Board Games!

[Vi]

Hmm, I guess it's not too bad if I post this.

Over the weekend I introduced Natirasha to my library. We played three rounds of Carcassonne; I won two, she won one. All of the games turned into cutthroat turf warz with both of us committing really unhealthy numbers of farmers and basically betting the game on who drew magic field-completing tiles (which never ended well). We played a game of Ra where I won by one point because :monuments: ; I went from 1 point to 36 in the last round (after losing two points for fewest Pharaohs). We also played a few rounds of Sentinels of the Multiverse and enjoyed how hilariously overpowered everything is, although "lol pick who you like" failed pretty hard to Miss Information.

I really don't get to play these things as often as I'd like. :/

[inspiratieloos]

I had a bit of a board game marathon last week with my brother and two friends, started at 2PM with Tragedy Looper, a few rounds of Escape: Curse of the Temple, pizza, Pandemic Legacy (January) and then two games of Legends of Andor, ending at around 2AM.

Pandemic Legacy plays really different from the normal board game, normally you can be a lot more casual, in this game we were at two outbreaks with a maximum of three more happening before we won, but you're still trying to prevent those because they'll leave permanent marks on the board.

Legends of Andor is weird, it's mostly fun, but the time mechanics are really wonky and it just feels bad when the best decision is to leave a monster you could kill with two hands tied behind your back to pillage the fortress because for some reason killing it takes as much time as 4 days worth of other actions.

[Andrius]

Spoiler: Pandemic Legacy: Roadblocks

See, we had RED as our Coda. We got to the point where around September we literally had the entirety of the Pacific Rim Roadblocked off because of how terrible Coda was in that area. We had an unfortunate month in April(?) where it outbreaked and rebounded off itself twice so we lost a good portion of the Pacific Rim and the best thing we could do was, essentially, build a wall around it.

[mykonian]

carcassonne is the kind of game I somehow keep playing but don't see the point of. There seems to be so little judgement to it

[BBmolla]

that's generally a good sign that it's a good family game.

[zoraster]

carcassonne is the kind of game I somehow keep playing but don't see the point of. There seems to be so little judgement to it

There's a pretty good degree of control over winning, particularly if you add an expansion or two (the basic ones, not the weird ones).

[Vi]

carcassonne is the kind of game I somehow keep playing but don't see the point of. There seems to be so little judgement to it

There's a pretty good degree of control over winning, particularly if you add an expansion or two (the basic ones, not the weird ones).

This.
More than the random element of who flips which tiles, it's largely a game of speculation over how the game will expand.

[xRECKONERx]

7 wonders duel is so fucking good.

[mykonian]

carcassonne is the kind of game I somehow keep playing but don't see the point of. There seems to be so little judgement to it

There's a pretty good degree of control over winning, particularly if you add an expansion or two (the basic ones, not the weird ones).

This.
More than the random element of who flips which tiles, it's largely a game of speculation over how the game will expand.

Must admit that I only play "a" base game but between hijacking places other people have created and building your own, it feels like there are often right and wrong decisions, but not many murky "well this is sort of mediocre but I'll make it work?".

like, how much can you fiddle about your overall strategy game per game, and how much is just finding the best places for pieces every time?

[zoraster]

7 wonders duel is so fucking good.

I just got on Friday and am excited to try it out

[zoraster]

carcassonne is the kind of game I somehow keep playing but don't see the point of. There seems to be so little judgement to it

There's a pretty good degree of control over winning, particularly if you add an expansion or two (the basic ones, not the weird ones).

This.
More than the random element of who flips which tiles, it's largely a game of speculation over how the game will expand.

Must admit that I only play "a" base game but between hijacking places other people have created and building your own, it feels like there are often right and wrong decisions, but not many murky "well this is sort of mediocre but I'll make it work?".

like, how much can you fiddle about your overall strategy game per game, and how much is just finding the best places for pieces every time?

Pretty often. One of the big things the "Basic" expansions do is provide farm-dividing cities, which creates more opportunities for farms.

One easy way to increase the "skill" of it is to play 3-in-hand, where you keep 3 tiles in your hand at all times and play one of those at a time.

[Vi]

carcassonne is the kind of game I somehow keep playing but don't see the point of. There seems to be so little judgement to it

There's a pretty good degree of control over winning, particularly if you add an expansion or two (the basic ones, not the weird ones).

This.
More than the random element of who flips which tiles, it's largely a game of speculation over how the game will expand.

Must admit that I only play "a" base game but between hijacking places other people have created and building your own, it feels like there are often right and wrong decisions, but not many murky "well this is sort of mediocre but I'll make it work?".

I don't really agree. Some decisions are better than others when they're presented but given that you have a bunch of meeples and they aren't doing anything if you aren't throwing them onto the field, making things work even if you're not necessarily sure how is a pretty big part of the game.

[mykonian]

heh, yes, but then you look at your tiles, look at your men, and go "get to buissness work". It's not so much a choice, is it, there's a clear best (locking down as many potential options away from your opponent by putting your men down).

Like, given I play it semi frequently, it is a nice game. I just feel occasionally it plays me more than I play it (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, as Molla said).

[Brandi]

DOOM is a pretty neat board game. ^^

[Cogito Ergo Sum]

Must admit that I only play "a" base game but between hijacking places other people have created and building your own, it feels like there are often right and wrong decisions, but not many murky "well this is sort of mediocre but I'll make it work?".

But you haven't even listed the best thing you can do! Work together with someone to make one big city and get lots of points. Carcassone is all about cooperation! (Also: ruthless farming battles.)

[mykonian]

that might say something about my family when it comes to games...

[Vi]

heh, yes, but then you look at your tiles, look at your men, and go "get to buissness work". It's not so much a choice, is it, there's a clear best (locking down as many potential options away from your opponent by putting your men down).

yes playing the game to score points is the best option

You're missing that you have a limited number of workers. If you're overzealous about locking options away, you lose.

Work together with someone to make one big city and get lots of points. Carcassone is all about cooperation!

especially when you make them link a piece that's already in play to that city... and that piece has a second worker of yours on it

[theplague42]

One of my really good friends bought Dead of Winter and Betrayal at the House on the Hill during some store's 3for2 sale. I'm excited to starting playing stuff again... Was gone all winter!

[implosion]

We finished pandemic legacy!

Spoiler: post-December

And we did quite well (871/1000 points, got all of the major high-level objectives). On the second-to-last turn of the last game the player to my right finished the search for the stash (I was the immunologist and was about to vaccinate the last two cities on my turn). He had one action left, and we were jokingly thinking of what things were useful. We considered self-sacrifice just so that we could possibly avoid a chain of 3 outbreaks, but I thought of another possibility: he was the soldier so he could pick up c4 and blow up our last military base in Atlanta (we never bothered to blow it up before because there were no faded cities in north america).

Cool guys don't look at explosions so we did it, and wound up getting the highest win level because of it. Which I think is just a hilarious/great way to end it.

[implosion]

Spoiler: Also December

Also, with the exception of December (since we didn't have to cure diseases), we strictly won every game where we took the scientist and lost every game (4 games, 2 in may 1 in august 1 in november) where we didn't.

[Equinox]

I played a game of "Wars of the Roses: Lancaster versus York", which seemed like a fun, balanced strategy game. It's also the most complex game I've ever tried, yet I picked this up much faster than I did Carcassonne (which, I am ashamed to say, I still sort of do not understand). The board looked like this at the end:

Spoiler: Large Image Inside

My York counterpart and I had an early lead that we lost due to different blunders -- I'd focused on maintaining territory at the cost of income, and she'd spread herself too thin -- but we managed to flip the war in favor of York at the end of the game, even if we ultimately lost points-wise. One of the Lancasters also grabbed great territory at the start of the game, which we ignored for longer than we should have. Looking forward to round two whenever we can get a spare two-hour block of time.

The game seems to be out-of-print, though, which is too bad.

[mykonian]

I picked this up much faster than I did Carcassonne (which, I am ashamed to say, I still sort of do not understand).

As above, I feel very much the same. Don't worry about it.

But wow, the game you talked about sounds and looks awesome. Tell us more!

[Untrod Tripod]

Gamma and I have played a lot of Arkham horror peripherals this week

Good shit

[PJ.]

Okay, played patchwork for the first time. Do you have to fill up the 7x7 perfectly to get the bonus tile? Do you put the bonus tile on your quilt board? Do you count the Leather Patches as squares when you're moving? Do you count the buttons as squares?

Has anyone finished with more than 0 points?

~~~~

We also played Machi Koro, That game is an absolute gem. Simple, fun, fast, perfect.

[theplague42]

One of my really good friends bought Dead of Winter and Betrayal at the House on the Hill during some store's 3for2 sale. I'm excited to starting playing stuff again... Was gone all winter!

Played Dead of Winter last night, with the "get to the colony" main objective. Is the general plan to maximize searching then rush for the objective? I felt like we ran out of resources pretty quickly once we started moving people in.