1661

Had a brilliant night of gaming last night. Hosted by a friend of mine, another person I know and met three new people. A snacks and coffee and good beers night while playing games with proper adults is so much more enjoyable than my university’s gaming society.

We played four games. Tsuro to start with, a great little starter game that had everyone loosened up. Very simple mechanics, and gets grudges going for the night.

After that it was Dixit (It was actually the expansion with a homemade voting system and scoring track.) A brilliant game, very deserved winner of it’s Spiel Des Jahre award, although I can see why it’s a controversial choice with less appeal for people who want gamey mechanics. Basically, you get a card with some strange artwork on it. You describe the card, and the other players pick a card each that they think matches the description. All those cards are placed in front of everyone. All the other players must then try and identify your card based on your description. If everyone guesses correctly, you get no points, if no-one guesses correctly, you get no points. So you need some getting it right and some getting it wrong to get points. There’s a bit more to it than that, but not much more. It really gets people thinking. One round someone gave a description of “It’s a little grim.” There were two cards that could be related to the Brothers Grimm and Little Red Riding hood. Then when people pick the card they’re going for, some were going for the obvious one, and some concentrated on the “little” part of the description. That round the person describing the card got points. It’s a very different way of thinking. Very simple, quite relaxing in a way you don’t have to game things but just think about things. A great game. I’ll be looking to get it myself.

After that we played 7 Wonders. Again, a brilliant game. I’m sure you’ve all read about it so I won’t go into the mechanics. The civilisation theme comes across very well. You can concentrate on trade, building resources, building internal commerce (which helps trade and resource building,) war, science or the straight drive for victory points. The best part about it was that the different aspects of the game weren’t simply mechanics, but actually felt like a different approach to building a civilisation. I can see why people are getting annoyed when it’s described as a “civilisation game though.” It is nothing like the epic grand strategies normally associated with the genre. Also, for a not very interactive game (trade with the players to your right and left is automatic with no bartering) and only war really having an affect on each other, it was surprisingly social. The draft mechanism for cards meant that you were always considering the person next to you, and it really encouraged thinking and talking to them.

Finally we played 51st State. First off, the rules are absolutely terrible. The translation was very badly done. However I have no doubt someone on The Geek is working hard to get a decent version out there. Apart from that, it reminded me of Race for the Galaxy, despite being quite different. I think it was the building an empire from cards idea. However it changes it using a draft type system, as well as the three options per card rather than a card doing one specific thing. The other problems with it is that it’s quite niggly, with the card’s relying on obscure symbols rather than any simple text. Great if you have a lot of different native languages in the group, but not ideal otherwise. I think this one is definitely a try before you buy. But I certainly think it will get more gametime from us.

All in all, I can’t decide whether Dixit or 7 Wonders was my game of the night. Both are quite different to normal game fare and all the better for it. All in all, a great night and some great games.

1662

My problem with Dixit is that it breaks down when played with married couples. If your clue is “That one hotel in Vermont,” then your spouse instantly knows it’s the ladybug picture but nobody else has a clue, and congratulations, you get points but the game sucks.

1663

I can certainly see that happening. Fortunately the engaged couple in the group last night were serious gamers, so didn’t do that due to a strange gamer-ethic.

But yes, I could definitely imagine some horrificly lovey couple fucking things up.

1664

We outlaw clues like that when playing Dixit. If anyone does it, their spouse immediately loses points. Keeps 'em honest :)

1665

I recommend checking out the online Memoir '44 beta over at Days of Wonder. I played last night and it seems like a perfect implementation of the Core Rule Set. Simple but fun. And it even runs on Macs!

After playing at a mini-con last month (DeanCon!!) I went on a board gaming binge over the last 4 weeks.

I finally managed to get my first play of War of the Ring which has been sitting on my shelf since 2006. I loved it. The rule book isn’t very accessible, but with the help of BGG to figure out the rules, and a friend dedicated to coming over every week for game night, I was able to lead the Free People to a military victory. My favorite part of the game is the built in narrative. How the Fellowship progresses, the military battles, and the various event cards, do a great job of retelling Tolkien’s story. Loved it.

I bought and played a Weird World War Two game called Incursion. It is a tactical battle that takes place under Gibraltar, similar to how Space Hulk plays, but with armored GIs and Nazi zombies and werewolves. I found it a bit clunky and frustrating. But a big part of that might have been how poorly I played the never ending waves of wimpy zombies. I don’t think I scored a single kill against the good guys in three scenarios played.

I played in a three player game of Starcraft including the Brood War expansion. I was a bit frazzled that day and ended up playing a horrible game. I never got into a single battle and the game ended on turn three. Even if I had played a decent game, I don’t think three players is a good number for Starcraft. I think it is a great system, but it probably needs at least four players to realize its full potential.

I have bought Cyclades, Warhammer Invasion, and Android (thanks to a brief mention of it in this thread) in the last month, but I haven’t managed to play any of them yet.

My next board game session planned is a Monsterpocalypse battle, Planet Eaters versus Martians. I have a large collection of MonPoc figures, but it has sat collecting dust due to lack of players and how the dense iconography makes it slow to teach/learn. I feel blessed that I have a dedicated gamer friend coming to the house regularly now. I’m going to print up some player aids from BGG to make it a little more accessible.

1666

I’d love to know how you get on with MonPoc. I’ve never gotten my head round how it’s supposed to work just from reading stuff online (I haven’t bought it).

1667

does anybody have an opinion on ascension yet ?

1668

Bought and played it last night. I played it with a married couple that has played it four times since they got it last Friday. Rules explanation took about an hour, and that was sped up a bit by me having read up about 1/3 of the manual. Game lasted 4 hours- I played America, Todd played Russia, and Heather had China. The board setup for three players is a bit odd, and I got the odd spot on the end of the triangle. I’m not sure if that helped or hindered me, or if there was no actual effect.

I spent about half the game fumbling around without much of a strategy feeling like I was behind- I bought some buildings, bought some techs, bought some culture levels, built a second city in a spot with a massive amount of labor resources. Russia spread out all over the world, gathering huts and stealing techs. China expanded even faster- founding her second city on the second turn (I think in a pretty sub-optimal spot, which ultimately haunted her), and gathering a bunch of huts, giving her culture, allowing her to shoot up the culture track. After thumbing through the techs for about the fiftyith time, trying to figure out some sort of strategy, I realized that I was already on the gold path, and perhaps I should just try that. I got my currency up to eight before anyone noticed and suddenly I became a threat. Russia teched up his troops, but I’d already invested in defenses, and I really didn’t see how I was even going to get to 15 gold- I would have to get Republic and start trying to win battles, but I thought that would be too slow. He got the Statue of Liberty, so started stealing even more techs, but when he bought that, the Panama Canal popped into the queue (I didn’t even know it existed), and I got it immediately. It became a race. He moved in and trashed one of my cities, costing me a bank. I filled up my gold-gathering techs, and saw I still had a bunch of trade, so I got a level IV tech- computers, figuring that I should buy the most expensive one, just in case the other two beat me up a bunch and reduced my trade below the threshold to buy it, but there was no chance they could bring it down to the level II threshold, where there was another gold-granting tech I hadn’t grabbed yet. I was at thirteen coins.

Unfortunately, buying computers was a mistake. I didn’t notice that Russia had a free level IV spot on his tech tree. He stole it, leaving him space to build the Level V tech Spaceflight and win the game. China bought my destroyed bank, keeping me from it. I got my free gold from the Canal, and then had pretty much nothing to do before the research phase- but there was nothing they could do to me, either. I got my fifteenth gold researching a tech, and Todd got spaceflight at the same time. We tied.

Good game. Like I said earlier- the game lasted about four hours. I think with four players, and experience with the system, it’ll play about the same- I think an hour per person is probably correct. I think I like Runewars better, but sometimes the finishes in that game feel a bit anticlimactic. This definitely built up to a thrilling and satisfying finish.

1669

Wow! Great feedback, DQ. Sounds like you guys have had a blast playing it. Selling the game duration to my group, though, is going to be tough. I have the green light to purchase the game, but I’m not sure they’ll enjoy it (I know I will!). The hemming and hawing is killing me!

1670

Well, if it helps sell it to your group, I didn’t think it was excessively random. You seldom feel like you got screwed by the game. Which isn’t to say it’s deterministic in any way- there’s bits of it here and there. Some of the board setup, and the order that the wonders come out are random. The Combat and Culture cards are random, but in the case of combat cards, you can control that to some degree (leveling up your troops with tech immediately increases your current cards’ worth, and you can choose which cards to buy), and most of the Culture ‘take that’ cards are more of a give-and-take thing.

The lack of feeling you’re getting screwed by the game (bad card draws), combined with the ‘everyone plays each phase of the turn before going to the next phase’ turn order means there’s little down time and your choices actually matter- you’re getting beaten because of things you did or didn’t do. Also, one of the victory conditions is ‘Destroy any other player’s Capital City’, which prevents players getting kicked out of the game and standing around while the everyone else finishes. I think I’ll try this one next. ;)

1671

Good to hear about Civ: The Game. I’m considering getting that for my son.

Got a question about a couple of other games, though: Castle Ravenloft and Ghost Storles. Are they similar enough that I shouldn’t get both of them at the same time? And if the answer to that question is “yes” which would you recommend (as a gift for my son, who is a big D&D nut, though it’s more infatuation than fanaticism in that he thinks about it a fair bit but doesn’t ever really play D&D).

1672

They’re not at all the same, but given your son’s tastes, Castle Ravenloft is the hands-down obvious choice.

1673

I own both and like Ghost Stories considerably more than Castle Ravenloft. It’s better looking, better playing, and more fulfilling. I’m kind of a D&D fan myself even though I don’t play it either (more of a collector’s hobby) and wouldn’t really recommend CR for the D&D (and Ravenloft) aspect. I still like CR and will play it to mix things up, but I kind of feel cheated by the lack of any real RPG element that makes D&D, well D&D. If you can forgive CR for that, then it’s a good game. Hope that helps.

1674

Fantasy Flight’s holiday sale is live: http://store.fantasyflightgames.com/client/client_pages/sale2010.cfm?catid=14

(That’s for board games. Here’s the main page with every category (and a lot of 500 Internal Server Errors)): http://store.fantasyflightgames.com/client/client_pages/sale2010.cfm

1675

Nice tip. Cave troll for 10$ is a good deal, Cave troll in return for unlimited SQL errors, less so.

1676

The cheapest shipping option to FL is more than the price of the game. I’ll pass, as I have a hard time justifying paying more for shipping than the product itself.

1677

I can understand the impulse, but it really doesn’t matter how it’s broken down. There are booksellers on Amazon that routinely price used books at $0.01 + shipping - you know that’s not really how the costs break down, so you just have to look at the bottom line as the real price and ignore how the parts are labeled. So the real question is, assuming you’d like to own Cave Troll, whether the total is less than what you’d pay elsewhere.

For example, it’s $26.37 shipped from Amazon right now, and about $34 shipped (I think, I’m estimating shipping) from Funagain unless you’re ordering $150+ to get free shipping.

1678

Yeah, but he’s got a point in terms of total. I couldn’t get it to calculate shipping but I’d assumed it was not excessive. The standard price I’ve turned down Cave Troll at from my FLGS was 23.97 in my hands, so this isn’t much of a deal. Other than that, the others seem like games that were bumped off my buy list long ago (Android) or never considered (WoW).

1679

If you manage to play Android, please let us know. I picked it up two years ago, and it seems like a weekend project to even get one playthrough. There are some neat mechanics in there, but it seems you would need 5 very dedicated people to even have a shot at it.

1680

Yeah, it sounds like a fantastic game in the abstract, but impossible for me to visualize getting it on the table. That’s a gamble I’m willing to take with a known quantity quality-wise (hi TI3!) but not so much with a game that has such uneven reviews.

Cyclades is pretty good, and very easy to get into (once again, I wing it by learning while playing, and while not optimal we still had a pretty good game). Invasion is one of a handful of limited card games I’ve played lately, but it’s probably the only one I’d consider buying if I didn’t have access to it already. Substituting the FFG expansion-fest for regular CCG cost distortion is not enough of an improvement in this case, though (even though so far the only expansion that seems important is the first one).