Board Games!

[zoraster]

risk is one of those games that takes forever yet the majority of people are eliminated in fact or in essence. it's an okay game if you're just an individual who wants to take a game seriously, but it kind of sucks as a game for a

group

to enjoy.

I don't know anything about legacy though, so maybe that's different?

for what it's worth, my least favorite thing about risk is how everyone and their mother thinks they're some kind of genius at the game.

[quadz08]

I am fully aware that I am terrible at Risk.

[Sudo_Nym]

The secret is to roll the dice.

[Mr. Flay]

Alea iacta est...

[Shmugen]

The bit with Legacy is that you don't compete to global domination, but for 4 or 5 Victory Points, leading to shorter games. If one player gets eliminated, the player who did the eliminating should be a turn or two away from winning. The winner gets to do fun things to the board, like claim starting locations, name continents (with a sharpie, on the board), buff up one of the country cards, destroy one of the country cards (physically rip in half, with gusto and hopefully a look of malice at whomever had buffed it previously), etc.

The box has lots of envelopes and containers that are sealed. You only open them when certain conditions exist in a game, like players spending multiple missles (upgrades any roll to a six, even if you aren't in the fight) on one turn. This might open up new armies to play as, or other zanyness. By the end of a 15 game campaign, the board stops changing, but you have something that is profoundly yours. I hear many stories of people taking their old board, framing it, hanging it in their game room, and buying a new copy.

[Chevre]

We played Lord of the Rings Risk once. I thought I was terrible but I ended up winning somehow. Albeit the players weren't really Risk "geniuses..."

That game was nice though because it had a time limit; every turn the eponymous ring would advance across the map and the game would end once it hit Mt. Doom. There were fun cards that impacted this and such.

[Mr. Flay]

LOTR Risk is actually a lot of fun, for the reasons you mentioned. The board being only one continent also helps speed things up.

[Lady Lambdadelta]

LOTR Risk is actually a lot of fun, for the reasons you mentioned. The board being only one continent also helps speed things up.

IIRC aren't there only 2 factions in that game?

[Chevre]

There are four, but yeah, there was some weird tricky stuff going on with the alignments

[Lady Lambdadelta]

There are four, but yeah, there was some weird tricky stuff going on with the alignments

Yeah I seem to recall there being joint victories in this game?

[Chevre]

Maybe??? I only played it once.

[Sudo_Nym]

I've played Star Wars Risk, and that had a similar timing mechanic, since it was prequel Star Wars, so eventually Palpatine would "Execute Order 66." It also had a "4 players in teams of 2" mechanic.

[ToastyToast]

i just got Elder Sign. I would definitely recommend it if you are looking for a good co-op game.

[ToastyToast]

Also is Elder Sign just like the card version of Arkham Horror?

[xRECKONERx]

Yes

[Chevre]

Bought the Resistance and I hope to play it at a Fourth of July gathering

[Chevre]

So. Results.

On Wednesday I got Settlers of Catan, which was 37.80 at Target, and I think that's the lowest price for an in-store retail. I was nervous because I didn't know if my friends would like it at all, but I did want it in my collection anyway so I bought it.

Turns out...it was a good investment! We played the first game with the beginning setup and while it was a very slow process, it was enjoyable. For the second game we completely randomized everything. That started out very slow due to dice rolls but it ended up being quite a fun experience. I can definitely see how people may think it can get boring though.

Strangely enough, we tried the Resistance afterwards as I said, and it did not go over well. The Spies won both turns, but it was more due to general derpiness than actual deception.

I think since Catan was so well liked I'm going to get Agricola. It's pretty expensive but I love the mechanic and I think it is similar in all the right ways to Catan.

[mykonian]

to me, Catan doesn't get boring that quickly. It's not that easy to find the best strategy.

As for similarities between agricola and settlers, uhm, I'm not quite sure what you are looking for. Catan is easy to pick up, simple rules etc. Agricola is a bit harder. It has a lot of choices to make, a lot of planning to do, and the results aren't always clear cut. It's an amazing game, but it's not easy to pick up.

[Shmugen]

Reddit had an idea for spicing up Catan if you get bored with it later. Find another d6 of one of the colors, red or yellow, and roll two of them, choosing one.

[Chevre]

We played again, for the first time with four players. Since the new player was...well new, we did the beginning setup again. Though this isn't my picture, it's basically this:



I played as orange and got really stuck in the beginning of the game, as I was completely cut off from ore for all of it. However, using my massive quantities of wheat and sheep, I was able to buy a huge amount of development cards until I had four of the five victory point cards and the largest army, bring me to 8. The new player, who was blue, won; I think blue won our first game too.

It's still super fun, and we really haven't breached much of the randomly-generated setups yet.

I think I will hold off on Agricola for the time being, but I might get Ticket to Ride. It's not very similar to Catan, but it's simple like it, with new strategies to discover. I think they'll like it.

[Sudo_Nym]

Ticket to Ride is a good game; it's an easy game to learn, and it takes a while to get a solid strategy, so there's some room to learn. I would complain that, long-term, there does seem to be a "breaking" strategy in the base game, so I would pick up the 1910 expansion when you're getting more serious about it.

[zoraster]

i don't think it's really breakable. There are just more dominant strategies, and that can make it less fun after 20+ games. 1910 is a good grab.

Ticket to Ride is a great game for getting a wide group of non-gamers to play. I like it considerably more than Catan.

[Sudo_Nym]

Well, maybe breaking is too strong. But there are definitely cities and chokepoints on the map that are more valuable than they may initially appear, and once your group learns what the best routes and tickets are, it can turn the game into a race of "who can build there the fastest"

[xRECKONERx]

Still here to say Ticket to Ride is a very boring game.

[zoraster]

still here to disagree wholeheartedly.