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malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Zark the Damned posted:

It's an old game and it shows. Can be fun with the right crowd but there are better games which achieve the same goal. SUSD love it 'cause they're all about theme.

I think it's much more that they value strong social interaction and politics and Cosmic Encounter is very much in that vein, even though there's little actual meat to the game.

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malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Fungah! posted:

It's so stupid because CE's like the single worst game possible for social interaction and politics. Outside of "Well Quinns hosed me last game so I'm going to make sure he loses" the only basis you've got for political interaction is "well which side of the randomly generated encounter is closer to winning the game?" and then go with the other. You can't even do a Catan-style well I'll give you six wood for a sheep just to gently caress the other guy, it's pretty much just try to be part of the n-1 bloc that's going to win the game instead of the one guy that's going to lose.

In the most recent podcast they waxed enthusiastic about the way perceived value of powers encouraged shutting various people out and stuff like that. To me, nothing they're getting excited about is engendered by the design of the game and almost all of it is the way they interact with their friends.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Scyther posted:

e: Oh my poo poo, the rabbit hole goes deeper. When enemies attack you, they roll some number of dice to hit, and then you roll a die to attempt to defend for each enemy die that hits. The rulebook makes sure to mention that enemies don't get to roll defense when you attack them as this would be "cumbersome". Instead for every hit a hero rolls, he must then roll a d6 to determine the damage and subtract the enemy defense value from each roll. :psyduck: Because that sure as gently caress isn't cumbersome, right? Everyone at Flying Frog Productions literally grew up in a monastery and took strict vows to never play any board games that weren't designed in the 80s because they might learn heretical ideas like good game design.

This bit sounds better than Descent 2e, frankly. Not that it's particularly good design, but I'd sure as gently caress rather subtract a fixed defense value than subtract a randomly rolled one like Descent 2e makes you do. Not because it's "less cumbersome", but because it's less randomness involved in combat outcomes. As the Overlord I routinely completely whiffed defenses in a way that made combat pretty onesided.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Poison Mushroom posted:

If I'm reading this right, you subtract from each die individually.

Okay, yeah, that's stupid. But then, I expect as much from Flying Frog. There's a reason I didn't back Shadows over Brimstone even though on paper it's everything I could possibly want in a boardgame.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Fungah! posted:

Oh god I remember that game. A friend of mine bought it and suckered us into playing it , then we all got stupid and played it again a week later. It was such a colossal piece of poo poo and it took like six hours to play, it was like arkham horror on steroids or something

I got to playtest the combat (and only the combat) of the original WoW boardgame. Which was actually pretty intricate and neat, if still full of dice. Unfortunately there was a bunch of other stuff in the game and very little of it worked plus it took absolutely forever as you say.

The WoW "adventure game" that they released later didn't even have that much in the way of redeeming qualities. Though I guess it was shorter.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

cyberia posted:

I was at my FLGS yesterday and my wife was looking at a copy of The Doom That Came To Atlantic City and wanted me to buy it mainly because it's a big box with a bunch of minis (and Cthulhu!!) but it's just a reskinned Monopoly, really, isn't it?

Having looked at a few reviews for it I don't understand why it was such a Kickstarter success. Has anyone played it and is it as terrible as it looks? Are there any Cthulhu-related games that aren't atrocious that I could suggest as an alternative so I don't end up having to play tentacle-monopoly every games night?

No, it's not reskinned Monopoly. They used parodied visual design elements of Monopoly as part of the humor of the game, but it really doesn't share much in the way of gameplay. There are a lot of asymmetric elements that you build up through play in the form of character powers, secret goals, gate powers gained through opening gates in various regions of the board (and you can also teleport to other gates of the same type - i.e. owned by the same player or neutral - as part of your movement, if you start on one), Chants cards, and (if you use the bundled Shadow over Boardwalk expansion content) Tomes. There's combat. There's no real money - the closest thing to it are cultists, but they don't really serve the same gameplay role. Unfortunately, there's also a lot of rolling dice, because you roll to move, roll to see if you manage to destroy buildings where you land, roll off against the other player for combat, etc. Powers, Chants cards and so on can give you bonuses or other forms of control, but it still ends up being significantly random.

So, no, it's not Monopoly, and I've had far more fun with it than I ever did with Monopoly, but I probably wouldn't recommend it without significant caveats either.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Jedit posted:

Mine is in the post. BGG have a number of completed PBF games if you want to know how it runs. You can at the moment get it at a knockdown price if you pledge to the Theomachy Kickstarter - the deal essentially amounts to "Buy Cthulhu Wars, get both Theomachy boxes free".

Weren't there a whole bunch of Kickstarter extras/exclusives?

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Some Numbers posted:

There's nothing inherently wrong with putting dice in your game. See: BSG and CitOW

There is something wrong with making everything in the game based on the result of a die roll. See: Arkham Horror

The only thing in Arkham Horror that's dice-based are skill checks. (Well, and rolling for losing Blessings/Curses/etc.). Which are the primary method of action resolution in it, don't get me wrong, but there are plenty of parts of that game that aren't dice-based. Some of them aren't even card-based, like movement.

A better example would be Talisman.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Some Numbers posted:

You are right, dice are only used in skill checks...which are used to 1) close gates, which is the central point of the game, 2) kill or avoid monsters, which is necessary to get to the gates, 3) resolve the majority of all encounters and 4) fight the Great Old One, if necessary.

The only part of the game that doesn't require rolling dice is movement. Your stats are explicitly the number of dice you roll, with the sole exception of speed.

Yes, I said that they are the primary action resolution mechanism. But that's not nearly the same thing as everything in the game being based on the results of a die roll. That's Talisman.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Poison Mushroom posted:

You are being incredibly pedantic right now.

There are other ways to resolve actions in certain circumstances. There are mechanics that are purely player decision-based. A significant amount of the randomization is card-based, which is meaningfully distinct from using dice. Even when you do roll dice, there are ways to improve outcomes and the number of dice being rolled make the outcome significantly less random than in pure dicefests like Talisman. I know it's popular to hate on Arkham Horror here and I don't expect anyone to change their mind about the game just because the above things are true, but it's just not a good example to use in that context.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Gutter Owl posted:

Basically, being the Enemy player is great if the game lets you, y'know, actually play the game.

A competitive Overlord in Descent can easily shatter the game balance, particularly with the base campaign. And a competitive Keeper in Mansions of Madness is basically a complete joke.

But Fury of Dracula, Tragedy Looper, Letters from Whitechapel et al expect (if not demand) that Dracula/Mastermind/Jack/etc fight like a bastard to win. And even Imperial Assault is better at balancing the Imperial player against the rebels, even if some specific missions are rather cheeseable. (Seriously, gently caress the mission to rescue Han. Absolutely gently caress it.)

Imbalance between sides is definitely an issue, but I don't mind that as much. I'm more than happy to run the investigators ragged in Mansions. It feels appropriate. What ruins the Overlord in Descent for me is that they're effectively playing a different game that's nowhere near as satisfying. For me, Descent should be a game of fantasy hack and slash fighting and continually escalating, customizable powers. You get that as the heroes, but the Overlord is heavily incentivized to avoid combat except to stall while pursuing usually unrelated objectives and your incremental power gains are adding extremely situational cards to a deck that's randomized every scenario, giving one artifact to one lieutenant IF there is one in the scenario, and a mid-campaign all-at-once stat bump for your monsters.

Imperial Assault gives a lot more actual ongoing upgrades to the Imperial side, and since it makes taking out the heroes genuinely useful (and often game-winning again), plentifully incentivizes proper combat. Being the Imperial player is actually fun as a result.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Shadow225 posted:

As someone who hates most dice based games and 'thematic experiences,' I think Eldritch is solid as long as you're not the one who runs or sets up the game. The victory conditions change based on the Old One chosen for each game, but generally you spend time either enhancing stats, fighting monsters, or solving mysteries. You roll dice to resolve anything, but the game is split on resolution. You either aim to roll a certain number of successes, or you aim to roll a single success by rolling dice equal to your stats. I feel the game gives you options to mitigate your luck enough that you don't feel screwed.


I like a lot of what EH is doing but I disagree with your last point. I've lost every single game of EH I've ever played and it almost completely came down to the dice failing us (with a side of badly timed brutal Mythos cards, but mainly dice). The issue as I see it is that a lot of the dice mechanics are imported straight from Arkham Horror, but in that game you have larger dice pools to start, more ways to increase them, and you get way more clue tokens with far less fuss and have significantly fewer places you need to spend clue tokens that aren't rolling extra dice on failed rolls. In Eldritch, I don't think the math works. The Focus action added in a couple of the later expansions does help a bit, but since one of the most limited resources you have are player actions and it's only one die worth of reroll by default, it's not really enough.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Stelas posted:

Even the worst gate and event checks in Eldritch give you a 33% chance of passing because you can always chuck a 5 or 6 on a single die.


Which is important, because you'll be chucking a lot of single dice. (But also someone's usually Cursed pretty quickly and down to a 1 in 6 chance.)

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Stelas posted:

Not ... really? Unless you're deliberately throwing the wrong people at the wrong checks (the manual even tells you what stat does what, though I admit it's tucked away in the Reference Manual) you shouldn't really ever have 1 dice on a gate or skill check unless it's one of the rare wonky ones that throws Strength or unusual requirements at you. If you're tossing that dude with 2 Will 1 Lore into a gate then you deserve everything you get.

Again, this is something that's compounded in Arkham - not only do you need multiple successes, the game's a lot more lousy with (Stat)-2 (Stat)-3 rolls that just aren't there in EH.

e: I've run 3 EH games on the forum that players have won - the only one players didn't was Kerro's King in Yellow mod, and that was down to unfortunate interaction with Mythos cards. My win rate with people around a table is more like 60%, if only because there's less time to weigh up options since you kinda have to keep the game going.

It's been my experience that a heck of a lot of checks in EH are at -1, and most characters start with stats in the 1-3 range except for one or two specialties, so there's a lot of 1 or 2 die rolls. There weren't nearly as many -2/-3 checks in Arkham on average and a -2 penalty to a skill you might have 6-7 in is a lot less devastating than a -1 to a skill you have 2 or 3 in. We weren't aware of the Will/Lore to gates and Observation to research ties (I haven't seen any consistent pattern in what checks are required in what circumstance, aside from actual combat, but I'll take your word for it), so we might be able to improve our odds there, but that doesn't cover general/city or expedition skill checks, the former of which are significantly more common than gates or clues and still potentially quite dangerous, and the latter are, at the very least, quite important to certain Mysteries and still very rewarding the rest of the time.

Besides which, the movement is so slow and threats/clues so spread out that it's really not very practical to consistently match the person with the best skill in that type of encounter with every encounter of that type. Or at least not at our player count (usually 3). Maybe you play with more and that helps?

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Radioactive Toy posted:

Heads up that this was changed in the latest official errata to be better balanced for odd numbers. Not sure why they didn't include the errata'd reference cards in the newest expansion though.

We generally really enjoy EH even though some games have been lost due to a string of bad rolls. Picked up the newest small box expansion and I love how they are mostly adding depth of content to existing decks and features instead of the Arkham Horror problem of "new expansion means 6 new decks that you'll never use." I recommend having another player read your encounter cards and stop after telling you what check you are rolling for without knowing the pass/fail results. The theme flows a lot better this way and it becomes a pretty good balance for spending clue/focus tokens when you don't know the result of your failures ahead of time.

New decks are actually great, because you can slot them in when you want to use them and ignore them the rest of the time, and they just do the thing they're supposed to do. The big problem with Arkham expansions was that a lot of their mechanics fired in the Mythos and Other World Encounters decks where adding more than a couple of expansions at a time would dilute them to the point that they never really got going. The Act mechanic from the King in Yellow stuff, for example - if you never get any King in Yellow Mythos cards, that stuff just...doesn't do anything. Whereas Eldritch has thankfully compartmentalized that stuff into Ancient One specific content and everything else is just more variety for decks. Particularly since they ditched the idea of the gates leading to specific Other Worlds and made the whole gate experience one card at a time.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Echophonic posted:

Finally got to try out Millennium Blades two-player today. It's pretty cool, really dig what it's doing. Almost managed a Exodia-knockoff play with a card to double the points, but I hosed up and still managed to win the round. I feel like that's the MB experience, snatching victory out of the jaws of "oh poo poo I hosed up." The real-time component is probably a lot more interesting with more than two people, though.

The real-time element isn't really the focus, I don't think. It's just a way to prevent the game dragging on forever from AP.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

the panacea posted:

Let's play guess the reviewer/site

You forgot to include the two columns (thus, two weeks) leadup where he gushed about how awesome minis and the assembling, painting, and conceivably using in a completely different game were and provided no information whatsoever about the actual game that is theoretically why you would be spending ~$120.

I was excited about Cardboard Children once upon a time, in the early days. Before I realized that Rab apparently straight up loves everything except Carcassonne and cannot be trusted to have any sort of meaningful critical discernment.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

KPC_Mammon posted:

Is Hero Quest a good game? My only memories of actually playing it involved my dad playing the overlord and kicking my rear end every time we tried the first level. I was 9, and not very good at the game.

It was the american version, if that makes a difference.

For kids, back in the late 80s/early 90s? Hell yes, it was magic. But the pickings were pretty slim back then. There have been far better games introduced since then.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Dr. VooDoo posted:

So speaking of Warhammer Quest and Decent what is the best dungeon crawling board game out there?

Depends on what exactly you're looking for, but for my money Mage Knight is the single best realization of the powerful-adventurers-kill-monsters-and-loot-poo poo gameplay that's what "dungeon crawl" means to me. By a fair margin.

Just don't let anyone tell you Dungeonquest is either a dungeon crawl or good.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Shadin posted:

I don't think they did, considering that their game is in the Sigmar setting and costs $150, whereas the ACG is in the Old World and costs $30 and doesn't require putting together a million tiny miniatures. Seems like two completely different target audiences.

Also, The Silver Tower is Games Workshop proper, and the ACG is Fantasy Flight exercising their standing license with Games Workshop for using the Warhammer Fantasy and 40K IP for pretty much every non-miniatures based game type. I don't know the details, so I suppose it's conceivable the terms of that deal would allow GW to kill the ACG, but I can't imagine Fantasy Flight would have any incentive to short of it just not selling.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Shadin posted:

Maybe, but I find it hard to believe that Fantasy Flight would enter into an agreement where GW could just kill a game anytime they want. Making any GW game would be a huge risk at that point and would make whatever they pay for the license a huge waste.

Yeah, it seems unlikely to me too. But hey, they wouldn't be the first boardgame company to have terrible decision-makers at the helm.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Triple-Kan posted:

There was a rumor a while back that GW was looking to amend their deal with FFG, as GW was looking to get back into board games proper. Considering the only news from FFG about GW products has been about their LCG lines (and not, for example, an expansion for Forbidden Stars or for the Warhammer Quest ACG), it looks like it may be true.

I sure hope not. Say what you will about FFG, but they actually understand how to design, promote and sell boardgames. They aren't always the best boardgames (honestly almost never), but there isn't a Games Workshop game that they didn't handle better than GW ever did.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Gimnbo posted:

Are there any good one vs. many games other than Descent/Imp rear end?

Descent isn't good as a one vs. many experience, in my opinion. The balance is too swingy, and the overlord's playing a different and way less fun game where they are incentivized to be janky as gently caress if they want to win and don't get cool upgrades and such. Supposedly the Road to Legend app makes it good as a pure coop, which I will be investigating soon hopefully.

Imperial Assault's cool, though. At least from my two or three sessions with it so far.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

al-azad posted:

ImpAss is another game where the mission design is so tight that the Imperial game master player has to play awkwardly to keep up with the heroes. It's just something you have to accept with those games, that you're not sitting down to "win" but to create an enjoyable experience because in no way are the rules or scenarios balanced.

I'll tell anyone who wants to play "a better Descent" to find someone offloading a truckload of D&D minis/encounters. Wizards ran an entire system for one-shot/campaign dungeon crawlers and now that stuff can be had for pennies.

I've been playing the Imperials in Imperial Assault and I've won so far, but I've never felt like I had the game on lock or like I had to handicap myself just to keep it interesting. Conversely, I've never been incentivized to do weird bullshit because the scenario objectives are built around the sort of pitched battles that we're there for in the first place instead of being completely orthogonal to them. Also, I get neat toys and upgrades too. Descent didn't really have that.

Entirely possible that will change, of course.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

StashAugustine posted:

Just got EmDo Escalation. Should I apply the errata to the base game regardless of whether or not you use the expansion?

You want to use the expansion, so it's moot. Eminent Domain goes from bland to great with Escalation. (Exotica I haven't used yet, but hopefully also spices things up.)

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Obama 2012 posted:

Are Cool Mini or Not games just style without substance? Shut up and Sit Down plugged their Kickstarter for Massive Darkness, but my impression of their other products (i.e. Zombicide) has been 'fantastic miniatures to entertain you, because the actual gameplay won't'.

I've never played one though, so I can neither confirm nor deny.

I'd describe them as intermittent substance with no style. I picked up Zombicide because there's very few pure coop zombie apocalypse games and at that point it was on season 2 and there were impressions around that seemed moderately positive, and while it's not amazing (especially for the price), it's got a few neat ideas and gets way more mileage out of them than you'd expect. Blood Rage sounds like it's decent with a few issues. Etc. But literally everything they've ever pitched seems really bland and generic to me from a flavor perspective, Zombicide included. Where they're entering more crowded fields (like coop fantasy hack and slash), I see no reason to back them unless you REALLY like minis.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

StashAugustine posted:

I might want to introduce newbies to the game with the base game though.

Also, do people use the scenarios as well- either all the time or just for some games?

You probably don't. As far as I can recall the only major new rule introduced in Escalation is differentiating the three sizes of ship token and adding a way to upgrade them. This doesn't meaningfully increase the complexity of the game and will prevent your newbies from wondering why there are three sizes of ship token that all do the same thing.

And I'd use scenarios most of the time, myself, though maybe not for newbies. It lets you actually -use- the later techs instead of the game ending pretty much the moment you get any.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

al-azad posted:

And lots of people quit games early on because the gameplay stops being engaging or the newest thing comes out. Video games tend to be easy by player choice to keep the casual audience there but I'd argue there's a correlation between hard games like Demon's Souls and higher completion percentage because their audience is there to win.

Board games just don't have the luxury of wasting your time like video games can.

I'd argue the opposite. The harder the game the lower the completion percentage because people hit a brick wall and quit. Certainly that's my experience.

That said, it makes sense for boardgames to pose more of a challenge because they don't have the luxury of many of the things that a videogame can offer instead, like a strong narrative or exploring a virtual world, etc.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Gabriel Pope posted:

The main advantage of auctions is that it gets properties into play faster. Letting people say "nah I want to save my money, nobody gets it" slows down an already intolerably slow game further.

It also provides some aspect of resource management to the initial buy phase--players would rather bank money for development instead of buying garbage properties, but the alternative is letting other players get cheap property. Whatever sliver of merit it has as a mechanic is very much drowned out by the general awfulness of the rest of the game though.

The downside being that then there are auctions in the game. Which are among the shittiest of all boardgame mechanics, right alongside roll and move (also in Monopoly! Hooray!). I've never understood how people think that that improves the game, much less makes it good.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Lhet posted:

Depending on the group, I've found (from the mastermind's POV) that it's good idea to say no communication between players while a loop is in progress (or at the very least no announcing the card they lay down). Having a complete strategy discussion every day can double the playtime, and makes things really boring for mastermind. Open communication between days of course is necessary, but the mastermind can take a break if they players go deep into analysis. (Also make sure the mastermind understands all the timing/triggers/etc. extremely well or the game might be ruined)

It's not just a good idea, the rules explicitly forbid table talk during a loop.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Machai posted:

The rules actually just say that table talk is optional

Oops. So they do. Also that it's the Mastermind's call.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009
Wasn't there going to be a version of Agricola with all the cards (expansions etc included) to go with the stripped down revised version?

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

MorphineMike posted:

Related to actual board games, is the Argent: the Consortium expansion worth it? The game already has quite a lot of moving parts, so I'm not sure about adding more.

Absolutely. As has been said, it's entirely modular so you can add whatever takes your fancy. But the new department has cool toys, and the various other new bits all add even more lovely variety - particularly the bell cards and the Scenarios (which largely emphasize particular aspects of play, makes a nice change of pace). There are a couple of new rooms that are a tad complicated, but nothing too terrible and you can just leave them out if you'd rather not deal. Very little new rules overhead, mostly just more stuff.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Rutibex posted:

Whatever you do, don't get Pathfinder Adventure Cards. You will read their description and believe them to be exactly what you want, but they are a trap!

Actually, they're well worth a look. Skip Rise of the Runelords - they were still finding their feet with that one and it's kind of unbalanced and a little too samey over time (still moderately fun, admittedly - but if you're curious, the digital implementation's probably a better bet and cheaper by a whole lot). If they sound at all appealing, I recommend buying a base box of Skull and Shackles or Wrath of the Righteous, maybe with character addon, and then playing the first adventure (composed of five scenarios that are each a game session) at a minimum before deciding whether you want to continue. Unless you just absolutely hate the basic process of playing a scenario, of course. But the true test of the game's appeal involves the progression and you don't get that in one session.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Mister Sinewave posted:


Pretty sure I read something about how you'll be able to buy the extra bits separately if you like, nothing is truly exclusive in that sense.

This is correct. Stonemaier did (I think) fancy resource tokens as a Kickstarter exclusive for Euphoria and after that experience promptly decided to never do exclusives again. They'll sell the KS extras on their webstore. I think you will also be able to get the fancier coins and resources and board extension that way also, although it's likely to cost more than as part of the Collector's Edition.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

sector_corrector posted:

It would be interesting, and perhaps terrible, to see a designer boardgame made explicitly for sexual purposes. Didn't the CAH dinguses do something like that?

Back in the 90s CCG boom there was a CCG based on the XXXenophile adult comic Phil Foglio did(/does?). My understanding was that it was basically a particularly elaborate version of something like strip poker, but I was too young to buy or play it myself and the gaming group where I heard about it was all ages and largely male so it never got played there, period.

(They later did a Girl Genius card game using some of the core mechanics that was not X-rated. No idea if either were any good.)

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Azran posted:

What's this thread take on Assault on Doomrock and Darkest Night?

No idea about Assault on Doomrock, but Darkest Night is possibly my favorite of all my coop games. Yes, the resolution mechanic is dice-based, but it's not usually "roll a single d6 and nothing happens 2/3rds of the time", and if it is you've probably either made a bad decision or you're in a really terrible situation that will probably soon resolve itself via you losing the game.

For any type of roll you will commonly have extra dice, rerolls, plusses, or some combination of the three from powers, consumables, relics and so forth and if you don't, there's probably something better you could be doing with your turn. Most die rolls aren't "succeed or nothing", also. You're either getting something good or you're losing something, either of which meaningfully changes the game state. The main situation where you might be rolling a single d6 with an outcome of nothing happening if you don't hit your target is searching (there are bonuses to it but they're less common than other types), and if you're doing that in the right spots, you have a target number of 3 or even 2, not 4.

And man, everything beyond that is flavorful, varied, and cool. With all the expansions, you've got something like thirty characters, each of which is a hugely different play experience. You have a Necromancer who gathers up to two of dozens of really brutal Darkness Powers. You have a huge range of nasty blights making your life difficult across the map and so many cool artifacts and consumables to find. You have quests prompting you to go places and take risks instead of camping the optimal search zones. You have mysteries adding narrative and game effects to the process of recovering the relics. It's so great.

My only real complaint is that certain characters are great supports but not super interesting to play as your only character, so maybe don't pick one of those if you're running with maximum player count.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Lorini posted:

Exactly why I don't like Stonemaier as a designer. Right up there with dumbest rule ever.

From BGG Scythe Rules forum

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1460460/why-rule-hiding-coins-so-woolly/page/1

Basically you are supposed to stack your metal coins of different colors but no one should actually look at them and if they do, they are bad players who people shouldn't play with.

gently caress that. We play once seen always seen but I guess his apparently weak design can't handle that.

I think you are misunderstanding this. It's not a question of counting the coins that the player has sitting in front of them, it's a question of evaluating the coins they would be awarded if the game were to end right there and then. Because the actual victory condition is most money, and the various "achievements" that get you stars award you money based on your popularity (as well as other factors). I don't think it's at all unreasonable to not want people doing the full scoring math constantly. Or at least not if they're going to hold up actually taking their turn for any length of time in the process.

malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Beffer posted:

The quality of the components in Scythe is great.

But after two plays, the game itself has left me flat. It seems like a game of multiplayer solitaire. Both times were with two players, and that may be why, but there is little or no interaction. I will try again with a higher player count, but so far so meh.

Try before you buy would be my advice.

I think that's almost certainly a big part of why. Factions will also make a difference. Saxony, for example, has a big incentive to start fights as long as they're in a position to win them, since they can earn as many combat stars as they want. It's not a game about combat, certainly, but there are limited resources in play (factory tiles, encounters), winning fights gets you stars (to a point, for anyone but Saxony) and territory control is a major scoring concern, so there's encouragement to interact. There's just too much room to really push you into butting heads when there's only two factions on the board.

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malkav11
Aug 7, 2009

Shadin posted:

As a System Administrator with an iPad, I feel that I'm qualified to assist you in loving around instead of working. I've been playing the following lately:

BattleLore: Command - Pretty good adaptation of the board game, if you like command and color style war games.
Elder Sign: Omens - Again, a perfectly adequate adaptation of the physical.
Space Hulk - Claustrophobic and frustratingly difficult so basically it's Space Hulk
Deathwatch - Another 40k game that isn't actually a board game adaptation but plays like one anyway.

I would argue the app is the only way Elder Sign is worth even bothering with. It's still pretty slight and not very well balanced but having pretty art and music and stuff makes it a modestly amusing alternative to solitaire.

The Sentinels of the Multiverse app is pretty good although it's not at content parity with the tabletop version yet.

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