Must be a millennial thing. I’ve never heard that rolled out among my geriatric boardgaming buddies.
I hope you figured out to call him Bodan. Someone in our group came up with this – yes, I made my friends play a solitaire boardgame with me – and I was later delighted to find that’s common shorthand for him. He’s a sort of dude/bro pre-colonial divine Shodan. Bodan.
-Tom
Shouldn’t you just use the “r” from Bringer and call him Brodan?
I’ve never seen anything except “wargame” used to describe wargames, but that could be because we don’t exactly have a local scene for them, and I only really see the term used in the context of a couple of conventions in central Illinois that heavily feature wargames.
I’ve heard conflict simulation used, not combat simulation. After all the main wargame online community is called consimworld for some reason…
While I agree that wargame is perfectly fine as a term and that descriptors like these are limited, I do think conflict simulation is much more specific at defining what wargames are (for me) versus other type of games. The simulation aspect does not necessarily refer to complexity or precision in that simulation but to the fact wargames replicate through their mechanics a specific set of qualities and/or of a certain conflict and are judged on how well they adhere to their theme to judge their success (to some extent). In a way, for me a wargame is a game that not only integrates well its theme, but that is first and foremost an exercise of representing that theme through game mechanics. Conflict is important too, but I do feel games like High Frontier are closer to wargames than to Euro or Ameritrash games (whatever those terms mean as discussed way above) and certain upcoming products from GMT and Compass games in that same genre (space colonization simulation) seem to show a similar sensitivity.
Doh! It seems so obvious in highsight. Well done.
-Tom
I would personally incorporate the expansion as soon as you feel comfortable with the base game. It was a “The real Dark Souls starts here” moment for me- like this was the real experience that the previous one had been a tutorial for.
Edit: Also, I found the Beast spirit huge fun when I finally got around to him the other day :)
Jealous.
As @Juan_Raigada already mentioned, conflict simulation or “consim” dates back to at least 1995 and the appearance of consimworld.com
We - and by that I mean the people who matter, who just by coincidence happen to correspond exactly to the people I talk to - all still use “wargame.” Even though we all read Consimworld. Go figure.
Has anyone tried the digital version of Flashpoint: Fire Rescue?
I must have misheard or mis-remembered but now that I’ve heard it, it was “conflict simulation”.
I’m considering firing up Gaia Project today to try out the solo mode. Anyone have experience with Gaia Project solo? I played a few games of Terraforming Mars solo and enjoyed it, and a couple of games of Scythe solo and felt it was OK.
My problem with that is there’s no room in the box (with the current insert design, at least) for the expansion components and storing them separately when they need to be integrated in actual play is going to be a pain in the ass. I know both Daedalus and Broken Token have seen a number of requests for a replacement insert so I’m hoping one of them comes up with a solution before I have to worry about it.
But yeah, definitely not ready yet - if we can make as big a mistake as not applying damage to both land and Dahan, we need to get in a few more games at least before we add that stuff. :)
I really miss being right down the road from Homer, IL
Homer Glen? Why, what was there?
I ask because Homer Glen is literally 10 minutes from me.
I have it and did try it and I think it seems solid but not knowing the rules I stopped at the time (everyone kept dying). I will have to try it again.
You mean Homer Glen, down by Orland Park? Nah, I mean Homer, just minutes east of Champaign. Dean Essig, who founded The Gamers, lives there, and for years there was a thing called HomerCon where people would get together for a weekend and play all kindza hexy grognard games, mostly by The Gamers. Good times.
Ha, ok. When I searched for it it wouldn’t even show up, instead always bringing up Homer Glen. Scrolled there and searched, and now I see it.
Sounds like a very cool Bruce thing.
I had a ridiculous game of Clash of Cultures last night.
It was Japan, Babylon and Persia. Japan, using a tactics card received first round, was able to send barbarians to attack Babylon wiping out his only city. Persia had pushed out but hadn’t built an army. Seeing Japan was close, they built a fortress to defend their new outpost city. What they didn’t see was that Japan had roads and bypassed the outpost and went straight to the heart of the undefended Persian Empire. With no way to get ore Persia could not recover and was eliminated. The game ended in round 3 with Japan winning by only 1/2 point as Babylon had been able to build back up and had a lot of tech.
I’ve played this game over a dozen times and have never had a game end so quickly or bloody.
Followed Clash with a game of Race for the Galaxy. I lost by 5 points but considering I only had war planets, no production and was shut out of all the objectives I was quite happy with my score.
Picked up a copy of Feudum. Does it look pretty. I’m trying to wrap my head around the sandbox euro game it is. The mechanics aren’t difficult, buy there are so many things to remember.
P.S.
Tom,
I will play Aquasphere with you.
Nah, I have the physical version and I don’t think it’s a game that would be better digitally.
I bounced pretty hard off of Feudum. I don’t think it was well balanced and at 3 or 4 hours per game I don’t want to keep playing to find out if I’m wrong. It’s also not terribly engaging for me. And I like long difficult games, usually.
Bleh. Too much graphics flash and not enough content. Flash Point has tons of add-ons and variants and additional maps and characters and whatnot. Looks like none of them are present here.
I like Gaia Project’s solitaire mode, although it’s more a faction puzzle than a game. It does the usual thing of giving you a deck of AI [sic] cards that spits out a random move, so it’s a distant second actually, you know, playing Gaia Project. But the design has enough of a puzzle element that optimal moves are easy to define. The AI cards are very specific about actions without coming across as purely random.
Unfortunately, the AI isn’t actually playing the game. It makes no sense when it comes to certain actions (tech research, orange hex actions), so it can’t duplicate what an actual player will do. Instead, it’s blocking you on the board, while moving up the score track at a kind of arbitrary rate. What you’re doing is trying to optimize your faction to keep up on the score track. It’s a great way to wrap your head around a given faction’s gameplay, to practice in the context of a sort of scoring puzzle. It doesn’t turn Gaia Project into a viable solitaire game so much as give you a viable way to practice for multiplayer games.
Also, note that it’s not designed to work with more than one opponent, and only about half the races can be played as solitaire bots.
-Tom