Boardgaming in 2020: the year of the, uh, post-minis era? We can only hope!

Games
944

This goddamn covid thing better blow over at some point, because I just ordered Imperial Struggle from GMT. I couldn’t resist. Two-player only, but still. I couldn’t resist.

Fire in the Lake already has the usual GMT flow-charts for each faction. Does Gandhi do it differently somehow, and it’s being ported over to Fire in the Lake?

I can’t imagine how they could tidy up the current state of their “bots”. Honestly, my experience trying GMT’s flow-chart solitaire games is limited, but I feel like it’s a huge chore that’s less like actually playing the game and more like interpreting some bloated programming tree of ridiculously spider-webbed if/then conditions.

-Tom

945

Yes, they are calling the card bot, Tru’ng. If you look at the cards, they are a smaller type of flow chart.

I can’t imagine how they could make the AI comparable with a small set of instructions on the cards compared to those insane flowcharts but I really need to learn and play Gandhi with that card system before I throw money on the Vietnam game.

946

Totally agree, I had to cancel my monster session of Gloomhaven and my day put aside for War of the Ring. I’ve played a ton of The Dark Valley solo during the lockdown but I’m itching to get a two player game of that in, and my order of 1985 Under an Iron Sky is on it’s way soon.
I’m currently playing Conflict of Heroes 2nd edition solo, after giving up on Empire of the Sun solo for precisely the reasons you describe above. I learned the game by playing both sides for a few turns, breaking it down and starting it again when I realised the mistakes I’d made and enjoyed that but the solo programme just left me a little bewildered.

947

Sort of. Your character will change and become unique, but much more of the emphasis of the unlocks is on new global mechanics, not character specific ones.

Yes it does work! I’m most of the way through it two players and am happy we’re playing at that count. There are rules in the back of the book for adding people mid campaign, but it’s a little awkward. We haven’t done it and don’t plan to, though.

It’s 10ish games. But worth noting, unlike standard Clank! each game has taken us about 2 hours. There’s lots of stopping and reading, placing stickers, and unlocking stuff every game. The number of unlocks per game here is significantly higher than any other Legacy game I’ve played and it slows down the game a bunch (not in a bad way).

Also, you are unlikely to have “finished” all the legacy content in 10 games. There will be more stuff you can unlock after the campaign is over. Any quest chain left undone is still available to finish in the post-campaign content. So if you’re a completionist, it’s definitely more than 10 games.

I think that depends largely on who you’re playing it with. Sometimes we’re playing pretty hard trying to steal artifacts out in front of each other, and other times we’re so invested in the quests that we split up and only interact to double-team setting up the new unlocked content.

948

I am trying to remember a game. It was a dueling game for two players using dice (I believe it had Yahtzee mechanics). I also remember that there were two games in the series. One character fought another character (not King of Tokyo). I want to say they were basically fantasy type characters.

Edit:
It was Dice Throne

949

Which is fantastic. It’s not exactly two games, though, it’s 14 (soon to be 16 with the revamp of season 1) characters split across two content “seasons” but all fully intercompatible, and all relevant for the upcoming coop dungeon crawl “Dice Throne Adventures”.

950

Anybody happen to have backed a card game called Stray Cats on KS last fall that would like to part with their copy?

951

Not much for new board games this week:

ThroughTheAgesNewLeadersandWonders
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TheColdestNight
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Stringamajig
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DuneIxians
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952

I guess you can own just a few sets in order to play Dice Throne Adventures. Buying all those sets does seem a bit expensive (especially being stuck in the house and not able to go play at a meet-up etc).

953

Cleopatra used to look way more like Elizabeth Taylor in other iterations of the game.

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954

In theory, yes. :)

But yeah, I’m all in so far and it’s been a few hundred bucks probably, all told.

955

My daughter and I love dice throne. Easily the most played game in the house.

956

Be cool if they made a good digital version of Dice Throne.

957

I like that when you say “Dice Throne” it sounds like “Dice Thrown”.

958

So, @arrendek asked me in the maker thread whether I’d made a Crokinole board before. And I had no idea what that was and looked it up (here is a great overview by Shut up and Sit Down)

To me, this is like a really condensed version of shuffle board that can be played at a table indoors and it really appeals to me. So I’m going to make one, or rather 4 because the baltic birch ply I’m going to use comes in 60"x60" sheets and with 2 sheets, along with a few other things, I can make 4 of them. I have a CNC so the circles / grooves will be perfect. I’ll put a good waterproof finish on it and it will be very smooth.

My plan is to make them look similar to this:

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but I can make the playfield dark with white lines like this pretty easily by applying some stain before I cut the grooves out:

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The one thing I do want to do differently is to make a handle on one side so you can carry it and also hang it on the wall because of it’s odd size (~30" diameter). I’ll also be using threaded inserts because using screws or dowels for the pegs will lessen the life significantly for the pegs.

Why am I posting this here? Well, Arrendek and I have been chatting and we’re both going to take one so that leaves 2 available that I was going to see if anyone else would want in on this. I think I can do these for $200 each - which will only include the board and the pegs. You will need to get your own discs, paste wax and a carrying bag if you want one. You will also need to pay for shipping. Because of the size of this, I’m going to have to limit this to US/Canada for now.

I will need $50 down payment with the rest to be provided when they are done. I’m estimating 2-3 months to make all of these and be ready for shipment. Hopefully it will take less, but I’m juggling a few other projects / vacations and I’m going to try and fit this in.

So reply here with Q’s or whatever, and if you’re interested, I can let you know how to get a down payment to me.

EDIT: And we have 4 with Tin Wisdom and Vesper, Arrendek and myself. I’ll post this in the maker thread as I make it and depending on how it goes, we can look at another round later.

959

I would be up, just to have Tman piece, but I am guessing shipping to Oz would be a no go, or silly expensive.

960

Hmm. Not interested in Crokinole (fun game, but a couple friends have nice boards for when we get the itch), but what would you say to an Ascending Empires or Catacombs board? That’s something I’ve wanted for a while. For a while I though it would be a cool project to scale one up to the size of a shufleboard table (and use actual shuffleboard pucks, etc), using spent pieces from old bowling alley lanes. Maybe when I have cafe to put it in.

961

I will totally take one! Been wanting a Crokinole board forever at home and even at wholesaler prices it’s expensive.

962

I don’t know shipping / customs, etc. It will be largely on weight / size and that’s why I’d prefer to wait until I get this first batch done then we’ll know how much it weighs and can get a better idea on freight to far away places.

963

Ascending Empires looks pretty easy outside of the paint splatter effect. I saw this thread and this is would be easy - 28x28 makes it great for a set of 4 as well. But not right now, maybe later.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1131173/how-to-build-an-ascending-empires-board

For Catacombs - that seems to have a lot of variations and I really can’t do artwork like they show - but if you could me a poster, I could totally lay it down on a board before I apply the finish, but ya if you give me the specs, a board with some very precise holes would be easy.

To give you an idea on artwork and how it can be applied, here is a corn hole game with custom artwork I did:

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