I haven't quite figured that one out yet. It seems like my results are all over the place regardless of which strategy I choose.Went to a splendor tournament today, got thrashed (1-2)
Playing the game with better players did turn my understanding of the "meta" on its head though
The Board Game Thread
- Thread starter Diakonov
- Start date
Chris Taylor
Contributor
There's a lot of luck/adjusting on the fly.
But previously I was playing with mono storm players, and regardless of weather it helped them win at all, nobody could resist anything free. the T1 pile was empty every single game
Then I did this and we had people winning with 5 fuckin cards in play
New games I played this weekend:
Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar
New expansion for Eclipse
Five Tribes
Two Rooms and a Boom
Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt. Skullzfyre
I have to say, none of them disappointed. Each was fun in a different way. Five Tribes is the one I'm most likely to purchase, since it manages to provide the eurogame feel in about an hour of playtime.
Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar
New expansion for Eclipse
Five Tribes
Two Rooms and a Boom
Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt. Skullzfyre
I have to say, none of them disappointed. Each was fun in a different way. Five Tribes is the one I'm most likely to purchase, since it manages to provide the eurogame feel in about an hour of playtime.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Also Spell Wars is metal as fuck
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Epic Spell Wars is an awesome light game. The humor is so groanworthy it becomes funny again. Besides, I love playing as Fey Ticklebottom the Enchanter!
We played a ton of Port Royal with the expansion a couple of weeks ago. It was a great game before and I didn't think the expansion would add very much, but it somehow made it even better. Push your luck with constant player engagement with a race tableu, just fantastic.
Also played Eggs of Ostrich which is a three player only japanese game, which I didn't have high hopes for either but I really loved.
On NYE also played loads of Tapple/Think Words! (depending on where you're based) which is really a kids game but makes a fantastic drinking game - which isn't normally my kind of thing. The countdown clock is so tense!
I got to try Treasure Hunter, which was the Garfield drafting game I mentioned. I like it, but it's a little fiddly and the resultion of the draft wasn't as exciting as I thought it might be. Will give it some more play and see what I think.
Also played Eggs of Ostrich which is a three player only japanese game, which I didn't have high hopes for either but I really loved.
On NYE also played loads of Tapple/Think Words! (depending on where you're based) which is really a kids game but makes a fantastic drinking game - which isn't normally my kind of thing. The countdown clock is so tense!
I got to try Treasure Hunter, which was the Garfield drafting game I mentioned. I like it, but it's a little fiddly and the resultion of the draft wasn't as exciting as I thought it might be. Will give it some more play and see what I think.
On a seperate note, I picked up Glass Road, though have yet to get it to the table, and still have Istanbul and Harbour to get out of shrink. What should I try first, I'm thinking Glass Road.
I played munchkin the other day and really disliked it. It reminded me a lot of bad multiplayer magic games, where nothing really happens every turn and eventually somebody wins for some reason.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
The humor is fun, for a while, but the game mechanics are honestly horrible. We used to play it a lot, until one day (long ago) we had lounged in the summer warmth near a lake all day and returned to a friend's home blissfully tired for a relaxed pre-dinner drink. We picked up munchkin, and the game just wouldn't end. Eventually we figured out we were all getting edgy and cantankerous because of the game, not because we were tired, and we just packed up the cards mid game and never touched it again.
The Great Zimbabwe and Indonesia became available for pre-order today! I decided to throw down some money for TGZ and give it a shot.
http://www.splottershop.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=1817
http://www.splottershop.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=1817
FlowerSunRain
Contributor
Selling Indonesia last month for $200 is really looking like a good decision.
Why GMT? You got some kind of a discount with that publisher?
Dominant Species is excellent, if you're willing to dedicate 4 hours (or more if everyone's new or you have a high player count) to it. Battle Line is incredible, fast, and the winning player gets to feel very clever. Don't use the goofy amerigamer add-in cards that got designed by a 3rd party. Sekigahara is good for a certain kind of gamer (not me). Space Empires 4x is high on my to-try list.
Apparently they have a shit ton of grognardy wargames most of which start with a year and end with the name of a battle. Those will probably lead to early pattern baldness / menopause, if played?
Dominant Species is excellent, if you're willing to dedicate 4 hours (or more if everyone's new or you have a high player count) to it. Battle Line is incredible, fast, and the winning player gets to feel very clever. Don't use the goofy amerigamer add-in cards that got designed by a 3rd party. Sekigahara is good for a certain kind of gamer (not me). Space Empires 4x is high on my to-try list.
Apparently they have a shit ton of grognardy wargames most of which start with a year and end with the name of a battle. Those will probably lead to early pattern baldness / menopause, if played?
Games we play, or have played at our Game Nights:
Munchkin - we burned out on this. We've got a boatload of expansions and honestly I think it could be fun since it's so damn easy to teach if I just caved in and customized the massive deck it has become, but it's very much a filler game that I think really needs a good bit of customization to make truly enjoyable.
Betrayal at House on the Hill - generally a crowd-pleaser; the game is a real blast (thanks to this thread for turning me onto it!), and if your group is okay with the fact that there's some real unbalance to it towards the end, it's a fine pick-up.
Zombicide - boy, does this game need work. It's a lot of fun, but custom rules are pretty much required to enjoy it. I spent a lot of time devising fixes to make this game better, and now we really dig it, but it's very much a game you play 1 mission of a night tops, because any more will burn you out fast.
Sushi Go! - the epitome of filler game. It's a fine drafting game that appeals to most anyone, but at this point, I only really bring it because some of our group members are nuts for it, inexplicably. (I find it to be the equivalent of cheese and crackers; a fine palate cleanser, maybe, but not a worthy appetizer.)
Coup - Love this game. The problem is it's super group-dependent; underlying relationships play out a lot in the game, and it's hard to encourage people to step outside of their comfort zone and forge new alliances sometimes. But, it's pretty fun, and relatively fast.
Eldritch Horror - This was something someone else brought; I didn't expect to like it (and I was mildly miffed since I was literally going to order Elder Sign that night, which is thematically similar), but it's actually kinda fun. It's definitely hard to say whether it's worth picking up, though; our first game lasted over 3 hours because the rules and goals made no sense (this happens any time I do not play rule keeper...), but after we understood it, the games since tend to clock in between 40 minutes to an hour and a half. The only bad thing is that there needs to be a few more cards; there's a point about 4/5ths of the way in (typically) where you start drawing the same cards you did at the start of the game, which makes everyone a bit annoyed if it drags on for too long. It's probably a fine game to whip out every couple of nights, though.
I know, glowing reviews all. I'm interested in Epic Spell Wars and that'll probably be my next pickup; we need more small/light games, because everyone always wants to play one of the bigger games first and then play light things for the rest of the night.
Munchkin - we burned out on this. We've got a boatload of expansions and honestly I think it could be fun since it's so damn easy to teach if I just caved in and customized the massive deck it has become, but it's very much a filler game that I think really needs a good bit of customization to make truly enjoyable.
Betrayal at House on the Hill - generally a crowd-pleaser; the game is a real blast (thanks to this thread for turning me onto it!), and if your group is okay with the fact that there's some real unbalance to it towards the end, it's a fine pick-up.
Zombicide - boy, does this game need work. It's a lot of fun, but custom rules are pretty much required to enjoy it. I spent a lot of time devising fixes to make this game better, and now we really dig it, but it's very much a game you play 1 mission of a night tops, because any more will burn you out fast.
Sushi Go! - the epitome of filler game. It's a fine drafting game that appeals to most anyone, but at this point, I only really bring it because some of our group members are nuts for it, inexplicably. (I find it to be the equivalent of cheese and crackers; a fine palate cleanser, maybe, but not a worthy appetizer.)
Coup - Love this game. The problem is it's super group-dependent; underlying relationships play out a lot in the game, and it's hard to encourage people to step outside of their comfort zone and forge new alliances sometimes. But, it's pretty fun, and relatively fast.
Eldritch Horror - This was something someone else brought; I didn't expect to like it (and I was mildly miffed since I was literally going to order Elder Sign that night, which is thematically similar), but it's actually kinda fun. It's definitely hard to say whether it's worth picking up, though; our first game lasted over 3 hours because the rules and goals made no sense (this happens any time I do not play rule keeper...), but after we understood it, the games since tend to clock in between 40 minutes to an hour and a half. The only bad thing is that there needs to be a few more cards; there's a point about 4/5ths of the way in (typically) where you start drawing the same cards you did at the start of the game, which makes everyone a bit annoyed if it drags on for too long. It's probably a fine game to whip out every couple of nights, though.
I know, glowing reviews all. I'm interested in Epic Spell Wars and that'll probably be my next pickup; we need more small/light games, because everyone always wants to play one of the bigger games first and then play light things for the rest of the night.
I haven't played Dominant Species yet, but after recently researching it a bit I've added it to my wishlist. It has a lot of euro-gamey mechanics with combat area control; seems similar to Eclipse in that sense. The only multiplayer wargame I currently own is a 1982 copy of Axis & Allies, which I enjoy, but it just takes so long.
I've played Dominant Species once, where I was at a board game cafe and had to learn, teach and then play the game, which pretty much turned my brain to mush. It was pretty good considering we were all playing it for the first time, but it is extremely long (about 4 hours as Ferret says) and I got the impression it would need a few plays to really start understanding the strategy involved. As with most long games I'd say try before you buy if at all possible.
I've also played one game of Fire in the Lake, the COIN (Counter-Insurgency) GMT wargame based on the Vietnam war. My understanding is that FitL is perhaps the longest and most complex of these games, which also include Cuba Libre (Cuban revolution), A Distant Plain (Aghanistan war) and Andean Abyss (something in Venezuela? Not sure on that one). These are four player "card-driven" wargames, in which a card is flipped up each turn representing an event in the conflict and giving each faction different priorities of moves and sometimes actions. This was one of the first games I've played where I felt completely out of my depth; each faction has several different actions they can take on their turn which are generally different from the others, so there's a lot to keep in mind at all times. Each faction is competing for their own victory conditions - for example, in FitL the US Army are looking for control plus troops undeployed, i.e. "win the war and bring our boys home", whereas the Viet Cong are after general unrest.
I did enjoy it but I think I need a good long time with the rules before playing it again. Apparently Cuba Libre and the upcoming Falling Sky, based on the Gauls revolting against Casear, are the "starter" games in this series.
I've also played one game of Fire in the Lake, the COIN (Counter-Insurgency) GMT wargame based on the Vietnam war. My understanding is that FitL is perhaps the longest and most complex of these games, which also include Cuba Libre (Cuban revolution), A Distant Plain (Aghanistan war) and Andean Abyss (something in Venezuela? Not sure on that one). These are four player "card-driven" wargames, in which a card is flipped up each turn representing an event in the conflict and giving each faction different priorities of moves and sometimes actions. This was one of the first games I've played where I felt completely out of my depth; each faction has several different actions they can take on their turn which are generally different from the others, so there's a lot to keep in mind at all times. Each faction is competing for their own victory conditions - for example, in FitL the US Army are looking for control plus troops undeployed, i.e. "win the war and bring our boys home", whereas the Viet Cong are after general unrest.
I did enjoy it but I think I need a good long time with the rules before playing it again. Apparently Cuba Libre and the upcoming Falling Sky, based on the Gauls revolting against Casear, are the "starter" games in this series.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I honestly don't know any of their games, which is not that surprising, since I'm not into war games. I have the feeling that genre is way more popular in the states than it is in Europe.
Honestly I'm only familiar with twilight struggle (3 phase Cold War simulator) and labyrinth (war on terror simulator) and going to war is one of the most costly and risky things in the game but made to feel as compelling as possible. You really hate yourself for having to cost benefit war as the best option. They really do an effective job of conveying the discrete impersonal nature of the "planner" aspect of these crisis but the very personal and career ruining feeling of having your careful para-military, optics, and geopolitical plots ruined by the realities of a crazy world.
I've only played their games largely based around proxy conflicts but God has it made me wana read more and really made what I read hit me more viscerally
What I just mentioned like 5 GMT games.
You might like Pax Porfiriana and you might like the re-work of PP that focuses on a different history thing but re-uses most of the mechanics
(favorite mechanic: play a bad thing on your enemy to slow them down, but play a bad thing on yourself to gain sympathy with a faction so as to later coup the porfiriana)
Oh I'm only into grognardy history games sorry.