Arrived just in time for me to miss game night and head to the hospital with Gall Stones, yay
Sons if Anarchy: GF9/WoTC (?) is releasing Vault of Dragons, which seems to use similar mechanisms and gameplay as SoA.
Worth keeping an eye on.
Had a fun weekend playing games with friends. Here’s the rundown of what was played:
Magic Maze - Co-op game where you are trying to navigate 4 pieces through a maze that unfolds randomly as you explore. Each player controls a single direction and/or action and you are only able to communicate with each other by tapping a game piece in front of them. We only played a lower difficulty level, but it was really fun. Plays kind of like the Escape games but without the chaos and yelling. There are these tense moments where somebody is getting prodded to make a move but they cannot figure out what they are supposed to do, then the table laughs in relief once they understand. After a few games we were able to complete the game pretty consistently so I would be interested in checking out the harder difficulties and expansions.
Skull - I guess this is somewhat of a classic at this point, but I only recently picked it up. It’s a simple game but there is so much mind gaming at play here. Maybe the purest form of a bluffing game I have encountered. It’s like poker that doesn’t rely on mathematical probabilities or luck of the draw.
The Mind - We went to a game store on Friday and they had some copies of this. I’ve heard pretty mixed things about it, but it was only $13 and the SDJ nomination was enough for me to give it a shot. Reading over the rules I was concerned that there wasn’t much of a game here. This is a cooperative game where each player has a hand of numbers from a deck of 1-100 and as a group you have to play them in order without talking to each other. That’s basically all there is to it. It took a couple of plays to really understand what the point of it was, but once we did we were hooked. The secret ingredient here is the use of timing as a mechanic. If you have a high number in your hand, you are going to wait an indeterminate amount of time before you decide that you have the lowest number. How long you wait depends on the odds of you having the lowest card and how those odds change relative to how much time has passed with no cards being played. It leads to these quiet standoffs where nobody wants to play a card but both know that eventually somebody is going to have to. It may not sound fun in concept, but as you play more with the same group, you begin to sync up your timing and get into a flow. It feels incredible when you all sit there silently in tension for 20 seconds waiting for someone to make a move and then finally someone does and then you all fire out several near-consecutive numbers in perfect succession and cheer. It’s a very simple game but such a unique and interesting design.
Root - My 2nd and 3rd plays of this game. The first of the two was a 6 player game with the two expansion races and I played the Lizard Cult. Once again this has been a tough game to teach. The mechanics are not hard for gamers to grasp, but teaching each player how to play a completely different game is exhausting. Two of us had played before but it still took a good hour to teach the others and even then almost nobody knew much about how the factions worked aside from their own. 6 players is a long (3-4 hours), chaotic game. It was a bit of a slog to be honest, but pretty much everybody ended up loving it. The design is so interesting and there’s so much character to the factions that it’s hard to have a bad time even if the game is long and messy with 6 players. We played a 3 player game the next day where my two opponents played the factions they had previously played (Eyrie and Vagabond) and I switched over to the Marquis. This was a much more controlled game with fewer players and a bit of previous experience under our belts. I’m still on the fence about the pureness of the strategy in this game, but I love it for the dynamics at play. The balance of power that shifts as the game proceeds and the brief alliances that form to keep each other in check. It’s so compelling to me and I hope to play it many more times.
Terraforming Mars - My 2nd time playing this. It’s a little long, but such a great game. Lots of impactful choices to make on every turn and the engine building feels so well-tuned with so many different paths to take. Love it.
Roll Player w/ Monsters & Minions expansion - Roll and bid on dice to build out a d&d character sheet to score the most points. Monsters and Minions expansion gives you actual monsters to fight with your character while you’re doing this. I haven’t played the vanilla game before, but the general consensus among our group is that the new stuff watered down the strategy more than helped it. The problem is that if you want to fight a monster, you have to skip the phase where you purchase equipment from the store. It doesn’t make the decisions more interesting, just adds an extra layer of complexity that doesn’t compliment the game’s existing systems. At the end of the game, you fight a big boss using the experience you gained fighting monsters which is a cool idea but ultimately its just a dice roll for bonus points.
I’ve played 5 games of Terraforming Mars and I get more “meh” on it the more I do. It’s not well balanced, half the cards aren’t worth playing beyond the first 15% of the game, and I’ve found it to be the exact opposite for choices in that there’s always one clear one every turn and every draft round.
It’s got a little narrative theme going for it, but other than that, it starts to feel more and more like Race for the Galaxy except a minor board element, less decision making, and less interaction.
@tomchick In the latest Patreon review request, it’s interesting to hear from you that Root is best taught and played at 3-player count? Would you care to elaborate more since the game looked like one that was designed as a 4P game in mind?
Sure, I’d be happy to, although it’s something I’ll be writing up at length in the near future.
The hook for Root is, of course, the EXTREME ASYMMETRY!!!1! (enthusiasm mine). Like Vast, another game from the same publisher but not the same designer, each faction is like it’s own game. When you sit down to teach Root or Vast, you essentially have to teach a separate game for each faction. This is especially true of Vast, where there are very few points of gameplay commonality among the factions. Root has the advantage of a core gameplay you can teach before folding in the faction specifics. But it’s still a lot to take in, compounded by each faction that’s going to play.
When you have four players, and four factions that have to be learned, I think it’s information overload. Anyone can listen to you explain the base gameplay and one faction. Most people have the patience and especially curiosity for a second faction. The third can get iffy and you’ll invariably have people starting to get antsy wanting to play already, and starting to lose track of what the first faction did. A fourth is, I feel, a faction too far.
Furthermore, the fourth faction in Root is a weird one. Root supports up to six players when you add the expansion, but I don’t think it’s because it was designed that way so much as because there are that many factions that were designed. If that makes sense. When you buy the base set, you get four factions, so, sure, naturally you might think four players. But the rules encourage you to mix and match among all the factions, and not necessarily to think of it as each faction needing to be present in each game (like, for instance, the COIN series, which Root resembles).
But anyway, yes, you get four factions in the base set. The regular factions for a starting three-player game are 1) cats, 2) birds, and 3) an alliance of mice, foxes, and rabbits. They’re each basically playing a territory control game against each other, and each is more complex than the last. But if you start with a four-player game, you’re adding in the fourth faction, which is a lone raccoon running around doing his own thing, with no interest or ability to play the territory control game. And there’s no incentive to attack the little guy because a) a player can’t get territory from him, and b) a player doesn’t earn VPs from him like when he attacks other factions, which is one of the ways Root encourages conflict among players. The raccoon opts out of this part of the design. So in a four player game, he’s going to be off doing his own thing, underfoot but most likely unchecked, and he’ll probably win because players won’t know the meta-game for how to deal with the raccoon. Instead, there will be a point when suddenly everyone realizes, oh, the raccoon is going to win and there’s nothing we can do to stop him. They didn’t realize that they had to stop him earlier.
Of course, if you have the expansion and you really want to throw a new player into a four-player game, you can leave out the raccoon and add the lizards or otters instead (tip: add the otters!). But you still have the problem of information overload.
Now I’m not saying Root won’t be a perfectly fine time for four new players, and it’s dynamic and fascinating enough that anyone who appreciates boardgame design won’t mind being unable to track everything going on because there are four factions. But I think the best way to get a new player to appreciate it – and more importantly understand it, which is a prerequisite for fully appreciating it – is to make sure he or she plays two games, one right after the other, controlling a different faction each time. With three players, the games will be shorter and therefore it will be easier to get two games played. And a new player will get to see two-thirds of what you’ve taught, getting a sense for two of the factions from both inside and outside.
Of course, this will vary by group. But for most of the folks I play with, I strongly feel the best way to show them the game is with exactly three players. In fact, I feel strongly enough about it that I’ve opted to sit out when I’m a fourth player. But once you’ve gotten someone past a two-game learning session with three players, by all means, add in a fourth player!
-Tom
This year I’ll be on the Spiel Essen for the first time. The only thing I know is that it’s huge. Any advice for first time visitors?
I believe @Lykurgos attended Essen last year and might have useful advice.
I haven’t had the chance to go myself. Though I’d love to. Enjoy!
take a bag with you ;)
The “art” of Terraforming Mars is in figuring out which cards you need and which ones might be useful. But you’re right in that there’s no “balance” at all and you can often get a hand of obsolete things or things that are 5 turns off. Which is one of the reasons I never draft in Terraforming Mars! It allows people to just cherry-pick the optimal strategy rather than having to “deal with it”.
I play TM a lot, but my two main criticisms of the game are:
- The wildly imbalanced cards, and the lack of player agency in dealing with that. (e.g. if you get a hand of crap there’s not much you can do other than play standard projects)
- The awful attempt in player interactive, which is little more than an unavoidable “Take that!”, unless a player was extraordinarily lucky and got one of the few cards that keeps your things safe. There should really be a proper attach/defence aspect to that game, I feel. Perhaps like in Offworld Trading Company?
What is the alternative to drafting?
We played our first game of Root last night, with 4 players, and it wasn’t that bad. Certainly not what I was dreading- the dude who has it had been bringing it every week for the last month or more, and all of us didn’t want to get into a slog like that, but finally I decided to give him a break.
I was the raccoon, and I lost in a close second place to the cats. But really, anyone would have won on their next turn, but the cats had turn-order-advantage and finished it. Cool game, and we’re all looking forward to playing again.
Hopefully we’re talking about the same thing!
Normally: You get dealt 4 cards each round, and select which ones you want to buy into your hand for M€3 each.
There is a “drafting” variant in the game where players are dealt 4 cards. They then draft a card and pass the remaining cards on, 4 times, until they have selected 4 cards each. And then from those 4 cards they choose which ones to buy.
Whilst it helps stops everyone being a victim of fortune, but makes some people a victim of hate drafting and others a benefactor of fortune. I prefer everyone to be a victim.
I’ve played with 2 different groups and I’ve only been taught the drafting version. I actually quite like the draft element, but I can see how it might be problematic if the game is not well balanced.
Within Board Game Geek forums there is a really terrifically useful Essen Tips and Tricks thread. My first recommendation is to read that! I have attended twice, both times for all the days and with 3 buddies. Based on that, the advice I think is most important is -
1. Get Accommodation Early
Secure your accommodation at the beginning of the year of the year you are going. Most options will be gone 6 months prior, almost all options will be gone 2-3 months prior except for more costly hotel spots. So if by ‘this year’ you mean 2018 oh gosh . . . . then you will probably need to hunt for one of the following -
A hotel room, there will be some left
Picking up a room or flat that someone else cancels on late
Finding a place to share with others that have already booked
Be aware there is a German clones of AirBnB which might provide options - 9Flats and Wimdu. Both times I have visited I secured accommodation via Wimdu.
2. Go for All the Days
Practically, you might be able to play-test 4-5 games per day, accounting for queuing time to get a table. So assuming you want to play-test and not just shop, you can get through about 20 games max within the full event. Make the most of it and plan to attend for the full event especially if you want to play-test and double-down if you are visiting with buddies.
3. Set Priorities
Almost everything popular will have queues for play-testing. If you just bounce around looking for something quick you can end up actually playing nothing at all, or spending lots of time in transit. Some games enable or require pre-booking a playtest slot, most just require you to queue. I recommend picking out the games you really want to play-test and ensuring you prioritize those. Bite the bullet and queue. If with a group you can leave a ‘designated driver’ to queue whilst the rest of you freewheel nearby, ready to return.
Caveat, I am a uber-planner. Depending on your appetite for planning you might want to leave some time for unplanned browsing. Of course, I would plan for that unplanned activity!
4. Logistics
If you are planning to buy games, which is a good idea due to discounts (on most things) and early release specials make sure you have plenty of space in your outgoing luggage to hold the games. My solution was to travel with a medium size case inside a larger case on the way there enabling me to completely fill the medium size case with games for the return trip.
There are also options to ship to yourself from Essen but that hits you with shipping costs. Even with extra bag charges carrying yourself is definitely cheaper.
5. Socialize!
Attending yourself? No worries! You will be able to join loads of pick up groups and there are lots of invites to join others for evening gaming after Essen closes. I followed some of these on the BGG threads. There are probably Reddit threads and others too.
6. Take Cash
Many of the vendors will accept card payments but having cash is handy in case they do not or the e-payment connection is flaky, which it often is.
7. Take Food to the Venue
Or not, but the event catering options are pretty low quality and plenty expensive. There are plenty of spaces to sit and eat a packed lunch you take yourself. Do be aware that German supermarkets do not have ‘food to go’ like you find in UK and US. I do not recall seeing any pre-packed sandwiches ever for example, but hey, you can buy bread and the stuff that fits between two slices of it and if you can unbox a game you can probably make a sandwich.
8. Look for a 2018 App
Every year prior there has been an App, not the official one, that did a great job of letting you bookmark games of interest and helped you find them within the show. The show is HUGE. A navigation aid is pretty much essential to figuring out where your next top priority is. Look for and grab an App and figure out your top priorities and then leave that unplanned browsing time open for the ad hoc discoveries
Ask me stuff if it helps! :-)
Yeah I don’t really play it anymore since everyone wants to play with drafting. Not only does drafting widen the gap between experienced and unexperienced, but it practically doubles the play time. It’s like, congrats dude, you’ve memorized the best cards, can we save 3 hours and just play something else?
While not a terrible game, Terraforming Mars would definitely be my #1 most overrated game of that year.
Everyone in my group is about equally experienced at Terraforming Mars (not all equally good, though; I don’t think I’ve ever won, and usually come in last), so I prefer the drafting format. At least you have a chance to put together a coherent strategy, instead of just getting hand after hand of cards that don’t help you at all.
Of course I have an even stronger preference to just play something else.
(Edit: I think I did win once, the first time we used the Venus expansion and I lucked into being the only one using the Venus cards, which turn out to be massively overpowered)
Terraforming Mars, which I really like a lot, falls apart completely without drafting. Furthermore, drafting is the most interactive element of that game, even more important than dragging asteroids down or jockeying for position on the map. If you don’t play with drafting, or if for some weird reason you think the drafting is somehow unnecessary, you’re Doing It Wrong!
What’s cool about drafting is that most of the game’s cards will pass through your hands, and you’ll have to make difficult decisions between keeping a good card for yourself or depriving another player of a card good for him. And while it adds playing time, none of it is down time.
-Tom
You know how in the non-drafting version you get dealt 4 bad cards and have to figure out which ones to pick/discard? Well draftings the same, only that you have to look at x*4 bad cards and pick 4 of them before throwing them all away. ;)
Has anyone played the two new expansions? We’ve got prelude and I quite like it. It’s basically just more production at the start of the game and further separates out each corp so they’re not all just doing the same strategy.
If by “throw away” you mean, “give them to people for whom they’re not bad cards”, I agree! Also, you look at four then three then two cards. That’s way more than four. Which is partly the point of drafting. More cards to consider means more opportunities to set up synergies.
But, yes, without drafting you only look at four, which is part of the problem. Terraforming Mars relies so much on synergies among the cards, and when you play with drafting, the players have more control over those synergies, in terms of setting them up and depriving other players of them. I’m not being facetious when I say that Terraforming Mars falls apart without drafting. It takes an intricate, gratifying, and thoughtful economic engine builder and undermines it with luck of the draw.
I don’t like kickstarting production at the beginning of the game. That should be something players have to deal with on their own. Sounds like baby mode to me! Harumph!
But now you have me curious about prelude. I already like the differences among the corporations, but you’re saying they’re even more different in one of the expansions? Hmm, that sounds like something I’d want.
-Tom