Octopus Overlords

Played two games of Altar Quest today. 2 player both. The first game went well enough, but we lost.

The second game was kind of a disaster. We played the quarantine quest with the outlaw threat deck and the Bradford Heston villain deck. We ended up running through the villain deck and spawning him before we even had half the quest goals. After that it was just a constant flood of minions as you have to draw two threat cards during the villain phase if you defeat the villain. It went on for way too long. I’m going to have to try the other quests and some campaign stuff soon to wash the taste of that one out of my mouth.

My problem is that after you finish off the villain, the game just reverts to flooding you with enemies. So I suspect that the game wants you to be near the end game by that time...and we weren’t even close.

Going to try AQ solo again this week though. I’ll just avoid that quest.

Two rounds of Castle Panic with my 6yo son so far...lost the first with only 5-6 monsters left to put on the board, and squeaked out a win thanks to some very lucky draws in the second. We've been playing enough that my son is now starting to learn the strategy and is able to think ahead at least one move...very cool to see him understanding the game now instead of someone older do all the work.

Maybe I'll talk my wife and older kids (12yo twins) into joining us for Forbidden Island tomorrow...owned it for a while now, but still haven't played because I think it may be too advanced for my youngest. We'll see... eager to finally give it a shot

disarm wrote: ↑Sun Nov 22, 2020 12:46 am
Maybe I'll talk my wife and older kids (12yo twins) into joining us for Forbidden Island tomorrow...owned it for a while now, but still haven't played because I think it may be too advanced for my youngest. We'll see... eager to finally give it a shot

Played that for the first time this morning with the kids, 11 and 7 (x2). They absolutely loved it, and it was nice to see them playing cooperatively instead of being at each other’s throats.

Played a ton with the kids this weekend. Forbidden Island (x4), Hero Realms, Sushi Go (x3), Boss Monster, Clank!, and Ticket to Ride.

I gave Warp’s Edge a go, which was...frustrating.

Wife and I played 3 games of Altar Quest over the weekend (all using The Search quest), with increasing levels of success (both in execution and results).

Game 1
This was a disaster on all levels. I spent most of the time searching the rulebook for rules questions, some of which were there, some of which were not, or were buried in weird spots. I let my wife pick my hero and it was the one with the built in Ally, which was confusing. We played a bunch of stuff wrong and got crushed in the first (or second) revealed room.

Game 2-3
Before these games, I went to Board Game Geek and printed out some handy cheat sheets and read through the FAQ. This helped tremendously, and we figured out a bunch of stuff that we didn't understand or had missed, like:

• Anything not on the list of Hero actions does not cost an action. Exhaust? Free. Use? Free. Feat cards? Free.
• Exhaust and use can be done any time, not just on your turn.
• You can spend a hero action to heal - missing this was probably a big factor in our first loss.
• The search test generates supplies and search cards, even when its something you're doing with a card rather than being next to a feature.
• You only ever have 8 feature cards, so if you added in the extra features, make sure to take some out each game.

Our speed of play was probably also helped by me Zenithal priming some of the minis to make it easier to see them and figure out which lurkers I needed. Figuring a system for determining where the different minions are will be a big priority. Once they're painted, I imagine that will help, but that's going to be a while, as I also have to finish painting Folklore. I'll probably break briefly from that and paint Altar Quest heroes and features though.

Anyway, we lost Game 2, but it was generally a better experience and even though we lost, it felt competitive. We switched villains and threat (to Gert and the Raglanders) in Game 3 and I switched to the priest-like hero and we basically sailed through easily. I really enjoyed figuring out interplay between my abilities and the altar dice.

Questions

• If noone has threat cards in their area, does that mean nothing happens during the threat turn? Or do we have to draw lurkers?
• I'm still not completely sure how Allies work. Are they just another character you control that can't use Focus?

We're going to play another quest, villain, and threat tonight and then after that I think we'll start moving in on the campaign.

Euro Queen acquired Paris, Whistle Mountain, Babylonia and The Red Cathedral all within a week. However have to play Praga Caput Regni because good friend is the manager of Rio Grande and our first play was a bust. Faiyum is coming this week as well. Hope gaming partner is up to the task!

That's a lot of game to churn through, Lorini!

Over the weekend I played Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy. It was a journey:

The Orion Hegemony struck first, mounting an assault on the neighboring Terran Directorate. Unfortunately for the Orions, the Terrans not only survived but struck back with a vengeance, wiping out planet after planet and leaving the Orions with only a couple of systems left. The Terrans were clearly the dominant power in the galaxy.

Until they weren't. By growing so large, so early, the Terrans had painted a target on their back. After a slow start, the Mechanema managed to push back the Terrans, while also conquering the homeworld of the Hydran Progress. On the opposite side of the galaxy, the Descendants of Draco were also doing well, expanding peacefully while amassing a powerful fleet that would eventually conquer the galactic center.

At game end, we had a surprising winner. While the Draco, Mechanema, and Terrans all had sprawling, wealthy empires, the nerds of the Hydran Progress pipped them at the post. Despite controlling a measly three systems at the end, the Hydrans scored big points from their advanced technology and from the numerous (usually losing) battles they had fought in throughout the game. Everyone was surprised, including the person playing the Hydrans.

Love it. Losing early to pull the 4/5 VP tokens out of the bag can be worth it!

While you can only keep a few VP tokens, it can be worth losing a system you can’t hold anyway.

Zarathud wrote: ↑Mon Nov 23, 2020 5:30 pm Love it. Losing early to pull the 4/5 VP tokens out of the bag can be worth it!

While you can only keep a few VP tokens, it can be worth losing a system you can’t hold anyway.

Or just play with me, I'll stab you in the back and take the traitor token... Not that Zarathud has any experience with that from me.

AWS260 wrote: ↑Mon Nov 23, 2020 12:29 pm Over the weekend I played Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy. It was a journey:

I watched SU&SD's review of that over the weekend. Looks amazing, wish I had someone to play it with.

Zarathud wrote: ↑Mon Nov 23, 2020 5:30 pm Love it. Losing early to pull the 4/5 VP tokens out of the bag can be worth it!

While you can only keep a few VP tokens, it can be worth losing a system you can’t hold anyway.

In his last two battles, the Hydran player managed to pull a 4 to replace a 1, and a 3 to replace a 2. He won by a single point!

Malificent wrote: ↑Mon Nov 23, 2020 11:32 am
Questions

• If noone has threat cards in their area, does that mean nothing happens during the threat turn? Or do we have to draw lurkers?
• I'm still not completely sure how Allies work. Are they just another character you control that can't use Focus?

We're going to play another quest, villain, and threat tonight and then after that I think we'll start moving in on the campaign.

I don’t envy you going into the game without playing Street Masters or Brook City first. Their rule books are notoriously crappy. I’m still finding stuff that isn’t even mentioned in the rules. But coming from Street Masters made it a heck of a lot easier as many of those rules you mentioned are taken straight from it.

To answer your questions

1) nope, don’t draw anything, just enjoy a moment of respite as it won’t last. Furthermore, after you kill the villain, you’re going to be drawing even more threat cards. The villain deck is a timer in this game. If you don’t complete the game before the villain is killed, you’re just going to get swarmed with enemies.

2) I haven’t played with allies yet, but I assume they’re the same as those in SM. Put them in your player area and use their exhaust to move, fight, etc.. They’re considered characters for all other intents and purposes though (except they can’t use focus, as you noted). Same with rivals mostly. Put them in your threat area and activate them like a minion.

I’m still trying to make up my mind after Saturday’s fiasco of a second game. I REALLY think the quarantine quest is unbalanced to a ridiculous degree. But more importantly, the game became a grind after we killed the villain with just wave after wave of minions. You need to move fast in this game as that villain deck doesn’t have many cards.

However, the encounter mode seems to be a way of bringing the tightness of SM to the game. I want to try that next.

But right now I’m actually enjoying the escape quest with two heroes. Especially since I learned that each hero can open one room on their turn each round, not one room per all hero action phases as I initially thought. That’s making a big difference in my race against the clock to get out.

..plus the dwarf character just rocks with all his stuns.

I have found a rule gimp to be more effective than a book.

You just make up any rule you don’t know. I still don’t think that if you fail a saving roll in zombicide while trying to evade, you get 4 rerolls if your last name begins with a D.

Zombicide 1.0 has some stupid rules. I’m all for deciding a sensible compromise and making that a house rule for a game until an official ruling is located.

Otherwise we risk triggering my internal rules lawyer. And that’s not a fun scenario. You won’t like me if I go all Mecha-Shiva and start citing the Treaty of Tolerance. It’s bad enough when I bring down the Rules Hammer.

Zarathud wrote: ↑Tue Nov 24, 2020 12:05 am Zombicide 1.0 has some stupid rules. I’m all for deciding a sensible compromise and making that a house rule for a game until an official ruling is located.

Otherwise we risk triggering my internal rules lawyer. And that’s not a fun scenario. You won’t like me if I go all Mecha-Shiva and start citing the Treaty of Tolerance. It’s bad enough when I bring down the Rules Hammer.

It's the bondage bear rulles that got me the first time we played THAT game together..

The druid bear in Super Dungeon Explore just cries out to be played as a BDSM furry with those chains.

Man, I miss that from Origins. Hopefully next year we can make up for it.

It also sucks that we cancelled our Christmas Mansions of Madness game day. I know RMC loves 14 hours straight of Lovecraft gaming.

Zarathud wrote: ↑Tue Nov 24, 2020 9:42 am The druid bear in Super Dungeon Explore just cries out to be played as a BDSM furry with those chains.

I mean, it's already called Angry Bear.

hepcat wrote: ↑Tue Nov 24, 2020 5:06 pm Man, I miss that from Origins. Hopefully next year we can make up for it.

It also sucks that we cancelled our Christmas Mansions of Madness game day. I know RMC loves 14 hours straight of Lovecraft gaming.

I actually really do. I refuse to play Mansions unless it is with my Heppy Poo.

Grrrrrr.

RMC wrote: ↑Tue Nov 24, 2020 7:48 pm

hepcat wrote: ↑Tue Nov 24, 2020 5:06 pm Man, I miss that from Origins. Hopefully next year we can make up for it.

It also sucks that we cancelled our Christmas Mansions of Madness game day. I know RMC loves 14 hours straight of Lovecraft gaming.

I actually really do. I refuse to play Mansions unless it is with my Heppy Poo.

Well have to have a make up game day this summer after things hopefully start to die down with the pandemic.

hepcat wrote: ↑Tue Nov 24, 2020 9:46 pm

RMC wrote: ↑Tue Nov 24, 2020 7:48 pm

hepcat wrote: ↑Tue Nov 24, 2020 5:06 pm Man, I miss that from Origins. Hopefully next year we can make up for it.

It also sucks that we cancelled our Christmas Mansions of Madness game day. I know RMC loves 14 hours straight of Lovecraft gaming.

I actually really do. I refuse to play Mansions unless it is with my Heppy Poo.

Well have to have a make up game day this summer after things hopefully start to die down with the pandemic.

Once it dies down, maybe I can make it to Chi Town.

Tonight we played The Cost, a new heavy-ish economic game about of one of the most popular themes in boardgaming today: the asbestos industry. I'm pretty sure it's brilliant.

In The Cost, you mine raw asbestos, ship it to mills where it's refined, and then ship the refined asbestos to the market to sell. So far, so eurogame. The key thematic wrinkle is whether your mines and mills operate safely. It's entirely up to you. Operating safely costs more. Operating unsafely will lead to worker deaths, which over time will cause regulatory authorities to shut down the asbestos industry in your country.

It's a brilliant integration of theme and mechanics. The game systems encourage you to take the expedient route, paying human lives to maximize short-term profits. But you'll pay over the long run, as countries crack down as a result of your actions.

At the end, I found myself staring at the pile of workers I had let die in my not-quite-successful attempt to conquer the asbestos market. I very much want to play again and explore more ethical strategies, which the designers swear is possible.

RMC wrote: ↑Wed Nov 25, 2020 12:07 am

hepcat wrote: ↑Tue Nov 24, 2020 9:46 pm

RMC wrote: ↑Tue Nov 24, 2020 7:48 pm

hepcat wrote: ↑Tue Nov 24, 2020 5:06 pm Man, I miss that from Origins. Hopefully next year we can make up for it.

It also sucks that we cancelled our Christmas Mansions of Madness game day. I know RMC loves 14 hours straight of Lovecraft gaming.

I actually really do. I refuse to play Mansions unless it is with my Heppy Poo.

Well have to have a make up game day this summer after things hopefully start to die down with the pandemic.

Once it dies down, maybe I can make it to Chi Town.

The Comfortron 2000 awaits you. Hopefully we can get Octocon up and running again next year again.

AWS260 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 25, 2020 12:59 am Tonight we played The Cost, a new heavy-ish economic game about of one of the most popular themes in boardgaming today: the asbestos industry. I'm pretty sure it's brilliant.

In The Cost, you mine raw asbestos, ship it to mills where it's refined, and then ship the refined asbestos to the market to sell. So far, so eurogame. The key thematic wrinkle is whether your mines and mills operate safely. It's entirely up to you. Operating safely costs more. Operating unsafely will lead to worker deaths, which over time will cause regulatory authorities to shut down the asbestos industry in your country.

It's a brilliant integration of theme and mechanics. The game systems encourage you to take the expedient route, paying human lives to maximize short-term profits. But you'll pay over the long run, as countries crack down as a result of your actions.

At the end, I found myself staring at the pile of workers I had let die in my not-quite-successful attempt to conquer the asbestos market. I very much want to play again and explore more ethical strategies, which the designers swear is possible.

Dude, this game sounds cool, but the subject matter is....difficult to play a game with...

RMC wrote: ↑Wed Nov 25, 2020 11:13 am Dude, this game sounds cool, but the subject matter is....difficult to play a game with...

Yeah, it's an odd experience if you're the type of person who likes to think and talk about theme during a game (which I do). Like many eurogames, it can give you the deep satisfaction of building a point-hoovering combo across multiple turns. But the real-world system that it's modeling is always hovering in the background.

I feel very differently about The Cost than I do about Puerto Rico, another excellent eurogame about a queasy topic (plantation farming in colonial PR). Puerto Rico pretends that the less tasteful aspects of its theme don't exist: your workers are labeled "colonists," but historically they were African slaves. Playing Puerto Rico left me feeling uncomfortable about the game and its designers/publishers. Playing The Cost left me feeling uncomfortable about my own decisions. I will never play Puerto Rico again; I would very much like to play The Cost again.

AWS260 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 25, 2020 11:39 am

RMC wrote: ↑Wed Nov 25, 2020 11:13 am Dude, this game sounds cool, but the subject matter is....difficult to play a game with...

Yeah, it's an odd experience if you're the type of person who likes to think and talk about theme during a game (which I do). Like many eurogames, it can give you the deep satisfaction of building a point-hoovering combo across multiple turns. But the real-world system that it's modeling is always hovering in the background.

I feel very differently about The Cost than I do about Puerto Rico, another excellent eurogame about a queasy topic (plantation farming in colonial PR). Puerto Rico pretends that the less tasteful aspects of its theme don't exist: your workers are labeled "colonists," but historically they were African slaves. Playing Puerto Rico left me feeling uncomfortable about the game and its designers/publishers. Playing The Cost left me feeling uncomfortable about my own decisions. I will never play Puerto Rico again; I would very much like to play The Cost again.

Great insight, and I can see the distinction. Maybe it is too close to home, as I have worked around asbestoes when I was in the Navy. There was another game that I played once and was uncomfortable with..Dealing with the underground railroad maybe? It was a good game, but I just couldn't get over the fact that I was uncomfortable with the real world topic in a game form. Want to talk about it, no problem, but play a game based on it...Well..

But a great explanation, and one that I can understand and agree with.

AWS260 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 25, 2020 12:59 am Tonight we played The Cost, a new heavy-ish economic game about of one of the most popular themes in boardgaming today: the asbestos industry. I'm pretty sure it's brilliant.

I joke all the time there's a board game for every topic, but this is one I'd never heard of. I never would have thought to turn this into a game, it definitely sounds interesting. I'm not into euro economic simulators, but thematically I'm intrigued!

I got two more plays of Marvel Splendor in earlier this week. The first was a two player game that was pretty straightforward and the new stuff didn't make a difference. The Second game was a 3 player game at the end all three players were in a position to win, but I pulled it off because of the two new rules. My son had more points but hadn't bought a card from the third tier so didn't qualify for victory and with my last move I had more avengers than my wife so stole the 3 pt bonus card from her. My son *should* have won based on his development but he just forgot that he needed a third tier card until it was too late.

With that I can say fairly confidently that the extra rules in the Marvel version have an impact and make the game a little more interesting. Note: that I have not played with any of the Cities of Splendor stuff so I don't know if they are similar or better.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Wed Nov 25, 2020 12:20 pm

AWS260 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 25, 2020 12:59 am Tonight we played The Cost, a new heavy-ish economic game about of one of the most popular themes in boardgaming today: the asbestos industry. I'm pretty sure it's brilliant.

I joke all the time there's a board game for every topic, but this is one I'd never heard of. I never would have thought to turn this into a game, it definitely sounds interesting. I'm not into euro economic simulators, but thematically I'm intrigued!

I don't know if I told you folks I have a YouTube channel now where I discuss games that I've played. One thing about the channel is that I won't take free games. The first free game I was offered was this one, The Cost. Which I turned down, hopefully politely enough for the designer.

Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXE8oe ... VHinyERXNw

I watched your Anno 1800 video before playing it (on TTS) for the first time last night. Your video: great. The game: good, but not really memorable. The play is smooth and fast, and the huge constellation of resources/buildings is genuinely remarkable for being so readable. But it's quite multiplayer-solitaire, and the cycle of using resources to build facilities that produce resources to build facilities, etc, gets a bit old.

AWS260 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 26, 2020 1:03 pm I watched your Anno 1800 video before playing it (on TTS) for the first time last night. Your video: great. The game: good, but not really memorable. The play is smooth and fast, and the huge constellation of resources/buildings is genuinely remarkable for being so readable. But it's quite multiplayer-solitaire, and the cycle of using resources to build facilities that produce resources to build facilities, etc, gets a bit old.

It's not multi player solitaire But it takes a few plays and/or someone rushing the end of the game to see that. You should watch my impressions video again and really understand how the game actually is interactive and how a player who wants to end the game early can easily win against players who are playing the game as multi player solitaire. I've done just that several times.

Yeah, I would definitely be up for playing it again to try a different approach. In our game, all three players were absolutely loaded with cards before a couple of us started sprinting to empty our hands.

AWS260 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 26, 2020 8:03 pm Yeah, I would definitely be up for playing it again to try a different approach. In our game, all three players were absolutely loaded with cards before a couple of us started sprinting to empty our hands.

Yeah you have to recognize when you’re behind in the engine building game and switch to the rush game.

King's Dilemma, Pandemic Season 0 and Unmatched: Buffy just showed up.

I've been waiting on King's Dilemma since the SUSD review. I had a group at work lined up to play it. No idea when that be possible now. My son and I played Pandemic Season 1 last year and had a blast with it. I've heard some good things about season 0. I may wrap that for him for Christmas. I played one of the Unmatched games with Isgrimnur at BGG.CON last year, I think, and enjoyed the wild asymmetry of it. Adding Buffy made it a must purchase.

Hey I don't just buy (and then sell unplayed) kickstarter games!

This weekend's play was Beyond the Sun, about exploring the galaxy, colonizing star systems, and working your way up a variable tech tree. I came in a very distant third. In retrospect, exhausting my entire starting fleet in order to colonize a world that only gave end-game bonuses was a very large mistake. Had a good time exploring that tech tree, though.

Also, my first-ever Hollandspiele games arrived: The Vote and Aurelian. I'm looking forward to taking these historical bad boys for a (solo) spin sometime this week.

Lorini wrote: ↑Thu Nov 26, 2020 12:10 am I don't know if I told you folks I have a YouTube channel now where I discuss games that I've played. One thing about the channel is that I won't take free games. The first free game I was offered was this one, The Cost. Which I turned down, hopefully politely enough for the designer.

Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXE8oe ... VHinyERXNw

The unboxing both is making me depressed at not seeing people to play games and having a happy memory at Rich LaPorte's old walk throughs at buying video games beginning with "the lift test"

Last night I played Reign of Witches, the freebie game from Holllandspiele's holiday sale. It is tiny: 25 cards, of which 2 are just the rules.

It's a two-player game about John Adams and Alexander Hamilton jockeying for control of the Federalist Party against the backdrop of the Quasi-War between America and France.

You're competing across three domains: political influence, public opinion, and military control. Winning two of the three domains means that you now lead the Federalists. Congratulations!

Except that beating the other player doesn't mean you've beat the game. You have to compare your final score against Thomas Jefferson, who has been accumulating points in the background. Beat him, and you've won the presidential election of 1800. Fail, and the Federalists will never hold the presidency again.

In our game, neither player won control of the party, since one of the three domains was tied at the end. That meant the party remained in disarray, allowing Jefferson to stroll to victory.

Reign of Witches packs a lot of game into a tiny package. It's easy to teach, plays very quickly, but provides a genuinely meaty experience. I'm really impressed.

Last night I learned Iwari, an abstract area-control game. It has a lot going for it: simple rules, see-saw jostling for majorities, multiple scoring avenues to pursue, and a quick playtime. Also beautiful production values, although I was just playing on TTS. I was really impressed, and would happily play it again. The core gameplay loop feels evergreen.