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Nah, BSG is fine for a starter. I've seen drunk college students playing it at a boardgame cafe as an introduction, and they do just fine and have fun. Most importantly, it's social as hell and teaches the holiest lesson of Ameritrash: Games are an excuse to chill with buds, drink, and have a good time while blowing poo poo up.
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Jul 2, 2012 17:26
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Godddamn, that wargame post was great, but a few games deserve some more gushing. Napoleon's Triumph If you are in the market, this is one of the few wargames you'll ever need. While the game itself represents a single battle, Napoleon's Triumph stands out by giving players remarkable freedom in creating and implementing battlefield strategies in a match of skill while removing luck from the outcome. The result is a creative, fast, and engaging game for two players which is wildly successful at recreating the battlefield of the age. The decisions each player will face are seemingly impossible, but a ruthless and clever opponent will always find a way to turn the tide against impossible odds. At any given time, you'll find yourself with 10 crisis to deal with and 5 actions to put out the fires.  The gameplay combines the best elements of a wargame, poker and chess to recreate the uncertainty of battle and the necessity of strong command. The rules may be difficult to understand for a new player, but are best explained as a toolbox of maneuvers and tactics that players may use to sculpt whatever strategy they desire. From the moment forces are mustered on the field, to the cavalry screens that scout and harass the march to battle, to the final clash of lines, each player has complete control of their own destiny. The battle itself creates an agonizing situation for each player. The Austrian/Russian alliance greatly outnumber the French, but they are faced with attacking a fortified position and superior soldiers. The French position seems hopeless, but a strong reserve force can march to the rescue should the situation go tits up. If the Allies push too recklessly into the French lines, French reinforcements will be called and the aggressive soldiers will find themselves stretched thin, disorganized, and defending against fresh troops. If the attack on the French position is too conservative, they French will simply fend off the feeble assault for victory without needing the reserves. From the French perspective, sounding the bugles for aid will flip the victory objective from holding ground to a much riskier offense. The manner each game will play will change dramatically not inly through the varied battlefield tactics each player can employ, but through the very victory conditions the players create. This creates some amazing emergent gameplay with very little overhead. A unique feature of Napoleon's Triumph is how seamlessly an important element of battle has been integrated into the system without cluttering the rules: every engagement with enemy forces will cause a battalion to lose cohesion. As the lines draw closer, the generals will find themselves committed to each fight as direct control over troops degrades with contact. A careless general will find too many holes in the sweep of battle with too little time to correct. Controlling when and where each commitment happens while manipulating the opponent's forces into less favorable ground is a perfect thematic fit to the Napoleonic age of maneuvers, feints and bold sweeps. The design is so clean and comprehensive the designer makes it look easy. The downside is that every other battle level game will pale in comparison to this, and you will become picky and snotty. Like many other great wargames, dedication is needed to make Napoleon's Triumph shine. The rules are alien and can be difficult to grasp, and how to best use the tools at your disposal can be unclear. There are many guides and videos on Boardgamegeek.com to help a new player find their footing this great game, and I'd strongly recommend taking the time to familiarize yourself with the rules and strategy. The time you'll spend is worth it. King Chicken fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Jul 2, 2012 |
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Jul 2, 2012 18:36
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Lordpen posted:I need a new game for my group, this really seems like something that we would like. Nah, it's way shorter than Twilight Imperium by clocking it at around 3-3 1/2 hours. It's still long, but hardly an all day thing. If you want something very similar to Twilight Imperium with less rules and shorter play time, also check out Eclipse (around 2-3 hours). Edit: Forgot the obvious. Eclipse is a pain in the rear end to get right now, so you might need to wait a few months to get your hands on an (expensive) copy.
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Jul 2, 2012 18:42
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Poopy Palpy posted:I'm not sure I can agree with this. I say this as someone who really likes Agricola and Euro games. If gric were about anything other than farming it would be questionable whether it were a Euro game or Ameritrash, and if there were a single d6 in the box there wouldn't be any debate. Most of the complexity comes from the mountain of rules rather than emerging from the interaction of a few simple rules, the theme drives the mechanics instead of being pasted on, there's a pile of fiddly bits and multiple decks of cards, and it's pretty goddamn long. As an example of what euro games are like to someone interested in trying one out, it's really not very representative at all. If it was Ameritrash, I'd be able to raid enemy farms and murder their families with my battle-boars to win as the last man standing  The AT/Euro split has been long dead for years now. Agricola took the AT concepts of using a metric ton of cards and integrated theme to make a game more fun, but other than that it's entirely Euro with engine building, indirect conflict, and an entirely economic focus. It's almost like calling Fighting Formations: Grossdeutchland Infantry Division a Euro because Chad used some worker placement mechanics to streamline an ASL type system. It just combines the best ideas of both genres to make something awesome, and I'm all for that. Rigidly classifying games is almost impossible now beyond a rough guideline, and the old split was preventing these great new games we're seeing today.
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Jul 2, 2012 19:24
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Tekopo posted:I would have posted about napoleons triumph more but I wanted a more general overview of war games to help the newbies. Let me reiterate though: napoleons triumph is loving amazing and one of the best games I ever played. I just wanted a big write up for the game on the first page. If Napoleon's Triumph became the most popular wargame, I'd be happy. The only downside is that it's a horrible online game. Every implementation I've seen attempted is awkward and takes way longer than a face to face game.
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Jul 2, 2012 20:22
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I made a post on the other thread about train games. In short, you have a few different types: Economic Games: This includes 18xx, Chicago Express, Imperial (doesn't involve trains, but it's a train game), and some heavier Winsome stuff like Baltimore and Ohio. These games are entirely financial, anything done productively on the map is just there to manipulate prices. As a rule of thumb, if you hold stocks in companies and don't know what the hell is going on, you're probably playing an economic game. Network Building Games: The most popular of this group is (Age of) Steam, also known as a pick-up-and-deliver game. I'd also throw Brass into this group, though railways take a back seat. In these games, the financial element of the game is still strong, but money is typically used to increase the value of a player's infrastructure. Unlike the pure economic games, players take the role of a company rather holding shares. This leads to players wanting companies to actually succeed rather than sucking the life out of them at opportune times. Train games would fall more into the ridiculously heavy Euro camp, but are generally regarded as separate from Euros based on their history and the fact that many Euro gamers hate these games with a passion. Good starting points for those not wanting to jump right into 18xx are Chicago Express and Imperial. Both of those games are arguably as deep as 18xx, but much easier to learn and faster to play.
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Jul 3, 2012 01:21
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Broken Loose posted:Just woke up; changed the American/Euro analogy slightly to something less stupid. Anything else needs fixing in the OP? Link up Table Top with Wil Wheaton so that new players can figure out how to play some of the most popular games and screw up all the rules.
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Jul 3, 2012 01:31
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Pope Guilty posted:Day-night cycles? Wow, I was really into Mage Knight ten years ago and I don't remember anything about that. Is the new game that different? The new Mage Knight has nothing to do with the old miniatures game outside of the name, but the groaning of old fans as they sit down to Vlaada's heaviest game yet makes it all worthwhile. The MK board game is pretty much a slightly lighter but more competitive Magic Realm with a deck building engine.
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Jul 3, 2012 17:28
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Trane posted:It seems like one player needs to understand the game enough to be a sort of "DM" to help along. I would assume that training players this way allow you to slowly explain the rules during the walkthrough scenario and not overburden everyone with particulars until they need to know them. There are a few more barriers to learning Mage Knight than the rules. How to teach the rules is easy, the introductory scenario runs through each location, one at a time, so that players can digest the information. Teach with small groups, short games, blah blah blah. That's all in the manual, but it's not enough. It will still be a frustrating experience. A few things I have done that have helped long term are to better expose players to the cards, the combo building, and how to best use a hand. For the first few things, shuffle out three advanced actions to each player at the beginning of each round. Have each player pick one of those cards and shove it in their deck. At the beginning of each night cycle, give them a spell too. This exposes new players to more cards, which will ultimately show them what options to expect when building a character. It focuses players on building combos and watching the balance of their deck. When these extra cards are gone, players will not only have a good idea of what a late game deck should look like, they'll be extra thoughtful of how to pick each ability. To better teach how to use a hand, use all of the mana dice to fill the source instead of number of players +2. Reroll any black nice during day or suns at night. The first few games will move much faster if the players are less constrained, and players will have more fun. Once newbies are used to how to manage their hands in a good situation, then cull the dice down and let them scrape by. This will lead to a grossly unbalanced game, but it's fun as hell to watch characters skyrocket to power so quickly. If you're having fun, the newbies will too.
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Jul 4, 2012 03:45
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Cactrot posted:My friends birthday is coming up and he's a huge fan of power grid. Which of the expansions is the best? The Robots is the best expansion if you ever play with less than 5 players. It even makes 2 player Power Grid fun. This expansion changes the game more than any of the maps, and it only costs about $7. As far as the maps go, the China/Korea set changes the game the most. Italy and France is good if you want a more normal map with a much tougher building phase. Power Grid isn't really like Age of Steam in that the maps will completely change how the game works, but it's good to have some variety.
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Jul 4, 2012 07:32
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Paradoxish posted:Doesn't Mage Knight have a scenario or something that's effectively co-op, but with competitive scoring at the end? Competition in a cooperative games scares the poo poo out of me. After playing the Golden Spike map in Age of Steam and being a part of that wretched experience I have no desire to ever repeat it. It leads to an even nastier backstabbing game than Intrigue or Diplomacy, and it's a constant headache.
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Jul 5, 2012 07:26
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Trynant posted:Is it me or does Eclipse have a lot of 'multiplayer solitaire' going on? Aside from the infrequent space fights and the extremely lackluster alliance mechanic, none of the systems in Eclipse involve direct player interaction. Hell, the only other player interaction, direct or indirect, is where you place your exploration hexes, and even then you have to work to do some interaction. I had that problem too, but there was just enough screwage to keep me from snoozing. For a game to have lasting appeal for me, it needs to front load player interaction. As far as Euros go, Imperial and Dominant Species have really stood out to me.
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Jul 10, 2012 17:31
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Kiranamos posted:Every day the board game drama continues to surprise me: Ok, so her blog is filled with crazy talk about stars, the navy and the universe. The mental ramblings started well before her Kickstarter project, so the contributors really should have known about this potential bump on the road. Anyone who backed this deserves to lose their money for enabling a seriously ill person to make a game that embraces her delusions. Hopefully she'll use the $6000 to get help.
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Jul 11, 2012 20:02
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Tekopo posted:So yeah, me and fellow goon blackmongoose have been playing No Retreat: The Russian Front and man, what a blast the game is. It's both so simple yet manages to be true to life, enough so that after the first winter I (as the germans) are pretty much at exactly the same level of captured cities as the historical start of Fall Blau. If you want an easy to play representation of the eastern front with a lot of theme, you couldn't really choose anything better than this. I'm not sure if it tops EastFront, but it's great to have an awesome CDG for that conflict. I don't know why, but Barbarossa to Berlin doesn't work for me the way Paths of Glory does. Also, I like blocks.
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Jul 12, 2012 15:21
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Trynant posted:Does anyone have experience with Combat Commander or Fighting Formations? I like Dominant Species, I like tactical games, and I want to know what I'd be looking at if I was playing one of these series. Seconding the love of Combat Commander. It's a fairly simplified tactical (squad level) wargame, but the card mechanism brings the game to life while avoiding the need for a hundred page rulebook. Both you and your opponent will be fielding a fairly small group of infantry and fighting over objectives. Every battle has a bit of a cinematic narrative. The order cards annoy some players because the system can stall play. Often, a planned offense might be delayed because you don't have the card for it. This introduces a few things that can be viewed as positives. First, there's hand management in the game. If you hold key cards and time out the action, you will do better (note, I am bad at this game). Second, it creates an atmosphere which is critical to the narrative - the battlefield is chaotic, and a commander doesn't have perfect control over the situation, but rather influence. As for Fighting Formations, it's a heavier game than Combat Commander, and somewhere between a tactical and operational level game. I find the game to be half streamlined. As a positive, there's a bit of a worker placement mechanism (!) to simplify action selection. As a negative, the game uses many of the mechanics of Combat Commander which, in my opinion, leads to too much chit shuffling and bookkeeping for a game of this scope. In other words, it takes way longer to play than it should. I would suggest trying before buying, because that negative point can make the game a real pain in the rear end. I honestly feel it would be a great game if the casualty and morale system was tightened up a bit, so I have high hopes for the series as it goes on. The parts of the game that set this series aside from other games work really well. Edit: In my opinion, neither of these games are solo friendly, as they both rely on hidden information on cards to work, similar to Commands and Colors. King Chicken fucked around with this message at 04:15 on Jul 13, 2012 |
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Jul 13, 2012 03:39
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Pizza Dude posted:Every now and then me and a couple friends like to play a game of Catan and have a lot of fun. What would you dudes recomend for something new? Something that can be played in around 90 minutes would be ideal. Also, keep in mind that Catan is pretty much everyones only venture into board games, and none of us would want to play something with a theme based around an ip of some sort (like Battlestar Gallactica or Game of Thrones) What part of Catan really stood out to you? Some groups like the trading, others like gathering resources and building stuff, others like the cutthroat blocking of other players and avoiding those traps. Depending on what parts of Catan stood out to you as fun (or unfun), there are a ton of possible recommendations.
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Jul 14, 2012 22:34
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Cyclades is clearly an area majority game.
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Jul 15, 2012 13:32
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:Where does Baltimore & Ohio fit in there? Baltimore and Ohio has more in common with 18xx, Imperial, or Chicago Express. You're not playing any single company in B&O, but can invest in many companies. It's a good game, and some people prefer it to 18xx because there is no loving around with complicated MC Escher route building. You just drop cubes to build a train line. Just jump into whatever one you want to play and ignore the lovely 'gateway' games. I'd pass on Railways of the World and go with Age of Steam or Steam if you want a game where you focus on building up a company with a maze of railroads. If you want an investment game, Chicago Express and German Railways have simple rules and will hold up to being really great games even if your group moves on to longer, heavier stuff. If trains sound boring as poo poo but you still want a good investment game, pick up Imperial and have fun blowing up your friends while playing the stock market.
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Jul 16, 2012 18:54
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GrandpaPants posted:One of the reasons why I didn't get the Horned Rat expansion is because of this dude's review on BGG: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/736740/10-reasons-why-this-is-not-a-good-expansion gently caress his points. I don't even need to read that. I can tell you right now that if you want to play Chaos in the Old World and have 5 (or 6) players, you're better off with Rex. It's got the same asymmetrical victory stuff, area control, and ridiculous number of special powers. But it's far more tense and engaging, especially with the making and breaking of alliances. Games like Chaos owe a lot to the original Dune, but Dune is still the king of the hill and the best AT game ever made. Some people complain that Rex is a terrible Dune remake, but it shortens the game from 5 hours to 3 and keeps almost all of the original intact. The little that was lost is a great tradeoff to make a game playable in a night, and I like some of the changes that were made to make the game more fast-paced and exciting (Dune had a better theme though). Rex is awesome. gently caress the Horned Rat and buy Rex instead.
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Jul 17, 2012 20:30
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Trynant posted:Dominant Species seems to fit the time range you're talking about (I'd say expect a 3-4 hour game on average), has epic'ness, lack of luck, wargameyness while not being fiddly counters or complicated rules. Thing is, it shines best with six player factions, but the game does scale and even if that's not enough has a 3-player variant where each player controls 2 player factions. This is my personal recommendation. I prefer DS with fewer players, but maybe I'm the odd man out here. 3-4 seems about ideal. If I have that much time to kill and 6 players, there's nothing that could convince me to not attempt to pull out Dune. Nothing.
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Jul 25, 2012 19:54
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These Loving Eyes posted:Are there any scifi or fantasy themed tactical skirmish games out there other than Earth Reborn? I thought ER would be everything I wished for but somehow me and the game didn't get off on the right foot. I don't know if it's the strange theme, front-loaded rules or the tutorial missions, but the game just doesn't call me to play once more. Am I out of options now? I've enjoyed Space Hulk and Claustrophobia, so if there's anything like those two, I'd love to find similar games. Claustrophibia is the best of them. Buy the expansion to that if you need to and keep playing it more. It's the game that manages to pack in the whole experience with almost no fat.
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Jul 27, 2012 13:45
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These Loving Eyes posted:Oh bummer, I wish there were more games like this. To clarify, I already do own Claustrophobia, but I've been able to bring it out for just a couple of games. It seems really promising but we got some rules wrong which made the missions virtually unbeatable for the humans. Playing as the humans should be virtually unbeatable until you get the feel of the game. Best advice is move as if you were sprinting through hell (you are), and treat the first scenario as more of a training session where you expect to die horribly. Be sure to check up on the errata and the 13 extra campaigns for the game on BGG or the Asmodee website if you haven't already. That should give you 19 scenarios and a bonus campaign to chew on with just the base game. The errata make the game even more difficult for the humans  Other games like this have more variety in enemies, cards, items, heroes, etc. Claustrophobia manages to be the better experience without having to lean on the things which have traditionally made this type of game. Also, you won't find a game like this where it's as much fun to play as the bad guys as the heroes. Runewars is also pretty popular if you want something else to look at. I can't stand anything Games Workshop, so I will never recommend anything by them.
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Jul 27, 2012 14:58
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Welp, looks like the King of Tokyo expansion is called Power Up! Richard Garfield is stealing your poo poo Broken Loose.
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Aug 7, 2012 18:04
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Rusty Kettle posted:Here is a common question for you fine folks. I am looking for a game that plays well (or best) with two that I can play with my fiance. She likes Lost Cities, though I am not the biggest fan. She also likes Galaxy Truckers and Ingenious. Relatively portable would be a plus but isn't necessary. Also, while I have listed lighter games, she can handle meaty games. She really likes Dungeon Lords. Innovation is great, but only once you pass the learning curve of memorizing what most of the key cards are (most cards are key cards I guess). This is sort of like Race for the Galaxy, but unlike that game, Innovation is fun to play while you're bumbling around without knowing poo poo. Also, you don't need to worry about stupid icons because all the cards are written in God Fearing English (and I guess Italian, French, and German too). The rules are really easy, the card abilities make the game. Mr Jack is portable and fun, but I'd rather play Dungeon Twister or Claustrophobia for that type of semi-chesslike-two-player-thing-with-a-theme. Dungeon Twister is deeper, Claustrophobia is more fun (and deeper). Neither of these games are portable, but they have far more replay value and fun factor. For a pure abstract, you can't go wrong with Tzaar or Zertz. Accessible, portable, deep and fun. Zertz can be carried in a decent sized ziplock bag for camping or whatever because it doesn't have a proper board. Don't worry about the learning curve of Twilight Struggle. I don't think it's a hell of a lot tougher than Dungeon Lords. If the theme and gameplay of this interest both of you, it's one of the best two player games available. For something else cheap and portable, check out Haggis. I think you might be able to play the two player version with a standard deck of cards, but the game doesn't cost much more than that and the designer is awesome so support him. Ignore the 2-3 player count here, Haggis is best with 2.
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Aug 8, 2012 22:59
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Istvun posted:I've had an idea, and hearing about a contest would be a pretty good reason to actually get up and make that shits. I'm thinking a heavy game about baseball, which would probably be interesting to about 0 people. Hey, I think it would work. There's a lot of closet sports fans in the nerd scene, which sounds really weird I suppose. I'm more of a hockey and football guy, but I know a ton of baseball fans who play board games. Come to think of it, a worker placement scouting/draft game would be really awesome, and way more interesting than building a castle for a French king.
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Aug 9, 2012 05:08
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Winson_Paine posted:Are you sure HeroQuest was the random one? I remember the old Milton Bradley one with the cardboard furniture; it had little ADVENTURE BOOKS and campaign packs and your guys could level up. I don't remember the monster placement being random, but maybe my memory is bad. If you regularly play this type of thing with multiple people, go for Descent 2nd ed. It's fun, tactical, and is way better than the old Hero Quest stuff. If you are typically in a 2-player situation, I'll second Claustrophobia as the best in class. It's not so much of a dungeon crawl as it is the humans running through a gauntlet of demonic death as fast as possible to complete a hopeless objective. There are a half dozen or so scenarios in the main game and another 20 or so you can download, plus an expansion if those every become dull (they won't). The game is completely asymmetrical but very well balanced.
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Aug 11, 2012 04:31
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Tekopo posted:Jokes aside, I never really understood the emnity between the two sides, although I don't think it's as prevalent here compared to other discussion forums (well, at least until someone mentions talisman/munchkin etc). The games I enjoy the most always seem to straddle the line between the two camps and overall I think games that manage to have rules that strongly couple with the theme of the game are deservably better than games that are too abstract (and thus have the theme coated on as an afterthought) or too thematic (and thus the rules suffer since the game wants to do too much rather than abstracting). The stupid flaming between Ameritrashers and Eurogamers hasn't happened in years on BGG. I completely agree that many of the really popular games are now hybrids (Eclipse, Mage Knight, Dungeon Petz). As far as FF having lovely rulebooks, even the old guard Ameritrashers have been critical of their sloppy releases like Mansions of Madness. Smaller guys like Plaid Hat, Asmodee and Z-Man have been putting out the lion's share of well-received AT, and while FF still does well, it's hardly the only company tapping the niche anymore. They really need to step up their game. For a good view of the trend, take a look at the hot games list on BGG. Over the last year or so, it's been a good mix of AT and Euro games. Compare that to 2007 when only games where Renaissance merchants shipped boxes of brown cubes to noble overlords seemed gather buzz. A majority of these cottage Euros seem like tech demos now. The hobby definitely benefited from the awkward period where players obsessed over elegant mechanics, and we're now getting some really great games because of it. Your last point is great. Phil Eklund is an example of a designer who pumps out almost pure AT games, but his themes are so high brow that they are often mistaken for Euros.
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Aug 15, 2012 16:22
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GrandpaPants posted:Hope you at least checked the LOS rules This is one of the best LOS rules I have ever heard.
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Aug 15, 2012 19:00
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dishwasherlove posted:Thanks, I have played Dune and love that theme. I'm not sure the mechanics alone would warrant a purchase. Rex will never be as good as Dune as far as the theme goes. My group still talks about Rex using Dune terms because they just make more sense. The main draw of Rex is instead the playing time of about 2 or less hours. It's not as good a game as Dune, but it plays so much faster that I prefer it because it hits the table more than twice a year. The gameplay of Dune (and Rex) still holds up as one of the better backstabbing negotiation games around. Initially I was a bit worried that some of the factions weren't well suited for the 8 turn limit. The Bene Gesserit and Space Guild are noticeably strengthened by a shorter game, while the Fremen in particular feel a bit confined by both time and the overall glut of resources. As players come to understand this, forming alliances and deciding who to keep in check more or less corrects the situation. Just like in Dune, the Gesserit will always be strong though.
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Aug 18, 2012 08:11
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Looselybased posted:Thank you for this. I don't think any of us got any movement cards at all. I could see how it's sort of like turning on your engine before you built it. It's great advice for starting. Now that I've played a number of times, I've sort of noticed alternatives to relying on the availability of movement cards depending on what comes up. Certain skills and followers can remove dependance on movement entirely, and in games where people start gobbling up any and all movement deeds and spells, it can really be useful as a fallback. Influence is also an indirect workaround, allowing a player to use a site for a few purposes (buy stuff at a monastery then burn it, spend a few turns studying at a mage tower, etc.) which reduces the need to move. Both influence and tableau abilities have one thing in common - if you can't move much, burn through your deck quickly to force the more mobile players to use their engines less efficiently. This will have the result of limiting the bonus other players have on sites / cycle on you by just hamfisting your way to points and deck upgrades. Movement heavy decks tend to be tricky to play when paced by this, as they tend to be paced by a set rotation of move to site/conquer site, which they can pull off about 3-4 times per cycle. Good conversion, but dependent on long rounds until the late game. If you play with PvP, figure out how many sites you can reasonably travel to and use any excess combat cards to gently caress over your closest buddy. I haven't totally figured this game out yet, and probably never will. I doubt anyone has come close yet, it's an incredibly deep game. But I really don't think any one approach or guideline is set in stone just yet.
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Aug 25, 2012 09:03
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Looselybased posted:Exactly. I don't know what it is about Chaos that does it. I got the same thing with my group. The difference between Chaos and Diplomacy is that, in CitOW, each player is almost directly kept in check by another player, especially with the plague guy and Khorne. If one of the players is dumb, drunk, whatever, the game can come to a pretty obvious and lovely conclusion fairly early. If several people gently caress up, Khorne seems to win by default. Usually someone called someone else an idiot for having made a move that threw the game and it turned into an argument, so I got rid of it rather than having to sit through that again. Oddly, we like Dune, Rex and several train games which have the same issue of necessary stalemates. It never seems to be a problem, maybe because the alliances and opposition roles seem a bit more malleable or something.
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Sep 5, 2012 09:26
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Countblanc posted:A lot of board games have online versions these days that are wildly popular (sites like BrettspielWelt and Board Game Arena for example), but they tend to almost universally be euro games so for all I know it might change when you get into the ameritrash crowds due to a lot of them being primarily about the experience rather than the mechanics so things like gorgeous components add a significant amount to their appeal. When you're just moving wooden cubes around for 40-60 minutes you don't really care much if you're actually the one moving the cubes around, and in fact automating the process as well as things like point tracking is often preferred. But when that's supposed to be a 3-5 hour weekly affair with your friends it's probably a bit different. Vassal is pretty much a client built for wargames, and many of the modules have an undo button (as long as you do it before ending your turn). Lots of wargamers play over the internet with Vassal because it's just easier to get into a long game that way. I'm guessing the reluctance to electronic stuff is from consimworld which, as Sherrard hinted at, is a terrible site filled with the worst sort of grognards. Ameritrash games online can be fun as long as you run TS or Vent so the players can smalk-talk and negotiate with each other. That's far more important to the experience than pretty pieces, especially for games like Dune and Cosmic Encounter that have crappy parts anyways.
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Sep 15, 2012 20:09
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I played Panic Struggle when it was about to be sent out to the press by Stronghold, and I seem to remember mentioning that it was ridiculously fun with the right group but had a number of lovely rules issues. All fiddling and tweaking aside, I still stand by my original recommendation, it's a love or hate thing. Anyways, gently caress that game. There's better stuff out there for both funhavers and funhaters. Also, I've found that pretty much all zombie games are terrible. I just cringe at the theme now because of the crappy games I've sat through in the past. If Claustrophobia was given a retheme to zombies, that would sort of work I guess.
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Sep 17, 2012 19:31
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Kiranamos posted:Anyone else getting tired of seeing deck-building games? I just blindly hate any new one that comes out because I'm pretty sure it sucks. So far, this logic hasn't failed me. With Mage Knight, A Few Acres of Snow, and to a less extent, Core Worlds, I think that deck-building is getting past it's awkward tech-demo stage. In these newer games, the mechanic is used to drive a larger game, where before it was the entirety of the experience. This is kind of normal, it's happened before with auction, area-majority, and worker placement games. Be glad that the fad has worn off, now we can start seeing the mechanic being used creatively.
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Oct 3, 2012 07:33
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PaybackJack posted:I was going to make the same post except with Mage Wars instead of Core Worlds. Deck building is now just another mechanic that designers use, rather than the only one. I'm looking forward to an epic Twilight Imperium/ advanced Civ. scale game that uses it. Having cards to trade into peoples decks could be the foundation of a fantastic diplomacy system. I was thinking somewhat along similar lines, but with players contributing to a communal 'event deck' of sorts to represent political actions. Running a street crime cartel could add some cards, influencing the police department could take those cards away, etc. There's a lot of potential for deck-building now that it's breaking out into wider use.
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Oct 3, 2012 23:47
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Ledhed posted:Anyone have opinions on GMT's Sekigahara? I can pick one up for pretty cheap, someone talk me into it. (As an aside, my new year's resolution this year was to slow down my game purchases, and it has been a spectacular failure.) Sekigahara is one of the better games of the last while that just kind of flew under the radar. If you can get it cheap, do it. Even if you hate it you can flip the thing for a good price and probably pull out ahead, demand is way higher than supply. I've played the poo poo out of Sekigahara and it's has a learning curve that keeps giving without losing the fun factor. There are quite a few good reviews of the game, and all I can add is that it just gets better with more plays. It doesn't hurt that Sekigahara is probably the best looking block game on the market. Also check out Napoleon's Triumph and Strike of the Eagle. All three games are really good.
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Oct 6, 2012 11:40
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systran posted:I like how Calandale is just gradually changing his appearance. You can't tell the difference between video to video but one day he's going to look like a civil war general and it will suddenly hit you. At that point I'm sure his every posts will be denouncing all games as real wargames (in perfect haiku form).
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Oct 16, 2012 06:48
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Sherrard posted:Try Magic Realm in its weird Java implementation first. It may offer more than Mage Knight for some, but I'm happy with Mage Knight. I second the Java version, and would add that there's no real reason to play the physical board game. It works much faster and easier on a computer with no need to spend half an hour + setting the game up. Great game, but one that desperately needs a facelift and a new rulebook. What Mage Knight did to the system is pretty much what Combat Commander did to ASL.
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Oct 18, 2012 03:35
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VulpesInculta posted:Any recommendations for economic games? They don't have to be euro, but the sense of building something is very important for me in these kind of games. Brass and Age of Steam are two rock solid games that have been top shelf economic games for a while. I think Brass was recently reprinted, but I may have just imagined this. If you decide that making money by destroying things is fun too, Imperial is a blast. Imperial is more of an investment game than economic though.
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Oct 30, 2012 20:31
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GrandpaPants posted:How easy is Brass to teach/learn? What games is it comparable to? The only train games I've played are Ticket to Ride (not really a train game) and Railways of the World, which I think is also Sid Meier's Railroads. In any case, any comparisons? I'm intrigued because it is highly rated on BGG, but I'm also wary because it's highly rated on BGG. I don't find Brass that hard to teach, but there is one strange rule. Iron can kind of zip around the map without infrastructure in place, while coal and textiles require a rail or canal to travel. The way I tend to teach this is that iron is a one-shot building material, while coal and textiles are continual input/output of factories and trains and have a more demanding need for transport. The gameplay is somewhat comparable to Age of Steam, in that the players who can look furthest ahead in their plans are far more likely to do well. If you or your group don't like planning out your finances, actions and builds at least six turns in advance, Brass might not be the best choice.
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Oct 31, 2012 07:00
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