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The New Board Game Thread (Newcomer Friendly)

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Pretty sure Cyan has a giant post about tax tips on this forum somewhere and I think in general you should be aiming for a $0 return. Getting more than that is loaning out money to uncle sam at zero interest so you lose out due to inflation or some silly thing like that.
You're saying I should be happy I've been getting $80-100 returns the past 3 years?

Cuz i'm not :/
 
I bought Star Trek Catan today. Came close to $70 which was the cheapest including shipping I've seen. Anyone here play it?
It's my only catan game. Basically it's Catan with star trek skin + an expansion never before released in english. I love it. The expansion is worth it and changes Catan a lot.


A german 12 (13?) card expansion that you each get one of the cards that gives different powers. example: you can build a road with red + (any color) or green + (any color). ex2: move theif back to the desert, and get a resource of the color theif was on. ex3: if a roll isn't 7 and gives you nothing, get 1 resource of your choice.

After using a power, you can flip it (to use it again later) or trade it with a different power. a flipped card must be traded (meaning you can only use the same power twice in a row). You can only use 1 power per turn.

It really speeds up the game and makes it possible to cut out trading completely and still have a quick game
 

Omikron

Member
I don't even know who's who LOL. But winning my first game playing EVER felt quite good, I have to admit. Esp because it wasn't even close after like Age 1.5 :D I feel like this game everyone's gonna gang up on me :(

I think my tactic of not investing in military may not fly like it did last time :p
 

mercviper

Member
Refunds! Refunds!

Argh, I can't take it anymore.

Only because it annoys you. <3

I bought Star Trek Catan today. Came close to $70 which was the cheapest including shipping I've seen. Anyone here play it?

I haven't played, but I sat listening to a rep explain the differences to me @ bgg.con. It seemed like a cool way to play with the profiles providing temporary special powers on your turn. Mostly sad they didn't have a corresponding 5-6 player expansion for it, else I may have picked it up to make up for my lack of Catan. Then again, it's not really a big deal for me since Catan isn't anywhere close to the top of my "want to play" list.
 

Smiley90

Stop shitting on my team. Start shitting on my finger.
I'm probably getting a few grand. But it's going into savings!

Mixed emotions for you Cyan!

I haven't paid taxes in 4 years, what do I get?-lalalalala I said nothing lalalalalalalalalalala-

To be fair, I submitted the last 3 years at once finally in December, just haven't heard anything from the Canadian government yet. I'm an International student, so nobody actually knew I was here or contacted me about it..............
 
I haven't paid taxes in 4 years, what do I get?-lalalalala I said nothing lalalalalalalalalalala-

To be fair, I submitted the last 3 years at once finally in December, just haven't heard anything from the Canadian government yet. I'm an International student, so nobody actually knew I was here or contacted me about it..............



Your probably fine...

Until they catch you and deport you for being a Canucks fan
 

octobot

Member
I bought Star Trek Catan today. Came close to $70 which was the cheapest including shipping I've seen. Anyone here play it?

I played it at gencon and really enjoyed it (I like catan a lot and played a ton on Xboxlive). The changes that the character cards brings add a layer of strategy not present in base catan. If you only have one version that's the one to get (plus the playing pieces are really cool)
 

red13th

Member
I played Descent last weekend and it was a lot of fun, my first board game experience since HeroQuest about... 18 years ago. I played the Overlord but I lost. :(
 

Flynn

Member
So with my tax return I think I'm gonna shoot for this:

Cyber Exodus Data Pack (Netrunner)
Le Havre
Seasons
Robinson Crusoe
Sentinels of the Multiverse

Tammany Hall, Trajan and The Manhattan Project look awesome too, though my group I'm discovering; likes more "Ameri-trash" games. We still haven't played Tzolk'in & Dominant Species. They got a kick out of Suburbia, Infiltration, Netrunner, Elder Sign and Libertalia.

Manhattan Project goes over pretty well with the "Ameri-trash" members of my group. They like that it is about building bombs and the fighter/bomber element makes it pretty fighty.
 

ParityBit

Member
So I have had Roborally sitting in my game closet for a while, and I am thinking of giving it a prelim try tonight (and real try on Saturday night when I have people over)

How is the game with 2 people? (learning test run)
And with 4? (definite)
And 6? (hopefully)
 
So I have had Roborally sitting in my game closet for a while, and I am thinking of giving it a prelim try tonight (and real try on Saturday night when I have people over)

How is the game with 2 people? (learning test run)
And with 4? (definite)
And 6? (hopefully)
Two is less fun that four, which is less fun than 6. I would suggest playing on 1 board (maybe two if playing with 6). The best part of the game is having the robots bump into each other.
 

mercviper

Member
So I have had Roborally sitting in my game closet for a while, and I am thinking of giving it a prelim try tonight (and real try on Saturday night when I have people over)

How is the game with 2 people? (learning test run)
And with 4? (definite)
And 6? (hopefully)

More people = more mayhem = more fun when it comes to RoboRally. Something to keep in mind since you're learning is that flags are saved at the end of any register phase while repairs ONLY happen after the 5th register.
 

sonatinas

Member
I don't know how it happened but ever since I've been playing netrunner I can't stop thinking about playing it. I wish I didn't have to use VMware/parallels to play on octgn. I prefer a live setting though.
 

AstroLad

Hail to the KING baby
I don't know how it happened but ever since I've been playing netrunner I can't stop thinking about playing it. I wish I didn't have to use VMware/parallels to play on octgn. I prefer a live setting though.

Yup it's the best! I actually wish I had more time to play it IRL, but OCTGN is a nice place to test stuff at least.
 

ParityBit

Member
Two is less fun that four, which is less fun than 6. I would suggest playing on 1 board (maybe two if playing with 6). The best part of the game is having the robots bump into each other.

More people = more mayhem = more fun when it comes to RoboRally. Something to keep in mind since you're learning is that flags are saved at the end of any register phase while repairs ONLY happen after the 5th register.

Thanks for the advice. I was wondering baout that flag thing. So you dont have to end a turn to save it. Awesome!
 

AstroLad

Hail to the KING baby
Thanks for the advice. I was wondering baout that flag thing. So you dont have to end a turn to save it. Awesome!

No, just a phase. RR with 2p was actually my first big foray into BGG-style gaming years ago, but yeah it's definitely best with 4+ (actually about 4-6 imo). Just be sure to choose a tight map or even make your own. I'm kind of neurotic so I almost always use provided layouts, but they really are not of any greater quality than anyone could come up with in 5m (some do have some cool variant rules to check out later though).
 

Angst

Member
Picked up Ticket to Ride US, US 1910 and Heart of Africa map pack this week. Love playing it and it's the perfect game to bring up with people new to board gaming.
 

Smiley90

Stop shitting on my team. Start shitting on my finger.
Does anyone mind explaining to me how exactly OCTGN works? I downloaded and from the website it looks like there's an AMAZINGLY large amount of games on it (LOTR LCG? Netrunner? Then also some odd ones like Pokemon/MTG, who have their own official clients, how do those work on OCTGN oO), how do I actually get to play them? Do I have to download additional files?
 

AstroLad

Hail to the KING baby
Goddammit, I'm probably in the absolute last batch of shipments for Tammany Hall :( Damn you, StoOgE

Ditto, hahah. No love for the GAF BG thread. :D

Does anyone mind explaining to me how exactly OCTGN works? I downloaded and from the website it looks like there's an AMAZINGLY large amount of games on it (LOTR LCG? Netrunner? Then also some odd ones like Pokemon/MTG, who have their own official clients, how do those work on OCTGN oO), how do I actually get to play them? Do I have to download additional files?
If you are talking about Netrunner, this is a pretty excellent walkthrough: http://dbzer0.com/blog/androidnetrunner-on-octgn

I can help you through how to play it on there next week as well if you grab all the files.
 

Smiley90

Stop shitting on my team. Start shitting on my finger.
Ditto, hahah. No love for the GAF BG thread. :D


If you are talking about Netrunner, this is a pretty excellent walkthrough: http://dbzer0.com/blog/androidnetrunner-on-octgn

I can help you through how to play it on there next week as well if you grab all the files.

.. I did all that just now, but what am I going to do with censored cards... I'll have to go on a quest to find uncensored ones somewhere, since I don't know the game at all :lol.
 
So I played Netrunner yesterday for the first time to learn the game etc... We played with the various starter decks (tried them all out minus one corp deck) and my buddy was getting pretty frustrated. When he played the runner he didn't like how "random" it is whether you win or not. In our first match I played as corp and he drew three cards from my deck using a special card (I didn't protect it with ICE because I didn't really know what I was doing) and got 6/7 of his needed points to win. On his next turn he stole an agenda from my hand and won. The next game went on longer and I set up a trap for him (two ICE's protecting a 2x advanced trap card which = 4 net damage) when he was hitting a point where I couldnt stop him and he bit killing himself. He felt like there was too much gambling on the runner side and he started playing corp. I just completely ran over him in the next 6 matches as the runner and he then felt that the corp just can't handle or react to the runner well enough (I was just avoiding all of his tags and ICE with cards etc...). In any case he didn't like the game and I'm wondering if that's a result of us playing with the starter decks and if it gets better if we make our own decks.

Also are the runners unbalanced compared to the Corps? I mean he probably wasn't playing his turn perfectly or maybe has bad hands/draws but it seemed like I was always ahead. Looking it up on the internet most people say that the corps are overpowered when they start :(
 

AstroLad

Hail to the KING baby
So I played Netrunner yesterday for the first time to learn the game etc... We played with the various starter decks (tried them all out minus one corp deck) and my buddy was getting pretty frustrated. When he played the runner he didn't like how "random" it is whether you win or not. In our first match I played as corp and he drew three cards from my deck using a special card (I didn't protect it with ICE because I didn't really know what I was doing) and got 6/7 of his needed points to win. On his next turn he stole an agenda from my hand and won. The next game went on longer and I set up a trap for him (two ICE's protecting a 2x advanced trap card which = 4 net damage) when he was hitting a point where I couldnt stop him and he bit killing himself. He felt like there was too much gambling on the runner side and he started playing corp. I just completely ran over him in the next 6 matches as the runner and he then felt that the corp just can't handle or react to the runner well enough (I was just avoiding all of his tags and ICE with cards etc...). In any case he didn't like the game and I'm wondering if that's a result of us playing with the starter decks and if it gets better if we make our own decks.

Also are the runners unbalanced compared to the Corps? I mean he probably wasn't playing his turn perfectly or maybe has bad hands/draws but it seemed like I was always ahead. Looking it up on the internet most people say that the corps are overpowered when they start :(
Well your first few games you should always just treat as learning games and definitely don't worry about things like game balance. As far as that though, both in pre-built and deckbuilding world the games are insanely even. I think it's something like 51/49 in favor of runner on both (per tens of thousands of games on OCTGN). One thing to remember is that a Netrunner match consists of one person playing each side, not a single game. If both people win one game, then whoever got the most points when LOSING wins (otherwise it's a draw) -- and winning counts for 10 points regardless of how you win. These are the tournament rules but I think they're quite good.

The general flow of Netrunner (which can always be upended by various cards and strategies, as identified in brackets) is that runners might have a slight edge very early -- before all central servers are protected [this can be eliminated by identifying which servers really need protecting, and trying to avoid hands full of agendas], then corps have a chance to do some real damage before the runner gets all his icebreakers out (it's pivotal for me to score at least one or two agendas in this time frame) [this can be mitigated by cards designed to get through a single piece of ice, like Inside Job and Tinkering], then runner usually has a better late-game economy and the ability to just pay for runs (unless you're playing my HB deck and its 6+ ice remote) [this can be mitigated by really hoarding money, focusing your efforts on protecting a single remote, using things like Corporate Troubleshooter and also using traps].

The game is insanely well balanced out of the box, but that doesn't mean that people grok all the strategy in their first few plays. Corp is harder to play than runner generally for new players. As to the feeling of "gambling" too much as the runner, that's quite funny as bluffing (as the corp) and having imperfect information (as the runner) is the entire point of the game. But if someone doesn't like that, there are plenty of great two-player abstracts with perfect information and symmetry for both sides.
 
Well your first few games you should always just treat as learning games and definitely don't worry about things like game balance. As far as that though, both in pre-built and deckbuilding world the games are insanely even. I think it's something like 51/49 in favor of runner on both (per tens of thousands of games on OCTGN). One thing to remember is that a Netrunner match consists of one person playing each side, not a single game. If both people win one game, then whoever got the most points when LOSING wins (otherwise it's a draw) -- and winning counts for 10 points regardless of how you win. These are the tournament rules but I think they're quite good.

The general flow of Netrunner (which can always be upended by various cards and strategies, as identified in brackets) is that runners might have a slight edge very early -- before all central servers are protected [this can be eliminated by identifying which servers really need protecting, and trying to avoid hands full of agendas], then corps have a chance to do some real damage before the runner gets all his icebreakers out (it's pivotal for me to score at least one or two agendas in this time frame) [this can be mitigated by cards designed to get through a single piece of ice, like Inside Job and Tinkering], then runner usually has a better late-game economy and the ability to just pay for runs (unless you're playing my HB deck and its 6+ ice remote) [this can be mitigated by really hoarding money, focusing your efforts on protecting a single remote, using things like Corporate Troubleshooter and also using traps].

The game is insanely well balanced out of the box, but that doesn't mean that people grok all the strategy in their first few plays. Corp is harder to play than runner generally for new players. As to the feeling of "gambling" too much as the runner, that's quite funny as bluffing (as the corp) and having imperfect information (as the runner) is the entire point of the game. But if someone doesn't like that, there are plenty of great two-player abstracts with perfect information and symmetry for both sides.

Does that mean when we build decks we need to build one for both the Runner and the Corp? Can you do that with two people with just the base box?
 

AstroLad

Hail to the KING baby
Does that mean when we build decks we need to build one for both the Runner and the Corp? Can you do that with two people with just the base box?

Sorry what I mean is that a match works like so:
-One person plays corp, one runner.
-Switch sides.
-Winner is either whoever won both games or whoever had the most agenda points scored when they lost.

If you want to have different factions for both matches, then yeah you'd swap in the neutral cards to the new factions (shouldn't be too bad since there are only 15 I think) or if you really want to be even-handed about it just swap decks.
 
Sorry what I mean is that a match works like so:
-One person plays corp, one runner.
-Switch sides.
-Winner is either whoever won both games or whoever had the most agenda points scored when they lost.

If you want to have different factions for both matches, then yeah you'd swap in the neutral cards to the new factions (shouldn't be too bad since there are only 15 I think) or if you really want to be even-handed about it just swap decks.

Thanks for the info! Maybe I should look into playing it on OCTG
 
Zombicide is hard. haha


We lose fairly often. shit just gets out of hand sometimes, and then BOOM double move for the runners and your fucked :(


Great game though.
 
Zombicide is hard. haha


We lose fairly often. shit just gets out of hand sometimes, and then BOOM double move for the runners and your fucked :(


Great game though.

You must be doing something wrong, game is way too easy. Did you alter the rules or playing some of the newer more difficult scenarios?
 
Too easy? No your doing something wrong :p

We did add an extra objective to the scenario we did, but even without that only 1 person would have MAYBE beat it.


The first time we played we did stuff wrong for sure, we had it so if you rolled one good die all of your damage hit, so 1 5 or 6 with your chainsaw was slaughtering zombies. Haha.
 

hoverX

Member
Can someone recommend a wargameish board game that has a mech/sci fi theme? Preferably 4-6 players.

Dust seems interesting. I've also purchased battle tech but I don't like the minis. I'd like to get my friends into a game like this but it'll be hard to convince them to drop $100s on a minis game so I'd prefer a board game with nice figs.
 
Too easy? No your doing something wrong :p

We did add an extra objective to the scenario we did, but even without that only 1 person would have MAYBE beat it.


The first time we played we did stuff wrong for sure, we had it so if you rolled one good die all of your damage hit, so 1 5 or 6 with your chainsaw was slaughtering zombies. Haha.

Pretty sure doing things fine :p Also the reason they have been redoing many of the old scenarios in the book because of how easy they were.

Just too easy to abuse the game since it promotes you to not level up. In many scenarios you just keep it at blue and your dealing with mainly just small amounts of walker groups that are slow and easy to kill. You can often avoid them and combat and claim or perform the objectives. We've essentially done it before were we beat scenarios without making a single attack for the heck of it since it's so easy to do. Mistake many people make is go rambo on zombies to level up, which all that does is make the game harder while players are not ready yet to deal with the difficulty spike.

In scenarios were combat is unavoidable, once again stay blue as long as possible, walkers take long time to get to you and you can just sit inside buildings collecting supplies for the entire group to the point that everyone is loaded to the max with extra ammo and such. Once you are set, then go out and you will mow through any opposition. You can often get a group fully kitted out with the gear they need before the first few walker spawns even get to you. And some stuff is pretty broken... regular shotguns with extra ammo on any character with extra ranged dice or attack.... potentially can kill 12-18 zombies in a single turn. That's just one players pawn capable of that much damage. Get a player with a sniper rifle to pick off runners and whatever else mix with other players, and good game zombies.

The newer scenarios and remakes are obviously trying to fix this though as they are putting in more zombies on the board to start, better spawn/objective placements, and also scenario end conditions that can't be cheesed by only requiring one player to do something specific. The expansion rule zombies and such also look like they are going to finally make for a challenge.

Can someone recommend a wargameish board game that has a mech/sci fi theme? Preferably 4-6 players.

Dust seems interesting. I've also purchased battle tech but I don't like the minis. I'd like to get my friends into a game like this but it'll be hard to convince them to drop $100s on a minis game so I'd prefer a board game with nice figs.

For board games, Dust is your closest thing really. Otherwise for mecha wargaming your going to want to check out some of the detailed miniature wargames as there are several games with mecha themes out there: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=389064
 
Haha. Well yeah, I guess if your goal is just to beat the scenario you can just not kill anything and run around. But we like to kill stuff! That's how you get to roll dice and rolling dice is awesome!


I definitely noticed that you could just avoid everything and run to the end when we played the second scenario.
 

fenners

Member
requesting opinions on castles of Burgundy and tsuro. both being games available at Barnes & noble. Also Agricola, I guess.

Tsuro is very light but easy to teach & supports a large number of players. Totally a filler style of game as it's very quick to play.

Castles of Burgundy is one of my favourites of the past 18 months. It's strategic, deep, random & filled with dice rolling. You pick up tiles to build, you build 'em, giving you extra benefits, which lets you pick up more tiles or ship out goods etc. All of which is controlled by the dice you rolled this turn... There's a strong tile laying aspect to it, deciding where to expand & what to expand with, on the mat in front of you. There's no direct player interaction bar who picks up which tiles. But it's *interesting* and the randomness is controllable through modifier tiles & how you build up - it'd be exceedingly rare to lose "because of the dice". And it looks pretty.

Agricola is agricola... Farm theme... Lots going on, lots of resources to convert from one thing to another, lots of special cards to make the game interesting. It's well worth playing.
 

XShagrath

Member
Castles of Burgundy is also one of my favorite recent games. Fenners hit the nail on the head. I will never pass up an opportunity to play it.
 

Shoogoo

Member
Pretty sure doing things fine :p Also the reason they have been redoing many of the old scenarios in the book because of how easy they were.

I'll join in and say that you're probably doing something wrong. That game clearly isn't 'too easy'.

Are you sure you're following all the rules?

0. Spawn in buildings
1. Ranged weapon hit priorities.
2. Sewer spawns (particularly with respect to how the 'survivor on a tile' aspect works (as well as just spotting them in the first place)).
3. One search per survivor per turn (even if it's free).
4. Spawning at all spawn sites every turn.
5. Ensuring you place noise tokens when noise is generated.
6. Remembering that each survivor = 1 noise token.
7. Each Plenty Of Ammo cards only allows you to re-roll once per attack (but multiple PoA cards can be 'stacked'), and you may only re-roll all the dice for that attack, not some of them.
8. Zombie reactivations (both from spawn cards and from running out of minis)
9. Zombie groups splitting.
10. Runners get two actions per turn.
11. Zombies move towards survivors they can see in favour of noise.
12. Choosing only one skill at Orange and Red.
13. Reloading weapons that need reloading (Sawed Offs and Ma's Shotgun).
14. Only searching inside buildings.
15. Leaving a zone that contains zombies costs 1 extra action per zombie.
16. Dice rolls are considered individually not added up.

If you manage to finish the first scenario (City Blocks), respecting the rules, with no wounds (as defined by 'too easy') then please make a youtube video of it as there are a lot of people who could use your tactics.

That game is brutal.
 
I'll join in and say that you're probably doing something wrong. That game clearly isn't 'too easy'.

Are you sure you're following all the rules?

0. Spawn in buildings
1. Ranged weapon hit priorities.
2. Sewer spawns (particularly with respect to how the 'survivor on a tile' aspect works (as well as just spotting them in the first place)).
3. One search per survivor per turn (even if it's free).
4. Spawning at all spawn sites every turn.
5. Ensuring you place noise tokens when noise is generated.
6. Remembering that each survivor = 1 noise token.
7. Each Plenty Of Ammo cards only allows you to re-roll once per attack (but multiple PoA cards can be 'stacked'), and you may only re-roll all the dice for that attack, not some of them.
8. Zombie reactivations (both from spawn cards and from running out of minis)
9. Zombie groups splitting.
10. Runners get two actions per turn.
11. Zombies move towards survivors they can see in favour of noise.
12. Choosing only one skill at Orange and Red.
13. Reloading weapons that need reloading (Sawed Offs and Ma's Shotgun).
14. Only searching inside buildings.
15. Leaving a zone that contains zombies costs 1 extra action per zombie.
16. Dice rolls are considered individually not added up.

If you manage to finish the first scenario (City Blocks), respecting the rules, with no wounds (as defined by 'too easy') then please make a youtube video of it as there are a lot of people who could use your tactics.

That game is brutal.

Yea we are doing it all right, and had to recheck lot of it because of how easy the book scenarios are. And if you go through the forums on BGG and such for the game, lot of people find the game too easy.

It's possible to take wounds and have surviors die, but generally most scenarios only require one survivor to exit to even with the game. Because of the complaints of how easy it is and how easy to abuse the original scenarios is why they have been redoing some of them on their website, to make them more challenging.

Again the biggest flaw of the game being that it discourages leveling up. Many of the objectives in the book's scenarios can be done quickly by avoiding combat as much as possible and not letting the game go past blue difficulty which is mainly just walker spawns in low numbers. The downloadable campaign and new scenarios they post are real good though as they have taken player feedback into avoiding the same mistakes the original scenarios made. They also put up a guide on how to adjust game difficulty using the zombie spawn cards.
 

AstroLad

Hail to the KING baby
Finally played Eclipse for the first time today, after passing it over at BGG (way before it was released) years ago when it was a totally unknown game. Lasted about 4.5 hours with rules explanation and the like but was a lot of fun. Probably helped that all of us were new to it but I can see what people dig so much. Now I am a bit bummed that the iOS version is by Big Daddy and not Playdek, because I won't buy this IRL (not enough opportunities to play) but would play the shit out of it on iOS async.
 

Flynn

Member
Finally played Eclipse for the first time today, after passing it over at BGG (way before it was released) years ago when it was a totally unknown game. Lasted about 4.5 hours with rules explanation and the like but was a lot of fun. Probably helped that all of us were new to it but I can see what people dig so much. Now I am a bit bummed that the iOS version is by Big Daddy and not Playdek, because I won't buy this IRL (not enough opportunities to play) but would play the shit out of it on iOS async.

I have had so much fun playing this (probably 6x now) that I am considering buying just to have one in the closet. Fingers crossed that i0S works great.
 

Neverfade

Member
Well it's been in development since the beginning of time. It better be fucking flawless.


Unrelated: Are the Agricola Belgium and Netherlands decks decent?
 
I dunno, big daddy releases have been getting better and better, so I expect it to be pretty decent.


They were really good about adding iPhone 5 resolution to NH, and I think NH also has pretty much all of the teams in it. Unfortunately Eclipse iOS wont have persistent chat, but they told me it was something they were looking at putting in later. I love what PlayDek does, but their games havent evolved at all over the years, PA doesnt even have iPhone 5 res ffs!
 

MikeDip

God bless all my old friends/And god bless me too, why pretend?
Have any of you ever played the free PnP game Dead of Night by Simon Spearing? To this day I still have not found a more thematic and fun zombie boardgame. If so, have you created any of your own scenarios?

If you like thematic games at all, you should really give this a try, even the rulebook is thematically awesome.
 
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