The New Board Game Thread (Newcomer Friendly)

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How do the math trades work? Let's say I put up a game that's worth $60 MSRP and I'm looking for a couple of $30 games...is it possible that I'll only get one of those $30 games for my $60 game?

I'm simplyfying the example to get a better understanding of how the trade 'fairness' kinda works.
 
GTI Guy said:
How do the math trades work? Let's say I put up a game that's worth $60 MSRP and I'm looking for a couple of $30 games...is it possible that I'll only get one of those $30 games for my $60 game?

I'm simplyfying the example to get a better understanding of how the trade 'fairness' kinda works.
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The quick and easy explanation, you have item A and you want item B. Joe has item B but wants C. Mary has item C but really wants A. Joe trades Mary B for C and Mary trades item B (which she just got from Joe) for your item A. BGG math trades do that but on a much larger scale.

The best rule of thumb is only add items you are willing to trade for the item you want to get rid of. The thing with math trades is you are trading item for item. So if you put up a $60 game you cannot get two $30 games for it, unless those two games are added as 1 item.
 
^ just to reiterate what joey said, thedicetower podcast explained it once that made it super easy for me to understand. Picture this:

You have a goat. I have bread, and Joey has cheese. You want my bread but I don't want your damn goat, what I want is cheese. So you go to Joey and he's willing to trade you his cheese for your goat. You then take Joey's cheese and trade to me for the bread. everyone wins.
 
Anyone have any opinions on War of the Ring (2nd Edition)? I'm trying to figure out if it's a game for me or not.

Many of the complaints I've read online that might actually bother me is the fact that the game is a facade of options (meaning most games will always fall into a few different strategies for winning or losing, always winding up pretty much the same for each side). I like games with real meaningful options for deviation, and if after a few times of playing I feel like I have to subscribe to one particular strategy in order to remain competitive, I'll feel pretty bad about buying it.

Any opinions? I know the game is pretty popular.
 
Ok I got what you are saying about the math trade, thanks that was helpful.

One for one regardless of the 'value'

I should put up a cheap game then and cross my fingers! haha
 
Phthisis said:
Anyone have any opinions on War of the Ring (2nd Edition)? I'm trying to figure out if it's a game for me or not.

Many of the complaints I've read online that might actually bother me is the fact that the game is a facade of options (meaning most games will always fall into a few different strategies for winning or losing, always winding up pretty much the same for each side). I like games with real meaningful options for deviation, and if after a few times of playing I feel like I have to subscribe to one particular strategy in order to remain competitive, I'll feel pretty bad about buying it.

Any opinions? I know the game is pretty popular.
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Well, the game literally tells the story of LOTR as you play, so in that regard, yeah, it's going to be similar. That being said, actions you choose on a turn are determined by dice, there's no way to do the same thing every game every turn without some sort of weird luck. In addition theres a fairly large deck of cards that determine your strategy too. As an example, there's a few that really put the pressure on the Free People's cities militarily. If these are sitting at the bottom of the deck, then you're going to have to adapt accordingly.

All things said, if you like LOTR there's a good probability of you liking this. And as a safety next, you'll have absolutely ZERO problems unloading it should for some reason you DO dislike it.
 
NJ Shlice said:
My friends and I love playing Risk.

What would be our next step to get into something a little more complex but not too crazy?

Possibly another version of Risk other than the original?
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Just to throw something different into the mix, I played Risk with a bunch of friends for years. A while back, after getting into boardgaming more seriously, I picked up a game from Fantasy Flight Games called Dust (not Dust Tactics...Dust). It's a nice step beyond Risk in that you need have cards which determine what you want to do each turn, there is no player elimination, and you get different units (that you build, which also introduces a nice production mechanic that will transfer to other games). They love it.
 
Gryphter said:
^ just to reiterate what joey said, thedicetower podcast explained it once that made it super easy for me to understand. Picture this:

You have a goat. I have bread, and Joey has cheese. You want my bread but I don't want your damn goat, what I want is cheese. So you go to Joey and he's willing to trade you his cheese for your goat. You then take Joey's cheese and trade to me for the bread. everyone wins.
Click to expand...

With a goat you could make all the cheese you want.
 
Big News!

I've designed a card game! I hired a professional game artist and am going to jump on kickstarter in the next few weeks once some of the artwork starts to come in. I've got quotes from some bigger of the chinese game printers (Alien Frontiers and Pandemic's producers) that put the amount needed to do a small run within reach.

It's a light game inspired roughly by the sort of 'build in a frenzy then find out how you did' mechanics in Roborally and Space Trucker. The difference being the play time should be about 30 minutes.

Anyway, I'm waiting on BGG to approve the submission and then I'll work on getting the rulebook online.

If you are wondering, I was working on the (way too complicated) game I mentioned a few posts back, and in the process decided to build a simple game to get my feet wet before going back to the more complicated one.

During playtesting, my game group and I figured out the game was actually pretty fun. I looked into the self-publishing world, thought the tedius task of starting a business looked like a really complicated economic game and have a fiance that is in marketing. So, Pandasaurus Games was born (my fiance named the LLC).
 
StoOgE said:
Big News!

I've designed a card game! I hired a professional game artist and am going to jump on kickstarter in the next few weeks once some of the artwork starts to come in. I've got quotes from some bigger of the chinese game printers (Alien Frontiers and Pandemic's producers) that put the amount needed to do a small run within reach.

It's a light game inspired roughly by the sort of 'build in a frenzy then find out how you did' mechanics in Roborally and Space Trucker. The difference being the play time should be about 30 minutes.

Anyway, I'm waiting on BGG to approve the submission and then I'll work on getting the rulebook online.

If you are wondering, I was working on the (way too complicated) game I mentioned a few posts back, and in the process decided to build a simple game to get my feet wet before going back to the more complicated one.

During playtesting, my game group and I figured out the game was actually pretty fun. I looked into the self-publishing world, thought the tedius task of starting a business looked like a really complicated economic game and have a fiance that is in marketing. So, Pandasaurus Games was born (my fiance named the LLC).
Click to expand...

Awesome! Good luck with your Kickstarter thingy! Be sure to post the link back here so we can contribute! :)
 
GTI Guy said:
Awesome! Good luck with your Kickstarter thingy! Be sure to post the link back here so we can contribute! :)
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Probably a little ways off. The artist is finishing a project right now, and I think I want to get a print at home version up on BGG.. or at least get some ugly prototype copies out for review.

But I'll keep y'all up to speed. Worst case scenario, you will all get a play by play on hubris leading to massive failure :lol
 
Good luck, StoOgE! I'm going to be launching a kickstarter for my own board game in a little bit as well :)



Also, you guys, Battlestar Galactica is way too much damn fun. Had one of the most riotous board game sessions ever earlier this week.
 
StoOgE said:
But I'll keep y'all up to speed. Worst case scenario, you will all get a play by play on hubris leading to massive failure :lol
Click to expand...

The nice thing about doing this sort of thing is that if you've learned from your massive failures, they were totally worth it*





*Assuming that the cost of said massive failure isn't prohibitively high :)
 
Phthisis said:
Anyone have any opinions on War of the Ring (2nd Edition)? I'm trying to figure out if it's a game for me or not.

Many of the complaints I've read online that might actually bother me is the fact that the game is a facade of options (meaning most games will always fall into a few different strategies for winning or losing, always winding up pretty much the same for each side). I like games with real meaningful options for deviation, and if after a few times of playing I feel like I have to subscribe to one particular strategy in order to remain competitive, I'll feel pretty bad about buying it.

Any opinions? I know the game is pretty popular.
Click to expand...

The game is absolutely nuts. I've seen people call it the most complicated game out there and I can't say if that's true or not but it's certainly the most intense one I've played. I'd say to enjoy this game you need to:

1) Be a fan of the LOTR franchise
2) Have a playing partner fully willing to put in hours of learning time
3) Be yourself willing to be patient with figuring the game out

I'm still figuring the game out myself. It's difficult and there's a ton of depth to it. It seems like an awesome board game but it's not for the weak-willed at all.
 
timetokill said:
Also, you guys, Battlestar Galactica is way too much damn fun. Had one of the most riotous board game sessions ever earlier this week.
Click to expand...
BSG is crazy awesome. The last time I played I was a Cylon and we got the fleet down to 1 morale and 2 population. I decided to use the space that allowed me to look at two Crisis card. One of the cards that I drew was an Admiral choice, lose two population or one morale. This was one turn before the humans were going to jump for the last time and win. It was a lucky W for sure but I'll take it.

Good luck Stooge. Let us know when your Kickstarter campaign starts and I'll contribute.
 
Slacker said:
I can't remember if I saw it here or at Ars, but I love this idea for 8 people playing Dominion: Split up the group 4 and 4 and set up each group with a different set of kingdom cards. Have everyone play through the game and record their scores. Then have the two groups switch and play with the other set of kingdom cards they didn't play with the first time. After that round add up the scores from both games and declare a winner. Sounds fun. although my group is a solid four so I'll never be able to put it into play. :P
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Sorry, mostly lurking in this thread, so this is a bit of a necro-reply, but I think that's the cool thing about a game like that. My friends and I are very gaming-lite people, but we had a night of Dominion that was just the four of us. I have base and Intrigue, so what we did is we essentially blind-drafted four sets of kingdom cards, and played a best-of-five, with the unselected cards comprising the final deck.

It was pretty cool, and competitive -- going into the last game it was 1-1-1-1.

(Reason I saw this was looking for posts about Risk: Legacy). Seems like a cool idea, but we have a lot of gaming ahead before we get around to something new, I think.
 
StoOgE said:
Big News!

I've designed a card game! I hired a professional game artist and am going to jump on kickstarter in the next few weeks once some of the artwork starts to come in. I've got quotes from some bigger of the chinese game printers (Alien Frontiers and Pandemic's producers) that put the amount needed to do a small run within reach.

It's a light game inspired roughly by the sort of 'build in a frenzy then find out how you did' mechanics in Roborally and Space Trucker. The difference being the play time should be about 30 minutes.

Anyway, I'm waiting on BGG to approve the submission and then I'll work on getting the rulebook online.

If you are wondering, I was working on the (way too complicated) game I mentioned a few posts back, and in the process decided to build a simple game to get my feet wet before going back to the more complicated one.

During playtesting, my game group and I figured out the game was actually pretty fun. I looked into the self-publishing world, thought the tedius task of starting a business looked like a really complicated economic game and have a fiance that is in marketing. So, Pandasaurus Games was born (my fiance named the LLC).
Click to expand...

Yeah, keep us up to date. Also if you need some help with translation work keep me in mind for the German one. ;)
 
Finally got Wiz War to the table. Good, silly fun. Totally a take-that style of gaming, and little strategy to form, but we all seemed to like it a good bit.

Astro, stay far away. Every card creates a seeming handful of caveats and exceptions. It's probably your FAQ nightmare.
 
Neverfade said:
Finally got Wiz War to the table. Good, silly fun. Totally a take-that style of gaming, and little strategy to form, but we all seemed to like it a good bit.

Astro, stay far away. Every card creates a seeming handful of caveats and exceptions. It's probably your FAQ nightmare.
Click to expand...

There were some people playing it at my game night last week. They seemed to really like it, compared it favorably to Cosmic Encounter... so I'm pretty interested in it.
 
InaudibleWhispa said:
Sounds awesome. I adore rollercoasters, and the various video games dedicated to them. It sounds like it should make for a fun card game!
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Thanks!

It's kind of why it popped into my head as a theme, I'm a giant rollercoaster nut. Being a grownup has gotten in my way, but I've probably ridden 150-200 rollercoasters. I used to be a member of American Coaster Enthusiasts back in the day, and the number of hours logged into Rollercoaster tycoon is pretty nuts.

I'm going to do a series of blogs (probably on BGG) that go into more depth, but one thing I figured out. The math involved in most board games is really really simple. It's the player interaction that makes the games work. Something like single player Gric or Le Havre is a good example. You can pound on points earning machines and get scores that are just insanely high.. because it's pretty obvious what the "best" moves are in both games. It's creating limitations that makes the games work. In my case, the limitation is time... in others it's limited resources, or limited action spaces, needing to feed your family preventing you from getting points, etc.

It's why my other game was going so poorly. I was trying to insert insanely complicated math along with player interaction elements that was making it next to impossible for players to figure their choices out. It's also why I think a game like Endeavor isn't that good. I think that game presents too many choices, and none of them are obviously better than the others. So players kind of wander around doing random things and then someone wins. The more obvious the winning strategy(s) are the better. Mutliple paths to victory is really great, but you don't want so many things that anything you do is a good choice.

Basically the trick to a game is really basic math with players causing chaos amongst each other. In any case, I'll hopefully have a pnp version of some sort ready in the next week. If any of you want to playtest the game for me. The rules are still in flux a bit, so it can be tweaked, and any reviews/feedback on BGG I can get would be helpful.
 
Played some Power Grid two days ago. 4 Player game, three way time at the end with 17 powered plants. Played king maker as I forced a guy to spend to come up short to build 18 cities. Money was 24, 16, 12(me). All in all a pretty fun game.
 
Guys how is Space Alert? Ist it easy to learn and teach. It would fit my needs for a co-op game and it looks like it is also quick to play.
 
Xater said:
Guys how is Space Alert? Ist it easy to learn and teach. It would fit my needs for a co-op game and it looks like it is also quick to play.
Click to expand...

It's not a difficult game, but people who don't work well under pressure (as in time limit with a recording playing) probably shouldn't apply.
 
Hadn't played Chaos in the Old World in months but we got two games in recently. Man, I love that game. I think I've convinced a few people that we need to play more often because the game gets so much better when people have some experience with it. Can't wait for the next game.

Xater said:
Guys how is Space Alert? Ist it easy to learn and teach. It would fit my needs for a co-op game and it looks like it is also quick to play.
Click to expand...
With the right group it's the best thing that ever happened to humanity, but with most groups it's anywhere from frustrating to pretty good. You need a group of either 4 or 5 people (preferably 5) who can work together and who won't be put off by the real time aspect of the game. It also helps if everyone is OK with losing a lot early on, because you probably will.

Space Alert is quick to play, but the first time you play it you will likely want a good 2-3 hours so you can introduce everyone to the game. It comes with a fantastic training manual that helps you learn a few of the game concepts at a time by playing training missions. Before you even attempt this though you personally should be very familiar with the rules, don't just open the box and try to wing it.

Once you get past that initial training session it is pretty quick, though. We sometimes use it as filler or at the end of the night when there's not quite enough time to play a bigger game. One round of Space Alert takes us 45 minutes, including setup time. It's a hell of a lot of fun with the right people, good luck!
 
I really want to play Space Alert but I think at least half the people I game with would not be able to deal with the pressure of the real time playstyle.
 
Cathcart said:
With the right group it's the best thing that ever happened to humanity, but with most groups it's anywhere from frustrating to pretty good. You need a group of either 4 or 5 people (preferably 5) who can work together and who won't be put off by the real time aspect of the game. It also helps if everyone is OK with losing a lot early on, because you probably will.

Space Alert is quick to play, but the first time you play it you will likely want a good 2-3 hours so you can introduce everyone to the game. It comes with a fantastic training manual that helps you learn a few of the game concepts at a time by playing training missions. Before you even attempt this though you personally should be very familiar with the rules, don't just open the box and try to wing it.

Once you get past that initial training session it is pretty quick, though. We sometimes use it as filler or at the end of the night when there's not quite enough time to play a bigger game. One round of Space Alert takes us 45 minutes, including setup time. It's a hell of a lot of fun with the right people, good luck!
Click to expand...

Hmmm we are more often 3 people than 4 to 5.
 
Xater said:
Hmmm we are more often 3 people than 4 to 5.
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Space Alert contains variants for 2 or 3 people but they're more for experts who are bored. I think it would be a bad idea to start playing the game with 3, unfortunately. Not really the same thing but you could look into Galaxy Trucker by the same designer.
 
MrMan2k3 said:
Rollercoaster theme? You've got my backing, as I now have to get this one for my sister! (She's a huge coaster nut and a fan of games too.)
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Hahah yup rollercoaster theme is awesome. I could see this getting some real traction on BGG provided you've got the gameplay to back it up Stooge :D
 
I've been on a Pandemic kick lately, as I hadn't touched the game in well over a year. What I'm liking about it is it takes about 45 minutes, win or lose, to get through a game--which makes it a nice opener/closer. The expansion adds a lot with the new roles and now that we are getting good at the base game, the new virulent strain and mutations add some nice complexity.

I think this is another nice gateway to get people interested in gaming.
 
Xater said:
Guys how is Space Alert? Ist it easy to learn and teach. It would fit my needs for a co-op game and it looks like it is also quick to play.
Click to expand...
I have it but have not played it. It looks a little intimidating and I haven't put together the right group to try it with yet. I also need to revisit the rules, etc. The CD portion adds a bit of a barrier. I have the files on my smartphone but worry that the volume wouldn't be enough to play with my weekly group (who get together in a hall). So it's more about getting a crowd together at home.
 
MichaelBD said:
I've been on a Pandemic kick lately, as I hadn't touched the game in well over a year. What I'm liking about it is it takes about 45 minutes, win or lose, to get through a game--which makes it a nice opener/closer. The expansion adds a lot with the new roles and now that we are getting good at the base game, the new virulent strain and mutations add some nice complexity.

I think this is another nice gateway to get people interested in gaming.
Click to expand...

Pandemic and Power Grid are probably my most played games, but not just because of me but my friends also always request those.
 
MichaelBD said:
I've been on a Pandemic kick lately, as I hadn't touched the game in well over a year. What I'm liking about it is it takes about 45 minutes, win or lose, to get through a game--which makes it a nice opener/closer. The expansion adds a lot with the new roles and now that we are getting good at the base game, the new virulent strain and mutations add some nice complexity.

I think this is another nice gateway to get people interested in gaming.
Click to expand...

I love everything about the expansion except for the 5th disease.. I think the mutant strain is too fiddly.. the bioterrorist I've only played once.

Things I like: it keeps table talk down a bit, which keeps one player from telling everyone exactly what to do.

Things I don't like: The whole capture/escape process is a bit fiddly and our bioterrorist messed up and wound up accidentally cheating his way to a win. The whole, 2 actions + one optional move thing confused him and caused the issues.
 
So I heard about board game meetup happening in my city. Went today and had a great time. (I am a complete novice at board games. The most I've played is a few incomplete attempts of Catan.)

I got to play

Grave Business
Automobile
Caylus

Loved all of them!
 
It's a reasonably complicated game, but it's not all that involved. I don't think it's that great of a game balance wise, but can certainly be fun.
 
MichaelBD said:
The Ulthuan expansion adds the elves (dark and high) to the factions so that is definitely worth getting. I've grabbed all the big box expansions (the March of the Damned and Legends) and bunch of battle packs.

I don't really have any method to what I get, I've bought most of my stuff from amazon so once or twice a week they'll dump a battle pack into my gold box deals of the day. If it's under $10 I usually just snag it (especially because I have Prime and free 2 day shipping).
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Hm, worth considering then, I have ordered the starter box and will see where to go from there if people like playing it.
 
I've played the xbla versions of carcasonne and the resource game. And I have a copy of stratomatic baseball. But I think it would be easier to convince my friends to play a game based on ww2 and then branch out from there. We are all novices.
 
Guileless said:
I've played the xbla versions of carcasonne and the resource game. And I have a copy of stratomatic baseball. But I think it would be easier to convince my friends to play a game based on ww2 and then branch out from there. We are all novices.
Click to expand...

The only thing I would recommend is Memoir 44 but that is basically just a 2 player game. I would say, ignore the theme and just get a good game.
 
StoOgE said:
I love everything about the expansion except for the 5th disease.. I think the mutant strain is too fiddly.. the bioterrorist I've only played once.

Things I like: it keeps table talk down a bit, which keeps one player from telling everyone exactly what to do.

Things I don't like: The whole capture/escape process is a bit fiddly and our bioterrorist messed up and wound up accidentally cheating his way to a win. The whole, 2 actions + one optional move thing confused him and caused the issues.
Click to expand...
I don't really have much interest in the bio-terrorist variant. Something about needing a pencil and paper to play a game turns me off.

I've only played once with the purple cubes so can't really comment yet.

Played another game of Airline:Europe yesterday and lost a close one to my daughter. It really is a nice step up from Ticket to Ride.
 
whatsinaname said:
So I heard about board game meetup happening in my city. Went today and had a great time. (I am a complete novice at board games. The most I've played is a few incomplete attempts of Catan.)

I got to play

Grave Business
Automobile
Caylus

Loved all of them!
Click to expand...

The only one of those that I've played is Caylus, which I'm pretty surprised you were able to enjoy jumping in as a complete novice. It's kind of heavy and dry. I mean, it's a great game, but definitely not something I'd introduce a novice to. Anyway, welcome to the best hobby around!
 
I purchased Ticket to Ride the other day and have been having a fun time with it.

With that said, is there anything I can purchase to make the cards easier to deal with. Those things are tiny.

Secondly, what is everyone's opinion on an automatic shuffler?
 
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