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Boardgames - Citadels - for when you need a game for over 5 people
Khorne's Reborn in Blood Card states there are two battles (If I have the right card that is) essentially. During the first battle the Khorne player tips all the enemy units in that region. They attack back. After the first battle are they removed or do they still go to second battle?
Edit:
Another question. During the end step when it's time to score ruined regions, what exactly happens. I was just reading the FAQ and if I am reading it correctly I believe it to say you score ALL regions in order. Not just the ruined region. Is this correct?
Um. No?
How would you score non-ruined regions for ruination?
Might play thunderstone tonight. Is there any place I can get the 1.4 rules without all the wanky graphics and border images? My printer needs ink badly.
Khorne's Reborn in Blood Card states there are two battles (If I have the right card that is) essentially. During the first battle the Khorne player tips all the enemy units in that region. They attack back. After the first battle are they removed or do they still go to second battle?
Dead units are removed after the first battle. Then, all remaining units get to attack again. Note that Blood Frenzy only happens at the start of the battle phase, so it doesn't happen again for the second battle.
Another question. During the end step when it's time to score ruined regions, what exactly happens. I was just reading the FAQ and if I am reading it correctly I believe it to say you score ALL regions in order. Not just the ruined region. Is this correct?
You score all the regions which were ruined, in region order. So if Norsca, the Empire, and the Badlands were each ruined this round, you would score them in that order.
Might play thunderstone tonight. Is there any place I can get the 1.4 rules without all the wanky graphics and border images? My printer needs ink badly.
Ugh, you know what sucks? I don't know when I'll get to play CitOW next. I can't stop thinking about that game. If I'm lucky tomorrow night, but that may not happen. Then of course Sunday is V-Day and the fiance will not allow me to play games. Apparently she doesn't love me. =\
Maybe Monday... Ugh this kills me.
I have exactly this same feeling, except with Agricola. I even own BSG and Puerto Rico, games which my group enjoy (and we've all been wanting to play BSG again for the last couple of months), but every time we sit down to play something, we end up playing Agricola. Multiple times.
Mad Jazz on
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TehSlothHit Or MissI Guess They Never Miss, HuhRegistered Userregular
At Toy r Us they were selling a Laser Game called Khet?
It looks interesting but really a laser?
It's basically just a laser pen as far as I understand, and you move the pieces around in a somewhat chess-like fashion, using the mirrors to reflect the light and hit other pieces.
Might play thunderstone tonight. Is there any place I can get the 1.4 rules without all the wanky graphics and border images? My printer needs ink badly.
Those might be useful to start with, and maybe keep a laptop nearby with the pdf of the rules?
Yeah, the order of battle would be useful to print out, from what I noticed that and the order in the village is all that changed, with the village change being that leveling up heroes goes last.
I have exactly this same feeling, except with Agricola. I even own BSG and Puerto Rico, games which my group enjoy (and we've all been wanting to play BSG again for the last couple of months), but every time we sit down to play something, we end up playing Agricola. Multiple times.
I may be the only person who doesn't like Agricola. Of course, I only played it once, and had no idea what I was doing. But it seemed like an awful lot of work just to move some wooden carrots around.
GoodOmens on
IOS Game Center ID: Isotope-X
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
I may be the only person who doesn't like Agricola. Of course, I only played it once, and had no idea what I was doing. But it seemed like an awful lot of work just to move some wooden carrots around.
Either that's your problem or you just don't like the Agricola style of game. Have you tried any other indirect-competition economic games?
The other reason I might expect someone to dislike it is if their only games were with a really slow group. Once everyone knows what they're doing, there's almost no downtime, but a newbie game can drag.
So, we played boardgames today. We got started off with Day and Night. What a good lookin' game. I won, mostly because I had read the rules and understood more of the strategy. Next time she'll play Night and see if she wins.
Then we played Thunderstone.
I have never played dominion and the only interest I had in it was because everyone liked it so much I felt like I was missing out. After a while fumbling around with the starting set up and getting a feel for the mechanics we were off. I decided not to mess with rules 1.4. The first game we played wrong (With only 10 monsters instead of 30) and we ended up both scoring 21.
Playing with 10 monsters didn't take too long and ended up being a good stepping stone as it allowed us to get used to it and realize problems with cluttering our decks. We enjoyed the game so much that we played a second round of it (Which doesn't happen too often). This game we played with 30 monsters. It was a lot more fun being able to level up more heroes and do more dungeon diving.
The gameplay was quick, satisfying and gave me a good dungeon romping/run to village to sell fatloots feeling. My only problem is what happens when a difficult monster drops into rank 1. Either someone has to bite the bullet and send it to the bottom of the deck or it just stays there as a wall. I think I'll house rule something where each player destroys a card or two to move the monster back. I hope the expansion brings more combo strategies. Dwarfs get +attack for using an edged weapon, so stacking a deck of dwarfs and edged weapons was a good feeling. The first game, though, lacked a similar "stock up on these things!" strategy.
One final problem, though: How do you guys deal with shuffling cards so often (since pokerchips are not an option for TS)? I was doing the "deal 8 different stacks, pick them up in different order, then cut" method.
I don't think there's any need for house ruling the powerful monster in rank 1. Just fight the other monsters (get more light) or take some time to thin your deck so you get a powerful hand to kill it (you'll enjoy the large amount of VPs). There will be times when the entire hall is powerful monsters too, you'll just have to kill them!
I've just been shuffling as normal. However, I want to get sleeves for them because a few edges got nicked and that bothers me (essentially "marking" one of the militia cards). When the cards are sleeved you can shuffle them much easier by making two piles and sliding them together sideways.
I may be the only person who doesn't like Agricola. Of course, I only played it once, and had no idea what I was doing. But it seemed like an awful lot of work just to move some wooden carrots around.
Either that's your problem or you just don't like the Agricola style of game. Have you tried any other indirect-competition economic games?
The other reason I might expect someone to dislike it is if their only games were with a really slow group. Once everyone knows what they're doing, there's almost no downtime, but a newbie game can drag.
If you like Puerto Rico, you'll like Agricola, but you have to remember that the first game is not representative of the way the game plays. Once you get the hang of the pacing (those harvests always show up before you expect them to), it gets way more fun.
Also, yeah, the only downtime my group has is usually in rounds 13 and 14 when there are a lot of crucial moves to be made. We can usually knock out a 5 player game in an hour and a half.
Not just you Omens, there are quite a few gamers who aren't exactly thrilled with euro meaning worker placement (Agricola being the most popular one) these days. Thankfully the designers seem to be swinging away from it a little bit. As for Puerto Rico, I don't see it as anything like Agricola except for that you're growing crops. Much less fiddly and more interactive.
Zombie Nirvana on
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
Not just you Omens, there are quite a few gamers who aren't exactly thrilled with euro meaning worker placement (Agricola being the most popular one) these days. Thankfully the designers seem to be swinging away from it a little bit. As for Puerto Rico, I don't see it as anything like Agricola except for that you're growing crops. Much less fiddly and more interactive.
I too think that Puerto Rico and Agricola don't really fit in the same category, but I object to using the word "fiddly" as if it describes anything. It's like "interesting" or "compelling."
I do think it's possible to like PR and not Agricola, based entirely on the degree of interactivity you enjoy. Puerto Rico is constant indirect competition; from the very first turn you can expect that if you're not one of the first three or so people, you're never going to get a small market. Every single resource is limited and, particularly in the end stages of a game, if an opponent does something you don't expect your entire plan can fall apart.
Agricola has its moments, particularly in the last few rounds, but in general it's not nearly as competitive as PR. The most any particular resource can be tied up is for one round, and while a little awareness of what everyone's looking for is important, it's much more obvious than PR.
I like Puerto Rico because every single action makes me stare at the board and try to figure out what everyone's going to do, I like Agricola because it's a largely independent experience that still requires me to be aware of what's going on; but I can easily understand why someone would like one and not the other.
People who argue that either one is a bad game should probably be killed and buried in a ditch, however.
I really like Stone Age when it comes to worker placement over Agricola. It is simpler and less competitive and I think the theme holds together much better making it easier for people to learn. It's a pretty good next-step kind of game after Ticket to Ride, complexity wise, It's still really easy to pick up and has a good amount of strategy to it. This is based on my limited playtime with it, so I am not sure how repayable it is.
I wouldn't object to describe things as fiddly, it's an important part of describing board games. Very few euros would count as fiddly, though. Fiddly is when you've got three full stacks of units, but one has to fall back, and so you're really carefully sliding a stack backwards but you lost one on the bottom so when you reach in with tweezers to pick it up you bump an adjacent stack and it falls over and you quit to play something with wooden blocks.
PolloDiablo on
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
I wouldn't object to describe things as fiddly, it's an important part of describing board games. Very few euros would count as fiddly, though. Fiddly is when you've got three full stacks of units, but one has to fall back, and so you're really carefully sliding a stack backwards but you lost one on the bottom so when you reach in with tweezers to pick it up you bump an adjacent stack and it falls over and you quit to play something with wooden blocks.
Someone failed his CCTC (Counter Collapse Task Check -- ASLRBv2 Q2.31) one too many times.
Woot, it's my birthday today and for the first time ever I asked for non-computer games
I got me some Small World, Galaxy Trucker, Cosmic Encounter and BSG: Pegasus!
Now I just need to buy myself CitOW and Summoner Wars (and maybe Runewars down the road). Going to have some fun tonight and tomorrow with friends and games!
So... no CitOW tonight. Everyone wanted to play Age of Empires instead, which I don't have a problem with since it's my favorite game and it had been a while since we last played. Still, I wait to play the game.
I wouldn't object to describe things as fiddly, it's an important part of describing board games. Very few euros would count as fiddly, though. Fiddly is when you've got three full stacks of units, but one has to fall back, and so you're really carefully sliding a stack backwards but you lost one on the bottom so when you reach in with tweezers to pick it up you bump an adjacent stack and it falls over and you quit to play something with wooden blocks.
Or those fucking flags in Napoleon's Triumph. Oh sure it looks elegant, but you try moving all those units to an approach and not make that damn flag fall off.
Also Agricola is fucking fiddly for a euro. Replenishment stage is annoying. The game is a good one though - just nothing compared to PR. TTA is fiddly too but its okay because it needs to be.
Dominion decks with no +Buy or +Action cards can get really tedious. I kept having turns with 14-16 gold but only one Buy.
This is why in my group after we deal out all the cards each player gets one ban, and can get rid of a card so a new one is drawn to replace it. This can be done to break up really powerful combos (scout in a game with great halls, nobles and harems for example) or to fix games so they aren't super lopsided as was your case (no + action or +buy, or like half the deck is attack cards, etc).
I may be the only person who doesn't like Agricola. Of course, I only played it once, and had no idea what I was doing. But it seemed like an awful lot of work just to move some wooden carrots around.
Either that's your problem or you just don't like the Agricola style of game. Have you tried any other indirect-competition economic games?
The other reason I might expect someone to dislike it is if their only games were with a really slow group. Once everyone knows what they're doing, there's almost no downtime, but a newbie game can drag.
I enjoy Puerto Rico. I love Chaos in the Old World, which really is an economic game with some punch to it. Agricola just didn't put the fizz in my Alka-Seltzer, if you see what I mean, so I don't feel a compelling need to try it again.
I definitely know what you mean about having an experienced group. I tend to play Dominion with newbies, just the way it works out, but having played a few games with experienced players it's a totally different experience. When three opponents have finished their turn before you have a chance to shuffle, it becomes almost like blitz chess.
Does anyone have any experience with Dungeon Lords and could offer a recommendation on whether or not it is worth the $$$?
I own Dungeon Lords, and it's very popular with everyone I've shown it to.
I'd recommend downloading the rules and giving them a read through, though I will admit it makes a lot more sense with the components in front of you. The game is complex and serious planning is required in order to not get ruined by the heroes, but I'm not sure even they represent as big a threat as taxes, paydays, and earthquakes.
As far as value goes, the components are terrific. Just about all of the pieces are thick chunky cardboard tiles where they could have easily gotten away with cards. The art is as good as you'll find on a board game, especially on the boards themselves. Frankly, the only other games I can think of that have such incredible presentation are Vlaada's other games (Galaxy Trucker for example).
A second edition has already been announced with minor corrections to the rules and will include stickers to spruce up the minion meeples. I don't know when that's coming though.
Redcat on
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My 360 tag: Redcat Rising
So after much consideration, I just purchased San Juan from Amazon, so it should be here in a couple days. It was between that, Race for the Galaxy, and Thunderstone. Hopefully my lunch crew will enjoy it.
Little do they know that I'm just preparing them for RftG, which was the one I really wanted. I was just worried that they might not want to put the effort into learning it and give up after only a couple games.
Just finally read through Thunderstone's 1.4 rules.
My guilty gaming secret. I usually only skim through rules and watch a couple video reviews before playing. It is boring and time consuming to just memorize a whole rulebook before actually playing!
We were only doing a few things wrong (including our first game mistake of only 10 monsters rather than 30). Dwarfs holding edged weapons get the bonus in addition to their base attack, militia are counted as heroes for some reason, and (the biggest mistake) was concerning lighting rules. +1 light really means +2 against their light penalty rather than +1. This will make lights more important as before it was easier to overload on strength rather than light.
I got to play some more Thunderstone on Wednesday. My original opinion was completely and thoroughly confirmed: it's a decent diversion from the Dominion base set but is way too simple for my taste. The game in general is far more based on randomness than deck building strategy ala Dominion. And there is not nearly enough player interaction compared to Intrigue and Seaside.
It's a fun and lite game. With an expansion or two could potentially be a really good game too. But the base set just does not have much staying power.
And seriously, they need to re-release the game with a new English translation (I am assuming that the current set was translated to English by way of half a dozen dead languages using Babelfish).
I played my first games of Galaxy Trucker tonight and am happy to say I'm not a communist. My ship on the third round was about 5 tiles in size when landing with just on piece of cargo! I had a lot of fun, though. I only played with one other person -- I can definitely see how it'd get very crazy with more players. Also, I hope a bit more even as with two, once I got hit once I was then the target for all future attack cards since I was behind.
I also got a couple more games of Claustrophobia in with a new player and I realized I was playing with a couple of wrong rules that made the demons much stronger! First, I forgot about the keywords that the human warriors got on their cards and more importantly I somehow missed the rule that the powers in red type on the board of destiny can only be used once per game! My previous demon player was bringing troglodytes on the board every time he got a 7 making the game so insanely hard. So now it's still hard but definitely winnable for the human player.
Dominion decks with no +Buy or +Action cards can get really tedious. I kept having turns with 14-16 gold but only one Buy.
This is why in my group after we deal out all the cards each player gets one ban, and can get rid of a card so a new one is drawn to replace it. This can be done to break up really powerful combos (scout in a game with great halls, nobles and harems for example) or to fix games so they aren't super lopsided as was your case (no + action or +buy, or like half the deck is attack cards, etc).
One method my friends and I like is to deal the randomiser cards to each player and a dummy extra player (so 3 piles for 2 player, 4 for 3 player and 5 for 4 player). Each player picks 4, 3 or 2 cards with a the remainder coming randomly from the dummy player's pile.
It has tended towards producing very 'powerful' boards, lots of extra cards and actions, but we haven't used it that often.
I got to play some more Thunderstone on Wednesday. My original opinion was completely and thoroughly confirmed: it's a decent diversion from the Dominion base set but is way too simple for my taste. The game in general is far more based on randomness than deck building strategy ala Dominion. And there is not nearly enough player interaction compared to Intrigue and Seaside.
It's a fun and lite game. With an expansion or two could potentially be a really good game too. But the base set just does not have much staying power.
And seriously, they need to re-release the game with a new English translation (I am assuming that the current set was translated to English by way of half a dozen dead languages using Babelfish).
I strongly disagree with you. I'm not sure how many people you have been playing with, but I've played probably 50+ 5 player games. There is a ton of strategy to how you build your deck. Deciding what to add, when to destroy cards, or the monsters you choose to fight. You have to constantly optimize your deck to get out good hands or you will fall behind the other players. There is some player interaction (rogues and the one magician) but I personally like it that way (don't really like all the "fuck you" cards in dominion).
I would not pass off Thunderstone as a lite or shallow game. Understanding the card synergy and putting together a good deck is not done by accident. Neither is properly timing your trips to the village or dungeon. We play extremely competitively and enjoy the game a lot - with the overall opinion being greater than Dominion. Both games are fun, but while they share some mechanics, they are pretty different games. I wouldn't cast them as either / or (or as a diversion to one or the other, as you said) - you get different things from both.
I didn't enjoy Thunderstone the one time I've played it. Perhaps it is because we had five players so things were going slow but the comparison to Dominion is just too easy and I found the game quite lacking compared to it. The whole game felt slow, clunky and awkward. And the lack of player interaction bugged me, of course, I love the "fuck you" cards of dominion. I love it when a player groans in Dominion and reveals a hand containing mostly curse cards.
As a point of curiosity: has anyone tried playing Chaos in the Old World without the old world deck or perhaps without the cards with the twin tailed comet on them? I'm wondering because my last two games were utter one sided victories because of old world cards (among other factors, and I was the one winning, just so you don't think this is merely bitter venting). Some of them seem too game changing for a (mostly) random effect. Though, I do worry slightly because most of the old world cards seem to hurt Khorne or help gods other than Khorne (though there are some notable exceptions).
We've only played one game, and had the Khorne player been playing "correctly" (going after ticks rather than VPs), he would have easily won. The same couldn't been said for me as Nurgle. I made a lot of mistakes, and couldn't won on turn sixish, rather than losing on turn 8.
Edit:
Point of this is that, aren't the cards that hurt Khorne just an attempt to balance out easy usual easy path to victory?
I wouldn't call Khorne easy mode, out of the games I've played I'd say Khorne probably wins the third most. His tactics might seem direct but early on due to the high cost of his attackers (2 cost) it can be rough for Khorne getting early dial advancement. Old world cards like Greenskins or Electors Sue for Peace can really knock Khorne out of the game though. As I said, I do worry that total removal of old world cards might swing things too far in Khorne's favor but, I've definitely seen that the enjoyment of anyone playing Khorne pretty much disappears when a card like Greenskins drops.
I only played once, so please post what Greenskins does. I remember reading it, but never thought it boned Khorne. Still not at that level.
Greenskins makes it so in the area where the event tokens are each god may only roll 1 battle die per battle phase. So if you had two warriors and a bloodthirster there you get to roll a grand total of 1 battle die still. If that card flops and you haven't managed to draw any of the card that makes it so no corruption can be placed it's not a matter of if, but when (most likely Nurgle) will ruin that region. And even that card is going to let you stall for at most one turn.
I only played once, so please post what Greenskins does. I remember reading it, but never thought it boned Khorne. Still not at that level.
Greenskins makes it so in the area where the event tokens are each god may only roll 1 battle die per battle phase. So if you had two warriors and a bloodthirster there you get to roll a grand total of 1 battle die still. If that card flops and you haven't managed to draw any of the card that makes it so no corruption can be placed it's not a matter of if, but when (most likely Nurgle) will ruin that region. And even that card is going to let you stall for at most one turn.
Yep, that card did come up when we played and yep it did screw over Khorne in one region. The other two regions were already ruined by me, Nurgle, because they were populous regions.
But it only stayed in play one turn. Was removed the very next Old World Card.
Posts
Um. No?
How would you score non-ruined regions for ruination?
Dead units are removed after the first battle. Then, all remaining units get to attack again. Note that Blood Frenzy only happens at the start of the battle phase, so it doesn't happen again for the second battle.
You score all the regions which were ruined, in region order. So if Norsca, the Empire, and the Badlands were each ruined this round, you would score them in that order.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/52641/thunderstone-player-aid-v1-4
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/52428/thunderstone-order-of-battle-pdf
Those might be useful to start with, and maybe keep a laptop nearby with the pdf of the rules?
I have exactly this same feeling, except with Agricola. I even own BSG and Puerto Rico, games which my group enjoy (and we've all been wanting to play BSG again for the last couple of months), but every time we sit down to play something, we end up playing Agricola. Multiple times.
It's basically just a laser pen as far as I understand, and you move the pieces around in a somewhat chess-like fashion, using the mirrors to reflect the light and hit other pieces.
twitch.tv/tehsloth
Yeah, the order of battle would be useful to print out, from what I noticed that and the order in the village is all that changed, with the village change being that leveling up heroes goes last.
twitch.tv/tehsloth
I may be the only person who doesn't like Agricola. Of course, I only played it once, and had no idea what I was doing. But it seemed like an awful lot of work just to move some wooden carrots around.
IOS Game Center ID: Isotope-X
Either that's your problem or you just don't like the Agricola style of game. Have you tried any other indirect-competition economic games?
The other reason I might expect someone to dislike it is if their only games were with a really slow group. Once everyone knows what they're doing, there's almost no downtime, but a newbie game can drag.
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=110928
Then we played Thunderstone.
Playing with 10 monsters didn't take too long and ended up being a good stepping stone as it allowed us to get used to it and realize problems with cluttering our decks. We enjoyed the game so much that we played a second round of it (Which doesn't happen too often). This game we played with 30 monsters. It was a lot more fun being able to level up more heroes and do more dungeon diving.
The gameplay was quick, satisfying and gave me a good dungeon romping/run to village to sell fatloots feeling. My only problem is what happens when a difficult monster drops into rank 1. Either someone has to bite the bullet and send it to the bottom of the deck or it just stays there as a wall. I think I'll house rule something where each player destroys a card or two to move the monster back. I hope the expansion brings more combo strategies. Dwarfs get +attack for using an edged weapon, so stacking a deck of dwarfs and edged weapons was a good feeling. The first game, though, lacked a similar "stock up on these things!" strategy.
One final problem, though: How do you guys deal with shuffling cards so often (since pokerchips are not an option for TS)? I was doing the "deal 8 different stacks, pick them up in different order, then cut" method.
I've just been shuffling as normal. However, I want to get sleeves for them because a few edges got nicked and that bothers me (essentially "marking" one of the militia cards). When the cards are sleeved you can shuffle them much easier by making two piles and sliding them together sideways.
If you like Puerto Rico, you'll like Agricola, but you have to remember that the first game is not representative of the way the game plays. Once you get the hang of the pacing (those harvests always show up before you expect them to), it gets way more fun.
Also, yeah, the only downtime my group has is usually in rounds 13 and 14 when there are a lot of crucial moves to be made. We can usually knock out a 5 player game in an hour and a half.
I too think that Puerto Rico and Agricola don't really fit in the same category, but I object to using the word "fiddly" as if it describes anything. It's like "interesting" or "compelling."
I do think it's possible to like PR and not Agricola, based entirely on the degree of interactivity you enjoy. Puerto Rico is constant indirect competition; from the very first turn you can expect that if you're not one of the first three or so people, you're never going to get a small market. Every single resource is limited and, particularly in the end stages of a game, if an opponent does something you don't expect your entire plan can fall apart.
Agricola has its moments, particularly in the last few rounds, but in general it's not nearly as competitive as PR. The most any particular resource can be tied up is for one round, and while a little awareness of what everyone's looking for is important, it's much more obvious than PR.
I like Puerto Rico because every single action makes me stare at the board and try to figure out what everyone's going to do, I like Agricola because it's a largely independent experience that still requires me to be aware of what's going on; but I can easily understand why someone would like one and not the other.
People who argue that either one is a bad game should probably be killed and buried in a ditch, however.
Also, cavemeeples and the love shack.
Someone failed his CCTC (Counter Collapse Task Check -- ASLRBv2 Q2.31) one too many times.
I got me some Small World, Galaxy Trucker, Cosmic Encounter and BSG: Pegasus!
Now I just need to buy myself CitOW and Summoner Wars (and maybe Runewars down the road). Going to have some fun tonight and tomorrow with friends and games!
Or those fucking flags in Napoleon's Triumph. Oh sure it looks elegant, but you try moving all those units to an approach and not make that damn flag fall off.
Also Agricola is fucking fiddly for a euro. Replenishment stage is annoying. The game is a good one though - just nothing compared to PR. TTA is fiddly too but its okay because it needs to be.
White: 1721-3651-2720
This is why in my group after we deal out all the cards each player gets one ban, and can get rid of a card so a new one is drawn to replace it. This can be done to break up really powerful combos (scout in a game with great halls, nobles and harems for example) or to fix games so they aren't super lopsided as was your case (no + action or +buy, or like half the deck is attack cards, etc).
I enjoy Puerto Rico. I love Chaos in the Old World, which really is an economic game with some punch to it. Agricola just didn't put the fizz in my Alka-Seltzer, if you see what I mean, so I don't feel a compelling need to try it again.
I definitely know what you mean about having an experienced group. I tend to play Dominion with newbies, just the way it works out, but having played a few games with experienced players it's a totally different experience. When three opponents have finished their turn before you have a chance to shuffle, it becomes almost like blitz chess.
IOS Game Center ID: Isotope-X
I own Dungeon Lords, and it's very popular with everyone I've shown it to.
I'd recommend downloading the rules and giving them a read through, though I will admit it makes a lot more sense with the components in front of you. The game is complex and serious planning is required in order to not get ruined by the heroes, but I'm not sure even they represent as big a threat as taxes, paydays, and earthquakes.
As far as value goes, the components are terrific. Just about all of the pieces are thick chunky cardboard tiles where they could have easily gotten away with cards. The art is as good as you'll find on a board game, especially on the boards themselves. Frankly, the only other games I can think of that have such incredible presentation are Vlaada's other games (Galaxy Trucker for example).
A second edition has already been announced with minor corrections to the rules and will include stickers to spruce up the minion meeples. I don't know when that's coming though.
My 360 tag: Redcat Rising
Little do they know that I'm just preparing them for RftG, which was the one I really wanted. I was just worried that they might not want to put the effort into learning it and give up after only a couple games.
Steam Profile: miserium
Diablo 3 profile: miserium
PA Rocksmith League
We were only doing a few things wrong (including our first game mistake of only 10 monsters rather than 30). Dwarfs holding edged weapons get the bonus in addition to their base attack, militia are counted as heroes for some reason, and (the biggest mistake) was concerning lighting rules. +1 light really means +2 against their light penalty rather than +1. This will make lights more important as before it was easier to overload on strength rather than light.
It's a fun and lite game. With an expansion or two could potentially be a really good game too. But the base set just does not have much staying power.
And seriously, they need to re-release the game with a new English translation (I am assuming that the current set was translated to English by way of half a dozen dead languages using Babelfish).
I also got a couple more games of Claustrophobia in with a new player and I realized I was playing with a couple of wrong rules that made the demons much stronger! First, I forgot about the keywords that the human warriors got on their cards and more importantly I somehow missed the rule that the powers in red type on the board of destiny can only be used once per game! My previous demon player was bringing troglodytes on the board every time he got a 7 making the game so insanely hard. So now it's still hard but definitely winnable for the human player.
A fun post-birthday night of game playing
One method my friends and I like is to deal the randomiser cards to each player and a dummy extra player (so 3 piles for 2 player, 4 for 3 player and 5 for 4 player). Each player picks 4, 3 or 2 cards with a the remainder coming randomly from the dummy player's pile.
It has tended towards producing very 'powerful' boards, lots of extra cards and actions, but we haven't used it that often.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
I strongly disagree with you. I'm not sure how many people you have been playing with, but I've played probably 50+ 5 player games. There is a ton of strategy to how you build your deck. Deciding what to add, when to destroy cards, or the monsters you choose to fight. You have to constantly optimize your deck to get out good hands or you will fall behind the other players. There is some player interaction (rogues and the one magician) but I personally like it that way (don't really like all the "fuck you" cards in dominion).
I would not pass off Thunderstone as a lite or shallow game. Understanding the card synergy and putting together a good deck is not done by accident. Neither is properly timing your trips to the village or dungeon. We play extremely competitively and enjoy the game a lot - with the overall opinion being greater than Dominion. Both games are fun, but while they share some mechanics, they are pretty different games. I wouldn't cast them as either / or (or as a diversion to one or the other, as you said) - you get different things from both.
As a point of curiosity: has anyone tried playing Chaos in the Old World without the old world deck or perhaps without the cards with the twin tailed comet on them? I'm wondering because my last two games were utter one sided victories because of old world cards (among other factors, and I was the one winning, just so you don't think this is merely bitter venting). Some of them seem too game changing for a (mostly) random effect. Though, I do worry slightly because most of the old world cards seem to hurt Khorne or help gods other than Khorne (though there are some notable exceptions).
We've only played one game, and had the Khorne player been playing "correctly" (going after ticks rather than VPs), he would have easily won. The same couldn't been said for me as Nurgle. I made a lot of mistakes, and couldn't won on turn sixish, rather than losing on turn 8.
Edit:
Point of this is that, aren't the cards that hurt Khorne just an attempt to balance out easy usual easy path to victory?
Greenskins makes it so in the area where the event tokens are each god may only roll 1 battle die per battle phase. So if you had two warriors and a bloodthirster there you get to roll a grand total of 1 battle die still. If that card flops and you haven't managed to draw any of the card that makes it so no corruption can be placed it's not a matter of if, but when (most likely Nurgle) will ruin that region. And even that card is going to let you stall for at most one turn.
Yep, that card did come up when we played and yep it did screw over Khorne in one region. The other two regions were already ruined by me, Nurgle, because they were populous regions.
But it only stayed in play one turn. Was removed the very next Old World Card.