great fun, and the game and map varies a lot depending on the players, tech and races. Well worth the play time if you have a free afternoon. Civilisation: the mother (but not the king) of 4x games for me - decent exploration, map and economic engines coupled to a solid combat system (better in the expansions) and again, interesting and varied races. But has quite a high barrier to entry, a lot of fiddly rules and skilled players are very hard to beat, so IME there are better games for the same time investment. Through The Ages: Vlaada Chvatil's 4x game. Very, very good, but interestingly, doesn't use a map, and could as a result be argued to be a jumped-up drafting game. In place of a map it has a row of randomly-discovered cards, and sets of tiny wooden Shorter 4x games Nations: this game is basically designed to take Through the Ages and condense it into a less directly competitive format that can be played in an evening. It succeeds at that goal. If anything, it's a more elegant and more interesting game to play than its predecessor, and takes a lot less time, too. Again, doesn't have a formal shared map, and also lacks direct conflict. Patchistory I'm new to this game but have been impressed thus far. The 'patching' mechanic used to build individual players' maps is innovative and fun, there is direct conflict but it's relatively difficult and balanced, and it incorporates a solid bidding mechanic. Well worth the recommendation. Almost 4x games Mage Knight Board Game: another Vlaada masterpiece, this kind of works as a 4x game (it has the explore, exploit and exterminate elements, certainly, but the expand element is replaced with a deckbuilding mechanic) but the theme is very different. It's nonetheless an excellent game everyone should try once! Tekopo fucked around with this message at 15:21 on May 9, 2016 |
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Dec 13, 2014 14:36
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Made various changes to the OP as per suggestions. Also yeah, some of the other Vlaada games are more crunchy so I didn't include them.
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Dec 13, 2014 16:11
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I dunno much about Castle of Burgundy actually, which is why it's not included. If people want to do write up of games, I'll add them to the second post of the thread so the OP isn't too long.
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Dec 13, 2014 16:14
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Lord Frisk posted:I fuckin knew it. 
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Dec 13, 2014 16:40
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I'm likely not gonna add anything else to the OP directly, because everyone would come in with their favourite game and just ask for it to be added. The OP is pretty long as it stands, unfortunately. Of course, T&E had to be there though 
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Dec 13, 2014 23:02
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Funso Banjo posted:What's with the big concentration of 4x games in the OP?
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Dec 15, 2014 00:06
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One thing about Space Alert that you need to be careful if your group is used to playing other (lesser ) co-ops: you will probably need to tell people that they need to be pro-active within the game and not wait for instructions, since there isn't time (especially to crank up the difficulty) for people to tell other people what to do. This can be quite difficult for players that are used to a lot of quarterbacking and I've seen people do nothing at all because people didn't directly what to do. Usually to get people of their shell I do stuff like saying 'okay I need to fire the cannon at time X while someone fires the secondary gun, who can do it?'.
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Dec 15, 2014 16:30
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Guess what Vlaada -related kickstarter stuff I just got in the mail? 
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Dec 15, 2014 17:51
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Cocks Cable posted:Deluxe Travel Blog with premium Euro coins? 
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Dec 15, 2014 17:59
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burger time posted:Are you in the US?
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Dec 15, 2014 18:08
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It's an FFG reprint of Tigris & Euphrates, one of my favourite games, the theme of the banners in this iteration of the thread and also completely unlike any other game that FFG has ever printed, since it's an abstract tile-laying game/euro.
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Dec 15, 2014 19:00
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Oh hey I just spent an hour stickering and organising everything in the insert, the insert is very nice 
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Dec 15, 2014 21:35
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Aston posted:I haven't yet, but I'm probably going to. I seem to remember Tekopo mentioning in the last thread it wasn't all that good but I don't remember if that was from experience or a review. I guess it is good if you are a dirty student and don't have to work on weekdays, but for professionals it's really not that appealing, especially since there is a free alternative.
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Dec 16, 2014 15:10
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Fat Turkey posted:I can see why an established board games group with the games available between them may not be fussed about it. I guess we could look into attending the meetup but feels a bit weird going and asking strangers to try their games, whereas an open library sorts that out.
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Dec 16, 2014 15:20
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Jedit posted:I don't get how you figured this out. The website says they're closed on weekdays and open in the evenings, which is basically the opposite of what you describe.
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Dec 16, 2014 16:53
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Just got 'Il Sesto Senso' (the Italian version of Mysterium). The Dixit-like cards look nice and it seems that they are smartly designed (ie they could reference a number of different thing and are intentionally misleading by themselves), which could counter the replay-ability issues that I'm worried about. Gonna give it a spin tonight and report. Along with the game came a sealed envelope with the name of the game on one side and "Don't open this until you have won at least 10 games" on the other 
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Dec 17, 2014 13:58
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Well, it's a different type of game, since it is a full co-op experience. As the ghost, you are trying to help the investigators are much as possible. So the fun comes in attempting to play combination of cards on a particular investigator that will allow him to deduce the who/where/how as quickly as possible. You have to take into account how the investigator will analyse the clue. Also, the game states that as soon as you place cards for one player, the players can already start discussing it, so there isn't as much downtime because while they think about one set of cards you gave them, you can start to think about how to use your cards to give clues to the next investigator. Also, there's the fun of watching the investigators get completely sidetracked when you didn't spot a detail in the card you gave them that points in completely the opposite way
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Dec 17, 2014 14:48
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Played a couple of rounds of Mysterium, one as a ghost and one as the investigators! I quite enjoyed it myself: as the ghost you really have to think of ways to use the cards in conjunction with each other in order to make the investigators understand what you mean. The first game with me as the ghost went really well and the investigators cracked the case on day 6, while when my SO played the ghost we were late by one day! Overall I thought it was quite fun and unusual and has a real dixit-like vibe to it. My SO also really liked it, especially the theme and the art so she couldn't wait to try out being the ghost again. I'll have to see what kind of replayability it has, although there are a few different difficulty settings (which decide how many cards are present to choose from as well as how many times the ghost can redraw his hand).
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Dec 17, 2014 23:14
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Mister Sinewave posted:Is this only available in Polish at the moment, or am I blind/missing something/caught the stupid?
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Dec 17, 2014 23:50
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Broken Loose posted:i'm literally about to go out the door to CSI for board game night. i could physically purchase a copy tonight and play it. 
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Dec 17, 2014 23:54
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thespaceinvader posted:Wooh, my Dungeon Lords Anniversary Edition/Dungeon Petz/Dark Alleys set arrived! Ive spent a lot of time today sticking on stickers and trying to work out what bits fit where in the box, which was fun (the only bit I couldn't figure out was the enhanced tunnel tiles which don't seem to fit anywhere). Lords can take a long time to teach if it is your first time because it have a lot of moving parts and small rules (like most Vlaadas).
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Dec 18, 2014 00:06
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thespaceinvader posted:Duly noted both, thanks. I was planning on using the flavour stuff because like most Vlaada rulebooks, these are great fun, and I can see it being very helpful. I'll skip the extra board for now then, but I'll probably leave in the expansion extra bits (buyers, cages, pets, artefacts etc etc) unless that just doesn't work out at all - the group picks things up quickly and unpicking what's what at this point sounds like a drag. Tekopo fucked around with this message at 12:52 on Dec 18, 2014 |
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Dec 18, 2014 08:53
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Aston posted:How can I not get this game to the table  Say hello to Wreckie, Destroyer of Shops. Whenever someone buys him there are always sharp intakes of breath, worried looks and prophecies such as 'Well, you had a nice shop until now...'
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Dec 18, 2014 10:55
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Fat Turkey posted:I was very keen on picking up Dungeon Lords (when the KS was running, I was tempted but think it came to £60-70) but had a worry about how to interest my friend to build a dungeon and fight off a D&D party. I had only heard Dungeon Petz by name and that name makes me think DS shovelware. I'm now starting to think that might be the one to get. I seem to remember Tepoko saying he enjoyed it more, but that was before he got his new shinies! The thing about Dark Alleys is that it has a lot of stuff (the new, more difficult to keep Pets, pets attachment etc) which makes it harder to look after pets, but also makes them more valuable in terms of points due to how the selling/exposition mechanism works. Sure, you don't HAVE to go for the risk, but if you plan well you will score a lot more points by taking (calculated) risks. So although the expansion of Dungeon Petz does make things harder, you have to opt-in to the difficulty, meaning that if someone less experienced doesn't want to take on too much risk, he doesn't have to. Sure, he will still get beaten by a more experienced, adventurous player, but that's an issue with a lot of worker placement games. The Dungeon Lords expansion, however, as good as it is, doesn't have this 'opt-in difficulty'. If you play with the expansion, everything will be harder for everyone. DP is more about instant decisions and making good out of a bad situation. DL is more about planning and making sure that you don't enter resource spirals. They are both awesome in their own way, but as I have said to BL, my brain is wired in such a way that I'm better at DP than DL. In DP I regularly get high scores. DL, not so much.
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Dec 18, 2014 13:20
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Also for people that said they didn't know where to put the special tunnels in the new DL Anniversary box, well, I just put them with the standard tunnels, there was plenty of space there. I'm a bit annoyed that the monster slots in no way keep the monsters in if you even so much as tip the box. Also, no new art for the combat board!
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Dec 18, 2014 13:59
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Stumiester posted:Just unpacked Dungeon Lords Anniversary Edition and... holy poo poo there is so. much. stuff. As someone who's never played the game before (but I trust in vlaada), I have a limited concept of how to pack everything into the enormous box.
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Dec 19, 2014 18:23
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Dual resource systems within a deckbuilder are always bad.It doesn't matter if you balance your deck or not and actually balancing your deck is detrimental because it just leads to situations in which you end up with an even number of resources, which is always bad in a single hand. And if you specialise, you can potentially get screwed as per the examples given by other players. If there was a single resource system, the random central market would not be as bad. If you really want to get people into Deckbuilders, forget Dominion, forget Ascension. If people really are newbies to the hobby, get Salmon Run
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Dec 20, 2014 09:52
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There are going to be newbies that are going to be annoyed at the luck because they feel like they couldn't have done anything to mitigate it and it leaves a sour experience, especially if the game isn't totally about luck but luck + experience (which many of them are). Scyther is right: people's brains are wired differently and some people might think 'oh well, it was just random luck that made me lose, no big' while others might think 'i had no chance in that game because of random luck!'. Neither way of thinking is wrong: if you really want non-gamers to enjoy themselves without fail, I would suggest co-ops, because 'the game targeted me' is worse than 'the game targeted us'. Then randomness doesn't really have any effect at all.
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Dec 20, 2014 15:38
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There's quite a lot of strawman in your post as well, because no one is advocating to just go for pure skill, all the time, but systems in which randomness is used well and is not detrimental. Let's use a similar conversation to you: A: "Randomness in games can be bad because it can create situations in which the skill gap is acerbated because luck favours the more experienced player" B: "People who feel hard-done by luck aren't your typical newbie, newbies don't mind losing through luck" Let's all stop this crap. There are people that, if they go through the game and get unlucky throughout it, are going to have a bad time. There are people that can lose a game that they are playing, have no chance of winning throughout the entire thing and think 'well I did X and Y wrong and I need to improve those things, but I had an awesome time!'. Let's not pigeon-hole newbies in either of those two categories. Let's take your poker example: people might play it, have bad luck throughout the entire time you are playing it and feel worse because of it. Is that an ideal scenario? Is it the fault of the newbie because he should have worried less about luck? Can we just agree that there isn't a size-fits-all in terms of newbie games and that you can't necessarily say that high luck/low luck games are better for newbies until you have had a chance to see what the newbie actually likes? Tekopo fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Dec 20, 2014 |
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Dec 20, 2014 16:58
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xopods posted:But again, my point is that needing to feel like you have a chance of winning is not the same as needing to actually win.
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Dec 20, 2014 20:04
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xopods posted:I wasn't lumping you guys into the category of "can't stand luck-based games." There's a big difference between not particularly enjoying something and being upset about it. I don't think those people are hyper-competitive, but they sure view competitiveness in a way that is just as unhealthy as hyper-competitiveness. It's the sort of people that feel they should be able to win no matter what their experience of them and other players is and they feel like it is a personal affront to them if they feel they can't win 'simply because I have less experience'. It's the people that don't understand that the first few times you play a game are meant as a learning experience which you need to build upon. Those people are assholes. Hyper-competitive people are assholes too (although I have a hyper-competitive friend who is not an rear end in a top hat because he's only competitive against people that he knows are competitive and thus is perfectly nice to newbies).
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Dec 20, 2014 20:37
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xopods posted:Again, though, I don't think newbies need to win, I just think most people will enjoy a game more if they don't feel their moves are all futile. Let's have your example: if someone rolls badly throughout the game and makes the most out of his bad rolls, he might be in a situation where he can never recover, even if he rolls well. Then, his decisions are meaningless, because no matter what he does, the game took his possibility of a win out of his hands. The people that it affects the most are the newbies that find the 'slowly build up experience' more enjoyable than the possibility of winning. That's what it comes down to: what does the newbie in question like best? And then, it becomes a matter of personal taste and the best thing you, as an experienced player, can do, is be able to analyse this new person well enough (or, before the game starts, ask the right questions) so that you can recommend something that will be the most suitable for that particular player. You are never gonna be able to always do this accurately, but it is better than saying 'randomness is always best for newbies' and then watching someone sitting glum-faced because that generalization doesn't actually cover how he actually reacts to randomness. This is largely what makes certain games safe bets, rather than playing something where the randomness is too high or too low.
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Dec 20, 2014 21:29
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Which is why it is important how the luck is implemented, rather than the presence or lack of it. What IS important is if luck removes potential actions from the player or not. With ticket to ride, sure you can be screwed by luck sometimes, but overall it doesn't restrict the actions you can do. With Catan, lovely luck DOES restrict actions. Which goes back to the argument that randomness is never bad in of itself, but IS bad when coupled with other bad mechanisms. High randomness, long length games are just as bad for newbies (or anyone else) as games that prevent you from catching up if you make a mistake 5 minutes into the game. poo poo, people aren't advising other people to get newbies started on Go or 18XX. They are advising people to target games to newbies, which you should be doing anyway. And some newbies will absolutely enjoy games that are low-luck and rely on them playing well to win and won't give a poo poo about 'having a chance to win'.
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Dec 20, 2014 22:02
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xopods posted:No, that's not the point I'm trying to make at all. I'm just pointing out some valid reasons for someone preferring a game with a luck factor, which don't involve them being unhealthily concerned with winning. EDIT: As per your edit, it is, again, individual. Some people are better able to see what can help them to win/lose better if there is less randomness (not a complete lack of randomness, just less). Some people are better able to visualise the difference in probabilities, as you say. But there isn't a catch-all. Tekopo fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Dec 20, 2014 |
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Dec 20, 2014 22:10
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ConfusedUs posted:On round III-A, we both ended up with just a couple of components left. No guns, no engines, no crew. Just a cargo bay, some pipes, and for me, a shield without batteries. The very last card was Open Space and we had to give up.
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Dec 22, 2014 07:40
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I'll put in a word for Dungeon Petz because it is my favourite worker placement game of the lot. One of the big advantages of Dungeon Petz is that it has very strong cohesion to its theme (although village/agricola/t'zolkin also aren't bad), it has wonderful art and it has a very interesting worker placement section. The base mechanism is that it is a hidden bid/worker placement hybrids, where you are trying to make groups of imps/money, with the larger groups going first and smaller groups going last, with ties decided by whoever has the first player marker. This really opens up the decision space because you have to think about what the other players need, if you really need to go first to grab something crucial to you, if you need lots of small things that are unlikely to go immediately etc. Let's say I decide to make all of my groups three strong, for example: I might lose the first picks, but after that, if the other players don't have many 3 groups, I would get to have several placements in a row. You also need to keep some imps in the shop though to entertain pets/ensure that they don't run away/clean poop (did I mention there are poop tokens in this game?). Actually looking after pets is a real risk/reward decision. Bigger pets have bigger needs but score you more points, so you have to strike a balance between a pet becoming unmanageable and actually being able to score loads of points. Although the needs of the pets are somewhat unpredictable (you draw them from differently coloured decks, which each deck having a prevalence of one particular need), it does also encourage planning in advance, because you keep a number of cards through the turns and you might need those cards to score big in later turns. Overall, I love it: it's kind of high in terms of complexity and has a lot of fiddly rules (like a lot of Vlaada games), but once you understand the game it makes sense. Also, there is an expansion out for it that takes the risk/reward formula in overdrive and I love it.
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Dec 24, 2014 15:08
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The Narrator posted:The theme of Dungeon Petz is obviously what grabbed me at first, even before I really knew what the actually game of it was. Even though as a Vlaada game it has these odd little rules, they are so strongly tied to the theme that I can envisage it being easy to explain in thematic terms e.g. needing two imps to carry an enclosure back home. Another positive is how much the theme stands out - while the gric is a classic, I sort of worry that it might seem too dry to catch the attention of my friends/SO so I can teach them the game. 
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Dec 24, 2014 15:26
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Well we made it 24 pages folk, it was a good run.
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Dec 25, 2014 19:22
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 15:43 |
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I dunno, Steve Jackson is not actually a bad guy.
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Dec 25, 2014 19:27
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