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[Board games] I choose poorly.

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Posts

  • MrBodyMrBody Registered User regular
    edited February 2018
    So I'm probably going to pass on Kaiju Crush but pick up Attack of the Kaiju. It looks like a meatier King of Tokyo with the Conan gem/endurance system and hell it's only $30.

    I probably also won't be picking up Heavy Steam despite having the most awesome cover since 1987's Gammarauders.

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    MrBody on
  • MNC DoverMNC Dover Full-time Voice Actor Kirkland, WARegistered User regular
    I still own Gammarauders! Box has seen better days, but it's all intact.

    BLIP THE TELEPORTURTLE!

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  • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
    edited February 2018
    Darric wrote: »
    Darric wrote: »
    Haha my group adores blood rage and we feel like rising sun is incomprehensible even as we keep wanting to play it

    Incomprehensible in what sense?

    good strategy

    when to seppeku, when to save your money, when to marshal for the stronghold when you don't have enough guys to need to move around really

    is a 2nd-and-3rd to act alliance as powerful as it seems or does it set you up poorly for future turns

    how can you tell who's winning at the end of the first war

    Oh, right! Yeah, I think those are all good questions that I don't have a good answer to yet, and that's kinda exciting to me. How many mandates each player gets in a round should probably be the biggest factor in determining who to ally with. Seppuku isn't as big a hit to your force as it seems - in both games I've played, I often had too little in reserve to effectively recruit at each opportunity anyway.

    Yeah, but if you put yourself low enough in force that you really need to recruit, people may avoid the recruit just to hose you. If you start a round with low force and people marshal before recruit, you'll be able to put guys on the board eventually but not move them to useful places. Lotus clan also gets really nasty with burning Recruit/Marshal as Train/Harvest if you let yourself get in a position where it hurts you bad if they do that.

    I think that's a weakness of the game with four players. Since everybody's in an alliance every turn, if somebody leaps ahead or falls behind, they seem to tend to stay ahead or behind. More often than not the winner seems fully determined by the end of the second war phase. Maybe it's just way less costly to mess with somebody who's already hurting than to mess with the leader?

    Powerpuppies on
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  • MrBodyMrBody Registered User regular
    So what's the verdict on Rising Sun overall?

  • WingedWeaselWingedWeasel Registered User regular
    I've never even heard of gammarauders to this point. Is that good or bad? Because I kinda want it now.

  • TimFijiTimFiji Beast Lord Halfway2AnywhereRegistered User regular
    MrBody wrote: »
    So what's the verdict on Rising Sun overall?

    We played out first game last weekend and really liked it.

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    • Jam WarriorJam Warrior Registered User regular
      I've never even heard of gammarauders to this point. Is that good or bad? Because I kinda want it now.

      Released in '87. It looks very of its time as BGG browsing implies rad theme but unrefined game mechanics and goes on a bit too long.

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    • ArcticLancerArcticLancer Best served chilled. Registered User regular
      edited February 2018
      MrBody wrote: »
      So what's the verdict on Rising Sun overall?
      Frankly, I'll be shocked if it's anything other than "Overhyped, overproduced kickstarter, but it's generally fine."

      ArcticLancer on
    • ChiselphaneChiselphane Registered User regular
      MrBody wrote: »
      So I'm probably going to pass on Kaiju Crush but pick up Attack of the Kaiju. It looks like a meatier King of Tokyo with the Conan gem/endurance system and hell it's only $30.

      I probably also won't be picking up Heavy Steam despite having the most awesome cover since 1987's Gammarauders.


      I hear you. Every time i see that Heavy Steam box I find my hand's slid over to the mouse trying to buy it. No! No!

    • Magic PinkMagic Pink Tur-Boner-Fed Registered User regular
      MrBody wrote: »
      So what's the verdict on Rising Sun overall?
      Frankly, I'll be shocked if it's anything other than "Overhyped, overproduced kickstarter, but it's generally fine."

      Please give me more over hyper over produced board games, thanks. They've all been pretty great (except Gloomhaven).

    • InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
      Magic Pink wrote: »
      MrBody wrote: »
      So what's the verdict on Rising Sun overall?
      Frankly, I'll be shocked if it's anything other than "Overhyped, overproduced kickstarter, but it's generally fine."

      Please give me more over hyper over produced board games, thanks. They've all been pretty great (except Gloomhaven).

      I wish boardgames came in regular and overproduced versions. I’m not made of storage and tons of plastic adds very little to a game to me.

    • DissociaterDissociater Registered User regular
      Inquisitor wrote: »
      Magic Pink wrote: »
      MrBody wrote: »
      So what's the verdict on Rising Sun overall?
      Frankly, I'll be shocked if it's anything other than "Overhyped, overproduced kickstarter, but it's generally fine."

      Please give me more over hyper over produced board games, thanks. They've all been pretty great (except Gloomhaven).

      I wish boardgames came in regular and overproduced versions. I’m not made of storage and tons of plastic adds very little to a game to me.

      Yeah, I'd love to play Kingdom Death without minis, priced at like $100 or something.

    • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
      MrBody wrote: »
      So what's the verdict on Rising Sun overall?

      6/10, maybe, considering the price?

      it's certainly not bad

      if it was $30 I'd be saying everyone should own a copy

      it's not great, imo, but some of that depends on your group


      pros:
      the mechanics are real different from other games
      there are lots of mechanics and they work together nicely in ways that are hard to predict
      a wealth of different strategies can be successful
      there's lots of negotiation
      everything about it is beautiful

      cons:
      it's pretty long
      there's arguably no comeback mechanics (possibly only a 4player problem?)
      It takes ages to remove from and return to original packaging, if you care about that
      it's kind of hard to learn

      sig.gif
    • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
      i guess there's also a lot of betrayal? It's really beneficial to make a deal with the person you're fighting if you both stick to it, but even more beneficial to make that deal and then run the table, and you probably won't be in a situation where they can hose you for it

      There's a TON of downtime if other people are negotiating. Last night we had several occasions where people were on their phones or got up to fix dinner and came back and nothing had changed.

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    • AuralynxAuralynx Darkness is a perspective Watching the ego workRegistered User regular
      i guess there's also a lot of betrayal? It's really beneficial to make a deal with the person you're fighting if you both stick to it, but even more beneficial to make that deal and then run the table, and you probably won't be in a situation where they can hose you for it

      There's a TON of downtime if other people are negotiating. Last night we had several occasions where people were on their phones or got up to fix dinner and came back and nothing had changed.

      Our guy who ordered it locally told me the other night that I'll probably love it and everyone else will hate it, for just this reason.

      Which means I won't love it, because they'll all turn on me.

      kshu0oba7xnr.png

    • DarricDarric Santa MonicaRegistered User regular
      My impressions of it are a lot more positive. The mechanics are not especially heavy, but the paths to victory seem broad, so it encourages sort of talking through everything you're going to do with the table. I haven't found alliances to be as restrictive (even in a four player game) as above, in fact, in both games I've played, alliances were changing basically every season AND alliances were only LOOSE partnerships at best. Often we were negotiating with our allies and enemies alike.

      That said, and I alluded to this earlier, there's not a lot you can do to grease the wheels of negotiation. Giving up a coin or two feels massive. So that's a shame. It's mostly trading favours and affection. The bidding in the war phase can get a bit mathy, but it's delicious.

    • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
      Darric wrote: »
      My impressions of it are a lot more positive. The mechanics are not especially heavy, but the paths to victory seem broad, so it encourages sort of talking through everything you're going to do with the table. I haven't found alliances to be as restrictive (even in a four player game) as above, in fact, in both games I've played, alliances were changing basically every season AND alliances were only LOOSE partnerships at best. Often we were negotiating with our allies and enemies alike.

      That said, and I alluded to this earlier, there's not a lot you can do to grease the wheels of negotiation. Giving up a coin or two feels massive. So that's a shame. It's mostly trading favours and affection. The bidding in the war phase can get a bit mathy, but it's delicious.

      DEFINITELY treat the alliances more as begrudgingly neutrality than any sort of alliance

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    • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
      I've grown less fond of it every time I've played, but I would play it again right now

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    • ArcticLancerArcticLancer Best served chilled. Registered User regular
      Magic Pink wrote: »
      MrBody wrote: »
      So what's the verdict on Rising Sun overall?
      Frankly, I'll be shocked if it's anything other than "Overhyped, overproduced kickstarter, but it's generally fine."

      Please give me more over hyper over produced board games, thanks. They've all been pretty great (except Gloomhaven).

      To each their own is the unsurprising moral of the story. The only things I can think of when you say that are Zombicide and Scythe, and I can't stand either of them.

    • LeumasWhiteLeumasWhite New ZealandRegistered User regular
      Hey, Scythe is great, precisely once. And then you have had the Scythe Experience, and don't really need to go back to it.

      Looks nice, though.

      QPPHj1J.jpg
    • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
      I love scythe even though I accept other people criticising it as not interactive

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    • InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
      I just wish it felt less scripted based on starting location and board.

    • DarricDarric Santa MonicaRegistered User regular
      edited February 2018
      edit: blergh

      Darric on
    • HydroSqueegeeHydroSqueegee ULTRACAT!!!™®© Registered User regular
      Well this is a pleasant surprise. Green Horde just showed up! Goodbye Saturday night!

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    • LykouraghLykouragh Registered User regular
      I still like Scythe after like 7-8 plays.

    • InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
      Lykouragh wrote: »
      I still like Scythe after like 7-8 plays.

      I played it once six months ago and didn’t like it but also I still think about it and want to play it again and I’m not sure why.

      Very odd.

    • LykouraghLykouragh Registered User regular
      Inquisitor wrote: »
      Lykouragh wrote: »
      I still like Scythe after like 7-8 plays.

      I played it once six months ago and didn’t like it but also I still think about it and want to play it again and I’m not sure why.

      Very odd.

      For me at least, the fun bit about Scythe is the torture of having a whole lot of things you can work on (mechs, upgrades, recruits, buildings, workers, objectives) while the design of the game says "you are not allowed to do all of these! you must pick some and not do them to be efficient!". That's just so hard for me that I spend the whole game resisting the giddy impulse to go do that really efficient action for getting upgrades even though I decided NOT TO DO ANY UPGRADES and I have a good time doing it.

    • MrBodyMrBody Registered User regular
      I've never even heard of gammarauders to this point. Is that good or bad? Because I kinda want it now.

      Eh, they had an idea to throw a bunch of awesome giant cyborg animals against each other and then didn't really flesh the rest of it out.

      You start out on a map. Every player gets a fortress, a "bioborg", and some "popcorn" (small units like tanks or jets or infantry). You can put weapons on a bioborg that add points to a battle, popcorn add +1 each. You roll a die to add that and determine the total winner of a fight. Win a fight on someone's fortress, it is demolished, but it can be rebuilt. First player to demolish each other player's fortress at least once wins.

      There are spaces where energy pods spawn according to random die rolls every turn, sort of like Catan. You rush to pick them up. Bioborg and fortresses can "burn" pods to roll an extra die in combat, or to rebuild a fortress. That's pretty much it.

      The problems we ran into:

      -The bioborgs were wildly imbalanced.

      -You didn't get anywhere with storing up pods. You battled other players to get the pods. Whoever burned pods in a battle won. So you burn all your pods to win the fight and pick up a couple more pods, which will then be burned the next fight over picking up more pods.

      -Games went on forever. Players could elect to just not rebuild their demolished fortress and no one could demolish it themselves to win then. Between that and the constant pod burning, games always dragged out into stalemates.

      -Some of the action cards were worthless, others ridiculously overpowered. One of them flat out reversed a battle result (the loser wins and the winner loses).

      It was a fantastic premise and art in need of a better game.

      I can sell you my copy from 1987!

    • MrBodyMrBody Registered User regular
      Inquisitor wrote: »
      Magic Pink wrote: »
      MrBody wrote: »
      So what's the verdict on Rising Sun overall?
      Frankly, I'll be shocked if it's anything other than "Overhyped, overproduced kickstarter, but it's generally fine."

      Please give me more over hyper over produced board games, thanks. They've all been pretty great (except Gloomhaven).

      I wish boardgames came in regular and overproduced versions. I’m not made of storage and tons of plastic adds very little to a game to me.

      Cthulhu Wars: Reasonable Miniatures edition would be fantastic, but Petersen had repeatedly said it will never happen.

    • MNC DoverMNC Dover Full-time Voice Actor Kirkland, WARegistered User regular
      I should attempt a rewrite of Gammarauder's rules to make it more fun and balanced.

      Need a voice actor? Hire me at bengrayVO.com
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    • ArcSynArcSyn Registered User regular
      I thought MrBody was describing Scythe...

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    • WearingglassesWearingglasses Of the friendly neighborhood variety Registered User regular
      So I just made a dice tray. Yay! But then I realized I own none of the dice chucker games we play (well, there's Machi Koro, but ehhh).

      Any nice games with dice that aren't the following?

      - Arkham Horror
      - Elder Sign
      - Champions of Midgard
      - Dead of Winter
      - Unearth

    • AuralynxAuralynx Darkness is a perspective Watching the ego workRegistered User regular
      So I just made a dice tray. Yay! But then I realized I own none of the dice chucker games we play (well, there's Machi Koro, but ehhh).

      Any nice games with dice that aren't the following?

      - Arkham Horror
      - Elder Sign
      - Champions of Midgard
      - Dead of Winter
      - Unearth

      Quarriors can be okay.

      kshu0oba7xnr.png

    • Alistair HuttonAlistair Hutton Dr EdinburghRegistered User regular
      edited February 2018
      Auralynx wrote: »
      So I just made a dice tray. Yay! But then I realized I own none of the dice chucker games we play (well, there's Machi Koro, but ehhh).

      Any nice games with dice that aren't the following?

      - Arkham Horror
      - Elder Sign
      - Champions of Midgard
      - Dead of Winter
      - Unearth

      Quarriors can be okay.

      Quarriors be Dominion but with moar random.

      I don't know what the state of the current editions rules are but the first edition rules were badly balanced when it came to the concept of culling (trashing) dice.

      Fundamentally though, Quarriors sabotages one of the key components of Dominion ( that a bad draw now is balanced out by a good draw later) by making you at the mercy of the dice rolls. You get a bad draw followed by a good draw but the good draw is blown when you roll badly.

      It robs you of agency and action but does not replace it with anything worthwhile.

      Quarriors is... fine. But like so many Dominion clones it isn't worth playing when Dominion is right there.

      Alistair Hutton on
      I have a thoughtful and infrequently updated blog about games http://whatithinkaboutwhenithinkaboutgames.wordpress.com/

      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.
    • InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
      Dominion, however, is a very, very bad dice chucker.

      Cthulhu Wars has you throwing lotsa dice.

    • HydroSqueegeeHydroSqueegee ULTRACAT!!!™®© Registered User regular
      So I just made a dice tray. Yay! But then I realized I own none of the dice chucker games we play (well, there's Machi Koro, but ehhh).

      Any nice games with dice that aren't the following?

      - Arkham Horror
      - Elder Sign
      - Champions of Midgard
      - Dead of Winter
      - Unearth

      Shadows of Brimstone. So. Many. Dice.

      kx3klFE.png
    • Alistair HuttonAlistair Hutton Dr EdinburghRegistered User regular
      Inquisitor wrote: »
      Dominion, however, is a very, very bad dice chucker.

      Very bad.

      I have a thoughtful and infrequently updated blog about games http://whatithinkaboutwhenithinkaboutgames.wordpress.com/

      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.
    • CantidoCantido Registered User regular
      I had a blast playing Sidereal Confluence last night, teaching a bunch of new players. I still came in last place as Unity though, with 20 points from late-game research.

      It occurred to me that maybe I should not be glued to my own technology and start seeking out higher value tech. Cards actually depict this.

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    • Mojo_JojoMojo_Jojo We are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourse Registered User regular
      Alien frontier is a satisfying dice game. It could possibly do with somehow being a hair quicker

      Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
    • HedgethornHedgethorn Associate Professor of Historical Hobby Horses In the Lions' DenRegistered User regular
      So I just made a dice tray. Yay! But then I realized I own none of the dice chucker games we play (well, there's Machi Koro, but ehhh).

      Any nice games with dice that aren't the following?

      - Arkham Horror
      - Elder Sign
      - Champions of Midgard
      - Dead of Winter
      - Unearth

      The Pandemic dice game is alright. Quicker than base Pandemic, but of course also more random.
      I really like Tiny Epic Galaxies as a dice action-selection game.

    This discussion has been closed.