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[Board games] I choose poorly.
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As I've gotten more familiar with games, especially the games that I like, I've discovered I value the first thing more and more than the second thing. But that obviously doesn't invalidate your point.
But on that note, you remind me that there's a used copy of Forbidden Stars for sale at my local store. For my collection it's a "long" game, and so I'm hesitant to buy it unless it's something that really suits me. Any of you especially like it? When should I buy it over, for example, Food Chain Magnate? (A friend of mine owns TI4, so that's not one I'm considering.)
My BoardGameGeek profile
Battle.net: TheGerm#1430 (Hearthstone, Destiny 2)
Looks like anyone who has stuff coming in Wave 2 will automatically get a new set of cards. Anyone who didn't have anything coming in Wave 2 will be able to request the new cards (details coming in another update). That is good service by Serious Poulp.
All my cards fit but the discoloration is very evident. I haven't looked too close though so I can play without spoiling anything.
Forbidden stars is awesome. If you have the group for a long intense combat game you should get it, especially if it's reasonably priced since it's permanently oop. If you don't have a group of people willing to put in time to get over the learning curve and get the playtime down its a harder sell. If you don't like combat games look elsewhere, there's nothing for you here. But the mechanics are super interesting and fun, and it looks awesome in the table, so if you wanna murder each other for 3+ hours this a good choice.
Edit: I haven't played food chain magnate but they seem pretty much completely different, so I dunno what to tell you there really...
But save a few for Lefty too
Get both! Both games are great for different reasons.
Ah_pook sumerized Forbidden Stars perfectly, it fit the Warhammer 40k theme well, each faction plays different and the game very much encourages constant warfare between everyone.
Food Chain Magnate is a bit more in line with worker placement stuff (it isn't exactly a worker placement that but it has similar ideas). Unlike most of those type however there is a lot of player interaction. While your staff and products are all on your personal board, the main game board has most of the actions for a round. New restaurants popping up will directly steal customers from other players, new advertisement will only increase your opponents desire to compete with you, driving down your price will see more customers at the expense of your opponents but will earn you fewer points, ect... While everybody starts off the same, there are a bunch of early game achievements (make the first burger, get some advertisement ect) which will give players a permanent advantage so over time players get specialized in areas they moved into early. All while trying to make enough food to fill demand but not waste any. The fifties art and pastel coloring is a neat inclusion too.
I'd say get both, but I am not discrete with my board game puchasing.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
But save a few for Lefty too
Am I the only person in the world who hears the phrase, "permanently oop" and has a clutching horror feeling in the liver?
Let me ask it this way: I don't have a ton of longer games. I want something interactive, thoughtful, and fun, and not too punishing in ruleset or endgame. Does that exclude either?
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Is that how it's going to work? I read their update as anyone who chose to get everything, including the base box, in wave two will be receiving the fixed edition of the game with the new cards. Those that only received wave one shipments and won't be receiving wave two can request replacements. It seems ambiguous about split wave orders.
"Therefore, if you were meant to receive all of your rewards in Wave 2, your package will include all the new cards. If you have already received all of your rewards in wave 1, you’ll have the opportunity to request that these replacement cards be sent to you in Wave 2 at no additional charge. Information about how to do so will be included in a future update."
I got the base box and sleeves in the first wave, so now I'm just waiting for the expansions in the second.
From the paragraph before the one you quoted, I took it to mean anyone with a split order can expect theirs in wave 2.
That would be pretty cool if so!
Now Matagot needs to get back with me about replacement Kemet figures. Has anyone in the US gone through them? Or might they just refer me back to Asmodee?
Has Kriegspiel ever been a commercial product?
Or has it indeed been permanently oop literally always?
Of course, this is just to tide me over while I wait for Tatchanka! to emerge from development quagmire so I can command Anarchist machine gun carts and fight both the white and the red armies.
Terra Mystica- Tried revisiting this one after thinking it was okay but not being blown away years ago. It's...opaque. Looking online it seems like the entire first one-third of the game is nearly exactly scripted for each race. So very very easy to be left stalled out due to lack of stuff you had to have planned out several turns ago. It's not a bad game (although it's the poster child for points salad), but I still don't see recommending it over Scythe. The most common point is that it's deeper than Scythe, but I'm wondering how much of that is simply due to the opaqueness masking any clear path.
Brass- Everyone says it's a classic. I tried it about 10 years ago and I had no clue what was going on. After over a dozen games on iPad, I now have very little idea what's going on. Very unclear what the better paths to victory are. I always come in last or next to last. Some stuff seems lost in translation from the board to app (the way the income track works is a complete mystery unless you're looking at the board version). Seems WAY too driven by luck of card draw. It's like it's expecting to be taken as a serious mathy strategy game like Power Grid, but it's using the luck of the card draw mechanics from Ticket to Ride to do it with. Like TtR, you CAN take actions to try and rectify bad draws (is there any more useless draw than shipyards in the canal age?), but then you're behind the players who didn't get bad draws. I dunno, even by dry mathy economic euro standards I'm not sure why anyone would bother with this over Power Grid or similar stuff. omg this thing is seventy-five dollars on Amazon
Their overuse of Cyrillic script substitutions is incredibly annoying. It's like early 20th century l337 sp34k
Especially if you know the letters and that they're nowhere close to the English letters they're replacing :\
Food Chain Magnate in comparison is a much less direct interaction. You have to care about what people are doing and where their strategy is headed because they can outmaneuver you and suddenly fuck your cashflow. There's also limited numbers of many employee types, which are free to acquire and anyone can get given they meet the prerequisites. I expect it's a lot more dry than Forbidden Stars, but it's likely a "more serious" game in that there is zero luck.
Being able to run a script relies on a favorable board state to make it worthwhile. I really think it's over-stated how big a deal this is, especially since you really and truly are not going to figure this shit out on your own for a good long while, so it's really up to you if you want to spoil yourself ala looking up the auto-win of A Few Acres Of Snow.
shrug
Also, I have really never felt TM is that points salad because most things aren't always worth points. You're either playing to a limited window, a faction-specific ability, or something you invested in being able to earn points through. Great Western Trail is the poster-child of points salad.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Forbidden stars is interactive af (ie literally the entire game is fighting, or buying things to fight with and positioning to fight), it's a really tense thinky puzzle trying to figure out where and what order to do things, and personally I think it's a blast. As far as punishing rules or endgames, I'm not really sure how to answer that. There are a ton of moving pieces, and you can definitely get beat up... Id day watch the Heavy Cardboard teach/playthrough and you'll get a really good idea of what it is. Once you get over the initial rules dump the actual game plays quite smoothly in my experience.
But save a few for Lefty too
Both games are very interactive, thoughtful and fun. Interaction is about equal but different: Food chain is indirect conflict while Forbidden stars is direct conflict. FCM generaly offers more but smaller puzzles to solve while FS focus' on planning out a full turn actions at the start. Both heavily involve trying to out think your opponents.
It's been a bit since I learned both, but our group managed to get through the rules explanation with out too much difficulty. I do recall Forbidden Stars had some confusion on how combat operated but after a few rounds that got cleaned up. Food chain, like many Victory Point based games can get a little bogged down in AP towards the end, but nothing too bad. Forbidden Stars last round plays out like most rounds, maybe more combat/movement than normal.
I kickstartered the physical game. It was ok for a couple plays, but there are some significant balance issues. Like many deckbuilders, each game you get a random "bank" of cards to purchase upgrades from. There are certain cards that, if they appeared in the bank, I didn't need to actually play the game because I already knew I had won; other cards were laughably inefficient compared to basic cards or "fair" cards, to the point that I couldn't see ever purchasing them. I did some playtesting for the first expansion/standalone ("Dreadmire"), but was not enthused enough about it to kickstart it, and I haven't been following development since then so I don't know whether they've fixed any of the issues or released any additional content, etc.
I think the biggest strike against the game is that I don't see any need to play it with other humans. Might as well just control multiple divisions myself.
No experience with the app.
Having taken Russian in high school I do hate this a lot, yeah. Frustrating that so many things do it.
We ended up with six players on Friday, and as people were arriving we played Incan Gold. Its amazing how easy it is to explain this game. Also it is very interesting how the strategy changes with different player amounts. With 3 you get most of your gems exploring, but with 5-6 you need to go back alone to get most of the gems. Everyone really enjoyed it. Also I can play this with my wife and the 4 year old.
Once everyone had arrived I put out Captain Sonar. Ran through the roles quickly, and left the rules nearby. People were a bit scared at first, and there were a couple of calls to swap to turn based mode but we kept at it and had an amazing time. We sadly lost since my sonar station had been drinking and didn't know where the other sub was. In my wife's defense the other captain was pretty quiet I think. I couldn't really focus since I kept forgetting to charge my stations and captain. Doing two stations is tough, I wouldn't want to play less than 6 people. People pick up the game very quickly. Its almost party game weight. Those last few minutes where they knew where we were was intense. I was drawing on the board to move us to safety when the final torpedo hit and killed us. One second faster and we might have won.
Some people had to go and then one of my friends brought over Machi Koro and harbor expansion. We've played the main game before, but not the Harbor. The person who brought the game got an early sushi shop and basically made 8-12 coins while it wasn't his turn, then rolled a 6 and took 2 coins from everyone with the stadium on his turn. He got the Airport first, and then it was just going through the motions while he stockpiled gold and flipped the last buildings.
I have to admit I have a love hate relationship with Machi Koro. I always want to play it, pick some really dumb strategy, go all in, and then get annoyed at myself when I am not in the running. On Friday I went all in on Flower Orchards and Flower Shops.
Have another game night on Saturday. Now if I could just get people to RSVP.
I take back everything I said about Frostpunk's choice/law system! Turns out they're strategic choices that tell you exactly what they do with zero RNG involved. Kind of like policy choices in Sid Miere games.
I'm really enjoying it at the moment, although it feels like there's a little too much micromanagement shuffling going on with different workshifts and individual building heat management.
Plus it takes too long and has a larger-than-you'd-think footprint in the table.
Hmmm..maybe I spoke too soon. I had fun with a binge but the game is only about 4-7 hours long and is a heavily scripted scenario I don't see any replay in. It's anyone's call if they think that's worth $30, but don't get it thinking it's a sandbox economic RTS with lots of replayability.
It is gorgeous though! And it sure was thematic given the absolute shittiest, coldest April in all of continental United States recorded history.
Forbidden Stars is like a version of the Starcraft board game that doesn't suck.
It's worth playing if you have access to a used copy and that sounds interesting to you.
My only gripe with it was I hated the warp storms. They block movement and can easily sink someone's chance of winning and there's nothing they can do about it.
The Eldar also seemed a bit overpowered. Movement with a big obstacle in that game, where you could have the most invincible forces but sometimes couldn't win because you couldn't possibly reach some objectives in time. Eldar can teleport across the entire map and they don't even seem to sacrifice combat strength to do it; they easily stand toe to toe with the less mobile races.
WTB FS PST
My BoardGameGeek profile
Battle.net: TheGerm#1430 (Hearthstone, Destiny 2)
However, I am neither fortysomething nor a banker, a lawyer, or executive.
How much was it? Looks like it's currently selling for 65-70 on the BGG market, so put a subscription up there and watch for it if that's a price your comfortable with. It's significantly less than the original retail still so not too bad in the grand scheme of things.
But save a few for Lefty too
I'm enjoying the crap out of this game - but for me the 4-7 hours thing is actually a selling point. Yes! I'm going to beat a game and be done with it! Thirty bucks well spent!
Also I love the flavor of it.
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