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Got to play a three man game of Gnomes of Zavandor. The basic premise of the game is mining, buying, and selling gems on the stock market. Buying makes the price go up, selling makes the price go down, etc. The object is to get a number of victory points depending on the number of players using gems to buy treasure and artifacts. I definitely had fun, but it was my first time and the other two player's second; and they stressed that the three-person dynamic wound up being very different. Gems start on the stock market between 2-5 gold apiece, but here they quickly maxed out and stayed above 11g for the entire game. The other two players quickly bought an item that gave them one additional action, but I was able to keep up (maybe even ahead) by snapping up an item that allowed me to get a bunch of 3-4 gold discounts per gem. However, I have two gripes with the game. We were playing to 18 victory points, and the guy that won was able to do so by snagging two treasures worth 6 points each. Not complaining that he did mind, but that 2/3 of the points needed were available for purchase from the first turn of the game. There are only two six-point treasures, and they're guaranteed available in the first 4-5 treasures for purchase. The other thing was an inability to seriously crash the prices of gems. It can be driven down, but that requires the cooperation of all the players and could be undone by one jerk. The only way to really bring stuff down is mining, but you need gems to buy everything that isn't the gems themselves, so we had some serious issues with gem shortages. Again, I had fun, but I want to play more to see if that situation happens again, or if that was an odd fluke to have everything so expensive.
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Oct 16, 2015 15:11
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homullus posted:Archipelago Speaking of, finally got through a full 3-player game of Archipelago. Fun, but it does seem like it needs more people for the guessing at people's motives to come out. Ordered the War & Peace expansion for another play tomorrow, does it ramp up the direct competition as much as advertised? And has anyone tried it with the evolution card-drafting rules? Sloober posted:Only in the vaguest sense of what a traitor game is, considering how it happens Yeah Archipelago is all about deducing what you're going to be scored on at the game's end. The Sympathizer card gets outed pretty quickly, the other players can work around them easily, and the crises that manage to spike the unhappiness tracker can't be planned for anyway. Triskelli fucked around with this message at 15:35 on May 12, 2017 |
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May 12, 2017 15:28
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:It's good but not amazing? My feeling for it is about the same as my feelings for Agricola Big thing to know about Scythe is that for a game about giant robots there's very little fighting. Which is nicely thematic, the game is set in an alt-1920s where we invented mechs instead of tanks, and you're supposed to be a small group encroaching on a failing country rather than a whole nation refighting the Great War. I'll agree that the game is solid on the whole but the combat system draws a lot of complaints. If you're familiar with Dune or Rex it's basically the same. What I dislike is movement: one of your eventual upgrades allows your mechs to move 2 spaces instead of just one. With all the connected "mine" spaces this upgrade manages to dynamite the strategic situation. Players with this upgrade can suddenly attack any part of the map in a game where you might see 1 attack per player per game.
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May 15, 2017 13:42
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!Klams posted:...a farming game with a looming threat of violence... Brilliant description. I've only played Scythe once but I think the combat is great on a thematic level. It's just a mild disapointment to look at the awesome miniatures and realize that they're souped-up tractors as much as anything. Not a major disappointment, just a little frown, but it's still a mental shift required to start digging into the game.
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May 15, 2017 16:46
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Are there any under the radar "Noble Management" games out there? Something along the lines of In the Shadow of the Emperor, where you are trying to put family members on thrones.
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May 23, 2017 16:51
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Huxley posted:1. Quick to play and learn T-Bone posted:Battle Line is a good fit here, especially for someone who has experience with Stratego. Seconding Battle Line. You could play it with just playing cards and chess pieces if you can't find a copy it in time. You and your opponent are competing to create 9 pairs of three-card poker hands each, and the winner of each hand takes a pawn. First person to get three adjacent pawns or five pawns overall is the winner. T-Bone posted:Maybe Fief? It's supposed to be Crusader Kings: The Board Game. Fellis posted:Chicken Ceasar is like this. Thanks for the recommendations! I've also tried Warrior Knights for a bit of that feeling. Triskelli fucked around with this message at 16:26 on May 24, 2017 |
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May 24, 2017 16:21
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Failboattootoot posted:I've been burned by SUSD recommendations I picked up Warrior Knights on their glowing recommendation, and because there was a period where my group was playing Twilight Imperium every other week or so and it seemed like a good game to swap with that group. I've only managed to get through a single turn  . I've been getting a lot of people on board with Archipelago though, so I haven't been burned on every one of my purchases.
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May 26, 2017 14:50
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Played Starcraft the Board Game last night with an entire group of first-timers and wow that was a painful slog. The graphic design especially made the game harder to grasp. I did enjoy the way Orders were resolved and I know that FFG basically remade the game as Forbidden Stars, so maybe I'll be lucky enough to try it at some point.
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May 31, 2017 13:43
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Got a few people in my group excited about Clash of Cultures lately. It's a ton of fun and feels more like Sid Meier's Civilization than the actual Civilization: the Board Game. How vital is getting the expansion? One player prefers the fact that he's not trying to copy any specific civilization, but stuff like Markets and Apothecaries seem like a significant addition.
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Jun 10, 2017 18:06
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CommonShore posted:Are components copyrighted in any way? Art and writing can be copyrighted. I think if you have a unique component you can get it patented which is pretty expensive.
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Jun 27, 2017 15:11
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Kashuno posted:If there is a good version of Factorio as a board game I will never play anything else. Founders of Gloomhaven is supposed to be factorio-esque, where you're turning raw goods into finished goods via a collective combination city/conveyor belt. Alternatively there's Roads & Boats
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Jul 18, 2017 22:03
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Waffles Inc. posted:The Diplomacy-style one seems maybe a bridge too far? Is it totally crazy complicated or would game-dumb but otherwise intelligent people be able to crack it? Otherwise the FFG one seems like it could be a fun time killer The GoT Board Game is definitely worth playing, but I can't recommend it as a purchase. Certain mechanics like bidding for influence/turn order or adjusting the size of armies you can draw are given over to a random card draw, and like Diplomacy there's a handful of best opening moves for each faction. It's not overcomplicated, but there's an inexcusable amount of upkeep and rules (convoys!  )that require explaining before you can really tear into the meat of betraying each other.
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Aug 14, 2017 20:30
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I haven't played Scythe with six players so I haven't had the full experience, but it's a frustrating game to look at. Not just the "why can't I just smash these mechs together" thing but because I can acutely see *why* mechanics are set up the way they are and how they fit together to enforce the theme of an inter-war war game. I can see all that, and it just fails to click with me or my group.quote:2) Archipelago - This seems like a big jump in complexity on paper but the actual actions are really simple to explain and the complexity comes from deciding how you want to interact with the mechanics. That said that's still a type of complexity that some people don't want to deal with on their casual game night. Very colorful, beautiful game too, though the tiny cubes for resources really suck. I will also heartily recommend Archipelago, but be aware that the rulebook has some language issues (ask me about active unengaged units), it will encourage your friends to act like terrible people (slavery is a powerful card that everyone will want to use), and it requires players that are willing to haggle and negotiate constantly. Still, there are few games I've played that make me want to go over all my opponents' strategies and thinking like Archipelago. Triskelli fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Aug 23, 2017 |
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Aug 23, 2017 22:21
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ShaneB posted:After our discussion here and listening to the heavy cardboard review of Scythe, I'm officially uninterested. What are some really good midweight strategy games where it's not multiplayer solitaire? I could get a ton of heavier games but then never really play em. I have Concordia on order already as well. Again, I guess the question is what interests you about Scythe, and what you'd like to see more of. If you want to put little wooden buildings on a hex-board with asymmetric player powers then check out Terra Mystica. If you want to play a game about gathering and exploiting resources, and negotiating over deals with other players then Archipelago is definitely worth looking at. If you want a political war-game where every player cheats at the game in a different way then Rex: Final Days of the Empire looks very good. And if you want a territory control where every decision you make is hugely meaningful then Inis has a great card-drafting element.
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Sep 5, 2017 15:14
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!Klams posted:Co-op Beating a dead pineapple but seriously everyone who hasn't looked at Archipelago should take a look. It's a rare eurogame that realizes the most interesting thing about playing board games is playing against other people. Triskelli fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Sep 12, 2017 |
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Sep 12, 2017 23:46
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OmegaGoo posted:Question: how is Shogun? I keep thinking it's a game I'm interested in, then I realize I know nothing about it. Joke answer: You'll need to be more specific  Honest answer: Assuming you mean Queen Games' Shogun, it's a really solid game if you're a fan of Risk. The cube tower is a unique and speedy way to resolve conflicts, and the way orders are given is a brain-burning puzzle. If you're having trouble tracking it down, then look for Wallenstein which is the same mechanically but with a 30 Years War setting.
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Sep 14, 2017 16:50
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Chill la Chill posted:So I got archipelago today and the open sea tile isn't on the opposite of the desert tile. Is this a misprint? Technically yes but every copy got misprinted the same way and the designer's cool with it.
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Sep 28, 2017 13:36
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Kerro posted:I haven't heard of this game before, but complex, tactical 2-player co-op is right up my alley. What's it like (artwork and theming aside, which.. yeah.. but I can look past that) Played the game the other night. It's a decent enough DnD-like game but like you've probably noticed the game is ridiculously over-designed with mousepad material, sixteen custom dice per character, and dozens of poker chips to represent enemy and player health. The rules explanation is a slog and the random daily encounters can be brutal but the tactical gameplay flows pretty quickly.
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Oct 17, 2017 20:34
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Daunte Vicknabb posted:e: Also, how is Tak? What are some good 2-player (abstracts especially) you guys would recommend? Like the box says, Tak is an Elegant Game. It plays like a classic abstract that’s been lost to time. The wood pieces are nice quality and the board is two-sided with options for 3x3, 4x4, 5x5, and 6x6. Tash Kalar is great though I haven’t personally played it. I’ve gotten a ton of fun out of The Duke, which is just a spin on chess that turns it into an unpredictable knife-fight. You’ve got a Duke instead of a King, and your goal is to capture the enemy’s Duke. The first twist is that you’ve got a bag of pieces that you randomly draw from to put them on the field as the game progresses, with their move set printed on the tile itself. The second twist is that after moving a piece you flip it over, revealing a different set of moves on the back. So you get archers that can fire from a distance then reload, knights that can charge to the enemy then retreat to your lines, etc.
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Nov 23, 2017 14:53
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Re: team play, the Martin Wallace wargames do a thing where the main game of nation-building is punctuated by 2-4 wars where players are forced to pair off into one of two teams and fight for a few turns. I’m surprised more political games haven’t tried that model instead of the constant low-level skirmishes or outrunning doomstacks in most Risk offspring.FulsomFrank posted:Or just play the lovely and gigantic Archipelago and call it day. Archipelago is one of the few co-op “players v. the game” games that give you enough levers to push back against the game’s attempts to gently caress with you, compared to most games’ “Draw a card, lose a turn”. It’s probably the closest thing we’ll have to Dwarf Fortress: The Board Game in the sense that grappling with the simulation is half the fun. I’ve actually been slowly upgrading my copy of the game, but I’m stuck looking for miniature wooden pineapples and some quality metal coins that won’t break the bank. Decided to replace the tiny player screens with some wooden chests from the craft store, and they work fantastically. 
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Nov 29, 2017 17:19
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FulsomFrank posted:Nice work man, I like those chests and might go looking for some myself now. I managed to pick up these for less than $2 each at a Michaels craft store.
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Nov 29, 2017 21:11
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the panacea posted:Is there a game similar to archipelago that doesn’t come with the baggage of colonialism? Define “similar”. New Angeles actually does the whole “secret win conditions with rising unrest that might be someone’s objective!” thing in a cyberpunk setting, but from other impressions it sounds like the game isn’t meaty enough to foster the same amount of trade and interdependence that Archipelago does. There’s a ton of euros that make turning cubes into other cubes into money exciting, but they either forbid trading or it’s tacked on in a very “you can do this if you feel like it” sort of way. You may want to look into stock-trading games if you want a game that reacts dynamically to individual decisions and facilitates crafty wheeling and dealing. But yeah Archipelago hits so many different notes that I have a hard time making recommendations based on it. E: Sunnavabitch, looks like Boelinger is making a sci-fi version of the game on Kickstarter as we speak. Triskelli fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Dec 2, 2017 |
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Dec 2, 2017 21:51
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Afriscipio posted:The creator of Archipelago has a new kickstarter with a space mining theme: Jedit posted:It's also not really similar to Archipelago. Yeah watch the interview with the designer way down on the page. It sounds like the only real similarity is the way the “board” works (expand out from a central location, put down buildings to show control of hexes, harvest limited resources). It doesn’t have the shared victory points or triggered ends (whoever has the biggest colony after 12 turns wins), it doesn’t have the varied market boards (resources are bought/sold at 1-9 credits per unit, going above 10 causes an  Jedit posted:Anyone who has problems with the treatment of race in Archipelago should be reminded that the instant you hire a native worker they become a full citizen indistinguishable from any of your colonists, and indeed can immediately start intermarrying with them. Archipelago is like Cards Against Humanity in that it’s a fantastic racist detector. I play it with various groups and get quips about Black Lives Mattering or having to keep the black meeple down. You can tell the designer is mostly sympathetic, but the game encourages making the same mistakes as the colonizers and I won’t begrudge anyone that’s uncomfortable with a game that hits closer to home than Settlers of Catan. the panacea posted:The problem lies not in the game mechanics but in the setting itself. If half the group at the table has immediate family in the West Indies and can trace their family tree back to revolutionaries, then I don’t think it’s over sensitive to say that [independence is discouraged] Doesn’t make people look forward to playing it. Have you looked at Spirit Island? Each player is a spirit of nature trying to drive an explicit European nation off of their island.
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Dec 4, 2017 19:31
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LLSix posted:Never heard of him or Living Planet. What makes Living Planet promising? It looks like Archipelago in space. Going over the rules however shows some major differences. Overall it looks like a refinement of the core idea of open-ended exploring to grab resources and selling them for profit, but it lacks a lot of the “lumpy” game design that made Archipelago weirdly compelling. Boelinger is under appreciated though with nothing but solid designs, and is to board games what Del Toro is to movies. I trust that there’s something in the components or the design that makes the game more replayable than the rulebook makes it seem.
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Dec 12, 2017 04:38
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Mr. Squishy posted:What does this mean? Del Toro is probably too mainstream now, but I meant Boelinger is a respectable b-list designer with some very unique designs. I’m gushing though, so it came out a little weird. StashAugustine posted:hope that explains the art on archipelago too I was about to go “Well actually the display of the tongue is”  , but yeah the art choices in Archipelago are problematic. It’s almost guaranteed to spark uncomfortable conversations in mixed company.
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Dec 12, 2017 19:41
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Megasabin posted:I want to be excited for living planet, but I watched the gameplay videos, and it's just doesn't seem very unique or exciting. Was thinking about this the other day, and I realized the one thing that makes this radically different from other Euros: the total number of resources is always dropping. At the end of each turn the Lead Player picks a cube of Oil, Iron, or Vibranium to fill the turn tracker. There’s only 9 of each and 12 turns, so even in a best case scenario you take away 4 of each. That’s crazy! Imagine if a game like Scythe just threw away half the total goods tokens over the course of a game. Plus you have to spend goods to prevent the disasters, so the chance you won’t have what you need grows more and more likely.
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Dec 15, 2017 20:25
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Dancer posted:If we're looking at it that way, isn't Archipelago a WP game? Never played it, but goons mention it a lot. Where your workers are placed matters but I wouldn’t describe it as “worker placement” like AFfO or Waterdeep, where you place a worker to perform an action and lock out opponents. Your Action Disks only restrict two of the spaces on the action board and the rest comes down to who manages to exploit the island first.
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Jan 2, 2018 15:13
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FulsomFrank posted:Also, it's funny but aside from the play time associated with it, something like Advanced Civ is really really simple to teach and play, it's just that people freak out at the commitment. I look forward to bullying friends into the experience and seeing as they don't notice 8+ hours disappearing in the blink of an eye... After playing two games of MegaCiv I desperately wish for truly modern update of the system on the scale/playtime of Quartermaster General. Most of the time investment comes from trading and figuring out which technologies can be bought, both of which could be easily polished up without losing much.
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Mar 13, 2018 00:44
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Morpheus posted:What. I’d recommend holding out a little bit, I’ve heard there’s a reprint coming this year. Sloober posted:Transaction or ports are the only way, although i think there is a progress card that lets you add or remove a good there. There’s quite a few cards that let you sell extra to the export market or shuffle cubes between the markets. My favorite from the expansion is “Triangular Trade”, where if X = your ships, then move up surplus labor by X, seize X cubes from the domestic market, then sell X cubes to the export market, and then raise unrest by X. Triskelli fucked around with this message at 15:04 on Mar 20, 2018 |
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Mar 20, 2018 14:55
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Morpheus posted:Can you give me a source on this, because this store literally only has one copy available and I'd like to get my hands on it if possible. Seems that info was a bit sketchier than I thought. Go ahead and pull the trigger! Archipelago is a love-it-or-hate-it game, but if your group can weather a bumpy introduction game it’s fantastic.
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Mar 20, 2018 16:02
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Megasabin posted:Would it be wrong to say that the heart of Archipelago is negotiation? This seems like a mechanic about interacting with others in a psychological nature, where a lot of the skill is actually divorced from the inherent mechanisms of the board game. The actual gameplay elements, like vying for control of hexes with buildings or handling rebellions) are there to help facilitate the negotiation. I’ve been trying to sell a new group on the game by describing the game’s “core” as being a game of Poker. Your objective card is your “hand” and a successful player will be trying to suss out what everyone else’s objectives are before rushing to end the game when you feel strong enough. There’s a very Tigris & Euphrates moment at the end of each game for me when I see just how many resources were hiding between my opponents screens, and my favorite part of the game is discussing the strategies each player had throughout. That said, the beating heart of the game is negotiating. Nearly everything in Archipelago comes back to that. You bid high during turn order to sell the first position. You build churches to try and needle resources from folks. If you’ve got a scarce resource on the island you harvest it exclusively to trade to other players for the other stuff you need. The two markets exist to give you an idea of how much things might be worth. The entire Rebellion mechanic is brinkmanship to dislodge even the stoniest heart from their hard-earned cubes. Archipelago is not an engine builder. The evolution cards can tip the game in unexpected directions and there are some fun synergies to be found, but the amount of randomness in the game prevents you from planning on any of them. The “puzzle” in Archipelago is figuring out your opponents, and the game is just a colonial sandbox to mess with each other in. To quote SU&SD, “it’s almost as if the game were playing you!” Which is honestly a big ask for a game as lumpy and awkward as Archipelago. If your group doesn’t like negotiation then yeah it’s probably not for you. I’d recommend trying one medium-length game if you haven’t played one, because short-games always end before anyone feels established.
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Mar 22, 2018 00:26
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Ravendas posted:You don't mean on the same turn, right? Building the port engages the worker, and the Port rules say: "An active, non-engaged citizen or ship can build a port, occupy it, and operate it." For markets and ports I’ve read rule as the citizen doing all three as one step.
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Mar 22, 2018 15:50
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silvergoose posted:The trading sounds like Catan, then. It’s a bit different in practice. In Catan (or even Sidereal Confluence) you’re saying stuff like “I’ve got bricks, does anybody got ore? Anybody? Bricks for ore?”. Archipelago’s trading is more discrete and directed. “Chuck, I’ll give you two bucks to stand up my meeple instead of Larry’s.” “If you let me harvest these two iron near your town I’ll give you one.” I find the game most fun when I’m trying to cut sly deals instead of haggling for resources. That said, any game where the response to “I didn’t have fun” is “well are you sure you were playing it right?!” is a game with serious flaws.
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Mar 22, 2018 17:28
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Gutter Owl posted:Rachel Simmons is super clever and all, but but NT isn't even the best block wargame, let alone the best game of all time. The only other block wargame I can think of off the top of my head is Sekigahara. What do you have in mind?
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Mar 27, 2018 14:01
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Got to play a 2p learning game of ROOT last night. Open card hands, Cats vs Birds, finished in just under 2 hours. I think it’s good! I played as the Eyrie, which has a gimmick of slowly building up a set of actions that must be performed or you “collapse” and lose victory points. Because of this I was pushed to constantly expand or else lose out on my action economy. The host tried out the Marquis de Cat, which has a Roman Empire feel to them. He started the game with one soldier on every space, and he chose to fall back and build infrastructure before launching some offensives. Despite the different scoring mechanics the game felt neck and neck up to the lasted turn (where I made a bet on the dice and lost ). Despite that I could tell the game needed three players to be considered balanced, since I could barely make a dent in the Cat’s infrastructure. I look forward to trying it again now that we’ve got a better understanding of the rules.
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Apr 3, 2018 13:59
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FulsomFrank posted:That's great to hear! I'm excited for this one to arrive and I've been slightly worried with all the stories swirling around about it. Funny you bring up dice after Shadow's great write-up too. How would you compare it to normal area control games and/or COIN? The territory control and combat aspects are refreshingly simple. Compared to stuff like TI or other Triskelli fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Apr 4, 2018 |
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Apr 4, 2018 01:19
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Mister Sinewave posted:E: tactical starvation is a beautiful phrase Amen to that. The tag line wins my money by itself.
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Apr 5, 2018 00:46
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Got to play a second game of Root as the Woodland Alliance this time. Someone was asking about them and the Vagabond after some major changes. WA felt really fun! The combination of Sympathy tokens, followers, and Outrage worked to turn my territory into these gummy areas that the other players avoided or were forced to subjugate. Overall my game varied between turns of biding time to build Support followed by a burst of revolts and spreading sympathy. The Vagabond seemed solid but had trouble affecting the game, but I chalk that up to him picking a character that didn’t start with any Swords. Played with three first-timers though so there was a ton of rules confusion. The person playing the Riverfolk Company basically refused to play to character, with maxed out prices, no trade posts, and spent the entire game beating on the Marquis de Cat. He ended the game with two points. The rest of us were around fifteen points and the Marquis de Cat won by plopping six warriors each on three Fox spaces for the dominance card.
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Apr 6, 2018 18:45
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PerniciousKnid posted:I wonder how much it would warp [Archipelago]if you still got tokens for unsuccessful exploration. I suspect it would make the game too easy and make Exploring too attractive. Your action discs are tied up by the exploration tokens, so without tweaking that rule you’ll be getting extra actions for a smaller island.
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Apr 17, 2018 11:52
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PerniciousKnid posted:Well, my other thought was to grant a random resource instead of a token. That's less directly impactful on the game tempo. That might be a good houserule if you’re worried about difficulty. “Take one of the listed resources on the current Crisis card, and place the other (if any) on the Domestic Market.” How does everyone else handle resolving/explaining Immediate Crises? They’re a major source of time bloat if they’re fully executed and my group will often forget about the non-immediate crises in the Balance phase. I’ve tried placing a token on where unrest will end up being and moving it down rather than flipping meeple down (since they stand back up in phase 1 regardless) but that ignores churches and the rule about towns being able to expel rebellious citizens. Then again the design’s awkward enough that I should probably continue with my component upgrades and pitch an Archipelago 2.0 to Ludically.
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Apr 17, 2018 14:18
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