OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 12:28 am

Played a great Twilight Struggle with hepcat this weekend. I was the USSR and hepcat was the US, but hepcat took the lead in Early War and started pulling ahead in the space race. Before and after the MidWar deck shuffle, I was able to force him into -1 ops on each phase for 2 full turns in a row. After catching up with that advantage, I Quagmired him after scoring high in both Central and South America in the same turn. That stopped him for a few phases and put me into a strong position. hepcat came back in Asia but I was able to dominate the Middle East going into the Late War. I was able to score 20 points on the Headline Phase of Turn 10, but hepcat was planning on making a big push to score Europe. I love how the game turns feel like history unfolding before you.

Next time, I'll have to play the US and try to avoid the analysis paralysis a little more. I'll probably get a little less lucky with the Events next time.

We also played a game of Ascension that ended up a surprisingly small amount of combat opportunities. I'm waiting for the expansion to open up more combos.

Boudreaux · Post by **Boudreaux** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 12:58 am

Zarathud wrote:Played a great Twilight Struggle with hepcat this weekend. I was the USSR and hepcat was the US, but hepcat took the lead in Early War and started pulling ahead in the space race. Before and after the MidWar deck shuffle, I was able to force him into -1 ops on each phase for 2 full turns in a row. After catching up with that advantage, I Quagmired him after scoring high in both Central and South America in the same turn. That stopped him for a few phases and put me into a strong position. hepcat came back in Asia but I was able to dominate the Middle East going into the Late War. I was able to score 20 points on the Headline Phase of Turn 10, but hepcat was planning on making a big push to score Europe. I love how the game turns feel like history unfolding before you.

I played TS with a buddy last week, me as the US and him as USSR. The US took the lead in the early war which is usually bad news, but he managed to really hold me off well in nearly every major region, at one point even getting only one battleground country away from controlling Europe. By mid war it was leaning USSR's way, and then I played Quagmire and ruined nearly two full turns for him. I got the US up to about +12 points, I thought I had him if I could get Wargames in the late war. Instead, he came back with a vengeance and my last two turns gave me hands full of USSR cards. The game went all the way to final scoring, where we ended with...a draw. We couldn't believe it. We went back and forth 3 times to make sure we didn't miss anything, but there it was. Tied after 10 turns. Best game of Twilight Struggle I've ever played.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 12:01 pm

Tommy and I got in a game of Wrath of Ashardalon last night. We were both big fans of Castle Ravenloft, and so we decided to break this one out and try it rather than get our asses kicked at Defenders of the Realm again.

Since we were familiar with CR, we jumped right into the 3rd sceneraio, where you have to recover the guy's pack from a vault and kill the baddies there. Since there were just the two of us, we decided to take a Cleric and a Paladin, seemed like the best chances of survival with just two players. We did survive, and really without too much difficulty. There was a moment where my cleric was down to 0 HP, and surrounded my bad guys, but Tommy reminded me that I leveled up and didn't get my 2 extra hit points. So we made it through the scenario without ever having to use a healing surge. Observations and things we did wrong:

Monsters spawn VERY quickly in this game. by the end of about the 3rd turn, we had a good 6-7 bad guys on the board.
The map also grows very quickly. We pulled the long hallway (which makes you place another tile at the end of it) and the card we pulled for that was the second long hallway. So that one tile pull gave us 3 rooms, 3 monsters spawning, as well as an encounter.
Lots of 2 hit monsters. Teamwork is paramount if you expect to clear the monsters off quickly.
Lots of monsters leave you either poisoned or dazed. I'm not sure if this is any different than in CR, but it seemed like more that would cause some effect.
This is a much more narrow game. A lot more corridors than in CR. This truly sucks when you pull the "Lava Walls" environment card (1 point of damage if you end your hero phase adjacent to a wall.)
New monster movement rules. We missed this on our play through last night, but when you advance a monster to a new tile, you are supposed to place that monster on the monster scorch mark/spawn point. Thereafter, if another monster moves into that tile, you can place it anywhere. So my caltrops and whirling blades spell should not have been as effective as they were.
Lots more useful treasures, a lot of magic items showed up. Not nearly so many "Bless" type treasures.
We mis-interpreted the Duregar and Kobald cards. These characters are purely sentries only, they are not fighters in any sense. Their job is to summon more critters, and open up more rooms. We were questioning what we need to do with these characters once they moved into the tile with the heroes, because it doesn't say anything about moving adjacent and attacking. We played it as such, when they move into a hero tile they will move adjacent and attack. But that isn't how they are supposed to work.

All in all, more goodness in D&D boardgaming. Very enjoyable. And, we won. So in that respect, it's better than Defenders of the Realm.

Tommy20 · Post by **Tommy20** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 2:58 pm

Defenders of the Realm pwns us.

Tommy20 · Post by **Tommy20** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 2:59 pm

Defenders of the Realm pwns us.

Fishbelly · Post by **Fishbelly** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 4:09 pm

Defenders of the Realm pwns us.

I've considered buying Defenders for a long time, so I have a question: How high it the frustration level of this game?

I ask, because the folks I play with--family and students, mostly--are not die-hard gamers and are prone to giving up if a game is too long, too hard, etc.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 4:23 pm

Fishbelly wrote:
Defenders of the Realm pwns us.
I've considered buying Defenders for a long time, so I have a question: How high it the frustration level of this game?

I ask, because the folks I play with--family and students, mostly--are not die-hard gamers and are prone to giving up if a game is too long, too hard, etc.

Well, I'm not frustrated with the game...yet. Yes, we did get our asses kicked in the two times we have played it, but I enjoyed the experience. As Zarathud said, the designers pretty much are expecting you to have only about a 33% success factor with the game. Game length I can't really comment on either, because we have never finished a game. Both games, we got overwhelmed shortly after we killed off the first general. Looking at where we were, I would have to say that a win would probably take you at least 3 hours, minimum.

There's a lot of luck involved as well. A bad shuffle of the deck, and the game could be over in just a few turns if one general advanced too quickly. Or too many overruns causing too much land tainting. Bad dice rolls can hinder you as well. But all that said, the game oozes theme, and it is a tense struggle as you try and keep the land from being overrun.

I guess a question should be asked, does your group like Pandemic? If they like that, as I understand it, DotR is pretty much a Pandemic clone with a fantasy theme bolted on.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 4:27 pm

This just making me look forward to Octocon. I suppose I should eventually coordinate with others around here.

Daveman · Post by **Daveman** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 7:17 pm

We have Defenders of the Realm and Pandemic and of the two I'd definitely recommend Pandemic. DotR certainly scores points for the theme (unless you have players who don't like fantasy) and I like how players pretty much have to group up and fight together (in a way that's much more fleshed out than say players in Pandemic meeting up to trade cards) to defeat the 4 generals.

Compared to Pandemic there is a lot more luck factor in the way you clear spaces of minions (DotR version of disease cubes). You spend an action to fight minions and then roll dice to see if you're successful. The odds aren't too bad and with an action or two you can usually clear a space of minions... but if you get a string of bad rolls you might not clear a space of minions and wind up taking damage (action loss) instead. I can see where the added tension of not knowing for sure has it's appeal compared to Pandemic's simple move here, spend action, remove cube system... but it can be frustrating at times.

DotR also has tainted crystals, in Pandemic terms it's like a special disease cube that spawns wherever an outbreak occurs. If all of the tainted crystals are ever on the board, it's game over. The catch is they're very hard to get rid of, requiring a discard for a 1-in-3 chance of success... I've found them very frustrating in our DotR games.

On the more practical side, DotR is more than twice as expensive as Pandemic, and I get the impression the expansions for it haven't added as much to the game as On the Brink did for Pandemic. DotR also requires a pretty large playing area for the board and associated materials. A standard card table doesn't cut it.

Fishbelly · Post by **Fishbelly** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 11:09 pm

Thanks for the Defenders input everyone. My various players do indeed enjoy Pandemic. My wife also loves games with figures, fantasy, and co-op. Perhaps the next time she is looking to gift me with a game I can give this a mention.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 12:38 am

I only played the intro scenario with my sister. I played the Fighter, she played the Paladin. In some ways, Wrath of Ashbardalon ramps up more quickly than Castle Ravenloft but the extra permanent "items" make killing things much more rewarding. I think it's a great development of the rules.

The Long Hallway and Rooms change the dynamic. Rushing off to explore alone can get you punished.
More creatures summon others. The Duergar Dwarves fill in unexplored areas of the bottom of the stack, spawning reinforcements before they attack. That changes the dynamic, especially when they end up pulling the Orc Archers who attack at range! There's also a Demon Legion that spawns others.
Persistent conditions are brutal, but it's great when you're resisting Poison with the Dwarf's bonus.
I also missed the monster movement rules, but never used my caltrops. That's going to change things drastically. I wonder if they still end up moving through the caltrops to get to the spawn point.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 12:52 pm

We have Defenders of the Realm and Pandemic and of the two I'd definitely recommend Pandemic. DotR certainly scores points for the theme (unless you have players who don't like fantasy) and I like how players pretty much have to group up and fight together (in a way that's much more fleshed out than say players in Pandemic meeting up to trade cards) to defeat the 4 generals.

Funny, I would go the other way here. I really liked Pandemic... until I played DotR. After that I sold Pandemic. DotR does everything Pandemic does, only better and with more theme. It is a longer game, but a tense and fun one. My family ate it up, and came back for more.

As a side note Ghost Stories is a good mix of both of these games. Of the three, I still prefer DotR, but Ghost Stories has the most style and flair and it is playable much quicker.

Still waiting for MoM to ship... can't be long now...

Tommy20 · Post by **Tommy20** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 3:51 pm

Fishbelly wrote:
Defenders of the Realm pwns us.
I've considered buying Defenders for a long time, so I have a question: How high it the frustration level of this game?

I don't find it frustrating at all. In fact, I've enjoyed it each time, despite losing so badly. I just have a hard time envisioning a win!

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 4:00 pm

Tommy20 wrote:
Fishbelly wrote:
Defenders of the Realm pwns us.
I've considered buying Defenders for a long time, so I have a question: How high it the frustration level of this game?
I don't find it frustrating at all. In fact, I've enjoyed it each time, despite losing so badly. I just have a hard time envisioning a win!

We were like that when we first started playing Shadows Over Camelot too. Now I think we usually stand about a 50/50 chance of winning.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 4:32 pm

hentzau wrote:
Tommy20 wrote:
Fishbelly wrote:
Defenders of the Realm pwns us.
I've considered buying Defenders for a long time, so I have a question: How high it the frustration level of this game?
I don't find it frustrating at all. In fact, I've enjoyed it each time, despite losing so badly. I just have a hard time envisioning a win!
We were like that when we first started playing Shadows Over Camelot too. Now I think we usually stand about a 50/50 chance of winning.

I was involved with my first ever human win in BSG last weekend. All the stars aligned and humans really worked well together and we squeaked it out by maybe one or game turns. All those dozens of human losses (for which I was usually a coasting cylon

) just made the win fee that much better. Losing a fun game is still fun. Winning a crappy game is still crappy. And I'd rather lose in a fun game than win a cappy one.

Jow · Post by **Jow** » Wed Mar 02, 2011 9:00 pm

isn't that an amazing feeling? it took us a good number of games before our humans finally won too. It's since happened a couple more times as the humans have figured out how important Executive Orders are and other tricks of the game, but the Cylons still win more often.

Chaosraven · Post by **Chaosraven** » Thu Mar 03, 2011 11:37 am

Well, the "stars aligned" in the following fashion: (a) all six players were human in the first half, (b) we played Sympathetic Cylon variant rather than Cylon Sympathizer, so we didn't need to drop a resource into the red before 4 distance, and (c) the Sypathetic Cylon had a secret agenda to win with the Humans. Oh, and Remus fucked up his final turn by not activating the Raiders

Chaosraven · Post by **Chaosraven** » Thu Mar 03, 2011 11:41 am

We played Carcassonne (which turns out to be a lot of fun using just a few expansions at a time instead of a two hundred tile bag) a couple times, played BSG (one game to the cylons, one to the humans), played EDH magic, and a few games of Dominion (where yours truly went four for four, albeit by only a couple points half of those). Got to play with both family and friends across my four day weekend.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Fri Mar 04, 2011 10:35 am

Chaosraven wrote:Well, the "stars aligned" in the following fashion: (a) all six players were human in the first half, (b) we played Sympathetic Cylon variant rather than Cylon Sympathizer, so we didn't need to drop a resource into the red before 4 distance, and (c) the Sypathetic Cylon had a secret agenda to win with the Humans. Oh, and Remus fucked up his final turn by not activating the Raiders

Even as I told him to do it... Not like I had an agenda or anything.

Got lucky and an event destroyed a shuttle and the raiders activated on their own without his help.

Chaosraven · Post by **Chaosraven** » Fri Mar 04, 2011 11:22 am

Finally broke open my DnD Heroscape last night and played the first scenario. My Feral Troll ate the 3 heroes (getting the last wound on him after winning initiative, hanging on with 2 wounds left, target higher and in shadow). Like the new guys! Going to play some tonight!

Chaosraven · Post by **Chaosraven** » Sat Mar 05, 2011 9:52 am

Remus showed up, so we instead played Carcassonne. My youngest stated we had to play with the Plague, as he had not yet tried it. On the way home he said "let's never ever use that again". We then played EDH magic, which turned into an early KickTheCripple on the guy getting no land, with three players beating him down quickly (allowing the second player in that situation to catch back up). Boys still looking forward to Heroscape, now rescheduled to Sunday.

Fishbelly · Post by **Fishbelly** » Sat Mar 05, 2011 12:55 pm

Thanks to all the talk on these boards, I ordered both Defenders of the Realm & Mansion of Madness.

Anyone have a place I can hide from my wife when the package arrives from CoolStuffInc?

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Sat Mar 05, 2011 7:03 pm

Fishbelly wrote:Thanks to all the talk on these boards, I ordered both Defenders of the Realm & Mansion of Madness.

Anyone have a place I can hide from my wife when the package arrives from CoolStuffInc?

Easy solution. Just ship the box to one of us - say, me - and your wife will never know.

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Sat Mar 05, 2011 8:34 pm

The boxes from CSI are really hard to hide. They use tons of packing peanuts. My last order had two games in it, and the box was enormous.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Sat Mar 05, 2011 9:06 pm

So this is what that CSI show is about?

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Sat Mar 05, 2011 9:31 pm

El Guapo wrote:So this is what that CSI show is about?

It's the most boring show on television. The murderer is always the spouse and the motive is always the same.

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Sat Mar 05, 2011 9:37 pm

Zarathud wrote:The murderer is always the spouse and the motive is always the same.

Found out the victim bought too many board games from the internet, I presume?

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Sun Mar 06, 2011 1:16 am

Fishbelly wrote:Thanks to all the talk on these boards, I ordered both Defenders of the Realm & Mansion of Madness.

Anyone have a place I can hide from my wife when the package arrives from CoolStuffInc?

Two games? You aren't even trying!

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:00 am

Today Tanga has Robo Rally and Acquire together for $43 (plus $8 shipping), FYI.

Fishbelly · Post by **Fishbelly** » Sun Mar 06, 2011 11:14 am

Fishbelly wrote:Thanks to all the talk on these boards, I ordered both Defenders of the Realm & Mansion of Madness.

Anyone have a place I can hide from my wife when the package arrives from CoolStuffInc?

Two games? You aren't even trying!
-Coop

I fully admit, I am not worthy. But it doesn't matter with my better half--ordering a single game is one too many for her.

I'm going to take a new tack if she squawks and ask her to compare the number of board games I own to the HUGE amount of shoes she purchases. She'll either concede gracefully, or whack me over the head with a deadly stiletto heel.

Chaosraven · Post by **Chaosraven** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 8:56 am

Played two-on-two Heroscape with a friend and my sons Sunday. Discovered my younger had been playing all day while I was at work with the older and a friend. And winning. He partnered with my friend, choosing Marro Cavalry and Marro Stingers. Partner had the White Dragon and the Dragonborn Paladin. I teamed up with my older, him with Elvish Wizards and me trying out the Elementals with the Hobgoblin Sorceror (who commands and revives Elementals). They crushed us. We only managed to destroy their Marro Hero MeBurqSa, the Marro Cavalry, and one Stinger. Great time with my kids!

freelunch · Post by **freelunch** » Mon Mar 07, 2011 11:10 am

played Defenders Of The Realm on Saturday with my youngest. I'm not sure why this game hasn't made it back to our table since it came out last year as it is a lot of fun, and much easier for my seven-year-old to play than World Of WarCraft: The Adventure Game (which we've been playing lately.) We played with only one hero apiece and almost won. the tension was great :). I've since read the designer's rules for less-than-four-characters and I'm sure we'd have won if we'd been using them. definitely a game we'll be seeing a lot of in the near future.

I also played a couple of rounds of King Up! with my wife and two boys. it is a simple bluffing game, great to play with kids in <30mins.

finally my 7yo and I played Fürstenfeld for the first time. its bits are nice, it is easy to teach and there's no reading required so I imagine it'll come out when I need something for the two of us to play while my older kids are busy elsewhere.

on Sunday our (very small) gaming group got together to play World Of WarCraft: The Adventure Game (requested by our newest recruit, causing me to play with my kids recently so I could remember the rules.) The game went well and we all had fun, but I think the downtime between turns is a little high with four players. we also played Survive! before everyone had to leave.

with just my 7yo to play with again, we took a first look at Factory Fun in the afternoon. I loved the game but found it extremely frustrating to play due to the colour choices, my colourblind vision wasn't close to being up to the task - I'll be encouraging my kids to play it without me in the future as it is too good a game to be shelved just because I can't play it.

we ended the day with Conquest of Planet Earth: The Space Alien Game, playing co-op at the regular difficulty. we lost badly. I haven't yet had a chance to play the basic competitive rules for Conquest, hope to do so soon as I think it'll be the most enjoyable way to play (but I'll need a group of players who can all read and understand the cards before I can try it out)

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Tue Mar 08, 2011 12:48 am

we ended the day with Conquest of Planet Earth: The Space Alien Game, playing co-op at the regular difficulty. we lost badly. I haven't yet had a chance to play the basic competitive rules for Conquest, hope to do so soon as I think it'll be the most enjoyable way to play (but I'll need a group of players who can all read and understand the cards before I can try it out)

I can tell you, the competitive version of the game is a real hoot. In fact, it would be a HUGE hoot with 4 players. Part of the fun is kibitzing your fellow players, destroying their gains and stealing their tech. Be warned, it is a mean mean mean game!

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Tue Mar 08, 2011 4:08 pm

Another Tanga question. Today they have Ideology: The War of Ideas the board game for $21 with shipping.

Anyone know anything about this game / whether it's any good? It's up my alley insofar as it's a history-related board game, and the theme appeals to me. But I'm not all that familiar with it, so I'm curious if anyone's played it.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Tue Mar 08, 2011 4:25 pm

Ideology is a trick game like Innovation. The theme of political ideology is there in name only. You could very well call the game Soccer and it would still work. As you can probably tell, I'm not a fan. I bought it during a tanga sale as well and almost immediately sold it at a convention after reading the rules.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Tue Mar 08, 2011 4:41 pm

Thanks. That's good news I suppose, insofar as I really don't need another game.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Wed Mar 09, 2011 5:10 pm

Once more, into the breach dear friends...

Broke out Defenders of the Realm again on Monday. We were down to just two players, because Tommy was sick on Monday. So Stuart and I set out, expecting to get our asses kicked once again.

We were not disappointed.

Game 1: Shortest game of Defenders of the Realm EVER. Initial setup saw quite a few Orcs on the map. The two characters that we ended up playing were the Dwarf (me) and the Cleric (Stuart). We start off with a quest to go to the west side of the map (me) and defeat 4 orcs (Stuart). Because all of the action was on the east side of the map, I ignore the quest and start off trying to take down dragonkin to the East. Stuart starts whomping on Demons and Undead minions, and takes down a couple of Orcs, storing them on his quest card, as per the rules. We get a few groups of orcs starting to pile up on the west side of the map. He gets up to three orcs, but gets stalled taking down some undead. His Darkness Spreads card is an Orc Patrol, placing another orc on every open green space (and there were a lot). I start heading over to where my quest is, taking down some more dragonkin. My Darkness Spreads card places 2 orcs in a spot with 2 other orcs causing an immediate taint and overrun into all of the adjoining spaces, of which there were 5. I look into the orc pile...5 orcs. I place the orcs on the board, and it was game over. We played maybe 8 turns, took us about 15 minutes to lose.

Game 2: We were already mostly set up, so I convince Stuart to try it again. We end up with the Dwarf (Stuart) and the Ranger (me). This time, things are really going our way. With only 2 players playing, it is difficult to build up a critical mass of hero cards to be able to challenge the generals with, so we decide to each concentrate on one primary color, and have a secondary color that will work with the other player. So Stuart starts to build up blue (with black secondary), and I start to build up black (with blue secondary). That way we can each help each other somewhat when it's time to challenge one of those generals. Risky if either the Demon or Orc generals start to move across the map, but that's the way our initial cards started to build up, so we stuck with it.

We take out minions and start completing quests. Generals aren't moving too much. We come up with a strategy that if we get a region cleared to just one minon left, let it stand, don't spend the action point on getting rid of that minon unless you have no other move available. We are feeling good, building up cards, and decide to take down Sapphire. Stuart uses a special card on his turn to teleport me to Sapphire's space. He finishes out his turn, and on my turn I clear out all of the minions in Sapphire's space (a green space...I get +1 to all of my rolls, and against Sapphire that's key.) I have 4 dice to use against Sapphire, Stuart has 10. 5 wounds on 5 or better, 4 or better for me. I go first, and take out 2 of his five wounds. Great start! Stuart rolls, and comes up with 2 hits out of 10 dice. Ouch. We need one more to take him down. Thanks to him being a dwarf, he gets to re-roll any missed dice against dragonkin and the dragon general. He re-rolls the 8 dice...and gets 1 success. Victory! We took out Sapphire, but it took every single card we had.

We don't rest on our laurels long, and continue to pound on minions and build up cards. Taint is fine, we have about 3 regions tainted right now. The generals finally start to get active, since we are now in the second phase of the war and we pull an extra card for general movement. Soon we have the undead and demon generals within 2 spaces of Monarch City, and the Orc General within one. Way too close. Plus we have several pockets of 3 minions that would start to cause some bad cascades if we let them go.

During my turn, I play a special card that allows me to completely clear two spaces of minions, as well as push a general back one regionon his track. Worried about the Orc general, I go ahead and move him back. And the very next Darkness Spreads card that I pull would have caused overrun in one of the regions that I clear. The next one...advance the Orc general to Monarch City! Thank god, I moved him back just in time! Our card buildup is telling us to go after the undead general next, and he's sitting in a green space, so I would get a bonus against him. I have 8 dice to use against the undead, and Stuart has 6. It's time to take on the undead.

Feeling pumped, Stuart's dwarf cleaves a path across the region to the Undead general, clears out the region of minions and sets himself up to attack the undead general on my turn. He pulls another black card for one of his hero cards, so we take that as a good sign. But on his darkness spreads, he pulls a card to allow the undead general to advance to the next region, right out from under his nose, and one space away from Monarch City. Cursing follows, but I tell him not to lose heart, I will just move there, clear out the minions, and we'll wait for his next turn to attack the general. I move in, defeat the undead minions with no problems. Hero cards add nothing, and are discarded. I pull my first darkness spreads card, place the minions, no generals move. I pull the second card...undead general advances to Monarch City.

Game. Over.

We sit there in stunned silence. We can't believe what just happened. After it sinks in that we just had been boned again, cursing follows. Lots of cursing. Lots of head shaking as we put the game away.

Stupid undead general.

Daveman · Post by **Daveman** » Sat Mar 12, 2011 10:46 pm

My son and I just played a game of Conquest of Planet Earth and had a fun time. We liked the goofy play-as-evil-aliens theme and the game seemed interesting without being too deep or requiring lengthy game/rules explanations. We played 2 player competitive and there certainly seemed like there's a lot of opportunities to stick it to the other player, although for this our first game we mostly just fought over our own side of the board and played a few event cards on each other.

My son did encounter a problem that others have posted about on BGG... too many empty location cards. In the game, when you enter a new space on the board you draw a location card to see what's there... usually hoping for a valuable target like a town or carnival but perhaps not something hazardous like a military base or an electrical power plant. "On occasion" you might just draw an empty location like a mountain range or a forest that has no value at all. My son drew empty locations in his first 3 of 4 spaces. A bit of bad luck to be sure... but in looking at the location deck there's 35 cards. The most you'd need (assuming 4 players, filling every possible spot on the board) would be 30. There's 12 empty locations in the deck, 3 each of 4 kinds... mountains, forest, hills, and something else. We decided to take out one of each card, making a deck of 31 cards with 8 empties. We'll see how that plays out next time.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Mon Mar 14, 2011 12:36 am

Daveman wrote:My son and I just played a game of Conquest of Planet Earth and had a fun time. We liked the goofy play-as-evil-aliens theme and the game seemed interesting without being too deep or requiring lengthy game/rules explanations. We played 2 player competitive and there certainly seemed like there's a lot of opportunities to stick it to the other player, although for this our first game we mostly just fought over our own side of the board and played a few event cards on each other.

My son did encounter a problem that others have posted about on BGG... too many empty location cards. In the game, when you enter a new space on the board you draw a location card to see what's there... usually hoping for a valuable target like a town or carnival but perhaps not something hazardous like a military base or an electrical power plant. "On occasion" you might just draw an empty location like a mountain range or a forest that has no value at all. My son drew empty locations in his first 3 of 4 spaces. A bit of bad luck to be sure... but in looking at the location deck there's 35 cards. The most you'd need (assuming 4 players, filling every possible spot on the board) would be 30. There's 12 empty locations in the deck, 3 each of 4 kinds... mountains, forest, hills, and something else. We decided to take out one of each card, making a deck of 31 cards with 8 empties. We'll see how that plays out next time.

Daveman, you make a good point (particularly because those empty locations don't scale with number of players). However, the Time-Space Anomaly can somewhat "reset" this occurrence. If you are playing all the cards you can per turn, chances are you will get this card.

Skeptic · Post by **Skeptic** » Mon Mar 14, 2011 3:09 am

I and my friends have been playing board games recently. Twilight Empirium, Labyrinth, and Twilight Struggle mostly. I am amazed at the complexity of the designs of these games. I don't normally play a lot of board games(and when I do it is usually things like Risk) so these kind of threw me.