assuming they’re not see thru which might help random setup?
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Stream of consciousness musings:
Quality of life improvements mainly. Most baggies tend to hold tokens quite flat, so unless the bag is much larger, you can’t really jumble the tokens in the bag very well. And cloth is softer on the hands obviously! Another bonus is cloth bags are more flexible, so much easier to fit a lot of stuff in a box. Especially useful for the massive huge big pyramid bag.
For set up randomisation it’s somewhat arbitrary though. Doesn’t need to be truly random. But it is an improvement
Some games I use baggies, some I use inserts, some I use drawstring bags. There’s pros and cons.
I like how coloured drawstring bags make it really easy to know what goes where when packing away the game. So often I pack baggies and get the bag sizes wrong and need to switch around components or am mysteriously one bag short (not an issue for Teoti when most the tokens are left in the bag). Packing all a player’s stuff together in a coloured bag is just nice! And they just look a lot more upmarket than baggies.
Generally it’s drawstring bag Vs insert, rather than drawstring Vs baggies. Inserts are a more comparable cost, if I’m being cost efficient it’s baggies every time unless it offers a true functional advantage.
For a few games it makes set up a doddle. Roll for the Galaxy, chuck the dice bags out on the table. Half the set up done. A lot easier to pass between players than an insert tray or box, and easier to find the appropriate size bag for a few dice. When I used boxes I had to group dice colours together for it to work.
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Anyone have thoughts on Pan Am, Paper Tales, and Micromacro: Crime City?
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I played Paper Tales a couple times with my partner and really enjoyed it, but she really hated it. It’s sort of obtuse in the sense that how to win the game is pretty unapparent; the tenor of the first game is, “Oh, we’re drafting now? And these cards do… things? And now we’re placing them in a grid, and fighting? And building these buildings? And now the game’s almost halfway done? Well, okay, I guess!” It’s also a very structured game, in that there are four rounds, each round has like 7 phases, and there’s a fair amount of rigidity to each phase. Once you get the hang of it, though, it’s very smooth (all the phases are fast and intuitive, and nothing about the game is actually complicated), and there’s a good mix of long-term strategy with the buildings, and short-term tactics with the cards you draft.
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Played Pan Am, enjoyed it as a light net worker with a bit of an economy going. I think it is sort of a Ticket To Ride Plus. Would play it again, sure.
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I like Pan Am, but I suspect it’s not for you.
There’s auctions (good), route building (good) then directive cards (not all useful at every point in the game, not all are equal. The ‘free stock’ one in particular) and a dice (you can place your planes on a route that never gets bought by Pan Am).
That said, it’s got the feel of a cube rails game, wrapped up in a lovely package of art with a more accessible theme.
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I have a copy of Micromacro on my dining table. In shrink waiting for a friend to pick it up. I hope I can play it after they are done with it 
So I can tell you more in a couple of months… I guess.
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My copy of MicroMacro appeared this morning. Had a look at the picture and packed everything away, but won’t play until Wednesday.
So far I think the theme’s a bit of a shame. This is clearly wanting to be a family game, but just at a glance I can see a whole bunch of unnecessary adult themes. My workmate asks every now and then about games to play with his kids, and this seemed exactly the sort of thing I would want to recommend.
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I think it would work better using the kind of really benign crimes you see on kids shows.
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I got Micro Macro from my secret santa this year (thanks whoever that was!). It’s a really fun game, I had a ton of fun playing it with my wife, and we’re considering just framing it in the guest bedroom to have people look at it and try to deduce a few smaller cases.
I think it does something really different than other game, and you should know that getting into it. Since it is very quirky, something don’t work really well or you can spoil yourself (finding something “sooner” than you should, working the case backward). I agree that some cases are a bit too much on the theme, but I would say, on the top of my head, that more than half of the cases are more cartoony style of crime rather than really gruesome ones.
The more I think of it, the more I realize I feel about it the same I feel about Treasure Island. Both are weird game that probably could be slicker and more robust, but I love them as they are, a bit broken and strange, different.
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Im considering Fleet - the card game, not the dice game - for its potentially great box size:game play ratio. I like Race for the Galaxy, Chudyk’s card games like Innovation, San Juan, and Pax Porfiriana.
What do you guys think of Fleet?
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I… I was not expecting this to exist
I mean it looks like there’s zero gameplay
But who thought Krull needed a tie-in boardgame?!
Has anyone seen this or played it?
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OMG, I love how the box states it features “collectible 3D Prince Colwyn and Beast figures” and they look like any cheap little plastic figures you could find in a dollar store!
That phallic starfish board is very off putting.
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Agree to disagree.
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I remember some people here talking about Noria (maybe @lalunaverde?). Has anyone played this game with two and can comment if it’s worthwhile at this player count?
I think Mr Verde has mainly played Noria with me. I’ve only played at 3 & 4. This is now an interesting question to me. I could see it going either way. Losing some player generated chaos from more players and the attendant bets and shared incentives space could be balanced out by a more strategic game space. I’m sort of thinking it would become a full planning/strategy experience which would be good with how much the wheel is a crunchy planning exercise already. Although I can’t say for sure so this speculation maybe just annoying 
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Thank you! After reading the rules, I’m concerned that the whole politician part would become trivial and a non-decision, as there really is only one option for blocking. There is a very cheap copy available around here, so I might give it a try.
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That was one if the bits I discussed with the friend I’ve played the game with most. That was the part we definitely felt would be lost. However with only 2 there might emerge some interesting tempo considerations there and the openness of that area of the game might be necessary to stop it being a snowballing game at 2 where the early lead just runs away with it and could possibly give an inflection point of changing gear on how you’ll score. It might just make it a bit bland though. I may have to try at 2 to find out. @lalunaverde you want to try a 2 player day at some point?
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Totally. 