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  • CaptainPeacockCaptainPeacock Board Game Hoarder Top o' the LakeRegistered User regular
    PMAvers wrote: »
    Mvrck wrote: »
    Hey Board Game Friends, I am in search of help. I'm not sure if it was this thread, the SE++ one, or during the Upside Down, but I remember someone describing a game as "Catan, but better." Have a friend coming in from out of town who only ever plays Catan, but wanted to try to twist his arm into playing something else. Does anyone remember the post or what game it was? I can't seem to find the post.

    I think it was Concordia?

    Definitely Concordia, or alternately Archipelago.

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  • EpimerEpimer Registered User regular
    Fuuuck I just opened my newly bought Keyflower, so many fiddly bits.

    And damn, the rules are heavyyyy. Heavier than Viticulture. Even watching Watch It Played to follow the rules overwhelms me a bit.

    It's not that bad when you get into it. Bid for tiles, place them, do worker placement stuff.

    Really want to play it again now, it's so great.

  • ArcSynArcSyn Registered User regular
    Played Flash Point last night. Eventually I will play with people familiar enough to go whole crazy with difficulty and advanced rules, but last night was a learning game both for some of the players and for a new expansion.
    So we replaced the hot spot mechanic with the new Tragic Events fire advancement. It was fantastic!

    So in Flash Point, if you're not familiar, at the end of your turn you roll dice (d6 and d8) which correspond to a coordinate on the map where smoke appears. If there's fire adjacent, the smoke turns to fire. If there's already smoke on that space, it turns to fire. If there's fire, there's an explosion, and if there's a hot spot (the initial 3 starting locations, and potentially more depending on the difficulty you're playing), you roll again for a second smoke.

    It sounds complicated now typing it out, but it's not when you're playing.

    The new Tragic Events decks replace the hot spots and adjust how the end of your turn goes. Now, instead of just rolling the dice you flip the top card of the fire deck. Depending on your group and difficulty, there are different numbers of starting cards, but for last night we played with 10 regular and once Accelerate. If a regular fire advance card is flipped, you just roll the dice and proceed as normal. No big deal.
    However, if an Accelerate card is drawn, you roll twice for two locations with new smoke (or worse if there's something already there), then you add a Flare Up card to the deck, then draw an event card, then you shuffle everything in the fire deck back together and start from the top again.

    Now the event deck has some interesting stuff in it. A couple of the cards we got were; "Did you hear footsteps", which had you increase your POI (potential object of interest - usually people to save) from 3 to 5. Another was a POI token that was actually explosives. Another caused all the exterior doors to shut. Another made the deck gun from the fire truck not work.

    The Flare Up cards give the player who just finished their turn two extra actions next turn, but then cause you to draw an event, and flip over another fire card potentially causing a lot more fire to happen.

    It really does make the game much more interesting, and keeps you from getting too far ahead of the fire if things are going well and making the game boring and easy. We got back to back accelerate cards once, and there was so much smoke and fire on the board. We still won, but I expected that since we were playing on easy and with new players. Next time? Definitely going to run the more difficult setup.

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  • CantidoCantido Registered User regular
    PMAvers wrote: »
    Mvrck wrote: »
    Hey Board Game Friends, I am in search of help. I'm not sure if it was this thread, the SE++ one, or during the Upside Down, but I remember someone describing a game as "Catan, but better." Have a friend coming in from out of town who only ever plays Catan, but wanted to try to twist his arm into playing something else. Does anyone remember the post or what game it was? I can't seem to find the post.

    I think it was Concordia?

    Definitely Concordia, or alternately Archipelago.

    If direct trading with other players was mentioned it might also have been Sidereal Confluence.

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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
    I don't think there really is a Catan but better. It just does such a good job of blowing up the preconceptions of what boardgames are while not looking a million miles away from monopoly without loads of rules or a long play time or anything

    I mean, it's not a great game, but I would still probably use it to introduce somebody coming into the hobby cold

    Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
  • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
    Mojo_Jojo wrote: »
    I don't think there really is a Catan but better. It just does such a good job of blowing up the preconceptions of what boardgames are while not looking a million miles away from monopoly without loads of rules or a long play time or anything

    I mean, it's not a great game, but I would still probably use it to introduce somebody coming into the hobby cold

    dominion and code names are also decent intros, maybe

    dominion isn't much more complicated than catan but all of the mechanics will be new to somebody new to the hobby

    same with 7 wonders - it's too light for me to really enjoy but still maybe too heavy for some intro situations

    sig.gif
  • Ah_PookAh_Pook Registered User regular
    Ah_Pook wrote: »
    Amazon has In The Year Of The Dragon for $19, if anyone wants a real good cheap game.

    whats it like

    It's an old Feld game but feels quite different than anything else I've played by him. Essentially you have a set number of turns with a known series of bad things happening at the beginning of each turn. You have to deal with the bad things and try to score points while doing so. The rules are easy to pick up and it's quite an interesting game, though if you don't like punishing games it might not be one to go for.

  • Mojo_JojoMojo_Jojo We are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourse Registered User regular
    Mojo_Jojo wrote: »
    I don't think there really is a Catan but better. It just does such a good job of blowing up the preconceptions of what boardgames are while not looking a million miles away from monopoly without loads of rules or a long play time or anything

    I mean, it's not a great game, but I would still probably use it to introduce somebody coming into the hobby cold

    dominion and code names are also decent intros, maybe

    dominion isn't much more complicated than catan but all of the mechanics will be new to somebody new to the hobby

    same with 7 wonders - it's too light for me to really enjoy but still maybe too heavy for some intro situations

    For me, one of the things that really blew my mind was there are dice but rolling those dice does not move you along a number of spaces. It's why I mentioned in the past that Machi Koro is a good intro game (Even though it lacks many other features and isn't actually very good)

    I don't think 7 Wonders would be the best intro as a lot of starting to play that game is turning through the reference to try and find what the random collection of arcane symbols means

    Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
  • ArcSynArcSyn Registered User regular
    My sister-in-law got my son Catan Jr for Christmas. I think it's actually better than Catan, because they make sure you don't go a turn without getting something, except for maybe the first one or two turns if the wrong numbers are rolled. It uses a single d6, and at the start of the game you get a resource on 5 of the 6 results. Getting a pirate fort to the next island to get something on every roll doesn't take long.

    It's really the worst thing I think of Catan and something I think can sour it to using it as a gateway game, going a turn or longer with getting no or few resources so you can't do much of anything on your turn.

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  • PMAversPMAvers Registered User regular
    I think that's probably why Concordia is considered to be BetterCatan, since there's no randomness involved. You're always getting something of value, it just comes down to you to make the choices that gets you bigger value. You want resources? Play the card from your hand that lets you harvest resources.

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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
    It's an interesting exercise to think about how that issue with Catan could be addressed.
    • On your turn you pick up one resource of a type you are eligible to collect. This would really mess up the scarcity of resources that the game hinges on
    • On your turn draw one random resource if you haven't gained anything since your last go? It's a pain to track and still means you could wait several turns without anything to do
    • Some kind of gambling game? On your turn place a token on a hex that you don't have access to, if it comes up you get to take a resource of that type and then pick it back up. You can replace/position on your turn. This would just have people sticking the gambling tokens on the 6s and 8s though.

    There's probably non-terrible options too

    Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
  • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
    my group basically can't play archipelago, it's alsmost always a separatist win or group loss

    but before that dynamic formed, there was one guy who kept reading the win condition card list and giruign out what everyone was going for and he would always win over people playing more casually

    i really don't like having game mechanics that benefit from extreme calculation and hypothetical note taking

    we often houserule games on our first playthrough to make private information that was once public stay public

    sig.gif
  • LykouraghLykouragh Registered User regular
    My group basically can't play Archipelago because of the whole "lazy natives" and "we all lose if the black meeple catches up with the white meeple" thing.

    Somebody super needed to explain to that guy about colonialism and racism.

  • Dirk2112Dirk2112 Registered User regular
    Mojo_Jojo wrote: »
    It's an interesting exercise to think about how that issue with Catan could be addressed.
    • On your turn draw one random resource if you haven't gained anything since your last go? It's a pain to track and still means you could wait several turns without anything to do

    There's probably non-terrible options too

    If you don't get a resource from the dice roll, you gain a new resource (coconuts for example). You can trade 3 coconuts for any resource of your choosing.

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  • MvrckMvrck Dwarven MountainhomeRegistered User regular
    Thanks guys!

  • Magic PinkMagic Pink Tur-Boner-Fed Registered User regular
    edited January 2018
    Lykouragh wrote: »
    My group basically can't play Archipelago because of the whole "lazy natives" and "we all lose if the black meeple catches up with the white meeple" thing.

    Somebody super needed to explain to that guy about colonialism and racism.

    Except they aren't lazy, they're in the process of revolt and they get stronger if you treat them like shit. That's why you lose, because they drive your lazy, cruel, white, imperialist ass off the island. That's hardly racist.

    But colonialism it definitely is and that can be a pretty upsetting subject to play a game about, understandably. Mombasa is the same, but at least they call that out in the rule book and give people a link to read up on more of how awful it really was.

    Magic Pink on
  • NotoriusBENNotoriusBEN Registered User regular
    Also, @Mvrck . Ive said it before ill say it again, ticket to ride is a great gateway game. You always have a choice on your turn, and you always get value by laying down train cars or building your hand in order to do so.

    There is some meta involved on the USA map after a while, but other maps help with that, but its not as blatant as secure North America, Venezuela, Iceland, and Kamchatka and then win in Risk.

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  • InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    edited January 2018
    Catan gets an overly bad rap, imo.

    Base game is great with 3, seafarers is solid with 4.

    Especially using the tournament start rules (that I swear were official but I can’t find them anymore and maybe they were a 3rd edition thing?) it’s a fun, fast game. My crew gets 3 player catan done in under 60 minutes and 4 player in under 90.

    I hear about 3 hour games of Catan and I am baffled. I hear a lot of players refusing to trade. And of course the game is going to suck then, you can make any game suck by refusing to engage with it.

    War of the Rings is not a bad game because the Shadow Player can refuse to ever attack. It just means the SP is breaking the social contract of the boardgame he is playing.

    Inquisitor on
  • SpawnbrokerSpawnbroker Registered User regular
    Catan games usually go long when players either refuse to trade or refuse to use the robber baron effectively because they want to be "nice". My family plays this way, and they will hold grudges between games if you use the baron on them even once.

    That just ends up with the player who had the best starting position winning after an extra long game.

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  • DirtmuncherDirtmuncher Registered User regular
    edited January 2018
    Cantido wrote: »
    PMAvers wrote: »
    Mvrck wrote: »
    Hey Board Game Friends, I am in search of help. I'm not sure if it was this thread, the SE++ one, or during the Upside Down, but I remember someone describing a game as "Catan, but better." Have a friend coming in from out of town who only ever plays Catan, but wanted to try to twist his arm into playing something else. Does anyone remember the post or what game it was? I can't seem to find the post.

    I think it was Concordia?

    Definitely Concordia, or alternately Archipelago.

    If direct trading with other players was mentioned it might also have been Sidereal Confluence.

    I want to thank everyone who mentioned Sidereal Confluence. Although availability in Europe is bad it still showed up at my door today.
    I am looking forward to playing!!!

    I had a euro VP point hole in the 6-9 player range that 7 wonders doesn't quite fill, partly because I dislike multiplayer solitaire. Cube trading century: spice route went over excellently. But has a lot of downtime with 4+ ap prown players. It might replace century at the 4-5 player spot.

    Dirtmuncher on
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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
    Inquisitor wrote: »
    Catan gets an overly bad rap, imo.

    Base game is great with 3, seafarers is solid with 4.

    Especially using the tournament start rules (that I swear were official but I can’t find them anymore and maybe they were a 3rd edition thing?) it’s a fun, fast game. My crew gets 3 player catan done in under 60 minutes and 4 player in under 90.

    I hear about 3 hour games of Catan and I am baffled. I hear a lot of players refusing to trade. And of course the game is going to suck then, you can make any game suck by refusing to engage with it.

    War of the Rings is a bad game because the Shadow Player can refuse to ever attack. It just means the SP is breaking the social contract of the boardgame he is playing.

    Even 90 minutes seems bad

    The bad rap is deserved though. Not getting to do anything on your turn is rubbish. Not getting to do anything on several turns in a row is poor design

    Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
  • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
    I agree with your facts but not your conclusions. Catan isn't listed as a three player game and it sucks with more than that. Plus if you say a game sucks only because the people I can get to play it play it wrong, well that has the same impact on my life as if it sucked for all people. The solution is a different game.

    sig.gif
  • MvrckMvrck Dwarven MountainhomeRegistered User regular
    Also, @Mvrck . Ive said it before ill say it again, ticket to ride is a great gateway game. You always have a choice on your turn, and you always get value by laying down train cars or building your hand in order to do so.

    There is some meta involved on the USA map after a while, but other maps help with that, but its not as blatant as secure North America, Venezuela, Iceland, and Kamchatka and then win in Risk.

    He's not a gateway player. We've played all sorts of things with him, he just really loves Catan. But no one else in the gaming group likes it.

  • AstaerethAstaereth In the belly of the beastRegistered User regular
    For non-gateway Catan replacements I suggest Chinatown, a really good trading game that’s also about territory and econ.

    ACsTqqK.jpg
  • Evil MultifariousEvil Multifarious Registered User regular
    Chinatown is spectacular

    I really like the idea of Archipelago but it's long and kinda busted. The lead player has zero incentive to contribute to crises because there is no gamer on earth who would rather lose by themselves than tank the game for everyone.

    That said, puppies, your group seems to have a chronic issue with perverse incentives

  • CampyCampy Registered User regular
    One of the guys from my group bought Scythe and Sidereal Confluence and new guy at work owns Mage Knight.

    HYPE!

  • Ah_PookAh_Pook Registered User regular
    Cantido wrote: »
    PMAvers wrote: »
    Mvrck wrote: »
    Hey Board Game Friends, I am in search of help. I'm not sure if it was this thread, the SE++ one, or during the Upside Down, but I remember someone describing a game as "Catan, but better." Have a friend coming in from out of town who only ever plays Catan, but wanted to try to twist his arm into playing something else. Does anyone remember the post or what game it was? I can't seem to find the post.

    I think it was Concordia?

    Definitely Concordia, or alternately Archipelago.

    If direct trading with other players was mentioned it might also have been Sidereal Confluence.

    I want to thank everyone who mentioned Sidereal Confluence. Although availability in Europe is bad it still showed up at my door today.
    I am looking forward to playing!!!

    I had a euro VP point hole in the 6-9 player range that 7 wonders doesn't quite fill, partly because I dislike multiplayer solitaire. Cube trading century: spice route went over excellently. But has a lot of downtime with 4+ ap prown players. It might replace century at the 4-5 player spot.

    Man excessive downtime is not a complaint I've ever heard levied at spice road. If they chew over that game so much be sure you use timed trading phases in Sideareal or else you'll be at it for a thousand years.

  • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
    Chinatown is spectacular

    I really like the idea of Archipelago but it's long and kinda busted. The lead player has zero incentive to contribute to crises because there is no gamer on earth who would rather lose by themselves than tank the game for everyone.

    That said, puppies, your group seems to have a chronic issue with perverse incentives

    Yeah we are less devoted to winning than some. It makes for great games of blood rage and TI but it's an occasional problem in Inis. Obviously it makes no difference in worker placement games.

    sig.gif
  • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
    Man thinking about it if you made archipelago without the separatist / pacifism track it would still be a baller game

    sig.gif
  • DarricDarric Santa MonicaRegistered User regular
    edited January 2018
    This is purely self indulgent, but at some point I compiled a personal top 10 for 2017 that I figured I may as well share it here:

    1. Gloomhaven
    2. Guards of Atlantis
    3. Sidereal Confluence
    4. Spirit Island
    5. Azul
    6. The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31
    7. Codenames: Duet
    8. Civilization: A New Dawn
    9. Aeon’s End: War Eternal
    10. Quest for El Dorado

    Late additions that should probably be on there: Battle for Rokugan (played for the first time yesterday, it's amazing) and Charterstone (five games in and digging it a lot).

    Would be interested to hear other favourites for the year.

    Darric on
  • ArcSynArcSyn Registered User regular
    edited January 2018
    I don't play enough new releases, but some of my favorites I've played for the first time in 2017 are:
    Potion Explosion
    Deception: Murder in Hong Kong
    Survive! Space Attack
    Captain Sonar
    Flash Point: Tragic Events (even though it was only once, it really does improve on the game)

    ArcSyn on
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  • EnigmedicEnigmedic Registered User regular
    So funny story time. I got pandemic a while ago and never played it, and around christmas we had some time to try it out. We liked the game well enough but thought it was really hard, but we still won a couple times. Come to find out, we only had to cure the 4 diseases to win, not eradicate them. So our win rate was actually stupid high, and we had actually managed to fully cure and eradicate them a few times, so we were kicking ass.

  • PMAversPMAvers Registered User regular
    edited January 2018
    So out of nowhere, got a chance to play some Arkham Horror LCG tonight.

    Did the first two scenarios from Dunwich, and holy shit.
    Did the Casino scenario first, and due to the GODDAMN ANNOYING DETECTIVE weakness showing up at the worst possible time ended literally one action short to get out in time before the building collapsed.

    On the other scenario, we were at down to literally the last action possible where we got the Alchemist bomb off to actually kill the Experiment. Thankfully glad I pumped a bunch of shots into it via Roland's pistol earlier.

    PMAvers on
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  • Evil MultifariousEvil Multifarious Registered User regular
    I really like the actual base mechanics at the core of Archipelago. It's really fun to build your little community and move your workers around in a way that's concrete and less abstract than Euro games tend to be.

  • FishmanFishman Put your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain. Registered User regular
    I really like the actual base mechanics at the core of Archipelago. It's really fun to build your little community and move your workers around in a way that's concrete and less abstract than Euro games tend to be.

    Archipelago is the only game I can think of where I almost think I'd have more fun just doing away with the objectives and end trigger, and just playing to see what happens until we run out of components and.. just tell stories about our game?

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  • WearingglassesWearingglasses Of the friendly neighborhood variety Registered User regular
    Okay, I haven't played Keyflower yet, but there's one thing bugging me:

    There are six cut out houses. One's all wood, the other's a thatch roof cottage, one's made of red brick, and.... the rest of the three are nearly identically colored and styled blue-gray houses, differing only slightly in the doors. It's all visually unbalanced. See here.

  • SatanIsMyMotorSatanIsMyMotor Fuck Warren Ellis Registered User regular
    Looking for something new to pick up - preferably something that's good for 2 players but can go beyond.
    Would prefer something newish - ie from the past couple of years otherwise we probably already own it. Level of complexity isn't much of an issue?

    Any thoughts or things I may've missed? I'm a bit out of the recent gaming loop.

  • Ah_PookAh_Pook Registered User regular
    Looking for something new to pick up - preferably something that's good for 2 players but can go beyond.
    Would prefer something newish - ie from the past couple of years otherwise we probably already own it. Level of complexity isn't much of an issue?

    Any thoughts or things I may've missed? I'm a bit out of the recent gaming loop.

    Do you have any other guidelines at all? There are a lot of games...

  • DirtmuncherDirtmuncher Registered User regular
    Looking for something new to pick up - preferably something that's good for 2 players but can go beyond.
    Would prefer something newish - ie from the past couple of years otherwise we probably already own it. Level of complexity isn't much of an issue?

    Any thoughts or things I may've missed? I'm a bit out of the recent gaming loop.

    Century spice route. Fun and goes up to 5 but plays really well at 2 also.

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  • WearingglassesWearingglasses Of the friendly neighborhood variety Registered User regular
    edited January 2018
    My friend just got Vast, and wants to play it. As the resident "teacher dude" of the group, I may be tapped into teaching this as well, since it's like five different games to learn at once. I've watched a couple videos of a playthrough, and I think I understand the game plan needed for the Knight, the Goblins, and the Dragon. The Cave and Thief are still a bit opaque to me.

    Any tips? On teaching this, plus how to grok the latter two roles?

    (Note: I also have just gotten Keyflower, plus some of the other guys wants to play Concordia, so the next session kinda sounds crowded in terms of brain energy required...)

    Wearingglasses on
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