Octopus Overlords

Thanks for your participation in the Martha Stewart of Gaming category. I was getting lonely....

MythicalMino wrote:ah, too late...both have already been shipped. I have read that they "can" be integrated together...will see, though.

51st State cards do not have the required icons for Distance to play with New Era, you have to make a cheat sheet to combine them, and there are no Leaders in New Era.

Honestly, I both agree and disagree with HepC, I think New Era is for players to be able to interact, 51st State is more a Race for Points as there is no interaction, so it's much like 2 different games. So you *can* integrate the cards (though you won't need many of the 51st state cards as they are already in New Era), I think I would only add the Leaders to New Era and keep them as separate games.

(Think Dominion, where you have a game with NO attacks, Race for Points without interaction: 51st State. Dominion with multiple attack cards and some defense, interaction with others: New Era).

I have debated putting some of the cards (specifically the Spiel Promo cards and a few Not Found in New Era) into the New Era, but need to keep track of Distances.

Zarathud wrote:Thanks for your participation in the Martha Stewart of Gaming category. I was getting lonely....

Just finished revamping my Cosmic game.

Red Sleeves for Tech, Purple for Destiny, Black for Flare and Draw Deck. Have the EON Hexes, Mayfair Hexes, and new Color Coded Planets in one box, New Ship in one box, old Tokens and Star Hexes in another. Extra cards (edicts, kickers, reinforcements) in storage box, and Older Nonreprinted Powers in a special Bag. (any flares and powers present in new set have been put back in the old games).

Now I just need some people to play Cosmic.

Top secret preview!

Hmmm...it appears the solo rules for 51st State that the developer posted on BGG don't work quite as well with New Era. That may be worth having 51st State after all.

hepcat wrote:edit: jeebus spacelord, can you shrink that photo down to a size smaller than Idaho?

Forgot the Big in BigImg.

I deleted that bit after seeing that you fixed it.

hepcat wrote:Hmmm...it appears the solo rules for 51st State that the developer posted on BGG don't work quite as well with New Era. That may be worth having 51st State after all.

which solo rules are from the designer? I cannot seem to find any rules that actually were posted by him. I see one set of rules in the FILES section, and I think 2 in the the variants section of the forums there.

Some examples of stuff from the Eclipse expansion:

The pirates don't get penalized for having the Traitor card. When they draw tiles after a battle, they get 1-4 booty. I mean, cash. Their home hex is worth 0 points(a wretched hive of scum and villainy). They don't get Dreadnaughts, but they get 4 moves. That's insane.

There's cloaking tech, as well as defense against missiles.

There's lots of bling here. As well as Santa.

MythicalMino wrote:

hepcat wrote:Hmmm...it appears the solo rules for 51st State that the developer posted on BGG don't work quite as well with New Era. That may be worth having 51st State after all.

which solo rules are from the designer? I cannot seem to find any rules that actually were posted by him. I see one set of rules in the FILES section, and I think 2 in the the variants section of the forums there.

Here ya go

Got to play BSG with the two expansions, followed up by 6-player Game of Thrones. 8 hours of quality boardgaming with some of the heavy hitters.

My copy of New Era arrived, and bb2112, remus west, lordmortis, and I got in a game before teaching bb2112 Star Trek DBG, using Borg to teach. Can't wait to teach him the freeforall. Oh, and Remus won his FIRST game of New Era...

Scores were good, too. Remus at 39, everyone else low 30s. Now to work on the Integration of the sets...

Played Twilight Stuggle with hepcat. I was the USSR and he was the US. We started off with me pushing into Europe and Mid East, then hepcat flipped Romania on me and expanded in Asia and pushed back for his oil. I pulled some VPs from war events and broke 11 when Europe scored. I blockaded hepcat out of West Germany and stood on the brink of European Domination afterwards. But Asia was scoring next. I went through Afghanistan but hepcat pushed me out of Pakistan to reduce my score by controlling Asia. By then I was way ahead in the space race (and VPs) after some bad dice rolls by hepcat, which let me neutralize a hand of bad Europe events at the end of Early War. Hepcat had to play his bad hand which led to me popping up in Africa, but he pushed me down to 2-3 VPs. Hepcat got screwed by drawing Europe scoring again in Mid War and played it before I could take over France for a European win. That brought me to 11-12 VPs and the game ended in headline of Turn 6 when I picked up enough points in Africa to hit 20.

We played New Era of 51st State and I like the new options and bits. Hepcat built a crazy economy but I had a VP engine based on negotiation and gas buildings. I was about to slow down as hepcat took off, but had to end for the night.

Had a fairly horrible game of D&D last night. A friend of my wife's asked me to teach her, her husband, and their 10 year old daughter how to play. Also playing were my wife (who knows how to play sort of) my 16 year old daughter (who loves to play) and my 12 year old daughter (her first time playing as well). Went with fairly straightforward characters, using essentials builds for them to keep them simple.

It could have been an OK game, except for the environment. In addition to the 10 year old, they also have a 2 year old and 1 year old. So there were interruptions on top of interruptions, keeping the 1 year old happy and fed and the 2 year old wanting to be at the table playing with dice and miniatures and his sister absolutely not wanting him to be there. Plus really dim lighting at the table, so once the sun went down I could barely see the dice after I rolled them. Part of it was my fault, too, because I probably one encounter too long, but they all seemed to want to play on, so I continued.

After it was done, I had a raging headache bordering on a migraine, and went to bed right away when we got home. I think it could have been a great game if we didn't have the kid issues, because both of the adults really got into the game. Especially the husband, he was very interested in the mechanics and the like. He was kind of bored with the basic fighter that I gave him, because he didn't have as may options as the other players did, so it didn't seem as interesting to him. I'm going to build up the full 4E equivalent of a fighter and send him that in an e-mail so he could see the difference.

They're wanting to play again in the future. Not sure how I'll handle it when they ask again.

Been running solo games of New Era and 51st State....Tomorrow, though, that game hits the table.

Any tips on how to (properly) teach this game to ppl? With all the icons and all, it seems as though it is going to be a tough go. Easy game to learn, but the icons make it tough.

Honestly, 51st and New Era are best taught by example. Go through a full turn with people. Show them the Lookout Phase, then go over Production. Walk them through the list of available actions for the Action phase then explain scoring and finally help them wrap their mind around the concept that EVERYTHING goes away during clean up. Hand the new players copies of the icon and their actions, explain that solid yellow arrows underneath tokens means the action must be played, and that without the arrow underneat they just get the token.

I would only play New Era with others and keep 51st for solo play due to the icon confusion that's bound to occur if you try to switch between the games with new(ish) players.

Commonly overlooked rules:

1) Closed Production sites (the ones with factories without a slash through them on your side of the card) produce when incorporated initially. After that they produce during production.

2) You can only send workers ONCE to an opponent's location (although you can send one to each of their locations), but twice to your own (the second time costs two workers).

3) Once a player passes you cannot interact with them at all. No attacks, no negotiating, etc.. It can be a defensive move.

4) Unless the resources/items listed before the clock symbol that means storage are inside a block, you cannot put resources into that location. Usually (in New Era, at least) the cards without those blocks around the resources items are accompanied by a hand symbole that means they produce those things on incorporation and they're stored there from turn to turn until used (they don't go away during clean up).

Thanks. I am really looking forward to playing this. It is making me want to buy New Vegas.

I have a question, though. What does this mean:

"explain that solid yellow arrows underneath tokens means the action must be played, and that without the arrow underneath they just get the token."

Arrow means you can do the action immediately but the token must be spent on your next turn. I think it's going to matter only occasionally.

Take a look at your faction's action card. You'll notice that there's usually two items you can gain separated by a slash meaning "do one or the other". One of them is the token with the yellow arrow underneat it. This means you activate and do that action immediately. The other does not have the arrow underneath. That means take the token from the pile of unused ones and put it in your inventory for the turn. That way you can combine it later with another like token to extend the range, for example.

Ok....that makes sense.

Now, this is the main thing I cannot figure out....attacking another player and defending from another players attack. Could you give an example how that works from the beginning? That is really the one thing I am really uncertain about (that I know at any rate)

Thanks

It's actually very easy. Remember that red stands for attack and blue for negotiation. If the arrow on the opponent's location card you're interested in has both red and blue, it can be either attacked OR negotiated with. If only red, you can only attack.

First thing to remember is that you don't select a location in your opponents tableau to attack. You just announce your strength (in red attack tokens). Then the shootout phase begins. The defender can throw in any negative attack tokens (they're hard to get. The only way I remember offhand is through cards like Combat Vehicle.) if they have them. Then the attacker can respond with more attack tokens. After both parties pass, you figure out the final value and then the attacker can select any location within that remaining range to destroy. The card is flipped over and all tokens are moved to the base. You as the attacker receive everything listed in the red area of the card, and the defender gets everything in the blue area.

You can rebuild (NOT redevelop, they're two different things) over that debris card by selecting another card and placing it where the debris card was. you get 1 VP for the rebuild process.

Negotiate by just having enough blue contact tokens to meet the range of the negotiation arrow on the card you wish to establish trade with. Then place one of your faction tokens on the blue part of that card and tuck the "deals with another player" card under your base to remind you to check for those types of deals during production.

On Saturday, I finally played Nuns on the Run. Cute, fast. Though I was a bit annoyed that everyone else's noises got me caught.

"reCONSTRUCT" over rubble.

...and it's referred to as "debris" not rubble in the manual.

hepcat wrote:...and it's referred to as "debris" not rubble in the manual.

Hee hee hee, indeed, as there is an actual Rubble card.

well, Monday morning, my group played Cyclades twice (base game). Such a fun game. Love the theme. Have always been very interested in the Greek Mythology. At any rate, we played two games (4 players). I won the first game, and my wife (of all people!!) won the 2nd.

Right now, I am in the middle of a 5 player solo game with the entire Hades expansion (to see how well the parts play with the base game). Needless to say, I am very much looking forward to next Monday when we can hopefully get a 5 player game of it in...with the full Hades expansion.

Has anyone here played Last Night On Earth? If so, what are the pros and cons?
I mostly play games with my girlfriend but from time to time we do have friends over for game nights so how is it with 2 players and how is it with more than 2?


My love for boardgames has recently received a boost so I'm still exploring all the different games ^^. Last Night on Earth is the most recent one that caught my eye.

Since the boost my purchases have been:

Galaxy Trucker
Mansions of Madness
Race For The Galaxy
7 Wonders
Smallworld
Cargo Noir
Merchants & Marauders
King Of Tokyo


Any other games that you would recommend based on those that I already have? Games that are heavy on war strategy (like risk) isn't really our thing ^^.

Our current personal top 3 of what we have right now is:

My GF: Galaxy Trucker, Mansions of Madness and 7 Wonders/Race for the Galaxy
My top 3: Mansions of Madness, Galaxy Trucker and King Of Tokyo (and Merchants and Marauders as a very close 4th)

So that might make recommendations easier/harder ^^.

Thanks in advance!

Last Night on Earth, in my opinion, is a pretty good game. Kind of cheesy (but in a very good way) humor. It plays great with 2-5 players. One thing though, one player (or 2 players, if playing with 6 players) will be the zombies. Some do not like that, but the zombies have their own stack of cards to use. With the expansions, the zombie player has more options (like using zombies that are holding weapons!!). A friend and myself just played a game of this last Saturday. Always fun, and pretty easy to pick up and understand.

A game that I have been playing is Cyclades. Very nice looking pieces, the board is colorful, and lots going on, but very easy to understand. It is one of the games that my wife doesn't mind playing. Have only played it 2 player and 4 player (other than my 5 player solo game I have going on right now). 2 player games in Cyclades has a pretty different feel to it than more than 4. But the game is great, especially if you enjoy Greek Mythology.

Other games? I enjoy Fortune & Glory (made by the same ppl who made Last Night On Earth), Defenders of the Realm is always a hit (Richard Launius is such a great game designer, I feel), and one of our all-time favorites...Ticket to Ride (simplistic beauty of a gem).

But, honestly...the game I am most interested at the moment is Cyclades. I also have the expansion (Hades) for it which I feel adds quite a bit to the base game, especially if you are using all of the expansion. With that game, there is incredible art, great bits and pieces, really great theme and it all fits together in a great looking package that is just a good game to play.

I'll second Defenders of the Realm. It's my all-time favorite game right now, and there is a ton of developer support out on BGG for the game.

One thing to keep in mind about LNoE, no matter if you play with 2 players or with six, you always need to run 4 characters no matter how many players. So if your girlfriend doesn't want to keep track of four different characters, it may not be for you. Also, the shine of LNoE wore off pretty quickly for me (YMMV).

hentzau wrote: Also, the shine of LNoE wore off pretty quickly for me (YMMV).

same here. I haven't had the urge to play it in over a year. I have that problem with most Flying Frog games though. They're pretty but lack a lot of depth. I still love Conquest of Planet Earth though. But that's because the game is just goofy fun.

We already own Ticket to Ride but a good tip nonetheless!

Thanks for the feedback on LNOE, it helps a lot.

I just watched the review of Cyclades and it looks like a lot of fun so that's going on my list ^^. Next step is to check out Defenders of the Realm, Conquest of Planet Earth and Fortune and Glory.

IMHO, the game that works best with my wife (and the one she loves most) is the new reprint of Wiz-War. Some say it isn't as fun with 2, but I think they are crazy. We always end up laughing and cussing and sighing at all the mean things you can do!

Also, the wife loves Quarriors and will play it often. She didn't mind Nexus Ops either, which was pretty cool.

LNoE is (still) a favorite with my kids. I think it is best with 3 or 5, as that makes 1 zombie player versus the 4 heroes (either single heroes or 2 players with 2 each). Having all the expansions makes for extended playability, though with finite scenarios, some may become 'tired'. You should be able to get at least a few games with each scenario, so as long as you aren't playing it repeatedly over the weekend, it will last for a while, but will sit on the shelf after that. We haven't tried it with the Alien vs Circus crossover, perhaps thi summer. Main problem is newer games catch our attention and we play those repeatedly (star trek dbg right now, was 51st state, sure New Era will hold us for a bit)

Just got my copy of Lords of Waterdeep. Can't wait to get a game in!

Ah dammit.

There's a whole bunch of Invasion and LNoE stuff I don't have!!!

St00pid games. St00pid Wallet.

I had 20 bucks in amazon credit so I ordered 1812: The Invasion of Canada and Lords of Waterdeep today. The former because the reviewer on gameshark.com loves it and the latter because hentzau kept talking it up...and the bgg page makes it seem pretty fun.

hentzau wrote:Just got my copy of Lords of Waterdeep. Can't wait to get a game in!

MiniatureMarket shipped mine today. It looks like I will have in on Thursday. My only regret is that the insert won't hold the sleeved cards, so I may have to do a little surgery to cut that part out.

baelthazar wrote:

hentzau wrote:Just got my copy of Lords of Waterdeep. Can't wait to get a game in!

MiniatureMarket shipped mine today. It looks like I will have in on Thursday. My only regret is that the insert won't hold the sleeved cards, so I may have to do a little surgery to cut that part out.

I wouldn't worry about it. You never really hold the cards in your hand (well, except for the intrigue cards, and it's not like they're getting a lot of wear through constant re-shuffling like a DBG.) I wouldn't bother sleeving. And the insert is a thing of beauty. A place for everything, and everything in it's place!

Once again, hepcat snaps up a game before I can buy it.