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Mage Knight arrived today. It is a birthday present for a friend. I can feel the box calling me, it wants to be opened and all the contents want to be organized into bags. But it is not my copy  The guy better invite me over when he wants to play it.
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Jan 23, 2013 23:49
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Tekopo posted:Twilight Imperium isn't deeper, it's just more spread out Twilight Imperium is so deep it is the Inception of boardgames. There are game mechanics within game mechanics within game mechanics, and time will slow down every time you go deeper.
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Jan 25, 2013 17:37
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After buying Mage Knight for a friend's birthday (he got it saturday), we were gonna play it yesterday afternoon. When we arrived at his place, we started reading the manual and noticed it is so full of information that we got through 5 pages or so in 15 minutes, so we decided to play something else, cause we were gonna have to rush things if we wanted to finish a game. The rules look easy enough, but there's so much and we only had 4 hours... Hope we get to play next weekend!
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Jan 28, 2013 13:31
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I played Elder Sign a year ago and we won so easily, we'd have to make an effort to lose. Luckily it was the club's copy, so we just never touched it again.
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Feb 1, 2013 18:38
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Jedit posted:I can't imagine playing a Diplomacy-style game twice with the same group of friends. If they're still friends after the first game, they were playing it wrong. My last Twilight Imperium game ended up causing one guy being a bit angry at another guy because he got backstabbed and he is all about honouring deals. This Sunday we're going to play again, both of them will be there. I do hope I can capitalize on the animosity between them.
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Feb 7, 2013 01:17
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Echophonic posted:It's pretty intimidating to look at, but the rules aren't that complicated in practice. Haha, look at you believing that  Be prepared to make some (sometimes crucial) mistakes regarding obscure rules. Print the FAQ so don't need to argue about how to interpret some conflict between rules.
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Feb 8, 2013 11:43
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LordZoric posted:House cards, both in hand and discarded, are public knowledge right up until you and your opponent choose which one to play. In our group "Hey can I see your cards?" is pretty much official code for "I'm attacking you now." Get to know the cards a bit, then ask to see your one neighbour's cards. Attack your other neighbour because they did not expect it. Warning: this will work only once.
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Feb 8, 2013 17:33
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Echophonic posted:
The thing about TI3s rulebook is that it gets contradicted a lot by racial powers/political cards/action cards. Plus some things aren't made very clear at all. For example: You hit someone's Dreadnaught, it is now damaged. So you announce you're playing an action card (Direct Hit, it will destroy it completely). But your opponent announces he also wants to play a card and it is Emergency Repairs, meaning the Dreadnaught is fully healed. Does your Direct Hit still happen? If you go by just the rulebook, this is going to result in bickering between the players to decide what happens.
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Feb 8, 2013 19:56
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I honestly didn't find the rules that complicated. They're pretty well-presented, but I'm sure there's weird edge cases I didn't see just tearing through. My goal was to just get the phases and space combat down, so from that perspective it was a success.
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I like the events in Dungeon Lords because they allow you to combine new and experienced players and give them an equally enjoyable game experience. The new person gets to ignore the special events so has a much easier time, but their still going to get their rear end kicked because it's their first time playing Dungeon Lords. The experienced players can build their nice dungeon and then see it all fall apart because of the one of the ridiculous events like Earthquake killing 2 rooms.
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Feb 9, 2013 09:49
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alansmithee posted:Why is Android considered so bad? I've been thinking of picking it up for awhile, but all the negative views about it here have been a bit offputting. Your final score in the game is decided not by what you have done, but by how much other people hosed you over. You have very few actions for the amount of poo poo people can dump on you with the Dark cards, leaving you wondering why your character hasn't killed him/herself at the end of week 1.
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Feb 10, 2013 01:38
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Doodmons posted:Ah, so my brother, who will insist on taking at least a geological age on any decision while there is usually one painfully obvious course of action available and he will sit there and think while I get madder and madder and end up trying to take the move for him. On the other hand, he wins like 90% of any board game we play, so he must be doing something right. A friend who's good at boardgames is like this. If we start talking amongst ourselves while he's thinking, he'll sometimes get distracted and it'll take even longer. When we played Twilight Imperium yesterday, he brought his tablet with him so he had something to do while we were taking our turns. Thank god he forgot his charger, so he was forced to pay attention to whatever we were doing. It does show that he only really starts planning his turn when it's time to take it, instead of planning ahead like everyone is tries to do. On the other hand, it would have been hilarious if he missed something crucial and started whining about it. About once/twice a game he forgets something and tries to wriggle into retro-actively having done it, cause it was obvious at the time. Too bad it wasn't obvious enough to have actually done it! Yet the guy's the only friend I have who is crazier about boardgames than I am, so we still play a lot together.
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Feb 11, 2013 15:17
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Tekopo posted:We have one guy like that and the only reason why he wins is because other people tell him what to do at the expense of their own strategy. It's pretty frustrating and I don't play with him anymore. My guy is a lot better then, cause he knows how to play the games as fast as I do, just sometimes loses focus of small matters. It's annoying at times, but we're used to it and it's still fun to play with him.
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Feb 11, 2013 18:19
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I played the Saboteur expansion last week and it is a bit more balanced. There's now 2 teams of gnomes digging, there's foremen that win if either team wins, there's a potential team of saboteurs, there's a lazy gnome that always wins and there's a geologist that gets gold according to how many crystals got dug up. People get gold if their team of gnomes/saboteurs win, with more less gold the more gnomes are in the team, so less random scoring. It's still unbalanced because everyone is working against everyone else and then there's a card you can play on yourself/someone else to force them to draw a new role, making whatever they've been doing all game counter-productive.
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Feb 12, 2013 16:19
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GrandpaPants posted:But I'm surprised at how many people are completely unable to formulate any sort of plan on other people's turns. In the case of my AP-player, it's because he's unable to focus on several details at once. So if his plan hinges on a detail that's not even on the board yet, he'll be unable to formulate it. It's especially amusing when he doesn't notice something happening now that is a setup for something that's going to bite him in the rear end next turn. Although looking back, if I had spent as much time thinking about my last 2 turns in our game on Sunday, I could've won instead of coming dead last. I just needed to research 1 different tech
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Feb 12, 2013 17:19
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Use events to spread your Influence over the world, try to keep the China Card until the Mid War when SE-Asia scoring enters the game and always try to dick over your opponent with the Defcon track preventing battles in Europe/Middle East/Asia.
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Feb 16, 2013 18:15
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With Tanto Cuore being mentioned, I just recalled... I have a friend who's a bit of an anime fan, who has statues of elves in his bedroom. I mentioned Tanto Cuore as a comment about just how disturbing the concept of that game is and I'm afraid he was genuinely interested
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Feb 19, 2013 02:37
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Played Mage Knight this afternoon, with 4. Great fun! I took an early lead by going 'gently caress it' and just grabbing some wounds to take down a mage tower and was able to keep the lead with the extra spell and level. Especially because the other guy exploring close to me discovered a Keep he couldn't break on his turn, but I could on mine. A bit of a dick move, but it's every mage knight for himself! We only played the introduction, so the game ended pretty soon into the second day, around the mid-game I'd say. I can definitely see how overpowered you can get with just a few more levels...
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Feb 24, 2013 18:42
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Pelvidar posted:...Stefan Feld game... (releasing soon: Brugge)... A game about the place I live? It better be good, because I'm buying it.
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Feb 25, 2013 13:24
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I used to like Munchkin, got a few expansions for it, then realized how awful it was and stashed it away. Then I got to know a few new people, played decent games with them and stuff. One guy moved away, got a girlfriend and for Christmas they got me Munchkin, cause they just discovered it and thought it was amazing and wanted to share the fun. Worst thing is they don't understand yet why the game is poo poo In fact, a lot of people don't understand why some games are poo poo, because they are enjoying them so much. Yet somehow I think it's wrong when I want them to play something better, in order to show them why the previous games were poo poo, because this means I'm taking away their enjoyment of something
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Feb 26, 2013 16:35
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I'm starting to regret buying Mage Knight for my friend's birthday. Tomorrow I'm meeting up with another friend who's into boardgames and now I have no Mage Knight to introduce him to
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Feb 27, 2013 18:38
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We were playing Mage Knight and I felt like a dick, even though I was right We got a guy who likes to retro-actively do things because he forgot stuff, now I was explaining something to the new player while the first guy does his turn. Afterwards, we do ours, he goes to attack, then notices he forgot to ready one of his units, even though the card he'd played stated he could do it. I honestly don't know if he'd actually used it for healing, but I trust him to not be cheating. But because it was the so-many'eth time, I just said no to him readying the unit. The guy then said he lost enjoyment of the game and pretty much refused to play on. I'm hoping that by refusing him enough he'll actually come to play like regular people and start accepting that he forgot to do stuff instead of just thinking about it.
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Mar 1, 2013 01:17
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The Yssaril are strong in the long term and can react to a lot of stuff, but they're not going to be wishing away fleets that are stealing their planets. If you are counting on a card and the Yssaril stalling it is ruining your turn, you've made a wrong choice. Force them on the defensive very early and get them to play their turns instead of skipping, cause if they skip a turn you will kill them. Be sure to shaft them during galaxy creation! Last TI3 game the guy playing Universities of Jol-Nar got to place the Lirta IV/Bereg and Abyz/Fria systems right next to his home system, but the rest of the table worked together to drop 3 action cards on him in turn 2-3 to stop him from steamrolling everyone with instant war suns. No matter how powerful someone is, there is never a point in the mid-game where they can play 1 v 2 and win. Even most late-game empires can be cut down by 2 people attacking them.
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Mar 12, 2013 19:48
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Baron Porkface posted:How is 3-player sid meiers civilization? It's ok, but the 2 people in the bottom of the "pyramid" shaped board are closer to each other than to the guy up top. So one of them is going to have an easier time winning through capturing the other's capital, or the top player will have an easier time on economic/tech/culture. It's also not that balanced if 2 people gang up on the third. Had that happen 2 weeks ago, as Bismarck I was just going all-out on military and pounded my neighbour, the third guy who focused on coins noticed he couldn't get enough coins fast enough, then built a few units, got himself a movement tech together with his Spanish +1 movement and high-tailed it to the beaten player's capital. Thanks to turn order he beat me to the victory by 1 square I have to say after playing it with the expansion, I'm kinda disappointed with it now. The new civilizations it introduces are just so much better than the basic ones.
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Mar 20, 2013 02:18
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Buckwheat Sings posted:When that happens in TI3, the other players should take advantage of the attacking player for the political gain. I didn't think it was possible for someone to be literally wiped out from the board in that game. Eh, it's possible to just about kill someone off in the first game round, on your second action. It has to be a 5-6 player game and only if you are either the Yssaril Tribes or the Clan of Saar. They are the only two races that start with XRD Transporters, so if you grab Warfare II you get 3 movement on your carriers and the cruiser you start with, which will give you reach from your home system to a neighbour's (in a 5-player game, only if you're in one of the 3 spots that has closer neighbours, of course). Just make a claim on Mecatol to have people look away from your 3-move starter fleet and then claim a home system when that guy/gal goes to claim planets. The Yssaril and Saar both start with an Agent, which you can send along with the invasion fleet to take over their Space Docks. The Saar also have a Diplomat, so they can't even retake their planet next round. If you act before your neighbour next round, you can then wipe them out completely and send them home after half an hour or so. With an immediate second Home System + Space Dock, you'll be pretty much playing one versus all, though. Several other races can do this, but only if Trade and Tech get played first so you can get XRDs that way, or Gravity Drive with a wormhole next to your Home System. The people I play with don't know this yet. We're 2 games into a 10-game tournament, I'm going to save this trick for when I'm desperately behind and need an easy, cheesy victory. Right now I'm dead last because first game I got dealt a poo poo part of the galaxy (and I messed up when I had a chance for victory). The second game I came in last again because for some reason, they all banded together against my sponge-fleet-producing Letnev. Not like it's my fault I got to place 17 resources worth of planets in my quadrant The guy who took my Home System and prevented my victory did so because he had the absolute best hand of Action Cards I've seen yet: Unexpected Action (remove a CC from the board) Touch of Genius (lets him repeat a discarded action card) 2 x Sabotage (which he used to sabotage my 2 Morale Boosts) First Strike (lets him act first in any given round) Friendly Fire (I had no fighters, but it's still a great card)
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Mar 27, 2013 20:02
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Buckwheat Sings posted:How could you counter that? I guess turtle up if they grab Warfare? If your Yssaril/Saar neighbour grabs warfare, you could counter with Production or Diplomacy. Just expand and then produce before he can attack, or drop Diplomacy so he can do gently caress all to your home system. If you can't get those 2, you're going to have to just grab a lower strategy card number, claim only one system and then build with your next action. Your start will be slower, but it beats getting rushed. And yeah, if they have a Diplomat, you're not going to win. If you rush a neighbour and fail to take their Home System, you've lost the game right then and there.
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Mar 28, 2013 04:40
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Zombie #246 posted:The problem I have with BSG, over Avalon/Resistance, is that while BSG offers a more traditional boardgame experience, no matter how many times I explain it someone will go "So what does it mean if I'm a cylon?" 2 hours into a 3 hour game. Start off by explaining that if someone is a Cylon, they are the bad guy and can only win if the humans lose. They want to slow down the human's escape, or outright kill them off if possible. The only way for a Cylon to win is if the Humans end up with 0 of a resource, have Galactica destroyed or the robots reach the end of the track. If they still ask what it means 2 hours in, kick them out of your game for being imbeciles.
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Mar 30, 2013 19:59
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Reiz posted:I also played Agricola for the first time, and due to some minor/major oversights on my part totally blew it. I had a good hand for growing and cooking vegetables, but didn't realize they would be available only later in the game. My Carrot Engine did eventually pick up speed, but it was way too late for it to matter and I had let myself stay last pick for way too long and was seriously wood starved because of it. Fun game though! I could have salvaged it if I had grown grain in the meantime and focused on building up family members early. Family members are overrated. I won a 3-player game yesterday with 2 wooden rooms and just 2 people all game (they got a baby in the very last turn, it has to sleep with the cow). While everyone else is busy building rooms and expanding their family, you should plow and sow grain/carrots and collect animals. Although I have to say I won cause I played the profession that gives +5 points to everyone who receives no penalties and I'd been very diverse in my farm.
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Mar 31, 2013 10:09
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modig posted:We're starting to consistently have 5-6 people at game night, and up to 7 one night. It turns out we don't have many games that play well with 6, and almost none that officially support 7. Citadels and For Sale are both fun with four, don't officially support 7, and for good reason. They aren't fun with 7. We have and don't really like The Resistance. Someone just got 7 Wonders but we haven't played it yet. What else should we look at? Twilight Imperium with the first expansion can handle up to 8 people. But you're going to need a huge table and an entire day.
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Apr 6, 2013 17:27
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After following and participating in the Risk Legacy LP, I've decided to get my own copy. It should arrive this week and I'm looking forward to tearing up cards. It's going to go against the very fibre of my boardgaming being, but drat it looks fun.
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Apr 16, 2013 21:49
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Understandable if it was Diplomacy or Game of Thrones.
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Apr 24, 2013 01:51
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Played Yedo tonight. Pretty goddamn hard game... So many things to do, so little time and money to do it all! I'm thinking that perhaps it'd be better to go for the 4 disciples first, funding it with easy missions and then focus on getting the hardest ones. Though we only really did play 0.8 of the game, we really had to rush through the second half to be finished in a reasonable amount of time. Reasonable being 4.5 hours including explanation. I'm really edging towards not inviting my AP friend anymore. Last week we played Agricola, first time with Farmers of the Moor. We were 5 and it took at least 6 hours, might've been 7. At least an hour of that was spent waiting on him making up his mind before making a move. When we comment on it: "Well, if you're not going to allow correcting for mistakes I have to think through everything." 
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Apr 27, 2013 00:19
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LordZoric posted:- If a player no longer controls their entire home system, they are unable to claim any objectives. Only if that player no longer controls all planets in their home system. You can be blockaded but still win the game! Don't go overboard on fighters if you're playing with the expansion(s). The Automated Defense Turrets tech lets destroyers eat them up real fast and there's a few action cards that will gently caress over fighter-reliant fleets. Fighters still cost 1 build capacity each, so that means less heavy hitters overall. That said, do not ignore fighters, because you will need the chaff. What I mean is that you shouldn't forego on capital ships just to fill up your carriers. And while it's an option to let someone build and continue the game, keep in mind that sometimes what you do will influence what he builds. If you attack your neighbour, the guy on the other side of the galaxy might suddenly decide to build carriers and ground forces to pounce on the guy you're attacking. Or if someone lands on Mecatol, people still busy building will see what he's sent there, and build counters. If you want to do something drastic and say you want to wait on what the rest is building, you're also tipping your hand and might influence their build. It'll slow down the game if you wait till people finished building, but in my opinion it can have a very decisive influence.
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May 2, 2013 21:19
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I disagree about the Sardakk N'orr. I consider Exotrireme to be one of the strongest techs in the game. Nobody is going to attack your fleets with their war suns/flagship/ground troop-carriers unless they hilariously overcommit so they can take down the dread in the first combat round. Peace of mind is very cost-effective. But only get it if you're playing the Technology card, cause it's crazy-expensive. The Sardakk need a sluggish start, because their destroyers start off with 7 to-hit and their cruisers at 5. When compared to other races this means you're building 1-resource cruisers and 2-resource dreads. Using Production primary/secondary is going to get you that second system you need. Or if you can't take Production, use Diplomacy to annex a planet. If Production is taken and the person choosing before you has picked Warfare, count on Diplomacy's primary to save your system. If Production is taken and Warfare is an option, pick Warfare. Go gently caress up a neighbour's home system with your 3-move cruiser/admiral'ed dread (that hit at 4 and twice at 3!)
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May 2, 2013 22:44
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My group usually ends up around 8-9 hours of playtime, 10 if you include the pause for eating. It's pretty much a day event. Or afternoon+evening. It is wrong to say you don't want to play it because it takes so long. We play it because it takes so long. Every game is a new epic struggle for galactic domination. Just be aware that at the end of those 6-10 hours, only 1 out of the 4-5-6 players is going to have won. Do not play this if your people are sore losers.
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May 2, 2013 23:15
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BlueInkAlchemist posted:Twilight Imperium Welcome to the wonderful world of TI! Glad you enjoyed it and hope you have more fun with it in the future! And also welcome to the world of Mistakes Made While Playinng Twilight Imperium: Trade Stations aren't planets, so they can't hold ground forces, PDS or Space Docks. They count as planets only for objectives. Don't worry, I've owned the game for over 5 years now, played it 35-40 times or something. Up until last year we were still getting some things wrong! I found it handy to print out some player aids that have explanations of most of the game elements. Last game one of the other veteran players asked me why I even bothered to print out the red system reference, just about deriding the fact that anyone would ever need it. Then 3 hours later he asks me: "So what exactly do Ion Storms do again?" And gently caress me, I just now realized he kinda cheated earlier in our last game when he moved out of a nebula to take one of my spacedocks. He moved 2 spaces to get there.... 
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May 7, 2013 13:29
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Shattered Empire: Definitely a must-have if you enjoy Twilight Imperium. If you're considering an expansion, you just about have to get this one first. Shards of the Throne: I personally find the Intrigue option taking too long for what it brings to the table. With each race having 3 unique representatives most people will have to consult the general list of representatives and then everyone has to decide what to play etc... For my group, games take long enough already that we can't really afford an extra 5 minutes per vote. Other groups most likely play faster, but we never seem to do so Overall this option adds a lot of strength to some races, but it can be pretty hit-miss depending on what the political agenda is.Mercenaries are amazing. Some of them are so-so, most are great, others are nearly OP. Trade III is a very powerful strategy card to take because of this, while adding a lot of resources to the game because everyone first makes agreements, then gets the income immediately. You'll get more wars going because people don't have to pay a lot of attention to who they're trading with. Flagships and the extra racial tech make every race more distinct, opening up some fun strategies for a few races. The 3 races from this expansion are also the most exotic when it comes to gameplay. The new systems from this expansion are also interesting, several planets that give a double discount to tech and the new red bordered Gravity Rifts tiles. These are black holes that force a roll, 1-5 your ships trying to leave the system are destroyed instead. Unless you have that new technology that lets you use it to get +1 movement instead. Mechanized units add more diversity to ground combat. Instead of rolling 8s vs 8s, you can now buy a tank that costs 4 times as much as 1 ground troop, but it rolls two 6s and can take 2 hits. The Preliminary objectives add an extra point to the game, which is appreciated even if some are harder than others. Even after 2 years, I've yet to play the biggest addition: the Fall of the Empire scenario. I'm definitely going to force it on my group sometime next year, though! I keep sperging out about Twilight Imperium, I can't help it The End posted:On a somewhat related note, what kind of play time can I expect for a first play of Rex with four players? Even with my most-AP friend playing, we finished it in 3 hours or so. The manual was even easy to use as a reference, so not a lot of time lost there.
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May 7, 2013 15:28
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Tippis posted:Instead, I just received a brief “yup, known problem with some batches — new cards are in the mail” and today I got a full replacement set of tech cards, five working days later, from the US to Sweden. Three thumbs up for that one. I might need to do that as well, I think I have some missing cards that either got lost during play or perhaps weren't included in the first place. Do you just mail their tech support?
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May 7, 2013 18:28
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Try and get them to play Agricola because it's all about farms. Better start with the family version rules, though!
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May 8, 2013 16:10
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Some Numbers posted:I know that it's technically possible, but seriously, the odds against that are astronomical. If the universe if infinite, there's countless other Earths out there with exactly the same people in exactly the same situations, only difference is your dice have all been rolling 1's. I can win the game if my one unit kills your 30, ergo somewhere in the universe, I have already won. Note: this argument does not actually hold a lot of water
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May 8, 2013 17:45
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Tekopo posted:Yes, but ideally as the USSR you should get the DEFCON down to 2 as much as possible in order to control the coups in battlegrounds areas. I had the opposite problem today while playing as the USSR. Introduced a new friend to the game, who played while getting some advise from another friend who played before. I had an absolutely horrible Turn 2 getting -1 to my OPs and managed to get into the Mid War with the US having 5 points. Having to scramble for control in Asia is hard when Defcon is 2
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May 11, 2013 22:43
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