Board Game Thread 4e: The Call of Catan

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Board Game Thread 4e: The Call of Catan

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Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Vlaada still Board Game God, universe continues as planned.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2014 14:57

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 05:36

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Indie Board and Cards can eat a bag of dicks. I gave up on them after they had a KS for Coup: Reformation. The expansion existed before the original Coup KS began. It would have been 12 extra cards in the box but instead they did a whole second KS for it.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2014 01:27

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Blamestorm posted:

Just to confirm, the firefly boardgame is terrible right? I was given a free copy but I'm inclined to leave it in the shrink wrap and sell it unless I've heard wrong and it's good.

I posted a rant about it last thread but short version is random random random random random look that guy from episode 1 random random random oh god it's been three hours random.

# ¿ Dec 23, 2014 01:23

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Gzuz-Kriced posted:

I joked with my wife that I like everything about the game except the gameplay. And that's not really even true, because I do like playing it for the majority of the game,

but we've been badly screwed over by unlucky dice rolls
luck factor

It's such a shame because I really love everything else about the game. It's light and interesting, has a great theme, etc. etc. I'm sure that some of it is us just getting unlucky, but it seems to me this would happen fairly often.

You actually don't like the gameplay. It's predicated on rolling D6s. You're being charmed by the theme.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2015 04:55

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

T-Bone posted:

What's the reprint cycle on something like Dungeon Lords -- I know they just did an anniversary kickstarter, but will the actual game be like impossible to find at a decent price for a while?

There's no way to tell, as it depends on a ton of factors.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2015 02:29

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Rivensteel posted:

Are those in Daybreak as well?

Nope. Daybreak has plastic Centurions.

Honestly though, while every expansion is flawed in some way, if you're all first-time players the progression through base -> pegasus -> exodus -> daybreak is enjoyable. Each one tends to fix gripes about the previous, until you start seeing the problems with your "current" expansion, then move on. If you're still playing by the time you get through Daybreak your group will probably have a set of ideas on what's good/bad and cobble together an ideal version from all the expansions.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2015 19:38

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

fozzy fosbourne posted:

Honestly, they need to make a 2nd edition of BSG. I can't get it to the table with the expansions. And I don't want to play it without.

I love the game but it suffers from some feature creep

It suffers from a shitload of feature creep, and almost none of it is balanced.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2015 20:24

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

If you want babby's first deckbuilder but refuse to get Dominion, just get Star Realms.

Disclaimer: I don't think it's a good game, but:

- It's simple
- It has *SPACESHIPS* for people who must have LAZEERS in their games.
- It's cheap as poo poo, so you can get much the same experience of other crappy deckbuilders at a reduced price.

Crackbone fucked around with this message at 16:44 on Jan 9, 2015

# ¿ Jan 9, 2015 16:42

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Rivensteel posted:

Wait, what's the accepted method of shuffling a stack of cards? You get more bending with a bridge, but I figure it must be better than smushing stacks together.

For stuff that's not sleeved, probably over-under shuffling and/or pile shuffles? Bridge/Smushing wears the cards down pretty fast comparatively.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2015 14:14

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Anybody played Orleans? Looks neat from Radho's review/playthrough, not sure if it's worth $60 though.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2015 16:01

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Megasabin posted:

What does Orleans play like? The two BGG reviews do not give a good sense of the game at all.

Also is the earliest we can get Orleans in the USA really sept 2015 via the kick starter?

The KS site has a link directly to Radho Runs Through where he plays a game of it...

# ¿ Jan 13, 2015 18:43

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

EDIT: severely beaten

# ¿ Jan 20, 2015 21:25

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Dr. VooDoo posted:

drat it and after putting together my own little version with metal coins and stuff

It's not a reprint. It's a new game using the same role selection design as witches brew.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2015 07:16

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Indolent Bastard posted:

Bah, our homemade versions are probably going to be better than the re-boot. People love the components I made for mine.

E: Are we sure it's the same game? The cover art isn't reminiscent of the game play, the name is different and I can't find any further details.

Here's the info from BGG:

BGG.com posted:

coming from alea is Broom Service, a reworking of Witch's Brew by original WB designer Andreas Pelikan and Alexander Pfister with art provided by Vincent Dutrait. For those not familiar with this 2008 release, here's a summary:

At Spiel 2014, alea developer Stefan Br�ck told me that this design would feature a role system similar to Witch's Brew, with players trying to outguess opponents in terms of the roles they choose and outplay them in when they play what, but with a game board element not present in the original game.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2015 16:43

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

echoMateria posted:

So I would like to hear more about SoB.

You eat d6s and crap random event cards.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2015 05:57

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Keyflower is pretty loving tight.

Just saying.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2015 17:10

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

tarbrush posted:

Trying to decide between Keyflower and Dungeon Petz. It's agony

I think Keyflower will generate far more analysis paralysis, if that's something that can be a problem with your group. I really like Keyflower but at any given time you're juggling tile auctions/meeple counts/your village/other people's villages/trying to move goods.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2015 17:55

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Buying Keyflower + Farmers from Amazon UK, plus shipping, was cheaper than buying from Game Salute, who doesn't allow online discounts or have it in stock now.

gently caress you, Gamesalute.

Crackbone fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Jan 25, 2015

# ¿ Jan 25, 2015 22:06

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Mister Sinewave posted:

Can someone tell me a little about how Alien Frontiers plays? Like for example where does it fall on scales of cut-throat competition on one side, to multiplayer solitaire on the other? Does it feel like barely keeping your head above water?

I really, really wanted to like Alien Frontiers, but the fact that you roll your dice at the start of your turn really makes the game drag. There's a lot of gamestate to process and you can't really do any of it until you know what you've rolled.

Crackbone fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Jan 26, 2015

# ¿ Jan 26, 2015 19:38

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Please tell me your company name is King Phillip Games.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2015 05:32

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

thespaceinvader posted:

So I tried the Firefly game last night.

I enjoyed the first half of it, until I realised that by enjoying the first half of it, I'd failed to pay close enough attention to the goal and lost, completely arbitrarily and irretrievably. Then it got kind of irritating. And I think most of the enjoyment in the first half was the nostalgia factor.

And good lord is it random and arbitrary. No fewer than THIRTEEN loving DECKS of random cards of wildly varying utility and strength, all of which have important impacts on each other, and all of which can randomly hose you or randomly grant victory. Ugh, I dunno, I wanted to like it, I really did - and maybe with a bit more controllable buying (maybe ship upgrades or skills could just be bought regardless of where you are, or even decks of specific stuff rather than all jumbled in together) and a set of general victory goals with limited turns (most jobs completed, best rep, most money, etc etc) it might be solid... I'm willing to give it another shot, but it seems like the epitome of 'just because it was fun, doesn't mean it was good'. Strip the theme off and it wouldn't be up to much.

You don't need to try it again - let me save you the trouble, it's just as bad as you thought, don't waste time playing it again.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2015 02:38

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

The Supreme Court posted:

Is it fixable, and how much work would it take to turn into a good game?

Too much to bother.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2015 16:54

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Zombie #246 posted:

I've been considering doing magic realm for my next print and play project but I still have yet to learn most of the game. People have compared it to Mage knight, how fair of a comparison is that? What are some of the criticisms you have of the game? What are the high points of the game?

I've been meaning to ask for a while because I keep noticing your avatar but I kept forgetting.

It has a 122 page rulebook. It's the fever dream of a diseased genius.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2015 01:02

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

So what happened to Paul on SU&SD? Did he quit/get booted/etc?

# ¿ Feb 3, 2015 04:08

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

disperse posted:

Magic Realm?

Oh, never mind.

Yes, this is the correct response to any proposal involving Magic Realm.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2015 21:50

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Megasabin posted:

drat. The owner of Game Salute has been leading me on for a month and a half now with his Keyflower restock. He keeps telling me "next week". I wonder if the price difference will even be worth the wait. I can get it for around 65 bucks on amazon right now. I'm assuming game salute will sell it for around 50.

I bought Keyflower and Farmers expansion from Amazon.co.uk. Both + shipping was still less than Gamesalute retail.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2015 22:43

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Megasabin posted:

Weird. For all copies of Keyflower the Farmers on amazon.uk it says the only langauge is german. Also one of the alternate sellers is selling Farmers for 9 pounds, and they seem to have respectable reviews... I'm not sure how to verify that the tiles would be in English or not, and I'd prefer not to have german labeled tiles.

Here is the link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Keyflower-The-Farmers-KEYF/dp/B00GEB7GPQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1423780300&sr=8-2&keywords=keyflower

The reviews at the bottom of the page are in English, and don't mention any language issues, but that might not necessarily mean anything.

The tiles have both the German and English names on them.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2015 23:52

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Lorini, One month ago posted:

Love it. 2014 top five for sure.

Lorini posted:

Yep it ran out of steam for us, selling it at the Con this weekend. It's simply not well balanced.

LORINI!!!!!!! :argh:

You were the whole reason I backed the KS.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2015 01:36

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Chomp8645 posted:

Don't back Kickstarters.

I normally don't, but it was already released at Essen to a lot of acclaim. A few people in here echoed that sentiment.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2015 04:13

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

The few times I've played WDPTAA, the games lasted less than 10 minutes. It's so monkey-cheese random that somebody stumbles into a win condition pretty fast.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2015 18:48

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Huntsekker posted:

I love Munchkin. I rub it all over myself before I go to sleep every night. I have a Fluxx bodypillow.

I can see why you deleted that.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2015 02:15

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

fozzy fosbourne posted:

Yo dudes and dudettes, Dungeon Lords Happy Anniversary is the deal of the day at CSI: http://www.coolstuffinc.com/page/1175

Hey look, another reminder to never back kickstarters!

# ¿ Mar 7, 2015 02:24

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Finally played Splendor, and I'm hard pressed to think of a more boring, bland, perfunctory game in recent memory.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2015 01:35

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

I thought the gooncensus was that it was pretty overrated? Nonetheless, I can't believe it got the praise it did on BGG. I guess it's accessible, but but so are half a dozen other games I can think of that are more engaging on a gameplay level.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2015 03:17

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Tiny Chalupa posted:

We can agree to disagree. I feel dominion is eh. Way too much bloat for a really basic game.
It's a good "hey let's show someone the basics of a gaming" then don't touch it again. That's mine and my gaming group thought on it overall. We aren't new to gaming, we easily have 100 plus games between us of every type, we just feel there isn't enough there

We did all quite enjoy thunderstone and I recommend whose burned out on dominion to try it

Thunderstone is a not a good game. It's got a lot of flaws, I'll just link this review which I think covers it pretty well: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/713323/i-wanted-love-it-it-left-me-disappointed

if you're burned out on dominion there are several better alternatives -

- Puzzle Strike is essentially "Dominion with theme/player conflict". It's also one of the few after-Dominion deckbuilders that understood what Dominion did right (or didn't and just blatantly copied it).
- Star Realms is not a great game, but it's cheap and plays quick so if you must play a center-row market deckbuilder this is probably the best option
- Paperback is a really neat variation on the genre
- Eminent Domain gets some tenative thumbs up from people on this thread, but I haven't played it

# ¿ Mar 8, 2015 16:53

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

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.

There's a lot of interesting ideas in the game: Worker placement with unique abilities, conflict in the form of fighting over action slots, the endgame having random victory conditions that you have expend resources to reveal over the course of the game. Ultimately though, the game just collapses under the weight of all the poo poo they just kept piling on. In a typical game you have:

- A unique starting spell for each player
- 6 different worker types
- 10 room tiles, most of which have 4 separate slots with unique placement requirements and/or rewards
- Items which are all unique
- Supporters which are all unique
- Spells, each with three different levels of spell on them
- Legendary spells
- Resources to track:
Gold
Mana
Marks
Merit Badges
Wisdom
Intelligence
Influence Points
The victory conditions (of which there are 12)

Complicated is fine, but what kills this game for me is there are so many places where it could have been streamlined to little loss. For example, there are Intelligence counters, which let you learn spells, Wisdom counters, which let you level up spells. Why not just condense all of that down into one token type?

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.

I was gonna write more but now I'm bummed out.

Crackbone fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Mar 8, 2015

# ¿ Mar 8, 2015 17:34

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Memnaelar posted:

Ultimately my point is there's already a ton of tension from other points of the game. A solid streamlining would make the game more accessible, less AP-prone, and play faster without losing much. The line for "fiddly" is subjective, but Argent is way over my persona line. It doesn't help that the rules/card text is pretty lousy, which makes it even harder to grasp.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2015 19:07

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

sector_corrector posted:

Oh, I had another question that I didn't find an answer for in the book... What's a ! chip? That's attack chips at least, right? Is it also special power chips from your character?

! Chips specifically have that symbol in their banner. There are actually only two of them: one in the base game (Master Puzzler) and one in the Shadows expansion (can't remember the name). They're super powerful so they're marked differently to prevent abusive combos.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2015 19:39

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Gort posted:

Whew. I played a six player game of someone else's copy of Firefly. Sheesh - more randomness than I would like, and it took forever to get around to being my turn, despite never really getting much done on my turn. Maybe it's better with fewer players, but it really does just seem like whoever gets lucky with card draws will win the game.

I think by the end we were all just glad for it to end.

Yup, total loving garbage game.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2015 21:10

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 05:36

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Memnaelar posted:

Huh. I agree the rules could have used another pass for clarity, but the card text is, imo, about as straightforward as you can get. We read aloud every new Supporter, Spell, or Vault card as they're drawn and I've yet to see any of my players confused.

It does seem to be pretty divisive, though. In my local (Seattle) gaming chat and among my friends, the reactions seem to trend pretty strongly towards either outright love or quick distaste. I've only seen one or two people say they've played and give a moderate to meh opinion.

It's not that the text itself is confusing, it's the lack of technical writing skills and/or clarifications about interactions, combined with the volume of stuff. At any given point you have 8-10 rooms, 10 voters, 3 spells with 3 levels, 3 vault items, 5 supporters, each doing different things, and that's not counting the items you've already procured or your current resource count. It's an AP nightmare, and I just can't guarantee I'm not going to be playing with people who won't take 10 minutes staring at the drat table every time their turn comes around. You could easily have dropped 20-30% of things in the game and ended up with a tighter, cleaner ruleset with less to get bogged down in. Combine INT and WIS, make spells 2 levels only, combine Gold and Mana into the same resource, make all supporters immediately give their benefit when drawn, kill merit badges as a gating mechanism - almost all of this would result in little functional difference in game mechanics except to make it more about important choices and less about trying to memorize the current boardstate.

Crackbone fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Mar 8, 2015

# ¿ Mar 8, 2015 21:18

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Board Game Thread 4e: The Call of Catan

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