OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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AWS260
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by AWS260 »

This weekend, I played Die Macher ("The Fixer"), a classic from the 1980s about the thrills and drama of German parliamentary elections.

It's pretty great! I can see why it's stayed popular over the years. Each player is a political party, jostling for votes in a series of state elections. Everything you want to do costs money, whether that's holding rallies, polling, buying media, influencing public opinion, or dirty tricks. The best way to get more money? Succeed at those election! Or you can take money from wealthy donors, but that will hurt your popularity. Lots of levers to pull, all of them interlocking.

In sum, a very good game, but also a long one. Our 4-player game took 4.5 hours. I know that the more recent editions have rules for a shorter play time, which is probably a good idea. Ours was an older copy of the game (in German!).
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by YellowKing »

Tonight we played Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which is the second in the series of IP-based Pandemic system games that started with World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.

The biggest difference with these games compared to regular Pandemic is that instead of curing diseases you're completing quests, and there is some dice rolling to resolve combat vs clearing disease cubes automatically. Your cards also have greater utility, being useful not only in progressing quests but also in helping to add to attack or bolster defense during combat.

Star Wars plays very similarly to Wrath of the Lich King with two big exceptions. The first is that unlike WoW:WotLK, you have four different boss villains that play very differently from each other. Our first game we played Asajj Ventress who constantly moves towards quests (called missions in Star Wars), and increases the threat meter by doing so. By contrast, Darth Maul, who we played in the second game, increases threat by constantly gaining power. So you wind up having to fight him much more often. Count Dooku and General Grievous round out the bosses, but we didn't get a chance to play them.

The second big exception is that unlike the quests in WoW:WotLK, missions in Star Wars have to be completed in one fell swoop. In WoW, each player could drop by and help progress a quest on their own turn. In Star Wars, it becomes a bit more critical to have the resources you need upfront and get players in place to assist. In that way, Star Wars feels like it puts slightly more emphasis on true cooperative play. It's not a huge shift, as success in WoW also required significant collaboration. But I felt like we were strategizing a bit more in this game on how best to complete missions.

I enjoy both games; I give the edge to Star Wars personally because I like the IP more and because I think the villain and mission variety adds a lot more replayability. WoW got a bit stale for me after 3-4 plays as the only real variance came in which of the limited number of quests you pulled. Star Wars has an entire deck of missions vs WoW's handful. Still, both are solid and fun entries.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by coopasonic »

Finally got to try out Turing Machine. It feels a lot like Cryptid, but without any player interaction, like at all, but also with a nice tracking sheet. It would make for a great solo puzzle game. At the easier levels it's all deduction, but higher level require more and more inference.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by coopasonic »

I don't know if Isgrimnur has had a chance to check out Sniper Elite: The Board Game, but it's quite possible it is going to replace Letters from Whitechapel for me. I need more plays to see if it has legs. I've been the sniper twice and the Germans once and have only won one of the three games, but I really enjoyed it each time and play time is MUCH quicker.
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OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Isgrimnur »

LfW has been replaced by Whitehall Mystery.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by coopasonic »

Whitehall was more of... I am not sure, kind of a stand-in for me as it significantly shortened the playtime with moderate changes to the game structure, but it wasn't nearly as satisfying as Letters. Sniper Elite adds more complexity and variety to kind of fill that satisfaction gap.

Being able to shoot the damn guard that's blocking your path forward, or making a noise, dropping an anti-personnel mine and watching as the guard heads right in to investigate. Satisfying. The way the guards operate in squads with officers that have different limited use powers, including their own sniper.

I've played it three time now mostly because I didn't want to hog the library copy. Now I have my own copy so I foresee more plays coming soon.

It also has a solo mode. I tried it once last night and it was... a bit confusing. I need to read those rules again. :P
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by coopasonic »

Turing Machine x8 (approx)
Sniper Elite x3
Gravwell x2 - second edition changes some things, mostly for the better
Space Base - I finally got a win with the You Win card and a lot of charge manipulation
Cascadia
Flamecraft
Lords of Vegas
Splendor Duel

I think that's all I played at the con. I ended up going home early every day. I guess I am getting old or being around that many people really tires me out more than it used to.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by YellowKing »

I picked up the Wizard of Oz Adventure Book Game from the Target B2G1 sale. I wasn't particularly jonesing for a Wizard of Oz game, but I have The Princess Bride one and want to support the series as I love the concept of them.

It plays almost identically to The Princess Bride in that each chapter is essentially a co-op mini-game that you can run through in 15-20 minutes. Get through all six chapters and you win, but if you fail a chapter you have to start over from the very beginning (though there are Glenda Favors that you can earn that allow you to spend one to be able to start over at your current chapter).

For those that have played The Princess Bride, they made a couple of small improvements that I think are great:

- In Princess Bride, the game shared a single plot deck that told you what bad things would occur. There were 3 or 4 possible bad events listed in the chapter rules, and depending on what number you drew in the plot deck, one of those 3-4 things would happen. In Wizard of Oz, they created plot decks for each chapter. This means not only do you not have to look up in a table what happens as the event is written on the card, it also allows them to add more events per chapter, and make those events more customized towards the scenario.

- Each chapter has a "Song Objective" that you can complete by turning in 1 or more cards. The more cards you turn in, the better the reward. The Princess Bride didn't have this mechanic. I liked the slight bit of press your luck this introduced - do you go for speed, or do you hold out and try to earn the greatest reward?

Ultimately this series is very light and falls firmly into the family category, but the minis are terrific and it's a great gateway into more complex co-op games.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hepcat »

If you’re looking for some fun, horror inspired game adventures, check out The House on Sentinel Hill and others by Graham Plowman.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by AWS260 »

We've started playing Betrayal Legacy with another family in the neighborhood. I really like how it approaches the legacy element: each game takes place 30-40 years after the previous one, with a new generation of characters gathering in the same house. Ghosts and mysteries accumulate, the deed to the house changes hands from game to game, and it grows in size as the owners gradually add to it over time.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by YellowKing »

It's time for Descent: Legends of the Dark: REVISITED!

A buddy of mine that I used to play D&D with came over the other week and mentioned that he'd love to start putting together some regular game nights to run through a dungeon crawler or two. So I decided to grab one of the great unfinished on-again, off-again campaigns in my collection, Descent: Legends of the Dark.

We played through the first two scenarios on Heroic difficulty, winning the first but losing in a heartbreaking finish on the second.

Takeaways:

- I really enjoyed this game much better playing four characters (we each 2-handed it), much more than my solo attempts. And unlike my regular gaming group, my buddy has D&D experience. So he was all-in on wanting to roleplay the characters and make decisions based on what he thought they'd do. Unlike my previous attempts where the whole group was discussing every player's turn, we independently controlled our own characters and did what we thought was best in each situation.

- It was fun bringing out the terrain for someone who truly appreciated it. My other gaming group I felt sometimes thought of it as more of an annoyance or hindrance than a neat game component. And playing solo I sometimes felt the same way. With two people we were able to set maps fairly quickly and it wasn't a problem.

- Fatigue finally clicked with me in this session in a way it didn't in previous plays. It's a neat mechanic and I really enjoyed managing it this time around.

- My opinion remains the same - is it probably too expensive for what you get? Yes. But did it also get a bad rap upon release? Yes. It's a solid game, we're having a blast with it, and the 8.0 rating on BGG shows that a lot of people have come around on it. Hopefully with a regular player I'll finally able to finish this one out and get it off the shelf of shame.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Fardaza »

I had a good time at BGG Con last week. I got to try out a few heavy games that I was thinking of getting.

I joined 3 others and a walkby teacher to learn Sleeping Gods. I thought I was just going to play for a bit to get the feel of the game since it's showing up on my doorstep any day now. We played for 6 hours and my brain was fried. It was an enjoyable experience though, and I'm glad I bought it from a guy through the BGG market.

Then two of that same group and 1 other guy decided to teach ourselves Oathsworn! They'd checked it out from the library, and we went at it. Another 6 hours later and we finished the first story and battle sessions. THIS is a great game! I really enjoyed it.

I also spent a couple hours teaching and playing Lost Ruins of Arnak with a couple that had checked it out but didn't know how to play it. I got my clock cleaned! They both understood the game better than I did. Within a couple rounds I could tell I was going to get beaten badly. A good time was had by all.
coopasonic wrote: Sun Nov 13, 2022 9:12 am I ended up going home early every day. I guess I am getting old or being around that many people really tires me out more than it used to.
I was so worn out from all the walking, I left on Friday afternoon. I don't think I could have taken 2 more days. My legs (and brain) were shot.

It was nice getting to meet you Coop! I hope to see you for some actual gaming at a future Con.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by YellowKing »

Last night we kicked off Pandemic Legacy: Season 0. I count Seasons 1 and 2 as two of the finest board gaming experiences I've ever had, so I was really looking forward to this one. The first session did not disappoint.

This one takes place in 1962, and you're working as rookie CIA agents trying to uncover a Soviet plot to develop a new bio-terrorism disease that will later rear its head in Seasons 1 & 2.

The presentation of this is beautiful - every player gets a realistic passport, which you can fill with photos of your agent in various disguises (provided via sticker sheet). The board also has a charming retro 60s feel while still retaining the basic layout of Pandemic.

We won our first game and the prologue, but it never felt too easy. The Pandemic Legacy games are neat in that they have self-correcting mechanic that makes the game harder when you win and easier when you lose, so it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

You play through 12 months and you get two chances at each month - so a minimum of 12 games and a maximum of 24. So this one is going to keep us busy for awhile. If you haven't tried any of the Legacy games because you don't like vanilla Pandemic, I highly recommend them. The twists and turns they take are incredibly rewarding and fun.

I'm already very impressed with Season 0 after just two sessions, and I have a feeling this one may be my favorite of the series yet.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by gbasden »

YellowKing wrote: Mon Nov 14, 2022 10:05 am It's time for Descent: Legends of the Dark: REVISITED!

My primary gaming group finished the game (so far) and we really enjoyed it. The terrain was extremely clever, especially in the later levels. We really enjoyed it as a 4 player group.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by paulbaxter »

We got our Frosthaven campaign started.

Roughly the same feeling as starting Gloomhaven the first time, except that we're already familiar with the basic ruleset. The writing is at least a bit better. We had a pretty funny road event going into our second scenario. There are a bunch of new things relating to the city that are different than Gloomhaven, but the game sets it up so that those things are introduced slowly, just a bit at a time. Just as one example, there are a few items you can buy with your starting gold, but since there is no show set up in the town yet, after initial set up, there's no way to buy more items quite yet. Not that we have enough gold yet to do anything.

The box comes with a nice set-up guide for how to punch out and organize all the components. If you're still expecting a copy, be prepared for at least a couple of hours of just component sorting. Also, they provide clear plastic bags for each monster type, but no obvious way to organize those bags once you've assembled them all. I ended up just throwing all of them into a grocery store bag to keep them together, but then it's a bit of a chore finding the specific critters needed for each scenario. I suppose I'll end up sorting them by type into a few different bags.

The scenario book starts with a "scenario 0", designed to just introduce the basic game flow for people who haven't played Gloomhaven. It's just a single room with 4 hounds to kill, and it specifies which cards each character should bring. I elected to skip that one. The two scenarios we played were fairly challenging, since we're all at level 1 and have no hit points to speak of, but we had enough self-preservation instinct to get through them. There was one small snag in the second scenario. I don't want to spoil it too much, but there was a "scenario fails if" condition, and that condition accidentally got triggered rather unexpectedly, so I decided we should just massage the rules just a bit so we could have a fighting chance. Took some convincing since my kids are rules sticklers.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hepcat »

I’ll probably get my copy in January of 2023. :(
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Malificent »

Wife and I finished up Familiar Tales this weekend. It's a game by the developer of Mice and Mystics and Aftermath. It's a cooperative narrative storybook game, much like his previous games. The new element in this is an app that does all the storytelling and gives enemy instructions. It's got full voiceover and is browser based, so can be run on anything.

The game was fun, although this is a game aimed more at families, so difficulty/challenge level was probably a little light for us. But the mechanics are fun - light deck building combined with a -2 to +2 die roll to add some randomness. The story itself is about four adorable wizard familiars protecting/hiding a princess through her various stages of childhood. And that's where the other mechanic comes in. You have a discontent dial that increases during combat and other situations where the child might be upset. If it reaches the max, bad things can happen, so you want to try and keep it down. Depending on the age of the child and the value of the dial, different things can reduce discontent. When younger, it might be feeding the baby. When a teenager, it might be helping them work through their emotions. In addition, there is a story level misfortune dial that comes up when familiars get knocked out or you fail key skill tests. Your misfortune amount will help shape where the storyline goes.

All in all, fun game, we enjoyed the story, I enjoyed painting the miniatures as well. Replay value is low, but we probably got 20-30 hours play (maybe more). We probably won't play it again ourselves, although we might hold on to it for future grandkids.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by baelthazar »

I played two sessions of solo Everdell this weekend with the Pearlbrook and New Leaf expansions. What an excellent game! I am ready to move on to the Spider automata, and will likely incorporate Spirecrest into the game next time. It has so much good in it from other games - the tableau building of Wingspan and Ark Nova, the worker placement of Agricola/Caverna, the cuteness of Root.

I also got in two rounds of Parks after introducing the game to our six-going-on-seven year old. Personal side note, she is on the Autism spectrum (highly verbal, great memory, good analysis skills, but not as good with basic life needs stuff) and she loves board games and picks them up rather quickly. She did amazing with some minor coaching on strategy and reminding of the rules. This was a really fun new thing, and she feels like she has "graduated" from stuff like kid Catan to a more adult-style game.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Fardaza »

I've been playing Sword & Sorcery: Ancient Chronicles since picking it up at BGG Con. It's tough, but I just finished the 3rd scenario (the Colosseum). I failed it the first time and had to replay it.

The rules are starting to take hold. I don't have to reread sections every 2 minutes! I still think I'm doing a few things wrong, but they're getting fewer also.

It is fun though, especially when your plan works and you slam the enemies!!
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Malificent »

Fardaza wrote: Tue Nov 22, 2022 2:56 pm I've been playing Sword & Sorcery: Ancient Chronicles since picking it up at BGG Con. It's tough, but I just finished the 3rd scenario (the Colosseum). I failed it the first time and had to replay it.

The rules are starting to take hold. I don't have to reread sections every 2 minutes! I still think I'm doing a few things wrong, but they're getting fewer also.

It is fun though, especially when your plan works and you slam the enemies!!
My biggest problem with this edition (besides increased fiddliness) is that the Book of Secrets is less coherent and we've somehow stumbled into endings of the campaign after the 4th and 5th scenarios, which I'm pretty sure is not right.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by AWS260 »

At my son's request, I taught him and my wife John Company today. I was kind of shocked when he asked me to teach it - we haven't played anything nearly as heavy - but it went well. The final scores were 11-10-0, and I had the zero, which makes me either a great teacher or very bad at this game. Possibly both.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Skinypupy »

Picked up the new Clank Catacombs this afternoon. I love Clank, and this one is no exception. It's the standard formula, but instead of a static board, you build the board as you play by placing tiles. Very similar to the tile placement in the D&D Adventure Series games. It ends up shifting the focus from strategic to a bit more chaotic, as you never know where the artifacts, the locked paths, the market spaces, or any other necessary items will end up.

They add a few new wrinkles such as portals you can use to teleport around the map, wayshrines that give gold the more you claim, and lockpicks that can unlock prisoners (random tokens that give endgame bonuses for things you collect), secret tomes, or Major Secrets. There's also a whole host of brand new card abilities, enemies, and items.

It's not a huge change from the original, but it gives just enough tweaking to make it feel very fresh. I think this will likely be our go-to Clank version moving forward.

I also grabbed Tyrants of the Underdark. Hoping that Little B 13.8 will give that a shot with me tomorrow, but I did print out the solo rules just in case.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by wonderpug »

Does Clank Catacombs combine with other cards in the series, or is it entirely standalone?
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Skinypupy »

wonderpug wrote: Sun Nov 27, 2022 1:48 am Does Clank Catacombs combine with other cards in the series, or is it entirely standalone?
I don’t see any reason why the tiles couldn’t be used with the regular base game cards.

The other xpacs wouldn’t work though, as they have cards specific to aspects of their unique boards.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Skinypupy »

Ok, Tyrants of the Underdark is fantastic. Very simple mechanics but with lots of strategy, scheming, and treachery under the hood. Thematically, it’s absolutely perfect for the Underdark setting.

Enjoyed that far more than I expected to.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by AWS260 »

I strongly agree! It's just a great blend of deck-building and area control.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by YellowKing »

My wife got me Twilight Inscription for my birthday. I've really been looking forward to comparing it to Hadrian's Wall, which I loved. Especially when I hear that many people prefer TI over HW.

I took a quick swing through the tutorial booklet, but it's pretty high-level so I think I'm going to have to hit a video or two before tackling it.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Fardaza »

YellowKing wrote: Sun Nov 27, 2022 10:19 pm My wife got me Twilight Inscription for my birthday. I've really been looking forward to comparing it to Hadrian's Wall, which I loved.
Twilight Inscription was popular at BGG Con. I saw many people playing it. It definitely looked complicated though!
Absolutely gorgeous on the table.

https://boardgamegeek.com/image/7071563 ... nscription
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Malificent »

My wife and I have been playing Lands of Galzyr, a narrative co-op (or competitive) browser based game set in the same universe as Dale of Merchants. Each player gets to pick an animalfolk adventurer to journey around the lands. It has several neat mechanics:
  • A event/map based card system similar to 7th continent, where you can change the map depending on various events. As you move around the board, you are required to trigger an event every turn.
  • A calendar/date system where you move through months and between summer/winter and the season/day of week can affect what happens in your events. In addition, your statuses and companions will have a limited time with you, which is all measured with a neat little time tracking system on the board.
  • The skill system has 6 separate skills. Skill tests are resolved by rolling up to 5 dice. You start with 5 default dice, but you can replace the default dice with specialized much improved skill dice. At any one time, you can have 4 skill points spread among 6 skills, with many opportunities for you to swap those 4 skill points around.
  • When you actually roll on skills, the app (as part of the narrative) gives you some choices, like "Explore[/] the secret ruins" or "Convince your guide to do the exploration for you". Your inventory, companions, and statuses all have tag associated abilities. So I might have an item that lets me reroll 2 dice on a Convince check or get an automatic success on an Explore check. Easy checks require 1 minimum success, medium checks 2, and hard checks 3. Some are unknown. And sometimes, having a tag gets you a special option.
  • If two players are together, one can be a partner in an event, and the active player can use the skills and tags of the other player, which helps quite a bit, but also requires a bit of map coordination.
  • While events have an effect on the ongoing world, individual games are pretty quick. For 2 players, it was 7 days in game, which went pretty quick.
All in all, the game is an interesting dynamic of choices. You have limited time, so you have to be picky about quests and quest locations. You're only allowed 3 items, so you end up having to decide whether you want to replace an old item with a new one you just got. Companions have a limited time span, so if they have quests you might want to do those first, but then you won't have them for other events. And the limited number of skill points forces you to think about whether you want to be stable with the skills you've gotten comfortable with or whether you want to swap out for a potential upcoming challenge. And the story of each event has been generally well written and entertaining. We've had an occasional duplicate event, but not so much that it has felt bad.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by YellowKing »

Fardaza wrote:Twilight Inscription was popular at BGG Con. I saw many people playing it. It definitely looked complicated though!
Absolutely gorgeous on the table.
Like Hadrian's Wall, it's MUCH simpler than it appears. In fact, I'd say after watching a playthrough and going through the rulebook, it may actually be less complex than HW because you're only working off one sheet at a time.

The game basically boils down to - flip a card and use those resources on one sheet of your choosing. Roll dice, use *those* resources on the same sheet. End of round.

Each sheet is basically either crossing out resource icons, claiming (circling) them, or some combination thereof. The complexity only comes in with deciding how to most efficiently use the resources rolled to get as much "stuff" as you can on your turn.

Haven't played it yet but I think I have a good grasp of the mechanics so I'll give it a whirl tonight.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hepcat »

I played it a while back. It was fun, but I still prefer Hadrian's Wall. The choices I make in HW just feel more significant to me.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by AWS260 »

I played Mexica for the first time this weekend. It's about the building of the Aztec capital city Tenochtitlan.

The board starts as an empty island. Over the course of the game, players build canals that both divide the island into regions and provide a rapid-transit system to get around. At the same time that you're building this map, you're also fighting for control of the regions by building increasingly impressive temples in them.

This does one of my absolutely favorite things in boardgaming: the players build the map that they're fighting over. It's remarkable to see the board evolve from a blank slate to a maze of canals and temples that you struggle to navigate. Really fun, and a very attractive production with heavy stone pieces to plonk down. I had a great time.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by YellowKing »

Ok, first game of Twilight Inscription in the books. And I lost BIGLY. Minimum winning score is 60, I scored a paltry 32.

Impressions:

- From a "thinky" perspective, I think it's much simpler than Hadrian's Wall. While there is still plenty of brain burn in deciding what to do with the resources you're given, and which sheet to activate, you're not typically having to think through long chains (this gets me this which gets me that which unlocks this, etc). That's not necessarily a slight on the game - it's just different.

- I (obviously) haven't played enough to figure out whether diverifying all four sheets or heavily investing in 1 or 2 is the best strategy. Hadrian's Wall has optimum strategies that tend to lead to victory unless you force yourself to do something different. In fact, that's one reason I kind of burned out on it after a dozen plays or so. I've read Twilight Inscription is less prone to that level of optimization, but we'll see.

- Thematically I definitely prefer Hadrian's Wall. I've never been much of a sci-fi fan outside of the big franchises, so sci-fi themed board games rarely do much for me. I really have no interest in 4X type space games, even in video game form, so the IP is rather lost on me.

- I do love how quickly and smoothly it plays solo (this is also true of HW). It only gets slightly bogged down when resolving the Council and War events. But that's a really minor nitpick, as even those only take a minute or two.

- I do love the wipe off boards and orange chalk markers compared to HW's paper pads.

Overall - it's fun, it's easy to play, I'm looking forward to playing again. Too soon to say where it ranks for me compared to HW, but I was very pleased that it's so significantly different. I have zero problem having both of them in my collection.

I had never touched a roll and write before Hadrian's Wall, so the fact that I have two now that I like is really encouraging because it opens up a whole new genre of games to explore. And while I know most roll and writes are much simpler than these two, I at least now know that I enjoy the basic mechanic.
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AWS260
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by AWS260 »

I'm pretty curious about that one. How do the interactive events work when you're playing solo? Do you think it would be better/different played with others?
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YellowKing
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by YellowKing »

Each round you're rolling dice and marking off tracks on the AI's card. So at any time, the AI's war value or council value is going to be some random (but known) number.

When War is declared, the AI acts as both your left and right neighbor and uses the same value for each. So if you want to win (or at least tie) you need to be making sure you're keeping up with that value throughout the game.

When a vote is declared for the council, the AI will cast every vote it currently has plus a random number from 0-2 (determined by dice roll). So though you don't know exactly what it will vote, you have a rough estimate. There is no Pass/Fail decision to make - either you put forth enough votes to beat the AI and get the "good" outcome, or you don't and get the "bad" outcome.

I think those two things are probably the weakest aspect of the solo game because they are known quantities (meaning you can prep for them a bit better than playing human opponents). Also knowing that the left and right neighbor will attack with the same strength means you really have to play Warfare symmetrically. Whereas with human opponents, you might realize your left neighbor is much weaker and know not to commit as many resources to that side.

It's important to note that you're not playing *against* the AI. All it's doing it taking scoring opportunities away from you. Your win/loss comes from what you score at the end (60 is minimum to win). So in that respect, yes, it's definitely going to be better with other players because you'll be actually competing against their scores. That doesn't make it a bad solo experience though, as long as you know what you're getting.

I haven't played enough yet to know how important it is to beat the AI in warfare and council. Can you just blow both of those off and still win in other ways? I'm guessing it may be possible. We shall see.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by baelthazar »

YellowKing wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 9:45 am I haven't played enough yet to know how important it is to beat the AI in warfare and council. Can you just blow both of those off and still win in other ways? I'm guessing it may be possible. We shall see.
The short answer is no. Like the multiplayer version, you can likely lose one of these but not the both. Losing at war will net you some negative points and you will miss out on very important rewards like extra dice, resources, and VP. Losing at the council can be VERY problematic, as you basically get socked with a negative event from one of the cards. In one game, the AI basically specialized in influence, leaving me way in the dust. The resulting negative effect cut me off from benefiting from population scoring, which - at first - I thought was no big deal but by the end became a major hassle. Those negative events can also remove the ability to colonize key planets, reduce resource gain, and create a number of problems for you.

I really like Twilight Inscription. It plays fast, feels thematic, and the individual factions all play different enough to be novel each time I played.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by YellowKing »

Thanks baelthazar! That's good to know. Will definitely keep that in mind for the next game. And yes, I really love the faction differences. That's something I think was missing from Hadrian's Wall that might have kept it a bit fresher for me.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by AWS260 »

I recently played Sidereal Confluence: Trading and Negotiation in the Elysium Quadrant. I don't know what most of those words mean, but I do understand "trading" and "negotiation," which are the essence of the game. If you add "resource conversion," that's pretty much the whole game right there. Each player has a different set of abilities to generate and convert resources, and you spend the game negotiating friendly trades to put your abilities to use.

For example, Alice can covert 3 yellow cubes to 6 green cubes. She doesn't have any yellow cubes, but negotiates a deal with Bob and Carol. Bob contributes 2 yellow cubes in exchange for 3 of the green cubes produced; Carol contributes 1 yellow cube in exchange for 2 green cubes. Alice keeps the last green cube for providing the ability and brokering the deal. Everyone made a profit!

It's basically three hours of that, complicated by a whole host of asymmetric faction abilities, some of them exceptionally weird. Very fun, though kind of exhausting by the end. It's the kind of game that I would love to place once or twice a year, but no more than that.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by EzeKieL »

AWS260 wrote: Wed Nov 30, 2022 11:52 am I recently played Sidereal Confluence: Trading and Negotiation in the Elysium Quadrant. I don't know what most of those words mean, but I do understand "trading" and "negotiation," which are the essence of the game. If you add "resource conversion," that's pretty much the whole game right there. Each player has a different set of abilities to generate and convert resources, and you spend the game negotiating friendly trades to put your abilities to use.

For example, Alice can covert 3 yellow cubes to 6 green cubes. She doesn't have any yellow cubes, but negotiates a deal with Bob and Carol. Bob contributes 2 yellow cubes in exchange for 3 of the green cubes produced; Carol contributes 1 yellow cube in exchange for 2 green cubes. Alice keeps the last green cube for providing the ability and brokering the deal. Everyone made a profit!

It's basically three hours of that, complicated by a whole host of asymmetric faction abilities, some of them exceptionally weird. Very fun, though kind of exhausting by the end. It's the kind of game that I would love to place once or twice a year, but no more than that.
You also need to play with players who actually want to negotiate and trade. We played with one person who didn't like the game after the first round and then proceeded to just give away resources to whoever wanted it almost for free. That totally ruined the balance and the game for everyone who didn't get the freebies :grund: . In the end I stopped the game halfway since all the fun had been drained because of that one player.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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I brought out and ran through the tutorial of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood of Venice

This game is based on the V-Commandos mechanics, but adapted to mimic the AC video game series.

I've never owned a Triton Noir game so I don't know if this is normal. But the component and rulebook quality are just top-notch. Full color glossy rulebook and campaign guide, every rule numbered so that tutorials and cards can reference them (GENIUS), great card stock, great tiles - hell, even the standee clips are the quality kind that don't damage your standees.

The KS was a huge miniatures box, but I went for the retail standees version and I'm more than OK with that. While the standees are cardboard vs acrylic, they're on heavy stock and seem plenty durable. And you still get miniatures for the Assassins themselves, so I I still have some painting to do.

The game is heavily campaign-based, with secret envelopes, very specific rules on which cards you can read and when, etc. However, they make all that very easy with clear instructions. They even have an interactive tutorial on the Dized app which completely holds your hand through the tutorial missions, which was a fantastic help.

The game itself, rules-wise, is fairly straightforward, and I think I'm really going to enjoy it. The game does an excellent job of introducing rules very slowly. So in the first mission, you don't even have any weapons so you can't engage in combat, and enemies don't spawn or move. All you can do is learn how to move and roll for detection. In the second mission you get a weapon and start learning combat basics, and the third mission starts tying everything together. It's extremely well done.

It's my first foray into stealth games, so I'm very much looking forward to getting into it a bit deeper.
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