Board Games!

[chamber]

I wouldn't suggest stone age. I have no idea for kanagawa.

[PJ.]

Kanagawa is pretty. Also has nice components. And is Bruno Cathala. Also uses its theme well, which is what I hated about covert. Covert also didn't feel like worker placement

[chamber]

It being from a somewhat hot designer hurts it a bit imo. For it to have that as a recognition vector but to still be so lowly ranked suggests its just actually not a very good game.

[PJ.]

It's not really that lowly ranked. 7.4 is quite high.

[PJ.]

It's average is higher than Jamaica and Abyss, the algorithm is just pushing it lower on the list due to it only having 1200 votes vs the 5000-10000 his over games have. It only has 1 edition, and is waiting for a second print run. Like I said earlier , most places sold out and it's 300% mark up on Amazon, so that's probably holding a lot of people back from playing it

[chamber]

Just watched an overview of the game, play seems fine, but I don't think its a worker placement game at all in the vein of lords of water deep or Keyflower or Agricola.

Edit: to elaborate on what I mean, in worker placement games I'm used to the worker placement options being communal and driving actions. Where as kanagawa seemed to be drafting driven, and the workers just limited options, and only had private spaces.

[PJ.]

Yeah, that's definitely why I came to the thread, because it didn't seem "worker placement"-y enough.

[ChrisOrmie]

Carcassonne is a good game, but not so simple - or at least it took a game or two before I started getting the hang of it. This might speak more about me than the game though as quite a few people find it simple!

[chamber]

Playing carcassonne well can be hard, but the rules are quite simple. Just draw and place a tile.

[mykonian]

Two differen't kinds of simple really chris. One's where you have to get your non gaming girlfriend interested, then explain the rules before that interest has waned after which the game can already be played. Actually being easy to win it, now that could be something else.

Panzer being hesitant to try to teach agricola I can totally understand. In that game you keep wanting to do things, and then be prohibited by

the rules

which can be very frustrating. You have sheep, but you can't butcher them bc you have no kitchen, you have a cool card in your hand but can't play it because small investment is taken by another player. You have a bunch of weat and an oven and yet you can't make bread because someone wanted to saw so badly. And then we haven't started about resources even, yet. And that while you want to do way more than you have actions for anyway, because there are so many ways one could go about it. It's an incredibly annoying game if you think about it

As for worker placement games, there must be so many. We went over a fair where a series of companies showed us their new games, and our eyes glossed over with the amount of worker placement games amongst them. I remember none, and tbf at times it felt hard to judge where one did better and the other did worse, but they should be out there.

[PJ.]

She plays games a moderate amount, but mostly like minecraft. But yeah mykonian has the right of it. I need to be able to learn the game myself, then be able to teach her/help her also learn it within a reasonable amount of time. And beside level of difficulty, the other hurdle is she likes city building/farming stuff, basically minecrafty type things, which I have little interest in, so something like agricola or caverna where I have very little will to learn it and it's complicated enough to be a chore is just gonna be hard, especially if I'm not familiar with the mechanics myself being new to board games.

She digs stuff like uncharted and ni no kuni as well but I haven't really found board game equivalents to those.

Another weird thing is I'm trying to find stuff I like that she can get into because most of the board games I liked prior this year are basically abstract strategy or 2 player ccg beat the person in front of you games that she'd rather watch paint dry then play. For example, I'm massively interested in Millennium Blades but quite simply I have no play group.

But yeah, it's a weird space of not really knowing where the common ground is and not even knowing everything I enjoy, while also helping her get into it as well.

[Vaxkiller]

A friend of mine just got Settlers of Catan and hes bring it over in a few weeks for a few of us to play. Any tips or tricks? Is it a complicated game? DO I need to read the rules ahead of time?

[hasdgfas]

A friend of mine just got Settlers of Catan and hes bring it over in a few weeks for a few of us to play. Any tips or tricks? Is it a complicated game? DO I need to read the rules ahead of time?

classic gateway game, very simple to teach and to play. Roll dice, people get resources off that. Trade those resources to others, then build stuff. Try to get to 10 points first.

[Vaxkiller]

classic gateway game

Sounds easy. Does this mean I'm going to try harder and more dangerous games until I have a serious problem?

[Untrod Tripod]

A friend of mine just got Settlers of Catan and hes bring it over in a few weeks for a few of us to play. Any tips or tricks? Is it a complicated game? DO I need to read the rules ahead of time?

don't take it too seriously

[mykonian]

nah, take it super seriously. And your friend might like you if you pre-read the rules for 5 min, but mostly so he doesn't have to explain everything in such detail and you can get started It's not a complicated game, but there's still a bit to it. As for tips:

It has dice, so there's some randomness, otoh, someone rolls every turn and eh, the resources you get tend to average out somewhat. Know the odds of numbers how they are thrown with two dice (it's easy to remember anyway) so you don't have to stare yourself blind on the 6's and 8's (if they mean you would end up with poorer numbers as well, perhaps there's a place with 5's and 10's that would get you better odds over time). Deserts and sea's are never going to get you resources, so you have to have a good reason to start near them, they'll also make your spread in numbers worse. Starting position is one of the more significant moments in the game anyway, in the base game stone and ore are the limited resources. If the numbers are bad on either, you'll want to have a close look if you can prioritise the one decent number with your starting position, or put it down in such a way that it limits other people getting there. Do try to go for all types of resource, but if you must miss one, weat or esspecially wool isn't the end of the world, but this depends on how well you can trade. In the base game, having a strategy that looks to build cities is somewhat overpowered, regardless, you have to have a plan of making them at some point, save up your ore and trade somewhat aggressively for it. This means that developement cards are a bit drowned out, though they are cool, given they compete rather directly with building cities. They are more of a lategame thing.

Trading looks like you'll help other people, but do stay flexible. There's usually more to it then "you get to build a village now, but I'll have the resources for a city with this trade". When recieving, it's perhaps easier to offload a resource from one of your better numbers (which is more likely to be rolled than resources from your worse numbers) to even out your hand (which is good for all resources except for ore), you can perhaps tease some resource out that you are limited on anyway, for the future. You don't always have to go for the awesome 2:1 trades with other players, though if you manage to find those moments that's cool. Otherwise, you tend to be able to help yourself a bit and help one opponent: meaning you two get a leg up on the rest of the board. I tend to play with groups that are rather stubborn in their trading, being the one that ends up trading lots is fun anyway, but also puts you practically and socially in a better position.

[ChrisOrmie]

A friend of mine just got Settlers of Catan and hes bring it over in a few weeks for a few of us to play. Any tips or tricks? Is it a complicated game? DO I need to read the rules ahead of time?

Just remember not to laugh when insisting people need to trade you sheep in exchange for wood. Just keep a straight face and get insistent that you have "wood for sheep". Happens in every game, might as well be the person to do it!

[Chickadee]

Played an interesting little filler game last night called Dig Mars. It was interesting. I'd like to play it through again now that I understand what's going on better.

[implosion]

Meant to mention this - played a game of secret Hitler yesterday. It's interesting, seems almost like a good medium between something super casual like one night ultimate werewolf and something more argumentatively involved like resistance (at least with the people I've played it with).

[Chickadee]

Meant to mention this - played a game of secret Hitler yesterday. It's interesting, seems almost like a good medium between something super casual like one night ultimate werewolf and something more argumentatively involved like resistance (at least with the people I've played it with).

I LOOOOVE Secret Hitler! I play it every so often. I would put it on level with Avalon/Resistance base games.

[ChrisOrmie]

Yeah, I've seen it played a bunch but only got to play Secret Hitler once (online with some UK freinds). It's a great game!

[Chickadee]

I didn't get to play this game game last night, but saw it being played, and now I'm interested. Healthy Heart Hospital - anyone played it yet? Any thoughts? It seems interesting. I came in as a spectator about half way through, so I never really got a good grasp on the mechanics, but it seemed like fun and I trust the people that were playing it when they said it was good. They're pretty experienced gamers. They were learning it for the first time, so there were some kinks they had to work through.

[PJ.]

Alright, I've been going to a board game meet up at my local store for about 2 months or so, and now I've played like 40 games. Only problem is now my list of stuff I want is large and fractured into two groups - stuff I can take to game night vs stuff that I would want around the house to play with my girlfriend and various friends/family. An example of what I mean: Power Grid. I played the deluxe europ version and I really really enjoyed, but it's something I just would never be able to get to the table outside of board game night. My girlfriend/sister/various non-board gamer friends are just simply not gonna want to play power grid. Which is fine, it's a mathy game but if I don't buy it, I have to rely on others to bring it and for me to not be in the middle of a game when they are finding people to play.

I think my favorite upper midweight-heavy games that I've played have are Colosseum, Inis, and Power Grid.

I think my lower weight games that I'm a big fan of are Tokaido, Adrenaline, Takenoko

For 2 players, I super enjoy hanamikoji. Jaipur is still pretty fun. And I played 7 wonders duel once and I thought it was an absolute blast and It's on my list of things to pick(I know pantheon is a must grab).

I found I'm not sure I enjoy co-op games(my sister also doesn't enjoy co-ops much). She doesn't like the end game state of a lost co-op(everyone sad) compared to the losing state of a competitive game(one person doing a dance, preferably me, and everyone else booing that person). But, we've only played Pandemic. Which might I know is the most popular co-op but maybe not the best? Quote from my sister: "the first game of pandemic, I basically felt like I was the pawn, not a player controlling the pawn".

Also found that 2 player abstract strategy games are probably entirely off the list as a "couples" game. Played Onitama with Alicia and it was like my little kung fu dudes were Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Donnie Yen, and whoever played Tong Po in Bloodsport and hers were the nameless mooks mowed down in the various kung fu movies of those guys.

Least favorite games so far have been Carcassone, Catan/Deus(catan was worse but they are p similar), and Covert.

Lords of Waterdeep, Potion Explosion, Broom Service, Celestia were other games that I can remember of the top of my head that I liked a alot/ did well with alicia?.

Any recommendations? Anything I should look into?

[Andrius]

Colosseum

Not gonna lie, pretty jealous.
Before the reprint this thing was pretty hard to find.

How'd you like it? Was there a lot of downtime between turns? Did you find you were able to build/show the attractions you wanted to with a decent amount of work, or was it more finding stuff to match what you

could

do?

I found I'm not sure I enjoy co-op games(my sister also doesn't enjoy co-ops much).

Have you played any of the Co-op with a defector games?
I have friends who aren't keen on the co-op part but will play defector games for the paranoia/tension/chance to feed someone else to the zombies.
And I gotta say, if you're after the "one person doing a dance" feeling,

betraying

a whole table of people and watching their faces as they lose is the best dance.

Least favorite games so far have been Carcassone, Catan

I'm glad I'm not the only one who cringes whenever this thread goes on about how either of these is great.


We like Sushi Go (and Sushi Go Party). Fun little card game that has a ton of replayability.
7 Wonders (and Duel) are both great games for different size crowds.

[Vi]

I disliked Catan, for what it's worth. (my experience was akin to "let's get screwed by the dice for 20 minutes straight")

I say this often enough already but I'll restate that Pandemic is not actually fun while Forbidden ___ is mostly good for wasting time. Go get a real co-op game.

Sushi Go and 7 Wonders are basically the same game; the former is a lot more casual so you can get grandmas and people who are only hanging around to be polite into it.

Power Grid: Factory Manager exists, which is similar to Power Grid but doesn't take 2+ hours.