Board Game Thread 4e: The Call of Catan

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OperaMouse: Oct 30, 2010

Lord of the Rings LCG is also a nice 2-player co-op.

# ¿ Dec 25, 2014 17:14

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 21:14

OperaMouse: Oct 30, 2010

T-Bone posted:

drat, that's disappointing. The theme/mechanics looked really fun. CGE can make bad games too?!

First of all, Alchemists was not designed by Vlaadaa, although he gave some advice, I think.

I've played a handful of 2-player games now of Alchemists, and I don't think it's that bad of a game. Choosing when to go in each round is always a critical decision, and so is when to publish. The coolest action (testing potions on the student or yourself) actually doesn't do anything, except give a bit of information. Actions are often better spent elsewhere, but without any information on the ingredients, you can't do much. This brings a delicate balance of finding out when to go for the points. I'm curious how that plays out in 4-player games, where you also have fewer actions per round.

# ¿ Jan 9, 2015 21:40

OperaMouse: Oct 30, 2010

SuccinctAndPunchy posted:

trip report on second game of dominion this time with the actual recommended first game setup:

I played lots of money/Smithy/Mine and won the game by some 20 odd points. One other guy bought almost entirely action cards and was at that point drawing and playing much of his entire deck in a single turn, which was endlessly amusing but not particularly efficient and thus he had the lowest score. I have no idea what the third guy was doing he seemed to just buy lots of stuff and he scored somewhere within the middle and in fact just straight up ended the game once he figured it was basically impossible to win since I'd amassed too much of a lead.

mr "draw your entire deck" was having loads of fun but he wants to try and actually do that sort of thing but actually win and I dunno if the third guy was even enjoying the game that much, he seemed a bit peeved that I'd rendered the game a dead man walking at some point because I had too many provinces to conceivably catch up to.

that said still probably going to end up playing it a lot more in future because it's way fun and I want to try the approach where you play a million cards and draw your entire deck too.

What I found useful in the beginning, was once a game was over, take everybody's deck, throw out the VP's bought, and have a look at what they have in it.

Deck size?
Ratio between terminal actions than +2 action?
What do the cantrips do (+1 card +1 action)?
How much money does an average hand draw?
Are there interesting combo's with the cards? If so, what is the chance they end up in one hand?

This should provide some insight for the players if they have built a good deck or not.
Subtleties of when to start greening will come later, or recognize what deck to build in the first place.
First make sure that what they have built is actually decent.

# ¿ Jan 11, 2015 17:24

OperaMouse: Oct 30, 2010

Pennfalath posted:

Essen Loot:

My part of the loot:
Fight for Olympus
Figment
Doctor Who Time Clash
Potion Explosion
Simurgh + expansion (Call of the Dragonlord)
Heavy Steam

Thoughts? Which games would you have avoided? Which one should I start with?

My Codenames Pictures is signed by Vlaadaa :smug:

# ¿ Oct 16, 2016 22:00

OperaMouse: Oct 30, 2010

Tekopo posted:

It's a joke, his wife does exist and appears in some videos.

Best one is when he is reviewing Viticulture and he has a pinot grape. He pronounces it pie-not, and suddenly he gets handed a note that says pee-noh with some cackling in the background.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2016 15:52

OperaMouse: Oct 30, 2010

StashAugustine posted:

Got my brother Dominion: Prosperity for Christmas. I know the official rule is Colony/Platinum if 50% Prosperity, are there any other houserules for when to use them?

I always thought the official rule is N*10% chance, where N is the number of Prosperity cards in the kingdom. Or whenever you pick the kingdom cards by drawing them from the deck with the different background, it the first one is from Prosperity, you add Colony and Platinum.

# ¿ Dec 25, 2016 17:12

OperaMouse: Oct 30, 2010

Bottom Liner posted:

I’m having a Halloween themed board game night with a mixed group of gamers/non-gamers. I’m looking for good ideas for themed games that will work well in that setting. So far my list is One Night Werewolf, a selected group of Superfight cards, and Mysterium. I would like to snag Mansions 2.0 if I can find a good deal.

Broom Service is about witches flying around, but might be a bit too dry/euro for the non-gamers.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2017 18:32

OperaMouse: Oct 30, 2010

MikeCrotch posted:

Goons, I need recommendations. Looking to get another Worker Placement, already have Archipelago and Agricola. What should I get next? Looking at Dungeon Petz or Viticulture, but am open to other suggestions.

Caylus.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2017 12:14

OperaMouse: Oct 30, 2010

What are the hot games at Essen this year? Or what was hot at GenCon?

# ¿ Oct 12, 2017 17:11

OperaMouse: Oct 30, 2010

Ticket to Ride Europe is best with 5: more blocking

# ¿ Oct 25, 2017 17:45

OperaMouse: Oct 30, 2010

The Narrator posted:

Any advice for first time playing/teaching Space Alert?

Only advice I can give is to download the app to play the sound files.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2017 07:46

OperaMouse: Oct 30, 2010

Admiralty Flag posted:

My fellow goons, I need a recommendation: a two-player cooperative game that's not in the Pandemic family and isn't Arkham Horror. I'm looking for something relatively casual and lightweight to play with my wife. Suggestions?

Forbidden Desert

# ¿ Feb 3, 2021 09:18

OperaMouse: Oct 30, 2010

Llyranor posted:

I'd go as far as say Jaws of the Lion completely replaced Gloomhaven for me.

Is Space Alert easy to teach, and how well does the game work with a more casual group?

It is not terribly difficult, and the stress part of each mission is only 10 minutes, where everybody programs their moves. After that you can laugh how everything got messed up because of that one person refilling a reactor in the wrong turn.

With the app you can easily tweak the difficulty.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2021 15:39

OperaMouse: Oct 30, 2010

xiw posted:

I bought it because it sounded completely up my alley. Unfortunately there's a killer problem at the table in that you're both playing a worker placement game and doing a deductive puzzle, and you can often make a lot of progress at the puzzle by spending some working time on your new clues from the turn.

But, if players 1 and 2 get a bunch of info from the worker placement game in turn X, and players 3 and 4 don't, then they get to sit there on their phones while 1/2 do all their puzzling. Next turn, players 3 and 4 might get a bunch of info while players 1 and 2 sit there and wait. Basically imagine when you get outplayed in Agricola's action selection, instead of losing some points and cursing and carrying on, you have to wait in the corner for two minutes

We could push to reduce the amount of time spend puzzling but that feels like the whole point of the game so we didn't really want to. Just ended up not playing it again.

Indeed, all players need to be relatively quick puzzlers, so I spend a lot of time explaining the deduction aspect, definitely including the potion selling, sign correct color wrong deduction. One day I might be motivated to write an app to help deduction, but I feel it is half the game.

Also, the rules really push for early publishing, regardless if correct or not, and I keep repeating that as well.

I love Alchemists, but last time I played, I had a horror experience where an AP, not very experienced boardgame player made the game last 6 hours.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2021 07:11

OperaMouse: Oct 30, 2010

Making deduction or recording mistakes in Alchemists is not killing: just publish. Especially with the master variant, proving somebody wrong is not easy, and you can just rake in the grants in the meantime, and blocking others from publishing correct elements /aspects.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2021 12:50

OperaMouse: Oct 30, 2010

Race for the Galaxy, even with some expansions is a couple 100 cards and some tokens. Will fit in the relatively small box it comes in,but can be packed loose too.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2021 06:22

OperaMouse: Oct 30, 2010

!Klams posted:

I'm playing Dune again this weekend, and was wondering if you guys had any ideas for either snacks I could make, or just general props?

I made a couple of sandworm cakes in the past, and last time the dude playing emperor bought some tassel epaulets and a "prom king" sash, that was pretty hilarious.

We're pretty far down the golden path at this point, so no reference is too obscure, I don't think. For what it's worth, I'll almost certainly be playing Bene Gesserit!

I think I asked this before and someone suggested some blue drink as the water of life, this is a great idea.

Pundi or pongi rice crackers from Caladan
Spice coffee (cinnamon)

Don't forget a poison snooper

# ¿ Nov 9, 2021 19:34

OperaMouse: Oct 30, 2010

You can also add chair dogs.

# ¿ Nov 9, 2021 21:31

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 21:14

OperaMouse: Oct 30, 2010

Fate Accomplice posted:

while this is top of mind it sure would be nice if mostly European designers stopped theming games based on non-European cultures. I'm looking at you

Targi
Ra
Goa
Bora Bora
Tikal
Ghost Stories
Takenoko
Vanuatu
At the Gates of Loyang
Gugong
Tekhenu
Rajas of the Ganges
Holi
Maharaja
Jaipur
Teotihuacan
Aztec
T'zolkin
Tigris & Euphrates
Nippon
The Great Wall
Santiago
Agra
Taj Mahal
Trade on the Tigris
The Great Zimbabwe
Imhotep

this is just off the top of my head + the BGG top 400. I left off some obvious games about European interactions with non-European cultures.

as the hobby grows it would be nice if these names/themes were available to designers from those regions or with the right context/connection to them.

Agreed, we need more European, medieval trading and/or farming games.

# ¿ Dec 28, 2021 07:54

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