Just so you know: Architects is available on BGA.
The Raiders of the North Sea app plays nicely—although I think it is a game that is easier learned and grokked on a table (there are some elements I never quite understood when playing the app).
7 Likes
Architects is great fun, and easy to get into. I like it as a simple worker placement & building game (definitely prefer it to Lords of Waterdeep and it’s comparable in terms of complexity).
Raiders of Scythia is very different but a big fave (though I’m a sucker for Scythians, so, grain of salt…). There’s not a lot of games like it honestly that I’ve played. Love it.
Paladins is my fave though, but so much harder to get to the table with the rules overhead. Once you’re into it its thoroughly engaging and one of my favourite games (even if the theme is totally not one I jive with).
Viscounts, I’ve not tried so I can’t help you there.
Legacy of Yu is also excellent. My favourite solo game (though Hadrian’s Wall is close…)
The number of hits Garphill have had is super impressive to me. So I’m always keen to check out new stuff they release.
4 Likes
Cornish Smuggler - its been sat on my shelf since I was bought it for my birthday a couple of years ago. It has a reasonably high complexity rating on BGG so not sure how often it will get played, even if I learn it.
Has anyone played it and what did you think?
2 Likes
I used to own this. Picked it up when i it was new and shiny at my first Essen (2013), played it a few times, sold it in 2016.
Going by my unreliable memories:
- rulebook was pretty rough, one could work things out but it took more effort than it should have, final rules at Cornish Smuggler Final Rulebook | Cornish Smuggler .
- there was an infinite actions bug. Smugglers Beware! Cornish Smuggler Rules Addendum | Cornish Smuggler fixes it and Grublin were pretty good about getting updated components out to everyone they could find
- one of those games that seems as though it’s dripping with theme (you can recruit Madge Figgy, “The Witch of Porthgwarra”!) but ends up feeling quite mechanistic (you get some bonuses and a special ability). Personal quirk, perhaps. There’s basically only one thing you’re trying to do.
It didn’t seem too fiddly once we worked out what was going on but nobody ever said “I really loved that game, let’s play it again”.
There has been very little activity on the BGG forums for the last six years or so.
2 Likes
My parents bought it because it’s based in Cornwall, and the rulebook was so rough they waited until I visited for christmas in the hope I could teach it to them. That was rough. The game feels very thematic at first, but I have to agree with Roger that it’s become mechanical. There’s a whole bunch of mechanics smashed together, with little connecting them. It also was incredibly unbalanced, and nobody really had fun playing.
That said, if you already own it, you may as well give it a go, no?
1 Like
Well yes and no. I do already own it but I have very limited gaming time!
1 Like
OK. Someone explain Nokosu Dice to me. I’ve never heard of it but I see that, at some point, a majority of this forum went ga ga for it?
2 Likes
Its a must-follow trick taker with dice. You’ll have about ten cards and four dice, the latter visible to the table. Cards are 0-7 in five suits, dice are d6s in the same suit colours, rolled before you get them and drafted after you see your hand. Dice are played just like cards.
The last un-drafted die defines trumps for the round, and there are three grades: matching colour and number, matching number only, matching colour only. Any trump is no longer considered to be its original colour. So if yellow 3 is trump and the trick is green, you can’t play a green 3 to trump it unless you have no non-trump greens.
The last die you have can’t be played; it becomes your declaration for the round, 3 = 3 tricks etc. If you make that exactly, you get points = 10 × the number of players who didn’t make theirs. (Also one point per trick but this is really just a tiebreaker.)
There are details I’ve left out but that’s the core of it. Note that you can intend to declare with a particular die, but be forced to play it because it was the only thing you had left of a particular colour.
5 Likes
Love Nokosu Dice! Roger has covered the main things pretty well. The tricky thing is the trumps, cards changing their colour - that takes a round or two to get familiar with.
Definitely worth playing, good luck if you can find a copy. I had to make my own.
2 Likes
ah that’s great. now i don’t need to learn the rules anymore🥰
4 Likes
When I’m teaching it face to face I now tend to say “I may seem to be putting too much emphasis on this but it’s the thing people always get wrong”. 
4 Likes
There is a player aid available, I believe it came with the 3rd edition (and someone put it on bgg), lets you arrange your dice to make things a bit clearer.
Yeah, I actively require players to use those - it’s a lot easier than working out what’s what in a pool of dice on the other side of the table.
2 Likes
We certainly got it wrong on first paying although honestly the game was still great fun. This is definitely a favourite of mine, having been put off trick-taking games from a few too many rounds of The Crew. I like this very much but I remain, of course, awful at it.
2 Likes
Having gorged on trick taking, mostly in the 90’s, I’m not as enthused about all these trick takers these days. Reading the summary, and another online, I’m thinking:
- Bid is based on unplayed “cards.” Oh, like 99.
- Hand is split between open and closed information. Oh, like Mu.
- Complicated, tiered trump situation with trump numbers. Oh, was that Sheepshead? What one was that? I remember not liking it.
Definitely feels Nihil Sub Sole Novum at this point. But I know these mechanics and twists are new to a lot of people.
That said, it does sound like Nokosu Dice maybe does these same things a little more simply and organically than the games it is copying. The twist of having your bid be the “card” that’s left rather than one(s) you pick at the beginning is also a twist.
I’ll check it out if it comes to me, but thankfully don’t feel the need to chase it down.
3 Likes
I’ve played 99, and it’s the game that made trick taking make sense to me. Recommended for people who haven’t tried it.
The major difference, though, is that you aren’t choosing the bid card up front but working your way down to locking in a declaration part-way through the game.
3 Likes
Fairly sure I should practice at trick-taking games, as I grew up on Hearts/Black Maria where you’re desperate NOT to win each hand, and that takes some time to unlearn.
2 Likes
No, trick takers where your goal is only “win as many as possible” become routine and deterministic very quickly (Whist, Euchre, Bridge). Many hands have soft player elimination, where you just wait for the next deal.
Pretty much all modern trick takers have you hitting a target instead (a la Spades, Oh Hell) because it makes the in-round play more interesting and gives purpose to any hand, good or bad.
So, what you learned is good fodder for the present menu.
3 Likes
All of my current favourites (Charms, Inflation!, 9 Lives) have you trying to hit a target number of tricks. I’m not especially good at it, but I do enjoy it. As Acacia says, it gives purpose to any hand. Not just “you got lucky and had higher cards than me”.
2 Likes
Nonsense! I always wanted to win each hand in Hearts. Shooting the Moon was fun!
5 Likes