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Zombicide is really poorly constructed mechanically. The major source of the threat in the game is zombies getting multiple moves in a turn so instead of building tension the game is either kind of stupid easy or "oh well we just died instantly" hard. The zombie AI is lazy as gently caress, to the point where you just add zombies out of thin air when a group of zombies splits up - I suspect this is also done to ensure that you'll start running out of zombies and hit the 'multiple moves' stage. The XP system is really really gamey and not particularly fun as a result. I appreciate that some people want a simple zombie themed co-op with miniatures but it's a pretty awful game outside of those qualities. Ravendas posted:Xia talk: The way the designer talks about it being a "sandbox game" and "moddable" makes me wonder if he's mostly a video gamer and has really stupid priorities when it comes to playtesting his game. Those two phrases are huge red flags to me suggesting the designer expects players to do all the hard work of actually creating a fun experience.
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Dec 14, 2014 01:21
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CodfishCartographer posted:My experience with Zombicide: on my very first turn, a combination of various bad luck meant I died on my very first turn. If we hadn't been playing with the "zombvivor" expansion, I would have been eliminated right off the bat. The game took over two hours to complete. I wouldn't recommend playing Zombicide at a player count where you're only controlling a single survivor, and if you must, I'd definitely recommend using the Zombivor rules. Specifically because of how fragile survivors are and the fact that it's not particularly fun to get knocked entirely out of the game. That said, what you describe is definitely a real edge case. Even being in a position to get killed on the first turn is unlikely, and having survivor fatalities not spiral into rapid demise also seems pretty rare. (That assuming the scenario parameters even let you win without keeping everyone alive, which a fair number do not.) I think the fact that you can have things combine to produce a result that undesirable is definitely a flaw. In my book, the mere possibility isn't fatal, though. It would need to be commonplace, like Betrayal's tendency to drag on its completely uninteresting first half and then enter the second, adversarial half with a setup that instantly screws one side or the other.
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Dec 14, 2014 01:22
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ambushsabre posted:I played Warhammer Diskwars once and now all I want to do is play again. Mind writing up a bit about why you think its good? I'm on the fence about diving into this one and i've watched videos of it but it seems like it could potentially be rather shallow, I don't want to end up with a lemon.
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Dec 14, 2014 01:30
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I always thought Dungeon Lords could easily be reskinned as a zombie game. Your dungeon is a stronghold, your imps red shirts, you go out to various buildings to scrounge for food or recruit survivors which adjusts the noise you're making which sends zombies knocking on your door. At the end of the day what do people really want from a zombie game? The classics of the genre are about a diverse group thrown in a stressful scenario that could work out if they worked together but zombie board games are just dungeon crawling dice rollers. The point of the classical zombie genre isn't to fight the zombies, it's trying not to fight each other and every zombie board game is missing that.
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Dec 14, 2014 01:58
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al-azad posted:I always thought Dungeon Lords could easily be reskinned as a zombie game. Your dungeon is a stronghold, your imps red shirts, you go out to various buildings to scrounge for food or recruit survivors which adjusts the noise you're making which sends zombies knocking on your door. Except for mall and city of horror which are about dealing with each other...
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Dec 14, 2014 02:22
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The best zombie game is pandemic with all the outbreak cards. Just pretend the diseases are different styles of zombies. I seriously need to rip off the mechanics and print that game with zombie minis. I'm pretty sure I could make a fair sum of cash.
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Dec 14, 2014 02:33
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Can we get an entry in the OP for dexterity games? That's a pretty big blind spot right now, considering the popularity of Jenga. You could have Jungle Speed, Click Clack Lumberjack...
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Dec 14, 2014 02:56
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Rampage/Terror in Meeple City is on my list to try also. There's also the Catacombs reprint due soon and Crokinole us supposed to be great.
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Dec 14, 2014 03:02
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I had the opportunity today to go to an awesome Barnes and Nobles (one that actually carries GOOD board games and x wing stuff) and I saw a bunch of stuff thats has been reccomended by the thread and I just wanted to buy up everything. The problems are 1.Storage of these things is getting tight 2. How often would I really get the chance to play half these things 3.Price, everything was $50+ dollars, nothing I'm not used to but it's alot to spend up front when im suppose to be christmas shopping. So I settled on Memoir 44 and Pandemic: In the Lab for myself, although I will definitely be going back for the other stuff
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Dec 14, 2014 03:27
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Ropes4u posted:The best zombie game is pandemic with all the outbreak cards. Just pretend the diseases are different styles of zombies. My family and I do this already. "Oh no, the fast zombies are in Hong Kong!"
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Dec 14, 2014 03:50
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ConfusedUs posted:My family and I do this already. It's really a brilliant idea...
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Dec 14, 2014 04:22
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HOOLY BOOLY posted:I had the opportunity today to go to an awesome Barnes and Nobles (one that actually carries GOOD board games and x wing stuff) and I saw a bunch of stuff thats has been reccomended by the thread and I just wanted to buy up everything. The problems are B&N usually charges retail price. Ordering on websites can get huge discounts, with $100 usually being the bar for free shipping. Even without it, it's cheaper than stores.
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Dec 14, 2014 04:35
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Cocks Cable posted:I don't care for City of Horror much because, for a very political game, you have very little resources with which to bargain. The central mechanics of the game are done better elsewhere. And the zombie theme is just kinda there-ish. One just has to accept that all zombie games are terrible (so play Last Night on Earth). Counterpoint: Last Night On Earth has roll-and-move as a mechanic.
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Dec 14, 2014 04:45
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silvergoose posted:Except for mall and city of horror which are about dealing with each other... Dead of Winter is too, for all its flaws. The reason zombie games in general don't do it is because zombies long ago transitioned from social/political commentary device to nerd horror trope and in doing so lost most of their value beyond being an aesthetic hook. Plants vs Zombies makes no loving sense from a 'traditional' zombie perspective either.
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Dec 14, 2014 05:08
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So I'm picking up Coup, Through the Ages, and Temporum and I need one more game to get free shipping. Here are all the games I own: http://boardgamegeek.com/collection/user/ElysiumSA Mainly looking for 3+ player games, nothing super long or heavy, any recommendations? p.s. the last recommendation I got here was for Libertalia which has been a huge hit, so thanks for that. Elysium fucked around with this message at 05:20 on Dec 14, 2014 |
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Dec 14, 2014 05:12
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Elysium posted:So I'm picking up Coup, Through the Ages, and Temporum and I need one more game to get free shipping. Here are all the games I own: http://boardgamegeek.com/collection/user/ElysiumSA Castles of Burgundy or Kemet? Not sure how expensive or big a game you want.
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Dec 14, 2014 05:21
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Elysium posted:So I'm picking up Coup, Through the Ages, and Temporum and I need one more game to get free shipping. Here are all the games I own: http://boardgamegeek.com/collection/user/ElysiumSA In addition to Castles of Burgundy, I'll throw in a recommendation for Glen More. You're building a village and running an engine with the tiles you draft with a turn order mechanic. Really interesting and quick game.
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Dec 14, 2014 05:26
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Echophonic posted:In addition to Castles of Burgundy, I'll throw in a recommendation for Glen More. You're building a village and running an engine with the tiles you draft with a turn order mechanic. Really interesting and quick game. Is Glen More still out of print? We love our copy. We pimped it out with custom barrels (they look more polished in person) https://www.thegamecrafter.com/parts/barrel as well as animeeples/veggimeeples, and it's even better.
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Dec 14, 2014 06:01
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Kiranamos posted:Is Glen More still out of print? We love our copy. We pimped it out with custom barrels (they look more polished in person) https://www.thegamecrafter.com/parts/barrel as well as animeeples/veggimeeples, and it's even better. Yes it is still out of print. I have been watching for it, believe me.
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Dec 14, 2014 06:12
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Oh, I didn't realize it was. Well, for an alternate recommendation, Among the Stars is a solid drafting/tile placing game. I've heard some arguments that it can get samey, which is fair, but the expansions help with that.Kiranamos posted:Is Glen More still out of print? We love our copy. We pimped it out with custom barrels (they look more polished in person) https://www.thegamecrafter.com/parts/barrel as well as animeeples/veggimeeples, and it's even better. I did the same, actually did a mix of barrels and bottles.
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Dec 14, 2014 06:27
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Played three games today, averaging three hours each. Viticulture came out second, but the summary's fastest, so: somebody went pure point-gen (cards, spaces, and buildings) and hit 20. Somebody else sat at 0 for 5 out of 7 rounds and cashed in 21 points of wine orders on the final two rounds to win it. There are so many ways to play, some quite unconventional. Francis Drake came out first, and I came in tied for second. It plays in three turns, each with two phases: a port phase that works like Tokaido, and a sailing phase that some people were comparing to Lancaster. In the port phase you stock your ship up with crew, guns, supplies, and trade goods. Arriving at a place later gets you less stuff. There are some special spaces that will upgrade your ship to a proper warship, or give you special powers to peek in the sailing phase, distribute troops or ship strength in the sailing phase, get an extra action in the sailing phase that fires first, or hit forts without using guns in the sailing phase. There's also the Francis Drake space, which requires wasting a turn but gives you two crew, two guns, and one of either. Spaces have a fixed placement the first round and are shuffled for the second and third. Once per game you can trade in 4 points (you start with 4) to get one crew, one gun, and one of either, or upgrade your ship. The order you pass determines your placement order in the sailing phase. In the sailing phase, you place disks numbered 1 through 4 face-down, in addition to the first action and a possible "ghost ship" token you can use as a bluff. There are 4 different zones, and your range is limited by how many supplies you stock. The first and closest zone has two trading posts, a city, and a fort. The second zone has one trading post, a city, a fort, and a ship. The third and fourth, and farthest, zones each have a city, a fort, and a ship. Each place has two open spots, except the indigo trading post in the first zone, which has 3. But you can place as many disks there as you want, and only the lowest numbers (ties broken by placement order) will actually participate. At trading posts, you can swap a trade good for a commodity tile. Indigo is produced at the first port, and coffee, sugar, and tobacco are produced at two ports each. A set of tiles trades for 2/8/16/26 points at the end of the game, depending on how many are in the set. Cities require you to spend 1 crew to sack. Each scores a small number of points, and the first to each city will loot silver in zones 1 and 2, and gold in zones 3 and 4. Forts require you to spend guns to breach the walls, unless you bought a pinnace to sneak in the back. Then they require you to spend a base number of crew, plus the crew tokens (0, 0, 1, 2) distributed by one role, or randomly if nobody took it. Each scores about three times the points of cities, and the first to each will loot silver or gold, the same as the cities. Ships require you to have upgraded to a galleon. There are three ships, 4 points/1 gun, 6 points/2 guns, and 8 points/3 guns, and they're randomly distributed every turn. Another role distributes additional gun tokens (0, 1, 2). Ships score their listed number of points, in addition to a gem for the first one there. You can pass out of this round early -- first gets 2 points, second 1 -- and depending on how much damage you did you get extra points at the end. 10 points if you sunk a ship, breached a fort, and sacked a city; 4 points if you did two of those; 1 if you only did 1. Your ship is downgraded and you lose anything unspent, besides commodity tiles and your plunder. At the end of the game, trade goods score, and silver, gold, and gems (which are kept in a little cardboard treasure chest and are hidden information) score 3, 4, or 5 points each. I managed second despite not getting out beyond zone 2 in the first 2 rounds and only having one commodity tile. I got to places early and got a decent pile of loot. Patchistory came out last, and this is a pretty neat civ-building game that plays a little like Keyflower. It runs for three eras of five rounds each. Your civ has eight parameters: - military determines your offense strength - defense determines your additional defense strength - transport determines your movement and exchange capacity - politics determines your action budget - industry determines your ore production - agriculture determines your food production - culture determines your point production - economy determines your coin production You spend politics to grow new workers (you start with two), each costing more food, build trade routes, construct buildings on wasteland, et cetera. You can also cash it in for votes, which will get you points on various Keyflower Winter-style categories that come out at the end of each era from three you have at the start of the game. So for example, in our four-player game, if politics comes out as a category, the person with the most gets one point per vote on it, the person with the second-most gets one point per two votes on it, the person with the third-most gets nothing, and the person with the fourth-most loses a point per two votes on it. You start with a 2x3 grid, which can either be the same for everyone or randomly varied. Every turn, one new card per player comes out, and bids are carried out with money, a little like Keyflower - if you're losing a bid you can pick it up and put it somewhere. But you only get one bid, and bidding immediately ends once all cards have one bid on them. Cards are 2x2 and will either feature normal production tiles, with optional bonuses if they're worked, or a special feature - a wonder or a hero, which give you large production bonuses or a special effect. Like Chichen Itza, which will let you kill your workers for 5 points each, or Otto von Bismarck, who lets you spend politics to threaten anyone, even if you haven't built a route to them yet, and get bonus points when you do it successfully. But here comes the "patch" part. You have to put the cards either over or under at least one tile of your existing grid. And you're limited in size - 5x5 in the first era, 6x6 in the second, 7x7 in the third. Some cards have seas on them, which can't be patched over, under, or even adjacent to each other. Production is open but total values are secret, so here comes a consequence of a hidden information game: there's an action that lets you steal points from people. And it was my first time, so I had a lot of interesting triggers and was counting out points in ones and twos through my whole turn. I got stolen from quite a bit. The guy who won had a single giant point income only happened once, and it seemed like he was getting less than me even though he was outproducing me 2 to 1.
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Dec 14, 2014 06:45
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All that having been said about how it works, how much did you like Francis Drake? I own it but haven't gotten it out yet - have been hoping it was a good puchase!
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Dec 14, 2014 07:31
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Elysium posted:So I'm picking up Coup, Through the Ages, and Temporum and I need one more game to get free shipping. Here are all the games I own: http://boardgamegeek.com/collection/user/ElysiumSA Ra is a great auction game that isn't too long or heavy but is still plenty strategic. It's great with 3 but good with other numbers too.
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Dec 14, 2014 07:38
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Glazius posted:Patchistory How long did this game take? Stats say 2 to 4 hours and I just wanted to know how realistic that is, because drat, that's long.
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Dec 14, 2014 07:41
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I really, really want to play Patchistory but I can't possibly justify buying another game right now and it'd never get played anyway (hurr durr welcome to board gaming *farts loudly*)
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Dec 14, 2014 08:03
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Elysium posted:So I'm picking up Coup, Through the Ages, and Temporum and I need one more game to get free shipping. Here are all the games I own: http://boardgamegeek.com/collection/user/ElysiumSA Dominion: Guilds Dominion: Dark Ages Dominion: Hinterlands Steam Park (I haven't played this so I cannot confirm if it sucks) Small World Falling (2014 edition) Dixit: Daydreams Dixit: Journey Dixit Origins Lifeboats Puerto Rico Splendor
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Dec 14, 2014 08:48
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Cocks Cable posted:How long did this game take? Stats say 2 to 4 hours and I just wanted to know how realistic that is, because drat, that's long. Yeah, figure about 1 hour per person. We went for about 4 and it was 2 veterans + 2 newbies. 15 multipart turns is a lot of game. Blamestorm posted:All that having been said about how it works, how much did you like Francis Drake? I own it but haven't gotten it out yet - have been hoping it was a good puchase! Adapting Tokaido mechanics to the worker placement track made for some neat choices. Do you hang back and make full use of your tokens, but get a slightly worse return? Do you dart ahead to get some good stuff but forsake earlier placements? Can you afford to get nothing, but pick up a special role? Sailing placement is interesting too. You don't have to lead with your trumps. You might have exclusive access to something, so dump your lower-priority markers there and wait to see what other people are doing. You might just see what you want and go for it. Trade goods are a neat little wrinkle. They're worth 6/8/10 points, at least once you get one, but that's also how much fighting the last ship/fort/city is worth, especially if it's worth a decent whack of points or you're the first one there. Getting trade material is very limited, only one space and a rider on two others. I was in kind of a poo poo position for most of the game - late in placing order, low on available zones, having little to no information from the special roles. I managed a tie for second and I see a few places I might have improved to get it outright. Intelligent placing can save your butt, and that was in the most crowded possible player configuration. I've only got one game out of it, so this isn't some kind of super judgement. But it's much less complicated than it originally looked, and the decisions involved were interesting but not overwhelming. I didn't regret the time I spent playing it, which was about 30 minutes per player. It really depends on what other worker placement games you have, but it's basically a mash of two distinct styles of placing and there's nothing I know that's like it.
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Dec 14, 2014 10:13
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Cocks Cable posted:How long did this game take? Stats say 2 to 4 hours and I just wanted to know how realistic that is, because drat, that's long. Stats are about right. Our first game went from about 19:45 to about midnight (4 players), our second from about 19:20 to about 22:20 (3 players). We're quite a slow group. If you're playing for the first time though, be prepared for the rules explanation to take a while. There are a lot of concepts that take a bit of explaining, but once explained flow really nicely in play.
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Dec 14, 2014 10:45
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Elysium posted:So I'm picking up Coup, Through the Ages, and Temporum and I need one more game to get free shipping. Here are all the games I own: http://boardgamegeek.com/collection/user/ElysiumSA Since you also seem to lack a decent worker placement game, I'll throw in my usual recommendation of Versailles. Simple mechanics but with enough clever strategy to have replayability among serious gamers, and it plays in 15/p+15.
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Dec 14, 2014 11:05
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Glazius posted:Played three games today, averaging three hours each. Wow, three games I actually have played and can comment on! Viticulture, as you said, is really interesting in the multiple ways to win, without having the insane point salad of some games (not saying I dislike Feld, but it's a welcome change!) Francis Drake I really want to try again, I loved the turn selection mode and balancing the various ways to get things done was a lot of fun. Patchistory we bought, and have now played 4 player and 2 player. The 4 player game, as you said, took like 4+ hours, with 4 newbies, but all of us wanted to play it again after playing. The 2 player game definitely was shorter, but was long enough to not be a "let's bang out a quick game of agricola". Really, really different 2 player, we ended up in alliance rather than at war, and went vastly different routes, with my wife offering aid every turn and me graciously accepting it half the time. We really like the game and are very, very glad we bought it unseen, unplayed.
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Dec 14, 2014 12:30
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Is there a consensus on smash up because I played like 4 games of it and it seems super bad. And boring. Like, you draw your cards and it's very obviously one thing for you to do so you do that and then you draw more cards and oh some points oh you won. Also Zombies and Wizards seem super good compared to the other factions. Also also one of the expansions [the friend who brought it has 2/3 I think?] adds mechanics that are wholly exclusive to the expansion cards, if that makes sense.
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Dec 14, 2014 13:59
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It's monkey cheese bullshit for people too lazy to build a deck. I hated it, felt like magic the gathering with all the good parts stripped out.
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Dec 14, 2014 14:20
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So I showed my boyfriend cutthroat caverns as well as a few of the other games you guys suggested. Unfortunately one of the links I gave him went to SUSD and now he wants cosmic encounter. This plan certainly went well.
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Dec 14, 2014 14:31
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Bubble-T posted:It's monkey cheese bullshit for people too lazy to build a deck. I hated it, felt like magic the gathering with all the good parts stripped out. I think you have set the bar too high. Smash'up is alright. It's better than Munchkin and the theme works for some people. It's not Android: Netrunner though and you shouldn't expect it to be.
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Dec 14, 2014 14:43
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Sgt. Anime Pederast posted:So I showed my boyfriend cutthroat caverns as well as a few of the other games you guys suggested. Unfortunately one of the links I gave him went to SUSD and now he wants cosmic encounter. This plan certainly went well. Well, we tried. I think Cosmic Encounter is vaguely better than Munchkin, at least.
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Dec 14, 2014 15:20
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silvergoose posted:Viticulture, as you said, is really interesting in the multiple ways to win, without having the insane point salad of some games (not saying I dislike Feld, but it's a welcome change!) My Viticulture Collectors Edition arrived on Friday afternoon and promptly set a land speed record by being on the table at 6pm that day. We played five-handed, and were surprised by how close it was given the varied strategies. Things we tried: 1) Ignoring wine orders to make VPs by selling grapes, planting vines with the Windmill/Yoke engine and taking the VP from the wake-up track. 2) Rushing to fill a couple of small wine orders in order to benefit from the residuals, then using the cash to train and build. 3) Touring and building. This strategy was the only strategy not to make 20, but the player admitted after that they waited too long to build a Tasting Room and they could easily have had 3-5 more points. 4) "Big Grape": getting 5-6 ranks of each colour into their own fields, then quickly filling big orders in the midgame. 5) Blush/sparkling production: making two big red grapes but only one small white grape. I was the blush producer, and I was able to get a cash lead by using the Uncertified Broker to get a quick £6 knowing I could get the VPs back as I also drew the Broker from the wake-up track. This I turned into a Worker and my Medium Cellar, quickly followed by the Large Cellar courtesy of an Oenologist as my first order was 8 Red. The Windmill player went into an early lead; as we were all planning to make wine he was able to get the Sell Grapes bonus uncontested each turn and usually got the wake-up VP as well, so he was taking 2-3 VPs a year from that. Residual Rush kept building his cash and used it to get a Cottage as soon as he saw how good some of the visitors were, the others kept following their plan. The game ended in Year 8, which we knew was going to happen as Windmill had reached 18 points. I was in last on 10 VPs but had the first choice of wake-up and having planned ahead with some good grapes and orders I chose to go first. I'd made enough cash the previous year to buy 3 VPs from my Broker, putting me to 13, then passed immediately with four workers left. I already had a 6 White so in Winter I immediately filled an order for 4 VPs before crushing Sparkling and White to fill a 3 White 8 Sparkling order for another 6 VPs. Windmill had only been able to scramble up a quick order for 3 VPs so I thought I'd got it, but Residual Rush used the Marketer to get a bonus point from one of his orders and matched me on 23 VPs. Final scores: 1) Residual Rush (23 VP, £8) 2) Blush (23 VP, £0) 3) Windmill (21 VP, £5) 4) Big Grape (21 VP, £4) 5) Tour/Build (18 VP) Overall an excellent game, and I'm looking forward to expanding it a little. We're probably only going to play it once more before adding the Mamas and Papas, Advanced Visitors and New Visitors from Tuscany, if that. I don't think we'll ever use Mafia or Arboriculture, though - they just seem to add time and complexity without making the game noticeably better.
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Dec 14, 2014 15:38
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Ravendas posted:B&N usually charges retail price. Ordering on websites can get huge discounts, with $100 usually being the bar for free shipping. Even without it, it's cheaper than stores. Addressing Hooly Booly: You really gotta listen to this one, B&N B&M stores don't price match online and have time terrible sales. Get games from local game stores or stick to online (even if amazon is your only option, like it is for me all the time). Even though you'll be hard pressed to get even just 5 dollars off memoir (just grabbed my own copy of M44' as well, god drat its so good) Also I really need to save money now with christmas coming up and already dropping 45 for memoir, 170 in presents, needing to buy presents for more people, and wanting to get 2 M44 expansions right away, but King of New York is as low as ever, and I really wanted to bring it to a new years hang with my game group.
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Dec 14, 2014 16:25
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Jedit posted:Overall an excellent game, and I'm looking forward to expanding it a little. We're probably only going to play it once more before adding the Mamas and Papas, Advanced Visitors and New Visitors from Tuscany, if that. I don't think we'll ever use Mafia or Arboriculture, though - they just seem to add time and complexity without making the game noticeably better. I'm so hoping that this arrives here before Christmas - it's definitely going to be a huge hit with my group, they love worker placement games, and love when there isn't really one dominant strategy Plus, I think we'll probably play it legacy style
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Dec 14, 2014 16:31
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Broken Loose posted:Steam Park (I haven't played this so I cannot confirm if it sucks) Then you've got a building phase which, thanks to that frantic pace from before, feels a little bit like Galaxy Trucker in that you suddenly stop and look at your secret goals and realize you hosed yourself over like crazy but thanks to the short timescale, lavish theme, and general game's humor, you can't get mad (unless you're one of those people who hates Galaxy Trucker) at your fuckup. Finally, there's a brilliant game of space management and setting yourself up with a micro-engine when it comes to actually buiding your park. More rides means more robots which means more money, but more robots means more waste means less money, and on top of that, nothing can be placed alongside anything else unless it's the same color, in which case they must connect. If your group plays more than one game in a night and you're not a Eurocentric group, Steam Park is fuckin' fantastic. It's not the best at anything, but unlike other relatively quick "middle" games like Pompeii, or Lords of Waterdeep, or Seasons, you'll be finished much faster, it's easier to teach, and the art style and theme is fuckin' gorgeous. There's heavier choices than Takenoko, which is the the only game I've got that matches it in presentation and simplicity. It reminded me a bit of Theme Park while playing, in that kind of irreverant "everything is going to poo poo" atmosphere you get while you're laughing like hell at your horrible decisions. It's already completely replaced Ticket to Ride as my "intro" game to get people into the hobby, and while I can't imagine anyone with any degree of familiarity in the hobby would call it their favorite, it's just really charming, tight, and well developed. I'd just make sure to buy a fuckload of baggies. Setup is a bitch if you don't have every single little thing sorted.
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Dec 14, 2014 16:59
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I've just played Castles of Burgundy for the first time, and I'm feeling a little disappointed by this game that a bunch of people seem to be talking up. We played a four player game which lasted for over 2 hours and I ended up winning by about 30 points. It feels like a game of 'action economy' more than anything else; trying to make sure that you're able to do as much as possible on a turn-by-turn basis rather than specifically building towards a goal, and the only long term strategy is completing all of your larger 'regions' before the end of the game comes around. None of this ever felt difficult to do, in our game everyone filled their largest areas and populated their farmlands all with one variety of animal. It didn't ever really feel like meaningful decisions were being made. So I guess I'm a little surprised that everyone seems to think Castles of Burgundy is such a great game. It's mathematically elegant I suppose but for how long it goes, it feels like there are too few actual decisions to be all that enjoyable. Is there something about this game I'm missing? Maybe some Castles of Burgundy apologists can speak up and let me know what it is about this game that makes it so amazing.
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Dec 14, 2014 17:40
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