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Finally playing Space Alert tonight, albeit with just me and my girlfriend. It would have been sooner, and with more people, but every time I visit my family, the actually would rather play Betrayal at House on the Hill, which is fine by me, I love that loving game. Just wish there was an expansion.
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Nov 5, 2012 17:59
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| # ? Apr 28, 2024 18:20 |
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Last Friday I played another 4-player game of Twilight Imperium, cause me and my friends just love that game to death. This was my 6th or 7th game this year, I think. If only I knew more no-life boardgame nerds, I could play it every 2 weeks. Some players had some very bad experiences in the past where they drew 1 poo poo planet, 1-2 red tiles and 3-4 empty tiles, so all they can do in the galaxy setup is gently caress with people while getting shat on in return. So we deal everyone their hand of tiles, then pick one and pass it on. This drafting gives people more control over their own neighbourhood while giving people more of an idea how the galaxy is going to look. Anyway, I got the Jol-Nar as my race and during drafting I noticed no empty system wormholes, while I picked up both wormhole/planet combos. I also got 3 other tech-discount planets. I gambled a little and placed both A and B wormhole systems next to my home system in the 2nd ring, the other tech discount systems on the third. I had a total discount of 4 on green and 1 on blue techs, not counting my scientists. Starting from round 2, when I picked up Neural Computing, I managed to get 3 techs every turn for 1 to 3 resources total, it was hilarious. My only regret is that I couldn't get that law to pass that says that all discounts count for every colour, cause that would've let me research everything for free. Low point of the game: In turn 3 my neighbours manage to lock down my fleet+space dock with an action card and vote down a law which then required everyone to exhaust a planet for each tech they had. Then in Turn 4 the aggressive Clan of Saar catch my now underpowered fleet with an invasion fleet and roll 12 hits out of 13 in the first turn. To add insult to injury, my war sun missed 2 shots  Hight point of the game: The Saar's neighbour did not like him pushing me around like that and staged an invasion of his home system, breaking a Non-Aggression Pact. Instead of being a Saar nomad and winning the game, the Saar player takes it personally and vows to destroy him, turning his fleet around and giving me the 2 turns of peace I needed to win the game.
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Nov 5, 2012 19:14
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Does anyone have any opinions on Libertalia? I haven't seen it mentioned at all here, but for all I know I've missed it being talked about in the past. This RPS article got me interested, but I'm still on the fence about it.
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Nov 5, 2012 19:36
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nimby posted:Last Friday I played another 4-player game of Twilight Imperium, cause me and my friends just love that game to death. This was my 6th or 7th game this year, I think. If only I knew more no-life boardgame nerds, I could play it every 2 weeks. The way we do the planet placement is that we roll for placement order and then roll again for starting placement. So we roll then each player builds the galaxy starting from Mecatol Rex outwards, once each player has place all their tiles, we roll again to see who gets to place their homeplanet first. In this way everyone wants to build a balanced galaxy because then there's less placement bias. This doesn't completely mean that there aren't better positions that others, but we've all played enough that nobody is every sitting on their home planet with no adjacent planets or very little resources if they get the last spot. Usually it's the difference of 1-2 total resources in the adjacent spots and 2-3 in the inner rings. Our next game we're going to look into playing with a houserule that spending votes based on political power from planets causes you to exhaust those planets. Another effort to try and make the politics of the game a little more important than just drawing a card that happens to screw someone and everyone else going along with it.
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Nov 5, 2012 20:34
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Paradoxish posted:Does anyone have any opinions on Libertalia? Libertalia is a good game in my opinion. Kinda expensive for what it is, so try before buying. Each player has the same cards so it's a game of guessing your opponent's moves to further your own goals. Weaker cards have initiative over stronger cards so the game is quite balanced. Each round is different because the booty you are splitting change.
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Nov 5, 2012 21:14
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PaybackJack posted:The way we do the planet placement is that we roll for placement order and then roll again for starting placement. So we roll then each player builds the galaxy starting from Mecatol Rex outwards, once each player has place all their tiles, we roll again to see who gets to place their homeplanet first. In this way everyone wants to build a balanced galaxy because then there's less placement bias. This doesn't completely mean that there aren't better positions that others, but we've all played enough that nobody is every sitting on their home planet with no adjacent planets or very little resources if they get the last spot. Usually it's the difference of 1-2 total resources in the adjacent spots and 2-3 in the inner rings. Our next game we're going to look into playing with a houserule that spending votes based on political power from planets causes you to exhaust those planets. Another effort to try and make the politics of the game a little more important than just drawing a card that happens to screw someone and everyone else going along with it. Recently, our group has gotten hooked on a bidding system. All planet tiles are shuffled together, even homeworlds using place holders, and placed around Mecatol spirally. Then, we begin bidding on where each players will start. The way bidding works, the highest bidder will get his system, and the rest of the bidders will get trade goods minus what they bid for their particular system. For example, the winner bid 20 TG and starts with the best postion, the next player bid 15 and gets his postion and 5 TG (20-15=5), and so forth. Usually the player(s) in the worst position end up with 15-20 extra TG to start the game. It takes some getting used to, but now we only play standard setup with introducing new players.
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Nov 5, 2012 22:30
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Zombie #246 posted:Yeah that's wierd, I looked through, in my main selling screen it lists them all, but I cant see them if I look through the listings on my profile :/ Perhaps I should invididually link them? Hey Zombie, I've got to ask: what happens if time runs out and the top bid is still .99? Are you forced to give up your games for $4?
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Nov 6, 2012 02:15
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General Battuta posted:Hey Zombie, I've got to ask: what happens if time runs out and the top bid is still .99? Are you forced to give up your games for $4? I would think that there would be a minimum reserve price, though it's been several years since I've bought anything on Ebay so what do I know?
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Nov 6, 2012 02:52
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General Battuta posted:Hey Zombie, I've got to ask: what happens if time runs out and the top bid is still .99? Are you forced to give up your games for $4? Yeah, you can set a reserve, but the auction will clearly say if the reserve is met or not. If there isn't any mention of it, then it's not there. But it will never happen that these games go for 0.99. Most people don't bid until the last day because of the dumb sniping that goes on, so the price can stay low for quite a while before it jumps at the end.
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Nov 6, 2012 03:57
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Kiranamos posted:Yeah, you can set a reserve, but the auction will clearly say if the reserve is met or not. If there isn't any mention of it, then it's not there. But it will never happen that these games go for 0.99. Most people don't bid until the last day because of the dumb sniping that goes on, so the price can stay low for quite a while before it jumps at the end. I dont understand why people still snipe after like 1996 when they changed how ebay bidding works.
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Nov 6, 2012 04:12
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Dominion posted:I dont understand why people still snipe after like 1996 when they changed how ebay bidding works. Because auctions take advantage of people's natural desire to 'win' at things. Even if what they win is a chance to overpay for some weird teapot.
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Nov 6, 2012 04:28
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This may have been asked before, but does anyone have any good suggestions for a board game for children? Specifically a very bright but ADD 7 year old.
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Nov 6, 2012 04:37
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Dominion posted:This may have been asked before, but does anyone have any good suggestions for a board game for children? Specifically a very bright but ADD 7 year old. Forbidden Island would be a good bet. Good co-op mechanics that aren't overly complicated. Carcassonne might actually work well too. My six year old niece likes it if for nothing else than building a puzzle city (although we leave the farmers rule out, she can't seem to grasp that rule). Also, for some reason, my niece loves Stratego. The first thing she does when coming over is ask to get that game out. She only wants to play my wife now, though, every since I annihilated her one game. Wasn't my fault she she couldn't remember the placement of my bombs.
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Nov 6, 2012 04:44
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Oh if the games sell for a dollar, then they sell for a dollar haha. I'm not too worried about it :P
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Nov 6, 2012 06:41
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Zombie #246 posted:Oh if the games sell for a dollar, then they sell for a dollar haha. I'm not too worried about it :P You might want to try linking it up on BGG. I think there is a way to link your boardgame auctions to the front page. You can probably even start a Geeklist for some added exposure.
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Nov 6, 2012 06:46
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GrandpaPants posted:You might want to try linking it up on BGG. I think there is a way to link your boardgame auctions to the front page. You can probably even start a Geeklist for some added exposure. Oh interesting, I'll have to take a look. Thank you 
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Nov 6, 2012 06:49
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I think I'm going to buy a new game today. I'm looking for something I can play solo and also co-op. I've narrowed it down to Lord of the Rings: LCG or one of the D&D games - either Legend of Drizzt or Wrath of Ashardalon. Opinions?
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Nov 6, 2012 14:41
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Kaddish posted:I think I'm going to buy a new game today. I'm looking for something I can play solo and also co-op. I've narrowed it down to Lord of the Rings: LCG or one of the D&D games - either Legend of Drizzt or Wrath of Ashardalon. Mage Knight should be on your list if you don't have it already.
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Nov 6, 2012 14:42
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General Battuta posted:Mage Knight should be on your list if you don't have it already. Yep, have it.
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Nov 6, 2012 14:47
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Kaddish posted:I think I'm going to buy a new game today. I'm looking for something I can play solo and also co-op. I've narrowed it down to Lord of the Rings: LCG or one of the D&D games - either Legend of Drizzt or Wrath of Ashardalon. You should go with Mice and Mystics, for the reasons I've posted before in this thread (it owns)
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Nov 6, 2012 14:59
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Kaddish posted:I think I'm going to buy a new game today. I'm looking for something I can play solo and also co-op. I've narrowed it down to Lord of the Rings: LCG or one of the D&D games - either Legend of Drizzt or Wrath of Ashardalon. I love the Lord of the Rings LCG. Get that.
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Nov 6, 2012 15:00
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PaybackJack posted:The way we do the planet placement is that we roll for placement order and then roll again for starting placement. So we roll then each player builds the galaxy starting from Mecatol Rex outwards, once each player has place all their tiles, we roll again to see who gets to place their homeplanet first. Hmm, I'm liking this approach. Should indeed eliminate nearly all of the luck factor in galaxy creation. Only concern I have is that one of my friends would probably try to make one really lovely area to start in while hoping he doesn't roll it.
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Nov 6, 2012 15:05
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Dominion posted:This may have been asked before, but does anyone have any good suggestions for a board game for children? Specifically a very bright but ADD 7 year old. Check out King of Tokyo was well. Monster cut outs, dice rolling, and next to no downtime.
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Nov 6, 2012 16:13
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Zombie #246 posted:Yeah that's wierd, I looked through, in my main selling screen it lists them all, but I cant see them if I look through the listings on my profile :/ Perhaps I should invididually link them? Be careful before buying from this guy. I won't go into details, but look at his feedback (85% but a large portion of those are as a buyer). I've personally had a bad experience with him. Edit: And that's all I'm going to say about it. Gilgamesh fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Nov 6, 2012 |
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Nov 6, 2012 16:27
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Gilgamesh posted:Be careful before buying from this guy. I won't go into details, but look at his feedback (85% but a large portion of those are as a buyer). I've personally had a bad experience with him. Good! Off site drama stays off site. Also this thread is not the place for ads for your auctions, hie thee to SA Mart where they are both have the resources and the willingness to deal with this sort of thing.
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Nov 6, 2012 16:38
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Played The Manhattan Project tonight. I think it's like the perfect example of the Kickstarter craze. It's a cool sounding idea for a game. The guy put enough effort into it to make it look like something really good, but really there's not a whole lot there. Some people might really enjoy it but the game seems to have a few glaring flaws in my opinion. First thing we found was off was that the action that allows you to Spy and use other players buildings didn't change based on the number of Players so with a full group the action was only taken 6 times by the end of the game, everyone got to use it once and I took it twice. In a three player game this space would be far more available, but hardly as useful because there aren't as many buildings that people have bought as there are in a 5 player game. Second, the 'air strike' action was pretty useless because there wasn't a good feel for who was winning. In a 2-3 player game with a higher amount of VPs required to end the game, it would make sense to try to slow the guy with the most points. The other problem with this though is that the Bomb VP score cards were all over the place with their scores ranging from as low as 11(or so under 15 for sure) to as high as 34(that we saw) for a tested Bomb. Any bomb can have it's score increased by 5 for a price on the card that didn't seem to have any order either. I won the game playing two mid value cards and paying a couple extra bucks to increase their VP value. Because the cards were drafted randomly, nobody knew what cards I actually took so nobody could tell how close I was to victory, not that it mattered because there was no action they could have taken that would have stopped me from winning. So the game ended like it probably feels like being at ground zero. You're going along then...nothingness and it's all over. Arkhamina posted:Check out King of Tokyo was well. Monster cut outs, dice rolling, and next to no downtime. There's something about dice games that even when it's not your turn you still want to know what's going to happen when those dice hit the table.
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Nov 6, 2012 16:55
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I wasn't a big fan of the Manhattan Project either. One of the things I disliked was the all-or-nothing system of combat, in which you either had a higher number of fighters than your opponents or there was no way to defend yourself: I really wish that bombers and fighters had been combined so that you would do less damage depending on the number of enemy fighters.
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Nov 6, 2012 17:07
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What is the play time and ease of learning on Merchant of Venus? My gaming group likes games that a bit easy to pickup and while MoV looks great, hate having to consult the rulebook every turn.
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Nov 6, 2012 17:28
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Mr.Trifecta posted:What is the play time and ease of learning on Merchant of Venus? My gaming group likes games that a bit easy to pickup and while MoV looks great, hate having to consult the rulebook every turn. Our first four player game took five hours. As did the guy who did the Dice Tower video. I would expect that time to go down with experience. I can't comment on the accessibility as I've played the original more than 100 times so there wasn't a lot of rule book consulting, even using the new standard rules.
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Nov 6, 2012 17:38
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Played a smaller scenario (6.1 && 6.2 linked together) of The Blitzkrieg Legend at a con this past weekend. I'm a big fan of the series in general and it definitely fell within the norm for an OCS game. As the Allies, I didn't get to move any counters until about noon on Saturday (after starting setup at 6:30pm Friday) since the Germans started with a double turn. Even so, they were behind the historic progression. The player that was running the part of Army Group B in Belgium forced the Meuse with a very risky attack on Eben Emael (after his special forces botched their attack) almost failed due to his rolling 5 column defender surprise, making it so his attack was effectively a 1:4. In order to take the fort he needed boxcars which he promptly rolled. After that he insisted on reducing all of my Belgian speedbumps on every road and rail junction so my brave bicycle troops and cavalry cost him valuable time. Seeing that he was intent on reducing every sizable force in his way, I stocked every village and city between the Meuse and the Dyle with at least a division and enough supplies to survive being cut off for a couple turns. He spent much of the rest of the game reducing those forces with his increasingly battered mobile formations while his infantry attempted to reduce the fortresses around Liege. He took few losses, but I was able to strengthen my line on the Dyle sufficiently that he had no chance of breaking through. Additionally, I was able to transfer some strong French mobile formations (3 motorized infantry divisions and the 1. and 3. Mechanized divisions) down to Sedan where the situation was more touch and go. The Army Group A player forced the Meuse at Sedan by the end of his second turn but his logistics situation was apparently dire due to some disorganization on his part and some bypassed cavalry in the Ardennes. During my first move I was able to create a relatively solid wall around his bridgehead and with a bloody counterattack put a couple of battalions astride the line of communication to two of his panzer divisions (including the one across the Meuse). He was able to hammer the battalions with some follow up Panzer divisions, but his dire supply situation didn't allow him to widen the bridgehead any further than one more hex. On my second turn (game turn 3), I had the reserves from the north in place so that I was able to throw two full infantry divisions behind his bridgehead and by recapturing Sedan, cut it off again. The remnants of my cavalry in the Ardennes were able to spot for arty strikes on the bulk of his reserves. At that point, feeling confident that I had the situation in hand I committed the 3. Mech and 2. Armored divisions to crush the encircled 10. Panzer. Unfortunately the stellar quality of the German recon troops allowed my forced to get surprised, and my 10:1 attack was reduced to a 1:1 and in the end, instead of gutting the division I merely destroyed his recon battalion. German Panzer forces are not to be underestimated and his lone undisorganized division (the 6. Panzer) which had not yet been committed blew apart both of the full strength infantry divisions acting as a cordon around the rear of the bridgehead. This allowed him to pull the by now somewhat battered spearheads back and replace them with fresh troops. Neither german force had gained their objectives by the end of their 4th turn, so we called the game at that point. We all agreed that it's very, very key for the Germans to get a good first couple turns. Lack of detailed planning before the game really hampered them as trying to figure out exactly how to organize your logistics train at 11pm on a Friday night after a long week of work is an exercise beyond most experienced OCS players and they didn't have a ton of experience between them. I think they could have done much better my interdicting some of the north/south roads between the Dyle and Sedan, as Army Group A would have been off to the races without the 5 strong divisions I was able to transfer south. Overall though, it's a really good game to use to teach people how to play OCS. You can give the veteran the Allies who have a large number of handicaps and so long as the Germans spend some time planning out where they want their logistics train on turns 2, 3 and beyond their forces are pretty much unbeatable. wins32767 fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Nov 6, 2012 |
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Nov 6, 2012 18:34
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http://yoyo.com has a 30% off one item coupon for new users (YOYO30), and they have a lot of decent games (HUGE Fantasy Flight catalog). For example, After coupon you can get Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition with free shipping for $49.75 (free shipping >=$49). I have to pay sales tax in Texas, but YMMV. Gilgamesh fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Nov 6, 2012 |
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Nov 6, 2012 18:56
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I'm looking forward this weekend to taking a crack at 'Here I Stand'. 'Estimated time - 360 minutes'. Fun with the Protestant Reformation! On the off chance anyone here has played it, do you have a recommended faction to vie for? I'm working through the rules now (there is going to be someone who is leading/teaching the game however that is not me).
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Nov 6, 2012 20:56
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This is the thread that has people who play Virgin Queen all the time, so I'd imagine someone will respond.
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Nov 6, 2012 21:00
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Gilgamesh posted:http://yoyo.com has a 30% off one item coupon for new users (YOYO30), and they have a lot of decent games (HUGE Fantasy Flight catalog). I'll have you know this code gave me a flat $20 discount, making Twilight Imperium $51  (still bought it)
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Nov 6, 2012 22:04
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Since finding this thread last week, I ordered the top 5. They won't be here until this coming Thurs but I wanted something for the weekend. So I drove to the nearest town with a game shop, and grabbed Arkham Horror since it was the best they had in stock. After reading about how the theme is the selling point in this game, I decided to try and take it even further. We sat around the table drinking, smoking, played 1920-1930s music softly in the background (think Bioshock) and lit a couple candles. It was a pretty awesome night. I had worked out most of the rules the day before, so it went pretty well. It was a bit of a kick in the rear end having never played a game more in depth than Monopoly, but it was still very fun.
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Nov 6, 2012 22:28
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Ramsus posted:Since finding this thread last week, I ordered the top 5. They won't be here until this coming Thurs but I wanted something for the weekend. So I drove to the nearest town with a game shop, and grabbed Arkham Horror since it was the best they had in stock. Damnit, your post makes me want to play this again badly. I found a weird album of 1930s Japanese Jazz (if you have Spotify, look for Koichgi Sugii) that is really nice background music. Things like this is why I'll always be a thematic game (excuse me, Ameritrash) player. I wonder what would go well with Here I Stand?
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Nov 6, 2012 22:46
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Arkhamina posted:Damnit, your post makes me want to play this again badly. I found a weird album of 1930s Japanese Jazz (if you have Spotify, look for Koichgi Sugii) that is really nice background music. Things like this is why I'll always be a thematic game (excuse me, Ameritrash) player. You could go with the soundtrack for the Tudors. Or if you want something more diabolical and scheming albeit earlier than HiS's time period, the Borgias soundtrack.
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Nov 6, 2012 23:29
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I went to youtube to find an artist whose style I wanted from the era. Bessie Smith ended up being a good match. I then went to https://www.last.fm and used her name to create a radio. It worked perfectly. You could probably do this with pretty much any game and style.
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Nov 7, 2012 00:08
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Arkhamina posted:I'm looking forward this weekend to taking a crack at 'Here I Stand'. 'Estimated time - 360 minutes'. Fun with the Protestant Reformation! Habsburgs are kind of playing versus everyone, so make sure not to give it to a noob. In general, though, make sure you invite rather strong players, I find that even one player getting overwhelmed by the game spoils it a lot. Apart from that, just choose what seems most fun to you.
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Nov 7, 2012 00:51
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The papacy is mostly diplomacy and actually needs a lot of help from not just the Habsburgs, but also other powers in order to remain in the game: don't make the mistake of thinking it's in a strong position just because it has initially a lot of VP. Also, no one should help the Protestants except for England, since they are one of the stronger powers anyway since they get a lot of VP by converting areas.
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Nov 7, 2012 01:33
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