Re: What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Legomancer wrote:
I want a game where the experience of playing it is distinguishable from the experience of not playing it.

You wouldn't like Le Havre

I have to double check throughout the day to make sure I'm not playing Splendor. "Huh? A game?"

I don't care, I like it and I think it's an ideal SDJ-type game. I especially like that it more or less condenses the last 10-12 years of Eurogame design to one page of rules and 20 minutes. I also like how it gets back to roots, feeling more like a 3M game than an Alea one. It's something anyone can play and enjoy. It's not the greatest game of all time, but it is a simple business game with clear goals and nice production.

I knew F:AT would hate it on general principle.

I don't hate it; I don't think there's really anything there to hate. I just said there wasn't much there, and after two plays I felt like I'd explored what it had to offer. I like lighter games just fine, but this one feels like it specifically aimed to be inoffensive, unmemorable motion-going, and I guess it succeeded. If my group wanted to play it, I'd certainly join them, but I don't see anyone wanting that in a few months when the next thing comes along.

I started a new thread about Splendor, because I'm definitely fascinated by the discussion on it.

In case you've forgotten:

Ascending Empires is one of the best games ever made. It's a crying shame that it's OOP and will never be reprinted.

We played in last night.

Then we played the DC Deck Builder. Don't care about how much you hate it. I like it. It's light and I can still play it after drinking a six pack.

Knocked another game off the ultimatum list last night with Invaders. We played three games of it in a row and I'm still not too sure about it. I wrote:

I picked up this asymmetric 2-player card game in a convention auction on a lark. The theme looked fun and it sounded interesting. Finally got played last night, to not great results. We played three games (it's pretty short, and one game was incredibly quick) and the Earth player won two out of the three, usually pretty effortlessly. The Invader seems to have a steep hill to climb, and is more often playing against his card draws than the Earth player, who usually is just running out the clock and providing occasional potshots. In the one game the Invader won, he drew the absolute perfect combo in his starting hand and the Earth player literally couldn't do anything about it. Game was over in five or six turns. Maybe we're doing something wrong rules-wise or play-wise, but it wasn't an auspicious beginning, especially when there are other two-player games of this ilk I already like.

Since then I checked out the BGG forums and other folks have echoed this exact statement, though the replies say that the Invaders can win often. I'm willing to give it a couple more chances.

Another chapter of RISK LEGACY last night. I thought I had a Mission completed for the 4th Red Star, but realized I'd made a mistake. So I was way overextended and got my HQ knocked out to allow my brother-in-law the win. Oh well, at least he had to nuke his way to victory. We did eliminate another player though, so we got to crack another pack of material/rules into the game. So fucking sweet. I will be all over whatever Daviau cooks up next.

We followed that with a few hands of TWITCH. A Richard Garfield game that is amazing but long out of print for no good reason. It's kind of a speed/dex game played with cards that you toss into a bowl. Each card played indicates who's turn is next--the cards say things like L for left, R for right, 2R for two-to-the-right, along with some other stuff. If I throw an L into the bowl, it's whoever's to the left of me's turn. You have challenge cards for each player and if a player makes a mistake and plays when its not her turn or if I realize it's her turn before she does and throw her challenge card into the bowl then she gets the cards in the bowl. Empty your hand to win. It's a blast.

San Il Defanso wrote: That matches my own assessment of Splendor almost exactly. It's a perfectly cromulent game, but that's about all it strives to.

And by cromulent, you mean that when it hits the table, people are driven before you and you hear their lamentation?

SuperflyTNT wrote:

San Il Defanso wrote: That matches my own assessment of Splendor almost exactly. It's a perfectly cromulent game, but that's about all it strives to.

And by cromulent, you mean that when it hits the table, people are driven before you and you hear their lamentation?

I'm disappointed that so few people are able to identify a classic Simpsons reference.

"Embiggens? I never heard that word before I moved to Springfield."
"I don't know why. It's a perfectly cromulent word."

I prefer a Conan reference, myself.

Lousy Smarch weather.

Had a bit of retro-board gaming last night, which was quite nice.

Nefertiti - A kind of worker placement/bidding/set collection game that feels like a Knizia game except there's way too much going on. Players acquire cards by bidding on them; the value of the cards is based on their rarity and how many players own them. You get the cards by placing markers at four different sites, each of which have their own bidding "rules." Each site is actually doubled, so that's eight different bidding rules. Plus, there are rule-breaking cards that you can purchase if you earn a specific token.

It feels like the initial design was pretty simple and therefore boring, so they just kept piling on variations in an attempt to hide that fact. It didn't work for me. It just made it busy and boring.

Settlers of Catan - A girl new to our group had never played this classic, and wanted to learn. Unlike a lot of people, I still have love for it even though I rarely play. We tried a variant that I had never heard of before: Welfare. Whenever a roll causes you to get nothing (except if blocked by the robber), you get a welfare token. You can trade in a number of tokens equal to your score for a resource of your choice. It was interesting and not too powerful, which made it a kind of nice addition. We had the craziest rolls, though. Instead of a bell curve, we had a bat curve: the 6, 7, and 8 were almost never rolled for the whole game.

Bohnanza - Another great one that still stands the test of time. I really like how the final score is often much closer than it seems during play.

Played a 2 player game of a Kickstarter Euro called Snowdonia. Its not offensive but theres no real reason for this game to exist. I found playing it pleasant enough but its a game i consign to the glut of unnecessary products on the market. You do worker placement to basically move cubes around and dig out / build a rail road in Wales. Theres the usual euroish strategies in there but nothing stands out and it has a slightly overwrought setup and rules explanation.

Played Fleet with most of the expansion cards just chucked in. It was pretty good actually. My opinion of the Arctic expansion has gone up. Fished lots of oysters and won handily.

Berg HEX N COUNTERs;

played SPQR. I was the Carthaginians and i won a battle against the romans that i was supposed to win. Was good fun though. All of my celts ran away in one charge, my elephants caused utter havock (for both sides) and my heavy calvary managed to outflank the roman legions and hammer them. This game tells a great story and if your friend has learnt the rules its not too hard to play.

Then we played the Battle of Bosworth on Blood and Roses. My Friends Richard III won. I made two attempts on Richards life which both failed. He shot most of my army to pieces. Both my cannons blew up on the first two dice rolls i made but i pulled off some decent heavy cavalry charges. Good game.

I played Race for the Galaxy for the first time too. I quite liked it. I probably prefer both Glory to Rome and Fleet as card engine building games as they are more interactive and for me, intuitive. But this game is surprisingly satisfying to play.

Steam park. - light and quick. I think the wife will like it. Stupid robots do nothing but confuse people. You can teach the game without robots and nothing is really lost

Lords of waterdeep

Level 7 omega protocol The adrenaline trick, while not necessarily new, is brilliant

X-wing. Been flying green squadron a- wings with push the limit and really enjoying them. Still feel under gunned but plenty maneuverable to mix it up with the TIEs