My biggest regret is all the various CCG games I've bought into knowing I'd never get to play them. I'm a little more cautious now, but will sometimes splurge. I need to get rid of some of this stuff, but most of it is completely worthless.
So I had a question about the D&D board games like Assault of the Giants and Temple of Elemental Evil
Do they also work like the ones that came out a few years ago Wrath of Ashardalon/Castle of Ravenloft and the misadventures of Drizzt?
Also the Tyrants of the Underdark was the game I saw but it looked like a land grab, court intrigue kind of game?
Temple of Elemental Evil and the forthcoming Tomb of Annihilation are part of the same d&d adventure boardgame series as drizzt and Ravenloft. Backwards compatible, same basic rules etc. Assault of the Giants is a dudes on a map combat game. Tyrants of the underdark is a deckbuilder/area control game.
I bought three core sets and all the first cycle of the Warhammer LCG, then two weeks later no one was playing it in the store and no new content was released for ages and then it was canned.
I have a few games I've only played once that I think may never come to the table again, so those are a regret. I don't think I have any straight up bad games I regret purchasing.
Also the Tyrants of the Underdark was the game I saw but it looked like a land grab, court intrigue kind of game?
Its a deckbuilder with two currencies like ascension. Your influence is used to buy cards and your military is used to put mans on the board or kill opponents mans on the board, theres a bunch of different ways to get VP. Its very good IMO, probably the best deckbuilder Ive played so far.
It was right after the big success of Zombicide, and I while I was originally leery of a few red flags (like "players will create their own stories" and the nickel and dining if you wanted any enemy variety), I ended up buying into the hype and not only purchased a copy with over a ton of addons, I bought two standard copies with the intention of selling them and recouping costs once the game got big.
And then the reviews came in.
And that's how Cantide spent over $500 on a game he doesn't intend to ever play.
Actually tho...
MYTH is actually a really good game as long as you put a little effort into sussing out it's terrible rules, which is a pain in the ass admittedly, and there's plenty of docs on BGG to do just that.
The negative reviews mostly even state the game is excellent, just that the presentation of the various rules and errata absolutely blows to a level that darkens the sun.
I was never that impressed despite playing a couple of times (although it was short, so I didn't really mind it)
What's the attraction? It seemed a very obvious push your luck thing that heavily encouraged cutting and running at the first opportunity
The random cards you are dealt allow you to form plans that crumble the very moment another player starts attempting to do their plan. That time I thought I had a fool proof exit strategy that involved dropping a holo field on the loading docks so no-one could use it to escape only to lose out to a layer juggling their cards to get a double move and escape before I could slap down the generator was gaming gold.
Of all the games I played only once did the player who cut and run early win, it was always someone who got out with seconds remaining that got the lions share of the loot and the victory.
I was never that impressed despite playing a couple of times (although it was short, so I didn't really mind it)
What's the attraction? It seemed a very obvious push your luck thing that heavily encouraged cutting and running at the first opportunity
The random cards you are dealt allow you to form plans that crumble the very moment another player starts attempting to do their plan. That time I thought I had a fool proof exit strategy that involved dropping a holo field on the loading docks so no-one could use it to escape only to lose out to a layer juggling their cards to get a double move and escape before I could slap down the generator was gaming gold.
Of all the games I played only once did the player who cut and run early win, it was always someone who got out with seconds remaining that got the lions share of the loot and the victory.
Maybe we had some rules wrong, I seem to remember escaping being nigh on impossible
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
My biggest gaming regrets...
Star Wars:Destiny - I love this game. It is fun as hell. But I have a hard rule about CCG's, in that I don't. I just can't keep up with the financial aspects. So buying this, and a lot of boosters for the first set was devastating, because I saw a game I really wanted to play, but couldn't keep up with. I'm still planning on selling out of it once I get off my ass.
Malifaux - Gorgeous game. But I am not exactly a good model builder, and the models are expensive. So what did I decide to do? Jump in with the Nightmare Edition of Tara's squad (which only came in said nightmare edition). I don't think I have ever assembled it, and I haven't played it in a few years.
One Night Resistance-- er. Revolution - The only board game I truly regret purchasing, let alone kickstarting. I was a fan of Resistance. I am a huge fan of One Night Werewolf. This should be a no brainer, right? ... Nope. The way they went without an app causes the "night" phase to take way too long, and there isn't the absurdity of accusing people of being werewolves/vampires/aliens/tanners. I am very glad I backed it at the minimum level to get a copy.
Pretty much everything else I have has some kind of value - be it my copy of Horus Heresy I got super-cheap, the vast gamut of games I've only gotten to play once but really look forward to getting again, or my mammoth Arkham Horror set.
Maybe we had some rules wrong, I seem to remember escaping being nigh on impossible
To be fair, most of us push our luck in that game way, way beyond what is wise. Why not carry on through the upper level, we say, maybe we'll find the executive elevator oh no wait it's killer robots.
Someone usually managed to do something that sent the alarm counter soaring upwards in a single turn, thus trapping everyone not halfway out the door already.
Got a prelim/learning game of 7th Continent in and 5 hours later I had to tear myself away. It's definitely not going to be for everyone (you could easily put in that amount of time and more and then just lose and have to start over, I was pretty solidly on my way to a loss) but I absolutely adore it so far. Using 'choose your own adventure' as shorthand for it is pretty accurate but to me it feels like an RPG where you have a bazillion side quests, but the more you do the less likely you'll survive the main quest.
The only thing bugging me at this point is I'll never have a large portion of the map displayed at any one time because I don't have a table the size of a hockey rink. There are a LOT OF CARDS, good grief.
I absolutely love that studying the map cards is rewarding rather than them just being art, there are details that directly affect gameplay such as if you find a hidden number you replace that map card with a new one; or you can gain the ability to harvest materials from cards that have a picture of the material on it, even if the card doesn't initially list that material as harvestable.
I can see it eventually running out of replay value but that'd be after a TON of hours. I know risking that amount of play time just to start over is going to be offputting for some but in a way it reminds me of a roguelike in that yes you're starting over from scratch, but you've gained knowledge of what certain events/paths/locations do so you can adjust for your next attempt.
It was right after the big success of Zombicide, and I while I was originally leery of a few red flags (like "players will create their own stories" and the nickel and dining if you wanted any enemy variety), I ended up buying into the hype and not only purchased a copy with over a ton of addons, I bought two standard copies with the intention of selling them and recouping costs once the game got big.
And then the reviews came in.
And that's how Cantide spent over $500 on a game he doesn't intend to ever play.
Actually tho...
MYTH is actually a really good game as long as you put a little effort into sussing out it's terrible rules, which is a pain in the ass admittedly, and there's plenty of docs on BGG to do just that.
The negative reviews mostly even state the game is excellent, just that the presentation of the various rules and errata absolutely blows to a level that darkens the sun.
Here's the thing though: I have a bunch of games on my shelf I would rather play, or try out for the first time, then figure out MYTH.
I was never that impressed despite playing a couple of times (although it was short, so I didn't really mind it)
What's the attraction? It seemed a very obvious push your luck thing that heavily encouraged cutting and running at the first opportunity
The random cards you are dealt allow you to form plans that crumble the very moment another player starts attempting to do their plan. That time I thought I had a fool proof exit strategy that involved dropping a holo field on the loading docks so no-one could use it to escape only to lose out to a layer juggling their cards to get a double move and escape before I could slap down the generator was gaming gold.
Of all the games I played only once did the player who cut and run early win, it was always someone who got out with seconds remaining that got the lions share of the loot and the victory.
Maybe we had some rules wrong, I seem to remember escaping being nigh on impossible
With regards to the rules maybe, maybe not. Although overall a positive experience I've had a couple of bum games (one was utterly hilarious at the same time - the first room had the security guard in it so everyone was wounded on the first turn, slowly we limped through the building). It's a game with a high degree of randomness in the setup so your RNG may screw you out of a satisfying game. You definitely have to have your escape plan in mind as you start the game - much like the brakes on a car allow you to go fast your cards are about how you can rapidly extract so control how deep you can go.
Back when we were playing it regularly we were thinking of houseruling setup in different ways to try and control the building layout a bit more.
It was right after the big success of Zombicide, and I while I was originally leery of a few red flags (like "players will create their own stories" and the nickel and dining if you wanted any enemy variety), I ended up buying into the hype and not only purchased a copy with over a ton of addons, I bought two standard copies with the intention of selling them and recouping costs once the game got big.
And then the reviews came in.
And that's how Cantide spent over $500 on a game he doesn't intend to ever play.
Actually tho...
MYTH is actually a really good game as long as you put a little effort into sussing out it's terrible rules, which is a pain in the ass admittedly, and there's plenty of docs on BGG to do just that.
The negative reviews mostly even state the game is excellent, just that the presentation of the various rules and errata absolutely blows to a level that darkens the sun.
Here's the thing though: I have a bunch of games on my shelf I would rather play, or try out for the first time, then figure out MYTH.
Oh absolutely, me too.
You just didn't waste your money on a bad game, is all I'm saying. Small comfort but wevs
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
I've legit thought about selling it a few times. It contains the base game + all 10 expansions (both versions of the Dark Pharoah, though the original is in its original box). Every card, big and small, is sleeved. All in two giant wood carrying cases, with partitions inside to help make setup and tear-down faster.
I don't know who would legit WANT to own such a thing though.
These are some VERY old pics of it. You can see it in the bottom of my Armada/X-wing collection in the lower one.
I've legit thought about selling it a few times. It contains the base game + all 10 expansions (both versions of the Dark Pharoah, though the original is in its original box). Every card, big and small, is sleeved. All in two giant wood carrying cases, with partitions inside to help make setup and tear-down faster.
I don't know who would legit WANT to own such a thing though.
These are some VERY old pics of it. You can see it in the bottom of my Armada/X-wing collection in the lower one.
Me too, I haven't played it in years but I gots all the things.
Star Wars:Destiny - I love this game. It is fun as hell. But I have a hard rule about CCG's, in that I don't. I just can't keep up with the financial aspects. So buying this, and a lot of boosters for the first set was devastating, because I saw a game I really wanted to play, but couldn't keep up with. I'm still planning on selling out of it once I get off my ass.
Destiny is my most recent one. The distribution is awful. I have both starters and 12 or so packs and I still don't think I can put together a legal deck for either side. I don't expect to be able to have a good deck with that, but I expect to be able to actually play.
Of course, I also think any preconstructed CCG starter deck should be complete, so I should have stopped there.
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
I've legit thought about selling it a few times. It contains the base game + all 10 expansions (both versions of the Dark Pharoah, though the original is in its original box). Every card, big and small, is sleeved. All in two giant wood carrying cases, with partitions inside to help make setup and tear-down faster.
I don't know who would legit WANT to own such a thing though.
These are some VERY old pics of it. You can see it in the bottom of my Armada/X-wing collection in the lower one.
Me too, I haven't played it in years but I gots all the things.
not sleeved tho, that's only for crazy people
Yup. I'm very crazy.
OH! That reminds me. I do have one true expensive game regret:
Risk: Legacy
Look. I love my friends. But they are all very.. alpha personalities when it comes to board games. And Risk is a known friendship-breaker. so... yeaaah. I will likely never play that game again, having gotten through match 9.
I've legit thought about selling it a few times. It contains the base game + all 10 expansions (both versions of the Dark Pharoah, though the original is in its original box). Every card, big and small, is sleeved. All in two giant wood carrying cases, with partitions inside to help make setup and tear-down faster.
I don't know who would legit WANT to own such a thing though.
These are some VERY old pics of it. You can see it in the bottom of my Armada/X-wing collection in the lower one.
Me too, I haven't played it in years but I gots all the things.
not sleeved tho, that's only for crazy people
Yup. I'm very crazy.
OH! That reminds me. I do have one true expensive game regret:
Risk: Legacy
Look. I love my friends. But they are all very.. alpha personalities when it comes to board games. And Risk is a known friendship-breaker. so... yeaaah. I will likely never play that game again, having gotten through match 9.
Risk: Legacy started out as a blast with my gaming group of the time, which was mostly people who are very into (and very good at, or at least waaay better than me) strategy games. We made it up to game 9 as well and then quit because one player had won enough games at crucial decision points that future games were guaranteed to be "everyone tries to stop Jeff from winning and either we fail or we succeed and then squabble amongst ourselves for a victor, but probably we fail".
Question for 7th Continent owners: have they said anything about a regular commercial release? Or a second printing Kickstarter? That one never showed up on my radar at all and while it looks cool, I don't know that it looks $250-on-ebay cool.
Yup. I maintain that the main thing holding TI back were those dumb secret objectives. Even putting aside how wildly imbalanced they are, they were dumb pointless things. There's no reason that all the VP couldn't come from public objectives alone. Secret objectives didn't add "intrigue" and "mystery", just hidden arbitrary crap that suddenly catapulted someone into the lead. The one thing that should not be hidden in a strategy game is the win condition. It's the difference between a standard victory in Battlestar Galactica (Cylons win if humans lose) and those dumb Cylon leader agendas (Cylon leader wins if humans win with less than 4 food, 4 morale, and 2 locations damaged).
Imagine if Chess replaced the checkmate the king win condition with dozens of arbitrary conditions like "get 4 pawns to the other half of the board" or "capture both enemy rooks without losing any of your bishops", and you never knew which one your opponent had every match.
Hmm, I've my own thoughts about this, mostly from the way the Chess analogy was made.The thing about VPs from Secret Objectives in Twilight Imperium is that it will probably only represent one objective of perhaps six or so that will make up a winning player's final tableau. It's not an end-all goal like replacing Chess's checkmate with a single, hidden objective, it's a supplement to the overall goal. Then again, it's pretty hard to come up with a winning amount of VPs without one's Secret Objective: those 2 VPs are quite a lot. It'smore impactful than a secret objective like in something like Scythe, despite the fact that the achievement star in Scythe is one sixth the endgame trigger, similar to in Twilight Imperium. That is because in Scythe, every achievement is equally weighted, rather than the secret objective being twice as valuable as most other public objectives in Twilight Imperium. It looks like Twilight Imperium 4e is taking some steps to decrease the swinginess of victory based on tough Secret Objectives by making them 1 VP each instead (assumed from images from FFG). More work will be needed to make a significant impact through Secret Objectives here, but the random drawn Objective could still be a nice edge to have. And in any game with secret objectives for VPs (and not as a total win condition), you can know if it's something you want to go after early on, and then build your game plan around that decision.
Going back to Chess for a moment, if you want to have a more appropriate analogy for a two-player abstract where secret objectives could be a consideration, let's think about what happens to Tash-Kalar if each player started the game with a secret 1- or 2-point Task from a special deck? OK, yeah, it would probably make the game a bit weaker strategically since a Secret Task would be much more impactful than the hidden Flares (caveat: I've never played Tash-Kalar), but it would provide some additional spice. The same conclusions as Chess with hidden goals, but we actually have a better analogy since we started with a VP-based game. Sometimes secret objectives provide that variability and surprise that feeds into a game well, and other times they don't. Personally, I like the idea of the hidden objective as a supplement to public objectives, but I can see now how hard they can be worked into a design and still feel fair and fun.
The SO in Twilight Imperium is theoretically not the end all like a checkmate, but the fact of the matter is that I've never seen anyone win TI without scoring their secret objective (if it does happen I'm willing to bet it's 10% of the time or less). Doesn't that make them de facto mandatory victory conditions? If you get impossible SOs (capture wormholes/planets on the opposite end of the map, control 8 systems when your area has an asteroid field and supernova), then you've already lost.
Being able to draw new SOs in TI4 is a step in the right direction, but that reminds me of the routes in Ticket to Ride; you can try to draw better routes if you start out with crap ones, but you're still going to be left behind people who drew the good routes from the start and can concentrate their turns on drawing trains instead of more tickets.
I was actually thinking about the Scythe objectives when I was typing that. I'm not crazy about them, but they don't bother me as much. Probably because like you said they're not worth more than the other star-giving goals, with straight up combat victories being potentially worth twice as much. Getting impossible ones is more rare (the one where you have to control 3 territories next to the factory without having a factory card is probably the worst) and it's easier to write the objectives off and focus on getting stars in other areas. PLUS....the game isn't ultimately decided by how many stars you have! You could win with 5, or 4, or even 3. It's possible to say nuts to getting 6 stars and focus on popularity and other ways to score coins. You can't say "fuck VP" in TI because that's the one and only way to determine victory.
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Custom SpecialI know I am, I'm sure I am,I'm Sounders 'til I die!Registered Userregular
@CptHamilton Serious Poulp posted on BGG confirming that there will be a new KS this fall. It sounds like it might be Sep/Oct, and is a 'new' Kickstarter campaign, so there will probably new/different exclusives and stretch goals. I'm looking forward to it!
Question for 7th Continent owners: have they said anything about a regular commercial release? Or a second printing Kickstarter? That one never showed up on my radar at all and while it looks cool, I don't know that it looks $250-on-ebay cool.
2nd Edition KS this Autumn I believe is what they said.
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
No, seriously. We got into a similar situation. I'm spoiling this because it is a Legacy game... but.. yeah. If you have no interest in playing the game this would not be a bad thing to read.
A friend of mine who has very strong opinions on board games set up his base in Madagascar and Africa. He was accumulating power, getting harder and harder to stop.. then we nuked Africa. He was PISSED, because we basically undid everything he was working towards and he saw no way to recover.
... Then the mutants showed up. And he was thrilled again, because he would always play them and basically become a hoard overrunning the board if no one stopped him, thanks to the combination of his power base, the only way to his core being through a nuclear wasteland, and the benefits the mutants get from radiation.
Of course, because we all ganged up on him, the game got pretty unfun for him.
I think in our last game we had the aliens arrive. I don't believe anyone has played them, but they seem even more broken.
I need to stress again that I greatly enjoy the company of my friends and playing games with them! But.. yeah. Not that one.
My group recently got into Cosmic Encounter and that game is a true test of character
Nobody's killed anybody yet though
It is quite telling that a lot of pre-Catan board games feature friends alternately declaring diplomatic truces or ruthlessly stabbing each other in the back. It's like they all have roots in wargaming or something.
Mice & Mystics.
I wanted a dungeon crawl that didn't require me to be the GM, because at that point we might as well just play an RPG. Having character growth and progression was a big plus.
There are four people in the group. Two of us like most types of games and pick things up quickly. The other two are very into the theme and get lost with too many rules. We have a monthly M&M game and the two theme players are loving it. I don't know if the other guy feels like I do, but the actual game is super boring to me now. The vague rules and scenario setups are annoying and the lack of enemy diversity makes every mission feel like more of the same. I'm ready to throw it on ebay but my wife would be so disappointed.
I enjoy the monthly game night. Because I look forward to hanging out and catching up with the other couple but I'm so done with the game. I'm hoping we'll be able to switch to Massive Darkness and I can be done with fighting rats, roaches, spiders, and centipedes.
It's a little soon to say, but I think my biggest purchasing regret may end up being Sword & Sorcery. I passed on the KS for various reasons but ended up getting it retail after reading some glowing first impressions. Currently I am reading through the manual and it's taking me forever to get through it. I haven't played yet and I will hold off judgement until I do, but right now I am having a hard time figuring when I would chose to play this over Gloomhaven or Shadows of Brimstone (my favorite boardgames in my collection). Maybe it'll click once I play; if not, at least I only paid OLGS prices instead of KS prices ...
We liked Sword and Sorcery a heck of a lot more than Gloomhaven. But then we liked almost every game a heck of a lot more than Gloomhaven. That definitely would have been my big regret if it hadn't been so cheap.
I don;t know that it will beat out SoB for you tho. They're kind of in the same wheelhouse but if you find SaS too complex I don;t think you would ever choose it over that.
Magic Pink on
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KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
Yup. I maintain that the main thing holding TI back were those dumb secret objectives. Even putting aside how wildly imbalanced they are, they were dumb pointless things. There's no reason that all the VP couldn't come from public objectives alone. Secret objectives didn't add "intrigue" and "mystery", just hidden arbitrary crap that suddenly catapulted someone into the lead. The one thing that should not be hidden in a strategy game is the win condition. It's the difference between a standard victory in Battlestar Galactica (Cylons win if humans lose) and those dumb Cylon leader agendas (Cylon leader wins if humans win with less than 4 food, 4 morale, and 2 locations damaged).
Imagine if Chess replaced the checkmate the king win condition with dozens of arbitrary conditions like "get 4 pawns to the other half of the board" or "capture both enemy rooks without losing any of your bishops", and you never knew which one your opponent had every match.
Hmm, I've my own thoughts about this, mostly from the way the Chess analogy was made.The thing about VPs from Secret Objectives in Twilight Imperium is that it will probably only represent one objective of perhaps six or so that will make up a winning player's final tableau. It's not an end-all goal like replacing Chess's checkmate with a single, hidden objective, it's a supplement to the overall goal. Then again, it's pretty hard to come up with a winning amount of VPs without one's Secret Objective: those 2 VPs are quite a lot. It'smore impactful than a secret objective like in something like Scythe, despite the fact that the achievement star in Scythe is one sixth the endgame trigger, similar to in Twilight Imperium. That is because in Scythe, every achievement is equally weighted, rather than the secret objective being twice as valuable as most other public objectives in Twilight Imperium. It looks like Twilight Imperium 4e is taking some steps to decrease the swinginess of victory based on tough Secret Objectives by making them 1 VP each instead (assumed from images from FFG). More work will be needed to make a significant impact through Secret Objectives here, but the random drawn Objective could still be a nice edge to have. And in any game with secret objectives for VPs (and not as a total win condition), you can know if it's something you want to go after early on, and then build your game plan around that decision.
Going back to Chess for a moment, if you want to have a more appropriate analogy for a two-player abstract where secret objectives could be a consideration, let's think about what happens to Tash-Kalar if each player started the game with a secret 1- or 2-point Task from a special deck? OK, yeah, it would probably make the game a bit weaker strategically since a Secret Task would be much more impactful than the hidden Flares (caveat: I've never played Tash-Kalar), but it would provide some additional spice. The same conclusions as Chess with hidden goals, but we actually have a better analogy since we started with a VP-based game. Sometimes secret objectives provide that variability and surprise that feeds into a game well, and other times they don't. Personally, I like the idea of the hidden objective as a supplement to public objectives, but I can see now how hard they can be worked into a design and still feel fair and fun.
The SO in Twilight Imperium is theoretically not the end all like a checkmate, but the fact of the matter is that I've never seen anyone win TI without scoring their secret objective (if it does happen I'm willing to bet it's 10% of the time or less). Doesn't that make them de facto mandatory victory conditions? If you get impossible SOs (capture wormholes/planets on the opposite end of the map, control 8 systems when your area has an asteroid field and supernova), then you've already lost.
Being able to draw new SOs in TI4 is a step in the right direction, but that reminds me of the routes in Ticket to Ride; you can try to draw better routes if you start out with crap ones, but you're still going to be left behind people who drew the good routes from the start and can concentrate their turns on drawing trains instead of more tickets.
I was actually thinking about the Scythe objectives when I was typing that. I'm not crazy about them, but they don't bother me as much. Probably because like you said they're not worth more than the other star-giving goals, with straight up combat victories being potentially worth twice as much. Getting impossible ones is more rare (the one where you have to control 3 territories next to the factory without having a factory card is probably the worst) and it's easier to write the objectives off and focus on getting stars in other areas. PLUS....the game isn't ultimately decided by how many stars you have! You could win with 5, or 4, or even 3. It's possible to say nuts to getting 6 stars and focus on popularity and other ways to score coins. You can't say "fuck VP" in TI because that's the one and only way to determine victory.
I've seen someone win without scoring their secret objective in TI3. I've done it myself. I didn't keep stats, but I'd guess it happened at least 25% of the time with my usual group. Possibly even more often as we all got more experienced with the game and better at reading and predicting each other's actions, leading to much greater recognition of what SOs people were going for and agreements with other players to stop the top 1 or 2 in any particular game from achieving theirs. So some members of the group started getting pretty good at feinting towards an SO that wasn't theirs that might actually make it easier to achieve their own when people tried to stop the false SO. The mind games between us in TI3 were fantastic after a couple of years of periodic play, helping to make some of the best gaming experiences I've ever had.
I wouldn't think of it as de facto mandatory at all. It makes it easier, absolutely, but it's far from impossible to win without completing your secret objective. They add a great deal to the game when you start playing at a higher level.
Yup. I maintain that the main thing holding TI back were those dumb secret objectives. Even putting aside how wildly imbalanced they are, they were dumb pointless things. There's no reason that all the VP couldn't come from public objectives alone. Secret objectives didn't add "intrigue" and "mystery", just hidden arbitrary crap that suddenly catapulted someone into the lead. The one thing that should not be hidden in a strategy game is the win condition. It's the difference between a standard victory in Battlestar Galactica (Cylons win if humans lose) and those dumb Cylon leader agendas (Cylon leader wins if humans win with less than 4 food, 4 morale, and 2 locations damaged).
Imagine if Chess replaced the checkmate the king win condition with dozens of arbitrary conditions like "get 4 pawns to the other half of the board" or "capture both enemy rooks without losing any of your bishops", and you never knew which one your opponent had every match.
Hmm, I've my own thoughts about this, mostly from the way the Chess analogy was made.The thing about VPs from Secret Objectives in Twilight Imperium is that it will probably only represent one objective of perhaps six or so that will make up a winning player's final tableau. It's not an end-all goal like replacing Chess's checkmate with a single, hidden objective, it's a supplement to the overall goal. Then again, it's pretty hard to come up with a winning amount of VPs without one's Secret Objective: those 2 VPs are quite a lot. It'smore impactful than a secret objective like in something like Scythe, despite the fact that the achievement star in Scythe is one sixth the endgame trigger, similar to in Twilight Imperium. That is because in Scythe, every achievement is equally weighted, rather than the secret objective being twice as valuable as most other public objectives in Twilight Imperium. It looks like Twilight Imperium 4e is taking some steps to decrease the swinginess of victory based on tough Secret Objectives by making them 1 VP each instead (assumed from images from FFG). More work will be needed to make a significant impact through Secret Objectives here, but the random drawn Objective could still be a nice edge to have. And in any game with secret objectives for VPs (and not as a total win condition), you can know if it's something you want to go after early on, and then build your game plan around that decision.
Going back to Chess for a moment, if you want to have a more appropriate analogy for a two-player abstract where secret objectives could be a consideration, let's think about what happens to Tash-Kalar if each player started the game with a secret 1- or 2-point Task from a special deck? OK, yeah, it would probably make the game a bit weaker strategically since a Secret Task would be much more impactful than the hidden Flares (caveat: I've never played Tash-Kalar), but it would provide some additional spice. The same conclusions as Chess with hidden goals, but we actually have a better analogy since we started with a VP-based game. Sometimes secret objectives provide that variability and surprise that feeds into a game well, and other times they don't. Personally, I like the idea of the hidden objective as a supplement to public objectives, but I can see now how hard they can be worked into a design and still feel fair and fun.
The SO in Twilight Imperium is theoretically not the end all like a checkmate, but the fact of the matter is that I've never seen anyone win TI without scoring their secret objective (if it does happen I'm willing to bet it's 10% of the time or less). Doesn't that make them de facto mandatory victory conditions? If you get impossible SOs (capture wormholes/planets on the opposite end of the map, control 8 systems when your area has an asteroid field and supernova), then you've already lost.
Being able to draw new SOs in TI4 is a step in the right direction, but that reminds me of the routes in Ticket to Ride; you can try to draw better routes if you start out with crap ones, but you're still going to be left behind people who drew the good routes from the start and can concentrate their turns on drawing trains instead of more tickets.
I was actually thinking about the Scythe objectives when I was typing that. I'm not crazy about them, but they don't bother me as much. Probably because like you said they're not worth more than the other star-giving goals, with straight up combat victories being potentially worth twice as much. Getting impossible ones is more rare (the one where you have to control 3 territories next to the factory without having a factory card is probably the worst) and it's easier to write the objectives off and focus on getting stars in other areas. PLUS....the game isn't ultimately decided by how many stars you have! You could win with 5, or 4, or even 3. It's possible to say nuts to getting 6 stars and focus on popularity and other ways to score coins. You can't say "fuck VP" in TI because that's the one and only way to determine victory.
I've seen someone win without scoring their secret objective in TI3. I've done it myself. I didn't keep stats, but I'd guess it happened at least 25% of the time with my usual group. Possibly even more often as we all got more experienced with the game and better at reading and predicting each other's actions, leading to much greater recognition of what SOs people were going for and agreements with other players to stop the top 1 or 2 in any particular game from achieving theirs. So some members of the group started getting pretty good at feinting towards an SO that wasn't theirs that might actually make it easier to achieve their own when people tried to stop the false SO. The mind games between us in TI3 were fantastic after a couple of years of periodic play, helping to make some of the best gaming experiences I've ever had.
I wouldn't think of it as de facto mandatory at all. It makes it easier, absolutely, but it's far from impossible to win without completing your secret objective. They add a great deal to the game when you start playing at a higher level.
The thing about secret objectives in TI is that you need some kind of hidden point swing in order for the game not to be deterministic in the later rounds. In the games I've played, people usually score points in a predictable manner so if someone was in the lead towards the end without secret objectives, it would be possible to determine that the game is over and no one has a chance of catching them but you still have 2-3 hours left to play. You could look at the available objectives and determine how many points everyone could score over the next few round and that would be it.
The secret objectives allowed for point swings that prevent the game from being a forgot conclusion and additionally they are great drivers of conflict. The problem we often have in TI is that people sit and turtle and the first person to make an aggressive move loses. The secret objectives force you out of your comfort zone and make you do things on the map which is a sorely needed feature for our group.
No, seriously. We got into a similar situation. I'm spoiling this because it is a Legacy game... but.. yeah. If you have no interest in playing the game this would not be a bad thing to read.
A friend of mine who has very strong opinions on board games set up his base in Madagascar and Africa. He was accumulating power, getting harder and harder to stop.. then we nuked Africa. He was PISSED, because we basically undid everything he was working towards and he saw no way to recover.
... Then the mutants showed up. And he was thrilled again, because he would always play them and basically become a hoard overrunning the board if no one stopped him, thanks to the combination of his power base, the only way to his core being through a nuclear wasteland, and the benefits the mutants get from radiation.
Of course, because we all ganged up on him, the game got pretty unfun for him.
I think in our last game we had the aliens arrive. I don't believe anyone has played them, but they seem even more broken.
I need to stress again that I greatly enjoy the company of my friends and playing games with them! But.. yeah. Not that one.
Not quite the same course of events for my group:
We nuked South America almost as soon as we could. We saw that "drop N nukes in one game" unlock objective and me and one other guy determined we were going to make it happen.
The game-breaking thing was a third person in the group setting himself up in the Eastern Europe area such that if he got to place his HQ in one of 2 or 3 countries he could be most of the way to victory within a matter of turns. We'd figured out what he was up to and come up with ways to prevent that from happening...then we unlocked the aliens. My memory of the rules is very hazy but I recall that after one game with the aliens we realized that if he got 1st or 2nd pick of location he would basically be guaranteed a win, but if we shut him out of that he was almost certain to get to pick the alien faction and would be in almost as good a starting position as if he'd gotten his pick of location. So there was no way for us to keep from giving him a massive advantage at the start of the game.
Meanwhile the mutant player would end up getting trapped in South America because it's too easy to wall that off and we'd completely ruined Australia as a base of operations with negative stickers.
It was a great gaming experience for most of the 9 or however many games we finished but I think it favored the leader too much. A mildly strategic approach to selecting your bonuses could turn a small gap in player skill into something insurmountable to defeat.
For wasted money it's got to be Mantic's Dungeon Saga, which I went big in on during the Kickstarter. It's a perfectly serviceable one vs many dungeon crawler, but despite its half-assed attempts it doesn't do the WHQ style infinite adventuring I was hoping for at all, only pre-set scenarios. And then I had justified all the map tiles and minis as being great for running 4e D&D adventures and I haven't done that in years. Ran the first couple of base game scenarios once. Since then barely touched the giant box it all sits in.
In terms of true sadness my biggest gaming regret is probably Roll for the Galaxy, because absolutely nobody else I played it with could recognise its grand majesty. Fools the lot of them!
For wasted money it's got to be Mantic's Dungeon Saga, which I went big in on during the Kickstarter. It's a perfectly serviceable one vs many dungeon crawler, but despite its half-assed attempts it doesn't do the WHQ style infinite adventuring I was hoping for at all, only pre-set scenarios. And then I had justified all the map tiles and minis as being great for running 4e D&D adventures and I haven't done that in years. Ran the first couple of base game scenarios once. Since then barely touched the giant box it all sits in.
In terms of true sadness my biggest gaming regret is probably Roll for the Galaxy, because absolutely nobody else I played it with could recognise its grand majesty. Fools the lot of them!
funny story: after dungeon saga's project closed, i really looked at it and two days later sold my "everything" pledge to someone else at cost because it looked like a hot mess.
that guy in turn sold it to another guy after a few days who, apparently, also sold it to another guy.
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For wasted money it's got to be Mantic's Dungeon Saga, which I went big in on during the Kickstarter. It's a perfectly serviceable one vs many dungeon crawler, but despite its half-assed attempts it doesn't do the WHQ style infinite adventuring I was hoping for at all, only pre-set scenarios. And then I had justified all the map tiles and minis as being great for running 4e D&D adventures and I haven't done that in years. Ran the first couple of base game scenarios once. Since then barely touched the giant box it all sits in.
I'd forgotten I had this. I wouldn't even say it's a serviceable dungeon crawler. It's a very simplistic race game where heroes try to move to the other end of the map before the overlord summons enough minions to kill them.
At least it gave me some tiles and minis that I could one day maybe do something with.
But yeah it was £100 or so
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
We liked Sword and Sorcery a heck of a lot more than Gloomhaven. But then we liked almost every game a heck of a lot more than Gloomhaven. That definitely would have been my big regret if it hadn't been so cheap.
I don;t know that it will beat out SoB for you tho. They're kind of in the same wheelhouse but if you find SaS too complex I don;t think you would ever choose it over that.
Gloomhaven definitely scratches a different than SoB for my group, so they are pretty complimentary games for us that are our go-to games depending on our mood. It's not the complexity of the SaS rules (otherwise I wouldn't be such a huge SoB fan) ... it may just be that the flow of the rulebook seems disjointed, if that makes sense. I am hoping once I play a game it sort of clicks and makes sense.
Of course 7th Continent arrived today, so SaS may have to wait for it's turn a bit longer.
We liked Sword and Sorcery a heck of a lot more than Gloomhaven. But then we liked almost every game a heck of a lot more than Gloomhaven. That definitely would have been my big regret if it hadn't been so cheap.
I don;t know that it will beat out SoB for you tho. They're kind of in the same wheelhouse but if you find SaS too complex I don;t think you would ever choose it over that.
Gloomhaven definitely scratches a different than SoB for my group, so they are pretty complimentary games for us that are our go-to games depending on our mood. It's not the complexity of the SaS rules (otherwise I wouldn't be such a huge SoB fan) ... it may just be that the flow of the rulebook seems disjointed, if that makes sense. I am hoping once I play a game it sort of clicks and makes sense.
Of course 7th Continent arrived today, so SaS may have to wait for it's turn a bit longer.
I meant SaS versus SoB, sorry. And yeah, the rulebook is a bit of a slog at points.
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I was never that impressed despite playing a couple of times (although it was short, so I didn't really mind it)
What's the attraction? It seemed a very obvious push your luck thing that heavily encouraged cutting and running at the first opportunity
Temple of Elemental Evil and the forthcoming Tomb of Annihilation are part of the same d&d adventure boardgame series as drizzt and Ravenloft. Backwards compatible, same basic rules etc. Assault of the Giants is a dudes on a map combat game. Tyrants of the underdark is a deckbuilder/area control game.
I have a few games I've only played once that I think may never come to the table again, so those are a regret. I don't think I have any straight up bad games I regret purchasing.
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Actually tho...
MYTH is actually a really good game as long as you put a little effort into sussing out it's terrible rules, which is a pain in the ass admittedly, and there's plenty of docs on BGG to do just that.
The negative reviews mostly even state the game is excellent, just that the presentation of the various rules and errata absolutely blows to a level that darkens the sun.
The random cards you are dealt allow you to form plans that crumble the very moment another player starts attempting to do their plan. That time I thought I had a fool proof exit strategy that involved dropping a holo field on the loading docks so no-one could use it to escape only to lose out to a layer juggling their cards to get a double move and escape before I could slap down the generator was gaming gold.
Of all the games I played only once did the player who cut and run early win, it was always someone who got out with seconds remaining that got the lions share of the loot and the victory.
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.
Maybe we had some rules wrong, I seem to remember escaping being nigh on impossible
Star Wars:Destiny - I love this game. It is fun as hell. But I have a hard rule about CCG's, in that I don't. I just can't keep up with the financial aspects. So buying this, and a lot of boosters for the first set was devastating, because I saw a game I really wanted to play, but couldn't keep up with. I'm still planning on selling out of it once I get off my ass.
Malifaux - Gorgeous game. But I am not exactly a good model builder, and the models are expensive. So what did I decide to do? Jump in with the Nightmare Edition of Tara's squad (which only came in said nightmare edition). I don't think I have ever assembled it, and I haven't played it in a few years.
One Night Resistance-- er. Revolution - The only board game I truly regret purchasing, let alone kickstarting. I was a fan of Resistance. I am a huge fan of One Night Werewolf. This should be a no brainer, right? ... Nope. The way they went without an app causes the "night" phase to take way too long, and there isn't the absurdity of accusing people of being werewolves/vampires/aliens/tanners. I am very glad I backed it at the minimum level to get a copy.
Pretty much everything else I have has some kind of value - be it my copy of Horus Heresy I got super-cheap, the vast gamut of games I've only gotten to play once but really look forward to getting again, or my mammoth Arkham Horror set.
To be fair, most of us push our luck in that game way, way beyond what is wise. Why not carry on through the upper level, we say, maybe we'll find the executive elevator oh no wait it's killer robots.
Someone usually managed to do something that sent the alarm counter soaring upwards in a single turn, thus trapping everyone not halfway out the door already.
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The only thing bugging me at this point is I'll never have a large portion of the map displayed at any one time because I don't have a table the size of a hockey rink. There are a LOT OF CARDS, good grief.
I absolutely love that studying the map cards is rewarding rather than them just being art, there are details that directly affect gameplay such as if you find a hidden number you replace that map card with a new one; or you can gain the ability to harvest materials from cards that have a picture of the material on it, even if the card doesn't initially list that material as harvestable.
I can see it eventually running out of replay value but that'd be after a TON of hours. I know risking that amount of play time just to start over is going to be offputting for some but in a way it reminds me of a roguelike in that yes you're starting over from scratch, but you've gained knowledge of what certain events/paths/locations do so you can adjust for your next attempt.
Here's the thing though: I have a bunch of games on my shelf I would rather play, or try out for the first time, then figure out MYTH.
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With regards to the rules maybe, maybe not. Although overall a positive experience I've had a couple of bum games (one was utterly hilarious at the same time - the first room had the security guard in it so everyone was wounded on the first turn, slowly we limped through the building). It's a game with a high degree of randomness in the setup so your RNG may screw you out of a satisfying game. You definitely have to have your escape plan in mind as you start the game - much like the brakes on a car allow you to go fast your cards are about how you can rapidly extract so control how deep you can go.
Back when we were playing it regularly we were thinking of houseruling setup in different ways to try and control the building layout a bit more.
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.
Oh absolutely, me too.
You just didn't waste your money on a bad game, is all I'm saying. Small comfort but wevs
I've legit thought about selling it a few times. It contains the base game + all 10 expansions (both versions of the Dark Pharoah, though the original is in its original box). Every card, big and small, is sleeved. All in two giant wood carrying cases, with partitions inside to help make setup and tear-down faster.
I don't know who would legit WANT to own such a thing though.
These are some VERY old pics of it. You can see it in the bottom of my Armada/X-wing collection in the lower one.
Me too, I haven't played it in years but I gots all the things.
not sleeved tho, that's only for crazy people
Destiny is my most recent one. The distribution is awful. I have both starters and 12 or so packs and I still don't think I can put together a legal deck for either side. I don't expect to be able to have a good deck with that, but I expect to be able to actually play.
Of course, I also think any preconstructed CCG starter deck should be complete, so I should have stopped there.
Yup. I'm very crazy.
OH! That reminds me. I do have one true expensive game regret:
Risk: Legacy
Look. I love my friends. But they are all very.. alpha personalities when it comes to board games. And Risk is a known friendship-breaker. so... yeaaah. I will likely never play that game again, having gotten through match 9.
me: i like to learn new rules and figure out my games, don't care if I win or even do well
player 1: likes to set up complex systems that work out well; not a big fan of randomness
player 2: just wants to mutate or go undead; loves people getting slaughtered but won't hurt any animals
player 3: seriously, no dang idea. he's very quiet. likes bruiser sorts of characters and strategies i think? who the hell knows
Risk: Legacy started out as a blast with my gaming group of the time, which was mostly people who are very into (and very good at, or at least waaay better than me) strategy games. We made it up to game 9 as well and then quit because one player had won enough games at crucial decision points that future games were guaranteed to be "everyone tries to stop Jeff from winning and either we fail or we succeed and then squabble amongst ourselves for a victor, but probably we fail".
Question for 7th Continent owners: have they said anything about a regular commercial release? Or a second printing Kickstarter? That one never showed up on my radar at all and while it looks cool, I don't know that it looks $250-on-ebay cool.
The SO in Twilight Imperium is theoretically not the end all like a checkmate, but the fact of the matter is that I've never seen anyone win TI without scoring their secret objective (if it does happen I'm willing to bet it's 10% of the time or less). Doesn't that make them de facto mandatory victory conditions? If you get impossible SOs (capture wormholes/planets on the opposite end of the map, control 8 systems when your area has an asteroid field and supernova), then you've already lost.
Being able to draw new SOs in TI4 is a step in the right direction, but that reminds me of the routes in Ticket to Ride; you can try to draw better routes if you start out with crap ones, but you're still going to be left behind people who drew the good routes from the start and can concentrate their turns on drawing trains instead of more tickets.
I was actually thinking about the Scythe objectives when I was typing that. I'm not crazy about them, but they don't bother me as much. Probably because like you said they're not worth more than the other star-giving goals, with straight up combat victories being potentially worth twice as much. Getting impossible ones is more rare (the one where you have to control 3 territories next to the factory without having a factory card is probably the worst) and it's easier to write the objectives off and focus on getting stars in other areas. PLUS....the game isn't ultimately decided by how many stars you have! You could win with 5, or 4, or even 3. It's possible to say nuts to getting 6 stars and focus on popularity and other ways to score coins. You can't say "fuck VP" in TI because that's the one and only way to determine victory.
2nd Edition KS this Autumn I believe is what they said.
Are you my friend?
No, seriously. We got into a similar situation. I'm spoiling this because it is a Legacy game... but.. yeah. If you have no interest in playing the game this would not be a bad thing to read.
... Then the mutants showed up. And he was thrilled again, because he would always play them and basically become a hoard overrunning the board if no one stopped him, thanks to the combination of his power base, the only way to his core being through a nuclear wasteland, and the benefits the mutants get from radiation.
Of course, because we all ganged up on him, the game got pretty unfun for him.
I think in our last game we had the aliens arrive. I don't believe anyone has played them, but they seem even more broken.
I need to stress again that I greatly enjoy the company of my friends and playing games with them! But.. yeah. Not that one.
Nobody's killed anybody yet though
It is quite telling that a lot of pre-Catan board games feature friends alternately declaring diplomatic truces or ruthlessly stabbing each other in the back. It's like they all have roots in wargaming or something.
Mice & Mystics.
I wanted a dungeon crawl that didn't require me to be the GM, because at that point we might as well just play an RPG. Having character growth and progression was a big plus.
There are four people in the group. Two of us like most types of games and pick things up quickly. The other two are very into the theme and get lost with too many rules. We have a monthly M&M game and the two theme players are loving it. I don't know if the other guy feels like I do, but the actual game is super boring to me now. The vague rules and scenario setups are annoying and the lack of enemy diversity makes every mission feel like more of the same. I'm ready to throw it on ebay but my wife would be so disappointed.
I enjoy the monthly game night. Because I look forward to hanging out and catching up with the other couple but I'm so done with the game. I'm hoping we'll be able to switch to Massive Darkness and I can be done with fighting rats, roaches, spiders, and centipedes.
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I don;t know that it will beat out SoB for you tho. They're kind of in the same wheelhouse but if you find SaS too complex I don;t think you would ever choose it over that.
I've seen someone win without scoring their secret objective in TI3. I've done it myself. I didn't keep stats, but I'd guess it happened at least 25% of the time with my usual group. Possibly even more often as we all got more experienced with the game and better at reading and predicting each other's actions, leading to much greater recognition of what SOs people were going for and agreements with other players to stop the top 1 or 2 in any particular game from achieving theirs. So some members of the group started getting pretty good at feinting towards an SO that wasn't theirs that might actually make it easier to achieve their own when people tried to stop the false SO. The mind games between us in TI3 were fantastic after a couple of years of periodic play, helping to make some of the best gaming experiences I've ever had.
I wouldn't think of it as de facto mandatory at all. It makes it easier, absolutely, but it's far from impossible to win without completing your secret objective. They add a great deal to the game when you start playing at a higher level.
The thing about secret objectives in TI is that you need some kind of hidden point swing in order for the game not to be deterministic in the later rounds. In the games I've played, people usually score points in a predictable manner so if someone was in the lead towards the end without secret objectives, it would be possible to determine that the game is over and no one has a chance of catching them but you still have 2-3 hours left to play. You could look at the available objectives and determine how many points everyone could score over the next few round and that would be it.
The secret objectives allowed for point swings that prevent the game from being a forgot conclusion and additionally they are great drivers of conflict. The problem we often have in TI is that people sit and turtle and the first person to make an aggressive move loses. The secret objectives force you out of your comfort zone and make you do things on the map which is a sorely needed feature for our group.
Not quite the same course of events for my group:
The game-breaking thing was a third person in the group setting himself up in the Eastern Europe area such that if he got to place his HQ in one of 2 or 3 countries he could be most of the way to victory within a matter of turns. We'd figured out what he was up to and come up with ways to prevent that from happening...then we unlocked the aliens. My memory of the rules is very hazy but I recall that after one game with the aliens we realized that if he got 1st or 2nd pick of location he would basically be guaranteed a win, but if we shut him out of that he was almost certain to get to pick the alien faction and would be in almost as good a starting position as if he'd gotten his pick of location. So there was no way for us to keep from giving him a massive advantage at the start of the game.
Meanwhile the mutant player would end up getting trapped in South America because it's too easy to wall that off and we'd completely ruined Australia as a base of operations with negative stickers.
It was a great gaming experience for most of the 9 or however many games we finished but I think it favored the leader too much. A mildly strategic approach to selecting your bonuses could turn a small gap in player skill into something insurmountable to defeat.
In terms of true sadness my biggest gaming regret is probably Roll for the Galaxy, because absolutely nobody else I played it with could recognise its grand majesty. Fools the lot of them!
funny story: after dungeon saga's project closed, i really looked at it and two days later sold my "everything" pledge to someone else at cost because it looked like a hot mess.
that guy in turn sold it to another guy after a few days who, apparently, also sold it to another guy.
I'd forgotten I had this. I wouldn't even say it's a serviceable dungeon crawler. It's a very simplistic race game where heroes try to move to the other end of the map before the overlord summons enough minions to kill them.
At least it gave me some tiles and minis that I could one day maybe do something with.
But yeah it was £100 or so
Gloomhaven definitely scratches a different than SoB for my group, so they are pretty complimentary games for us that are our go-to games depending on our mood. It's not the complexity of the SaS rules (otherwise I wouldn't be such a huge SoB fan) ... it may just be that the flow of the rulebook seems disjointed, if that makes sense. I am hoping once I play a game it sort of clicks and makes sense.
Of course 7th Continent arrived today, so SaS may have to wait for it's turn a bit longer.
I meant SaS versus SoB, sorry. And yeah, the rulebook is a bit of a slog at points.
(I'm a terrible person)