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[StoOgE]

Played 4 games of Dominion last night.

Got to play with Stash and Tactician for the first time.

Stash is *awesome*. Really love that card. Its basically a silver card that costs 5, but you place it anywhere you want in the deck. Get a small deck + 4 stash cards and you get a province every time you have to shuffle.

Tactician is too powerfull for a 2 player game. It lets you essentially buy 2 provinces every other turn. I *almost* got to a 3rd buy once. I think this guy is going to be removed from any future 2p games since it removes every other strategy for playing the game.

Still undefeated in playing against my parents, but they are getting much closer. They bought the base set some time ago and have been playing a lot of 2p Dominion.

I'm thinking of getting them another game as a dog watching gift.

I'm thinking Seaside or Prosperity (they love Seaside, but I let them borrow it fairly often) or TTR: Nordic Countries. They always want to play TTR with me but have only played it 2p one time and didn't really like the way it played. So I'm thinking Noridc countries could be perfect for them to play 2p and then for me to play on occasion with them when I come over.

 

[StoOgE]

Speaking of Dominion rip offs, I saw a playtest of a game called Nightfall going on that looks pretty good.

It's a Dominion deck building game, but to score points you have to attack other players and then the hand you have drawn that turn becomes an attack and defense kind of thing to determine who wins and gets a point card. So it's Dominion with the direct conflict twist.

And they were playtesting the first expansion. I think base game comes out in March, so that one has expansions ready to roll.

 

[StoOgE]

For my 3rd straight post:

I'm going to be out of town this weekend. So, very limited (iphone only) Yucata access. Sorry fellas.

I also need to play Stone Age again. I inferred the scoring of the green civ cards wrong (I thought I was trying to make matching sets) and the requirements for the hut cards that allowed you to choose the resource types and how those scored.

So yeah, I've been playing the game completely wrong :/

 

[Seth C]

For my 3rd straight post:

I'm going to be out of town this weekend. So, very limited (iphone only) Yucata access. Sorry fellas.

I also need to play Stone Age again. I inferred the scoring of the green civ cards wrong (I thought I was trying to make matching sets) and the requirements for the hut cards that allowed you to choose the resource types and how those scored.

So yeah, I've been playing the game completely wrong :/

Don't feel bad. I have absolutely no clue what I'm doing with either game, so this will be a learning experience for me.

 

[Mashing]

Yeah, have fun with Thunderstone. Play a shitty clone of Dominion with tacked on bullshit that slows the game to a crawl, and often will result in a winner being determined in the first few rounds, just because the art is "better."

I fucking hate Thunderstone! (I was forced to play it again Wednesday night. At least we played two great games of Dominion Seaside before hand!)

Wow, chill man. Did I kill your dog or something? Thunderstone is more up my alley because I like confrontation and interaction. The art thing is completely subjective, so I don't know why you get angry over me not liking a game because I do not like the art. It's much the same as not liking a video game because the graphics are horrible.

 

[StoOgE]

Don't feel bad. I have absolutely no clue what I'm doing with either game, so this will be a learning experience for me.

If you go to the games drop down there is a section for rules.

They are really well written and easy to understand.

With the exception of the two rules I got wrong which were completely unclear.

 

[Mashing]

Man, we almost has a live game of Finca going, but artadius logged out.

 

[AstroLad]

Finca is pretty. Think it's the first time for everyone. Nice thing is it has simple rules though I'm going to have to reread them. Stone Age is a little more complex but once you play a game or two you'll see why it's considered a gateway worker-placement.

 

[StoOgE]

I was going to get a game of Mason's going, but I realized that after a player takes a turn everyone has to decide to play a scoring card or not. So it would have the St. Pete of not getting much accomplished before having to wait on everyone.

If we can ever get a live game of it or St. Pete going that would be the best way to play it.

Mason's is a simple little abstract game where you roll die and then have to place a wall, tower and huts of various colors (die tell you what colors to place). Everyone then has scoring cards in hand that they play after a player completes a city (encloses a wall completely). The scoring cards will score based on various conditions (number of blue buildings inside the city, number of spaces the enclosed city takes up, number of pink buildings outside the city, number of white towers in that city, number of black towers not in a city, etc).

It's a fun little game I've played 2-3 times and owned briefly. I got rid of it simply because the game is too light to be a meat and potatoes game for the evening and the scoring is too obtuse to make it a gateway game.

 

[Seth C]

Finca is pretty. Think it's the first time for everyone. Nice thing is it has simple rules though I'm going to have to reread them. Stone Age is a little more complex but once you play a game or two you'll see why it's considered a gateway worker-placement.

Yeah but I'm at work so everything I do through this afternoon will be without reading any rules at all. Should be exciting!

 

[Steve Youngblood]

Wow, chill man. Did I kill your dog or something? Thunderstone is more up my alley because I like confrontation and interaction.

Have you played Thunderstone? I only ask because above you mentioned that it looked ace. I'm just curious as to what confrontation and interaction you think it's going to deliver. I'm not as down on it as Chorazin, but it never really dazzled me. I personally think it's a pretty middling effort, overall.

Then again, I've listened to some people (particularly on The Dice Tower) who really seem to like it. I'm not quite certain as to whether or not they discovered something I didn't, or if the expansions flesh the game out. As for the base game I've played several times, it's Dominion with mechanics that sound cool on paper, but never really pan out into anything particularly satisfying in execution. What the monster fighting adds in complexity, it adds in frustration and then some in my book as you attempt to figure out whether you can take it down or not.

 

[StoOgE]

plus, Ascension looks much nicer than Thunderstone.

 

[Neverfade]

plus, Ascension looks much nicer than Thunderstone.

That's not a compliment haha.

 

[Seth C]

Anyone want to get some Dominion going?

 

[StoOgE]

Finca looks pretty amazing actually. Fun little abstracted math game.. not sure what a windmill has to do with farming or why moving more gets you more fruit :lol

 

[UpperCaseN]

I asked a buddy of mine (who just bought Dominion a week or so ago) if he had a chance to try it out yet. One thing led to another, and now I'm hosting game night at my place tomorrow!

I have high expectations

 

[Artadius]

So not only is BSG a hit with my local game group.. but I'm close to completing the second Play by Post game on my old WoW guild's forums here soon and folks there are clamoring for more. So we're going to test the VASSL BSG implementation this weekend. I've been using it as my 'gameboard' for the PbP so I've actually gotten pretty used to its user-unfriendly interface and mechanics...

I'll report back here on how that goes since I know a few of you have mentioned in the past that you were curious about VASSL and BSG.

 

[AstroLad]

hey seth i'm on

 

[Seth C]

hey seth i'm on

I came back. I've got 15 minutes.

 

[Mashing]

Sheesh, we got everyone online and Artadius is holding us up! BOO-URNS!

 

[AstroLad]

hey now it's PBEM!

 

[Artadius]

Sheesh, we got everyone online and Artadius is holding us up! BOO-URNS!

Heh sorry.

FYI, I work from home so I can usually play as soon as my turn is up M-F during day hours. At night though is family time so I might not check in on things till like 9 or 10 pm Central. Weekends are hit and miss. You can expect that I won't leave something undone for more than a day though.

 

[Mashing]

I'll be out all day today starting at noon. I won't be able to make my turns until I get back (sometime Sunday).

 

[AstroLad]

that's the point of pbem -- take your turns when you want and can! i'm usu a bit slower on weekends myself between carc and iso

 

[AstroLad]

whoa yucata has campaign manager 2008 now! who wants a game!?

 

[joeyjoejoeshabadoo]

whoa yucata has campaign manager 2008 now! who wants a game!?

It plays kind of like 1960, right? I'm game.

 

[Artadius]

whoa yucata has campaign manager 2008 now! who wants a game!?

<---

 

[dogbert]

It plays kind of like 1960, right? I'm game.

Kind of, but not, at the same time. It's the most localised out of the three Jason Matthews' games. It takes the idea of 1960, placing influence to win an election, and whittles it down to the core US election fact of that only a handful of states matter & only certain key voter types matter.

So you're only battling four states at a time, with turns being drawing & playing cards to place influence on the side of an issue (Economics or defence), changing voter priority (which issue do they care about?) or swinging voter demographics (each state has two key voter types that allow wild swings of voters).

It's a really straightforward game compared to Twilight Struggle or 1960, with a nice mix of deck building & influence playing. I've played the board game a bunch and still like it. One of my most played games of last year.

 

[Flynn]

Finally played my first game of Twilight Struggle. Loved it despite the dice.

 

[platypotamus]

whoa yucata has campaign manager 2008 now! who wants a game!?

Since I've been wanting to try one of their games for awhile (and get to try Founding Fathers tomorrow!) I'm totally down. Haven't read rules yet though.

 

[TheExodu5]

Played A Game Of Thrones tonight. Lots of fun.

 

[BanShunsaku]

First off, thanks in part to this thread I have recently gotten back into board games... Hadn't played anything really since Cluedo when I was a kid!

Since picking up a few games and making Friday night "boardgame night" the last couple of weekends have been great... So thanks everyone!!!

So on the advice of a couple of friends (and the OP!) I've picked up:

Onirim
Forbidden Island
Ticket to Ride
Dominion
Settlers of Catan
Carcassonne

Played Ticket to Ride about 3-4 times with my gf last week, which she loved. Tried a game of Carcassonne but by then we were pretty tired and couldn't get into it.

Had a couple of games of Onirim (solo) which seems pretty fun, can see it being better with 2 people though.

My gf and I played our first game of Dominion on Friday night, took a couple of games to get a hang of, but now we are both hooked! So again, thanks for the inspiration everyone!

Also, I'm looking at getting Thunderstone (for it's similarities to Dominion but also the theme and the fact I can play solo if need be) whats the general consensus on it? I've read mixed reviews...

 

[AstroLad]

Congrats -- you should be set with those games for a long time. Carcassonne is a lot of fun but takes a couple of games to get into what the strategy is. The sooner you start stealing cities and fighting over farms, the better.

 

[jason10mm]

Had a little mini gaming day yesterday with me and 2 friends. We started with Caylus, then finished up with Dominant Species. Wow, what a brain melting day! DS really is a mash up for a bunch of euro mechanics and some nice ameritrash map based conquest. About all it lacks is auctions No dice either!

It has a big worker placement area where you take turns placing your action pawns, just like Caylus. But you have to also manage an ever changing hex map of tiles with various players battling it out for control both in numerical superiority and "dominance" defined by the animal best adapted for that particular terrain. But these variables can change in an instant and the paths for victory are many. LONG game, 3+ hours with just 3 players, and a lot of mental gymnastics. It is very cool though, I'm interested in playing with 5-6 players because I think it will get even more intense. It is similar to Calyus, IMHO, though it does not have as many divergent paths. It is much more chaotic because you never know how your opponents will change the field by adding a few species or just changing a single resource piece that can affect a wide area.

So if you like Caylus style worker placement games, check out DS. It captures that feeling of watching your best laid plans get snatched from your grasp, and the placement mechanism means that while the game takes a long time, there is very little downtime as the game involves most everyone continuously.

 

[GDJustin]

Carc IMO is pretty much the perfect Eurogame.

1) Literally zero setup.
2) Simple rules - every turn you only have two things to decide (tile placement, meeple placement), but lots of strategic depth
3) Scales up/down well. My wife and I love it for 2P, which is rare for a game that also works well with 5P.
4) (Mostly) great expansions. There are some clunkers, but they mostly add to the game without actually changing it.
5) Great combination of cooperative/competitive play. I played 2P so much that it was a revelation that you could make deals and work together to get ahead in games with more people.

Just about the only thing I don't like is that the expansions also expand the length of the game/size of the board. I love the gameplay added by the various expacs, but adding in more than ~2 makes the game a little long, and requires a huge table.

This could be solved by including all the expansions you want and then removing ~20 tiles blindly, at random. But a big part of the strategy is remember what tiles are still left (if there is a cathedral left for example), so that doesn't really work.

 

[Flynn]

Had a little mini gaming day yesterday with me and 2 friends. We started with Caylus, then finished up with Dominant Species. Wow, what a brain melting day! DS really is a mash up for a bunch of euro mechanics and some nice ameritrash map based conquest. About all it lacks is auctions No dice either!

It has a big worker placement area where you take turns placing your action pawns, just like Caylus. But you have to also manage an ever changing hex map of tiles with various players battling it out for control both in numerical superiority and "dominance" defined by the animal best adapted for that particular terrain. But these variables can change in an instant and the paths for victory are many. LONG game, 3+ hours with just 3 players, and a lot of mental gymnastics. It is very cool though, I'm interested in playing with 5-6 players because I think it will get even more intense. It is similar to Calyus, IMHO, though it does not have as many divergent paths. It is much more chaotic because you never know how your opponents will change the field by adding a few species or just changing a single resource piece that can affect a wide area.

So if you like Caylus style worker placement games, check out DS. It captures that feeling of watching your best laid plans get snatched from your grasp, and the placement mechanism means that while the game takes a long time, there is very little downtime as the game involves most everyone continuously.

Glad to hear you liked Dominant Species. I won a copy at BGG, but I'm a little nervous about pulling it out.

 

[GDJustin]

Looking for suggestions for a worker placement game.

Some of you might remember over a year ago (has it really been that long?) I decided to turn my wife on to modern boardgaming. Eurogames were actually new to me, too. But I'm a big nerd so I knew I would like the hobby.

I started with Lost Cities, which at this point might as well be considered the stereotypical "wife gateway" game. Then Carcassone, then Dominion, and finally Alhambra. Along the way we made some boardgame friends and have infrequently gotten together and learned Pandemic, Bohnanza, and a few others together.

The games I picked were chosen with EXTREME care. You'll notice that LC --> Carc --> Dominion --> Alhambra is a steady progression in game complexity. But, each game is also a built around a different board game mechanic.

LC is technically card drafting but is too simple to belong to any category imo. Carc is pure tile laying. Dominion pure deck building. And finally, Alhambra is a combination of tiles and cards.

I'm rather proud of this progression, by the way. It isn't easy to pick games that are highly rated in BGG, have a steady complexity progression, and also revolve around different core mechanics. And work with 2P, no less!

Anyway, preamble over!

What's missing from our collection? A worker placement game! So I need a worker placement game of medium complexity (no Agricola yet) that works with 2P and ideally works with more as well. I'm leaning towards Stone Age right now, but would welcome any other suggestions.

 

[jason10mm]

Definitely Stone Age. Very intuitive, great theme, and loads of fun. Plus it plays sorta ok with 2 since there is very little direct competition going on. Puerto Rico may be a bit complex for her. Endeavor isn't too bad once you grasp the board/map combo, but I'm not sure how well it scales down to 2. DEFINITELY avoid Caylus and Dominant Species until she gets a good handle on worker placement, those games are brain melters!

 

[Seth C]

Hey all. Sorry about taking so long on my turns on Yucata. Way too much drinking going on yesterday. Off to the beer thread...

 

[Chorazin]

Wow, chill man. Did I kill your dog or something? Thunderstone is more up my alley because I like confrontation and interaction. The art thing is completely subjective, so I don't know why you get angry over me not liking a game because I do not like the art. It's much the same as not liking a video game because the graphics are horrible.

I'm not angry at you, just showing my strong hate for the game. As for "interaction" there really isn't any, and the confontation is between the player and the game, not the players. Or at least the times I've been forced to play it.

 

[UpperCaseN]

Oh man, my gaming night addiction is growing strong. Had a blast on Sat:

Started off with a scenario in LNOE, which was kinda shitty. I think our group is "over" that game, but we played the hell out of it while we were still interested

Then went into 3 games of 5 player Catan. 2 of the guys never played it before and instantly fell in love. 1 guy decided to go out and buy a copy for himself, the other guy was the one who wanted to keep playing but we ended at 3 games.

He then taught my fiance and me Dominion; the other 3 have played already. We liked it, it's much simpler than I expected it to be; I was kind of intimidated by it until actually playing it. Only got 1 game in before the group disbanded for the night, looking forward to more but I didn't love it enough to want to go buy it.

On Sunday, my fiance and I read the manual and playtested Talisman: 4th ed. Played it once before but that was years ago and didn't really retain any of it. The game went well, we both loved it (more so me because I won) but we had a lot of questions. I posted on bgg for answers but I can't wait to introduce it to my gaming groups. Not sure if I want to start painting the minis now or if I want to get some more games in first.

Awesome gaming weekend for me, but my back is killing me from leaning forward in the chair all night. All my life, when my group got together is was either video games (Halo 1, Mario Party, Goldeneye, etc) or Magic The Gathering. Now we're discovering the world of board games and it's like a huge genre of gaming that we never knew about.

 

[joeyjoejoeshabadoo]

What's missing from our collection? A worker placement game! So I need a worker placement game of medium complexity (no Agricola yet) that works with 2P and ideally works with more as well. I'm leaning towards Stone Age right now, but would welcome any other suggestions.

Agric- awww.
I own it but haven't plated it yet, but Tribune seems to be fairly simple worker placement.

Just to kind of give you words of encouragement, Agricola is alot easier than it seems. You can also start with just the family game to get the hang of the base mechanics then introduce the cards in later.

As for what's on my horizon, I'm going to be registering for Orccon today. It'll be my first boardgaming con so I'm kind of excited. The best part is it's being held about two miles from my house.

My copy of Dungeon Lords I got in the math trade should arrive this week as a copy of Tales of the Arabian Nights I got for super cheap on BGG. Got to say I'm excited for both games.

 

[StoOgE]

What's missing from our collection? A worker placement game! So I need a worker placement game of medium complexity (no Agricola yet) that works with 2P and ideally works with more as well. I'm leaning towards Stone Age right now, but would welcome any other suggestions.

Seems like Stone Age or Fresco are the winners. I haven't played Kingsburg but it is also a well-regarded light worker placement game.

Stone Age involved die rolls when collecting resources, but is very well regarded.

Fresco involves minimal (or no) luck and comes with 3 built in "expansions" that can slowly ramp up the complexity (though it never becomes "complex" by any means).

Someone else can weigh in on Kingsburg, but it is a similarly simple worker placement game, but it involves die rolling again.

All 3 games also have the advantage of being absolutely amazing looking games.

I would watch some videos of the games on BGG and see what you think.. but Stone Age is probably your winner.

 

[AstroLad]

Stone Age and Kinsburg are great games for your purposes. Both are very pretty too. I would give Stone Age the slight edge just because it is one of the best-looking games out there and a touch easier to learn than Kingsburg.

 

[StoOgE]

Endeavor isn't too bad once you grasp the board/map combo, but I'm not sure how well it scales down to 2.

Not sure I would consider Endeavor much of a worker placement game.. or Puerto Rico for that matter. I mean.. I guess they kind of are, but without any "blocking" by other players taking up your spaces I don't consider them the meat and potatoes of what most people are looking for in worker placement.

Fresco is also a little odd since you don't know if someone is blocking you or not until after you place a worker... but feels more like a worker placement game to me than Endeavor or PR.

 

[AstroLad]

i sent out some campaign manager invites to you guys. really digging that game as a yucata game

 

[Artadius]

My copy of Dungeon Lords I got in the math trade should arrive this week as a copy of Tales of the Arabian Nights I got for super cheap on BGG. Got to say I'm excited for both games.

Let me know how Tales of the Arabian Nights is... I'm interested in grabbing a copy of that to be one of the earlier games I play with my daughters when they get old enough. Seems like a wonderful mix of storytelling and game.

 

[StoOgE]

And I think your game after that should be a light area/influence control game. That is a pretty "core" mechanic of a lot of board games with more direct conflict.

Carcassone certainly has some area control built into the game (especially in the battle for fields) but Small World or Tikal should really round out your collection well.

 

[StoOgE]

i sent out some campaign manager invites to you guys. really digging that game as a yucata game

I accepted. I'll need to hit up the rules. I've played 1960 and TS a good bit so this shouldn't be an issue, but I need to figure out the nuance.

 

[AstroLad]

Let me know how Tales of the Arabian Nights is... I'm interested in grabbing a copy of that to be one of the earlier games I play with my daughters when they get old enough. Seems like a wonderful mix of storytelling and game.

It is very nicely done. It's basically like Choose Your Own Adventure: The Board Game. Pure storycraft through the reading of paragraphs in a big book and not a ton in the way of gameplay mechanics but very fun.