What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Finally got Nations to the table. Played a "beginner" game (two ages). So, it was over relatively quickly. I dug it but I think it is a case of "be careful what you wish for" with my group. No direct conflict but then they disliked that it wasn't "more exciting". Now that we have it down, I think a few more games would solidify it. I managed to break my cousin's "I win the first game of everything" streak.

The more advanced stuff in Nations doesn't make the cards omg unique but it does up the interest level quite a bit by having more asymetric card offers. I'd give that a shot asap honestly.

Gary Sax wrote: The more advanced stuff in Nations doesn't make the cards omg unique but it does up the interest level quite a bit by having more asymetric card offers. I'd give that a shot asap honestly.

I flipped through the advanced cards when I was separating them out, they don't seem overly complex. Now that we have an idea of how everything works together, I'll probably add them back in. Not knowing how important "X" is compared to "Y" was the real factor in learning. Now that we have a general idea, I'll probably do a full game (four ages) before tossing the advanced cards back in.

When using all cards in Nations, I find this variant to work really well:

www.boardgamegeek.com/article/21372754#21372754
(scroll down to the bolded part)

Basically, when dealing out cards, you only keep the first X buildings (blue cards) and first Y everything else, depending on players. This helps with a more even card distribution, because otherwise people can get screwed just through the card draw.

X and Y depend on # of players, for this chart:

2 players: keep the first 5 buildings, the first 2 of every other category
3 players: keep the first 5 buildings, the first 3 of every other category
4 players: keep the first 6 buildings, the first 3 of every other category
5 players: keep the first 8 buildings, the first 4 of every other category

Played one of the new hotness games, Black Angel. There's a person in my group who is very into current designs, but here's what I thought of it:

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There's only so much I can say again here. The short version is, this isn't a game of the type I like. Not for me, but the people in my group who do enjoy these games liked it. For anyone, it's a lot to take in the first time.

It's a very modern design, with a ton of different mechanisms and gears and levers added in to form an obfuscating cloud over the board. The game becomes a maze, and you have to be able to pick out a good path through it (and stick to it). In addition to the surfeit of options, nearly every one of them is hampered by both intentional restrictions ("you can do this, except...") and unintentional ones (the not-so-intuitive euroglyphics that cover every component).

It's also difficult (or was for me) to really plan one's turn in advance, even when I could dimly make out a path in the fog. Others can steal your dice before your turn to do the thing you wanted to do, or can introduce new complications into what you wanted to do, or add even more options into the mix. Having no head for this sort of thing, I was often left not spoiled but baffled for options that actually made a difference to me. (It should be said that the owner, who does enjoy this type of design, rocketed ahead of all of us, and it was also his first play, so most of my criticisms are going to be borne from my distaste for and inability to parse this sort of game.)

In my old age, I'm enjoying lighter designs. I just don't have hour long rules teaches in me anymore, and I can't navigate dozens of options to find the shining path buried within. I don't want to feel like I solved a puzzle, I want to have played a game. Black Angel has an audience that delights in it, but I'm not part of it.
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I've now played two of the hot releases, this and Pipeline, and neither of them do anything for me. Pipeline at least has a central idea: produce, refine, and sell oil. Okay, that makes sense. Black Angel is all over the place, though, with a thing about competing AIs on a colony ship, but that doesn't tie it together. Pipeline's main failure is the pipe building subgame, where you have to figure out what tangle of pipe tiles will fit into your network and help the most. It's very weird and seems like it's coming from a different game because it just doesn't fit with the crunchiness of the rest.

I don't go for Cosmic Encounter, Titan, Dune, or other AT classics but damn, if it's a choice between that and these Lament Configuration puzzle boxes that you have to mentally untangle, I'll go for the more thematic, lighter fare.

I've been playing a bunch of Underwater Cities lately, speaking of modern euros. It's really good though. It's a pretty straightforward worker placement game with tight resources, but also a tableau builder/card game. Every time you place a worker you play a card from your hand of 3, and if the card color matches the spot you put your worker you get to do the thing on the card as well. If not the card is discarded to no effect. Figuring out what cards to play, and when you need an action enough to go off color etc is really a fun mechanic to explore. And the resource gathering worker placement stuff is all solid. If you like crunchy WP games I think it's well worth checking out. A lot of people compare it to Terraforming Mars, but I don't think it is very comparable beyond them both having cards and a sciencey kinda theme.

Black Angel sounds like fun to me, but I get where you're coming from completely.

I have a board gaming mode, usually weekend play with my spouse, that I consider my "pull levers and run engines" mode that isn't very competitive and occupies time and space in a relaxing way. It's when I play Rosenberg games and such.

I ended up going solo to Buckeye Game Fest last Friday. Everyone I knew who might have went with me had made other plans, involving crap like 'work', so I was solo. If it looks like I can't find a game quickly I usually grab a copy of Terraforming Mars from the library. I like it, I know how to play it, and it gets filled fast. Sure enough, in about 10 minutes I had a three-player game going. One player was new, but the other player wanted the full TM experience available; Corporate + Prelude + drafting. The newbie didn't seem to mind, so off we went. My Saturn Systems + Jovians + 1/Jovian cards gave me the win.

As I was putting it up, a fellow game club member showed up and wanted to play TM. It's me, him, full TM experience guy, and another club member, and we played on the green board. Fellow Member went balls-out terraforming, and ended up beating me 66-65.

Then it's deja vu all over again; as I was putting it up, another gentleman who was by himself came up and asked it we were playing. Three games of TM wasn't exactly my plan, but what the heck. We kept Fellow Member and lose the other two, and the three of us ended up playing on the blue board. Someone drafted shitty cards for me, and I ended up in last place.

There's something to be said for playing something everyone knows and not having to piss about with rules explanation or fumbling and a focus on the competitive aspect.

Played Lazer Ryderz tonight.

We played the third scenario from Chronicles of Crime: Welcome to Redview. We managed to get five stars, but it did not really feel like a win. The meta story makes a much stronger appearance this game than in the previous two scenarios, which confused us as we assumed it must have been part of the main story. This one still gives a different feel from the base game or Noir, but I think the base game scenarios and DLC are stronger than the expansion material. Only one scenario left in the box and two more DLCs to go to finish off the line.

Sagrilarus wrote: [


The two of you truly are the peyote of the gaming podcast drug menu.

I mean, to be fair, Al only made me vomit the one time, but I see what you are saying.

The thing I like about the Tiny Epic series is that most sessions of them tend to produce very close games, with most players still feeling like they could win. I taught two games of the series tonight to three other players and they were no exception.

The first was Tiny Epic Galaxies. We ended up with only one Economy world and three long Diplomacy worlds in the first draw, so the Economy world kept getting taken and the three Diplomacy worlds kept sitting. You'd think that would allow for some serious Culture gain and following to speed the game along, but they were mostly Energy worlds, so Culture was in pretty short supply. However, Energy was everywhere, so people were able to upgrade pretty quickly and the tableau began to shift quite a bit. I ended up lagging behind, probably because I was paying as much attention to everyone else's actions as mine and losing track of any strategy. Final scores were 24-23-19-15 (me.)

Then we played Tiny Epic Western. I really like this one because there are so many paths to potential victory and weighing the benefits of which places are worth dueling over and/or how your poker hand is actually going to help you win the pots at those places where you ostensibly win the duel makes for a game with tons of depth and strategic decisions. It was the Outlaw vs the Apothecary vs the Scout vs the Lawman (me.) Somehow, as the Lawman, I stayed Wanted through all six rounds until the last duel of the sixth. That gave me an extra Influence each round, which I used to not only buy key buildings but keep my +1 in duels always present. I also was fortunate enough to be the Dealer when the Auction House became available, so I was able to buy an extra 3-point building with no risk. I won, with the scores 22-20-19-17.

Going to bring Tiny Epic Kingdoms to one of the FLGS weekly gatherings tomorrow. Two of the players tonight said they have Tiny Epic Quest, too...

Went out to open play at the local store last night. A game of Speicherstadt, a game of Melee and two of Resistance. Good, solid games, but nothing too spectacular except that my wife was able to make it out as her parents put our kids down. She had to take a nap today because she said her head was buzzing too much, too long with all the moves she could have done instead when she went to sleep.

I don't know if I just hate everything Renegade puts out or what, but Terror Below is extremely boring. How you can make a Tremors game boring is beyond me, but it's very simple pickup and deliver with not enough action and not enough stuff scattered across the board to pursue at a player count of four. Really dull.

Three player game of Survive, which I hadn't played in ages but never culled. Totally fun, I lost by two points.

We also played some other stuff but I just wanted to complain about Terror Below and warn people.