saw someone at work carrying dominion prosperity which was really jawdrop to me b/c i work at a big corporate law firm and know a good deal of people but don't know any other real boardgamers. was going to nerd attack her omgdoyouplaydominion but i was busy talking to a couple partners :/
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
The New Board Game Thread (Newcomer Friendly)
- Thread starter AstroLad
- Start date
- Status
Neverfade said:
So what happens if you were already a Cylon? You could be a Cylon Sympathizer who plays as a human for the rest of the game if the humans are losing? Seems like it could really fuck the game.
I'm already iffy enough on the "become a Cylon halfway through the game" mechanic since it means you've been working against yourself the whole time. Though, I guess that fits in with the source materials theme.
BattleMonkey
Member
Did you check the faq? http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/Battlestar_Galactica/bsg_FAQ_1-1-1.pdf
So, after reading a couple of guides, it looks like we only screwed up two rules.
1 of the players continued to fail to discard down to his hand limit (8 for his character) and horded way too many cards early in the game that made skill checks too easy.
and I forgot that the "launch heavy raider" icon would advance the centurian alerady on board galactica even if there were heavy raiders on the board to advance no basestars to launch heavy raiders from.
So the game was a bit easier than it should have been since we never had to deal with the centaurion on board already. So that would have made it a bit harder..
1 of the players continued to fail to discard down to his hand limit (8 for his character) and horded way too many cards early in the game that made skill checks too easy.
and I forgot that the "launch heavy raider" icon would advance the centurian alerady on board galactica even if there were heavy raiders on the board to advance no basestars to launch heavy raiders from.
So the game was a bit easier than it should have been since we never had to deal with the centaurion on board already. So that would have made it a bit harder..
I'm not too sure actually. I don't think it's a mechanic or theme thing. It's more the heaviness/brain-burner quality that they appreciate.platypotamus said:
Do note that it was a strange thing for many of them to like Agricola in the first place. None of them had played any boardgame in years when I first put Agricola on the table during my birthday party. It took us all night to play the game but afterwards most of them immediatly ran to the store to buy it. No other game has had that influence on them yet.
Twilight Struggle has been on the top of my wishlist since january actually. We bought 1960 then seeing as it was a bit lighter and my gf and I loved the theme (she is actually american). Since then I've become addicted to the CDG mechanic and am planning on slowly moving my way through the best GMT releases.
Gric is tough to learn for casuals (and for non-casuals really unless you have a good worker-placement base) but once you learn it it just feels so easy (to play; it's obviously still a very tight and punishing game at times).
The one pitfall of jumping into the deep end right away is that it does at least at first turn some people off more casual games. I remember when we taught my dad RFTG he was like I don't wanna play no San Juan anymore and he particularly made fun of us playing TTR with our cousins. :lol
The one pitfall of jumping into the deep end right away is that it does at least at first turn some people off more casual games. I remember when we taught my dad RFTG he was like I don't wanna play no San Juan anymore and he particularly made fun of us playing TTR with our cousins. :lol
Merino said:
Try Puerto Rico or Le Havre.
They are similarly complicated games, and in the case of Puerto Rico you get to "build" your island not entirely dissimilar to the way you build a farm in Agricola. I've found games that give players their own board let them focus on doing their thing, even if they lose they at least can see what they have accomplished.
Catan I think works on a similar level. You still built your little empire even if you didn't win.
Been playing some new games over thanksgiving. Macao and Dungeon Lords.
Dungeon Lords:
I love the theme of the game. The mechanics are amusing but I don't think it works well unless you have exactly 4 people playing which is pretty annoying. The 'proxy players' in a 2 or 3 player game function ok from a balance point of view I guess but remove all the fun of guessing what everyone else is going to do.
I also feel certain rooms and strategies are very overpowered. Especially the titles room. In the 2nd year pretty much everyone has to fight to get it which I'm not really a fan of. It should just be 1 of many viable options.
The rulebook cautions you not to use the magic items when first starting out with the game but I disagree. We found that the increased player interaction was a lot better. I guess it can be left out for people who prefer a more solitare experience but we enjoy screwing each other over as much as possible.
I have enjoyed it, but after ~5 plays I'm already feeling kind of burned out by it.
Macao:
I find this game very hard to explain because of how abstract its mechanics are. It does a *very* poor job of combining its theme with its mechanics. Perhaps not important to everyone but its important to me.
That said, the dice mechanic is pretty cool and there is some interesting interaction that comes in figuring out how to build up a contiguous portion of the city while blocking others.
There are some parts I dislike about goods delivery. For one, I find the 'storage' cards that double good points are very overpowered. They can easily be worth +(8-10) points for a 2 color card which is absurd. They should only double the points of the first good delivered, or be 3 colors. It also kind of bothers me that all goods are worth the most. I would think it would make more sense for rice and the closer goods to be worth less and the goods for the far away cities to be worth more.
The best part of the game is the dice mechanic. Incredibly unique idea and everyone's eyes go wide when I start explaining it. I love explaining the game just to see people go, "Buh... wha? Who thinks of this stuff? That's crazy."
Overall I think it is a better game than Dungeon Lords, but the theme dissappoints me.
---
Lately I've also been reading everything I can about Mansions of Madness. Its too bad it got delayed into the next year because it sounds fucking amazing.
Dungeon Lords:
I love the theme of the game. The mechanics are amusing but I don't think it works well unless you have exactly 4 people playing which is pretty annoying. The 'proxy players' in a 2 or 3 player game function ok from a balance point of view I guess but remove all the fun of guessing what everyone else is going to do.
I also feel certain rooms and strategies are very overpowered. Especially the titles room. In the 2nd year pretty much everyone has to fight to get it which I'm not really a fan of. It should just be 1 of many viable options.
The rulebook cautions you not to use the magic items when first starting out with the game but I disagree. We found that the increased player interaction was a lot better. I guess it can be left out for people who prefer a more solitare experience but we enjoy screwing each other over as much as possible.
I have enjoyed it, but after ~5 plays I'm already feeling kind of burned out by it.
Macao:
I find this game very hard to explain because of how abstract its mechanics are. It does a *very* poor job of combining its theme with its mechanics. Perhaps not important to everyone but its important to me.
That said, the dice mechanic is pretty cool and there is some interesting interaction that comes in figuring out how to build up a contiguous portion of the city while blocking others.
There are some parts I dislike about goods delivery. For one, I find the 'storage' cards that double good points are very overpowered. They can easily be worth +(8-10) points for a 2 color card which is absurd. They should only double the points of the first good delivered, or be 3 colors. It also kind of bothers me that all goods are worth the most. I would think it would make more sense for rice and the closer goods to be worth less and the goods for the far away cities to be worth more.
The best part of the game is the dice mechanic. Incredibly unique idea and everyone's eyes go wide when I start explaining it. I love explaining the game just to see people go, "Buh... wha? Who thinks of this stuff? That's crazy."
Overall I think it is a better game than Dungeon Lords, but the theme dissappoints me.
---
Lately I've also been reading everything I can about Mansions of Madness. Its too bad it got delayed into the next year because it sounds fucking amazing.
Yeah I actually got Le Havre in like a week ago as I thought it would scratch a similar itch with my friends. And I also had At the Gates of Loyang already so it's nice to have the Harvest Trilogy complete anyways.StoOgE said:
Puerto Rico is high on my wishlist but so are many others :lol
I agree that the theme on Macao is terribly integrated. In fact the whole game experience I found to be rather strange with all the various elements combined.
That said however, I absolutely adore the colored cube mechanic. It's still very much dependent on chance but it's somewhat manageable and at the end I always achieve much more than I initially thought I would be able to.
I think you are right though on certain cards being a bit out of balance. I also feel that the 4-color cards are too hard and risky to try to play as shitty dice rolls can easily get in the way of you saving up for all those colors within one turn. At least there's always ways to spend left-over cubes but it sucks trying to activate that one card from the start of the game and not ever succeeding in it.
That said however, I absolutely adore the colored cube mechanic. It's still very much dependent on chance but it's somewhat manageable and at the end I always achieve much more than I initially thought I would be able to.
I think you are right though on certain cards being a bit out of balance. I also feel that the 4-color cards are too hard and risky to try to play as shitty dice rolls can easily get in the way of you saving up for all those colors within one turn. At least there's always ways to spend left-over cubes but it sucks trying to activate that one card from the start of the game and not ever succeeding in it.
Got my order in today:
-Punched Carson City. Can't wait to play it on the regular. Probably River + Red Side which we didn't get to do at BGG.Con. No Might Makes Right though; dice all the way baby.
-Wow Civ is chitty. I was going to punch it but took out a couple sheets and said . . . hmmm maybe some other time.
-Twilight Struggle Deluxe is niiice. Glad I upgraded. Plus my old version is already going for 20+ on ebay so win-win.
-Punched Carson City. Can't wait to play it on the regular. Probably River + Red Side which we didn't get to do at BGG.Con. No Might Makes Right though; dice all the way baby.
-Wow Civ is chitty. I was going to punch it but took out a couple sheets and said . . . hmmm maybe some other time.
-Twilight Struggle Deluxe is niiice. Glad I upgraded. Plus my old version is already going for 20+ on ebay so win-win.
Christmas time! So I'm ordering a few games for the family. Knowing a friend has played Chrononauts a few times, I text her:
"Chrononauts: sublime fun?"
"Sublime xmas present. Or it would have been."
"Eh?"
"Clueless. Have you bought it?"
"Nope. Sitting at the Amazon checkout. I take it I should remove it from my basket?"
"It might be a good idea, yeah."
So I order Pandemic instead. Twice the price, so that bitch's loving generosity is costing me monies, but I've wanted Pandemic for aaaages so that's cool. Also my sister was stuck on what to get me for Christmas and after debating Gran Turismo 5 for a while, I pointed her in the direction of Arkham Horror.
Family Christmas won't be entirely entirely dull for once!
Side note: any verdict on the Civilization game yet?
"Chrononauts: sublime fun?"
"Sublime xmas present. Or it would have been."
"Eh?"
"Clueless. Have you bought it?"
"Nope. Sitting at the Amazon checkout. I take it I should remove it from my basket?"
"It might be a good idea, yeah."
So I order Pandemic instead. Twice the price, so that bitch's loving generosity is costing me monies, but I've wanted Pandemic for aaaages so that's cool. Also my sister was stuck on what to get me for Christmas and after debating Gran Turismo 5 for a while, I pointed her in the direction of Arkham Horror.
Family Christmas won't be entirely entirely dull for once!
Side note: any verdict on the Civilization game yet?
BattleMonkey
Member
Yea, the wife is not going to like the box this shipment of games will becoming in :lol
I expect looks of "oh no you didn't"
Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear! Board Game
Battle Cry
Wings of War WWI: Revised Deluxe Set
Labyrinth: The War on Terror
Dominion Board Game
Invasion From Outer Space: The Martian Game
$241
I expect looks of "oh no you didn't"
Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear! Board Game
Battle Cry
Wings of War WWI: Revised Deluxe Set
Labyrinth: The War on Terror
Dominion Board Game
Invasion From Outer Space: The Martian Game
$241
joeyjoejoeshabadoo
Member
I was able to get everything minus the player pieces into one small Plano box. I was pretty impressed with myself that I was able to do so. It took a long ass time for me as well.Evlar said:
Someone said it here in regards to Mansions of Madness, FFG needs to start editing themselves when it comes to chits. The table space needed for Civ is insane. Most of it isn't even being taken up by the board but the player's area.
That picture of Arkham is insane.
My girlfriend and I were a little cold on the two player experience. We both felt the turn phases really didn't flow together nicely but felt clunky (terrible way to explain it). The battle system is also a little weird and anti-climactic. That being said, I loved the tech pyramid mechanic and I would still like to play it one more time with at least one other person.suraiyu said:
Ah just re-read the Twilight Struggle rules over lunch and stoked to get back into it now that I have the Deluxe. I presume people generally play with Chinese Civil War? I think the much-nicer production will make the game more palatable; we'll see.
I also nabbed our tickets to PAX East. Still not 100% if schedule will allow but they're easy to turn around anyway. Have BGG.Con withdrawal. It's too bad you live on the other side of the world platy!
I also nabbed our tickets to PAX East. Still not 100% if schedule will allow but they're easy to turn around anyway. Have BGG.Con withdrawal. It's too bad you live on the other side of the world platy!
platypotamus
Member
AstroLad said:ah ffg
do want
AstroLad said:
Haven't done the Civl War version yet, but we resolved to next time we play. Does your deluxe version still have printing errors on a few cards, or did they resolve that by now? I think it was the Special Relationship and Norad cards in particular that needed amending.
And yeah, you should move to the superior coast with the superior PAX. (Wife didn't completely shoot down BGG.con when I suggestd going next year though...)
Yeah AH is a tough example because of that. I was thinking what a shelf incorporating all the expansion cards and chits would look like. At least double what's posted above. (Of course you'd be nuts to play with more than two expansions at once other than for novelty, imo.)Flynn said:
On the topic of FFG, might bust out Civ this weekend after all. Wow, that game is about 1/4 as complex as I expected (not necessarily a bad thing at all).
platypotamus
Member
You guys are tempting me to make a really poor lifestyle choice right now :lol
EDIT:
Also: we played Puerto Rico last night. The new girl? The first round, she craftsmans for two corns when no one else can produce (other corn person had manned a quarry from the settler phase instead). She then sells it with the trader (had a coin on it, so two coins). Captains the other one before anyone else has barrels. She then built THREE of the 10-cost buildings before the end of the game.
I thought she was destroying us, but she only ended up beating me by 5 points. 3rd place was another 10 points back, with 4/5 down 10 more.
EDIT:
Also: we played Puerto Rico last night. The new girl? The first round, she craftsmans for two corns when no one else can produce (other corn person had manned a quarry from the settler phase instead). She then sells it with the trader (had a coin on it, so two coins). Captains the other one before anyone else has barrels. She then built THREE of the 10-cost buildings before the end of the game.
I thought she was destroying us, but she only ended up beating me by 5 points. 3rd place was another 10 points back, with 4/5 down 10 more.
Played Puerto Rico tonight. Enjoyed it a good deal more than I recalled liking it and it didn't feel nearly as fiddly as I remembered.
I think the problem is my gaming progression went
Catan -> Carcassonne -> Puerto Rico -> other stuff.
I jumped too far up the ladder too early.
I'm not sure where I rank it on my overall list, but it certainly isn't my favorite game, though I do appreciate the complete lack of randomness in a game that still feels fresh. Very hard to pull off.
After assessing my collection post BGG-Con pick ups, I think I'm finally to the point where I don't feel there are any games I am lacking. I have a pretty good smattering of games in all of the genres I am really interested in. I want to bulk up my 2p games a bit more with a few light/medium games and a 2-3 wargames to fill in the heavy side of 2p spectrum.. but overall I'm pretty happy. Only took ~40 games to get there.
I think the problem is my gaming progression went
Catan -> Carcassonne -> Puerto Rico -> other stuff.
I jumped too far up the ladder too early.
I'm not sure where I rank it on my overall list, but it certainly isn't my favorite game, though I do appreciate the complete lack of randomness in a game that still feels fresh. Very hard to pull off.
After assessing my collection post BGG-Con pick ups, I think I'm finally to the point where I don't feel there are any games I am lacking. I have a pretty good smattering of games in all of the genres I am really interested in. I want to bulk up my 2p games a bit more with a few light/medium games and a 2-3 wargames to fill in the heavy side of 2p spectrum.. but overall I'm pretty happy. Only took ~40 games to get there.
BattleMonkey
Member
Never got an answer, but anyone have any feelings on 'Warrior Knights'? Still debating on picking a few things up from the FFG holiday sale and this intrigued me. I got this game confused originally with Shadows over Camelot so not sure about it and haven't heard much on it.
BattleMonkey said:
I have not played it, but some of the Ameritrash guys at my normal game night have played it and really seemed to like it.
The premise sounds interesting enough, but I can't really give you any input other than I've seen people playing it and they have brought it more than once to game night. Other games I've seen them play: Dune, LNOE, Space Hulk, One of the Runesomething games (couldn't tell which one).
Sorry, best I can do.
http://www.coolstuffinc.com/main_saleItems.php
CSI has some good sale items this week.
Chaos in the Old World
Memoir
Cycldes
Pandemic + expansion
Nothing I really want, but worth checking out.
CSI has some good sale items this week.
Chaos in the Old World
Memoir
Cycldes
Pandemic + expansion
Nothing I really want, but worth checking out.
Robert Florence over at UK PC-Gaming blog RockPaperShotgun (aka starchild of gaming journalism) has a review of Civilization: The Boardgame.
Read the whole thing at http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/12/04/cardboard-children-sid-meiers-civilization/#more-45517
I'm going to have to stay strong and say "no" for now simply because I have Pandemic, Chrononauts and Arkham Horror on the way, but I'll definitely be looking to snag this 6-12 months down the line. FF games typically stay available for a long time, right?
Robert Florence said:
Read the whole thing at http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/12/04/cardboard-children-sid-meiers-civilization/#more-45517
I'm going to have to stay strong and say "no" for now simply because I have Pandemic, Chrononauts and Arkham Horror on the way, but I'll definitely be looking to snag this 6-12 months down the line. FF games typically stay available for a long time, right?
platypotamus
Member
I totally am going to end up getting Civ at some point, damn it.
Caesar III
Member
Thanks to this thread I got aware of this game and talked about it in my family. Now I got it for birthday and we love it. It's just great and we didn't even start to try it the big mode. (Family Mode so far). Sadly the animals are missing in the box. Hopefully they'll send them ASAP.AstroLad said:Agricola
Players: 1-5
Difficulty: Very Hard
Build up your farm -- what could be simpler! Unfortunately for dullards, this is not quite the board-game version of Farmville. Rather, its a fairly intense worker-placement and resource-management game. You can build stables, build different improvements such as ovens and wells, and do many other things, but fall too far behind in any one area and youll be made to pay at the end of the game. Or your family will starve. The difficulty level is brutal compared to most other games here, but its incredibly rewarding. The game is actually much cuter than the complex mechanics might indicate, too: For example, you actually get to design the layout of your stables and the allocation of your animals. Cute!
Thanks again
Besides: Got the two last expansions for Dominion as well. Great stuff.
BomberMouse
Member
Caesar III said:
Agricola is a great game and I'm quite envious that your family adopted it so easily, it rarely hits the table for me. Are you missing all the cubes or only the animal shaped meeples? I believe animeeples were available for free only for those who preordered the game. Anyway, you can get a full token replacement with one of the expansions (Agricola : The Goodies)
Awesome! Yeah I think the friendly theme helps people get into it even though it's relatively complex. Think you guys will really enjoy the full game as it's the same mechanics, just gives each farm a very distinctive feel with the Occupations and Minor Improvements each person gets. I'm digging Le Havre but Gric is still my #1, and is definitely one I'm looking forward to playing with my family over the holidays.Caesar III said:
BomberMouse
Member
Today I played a few rounds of The Climbers, basically all the players try to climb as high as possible on a constantly changing structure, at the end of the game (when all players pass) the player at the highest position wins the game. Simple premise, cute components and quite some heavy thinking at the end of the game.
Some random pics, starting structure:
Pawn and ladder, also endgame structure red (I) won
Some random pics, starting structure:
Pawn and ladder, also endgame structure red (I
) won
A BIG tip for buying board games: If Astro is selling one, buy it! You get a free bag!
Thanks again for letting me buy Small World off of ya. You weren't kidding about the condition, it's practically new. I'm really eager to try it. I already got a few friends excited. Will post impressions/pictures of me raging and losing soon.
Thanks again for letting me buy Small World off of ya. You weren't kidding about the condition, it's practically new. I'm really eager to try it. I already got a few friends excited. Will post impressions/pictures of me raging and losing soon.
joeyjoejoeshabadoo
Member
Oooooo, I like this.BomberMouse said:Today I played a few rounds of The Climbers, basically all the players try to climb as high as possible on a constantly changing structure, at the end of the game (when all players pass) the player at the highest position wins the game. Simple premise, cute components and quite some heavy thinking at the end of the game.
Some random pics, starting structure:
Pawn and ladder, also endgame structure red (I
In the BGG.Con Flea Market thread, I picked up a minor Knizia for $5 - Dragon Parade. Fantastic decision - my wife utterly loves it & it's been a huge hit with my parents visiting from Scotland. The game is dead simple.. There's a board split into two colours (yellow/red) with 19 spaces on each side. When it's your turn, play a card from your hand that moves the dragon 'x' spaces towards yellow or red, then place a meeple to claim a space as yours. Repeat three times. Everyone's left with three cards - throwaway two each & resolve the cards. If the dragon lands in the space as your meeple, get five points. Otherwise whatever 'chains' are closest get three points each, 1 point if you're one the same side etc. Dead simple, really quick, just the right amount of randomness. Total filler, but it's easy to teach, easy to play. 20 minutes for a full game which is 4 rounds for us.
Caesar III
Member
I'm interested in how my mother and brother are adopting it. We played today again with the full set (The easy cards only first) and it was really awesomeBomberMouse said:
Had 2 cards working together to place a stable and 3 more fences when placing one fence :lol All the animals are missing. we only have the round ressources
I don't really care if they are shaped like an animal or only cubes though.I asked @ support. There's a big link right on their page to replace or reorder missing and lost parts. Sounds like it's common that parts are missing
Expansion sounds nice. I need to check this out. (edit: It's 30bucks, ouch. And it only contains more parts? Dunno if we need those yet. Perhaps later.)
Yep, like said above we tried it today (only 2 players though) and it was great. I hope we get the time to play this this coming weekend.AstroLad said:
stealth edit: btw is there a proper way to store all those cards? I don't know if I like those strip bags. And since those cards can be separated each in complex, easy and interactive etc I'd like to do so easily. I'm thinking about using standard card boxes. Do you guys use only the strip bags?
- Status
Similar threads
- Poll
- Locked