My local store had a copy of Eclipse that seems to have followed me home. I will feed it and keep it warm.
First play through we managed to absolutely misunderstand the rules and expanded way too far. The rest of the game passed without any player conflict, until the last turn when a sly move from an opponent robbed me of five victory points. Bastard. Excellent game, though, and I'm looking forward to playing it again.
That's what happened my first game. I expanded to every possible system because WHY NOT? Meanwhile I overestimated early tech and underestimated money. With a paltry 3 money income all game and tons of influence discs out on the board, I was pretty crippled all game.
(once I got a monopoly on computers and missiles though, yowza)
Can't you just abandon the systems and take your influence discs back somehow? I forget the exact way you do it, but I do remember doing it first game because of early over-extension.
I'm pretty sure a Influence action lets you take discs off the board and put them back on your sheet.
Or as a free alternative you can use strategic bankruptcy - if you can't pay the bills at the end of the turn you can remove discs from sectors for free until you can afford the upkeep.
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TrynantManiac BrawlerRank 20.100 and full WildRegistered Userregular
Speaking of Eclipse, I managed to grab a copy at a FLGS, yay! And I played it yesterday, and honestly? I have issues with the game. Or rather, one big issue. The game feels much more multiplayer-solitaire than a certain other giant space game that takes a little longer to play but ultimately I feel is more rewarding anyways. The only direct interaction is by a very simple alliance mechanic and by space combat, which due to all the other (less interactive) mechanics just make the (actually rather good) combat get shoved to the wayside. Compare to, well, Twilight Imperium, which has politics, trade (and bribes), and incentives to go out and compete against other players in a much more direct manner along with some okay combat and overall it makes Eclipse seem lacking. I don't necessarily regret my purchase--aside from my one big gripe the game is dandy--but I am rather underwhelmed.
I'm pretty sure a Influence action lets you take discs off the board and put them back on your sheet.
Or as a free alternative you can use strategic bankruptcy - if you can't pay the bills at the end of the turn you can remove discs from sectors for free until you can afford the upkeep.
Our group realized this by the 2nd game. It feels a bit too abusive to me. Like, there should be some sort of additional penalty to having a bankrupt empire besides "just take back a disk or two".
I'm pretty sure a Influence action lets you take discs off the board and put them back on your sheet.
Or as a free alternative you can use strategic bankruptcy - if you can't pay the bills at the end of the turn you can remove discs from sectors for free until you can afford the upkeep.
Our group realized this by the 2nd game. It feels a bit too abusive to me. Like, there should be some sort of additional penalty to having a bankrupt empire besides "just take back a disk or two".
It's useful to let you grab discovery tiles, but other than that ...
What was your group doing that gave them such an advantage that it seemed abusive?
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
I'm pretty sure a Influence action lets you take discs off the board and put them back on your sheet.
Or as a free alternative you can use strategic bankruptcy - if you can't pay the bills at the end of the turn you can remove discs from sectors for free until you can afford the upkeep.
Our group realized this by the 2nd game. It feels a bit too abusive to me. Like, there should be some sort of additional penalty to having a bankrupt empire besides "just take back a disk or two".
It's useful to let you grab discovery tiles, but other than that ...
What was your group doing that gave them such an advantage that it seemed abusive?
A and B, really. You can grab free discovery tiles, which could be excellent technologies you can save until later (for free, essentially), or you might find a free resource boost that propels you ahead. And beyond that? You can leapfrog if it's managed properly, which allows one to continue exploring further into space for more goodies or better tiles. It's part of the random draw, which I guess keeps it in check, but I still think the way you can, essentially for free through the bankruptcy rule, reach your empire much further than if you were required to take the actions to recall, is just not a great interaction or much fun for the people sitting stuck in a quadrant surrounded by ancients.
I'm pretty sure a Influence action lets you take discs off the board and put them back on your sheet.
Or as a free alternative you can use strategic bankruptcy - if you can't pay the bills at the end of the turn you can remove discs from sectors for free until you can afford the upkeep.
Our group realized this by the 2nd game. It feels a bit too abusive to me. Like, there should be some sort of additional penalty to having a bankrupt empire besides "just take back a disk or two".
It's useful to let you grab discovery tiles, but other than that ...
What was your group doing that gave them such an advantage that it seemed abusive?
A and B, really. You can grab free discovery tiles, which could be excellent technologies you can save until later (for free, essentially), or you might find a free resource boost that propels you ahead. And beyond that? You can leapfrog if it's managed properly, which allows one to continue exploring further into space for more goodies or better tiles. It's part of the random draw, which I guess keeps it in check, but I still think the way you can, essentially for free through the bankruptcy rule, reach your empire much further than if you were required to take the actions to recall, is just not a great interaction or much fun for the people sitting stuck in a quadrant surrounded by ancients.
You may have a point.
Just one thing, sitting around fenced in by ancients?
Your players are aware that when you explore a hex, you can reject it if you don't like the draw, right? Sounds like something of a self-inflicted problem.
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
I'm pretty sure a Influence action lets you take discs off the board and put them back on your sheet.
Or as a free alternative you can use strategic bankruptcy - if you can't pay the bills at the end of the turn you can remove discs from sectors for free until you can afford the upkeep.
Our group realized this by the 2nd game. It feels a bit too abusive to me. Like, there should be some sort of additional penalty to having a bankrupt empire besides "just take back a disk or two".
It's useful to let you grab discovery tiles, but other than that ...
What was your group doing that gave them such an advantage that it seemed abusive?
A and B, really. You can grab free discovery tiles, which could be excellent technologies you can save until later (for free, essentially), or you might find a free resource boost that propels you ahead. And beyond that? You can leapfrog if it's managed properly, which allows one to continue exploring further into space for more goodies or better tiles. It's part of the random draw, which I guess keeps it in check, but I still think the way you can, essentially for free through the bankruptcy rule, reach your empire much further than if you were required to take the actions to recall, is just not a great interaction or much fun for the people sitting stuck in a quadrant surrounded by ancients.
You may have a point.
Just one thing, sitting around fenced in by ancients?
Your players are aware that when you explore a hex, you can reject it if you don't like the draw, right? Sounds like something of a self-inflicted problem.
That's valid. I don't think we've played enough to come to realize when to keep and when to discard. It hurts that there seems to be so little galaxy to explore with 6 players. Getting behind even 1 or 2 hexes feels ... sizable ...
I'm pretty sure a Influence action lets you take discs off the board and put them back on your sheet.
Or as a free alternative you can use strategic bankruptcy - if you can't pay the bills at the end of the turn you can remove discs from sectors for free until you can afford the upkeep.
Our group realized this by the 2nd game. It feels a bit too abusive to me. Like, there should be some sort of additional penalty to having a bankrupt empire besides "just take back a disk or two".
It's useful to let you grab discovery tiles, but other than that ...
What was your group doing that gave them such an advantage that it seemed abusive?
A and B, really. You can grab free discovery tiles, which could be excellent technologies you can save until later (for free, essentially), or you might find a free resource boost that propels you ahead. And beyond that? You can leapfrog if it's managed properly, which allows one to continue exploring further into space for more goodies or better tiles. It's part of the random draw, which I guess keeps it in check, but I still think the way you can, essentially for free through the bankruptcy rule, reach your empire much further than if you were required to take the actions to recall, is just not a great interaction or much fun for the people sitting stuck in a quadrant surrounded by ancients.
You may have a point.
Just one thing, sitting around fenced in by ancients?
Your players are aware that when you explore a hex, you can reject it if you don't like the draw, right? Sounds like something of a self-inflicted problem.
That's valid. I don't think we've played enough to come to realize when to keep and when to discard. It hurts that there seems to be so little galaxy to explore with 6 players. Getting behind even 1 or 2 hexes feels ... sizable ...
Yeah I have never played a game that has a more dramatic shift in how confined you feel with more players.
If I ever need an example of a 'knife fight in a phone booth', it's 6-player Eclipse.
What feels a tad bit OP to me in Eclipse are plasma missiles. Stuff your ships/interceptors full with them (no energy cost so you can spam it), go in the fight and throw a million dice, run away afterwards if you somehow didn't win.
I played my first game of REX in person tonight. It was pretty fantastic.
In a 5 person game, if it becomes a 3 ally vs 2 ally game... how do either of the 2 allies work to break the 3 person alliance? I couldn't figure out what the incentive would be to break Hacan/Lazax/Jol-Nar alliance, when we controlled most, if not all of the influence, and we would win with Hacan on turn 8 if the ally of two was not able to take 4 districts?
What are the rules regarding how much information other players are allowed to reveal? Can you tell your allies that you have one of their traitor cards? Its value? Are you allowed to share any information secretly or is it all public (as we assumed if you were allowed to reveal any info at all)
You're allowed to reveal what you want, but I'm not sure if you can actually show your cards.
All info sharing is public, nothing secret. Ally of 2 would have to take 4 districts or go for the Sol victory condition (probably easier to achieve than 4 strongholds in 2v3)
Well had an interesting game of Napoleonics in this weekend. I finally won! We played the second Rolica scenario where the British/Portuguese are funneled through 4 different valleys. It was brutal for the British. As the French all I had to do was wait for them to try to push through the choke points and block them, then wail away on them with combined arms assaults on the center/right and cavalry charges on the Portuguese left flank. Cause lets face it. The Portuguese are a joke. But they try. At least they aren't as bad as the Spanish.
Which reminds me, I ordered the Spanish army and they are a joke. They roll 1 less dice most of the time because fuck you that's why. They retreat two hexes for every flag. Their army composition seems to have a lot of cavalry, but I haven't really looked at their missions yet to see if the composition of their blocks is reflected in many of their missions. I think the only thing that compensates for their inherent weakness is their special action. They can wage guerrilla warfare by taking a guerrilla token when they play a scout card, and then using it later on an opponents turn to block the card they are trying to play! Pretty fucking powerful. The opponent gets to roll a single dice, and if it comes up sabers they get to ignore the guerrilla action. So 1/6 chance of actually getting your turn. We'll see how much it compensates for their weak troops.
So I got to go to a little mini-con this weekend, and I played Eminent Domain and Lords of Waterdeep and some sort of standalone new Small World thing.
Eminent Domain is fantastic and I think I have to get it. Dominion+RFTG+TECH TREE= sold. (I am a sucker for tech trees). I'm a little worried about replay value given that the available cards are static, but I think there should be some emergent strategy given the synergies of the 5 available actions. Anyone played Eminent Domain a bunch of times and gotten bored with it?
Lords of Waterdeep I'm more dubious about. The bits were fantastically shiny, and it was fun to play once, but I don't think I want to own it.
So I got to go to a little mini-con this weekend, and I played Eminent Domain and Lords of Waterdeep and some sort of standalone new Small World thing.
Eminent Domain is fantastic and I think I have to get it. Dominion+RFTG+TECH TREE= sold. (I am a sucker for tech trees). I'm a little worried about replay value given that the available cards are static, but I think there should be some emergent strategy given the synergies of the 5 available actions. Anyone played Eminent Domain a bunch of times and gotten bored with it?
Lords of Waterdeep I'm more dubious about. The bits were fantastically shiny, and it was fun to play once, but I don't think I want to own it.
Concerning Eminent Domain, and this is just my opinion so take that for what it's worth, but I did find that once you know the cards, there are optimal strategies to play and the replay value goes down tremendously. If you're looking for that type of game, I much prefer Core Worlds which, while it isn't exactly the same type of game, still scratches my sci-fi deckbuilding/RFTG itch.
Eminent Domain for me had issues with group-think. It's a great game. I love it. I has a very easy going flow to it. But I think it's almost too easy going. The first few games we played everyone focused on colonize and warfare and the game ended in a hurry and everyone was kinda meh. Then I started going out of my way to do crazy shit. Like do almost all produce/trade or all research. Then things got really interesting.
Edit: With respect to Core Worlds mentioned above, at first I immediately loved Core Worlds better than Eminent Domain in every regard. However, with time, I've come to appreciate each game differently. Eminent Domain is more noob friendly. A guy who's played Eminent Domain a few times will probably do better than a completely new player, but not by a lot. A guy who's played Core Worlds even once will utterly crush a new player to the point where the new player may not even want to play again. I've also found the tension and AP level of Core Worlds to be higher. Which can be good if you are in the mood for that! I frequently am. But the other players I see regularly? Not so much.
In summary, Core Worlds is a gamers game. Eminent Domain is more casual friendly.
Battlestar Galatica is great as a stand alone game, or with the Pegasus or Exodus expansions. There were several enjoyable games hosted on here before ,but none recently.
Battlestar Galatica is great as a stand alone game, or with the Pegasus or Exodus expansions. There were several enjoyable games hosted on here before ,but none recently.
Feel up for a game? I have the desire to scream Cylon at people again.
ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
edited July 2012
*chimes in*
If anyone wants to trade for my copy of BSG and Pegasus, I'd be thrilled ...
Anyway, today, Christ ...
The copy of Hornet Leader arrived while I was on vacation, so I got that when I came in this morning. Then Indonesia and Bohnanza arrived at lunch. I have acquired too many games that I need to read the rules for. I seriously think over half the games I presently own were a combination of purchases in the last 4 months and math trade games in the same time frame ...
And then on top of that, GMT puts out their mini-update yesterday and announces A Distant Plain, which I immediately P500'd. I think I'm going to have to double-back and cancel my order for Revolt and Revolution. Maybe Wild Blue Yonder too.
Anyone else reaching a point of, "Alright, enough, I need to figure out my end goal here ..."?
Anyone else reaching a point of, "Alright, enough, I need to figure out my end goal here ..."?
Every month used to bring in a new batch of games as I desperately searched for THE game. Oddly enough once I discovered Commands & Colors I find myself mostly done acquiring new games. I guess Commands & Colors was THE game because ever since I got it my itch for new games is almost dead.
Any recommends for a good game that packs up well for travel? Bonus points if its a gateway game. The Mrs and I are going to a family reunion in the woods next week and are taking both Hive and Dominion Vanilla, but I am getting the new game shakes and would like to add one more game to the mix.
Any recommends for a good game that packs up well for travel? Bonus points if its a gateway game. The Mrs and I are going to a family reunion in the woods next week and are taking both Hive and Dominion Vanilla, but I am getting the new game shakes and would like to add one more game to the mix.
Suggestions?
Dixit and For Sale are mostly just cards you can take with you and teach easily. I'm biased though because I just bought them myself.
Any recommends for a good game that packs up well for travel? Bonus points if its a gateway game. The Mrs and I are going to a family reunion in the woods next week and are taking both Hive and Dominion Vanilla, but I am getting the new game shakes and would like to add one more game to the mix.
Suggestions?
Dixit and For Sale are mostly just cards you can take with you and teach easily. I'm biased though because I just bought them myself.
Any recommends for a good game that packs up well for travel? Bonus points if its a gateway game. The Mrs and I are going to a family reunion in the woods next week and are taking both Hive and Dominion Vanilla, but I am getting the new game shakes and would like to add one more game to the mix.
Suggestions?
Citadels is my go to travel game because the box is so small, and can be played with 7 player, even though I don't find it very enjoyable with so many players.
I have not played any other of FFG's Silver Line games, but a lot of them come in the same tiny box as Citadels. My friend is absolutely crazy about Red November, and that seems to be a nice gateway game.
I have also brought Race for the Galaxy with me on quite a lot of trips, since it's easy to just pack the cards in a plastic container and just let the huge cardboard box stay at home. It still amazes me why the box is so full of wasted space. Dominion's box is at least trying to make itself useful by organising the cards. Only Carcassonne comes close when comparing which box is most wasteful. :P
Fun story. Once I was travelling and about to play a board game. Sensing people to annoy, this one especially obnoxious brat who's parents just decided to unleash and ignore the entire time began harassing us. It was clear he wanted to play, and it was clear amongst us that we didn't want him to.
We were playing Carcassonne. However, thinking quickly, when he asked "How do you play?" I began rattling off the rules for Race for the Galaxy auctioneer style. The kids eyes glazed over so quick everyone at the table was struggling to keep a straight face. Eventually he stopped me, said that sounded really complicated, and wondered off to do something else that made him feel less blatantly inadequate.
In retrospect I feel sort of sorry for that kid. It's obvious his parents neglected him horribly, and he was starved for attention, or some sort of role models at all. But I was about to get my game on and had no interest in pretending to be the parent that kid needed for the duration of the party.
Haha, that story reminds me of one time I was explaining the rules of The Resistance (Another brilliant travel game) to a large group of non-boardgamers. Everyone about 22 years old. I decided to start the explanation with the tiny amount of story that the game has, just to set the stage. And I realize this was a mistake immediately, when one of the guys just rolls his eyes and whispers to his girlfriend "Whats next? He wants us to dress up in capes and wizard hats and start playing Dungeons and Dragons?" I have met a lot of people who initially seem to be scared of when I introduce them to simple gateway games like Carcassonne or Pandemic, but this guy was the worst!
The two of them never managed to get the rules, even after 5-6 games, but the rest of the group loved it, and asked me to bring it with me again soon.
I have also brought Race for the Galaxy with me on quite a lot of trips, since it's easy to just pack the cards in a plastic container and just let the huge cardboard box stay at home. It still amazes me why the box is so full of wasted space. Dominion's box is at least trying to make itself useful by organising the cards. Only Carcassonne comes close when comparing which box is most wasteful. :P
Wasted box space is a super pet peeve of mine. If I ignore the military tracks, newbie player aids, and solitaire crap (which I do), I have more than enough room in one of the expansion boxes for all the RFTG cards, tokens, goals, and expansion rules.
It didn't even occur to me that it might not be worth holding onto some systems in Eclipse.
REX: All information and planning has to be public.
Which is making the Jol-Nar seem pretty crappy. Sure you know what cards everyone has (I still cannot believe they expect you to not write anything down, making Jol-Nar even worse) but you can never do anything about it. Anything you reveal helps your enemies just as much as your allies.
The Lazax special power is really making the game...not fun. There's really nothing you can do to prevent a Lazax team from completely dominating the bidding phase (they either get all the cards or you bankrupt yourself getting one card then they get all the cards anyways). The problem is the bidding phase is half the game. What should have been a fun, tense game of high stakes and bluffing turns into sitting back and just letting the Lazax team work out amongst themselves how much money they'll give each other as they fill their hands. Only once their hands are full can the other players try for whatever cards are left, if any.
I'm feeling it needs a total rework or at least a house rule, something like you can only donate influence at the very start of the bidding phase. The "once per ally per turn at any time during the phase" is just too exploitable. Worse, there is no workable strategy to counter it unless you somehow manage to bankrupt all 3 players at once. Otherwise they can still indefinitely shuffle money back and forth all day until they have all the cards.
Watching team Lazax during the bidding phase is like watching that Beavis & Butthead episode where they were selling candy bars for $2 and just kept passing the same two dollars back and forth until the candy was all gone.
Wasted box space is a super pet peeve of mine. If I ignore the military tracks, newbie player aids, and solitaire crap (which I do), I have more than enough room in one of the expansion boxes for all the RFTG cards, tokens, goals, and expansion rules.
The box for 7 Wonders has a massive huge plastic tray housing three relatively small decks of cards. The width of the box is pretty set because of the wonder boards but it could easily have been half the length. I'm sure they just made the box square because it looks nicer. The game is pretty much nothing but cards, the wonder boards, and a small baggie of chits.
For anyone thinking about getting into Twilight Imperium, some friends and I finished our second game recently. The first game was everyone learning to play just the base game and took about 12 hours, but that included the 1 hour break we took for food and relaxing. Our second game we used the new races from Shattered Empires, the new Imperial II (with Age of Empires rules), and Mecatol Rex custodians, and Colonies/Refineries. We still went pretty light on the newer rules, so no space mines, trade outposts, artifacts, shock troopers, etc just yet.
That second game we had three players from the first game and we were teaching one new player. That one was about 9 hours long. I'm not saying we didn't enjoy every minute of space drama, but my advice to you new comers is to make sure to start your game pretty early and make sure everyone can play for quite a while.
Imperial II is definitely absolutely a must for gameplay, we enjoyed it a lot more. If you have only the base game, find a scan of Imperial II and just print it off and use it and the Age of Empires rules together. Having everyone maneuvering and posturing for a King of the Hill battle for Mecatol Rex all game was definitely worth it. We have a lot of Axis & Allies players who love to crash their space boats into each other.
Once everyone has a pretty good grasp of the game I'm sure we can get our playtime down to about 6-8 hours but I don't see it getting much lower than that unless it's just some kind of freak runaway victory.
We also found it a lot more fun (for the 4-player game at least) to let everyone draw two random races and two secret objectives and then choose one. Getting stuck with a secret object you have absolutely no hope of ever accomplishing is never any fun.
Also my first game I drew the Xxcha against the L1Z1X, Hacan, and Yssaril. Needless to say, I did not win that one, but I still had a lot of fun. I would not recommend playing some of the "weaker" races when you just start out.
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acidlacedpenguinInstitutionalizedSafe in jail.Registered Userregular
*chimes in*
If anyone wants to trade for my copy of BSG and Pegasus, I'd be thrilled ...
Anyway, today, Christ ...
The copy of Hornet Leader arrived while I was on vacation, so I got that when I came in this morning. Then Indonesia and Bohnanza arrived at lunch. I have acquired too many games that I need to read the rules for. I seriously think over half the games I presently own were a combination of purchases in the last 4 months and math trade games in the same time frame ...
And then on top of that, GMT puts out their mini-update yesterday and announces A Distant Plain, which I immediately P500'd. I think I'm going to have to double-back and cancel my order for Revolt and Revolution. Maybe Wild Blue Yonder too.
Anyone else reaching a point of, "Alright, enough, I need to figure out my end goal here ..."?
I think you have a problem. Clearly you should buy an RC car and spend your addiction money on parts. Or black tar heroin... That'll definitely solve your too much disposable income problem pretty good.
GT: Acidboogie PSNid: AcidLacedPenguiN
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
*chimes in*
If anyone wants to trade for my copy of BSG and Pegasus, I'd be thrilled ...
Anyway, today, Christ ...
The copy of Hornet Leader arrived while I was on vacation, so I got that when I came in this morning. Then Indonesia and Bohnanza arrived at lunch. I have acquired too many games that I need to read the rules for. I seriously think over half the games I presently own were a combination of purchases in the last 4 months and math trade games in the same time frame ...
And then on top of that, GMT puts out their mini-update yesterday and announces A Distant Plain, which I immediately P500'd. I think I'm going to have to double-back and cancel my order for Revolt and Revolution. Maybe Wild Blue Yonder too.
Anyone else reaching a point of, "Alright, enough, I need to figure out my end goal here ..."?
I think you have a problem. Clearly you should buy an RC car and spend your addiction money on parts. Or black tar heroin... That'll definitely solve your too much disposable income problem pretty good.
Oh trust me, I do not have so much disposable income. It was just ... timely. You know, late income tax return and such ...
Just give it time. I'm sure I'll cave.
In other news, went through all of Hornet Leader last night and am ready to start a campaign tonight. I plan to write detailed session reports that I'll put up on BGG, but I'll link you guys as well if anyone is interested. So far, I am completely thrilled with how this game sounds.
You know I think the only thing that saves me from rampant unchecked board game acquisition is that I limit myself to one shelf. The game has to be playable in an hour preferably, 2 hours worst case scenario. And a bizarre almost nonsensical rule aesthetic that prefers strong core mechanics with as little chrome as possible. That and I maintain a very strict budget and am attempting to save up for a house...
Hope no one minds the advertisement, but I'm seeing if there's any interest in a PbP for Flash Point. Thought it could be an easy enough game to play online.
Posts
Can't you just abandon the systems and take your influence discs back somehow? I forget the exact way you do it, but I do remember doing it first game because of early over-extension.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
That's right.
I did well in my first game by exploring like crazy, getting some bonuses for Alien Tech or other things, and then taking most of the discs back.
There was a little lull mid-game when I had to get the tech that allows you to use the advanced economy cube-spaces.
I just got offered to buy the game today - someone I know has the French edition, strangely.
Or as a free alternative you can use strategic bankruptcy - if you can't pay the bills at the end of the turn you can remove discs from sectors for free until you can afford the upkeep.
Aces Wild is a pretty stellar game.
Blog, Playing Rules; Let's Play Demon's Souls; My Backlog
Our group realized this by the 2nd game. It feels a bit too abusive to me. Like, there should be some sort of additional penalty to having a bankrupt empire besides "just take back a disk or two".
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
It's useful to let you grab discovery tiles, but other than that ...
What was your group doing that gave them such an advantage that it seemed abusive?
A and B, really. You can grab free discovery tiles, which could be excellent technologies you can save until later (for free, essentially), or you might find a free resource boost that propels you ahead. And beyond that? You can leapfrog if it's managed properly, which allows one to continue exploring further into space for more goodies or better tiles. It's part of the random draw, which I guess keeps it in check, but I still think the way you can, essentially for free through the bankruptcy rule, reach your empire much further than if you were required to take the actions to recall, is just not a great interaction or much fun for the people sitting stuck in a quadrant surrounded by ancients.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
You may have a point.
Just one thing, sitting around fenced in by ancients?
Your players are aware that when you explore a hex, you can reject it if you don't like the draw, right? Sounds like something of a self-inflicted problem.
That's valid. I don't think we've played enough to come to realize when to keep and when to discard. It hurts that there seems to be so little galaxy to explore with 6 players. Getting behind even 1 or 2 hexes feels ... sizable ...
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Yeah I have never played a game that has a more dramatic shift in how confined you feel with more players.
If I ever need an example of a 'knife fight in a phone booth', it's 6-player Eclipse.
Shank or be shanked.
In a 5 person game, if it becomes a 3 ally vs 2 ally game... how do either of the 2 allies work to break the 3 person alliance? I couldn't figure out what the incentive would be to break Hacan/Lazax/Jol-Nar alliance, when we controlled most, if not all of the influence, and we would win with Hacan on turn 8 if the ally of two was not able to take 4 districts?
What are the rules regarding how much information other players are allowed to reveal? Can you tell your allies that you have one of their traitor cards? Its value? Are you allowed to share any information secretly or is it all public (as we assumed if you were allowed to reveal any info at all)
All info sharing is public, nothing secret. Ally of 2 would have to take 4 districts or go for the Sol victory condition (probably easier to achieve than 4 strongholds in 2v3)
Which reminds me, I ordered the Spanish army and they are a joke. They roll 1 less dice most of the time because fuck you that's why. They retreat two hexes for every flag. Their army composition seems to have a lot of cavalry, but I haven't really looked at their missions yet to see if the composition of their blocks is reflected in many of their missions. I think the only thing that compensates for their inherent weakness is their special action. They can wage guerrilla warfare by taking a guerrilla token when they play a scout card, and then using it later on an opponents turn to block the card they are trying to play! Pretty fucking powerful. The opponent gets to roll a single dice, and if it comes up sabers they get to ignore the guerrilla action. So 1/6 chance of actually getting your turn. We'll see how much it compensates for their weak troops.
Eminent Domain is fantastic and I think I have to get it. Dominion+RFTG+TECH TREE= sold. (I am a sucker for tech trees). I'm a little worried about replay value given that the available cards are static, but I think there should be some emergent strategy given the synergies of the 5 available actions. Anyone played Eminent Domain a bunch of times and gotten bored with it?
Lords of Waterdeep I'm more dubious about. The bits were fantastically shiny, and it was fun to play once, but I don't think I want to own it.
Concerning Eminent Domain, and this is just my opinion so take that for what it's worth, but I did find that once you know the cards, there are optimal strategies to play and the replay value goes down tremendously. If you're looking for that type of game, I much prefer Core Worlds which, while it isn't exactly the same type of game, still scratches my sci-fi deckbuilding/RFTG itch.
Edit: With respect to Core Worlds mentioned above, at first I immediately loved Core Worlds better than Eminent Domain in every regard. However, with time, I've come to appreciate each game differently. Eminent Domain is more noob friendly. A guy who's played Eminent Domain a few times will probably do better than a completely new player, but not by a lot. A guy who's played Core Worlds even once will utterly crush a new player to the point where the new player may not even want to play again. I've also found the tension and AP level of Core Worlds to be higher. Which can be good if you are in the mood for that! I frequently am. But the other players I see regularly? Not so much.
In summary, Core Worlds is a gamers game. Eminent Domain is more casual friendly.
Feel up for a game? I have the desire to scream Cylon at people again.
@Darian Get in here Sir Hostsalot.
If anyone wants to trade for my copy of BSG and Pegasus, I'd be thrilled ...
Anyway, today, Christ ...
The copy of Hornet Leader arrived while I was on vacation, so I got that when I came in this morning. Then Indonesia and Bohnanza arrived at lunch. I have acquired too many games that I need to read the rules for. I seriously think over half the games I presently own were a combination of purchases in the last 4 months and math trade games in the same time frame ...
And then on top of that, GMT puts out their mini-update yesterday and announces A Distant Plain, which I immediately P500'd. I think I'm going to have to double-back and cancel my order for Revolt and Revolution. Maybe Wild Blue Yonder too.
Anyone else reaching a point of, "Alright, enough, I need to figure out my end goal here ..."?
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Every month used to bring in a new batch of games as I desperately searched for THE game. Oddly enough once I discovered Commands & Colors I find myself mostly done acquiring new games. I guess Commands & Colors was THE game because ever since I got it my itch for new games is almost dead.
So you know. Give me games or give me death, budget permitting.
Suggestions?
Dixit and For Sale are mostly just cards you can take with you and teach easily. I'm biased though because I just bought them myself.
If you're going for cards, do Bohnanza.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
Citadels is my go to travel game because the box is so small, and can be played with 7 player, even though I don't find it very enjoyable with so many players.
I have not played any other of FFG's Silver Line games, but a lot of them come in the same tiny box as Citadels. My friend is absolutely crazy about Red November, and that seems to be a nice gateway game.
I have also brought Race for the Galaxy with me on quite a lot of trips, since it's easy to just pack the cards in a plastic container and just let the huge cardboard box stay at home. It still amazes me why the box is so full of wasted space. Dominion's box is at least trying to make itself useful by organising the cards. Only Carcassonne comes close when comparing which box is most wasteful. :P
We were playing Carcassonne. However, thinking quickly, when he asked "How do you play?" I began rattling off the rules for Race for the Galaxy auctioneer style. The kids eyes glazed over so quick everyone at the table was struggling to keep a straight face. Eventually he stopped me, said that sounded really complicated, and wondered off to do something else that made him feel less blatantly inadequate.
In retrospect I feel sort of sorry for that kid. It's obvious his parents neglected him horribly, and he was starved for attention, or some sort of role models at all. But I was about to get my game on and had no interest in pretending to be the parent that kid needed for the duration of the party.
The two of them never managed to get the rules, even after 5-6 games, but the rest of the group loved it, and asked me to bring it with me again soon.
Wasted box space is a super pet peeve of mine. If I ignore the military tracks, newbie player aids, and solitaire crap (which I do), I have more than enough room in one of the expansion boxes for all the RFTG cards, tokens, goals, and expansion rules.
Oh, and all of Witch's Brew. :P
REX: All information and planning has to be public.
Which is making the Jol-Nar seem pretty crappy. Sure you know what cards everyone has (I still cannot believe they expect you to not write anything down, making Jol-Nar even worse) but you can never do anything about it. Anything you reveal helps your enemies just as much as your allies.
The Lazax special power is really making the game...not fun. There's really nothing you can do to prevent a Lazax team from completely dominating the bidding phase (they either get all the cards or you bankrupt yourself getting one card then they get all the cards anyways). The problem is the bidding phase is half the game. What should have been a fun, tense game of high stakes and bluffing turns into sitting back and just letting the Lazax team work out amongst themselves how much money they'll give each other as they fill their hands. Only once their hands are full can the other players try for whatever cards are left, if any.
I'm feeling it needs a total rework or at least a house rule, something like you can only donate influence at the very start of the bidding phase. The "once per ally per turn at any time during the phase" is just too exploitable. Worse, there is no workable strategy to counter it unless you somehow manage to bankrupt all 3 players at once. Otherwise they can still indefinitely shuffle money back and forth all day until they have all the cards.
Watching team Lazax during the bidding phase is like watching that Beavis & Butthead episode where they were selling candy bars for $2 and just kept passing the same two dollars back and forth until the candy was all gone.
http://www.mtv.com/videos/misc/139096/candy-sale.jhtml
The box for 7 Wonders has a massive huge plastic tray housing three relatively small decks of cards. The width of the box is pretty set because of the wonder boards but it could easily have been half the length. I'm sure they just made the box square because it looks nicer. The game is pretty much nothing but cards, the wonder boards, and a small baggie of chits.
That second game we had three players from the first game and we were teaching one new player. That one was about 9 hours long. I'm not saying we didn't enjoy every minute of space drama, but my advice to you new comers is to make sure to start your game pretty early and make sure everyone can play for quite a while.
Imperial II is definitely absolutely a must for gameplay, we enjoyed it a lot more. If you have only the base game, find a scan of Imperial II and just print it off and use it and the Age of Empires rules together. Having everyone maneuvering and posturing for a King of the Hill battle for Mecatol Rex all game was definitely worth it. We have a lot of Axis & Allies players who love to crash their space boats into each other.
Once everyone has a pretty good grasp of the game I'm sure we can get our playtime down to about 6-8 hours but I don't see it getting much lower than that unless it's just some kind of freak runaway victory.
We also found it a lot more fun (for the 4-player game at least) to let everyone draw two random races and two secret objectives and then choose one. Getting stuck with a secret object you have absolutely no hope of ever accomplishing is never any fun.
Also my first game I drew the Xxcha against the L1Z1X, Hacan, and Yssaril. Needless to say, I did not win that one, but I still had a lot of fun. I would not recommend playing some of the "weaker" races when you just start out.
I think you have a problem. Clearly you should buy an RC car and spend your addiction money on parts. Or black tar heroin... That'll definitely solve your too much disposable income problem pretty good.
Oh trust me, I do not have so much disposable income. It was just ... timely. You know, late income tax return and such ...
Just give it time. I'm sure I'll cave.
In other news, went through all of Hornet Leader last night and am ready to start a campaign tonight. I plan to write detailed session reports that I'll put up on BGG, but I'll link you guys as well if anyone is interested. So far, I am completely thrilled with how this game sounds.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
In Northern VA.