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panko posted:one precious petal in the unfolding flower of a hansa group’s meta is setting up early offices in the cities adjacent to the 2-length routes and trying to spam out plates/force others to stop you from doing so My group is still at "Man, the first guy to put a trading post at a good upgrade seems to run away with the score," so I'm doing this exact trick next game. We'll see what happens >:]
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Apr 26, 2024 01:42
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| # ? Apr 28, 2024 21:09 |
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one great thing about plates is that they give a player collecting them a lot of opportunity to disrupt early office droppers: both the extra slot and position swap plates are less sought-after than the obvious powerhouses (relocate 3, free upgrade, +action, in roughly that order) but often end up creating a 2-8 point swing between the affected players depending on when and where they’re used
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Apr 26, 2024 01:54
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Plates are really undervalued in my meetups HT (including by me). I'm pushing it towards a cross-map connection based meta so maybe I should try that instead.
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Apr 26, 2024 02:20
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panko posted:one precious petal in the unfolding flower of a hansa group’s meta is setting up early offices in the cities adjacent to the 2-length routes and trying to spam out plates/force others to stop you from doing so I am somewhat reluctant to do this now since the last time I did it in a game one of the players (who, to be fair, had only played the game a few times before) said that since I hadn't specifically pointed out that this was possible (in spite of teaching all the relevant rules) that I wasn't teaching the game properly and the only reason that this could be the case is "because I didn't want any new players to be able to win" and now he doesn't want to play HT any more. He did well in his first 2 games from setting up trading posts at upgrade locations and I thought that demonstrating that you really can't ignore what the other players are doing even if you think you're onto a winning strategy would be educational...
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Apr 26, 2024 08:14
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About to do my first game of OG 1980 Civ tomorrow. Can any veterans give me any advice about running it compared to Adv Civ/MC/WE? I think I have a good grasp of the rule differences broadly but heads up about anything that's an easy mistake to make would be appreciated. Also, turns out the guy I bought my copy from had the expansion goods included. I have separated them because I want to keep the game Pure as St Francis intended, but if pros say to add 'em, I will do so.
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Apr 26, 2024 16:53
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Moving locally, so I just mailed off my 30+ year old worn and beaten copy of Cosmic Encounter to my old-town gaming group, where it will hopefully find a good home in shafts, doublecrosses, and hosejobs. I should have done this years ago but never worked up the energy to do so. Of course, I'm keeping my FFG copy with all the expansions, but haven't found a group to bite on it locally like my old crew. Found a lightly used copy of Praga Caput Regni in the consignment section of the local game store. Always been intrigued, so I bought it. Especially intrigued by the $20 price tag. Checked it for completeness and surprisingly it was all there -- now to learn it. Played Splendor Duel twice for the first time last night when most of the usual crew didn't make it to game night. A clever design. I'd have to play it a bit more, but it just might fall into the 7 Wonders Duel category: 2P game better than the multiplayer that spawned it.
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Apr 26, 2024 17:51
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Admiralty Flag posted:
I really love Praga and it's not that bad to learn. If you're on BGA, you can find me there under this name if you want a game online. 
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Apr 26, 2024 17:58
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FulsomFrank posted:About to do my first game of OG 1980 Civ tomorrow. Can any veterans give me any advice about running it compared to Adv Civ/MC/WE? I think I have a good grasp of the rule differences broadly but heads up about anything that's an easy mistake to make would be appreciated. Also, turns out the guy I bought my copy from had the expansion goods included. I have separated them because I want to keep the game Pure as St Francis intended, but if pros say to add 'em, I will do so. Nah expansion goods need the expansion techs and such I think. Honestly the biggest thing to consider is the AST; since it's not points, it's pure get to the end, you need to carefully figure out your way to three colors, etc. Mysticism is both very useful for that and very limited. Otherwise it's not super different, just a little harsher.
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Apr 26, 2024 19:05
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Does anyone have any experience with 21Moon? I’m playing through it and apart from the variable setup the gimmicks aren’t really doing it for me.
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Apr 27, 2024 10:25
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I had myself a Yokohama: 3rd-4th-ish time playing. One new player. Man, this game kicks rear end. The variable strength building up the power to take actions now or save them up, improving locations to warrant repeat visits, incentivizing rushing to get limited rewards and achievements while staying focused on accomplishing your game is so incredibly elegant. There's something about completing orders and cheevos in a little special sub-turn that is extra satisfying. You feel under pressure but not suffocated. We kept getting into each other's way, sometimes intentionally, mostly by accident. I got a Ball early and scored a lot of orders, which was something I had wanted to do. One player was behind and made the mistake of taking enough orders for me to trigger end game while far ahead, which probably screwed player 3 out of the win, but I'll take it. Gotta get this one to the table more. A classic. Fast Sloths: First time for all players. Nice to get it off my shelf of shame. This game is charming as all get out. Somehow a game with zero randomness can feel like complete looney toons silliness. I think it's the ants and the elephants that make it feel especially cartoony. Also, this game is fast! About an hour with teach? You look at it and the rules are a bit odd and you think it'll be plodding and mucky, but it's all mostly inutitive. The clever card drawing and discarding mechanisms mean that there is an ebb and flow to the power of your animals and a differential of opportunity. Those crocs can motor! Maybe with 5 it will be more messy, since the number of animals or size of the map are unchaged. We were all in a dead heat, and I thought I had the win until my opponent noticed that the donkey I was relying on was too scared to cross a bridge. Which, fair enough, I also would not cross that bridge, not because I'm scared but because I'm so very very lazy. Super excited to try this again with more and different players. I hope it's a (giant air quotes) middleweight (air quotes end) game I can get with a few lighter members of the crew, but I think the whimsy will help. Pueblo: First time for all players. I don't crowdfund much at all, but this game has intrigued me for the longest time as one of very few games that people say is 'great' that never got reprinted. My brain has not been able to grok abstracts like Hive or Tak, and I rarely get to player games outside of with my SO, and we prefer escape-style co-op games if it's just us. So when I heard about this, a 2-4 player abstract with golf scoring, I was interested enough to pledge. I can see why this game is well liked. There is some serious tactility to the way the pueblo builds up like a ziggurat slowly over the game. Making players alternate between colored and neutral blocks is a lovely simple way to give players agency while making them distribute the risk. The pieces being all identical reinforces some interesting patterns as as time goes short, those high points start peeking over the top as extremely painful spots. The fact that players choose the number of spaces to try and make players take penalties, or to prevent the next player from being able to bypass a strong penalty, is so much more fun than if it were random. Now, in this first game, I absolutely crushed my opponents by nearly halving their scores, so that might tinge my opinion. I am looking forward to trying that one again. As for the production, it's certainly not stellar, and the point track is just loving nuts. Only a few of my blocks are slightly messed up, but not enough to effect gameplay since I paid more for an add on to let me use a different color in 2 player. Still, the lazy susan is very nice, so I guess I am satisfied enough in the end product.
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Apr 28, 2024 00:19
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Tekopo posted:Does anyone have any experience with 21Moon? I’m playing through it and apart from the variable setup the gimmicks aren’t really doing it for me. I posted an overview / first impressions in this post, but I don't know how valuable that is, coming from an 18xx genre newcomer. It's certainly in my "want to play again" list, since I want to understand more about how the game's gimmicks can be used. Interestingly, the plays I've had on my copies of Shikoku 1889 and 21Moon have prompted others I've played with to get on board the 18xx train, where they've picked up their own titles. One person picked up the classic 1830, while another purchased 1880: China. While we haven't played 1830 yet, we played a very long four-player game of 1880. I don't think I was prepared for how much trouble we'd have with picking out the best routes for the X+x trains, or even the Express trains. With so many companies in the game, processing companies was kind of a slog towards the end of the game. It's kind of interesting that the plain track tiles only go up to green. There are other gimmicks like the mid-game market freeze, and bonus revenue depending on market position that I'm not really sure I have simple thoughts about. I'd definitely have to steel myself to play it again since it is such a long game to complete; my preferences so far continue to be on the relatively shorter end on the 18xx spectrum for the time being.
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Apr 28, 2024 02:48
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Two games this weekend. The first was Ark Nova with the new Marine Worlds expansion the club got. A couple of people came up with really good synergies - one started with the new Publications sponsor, permanently discounting association donations by their total science count, and had the association asymmetric action that let them double up on partner zoos and universities, so some double-research universities and a few relevant sponsors, and they pretty much had free donations for the whole game. One topdecked a 27-point turn - they had the asymmetric build action that always let them build an extra pavilion and absolutely went for it, then drew the new Landscaper sponsor which let them place a pavilion to cover their zoo map and then gave them one appeal for each of their 19 current pavilions. In short, the asymmetric actions really let you get away with some bullshit, and we were all at least mild fans. The second was Oranienburger Kanal, which I'd had for a while and was excited to get out. Managed to get a building out on the last turn and double-activate it for a total of 20 points, which was pretty much the difference. It's a two-player-only worker placement game with a sharply limited total number of spaces, where buildings are build on a grid and activated by either surrounding them with a variety of paths or connecting them with two bridges. Pretty quick-playing, at least for an Uwe game, which means we wrapped it in under two hours for a first play.
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Apr 28, 2024 03:20
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My copy of Spirit Island: Nature Incarnate finally arrived yesterday, after all the delays due to VAT. Can't wait to a) try the new spirits and b)try to cram everything together in a single box. Is there already a decent inserter for the entire thing? I'm only missing Horizons.
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Apr 28, 2024 16:07
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