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It was a little long but still very good.
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Finally got to play our second game of BSG last night. This time we added a fifth player who hadn’t watched the show but really wanted to play anyway. It was a very close, very fun game that came down to a single skill check which–if the humans passed–would have allowed us to force the jump and win the game (we were at 5 pop). Unfortunately, the new player (not a Cylon) didn’t fully understand the abilities on his skill cards and failed to play a card that could have won things for the good guys. He had one of those “all engineering cards count positive” and our Cylon chief was mostly using engineering cards to sabotage the check. Still, a very fun game and we have a new player, so that’s even more better than winning.
I did have a question about the Investigative Committee. I guess the point of the fixed IC cards in Pegasus is just that you aren’t supposed to see the Destiny Deck cards until after everyone has played their cards so you still have a little suspense before you find out if it was a pass or fail? Is there more to it than that? I seem to recall someone making a huge deal out of that typo in the base game but I guess we just haven’t played enough to know why it’s a big deal.
It’s not so much for suspense but to prevent humans from being able to get the skill check on the nose rather than going over a bit to be sure. Revealing the destiny cards also made it that much harder for Cylons to sabotage checks later, since it removes all uncertainty from what has been taken out of the destiny deck. A sequence of ICs in the original wording would basically make it a straight adding game for the humans barring kamikaze cylons. So I guess that brings us back around to suspense.
OK, cool, that’s kind of what I meant by suspense. Just that you can’t say for sure if putting in 10 points wins you a 10 point skill check. That game is awesome.
Board gaming day yesterday, and over the course of six hours, I played a single game of Through the Ages, a Civ-style game designed by Vlaada Chvatil (Galaxy Trucker, Space Alert). I’d played the “simple” version of it before, which only goes through the medieval age and omits a lot of the rules; they recommend that as a way to learn the game. I didn’t really like it very much, though, so had been reluctant to commit to the time needed for a version of the full game.
It turns out the full game is pretty super-great – it really feels like a game of Civ, with very similar choices, even though it’s all simplified and streamlined. Balancing population growth, productivity, research, military, and culture (aka VP) production is hard and requires you to make lots of meaningful choices about what you’re doing. I played very light on the military and heavy on the culture (which is my style in real Civ, too), and was way in the lead near the end, when suddenly everyone started attacking me for easy gains for themselves, and I got heavily scrod. Fortunately, I was able to get one last big Wonder built and ended up winning by 5 points, but it was a near thing.
Great game. My main reservations about it before (hideous production values and high price) are fixed now (the latest edition is attractive, and they now allow discounting by internet stores), and the gameplay is absolutely there to justify the long play time. But skip the simple game – anyone who’s played Civ can learn the full game just as easily, and it’s actually harder to figure out the weird rules exceptions for the simple game in some ways (plus there’s the part where the simple game is horrifically unbalanced – a “gain 5 VP” card is balanced in a game where the winner might have 160VP at the end, but very broken in a game where they might have 30 VP).
Nice. I’d really like to play that but I’m holding off buying anything new until we get a few more plays of the stuff I have now. I think I’m down to two unplayed games, though. So that’s good.
I am slightly less worse at Twilight Struggle than I was a week ago. I didn’t realize that only three scoring cards show up in the early war phase so now I can try to focus a bit more at the start of the next game. I also reread the rules about coups, realignments, DEFCON and the required military thingers track. I was probably missing a lot of opportunities there. In our latest game I made it into late war but I think my friend was going easy on me just so he’d have an excuse to see more of those cards.
I like the idea of a combined deck that has both sides in it and the strategy involved in mitigating the crappy cards but man, sometimes when you get a bad hand the game can inspire an Arkham-style sense of dread. Just knowing “oh ok, these are the bullshit cards I am going to have to deal with for the next 20-30 minutes or however long this turn takes.” It’s a great game but it can also be really frustrating.
I remember Chernobyl being a big deal when I was a kid but it took until today to fully understand just how bad it was. Bad enough to fuck me over in Italy and France right before Europe Scoring was played, that’s how bad. Stupid fallout.
So, five minutes after that last post my friend sends me a message to see if I’m up for another game. I play as the US again and at the start of mid war things are not going so great. I receive my second hand in a row that has something like five red cards in it so I have to figure out how to live through another mess. I decide to headline Cuban Missile Crisis because, um, I’m not that smart? I’d love to say this was all a plan on my part but I guess I was thinking that at least I’d limit my opponent’s military options a bit by setting the DEFCON to 2. Good way to start off a year, right? Anyway, he headlines Missile Envy to swap it with my highest ops card, which happens to be We Will Bury You. Since that is his event it is played immediately, lowering DEFCON by 1 and winning the game for me since it was his card (Missile Envy) that caused Bury You to be played. Yay! I now haz a win.
So this time, instead of the Russians backing down over the missile crisis, the hardliners are in control and they launch. Global nuclear annihilation, but it wasn’t our fault, so we win!
Woo. New acquisitions: Biblios, Alien Frontiers, Fresco, Train of Thought, Cosmic Encounter Expansion 2, and 7 Wonders. I’m especially excited about the smaller games as I have some family quality time coming up and will need distractions.
I played about six rounds of Yomi with my seven-year-old this weekend - each only takes 15 minutes. Fantastic game. My only gripe was that it was somewhat expensive, but the card quality is great and the gameplay is fantastic.
It only seems expensive because you’re buying everything up front with the deluxe edition. On a per-deck basis it’s in line with other games (or a bargain, considering the quality of both the materials and the art).
Also remember there’s the free online version, which is a pleasure to play and learn the game with. I think it’s a bit expensive but well worth it in the deluxe edition.
Yeah I’m really looking forward to the local game event this weekend, see if I can pawn off puppy duty. AF I already know I love, but I’m eager to try Biblios with already experienced gamers and get some more time in with 7 Wonders and Fresco.
What’s a decent price for Yomi? I know it was out of print for a while but now CSI has it for $90. Seems a little high to me, I was hoping that buying the full set would save you some money off of buying the decks individually. Decks are $17 for a pair so buying all five is $85. I know you get the play mats with the full set but still, doesn’t seem great. Does anyone know if this is the second print run and $90 is the normal price or are these left over first print boxes that are marked up to $90?
$99 was the original retail for the full set from Sirlin directly, plus absurd shipping etc. My Coolstuffinc through amazon price was 79.99 + 8 shipping, so that’s probably what I would consider a good price for it, but they’re asking 102$ for the second edition now, so it may be that you’ve found as good a discount as is going to happen.
Holy crap. I know Sirlin was pissed that the first edition was heavily discounted by online retailers, so apparently he’s made some sort of arrangement with them for the second edition. I got mine through CSI for $68 and threw in a few Thunderstone expansions to get free shipping. At $9 per deck I’d definitely recommend playing it online to see if you like it first.
The mats are awesome and the box is nice for storage, so it’s definitely worth the extra $5 if you decide to go for it.
Yeah, I’ve played it online and now I’m pretty sure that a few of my friends would be into it so I’d like to pick it up.
OK, so $90 is the real price. I was pretty sure I had seen it at $68 a while ago, which was why I asked. CSI through Amazon is $100. Maybe I’ll wait until the next time I buy something to get the free shipping from CSI directly. Maybe one of those other Power Grid maps or something.
Yomi + Haggis is $99.98. Throw in a pack of sleeves for the latter and you’ll get a megadose of card gaming heaven.
