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Jedit posted:Arkwright. I'm pretty sure Arkwright is OOP already. And only 1000 copies were printed. Have fun.
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Dec 19, 2014 17:49
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A thought occurred to me regarding BattleCON and Yomi that make me feel the two are even less comparable than they are. Once Upon a Time, Broken Loose talked about how he plays 2D fighters of the Video Game variety, so Yomi/BattleCON kind of lose their relevance. I thought about that...and kind of wonder how it holds true to BattleCON, actually. BattleCON keeps up the appearance of a 2D fighter, but Yomi definitely takes home the "abstracting feeling like a 2D fighter award." BattleCON, however, gets this weird and possibly unintentional side-effect of being a game that isn't totally trying to be how a fighting game feels on card; as such it gets to do some interesting things that strictly don't work in a video fighting game. BattleCON is more like if a 2D fighter was played in some weird freeze-frame, tool-assisted mode where dexterity was removed completely but no core mechanic was put in to replace this removal other than making complex characters (maybe). It's essentially a different game idea as a result. I can't argue which is better (or if I did I'd probably concede Yomi as a better-executed design maybe). I enjoy BattleCON a ton because of my perverse glee in exploring new game mechanics*, and holy poo poo BattleCON has dozens and dozens of characters and isn't afraid to drastically alter the game mechanics for their unique abilities.
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Dec 22, 2014 11:27
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I got my non-boardgaming family to play five-player Space Alert with me. I started with the tutorial scenario, and today we finished (and won) an internal threats simulation. I hope you understand how happy it makes me to have family people (that I like pretty okay) play loving Space Alert and enjoy it.
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Dec 26, 2014 23:04
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The Ultra Euro, Roads & Boats and its &cetera expansion, are on sale at CSI. These are expensive games, so seeing them $50 off and $22 off respectively is a pretty impressive sale; especially since they're definitely "grail status" games. Make no mistake, you're getting a lot of pieces with this game. The designers, Splotter (a couple of guys who make their own games as a hobby, thus their absurd limited-print-run prices), demo'ed this game at Essen for fun when they were just a handful of people. People asked when they'd release it, and Splotter went "this game would be unpublishable." It's rather surprising that it exists, actually considering: quote:The basic game contains a rule and scenario book in English and German, a pile of hexagonal terrain tiles, 120 means of transportation from donkeys to steamers (wooden pieces), 75 walls (little wooden rods), 4 research boards, 28 discovery stones (glass), a wonder of the world with 193 wonder stones (cardboard), 18 mines + bags, 115 factories (cardboard), 600 goods (cardboard) and several other parts. The several other parts include a loving clear plastic overlay and wet-erase marker to draw your roads.. Gameplay wise, if you want a really, really hefty wooden-pieces euro about transport and
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Dec 27, 2014 09:34
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You absolutely can tank Dead of Winter with one turn as a traitor. Everybody completes their turn in sequence, including putting down any 'secret' thing to resolve a crisis, before a check crisis step happens. Traitor can just wait until he's last in turn order for a full round (something that just swings clockwise at the end of each crisis) and bomb the game after everyone has had their turn. Yes you can do this. Yes it has happened to me. No this isn't a good game.
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Dec 28, 2014 05:24
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Samurai Spirit is pretty great at being an easy-to-teach co-op with enough challenge to be fun, despite suffering from what you'd expect a turn-based coop to suffer from (quarterbacking ahoy!). The compact box is also quite welcome. And it is hard.
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Dec 31, 2014 00:46
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Elysium posted:So given how almost pointless the board is in Temporum, this is how I'll be traveling with it this weekend: Props to your method; board game compression is the way to go. This is how I'm going to pack for an upcoming convention. I'm being restricted to one suitcase and a small pack for luggage. Oh the games that will be squeezed in that suitcase.
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Jan 2, 2015 22:49
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Countblanc posted:Archipelago definitely has too many hidden objectives to work with two people, I agree, but I think it's fine with four or five (assuming everyone has access to a player aid so you don't have to memorize that poo poo). In the two player game each player gets two objectives, with the Pacifist and Separatist removed. I've found tracking objectives in a two player game much more manageable than in a multiplayer match most of the time. The game needs more loving player aids and game tracking than is in the box though. I've gotten some good print outs for objective references, but I'd really want to make a custom player board for tracking how close end-game conditions are to possibly happening.
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Jan 4, 2015 01:35
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For every problem Dead of Winter gets shat on for here, Archipelago has sidestepped wonderfully. Except Archipelago hamfistedly stereotypes and fantasizes colonialism--or at least is really, really crass about it. Basically Archipelago needs to be reskinned with zombies (each player is managing a survivor camp and trying to keep the contagion level down while exploring new areas to find survivor camps blah blah blah) and all the nerds would be happy. Either that or the Worst Game would be created.... Seriously though if you can acknowledge the rather ludicrous colonialism in Archipelago it's everything a semi-cooperative game should be.
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Jan 21, 2015 02:20
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EBag posted:For those euro gamers out there, what are you favorite heavy euros that play well with 2? I'm talking real heavy, like 4+ on BGG. I have a lot of great mid weight euros but I want something that will really burn my brain. I've been thinking about Vinhos in particular but I'm open to suggestions. Through the Ages is the quintessential choice, although it kind of falls apart once you hit its rather high skill ceiling. Vinhos kicks rear end. EDIT: Also it's definitely got the most heavy in the shortest timespan of any game I know. One of the few heavier euros where the box time is overestimating playtime. Madeira is pretty legit. Kanban is probably as good as Vinhos but I haven't played it too much as of yet. Dominant Species is pretty much the bees knees even at two-player with the added benefit of going all the way up to six. If you can stomach the prices and get a hold of them, Roads & Boats (&cetera) and Antiquity are some of the best heavy euros out there. The new Arkwright is currently my heavy game of choice (bring poker chips) (suffers from high prices as well). Mage Knight Board Game is very euro-ey and better with lower player counts (I'd recommend solo!), but not quite the "heavy euro" you're asking for. EDIT: Oh hey taser rates also brought up Arkwright! I'd wager a two hour game of Arkwright could be feasible with experience (with two players!), although set-up is hefty both in components and decision making. ANOTHER EDIT: I'm not sure which of these would be the 'best' heavy euro by the way. Vinhos is probably the safest wager, although I'm really loving Arkwright right now. The Splotter games (Roads & Boats and Antiquity) are amazing but are something you'll need to do research on before deciding (i.e. niche as gently caress and make sure they're right for you). ONE MORE EDIT THING: Also if you want to see how hilariously limited your euro options are on BGG; do advanced search for games with a 4+ weight rating and filter out the categories "trains" and "wargames." Trynant fucked around with this message at 04:16 on Jan 31, 2015 |
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Jan 31, 2015 04:06
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EBag posted:Thanks, this is great. I'm debating between Vinhos and Arkwright, they both sound interesting in their own regards. I've been reading some reviews for Arkwright, some possible concerns I've seen say that shipping to India can be a dominating strategy, and also that because of that it can lack player interaction. Have you noticed that or think it may be a legitimate problem? Re: Arkwright: I must be doing something wrong because I can't win through shipping for the life of me. That your share values (i.e. how you win the game) go down when you use it makes the whole business feel like a shipping strategy needs good preparation to pull off well. As for player interaction; for a game where you can't block player actions there sure are a gently caress-ton of ways to feel screwed over by other players' actions....In short no I don't think those are legit problems, but note I've not played much of Arkwright yet compared to Vinhos. Dominant Species is definitely better 2 player than Eclipse is 2 player, although yes DS is better with higher player counts. Really, the most reasonable answer is Vinhos--it's shorter than Arkwright and less of a strain on the wallet. Or maybe hunt for that two-player variant of Brass which apparently is a thing and is still a really good game.
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Jan 31, 2015 11:06
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The Supreme Court posted:Is it fixable, and how much work would it take to turn into a good game? If you want a game in the same genre that's less work to fix into at least a fairly good game, I hear Xia is the perfect* fit. *the fact that it needs fixing in the first place not withstanding
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Jan 31, 2015 17:44
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All this talk of wine-making euros and no mention of Vinhos, the heavy wine-making-in-Portugal game, in sight. For shame, goons. For shame. Also Vinhos has the plus of not being Another Worker Placement Game, still being a meaty euro design, and for all its depth and complexity finishing its play in two or less hours.
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Feb 2, 2015 11:54
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Bosushi! posted:I was going to make a joke that Broken Loose had completed his apotheosis into David Sirlin, but he already basically admitted it, so there went my fun. There are pandas in Final Attack?!
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Feb 10, 2015 16:59
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Elemennop posted:I have couple general issues with Archipelago that I am wondering if other people have had. The first is that it seems that exploration has a high enough percentage of success that there's no reason not to be aggressive exploring it early. It seems most our games progress the same way, we explore turn 1 - actions 1 and/or 2. Then, on action 3 or on the next turn, the labor market is large enough that we can each buy 2-3 laborers. Then, following reproduction, each us frequently have 7-9 citizens. That will increase the citizen tracker high enough that there's a significant buffer, also with the additional resource cubes on the market it will make crises easier to quell or just ignore. Also, with that high of a citizen population, there's very little reason not to just tax instead of pursuing alternative incomes through the markets. Migration taking a full action disk makes it frequently a worse option than just exploring. For one, a successful exploration will give you a resource cube and exploration token. Secondly, if you try to move into an occupied hex, the opposing player will have an action in response to just erect a city and take control of the hex. Also, fighting it out early with someone, will just give the others an early lead. In addition to all that, with high early populations a lot of the evolution cards are also frequently useless. You're honestly the first person to voice this particular complaint except for possibly the bolded part. Archipelago can suffer from group think fatigue because the whole game hinges on player dynamics (even if there's a lot of meat beyond that). It is odd that your citizens feel like a buffer since the domestic crises on large populations drain far more resources than a small population--far more than I expected exploration resource boosts to help. That being said, if you want an example of early-game big money port + double In addition the War & Peace expansion really adds some truly game-changing cards. Most of the evolution cards in that expansion are on par in effect with the likes of Barbarian, Assassin, or Spy. I will say that I play Archipelago with wildly different groups and get wildly different games; I'm curious what would be your experience with a different group of players....
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Feb 13, 2015 12:14
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Re: Argent: The Consortium
Overall I'm digging Argent a lot and want to play it a lot more. I don't think it's as mechanically brilliant as some creme de la creme worker placements, but it's drat close. AP vulnerable, yes, but if you can get past that hurdle, the modularity and nigh-endless content makes this one a really good buy.
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Feb 20, 2015 17:12
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EvilChameleon posted:Thanks for this write-up, I'm seriously considering buying this game now, unless someone can come in and detail some horrible problem with it. I sort of glazed over watching the Watch It Played video but it seemed cool. Which WP games would you compare it to / say are bestest? I really can't think of great WP analogs. There's hidden victory conditions and a constant change-up of special ability cards to select from, so that's kind of like Archipelago. There's a delay between placing your workers and actually getting the pay-off of where ever you put them (i.e.they're two separate phases in a round), which is akin to Dominant Species or Caylus. And then there's mechanics that I have trouble to find analog to--especially in WP--like how your placement action is done being your primary decision rather than the result of that placement. I also have trouble recalling WP games that grant tons of opportunities for extra actions but then is kept in check because you can rush the end of round. I also have no loving idea what to compare the modular worker placement slots to. So...I dunno. This game is more similar to non-spatial worker placements (i.e. not Dominant Species or Archipelago...) but really Argent is its own thing.
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Feb 24, 2015 20:02
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Crackbone posted:Also, played my copy Argent yesterday. Dammit, I really wanted to like this but I think it's suffering from Level99 syndrome: neat idea that kept growing instead of having an editor come in and chop away the cruft.... I don't really think the mechanics overload is inherently bad, so there's most likely bias with what I'm about to say. The first play of Argent I had I couldn't tell if it all its mechanics came together into something worthwhile or was just a mess of ideas crushed together. After a few plays I'm confident there is a richness here that does benefit from its complexity. There was already the point made of INT and WIS counters having a reason for being separate. The complaints about unique card effects is pretty accurate...with all Level99 games. The more I mess with their published products, the more I wish they could create consistent iconography in their designs. quote:The other major problem is the actual card text/rulebook. There's a distinct lack of technical writing, which means there is a ton of stuff that is unclear/flat out not answered. The game has been out less than a month and there are already a 3 pages of rules questions on BGG, a 3 page FAQ thread, and a dedicated manual rewrite in the works from a frustrated user. Speaking of consistent and communicative rules, yeah, Argent (and BattleCON for that matter) is awful at clarity. I think there's not too much here that can't be handled with a "house rule on the spot" handwave, but YMMV. If this type of stuffs is insufferable for you, I would heavily recommend waiting for a proper reprint (or at least time for a good FAQ/Errata pdf to release). TL;DR: Argent does suffer from a lot of problems that Level99 games published products do in regards to clarity of graphics design (so much unique mechanics text... on tiny one-sided cards...) and rules ambiguities at the smaller stuff.
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Mar 8, 2015 22:27
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Crackbone posted:In terms of actual game length, god help me (but again, it was a game with a dude who was taking 3+ minutes per turn). In terms of rounds, I would agree - another round or two would let some engines start and potentially do interesting things. I'm getting AP just reading that. Advising to run away from that player as fast as possible aside, there totally is a round 6 variant and scenarios add start-of-round effects and vary in length. Argent is almost as absurd in modular content as BattleCON....
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Mar 9, 2015 03:42
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I'm kind of in awe how anyone can squeeze debate from Dominion anymore. It's going on seven years of discussion, and frankly there's nothing new being said about it here  Echophonic posted:Anyway, I'm planning on getting Argent to the table this week. Any tips for first time players or teaching it? Make sure your table can fit the drat game. Crackbone is write that looking at a rewritten rulebook/faq stuff helps a ton. You should during teaching just flat out say that if you catch a mechanic with vague or little clarification; get ready to agree on a quick house-rule and find out the answer for a new session. It might be good to just print out this errata/faq post on BGG. Also try to enforce or state that the game can cause AP and do what you can to mitigate it from a player end? Basic FAQ things that are worth pointing out: While Shadow mages have to normally be placed next to normal mages, effects that move the normal mages don't null the Shadow Mages actions. Infirmary is cleared out after Resolution, spells that just move mages in any room can target mages in an infirmary. Taking a Bell Tower card doesn't knock you out of the round, but you when you take a Bell Tower card cannot gain any extra actions from special effects that you normally would after other Main Actions. You can take a Bell Tower card even if you've taken one before.
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Mar 9, 2015 15:23
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fozzy fosbourne posted:What do goons think of Eklund games like Pax Porfiriana Tekopo pretty much nailed Pax. It's a screw-your-neighbor card-tableau game with rules to keep balance issues in check. A slow-moving market row mitigates a lot of luck-gently caress. The deck triggers the end of game, so you don't have the game drag with a "can somebody please win already" end-game like Munchkin. That players win based on beating the players in last place mitigates a lot of "gang up on leader" poo poo. Biggest problem with Pax is that there's a lot of rules chrome, i.e. rules almost solely in place to reflect the game's theme (don't even get me started on chain railroads). If you can get past the convoluted small rules, the gist of the game is not too hard to grasp. quote:and Greenland? EDIT: Should be noted that Pax Pamir is coming out. It's a card game using Pax Porfiriana's system, but set in 19th-century Afghanistan. Players are tribal warlords trading with and manipulating various nations in the land where empires go to die. It'll be published by Eklund's publishing company, Sierra Madre games, at some point.... Trynant fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Mar 9, 2015 |
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Mar 9, 2015 17:12
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Gutter Owl posted:CitOW is super good, but PubicMice specifically asked for not-wargames. I dunno, CitOW is "not-wargamey" enough to be worth a mention at least. Either way Gutter Owl is probably right in that Cave Evil is probably the closest you can get the grimmest darkest of thematic-over-balanced board games without being poo poo about it. It uses standups instead of minis but hey just follow the threads advice of pimping out a copy with worse games' minis (or just look at some of the Reaper minis). Moving on, I went and played Agricola for what must of been a while. Playing it again feels like coming back to a real classic, most so in that Agricola feels like a game that didn't have to change up the worker placement formula to compete with other worker placements. I forget how straightforward that heavy game can get.
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May 2, 2015 01:44
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PerniciousKnid posted:Reading about Panamax is kind of inspiring me to play a train game that focuses more on the logistics of running trains and less on the logistics of owning them. Are there any good train games that focus more on cargo prices than stock prices? If you can find it, Container is a game about setting prices to hell and back.
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May 2, 2015 14:56
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Argent suffers from analysis paralysis in the same way that worker-placement games generally suffer from AP; that problem is taking those few seconds longer each turn of each round. It's kind of weird, but I've seen many AP players take proportionally longer on small turns that add up (e.g. worker-placements) over games with lengthy downtime between player turns. Games that always keep a player engaged in the game make AP worse a lot since if someone zones out or gets distracted from the game that person isn't thinking about their turn ahead of time. Worker placement games tend to have quick turns and heavy engagement and thusly both the things that make a slow player even more noticeable. It's especially bad because you could see three of four people in a game almost immediately take their turn and then this long pause of nothing as one player just silently looks at the board state. Games are pretty much more enjoyable when the rhythm between actions is consistent, and even the smallest roadblock of overthinking after a smooth road of decisions can be jarring.
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May 19, 2015 01:30
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Tekopo posted:Gonna play High Frontier + Colonization today. A speed game of it. Wish me luck Quote from another player at my last (and only so far) game of it: "Man, this will be so much fun the next time I play it." There is no such thing as a speed game of that thing.
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Jun 30, 2015 15:05
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Speaking of deckbuilders, I tried for the first time the one that doesn't suck that isn't Dominion: Eminent Domain (with Escalation). It's a great display of how to make a good game with a deck-building mechanic without cloning Dominion except with worse card pool rules. I mean, technically Eminent Domain has "worse" card pool rules than Dominion in that you're forced to put a card into your deck each round; but the game is built around this mechanic rather than as some gimmicky device that some designer haphazardly threw in to not be Dominion. The deck-building mechanic is essentially also a Puerto-Rico style role selection and that's really cool. Biggest complaint I see going for it is that there's little in ways of random setup even with Escalation; and I could see the Planet Deck screwing you over (less than the Junkyard deck in Arctic Scavengers though). Overall it's the only deckbuilder that wasn't Dominion that I felt was a game that thought about what deckbuilding could add to its design rather than making a deckbuilder that "fixes" Dominion. ...although my copy was missing the twenty small fighters and I had to use cubes from another game for my play. Now to wait for TMG to send spare parts....
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Jul 3, 2015 02:14
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At least Splendor doesn't make you shuffle a tiny deck of cards every minute  I was really supportive of Splendor until I realized it's pretty much a knock off of 7-Wonder's engine-building with poker chips and market rows instead of card-drafting. EDIT: Chomp8645 posted:"Ugh, another wargame? We just played a wargame you guys how about something euro?" 
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Aug 3, 2015 21:05
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RainTree posted:I'm currently doing a project for work where we're designing a game that will be using cards as its central mechanic. I'm in charge of getting everyone started, and I've begun typing up a list of different card game models that we could use as inspiration. This is what I have so far: Through the Ages and Pax Porfiriana use a market-row system that doesn't involve much hand-having (although there is some). "Tableau building market row" doesn't have a nice ring, but it has popped up on enough occasions where I feel it's a card system worth mention.
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Aug 4, 2015 23:07
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Wow do I really not post enough to be on that list? Not even in top 100...but then again neither is Archipelago; so I can deal. In regards to content discussion, Robinson Crusoe is about the second best compromise I can make for "pretty pieces I recommend Robinson Crusoe to people who liked how Arkham Horror just eats tables and looks cool doing so, but wants a similar experience without so much suck. It's one of those "there's not much better alternatives in that specific niche within a genre within a hobby" problems. Try Mage Knight first. And Crusoe just has awful awful rules. Ability to allow fudging in your play absolutely required.
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Aug 7, 2015 03:04
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Ayn Randi posted:I'm gonna attempt to get a first game of Argent tonight, 2 player. Any rules I should be extra sure I'm not missing/getting wrong? I've read the book and watched the watch it played, think the gotchas that stand out in memory from reading over were no instant-speed errands trigger for moving into a space as opposed to placing (I don't think it's relevant anyway since the basic first game layout doesn't use any instant speed rooms I think?) and mages in shadow slots not counting as having their powers (including blue/green immunities), anything else? I've also seen some say that rather than use the 2 player variant in the rulebook (9 tiles, a full 7 mages drafted) just stick with the 3 player 8 tile/5 mage setup - anyone have a preferred best 2p variant? Even if you're doing the 3-player setup (probably a good idea); definitely do side B of infirmary.
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Aug 7, 2015 03:15
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Is it me or did no one loving mention Ca$h 'n Guns as a high-tier thematic game that perfectly uses its components to convey theme? Because if not, what the gently caress guys. I'm getting Shades of Tezla in soon as well. I can only hope my card sleeving will mitigate some of the mismatching--it's already the case because I have second edition of the base game that doesn't match up with expansion cards. Also, just putting it out there; but fun...may not be the worst word in the world if it has obvious context of its most common definition--light-hearted amusement. Some games are "fun" in such a way that anyone can immediately relate "oh this is just simple entertaining filler" and still are good. It's getting to the boiling point where people are trigger fingers against three dumb letters. An interesting tangent; there was a point made on occasion that the often cited "bad games" often are hard to recommend alternatives to. A good example, while not an outright bad game, is Catan. Frankly, there aren't better direct alternatives to Settlers of Catan. I can tout Archipelago as much as I want for taking trading, expansion, and development to a wonderful level; but its not nearly as lightweight and snippy as Settlers. I guess one can blame the lack of direct trading in modern euros for Catan's lack of heirs, but it's just one cited game that kind of fits a niche no other games have yet to fill despite there being room for improvements. My point to this whole conjecture is that I've given up a bit on making GBS threads on certain scorned games when there are not enough alternatives for someone to play instead. Thank god deck-builders don't have this problem 
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Aug 8, 2015 14:48
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Andarel posted:Only game that's really similar to the meat of Catan imo is Avalon Hill's version of Civ, which is probably better but also takes 8 hours and requires minimum 6. Amazing game though. If we're disregarding game-length and complexity, let me tell you about a little game called Archipelago.
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Aug 8, 2015 15:03
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Tekopo posted:I didn't like how most of the solutions are 'ignore them' or 'be pass-agg'. From 1-5 he just promotes behaviours that will acerbate issues: I've been in a game were a couple were colluding and it both soured me to playing with them and playing that particular game altogether and it wasn't called out at the time because I was young and afraid of confrontation. I think the solutions he presented for 1-5 are pretty helpful for playing with a smaller group of friends rather than a bigger meetup. I also inferred that this advice is less applicable for getting specific, difficult-to-pitch games to the table and moreso general tips on being accommodating when feasible. Frankly the first five problem players seem to stem from a premise of "game night" rather than "game meet up." The latter case there's more need for, well, people to be less problematic. Number 6 was solid talk though yeah. EDIT: Also regardless of the viability of advice; Quinns needs to do more general topic videos like this and that introducing board games one a way back because he hits a stride that kind of doesn't get to be seen when inspecting a single game. Trynant fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Sep 26, 2015 |
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Sep 26, 2015 22:45
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drat Dirty Ape posted:Archipelago Archipelago is still my favorite game. I had my second-best "worst loss" yesterday where I ended the game early and only lost because I gave a player some money as good faith only to have him win 'most money' both as a score and for tie-breaking (the first worst being intentionally throwing the game thinking I was behind only to find out the Separist was in play and I would of won if the round ended*). It has to be that this game combines a heavy engine-buildy game with a lot of direct player action (with incredibly little direct conflict!) and bluffing/deduction/cooperation. In order to play it well it doesn't require just mathematical strategy but also negotiation to a degree you just don't see. I like to think of it as building an engine and then driving that engine around with to negotiate both the board and the players. Short game can definitely suffer from lucking in on objectives due to there being fairly little time to work out who might have what condition. And the game is remarkably insensitive. But drat, Archipelago makes the strangest, most fascinating games. *Countblanc was the Separatist in that worst loss of mine. I can't believe I fell for it.
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Sep 28, 2015 12:49
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The boardgoons that enjoy some of the board gaming heavier fare might be interested in a podcast that's been going on for a year called Heavy Cardboard. It's not full on video stuff a la SUSD but if you want a fairly thought-out 'cast that actually substantively covers the games they feature with short but succinct rules synopses and much more time devoted on actual critique, I'd give them a shot! Major caveat being that they pretty much exclusively cover some really niche levels of heavy gaming (Agricola is "medium maybe medium heavy" iirc). To me they're aware enough to acknowledge that it's a niche taste and they don't come off as snobs nearly as much as, say, goons like me do
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Oct 9, 2015 17:10
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Gutter Owl posted:So Lorini (and anyone else who picked it up), now that you've had Food Chain Magnate for a little bit, how strongly do you recommend it? For how early it's been out, it's quickly becoming my favorite Splotter* design (by proxy one of my favorite euro-designs). Great Zimbabwe is quicker (with low player counts...), but Food Chain Magnate is so many good things. Beyond all the clever mechanics, FCM's biggest accomplishment is despite the game having no random play elements (aside from turn order and board setup), none of the gameplay feels like it leads to the standard resource thing in euros of "optimal strategies." Between the different setup layouts and that everything the other players do greatly affects what you do; you're never going to go down a set obvious path at any point during the game. Closest I feel other games come to this achievement is in 18XX's in how non-random they are yet incredibly emergent via player choice; except Food Chain Magnate dodges the whole "group think because we know the board now" problem with modular setups. Dominant Species is one of my all-time favorite games; I won't be surprised if I continue liking Food Chain Magnate more than DS even after FCM's honeymoon period is over. Some caveats: paper money; the card pool is the biggest footprint I've seen a board game do with card piles; incredibly unforgiving even if it isn't as Roads & Boats / Antiquity "you built the wrong production building now you're out of the game" harsh. Oh and I'm incredibly full of hype for this one so I'm probably blinded to some other flaws or something (I guess how measuring distance in this game is weird to understand). *other Splotter Spellen games to compare are Roads & Boats &cetera, Antiquity, Greed Incorporated, Indonesia, and The Great Zimbabwe
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Nov 15, 2015 07:26
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Lorini posted:I have a question for you guys, which comes to mind after playing all these new Essen games. Also to respond to this from forever ago, but I don't know if this was gleaning rules before play or your group being incredibly good at managing The game more or less has you using employees (i.e. more or less playing a hand of cards similar to deck-building) that grant actions. The actions, no matter how the employees are played, go off in an exact order (the steps). For example, first turn of the game your only card can just hire one employee (i.e. get a basic card from supply). Training, marketing, cooking, etc. all ignored. The game doesn't divide actions into mini-turns like a worker-placement but neither does Dominion (even if Food Chain gets more complicated). I'd argue Through the Ages has longer player turns. Of course downtime and analysis paralysis vary and such, but Food Chain Magnate is not much worse than other Heavy Euros™ EDIT: Also a bunch of people followed up the actual point of that post (short but lots of turns versus few longer turns) saying "micro-turns" are better; I'm not sure of that. A lot of players I game with tend to AP in a way that pretty much that they'll take, say, four times the normal amount of time on a small turn (i.e. placing a worker) but only twice as long on a full turn. It's like no matter how many things you do before the next players' turn, the analysis paralysis adds around a minute no matter what. When you have turns that shouldn't be taking more than 15-30 seconds, a worker-placement will take aeons longer compared to games with more blocked-in turns. Or maybe it's just harder to tell a person to make their move if it hasn't been even a minute yet. Analysis Paralysis is dumb. Trynant fucked around with this message at 07:49 on Nov 15, 2015 |
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Nov 15, 2015 07:42
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Countblanc posted:I really want to play Dominant Species and FCM. I'm going to make a point to not have life crises happen when going to conventions where I harass goons with these.
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Nov 15, 2015 07:50
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EvilChameleon posted:Reputation for... being expensive? Why do companies do this? Don't they want people to play their games? Splotter is basically two people that own a store in the Netherlands making games on the side. The games appealed to a niche of insane heavy euro players (me) so much that they kind of have what you could call a success with their side hobby (despite them not having anywhere near the financial success to actual print these games on a large scale or be picked up by bigger publishers). They can't afford to do large print runs and they have to make a profit off what they sell, so small print runs which by nature are more expensive per item printed. Add to this that people love these games so much (or that there are enough scalpers to know people love them) and you have the answer. Yes, Splotter Spellen wants people to enjoy their games. However, their games are pretty drat niche most of the time (no way in hell more than a quarter of the thread would enjoy Antiquity), but the people who play them love them. They even put that kind of disclaimer on their site. quote:....We are famous for making deep, complicated strategy games. The kind of games that can elicit reviews like this:
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Nov 15, 2015 19:13
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jng2058 posted:But are there any war/strategy games that support three players well? If so, how do they avoid the usually inevitable end results of 1) One player is ignored while the other two fight, and that one player almost certainly wins, or 2) Two players team up against the third, and that player almost certainly loses? Maria: War game that basically has one player play two sides against each other...sort of. It works! Three Kingdoms Redux: along with mechanics that put players farther ahead in a weaker spot turn-order wise, there is a mechanic that makes 2nd and 3rd player in turn-order (determined by basically who did the most stuff last turn) automatically "ally" against the 1st player. No alliances otherwise. Churchill: While it's a VP game, being ahead at the end of the game by a large enough margin will actually make you lose points and last place gain points. The game being about three nations trying to make peace but still have an advantage post-war, the rules give incentive to winning but not by too much.
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Nov 17, 2015 13:41
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