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[Board Games] aren't worth playing until you add at least five expansions

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  • admanbadmanb unionize your workplace Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    I really disliked both T&E and Kemet. I'm much more on board with FCM so far.

    I'm surprised by both of those dislikes

    Your board game preferences seem randomized

    Or do you just hate antiquity as a concept

    man when I tried Kemet it was new! I'm just more concerned with managing fun across the time of a board game night than mercilessly proving my intellect superior to those of the poor souls i duped into spending time with me. I assume your favorite game is Go, you draft-hating, theme-ignoring automaton?!?

    I think EM meant like... thematic antiquity.

  • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
    edited March 2019
    admanb wrote: »
    I really disliked both T&E and Kemet. I'm much more on board with FCM so far.

    I'm surprised by both of those dislikes

    Your board game preferences seem randomized

    Or do you just hate antiquity as a concept

    man when I tried Kemet it was new! I'm just more concerned with managing fun across the time of a board game night than mercilessly proving my intellect superior to those of the poor souls i duped into spending time with me. I assume your favorite game is Go, you draft-hating, theme-ignoring automaton?!?

    I think EM meant like... thematic antiquity.

    then i counter with blood rage and concordia and chaos in the old world

    anyway he meant whatever would hurt me more

    Powerpuppies on
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  • Evil MultifariousEvil Multifarious Registered User regular
    Hmm I think TnE is particularly good as an example of a Eurolike that connects to its theme in an interesting, abstract way, and Kemet is dripping with absurd fantastical theme

    They're also both fun because aggression is promoted and rewarded when done intelligently

    I do like Go though!

  • Evil MultifariousEvil Multifarious Registered User regular
    All of those aren't like, classical antiquity, Grecian and Roman and etc! My ridiculous assertion stands

  • jergarmarjergarmar hollow man crew goes pew pew pewRegistered User regular
    I assume your favorite game is Go, you draft-hating, theme-ignoring automaton?!?

    Ummmmmmm.....

    <raises hand sheepishly>

    When I was a child, I had a fever...
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  • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
    All of those aren't like, classical antiquity, Grecian and Roman and etc! My ridiculous assertion stands

    Concordia is literally classical Roman antiquity, isn't it?

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  • Evil MultifariousEvil Multifarious Registered User regular
    All of those aren't like, classical antiquity, Grecian and Roman and etc! My ridiculous assertion stands

    Concordia is literally classical Roman antiquity, isn't it?

    Oh I thought it was some 19th century ship game

    I've never played it

  • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
    edited March 2019
    All of those aren't like, classical antiquity, Grecian and Roman and etc! My ridiculous assertion stands

    Concordia is literally classical Roman antiquity, isn't it?

    Oh I thought it was some 19th century ship game

    I've never played it

    you're thinking navegador, I think. It's by the same guy and has similar mechanics and the same pieces.

    I actually own that one! It's fun.

    Powerpuppies on
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  • jergarmarjergarmar hollow man crew goes pew pew pewRegistered User regular
    Hmm I think TnE is particularly good as an example of a Eurolike that connects to its theme in an interesting, abstract way, and Kemet is dripping with absurd fantastical theme

    They're also both fun because aggression is promoted and rewarded when done intelligently

    Over the last couple years I've gotten more picky about games, and if you've looked at my signature, it probably won't surprise you that "intelligent aggression promoted and rewarded" is a central pursuit of mine, heh.

    When I was a child, I had a fever...
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  • ArcticLancerArcticLancer Best served chilled. Registered User regular
  • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
    I am completely in the tank for Inis and Arboretum. Played them both absolutely to death and would play either right now. I don't think I've played Azul or Blue Moon, and I can't read the other two besides FCM. So I guess at the moment I'm batting 1000 with your sig?

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  • jergarmarjergarmar hollow man crew goes pew pew pewRegistered User regular
    edited March 2019
    I am completely in the tank for Inis and Arboretum. Played them both absolutely to death and would play either right now. I don't think I've played Azul or Blue Moon, and I can't read the other two besides FCM. So I guess at the moment I'm batting 1000 with your sig?

    Blue Moon needs to be moved out (Keyforge should be in that spot), but the others are Arcadia Quest (mostly to play with my 7-year-old, though I quite like it), and Archipelago, which is essentially built around the idea of "exploration through cooperative aggression".

    jergarmar on
    When I was a child, I had a fever...
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  • LykouraghLykouragh Registered User regular
    My love for Inis is matched only by my inability to win at Inis.

  • GvzbgulGvzbgul Registered User regular
    How does the new edition of Arboretum compare? How hard is it to get the old one?

  • JonBobJonBob Registered User regular
    The art is similar across editions. I find the prominent sky and grass colors a little distracting in the Renegade edition, but it's not offensive or anything. The icons for the different suits are far more distinguishable in the Renegade edition than in Z-Man.

    Overall I don't find it much better or worse. I like that my Z-Man edition fits nicely on my shelf with their other deluxe card games.

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  • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
    jergarmar wrote: »
    I am completely in the tank for Inis and Arboretum. Played them both absolutely to death and would play either right now. I don't think I've played Azul or Blue Moon, and I can't read the other two besides FCM. So I guess at the moment I'm batting 1000 with your sig?

    Blue Moon needs to be moved out (Keyforge should be in that spot), but the others are Arcadia Quest (mostly to play with my 7-year-old, though I quite like it), and Archipelago, which is essentially built around the idea of "exploration through cooperative aggression".

    *clicks tongue*

    and we're back to eternal war

    Archipelago's "loss, but not as bad as the other loss" totally doesn't work for my group and we routinely plunge the island into the sea rather than cooperate, as the person in 4th refuses to contribute equally and the person in 1st refuses to contribute extra

    i love spirit island partly because it's made that the goal, thematically speaking

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  • CantidoCantido Registered User regular
    edited March 2019
    That one guy at work trying to get the nerds to try Malifaux finally tasted a little game called Scythe, his first euro-anything. Now he has seen the light. He still loves combat so he is going to check out Kemet soon.

    Cantido on
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  • BloodySlothBloodySloth Registered User regular
    I love Kemet but somehow getting it to the table is impossible. Every time I finally convince some rubes good friends to play it with me, the typical response is "hey that was a lot of fun! I forgot how much I liked this game" and then the next game day everyone is like mehhhhhhhh

    I think its just the dudes on a map thing. It's such an ingrained prejudice. Everyone played Risk as kids and it ruined even the idea of the genre. Once they see the board and the bag of little plastic dudes and the idea that they're going to move dudes from one spot to another spot to fight more dudes their eyes gloss over.

    It's funny because Chaos in the Old World was a much easier sell. I think it's the card play and the almost euro-like stuff going around the dudes on a map that lubricates the concept.

  • ArcticLancerArcticLancer Best served chilled. Registered User regular
  • CantidoCantido Registered User regular
    Okay, but also, Inis ... :D

    Oh I most certainly told him that!

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  • AthenorAthenor Battle Hardened Optimist The Skies of HiigaraRegistered User regular
    Got to finally, FINALLY play Scythe.

    Man, that was good. Took an hour going over the rules, then another 2-3 hours to play, 4 players. I got my teeth kicked in as one player learned how to be super aggressive using combat cards and picking me off. I had Rusivet and Industrial and decided to try being a pacifist, which was not a great idea when the other objective was easier.

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  • Jam WarriorJam Warrior Registered User regular
    jergarmar wrote: »
    I am completely in the tank for Inis and Arboretum. Played them both absolutely to death and would play either right now. I don't think I've played Azul or Blue Moon, and I can't read the other two besides FCM. So I guess at the moment I'm batting 1000 with your sig?

    Blue Moon needs to be moved out (Keyforge should be in that spot), but the others are Arcadia Quest (mostly to play with my 7-year-old, though I quite like it), and Archipelago, which is essentially built around the idea of "exploration through cooperative aggression".

    *clicks tongue*

    and we're back to eternal war

    Archipelago's "loss, but not as bad as the other loss" totally doesn't work for my group and we routinely plunge the island into the sea rather than cooperate, as the person in 4th refuses to contribute equally and the person in 1st refuses to contribute extra

    i love spirit island partly because it's made that the goal, thematically speaking

    This sounds like the person in fourth being sensible and the person in first being a self destructive idiot.

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  • SageinaRageSageinaRage Registered User regular
    jergarmar wrote: »
    We removed $300 partway through, so we had $900 for five players. It was still long enough that turn 2 train seemed mandatory, but I'm not sure that's a problem if you either don't play with 5 and new people or you just tell everyone to take that first turn and why.

    Holy cow! So $1200 originally, is that right? You said you had put in $100, which means the ONLY possibility is that the others put in 3 $300 and 1 $200 reserve cards.

    Welcome to Food Chain Magnate, noob!

    2 of them were new! They decided randomly to put in $200 and $300 and then tried to compete with me for early dosh!

    I thought about it and was like hmmm a fast game seems good for my first time and then WHOOPS EVERYBODY DISAGREED

    :mad:

    Usually when I'm teaching FCM, I explain what the reserve cards are, then suggest we just put in 100 apiece, or even just play to the first bank breaking. The first bank break is a good place to take stock of how the game is going and reflect on your actions, and people can start to see if what they are doing is working or not. Going for a full length game with 2 new players is pretty intense.

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  • Jam WarriorJam Warrior Registered User regular
    As someone who hasn't played FCM and so is very lost in this conversation, what is a reserve card?

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  • ArcticLancerArcticLancer Best served chilled. Registered User regular
    FCM is largely a game of perfect information - there's no "randomized setup" for players, and what everyone has is open information at all times (except when everyone is planning their turn, but that rather makes sense :P ). The one exception is that at the very beginning of the game, everyone has a set of 3 "reserve" cards ($100, 200, 300), and they play one secretly. When the bank is emptied for the first time (it starts with a fixed amount of money), the reserves are revealed, that much money is added to the new bank, and the game will end when it is emptied the second time.
    There's a touch more to it than that, but effectively, the reserve cards are players blind-bidding how long they want the game to last, as you can build a second bank with anywhere between $500 and $1500 in it. (I don't remember exactly, but I believe the first bank is $200, but generally you'll have some sort of engine by the time it empties, and players should expect to make money much faster afterwards)

  • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
    edited March 2019
    jergarmar wrote: »
    I am completely in the tank for Inis and Arboretum. Played them both absolutely to death and would play either right now. I don't think I've played Azul or Blue Moon, and I can't read the other two besides FCM. So I guess at the moment I'm batting 1000 with your sig?

    Blue Moon needs to be moved out (Keyforge should be in that spot), but the others are Arcadia Quest (mostly to play with my 7-year-old, though I quite like it), and Archipelago, which is essentially built around the idea of "exploration through cooperative aggression".

    *clicks tongue*

    and we're back to eternal war

    Archipelago's "loss, but not as bad as the other loss" totally doesn't work for my group and we routinely plunge the island into the sea rather than cooperate, as the person in 4th refuses to contribute equally and the person in 1st refuses to contribute extra

    i love spirit island partly because it's made that the goal, thematically speaking

    This sounds like the person in fourth being sensible and the person in first being a self destructive idiot.

    I don't challenge this interpretation, but I think I remember that the rulebook kind of does? The person in fourth should be incentivized to partially succeed because everybody loses is a "worse loss" than losing normally. I guess if the 4th place person is acting last, then they're turning a nonzero small chance of victory into an instant loss out of pique. I don't begrudge either player's decisions, quite.
    As someone who hasn't played FCM and so is very lost in this conversation, what is a reserve card?
    FCM is largely a game of perfect information - there's no "randomized setup" for players, and what everyone has is open information at all times (except when everyone is planning their turn, but that rather makes sense :P ). The one exception is that at the very beginning of the game, everyone has a set of 3 "reserve" cards ($100, 200, 300), and they play one secretly. When the bank is emptied for the first time (it starts with a fixed amount of money), the reserves are revealed, that much money is added to the new bank, and the game will end when it is emptied the second time.
    There's a touch more to it than that, but effectively, the reserve cards are players blind-bidding how long they want the game to last, as you can build a second bank with anywhere between $500 and $1500 in it. (I don't remember exactly, but I believe the first bank is $200, but generally you'll have some sort of engine by the time it empties, and players should expect to make money much faster afterwards)

    Also you can play super fast or medium or super slow, so you can make the bank break earlier or later, and when the bank breaks it can slightly loosen or tighten the restrictions on your organization size. I was playing super fast and going for a quick bank break until some fast-strategy jerk found a mailbox spot that hit half the board with direct mail leaflets and stopped me from making money for 2 turns. Way to hand the game to the slow players, guy :mad:

    Powerpuppies on
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  • Dark WhiteDark White Registered User regular
    On some level, it takes the “right” people to play Archipelago. But, unless you have people that don’t understand the rules or are just willfully obnoxious (so, ya know, don’t play games with them) the incentive structure of the game should mitigate the contribution issues. If you are winning, you should be incentivized to protect your ability to win and contribute more to the collective pot. If you are losing, you have less incentive to contribute. This also works as a pretty straight forward catch-up mechanic. Further, if you are winning, you are likely in a better position to win the bids to determine turn order, so why are you going to make the weaker players go last and potentially screw over the game.

    This all assumes you are playing Archipelago competitivey. I don’t understand why anyone would bother with Archipelago played as a mostly-cooperative experience. Play an actual co-op game if that’s what you’re interested in - this isn’t it. I believe this is a game that you, solely, are trying to win and there just happens to be a fail state where everyone loses.

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  • LykouraghLykouragh Registered User regular
    My group doesn't like Archipelago just because of the whole "gee kind of racist" issue. Pity because there's a nice game under there.

  • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
    edited March 2019
    Dark White wrote: »
    On some level, it takes the “right” people to play Archipelago. But, unless you have people that don’t understand the rules or are just willfully obnoxious (so, ya know, don’t play games with them) the incentive structure of the game should mitigate the contribution issues. If you are winning, you should be incentivized to protect your ability to win and contribute more to the collective pot. If you are losing, you have less incentive to contribute. This also works as a pretty straight forward catch-up mechanic. Further, if you are winning, you are likely in a better position to win the bids to determine turn order, so why are you going to make the weaker players go last and potentially screw over the game.

    This all assumes you are playing Archipelago competitivey. I don’t understand why anyone would bother with Archipelago played as a mostly-cooperative experience. Play an actual co-op game if that’s what you’re interested in - this isn’t it. I believe this is a game that you, solely, are trying to win and there just happens to be a fail state where everyone loses.

    Yeah, the issues are definitely mitigated at our table, in terms of people playing competitively. Everybody's definitely trying to do better than each other and the people doing well are trying to keep the game going.

    We're consistently a little more willing to let the weaker players go last and not contribute quite enough extra than we should be, I guess. It's so easy to put someone in a state where they know they 100% lose if they don't chip in, and hard to decide not to do so at your own expense because they're unwilling and threaten you with mutual destruction.

    Edit: You guys are almost convincing me to play again. It has a memory mechanic and rewards obsessive computation of possible enemy secret point scoring conditions, right?

    Maybe I need to finish the coding on those DIY turn timers...

    Powerpuppies on
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  • Albino BunnyAlbino Bunny Jackie Registered User regular
    Lykouragh wrote: »
    My group doesn't like Archipelago just because of the whole "gee kind of racist" issue. Pity because there's a nice game under there.

    New Angeles is also a semi-co op negotiation hellscape.

  • ArcticLancerArcticLancer Best served chilled. Registered User regular
    The difference is that New Angeles isn't much of a good game underneath that. :(

  • Dark WhiteDark White Registered User regular
    New Angeles has some good ideas and on paper replicates a lot of things from Archipelago, so I get why people always draw comparisons. Ultimately, yeah, it’s a pretty mediocre game on its own.

    But, I think the biggest thing for me that makes it an unsuitable replacement for Archipelago is that it’s missing the exploration element. The building and expansion of the map and the quasi-area control mechanic is just so satisfying and that part is just completely absent from New Angeles.

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  • PowerpuppiesPowerpuppies drinking coffee in the mountain cabinRegistered User regular
    Dark White wrote: »
    New Angeles has some good ideas and on paper replicates a lot of things from Archipelago, so I get why people always draw comparisons. Ultimately, yeah, it’s a pretty mediocre game on its own.

    But, I think the biggest thing for me that makes it an unsuitable replacement for Archipelago is that it’s missing the exploration element. The building and expansion of the map and the quasi-area control mechanic is just so satisfying and that part is just completely absent from New Angeles.

    Have you been inducted into the cult of Inis, as of yet?

    sig.gif
  • Dark WhiteDark White Registered User regular
    Yeah, Inis is cool.

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  • MrBodyMrBody Registered User regular
    edited March 2019
    I love Kemet but somehow getting it to the table is impossible. Every time I finally convince some rubes good friends to play it with me, the typical response is "hey that was a lot of fun! I forgot how much I liked this game" and then the next game day everyone is like mehhhhhhhh

    I think its just the dudes on a map thing. It's such an ingrained prejudice. Everyone played Risk as kids and it ruined even the idea of the genre. Once they see the board and the bag of little plastic dudes and the idea that they're going to move dudes from one spot to another spot to fight more dudes their eyes gloss over.

    It's funny because Chaos in the Old World was a much easier sell. I think it's the card play and the almost euro-like stuff going around the dudes on a map that lubricates the concept.

    Kemet is even harder to break into than most asymmetrical games. Usually someone gets slaughtered their first game, but has a good idea going forward after that. In Kemet, you can still be in the dark about certain stuff even after 3-5 games. It's asking a lot for people to stick with it after their 3rd loss that ended in an eyeroll because they couldn't see some ridiculous combo coming.

    Now that time has passed, has anyone still stuck with Root? I don't know a single person in any of my groups who didn't cool off it after a month.

    MrBody on
  • 38thDoe38thDoe lets never be stupid again wait lets always be stupid foreverRegistered User regular
    Wait what? Kemet is hard to Break into because every turn counts so a bad move turn one is often you out of the game. It seems pretty symmetrical to me though. At least at the start.

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  • admanbadmanb unionize your workplace Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    Aw yeah Root is still rad as hell. You need a specific type of group that is happy to engage in the politics and the metagame but if you've got that it's a completely different experience from the other top dudes-on-a-map games.

  • AstaerethAstaereth In the belly of the beastRegistered User regular
    Played Root for the first time and enjoyed it (even if we screwed up the rules for half the game). The expansion factions seem pretty neat, too. Is there a list out there of recommended "scenario" faction combinations with all the expansions, like there is for the base four?

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  • admanbadmanb unionize your workplace Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    Astaereth wrote: »
    Played Root for the first time and enjoyed it (even if we screwed up the rules for half the game). The expansion factions seem pretty neat, too. Is there a list out there of recommended "scenario" faction combinations with all the expansions, like there is for the base four?

    The expansion rules have a similar list in the back!

  • Mr. GMr. G Registered User regular
    Personally I think Marquise/Eyrie/Alliance/Riverfolk is the closest I will ever come to a perfect experience in games

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