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Infinitum posted:Is this page poorly written, as I have always felt it to be, or can you understand at a glance which way extra actions are taken? I got it right without the example.
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Feb 20, 2021 17:51
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Pfister is going to re make Mombasa and the next expansion for Maracaibo will address our criticisms of the theme. How much for either, I don't know. Right I can agree that the games need to shed 'new' light on the subject of colonialism, although 'new' being in quotes because does it have to be new to us as hobbyists or 'new' to the general public. Not sure. Someone on Reddit was criticizing Archipelago because they said it was a game about colonialism without acknowledging it and they felt it should not have been made. I said to the contrary, including the traitor in Archipelago was exactly why the game should have been made, and noted that Spirit Island is also a game about colonialism. To me, the game has to have some context. The reason that Pax Pamir 2nd edition is so good as a theme is because the Afghans are equal in the game to the Brits and the Russians. That's a huge statement right there, to include the indigenous people in the war. That's the appropriate amount of context. I know NPI disliked Imperial Struggle because of the lack of indigenous representation in the game, but at the end of the day, Imperial Struggle is about a certain time and certain people and is clearly meant to be historical. I believe there is a reference to the colonialism issue in the rules. I don't think that historical games have to be consigned to only doing historical games on indigenous people or Africans/people of African descent to be acceptable. What's very very important is that these historical games acknowledge their existence.
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Feb 20, 2021 17:52
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Infinitum posted:Also help settle a bet. Every time I get A War of Whispers out I have to reiterate to the group which way actions are taken for blank council positions. To me the manual is unambiguous Fate Accomplice fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Feb 20, 2021 |
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Feb 20, 2021 18:22
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FirstAidKite posted:Does he say what kinds of things he expects as far as adding to the conversation? Because I feel like there isn't exactly much that can be said other than "colonialism is bad and this is a game version that is meant for fun and entertainment and is not an accurate representation of how bad colonialism is." He pretty much said what Mayveena said above. I have no idea how you would even retheme Mombasa, but I’m glad to see the effort?
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Feb 20, 2021 18:26
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ketchup vs catsup posted:To me the manual is unambiguous Likewise. I'm interested as to why this causes difficulties because understanding what other people find unintuitive helps me explain things better.
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Feb 20, 2021 18:45
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ketchup vs catsup posted:To me the manual is unambiguous  weirdAlso, I own a DGT time cube and we used it in Eclipse once to try it out. It was our fastest game ever. Passing a physical cube not only made me and others more aware of turns and the turn structure, but it seems that within our group, minimizing turn time became a kind of game/competition in itself.
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Feb 20, 2021 18:46
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ketchup vs catsup posted:To me the manual is unambiguous Yeah it seems very clear, especially with the example. Do they perhaps think it only works if the next agent is immediately to the right of the space, I. E. You would only ever control 1 space.
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Feb 20, 2021 19:09
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Things have gotten so bad in some of our online games of 18xx that we had to institute a "no route criticizing" rule because the discussion about tile placement optimizing got so bad turns were DRAGGING FOREVER. The only problem is that according to the rules (and I'm not sure if this unique to all of them or just the ones we've been playing) if you're a shareholder and can see a better route, as the president of the dumb company that can't route for poo poo you have to accept their better route. Which makes sense and is correct but goddamn if it doesn't slow some things down. Eventually people stop caring about the difference between adding an extra ten or twenty bucks to a run. That said, when we play in person keeping a pad of paper and writing down the runs and what each train is making shaves tons of time off games and I will not play without it and recommend everyone do the same.
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Feb 20, 2021 19:20
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It's unambiguous but it's super easy to see why people get it wrong
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Feb 20, 2021 19:20
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Rules is trains must run for the best observed route - not that tiles must be laid to make the best route so I don't see why people are discussing it then. There's also an explicit let out that you don't have to make known a better route if you spot one. It's to stop someone dragging their feet to spite a fellow investor, not to force players to find the most optimal route. And it's near universal. The only exceptions I know are '60 and '62 where you can funnel money into the treasury at the expense of revenue.
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Feb 20, 2021 19:41
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Infinitum posted:Is this page poorly written, as I have always felt it to be, or can you understand at a glance which way extra actions are taken? I would have gotten this wrong without the example, but not in the way your friends seem to. I interpreted the first sentence to mean that empty positions are controlled by the owner of singular position to their immediate right. The second sentence is grammatically incorrect in way that can support either interpretation depending on how you reconcile the problem. It should read "If there are no agents to its right...", but in my head I just removed the plural from "agents" and took "it's right" to again mean the position to the immediate right. Apparently that's not a common misinterpretation, though! It's probably not technically ambiguous since they say "next agent" rather than "next council seat", but it could be made more explicit and the grammatical error doesn't help. E: I'm sure their misinterpretation comes from our unconscious inclination to order hierarchies left->right with the most important position on the left. Stickman fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Feb 20, 2021 |
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Feb 20, 2021 20:18
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Countblanc posted:Also a lot of the time AP is just a sign that the person is bad at identifying and dismissing obviously bad plays. I have no doubt there are people whose AP is a manifestation of their ability to actually make masterful decisions based on analyzing 5 turns in the future, but way more often I see it from people checked out who then look over the board and have no idea what to do. That’s interesting to me because most of the notorious AP people in my group are the people who are really strong and are trying to find the best move. I got a lot less bothered by one of them specifically when I started to pay attention to how often he wins. When he uses his extra think time to win the game it bothers me a lot less.
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Feb 20, 2021 21:41
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Mr. Squishy posted:Rules is trains must run for the best observed route - not that tiles must be laid to make the best route so I don't see why people are discussing it then. There's also an explicit let out that you don't have to make known a better route if you spot one. It's to stop someone dragging their feet to spite a fellow investor, not to force players to find the most optimal route. An interesting example is in 1844 you must run the highest route, but there are tunnel and mountain privates that don’t “activate” until run. You can’t run less just to activate them.
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Feb 20, 2021 21:50
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garthoneeye posted:That’s interesting to me because most of the notorious AP people in my group are the people who are really strong and are trying to find the best move. I got a lot less bothered by one of them specifically when I started to pay attention to how often he wins. When he uses his extra think time to win the game it bothers me a lot less. I'm the opposite. By the end of the one time I played five tribes, stopping to think about which colour to drop down was basically cheating.
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Feb 20, 2021 21:51
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I have seen AP hit two ways, (1) a game-stopping need to "math out" all the available options, and (2) a stasis condition wherein the player sees a small number of options, and cannot collect enough information to make one of them the clear choice. That is to say, faced with (say) two choices that are equal on their face according to the game's available information, their brains invent entirely hypothetical consequences in a futile effort to make one choice the better one, and they table-tennis between those choices until they get embarrassed or others get mad. The two forms are related, but with the latter, a simple decision still paralyzes. Edit: Five Tribes is a great example of an AP sinkhole to hell. Played once with a player who is very competitive and fell into AP type (1). I hope that I never play Five Tribes again.
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Feb 20, 2021 21:59
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I avoid AP players, can't stand it myself and life is too short. Some AP players are merely selfish, or profoundly thoughtless, but others are that way because they have a "thing" and can't help it, but you know what? So do I. I can't stand crashing to a regular standstill, it's stressful and tiresome and I just avoid playing with such people. If AP is your thing, then you do you, just not at my table. Life's too short, there's no time for anything else.
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Feb 20, 2021 22:19
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I tend to play board games quite fast: I slow down sometimes but usually when it comes to my turn I've already decided what to do and just do it without thinking about it too much. This is completely anecdotal, but I still could win against players that spent 5 minutes doing their turn: it always felt to me that people that spent ages trying to decide what to do didn't, in the long run, actually improve their chances of victory. Played some Wingspan today and it was fine. I wanted something where I didn't actually have to out-think my opponent, and the process of playing stuff and building up some sort of engine gave me enough positive feedback that made the experience enjoyable. I don't think it's a great game, and I think I agree with the sentiment that it's a bit overhyped for what it is, but at least the pictures of birds are nice to look at.
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Feb 20, 2021 23:45
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Mayveena posted:Someone on Reddit was criticizing Archipelago because they said it was a game about colonialism without acknowledging it and they felt it should not have been made. I said to the contrary, including the traitor in Archipelago was exactly why the game should have been made, Yeah, the game where being too big of a jerk to the locals gets all the whites killed seems like a weird example of not acknowledging colonialism. 
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Feb 21, 2021 02:59
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I want to get a handful of minis on sprues that are the same scale as Kingdom Death Monster. Basically, I want something to practice on (assembly, fixing cracks, basing, painting, etc) before I put together my Kingdom Death models. What should I look for, like a Games Workshop starter box for Warhammer? If I could have something thematically Kingdom Death-esque that would be a bonus, but it's not a huge tragedy if it's space marines or whatever. e: by thematic, I mean like "otherworldly horror", not Titty Witches PRADA SLUT fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Feb 21, 2021 |
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Feb 21, 2021 06:46
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PRADA SLUT posted:I want to get a handful of minis on sprues that are the same scale as Kingdom Death Monster. Basically, I want something to practice on (assembly, fixing cracks, basing, painting, etc) before I put together my Kingdom Death models. What should I look for, like a Games Workshop starter box for Warhammer? Just build KDM armour sets. There's so many of the things you won't feel much angst if you gently caress one up. Tonnes of fiddly assembly required too, so you'll get lots of practice.
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Feb 21, 2021 07:21
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PRADA SLUT posted:e: by thematic, I mean like "otherworldly horror", not Titty Witches Any of the warhammer or minis threads will give you much better info.
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Feb 21, 2021 07:22
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The End posted:Just build KDM armour sets. There's so many of the things you won't feel much angst if you gently caress one up. Tonnes of fiddly assembly required too, so you'll get lots of practice. Yeah this would be my recommendation too. Unless you're absolutely obsessive about mini making and painting, there is way more stuff in there than you would ever reasonably want to assemble and paint. (As in, 4 starting survivors, about 4 narrative sculpts, at least 4 survivors of each armor set (unarmored, rawhide, leather, lion, antelope, phoenix, iron = 28 more). So something in the order of 40 survivor figures, of which you need at most 4 at any one time.
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Feb 21, 2021 07:31
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Stickman posted:I would have gotten this wrong without the example, but not in the way your friends seem to. I interpreted the first sentence to mean that empty positions are controlled by the owner of singular position to their immediate right. The second sentence is grammatically incorrect in way that can support either interpretation depending on how you reconcile the problem. It should read "If there are no agents to its right...", but in my head I just removed the plural from "agents" and took "it's right" to again mean the position to the immediate right. I mean this interpretation is kind of correct. The empty space is controlled by whoever controls the space to the immediate right. But the space to the immediate right is also empty? Then you have to find out who controls it, so you go to that space's immediate right. And so forth.
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Feb 21, 2021 07:46
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garthoneeye posted:That’s interesting to me because most of the notorious AP people in my group are the people who are really strong and are trying to find the best move. I got a lot less bothered by one of them specifically when I started to pay attention to how often he wins. When he uses his extra think time to win the game it bothers me a lot less. It seems like if someone is taking the game slot more seriously than others then that isn't necessarily great either? Obviously it's fine as long as everyone is having fun, most board games are played pretty casually, but there is generally a certain assumption that people are approaching the games in a similar manner. Explicitly competitive ones tend to have timers though.
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Feb 21, 2021 08:30
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Morpheus posted:I mean this interpretation is kind of correct. The empty space is controlled by whoever controls the space to the immediate right. Welcome to one of the literal arguments that came up last night. A better version of the rule would be "The Active Agent controls their Council Position, and all empty Council Positions to their left." With a quick visual example like this:  Again the manual being crappy is about the only complaint I have for A War of Whispers It's so much fun to play as the power in the shadows betting on the outcome of the war, rather than the armies themselves.  I lost by a point!  Highly recommend adding in the Dark Alliance, and Conquest &Treasure mini-expansions + playing with advanced rules
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Feb 21, 2021 08:35
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I explain it thematically. Rightmost seats are higher in rank. Your agent there can pull rank on lower ranking councillors, unless they're another agent or covered by another agent to the right.
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Feb 21, 2021 09:04
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PerniciousKnid posted:Yeah, the game where being too big of a jerk to the locals gets all the whites killed seems like a weird example of not acknowledging colonialism. The complaints I would have against Archipelago in this regard are; - While the native population can revolt they don't actually have any agency at all - it's entirely up to the competence and actions of the players, with the added implication that colonialism is fine if it's done competently and ethically - With the exception of the slavery card all the historical violence inherent to colonialism has been filed off. - It perpetuates the idea that colonised people and territories were these unclaimed wild lands that were not being used properly by their inhabitants, instead of fully developed cultures who were violently overthrown by foreign powers in pursuit of profit. - The art is pretty yikes in places. Don't get me wrong, I think Archipelago is a great game. But I think be designers wanted the colonial theme with none of the baggage, and just decided to pretend it wasn't there, which is to the detriment of he game I think. Of course not every such game has to be Train or beat the players over the head with be horror of chattel slavery but you can't totally ignore and expect people to not have issues.
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Feb 21, 2021 10:56
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MikeCrotch posted:The complaints I would have against Archipelago in this regard are; So how do you explain the traitor? I think it's the agency of the players that makes the game more historical. In the timeline in the game, the only way for the indigenous to be rid of the colonists were by the actions of the colonists. There's no feasible way for indigenous people without weapons to rid themselves of the colonists. I hope it's OK to say this, but the US freed the slaves, the slaves didn't free the slaves. I'm sure that there may be countries where the indigenous freed themselves, I'm just not aware of them. Again please correct me if there are several countries who overthrew their colonists on their own. I don't recall an argument that says it's the fault of the indigenous for being colonized. Mayveena fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Feb 21, 2021 |
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Feb 21, 2021 15:40
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MikeCrotch posted:The complaints I would have against Archipelago in this regard are; This isn't entirely accurate. Native unrest is managed by the players, not incited by them, and revolt is inevitable if you don't. It's also worth mentioning that one of the two main ways to keep unrest down is to recruit native workers, who immediately become full citizens and even get to intermarry with the colonists. It's all an abstraction, of course, but when you're making "do things that no colonising nation ever did" a necessary condition for being able to win the game then a point is being made whether you intended it or not.
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Feb 21, 2021 16:14
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Jedit posted:This isn't entirely accurate. Native unrest is managed by the players, not incited by them, and revolt is inevitable if you don't. It's also worth mentioning that one of the two main ways to keep unrest down is to recruit native workers, who immediately become full citizens and even get to intermarry with the colonists. It's all an abstraction, of course, but when you're making "do things that no colonising nation ever did" a necessary condition for being able to win the game then a point is being made whether you intended it or not. That does assume the notion that european civilization is superior and you're doing a favor to locals by recruiting them into it.
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Feb 21, 2021 16:43
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Jedit posted:This isn't entirely accurate. Native unrest is managed by the players, not incited by them, and revolt is inevitable if you don't. It's also worth mentioning that one of the two main ways to keep unrest down is to recruit native workers, who immediately become full citizens and even get to intermarry with the colonists. It's all an abstraction, of course, but when you're making "do things that no colonising nation ever did" a necessary condition for being able to win the game then a point is being made whether you intended it or not. I don’t know about the full citizenship part, but colonizing nations definitely intermarried with the native populations. In Haiti’s case, there was an entire social class of “free coloreds” that consisted in part of mixed race citizens of both native and African descent some of which had married French citizens. Many in this social class actually owned slaves and successful plantations themselves and as such were highly desirable bachelors to new French arrivals looking to get a quick economic head start on the island. Anyway this is just my way of saying I highly recommend Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast.
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Feb 21, 2021 16:43
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Finally played Nemesis the right way (i think) and it only took 5 1/2 hours. I died early on as the scientist from a chest burster but came back as the mechanic. Its thanks to his going through the vent ability that i was able to go cross the ship several times due to me foolishly picking the goal of; send the signal, grab an egg and and make it to the escape pod and they were all in opposite ends of each other. All while 7 adults and a creeper were out. And as luck would have it, I pulled the queen for my escape pod noise roll. With no bullets left I had to run and try to figure a way to defeat or lure her out. Luckily one chose any big f-you objectives. One player only had to escape with another, and one just needed to make sure we didn't reach Earth and escape. Both half-heartedly tried to help when they could, but as soon as the escape pods unlocked and they both summoned two of the previously mentions 7 adults into the escape room for their multiple tries to get into the escape pod they bolted. The third needed just had to scan an egg and not even survive, which she did. We played it up as her being an android and who developed emotions and a conscious after the scientist died since I was helping with things like unlocking and locking doors for them and helping them get rid of the chestburster inside them as the now deceased scientist and they helped me as the mechanic defeat the queen with her array of weaponry and we both escaped together.
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Feb 21, 2021 16:48
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My response has been edited.
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Feb 21, 2021 16:59
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Mayveena posted:I'm sure that there may be countries where the indigenous freed themselves, I'm just not aware of them. Again please correct me if there are several countries who overthrew their colonists on their own. (Edit: the British did help out and fight France in the context of the Napoleonic wars) There can be arguments that Algeria and Vietnam received material aid in the context of the Cold War, but they fought their colonizers on their own. The Spanish American wars of Independence did get some British aid including volunteer units. Llyranor fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Feb 21, 2021 |
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Feb 21, 2021 17:32
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Mayveena posted:So how do you explain the traitor? I think it's the agency of the players that makes the game more historical. In the timeline in the game, the only way for the indigenous to be rid of the colonists were by the actions of the colonists. There's no feasible way for indigenous people without weapons to rid themselves of the colonists. I hope it's OK to say this, but the US freed the slaves, the slaves didn't free the slaves. I'm sure that there may be countries where the indigenous freed themselves, I'm just not aware of them. Again please correct me if there are several countries who overthrew their colonists on their own. I don't recall an argument that says it's the fault of the indigenous for being colonized. The separatist is just a random objective though, it's not as if you choose to side with the natives. Slavery in the US is really the wrong way to look at it as the slaves in the US were not, by in large, indigenous to the US. Most colonies did in fact free themselves from colonial rule. Looking at what became Mexico is more useful in this case I think, where Montezumas daughters became slave owning Spanish citizens integrated into the colonising society, which ultimately freed itself from Spanish rule albeit 300 years later. American exceptionalim is generally bad but in this case is accurate to an extent. Even other slave colonies freed themselves from colonial rule like Hati. Usually because the colonising power didn't live where the slaves were, unlike the US. But back to Archipelago, unless you've randomly been chosen to be the separatist it's collective responsibility to suppress the natives. There's no sense that the natives are not just angry brown people hellbent on destroying what you've built. Until they can be civilised.
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Feb 21, 2021 17:32
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Llyranor posted:Haiti is the first country that comes to mind. Napoleon sent Polish Legions to quell the Haitan uprising and instead of fighting for the French the Poles decided to join the slaves. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Haitians That's my favorite bit of history from my poo poo country.
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Feb 21, 2021 17:50
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Terminally Bored posted:Napoleon sent Polish Legions to quell the Haitan uprising and instead of fighting for the French the Poles decided to join the slaves. That's awesome
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Feb 21, 2021 19:14
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The history of colonies becoming independent is often taught in a very fuzzy way to obscure what happened. A classic example is India, which is very much presented in Britain as the Brits benevolently giving independence to the Indian people (with a bit of mention about the Mutiny and Gandhi) instead of being told as a colonial power being forced to withdraw in the face of enormous opposition, often violent. Archipelago is interesting because it does engage with the theme to the level that you do have to care about what the populace think of you, as opposed to something like Puerto Rico, but the game never really deal with why people might be unhappy in the first place which is the issue. It's not going to stop me playing it though (well apart from the fact it's a beast to teach and I can't get it to the table).
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Feb 21, 2021 20:33
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MikeCrotch posted:The history of colonies becoming independent is often taught in a very fuzzy way to obscure what happened. A classic example is India, which is very much presented in Britain as the Brits benevolently giving independence to the Indian people (with a bit of mention about the Mutiny and Gandhi) instead of being told as a colonial power being forced to withdraw in the face of enormous opposition, often violent. I kind of thought it was both & that was a big part of why it worked. On one hand they're being told to GTFO, but on the other hand they could leave in a way that let them pretend they were the ones driving it.
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Feb 21, 2021 21:12
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Mr. Squishy posted:Rules is trains must run for the best observed route - not that tiles must be laid to make the best route so I don't see why people are discussing it then. There's also an explicit let out that you don't have to make known a better route if you spot one. It's to stop someone dragging their feet to spite a fellow investor, not to force players to find the most optimal route. Yeah I wasn't clear, the bickering wasn't a rules-lawyering regarding the tile placement it was about constantly re-evaluating routes for optimal runs. Way easier with 18xx.games but when we were playing on TTS it was agonising. That said, the tile placement stuff was bad because the one guy was (not incorrectly) constantly pointing out better placements but we just had to say the tile goes where the tile goes. When we were playing some 2p 1889 my GF was building insane routes that made zero sense and I was losing my mind and she just laughed and then dumped the company on me after siphoning funds leaving me staring down the barrel of Japan's wackiest piece of poo poo train co.
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Feb 22, 2021 18:05
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