Played a couple more games of Pandemic Legacy Season 2 last night, second game of March and first in April. Managed to win both.
Things are getting interesting.
In March we managed to find a lost haven
when we searched in Lima. Inoculating seems like such a good idea, but we're so wary about what's going to happen when it all goes bad. We're still doing it so that we can keep the number of epidemics in the deck under control. We're not sure if we should be innoculating cities with only one copy so we never have to worry about them, or doing the originals so we don't have as many of the same ones turning up. Obviously keeping as many unique names in the player deck for possible future recons
In April we reconned the yellow recon
Yay for communication towers, they are going to be so useful. Made one permanent in New York so it's ready for us get someone ready to do the (currently) final recon. If it wasn't for the face we'll run out of cities to connect to otherwise I wouldn't go near those infested cities without a flamethower. Hopefully we'll pick up our search cards so we don't have to connect cities.
..
After 3 losses, we needed these wins. We did not want to have to use the "scratch panel of shame".
We had the same "last second pull up from the crash" moment. Feels so good to reset that clock...
So the game hints over and over that you need to do something in South America. We correctly decided to search the
Lima
card and ooohhhh boy what a card! This made the game a lot easier. It makes me wonder though, what happens if that card never comes up early enough in a game and players get to September or beyond without it? The recon action seems a bit more fair as you aren't really living or dying on a specific card, but this???
Also one other note:
I feel as though a big opportunity was missed in this game. The stickers are really cool, but I know what the map is going to look like. It would be more interesting if either A) this happened after earthquakes moved the land masses around or They tricked you into thinking you were one place (York England) and you were actually somewhere else (York, Pennsylvania). They could have renamed some cities. Istanbul was Constantinople.
So the game hints over and over that you need to do something in South America. We correctly decided to search the Lima card and ooohhhh boy what a card! This made the game a lot easier. It makes me wonder though, what happens if that card never comes up early enough in a game and players get to September or beyond without it? The recon action seems a bit more fair as you aren't really living or dying on a specific card, but this???
Also one other note:
I feel as though a big opportunity was missed in this game. The stickers are really cool, but I know what the map is going to look like. It would be more interesting if either A) this happened after earthquakes moved the land masses around or They tricked you into thinking you were one place (York England) and you were actually somewhere else (York, Pennsylvania). They could have renamed some cities. Istanbul was Constantinople.
The answer to your first question might become apparent as you progress.
Maybe. We didn't scratch that particular card. Yet.
So I broke down and ordered both flamme rouge and Concordia. Looking forward to getting them to the table next month. Also have a friend with Gloomhaven who wants to get that going. Hopefully 2018 is good for games!
The answer to your first question might become apparent as you progress.
True. We are only thru April, so there is a lot of game left.
We aren't having any luck getting the cards to recon Africa or the Middle East. I wonder if we are behind or on schedule. We have so many blue cards now that it is hard to get enough of the other colors. Maybe we should risk losing a game to ensure we get another area opened.
The answer to your first question might become apparent as you progress.
True. We are only thru April, so there is a lot of game left.
We aren't having any luck getting the cards to recon Africa or the Middle East. I wonder if we are behind or on schedule. We have so many blue cards now that it is hard to get enough of the other colors. Maybe we should risk losing a game to ensure we get another area opened.
There are so many yellow cities in the western hemisphere that you'll get Lagos's eventually. Maybe prune a few of the redundant ones if you can. You cannot get Cairo's without doing Lagos first, IIRC? I don't remember exactly what London opens up but I don't remember it being enough. I know Cairo is the only one we have left as of the end of May but I think we have bigger fish to fry next time.
KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
We're going to have 7 people for gaming tomorrow night, so it looks like it's time to break out Sidereal Confluence. Enough people have gushed about it here that I had to pick it up.
Any tips or rules to keep in mind? None of us have played before.
We're going to have 7 people for gaming tomorrow night, so it looks like it's time to break out Sidereal Confluence. Enough people have gushed about it here that I had to pick it up.
Any tips or rules to keep in mind? None of us have played before.
Hoo boy. This will kick your ass but the game is worth it.
1. Have water with you when you teach and play.
2. Start learning the setup of characters now. Set each character up and take a picture.
3. Have players set their cubes on the cards they will want to use them. This helps them learn what they need and what they can sell.
4. Ditch the narrative. "You are the [color] faction, you need [color] cubes, [planets/ships/whatever] and you sell [cubes/tech/planets/etc]
5. Leave the Zeth put away. They are difficult to use and difficult to play against. It takes a certain mindset that torments opponents (my buddy had me wrapped around his finger!)
6. You have seven but its likely someone is going to be the K'Jas, so be prepared to set up the Colony auction for eight players per the manual (because they gobble up planets like crazy)
7. The Im'Dril player needs to be prepared to go into debt (asking for Black/Brown in exchange for using their cards a certain way and promising players their outputs.)
8. Bidding has two different tiebreakers. Learn them both.
9. The Kt'Zr have an entire deck of planets that require cubes to be activated. They should not be married to them. They should sell what they don't need (with values depending on who is providing the cubes to activate them.) This makes them friends with the Faderan, who desperately need Ice planets.
EDIT- Come to think of it, you should start ziplocking each faction separately now.
More!
10. When donation goods show up, players should be trading those away first so they're not forced to give them away later.
11. Every game with the Faderan is different, but they consistantly hand out big cubes like candy in exchange for small ones, especially white. They need Ice Planets which, when combined with four white cubes, become excavated (discared) into bullshit-powerful Relic Worlds which change their economic strengths. Even the donation world, which gives them freebie donation goods with points to hand out, is awesome. They need to persuade players to accept their acknowledgement tokens as much as they can. Their lives suck without Ice Planets.
12. The K'Jas convert a ton of planets and resources into "Empire" cards (the thick 2x2 cards they have) but they shouldn't bother unless they can actually use them for a few rounds. They will have more ships than they know what to do with (even though they bid twice on planets.) Therefore they should be selling ships.
We're going to have 7 people for gaming tomorrow night, so it looks like it's time to break out Sidereal Confluence. Enough people have gushed about it here that I had to pick it up.
Any tips or rules to keep in mind? None of us have played before.
7 is going to be a lot!
Make sure people understand the difference between purple and white converters, how to upgrade cards, and that you win the game by discovering techs. Give the bugs to whoever is going to struggle the most.
After buying too many games recently, I've been making a concerted effort to get plays of them in.
Sylvion - I've had this for a long time but haven't played it much, so took it home for Christmas to take the edge off the crushing boredom of being in my mother's internetless house for a week. Anyway, it's great! Definitely my favourite Oniverse game, and I own them all. Still haven't won a game because I suck.
Civilization: A New Dawn - pretty good. Fills a nice niche of a medium weight game where you still want to have quite a lot of cardboard and tokens to move around and make decisions, but not too many decisions. Looking forward to getting more plays of this in.
Chartertstone - SPOILER FREE impression from six games in: it's a hell of an engaging experience, but only a mediocre worker placement game. Which is fine! I've got Fields of Arle for when I want to have too many things to do in a single game. I'm trying to ignore that critical part of my mind because I'm still excited to play it and am thoroughly enjoying it as an experience.
Spirit Island - big fan of co-ops generally and I'm loving this. Has the potential to displace Ghost Stories as my favourite co-op, and that's not something I say lightly. My one criticism is that the rulebook makes it seem like this incredibly complex, unwieldy game when it really, really isn't.
Imperial Assault - good clean pew-pew laser fun. I've never played it or Descent before, and yet the Legends of the Alliance app taught us how to play the game from scratch. Great use of technology to enhance the game. Excited to get properly into the campaign.
We're going to have 7 people for gaming tomorrow night, so it looks like it's time to break out Sidereal Confluence. Enough people have gushed about it here that I had to pick it up.
Any tips or rules to keep in mind? None of us have played before.
Ok! Here are a couple of things I'd recommend. I actually think this official teaching guide does a better job of laying out the rules than the rulebook does, make sure you go through it (it'll also make it easier to teach, unsurprisingly): https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/151419/sidereal-confluence-teaching-guide
Second ... Grey cubes are not white cubes. Grey cubes are used only by the Unity race and are wild. White cubes are used by all the other races (even though they look grey on the cards) and are not wild. This messed us up for a few rounds of our first game.
Also, make sure you're prepared to use a big-ass table for this. With seven people the table space you need is going to get massive.
So after 2 years of my iPad 4 being broken, I finally picked up a cheap replacement...
...and freaked out when I read about the ios11 upgrade and how ipad4s were finally being cut off and all apps were making the move to 64 bit versions. Luckily all my old and new purchases stI'm ill seem to work.
And I discovered Through the Ages finally has an ios port! It's pretty good port wise, even has a detailed tutorial.
I'm terrible at the game though. Get majorly outclassed by even the easiest AI. It seems like no matter what I do, there's always some crippling bottleneck to my economy, and the benefits of military are a bit nebulous.
What's the secret to the basics? It seems like the most important thing is upgrading mines so your production doesn't fall behind the corruption curve. Getting TOO much food has been crippling me there.
@Cantido hooked me up with a copy of Splendor and the wife and I have played it a few times. After our first game, she immediately got hooked and found a free online version to play. Now she's beating me pretty handily.
Well fuck that! Give me some Splendor pro-tips to crush her underfoot! My general observations are:
Get the 3 cost cards in area 1
Grab any 1 point cards in area 1
Only reserve area 3 cards
Focus on colors that overlap the nobels
Need a voice actor? Hire me at bengrayVO.com
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051 Steam ID Twitch Page
@Cantido hooked me up with a copy of Splendor and the wife and I have played it a few times. After our first game, she immediately got hooked and found a free online version to play. Now she's beating me pretty handily.
Well fuck that! Give me some Splendor pro-tips to crush her underfoot! My general observations are:
Get the 3 cost cards in area 1
Grab any 1 point cards in area 1
Only reserve area 3 cards
Focus on colors that overlap the nobels
I bolded the two I agree with the most. Grabbing 1 point cards in area 1 is probably a good call, but I would let one go if something else made for better progression towards nobles or a higher point value card instead. Most games end before I've taken more than one area 3 card - many end without taking any at all - so I wouldn't agree with only reserving area 3 cards. I'm more likely to reserve a useful area 1 or 2 card that I just can't afford at the moment but would rather my opponent not get.
When it comes to focusing on colors that overlap the nobels I choose the three that can be used for the most nobles and focus on them.
@Cantido hooked me up with a copy of Splendor and the wife and I have played it a few times. After our first game, she immediately got hooked and found a free online version to play. Now she's beating me pretty handily.
Well fuck that! Give me some Splendor pro-tips to crush her underfoot! My general observations are:
Get the 3 cost cards in area 1
Grab any 1 point cards in area 1
Only reserve area 3 cards
Focus on colors that overlap the nobels
I never reserve cards unless it prevents someone from winning the game.
My hints:
If you are player 1 or 2, look at the nobles and go for the colors that are the most common. If you are the 3rd or 4th player and you can tell players 1 and 2 are going for the nobles, you need to work on point cards. You can win without nobles. They do make it easier though.
Early on monopolize a color of chips. Green seems to work best, but any color will do.
Keep an eye on the top row. You want to try to eventually get the ones that are 3,3,3,5 cost. (Where the 5 is the color you monopolized).
Tonight's project: Broken Token Flash Point game crate.
Never done one of these before.
Prepare for lots of wood glue on the joints. I'm not sure how complex that one is, but I have one for Cosmic Encounter and it has so many little fiddly bits that it just can't stay together on its own. The larger box-type constructs are fine, but the littler ones definitely require help to stay together.
Oh and lots of little wood shreddies on your work surface. Be ready to vacuum or brush.
The dice are worn out out of the box what the hell.
The rule book isn't super clear but good enough. The main problem is we kept thinking some of the old rules applied when they don't. No more 1 free pity vote. A couple other things.
Generally screwing up the rules. Like the production limits on space docks.
So we played for 10 hours and still ended up with one round left when we called it quits.
I generally like the changes. I look forward to playing it again and faster.
Ten hours. You didn't finish. And you found it plays faster than third? How long were games of that taking you?
Also, what free pity vote? Did I miss a rule?
It probably plays faster. I said I look forward to playing it faster.
We spent that long playing but we're not super focused. Smoother people visited. We had movies on. Host had his baby there. We never took a proper break but there were distractions.
In TI3 you were always considered to have a vote worth 1 regardless of available influence.
and I wonder about my neighbors even though I don't have them
but they're listening to every word I say
@Cantido hooked me up with a copy of Splendor and the wife and I have played it a few times. After our first game, she immediately got hooked and found a free online version to play. Now she's beating me pretty handily.
Well fuck that! Give me some Splendor pro-tips to crush her underfoot! My general observations are:
Get the 3 cost cards in area 1
Grab any 1 point cards in area 1
Only reserve area 3 cards
Focus on colors that overlap the nobels
I bolded the two I agree with the most. Grabbing 1 point cards in area 1 is probably a good call, but I would let one go if something else made for better progression towards nobles or a higher point value card instead. Most games end before I've taken more than one area 3 card - many end without taking any at all - so I wouldn't agree with only reserving area 3 cards. I'm more likely to reserve a useful area 1 or 2 card that I just can't afford at the moment but would rather my opponent not get.
When it comes to focusing on colors that overlap the nobels I choose the three that can be used for the most nobles and focus on them.
@Cantido hooked me up with a copy of Splendor and the wife and I have played it a few times. After our first game, she immediately got hooked and found a free online version to play. Now she's beating me pretty handily.
Well fuck that! Give me some Splendor pro-tips to crush her underfoot! My general observations are:
Get the 3 cost cards in area 1
Grab any 1 point cards in area 1
Only reserve area 3 cards
Focus on colors that overlap the nobels
I never reserve cards unless it prevents someone from winning the game.
My hints:
If you are player 1 or 2, look at the nobles and go for the colors that are the most common. If you are the 3rd or 4th player and you can tell players 1 and 2 are going for the nobles, you need to work on point cards. You can win without nobles. They do make it easier though.
Early on monopolize a color of chips. Green seems to work best, but any color will do.
Keep an eye on the top row. You want to try to eventually get the ones that are 3,3,3,5 cost. (Where the 5 is the color you monopolized).
Thanks for the tips. I should mention that we'll only be playing 2 players for the time being, so chip stacks max out at 4. In that state, you can only grab two of a color when the stacks are full.
Need a voice actor? Hire me at bengrayVO.com
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051 Steam ID Twitch Page
Tonight's project: Broken Token Flash Point game crate.
Never done one of these before.
Prepare for lots of wood glue on the joints. I'm not sure how complex that one is, but I have one for Cosmic Encounter and it has so many little fiddly bits that it just can't stay together on its own. The larger box-type constructs are fine, but the littler ones definitely require help to stay together.
Oh and lots of little wood shreddies on your work surface. Be ready to vacuum or brush.
I used glue on the exterior box joints. Seems to have become pretty solid after setting and construction.
Still working on trays, but definitely planning to glue the stuff that you pull out for during play.
Really cool stuff and the tolerances have been crazy. Using a rubber mallet to get it together.
Spirit Island - big fan of co-ops generally and I'm loving this. Has the potential to displace Ghost Stories as my favourite co-op, and that's not something I say lightly. My one criticism is that the rulebook makes it seem like this incredibly complex, unwieldy game when it really, really isn't.
To be fair the game is unwieldy in terms of every spirit having four unique cards, its own innate power(s), plus random draws from the decks and whatever effects are generated by Fear. But yeah the actual skeleton around which that dressing is built is actually fairly simple.
We're going to have 7 people for gaming tomorrow night, so it looks like it's time to break out Sidereal Confluence. Enough people have gushed about it here that I had to pick it up.
Any tips or rules to keep in mind? None of us have played before.
7 is going to be a lot!
Make sure people understand the difference between purple and white converters, how to upgrade cards, and that you win the game by discovering techs. Give the bugs to whoever is going to struggle the most.
And this game is not Catan. It is ruined for everyone when a player is blocked. Economies are interdependent.
Come to think of it I might pick up Pit for a faster version.
1) 7 is too many for a first game. Everyone was in total information overload by the end. It also ran long with teaching, which combined into some people being pretty checked out the last round or two. I feel like a 4p game would be Infinitely more parsable.
2) that said, I thought the game was pretty fucking rad. Very different from anything I've ever played.
3) I don't know if there's a table on Earth that would fit a 9p game.
I won the Twilight Struggle game. He played the CIA card when Defcon was at 2, and it was already 11:30 and we were only in turn 7, so I decided to take a win and end it. It was his first game and he really enjoyed it! I could tell he was still wrapping his head around the systems, he was making some pretty classic first time player blunders. But by the end he had definitely realized some of the strategy, such as "Iran is a really important country to control and easy to coup". I think he's gonna practice against AI on the ipad version before our next game.
Glad I didn't scare him off! Twilight Struggle is a great game and I always want more people to play it with.
1) 7 is too many for a first game. Everyone was in total information overload by the end. It also ran long with teaching, which combined into some people being pretty checked out the last round or two. I feel like a 4p game would be Infinitely more parsable.
2) that said, I thought the game was pretty fucking rad. Very different from anything I've ever played.
3) I don't know if there's a table on Earth that would fit a 9p game.
One more thing! I feel like this game is wide open for creative wheeling and dealing, once you wrap your head around it. With 7 newbies there was so much stuff flying around it was hard to see anything beyond trading like cubes for like cubes etc. Really looking forward to trying some more games and getting up to some shenanigans.
Also the faderan are fun, and random as hell. Essentially all I was doing was digging into the relic deck. If a particular card had come or first instead of last I would have won the game... Wacky stuff.
Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
The swing on the feelings about Sidereal Confluence is interesting. I can't remember if it was here or somewhere else that there were lots of early impressions suggesting that every race had its little thing and would just play the same game after game limiting replayability.
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
Done building my game crate! Broken Token are awesome!
Before the organizer, I had all the tokens, minis, cards, and original map and instructions in the original box. I put all the expansion maps (urban structures, 2nd story, extremely danger, and honor and duty) in the extreme danger box which is the same size as the original.
I got the Dangerous Waters expansion maps for Christmas so this would have strained the extreme danger box so the lid would be lifted by about 1/2".
Now it's all in one big box! If you have lots of the expansions for Flash Point, this is nice.
It is about as tall as 3 normal boxes.
And there's still space for more maps and figures and tokens. I have the new fire expansion cards coming shortly, so hoping they fit in with the other role cards.
ArcSyn on
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KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
After seeing Ah_Pook's report we will save Sidereal Confluence for next time! Mostly because it looks like people will be arriving in a fairly staggered manner, but also because my 6 year old will be present and wants to help out (he likes to distribute money or energy cubes or whatever as needed) and this game has way more going on than I initially thought.
Girlfriend and I just got done playing the first month of Pandemic Legacy: Season 1, and oh my gosh you guys.
I think Pandemic is a great game already, and the legacy stuff just makes things neater.
I just finished Pandemic Legacy Season 1 about 10 days ago. It was fantastic all the way through! Related to this, my Pandemic Legacy partner and I officially started dating, shortly after we finished the campaign. The late-night gaming sessions meant that we spent a lot of time together alone...
I'm not saying Pandemic: Legacy makes people fall in love or anything, but hey, whatever works, right?
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FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
Finally played GLOOMHAVEN today, the first scenario. Three man team-- Tinker and Spellweaver (Me) and Cragheart (Dave). It's a dungeon-crawl boardgame, at least at first, I suspect that as the campaign goes on the situations will become more complex than "Kick in the door and kill the Mooks".
Not that I have anything against kicking in doors and killing mooks.
Combat is diceless, decided by combat resolution card decks, with the heart of the game being your PC's ability cards and their careful management, since you have a finite number of them, they steadily dwindle from your hand, and if you ever run out of cards, you are out of the fight.
Can't say that I was all that happy with the Spellweaver. A Mage, obviously, so you'd expect her to be a glass cannon, and while they got the glass part correct-- she has very low health and card count and her deck runs out quickly, so a couple of unlucky card draws by the mooks can easily knock her out-- the cannon is really not there. Her spells hit hard, but not as hard as they should.
Not so the Tinker, whom I really liked as a fast, stick and move DPS type that the mooks never seem to be able to pin down.
Dave struggled a bit at first as the Cragheart, but after our abortive first try at the scenario he figured out the wrinkles and we rolled over our enemies on try number two.
So far, so good, once we learned the game the turns went quickly, lots of good decision-making with coordination between teammates being key. Many online have complained about the secret Battle Goals that each player has active, but I had no problem with them, I think they add a welcome extra layer of chaos. I will change out the Spellweaver for a different class next time, tho.
Can't say that I was all that happy with the Spellweaver. A Mage, obviously, so you'd expect her to be a glass cannon, and while they got the glass part correct-- she has very low health and card count and her deck runs out quickly, so a couple of unlucky card draws by the mooks can easily knock her out-- the cannon is really not there. Her spells hit hard, but not as hard as they should.
I'm guessing you missed that she has a card that puts all of her lost cards back into her hand.
(I jumped on that because our player did as well.)
Can't say that I was all that happy with the Spellweaver. A Mage, obviously, so you'd expect her to be a glass cannon, and while they got the glass part correct-- she has very low health and card count and her deck runs out quickly, so a couple of unlucky card draws by the mooks can easily knock her out-- the cannon is really not there. Her spells hit hard, but not as hard as they should.
I'm guessing you missed that she has a card that puts all of her lost cards back into her hand.
(I jumped on that because our player did as well.)
The swing on the feelings about Sidereal Confluence is interesting. I can't remember if it was here or somewhere else that there were lots of early impressions suggesting that every race had its little thing and would just play the same game after game limiting replayability.
I think optimal theoretical play with each faction would look pretty similar game to game, but the different mixes of factions in play and especially the personalities at the table will pretty wildly change up the actual optimal play.
Can't say that I was all that happy with the Spellweaver. A Mage, obviously, so you'd expect her to be a glass cannon, and while they got the glass part correct-- she has very low health and card count and her deck runs out quickly, so a couple of unlucky card draws by the mooks can easily knock her out-- the cannon is really not there. Her spells hit hard, but not as hard as they should.
I'm guessing you missed that she has a card that puts all of her lost cards back into her hand.
(I jumped on that because our player did as well.)
HOLY
FUCKING
SHIT!
That’s insane! :exclaim:
Nope, saw that one, it just turns out that I played it far too early in the scenario before I grasped how quickly she burns through her cards.
Posts
Good luck to me :?
We had the same "last second pull up from the crash" moment. Feels so good to reset that clock...
I've got a 9p game of this tonight, all new players. V excited.
Also one other note:
I feel as though a big opportunity was missed in this game. The stickers are really cool, but I know what the map is going to look like. It would be more interesting if either A) this happened after earthquakes moved the land masses around or
The answer to your first question might become apparent as you progress.
True. We are only thru April, so there is a lot of game left.
Any tips or rules to keep in mind? None of us have played before.
Hoo boy. This will kick your ass but the game is worth it.
1. Have water with you when you teach and play.
2. Start learning the setup of characters now. Set each character up and take a picture.
3. Have players set their cubes on the cards they will want to use them. This helps them learn what they need and what they can sell.
4. Ditch the narrative. "You are the [color] faction, you need [color] cubes, [planets/ships/whatever] and you sell [cubes/tech/planets/etc]
5. Leave the Zeth put away. They are difficult to use and difficult to play against. It takes a certain mindset that torments opponents (my buddy had me wrapped around his finger!)
6. You have seven but its likely someone is going to be the K'Jas, so be prepared to set up the Colony auction for eight players per the manual (because they gobble up planets like crazy)
7. The Im'Dril player needs to be prepared to go into debt (asking for Black/Brown in exchange for using their cards a certain way and promising players their outputs.)
8. Bidding has two different tiebreakers. Learn them both.
9. The Kt'Zr have an entire deck of planets that require cubes to be activated. They should not be married to them. They should sell what they don't need (with values depending on who is providing the cubes to activate them.) This makes them friends with the Faderan, who desperately need Ice planets.
EDIT- Come to think of it, you should start ziplocking each faction separately now.
More!
10. When donation goods show up, players should be trading those away first so they're not forced to give them away later.
11. Every game with the Faderan is different, but they consistantly hand out big cubes like candy in exchange for small ones, especially white. They need Ice Planets which, when combined with four white cubes, become excavated (discared) into bullshit-powerful Relic Worlds which change their economic strengths. Even the donation world, which gives them freebie donation goods with points to hand out, is awesome. They need to persuade players to accept their acknowledgement tokens as much as they can. Their lives suck without Ice Planets.
12. The K'Jas convert a ton of planets and resources into "Empire" cards (the thick 2x2 cards they have) but they shouldn't bother unless they can actually use them for a few rounds. They will have more ships than they know what to do with (even though they bid twice on planets.) Therefore they should be selling ships.
7 is going to be a lot!
Make sure people understand the difference between purple and white converters, how to upgrade cards, and that you win the game by discovering techs. Give the bugs to whoever is going to struggle the most.
Sylvion - I've had this for a long time but haven't played it much, so took it home for Christmas to take the edge off the crushing boredom of being in my mother's internetless house for a week. Anyway, it's great! Definitely my favourite Oniverse game, and I own them all. Still haven't won a game because I suck.
Civilization: A New Dawn - pretty good. Fills a nice niche of a medium weight game where you still want to have quite a lot of cardboard and tokens to move around and make decisions, but not too many decisions. Looking forward to getting more plays of this in.
Chartertstone - SPOILER FREE impression from six games in: it's a hell of an engaging experience, but only a mediocre worker placement game. Which is fine! I've got Fields of Arle for when I want to have too many things to do in a single game. I'm trying to ignore that critical part of my mind because I'm still excited to play it and am thoroughly enjoying it as an experience.
Spirit Island - big fan of co-ops generally and I'm loving this. Has the potential to displace Ghost Stories as my favourite co-op, and that's not something I say lightly. My one criticism is that the rulebook makes it seem like this incredibly complex, unwieldy game when it really, really isn't.
Imperial Assault - good clean pew-pew laser fun. I've never played it or Descent before, and yet the Legends of the Alliance app taught us how to play the game from scratch. Great use of technology to enhance the game. Excited to get properly into the campaign.
Ok! Here are a couple of things I'd recommend. I actually think this official teaching guide does a better job of laying out the rules than the rulebook does, make sure you go through it (it'll also make it easier to teach, unsurprisingly): https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/151419/sidereal-confluence-teaching-guide
Second ... Grey cubes are not white cubes. Grey cubes are used only by the Unity race and are wild. White cubes are used by all the other races (even though they look grey on the cards) and are not wild. This messed us up for a few rounds of our first game.
Also, make sure you're prepared to use a big-ass table for this. With seven people the table space you need is going to get massive.
...and freaked out when I read about the ios11 upgrade and how ipad4s were finally being cut off and all apps were making the move to 64 bit versions. Luckily all my old and new purchases stI'm ill seem to work.
And I discovered Through the Ages finally has an ios port! It's pretty good port wise, even has a detailed tutorial.
I'm terrible at the game though. Get majorly outclassed by even the easiest AI. It seems like no matter what I do, there's always some crippling bottleneck to my economy, and the benefits of military are a bit nebulous.
What's the secret to the basics? It seems like the most important thing is upgrading mines so your production doesn't fall behind the corruption curve. Getting TOO much food has been crippling me there.
Well fuck that! Give me some Splendor pro-tips to crush her underfoot! My general observations are:
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
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Never done one of these before.
I bolded the two I agree with the most. Grabbing 1 point cards in area 1 is probably a good call, but I would let one go if something else made for better progression towards nobles or a higher point value card instead. Most games end before I've taken more than one area 3 card - many end without taking any at all - so I wouldn't agree with only reserving area 3 cards. I'm more likely to reserve a useful area 1 or 2 card that I just can't afford at the moment but would rather my opponent not get.
When it comes to focusing on colors that overlap the nobels I choose the three that can be used for the most nobles and focus on them.
I never reserve cards unless it prevents someone from winning the game.
My hints:
If you are player 1 or 2, look at the nobles and go for the colors that are the most common. If you are the 3rd or 4th player and you can tell players 1 and 2 are going for the nobles, you need to work on point cards. You can win without nobles. They do make it easier though.
Early on monopolize a color of chips. Green seems to work best, but any color will do.
Keep an eye on the top row. You want to try to eventually get the ones that are 3,3,3,5 cost. (Where the 5 is the color you monopolized).
Prepare for lots of wood glue on the joints. I'm not sure how complex that one is, but I have one for Cosmic Encounter and it has so many little fiddly bits that it just can't stay together on its own. The larger box-type constructs are fine, but the littler ones definitely require help to stay together.
Oh and lots of little wood shreddies on your work surface. Be ready to vacuum or brush.
It probably plays faster. I said I look forward to playing it faster.
We spent that long playing but we're not super focused. Smoother people visited. We had movies on. Host had his baby there. We never took a proper break but there were distractions.
In TI3 you were always considered to have a vote worth 1 regardless of available influence.
but they're listening to every word I say
Thanks for the tips. I should mention that we'll only be playing 2 players for the time being, so chip stacks max out at 4. In that state, you can only grab two of a color when the stacks are full.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
I used glue on the exterior box joints. Seems to have become pretty solid after setting and construction.
Still working on trays, but definitely planning to glue the stuff that you pull out for during play.
Really cool stuff and the tolerances have been crazy. Using a rubber mallet to get it together.
To be fair the game is unwieldy in terms of every spirit having four unique cards, its own innate power(s), plus random draws from the decks and whatever effects are generated by Fear. But yeah the actual skeleton around which that dressing is built is actually fairly simple.
And this game is not Catan. It is ruined for everyone when a player is blocked. Economies are interdependent.
Come to think of it I might pick up Pit for a faster version.
1) 7 is too many for a first game. Everyone was in total information overload by the end. It also ran long with teaching, which combined into some people being pretty checked out the last round or two. I feel like a 4p game would be Infinitely more parsable.
2) that said, I thought the game was pretty fucking rad. Very different from anything I've ever played.
3) I don't know if there's a table on Earth that would fit a 9p game.
Glad I didn't scare him off! Twilight Struggle is a great game and I always want more people to play it with.
One more thing! I feel like this game is wide open for creative wheeling and dealing, once you wrap your head around it. With 7 newbies there was so much stuff flying around it was hard to see anything beyond trading like cubes for like cubes etc. Really looking forward to trying some more games and getting up to some shenanigans.
Also the faderan are fun, and random as hell. Essentially all I was doing was digging into the relic deck. If a particular card had come or first instead of last I would have won the game... Wacky stuff.
Before the organizer, I had all the tokens, minis, cards, and original map and instructions in the original box. I put all the expansion maps (urban structures, 2nd story, extremely danger, and honor and duty) in the extreme danger box which is the same size as the original.
I got the Dangerous Waters expansion maps for Christmas so this would have strained the extreme danger box so the lid would be lifted by about 1/2".
Now it's all in one big box! If you have lots of the expansions for Flash Point, this is nice.
It is about as tall as 3 normal boxes.
And there's still space for more maps and figures and tokens. I have the new fire expansion cards coming shortly, so hoping they fit in with the other role cards.
I think Pandemic is a great game already, and the legacy stuff just makes things neater.
I'm not saying Pandemic: Legacy makes people fall in love or anything, but hey, whatever works, right?
Not that I have anything against kicking in doors and killing mooks.
Combat is diceless, decided by combat resolution card decks, with the heart of the game being your PC's ability cards and their careful management, since you have a finite number of them, they steadily dwindle from your hand, and if you ever run out of cards, you are out of the fight.
Can't say that I was all that happy with the Spellweaver. A Mage, obviously, so you'd expect her to be a glass cannon, and while they got the glass part correct-- she has very low health and card count and her deck runs out quickly, so a couple of unlucky card draws by the mooks can easily knock her out-- the cannon is really not there. Her spells hit hard, but not as hard as they should.
Not so the Tinker, whom I really liked as a fast, stick and move DPS type that the mooks never seem to be able to pin down.
Dave struggled a bit at first as the Cragheart, but after our abortive first try at the scenario he figured out the wrinkles and we rolled over our enemies on try number two.
So far, so good, once we learned the game the turns went quickly, lots of good decision-making with coordination between teammates being key. Many online have complained about the secret Battle Goals that each player has active, but I had no problem with them, I think they add a welcome extra layer of chaos. I will change out the Spellweaver for a different class next time, tho.
I'm guessing you missed that she has a card that puts all of her lost cards back into her hand.
(I jumped on that because our player did as well.)
HOLY
FUCKING
SHIT!
That’s insane! :exclaim:
I think optimal theoretical play with each faction would look pretty similar game to game, but the different mixes of factions in play and especially the personalities at the table will pretty wildly change up the actual optimal play.
Nope, saw that one, it just turns out that I played it far too early in the scenario before I grasped how quickly she burns through her cards.