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Flashback Friday - El Grande - Love it or hate it? Do you still play it?

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08 Feb 2019 20:07 #291925 by Josh Look
Hot damn, the Big Box has to be some sort of daily deal on Amazon today. $56 or so, CSI and MM are in the $80+ range.

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08 Feb 2019 21:59 #291930 by san il defanso
I'll join the hugfest for El Grande. It's best in class, and great across the board.

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08 Feb 2019 22:16 #291935 by ubarose
Does anyone else here remember when El Grande was only avalible in German?Distribution in the US amounted to slapping a typed up copy of the rules on plain white paper on the outside of the box, wrapping it in a second layer of plastic and then putting a sticker on it.

And then, the first time you played it, trying to make sense of this really strange new sort of game, convinced that the translation of the rules must be wrong.

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08 Feb 2019 22:47 #291936 by san il defanso
So funny story about that. My wife bought me a copy of El Grande when we were still dating. She found a guy on BGG selling it, and ordered it for me. But when it arrived it turns out that it was actually in German. I had to go online to Funagain and order a set of English cards. Until they arrived we played holding a photocopy of the English rules to decipher the German cards.
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09 Feb 2019 12:57 #291982 by Jexik
Despite happening in this decade, my play was with a guy who had a German copy.

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09 Feb 2019 13:28 #291986 by Jackwraith

Josh Look wrote: Hot damn, the Big Box has to be some sort of daily deal on Amazon today. $56 or so, CSI and MM are in the $80+ range.


That's actually what it's been for a while now. I've had it on one of my lists on Amazon for a year or two. It started at $70 but it's been hovering around the high 50s for at least the past year. I've never pulled the trigger on it for some reason or another. I've played it (and liked it), but don't own a copy. I really shouldn't spend more on games right now...

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10 Feb 2019 08:43 #292028 by Erik Twice
I played it once or twice. It was cool, though it didn't grab me in a "wow, I should play this a lot" manner. And that's something very interesting about it: Nobody hates it. Nobody thinks it's a bad game or that there's something wrong with it. If you look it up in BGG, the lowest scores are in the 6s range. That's really something!

What surprised me the most is that it's a very chaotic game! Very un-euro like.

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14 Feb 2019 01:21 #292231 by Oatmeal
You guys need to calm down... yeah, it's a good game, and a shining example of the "good kind" of Euro.

But still clamor to play it? In the world where Chaos in the Old World exists? Nah... this pretty good game has been long since fired
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14 Feb 2019 17:18 #292309 by Frohike
I picked up the redundantly titled El Grande Big Box and the game was very popular with the family & extended family. It fits right into the style of games that we prefer, most of which are in this "(Mean) German Family Game" vein. It's way more chaotic than we were expecting, but this was also a good thing.

This is also the first game where I've been tempted to break down the box and reconstruct it into something smaller since all of the components take up roughly a third of the actual space.

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14 Feb 2019 22:46 #292324 by dysjunct
Ha, “The Big Big Box.” Perfect title for the Target exclusive release.

I played it once about five years ago. It was ... fine. Nothing wrong with it but it had a stuck-in-time feeling, not a timeless one. Like listening to an oldies station.
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03 Feb 2020 22:55 #306833 by WadeMonnig
The king and intrigue expansion looks promising. My
Daughter loves the base but the wife found it dry... as
She still managed to beat me by one point.

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04 Feb 2020 16:51 #306843 by Erik Twice
This game is unique in that nobody seems to hate it. Just look at the BGG ratings, there are barely any under six and none of them are really negative.

Either way, I did not play this game until somewhat recently. I liked it. It surprised me how chaotic it is, you really have to read all those 5 cards every turn and try to figure them out. It's a bit annoying, but fun. I really like the turn order mechanic and how cards you play don't come back. A lesser design would have made you return them every time.

I wish people didn't play with the tower as written. I'm not interested in doing memory tests when information is perfectly trackable and easily so, even. I know it's a pet peeve, but my enjoyment of games goes down when I have to keep bullshit on my head to play them well.
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04 Feb 2020 16:55 #306844 by Shellhead
El Grande is a well-designed but dry point collection procedure that offers no sense of narrative. I don't hate it, but I don't want to play it again.

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04 Feb 2020 17:08 #306845 by birdman37

Erik Twice wrote: ... my enjoyment of games goes down when I have to keep bullshit on my head to play them well.

Coffee spit. The correct English would be "in my head". :lol:

Unless you're referring to Bullshit Balancer: the Head expansion? Man, that was a real turd of a game! ;)

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06 Feb 2020 11:03 #306885 by WadeMonnig
Eric mentioned reading the 5 cards every turn. We played the king and
Intrigue expansion which virtually eliminates that... except you have to read your 13 cards every turn before
You bid/ play them. It's a cool take that doesn't completely change the game while giving you a feeling of more control on what you do in a round.

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