2941

I think they are both ugly, just in different ways, and if I had to choose I think I actually prefer GtR’s Asterix-like cartooniness over the clipart feel of the latest one. Either way, they get the benefit of the doubt from me on the strength of GtR’s making a RftG-alike accessible to me.

That’s actually not the recommendation I was looking at, it was really more Vasel’s explanation of the game mechanics and the pedigree of the makers that sold me on it. At 16$ to have it in hand, it’s not that big a gamble.

Mine’ll be in my hands on Saturday at a local game meet, so I’ll be unpacking and playing on the same day. Probably not the best way, but what the hell.

Newer, not necessarily new, and especially not new with no experienced players. Got nothing to do with you being morons or anything of the sort, and everyone’s comfort level with expansions is simply a matter of taste most of the time. I just wanted to emphasize that these are not simply “more” things but qualitatively “better” things to the base game once you have a handle on how things work, so it’s in your interest to get to them whenever you feel able.

Treachery seems kind of odd without a Cylon leader, though. Unless Ellen is in the game nobody will have them until a reveal happens so I guess you’re just hoping the destiny deck doesn’t screw you over? Kind of odd that it makes more sense to be reckless early in the game. Later in the game it probably makes for interesting choices when the revealed Cylons can only grab two skill cards and Treachery cards only go from 1-3.

Reckless early is about the only time it really makes sense. To me, treachery is just another color in the mix, especially in terms of the destiny deck, and it’s not more thematically problematic than including repair cards without engineering-oriented characters in the game. As I said, it’s just not a big change one way or another, but since the reckless cards are in there you kind of need them to be part of it.

Thanks for the suggestions about what parts to use, though. When we are ready (I still have a friend who has only played once so I want to get him in another game or two) I will probably give that configuration a shot.

No sweat, I hope it helps. The Nebula is really the only one of those that seems to add a lot of complexity along with the new choices, and that’s why it gets set aside from the others for people really in need of something new. So long as you don’t throw in Caprica, though, it’s hard to go really wrong.

2942

I just discovered 7 Wonders, which I thoroughly enjoy playing. In some ways it reminds me of Puerto Rico, but with a more complex card drafting system and greater interaction with neighboring players.

2943

Good point about treachery cards. I just sent out some text messages to try getting a game together early next week. Can’t wait. A friend of mine is moving back to town next month and he’s only played a couple of games so far. Probably what I’ll do is wait until he’s back so that everyone sees the expansion stuff at the same time.

In the meantime, it looks like Kingsport and Innsmouth are now on the hard to find out of print list along with Dunwich. Jeez, FF, great timing there. “Hey everyone, let’s release an expansion with lots of new cards for the other expansions and then make sure you can’t find any of them!” So I went to my FLGS and grabbed KH and IH today before they disappear for six months. I played a game last week with the epic battle cards so I wanted KH for those, anyway. I figure I can at least include the new investigator cards, encounter cards, characters and GOOs for now. We’ve only played a couple of Dunwich games so I’ll hold off on the other boards.

2944

This is on my list (of games I want and do not have room for goddamnit) along with Dominant Species. How many people are you playing with?

2945

I’m definitely more interested in Pegasus now. What you’re saying makes perfect sense, and probably the exact same way I’d play the game, right down to the original sympathizer card.

Oh, and I’m familiar with the TV show, if you were wondering.

Though, could you explain what you mean by the “newest Sympathetic Cylon variant” and “new loyalty cards”? Are you referring to the ones with personal objectives and the final five? They look really interesting, but I’m afraid they’ll overburden the players with objectives and stuff to keep in mind.

2946

D&D: Conquest of Nerath just showed up on my doorstep and my wife chose this weekend to override my board game night with a general purpose party, the kind in which I need to make polite small-talk with the guests rather than overrunning their lands with elementals and dragons. I’ve never been so disappointed to have a party.

2947

Thomasch, Sympathetic Cylons come from Pegasus. It’s a replacement for the sympathizer card in the original game. Check page 18 of the Pegasus rules.

2948

I’m sorry, that was vague. Basically, the 4,6 player games have the balance problem engendered by adapting a fundamentally 5 player game in either direction.

Of the three solutions that still have that “extra” character, the one that bugs me the least is the Sympathetic Cylon variant on P18 of the Pegasus rulebook, in which the sympathizer card means you are a cylon, you don’t draw that initial super crisis, and you do draw a card from the sympathetic agenda (ie humans must win BUT x must happen if you are going to win).

It’s the least offensive for a number of reasons, but it still suffers from the core defect of making one player act like a douchebag focused on gamey measures of the resource he has to target or whatever, and I think it’s still hard on that player because some of those agendas are clearly designed with you having the whole game to work on them (I’d say take out the “all resources at 3” one at least).

My preference would still be to go with the official no sympathizer variant or to play the game with five as it was originally meant. You can take your pick of sympathizer variants here, if you like.

The new loyalty cards part was just referring to the final five cards, which I think are straightforward enough and worth it because of how they attach potential disaster to having people look at loyalty cards. I haven’t touched the mixed loyalties cards because I think we keep forgetting to mix them into our starting setup, more than anything else, but upon reviewing them I’m ok with never going near them. If I had my choice, I’d probably prefer no Ionian Nebula as well, but it’s not a dealbreaker.

Mike: Is there an actual new cylon sympathizer card or is that a misprint? I think we just been used the old symp card with the new rule, and I’ll be damned if I can find a new card in my set.

2949

There is an actual card that comes with Pegasus. It’s a loyalty card with a picture of Boomer (not the same picture as the sympathizer card):

You Are A Sympathetic Cylon
Immediately reveal this card
You become a revealed Cylon player, but do not receive a Super Crisis Card. Draw 1 card from the Sympathetic Agenda deck (you win only by fulfilling this card’s criteria). You may also Infiltrate as if you were a Cylon Leader.

2950

Well, I’ll be damned if I know where mine is. That’s what I get for always playing with other people’s copies. I’m sure it’s sitting next to my mysteriously vanished Chaos red dice that never made it to the maiden voyage of that game. Thanks.

2951

Luckily I have lots of boardgaming friends, and playing with the full complement of 7 players is a treat. That said, there’s the minor quirk of having to rely on the other players to administer beatdowns if a player across the table starts to pull ahead, since you can only really impact your immediate neighbors.

2952

That’s the biggest complaint I’ve heard of with Seven Wonders. For whatever reason one guy we play with always ended up between me and the owner of the game. Because we were the people who had played it the most he always had a tougher game than the people sitting at either side of us. And then there was the time when one guy was being nice to his non-gaming wife and she won by a large margin. There was literally nothing we could do game wise to counter this.

Still, a really great game. And I’ve played it with three players all the way to seven players.

2953

Thanks a lot guys.

Now, let me ask you this: The game is a bit ambiguous as to how to communicate with other players in the game. I know there are some guidelines in the manual, but it’s still a pretty diffuse topic once we start playing. What kind of rules have you enforced to ensure no one is explicitly revealing their cards, skill values, etc? Currently, when we need to coordinate a skill check, we say stuff like I can contribute some, or I can contribute a lot.

Another problem I’ve encountered appears during the initial distribution of the loyalty cards. Since the “You are a Cylon” cards inherently have more text on them than any other loyalty card, Cylon players tend to reveal themselves by taking too much time reading their description. I’ve kind of remedied this by letting all the players read all the loyalty cards beforehand, even though that removes some of the surprise. This is probably tied to the fact that we put our loyalty cards face down, under our character sheet, instead of using them as part of our hand. I suspect the latter scenario would prove pretty catastrophic, based on the way people are flailing and leaning around the table.

That’s also why it’s so important to clearly communicate beforehand the rules as to what you can do as a Cylon. Last time we had an inconspicuous human player ask for the manual mid-game, which pretty much gave him away.

2954

The method I saw on a video was to get everyone to hold their card up in front of their face and study it for 10 seconds.

2955

Yep, we did this when playing. Worked well enough.

2956

I considered this approach too. I’ll test it out next time. Thanks. :)

2957

Yeah, it’s good if you really structure it so no one can look at them until they are all dealt out, then everybody STARES while you count down, then move on. This is also important (as I found out the hard way) if you die at distance 2 as I did and get dealt a new loyalty card with your new character.

I can help a little/lot is the set of choices we use for specifically describing your hand, and while neither of the groups I play with regularly has much of an issue with sockpuppeting since we all pretty much know the game, we haven’t found it necessary to limit a whole bunch of table talk beyond the bare minimum (ie the admiral can bitch and moan but not be specific about destination choices, a scouting player can do the same, etc).

2958

Next month, my wife and I are spending a week on vacation with another couple and our small children. So I figure we’ll be spending a fair amount of time hanging out together after the kids are asleep, and I’d like to bring a few games along.

Here are my constraints:

  1. Has to support four people, ideally would scale down to 2 or 3 as well.
  2. Has to be small enough to travel with (in or out of box - I’m happy to repack). Something with an iPhone/iPad version with local multiplayer would be even better.
  3. Has to be playable in about 90m or less. Shorter than that would be better.
  4. Co-operative games are fine, and possibly even preferred
  5. Needs to be pausable mid-game if someone needs to go deal with a baby. Games with timers could be tricky.
  6. I need to be able to get a copy. So nothing out of print, unless I happen to have it in my closet already.

A deck of cards, Quiddler and Citadels are already on the list. I bet some of you can make better suggestions. Any ideas?

2959

I have 7 Wonders in my possession, thanks to the wonderful people at The Orc’s Nest.

I do not have Dominant Species, because fuck £65.

2960

Chris, you may enjoy Space Hulk: Death Angel. Same box size as Citadels, a 40k theme, co-op, and pretty tough.