The Big Board-Gaming Catch-All

Glad to see Evolution doing well enough to warrant expansions. I mean to check this out eventually. I intended to buy a copy at Gencon 2015 but after waiting almost an hour to demo a game we had to boogie undemoed and I didn't wanna just plunk down the cash sight unseen.

Chaz wrote:

Wow, that's a bold move calling Go a terrible game.

I'm going to hope there was a soupçon of humor in that final assessment.

Next, in GWJ Boardgame reviews: "Backgammon: 3/10. Too random, player elim, allows betting."

Chess: 2/10 - each piece does something different, gameplay is too long, it'll never catch on. Also, is it me, or is the fluff super misogynistic?

McIrishJihad wrote:

Chess: 2/10 - each piece does something different, gameplay is too long, it'll never catch on. Also, is it me, or is the fluff super misogynistic?

You should have seen it before they added the token female character.

Gremlin wrote:
McIrishJihad wrote:

Chess: 2/10 - each piece does something different, gameplay is too long, it'll never catch on. Also, is it me, or is the fluff super misogynistic?

You should have seen it before they added the token female character.

For real, though, Chess was feminist when feminism wasn't cool.

Gremlin wrote:
McIrishJihad wrote:

Chess: 2/10 - each piece does something different, gameplay is too long, it'll never catch on. Also, is it me, or is the fluff super misogynistic?

You should have seen it before they added the token female character.

Typical SJWs add one female character and make it way OP.

McIrishJihad wrote:

Chess: 2/10 - each piece does something different, gameplay is too long, it'll never catch on. Also, is it me, or is the fluff super misogynistic?

Prone to severe AP. Certain moves seem completely made up, as if someone was loosing and changed the rules mid game. "well if you do that, then I'm going to do this, its called en passant, and its totally legal"

McIrishJihad wrote:

Chess: 2/10 - each piece does something different, gameplay is too long, it'll never catch on. Also, is it me, or is the fluff super misogynistic?

If you think it is too long use the common houserule with that timer clock thingie...

Shakespeare could not be more up my alley. The theme *is* the game.

Eh, if you want one game that you can study for the rest of your life, skip that old stuff and play Advanced Squad Leader. If you're losing a game or a rules argument, can you beat your opponent to death with a copy of the rules of chess? No? Advantage ASL!

ASL = "See appendix A in rule supplement CG2. O wait, you wanted rules for firing from cover at an air vehicle in medium fog while running, that's appendix G of the jungle wars expansion that only released in Germany under the name Gurka Lufthansa. I think I have a copy in that red binder, no, the other red binder."

That's why I love Heroes of Normandie.. it's obviously not as deep/complex, but all the unit info is on the unit itself, and all the terrain info is on the terrain itself.

Played Isle of Skye with 5 people during the Super Bowl with the football game muted.

Isle of Skye was awesome: The Super Bowl not so much.
I had played it once before with 3 people but it was the first time for everyone else. There was a fair bit of confusion before we started but by round 3 everyone seemed to have caught on.

Most importantly my wife really enjoyed it - and she said it wasn't just because she won handily.

I've been thinking of picking up Isle of Skye, what kind of play time did you have with 5 people?

I came up with a good idea to help with teaching games while teaching Iki this last weekend. There was a link to some good tips posted a while back in the thread but this didn't come up as a suggestion there.

Make an outline and keep it with the game! Here is the one I made for Iki. This way, you shouldn't have to refer to the directions, but you can be certain you hit all the points you need to when teaching the game in an organized and logical manner. You can also be sure to remind people about the objective after each major section of the outline and ask questions to see if everyone is getting it.

It's just too easy for me to forget certain things while teaching the game. It's also easy to get sidetracked and lose your place once people start asking questions. Also, if you decide to pull the game out months later, it should make it way easier to teach the game without re-reading the directions or watching a video.

Personally, I think it would be helpful if every set of board game instructions included a teaching outline at the back of the booklet.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

I came up with a good idea to help with teaching games while teaching Iki this last weekend. There was a link to some good tips posted a while back in the thread but this didn't come up as a suggestion there.

Make an outline and keep it with the game! Here is the one I made for Iki. This way, you shouldn't have to refer to the directions, but you can be certain you hit all the points you need to when teaching the game in an organized and logical manner. You can also be sure to remind people about the objective after each major section of the outline and ask questions to see if everyone is getting it.

It's just too easy for me to forget certain things while teaching the game. It's also easy to get sidetracked and lose your place once people start asking questions. Also, if you decide to pull the game out months later, it should make it way easier to teach the game without re-reading the directions or watching a video.

Personally, I think it would be helpful if every set of board game instructions included a teaching outline at the back of the booklet.

Buy some GMT games. The player aid cards are the best.

Bruce wrote:

Shakespeare could not be more up my alley. The theme *is* the game.

But the manual is terrible. You will probably need to hit up BGG and/or watch a video to get the rules right.

Skiptron wrote:

I've been thinking of picking up Isle of Skye, what kind of play time did you have with 5 people?

I'd estimate an hour and 15 minutes. But that was for the first/learning game for everyone else and I had never taught it before. It would definitely go faster the next time around.

The game is designed so that many of the decisions are made simultaneously which helps to cut down how much one player can bog things down.

Played Clash of Cultures with my son using the Civilizations expansion. The original game has all players with the same "generic" civilization, where your tech tree choices served to differentiate each player. With the expansion, you get a set of unique civilizations, leaders, new elephant and cavalry units, and civ-specific tech advances that all serve to tailor your game a little more.

I pulled the Chinese and he pulled Vikings, so my strategy was basically to use Rice Paddies (extra food) and Sprawling (free settler moves) to expand quickly and get a bunch of cities going. His Vikings let him dominate the seas and convert land units to ships and vice versa, so he started going after all the pirates that cropped up. I was getting a nice system of cities going, whereas his cities were mostly still size 1, maybe one size 2. I was able to build a wonder and looked to have the game in hand, when he surprised me on the last turn and floated all of his ships right to my shore and converted them to armies and captured one of my larger cities. Was an 8-point swing, enough to give him the game. Little scalawag.

Really like the expansion for this, but man do you have to be careful to watch your opponents. They might pull things you REALLY aren't expecting.

Hrm, wonder if this was written by Charlie Hall.

*clicks link*

YAY! Charlie wrote this!

Summary:

-The game will come with a book that has 430 entries that will move the story along and help you explore individual islands. For example, There is a map of the the island you are exploring. You decide to go to a location, mark it in the book and turn to the entry that give you further decisions. The example he gave was confronting the natives. Are you going to get the treasure they have and risk your crew? If so you get that big reward but your ship gets damage and put a "enmity token" on the board (they sound like stickers).

-Enmity tokens are used to attack other players or provinces. He hints that the more you spend them the more negative effects that happen to you future games.

-Once you are out of enmity tokens you can't attack anymore. You temporary lose them but lose them permanently if you don't recover them at the end of the game. Emity tokens tells a players history just by looking at the board.

-Seafall takes about 14-15 games to complete.

Sounds great so fair. I like the idea of a book you mark up and look up stuff. It's a new idea for Legacy games. Can't wait for it come out.

I very much doubt this will be the only Seafall game if it's successful. He put too much work into this system. I can see their being "Seafall: Age 2" like Pandemic Legacy seasons.

Oh man, actual info about Seafall? I've been following this since I heard about it probably 2 years ago!

Every convention I go to includes a stop at the Plaid Hat booth to ask hopeful questions about Seafall. Every time I'm met with disappointment. Maybe this con season will be better.

I heard from a "trusted" source (BGG rumors) that it is supposed to be released at Gen Con.

Anyone here use Tabletop Simulator? It's on sale on Steam right now.

So uh... how about that Kickstarter for the last Sentinels of the Multiverse expansion?

Flintheart Glomgold wrote:

I heard from a "trusted" source (BGG rumors) that it is supposed to be released at Gen Con.

They pretty much confirm it's a 2016 GenCon release.

Hey Canucks, the shipping for Evolution: Climate was just cut in half to US$10!

shoptroll wrote:

So uh... how about that Kickstarter for the last Sentinels of the Multiverse expansion?

Oh snap FREE shipping to Canada

So tonight I played the new edition City of Iron the first time. Overall a good game, scoring was tight, but it has one design flaw which will make me not play it again. One part of the game is deck building; but unlike most deck building games where there are around ten cards to choose from you have over twenty. One of those cards also allows you to snuffle through the discard pile of another deck. Needless to say when it came time to buy cards me and the other new player spent too long going through the piles of cards.

I was unable to get Food Chain Magnate to the table, but I have a group of willing participants this weekend.