2821

Advanced Civilization is a great game (one of my all-time favorites), but simply too long when I consider that in the same time I could get in 3 or 4 sessions of other, equally enjoyable games in.

Unfortunately, it’s difficult - if not impossible - to recreate these old-school AH classics with “modern” game mechanics without losing much of what makes them so enjoyable.

2822

Yeah, it’s a shame because the game is really well made. I guess they know their audience.

2823

You do get the first 15ish games free which is plenty of fun even if you never buy another ingot.

2824

True, but I honestly don’t understand why they don’t sell a single-player version that you can play as much as you want and then charge for multiplayer (which is really what you want to play).

Guess I’ll wait for the iPad version.

2825

Agreed, Tracy. I’d rather pay 5-10 dollars for the ipad version, with 2-3 for expansion packs. Memior 44 is good, and deserves to be paid for… just not in the online way.

2826

FFG announces Elder Sign, a new game by Richard Launius and Kevin Wilson. Interesting.

2827

Drool!

I literally just bought Arkham last night because I couldn’t stand only getting to play it like twice a month. Now I’m going to have to get this too because my wife has a hard time concentrating on loooong board games.

2828

Part of what makes Advanced Civilization so compelling for me is that it’s so large. From the midgame on, each turn feels like a subgame in itself, with some victory conditions, and a setup for a new game on the next turn. Or, perhaps, the subgame more properly begins with the calamity phase of the turn before. That said, I’ve never been the runaway loser that Chris369 so adroitly observed.

What are the modern mechanics you’d expect to replace the old-school Civ ones? Surely this would go beyond colored wooden cubes’ replacing counters? And what if Lorini’s dream came true, and there was a more modern rulebook (but not ruleset), perhaps with the addition of a scenario book that advanced the map setup, and gave the chance for a shorter game?

2829

If it makes you feel any better, this is exactly what Ticket to Ride on the PC was like, and they just released TtR on the iPad at exactly the price point you recommend. It might not be far off, in other words.

2830

Yep, which is why I was hoping for a similar model with Memoir, but Days of Wonder always tries funky pricing and marketing things. I’ve been impressed with both ports of Small World and Ticket to Ride, though, so I have high hopes this one will eventually be made and be just as good.

Battlelore would be better though :) (Not that Fantasy Flight seems to be jumping at the chance to make it, even though they shut down the Viking Lords folks.)

2831

Oh certainly yes… now if only I could shut up the stupid conductor at the start.

2832

Elder Sign: That looks great.

Standouts of the new (to me) games that I tried recently
-Airlines Europe: Thematically and in terms of how it was described to me, I thought it was going to trigger the same allergic reactions I have to TTR. But I thought it was just complex enough to represent a compromise between super light games and modestly complex titles like Chicago Express. I’m not sure that’s a niche I’m going to be in a whole lot, but I wouldn’t turn down a second game as I had a good time.

Tycoon: Again, another game that I had low expectations for, and despite having one very confused player who kept drawing only small loans because he was risk averse, the rest of us had a really good time with the mild amount of screwage and the ability to use other people’s hard work for yourself. Like it a lot, although it is definitely only a four player game and I find that it’s good to have at least 4-5 as a range.

Fresco: I got this instead of Vinhos on an impulse, where the themes of both appealed to me but I gathered this was noticeably shorter with good meat in its mechanics. Was not disappointed, and while we only used the portrait expansion of the three included ones, I thought it all worked together very smoothly.

Carnaxis: Strange title for an odd hybrid of Careers and a stock market game. I pulled out a win after lagging the entire game with a late game promotion from hairdresser with a shoe store to pro athlete, and then parlaying that cash into gambling on stock at 2 that shot up, while managing to squeak out right before it crashed in the last turn and ruined my closest competitor. I think I like the game, but I would not relish being the guy who has to teach it because it has a really unfriendly board and some quirks.

Shark: Acquire with moar stock market angles. I like Acquire, and I think I like this a lot on account of the ability to crash stocks and the way dice are employed.

I taught a game of Glory To Rome and once again was completely surprised by a successful strategy of a new player that just came together perfectly. He managed to layer a big prestige boost with a hire-clients=prestige building (all completed with rubble thanks to an earlier building) and just make the last few turns pure agony as we tried to figure out how to short circuit his personnel advantage (I was closest with 4 clients, but 4 is not going to keep up with 9). Still a great game, and I find I really enjoy seeing that moment about a turn in where it all clicks for a new player. Also taught a 5p game of Hansa Teutonica and was reminded of how much better this game is with five than my usual choices have been. Everyone at that table was on their A game, and it worked wonderfully.

Of course, everything is always foreplay to another Chaos game, and once again my deadliest opponent wound up with Nurgle and the newbie with Khorne. Still, my Slaanesh had just as much to worry about from a very ably played Tzeentch, and really it was a standout game despite the pounding I took in the midst of my “oh shit if he’d failed that one dice roll I would have another turn and then bla BLA bla”. I got my horned rat expansion but we stuck with the basic set, and I’m looking forward to trying out the new cards and player.

I think I have more than that since I was in the beta. But I just got stressed out when I play, as if it were accessing the same part of my brain that pays way more for flat rates on cell phone internet to avoid having to deal with managing time.

Now if it was Battle Cry I’d probably have a tougher time turning it down. But this is probably the fourth most interesting C&C to me, so it has to work a little harder.

2833

I played a round of Yggdrasil last night. Still undecided about it. It’s a neat concept but the utility of some actions wasn’t immediately apparent and we tended to fall into a cycle of some sort of combat powerup or two (grabbing elves, loading the white bag with heroes and then drawing them, and - earlier in the game - upgrading weapons) and then fighting an enemy, with minimal contact with other parts of the board. I will also say that if a game is going to rely on symbols to convey what cards and/or board spaces do, the symbols need to be very clear and instantly informative (I think Race for the Galaxy succeeds brilliantly at this), while Yggdrasil’s are virtually opaque.

2834

I’m in Seattle for the summer with just this old iBook G4, so I’ve been desperate for some decent solo gaming. A couple of days ago I stopped by a cool new game store and picked up The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game because you can play it solo. I skipped using the suggested intro decks and tried customizing my own, proceeded to lost the easiest scenario 4-5 times in a row, then put together a new deck and managed to win it on the first try.

All in all it’s a solid solo experience, though the customization options are a little thin out of the box. It definitely succeeds in its marketing goal of making me want to pick up the periodic “adventure packs,” (of which there are already 5 announced) just to have more deckbuilding options.

2835

There was a demo for the next LotR:TCG expansion at my local card shop. I wish I could have been there to check it out.

On a good note, I now own a copy of Loopin’ Louie! :)

2836

Did anyone else jump on the Tanga deal earlier this week: Earth Reborn for $29.99 + $8.99 S/H? I passed on it the first time it was offered, but couldn’t resist less than 12 hours later when it came back in stock. I jumped on the deal for two reasons: I’ve never owned this type of board game, and I think my girlfriend is going to love playing it. I used “our” money, so I hope she doesn’t kill me! :-)

2837

It came back in stock? Crap.

I paid a few extra dollars and ordered it from Toysforthought.com. They have a ton of games on clearance right now (unfortunately I already have most of them).

Really looking forward to trying this one out.

2838

I thought Earth Reborn had really elegant mechanics and scaled complexity by scenario in a useful way (as opposed to something like Castle Ravenloft where a simple game is needlessly dumbed down in the openers). Unfortunately, when compared to Space Hulk, Claustrophobia, or others in the genre, the amount of scenario preparation friction was simply too much for me to want to own it, since I’d always be reluctant to dig up all of the pieces. An elegant “list of parts for scenario” solution such as I have for Space Hulk would not do much as a result of the sheer number and variety of bits. Cool game, though, if you have the patience.

2839

This review of Earth Reborn is outstanding and one I can personally relate to (regarding the non-ER stuff, of course, since I have yet to receive the game).

2840

Yeah, that review is epic, and tells me ER is precisely the kind of game I enjoy playing these days. There’s no beating an emergent narrative.

I finally tried Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear last night, and it had a bit of that. The rules were absolutely confusing at first until I realized they’d arranged the pages out of order and reassembled the book to fix it. Turns out I should have used the updated rules because they make several changes for the better, but it wouldn’t have really mattered in the basic, infantry-only scenario we played.

One of many brilliant design decisions in this game is how it handles hits on units. When hit, you pull a random chit out of a bag and apply it to the hit unit until they rally or take another hit and are destroyed. Most of the chits simply suppress units and modify their attack/movement values (as it should be), but there are some real whammies in there that led to some sublime gaming moments.

The most memorable turn happened when I brought in a Pioneer reinforcement that appeared to the rear of two crappy infantry units he’d brought in on the previous turn and stacked in a wooded hex. Stacking lets you use combined firepower tactics to increase hit chances, but also makes units vulnerable because any unit shooting at them gets to roll to hit everything in the hex separately (effectively giving them multiple shots for the price of one). He had a machine gun unit to the north of the infantry that had been a real pest, and he’d assumed that I’d roll the Pioneers in to take care of that, but I moved them south instead and fired point-blank into the stacked infantry units with a huge firing bonus thanks to the close range. One of his infantry units died immediately, and the other took a single hit. He drew a chit, and it was the one modifier in the bag that gives a unit the Berserk ability. This adds dramatically to all their stats except range (which is reduced to 1). In short, it turned them into a pissed off, nigh-unhittable buzzsaw that boiled out the woods, pureed the Pioneers in close combat, and presumably feasted on their elite remains. It was a perfect storm of the worst possible outcome from my attack, and it was glorious.

I can’t wait to try out more complex scenarios, and this is by far my favorite squad-level WWII ruleset. It abstracts away tons of boring and superfluous complications, incorporates randomness intelligently and realistically, and gives players plenty of agonizing options to choose among. The last game of this type I played was Tide of Iron, which is both laughable and sad in comparison.

I also played a tense game of Haggis last night that had some of the most epic point swings I’ve ever seen. I like that game more and more each time I play it, especially with two.