Board games anyone?

[emceng]

I've been spending tons of time on the Dominion app on my phone. I really like it, and like playing with new cards and seeing what the expansions can do. The AI...hmmm. It beats me more often than not but only maybe 60-40. My issue is how it plays. I had a recent game where the AI bought only coins and victory cards. That's boring. Yes, it won. But that's not how I want to see the game played. I may not be the best at this game, or the most focused, but I do really like finding neat combos and chains of cards. Seeing that get beaten by someone who doesn't even buy an action? Lame.

[Izawwlgood]

That strategy is amazingly effective in Prosperity. Loading up on Platinum, and this other action that lets you pick up two Golds per use.

[BoomFrog]

Yeah, there's usually at least 1 action card worth buying, but money is a very solid purchase, and platinum is downright broken. We very rarely play with colonies and platinum anymore. They lead to more games where the winner is obvious half-way through the game (when said player is the first to buy a platinum).

I also really dislike a lot of the +1 victory point token cards, like bishop and goons. They can lead to much longer games since there is no inherent end of the game caused by hording the victory point tokens. I think there should be a limited supply of victory tokens and the game ends when they run out.

[Snark]

I've been spending tons of time on the Dominion app on my phone. I really like it, and like playing with new cards and seeing what the expansions can do. The AI...hmmm. It beats me more often than not but only maybe 60-40. My issue is how it plays. I had a recent game where the AI bought only coins and victory cards. That's boring. Yes, it won. But that's not how I want to see the game played. I may not be the best at this game, or the most focused, but I do really like finding neat combos and chains of cards. Seeing that get beaten by someone who doesn't even buy an action? Lame.

Just started playing after reading this comment. Won the third game I played. I think I'm hooked. Need pointers.

[Chen]

Big Money strategy in Dominion is the baseline strategy. If you're buying actions and you cannot beat the big money strategy, the bought action cards were sub-optimal. I recall when me and my GF started playing we were all over the extra action cards (things like Village and even Spy). It felt like you were doing so much, but in the end we realized nothing was really happening. Without buying a lot of Silver and then Gold cards that just cycle themselves will still only ever get you to 5-6 money.

After more experience its very rare that I've seen a card spread that couldn't improve on the basic Big Money strategy. Buying primarily money but throwing in a few terminal action cards is almost always better than just buying money. Barring very specific cards, at a high level you ideally your hand should consist of only as many actions as you can use and the rest money. Once you get to the point where you're drawing multiple actions and you can't play them all, you're already kinda screwed. It means you bought too many actions and not enough money.

[dbsmith]

We banned the chapel from our games - the most powerful card IMO. And sooo cheap

[Snark]

We banned the chapel from our games - the most powerful card IMO. And sooo cheap

Why not just increase the cost?

I just won 55 to 18 with 9 curses in my hand.

[Dauric]

Steve Jackson Games is releasing OGRE 6'th edition in a $100 box set, and they're doing a Kickstarter campaign to gauge interest in more OGRE supplements. Apparently the prototype box is nearly a cubic foot of stuff (which might get bigger for the final release) and weighs in at 13 pounds.

The goal was 20K, they're over 560K right now with 5 days left.

In the FAQ there's some suggestion that if OGRE Kickstarter goes well (presumably this includes production, not just the kickstarter campaign) they may do the same for Car Wars.

Update: If they hit $700,000 they'll start a Kickstarter campaign for Car Wars.

[Chen]

We banned the chapel from our games - the most powerful card IMO. And sooo cheap

There are still strategies that can be used against Chapel decks. I think its still fairly well balanced overall. Now, sometimes you get card setups that where there are NO counters to a Chapel strategy, but this can happen with many card setups. Either there are multiple viable strategies available or there is only one dominant one.

[ConMan]

Big Money strategy in Dominion is the baseline strategy. If you're buying actions and you cannot beat the big money strategy, the bought action cards were sub-optimal. I recall when me and my GF started playing we were all over the extra action cards (things like Village and even Spy). It felt like you were doing so much, but in the end we realized nothing was really happening. Without buying a lot of Silver and then Gold cards that just cycle themselves will still only ever get you to 5-6 money.

After more experience its very rare that I've seen a card spread that couldn't improve on the basic Big Money strategy. Buying primarily money but throwing in a few terminal action cards is almost always better than just buying money. Barring very specific cards, at a high level you ideally your hand should consist of only as many actions as you can use and the rest money. Once you get to the point where you're drawing multiple actions and you can't play them all, you're already kinda screwed. It means you bought too many actions and not enough money.

My general strategy is to get a few +1 Card, +1 Action cards (since they essentially replace themselves once played), a couple of +2 Action cards (to allow for multiple terminals) and a couple of terminal action cards, and otherwise focusing on Big Money. If you can get Big Money working, then you really want to try to have at least one +1 Buy card in that mix so you can make use of the times the Big Money really pays off.

Against the AIs in Androminion, I'm currently trying to get all the achievements and as a result I'm using semi-custom mixes from Dominion Shuffle to play with. The main set I work from is to include Mine, Tournament, Bridge, Highway and King's Court along with a minimum of either 2 or 3 of each of "from Prosperity" (partially to increase the chance of including Platinums and Colonies since I don't have the "always use" setting on, partially just because many of them work well with Big Money), "Plus More Actions" and "Plus Buys". I then usually try to get to the point where I'm able to quickly win a couple of Tournament prizes, generally in the order Trusty Steed, Princess, Diadem. At this point, I have usually managed to Mine most of my treasures so I'm working with a Gold- and Platinum-heavy deck, which combined with everything else means that I have, at least once, pulled off a 3 Colonies + 1 Estate purchase. One of these days I might even get the 2nd turn Colony working, although the odds of that are astronomical even when the other players actually follow the required strategy.

[emceng]

I just found an AI glitch, that also got me an achievement. Had a 4 player game - base random. One player went balls out chapel strategy. As in trashed his estates, and his coppers. Didn't buy coppers, and didn't have the cash to buy anything else. So the last 3/4ths of the game, he only had three chapels in his deck.

[Armadillo Al]

Just played Doom: The Boardgame the other night for the first time. Good game, except 1) it's based on Doom 3, not 1 or 2, so everything looks weird to me, and 2) it's far too easy to lose your ammo. Seriously, in a four-hour scenario, we were running around punching everything in sight for at least two of them. Also, I'll admit this was probably caused by abnormal dice rolls, but nobody, Marines or monsters, could hit the broad side of a barn. At one point, I fired a shotgun at two spiders at point blank range...and missed both. (And also lost my shotgun ammo, obviously.)

Also, I think there's a problem when I back myself into a corner, blocked by a Mancubus, and we're both still alive three turns later. Seriously, the thing has rocket launchers for arms.

I also really dislike a lot of the +1 victory point token cards, like bishop and goons. They can lead to much longer games since there is no inherent end of the game caused by hording the victory point tokens. I think there should be a limited supply of victory tokens and the game ends when they run out.

Goons only gives you a point when you buy a card, so you're going to run three stacks out eventually.

Bishop requires you to trash a card, plus gives you money, so in theory you're buying better cards to get to Provinces and end the game that way.

We banned the chapel from our games - the most powerful card IMO. And sooo cheap

Why not just increase the cost?

Being so cheap is actually a feature - if you raise the price above $4, it becomes hopelessly unfair to anyone who doesn't open 5/2.

[Chen]

My general strategy is to get a few +1 Card, +1 Action cards (since they essentially replace themselves once played), a couple of +2 Action cards (to allow for multiple terminals) and a couple of terminal action cards, and otherwise focusing on Big Money. If you can get Big Money working, then you really want to try to have at least one +1 Buy card in that mix so you can make use of the times the Big Money really pays off.

I really find the +2 action cards are rarely that useful. I don't like designing my deck with so many terminals that I need the +2 action ones to get them all out. I find it leaves me with too many dead hands. I prefer more big money and less terminals.

Against the AIs in Androminion, I'm currently trying to get all the achievements and as a result I'm using semi-custom mixes from Dominion Shuffle to play with. The main set I work from is to include Mine, Tournament, Bridge, Highway and King's Court along with a minimum of either 2 or 3 of each of "from Prosperity" (partially to increase the chance of including Platinums and Colonies since I don't have the "always use" setting on, partially just because many of them work well with Big Money), "Plus More Actions" and "Plus Buys". I then usually try to get to the point where I'm able to quickly win a couple of Tournament prizes, generally in the order Trusty Steed, Princess, Diadem. At this point, I have usually managed to Mine most of my treasures so I'm working with a Gold- and Platinum-heavy deck, which combined with everything else means that I have, at least once, pulled off a 3 Colonies + 1 Estate purchase. One of these days I might even get the 2nd turn Colony working, although the odds of that are astronomical even when the other players actually follow the required strategy.

Its theoretically possible to end a 2 player game (and effectively end a multiplayer one) in one turn with a King's Courtx2/Bridgex3 hand (can buy 9 provinces with that). King's Court is actually pretty degenerate in a lot of decks. It goes extremely will with Goons. Combined with a militia type card and Masquerade you can put your opponent in a hard lock in a 2 player game if you thin your deck sufficiently.

[Izawwlgood]

Anyone play WizWar? Just got a hand me down copy, pumped to try it.

[clockworkmonk]

I have a copy of the newest printing an find it endlessly enjoyable. which printing do you have?

[Izawwlgood]

I believe it's the newest edition. The thing was still sealed!

How would you rank it in terms of ease of learning? How long do games take?

[novax6]

I really want to pick up that game, looks like a lot of fun. #1 in my queue for next game purchase

[Vaniver]

Anyone play WizWar? Just got a hand me down copy, pumped to try it.

I've played it twice (I think). All-out offense appears to be the best strategy, hands-down; the first person to take two treasures (or lives) wins, and it's really hard to kill people and it's pointless to defend your stuff. So the game seems to depend a lot on walls, running with energy, and things that don't seem all that wizardly.

It almost seems like it would be better if the treasures were like 5 life which went to their owner, and you played to the last person standing (except last person standing games are meh).

[clockworkmonk]

Wiz-War has lots of fiddly bits in terms of rule interactions due to the number of cards being used, but the basics are easy to figure out.

It takes about 30 minutes to an hour, depending how things play out. you can easily adjust the length of the game by changing how many treasures are required to win.

[Izawwlgood]

Just did three games of wizwar... I am so fucking impressed. I feel that there's a mild balance issue in terms of some abilities doing too much damage, and only having two treasures means it *is* kind of a mad dash to just run treasures back, but we also played with four players.

I absolutely want to see about expansion stuff and expanding to be able to have more wizards. We had a blast.

[emceng]

Just had a Dominion game where I had 185 VP. I just wish I had been paying more attention - I could have topped 200.

[novax6]

Just did three games of wizwar... I am so fucking impressed. I feel that there's a mild balance issue in terms of some abilities doing too much damage, and only having two treasures means it *is* kind of a mad dash to just run treasures back, but we also played with four players.

I absolutely want to see about expansion stuff and expanding to be able to have more wizards. We had a blast.

Well you guys convinced me. Just bought it!

I've been playing a co-op game about firefighters called Flash Point: Fire Rescue, which is really good.
You basically have to rescue a certain number of people from a burning building, by carrying them outside, but you can/have to chop down walls to get to them, fight smoke and fire, and deal with explosions and hot spots in the building. It's really tense and exceptionally balanced and fun, our first real game ended in a loss when the building collapsed killing everyone inside, one turn before the last victim was carried out. Good times.

[Izawwlgood]

Well you guys convinced me. Just bought it!

I'd like to mention that it's probably possible to play this game over mail; if you pick non-overlapping spellbooks, a 1v1 match is doable.

A friend of mine is currently working on a couple cool sounding variants of the game; namely, all wizards against the board (GOBLIN INVASION!), additional spellbooks, and balancing 6 player lineups.

[emceng]

Another neat Dominion game against the AI. 4 person game, and the sum of our VPs - the total for all four people, was -1.

[Snark]

@Dominion
I've gotten to where I win about 2/3 of the time playing with just the original cards against a single AI.

Playing online, against real people, and multiple opponents, with 10 times as many cards that I don't know as well, is still an entirely different story.

Favorite cards are currently Throne Room and Jester.

[marcel]

Just did three games of wizwar... I am so fucking impressed. I feel that there's a mild balance issue in terms of some abilities doing too much damage, and only having two treasures means it *is* kind of a mad dash to just run treasures back, but we also played with four players.

I absolutely want to see about expansion stuff and expanding to be able to have more wizards. We had a blast.

Well you guys convinced me. Just bought it!

I've been playing a co-op game about firefighters called Flash Point: Fire Rescue, which is really good.
You basically have to rescue a certain number of people from a burning building, by carrying them outside, but you can/have to chop down walls to get to them, fight smoke and fire, and deal with explosions and hot spots in the building. It's really tense and exceptionally balanced and fun, our first real game ended in a loss when the building collapsed killing everyone inside, one turn before the last victim was carried out. Good times.

I love flash point so far, I still need to get a few more games in, and I want to try out some of the other maps (so far I only played with the single house) but I can definitely recomend it to anyone who liks co-op games.

[pseudoidiot]

Oh, hey, looks like Z-Man games is finally doing a reprint of Tales of Arabian Nights (after telling me they had no plans to just a couple months ago... bastards).
http://www.zmangames.com/news.htm

[emceng]

Oh yeah, played it again on Monday - lots of fun.

And yes, the rule book I have definitively states that for the 'normal' game only one status can be had at a time. In the advanced version you must be able to have more.

[pseudoidiot]

... I never got around to checking my version of the rulebook. Heh

[dbsmith]

I rocked out Rex to my group the other night in place of our usual Battlestar Galactica. First game was a disaster, a guy won in 2 turns because we werent paying attention. The second game was epic, three 2 man alliances, amazing fights with lots of revealed traitors (one player lost 4 leaders to traitors!), but no backstabbery.

[pseudoidiot]

So, this looks like it would be pretty fun. Just read the rulebook. Seriously considering pre-ordering it. We'll see.

[Xanthir]

My wife and I bought Forbidden Island a little bit ago as an easy-to-transport game, and it's surprisingly great! It sounds like a knock-off of Pandemic, and it basically is, but it has some nice advantages. The main good point is that it's simply faster - games last 10-15 minutes unless you argue about your moves a lot. Losing seems to be more common but less capricious than Pandemic (I hate the fact that you lose in Pandemic when the deck runs out). The mechanics as a whole are slightly simpler without really losing any depth, so it's very easy to play. Finally, it really does travel well - it has a small deck of cards and then 24 3cm (or so) thick cardboard tiles.

[pseudoidiot]

I definitely enjoy Forbidden Island more than Pandemic. It's a nice, stream-lined version of the rules and I think it does the gameplay better.

[emceng]

On Dominion - Cartographer is my new favorite card.

[novax6]

Anybody paint their figures for any games? I have a lot of games with unpainted minitures, so I decided to give it a go, starting with Dungeonquest. Pretty fun, and they turned out not too bad, seeing as how I haven't painted any minis in about 10 years (2nd or 3rd edition warhammer 40k was the last time). I'll see if I can take some good pictures and maybe post them.



I've been playing Sentinels of the Multiverse, really fun little co-op card game. That and i've played several 3 and 4 player games of Wiz-War now, and I can safely say that game is a huge blast. I did end up making things a bit more deadly though, following the suggestions on here, which mostly just cuts down on the percentage of healing and counter/nullify spells in the game, along with several of the included variants from the older versions.

[eSOANEM]

Just played my first game of diplomacy. We played for ~7 hours, but had to call time on it because things were pretty much in a long-term stalemate.

I was playing as Turkey and ended the game as one of the largest powers (and had been the largest for a significant portion of the game) although the game went to an alliance between England and France (England stabbed Germany in the back in the last turn for an extra three supply point), Russia and Italy went out early and Austria-Hungary was acting as a buffer between me and the Anglo-Franco-German alliance but was starting to fold.

The main problem I had in the end game was that too many of my units were fleets, armies would have been a lot more useful.

It was great fun, I will be playing again.

[CombustibleLemons]

I learned about diplomacy at M.I.T.'s SPLASH last fall. I bought it off amazon the other day finally. Played a couple games with friends and started to get into it online, here http://www.playdiplomacy.com/

[Izawwlgood]

My buddy just picked up Eclipse, and I have to say, if you like boardgames, this is a must. It's a combination of Puerto Rico and Master of Orion 2. Extremely fun, not terribly complicated, very detailed.

[Xanthir]

Saw this game last night: RPS Chess

You play it on a standard chess board. Each players gets 8 rocks, 8 scissors, and 8 paper, placed however they want in their three home rows.

Rocks (think "rook") can move one or two squares u/d/l/r, but not through anyone. Paper (think "bible", which bishops carry) can move one or two squares diagonally, but not through anyone. Scissors (think pointy things, like knights with swords), can move like a knight.

Obviously, rocks can only capture scissors, etc. You lose when your opponent captures all of one type of your pieces.

[clockworkmonk]

Tonight promises to be fun, as it is the second Board Game Bash, a small(comparitively) boardgame convention in Austin Texas.