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[joeyjoejoeshabadoo]

What release is everyone looking forward to this summer?

For me it's probably Sheriff of Nottingham the english release of Hart an der Grenze.

Doomtown Reloaded: When I worked at the Game Keeper years ago this was the one CCG that I got into. Looking forward to playing it again with the LCG format.
Patchistory : I'm a sucker for Civ games and this looks like it will bring some interesting mechanisms to the genre.
Machi Koro: I'm moving to upstate NY and won't have access to the same group of friends. I have been looking into getting easier games to play with my wife's family, Machi Koro looks like a good one.

 

[Neverfade]

This ones probably for Astro; how is the Ghost Stories ios app? Thinking of trying that out at its bite sized price.

 

[fenners]

Patchistory : I'm a sucker for Civ games and this looks like it will bring some interesting mechanisms to the genre.

Is it getting extra development done or just a straight print run of the existing design/rules etc? Because what I played at BGG.Con was a bit of an unbalanced mess - great potential, lousy balance (and that's ignoring the obviously horrendous (and often wrong) rules)....

 

[joeyjoejoeshabadoo]

This ones probably for Astro; how is the Ghost Stories ios app? Thinking of trying that out at its bite sized price.

I've played the app more than the physical game. It's great and works well for a quick solo game instead of setting up the board. The app does all the bookkeeping, which is not much but nice. It's still hard as balls to beat though.

 

[joeyjoejoeshabadoo]

Is it getting extra development done or just a straight print run of the existing design/rules etc? Because what I played at BGG.Con was a bit of an unbalanced mess - great potential, lousy balance (and that's ignoring the obviously horrendous (and often wrong) rules)....

Here's what is in the US edition:

Updated Materials, including-

Wooden Start Player Marker

Meeple-shaped Workers

Thicker Status Discs

Sturdier Auction and Voting Tiles

Thicker Reference Boards, Timeline Board, and Trade Routes

Updated Rules


Updated Heroes and Wonders-

Pantheon becomes Hagia Sophia

Rommel becomes General Patton

Disneyland becomes Big Ben

Lula da Silva becomes Nelson Mandela

No idea if they fixed any balance issues but at least it will have updated rules.

 

[ultron87]

Tickets were added to the SUSD live podcast, Saturday at Gencon. Would be a good time to meetup after and take a gaf picture.

I'll be there! Though I don't know if I'll be able to do much after as I think that night is kind of planned out already. One part I'm super excited for is a big Two Room and a Boom game.

Relatedly, the SUSD video of the crazy ass X-com-ish mega-game they played was pretty incredible: http://www.shutupandsitdown.com/blog/post/susd-play-goddamn-megagame/

I'd love to find something like that going on over here in the states.

 

[JesseZao]

Then yes, I think it's fair to try to politely put down some ground rules. If it's a board game night, people should stop talking about random stuff while the rules are explained, at least right at the start of the game.

There was a guy who showed up for a while who would, INSTEAD of playing a game at all, would use the bigscreen TV to browse Reddit right next to the game table. Everyone would constantly be glancing up and seeing porn or a funny picture or whatever. It was HORRIBLE for trying to coordinate any sort of game. I think the hosts finally had to put their foot down and make a no bigscreen internet rule during games.

Wat

 

[StoOgE]

I'll be at GenCon.

Chained to a booth.

 

[Slacker]

This ones probably for Astro; how is the Ghost Stories ios app? Thinking of trying that out at its bite sized price.

Joey Joe Joe got it exactly right. It's really really good. I personally don't care for co-op games with other people, but I love playing them solo. Ghost Stories and Elder Sign are two of my most played apps.

 

[fenners]

Here's what is in the US edition:
No idea if they fixed any balance issues but at least it will have updated rules.

According to the US publisher on the 'Geek:

We've made changes to the art, some minor rules tweaks, and minor changes to how the Tiles read. It is my understanding that all the other publishers are using our version as their starting point, not the Korean or the early English versions.

Arf :-/

The original Korean->English rules were a nightmare, with glaring contradictions in certain rules from what I can remember at BGG.Con. I got completely hosed for most of the game because of the distribution of tiles in the first round - I was down key resources that I really couldn't get access to any other way that we could tell.

 

[Karkador]

EDIT: And Karkador, I see a picture of Skull and Roses in the OP. According to BGG, the Asmodee-published edition came out at the end of 2013. I only see high prices on Amazon, people selling it that are overseas, and OOS pages on most online retailers. Is this something that hasn't really hit the US market yet or did the initial print run(s)? That one looks like a lot of fun, but I can't find it anywhere. I'm not really looking too hard though; Jaipur was one I wanted badly a couple months ago and as soon as CSI restocked it I jumped on a copy (and ran up a $100+ order too, just for that game). Jaipur is now readily available, so if Skull and Roses is just in-demand right now, I can wait for supply to catch up. If a game is super-wanted and everyone is waiting on a reprint though I usually see a thread on BGG about it and I don't see many questioning its current availability...

It came out here and looks like it went through its print run. I'm a bit surprised that it's gone way up in price, actually, but I guess that's how it goes in boardgameland. It's such a simple game (you can play it with coasters, or just a few regular cards), I would not pay crazy amounts of money for it.

It looks like Amazon.de has it at a reasonable price. The question is whether or not getting it to you from Germany is costly. They have Kingdom Builder at an alarmingly tempting 14€, but the shipping brings it back up to what I could get it for domestically.

 

[TekGryphon]

Gentlemen and Ladies of the thread, I need your advise again.

I am continuing my quest to play board games with my wife. To date we own Agricola, Netrunner, and Euphoria.

Neither of us particularly care for Euphoria, although we want to try playing it with more people. I enjoy Netrunner but she finds it complex and the theme too uninteresting (BUH-WHA?!) to warrant learning it. We both enjoy Agricola but she is fucking terrible at it.

I cannot stress that last point enough. She is an MBA, a brand manager making six figures, and I swear to God either one of our cats could beat her at Agricola. Our last game she had 2 early fields that went unsown until the end, an early pasture that went unfilled until the end, and no major improvements. If it hadn't been for the willow basket (leave 2 wood, take 3 food), she'd have maxed out the beggar cards.

So I want to get another game and I am torn.

I have a nerd boner for Caverna and I think it might be more up her alley since I heard feeding yourself is easier and there's more breadth in options and less depth.

However, I also started taking a look at co-op board games. Pandemonium is the obvious gorilla in the room but I doubt she'll like the setting. Defenders of the Realm, on the other hand, looks like the kind of game she'd enjoy and we'd probably even enjoy losing, although I'm a little worried about some of the reviews that stress the poor board design, poor quality figures, and over-reliance on luck.

Thoughts?

 

[Karkador]

What does she enjoy about Agricola?

 

[Affeinvasion]

Gentlemen and Ladies of the thread, I need your advise again.

I am continuing my quest to play board games with my wife. To date we own Agricola, Netrunner, and Euphoria.

Neither of us particularly care for Euphoria, although we want to try playing it with more people. I enjoy Netrunner but she finds it complex and the theme too uninteresting (BUH-WHA?!) to warrant learning it. We both enjoy Agricola but she is fucking terrible at it.

I cannot stress that last point enough. She is an MBA, a brand manager making six figures, and I swear to God either one of our cats could beat her at Agricola. Our last game she had 2 early fields that went unsown until the end, an early pasture that went unfilled until the end, and no major improvements. If it hadn't been for the willow basket (leave 2 wood, take 3 food), she'd have maxed out the beggar cards.

So I want to get another game and I am torn.

I have a nerd boner for Caverna and I think it might be more up her alley since I heard feeding yourself is easier and there's more breadth in options and less depth.

However, I also started taking a look at co-op board games. Pandemonium is the obvious gorilla in the room but I doubt she'll like the setting. Defenders of the Realm, on the other hand, looks like the kind of game she'd enjoy and we'd probably even enjoy losing, although I'm a little worried about some of the reviews that stress the poor board design, poor quality figures, and over-reliance on luck.

Thoughts?

I would stay away from the game that is almost identical to the one that she doesn't like or is good at.

Suggestions of games that I own and play with my wife pretty frequently:
Carcassonne South Seas
Seasons
Elder Signs (co-op)
Marvel Legendary (co-op deckbuilder) - this may not be up your alley but both my wife and I like superhero stuff.

Pandemic with the first expansion is good too.

If you haven't tried out co-ops you should definitely look into them.

 

[Tangeroo]

Gentlemen and Ladies of the thread, I need your advise again.

I am continuing my quest to play board games with my wife. To date we own Agricola, Netrunner, and Euphoria.

Neither of us particularly care for Euphoria, although we want to try playing it with more people. I enjoy Netrunner but she finds it complex and the theme too uninteresting (BUH-WHA?!) to warrant learning it. We both enjoy Agricola but she is fucking terrible at it.

I cannot stress that last point enough. She is an MBA, a brand manager making six figures, and I swear to God either one of our cats could beat her at Agricola. Our last game she had 2 early fields that went unsown until the end, an early pasture that went unfilled until the end, and no major improvements. If it hadn't been for the willow basket (leave 2 wood, take 3 food), she'd have maxed out the beggar cards.

So I want to get another game and I am torn.

I have a nerd boner for Caverna and I think it might be more up her alley since I heard feeding yourself is easier and there's more breadth in options and less depth.

However, I also started taking a look at co-op board games. Pandemonium is the obvious gorilla in the room but I doubt she'll like the setting. Defenders of the Realm, on the other hand, looks like the kind of game she'd enjoy and we'd probably even enjoy losing, although I'm a little worried about some of the reviews that stress the poor board design, poor quality figures, and over-reliance on luck.

Thoughts?

You may want to ease her into "Worker" games with lighter fare like Lords of Waterdeep and Stone Age.

 

[TekGryphon]

What does she enjoy about Agricola?

The theme and the interactivity. She also likes the logic of the game, I think. She may be terrible at it (I just don't think she puts in any effort) but I think she likes the logic flow of the game better than Euphoria where many of the actions seemed arbitrary and "because I said so" in the results of the actions.

I would stay away from the game that is almost identical to the one that she doesn't like or is good at.

Suggestions of games that I own and play with my wife pretty frequently:
Carcassonne South Seas
Seasons
Elder Signs (co-op)
Marvel Legendary (co-op deckbuilder) - this may not be up your alley but both my wife and I like superhero stuff.

Pandemic with the first expansion is good too.

If you haven't tried out co-ops you should definitely look into them.

You're referring to Caverna, I take it?

I think she's definitely much more into medieval fantasy than she is modern, modern history, future dystopian, or future apocolyptic.

Watching an Elder Scroll video now. I'm not sure at all what a Cthulu theme is, but I'm keeping an open mind.

You may want to ease her into "Worker" games with lighter fare like Lords of Waterdeep and Stone Age.

I raised the possibility of LoW, but she didn't really like the idea of going "too simple". I think her issue with Agricola is she gets decision paralysis and so focused on beating me, that she starts reacting and not carrying out her own strategy. I think she can get over that, but I thought maybe Carverna would be more fun as it gets rid of the ideas of "major food generators".

 

[Karkador]

Caverna will definitely overwhelm if her problem is too many choices. It's too many damn choices.

Maybe try the 2P-only Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small? It's my preferred Agricola, as it does away with cards, the crop farming and feeding your people stuff, and focuses on trying to amass as many animals as possible (while still having the same style of gameplay).

 

[TekGryphon]

I should have probably just gotten that to begin with. I don't think she'll be interested in getting that now, though. Partly because she'll think it's a waste of money to get it, and partly because the cards (she likes drafting) is one of her favorite parts of the game.

 

[Karkador]

I should have probably just gotten that to begin with. I don't think she'll be interested in getting that now, though. Partly because she'll think it's a waste of money to get it, and partly because the cards (she likes drafting) is one of her favorite parts of the game.

Oh wait, she likes drafting? 7 Wonders or Citadels

 

[TekGryphon]

Ok, lemme finish this Elder Signs review.

I don't understand this setting at all. He keeps saying "You'll recognize these heroes/villains". NO I DON'T.

 

[ultron87]

I'm guessing they assume the viewer has played Arkham Horror, since it is all the same lore stuff.

And I second the 7 Wonders suggestion.

 

[TekGryphon]

Yeah, I'm gonna pass on Elder Signs. I love the art, but it just falls into the trap that Euphoria does where things feel too "gamey". You're doing things that impact other things but it all just seems arbitrary.

Part of what we both love about Agricola is that it makes sense. One wood makes one fence. Enclosing a fence makes a pasture. Sheep go in the pasture. Clay can be used to get a fireplace. Sheep can be turned to food using the fireplace.

All this scrolls, sanity, terror, etc seems like a fun game for myself and maybe some of my buddies, but I think it's going to be too "gamey" for her. It's just like Euphoria where you're doing things that give you bliss or energy or whatever and use that to make auction houses which do stuff, but none of it really makes sense beyond the game itself.

Checking 7 Wonders now, then Citadels, then Carcasonne and Seasons.

 

[Affeinvasion]

Oh wait, she likes drafting? 7 Wonders or Citadels

Seasons and Fairy Tale also have some compelling drafting mechanics and I wouldn't ever recommend 7 wonders for two people.

Elder Sign as well as arkham horror are based on the writings of h.p. lovecraft and are generally about cultists trying to resurrect the twisted, clawing evil that lives just beyond the threshold of our reality.

 

[swoon]

I'd recommend Glass Road for 2 over the 2 player Agricola or even standard Agricola. Plays fast, lots of interesting decisions and a sweet resource wheel for management and it has a real great card mechanic.

 

[Karkador]

Seasons and Fairy Tale also have some compelling drafting mechanics and I wouldn't ever recommend 7 wonders for two people.

Yeah but he seems to be saying that she likes games where the logic of the game mechanics flows with the theme. Fairy Tale & Seasons are games where the themes are pretty much nonsense.

Also, I heard that 7 Wonders was pretty good with 2, but I haven't tried it.

 

[TekGryphon]

Wasn't really inspired by 7 Wonders, but I can see the allure. Checking Citadels now, then Glass Road.

Any thoughts on At the Gates of Loyang?

 

[Neverfade]

Any thoughts on At the Gates of Loyang?

The worst Rosenburg.

Le Havre, now that's a Zeus tier game.

 

[Blizzard]

A gaming...pub? That might be one of the best ideas anyone has ever had about anything ever. Sounds like an awesome hangout.

My endgame is to eventually have my basement completely finished with an old school bar, tables and seating for games, the whole nine. Years away from making that a reality though.

It sounds fun, but I feel like the two big problems could be:

1. Angry players turned into drunk angry players in a pub setting. I hope their security is good.

2. My OCD is terrorized by the thought of people getting greasy food all over cards and boards. ;_;

 

[Hydranockz]

There are a few pubs that I know of that have 'board games' on hand to play. Stuff like Scrabble and Monopoly and what not. I have a friend who has his game nights out there. Probably would want a medium to small sized game.

In a similar fashion, I also went to this tea garden place where relaxation was the order of the day. You'd sit around for hours on end and the only requirement was that everyone had to order something but we all played King of Tokyo and then Shadow Hunters in our own booth. Super relaxing and fun.

 

[Gaming Truth]

I bought Myth and Kingsburg + Expansion yesterday.

Opinions?

I love Kingsburg. There is a small problem where Analysis Paralysis may happen when people decide where to put their dice (the problem happens when their eyebrows arch and they're thinking about how to screw the other players).

I also think that one of the modules in the expansion, the one where victory points can be used to support troops, is far better than the base rules regarding troops. In the base game, when a monster pops up, the king sends help via a roll of a six-sided die. A lot of the time, it enables completely broken builds to get away with it with opportune six rolls. With the expansion module, these people have to trade victory points to do what they do. They can still get lucky with wussy monsters, but I don't want to give them more help than they actually need (no risk/reward otherwise)

 

[fenners]

Wasn't really inspired by 7 Wonders, but I can see the allure. Checking Citadels now, then Glass Road.

Any thoughts on At the Gates of Loyang?

Good god, man, Agricola leaves her cold & you're looking at Caverna & Gates of Loyang??

Glass Road. Lord of Waterdeep. Stone Age. Not necessarily in that order. If it's the card drafting she likes at the end of the day, 7 Wonders (but takes 3 players), Dominion's worth a go for deck building.

But At the Gates of Loyang? Do you want to be divorced? It's absolutely brutal & unforgiving to /good/ players, never mind noobs.

 

[TekGryphon]

Good god, man, Agricola leaves her cold & you're looking at Caverna & Gates of Loyang??

Glass Road. Lord of Waterdeep. Stone Age. Not necessarily in that order. If it's the card drafting she likes at the end of the day, 7 Wonders (but takes 3 players), Dominion's worth a go for deck building.

But At the Gates of Loyang? Do you want to be divorced? It's absolutely brutal & unforgiving to /good/ players, never mind noobs.

Hmmm, ok. She loves farming and agricultural themes, so I was hopeful.

I'm watching a Lords of Waterdeep episode now. Seems pretty promising, actually.

How is it with 2 players?

 

[Affeinvasion]

If you like really theme-y games that will still kick your ass and have some complexity, you should look at Robinson Crusoe. It's a great co-op that lends itself well to logic-ing through the story that plays out.

 

[platypotamus]

This thread still has new game smell, I like it

 

[Affeinvasion]

This thread still has new game smell, I like it

Smells like China.

 

[Karkador]

I would buy a "new board game smell" air freshener

 

[EYEL1NER]

It came out here and looks like it went through its print run. I'm a bit surprised that it's gone way up in price, actually, but I guess that's how it goes in boardgameland. It's such a simple game (you can play it with coasters, or just a few regular cards), I would not pay crazy amounts of money for it.

It looks like Amazon.de has it at a reasonable price. The question is whether or not getting it to you from Germany is costly. They have Kingdom Builder at an alarmingly tempting 14€, but the shipping brings it back up to what I could get it for domestically.

Thanks for the heads up, but I don't have any feasibly way to get anything from Germany cheap right now. One of my coworkers actually just took the "free flight to Denmark" option for his vacation that we have here and it would probably not be that hard to order one to him, but he left us me no contact information or way to get a hold of him over there.
I can wait a while I guess and see if it ends up getting reprinted anytime soon.

 

[Transhuman]

I would buy a "new board game smell" air freshener

Apparently that's the volatile organic compounds from the soy inc, so that air freshener would smell good at the offset of shortening your life span.

 

[Hydranockz]

Apparently that's the volatile organic compounds from the soy inc, so that air freshener would smell good at the offset of shortening your life span.

Worth it.

 

[Neverfade]

I would buy a "new board game smell" air freshener

How about an Eau de Magic: The Gathering Tournament?

 

[BattleMonkey]

How about an Eau de Magic: The Gathering Tournament?

Oh god the funk

 

[XShagrath]

How about an Eau de Magic: The Gathering Tournament?

Smells like crack.

 

[joelseph]

I'll be at GenCon.

Chained to a booth.

Do you have the number?

 

[TekGryphon]

Thanks for the Glass Roads suggestion. Watched a video of that and it looked like a great combination of theme, interactivity, logic, and competition. I'm a little worried about the competition because it seems easy for a "gamer" to completely dominate a "non-gamer", but over-all looked fun as hell.

I'll listen to a Robinson Crusoe on the way to work. I'm not sure if she'll be into the low tech survival theme, but I love it.

 

[Vicious]

I've been playing board games with my family for the last couple of years now. It started with the obvious gateway games like Ticket to Ride and Settlers of Catan and has grown from there. So far I've bought:

Ticket to Ride (US, Europe, Marklin, and 2 expansions)
Settlers of Catan (plus 3 expansions, still need to buy the new one)
Settlers of America
Puerto Rico
Power Grid + expansions
Endeavor
Airlines
Agricola
Macao
Stone Age
Galaxy Truckers
Formula D
Through the Ages
Village
Pillars of the Earth
Trajan
Alien Frontiers
Tzolk'in

The last 2 are the newest ones and we've only played them once. I'd say the favorites to play are a tie between Stone Age and Trajan (and Ticket to Ride when nobody can decide on anything else).

Any suggestions of other games to look into would be great. I avoid war games and deck building games because nobody in the family has any interest in those. Games like Stone Age and Trajan are a big hit because while you can block certain actions of other players, you can't really attack a player or take stuff away from them. That type of playstyle is a big turnoff (we enjoyed Alien Frontiers, but the ability to steal supplies and cards of other players wasn't very popular).

 

[Draxal]

Doomtown Reloaded: When I worked at the Game Keeper years ago this was the one CCG that I got into. Looking forward to playing it again with the LCG format.
Patchistory : I'm a sucker for Civ games and this looks like it will bring some interesting mechanisms to the genre.
Machi Koro: I'm moving to upstate NY and won't have access to the same group of friends. I have been looking into getting easier games to play with my wife's family, Machi Koro looks like a good one.

I didn't know Doomtown was coming back until you posted, and I see there's going to be a deluxe edition.

I'm going to have to grab that, I think Doomtown is easily the most thematic of expandable/customizable/trading/collectable card games.

 

[Zalasta]

I cannot stress that last point enough. She is an MBA, a brand manager making six figures, and I swear to God either one of our cats could beat her at Agricola.

If she's an MBA maybe she'll prefer more calculation heavy/spread sheet games like Power Grid? I've been out of the scene for a while so maybe someone else can recommend newer but similar stuff.

 

[joeyjoejoeshabadoo]

I didn't know Doomtown was coming back until you posted, and I see there's going to be a deluxe edition.

I'm going to have to grab that, I think Doomtown is easily the most thematic of expandable/customizable/trading/collectable card games.

Yeah, it looks like they are releasing two versions. A deluxe version with four copies of each card and other deluxe bits and a regular version with half as many cards and regular bits. It looks like if you want four copies of each card you will either need to get the deluxe version or two basic core sets.

Either way I'm glad it's coming back. Just a really fun game and a neat world.

 

[Whifflebat]

I'm watching a Lords of Waterdeep episode now. Seems pretty promising, actually.

How is it with 2 players?

My wife and I play a lot of 2 player games in general. She really enjoyed Lords of Waterdeep, though I had to trojan horse the game on her as she isn't typically fond of anything fantasy themed. It's a good, fairly light worker placement game. I think it would fit the bill.

I just found a copy of Alien Frontiers at a local game store and played it with my wife last night. Really enjoyed it (the domed colony pieces were a big hit). After many games of LoW, we were finding it growing a little stale, so AF looks to be our new go-to worker placement game of choice. Is the Factions expansion recommended?

 

[Mr.Towel]

Would you recommend Doomtown to someone who usually avoids games with poker-inspired mechanics? I love the general theme and a lot of the other mechanics of the game, but the poker stuff puts me off. (My problem with poker mechanics is that I generally have a hard time remembering suits their relative values in relation to one another)