Boardgaming in 2017!

Played my first game of Catacombs last weekend. Apart from being a lot of fun what I really liked was that I knew the rules and could explain the game to my friend as we went along. I remember his look when I unpacked the game (there are no boardgame players among my friends) but then he soon found out how easy it is and all the special moves where explained fast. So thumbs up for Catacombs for a light boardgame night.

It’s all subjective. My experience with Marco Polo wasn’t bad, just that I have and have played games I enjoyed more that scratched that same itch and as you know I have the same feeling with Scythe. It’s by no means a bad game. It’s absolutely gorgeous, but there are at least 5 other area control games I’d rather play and I feel are better games.

My group is constantly reminding me that, “the game isn’t bad, but when there are so many better games out there why play ones that are just okay.” For example, I think you like Dark Moon and Homeland way more than BSG, but for me BSG does things those games just don’t. First, the absolute soul crushing attack of the cylons. There’s nothing worse than seeing all those minis on the board. It might just be psychological, but panic kicks in when the fleet arrives your ship’s jump drive isn’t working and the fact that one on your teammates is most likely going to f*ck you at that moment. Second, Homeland and Dark Moon have the “traitor” mechanic, but it’s fairly easy to deduce mid game who is what. In Dark Moon games we’ve played some people just come right out as the bad guy on the first turn.
Now I realize that may be the exception and not the rule, but I feel meta in those games is lacking. BSG I would argue is more about the meta and less about the game play mechanics. Math is math, but the slow burn of building up who is or isn’t on your team only to have you be wrong is fantastic and plays out so much better, at least in my experience, than it ever has in Homeland or Dark Moon. That said, I get it when someone says, but I can play dark moon in 45 minutes and then play something else.

LOL. I know all these characters, but the imagery of Ashcan with his dog having to pull a guns blazing Joe (if I’m not mistaken his mini is a guy holding 2 guns) out of the mansion, “easy there kid, let the adults handle it”, cracks me up.

Was it just that he always got hit with AI checks at the end of each round?

I think in that first short, 60-90 minute Mansions scenario, you start off kind of poor in the way of weaponry. Between Mandy, Pete, and Joe, we had one weapon to start with: a fire extinguisher. We gave that to Pete, who proceeded to bludgeon the ever living hell out of anything that so much as moved with it. Mandy later got a decent attack spell and Joe ended up with a knife – which wasn’t bad, because it seemed like his combat checks with a bladed weapon tended to be agility checks, and that’s his high stat with a 5.

Still. Joe felt like a liability because he’s a private eye who has mediocre lore and observation and will (I mean, one of those should be at least a 4, right?) It just felt like Pete was handling the combat roles with aplomb, and both he and Mandy were doing just fine with observation and lore checks…and both were funneling instill bravery spells and flesh ward spells at Joe to keep him from getting his fool self killed before they could finish the investigation.

What I think I really love about MoM is the way it gets the Lovecrafty bits about putting your characters through the grinder exactly right. When you come out of a scenario, typically your characters are carrying wounds or insanity or both and teetering on the edge.

Also love the way the game ebbs and flows. How you can go from feeling like “We’ve totally got this!” in one turn, to “Holy crap, we’re all dead” a few turns later, and then back to “Wait, we might actually win this thing…”…and it’s never felt particularly arbitrary when the game turns like that, and it provides you with opportunities to get out from under and still win, and slaps you silly when you do bad things.

Sounds about right. Without spoiling, I was in a mission where things were going very well. Then we needed to find a clue, but there so many forces on the board the game turned into benny hill. I was basically running around the board with monsters in tow, while the other players tried to find the “key”.

Interesting games I’ve played recently:

Amun-Re From the designer of Ra, Medici, Tigris and Euphrates, and like a gazillion other games, comes another reprint of his classics. This game is another auction game, but after the auction you buy farmers, special power cards, and most importantly bricks. Because, enough bricks (3) means you make a pyramid in the region, and pyramids score points!

However, the cost for all these things escalates. The first brick/worker/card is just a coin. The second is 2 coins, the third 3 coins, etc. Hence, you can buy one brick for one dollar, but 4 bricks costs you ten bucks! Ditto with workers and special cards. You always want to buy things for a dollar (Robocop joke here). Or not, as left over money is not worth a lot in points. However, before you buy bricks, a territory for each player is auctioned off. Each territory has something special about it. One territory just pays out 8 bucks every turn. Some territories come with free bricks. Etc.

The other mechanism is the “offering phase.” Basically, all players can put secretly put money into a final pool… or “steal” 3 coins from it. At certain thresholds, the amount of money each work pays out goes up. Hence, if you have a lot of workers, you might want to offer high so as to get a bigger payout. Plus, there are bonuses for offering the most, namely bricks, cards, and workers. Finally, after 3 rounds, everyone loses their teritories and workers (but not cards), and the territories are auctioned off again in 3 rounds… now with pyramids already attached. There are certainly other things, but that is the gist of it. I really liked it, a classic Knizia game for a reason.

Anachony This worker placement Euro reminded me most of Manhattan project. There is a central board where spots are limited and competed for, but players can get their own personal buildings as well. The other mechanism is a time travel conceit. Essentially, at the start of every round players can use chits to request some resource from their future selves. In the interim this can cause problems. Players with more demand chits will have to roll a die and get paradoxes. Enough paradoxes and an anomaly forms taking up one of your personal building spots. Getting rid of them costs resources, and not getting rid of them costs VP. Of course, those original resources? Will eventually needed to be given back to your past selves. Sort of an interesting way to take a loan.

After only 1 playthrough, I am giving the game a thumbs down though, mostly for turn order mechanisms. Getting more buildings is critically important to build your engine. However, I spent most of the game 4th in turn order, which meant I could buy fewer buildings because the spots filled up. To move up in turn order, you need to go to a specific spot on the board that is only available after all spots for some specific actions are filled Think of it like a game of Stone Age where if all the middle board spots are filled, you can take another spot which gives you your choice of middle board actions and first player next turn. In theory the 4th player gets the best of that exchange, but if anyone “breaks pattern” and does something else instead, you are left with what’s left and first player gets their pick and is first player again.

Other than that, a lot of mechanisms which felt “point salad” to me and not tightly integrated. It was not an actively bad game, but not one I will look to play again.

Ponzi Scheme

If you haven’t played this, you owe it to yourself to play it. Every turn you make an investment, which is taking a card from a market and a cardboard point chevron to go with it. However, that investment? It’s a one time payout. For the rest of the game, you will have to pay the interest on the investment every 3 to 5 rounds. The only way to stay ahead, of course, is to make more investments. Meanwhile, players can attempt to buy point chevrons from each other, but if the price is to low the solicited player can buy your chevron by matching the price.

The “truth” in the theme, the tension of knowing you are going to go bankrupt and all that really matters is that some one else goes bankrupt first while you are holding a bunch of points, and the dread you feel when some hands you an envelope and says “offer.” These are some of my favorite things.

Sorry you didn’t like Anachrony, but give it another go. You didn’t play the rule correctly. You can take the action whenever you want, but typically you get a bonus if you take the actual action which is why you wouldn’t choose to go there unless you had too.
Also, according to page 8
“Note: In order to become First Player, you may
place a Worker on the left World Council space even
if there are still available Worker spaces in all Capital
Actions. In this case, you become the First Player,
but otherwise do not get to perform an Action.”

Hope that helps. Player order is extremely important in that game, especially with higher player counts.

Ponzi Scheme is stone brilliant, and a great example of how it’s possible to design a really deep and engaging game without lazy cliches like special actions or variable player powers.

I’ve been seriously considering 7th Continent over the last week or so. I was actually hoping to find more discussion here, because I’ve been firmly planted on the fence with it, and with the Kickstarter ending in a little over a week I need to make a decision. Honestly, part of me is hoping to get talked out of it, because:

  1. it’s a lot of money especially if including the expansions.
  2. I love the idea of an open world exploration and survival game with an emphasis on story telling that could be quickly setup and torn down leaving it open to be played in shorter or longer time frames, but there are some elements (namely restarting from scratch when failing and potentially repetitive testing mechanism) that could easily cause it to stay on the shelf.
  3. It seems the kind of game that really shines more when you play it every time you sit at the table, instead of pulling it out every few weeks like Pandemic Legacy, and even P:L caused us to burn out a bit on it.
  4. Did I mention it’s a lot of money?

So I don’t know. While it seems at the surface to be a great fit for us, I’m concerned about dumping a lot into it only to have it gather dust after a few playthroughs. It does seem to be holding on to resale value though…

Oh man, tried this one the other day. Invested a couple hours into a game but it never really paid off.

They’ve said it won’t be available at retail and unless they do another Kickstarter, the game won’t really be available going forward, outside a few extra copies left over after they replace any missing/damaged KS copies. That and some glowing reviews from people I trust (e.g. Jamey Stegmaier, of Stonemaier Games) and the strong appeal of the concept have me in all the way. YMMV.

The high price definitely steered me clear the first time around but now that it’s in the world and people have actually played it, I’m willing to invest where I wouldn’t on an unproven game.

I haven’t played the game. If you’re really looking to get talked out of it, No Pun Included’s review was less positive. Maybe worth a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-5_DEJukwQ

I played it and that helped me decide not to buy it, if that helps.

It’s pretty fun, but not worth the time investment. If you have tons and tons of free time, the math might change.

Yeah I’m starting to feel this way too. I’m hoping a certain QT3 member will pick it up so I can try it out.

[quote=“malkav11, post:1255, topic:127711, full:true”]
They’ve said it won’t be available at retail and unless they do another Kickstarter, the game won’t really be available going forward, outside a few extra copies left over after they replace any missing/damaged KS copies.[/quote]

That’s definitely one of the reasons why I’m considering it now. I don’t really do Kickstarter, but I’m a little more lenient for second printings on games not available at retail (so far that includes only Gloomhaven for me). If 7th Continent was going to be in stores I’d definitely hold off until then so I could try it without the “Might be your last chance!” pressure of bundling the expansions.

I kind of wish they’d waited another month or so to start the second printing Kickstarter so reviewers would have had a bit more time to play through it without rushing too much, and there’d be more reviews also looking at the expansions. However I think this may have been part of their plan, to take advantage of the first impression hype from people getting their copies.

I had seen NPI’s review, but didn’t walk away from it with a real clear idea of exactly why they didn’t like it. However I’ve since listened to and watched a number of other reviews, and I’m starting to see some patterns.

There are definitely some folks gushing over it, including Vasel and Rahdo, neither of which really surprise me (although it’s since become known that Rahdo was saving the game incorrectly, and apparently the correct rules for saving really bothered him enough to make a variant). However I’ve also seen an increasing number of reviewers claim they loved the game at first and couldn’t wait to play more, but roughly 8-12 hours in they started to sour on the experience. The reasons vary somewhat, but generally fall into either a) the skill checks, random encounters, and action deck gets repetitive, b) the quality of the writing falls off, and/or c) restarting curses due to dying.

I take the complaints with a big grain of salt, because these reviewers, by their nature, tend to have a hard time sticking with one game for very long before feeling the pressure (or desire) to move on to something new. That said, given how hit-or-(delayed)-miss the game seems to be, I’m not sure it’s worth the risk for me. I can deal with repetitive gameplay as long as that gameplay is interesting. I’m ok with red herrings (something else some expressed disappointment in), especially if it’s the price for open world exploration. But restarting from scratch, combined with the other complaints, means the game is likely a pass for me.

I don’t get a ton of gaming time, and the thought of going through the early parts of scenario that I might have spent 5-10 hours on is a pretty big turn off for both me and my wife (who I would hope to have join me). Now maybe I’m overstating the likelihood of failing a curse, and I know there’s some small measure of randomness in some of the “fixed” areas, but at roughly $200 + shipping for the parts I would want to get, I think I’m better off taking a try-before-buying, even if it’s unlikely I’d be able to get a copy outside of eBay.

I would recommend this episode of the “Every Night is Game Night” podcast which has a great discussion of the merits and failings of 7th Continent. If you’re on the fence now, you may end up still on the fence, or it may help you decide.

Another reviewer I trend pretty closely with in game interests was my final move to drop to a $1 pledge on 7th Continent.

I don’t like missing out…but feel like maybe the cost of this is getting too much for one game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mvbt0V05iP4

I decided not to pledge as reading the cards would drive me nuts…If I want a story, I will read a book, not a board game.

Still undecided on Gloom of Kirforth. Sick of fantasy games but it might be nice.

Just bought:

COH with the solo expansion
Agricola - the wargame one, not the farming one.
Vietnam solitaire
Cuba Libre
Aeon’s End - original.

I am playing some DOTZ3 and it’s killing me as I have all these other games I want to try so I’m trying to hurry my DOTZ game…not a good strategy.

I really, really have to stop buying games. I sold a nice $800 camera lens as I spent so much on board games the last 3 months, I was a bit broke. I loved that lens too. Stupid board games.

I’ve had my eye on Conflict of Heroes lately. I have Combat Commander, which is also WWII squad-scale, but its really hard to find people willing to play it. It seems like CoH is has slightly simpler rules and more attractive components. Does anyone have any thoughts about these games?

Hmmm… so as 4th player most turns it would get back to me with one other player “Breaking formation.” So, the 3rd spot for building is available, but then there is little chance I could move up in turn order if I use it. Alternatively, I could take first player without doing an associated action. It would give me first player for next round, and at least 2 build actions then, including the free one. On the flip side, I would not get a building this round, and would lose the associated action. That is… interesting. I’m not sure how I feel about games where the optimal move when you are later in turn order is to simply move up in turn order. I would get 2 buildings next round, but man, empty actions are painful.

I might try it again, if it was some other people in my group want to play, but I still think the way turn order is handled is frustrating.