I fuckin love Terra Mystica. Two player it's not as good, but we tried putting some neutral player tokens on the 2 and 5 spots on the Cult track so that there was a more granular goal on Cults beyond "be at least 1 point ahead of the other player". That helped a lot.
The Board Game Thread
- Thread starter Diakonov
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FlowerSunRain
Contributor
I love Colossal Arena.
I think the main reason T&E gets more love is because it plays well with 3-4 players while Samurai plays best with 2. 2 person games are popular for card game and wargames, but most people want their euros to play more.
I think the main reason T&E gets more love is because it plays well with 3-4 players while Samurai plays best with 2. 2 person games are popular for card game and wargames, but most people want their euros to play more.
That's something that you can play around though. You have to plan to be the last player.
I've been playing some hidden role games lately.
Saboteur - Some players are gold diggers and some are saboteurs. The goal of the gold diggers is to build a tunnel from the start to one of three end points and find the gold, and the saboteurs are trying to stop this. The twist is that the first gold digger to find the gold gets a bigger reward than the others.
It's light and easy to play, but there didn't seem to be much gain in playing slyly as the saboteurs. The bad guys did best when they openly disrupted things from the get-go. Still, provided lots of laughs for our group of seven, and was very easy to teach (albeit the rulebook was a bit confusing at first. Much easier to have a veteran explain the game to you in 60 seconds than parse the rulebook).
Bang - I've had this game for over a decade, and used to play it with high school friends whose primary enjoyment came from trying to find ways to cheat or catch others in the process. This game has four roles: Outlaws, Renegade, Deputies and the Sheriff. The Outlaws want to kill the Sheriff, the Sheriff and Deputy want to eliminate all the Outlaws and Renegades, and the Renegade wants to be the last one standing.
The interesting bit here is that the renegade serves as a balancing mechanic. If the sheriff dies before all the outlaws are eliminated, he loses, so he has to play both sides a bit. It's a fun role to play, whereas the others can be straightforward at times.
The game provides some good fun, at the cost of relatively shallow gameplay and *gulp* player elimination. It's a light game you want to play with a casual crowd, but can result in players sitting out for long periods of time. Also, only one player acts at a time, so the time between actions can really stretch on (think EDH, but not so severe).
Resistance - Resistance solves the "lack of incentive to play in a tricky way" problem from Saboteurs and the "player elimination" problem from Bang. In Resistance, we have again two camps, good guys and bad guys, and a clear goal: win three of the five rounds.
Each "round", one player (this rotates) nominates a number of people to go on a mission. If the majority agree with the nomination, the mission happens. Otherwise the next person makes a nomination. Secretly, each selected player for that mission votes whether the mission succeeds or fails. A single "fail" vote sinks the mission (score one for the bad guys).
It's fast pace, full of deception, logic and deduction, and great. Unfortunately, the balance of the game highly depends on the number of players active, but there's a sequal Resistance: Avalon that I'm picking up this week which is supposed to solve this issue and make the game 5x better with some elegant new mechanics. It's the best group game I've ever played, and from what I've read, I can recommend Resistance: Avalon sight unseen.
Saboteur - Some players are gold diggers and some are saboteurs. The goal of the gold diggers is to build a tunnel from the start to one of three end points and find the gold, and the saboteurs are trying to stop this. The twist is that the first gold digger to find the gold gets a bigger reward than the others.
It's light and easy to play, but there didn't seem to be much gain in playing slyly as the saboteurs. The bad guys did best when they openly disrupted things from the get-go. Still, provided lots of laughs for our group of seven, and was very easy to teach (albeit the rulebook was a bit confusing at first. Much easier to have a veteran explain the game to you in 60 seconds than parse the rulebook).
Bang - I've had this game for over a decade, and used to play it with high school friends whose primary enjoyment came from trying to find ways to cheat or catch others in the process. This game has four roles: Outlaws, Renegade, Deputies and the Sheriff. The Outlaws want to kill the Sheriff, the Sheriff and Deputy want to eliminate all the Outlaws and Renegades, and the Renegade wants to be the last one standing.
The interesting bit here is that the renegade serves as a balancing mechanic. If the sheriff dies before all the outlaws are eliminated, he loses, so he has to play both sides a bit. It's a fun role to play, whereas the others can be straightforward at times.
The game provides some good fun, at the cost of relatively shallow gameplay and *gulp* player elimination. It's a light game you want to play with a casual crowd, but can result in players sitting out for long periods of time. Also, only one player acts at a time, so the time between actions can really stretch on (think EDH, but not so severe).
Resistance - Resistance solves the "lack of incentive to play in a tricky way" problem from Saboteurs and the "player elimination" problem from Bang. In Resistance, we have again two camps, good guys and bad guys, and a clear goal: win three of the five rounds.
Each "round", one player (this rotates) nominates a number of people to go on a mission. If the majority agree with the nomination, the mission happens. Otherwise the next person makes a nomination. Secretly, each selected player for that mission votes whether the mission succeeds or fails. A single "fail" vote sinks the mission (score one for the bad guys).
It's fast pace, full of deception, logic and deduction, and great. Unfortunately, the balance of the game highly depends on the number of players active, but there's a sequal Resistance: Avalon that I'm picking up this week which is supposed to solve this issue and make the game 5x better with some elegant new mechanics. It's the best group game I've ever played, and from what I've read, I can recommend Resistance: Avalon sight unseen.
FlowerSunRain
Contributor
I think Amun Re is the best of those with a couple of caveats. Amun-Re is long, the ideal player count is exactly 5 and it involves lots of tight evaluations. Ra is under an hour, the ideal player count is exactly 3 (though 4 isn't terrible) and it involves lots of much less tight evaluations. So, even though I like Amun Re better, I've played Ra (literally) about eight times more often because its easier to fit on the table. Even accounting for game length, that's still significantly more time playing Ra then Amun Re and Ra is a fun enough game that I don't mind it too much.
I think T&E is just a little too swingy with the tile draws for the otherwise calculable gameplay.
Shadow Hunters is my hidden role game of choice. Because there are fun things to do even when you are not able to deduce other players' roles (or not interested in investing the mental effort to do so). Notably: just punch someone! Odds are they're probably on one of the other two teams, so you're probably not hurting your side by doing so. And the neutral players are really interesting and fun. That guy with all the equipment - maybe he's just been lucky, maybe he's just trying to become unstoppable, but maybe he's the item collector and you'd better kill him just in case, or else he wins and EVERYONE else loses!
Blood Bound is super interesting mechanically, but unfortunately there are people who are capable of deducing every player's side and role with frightening speed and accuracy. Once they do that, it's impossible to argue with them, and then everyone's optimal action is pre-ordained and the winner is pre-determined. Unless someone screws up or doesn't trust the obvious, obvious, obviously correct savant.
One Night Ultimate Werewolf can suffer from that problem as well, but at least it's over in one move. And it seems to be less deducible than blood bound.
Avalon is fine. It's a workhorse, middle of the road, not very exciting but not very many problems sorta deal.
Coup feels like a more Munchkin-esque hidden role game, but the hidden role genre is uniquely suited to munchkinesque games. It's pretty good, but it's more about lucking into the right roles for your situation, and good bluffing than good deduction.
Blood Bound is super interesting mechanically, but unfortunately there are people who are capable of deducing every player's side and role with frightening speed and accuracy. Once they do that, it's impossible to argue with them, and then everyone's optimal action is pre-ordained and the winner is pre-determined. Unless someone screws up or doesn't trust the obvious, obvious, obviously correct savant.
One Night Ultimate Werewolf can suffer from that problem as well, but at least it's over in one move. And it seems to be less deducible than blood bound.
Avalon is fine. It's a workhorse, middle of the road, not very exciting but not very many problems sorta deal.
Coup feels like a more Munchkin-esque hidden role game, but the hidden role genre is uniquely suited to munchkinesque games. It's pretty good, but it's more about lucking into the right roles for your situation, and good bluffing than good deduction.
Not played Amun Ra, but I found Ra pretty dull. T&E, the one time I played made me want to flip the table which is very rare for me. If you're looking for a Knizia, I'd highly recommend Medici. Try and get the version that has tiles instead of cards though.
FlowerSunRain
Contributor
Also Medici, at least the version I have, has one of the worst boards around. The tokens are too big for the spaces and so even the slightest nudge can make it difficult to figure out how much money/how many of a good someone has. It can't hurt for each player to keep track of their money/goods on a piece of paper.
It could do with an overhaul/redesign, it does let it down somewhat 
FlowerSunRain
Contributor
The best thing to do would be use poker chips for the money and just make the entire board a 5 big tracks for each of the goods. Also, they really should have the payouts on the board somewhere so you don't need to check the book. I remember how much you get paid in 6 player because its a simple pattern, but never remember for other counts.
Howdy,
Random first post to this topic after lurking the cube topics for a year(s).
BANG! is sligthly on the longer side for what it is, but in the right setting (getting hammered) it works well enough!
Our group has been playing BANG! the card game a lot in the past and nowadays we mostly play it in a party setting.
Also we have a yearly "board game marathon" where we play BANG! with the tournament rules (http://www.bang.cz/en/rules-and-faq/special-rules/64-official-tournament-scoring-system.html).
I think every BANG! fan should try tournament rule at least once, those rules spices things up nicely.
I also have One Night Ultimate Werewolf, but i haven't played it that much... i think it is really hard to get to the table... when i try to offer it, we still play Dixit or some other lighter game over it.
Lighter than one turn of werewolf seems funny, but the game actually is garbage the first few tries you play it, because people are learning the roles and the metagame.
You have to play it like ten times to get into the game, it seems.
Random first post to this topic after lurking the cube topics for a year(s).
BANG! is sligthly on the longer side for what it is, but in the right setting (getting hammered) it works well enough!
Our group has been playing BANG! the card game a lot in the past and nowadays we mostly play it in a party setting.
Also we have a yearly "board game marathon" where we play BANG! with the tournament rules (http://www.bang.cz/en/rules-and-faq/special-rules/64-official-tournament-scoring-system.html).
I think every BANG! fan should try tournament rule at least once, those rules spices things up nicely.
I also have One Night Ultimate Werewolf, but i haven't played it that much... i think it is really hard to get to the table... when i try to offer it, we still play Dixit or some other lighter game over it.
Lighter than one turn of werewolf seems funny, but the game actually is garbage the first few tries you play it, because people are learning the roles and the metagame.
You have to play it like ten times to get into the game, it seems.
I tried Android: Netrunner recently and got exactly the same feeling. Like, I know how to play now, but I really have no idea which of my moves have any significance. Magic must be the same in the beginning.
Difference is Magic has a simplified version to get people into it (DotP). Netrunner is pretty complex in its simplest form.
*Googles DotP* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dioctyl_terephthalate?
Duels of the Planeswalker, there is a "better" free-to-play version of it coming btw
http://www.gameinformer.com/games/m...es-the-duels-of-the-planeswalkers-series.aspx
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Duels of the Planeswalker, there is a "better" free-to-play version of it coming btw
http://www.gameinformer.com/games/m...es-the-duels-of-the-planeswalkers-series.aspx
Pfft ruiner of jokes
The thing that gives Netrunner such a steep learning curve, in my eyes, is its emphasis on non-standard vocabulary to denote each of the game pieces and game zones. Then it doubles that burden by having the runner and the corp's pieces and zones be completely different from one another. It's a sizeable hurdle to memorize all of that information, then apply its meaning on all of the cards that reference the various zones so that you can start making strategic decisions.
I think that a DotP-like tutorial for Netrunner would be a huge boon, as it could handhold you through some of the more complex vocabulary and interactions, simply by drawing lines and arrows between cards in your hand and what they could possibly affect, for example.
I think that a DotP-like tutorial for Netrunner would be a huge boon, as it could handhold you through some of the more complex vocabulary and interactions, simply by drawing lines and arrows between cards in your hand and what they could possibly affect, for example.
It also doesn't help that the rule book is written so poorly. While they are explaining the basics of the game, they also discuss extremely specific rules-related situations that are incomprehensible to someone who has never played before. It was difficult to determine which facts were most relevant to simply learning how to play. The rule book should really be divided into two sections.
Though I must concede that I made the mistake of getting really blazed with a friend before attempting to play for the first time.
I also don't think Netrunner plays as well against a computer as Magic does. It's much more about mind games, and Magic is more direct (there is often a strictly "correct" play).
ONUWW games take ten minutes or less - I highly recommend your group just dive in, set the game timer to ~4 minutes, and you'll all have an idea of the meta within half an hour. And then it's really, really good because of how quick the games are and how much deducing you can actually do (where some other hidden role games are kinda a "wine in front of you" problem a la Princess Bride)
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I hate Werewolf with a passion, because I'm always the Werewolf. I'm like a statistical anomaly when it comes to that game. Is One Night Ultimate Werewolf any better?
FlowerSunRain
Contributor
It's a much better game, but I don't think it'll fix your problem with always being the wolf.