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[MichaelBD]

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.

Thanks for the heads up!

Cyclades has been in my crosshairs for a while and $8 off is a great incentive. I'm placing my order now.

Also adding to it:

Dust (I know the reaction is mixed here but I really want to try and get my Risk friends into something else)

Power Struggle
Nuns on the Run (Christmas gift for brother's family)
Lost Cities (also for my brother for xmas)

Gotta love CSI.

 

[AstroLad]

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.)

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?

Goodies has lots of stuff to pimp out your Gric, including maybe most notably for your purposes, four themed decks that you can integrate as you wish into the base decks:

•Agricola X-Deck -- 24 cards with alien encounters all over the farm. Every time a player visits a stone quarry, a card is drawn from the pile. And then? Resistance is futile!
•Agricola Ö-Deck -- 12 new Occupations and 12 new Minor Improvements including a wunderkind, the guy with the couch, the singing family from the Alps, and of course that one specific Governor.
•Agricola CZ-Deck -- 12 Occupations and 12 Improvements. Based on famous people, places, and historic events from the Czech Republic. Illustrated in the spirit of the artist Josef Lada, this expansion was initiated by the Czech Publisher of Agricola-Mindok.
•Agricola L-Deck -- Nobody knows exactly what the L stands for. Some tend to believe Lookout, others insist on Looneys. Decide for yourself; but don't take it too serious.

It's been delayed for like four months though and isn't even out yet.

If you want a real expansion (this would be for down the line when you want to inject lots of variety), I strongly recommend Farmers of the Moor, which adds horses and mechanics relating to heating your home, chopping down/maintaining forests, and harvesting peat. It basically lets you customize your farm even more. But I'd recommend at least 15-20 plays before considering it.

As far as card storage, I absolutely swear by Hugo's Amazing Tape (aka light bondage tape): http://www.amazingtape.com/. Basically a nice strong film of tape that bonds to itself so it will hold your cards tightly without altering or straining them in any way.

 

[Caesar III]

As far as card storage, I absolutely swear by Hugo's Amazing Tape (aka light bondage tape): http://www.amazingtape.com/. Basically a nice strong film of tape that bonds to itself so it will hold your cards tightly without altering or straining them in any way.

This sounds nice. Need to check if there's something like this here as well. I'm not from the US of A

 

[SapientWolf]

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

That mechanic reminds me of Torres:

 

[platypotamus]

just read threads on BGG about how TtA is soooo much better and/or how Civ is totally broken.

(no idea if these exist, but come on it's BGG + Hot New Game, of course they do)

That actually kinda helped, haha.

Just finished a six hour two player game of Civilization. :lol

That helped a lot too.

That mechanic reminds me of Torres:

And THAT reminds me of Arkadia:

 

[AstroLad]

Just finished a six hour two player game of Civilization. :lol

My wife loved it, I liked it. Extremely close game, too... Now I'm wondering about the game balance.

That is intense . . . I presume it was because it was a learning game? We played a 3.5-hour game of Le Havre yesterday but that's not even close. I guess as long as you're never bored it's not a big deal provided you have the time (which can be an issue on a game night that starts at 8 or 9 like our often do).

 

[XiaNaphryz]

That actually kinda helped, haha.

Reading mixed threads on it over at BGG. Sounds like at best, where TTA is a micro version of a civ-style game, the new Civ is more of a macro version.

 

[comedy bomb]

Ordered Carcassonne for a family member who likes Risk, Settlers of Catan and strategy games in general. Hope I made a good choice!

I haven't been into board games like that for years. This thread was a huge help, and has gotten me quite interested in trying gout a few of the titles. Some of the box art takes me way back

 

[BattleMonkey]

Played Ravenloft today a couple times. I like, and dislike the game. The coop and random nature of it is both challenging and keeps the game fresh. The combat mechanics are streamlined DnD but what I detest is that the game pretty much makes it a guarantee that you will usually take damage each turn. Every tile you reveal has a monster spawn, and each gets to attack you first and you can't do anything about it. The game is about exploration but in doing so, you are just getting slapped in the face every time you move forward.

It's part of the challenge but it's an annoying game design that will likely keep me from buying it, I'll just my friends copy if anything and stick to Decent for my dungeon devling board gaming

 

[StoOgE]

That is intense . . . I presume it was because it was a learning game? We played a 3.5-hour game of Le Havre yesterday but that's not even close. I guess as long as you're never bored it's not a big deal provided you have the time (which can be an issue on a game night that starts at 8 or 9 like our often do).

You should be able to get that Le Havre game well under 3 hours once you know what's going on. The game can be prone to AP, but because there are so many options in late game it's rare that two people are running the same strategy.

 

[BomberMouse]

Ordered Carcassonne for a family member who likes Risk, Settlers of Catan and strategy games in general. Hope I made a good choice!

I haven't been into board games like that for years. This thread was a huge help, and has gotten me quite interested in trying gout a few of the titles. Some of the box art takes me way back

Carcassonne is great, it has so many expansions that you can really tailor it any way you want it but if you are not going to bother with the expansions, the standalone spinoff Hunters & Gatherers is the better game IMHO.

 

[StoOgE]

So, I'm thinking of pulling the trigger on Thunderstone.. is it worth it?

It's 20 bucks all over the place online.. does it offer anything beyond Dominion? From what I can tell the mechanics are the same except there is a level up system for some of your cards (heroes) and other cards (weapons, etc) have to be "equipped" by other cards in your current hand to be used.

Mechanically it seems to be an interesting spin on the deck building mechanics of Dominion.. but I don't know if the game is going to be practically unique enough for me to get it to the table instead of Dominion.

Maybe I should just hold out and nab 7 wonders as my next card based game.

 

[StoOgE]

Carcassonne is great, it has so many expansions that you can really tailor it any way you want it but if you are not going to bother with the expansions, the standalone spinoff Hunters & Gatherers is the better game IMHO.

H&G is better than Carcassonne's base game. I would still suggest buying Carcassone because eventually you will add Traders and Builders + Inns and Cathedrals.

At which point Carcassonne becomes a better game than H&G.

 

[AstroLad]

So, I'm thinking of pulling the trigger on Thunderstone.. is it worth it?

It's 20 bucks all over the place online.. does it offer anything beyond Dominion? From what I can tell the mechanics are the same except there is a level up system for some of your cards (heroes) and other cards (weapons, etc) have to be "equipped" by other cards in your current hand to be used.

Mechanically it seems to be an interesting spin on the deck building mechanics of Dominion.. but I don't know if the game is going to be practically unique enough for me to get it to the table instead of Dominion.

Maybe I should just hold out and nab 7 wonders as my next card based game.

All I really know about Thunderstone is that platy hates it.

 

[StoOgE]

All I really know about Thunderstone is that platy hates it.

He hates anything that isn't roll through the ages.

Spoiler

Am I doing it right?

 

[lobdale]

So I played basically my first non-Monopoly/Risk boardgame last night at a friend's house, and it was Arkham Horror, which being a long-time console gamer I took to like a fish in water. There was a real thrill playing with a four-person team to beat a huge demon and I only wish it would have gone on longer (though we were at three hours, fighting a ten-round 40HP Ancient One).

I want this game! I want to play this game.

 

[platypotamus]

He hates anything that isn't roll through the ages.

Spoiler

Am I doing it right?

No, I've never played roll through the ages

But yeah, I really disliked Thunderstone. A couple main reasons:

1. Really sloppy game math. The lighting = combat penalty mechanic involves two separate sets of numbers. The actual lighting level, and then the penalty that lighting level creates. Why they couldn't ditch a set of numbers and make things simpler is beyond me. It makes an almost thac0 like situation, if you played old D&D.
2. A lot of the cards are boring. I didn't feel like there were significant differences in my approach to the game no matter what we were using, because so many of the cards are really just numbers. Imagine Dominion where most of the cards are like the Woodcutter, rather than the cool cards with text on them.
3. The basic mechanic of fighting monsters for XP to make your characters more powerful so you can kill tougher monsters thing doesn't work as well as it should. Mainly because it kind of forces you into killing monsters earlier than you'd like (monsters are essentially green cards from dominion).
4. Even less interactivity than Dominion.

Between Thunderstone and Ascension, I prefer Ascension quite a bit, but Dominion kinda craps all over both of them. Here's hoping 7 Wonders rocks.

 

[StoOgE]

Thanks.

7 Wonders is an amazingly good game actually. Very streamlined, but completely different than Dominion. It is a card draft so you wind up drawing 7 cards, picking one to play/pay for and then passing the remainder of your hand to the left.

I got 3 games in at BGG-Con and really loved it.

It feels like RFTG in that you are building a tableau of resources and power in front of you and then using it to 'pay' for future cards to add to your tableau. You can also pay to use resources from neighboring civilizations, so there is some interesting interactions. For example, if you know that I need a ton of brick to complete my wonder you can build it and then get money from me and create an income stream for your own civ.

There is also a pretty nice battle mechanic where you fight your neighboring civilizations between ages.

It's a bit more complicated than Dominion, but not by much and the playing time is actually a bit shorter. I played my 2nd game with people who had already given it a go and it took about 20 minutes.

The game does have some problems. If you don't do well in the first age (the foundation age) you are pretty screwed. Those first set of cards are where you are going to get the majority of your resources. You are also at a disadvantage if one of your neighbors isn't playing well since you kind of rely on them as a source of resources.

I see it as a really big winner.. I don't know that it is the next Dominion, but it's a hell of a lot of fun.

The bad thing for the publisher is it doesn't lend itself to expansions nearly as well.

 

[Evlar]

That is intense . . . I presume it was because it was a learning game? We played a 3.5-hour game of Le Havre yesterday but that's not even close. I guess as long as you're never bored it's not a big deal provided you have the time (which can be an issue on a game night that starts at 8 or 9 like our often do).

Yes, the six hours included setting up, tearing down, and rules explanation, as well as simply becoming accustomed to all of the turn phases, resources, and interactions as we played. My wife has never played a Civ video game so she lacked that grounding in core concepts such as city management of production (hammers), trade (tech research) and culture. The game is a bundling of several interlocking systems that interact with each other in complex ways: no amount of pre-game rules explanation can make it comprehensible. It is very much a game you must learn by playing.

 

[SapientWolf]

That actually kinda helped, haha.



That helped a lot too.



And THAT reminds me of Arkadia:

I heard Arkadia just uses the blocks as markers though so there's no climbing mechanic.

What's the word on Stone Age? It's winning Family Board Game awards but it looked pretty heavy. Anyone have any experience with it?

 

[AstroLad]

What's the word on Stone Age? It's winning Family Board Game awards but it looked pretty heavy. Anyone have any experience with it?

-Among the most basic worker placement games out there (which isn't to say it's easy).
-Very, very pretty board & bits, which is what I think helps it garner a lot of praise as a gateway game.
-That said, I would consider it a heavy gateway. That is, if I was playing with people with near-zero gaming experience I'd take Ticket to Ride or Carcassonne over it every time. But if playing with people with some strategy-game experience (e.g., vidgamers) it's the perfect introduction to worker-placement mechanics.

 

[StoOgE]

I prefer to start with Caylus.

That way, when I try and teach Carson City or Le Havre and they start bitching I can look at them and scream "WOULD YOU RATHER PLAY CAYLUS?"

This is probably why I have to solo most of my games.

 

[Flynn]

What's the word on Stone Age? It's winning Family Board Game awards but it looked pretty heavy. Anyone have any experience with it?

Stone Age is lighter than it looks. There's role selection, feeding people and stuff that you might be accustomed to in other games, but it is done with a fairly light touch. It's a good intro to heavier games.

 

[platypotamus]

I heard Arkadia just uses the blocks as markers though so there's no climbing mechanic.

What's the word on Stone Age? It's winning Family Board Game awards but it looked pretty heavy. Anyone have any experience with it?

Yeah, not climbing, but it's a kinda neat mechanic really. However many of each color is visible determines the value of that color in victory point trade in. So if 5 reds are visible, you can trade in your red tokens for 5 VP each. So when you go to build, you're manipulating the market for future VP trade ins. Sell now, or hope you can get the price higher? It's lots of fun.


Stone Age is lots of fun too. I don't think it's that heavy really... Fairly equivalent to Catan (but much better!). Well... people will be able to start playing just as quickly as Catan, but veterans will have perhaps more of an advantage in this game. And yeah, like Astrolad said, it's really pretty. Probably the prettiest game I own.

 

[Chorazin]

Saturday morning a friend and I went to my FLGS and broke out Heroscape, and holy hell did we have a blast.

Vikings VS Mechs? Check!

Samurai VS Native Americans? Check!

The 10 Regiment of Foot VS WW2 US Airborne Elite? Check!

So. Much. Fun. Each game was fair and neither of us felt like we lost because of the game mechanics (we went 1-1), but of poor matchups we thought would turn out better than they did. :lol

 

[StoOgE]

I think I'm going to give some 2p games out as Xmas gifts.. probably some cheaper stocking stuffers.

Aton
Lost Cities
Battle Line

are the most likely candidates for me giving them out. Not a ton, just to select friends that I know enjoy games.

 

[AstroLad]

Our weekend gaming consisted solely of Le Havre. Really want to play Civ but the time commitment (for a learning game) is a bit scary since we're rather busy atm. Probably do Carson City and some other light game next weekend. I don't know if you guys have heard about this Carson City game, but it's quite fun. It's like Agricola but dumbed down and with cowboys. Proud to be the one to introduce it to the thread.

 

[Caesar III]

Just wanted to state in here that I got a response regarding my missing parts in Agricola. They are underway! Awesome stuff! Great support.

btw: while scrolling down I read Carcassonne...We need to play this again as well. :lol No time, no time.

 

[StoOgE]

Our weekend gaming consisted solely of Le Havre. Really want to play Civ but the time commitment (for a learning game) is a bit scary since we're rather busy atm. Probably do Carson City and some other light game next weekend. I don't know if you guys have heard about this Carson City game, but it's quite fun. It's like Agricola but dumbed down and with cowboys. Proud to be the one to introduce it to the thread.

Speaking of, have you recieved your Indian card yet?

Also, red side of the card is much much better than the yellow. I played with it right after BGG-Con and can't see myself ever going back to the yellow.

The river is also a pretty nice variant for 3-4p games. It forces a land shortage similar to what a 5p game would have since a chunk of the board is always taken up. It also makes ranching a bit more attractive since the river spaces will always be "open" spaces.. assuming no one buys them... and I don't know why they would considering they don't count towards VP like houses or mountains do at game end.

I tried the "A new beginning" variant and it went pretty well.. but one of the players had only played the game once and were at a huge disadvantage. It really allows you to start the game positioned for whatever strategy you are planning on running. It isn't a massive game-changing expansion, just gives the first round a bit more importance since you are typically very limited in the early game with a lack of workers.

 

[AstroLad]

Speaking of, have you recieved your Indian card yet?

Nah, figure it will take at least another week.

 

[StoOgE]

Nah, figure it will take at least another week.

Same, but I keep holding out hope it will show up.

let me know when you get it. I found your thread on BGG a few days after you pulled the trigger so mine should be right behind yours in the mail.

 

[StoOgE]

The dream is officially dead.

MonPoc is on ebay.

 

[AstroLad]

The dream is officially dead.

MonPoc is on ebay.

end of an era....

 

[Neverfade]

It's like Agricola

Gasp! Shut your whore mouth!

 

[AstroLad]

read the rest i specifically wrote that whole part to irk you!

 

[Vinci]

Okay, I've been offered any reasonably priced and not too terribly time-consuming board or card game of my liking as a Christmas present. The people that I tend to play with have experience with Carcassone, Catan, Puerto Rico, and Pandemic; Catan is the universal favorite of those. Those are the only games we have access to at the moment. I'd really like something that is somewhat distinct from those I just listed, but is ridiculously fun for 2 to 5 players. It's all right if some of the mechanics are similar, but the experience of playing the game needs to be very different.

Any recommendations?

 

[StoOgE]

Sounds like a light worker placement game might be a winner for your group since it would be substantially different in mechanics.

Perhaps Stone Age?

Unless the free-form trading/wheeling dealing mechanic is what you like about Catan. Then you may want to look somewhere else.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

We had our first games of The Resistance this past weekend. Did a couple 8-player games, hilarious fun for all. Did a few vanilla games, but the spies won each time. Threw in the plot cards and it was a much better game than without. Still need to try the "blind spies" variant to see if that's better or not.

Sounds like a light worker placement game might be a winner for your group since it would be substantially different in mechanics.

Perhaps Stone Age?

Maybe Dominion if they want to try something different.

 

[StoOgE]

Maybe Dominion if they want to try something different.

Dominion caps at 4p though unless you buy Intrigue as well.

Maybe you could tell us what it is your group likes or doesn't like about the games it's played?

 

[XiaNaphryz]

Dominion caps at 4p though unless you buy Intrigue as well.

Games play out quickly enough to cycle people in though.

 

[Vinci]

Sounds like a light worker placement game might be a winner for your group since it would be substantially different in mechanics.

Perhaps Stone Age?

Unless the free-form trading/wheeling dealing mechanic is what you like about Catan. Then you may want to look somewhere else.

Stone Age looks pretty awesome, actually.

As for Catan: I think the reason we love it so much is that it was really our first experience with that quality of game. Prior to Catan, all we had ever played was the typical American stuff like Monopoly and such. It popped our cherry. Of those games, Puerto Rico and Carcassone run a close second to Catan, while Pandemic falls behind.

So no, I don't think the trading mechanics is all that important, to be honest.

@ Xia: I played several card games over the years, but as far as I know none of them have ever touched one. Is Dominion a pretty good gateway for card games? There are several others I'd love to get down the road.

 

[StoOgE]

Dominion is an amazingly good gateway game. It also plays *really* fast once you know what you are doing. The only catch is only 4p can play at once without an expansion. That said, it's one of those games that I think every gamer should own at some point. It's that good.

I haven't actually played stone age, but it is very highly rated, has pretty different mechanics than the other games you own, and I like the designers other big game "St Petersberg" a lot.

 

[AstroLad]

Okay, I've been offered any reasonably priced and not too terribly time-consuming board or card game of my liking as a Christmas present. The people that I tend to play with have experience with Carcassone, Catan, Puerto Rico, and Pandemic; Catan is the universal favorite of those. Those are the only games we have access to at the moment. I'd really like something that is somewhat distinct from those I just listed, but is ridiculously fun for 2 to 5 players. It's all right if some of the mechanics are similar, but the experience of playing the game needs to be very different.

Any recommendations?

2-5 can be a challenge because of the "2" part of that. Still though there are some options:

-Agricola: If your friends are very comfortable with Puerto Rico, I don't see why they couldn't learn this, though it is certainly a heavier game. It plays well with 2-5 but it's about 1.5 hours with 2 and goes up 30m with each player. Other bonus is that it's pricey so nice snag if you can get it as a present.

-Dominion: Only plays with 4 out of the box but it plays well 2-4.

Only downside of those two is that the player interaction is light and there is no dice-rolling, so if their favorite part of Catan is dice-rolling and placing the robber then they are a no-go. Conversely they are great games where you can really put a lot of thought into building your farm or deck, so if they like the kingdom-building aspect of Catan then they are in for a treat. Agricola should have some familiar mechanics too since there you use acquired resources to build cool stuff (and way more and cooler stuff than Catan certainly).

-Carson City: Offers worker-placement mechanics just like Agricola, but plays 2-5, is a fair bit lighter and quicker, and lets you have gunfights so there is a bit more direct conflict. This might work well with your group, again based on their PR experience since it's certainly not a gateway game. I don't know how well it plays with 2 either.

If they just want to screw people:

-Citadels: Light card game where everyone picks a role secretly each round and then the assassin goes around killing one of the roles, the thief stealing, etc. You are basically trying to guess what role the richest person chose so you can rob them, or what role the leader/your rival in the game chose so you can kill them. Tons of fun and it actually even plays decently with 3. Never played it with 2 but even that seems to get the nod on BGG. You do get to build a little card kingdom a la San Juan but it's almost a party game in a way because of the bluffing that is at the core. Cheap game too almost stocking-stuffer price.

-Small World: Simple risklike fantasy game that has maps for each of 2-5. Your enjoyment of this will largely depend on how much you like fantasy; it has an awesome cutesy/comedy fantasy theme and nice bits. If your friends like invading, this is maybe the way to go.

Lots of choices really I could go on :lol

 

[Vinci]

What the group likes about those games?

Hmm...

First of all, the rules need to be relatively quick to pick up. This isn't a group that likes spending more than half-an-hour going over pages of instructions. Any game needs to be accessible, with mechanics that make sense. Stuff with caveats or provisos would probably be immediately thrown out.

Second, the mechanics of the game need to make losing not such a personal deal. One of the people in the group has this horrible habit of getting all pissy when he feels one of the other players has completely screwed his entire session over. One of the nice aspects of Catan is that there's a fair bit of luck involved in the process, so it's hard to blame other players. Carcassone benefits from something similar. Puerto Rico can occasionally raise his ire, but he likes the mechanics enough that it doesn't bother him.

Third, they really never got into Pandemic. I think they found the amount of management within the games mechanics unnecessarily complex. I liked it, but I'm pretty much alone in that regard.

 

[StoOgE]

Carson City is another really good choice that I whiffed on. For some reason I was looking at more gateway games, but if you can play Puerto Rico you can play Carson City.

It's quickly moving up my favorite games list and seems to be the game du jour in the thread :lol

 

[Vinci]

Carson City's direct conflict aspect might frustrate the guy I'm most concerned about, but at the same time, he loves Westerns. Might be able to keep his cool based on that alone.

 

[StoOgE]

Second, the mechanics of the game need to make losing not such a personal deal. One of the people in the group has this horrible habit of getting all pissy when he feels one of the other players has completely screwed his entire session over. One of the nice aspects of Catan is that there's a fair bit of luck involved in the process, so it's hard to blame other players. Carcassone benefits from something similar. Puerto Rico can occasionally raise his ire, but he likes the mechanics enough that it doesn't bother him.

Alright... nevermind on Carson City. It's pretty cutthroat :lol In fact, it is extremely cut throat.

Dominion will almost certainly be a winner as it is a game about building an empire (in the form of a deck of cards) with minimal direct conflict but lots of strategy. The rules are also extremely simple and streamlines.. 10 minutes to teach the first time you play it at most.

Lost Cities has little in the way of direct conflict and is highly regarded worker placement game. Think of it as Agricola lite.

Agricola isn't very cutthroat (about like Puerto Rico where you take something someone else wanted at most)... but is more complicated than PR and the playing time can get up there with 5p. Especially the first game. That said, it is a fantastically amazing game and time really goes by quickly.

 

[AstroLad]

If you want near-zero interaction then Dominion isn't a bad choice. There's also the impression of luck in that game because it's a card-draw game.

 

[StoOgE]

There's also the impression of luck in that game because it's a card-draw game.

I would actually say the luck is comparable to Catan. There is a bit of luck of the draw, but you are able to plan for the luck and increase your likelyhood of success by playing the draw. Building a good deck will win 99% of the time. Just like building in the right areas in Catan will win you the day. Over the course of the game, the space on the 8's will come up more than the 4s.

 

[AstroLad]

Thing is there is almost no luck. It's basically a puzzle game that you solve or don't at the outset. But it certainly doesn't feel like that to new players. Race for the Galaxy has a lot more luck but it is an absolutely horrible game with the quick-learning requirement unfortunately.