I don’t think setting up Teotihuacan is especially tedious, but it would probably benefit from one of your inserts 
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I’ve played it a few times. It’s just fine. Steding’s game that I liked the very least
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Set up for Teotihuacan isn’t bad. Randomise 7 big tiles on the board, randomise 6 little tiles in the board grab resources and player pieces, go. Not sure about the solo mode. But there’s not many pieces for that.
As to wether there’s other games that are in the niche… Well it’s got a lot of familiar euro mechanisms. However, I find it combines them in a way that the overall feel is quite fresh. The workers moving up pips on the dice, getting more powerful and eventually resetting is maybe arguably the most unique/original bit. I’m a big fan of the game.
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I was deeply underwhelmed by it. It’s hard to know how much I dislike it compared to the hype vs just disliking it. It might be an OK game I have harsher feelings to due to rep or maybe I just dislike it for not being a good game. (Subjectivity of enjoyment of all games accepted)
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I wasn’t overly impressed by my single play of Gugong, but I know many love it.
Teo played it, loved it, bought it, found it very dull, sold it. However, again a lot of people love it. It’s a lot of game for that price.
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Since it looked like the offer was running out of copies I went with my gut feeling of ordering Teotihuacan but not Gugong.
I came away from the table of Gugong at Spiel feeling it was an inoffensive Euro I could probably get a lot of my friends to play–once or twice? By now I’ve got other Euros that I could bring to the table just as easily that provide that same potential and that give me more enjoyment (Viscounts, Merv, Viticulture, Wingspan fall into that category in my mind–probably more those are just what I am thinking of right now)
I’ll see about Teotihuacan I’ve seen it on many lists containing solo games… and that’s what I’ve ordered it for. I remember my partner’s reaction when we saw it at Spiel “OMG let’s get away from here quickly”
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Teotihuacan would technically benefit from an organizer, but I use drawstring bags. Shuffling all the different tiles and laying them out is the burdensome part of setup, and blind draw bags turns the process info a complete trifle. It also lets me fit all content and promos to date into the base box.
As for the automa rules, it’s a snap to operate and does a fine job replicating a second player (sometimes it’s uncanny). It’s a high score chaser though, so largely a practice exercise.
I’m one of the more vocal proponents of the game around here, and for me it’s an evergreen. I can’t help notice that about half the folks who end up trying it bounce hard off it though… at least you got a nice price to give it a try.
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+1 for all the above.
I can see why people bounce off it. It’s not the shiniest of euros in its mechanics, and is quite restrictive. In terms of reductive “this game is just Xing the Y” criticisms, this euro is more susceptible to it than most.
To echo sentiments, draw string bags work a lot better than inserts for this one since so many of the components are (a) part of set up and (b) require randomisation. Blind draw the stuff you need, chuck the bag back in the box. Job done. The neatness of inserts just gets in the way.
The BGG geekup bag set is great. I use it for the base game, both expansions and all the promos in the base game box. I then store the solo components in the small box expansion box. Not a massive solo gamer, and if I do play it I’ll be at home anyway, so don’t really need it in the main box
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Is there an advantage of the draw string bags over regular plastic baggies?
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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