It has to be a discussion, and the people who know what they’re doing have to be okay with being ignored 
In games that are more strategic/long it’s more like making sure that people understand their options and the consequences of their actions, rather than actual optimisation, otherwise it would take an extremely long time…
The example I had in my head was a recent game of Rallyman GT, where we were trying to get people around the course as fast as possible.
I’ll be honest, the name “New Frontiers” doesn’t inspire much confidence in me for ‘not racist’.
Palaces of Carrara is also on Board Game Arena.
This sounds like what I do when I’m demoing. “OK, if you do this you’ll get that benefit, but this drawback; doing that will work the other way round.”
Had another go at Helter Skelter - this time we managed to take our Judge Death and get 4 out of the 6 needed points before we were all slaughtered by the alien superfiends. It’s a fun and fast game, I like it quite a lot.
Sorry for showing off. all I can say is, I wish you all to be at that point as soon as possible. There is nothing like gathering around the table for a game.
To be honest, I think it was just a middle length game, and I had not played with this guy before. On Puerto Rico he was quite helpful, so I would not call him out as a rule, tbh. But it is a general feeling that I have had on a few deck building games, where you still don’t know which cards are good, or which strategies are better, seeing somebody going through the roof while you are picking crumbles is not very inspiring as an experience.
I guess it is a mindset that it is difficult to change. From what I can translate from historical fencing, which I used to practice for a while, when you are experienced and you spar with a beginner, if you totally mash them to bits and try to go as fast as you can and as hard as you can, you would be called out by an instructor, as it is not fair. You can be ruining that guy appeal to the hobby, so being considerate pays off. The more people into the hobby, the more the hobby will grow, and the more the merrier. If it is a competition, then that is another matter. But I don’t have that much of a competitive vibe, and I prefer to enjoy myself and have a general good time, and if I win, hey, that’s the cherry on the top.
That’s a tricky one, I admit having done it with my family teaching them a game. What I have found is that instead of telling people what to do, is to suggest several things to do, and tell them what would be the consequence that they still cannot see. And then it is their choice. I am not saying it is easy, but people feel less… handled?? Managed?? I wanted to say manipulated, but that would be too hard a word . I hope the meaning goes through my poor use of English.
On another point, I had two games of Pandemic with my daughter last night. On the first one we were on the right course to get the cure for the third disease by roughly half way through the player cards deck, but an epidemic in an already high in red cubes South East Asia put us out of action with a melt down of chained outbreaks…
But on the second one, playing with her as scientist and me as researcher, we did it!! Cured all 4 with still an epidemic to deal with, and only two outbreaks well managed. It felt great, and it definitely did it for my 8 yo, she was dancing full of joy as we beat the game.
Just one question, as a researcher that can swap city cards, can you do it more than once per turn? I did not want to ruin it for her, but I could not see anything in the rules against it. I hope we did it right.
If I’m demoing, I try not to play too. If I am playing, I’ll play “open” – “now I’m playing this card because it allows me to do that, which sets me up for this other thing later on”. (Which is a hard habit to get out of when I’m later playing with friends…)
Not a ton to report about our most recent Imperial Assault session, but random spawns continue to be…weird. The “Imperial force” greeting us in the most recent mission included 1) a solitary Jawa, and 2) snowtroopers in a hot canyon.
Snowtroopers don’t ask questions; you tell them to go to a hot canyon, they’ll go to a hot canyon.
Just further justification for the Rebels to fight the Imperial influence- they are massively incompetent
Got to get ten more deployment days this cycle to qualify for combat pay.
And to think New Zealand being left off the Pandemic map was once seen as a negligent oversight! Now we know why.
(I don’t think there is any limit on the researcher if it doesn’t state it on the card. Pandemic is usually pretty good at pointing out once per turn actions.)
Thanks. There is a tendency to leave NZ out of many world maps, for some reason. Although I have to admit my favourite are american maps with the fact that to have America in the centre, they go and cut Asia in half, just because. Not like it is the biggest landmass with the largest populations in the planet, who cares about that! 
A couple quick games of Dungeon Drop with The Girl. This is one of those rare Kickstarters that 100% delivered on all promises. Quick, easy, and tactilely satisfying.
I played Unmatched with my fiance again last night. This second game went more smoothly, and was more fun with a pitched battle between Sinbad and Medusa. It’s such a pretty game and is proving to be the quick light fun I hoped it would be.
I wasn’t in the mood for heavy last night, so played a couple of lighter games.
I played a couple of games of Ganz Schön Clever, and first got 249 which is pretty good (for me at least), then straight after had a game I thought wasn’t going so well, but ended up on 291! My best score yet.
Then I played a bit more Palm Island. I still haven’t quite solved this one, but I’m starting to get it. I think you really need to know the cards inside out to be able to plan, but the shuffle makes it hard to do that at the best of times. I ended up with 24, which while isn’t great, is still my best so far. Such a good little game.
I saw the Gall–Peters projection projection as a young man and it made a big impression on me
Lost mine but I am going to get another ordered for my wall.
As to Covid19, well done NZ, but it does show the English speaking bias of our world view, in that countries like Croatia that have done very well are ignored… and they can’t be easily cut out of the map.
Pandemic will be bitter-sweet going forward, eh?
By Strebe - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, File:Gall–Peters projection SW.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
We have a Peters projection map in our kitchen. Its fascinating. Especially if you read Prisoner’s of Geography by Tim Marshall
We first heard about it on The West Wing
It’s very hard to resist the temptation to go on a massive projection-based derail 
