Boardgaming in 2018!

Played a 4 player game of Rising Sun. I love how much a difference the card sets make. This particular game was all about low honor. Lose honor to get great stuff. I was not able to collect a large set from battles mostly because what I needed did come out, but I was able to use Turtle Clan’s ability and having highest honor to rack up 18 points on the last round with 2 harvest tiles!

I’ve played both Robinson Crusoe, 2nd edition and First Martians. RC is a great game. One of my favorites. You really do feel as though you are on an island and it is out to get you, but your decisions can make the difference. I never played any edition prior to the current one, so I cannot compare them.

First Martians, though…Tom is too kind in his description. Seriously. Extremely fiddly. An app that should have made perfect sense thematically that does nothing but get in the way. All kinds of translation/grammatical issues both in the app and the cards. And the campaigns, that everyone says “oh the scenarios aren’t good, but TRY THE CAMPAIGNS”…yeah…HATED the first one…HATED IT. Then, in the 2nd one, when the Victory Conditions changed early on…changed so that I had two separate, mandatory, yet mutually exclusive conditions…I finally said “That’s enough, I’m done”. Boxed it and set on my shelf…never to leave again. I won’t even sell it because I wouldn’t do that to another human being.

Tony

Just played Lords of Waterdeep for the first time. Seemed pretty good, but I’m still a novice with worker placement games. I own Voyages of Marco Polo and MP: Energy Empire, but so far only played Energy Empire, and that only once.

I had a good time with Waterdeep, though I think I liked Energy Empire a bit more. Hard to articulate why after just a single game with each.

Waterdeep is pretty well liked around here though, right? I know I’ve heard it mentioned for ages, but I didn’t pay attention since I hadn’t played it for myself yet.

Lords of Waterdeep is my favorite game besides Godfather, both very very thematic. Lords of Waterdeep (with the expansion) has more legs, but Godfather has more interesting choices to make. Haven’t tried Energy empire yet, have to check that one out.

If you like Lords of Waterdeep, check out Champions of Midgard. It is a similar type of fantasy/adventure themed worker placement game. Lords of Waterdeep is mostly pretty abstract in its mechanics, but in Midgard you’re actually building up an army and rolling dice to attack monsters. I went to a board game con with a bunch of friends over the weekend and it was one of the big hits with our group.

The Godfather, mentioned above, is also a great worker placement game with a more aggressive PvP bent.

Sold! LOL, didn’t hear about this one. worker placement is not my normal favorite, but it has been recently growing on me…

Yeah it’s not necessarily my favorite genre either, but there are some really good ones that are worth playing.

Agreed on Midgaard. I played it for the first time at GenCon last year, and the next day bought the kickstarter bundle from their booth.

We played it Friday and I liked it. I do recommend getting the expansion that lets you buy stuff with your Valhalla tokens, though,

Played a couple games of vanilla Champions and one with the expansions. Fun game, definitely need to play it more.

I appreciate Energy Empire more as well despite the theme of Waterdeep being a bit more appealing for me.

Waterdeep lacks dramatic moments and build-up I’m looking for. In Energy Empire, your turns get progressively bigger and more grand as you get more buildings set up. There’s also a really nice pacing to big moves where you often need to take a few small moves in between. When you pull off a huge turn using a ton of energy and workers in a single turn, it’s extremely satisfying.

I think Waterdeep is a much more even experience. Finishing quests is a little exciting, but nothing really punches in a dramatic way in that game. I think it lacks drama. The dice and combat in Champions of Midgard seems like a clever way to combat it. I also prefer The Godfather for its dramatic shoot-outs and crazy ally abilities. I still like Energy Empire the most. Its build-up is so exciting. I can’t wait for my next turn. And I love how the theme is executed throughout.

Russian Railroads is my personal favorite worker placement game. It also has an extremely dramatic engine build-up (with players shooting into the 400 point range in most games). I like it most because I think it best manages limiting options in a very strategic way. You’ll want to find a strategy that isn’t competing with any other players to succeed. So you have to watch everyone carefully, understand what they’re going for, and tailor your strategy to stay out of their way. I find it the most interesting execution of the worker placement blocking tension.

lol yes much yelling over voicechat every time that happened

Has anyone here played Feudum? I am intrigued and wondering how I missed the KS for this game.

Laffo! I outright REFUSE to play Lords of Waterdeep without the expansion at this point. The base game I would say is a terrible play. The expansion introduces EPIC quests for huge point swings and the salvation in the corruption mechanic. If everyone is corrupt, IT IS TERRIBLE. If only a couple people are corrupt, IT IS AMAZING. And it makes all the difference in the world.

The one game of Lords of Waterdeep I played was with I think both expansions and I was not super impressed. Didn’t help that the lord I got was the beholder, who instead of getting an actually actionable bonus just makes corruption suck slightly less, which is not remotely competitive with any of the others I’ve seen.

I agree in that specific lord. Its the weakest of the bunch, in fact I pulled it.

Even with the expansion, I don’t understand people’s willingness to abide Lords of Waterdeep. There are so many better worker placement games!

-Tom

Do you think Waterdeep was always bad, or just that it’s been made irrelevant by newer, better, games?

It’s not bad if you’re into pure worker placement, theming be damned. The corruption stuff does a good job making it more interactive. But as you say, I just think there are so many better designs that use worker placement. Energy Empire, Age of Discovery, Dominant Species, Argent, Euphoria, etc.

-Tom

My first exposure to several board games has come from your reviews here on Qt3. With what I know of your taste in video games and movies as a reference, I find I’m easily persuaded by your take on board games that I don’t have any experience with myself, and so far I haven’t been burnt by acting on that and actually buying/trying games you recommend.

The flip side of that is I’m also inclined to be skeptical of games you’ve panned that I haven’t actually tried. I’m aware that’s the case, and so I try to still keep an open mind and judge for myself when a friend wants to try something I’ve heard bad things about.

So that’s why I was curious. As I said, I’ve only played a single game of Energy Empire and a single game of Lords of Waterdeep and that’s really it for worker placement games so far.

Amusingly, my friend used how “unthematic” Waterdeep was as a selling point, knowing several of us are ambivalent toward D&D at best.