What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Gary Sax wrote: Fucking a Msample, what a slate. So jealous of the John Company play in particular.

Super impressed you guys did the full company scenario and not just the monopoly period!

One thing that might be hypothetically useful for John Company to start with up front is that you are mimicking behavior that actually happened---people extract from the company till it collapsed, then formed their own rival companies. So these exit options are totally feasible and will happen in a long game. Also, fuck genuine metagame whiners in a negotiation game.

Everyone knew this going in; doesn’t mean they agree with how the game portrays it once they see it in action.

That is impressive that you played the full company game. From what I gather, the majority of players are just playing the straight up non-advanced game (it's where my experience lies). Our plays have only taken about 2.5-3 hours for the non full company game as well. Not sure it's worth the exta hour or two and headache of those extra rules.

Differences between the full company and regular game notwithstanding, in my few plays it never felt like tanking was the obvious route. Shipping goods is incentivized and that can make the company quite a bit of scratch. If you're well represented on the board you can make quite a bit from dividends and possibly shipping. If this wealth is spread around a bit, there will then be several people who want the company to keep running.

The problem with tanking is that it's not immediate, and you may be left holding the bag by the time it actually goes under.

I'm not experienced so don't take my opinion seriously but...

The one thing I don't get on the immediate tank strategy is how you get points besides manors? The point of the retirements is the offices, which you only get if you're running the company and don't leave disgraced (iirc it's much more expensive if you're disgraced). Tank too hard and you won't get efficient point conversion.

I think the idea is to gain some points from an retirement or two, maybe a manor, and then tank the game?

Look, I love y’all but when you start talking about John Company I start to nod off.

Got together with some people from the library game group.

Blood Rage - Its literally been years since I've played this, so I forgot about things like the troll jumping out and just smashing all the dudes in an area. I remembered why I didn't love this game....I'm not a fan of drafting. and that's such a huuge part of this.

Still, I can recognize that it is a good game, probably the best CMON game that I've played. How the powers interact and how much of an impact timing your move on things showed me that there's a lot to learn here if I wanted.

I ended up in 3rd of 4, but within 5 points of the leader by switching to Loki hard-core in the 2nd age and just dumping all my people in to places that were going to get beat up on. I did end up handing a couple extra points to the winner, just by not realizing that I could get my guys killed without joining that specific fight.

Argent: The Consortium - So, last time I played with this group, we did two things that really tone down the game. I played with a 4 player setup, with only 3 players (not purposely....) and we played the summer break scenario, which adds in mages over the 5 rounds. these two things make the board really open, and so you can see the game and what it can do....but the conflict just isn't there.

So I set it up right this time (always a plus!) and we taught another. so 4 players, and the first round I think 60% of the mages ended up in the infirmary. I ended up 'turtling' up, with 3 different spells/abilities that allowed me to react when one of my mages was banished/wounded. so by the end, I was the last target for all the fireballs and poisons and banishements being thrown around. I was the technomancy school, so I did not fight for those couple 'research' spots on the board, and just bought my research. by the end I was swimming in Mana and spells, and just gave up on supporters.

For the voter cards, for a while I've just been shuffling them all out and make all 12 random. one player requested that next time, we shuffle, but pick two to be face up. I think that's a good idea, it'll still reduce the impact of influence, while also allowing just alittle bit more information out there.

Still my favorite Worker placement, and this specific game was a lot of fun. and this is still *usually* playing with the starting board set-up and all 'A' sides on the mages.

Got back yesterday from three days of gaming at a con in Niagara Falls ONT.

This is one of the conventions I've considered attending. Nice part of the world, even in January. Oddly enough we've gotten more snow in Maryland than they have up in Niagara.

So, last night was our first real shot at Battlestar Galactica: Starship Battles which was a good time. I can speak to the game itself later. But I'd like to take a minute to discuss the concept of learning a game as a group instead of having one person learn it and then be on the hook to teach it to everyone else verbally. Last night confirmed my endorsement of learning games that way.

When reading the rules myself prior to last night I had a couple of mental blocks on how maneuver worked in the game. Speed vs Kinetic Energy and when to use the drift template had me pretty screwed up, in spite of the rule book more or less being solid on the topics. So when my buddy Stephen sat down while I was setting up and dry-running he grabbed that one page in the rule book and started reading himself. What I was describing didn't make sense to me from a physics perspective and didn't seem to seat well with the rules. That was for good reason, because I had not interpreted correctly and when Stephen started bringing out his interpretation of what he was reading we were able to find where we were supposed to be. We had a good time doing it. The game suddenly came alive, and it made MUCH more sense when both of us put our heads together on how to play.

I've mentioned on other sites, Reddit and BGG in particular that sometimes learning a game as a group can be a unifying, pleasurable experience and I generally get shouted down. Someone showing up with a game that they haven't completely digested is apparently being a shitty game player. But in spite of our slow-going in the first couple of turns it was a good session that we really enjoyed. The discovery was part of the fun.

Tanking JOHN COMPANY: you form a private firm after deregulation; you can make a a lot of VP on the last turn. Of course, since the private firms act first, there are less trade routes to fill for the company. Esp appealing for those with no Executive offices.

We finally finished PANDEMIC:LEGACY, Season 1 after three years. Scored 850! Making us legendary. Applause all around. I am keeping the board and will mount it somewhere. Things got rough over in China/Southeast Asia, yeesh.

Felt really weird to just throw the game away though. Just a big old box in the trash like garbage.

Gary Sax wrote: I'm not experienced so don't take my opinion seriously but...

The one thing I don't get on the immediate tank strategy is how you get points besides manors? The point of the retirements is the offices, which you only get if you're running the company and don't leave disgraced (iirc it's much more expensive if you're disgraced). Tank too hard and you won't get efficient point conversion.

I think not being hit by the -3VP per office held penalty is enough to win. I mean, nobody else is getting money if the company tanks, either, so it's not like they can compensate.

jeb wrote: We finally finished PANDEMIC:LEGACY, Season 1 after three years. Scored 850! Making us legendary. Applause all around. I am keeping the board and will mount it somewhere. Things got rough over in China/Southeast Asia, yeesh.

Felt really weird to just throw the game away though. Just a big old box in the trash like garbage.

Is Pandemic: Legacy worthless after the campaign? I've heard that Risk: Legacy is perfectly playable as Risk after the campaign, though the board is of course highly customized.

Shellhead wrote: Is Pandemic: Legacy worthless after the campaign? I've heard that Risk: Legacy is perfectly playable as Risk after the campaign, though the board is of course highly customized.

Yes. It isn't playable after the December missions.

Msample wrote: Tanking JOHN COMPANY: you form a private firm after deregulation; you can make a a lot of VP on the last turn. Of course, since the private firms act first, there are less trade routes to fill for the company. Esp appealing for those with no Executive offices.

Ah, no deregulation or private companies in the non-full company game.

I love not far from Niagra Falls and didn’t even know there was a con lol.

Yep, that's the only scenario I've run through as well, so didn't see that there was an alternate, non-manor, VP mechanism.