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The New Board Game Thread (Newcomer Friendly)
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platypotamus
Member
I think I jinxed my trade at BGG, Glory to Rome guy stopped responding to me 
XiaNaphryz said:
Power Grid is a 6 person game as well and I consider it to be a medium-heavy game. It isn't gateway, but it also isn't exactly Agricola, I think it is very teachable to most people with any kind of attention span. Also happens to be one of my 2 favorite games. Can't go wrong with it at all.
You could also buy Carcassonne and one of the expansions comes with bits for a 6th player.
Other than those two games, most games seem to top out at 4 or 5 players.
Citadels is a fun card game that works well as a party game if you are looking for that, and Bang is a fun party card game with a pretty large luck component.
Fixed1979
Member
Played some two player Pandemic tonight. Went really well but were 0-3, still had a great time. I'm pretty sure we need to go medic/researcher or something similar to make it easy. My bud got so caught up in defending against another outbreak that he forgot the goal was to make 4 cures. I'm sure we'll get a couple more in over the long weekend.
Carcassonne is definitely on the list of eventual buys and it's pretty inexpensive. Looks like there's a few expansion to bring it up to 6 players.
StoOgE said:
Carcassonne is definitely on the list of eventual buys and it's pretty inexpensive. Looks like there's a few expansion to bring it up to 6 players.
Castor Krieg
Banned
Returned Warhammer Invasion, can allow myself to get into CCG, or LCG for that matter.
Need another recommendation for 2-player game:
Race for the Galaxy
Power Grid
Lost Cities
Havana
Sankt Petersburg
Going to take a look at reviews for Basilica when it's released as well.
Need another recommendation for 2-player game:
Race for the Galaxy
Power Grid
Lost Cities
Havana
Sankt Petersburg
Going to take a look at reviews for Basilica when it's released as well.
Crazy ties night.
Cyclades came down to a double sneaky Metro grab, one militarily and one philosophically. I totally didn't see either coming. Unfortunately all those soldiers blew their money attacking and lost via GP tie-breaker.
Also played Lords of Vegas for the first time. Pretty great game! There was a gigantic 9-tile casino that was a huge contention point. Everyone paying 30 million dollars and rolling handfuls of dice = hilarity. Still didn't win the boss the game. Another tie, this time me in the run. The strip paid out, and I took it with only ONE million (the smallest denomination for those not in the know). Whew.
You guys should look into this one. Good stuff.
Cyclades came down to a double sneaky Metro grab, one militarily and one philosophically. I totally didn't see either coming. Unfortunately all those soldiers blew their money attacking and lost via GP tie-breaker.
Also played Lords of Vegas for the first time. Pretty great game! There was a gigantic 9-tile casino that was a huge contention point. Everyone paying 30 million dollars and rolling handfuls of dice = hilarity. Still didn't win the boss the game. Another tie, this time me in the run. The strip paid out, and I took it with only ONE million (the smallest denomination for those not in the know). Whew.
You guys should look into this one. Good stuff.
Cyan said:
Power Grid is an amazing fantastic game. It is also not a good 2 player game.
As said, RFTG works very well because it is multiplayer player solitaire for the most part and as such scales very well. A few posts above I mentioned Power Grid is one of the games that I often say is my favorite. RFTG is the other.
Lost Cities is a ton of fun, but I Can't stress enough how casual it is. If you are looking for a 2 player game for casual players it is the way to go. I've only owned it for a few weeks now, and have several friends who request to play it when they come over and we are killing time. It is a very short game with strong appeal to non-gamers. It still has a good bit of strategy to it, but it's very simple.
Boards & Bits has a handful of copies of Prosperity left to anyone looking to get in on the action before next month: http://www.boardsandbits.com/product_info.php?products_id=22461
Castor Krieg
Banned
Since it is technically a board game I put it here:
What is the best computer adaptation of Mahjong (real one) for PC or Mac? Does anyone know?
What is the best computer adaptation of Mahjong (real one) for PC or Mac? Does anyone know?
BattleMonkey
Member
FRPgames has Prosperity in stock http://www.frpgames.com/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=66643
We played Galaxy Trucker, Race for the Galaxy, and Kingsburg tonight. Played with the Evil Machinations cards from the Galaxy Trucker expansion and actually lost all my humans and had to bail on my first ship, which almost never happens to me. Was a lot of fun; think I'll integrate Rough Road Ahead next.
RFTG and Kingsburg were reliably good as always.
RFTG and Kingsburg were reliably good as always.
joeyjoejoeshabadoo
Member
We had a couple of friends over tonight to play some games. We played Funny Friends which seemed to go over well. My girlfriend likes the game more than I do so we ended up playing that twice. It's an ok auction game with a fun theme the thing is there are other games I'd rather play.
At the end of the night my girlfriend and I played a two player game of Lords of Vegas. I ended up winning with 60 points after starting out really slow. I got a couple of lucky card pulls and re-organization rolls at the right time. Neverfade is right, there is something really satisfying rolling fistfuls of dice.
At the end of the night my girlfriend and I played a two player game of Lords of Vegas. I ended up winning with 60 points after starting out really slow. I got a couple of lucky card pulls and re-organization rolls at the right time. Neverfade is right, there is something really satisfying rolling fistfuls of dice.
joeyjoejoeshabadoo said:
In more detail, my roommate, who is a notoriously horrible dice roller (he calls his own snake eyes, seriously :lol) paid to reroll that 9 tile casino. I fired up the Benny Hill music because the other players had 4, 3, and 1 dice there, which left him with a single die to somehow try to takeover. What do you know, he rolls a 3-way tie with 3 different colored sixes, and then rerolls those for a win with an additional 6 in his color.
Hilarious and tense!
My brief time with Ameritrash was the WoW boardgame. At the later stages of that game you can literally be rolling 15 or so die. Defense, Magic, Attack.
It is pretty satisfying show of power to be able to throw that many vs the handful early in the game.
Of course, then it gets wacky with special powers allowing you to move some dice to different numbers after the roll... but it is a rewarding show of your progress that a lot of Euro games really fail to convey in a game.
It is pretty satisfying show of power to be able to throw that many vs the handful early in the game.
Of course, then it gets wacky with special powers allowing you to move some dice to different numbers after the roll... but it is a rewarding show of your progress that a lot of Euro games really fail to convey in a game.
BattleMonkey
Member
WoW board game is so bad though, though the expansion for BC made it better by replacing the end game of the original game, it still is pretty poor game.... I've been trying to get rid of that huge box for a long time now.
As for rolling lots of dice.... playing Warhammer 40k when a huge mob of orks charges an opponent and you have to roll 30+ dice
So good
As for rolling lots of dice.... playing Warhammer 40k when a huge mob of orks charges an opponent and you have to roll 30+ dice
So good
BattleMonkey said:WoW board game is so bad though, though the expansion for BC made it better by replacing the end game of the original game, it still is pretty poor game.... I've been trying to get rid of that huge box for a long time now.
As for rolling lots of dice.... playing Warhammer 40k when a huge mob of orks charges an opponent and you have to roll 30+ dice
So good
I turned around and ebayed it after the 2nd attempt at a playthrough.
I paid full retail for the stupid thing and sold it for about 50 dollars.
So I've decided we need a bigger table for our gaming, as even 5 people around the tiny table in the kitchen is a bit cramped, and the table can't really fit all the components for a lot of our games. Checking on Amazon a bit, but it's tough to know exactly what I need. Anyone have recommendations for the size or type of table (preferably folding) you use that can accommodate most of your needs for the types of games played here?
BattleMonkey
Member
You can often get cheap at placed like Target and such some fold out tables that are small. Get a couple of them and you can basically just put them together to create the proper size table for whatever game you will be playing that night.
BattleMonkey said:
This is what I did. They had a 4' x 6' fold out table with a nice card table like pleather surface for 30 dollars. It is big enough for 1960 and Power Grid which were my two tightest squeezes.
Also works well for Puerto Rico and other games that give each player their own board.
usea said:
Start with Power Grid if you or your group are new to Euro-gaming. It is pretty teachable and not too difficult to understand.
Caylus is well..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OYgT3pKIQ4
joeyjoejoeshabadoo
Member
Neverfade rage post in 3...2...1...AstroLad said:
usea, Caylus also has a cardgame variation, Caylus Magna Carta, which is way more accessible. So if your brain starts smoking when you read through Caylus' manual consider upgrading to the clearly superior version.
hasty 3 minutes rules overview
hasty 3 minutes rules overview
Played a game of Endeavor tonight.
Extremely fun game.
It has a very rewarding progress mechanic.. early in the game there is very little that you can do. Build a cheap building, maybe pick up one card, take control of one port. By the end of the game you might be taking control of 4-5 ports, attacking other players, exploring new regions, taking 4+ cards all in one turn. It really does convey a sense of building an empire better than most games do simply because you are actually able to do more as the game goes on. There are 7 rounds, and the last two rounds really seem to take up about half of the playtime due to the mechanic. Very cleverly done and not something I've really seen conveyed this well before.
It has some issues.. with a 3 player game we had to make a gentleman's agreement to only explore two new regions (North America + Caribbean). We never would have opened up additional areas of the map trying to explore the rest of the map as well. There is nothing in the rules regarding game scaling at all, but it seems that 5 regions = 5 player game. 4 regions = 4 player. 3 regions = 3 player. I'm going to have to check BGG for scaling variant suggestions, because it needs some. Otherwise you would never have enough people explore a region to open it up.
The game really uses the too much to do not enough time to do it mechanic. Where it is interesting is you can never really screw yourself over at any point. Anything you do helps you. There isn't anything like Puerto Rico or RFTG where you build the wrong improvement (or planet) and paint yourself into a corner. Makes it much more casual or new player friendly.
That said, the game doesn't have any randomness to speak of so it is ripe for mini-maxing. I expect the best players will typically win the game, but it's designed in such a way that the losing player won't know they are fucking up constantly :lol
I was clearly doing something wrong in my development. I focused too much on my culture and resources development tracks. So I wound up with the best buildings in the game and the most colonists.. but didn't have enough political influence to hang onto very many cards and didn't have enough money to pay people to free up my buildings for use on subsequent turns.
Looking forward to another play through soon. Hopefully tomorrow night at the board game bar thing.
Extremely fun game.
It has a very rewarding progress mechanic.. early in the game there is very little that you can do. Build a cheap building, maybe pick up one card, take control of one port. By the end of the game you might be taking control of 4-5 ports, attacking other players, exploring new regions, taking 4+ cards all in one turn. It really does convey a sense of building an empire better than most games do simply because you are actually able to do more as the game goes on. There are 7 rounds, and the last two rounds really seem to take up about half of the playtime due to the mechanic. Very cleverly done and not something I've really seen conveyed this well before.
It has some issues.. with a 3 player game we had to make a gentleman's agreement to only explore two new regions (North America + Caribbean). We never would have opened up additional areas of the map trying to explore the rest of the map as well. There is nothing in the rules regarding game scaling at all, but it seems that 5 regions = 5 player game. 4 regions = 4 player. 3 regions = 3 player. I'm going to have to check BGG for scaling variant suggestions, because it needs some. Otherwise you would never have enough people explore a region to open it up.
The game really uses the too much to do not enough time to do it mechanic. Where it is interesting is you can never really screw yourself over at any point. Anything you do helps you. There isn't anything like Puerto Rico or RFTG where you build the wrong improvement (or planet) and paint yourself into a corner. Makes it much more casual or new player friendly.
That said, the game doesn't have any randomness to speak of so it is ripe for mini-maxing. I expect the best players will typically win the game, but it's designed in such a way that the losing player won't know they are fucking up constantly :lol
I was clearly doing something wrong in my development. I focused too much on my culture and resources development tracks. So I wound up with the best buildings in the game and the most colonists.. but didn't have enough political influence to hang onto very many cards and didn't have enough money to pay people to free up my buildings for use on subsequent turns.
Looking forward to another play through soon. Hopefully tomorrow night at the board game bar thing.
Hey look, another game someone likes I have for sale/trade!
I pre-ordered Alien Frontiers just now. Apparently stock is getting low and it's going to be until next year until more show up. CSI has 11 of 88 copies they ordered left. Hop on it if you're interested!
Can't believe this game is this highly produced coming from such a small publisher.
I pre-ordered Alien Frontiers just now. Apparently stock is getting low and it's going to be until next year until more show up. CSI has 11 of 88 copies they ordered left. Hop on it if you're interested!
Can't believe this game is this highly produced coming from such a small publisher.
platypotamus
Member
StoOgE said:
Don't neglect the gray tokens that give you a "free" action without using a building. They can be pretty huge in using your people efficiently. You have one dude left, but you can't use a settle or sail action, because you need a dude on the building and a dude on the board... that extra action can sometimes come at just the right time to be great.
That was my biggest newb mistake when I first played, I think.
joeyjoejoeshabadoo
Member
I would love to get it but a space theme is a tough sell with my group. The game looks fantastic.Neverfade said:
Hi guys, haven't had chance to read through the whole thread, so apologies if this has been asked over and over again!
I'm looking for a new board game to play with my girlfriend, just as a couple, so something that's either really fun for 2, or scales down well. As a bit of background she's played and enjoyed Stratego and Risk (and is currently addicted to Civ 5 on the PC), but wasn't so keen on Lost Cities as she felt it was based more on the luck of the draw of the card, rather than any inherent tactical skill. She's also not averse to geeky themed games - she's a huge fan of Lord of the Rings, for a start, and has even shown interest in the Games Workshop Lord of the Rings games.
I've had her read through the recommendations in the OP but none of them really seemed to grab her attention. Mr Jack sounded intriguing but we wondered how replayable the game is before it becomes a bit tired. Catan, Carcasonne and Ticket to Ride also generated some interest, but again, we were unsure as to how well it really scales down to just being a 2 player game.
Any help would be muchly appreciated!
I'm looking for a new board game to play with my girlfriend, just as a couple, so something that's either really fun for 2, or scales down well. As a bit of background she's played and enjoyed Stratego and Risk (and is currently addicted to Civ 5 on the PC), but wasn't so keen on Lost Cities as she felt it was based more on the luck of the draw of the card, rather than any inherent tactical skill. She's also not averse to geeky themed games - she's a huge fan of Lord of the Rings, for a start, and has even shown interest in the Games Workshop Lord of the Rings games.
I've had her read through the recommendations in the OP but none of them really seemed to grab her attention. Mr Jack sounded intriguing but we wondered how replayable the game is before it becomes a bit tired. Catan, Carcasonne and Ticket to Ride also generated some interest, but again, we were unsure as to how well it really scales down to just being a 2 player game.
Any help would be muchly appreciated!
platypotamus said:
yeah, in our random token placement they all wound up in other regions so it was late in the game before they came into play, but they seemed in a lot of ways more useful than the normal development track tokens.
Part of my problem is I was thinking of it like a video game where I am OCD and try and max out my development track. It just isn't possible in this game.
Manik said:
1960 and Twilight Struggle are pretty meaty 2 player games though the theme can be dry for some people.
If you are looking for something more substantial you could always go with War of the Ring (LOTR theme) or other Wargames. I'm sure there are other people that can better weigh in on these games.
edit: You might want to look at Through the ages which is essentially Civilization board game or even the above mentioned Endeavor which is Civilization lite. It has an official 2 player variant posted to BGG.
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