Board games anyone?

[emceng]

Does no one else buy gardens when playing Dominion? They cost what, 4? And most games I have played they will get you 5-7 victory points. Great return on investment.

[Izawwlgood]

Which expansion are they from? I'm a bigger fan of Dukes. Also, I typically buy all the Great Halls I can, especially in Ironworks chains.

[emceng]

They're from the base game.

[mister k]

You can explicitly build a gardens deck, in which case they can earn around 5 or so. If you are managing to have games last long enough to get them worth 7 I would strongly recommend trying to build a nothing but treasure deck and winning every single time... a 70 card deck means you have made 60 purchases! Considering the game's alternate win condition involves exhausting three piles of 12/8 cards thats kind of astonishing.

[Izawwlgood]

Tracking everyone's purchases, even just their Victory purchases, is usually something that generally requires not being drunk while playing, a condition I have not fulfilled for well over a year.

[Chen]

You can explicitly build a gardens deck, in which case they can earn around 5 or so. If you are managing to have games last long enough to get them worth 7 I would strongly recommend trying to build a nothing but treasure deck and winning every single time... a 70 card deck means you have made 60 purchases! Considering the game's alternate win condition involves exhausting three piles of 12/8 cards thats kind of astonishing.

Well 60 purchases isn't that impossible to get if you have a lot of Extra +buys and/or Workshops/Ironworks. Getting Gardens worth 7 is a bit out there though. I've sometimes managed to get 6 against weaker opponents but 5 is pretty common in a dedicated Gardens deck. I tend to only go Gardens if there are good +buy cards on the board (and ideally something like Workshop) and the rest of the cards are mediocre.

[Gojoe]

I hear great things about the Battlestar Galactica game. Can anyone articulate to me why it is good? Any other co-op games we should look at getting?

BSG is one of the few modern board games I've played, so I can't compare it to much of anything else, but it is pretty awesome. The key mechanic is that loyalty cards randomly chosen at the start of the game (and then another round at about the halfway point). Based on the total number of players, anywhere from 0-2 players will be Cylons and actually be working against the rest of the players. The tricky part, of course, is doing so without being caught before you want to be caught. And casting aspersions on other players in the process, of course. (The actual contents of players' loyalty cards are only revealed under very specific circumstances.) If you have a good group of players, it makes for a nice dynamic full of paranoia a cheerful backstabbing.

I think this is going to be my next game unless what I find on Descent: Journeys in the Dark blows me away.

As for HeroQuest. I was trying so hard to track down this game but everywhere I looked it was going for 400 USD. Then on the local NZ version of ebay I found it for 26 New Zealand Dollars. We have been playing and loving it ever since

Has anyone here played 7 Wonders? Is it amazing?

[ConMan]

Has anyone here played 7 Wonders? Is it amazing?

I last played 7 Wonders yesterday. It's a good, solid game, although I'm not sure I'd call it amazing. The game mechanic means that it scales well up to the full 7 players (since everyone's acting at once and you are only ever directly affected by the players next to you), but at the same time you don't interact a lot with anyone except for things that give you bonuses (or penalties) based on what the players next to you have played. And unless you have some kind of system to make sure it doesn't happen (hands on heads worked well yesterday, and only felt a little like kindergarten), someone *will* start playing out of turn, particularly if you've got a new player. Scoring isn't too painful, and they give you a thick pad of tiny grids to help with that, too.

It's not one I'm going to spend money on, but it's one I don't mind playing when someone has it out.

[ulster]

I hear great things about the Battlestar Galactica game. Can anyone articulate to me why it is good? Any other co-op games we should look at getting?

Battlestar lives or dies on its metagame. If your group is fans of the series or just enjoy subterfuge, then it's fantastic. For half my regular gaming group, this is their favorite game. The other half, however, have affectionately dubbed it: a thousand decks of misery.

Has anyone here played 7 Wonders? Is it amazing?

7 Wonders has been a regular at our table lately. Not many games seat seven people and even less than can do so with some strategy and a 30-45 minute play time.

The game relies on a drafting mechanic; take one card pass the rest.
Luck is a fairly large factor but there is weight behind the choices you make or allow others to have.
Each player only interacts with the players adjacent to them. Adding more players doesn't tend to increase the play time or make the game more difficult to manage.

[Vaniver]

Has anyone here played 7 Wonders? Is it amazing?

7 Wonders is solid. Like any drafting game, the luck of the cards matters quite a bit, but that's generally the case. It scales well based on number of people, plays quickly, and is pretty quick to learn.

[Gojoe]

I hear great things about the Battlestar Galactica game. Can anyone articulate to me why it is good? Any other co-op games we should look at getting?

Battlestar lives or dies on its metagame. If your group is fans of the series or just enjoy subterfuge, then it's fantastic. For half my regular gaming group, this is their favorite game. The other half, however, have affectionately dubbed it: a thousand decks of misery.

Hm. The reason I was having doubts about this game was because none of us have seen the series. But we do LOVE the traitor aspect in Betrayal at House on the Hill. I think I am going to risk it if it ever comes back in stock at my local game shop.

[Chen]

Hm. The reason I was having doubts about this game was because none of us have seen the series. But we do LOVE the traitor aspect in Betrayal at House on the Hill. I think I am going to risk it if it ever comes back in stock at my local game shop.

Knowing the series isn't really necessary. The traitor mechanic is not the same as Betrayal at House on the Hill. In that one you know (more often than not) who the traitor is. In BSG you can have a traitor around right from the start and people NEED to be good at deception to play the traitor role well. As the traitor you need to make people think they're doing what they want, when in fact they are doing what YOU want. Once there is a dire enough situation you can use your super ability or whatever to great detriment and effectively reveal yourself as the traitor. The team then needs to waste resources throwing you in jail (or executing you if you have one of the expansions) or you'll get to use your reveal ability as well (some are pretty bad though). The thing is, if the traitor is bad at lying and is discovered early, the players can abuse the "Executive Order" cards (they give another player 2 actions at the cost of one of your actions) and stabilize pretty well. The risk of using Executive order cards early is that if you give the traitor 2 actions and the traitor uses BOTH to screw you, its a HUGE blow so you need to be wary. Once the traitor is revealed those cards are the only real way the other players have a chance at winning since everything else that occurs in the game is generally bad, even without the traitor trying to screw things up.

[Gojoe]

Now the big thing. Does it work well with 4 people?

EDIT: Also What about Mansion of Madness?

[Vaniver]

Now the big thing. Does it work well with 4 people?

4 is okay. 5 is better, generally. With four you have one cylon, and one "sympathetic cylon"- they can't exist until the second half of the game, and then they either side with the humans (if things are going poorly) or the cylons (if things are going well). The result is you have a 2-2 or 3-1 split, with one of the players having a public loyalty.

With 5, you just have two cylon cards floating around.

[Chen]

Now the big thing. Does it work well with 4 people?

4 is okay. 5 is better, generally. With four you have one cylon, and one "sympathetic cylon"- they can't exist until the second half of the game, and then they either side with the humans (if things are going poorly) or the cylons (if things are going well). The result is you have a 2-2 or 3-1 split, with one of the players having a public loyalty.

With 5, you just have two cylon cards floating around.

Yeah I've found it works better with 5. 2-2 Cylon/Human split is fairly difficult to come back from as the Humans. Even at 6 you can get the 3-3 split which makes this exceedingly difficult for the Humans. In a 6 player game I've only seen one human victory and it was SUPER lucky (and involved a 4-2 human/cylon split).

[JudeMorrigan]

Hm. The reason I was having doubts about this game was because none of us have seen the series. But we do LOVE the traitor aspect in Betrayal at House on the Hill. I think I am going to risk it if it ever comes back in stock at my local game shop.

Knowing the series isn't really necessary. The traitor mechanic is not the same as Betrayal at House on the Hill. In that one you know (more often than not) who the traitor is. In BSG you can have a traitor around right from the start and people NEED to be good at deception to play the traitor role well. As the traitor you need to make people think they're doing what they want, when in fact they are doing what YOU want. Once there is a dire enough situation you can use your super ability or whatever to great detriment and effectively reveal yourself as the traitor. The team then needs to waste resources throwing you in jail (or executing you if you have one of the expansions) or you'll get to use your reveal ability as well (some are pretty bad though). The thing is, if the traitor is bad at lying and is discovered early, the players can abuse the "Executive Order" cards (they give another player 2 actions at the cost of one of your actions) and stabilize pretty well. The risk of using Executive order cards early is that if you give the traitor 2 actions and the traitor uses BOTH to screw you, its a HUGE blow so you need to be wary. Once the traitor is revealed those cards are the only real way the other players have a chance at winning since everything else that occurs in the game is generally bad, even without the traitor trying to screw things up.

In the games I've played with my group, cylons players have revealed after being XO'd more often than not. The trick, of course, is convincing your fellow players that you're on Team Human until you get XO'd in a dire enough situation to make revealing worth it. ("Ok, we need to get out of here and I'm in the brig. I could XO either Player A or Jude. Player A hasn't done any even vaguely suspicious this game. Ok, I'll XO him. Get us out of here, A." "Ok, I'll move to FTL and ... reveal as a cylon and send Jude to the brig." "Holy *crap*, we're screwd. Wait, why did you move to FTL if you were just going to reveal?" "I didn't have anything better to do with my spare action, and it was funnier that way.")

Yeah I've found it works better with 5. 2-2 Cylon/Human split is fairly difficult to come back from as the Humans. Even at 6 you can get the 3-3 split which makes this exceedingly difficult for the Humans. In a 6 player game I've only seen one human victory and it was SUPER lucky (and involved a 4-2 human/cylon split).

I've won 6 player games as a human, but it pretty much requires good luck with the loyalty cards in the first half of the game. Lots of human players and a shortage of cylons before the second round of loyalty cards makes crises *really* easy to pass.

[Chen]

I've won 6 player games as a human, but it pretty much requires good luck with the loyalty cards in the first half of the game. Lots of human players and a shortage of cylons before the second round of loyalty cards makes crises *really* easy to pass.

Yeah that's true. Though we've had some early game ones where there were no cylons and then after the second round of cards, two cylons revealing and dropping super-crisis cards in succession lead to massive blowout games for the cylons too (destroying Colonial 1 is BAD for the humans heh).

[Jessica]

I just found out there's a new expansion for Settlers. Oil fields of catan.

I want to play this version now...

[Vaniver]

Is it an expansion, or a different game a la Starfarers of Catan?

[Jessica]

Expansion. Adds oil, metropolises and natural disasters. At least that's what I've gained from this review of it.

[Chen]

Expansion. Adds oil, metropolises and natural disasters. At least that's what I've gained from this review of it.

Considering it only works with the base game (and the 5-6 player expansion for that game) I wouldn't even consider playing this. Cities and Knights adds SOO much to the game that going backwards just makes the game feel boring IMHO. That said, the scenario itself doesn't seem very "fun" either. The oil fields would be MASSIVELY contested during placement. The value of oil seems SOOO high in addition to the fact that if you have and use oil you can make your cities immune to the flooding disaster. It also seems to add a huge amount of luck to the game where you can permanently make a space unusable, at the roll of a die. This can have negligible impact or HUGE impact which is far too swingy for my liking.

[Gojoe]

I played my first game of Mansions of Madness on Friday. So much fun! Unfortunately I can see how it has limited replay value, seeing as it only comes with 5 different scenarios.

I played as the 'Keeper' (the Dungeon Master) and lost by ONE move (had to escape the mansion with a creature, and I didn't make it by one square). The game was so close. Their was a bit of luck on both sides but everyone had fun and we can not wait to play it next week. Also, the theme in the game is amazing. You really feel like you are playing through a story, trying to figure out what to do. It only changes into solely strategy at the end game. The main downside is the set up and take down time is pretty big. Setting it up is 100% up to the Keeper and if he puts a single card in the wrong place he can ruin the entire game.

If you liked Betrayal at House on the Hill and dungeon crawler board games, this is an excellent blend of the two.

[Gopher of Pern]

There are 2 scenario expansions out already for it. And hopefully there will be a raft of home made ones now that it has been out for awhile. I played 1 of the expansion ones, Season of the Witch last weekend, it was pretty good.

[Aiea]

Our local Works store is trying to bankrupt us, they've gotten in two different loads of Rio Grande games for 8 quid a pop. Our board game collection is expanding rapidly.

[novax6]

Just played Mansions of Madness for a 2nd time yesterday actually. Really like all the pieces of the game, but something just hasn't seemed to click with it yet.

Setup seems to take a while, and both scenarios our group has played (1 and 5) have seemed a little slow and repetitive, with only 1 type of monster coming out for most of the game. It was still fun, but just doesn't feel like the scenarios we've played so far have done the system and the setting justice. Especically with our first attempt at scenario 5 (green eyed boy), which ended in the 3rd turn when

Spoiler:

one investigator went into the freezer, exploring since there was a lock card there, and was instantly killed and the keeper won. We we're all just like . It turns out the first event card that would have been flipped over next turn would have warned us to stay away from there, but still, it's not like it was far from the entrance. Pretty cheap

There's a full size expansion coming out in a couple months, Forbidden Alchemy, which should have lots of new things. Still going to keep playing the game, just haven't seen it reach it's potential, with our group at least, yet.

We also played Chaos In The Old World again, which is always fantastic. If anyone is looking for a 4 player game with lots of viscous battling, awesome theme, and deep strategy, I would highly recommend it. The only downside is that it's ONLY 4 players, and it's one of those games that a new player doesn't really stand much of a chance at winning their first time.

[mister k]

Just played Mansions of Madness for a 2nd time yesterday actually. Really like all the pieces of the game, but something just hasn't seemed to click with it yet.

Setup seems to take a while, and both scenarios our group has played (1 and 5) have seemed a little slow and repetitive, with only 1 type of monster coming out for most of the game. It was still fun, but just doesn't feel like the scenarios we've played so far have done the system and the setting justice. Especically with our first attempt at scenario 5 (green eyed boy), which ended in the 3rd turn when

Spoiler:

one investigator went into the freezer, exploring since there was a lock card there, and was instantly killed and the keeper won. We we're all just like . It turns out the first event card that would have been flipped over next turn would have warned us to stay away from there, but still, it's not like it was far from the entrance. Pretty cheap

There's a full size expansion coming out in a couple months, Forbidden Alchemy, which should have lots of new things. Still going to keep playing the game, just haven't seen it reach it's potential, with our group at least, yet.

We also played Chaos In The Old World again, which is always fantastic. If anyone is looking for a 4 player game with lots of viscous battling, awesome theme, and deep strategy, I would highly recommend it. The only downside is that it's ONLY 4 players, and it's one of those games that a new player doesn't really stand much of a chance at winning their first time.

Chaos is terrific, but it does play three- and rather well in my opinion. Three isn't as balanced, but it can lead to fun and interesting games. Also with the expansion you can have five.

To an extent.. shouldn't a new player always lose their first time in a deep game? Otherwise its not much of a game I guess...

[Aiea]

Chaos is terrific, but it does play three- and rather well in my opinion. Three isn't as balanced, but it can lead to fun and interesting games. Also with the expansion you can have five.

To an extent.. shouldn't a new player always lose their first time in a deep game? Otherwise its not much of a game I guess...

Hehhe, at my gaming goup people always ask if I've played whatever game we're about to start playing. They know that if I haven't played it before then I have a pretty good track record of winning hands down. Unfortunetly we're almost always playing new games so I have a tendency to win a lot. Thankfully when we do go back and play games again the playing field is leveled and everyone has a chance of winning again. I'm still not sure how I do it, I guess I'm just exceedingly lucky. I like to think I'm a good winner (and good looser when I do) so people don't mind me winning, but I guess I really just don't know.

[SecondTalon]

To an extent.. shouldn't a new player always lose their first time in a deep game? Otherwise its not much of a game I guess...

It depends on if there's a random element or not. There's the skill in knowing what to do when handed a favorable random event, sure, but if you're consistently getting favorable ones, you're likely to with a minimum amount of skill. And, of course, there's people who just grasp game rules faster than others, so much that halfway through their first game they're playing like it's their hundredth.

[marcel]

For all the people posting in this thread.

Considering the fact that, according to the subtitle, this board should be mostly about boardgames. Why are people putting all their remarks/questions about different games in one single thread.

The people posting about the lesser variaties of games make a separate thread on all games, no reason not to do this for board games. That way, there is a good chance board games will get some more attention here.

[Izawwlgood]

Because there's probably not enough interest or enough conversation to warrant each game having it's own thread, and until there is, having all board game related conversation in a single thread is a good way to keep the information centralized?

My friend suggested Small World, any one have any experience with it?

[marcel]

But the question is whether or not a lack of different threads on boardgames is cause of little discussions on boardgames here.

As for small world, it is a very popular game, and I can see why people like it,
For myself it never really hit my gamespot. I haven't played it more then 3 times, and I feel absolutely no need to play it more.

[Chen]

My friend suggested Small World, any one have any experience with it?

Its not very fun with 2 players. It gets better with more, though there are some issues. If someone takes a very strong position you usually need to waste a LOT of resources to deal with it. The problem is, who takes that hit? You end up with a situation like "well either I let them keep doing what they are doing and let them win, or I try to stop them, making sure they don't win, but that I also can't win and one of the other two players will". It doesn't help that some combinations of races and powers are grossly overpowered too (spirit trolls I'm looking at you).

Its a neat game, but if your group is one that likes high strategy this isn't really a great game for that.

[emceng]

Hmmm, interesting. That's the issue I see with Risk. Too often I've seen games come down to which of the two superpowers can take out the third player, and usually the third player gets a large say in that. So instead of skill or strategy(yeah I know it's a dice game) victory is based on how much someone likes you.

[mister k]

Its worth noting that invading people doesn't cost you any units in small world- you only use units if you get succesfully invaded yourself. So the only loss is possible opportunity- no-one wants to waste 10 tokens on a big ol' stack o'trolls. But typically if a player is doing well they will have a large board presence, so theres incentive to attack them. Because the board is too small you will inevitably have to attack people if you want to take territory at some point, and often in decline races make delicious snacks in late game. So the decline race you attack can be decided on who is winning.

[Vaniver]

My friend suggested Small World, any one have any experience with it?

I consider it mediocre. It's a turn-based strategy where you try and gets points with civilizations, abandoning them when the time is ripe to pick up a new civilization. Each civilization is an adjective paired with a noun, meaning that the options available to you will vary each game, but there are chances for massive synergy. Given that the civilizations come off a queue, are selected in turns, and the penalty for picking ahead isn't that high, that means there's not all that much of a strategy computation when picking civs, and so often it feels like the game can come down to seating order and chance. Victory points are private, and there's a big element of sabotage and kingmaking- which gets frustrating when you're pretty sure you're in second and everyone else thinks you're in first.

That's the issue I see with Risk.

Risk is the second worst game.

[Chen]

Its worth noting that invading people doesn't cost you any units in small world- you only use units if you get succesfully invaded yourself. So the only loss is possible opportunity- no-one wants to waste 10 tokens on a big ol' stack o'trolls. But typically if a player is doing well they will have a large board presence, so theres incentive to attack them. Because the board is too small you will inevitably have to attack people if you want to take territory at some point, and often in decline races make delicious snacks in late game. So the decline race you attack can be decided on who is winning.

The reason I brought the issue up was exactly because of a Spirit Troll combination someone had at one point. So not only was it difficult to make them go away by forcing a new decline, they were wasteful to try and take over, especially considering some were on mountains. Troll+Mountain+Cave = 5 units to take over 1 space. No one wanted to make that sacrifice. Its almost always easier to just go rampage through someone's one or two token piles instead.

[Grop]

Vinci works pretty much like Small World, but is probably more balanced. I played Small World only once, and I liked it less.

On the other hand I think Vinci is simpler, but it is more abstract (and therefore probably harder to play with kids): your civilisations feel less "real" than elves or trolls.

[mister k]

Its worth noting that invading people doesn't cost you any units in small world- you only use units if you get succesfully invaded yourself. So the only loss is possible opportunity- no-one wants to waste 10 tokens on a big ol' stack o'trolls. But typically if a player is doing well they will have a large board presence, so theres incentive to attack them. Because the board is too small you will inevitably have to attack people if you want to take territory at some point, and often in decline races make delicious snacks in late game. So the decline race you attack can be decided on who is winning.

The reason I brought the issue up was exactly because of a Spirit Troll combination someone had at one point. So not only was it difficult to make them go away by forcing a new decline, they were wasteful to try and take over, especially considering some were on mountains. Troll+Mountain+Cave = 5 units to take over 1 space. No one wanted to make that sacrifice. Its almost always easier to just go rampage through someone's one or two token piles instead.

Well if you're in second place, then it makes perfect sense to do that.

I always play small world with open vps, because hidden information just leads to people making bad decisions, and unfun play- after all, any player could keep track of the score if they wanted to.

[Gojoe]

There's a full size expansion coming out in a couple months, Forbidden Alchemy, which should have lots of new things.

How do you get your board game news? Do I just have to learn how to use BGG better?

[marcel]

There's a full size expansion coming out in a couple months, Forbidden Alchemy, which should have lots of new things.

How do you get your board game news? Do I just have to learn how to use BGG better?

I guess you can get quite a lot from the news and press releases forums on BGG.

If you are interested in specific games, then regularly go to their dedicated pages for news.

Also, you can visit your national forums and surf on the general gaming forums on BGG, to get national news, and to see the main news items.

In the end, it is a matter of regularly visiting the geek I think.

for me personally, I get most of my news from members of my gaming group and I do not care enough about the gaming news, to try to keep up anyway.