Yeah it's not good with two. I had to demo it as a two player game but I was always honest with the people that it's not ideal. 3 works fine, it shines at 4 or more I think.
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New Board Gaming |OT2| On Tables, Off Topic
- Thread starter Karkador
- Start date
Yeah it's not good with two. I had to demo it as a two player game but I was always honest with the people that it's not ideal. 3 works fine, it shines at 4 or more I think.
antiquegamer
Member
We played a lot of co-op and I played a lot of solo games, I wouldn't call Dead of Winter just another "ordinary" co-op game. There is a good reason why it's on top of BGG, because it is a good game. It's not for everybody just like any other games out there.
We have a lot of fun with Dead of Winter every time it hit the table. There's always a fun narrative coming out of the game and the hidden agenda help alleviated the alpha-gamer that usually plaque the co-op game. We also enjoy the fact that you don't know if there is a traitor or it is just someone wanting to complete their objective. (We experiment with always having traitor but that sort of ruin the game, it's the extra element of not knowing for sure which make it more fun). What we find is that people are more invested with their little band of followers and having their own objective instead of just being another sheet of characters just contributing to the goal like many other co-op games. It's not my top co-op game, I rather prefer Eldritch or Pandemic but it's my favorite group co-op game as it's always get everyone involve.
Two expansions for me this week. The essential Rallyman Dirt for Rallyman and Air Marshall for Quartermaster general. Not quite so essential but adds plenty to one of my all time favourite games.
Quartemaster General played with six is probably one of the best team based co-ops ever.
Quartemaster General played with six is probably one of the best team based co-ops ever.
so I got around to playing my machi koro game this weekend. I had no clue it was basically a cross between catan and dominion (two games I don't hate but would rather not play) nor would I have expected the combination of the two to result in a legitimately fun game. I think I am gonna have to pick up the expansions (as I can easily see the game running into the same issue as dominion with knowing the best things to do... though the random nature of dice rolling makes that less of a problem especially when I bank on a 9 being rolled at some point in a game and it never comes lol).
JetBlackPanda
Member
Do you guys have any recommendations for a 2 player game that can travel well?
me and the wife love playing card games with a standard 52 card deck but we want something a little more themey? I guess.
we have Love Letter and enjoy it.
me and the wife love playing card games with a standard 52 card deck but we want something a little more themey? I guess.
we have Love Letter and enjoy it.
BattleMonkey
Member
The Duke
JetBlackPanda
Member
thanks! I appreciate the response I am going to check it out now.
edit: wow I really want this, not sure if the wife will enjoy it. She didn't seem to enjoy hive. Everyone else I play with though would really like it.
But all those things have been done by other games before. The only reason it is so high is due to mad hype from dice tower and tabletop.
Eh, I think those two, while they certainly have an apparent impact, aren't solely responsible. Otherwise, every game they reviewed positively would be way up there.
I think there's just something about Dead of Winter that a certain segment of gamers wanted. It's like if Zombiecide and BSG had a baby. Some people go crazy for that particular game, even if it's been done before. Those people are probably also going crazy for Specter Ops, even though it's been done many times already.
BomberMouse
Member
I wonder if buying scores on BGG is a thing now. Just like people who buy views on youtube, twitch, etc.
BattleMonkey
Member
Well always lot of BS reviews for smaller kickstarted games appear on BGG before its even out giving it all 9's and 10's
antiquegamer
Member
This is my Lyng's Dead of Winter. I do understand why the game is popular as it takes mechanics from popular games. It has easy to understand rules, pretty cards and fun sim city like theme. People in my group enjoy it and it even won award but for me I find the game absolutely boring.
So my first Kickstarter game is shipping next week yeah (Mistfall) and I can't wait to get it. I am glad that unlike CMON they are waiting to ship the game to backer before selling it at GenCon. The more I read about CMON, the more I am regretting backing their games. There sure are a lot of horrible customer service stories on BGG.
You mean for the videos? Because they shouldn't be that relevant for the overall score because of the BGG algorithm I think.
BomberMouse
Member
I wouldn't be surprised if game salute did something like that. I mean games in the top 100 only have a couple thousand reviews. It's easy to do programmatically and even if not, totally possible to do manually.
Eh, buying ad space on BGG is probably more lucrative and effective. Honestly, I remember some board game kickstarters plastering BGG with the laziest ads (literally just a photo of the components), and their KS apparently worked out. Getting the BGG audience to buy new board games doesn't seem to be very difficult.
antiquegamer
Member
Well you are essentially flashing drugs in front of addicts.
Try looking into Citadels. I was surprised that it worked well with only 2-3 players. It comes in a compact box that includes expansion cards you can mix in and out.
On another note, I've played 3 Istanbul games thus far, all with 2 players. I made some really bad decisions, especially when I was the starting player. So, I want to try at least one more game before I draw a conclusion. I'm a little concerned with the pattern I'm seeing. Thus far, every game my friend has beaten me to the red mosque tile (because I forget to rush it every time I'm the starting player), resulting in massive gold income for them. This has worked each time no matter how far the tea house is from the gem dealer, because they only need to make one trip once they've collected 50+ gold to finish off the game.
It's played out in a somewhat similar fashion in my opinion with the 3 different suggested map layouts with the red mosque rush dominating, so I guess we'll see after 1-2 more games whether we keep playing it regularly, or whether it gets ditched like Machi Koro did because of the similar playthroughs.
*edit* To clarify, these games were with 2 players total, including myself.
The BGG algorithm's been heavily tweaked to try to get around spam/shill ratings for a long time now, long before kickstarter got big.
The scary part about that is how accurate that statement is. Aquisition disorder is a scary thing.
The Right Deal
Banned
I don't post here often but I just took part in my first MegaGame this weekend and I have to talk about how awesome it was. I can see how people get sucked into these things and never go back to regular games. I wrote a full report of the day you can read here but the long and short of it is you should definitely participate in one of these things if you get the chance, I really hope they continue to explode in popularity.
super-famicom
Member
Jaipur is a great game and comes in a small box. Star Realms is really fun too, and is literally just a deck of cards in a card box.
7 dollars too much for Munchkin.
nicoga3000
Saint Nic
I really hate Munchkin, but I've got friends who love the game. I don't see the appeal of it.
I didn't realize the X was pronounced like an H 😉
There are very few games I will this strongly about and Munchkin is sadly one of them. Monopoly and Risk are probably the only other two.
mere_immortal
Member
One of our regular game group members is running Watch the Skies a week on Saturday. I can't wait, it sold out almost immediately and we on team Japan have been discussing potential tactics since we got our tickets.
Backed it earlier today. Definitely needs the extra pepper meeples and the personal lab sounds like a neat idea. Sucks that we gotta wait till April till we get it.
The Right Deal
Banned
You're in for a treat, what role do you have?
mere_immortal
Member
Chief of Defence. We just got our player packs so need to have a good read.
The Right Deal
Banned
Awesome, I think mechanically, that role and the scientist are the most straight forward. Our Chief of Defense had a great time trying to think of crazy missions to send agents on, but I wish we had sent them to our own country a few times, in hindsight we could have figured out a few things.
There would be a lot of hurdles to jump. The science game is pretty much Escape: Curse of the Temple, and i think the tension of U.N meetings would lose quite a bit of luster. I think it could be done but the scale and feeling wouldn't be there, which is why a lot of people enjoy them to begin with. It really is something you have to see for yourself.
I'm not a Munchkin fan but I play it with friends who really like it and don't enjoy complicated games. I consider it a sacrifice for the sake of friends and social interaction. Last time they were willing to put an hour time limit and stop at that point with whoever was ahead winning, and that made things better.
I don't mind Risk too much. I feel like the main problem with Monopoly is that most people don't know you're supposed to auction off any space that's landed on and unpurchased, and/or they play with weird house rules like Free Parking doing something, both of which can screw with the game and make it take forever.
RE: Monopoly- Aside from people not following the intended rules, I just find that rolling to move meshes really badly with the rest of the game. "Roll and move" isn't even necessarily a bad thing to play with in 2015 (see: Deep Sea Adventure, Marrakech), it's just that the board is designed to not really make the randomness interesting or thrilling. People land on spaces out of sheer luck, not anything in their control - and having to go AROUND the board in a linear way is just time-consuming and boring.
It's not like Catan, where you're trying to grab up the spaces that you think are going to be the most lucrative (spaces numbered 6 or 8, spaces with resources other people dont' have access to). It's not like Backgammon (a far older game) where you're rolling your dice and deciding how you're going to move your pieces (and possibly screw over the other player's probabilities).
JetBlackPanda
Member
thanks for all the recommendations guys!
running to the FLGS this weekend!
In the meantime I am trying to find a copy of that Monopoly Deal card game. my wife seems super interested in that one.
running to the FLGS this weekend!
In the meantime I am trying to find a copy of that Monopoly Deal card game. my wife seems super interested in that one.
This may be an obvious statement to make, but Monopoly actually is about getting the equivalent of Catan's 6 and 8 spaces: http://www.tkcs-collins.com/truman/monopoly/monopoly.shtml
For example, a hotel on Illinois Avenue should on average bring in more income than one anywhere besides Boardwalk, and the orange properties in general are good for their price. In theory you can trade with other players to try to make this sort of thing happen.
I'm not saying it's a great game, but there's at least some element of strategy to managing the statistics.
Risk I don't like because it's not as tactical as it wants to be. Tactics don't mean much like for example in 1775, which is about as easy to play but way better. Monopoly sucks even if played right. It's an incredibly boring game that takes forever and has almost no decision making.
Obviously, there is still some element of probability to Monopoly that can be leveraged. The thing is that it's more transparent and "gamified", and less frustrating, in things like Catan, Backgammon, Can't Stop, etc.
To buy a space in Monopoly, you have to land on it. For it to pay out, someone else needs to land on it. For you to upgrade your spot, you have to land on it again. Gaining a set of property will make it pay out more, but a set is only like 3 spaces, so the chances of anyone landing there don't actually get much bigger. And if you have to pay out? Hah, good luck recovering from that.
Catan makes all this more interesting because the probability is more transparent, more reliable, and everyone potentially gets something every turn. The procedure of upgrading your stuff and trading is also not horrible and onerous.
Monopoly was designed to be an obnoxious, time-consuming and negative experience - and it does succeed at that. It's just crazy how it continues to be popular. I do believe the game can be redesigned into something good, it just seems like tradition now to keep it the soggy mess that it is.
I mean, I could say something similar about Munchkin like "it's jus crazy how it continues to be popular", but I have concluded it's just not my sort of game, and I try to live and let live with people who enjoy it, respecting their decisions.
Stupid question, but what do you mean about having to land on a spot again to upgrade it in Monopoly?
That's a great example of how people get so many Monopoly rules wrong
From the 'classic' Parker Brothers rules that we're all likely familiar with but haven't actually read:
I don't see any restriction on upgrades only occurring when you land on the property. You can do it any time once you've got a complete set - "you may buy and erect at any time as
many houses as your judgement and financial standing will allow."
Affeinvasion
Member
It's for the UK version which is slightly different but I found this interesting about the probabilities of landing on any property in Monopoly.
http://www.retroactive-vintage-games.com/games-articles/best-monopoly-properties.asp
TumblingHippo
Member
Finally picked up Nations after really liking a phone app that mimics Through the Ages. The rule changes in Nations regarding war (it's less about targeting a player and more about initiating a challenge for everybody to deal with) was something I noticed being much cooler to me.
I know TTA is deeper and such, but I feel like Nations will most likely come out to the table more often.
Well, maybe less often now. One of the guys in my game group is moving soon, which is a big bummer. At least I still have the bi-weekly after work game night.
I know TTA is deeper and such, but I feel like Nations will most likely come out to the table more often.
Well, maybe less often now. One of the guys in my game group is moving soon, which is a big bummer. At least I still have the bi-weekly after work game night.
Ecto311
Member
Mentioned munchkin and got shit on so what is the opinion on this game - Arcadia Quest?
I checked into some videos and already ordered mice and mystics. This looks like fun also if not a take off on munchkin in some ways. I can fight with my friends against the monsters and I can attack them also. Looking to add a few games with cool miniatures to my collection. There was a sale on Super Dungeon Explore today on amazon and the reviews made that game look complicated as shit. This looks a lot more friendly to me and my wife for play with our daughter.
I checked into some videos and already ordered mice and mystics. This looks like fun also if not a take off on munchkin in some ways. I can fight with my friends against the monsters and I can attack them also. Looking to add a few games with cool miniatures to my collection. There was a sale on Super Dungeon Explore today on amazon and the reviews made that game look complicated as shit. This looks a lot more friendly to me and my wife for play with our daughter.
Hey Ecto, I hope you weren't put off by others' opinions on Munchkin. If you like the game, there's really nothing anyone should say to stop you, and you're more than welcome here.
Aa for Mice and Mystics, the game certainly has more bells and whistles and cuteness to it than Munchkin, but be patient with the game (lots of restarts)
Aa for Mice and Mystics, the game certainly has more bells and whistles and cuteness to it than Munchkin, but be patient with the game (lots of restarts)
Mentioned munchkin and got shit on so what is the opinion on this game - Arcadia Quest?
I checked into some videos and already ordered mice and mystics. This looks like fun also if not a take off on munchkin in some ways. I can fight with my friends against the monsters and I can attack them also. Looking to add a few games with cool miniatures to my collection. There was a sale on Super Dungeon Explore today on amazon and the reviews made that game look complicated as shit. This looks a lot more friendly to me and my wife for play with our daughter.
I decided to bite on super dungeon explore this morning (I have had my eye on it for a while)
I don't think it looks that horrible with some reference guides from board game geek, but yeah it's definately not going to be a grab and instantly play type of deal.
it seems like I likely should have waited for Super Dungeon Explore: Forgotten King to go on sale before getting it as it adds a mode that doesn't need a mastermind (which is a huge plus for me) but alas this one was cheaper and will let me know if I want to buy more into the series (plus forgotten kings seems to be able to use stuff from the original so yeah...)