Board Games (Reviews, Rules, Regulations, Random)

[theJ]

8 minutes ago, The Gnat said:

Agreed with this, and it's also a game that fakes theme and once you get into it, you realize that it doesn't matter what the cards say their name is, it could really say anything. And there's just the strategy of only buying money to win the game and that just makes the game dull, even with the expansions.

I'm so bad at the game i didn't even know about this strategy.  I just buy cards that look fun, and i can't ever buy anything with victory points.

I usually try to veto the game when my brother/SIL bring it up, but if it does come up, i'll have something else to try haha.

[The Gnat]

Yeah, if there's a card that allows you to trash money, and then just buying up Silver and moving Silver to Gold and then just buying victory points. That way you can thin out all the coppers from your deck. It's a strategy that takes all the fun out of a not all that fun game to start with.

[Woz]

1 hour ago, The Gnat said:

And there's just the strategy of only buying money to win the game and that just makes the game dull, even with the expansions.

Minor aside: there have been strategy articles that show that following the "big money" strategy generally is a sub-optimal play. The reason being that you give up the opportunity for extra cards (process your deck faster) and extra actions.

[The Gnat]

Yeah, I can see that, however, it depends a lot on the set-up. If there isn't some optional tree building for actions/buys/drawing cards, and you can get rid of small money, the strategy is stronger. If there is no way to trash cards, it's worthless strategy, because your deck becomes too bloated. Generally the best strategy is to card trash if you can to get your deck down to only the cards you need and cards that score for you, so highly focused, which is some of why I see it as boring.

[The Gnat]

What are some logic/puzzle esque games. I'm thinking of not too heavy logic games, but stuff like Quaridor or Sagrada where it has that puzzle like aspect to it. My wife enjoys those types of games, and we've got Sagrada, but what else is there out there? Probably not going to get Azul.

[Woz]

1 hour ago, The Gnat said:

Generally the best strategy is to card trash if you can to get your deck down to only the cards you need and cards that score for you, so highly focused, which is some of why I see it as boring.

To a certain extent true, but the trick there is to balance not too thin of a deck since you'll get jammed with just victory points and not enough coins to advance.

It really depends on which expansion(s) you play with. But I can understand your frustration (and cleaning of the game since friends have it)

[The Gnat]

Ordered a couple of games, Quoridor, a simple but fun game and one that my wife likes a lot, so that helps get it played more often. The other is kind of a game, it's called Journal 29. It's more of a puzzle book, but when you think you've figured out the key, you check it online and get a clue for figuring out the next key in the book. Has something like 63 different puzzles in the book, should be interesting/challenging.

[titansNvolsR#1]

On 6/4/2018 at 2:38 PM, The Gnat said:

What are some logic/puzzle esque games. I'm thinking of not too heavy logic games, but stuff like Quaridor or Sagrada where it has that puzzle like aspect to it. My wife enjoys those types of games, and we've got Sagrada, but what else is there out there? Probably not going to get Azul.

For two player, my wife and I like Hive and Patchwork. Kahuna is good too. 

[KuechTheCat]

On 6/4/2018 at 12:12 PM, The Gnat said:

Yeah, I can see that, however, it depends a lot on the set-up. If there isn't some optional tree building for actions/buys/drawing cards, and you can get rid of small money, the strategy is stronger. If there is no way to trash cards, it's worthless strategy, because your deck becomes too bloated. Generally the best strategy is to card trash if you can to get your deck down to only the cards you need and cards that score for you, so highly focused, which is some of why I see it as boring.

I read this and thought everybody was talking about Netrunner. Dammit.

[MacReady]

I'm looking for some board games to get for players who are used to simple board games.  Trying to get them out of the Monopoly/Risk/Balderdash type games and work them up to some of the more complex games.  Doing this for myself as much as for them.  I saw a few that I am intrigued by.  I'd really appreciate some opinions on the following games if anybody knows anything about them:

Siege
Judgmental
Salem
Viral
Iknow Trivia Game

[The Gnat]

On 6/9/2018 at 10:26 AM, HorizontoZenith said:

Viral

That's the only one of those I know anything about. I haven't played it, but it seems like it would be a decent-ish introductory game for more modern gaming.

Settlers of Catan or Ticket to Ride are the two gateway games that I always think of first. But those aren't all that complex either, I'd suggest Five Tribes, Carcassone, and Pandemic as good starting points as well as they are accessible board games. Probably the first one I'd grab though is Sushi Go! Party. It's a cute game, so that generally attracts people at the start of the game, and then there is enough going on that for a gamer you can still have some strategy, but not so much going on that a new player is overwhelmed.

[The Gnat]

Got to play a few games this weekend. The big one was an Unlock game. For those who don't know about that series of game, they are an escape room in a box. It was a lot of fun, it has an app component to it. Ton of fun, and worked well with a group of five players. Definitely want to try some more of them as it was a lot of fun.

[The Gnat]

I'm starting Charterstone tonight. It's a Legacy game, so builds off of each game, but less story driven than a lot of them. Seems to be more focused on worker placement and euro style of game than most other legacy games. However, once your done, you have a unique game board for a game that you can play again as a worker placement game.

[The Gnat]

Charterstone was a lot of fun yesterday. It is a game that goes very fast which is nice. We had 4 of the 5 of us playing, and it worked nicely with four, but I think will work better with five. The worker placement and rules are simple though some of the terminology at times was a bit confusing just because we wanted to call some of the tokens one thing, but that was actually just one of their uses. I think it is going to be fun though as we go through and unlock more things. Also, the quality of the product is great. The different meeples and wooden item tokens are great and the metal coins are nice. What impressed me most were the cards though. They were nice stock and the stickers were nice on them. However, I will say that the stickers could be a touch easier to get off and that would be nice, because sometimes you need to bend the cards that you use again later

 

[fretgod99]

Long time since I’ve played much since having the little monster.

Wife and I are in ~August in Pandemic Legacy S2. Need to finish that up. The friend-couple we’re also playing with is in May I think. Been since like March since we’ve played though. We plan on starting Charterstone after we finish Pandemic.

Haven’t done much Pathfinder lately. Still playing in my brother’s Rise of the Runelords quest. Really fun but slow going since my wife and I live 2.5 hours away from the other two we’re playing with. I did start GMing a solo quest with my brother that I would like to expand to a group initially also via solo games until they team up. It’s a quest idea I’ve wanted to do for a long time: the PCs are the Warriors of Light from the original Final Fantasy that I’m adapting to Pathfinder. Also, Pathfinder is going to start playtesting 2.0 and it’s looks really great.

Last summer HP Hogwarts Battle was my wife’s and my go-to. We played probably 2-3 times a week. Obviously that’s dropped off since the kid. Finally picked it up again a couple weeks ago and we’ve played it two or three times. The expansion box is ridiculous (like borderline not-fun too hard), but we’ve made our own setup rules to make the base game a lot more challenging. Replay value is still fantastic. If anybody is interested, I can share how we do it.