3581

To be fair, those games you mention are remarkably intimidating if your background extends only as far as Boggle.

My wife has grown to enjoy more complicated games over time. Start her out with Battle Line and possibly Travel Blokus. Maybe move up to games like Power Grid or Puerto Rico. The game you want to work her towards is Agricola, which hides its complexity well and has a theme that’s quaint and simple but very well done - if you can get her to play and enjoy that game, most other “complicated” games will not seem as intimidating.

Good luck!

3582

My copy of U-boat Leader, DVG’s solitare take on German WWII warfare, is on the way!

Well, it’s at the printer.

So actually about 12 weeks.

:(

3583

Ingenious, Guillotine, Qwirkle, Lost Cities, Mr. Jack, Tales of the Arabian Nights (if she’s into storytelling games)

3584

For space alert: the online turn processor so you can check yourself in a solo game and the like to make sure you grasp the programming. Man, I wish I’d had that when I was learning the game.

3585

Star Trek: Captains, Elder Sign, and Rune Age came today. If you get Captains, don’t wait to open it. It’s one of the crappier WizKids releases I’ve ever seen in terms of quality control. Lots of people are complaining that one of the big card packs in there unraveled in their copy, bending cards and damaging ships. As for me, my copy came with one ship broken off it’s stand and lots of Federation ships with nacelles glued on at crazy angles and Klingon wingtips suffering from the same problems. I thought the entire ships were molded from one piece of plastic, but they are glued together, apparently at a bar during happy hour.

I’m disappointed, but you’re always gambling when you buy WizKid’s crap. They have a replacement page already set up so I’m piecing together my request and hoping for the best.

3586

How’s Elder Sign Tracy?

3587

Still in the shrink-wrap. I’m hoping to try it this weekend.

3588

Sorry to hear that, Tracy. I saw your post on BGG.

I opened mine recently and, by comparison, was very fortunate. For those who don’t frequent BGG and are interested in the game, here’s what I posted there:

I just opened my box and did a cursory inspection (removing only a couple ships and checking for broken ship pieces), and everything but one Klingon ship (sits very crooked on the stand, but it looks like it’s banking) looks good. I don’t mind if engines and such aren’t perfectly aligned, but I’ll do a more thorough inspection later.

My big deck of cards didn’t burst out of the brittle cellophane, but it had started to tear. It looks like the deck was wrapped too tightly in it, thereby applying a constant force against it. It wouldn’t take much jostling for it to fail. Perhaps using a less brittle cellophane with a looser wrapping would solve the issue.

I haven’t read the rule book, yet, but where are we supposed to store all these cards? The insert doesn’t appear to accommodate the cards once they’re removed from the cellophane.

3589

I just recently played my second game of Elder Sign. I like it, but I think some people will find it too much “mechanics” and not enough “theme.” Since the entire game focuses on the dice mechanic from the adventure cards to almost all of the items, I can see some players complaining that it seems a little dry. Still, I find the mechanics fun and find the theme adequate - it helps to have a background in Cthulhu mythos stuff and familiarity with Arkham Horror. I see the entire game as a simplified fast playing Arkham Horror for the most part. Doom tokens, defeat monsters, go on adventures, get items, lose SAN, etc.

It also seems to be extremely difficult. In both games I’ve played (2 players) we lost terribly. The most recent one against Azathoth we only collected 6 of the 14 necessary elder signs before we died.

3590

So far I’ve played with 6 and with 2. Both were fun, and it does scale well. In the case of 6, it seems like it’s going to be slow going until the first player gets eliminated, at which point things speed up considerably.

Also the cards speed up the game a lot; as soon as players save up enough energy to buy cards, then the remaining turns go faster and faster. (I’m surprised I haven’t heard more nerds complaining that the cards are “unbalanced,” because they turn the tide so much. But they’re essential to keeping this a quick, light game, as opposed to a thoughtful slog).

Somebody earlier in the thread suggested a house rule to bring players back to life; that might be a good idea. In our first game, one of the guys stayed in Tokyo too long and was eliminated in his second round, so he had to wait a half hour or so until everybody else was done. I’m thinking give eliminated players a roll every turn, and if they can get 5 or more hearts they can jump back into the game with no victory points? There’s a card called “It Has a Child!” that does this, but you have such a slim chance of its turning up.

3591

From the GMT Newsletter:

Update on Electronic Versions of Our Games

                         (I am trying to incorporate this section now in each of our e-mail updates, since I get so many e-mails asking about status! )
                         
                        Here's a quick update on where we are with our Computer and iPad games:
                         
                        [U][B]Products that are Coded and Undergoing Testing:[/B][/U]
                         Not much change from last time here. The [B]Twilight Struggle[/B]  (PC) team ran into a few problems that delayed things by about a month,  but continues apace. We think in about 1-2 months time we'll have  something to show to outside testers.
                         
                        On the [B]Dominant Species[/B]  iOS project, the AI is getting better and we are waiting for some  updated art which we should have in the next two weeks. Once we have  those two things updated, we'll open to a few more outside testers.
                         
                        [B]Other Products that we have agreements for but are still in the early stages:[/B]
                         
                         We added one new agreement since our last update, for The Caucasus Campaign (iOS). So the "game list" now looks like:
                         
                        [B]Nightfighter[/B] (PC)
                         [B]Dominant Species: The Card Game[/B] (iOS)
                         [B]Winds of Plunder[/B] (iOS)
                         [B]Pacific Typhoon[/B] (Android)
                         [B]Space Empires[/B] (iOS and Android)
                         [B]The Caucasus Campaign[/B] (iOS)
                         
                        
                        We are in talks with two companies currently  regarding the following three games/series, so for now these are "off  the table" (please don't e-mail me about these! :-) )until we have some  resolution to these talks:
                         
                        [B]Combat Commander[/B] series
                         [B]Commands & Colors[/B] series
                         [B]Manoeuvre[/B]
                         
                        As I noted last time, we are VERY MUCH  still looking for development partners for a bunch of our games. If it's  not on the list I gave above (except for Labyrinth, which is committed  as part of a deal with the Twilight Struggle team), we'd love to talk  with any interested developers about either an iOS, Android, or PC  version. We'd prefer tablet games at present, but there are some for  which the larger screen of the PC is more appropriate, so we're open to  those as well. The below is by no means an exclusive list, as we're open  to talking about any of our games, but I for one would love to see and  play electronic versions of:

[ul]
[li]Conquest of Paradise[/li][li]Fields of Fire[/li][li]Blackbeard[/li][li]Leaping Lemmings[/li][li]Empire of the Sun, For the People, Paths of Glory (actually, ANY of our CDGs)[/li][li]Hellenes[/li][li]Pax Romana[/li][li]Sekigahara[/li][li]Santa Fe Rails[/li][li]Successors[/li][li]The Conquerors: Alexander[/li][li]The Kaiser’s Pirates[/li][li]The Napoleonic Wars (and Wellington and Kutuzov)[/li][li]Urban Sprawl[/li][/ul]
That’s all for this time on the electronic front. If you are a programmer/developer or company rep and would like to talk with us about creating an electronic version of one of our games, please contact me (Gene) at gmtgames@aol.com. Thanks!

3592

We’re going to finally be playing our first game of Conquest of Nerath this weekend (4 players). Any tips or recommendations? It looks like the Allies version will be the most fun from my first read through of the rules.

3593

Some house rules I recommend (all were said on BBG by one person or another)

  • keep non-land pieces limited to supply. I.e. no more than 4 dragons
  • only land units can conquer. This avoids the sneak attacks by dragons against capitols/castles
  • flyers can block other flyers. This, again, helps prevents dragons from romping behind the lines with impunity
  • the short game is very, very short. Plan on at least the medium game.

Dragons are easily worth more than their 5 GP. Their ability to shrug off a damage point means they constantly kill things and you lose nothing. With the house rules above, hopefully the game won’t revolve around them so much.

3594

Ubongo just dropped out of the blue for the iPad. Hmm…

3595

That’s some exciting stuff. Is Space Empires the “4x” one that’s just out now or something else? Also, pity that so many of them are iOs exclusive, but I guess that’s where the market is.

WRT Nerath:

I would recommend going over the risk/reward for the dungeons with a quick simulation of it so that people understand the relatively degree of exposure and just how substantial the treasures can be. That’s a nasty surprise for anyone that glazes over when it comes to discussing the odds in the rules.

Being specific about the movement of water elementals, the dragons, and how embarking and transferring troops works is pretty important as well.

But once you understand the key axis and allies unit balance, it’s a system that comes together pretty quickly. Don’t be too shocked if there’s an unexpected knockout blow early on, and hopefully the partner will be wise enough to concede if that happens.

Man, those are really good tips. My dragon-led knockout blow did have troop supports, so that wouldn’t have changed, but in general I think we were wondering how to encourage working with something other than a dragon arms race in the future. And yeah, the medium game is about right.

3596

I can’t agree with these three house rules or the general comment regarding Dragons. With proper planning and play, Dragons can be easily defeated. Losing a 5-gold piece is costly, and Dragons can’t enter dungeons and are vulnerable if attacking a space solo or left alone in a space, so their use is situational. Most of the time, I’d rather purchase a Wizard (d10; First Strike; Move 2; costs 3 gold) and a Fighter (d10; Move 2; costs 2 gold), both of which can enter dungeons, instead of a Dragon (d20; Fly; Move 3; Durable; can reposition; costs 5 gold).

Recommendations for new players:

  • Understand how VPs are earned in both FFA games and alliance games
  • Pieces and DGs with the “First Strike” ability attack first, but still attack only once per battle round
  • DGs with “Heroes Need 7+/8+ to Hit” ability affect all Heroes against all DGs in the dungeon, and the ability persists throughout the entire battle, even if the DG with the ability is killed
  • Since all battles occur simultaneously, Treasure cards obtained from successfully exploring dungeons can not be used until the Fight Battles phase has ended
  • If you move a piece into an enemy space that does not contain any enemy pieces, you don’t conquer the space until the Fight Battles phase
  • Make sure you obey the 4-piece max recruitment limit for non-capital Castles
  • Understand that Castles can’t be recruited in spaces you haven’t controlled since the start of your turn
  • Understand that pieces can not be recruited at Castles on the same turn the Castle’s recruited
  • Do not re-conquer one of your starting spaces if you can’t defend it against a counter-attack, since the enemy will receive another VP if he re-conquers it

Perhaps wahoo can chime in with more, especially his thoughts on those three house rules and Dragons.

3597

If you can get the same group together and play enough times to understand intimately what “proper planning and play” requires, then by all means don’t worry about it.

For the 90% of game players I know, we don’t play the same game repeatedly enough to ever reach that stage and I encourage the house rules. If you don’t like them, you can always play without them the next time, but our first two games were more or less ruined by an unexpected dragon play. The preponderance of posts on BBG about nerfing dragons seems to indicate it’s a pretty common complaint.

The fact they can move 3 spaces, attack, then retreat 3 spaces makes it damn near impossible to end up in “dragon all alone” scenario Mysterio suggested.

3598

Weird question here. How big is the box? Is it about the size of the newer Red November box?

So no Twilight Struggle iOS game?

3599

With my experience with CoN and games like it I’ll just say that those house rules sound about right, but primarily because they encourage players to use dragons with some strategy. Dragons to me are like Queens in chess - a beginner sees a strong piece and builds their entire strategy around it - an advanced player notes the strengths of the piece and works it into their strategy.

That said, it’s a game with dice, and it’s entirely possible to have dragons be ridiculous or fail miserably - it’s a piece with a lot of variance that fuels strategies that are widely variant in terms of efficacy - when it works it’s broken and that’s what people tend to remember and take away from games.

3600

Guess not. I have to assume someone got their wires crossed with PC instead of iOS. Space Empires is the 4x.