Board Games!

[Narninian]

playing battlestar galactica for the first time in years; I have all the expansions -- I'll be playing with people who have only played the base game a couple times or not at all.

Any recommendations for what to include?
I know for sure I'll be playing with Cylon leaders + Daybreak Agendas as an option
I'm kind of lukewarm on final five+personal agendas - if I include them I'm going to limit how many for sure.
I'll be using treachory from daybreak and mutineer depending on playing counts
I don't really like the idea of player elimination so am ruling out Ionian nebula.
My instinct to to *not* include the cylon fleet board, I like the panics and lulls from Cylon attack cards.

but I've really only played with cylon fleet board once, and pegasus once, daybreak zero times so would welcome advice.

If you're playing with people with limited experience, then you probably want to avoid most of the non-mandatory expansion elements. I'd take Kobol as the destination, leave out the final fives and personal goals, use cylon attack crises rather than the fleet board. Between the Pegasus board, Mutiny, Daybreak Treachery, Cylon Leaders and a mountain of new skill cards and characters, they've got enough to which to acclimatise.

I actually played this yesterday and that is actually exactly what I did. We had 5 players so 1 mutineer and 1 cylon leader (the one guy who had played before wanted to try that option out) and 1 cylon card. I ended up picking cain (although thinking about now I'd rather pick mutiny zarek if I were in that situation again - cain is awesomly pro-human, but zarek sounds more interesting). My loyalty card from the start was 'cylon' which was a little disappointing as I don't feel cain's power is that good for a cylon her passive is sound I did save some high value brig cards. Mutiny cards are really cool WAY better than the sympathizer mechanic. The guy playing the Cylon Leader was playing very human the whole time. I soft revealed (After having scouted the next crisis through an action card that basically lets me play 2 actions) by attempting to brig/execute cally. I had a bunch of purple/green and everyone knew it so they piled on the cards -- I had nowhere close to what I needed but was able to brig cally anyway through a treachory card that gave out mutiny. The crisis gave me presidency so they had to arrest me the hard way. They again piled on the cards to get me arrested so cally could execute me on her turn. It worked - no super crisis/cylon reveal for me - but they wasted 2 actions and basically all of their cards doing it so I think it was a net win.

In the end I won by sapping their population with the jump track 3 away from victory, 3 damage on pegasus, 1 on galactica and all resources 1-3. The cylon player it turned out had 4 cylon agendas but had to help the humans the whole time to prevent the game from ending too early.

[Porochaz]

EDIT: Personal photos.

[ChannelDelibird]

YES PROZAC

[xRECKONERx]

Gamma brought over XCOM: The Board Game tonight. Pretty mixed opinions, but my general thought is that you need to play it at least once.

THE GOOD

- The companion app for the game adds a HELL of a lot and really makes an argument for why board game augmentation with digital tech is a good idea... the randomization happens seamlessly, and the interface reacts to how poorly you're doing (tons of UFOs = tons of interference = app going crazy)
- Each position feels unique and self-contained to the point where you don't quarterback because you don't feel like you can be arsed to bother with what the fuck the science officer is researching when you have three enemies in the goddamn base
- The game always feels like a struggle and like you're against overwhelming odds... not until the very last moment do you think "this is easy", which gives it a sense of high stakes

THE BAD

- The unique aspects of each role are really just minor in the grand scheme of things. Science Officer plays with a hand of cards; Commander manages a "budget" (aka just counts a few coins each round); Squad Leader has higher threat in his missions; Communications Officer manages the app)... outside of that, everyone is doing the exact same activity: rolling X dice against enemies to defeat them, where X is the number of units you deployed during the timed round
- There is a LOT of dice rolling, and the dice are heavily skewed against you (4 sides of failures, 2 successes) so even if you roll the maximum dice each turn, you're still HEAVILY relying on RNG to fall your way
- The game comes with no physical rulebook so the first playthrough, a lot of stuff is just thrown at you that you're unsure how to handle
- Victory feels deflated... the final mission cards aren't terribly exciting and don't introduce any new mechanics, and by the time you get there, you have enough tech to likely complete the mission with no problems. Probably harder on other difficulties, but still -- when you have that many tech cards, it's easy to just map out the rest of the round and know whether you win or not, so winning has like zero fanfare

THE UGLY

- Though the app is a great idea, I think it covers up lazy design. There's no way to understand how certain mechanics negatively or positively impact you because it's all hidden behind the magic of the app. PANIC INCREASES! Okay, so what? Why am I getting more crises each turn now? Why the hell are things happening out of order? In reality, the app is shiny, but seems to just be a crutch. In a co-op game, especially, it's important to understand all mechanisms at play and see what happens.

I'd recommend playing it, but not buying it.

[Faraday]

The ugly doesn't sound that bad from how you're describing it.

Isn't there a walk-through for the first game? On the app?

Still have no real interest in it. The mechanics just looked 'ok' and the IP doesnt sell me. The ' comes down to dice' is p disappointing.

[xRECKONERx]

There's a walkthrough, yeah, but it doesn't really explain every detail, and it explains them in an order that leaves you sometimes wondering, "Okay but what about this situation?"

And it was a bit of a problem, I think... I mean, it's fine and all, but part of the most fun parts was increasing the panic meter yourself, physically, on the game board, after failing a challenge. Then the app is like "input panic levels", and you do it, and you have no idea if higher panic actually has an effect on anything at all because all of the app's workings are a secret. It just obscures a huge part of the game.

[Porochaz]

Dead of Winter on tabletop, does this mean Im ahead of the trend?

[hasdgfas]

After watching Dead of Winter on Tabletop, it feels like a subpar version of BSG, although still super thematic and super fun. It seems to be a bit fiddly with a lot going on(now, mind you, there's a

ton

going on in BSG all the time as well, so that's not necessarily a problem).

The concern I have is with having separate win conditions besides just surviving. With everything that you have to worry about, surviving seems hard enough anyway, let alone fulfilling an arbitrary objective. It feels like an inelegant way to incite conflict within the group.

[Lady Lambdadelta]

http://www.shutupandsitdown.com/videos/ ... ad-winter/

this is a more complete look than Tabletop gives.

[Narninian]

After watching Dead of Winter on Tabletop, it feels like a subpar version of BSG, although still super thematic and super fun. It seems to be a bit fiddly with a lot going on(now, mind you, there's a

ton

going on in BSG all the time as well, so that's not necessarily a problem).

The concern I have is with having separate win conditions besides just surviving. With everything that you have to worry about, surviving seems hard enough anyway, let alone fulfilling an arbitrary objective. It feels like an inelegant way to incite conflict within the group.

I've often seen this comparison (always with people saying dead of winter is better); and if its true then it really doesn't sell me - I've seen a glut of zombie/surivor theme games and its really not a theme that sells me. I've only seen it play on 'watch it played' (rodney smith) so I'll definitely give it another look. For now battlestar galactica - daybreak expansion is all I need.

[Sudo_Nym]

So, cousins want to do another game night tomorrow. I managed to get them interested in Catan and Ticket to Ride over the last two sessions. What should I bring this time? Maybe 7 Wonders?

[diginova]

Do you have

Small World

? I find that's my favorite gateway at the moment.

[Lady Lambdadelta]

If you want to mix up the style of game, I would suggest a Matt Lecock game. Forbidden Island or Pandemic are great for beginners and have a ton of replay.

[diginova]

If you want to mix up the style of game, I would suggest a Matt Lecock game. Forbidden Island or Pandemic are great for beginners and have a ton of replay.

I'd prefer Forbidden Desert over Island, as it doesn't have the feelbad of immediate game loss due to board state.
Roll for the Galaxy has also seen a lot of play in my group, and it's easier to get into than Race.

[Sudo_Nym]

Something in the Coop genre might be a good try, since we haven't done anything like that yet. And will make them feel less bad for losing to me just because I have more experience, which could be good.

[Lady Lambdadelta]

Yeah. And I suggested Matt Lecock ones, because they tend to not include a traitor mechanic, which is good for beginners. Get them used to working together as a team and having opinions heard and matter before they tear eachothers throats out trying to find the one fucking person who keeps failing my missions GOD DAMMIT RESISTANCE.

Sorry, sorry.

[Lady Lambdadelta]

If you want to mix up the style of game, I would suggest a Matt Lecock game. Forbidden Island or Pandemic are great for beginners and have a ton of replay.

I'd prefer Forbidden Desert over Island, as it doesn't have the feelbad of immediate game loss due to board state.
Roll for the Galaxy has also seen a lot of play in my group, and it's easier to get into than Race.

Funny story. When I was at Miami meet, Faraday, KittyMo, Mina, Kanye, Tierce, Shadoweh, Jerry, Tammy and I played about 20 games of Forbidden Island on the hardest difficulty. We swapped people up at different times depending on who was awake. I think we lost a total of 1 game ( and that was the first one, when I was teaching people who hadn't played before).

After that, it's a mostly solvable game (even if it gets REALLY close on impossible). Infact, it's only really any fun on Impossible.

[Mina]

To be fair, I think we accidentally played with easier rules the first couple of times, and lost more than once. But yeah, someone figured out that on Impossible, the trick is to adjust your strategy to which cards are left in the draw pile, and also try to bloat the discard pile and reduce the frequency of Water Rises cards.

I still sucked when I tried to play Forbidden Desert again months after that, though.

[Mina]

I'd prefer Forbidden Desert over Island, as it doesn't have the feelbad of immediate game loss due to board state.

I actually feel like Forbidden Island is more of a slow build toward victory or defeat, whereas Forbidden Desert has more annoying "Oh, you're crushing the game and about to win next turn? SUCKER! You just drew two Sun Beats Down cards in a row and instantly lost!" curveballs.

Also, add me to the list of people who'd like to spectate a BSG game. (I've only seen part of a game being played, and it seems way too overwhelming for me to jump right in, but I'm kind of curious.) Feel free to ping me if one happens on the 10% chance I'm actually free.

[Lady Lambdadelta]

I'll be sure to ping at you when we next play a session Mina.

[Sudo_Nym]

Speaking of, we could always get a game together for one of these weekends, if you like.

[Lady Lambdadelta]

You know I'm always /in.

[diginova]

I would be /in to be a cylon.

[Lady Lambdadelta]

you have to understand that I'm always a toaster.

Never not a toaster.

[diginova]

Nothing's as bad as my luck with Shadow Hunters.
I've played 50 games and been Unknown 47 of them.