Octopus Overlords

SpaceLord wrote:

hentzau wrote:I'm a big fan of M&M. You can really tell it was a labor of love. I was planning on introducing it to the guys tonight, but one of my gaming crew is not available so I think I'm going to wait.

M&M is really a good game. His newer game, Clash of Cultures knocked the "dudes on a map" Civ-style game out of the park. hepcat's favorite reviewer, Michael Barnes, called it a masterpiece in his recent review. I highly suggest anyone who likes Civ-building computer game check out Clash.

I think there's an acronym problem going on here. The M&M being discussed in the last few comments is Mice & Mystics, designed by Jerry Hawthorne. Clash of Cultures was designed by Christian Marcussen, who also designed Merchants & Marauders, but had nothing to do with Mice & Mystics.

The Barnes review of Clash of Cultures certainly made me more interested in picking it up. I just know I have a lot of games already, and I'm not sure I have room for another dudes on a map game.

Merchants and Marauders, as a side note, is just an all around excellent game that I can't get enough of. I bought it for Redwarlord for Christmas and I always insist we play when I visit him and his wife.

Yeah, I'd have bought Clash of Cultures by now if Miniature Market still had it in stock. I've read nothing but great things about it, and I'm a huge fan of Merchants and Marauders. I've even heard that Clash of Cultures plays well as a 2-player game, which makes it doubly appealing to me.

I was just at one of our local game shops at lunch, and lo...there was Clash of Cultures on the shelf for $79.99. Ordinarily I'd never pay full price for that expensive a game, but I'm tempted.

SpaceLord wrote:

hentzau wrote:I'm a big fan of M&M. You can really tell it was a labor of love. I was planning on introducing it to the guys tonight, but one of my gaming crew is not available so I think I'm going to wait.

M&M is really a good game. His newer game, Clash of Cultures knocked the "dudes on a map" Civ-style game out of the park. hepcat's favorite reviewer, Michael Barnes, called it a masterpiece in his recent review. I highly suggest anyone who likes Civ-building computer game check out Clash.

Not Merchants and Marauders. Mice and Mystics.

Chaz wrote:

SpaceLord wrote:

hentzau wrote:I'm a big fan of M&M. You can really tell it was a labor of love. I was planning on introducing it to the guys tonight, but one of my gaming crew is not available so I think I'm going to wait.

M&M is really a good game. His newer game, Clash of Cultures knocked the "dudes on a map" Civ-style game out of the park. hepcat's favorite reviewer, Michael Barnes, called it a masterpiece in his recent review. I highly suggest anyone who likes Civ-building computer game check out Clash.

I think there's an acronym problem going on here. The M&M being discussed in the last few comments is Mice & Mystics, designed by Jerry Hawthorne. Clash of Cultures was designed by Christian Marcussen, who also designed Merchants & Marauders, but had nothing to do with Mice & Mystics.

The Barnes review of Clash of Cultures certainly made me more interested in picking it up. I just know I have a lot of games already, and I'm not sure I have room for another dudes on a map game.

Every time I see M&M and henzau I think Merchants and Marauders. I blame him entirely.

I blame him because he taught and hooked me on Merchants and Marauders (which is another good game we do not play enough of....which makes me think that these Octocon trips are actually costing me a substantial amount more than a surface look would suggest due to number of games purchased due to them...Merchants and Marauders, Defenders, Spartacus, Eclipse, Dungeon Lords, etc.....).

Remus West wrote:.Merchants and Marauders, Defenders, Spartacus, Eclipse, Dungeon Lords.....).

...penicillin

Remus West wrote:I blame him because he taught and hooked me on Merchants and Marauders (which is another good game we do not play enough of....which makes me think that these Octocon trips are actually costing me a substantial amount more than a surface look would suggest due to number of games purchased due to them...Merchants and Marauders, Defenders, Spartacus, Eclipse, Dungeon Lords, etc.....).

You bought Agricola because I did and I bought it because of OctoCon.

It could be worse. You could be chaosraven. I own a bunch of stuff because of OctoCon. He owns a bunch of stuff because of OctoCon. He owns a bunch stuff because I own a bunch of stuff because of OctoCon.

And it could be worse. You could be chaosaven.... No follow up excuse...


Also, given how little I game (nor even have human contact) nowadays, OctoCon, when I make it, is largely my outlet to try new games. I keep telling myself I am going to make it to.... AAGG, Canton League Board Gaming, Plymouth Game Night, Game night at Pandeamonium, fun4all game night and I do exactly none of them.

hepcat wrote:<ears perk up> What's that you say? Barnes' loves it? Hmmmm....methinks this is now on my radar.

I must have glossed over that review somehow as I tend to follow his columns on a weekly basis.

Through the Ages is still my #1 game, but I'll probably play Clash more now because it's more accessible, and less abstracted, and shorter. They're different enough to have both, for sure.

Boudreaux wrote:Yeah, I'd have bought Clash of Cultures by now if Miniature Market still had it in stock. I've read nothing but great things about it, and I'm a huge fan of Merchants and Marauders. I've even heard that Clash of Cultures plays well as a 2-player game, which makes it doubly appealing to me.

I was just at one of our local game shops at lunch, and lo...there was Clash of Cultures on the shelf for $79.99. Ordinarily I'd never pay full price for that expensive a game, but I'm tempted.

Clash of Culture (hee hee, CoC), is an EXCELLENT game and pretty much my favorite Civ-style boardgame. I think I could even get my wife to play it, if I eased her into the game, as it is fairly simple and intuitive. Actions are limited per turn, which means that everything you do is important (or needs to be). It isn't a "military always wins" game either - you can just as easily never go on campaign and turtle up with culture and commerce and do fine (which I like, as it give more options). One of my favorite wins was based on my controlling the seas and extorting money from my unwilling opponents via my trade technology.

You do need to be careful, however, as CoC has all sorts of little rules and exceptions that are not always easy to notice. It isn't overly complicated, just tech often has fine-print limitations and you are forced to remember certain aspects - such as the size of your cities cannot grow past your number of cities - without any player aids to help. Nothing sucks worse than getting whipped by your opponent with his size four city that he has had for several turns, only to look at the board and say "umm... you couldn't have built that size four city, as you only have three cities on the map..."

Can nnyone who played WoW/WoG and X-Wing tell me - are they basically the same rule set, only with slight differences for Sci-Fi versus real?

Also, I really want to get City of Remnants, rather than Mice & Mystics... but those mouse figurines are just SOOO tempting and I think painting roaches will be fun!

baelthazar wrote:Clash of Culture (hee hee, CoC), is an EXCELLENT game and pretty much my favorite Civ-style boardgame. I think I could even get my wife to play it, if I eased her into the game, as it is fairly simple and intuitive. Actions are limited per turn, which means that everything you do is important (or needs to be). It isn't a "military always wins" game either - you can just as easily never go on campaign and turtle up with culture and commerce and do fine (which I like, as it give more options). One of my favorite wins was based on my controlling the seas and extorting money from my unwilling opponents via my trade technology.

You're not helping.

Sure I am...

If I want to you to buy the game...

So this last week, I picked up Pax Porfiriana, a heavy card game by niche game designer/rocket scientist Phil Eklund. It's a reworking of his legendary Lords of the Sierra Madre game, first published in 1988.



Thematically, the game is really unique. Each player plays a hacendado, a wealthy, powerful figure during the reign of Porfirana Diaz, who was overthrown in the Mexican Revolution. There’s 6 different hacedados, and all have different traits. All 207 cards are unique, and almost all have flavor text, and authentic, period-style art and photographs:



There’s a row of 12 cards, and players buy and play cards from this row. They can buy ranches, mines, gun shops, can bribe or assassinate public figures. The card above is a Troop card, and gives the controlling player a Revolution point. These guys spread unrest in Sonora(one of 3 provinces), and cause the regime to switch to Anarchy. There’s 4 of these regimes: Anarchy, Pax P, Martial Law, and U.S. Intervention. Each of the regimes has several effects: During Anarchy, for example, Mines and Banks produce terrible profits, but troops can move between the locations freely.

Each player is trying to gain the most points in one of four areas: Loyalty, Command, Revolution, or Outrage. These four areas also correspond directly with the 4 regimes: Pax P, Martial Law, Anarchy, and U.S. Intervention respectively. There’s 4 scoring cards in the deck, called Topple Cards. If any one player has the most points in the correct category during a Topple, they win. For example, the card above gives 1 Revolution point to the controller. If a Topple card is purchased during Anarchy, then this point of Revolution will count for this player. If the player has 3 more Rev. points than the two weakest players in Rev, they immediately win the game.

Me and a buddy tried it out last night, and had a blast. The theme shines through brightly, and it’s easy to get into character. I mean, what other game lets Emiliano Zapata extort an ostrich farm, only to be thwarted by the Pinkertons?

I’m excited to play again! The game plays 2-5, and there’s an included solo variant.

I was JUST looking at that at my FLGS 2 weeks ago thinking it looked cool. Thanks for the review. It looks like another one for me to check out.

Played 3 games of Zombicide. Enjoying that one more and more every time I play it. But now that the table is cleared of that game, now I can go back to Sentinels of the Multiverse!!

Oh, and I finally went ahead and purchased Conquest of Planet Earth (plus the expansion), and that should arrive Friday.

Upcoming games that I want us (my kids and I):

1. Battlestar Galactica (was not really done with that one when I put it away)
2. King of Tokyo (just a fun easy game to play)
3. Wallenstein (not sure my kids would really be able to get into this one...but I know that my official group would, plus, I have yet to play it)
4. Asgard (Another game that I am not so sure my kids would be able to get into...but, my official group would)
5. Kemet (we have only played about half a game of this...but everyone loved it when we did.)

coop hasn't ever brought his Zombicide game out in public when I've been present, so I still have no clue about how good it might be.

for me, at first, I really did not like it all that much...and I preferred Zpocalypse.

BUT

having now played it several times, I believe I enjoy Zombicide much more than Zpocalypse, and it is my go-to game now for a zombie themed game

Got in a full game of Flashpoint last night using the advanced rules. It does really help round out the game over the basic rules.

We won, and I thought we had won very easily, until I noticed that we were one explosion away from losing the game when we rescued the last person we needed to win.

Yeah, without the advanced rules, Flashpoint isn't terribly fun. But when you're playing the full game, it becomes a nail biting experience if you're paying attention to what's going on around you. It's still in my top 5 (near the top) coop games and I can't wait for the next expansion, which just finished its kickstarter.

hentzau wrote:We won, and I thought we had won very easily, until I noticed that we were one explosion away from losing the game when we rescued the last person we needed to win.

Since there is a pretty significant random factor some games are very easy... but yes, one bad "fire spreads" roll can spell disaster.

Isgrimnur wrote:coop hasn't ever brought his Zombicide game out in public when I've been present, so I still have no clue about how good it might be.

Well I have both Zombicide and Zpocalypse... if I can ever get to another board game meetup we can play both and heck we might even get some Memoir 44 in while we are at it. The May DGM is the weekend of my son's birthday party... maybe June? I need to work out some other options as I am NOT getting my required board game fix.

Tuesday nights in Richardson and Thursday nights at the DGM location.

I missed this month because I needed to keep working on moving my crap piecemeal over to the new place. Next month, I'll probably be getting the movers around then, so June might be my next weekend as well. At least we know we have November to look forward to.

And thanks to Spacelord, I just came home with a copy of Pax Porfiriana. The amount of stuff they jam into that little box for 35 bucks is incredible. The rules (which I read online before buying) give me hope that this is a tableau version of Twilight Struggle in a sense. Can't wait to play!

hepcat wrote:And thanks to Spacelord, I just came home with a copy of Pax Porfiriana. The amount of stuff they jam into that little box for 35 bucks is incredible. The rules (which I read online before buying) give me hope that this is a tableau version of Twilight Struggle in a sense. Can't wait to play!

Actually, that's a damn good analogy. I'm going to try it again this week.

There's a solo variant included in the rules I may try. My game time is severely limited until the weekend after next.

hepcat wrote:There's a solo variant included in the rules I may try. My game time is severely limited until the weekend after next.

Chaosraven and I have been playing a lot of Red Dead Redemption on the xbox. We do the multiplayer. It is a lot of fun to do with your friends who do not live close enough to get together regularly.

Oh man, I'm sorry. I just can't seem to motivate myself to play console games lately. The last 6 months or so it's all about PC gaming for me. But I'll try to break out of that slump!

SpaceLord wrote:

hepcat wrote:And thanks to Spacelord, I just came home with a copy of Pax Porfiriana. The amount of stuff they jam into that little box for 35 bucks is incredible. The rules (which I read online before buying) give me hope that this is a tableau version of Twilight Struggle in a sense. Can't wait to play!

Actually, that's a damn good analogy. I'm going to try it again this week.

Got in an impromptu game last night of Pax Porfiriana. Wow, this game is deep. I had a hacendado who's ability was purchasing partners from the market at half price, while seppe had one that gave him the ability to buy orange (read: attack) cards from the market at the same discount.

He started attacking almost immediately, and I soon found my ranch shut down due to the unrest he added via various groups he sent against it, and my hacendado was jailed to boot (making his revolutionary rating jump). I only saw one troop come into play during our game, so I couldn't build up a defense. Fortunately, the revolution topple card showed up a few turns after this. It gave a negative one to Diaz's revolution rating if played during an Anarchy regime. All those cards Seppe played against me had given me a few revolution points, so it was fate. I was able to play it and win by one revolution point during an anarchy regime.

We thought about it afterwards, worried it was too easy to win without trying, but we realized thematically that it made perfect sense. Seppe had been slowly turning me into a revolutionary through his attacks. He could have either attacked himself to create straw man revolutionaries (I LOVE that aspect of the game...what nefarious regime HASN'T staged fake incidents to boost their profile/public approval?) and give himself some revolution points in the process, or grabbed the topple card before me and played it for the side that wouldn't have reduced Diaz's revolution rating during a topple event. Building up your economy is nice, but it's only good if you're one of those who wins a topple event.

Honestly, this game is one of the most impressive card games I've come across in a long time. And I've been playing a ton of the excellent Small Box Games creations. But Pax is just in a league all by itself. It's like someone took the best mechanics from Twilight Struggle, 51st State and Through the Ages and combined them into a heavily thematic gem of a game.

And heck, we didn't even get to extort anyone using troops, or even use a public card. There's a LOT of mileage in this game.

p.s. can I just add that the way the economy is handled is just sublime? headline cards have either a bull or a bear in the corner. when played (or reaching the zero slot in the market after the market is refilled from the draw deck) they are discarded to a special discard pile. if a bear is discarded on top of another bear, a depression occurs and the economy of everyone just tanks. when two bulls are played, the depression ends. players can actually control the economy if they want using this mechanic. it's just genius, in my opinion.

I bought Wiz-War a few weeks ago on a whim and I think it took the #1 spot for the time being. It can be non-confrontational if your group likes that but can also be a free-for-all PVP game. In the 4 times I have played it has been a very carefully played FFA. There is some cheap jabs taken at each other as well as lots of running away.

I also recently bought Panic Station and Lost Cities. I have yet to read the instructions for either but I am very excited to play Panic Station. This game really appeals to me, anyone can be the "spy". Inducing pure paranoia. Also after watching The Resistance on TableTop it looks like a must buy as well.

Yep PaxP is the real deal!! Really enjoy that game. We played yesterday and lost to a stupid loyalist because we were too busy trying to make money (which is NOT how to win the game, who knew?) and didn't pay enough attention. Can't wait to play again.

Sooo, did you like it, hep?

Was the Topple card that won you the game the first one that appeared? I’ve heard that most early games end the same way. Did Seppe know that if the current regime isn’t Anarchy, you couldn’t have won by buying the Topple card? I saw after my first game that a good strategy to keep an opponent from winning is to hold a card in hand to quickly change the regime in an emergency.

And did you have to flip your hacendado to get the last Rev. point? From my one play, I see that it’s a key strategy in advanced games to force an opponent to flip their card early, since it does two things: Takes away 2 easy gold a turn, and makes them choose a faction color. It’s a *big* consideration, since it can force a massive discard of Partners and Troops during any Strife.

Since the tracking of the 4 types of VP is so key, I've whipped up this game status chart that can go in the center of the table:



Each player places one of their cubes in each row, and adjusts their income/points at the end of each of their turns. For my copy, I scavenged some larger cubes from other games, and add those cubes to count as value 2, or as speculation cubes.

I'm even more excited to play this again.

SpaceLord wrote: Was the Topple card that won you the game the first one that appeared? I’ve heard that most early games end the same way. Did Seppe know that if the current regime isn’t Anarchy, you couldn’t have won by buying the Topple card?

Yup, first topple card. Just to be clear, you're saying that seppe could've changed the regime type (before I played the topple card) and thus negated the -1 to Diaz's revolution rating, right? because as I understand, a topple takes place no matter what. once played, it can't be stopped. the only options at that point are to flip your hacendado and/or flip the topple card to the edge stating that Diaz gets no bonus. a tripartite still has to be formed for each player and the results of the topple attempt checked.

But a topple card CAN make its way to the zero column and head to the bull/bear discard pile with no effect taking place, just like a regular headline card in the zero column during market reset.

that's how we were playing it last night.

and yes, this game is a keeper. really, really enjoyed it.

hepcat wrote:

SpaceLord wrote: Was the Topple card that won you the game the first one that appeared? I’ve heard that most early games end the same way. Did Seppe know that if the current regime isn’t Anarchy, you couldn’t have won by buying the Topple card?

Yup, first topple card. Just to be clear, you're saying that seppe could've changed the regime type (before I played the topple card) and thus negated the -1 to Diaz's revolution rating, right? because as I understand, a topple takes place no matter what. once played, it can't be stopped. the only options at that point are to flip your hacendado and/or flip the topple card to the edge stating that Diaz gets no bonus. a tripartite still has to be formed for each player and the results of the topple attempt checked.

But a topple card CAN make its way to the zero column and head to the bull/bear discard pile with no effect taking place, just like a regular headline card in the zero column during market reset.

that's how we were playing it last night.

and yes, this game is a keeper. really, really enjoyed it.

The current regime determines the type of topple. If I have lots of points in Loyalty, those aren't counted if the current regime is Martial Law, it's only all players' command points. The 4 topple cards effectively have only 2 statistics: Whether they give a penalty to the "defense" of Diaz, and their bull/bear symbol.

That's how we played it. Sorry for the confusion. When a topple card appears, you flip the current regime card to determine what prestige type is used in the tripartite. Some of the topple cards give you a bonus (actually a negative to Diaz, really) if the current regime type matches the regime listed on the topple card. The topple I played yesterday was to the effect of "if the current regime is anarchy, -1 to Diaz revolution" which was enough to give me the win (the anarchy regime was in effect). If Seppe had had a chance to play it before me, he could've played it to the side that essentially says no bonus/minus to anything...but the topple still would've occurred.

This thread helped me finally understand it yesterday.

p.s. hmmm...i see there's a vassal version available.

Great... another game for me to look at...

BTW, the iPad version of Eclipse should be inbound in the next week or so. Very exciting news for me, who sold the physical copy as "too fiddly and too long" but who loved the game concept (and needed AI players).

I'm really on the fence about grabbing X-Wing. Those models look SO COOL but I just don't know if I can really get deep into it (first, I'm unwilling to spend the amount probably needed to build a decent army). But... it... is... Star Wars...

If Eclipse is "too fiddly and too long" for you, I don't have much hope that you'll like X-Wing. It is Star Wars and a miniature game, but Eclipse was my 2012 game of the year.

Played a 4 player Kemet game last night. I loved the board with all players being equidistant from the start. This game could play pretty fast with experienced players. I almost won with the first attempt. Lost within one worker placement round.

Zarathud wrote:If Eclipse is "too fiddly and too long" for you, I don't have much hope that you'll like X-Wing. It is Star Wars and a miniature game, but Eclipse was my 2012 game of the year.

I do not see the comparison at all. X-Wing should only take 45 minutes, right? Our games of Eclipse took 4-6 hours. Yes, I know that is way over the normal amount, but it is what it is. I mean fiddly in that we were not particularly enthusiastic about the use of the discs and cubes. Not only that, but I was constantly having to remind my two other players of the minutia. If I want a game like that, I would much rather play Clash of Cultures. And if I want epic space, I find Twilight Imperium to be far more rewarding.

That is not to say I did not like Eclipse. I just think having it in a digital format will make it a TON more enjoyable for me. As I am always the rules policeman, having the program deal with the rules is a breath of fresh air.

My x-wing games rarely only take 45 minutes. Especially if you include fleet building. Awesome game but played to completion a match can easily take over an hour. Not 4-6 unless using very large fleets but I've never had a 45 minute 100 point game.

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baelthazar wrote:I do not see the comparison at all. X-Wing should only take 45 minutes, right? Our games of Eclipse took 4-6 hours.

SHOULD take, maybe. It depends on how deep you go, and how many of the expansions you incorporate. Most of our games of X-Wing have been at least an hour, and those are with smaller 50-point groups.

I've heard of people playing games with 100-pt or 200-pt fleets that lasted 4+ hours. Given the steps involved with selecting movement, moving ships, shooting, using special abilities, etc., I can easily see big games going this long. This is a big reason why I've felt little desire to go much beyond the base game - I prefer the smaller tactical 2-on-2-ish battles that are over fairly quickly.

I believe that at the last Octocon, X-Wing was being played in shifts.