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The New Board Game Thread (Newcomer Friendly)

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Can anyone recommend any good 4X games or other similar strategy games that involve resource management, territory control and unit control? Anything like Eclipse or Nexus Ops would be great, would be even better if randomness is at a minimum :) I know it doesn't really match, but something like Carson City or Hansa Teutonica would also be interesting.

If it helps at all I basically love playing games like Civilization, Advance Wars and Starcraft, and I'm pretty sure there are board games out there that are similar.

Also anyone know any good way to get people to play long games? :p
 
Does that insert come with the game or did you make it?

I made it. Both of them fit perfectly together in the original 7 Wonders box and is just made of cardboard and packing tape.

It'll hold twice as many wonders as has been released (promos included) though if more cards get added, I'll have to figure out where to put the coins and diplomacy stands (the two bags in the right slot)

I have all the expansions bar the new wonders and it just fits in the old insert, just raising the box lid maybe a centimetre. New wonders will put an end to that!

I cut the original plastic in half and created the white card box to hold the first two expansions, then made the brown box when I needed the space for the new wonders.
 
Can anyone recommend any good 4X games or other similar strategy games that involve resource management, territory control and unit control? Anything like Eclipse or Nexus Ops would be great, would be even better if randomness is at a minimum :) I know it doesn't really match, but something like Carson City or Hansa Teutonica would also be interesting.

If it helps at all I basically love playing games like Civilization, Advance Wars and Starcraft, and I'm pretty sure there are board games out there that are similar.

Funny, you mentioned the games you're interested in. There is a Starcraft game (no experience with it), Civilization (I love it, it needs some balancing), and Eclipse is awesome.

I also love the Carson City and Hansa shoutouts. Both are fun games too!
 
Funny, you mentioned the games you're interested in. There is a Starcraft game (no experience with it), Civilization (I love it, it needs some balancing), and Eclipse is awesome.

I also love the Carson City and Hansa shoutouts. Both are fun games too!
Haha well uh, I guess I was very specific with what I was looking for, but I figured that being specific might be helpful when folks want to give suggestions. I've heard... things about the Starcraft board game so I'm going to be more cautious about that one, but I don't know much about the Civ board game at all. Anything you can share? :O
 
Haha well uh, I guess I was very specific with what I was looking for, but I figured that being specific might be helpful when folks want to give suggestions. I've heard... things about the Starcraft board game so I'm going to be more cautious about that one, but I don't know much about the Civ board game at all. Anything you can share? :O

Civ the board game plays like Civ 4. Four ways to win (militaristic, economic, scientific, and cultural), has exploration, has city building, has science/tech, and has this culture stuff. Feels very good and a lot like Civ.

Only downsides:
- 4-6 hours. Experience helps with cutting it down.
- The Russians, unchecked, are very powerful.
- Economic victory, unchecked, is the easiest way to win?!?
- I've never seen anyone get past 2/3 of the cultural track. Is it even possible to win that way?

The downsides are minor. We all know about them and don't let them bother us. May be fixed with the expansion. I love this game.
 

Hauk

Neo Member
So the Small World expansion Tales and Legends (event cards) is now tried once. For us 4 playing the game it was really interesting to see the kind of changes the cards bring to the game.

The events are categorized to 5 different types, as in Gods must be Crazy (game changing events) and to minor ones, and you can shuffle the deck according to what kind of changes you want. We didn't even notice that at the beginning and just took 7 cards at random and made them the playing deck. Of course the first card (1st card activates at the second turn) made us all go into Decline and choose a new race combo just after we started the game :D Really unfortunate for us to get that kind of card at the beginning. But as I said you can prevent that if you pick a certain category of cards into play. Some of the cards were in the lines of "Forests cannot be conquered this turn" or "Mountains earn you one extra Victory Coin this turn" and "Racial powers are not in effect this turn" and then there's auctions and stuff like that.
There's 52 event cards in the expansion so it's cool to see what kind of combinations come up next time.

Cursed! gave us Kobolds and Goblins and 5 new Special Powers, of which Ransacking and Were- sounded the coolest. Were- powers activate every second turn (at night!) and give you the chance to conquer areas with 2 less tokens. Ransacking nets you gold from your enemy's stash directly, if you conquer a place he/she owns.

All in all, the cards bring a new twist to the game and maybe combined with Realms or some other exp. they might be really twisted :D
 
Can anyone recommend any good 4X games or other similar strategy games that involve resource management, territory control and unit control? Anything like Eclipse or Nexus Ops would be great, would be even better if randomness is at a minimum :) I know it doesn't really match, but something like Carson City or Hansa Teutonica would also be interesting.

If it helps at all I basically love playing games like Civilization, Advance Wars and Starcraft, and I'm pretty sure there are board games out there that are similar.

Also anyone know any good way to get people to play long games? :p

Star Craft is pretty good game, though it's a much more aggresive game than many 4x style games. It really promotes combat and being aggresive more so than most 4x games where you often can have games with minimal combat.

Though I don't really consider it a 4X game, neither would I some of those other games like Nexus Ops... dunno they seem more focused and less in having viable options
 

Smiley90

Stop shitting on my team. Start shitting on my finger.
PcFQtLM.jpg


Boardgames sold at GameStop?!? I need to check that out.
 

flyover

Member
Boardgames sold at GameStop?!? I need to check that out.

That's actually pretty smart of them. I won't be buying anything there, though. I'll stick with my local store. They're usually full retail, too, but I just think of it as a tax for having a decent shop in the western Chicago 'burbs.

In fact, board games are one of the only physical product categories left where I "showroom" the items online and then go to a brick-and-mortar to try/buy them, instead of checking something out in the store and then going home to buy it at Amazon.
 

Fou-Lu

Member
All these board game kickstarters are going to destroy my wallet beyond repair. So tempted to fork out some cash for Myth right now...
 

SCHUEY F1

Unconfirmed Member
Played Zombicide for the first time today and loved it. Things were going good until one of the players accidentally opened a door and enough zombies spawned that there were no more left so they kept getting extra moves and fucked us, :lol
 

Keasar

Member
Mage Wars is absolutely fantastic! Played my first real round of it yesterday against a friend and we both were having a blast flinging spells back and forth, trying to anticipate what the other was gonna do. Gonna give it a few more goes and if it keeps on being fun I shall definitely look at the expansion for it. Highly recommended.
 
I got all these at a local B&N for 20$ total. Good deal! Pit and Pass the Pigs are both classics from my youth. I have lots of memories with both of those, as well as Skip Bo!


 
Boardgames sold at GameStop?!? I need to check that out.

I wouldnt buy my BGs at GameStop, but thats really awesome to see. Getting as far as I can tell a a good bunch of quality and varied set of boardgames in front of a crowd of people that would probably really enjoy them is awesome.
 
Oh man, I had no idea this thread existed. Super awesome. I dont even know where to start.
Board games!

Since when did GS start selling board games?
I dont remember seeing them around. Seems like what they have is pretty good, gauging from whats in the picture posted.
 

mercviper

Member
Oh man, I had no idea this thread existed. Super awesome. I dont even know where to start.
Board games!

Welcome to the thread! If you're new to boardgames in general, the OP is very informative about what could get you started with in suggestions. Otherwise, what you can expect to find here is gameplay reviews about boardgames old and new, and more recently to my wallet's dismay, links to new kickstarters that I can easily sign up for. -_-
 

Castef

Banned
Just three weeks ago my new card-game debuted in Italy, with international distribution to follow.

It is titled C.O.A.L. - Combat-Oriented Armoured League, it has a steampunk setting and it is for 2-4 players (works better with 2, if you ask me).

That is, I'm excited to share this with the NeoGaf fellow boardgamers. :)

Just to provide a little bit of gaming background about me, my preferred boardgames are:
Caylus
Village
NetRunner
7 Wonders
Dominion
Through The Ages
Notre Dame
Princes of Renaissance

And recently i'm playing BattleCon, Libertalia and Summoner Wars a lot.
 

Evlar

Banned
Bought Mage Knight yesterday, sat down to learn how to play this afternoon.

Holy shit. I mean, holy shit. That's a heavy, bit-fiddly game.
 

mercviper

Member
I need some help purchasing Dixit Expansions.

I'm getting really confused as to what's what because of the naming scheme they've been using, and I don't want to buy the same expansion twice or anything.

From what I can tell, there's 4 different card sets?

Dixit (the original, and what I already own)
Dixit 2/Dixit Quest
Dixit 3/Dixit Odyssey
Dixit Journey

And apparently Dixit Journey is actually all of Dixit 3 + 3 cards, so really I should be looking to buy Dixit Quest and Journey and that's it.

Can someone confirm for me that my thinking is correct? Or correct me where I'm wrong?
 

StoOgE

First tragedy, then farce.
Barring something totally unforeseen happening, we ought to be announcing at least 1 new title in the next few weeks, hopefully 3 new titles.

Not sure if y'all saw this when it went live:

http://pandasaurusgames.com/project/yedo/

If you like Princes of Florence and/or Lords of Waterdeep it scratches a similar itch with a little more weight. It's a pretty long game, but I'm a big fan (though, my objectivity is in question).

We're attempting to move away from Kickstarter if possible unless it's the only way to bring the game to market.

Trying to make sure we leave Kickstarter for it's intended purpose and not as a pre-order system.
 

rSpooky

Member
picked up the so many games lately(from D&D WoA to simple card games and zombiedice), but my wife and kids are not that into it that much. We did have a good time with fluxx monthy python. and reasonably success came with with D&D wrath of ashardalon. Gloom did not catch on to much , but I will give it another chance ( I like it a lot) and I just got the resistance in.
Problem is balancing it between different ages of the kids ( youngest is 8) and the their attention span, and my wife feeling she cannot think tactically. Funny thing is she is better at it then she thinks actually, but it makes her not enjoy games as much.

I am planning to keep on pushing them gently into more game playing.They are really my only captive audience, the rest of the people I know do not play board games.
 

Icefire1424

Member
...and my wife feeling she cannot think tactically. Funny thing is she is better at it then she thinks actually, but it makes her not enjoy games as much.

Ironically, my wife is the same. She was never really a gamer to begin with (outside of Uno and Scrabble, and occasionally Stratego and Risk), but I did encourage her to try out Memoir, and after the first game (in which I did hold back to let her win, shhhh!), she started enjoying it, and is actually pretty good - At least to the point that she was winning games where I was actively trying to win. Granted, a few of the scenarios in Memoir can be unbalanced (and she favors the Allies), but still, I was impressed.

Either way, best of luck - and any thoughts in letting the wife / kids pick out a game they might find interesting? Bit of a comprimise on your part, but having them pick out and play a game they like might be the gateway to them trying other games you enjoy.
 

Castef

Banned
picked up the so many games lately(from D&D WoA to simple card games and zombiedice), but my wife and kids are not that into it that much. We did have a good time with fluxx monthy python. and reasonably success came with with D&D wrath of ashardalon. Gloom did not catch on to much , but I will give it another chance ( I like it a lot) and I just got the resistance in.
Problem is balancing it between different ages of the kids ( youngest is 8) and the their attention span, and my wife feeling she cannot think tactically. Funny thing is she is better at it then she thinks actually, but it makes her not enjoy games as much.

I am planning to keep on pushing them gently into more game playing.They are really my only captive audience, the rest of the people I know do not play board games.

Hint: try Takenoko with them.
 

Icefire1424

Member
Speaking of Zombicide, is it any good as a solitare game? Still want to pick it up, and have a couple days a week to myself, just want to be able to justify the cost.
 

Slacker

Member
Problem is balancing it between different ages of the kids ( youngest is 8) and the their attention span, and my wife feeling she cannot think tactically. Funny thing is she is better at it then she thinks actually, but it makes her not enjoy games as much.
There are lots of great games that are playable by 8 year olds but still have enough going on to keep older people interested. A few hits around my house: Zooloretto, Monopoly Deal, River Dragons, Catan Junior, Forbidden Island, Flash Point, and Ticket to Ride. When playing Ticket to Ride with kids that young, leave out the destination tickets. Just compete for highest score based on what routes you claim. Throw in a bonus for longest route too.
 
Barring something totally unforeseen happening, we ought to be announcing at least 1 new title in the next few weeks, hopefully 3 new titles.

Not sure if y'all saw this when it went live:

http://pandasaurusgames.com/project/yedo/

If you like Princes of Florence and/or Lords of Waterdeep it scratches a similar itch with a little more weight. It's a pretty long game, but I'm a big fan (though, my objectivity is in question).

We're attempting to move away from Kickstarter if possible unless it's the only way to bring the game to market.

Trying to make sure we leave Kickstarter for it's intended purpose and not as a pre-order system.
Super excited to play Yedo, nice pick up. I'd also like to see most people not use kickstarter as a preorder system. It seems like there are cheaper (maybe less lucrative) solutions to actually taking preorders.

Speaking of Zombicide, is it any good as a solitare game? Still want to pick it up, and have a couple days a week to myself, just want to be able to justify the cost.
Zombicide works as well solo as any other co-op game. It will play the exact same as a multiplayer game, but you are playing as multiple survivors instead of one.

Hint: try Takenoko with them.
Takenoko is a really good suggestion. Simple, fun, and damn pretty to look at too.
 

daevv

Member
I got The Legend of Drizzt yesterday! Gotta round up the D&D group for a few games.

Does anyone have any of the 3 promo cards that were released for these games? I'm looking for the Kobold Champion and Gray Hag mostly.
 

Flynn

Member
We're attempting to move away from Kickstarter if possible unless it's the only way to bring the game to market.

Trying to make sure we leave Kickstarter for it's intended purpose and not as a pre-order system.

That's admirable. But I think the notion of a pre-order system that defrays a certain amount of risk for somebody hoping to release a niche product that might night make it to market otherwise is one worth supporting as well.

What I am saying is I don't mind if an established company used Kickstarter to go out of their comfort zone and put out weirder stuff. I guess others might not be. But people are crabby about everything.
 

blurrygil

Member
I'm in for the Prison Outbreak Kickstarter etc as my jumping in point but I'm damned tempted to order Season 1 for now. A buddy's having his usual game weekend by the lake in July & it'd suit his buddies perfectly... Gah. :)

Keep an eye on Amazon. They've had it as low as $60, which is when I jumped on it. Totally worth it.

Boardgames sold at GameStop?!? I need to check that out.

Not shocking to me at all. All of the local (Seattle) shops that do retro gaming are now jumping on board. Pink Gorilla, a few other video game stores, and more. It truly is a board gaming golden era right now.

Speaking of Zombicide, is it any good as a solitare game? Still want to pick it up, and have a couple days a week to myself, just want to be able to justify the cost.

I've enjoyed it just fine! It's a great way to learn so you can host. When the expansions drop later this year, it's going to help to understand all of the nuances to the rules. And in general, I find the game a lot of fun alone. I tend to put on zombie flicks while playing, lol.
 

rSpooky

Member
Ironically, my wife is the same. She was never really a gamer to begin with (outside of Uno and Scrabble, and occasionally Stratego and Risk), but I did encourage her to try out Memoir, and after the first game (in which I did hold back to let her win, shhhh!), she started enjoying it, and is actually pretty good - At least to the point that she was winning games where I was actively trying to win. Granted, a few of the scenarios in Memoir can be unbalanced (and she favors the Allies), but still, I was impressed.

Either way, best of luck - and any thoughts in letting the wife / kids pick out a game they might find interesting? Bit of a comprimise on your part, but having them pick out and play a game they like might be the gateway to them trying other games you enjoy.

I sure did, especially during tabletop day I had my youngest raid the closet. They love Sherlock, ticket to ride, labyrinth and magical labyrinth. they also seemed to enjoy hey that is my fish , which I got while at PAX E. (small pocket version)
another issue with the youngest is her mood can go sour quick.. she has to come to terms she cannot always win, which is I do enjoy playing coop games with them such as forbidden island.
 

Keasar

Member
So it turns out BattleCON: War of Indines was made a instant hit with the people I played it with. The combat system is pretty easy to teach out so its something that be taught and played in roughly half an hour. I do love that each character has a really unique style of play and that the small box is packed to the brim with content in forms of variations to play, game modes, arenas, tag team battles, multiplayer and more. The guys at the school especially loved it (since they are fighting game enthusiasts) and could constantly draw parallels to actual fighting games. Most got extremely excited when I mentioned I backed the sequel BattleCON: Devestation of Indines and would then have around 50-60 characters available for play.

Really recommended, especially now when Level99 games announced they have run out of retail copies.
 

blurrygil

Member
So it turns out BattleCON: War of Indines was made a instant hit with the people I played it with. The combat system is pretty easy to teach out so its something that be taught and played in roughly half an hour. I do love that each character has a really unique style of play and that the small box is packed to the brim with content in forms of variations to play, game modes, arenas, tag team battles, multiplayer and more. The guys at the school especially loved it (since they are fighting game enthusiasts) and could constantly draw parallels to actual fighting games. Most got extremely excited when I mentioned I backed the sequel BattleCON: Devestation of Indines and would then have around 50-60 characters available for play.

Really recommended, especially now when Level99 games announced they have run out of retail copies.

I really LOVE the art for this game. But I cannot do card games anymore....I just can't. I have Sentinels and Dominion. But both sit at the bottom of my playtime list.

But how is it? I might dabble. Try to sell me on it, seriously! I'm gonna be near-final boss level of a sale difficulty, but I still issue the challenge. :)
 

Neverfade

Member
Finally got to play Suburbia. Not sure what I think of this one. It's a lighter game and we weren't taking it too seriously, but the point swings at the end are insane. My friend who won had an UNBELIEVABLY shitty borough. He never went above 3 income the entire game, and lost points his last three turns of the game. Then, during end game scoring, he beat me by 27 and the other two folks by 40.

Wat.

Edit: Synopsis: There's a fun game in there but the scoring is wiggity wack.
 

Keasar

Member
I really LOVE the art for this game. But I cannot do card games anymore....I just can't. I have Sentinels and Dominion. But both sit at the bottom of my playtime list.

But how is it? I might dabble. Try to sell me on it, seriously! I'm gonna be near-final boss level of a sale difficulty, but I still issue the challenge. :)

I don't know if I can exactly call it a card game like Dominion and Sentinels since those use solely cards. One reason I love War of Indines instead of Yomi by David Serlin is that it also uses a board (a very tiny, kinda cute board, a bigger one will be featured in Devestation) to track placement of the two characters, making spacing and area control also two important aspects of the game and having it closer to simulating digital fighting games.

I think so far the game is great. Each character has unique abilities and playstyles from each other, one character controls a small portal he places around the field to try and trap the opponent in, another brute forces himself through attacks to get few shots at the opponent that does heavy damage. The game system is also great, it has no random elements which makes each attack decision important. It is also exciting to know each round if you managed to out think your opponent and correctly predict their attack to counter with yours. There is also quite a lot of variations to play with, the game starts you simple with just styles and bases cards and the character ability. After that you can start adding things like special actions (bursts, finishers, cancels), arenas, tag teams, boss modes with EX and Almighty characters or multiplayer.

Not sure if that managed to sell well but the short story is, if you enjoy fighting games, or if you are after a quick 2 player game with a great system that has depth and is exciting, I seriously recommend War of Indines.

Did I complete the challenge? :p
If not, I can perhaps recommend the review by Tom Vasel of the Dice Tower which sold me on the game and also his preview of Devestation.

Edit: Neat detail for better experience, play your favorite fighting game music in the background. Blazblue soundtrack is my personal choice.
 
So after several months of playing board games and reading up on several different games, I can comfortably say that my personal favorite games are worker placement games. They are relatively easy to play/teach and don't have a prominent luck element to the game. Which doesn't imply that I hate luck based games, on the contrary; I just love the mechanic and how strategic it can be. I also love that though the first player has a large advantage in starting the game/round, the following players are usually given more starting resources or mechanics which allow them to take the start player token/role.
 

StoOgE

First tragedy, then farce.
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/75449/firenze

This game may or may not be finally coming to the US.

It's from the designer of Hansa Teutonica, it got lost in the shuffle during the Z-man buyout and was left stranded in Deutschland. Very nice game with amazing art.. reminds me a bit of Ticket to Ride, with a lot more going on and a good deal more open information..
 
Anybody see this Kickstarter go up? A Study in Emerald. It's a Martin Wallace game based on a Neil Gaiman short story of the same name. The short story is supposedly (I haven't read it yet) about the Elder Gods from Lovecraft's story ruled the world inhabited by Sherlock Holmes. The game looks to be a deck builder with hidden roles. The deck building looks interesting as you aren't outright buying the cards but bidding on them.

It looks like they are doing a limited run and only distributing from this kickstarter and on Treefrog's website. Wallace said if they were to do a second edition, it would be released until 2015. The only downside for US backers is the exchange rate isn't too favorable but at least the price includes shipping.

EDIT: I should add that Martin Wallace has the print and play files for A Study in Emerald on his website. If you are so inclinded to make a copy and test it out before backing.
http://www.treefroggames.com/a-study-in-emerald

The rulebook is also on that page if you just want to read the rulebook instead.
 
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