I for one enjoyed your novella greatly, so thank you! One day I will attend!
4 Likes
Finally got to play Viticulture.
I was struck, from beginning to end, with the similarity to Nusfjord. Heavy-end-of-entry worker placement. Basic spots with some specialization options (buildings / elders), bit of light income engine building (vines / boats), and most importantly, super-powered versions of basic actions through one-shot cards (visitors / buildings).
At each and every step, Nusfjord was clearly the more elegant, thought-through, and polished design. The subtle but effective player interaction of shares and the fish-table, compared to passive bonuses and take-that on Viticulture’s visitor cards. The open market of Nusfjord’s buildings, creating another point of interaction as well as allowing you to plan (and foil plans) throughout the game, compared to the chaotic draw of Viticulture’s visitors, ranging from useless to overpowered. And oh, the balance of Nusfjord. Everything is so tightly balanced in Nusfjord.
I left, again, impressed by Nusfjord. I really respect that design. That said…
Viticulture was more fun. It just is. I still find Nusfjord a bit sterile for all of it’s wonder of polished design. Viticulture isn’t as jagged as most of Stonemeier, but it’s still a cobbled together pile of modules (read the development diary for the backstory there). But those modules do work, and they’re fun, and I was more emotionally attached to my vineyard than I ever was to my fishing fleet. And as unpredictable and unbalanced as the card draws are, there’s something special about just drawing cards and the agony and ecstasy that results.
9 Likes
Our friends who wanted to check out my new Giant Box of Everdell had announced an afternoon visit (we get the day off on October 3rd) and I decided I could squeeze in a quick game of Spirit Island—or not so quick for that matter—as I decided on two hand Shifting Ages with Keeper against France Level 1.
My game was interrupted after a couple of rounds by something that evaporated my concentration and I had to chill on the couch for a bit. When I got back to the game I had forgot about the escalation of France and so my „win“ is on very shaky ground. On the other hand if not for the maximum unlucky event that prevent me cleaning that inland mountain on the left island board, I would have won 2 turns earlier with or without escalations. I also had to hurry the last 3 rounds quite a bit because I knew I had 20 minutes when our friends texted they were en route. This was probably the quickest 3 rounds of two handed Spirit Island I have ever played.
I must say that I have never played so many major power cards. But both spirits have a lot of power gains even through cards and that was actually my first turn. Play just that card on each spirit and grow my handsize quickly.
Then our friends arrived, we had some Zwetschgenkuchen (a seasonal slice) and then I taught Everdell to everyone. Which isn‘t very difficult at all.
In the first season everyone was stumped how they were supposed to do anything with just 2 workers. But to their—not mine—surprise there was quite a lot one could do with just 2 workers 
Everyone quickly got into the game. Spring went quite well for everyone as well.
But then it happened. My partner had played the Clocktower and then added the Historian of which I was envious because it allows all those card draws. Then someone took a card he wanted from the meadow. And he wanted revenge. But by the time he wanted to move to summer, his hand was full and he had no more workers to get rid off cards and he couldn‘t draw his two bonus cards from the meadow and so his revenge floundered. That caused him to declare the game was horrible and he hated it. One of the others also got in a bit of a dead-end and grumbled that he didn‘t know how to proceed he had no cards to play.
I rolled my eyes and played another Mine with a Mole The fourth player just happily kept playing cards and comparing the game with Terraforming Mars and Ark Nova (her favorites).
Long story short, my partner was in a terrible mood throughout the rest of the game, even though everyone could see he was winning. He had 2 basic and 2 special events and the King by the end of the game… while I had to hide a fool in a dungeon just to be able to build a castle (without a King).
And of course the two grumbly men took home first and second place in the game. I came in third. I enjoyed myself. Our friends now want to buy their own copy. I quote Mrs 4th Place: „We just don‘t meet enough, I need a copy of this, so we don‘t play Ark Nova so much. And why didn‘t you buy Ark Nova when it was on sale the other day?“
PS: we all agreed that the tree is not a good place to keep the special events. I do like it though for the deck—we almost got through the whole deck btw.
13 Likes
I love this part of it, and also how in round 1 you can’t imagine how you’ll ever fill your 15 card city, but by the last round everything is huge and accelerating and you don’t. have. enough. space.
8 Likes
Just played another of our series of precon-basic-deck games of Ashes with @Lordof1 - on ashteki.com, which I found out about this morning. Like jinteki, it’s a browser-based interface for the specific game. It doesn’t always make it particularly clear why a particular thing is happening (e.g. you did a summon but you’d already hit your limit of summonable things of that type) but it seemed to work all right, and it’s less work for the computer than Tabletop Simulator.
3 Likes
Wait, is your partner my husband? I wouldn’t like that very much. 
My husband is the worst about getting annoyed at a game and being in a bad mood for at least half of it over all the things he can’t do and ending up with like 35+ more points than anyone else.
9 Likes
Train games! As in, games played on the train home.
We started with Railroad Ink: Deep Blue edition, naturally. I won, 41 - 31.
Then I had three games of Regicide solo, all losses, though I at least reached the Kings on the latter two games.
We later played three games of Hanamikoji. The first game, I had the favor of four geisha, but my wife had 11 charm points, so she won. The next game, I won after the first round, getting 11 points. We played a tie breaker round which I won as well with 11 points again, though it took two rounds this time.
Finally, we played Batman Love Letter. There is a lot more luck involved at two player, but it is still fun. My wife was up 6 - 1, but remarkably I was able to come back and win.
And that was the extent of our gaming on the train. Vacation is now truly over.
8 Likes
I hope you do. The con has such a fantastic vibe, and everyone is so helpful and nice, and it is just great seeing so many people playing so many games!
5 Likes
A secret double life involving a daily transatlantic commute… does he seem very, very tired?
10 Likes
Just a tiny update on Tindaya. I read a few of the threads on the BGG forum and found a few more hints and ideas how to play this. There was also an acknowledgement that the fires are more difficult with fewer players and that I had overlooked that there is an additional “wild” offering (Idol cards) one can use and that number of offerings does scale with players. So some of my misgivings are cleared up.
3 Likes
A veritable rollercoaster of emotions…
Ack! I’ve played Viticulture a few times, and (despite the theme) simply haven’t enjoyed it. Which would be completely fine, if Nusfjord wasn’t one of the boxes in my “shelf of opportunity”…
Disaster averted! Hurrah!
Nooooo.
10 Likes
Eager to hear what you think, when you finally get to it! A part of me suspects that Nusfjord is a game that grows on you while Viticulture is a game that grows stale if you play it too often. Just a hunch.
In other news:
Several rounds of Fantasy Realms. Two player rules work really well. Just a quiet, pleasant time. I hit it out of the park with a 7-card Gem of Order bonus.
First round of Root. Didn’t care for it at all. Woodland Alliance ran away with it. The Eyrie was so obsessed with not going into turmoil that they made a decree that had them just shuffling birds around clearings they already controlled. I was the Cats and started out very strong until I ran out of building sites and the Alliance, seeing me as the only opposition, began ripping up my clearings. I couldn’t do anything about them - clear the dissent, give them more supporters. Fight off their army, get slammed by their guerilla tactics. They just got stronger the more I tried to rein them in.
All in all, each faction felt really shallow, like there weren’t many things I could actually do. So many rules with four factions (we had three) but each player then only gets a fraction of them to work with. I kept comparing it to El Grande in my head, where I feel like I’ve got Batman’s utility belt full of tools to advance myself, secure my standing, or undermine an opponent. Here I was just… ok, recruit, move, attack. Again.
That said, this is a first impression and not yet an opinion. I’d really like to try the Alliance out so I can get a better sense of how I should have been stopping them. I definitely don’t feel as if I’ve really experienced the game yet.
Also Jaipur. Yes, it’s light, but I am continually amazed at the perfection of its design. Everything is just exactly in the right place, and it endlessly feeds back on itself with weights and counterweights on every action and tactic.
8 Likes
I think I’ve heard every faction in Root declared to be unstoppable at least once 
It’s definitely a game with a lot of overhead to begin with, which can be off-putting, especially if you’re left to stop another faction running away with it single handed.
6 Likes
I think Quinns said of the original box that he found each faction had a specific other faction whose job was to stop it getting the runaway win, and if that other faction’s player wasn’t on the ball…
5 Likes
The Cats are actually best placed to deal with the Alliance, but it’s by policing rather than aggression. iirc, 3+ units in a clearing increases the cost to add unrest by an extra card, and that can cripple Alliance expansion. Likewise, sitting a big police force on an Alliance base prevents their tiny force from moving anywhere, without giving them any cards. It’s easy for the cats to get a lot of recruitment, but inefficient to be moving around and attacking any more than absolutely required. (Contrast with the birds, who can move and battle a ton, but are crippled by having to hand over cards to the alliance)
That said, the cats are just plain hard to win with. You’ll usually run out of steam, need to marshal free moves from crafting very carefully, and probably go for a dominance win. The alliance starts off very slow, but snowballs to their win condition.
6 Likes
Which shows that sometimes, Turmoils are very necessary for the Eyrie to win. It is very counterintuitive, but very often it is a turn that is not wasted, you just gain 1 VP or none at all instead of 3-5 per turn as you would.
This is my main perk against the Cats. You start strong, but if the Alliance is playing, your steady pace and the nature of the Alliance makes your chances of winning very slim against somebody who knows how to use them.
3 Likes
I appreciate this. It makes sense - I’d been percolating on a few of the ingredients but that ties it all together.
3 Likes
Got to play the Clone Wars Pandemic, and it was pretty great. Aside from the original, it’s the only pandemic I’ve played, and it was cool to see the system tweaks made to fit the theme. My daughter was very excited to see the Clone Wars characters that she’s gotten to know from the show, and the mechanic of discarding one of them for each damage taken hit her hard. We defeated Ventress, though, so Commander Cody’s sacrifice was not in vain.
6 Likes
Played last night a few rounds of Love Letter with my daughter. Even though I won the first “set” easy, she wiped the floor with me on the following two. Amazing how many times she guessed my card right using a Guard or managing to make me drop the Princess through a Prince card. Hat’s off.
8 Likes