Octopus Overlords

Daveman wrote:Running through the deck in Pandemic happens about as much as any other losing condition in my experience... but it's just a very frustrating way to lose, playing that long and usually being very close to winning otherwise. As for the "right" amount of players, it's harder with more. More players means the cards are spread out more, players have spend more actions to meet up and trade cards around, etc. Certain specialist types and getting lucky with players drawing the same colors will help, but that's just luck.

We played our first session of Pandemic this weekend, too. Playing on beginner, 4 player, the player deck got us the first game, but we got super lucky and won easily the second game.

Played my first game of Merchants and Marauders last night and it's tremendous fun. It looked pretty complicated initially, but it's really not that bad -- it's just all the decks give it that great random element and tons of options (not unlike Eldritch Horror). With only two captains, the navy and pirates are a real issue as they're constantly bouncing around the map, but overall I really enjoyed the game. Ours ended when the encounter deck ran out, but I have to believe with 3 or 4 people playing someone is bound to hit 10 glory first. I'm still not 100% clear on the ship-to-ship combat but I think it's just a matter of getter more play time in. Not a cheap game to purchase, but definitely one I can see making it to the table often.

Smoove_B wrote:Played my first game of Merchants and Marauders last night and it's tremendous fun. It looked pretty complicated initially, but it's really not that bad -- it's just all the decks give it that great random element and tons of options (not unlike Eldritch Horror). With only two captains, the navy and pirates are a real issue as they're constantly bouncing around the map, but overall I really enjoyed the game. Ours ended when the encounter deck ran out, but I have to believe with 3 or 4 people playing someone is bound to hit 10 glory first. I'm still not 100% clear on the ship-to-ship combat but I think it's just a matter of getter more play time in. Not a cheap game to purchase, but definitely one I can see making it to the table often.

To clear up the ship to ship combat, just run like 3 combats without actually playing the game. It gets pretty clear after the second one.

And four players definitely makes for a more enjoyable game. When you have four players, and four galleons out hunting, and a pirate ship...that map gets pretty crowded.

I think that's all we need - just a few more actual ship-to-ship rounds. The few times it happened, we both pressed to board immediately and initiate crew combat as it was to the advantage of the aggressor to do so. I'd actually liberated a slave ship and obtained a free galleon but was then hunted by a Dutch frigate...which proceeded to out-roll me. Once again, dice hate me.

My biggest issue with Merchants and Marauders was the clunky tiles under the NPC ships. I commented to my buddy that it would be pretty easy to figure out some type of magnet / metal strip flag scenario to try and make the ships easier to not only move around but not block the map text.

So today he just forwards me this picture from BGG -



Apparently we have a winter painting project en route...

PLW wrote:

Daveman wrote:Running through the deck in Pandemic happens about as much as any other losing condition in my experience... but it's just a very frustrating way to lose, playing that long and usually being very close to winning otherwise. As for the "right" amount of players, it's harder with more. More players means the cards are spread out more, players have spend more actions to meet up and trade cards around, etc. Certain specialist types and getting lucky with players drawing the same colors will help, but that's just luck.

We played our first session of Pandemic this weekend, too. Playing on beginner, 4 player, the player deck got us the first game, but we got super lucky and won easily the second game.

@ Daveman: I think the base game is four players max. Maybe the expansions up that?

@ PLW: I think if had four epidemics we would have lost too.

On the Brink adds a 5th player and a 5th disease.

My son and I have played two games of Battlelore 2nd edition and we really like it. The greatest improvement to me over the original and Memoir 44 is the shift to victory points from objective locations/goals vs. unit elimination. You don't get points for destroying units, but destroying them or pushing them back remains important when you want to occupy a certain location for points, or need to occupy more hilltops than your opponent and so on.

The game has a sort of random scenario creation system. Each of the two factions in the game come with 7 scenario cards that detail how to setup terrain on your half of the map, possible locations for troop deployment, points on the map either player can hold for points, and a specific goal for you alone that can score points too. Each player chooses one card, sets up the board and then builds an army, or uses one of a few prebuilt ones. So you've got 49 different setups out of the box.

It also has a lot more fantasy feel to it than the original, and each faction has unit abilities that are notably different. It doesn't have the customizable Command Tent feature, but each faction has their own different deck of Lore cards to use that augments the standard command cards.

My one complaint is that the amount of miniatures they give you limits your army building. Each faction has 5 unit types: infantry, archer, cavalry, an elite infantry and a legendary unit. They give you enough to make 5 each infantry and archer which isn't bad, but only enough for 3 cavalry, 2 elites, and a single legendary unit. With the standard 50 point army limit, there's still a lot of room to customize, but I would like more cavalry and elites... but that seems to follow the FFG trend of pushing multiple "core sets".

I'm hoping this takes off for them though. I'm not too familiar with the Runebound universe they're using, but I gather there's plenty of other factions they could come up with, and plenty they could add to the existing two. Spellcasters and siege weapons would be a great start!

That's good to hear as my buddy apparently lost his grip on reality and ordered like 5 new games over the last two weeks - Battlelore 2nd ed. was one of them.

Played Caverna yesterday and today with the wife. I am very pleased, as it fixes a lot of what was wrong with Agricola. For example, you no longer need specialized buildings to turn resources (animals and crops) into food, so some pressure to waste time getting things like the fireplace is gone. Buildings have tight uses and you should plan ahead as you develop and furnish. No more random card draws leading to OP hands, and the only random elements are the order of the action cards and harvests (a mechanic I like). You have to harvest more but it is easier to get food.

Compared to Agricola, Caverna feels lightning fast, with the end coming very quickly. You also can rely on a simple more population is more points strategy (dwarf discs are only worth one point). All in all, a great game!

An inebriated fiancee lost Letters from Whitechapel last night halfway through Night 2. She moved out on too big a loop to draw me off, then had only one path left to her to get home in seven moves. Which just happened to start with having to move through a cop, and she had already used both of her coaches.

Jack's losing streak continues.

Isgrimnur wrote:An inebriated fiancee lost Letters from Whitechapel last night halfway through Night 2. She moved out on too big a loop to draw me off, then had only one path left to her to get home in seven moves. Which just happened to start with having to move through a cop, and she had already used both of her coaches.

Jack's losing streak continues.

I got my copy but haven't removed the shrink yet. The really good news is I think this game will be easy to play an enhanced play by forum, much more automated than the Formula D game. I just have to find some time to learn some more java to make it work. it may be an opportunity for you as well once I get a design solidified.

The thought had definitely crossed my mind, as the board looks just like a network diagram to me.

Forgot how easy it is to be hosed by quest draws in Waterderp. I was out of the running by the third round in the game we just played. Spent a ton of resources early getting a quest that would give me two black cubes whenever I took a skullduggery quest. Proceeded to spend literally half the game waiting for another skullduggery quest to turn up. This was with taking the flush all faceup quests space regularly.

Chaz wrote:Forgot how easy it is to be hosed by quest draws in Waterderp.

Wow, a thread about Robinson Crusoe on BGG has managed to sum up what I've come to dislike about that place in one post (bolded for emphasis):

Dark_Knight wrote:Couldn't agree with you more....your #1 and #2 points were the same as mine and then when I read, as you did, that all the author wants is for us to have fun-who really cares about the exact rules-mine went on the chopping block....

...however this seems to be a board-gaming trend that I am noticing....the rules seem not so important anymore, having fun, cool miniatures, great artwork, theme....all seem to be starting to trump the actual game....guess I'm getting old.

mavo wrote:Interesting thread, and I really wonder that it is the almost only negative one. I played twice now, and I am near to selling the game.

Why:
- bad/unclear rules
- too much luck (something I might discuss in a different thread)

And now I understand why all games from the designer which I tried were frustrating for me, quote from designer:

As long as you have fun, you play it right.

That's not what I want. Ok for those who can do this, but I cannot. I want a clear ruleset. That's where the games from the designer (the ones I played) fail in my opinion (tried Neuroshima Hex and Stronghold before). No offense intended, but had I known before how problems with a game are considered, I would not have bought the game.

Wow, how dare the designers allow all that fun to get in the way of RULES. Rules, after all, are obviously the reason you would play a game. Having fun just tends to get in the way of that.

I get that bad or unclear rules can get in the way, but fun should be the point, and rules should be worked around in the name of fun.

Ignacy was at Gencon and he struck me as a designer who puts a lot of thought into his games. I personally rank him in my top 2 game designer list thanks to the wonderful 51st State/New Era series and a really fantastic little game he made on a lark called Convoy which takes a really simple mechanic and just layers in some quite deep gameplay choices. Add to that Robinson Crusoe (which sells out rather quickly for such a horrible game) as well.

He does have issues with his rule books, but when English is your third or fourth language, I can't take him to task all that much. Besides, I tend to blame companies like Z-Man and Toy Vault who badly translate them when they do find their way to tables with English speaking players.

And yes, Ignacy can view his rules as malleable...but that's usually because power players are going to try and find ways to exploit every semantic possibility they can find. I've had players argue the definition of "your" for a half an hour or more. Hell, I've argued over it myself. But I don't throw up my hands and give up on a game that's fun in all other areas.

And some folks hate luck in their games, which is fine. This isn't the game for you then. But to try and tell people the game is broken because of it is ridiculous.

Ignacy does a great job working theme into his big picture game design. Sometimes he's brilliant once you get into the spirit/mindset of the design. But I can see how a min/max gamer would have problems accepting the details in his style. Part of it is translation, but some comes from his assumptions of how gamers will play the game.

I say this as someone who hepcat gets frustrated with when discussing game rules.

I think that's one of my biggest loves when it comes to his games. When you think about what you're doing when playing an Ignacy game, you stop seeing it as an abstraction and you get into the story of the game. I believe that's his strongest talent as a game designer. I love my GMT games and my heavier historical recreation games, but sometimes it's nice to worry less about the mechanics of a game and just get swept away by the theme.

Side note: I just noticed that coolstuffinc has Robinson Crusoe in stock...for 10 bucks over retail. They're not engendering a lot of good will with crap like that, I imagine.

As long as they send me the copy I preordered for $55 I am good with it. Even better, if they want to sell my copy for $90 and send me the difference I am good with that too.

I got a copy of Mousquetaires du Roy staring me in the face, daring me to try and decipher it's rules. Looks like it's perfect for me...semi-co-op, and a Musketeer's theme. But my brain hurts tonight.

Maybe tomorrow...

I have that game...and I did not like it, at all.

Played a couple of games of Forbidden Desert last night. This is the sequel to the popular Forbidden Island game from the creator of Pandemic.

Forbidden Desert shares the same overall gameplay mechanics as Forbidden Island, but it's much more than a re-skin. You play as adventurers who crash landed in a desert and must recover four parts to a flying machine in order to escape. As in FI, everyone has a role, and the game board is made up of modular tiles.

The key difference here is the sandstorm mechanic. Every turn a sandstorm kicks up and starts blowing tiles around and piling sand onto tiles. Tiles with two or more sand piles are blocked and can't be landed on or crossed. You also have Sun Beats Down cards that force you to drink a unit of water, so the threat of dehydration is ever present as well.

All in all it's very accessible for fans of Forbidden Island, but so far seems to be more difficult. We did win a game with two players on Normal, but got our asses kicked with three. The game has the same high quality components and game tin as FI, and at the same super affordable price ( I got it for under $25). It's a steal for that, and a really fun, quick game when you don't have a lot of time or just want something light to warm up with on game night.

My only complaint is that moving the tiles around every turn can get a little time consuming, but there's no denying it makes for some entertaining scenarios. In the game we won last night we got blocked from getting back to the launch pad by sand dunes and both had no water left. We wound up holing up in a tunnel trying to survive until the winds blew our way and opened up a path.

We followed that up with a game of Gloom, which I had on my wish list after seeing it on Tabletop. Lots of fun, I really liked this one. We only had two people though, and I think it probably plays better with three or more. Still, we went the whole nine yards and made up stories of what had befallen our characters which really made for some good laughs.

The last game of the evening was Cards Against Humanity, and well.....enough said.

Funny coincidence... Forbidden Desert is the topic of today's Penny Arcade.

I think the greatest improvement in Forbidden Desert over Forbidden Island is that in FI, you're moving around the board shoring things up while hoping for good card draws and/or meeting up with others to "reveal" where the treasures are. In FD, moving around the board and clearing away dunes is how you reveal where the treasures are. It just feels a lot more like exploring than drawing cards.

MythicalMino wrote:I have that game...and I did not like it, at all.

Yay.

Well, I'm going to do a solo learning game this afternoon. Won't be able to get a full game in until next week, post my impressions after that.

hey, you may very well enjoy it. Some ppl do...I just know that I did not care much at all for it. Maybe I didn't give it enough of a chance...who knows...but I know I didn't like it much at all.

The ongoing saga of Robinson Crusoe continues. CSI got some copies in the other day, priced them at $65 ($10 over what they were selling them for in the first shipment), sold through them in 45 minutes. Yesterday and today, they've gotten new batches in, which they've been selling for $90, $10 over MSRP, and they're selling out the door.

I think I'm done ordering anything from CSI in the future. I don't mind them making a profit on a hot game, and selling at MSRP should still net them a tidy profit over and above their usual discount pricing profit margin. Pushing it up yet another $10 over MSRP is just kind of a crummy thing to do. Yes, they're certainly within their rights to do it, and the market is obviously willing to bear the price (which boggles my brain, but that's another story), but I don't feel right ordering from them any longer.

This whole thing is just hilarious to me. First, zman lost my interest in the game itself due to their inability to print enough to meet the demand, and then CSI lost me as a customer by essentially turning into scalpers. Oh well.

I have an incredible amount of respect for you guys that support vendors like CSI in purchasing board games but I've yet to find better deals than through Amazon Prime. Yes, there are still scalpers on Amazon, but they're usually pushed out quick as reasonable vendors (or Amazon themselves) take over responsibility for fulfillment.

CSI haven't lost me as a customer but I don't turn there first. I turn there when a sale catches my eye. Mostly because CSI seem to stock mainly whatever the hot game used to be. They don't carry a large variety of games and they are usually out of stock of whatever the hot game is. I always order $100 worth of games to get free shipping when a sale catches my eye and I have surprisingly hard time coming up with $100 worth of games when I order from them. I always seem to run down a laundry list of:

don't carry
don't carry
out of stock
don't carry
out of stock
out of stock
out of stock

I've actually come to prefer Amazon too, when I can find a game I want through them. They're starting to stock more, but there are still holes in their catalog, and it usually takes them quite a bit longer to stock new releases than dedicated board game sites. For example, Crusoe has showed up (and sold right out again) at several game sites, but hasn't made an appearance on Amazon aside from sites selling for a huge markup.

I've been talking to work about purchasing an Amazon Prime sub for me. If they do then I'll probably start looking there.

Chaz wrote:I've actually come to prefer Amazon too, when I can find a game I want through them.

Ditto. They're my first check these days. When I factor in the free shipping for my prime account versus what it would cost me with shipping from another online retailer like CSI, I usually find Amazon to be competitive. However, they are really bad at pre-orders and availability of smaller game makers stuff.

Just FYI, my experience ordering Caverna from CLS via the BGG marketplace was very smooth. Good communication, fast shipping (got to me in no time) and cheaper than CSI's price for Caverna.

baelthazar wrote:Just FYI, my experience ordering Caverna from CLS via the BGG marketplace was very smooth. Good communication, fast shipping (got to me in no time) and cheaper than CSI's price for Caverna.

CLS?

Played a few games of castle panic this week. Tried it once with the base game but quickly added the wizard tower expansion for the next two games. Pretty fun game. Not my favorite co-op but a nice change of pace.

My Pathfinder group had two players unavailable tonight, so we went with some boardgames I'd had in the car. We played King of Tokyo. It was the first time any of us had played, so the game didn't really 'catch' us as we were all still getting the feel of it. The winner won as last man standing - and I was the first to die.

We followed with four games of Tsuro with myself and one other player, which was very well liked. I won twice, then we both lost two.

RMC wrote:

baelthazar wrote:Just FYI, my experience ordering Caverna from CLS via the BGG marketplace was very smooth. Good communication, fast shipping (got to me in no time) and cheaper than CSI's price for Caverna.

CLS?

CLS Games in Atlanta, GA. They have a listing in darn near every BGG marketplace when you look at individual games.

My 10-year-old is really into Combat Commander now, and we've played two scenarios already this snowed-in weekend.

He won three of our last six games, so now I'm taking the gloves off.

Played another two games of Pandemic. Lost one and then won the next one on the last turn. Still tons of fun.