I really like that action selection. That is so neat it makes the game for me.
As for the two player, I have to add one caveat: we found out a while ago that we do not deal well with competitive “two player”-only games because those are often wound too tight for us and so I very much prefer two player modes on larger games 
Got in a few games yesterday:
Inis: I managed to stay the Brenn all game, and win with sanctuaries without much hassle. Recriminations all round from the other players for not stopping me (I thought it was pretty obvious what I was doing for most of the game).
Import/Export: We muddled through despite my frankly terrible rules explanation. The variety of cards is fun, and we did an awful lot of piracy!
Cartographers: seems like a competent flip and write, although I think I prefer both Railroad Ink and Welcome To.
Everdell with the Spirecrest expansion: the expansion adds some complexity by placing extra costs/restrictions which vary by season, plus some personal goals and powers that you can buy. Definitely an improvement from my point of view, but depends on how much you like the simplicity and openness of the base game. My main disappointment was that I didn’t get to claim a mount for my workers:
I wish I could get people together for Inis. But the only person we see regularly is my dad who is not enough of a gamer for those…
Just had a solo game of Tiny Epic Dinosaurs. It is a great game, but the solo robot is crooked beyond repair. It feels like playing against somebody who cheats.
Not only they fulfil contracts without expending an action, and the clog a whole board card of the game at a time making you having to pay extra workers to take actions more often than not, but this one actually was stealing from me…(!) Beware of the poacher (orange card). you’ve been warned.
I finished at a (I believe) more than decent 48-73 score, and I think that considering the odds and how the game was going, I was lucky to make it past 20. I only managed t get a contract on the 6th round.
If there is an epic territory control game I want to get to play, is Inis. Looks soo appealing…
we’ve played a few two player games when I got it a year ago and since then I’ve been craving a game night… I love the cardplay. And I hear that others on the forums are quite happy with it at two players. For us it is too much of a duel and it becomes a “who gets to draft this card and I cannot let him have that one as well”. I think two player works better than it should for a game of this scope and yet for us it is still too much but that’s on us. So it’s been lying in wait along with Dune, Root, Rokugan, Pax Pamir and Iwari. (soon to be joined by Kemet and Oath, although I must say Cole Wehrle makes nice solo modes)
It’s a lot to set up and the rules are fiddly. I’m sure with repeated plays it will smooth out.
The problem is that I’ve been playing Hansa Teutonica recently, which is such a simple set up and teach and Merv just felt too much in comparison. At this moment in time I own similar weight games that are also fiddly with long set ups that I’d rather play.
There’s no hidden information so I want to try it with 4 players over Zoom.
Ah, so someone finally admits that HT is a problem 
Sry, I haven’t done more than punch my copy
re: Merv.
I get it, one has to learn all the different actions that one can take and there is that point salad feeling I get from Feld games and something like the different tracks in say Tapestry. Instead of one coherent streamlined “thing” the game splits up into different minigames that influence each other in some ways but the interdependencies aren’t immediately obvious and none of them are quite as genius as the action selection mechanism itself. Also, my partner pointed out that last time I won because I hogged all the spice and that gave me more than enough points to win–I say he should have blocked me at some point.
Been playing games on BGA, which is still highly preferable to other online board gaming options
Chakra it’s fine. It’s cute. The secret scoring where you can peek at what score you can get from each colour isn’t as exciting as I thought.
6Nimmt
Letterpress - I really like this one. Want to play more of it.
1817 / 1817NA - DIAMOND HANDS!! YOLO TO THE MOON!! 
You know that this one is just a game when it is more rational than the real NYSE. Share price rises based on share price vs revenue. If revenue is double than share price, then share price increase 2x, and 3x if triple. Share price goes down based on how many shares are on the open market (the game’s way to indicate lack of confidence).
Shorting is crucial as it’s a main way to get more capital to invest more, since loaning is only allowed to companies not to the players. But which one to short and when is crucial too. You don’t want to find yourself on a short squeeze I have done that before. As Reddit says: “holding a share doesn’t cost you interest, but holding a short is”. They are just numbers on my screen but they manage to hurt me so badly. Short attacks also happen when everyone dogpiles on you by shorting your company (which is nasty and I love it) and those shares they short are now on the open market which will hurt the company share prices.
Despite all the financial shenanigan you can pull here, it’s still strictly a “run good companies” game. I have tried gaming it like your 1830-style scummy Robber Barons, but I am thwarted and it is solid. However, it is not strictly a snowballing game like a Euro. You have to know when you think the company has matured enough that there’s not much growth left and sell your shares, or maybe put it up for sale, or merge it with other corporations. Oh man. The merging game here is tasty. It’s a way to combine your bad company with a good company (preferably to someone else’s good company) to save your own skin. Because if your company becomes overvalued, it’s an invitation for them short attacks.
I need to play this IRL. But I’m enjoying this one a lot.
A return to Kingdom Death Monster, specifially People of the Stars, one of two official alternate campaigns.
Completed the prologue fight and just got loads of animal hide. Returned to build my settlement and found a strange King sitting in a throne, who gave us all the gift of dragon speak.
As usual, my ragged survivors had limped home, and Emerald, with two head traumas and a traumatic abdominal injury chose to try and speak with the King. She returned whispering the truth, and unlocking the principal of symposium, which she passed on before dropping to the floor, dead. (I kid you not, the best result possible.)
This left a meagre 9 survivors, and those left decided to use the corpse to discover cannibalism.
Interesting to see how on brand for 2020/2021 KDM proves to be.
Played a rather hellish game of Ghost Stories last night with my wife. She was the yellow monk which can take any Tao token at the beginning of the Yang phase. I was the blue monk that can both exorcise and interact with the village space.
It started out fine, just a few ghosts, nothing too nasty. Then the ghosts jist started coming out in bad configurations. A lot of haunters came out all at once. A black instant-haunt ghost hit yellow. Blue and green had a tormentor each, and red got one later. My board got filled up a couple of times, green’s did once, and yellow’s did near the end of the game. I died twice, once from a full board and once to use the Sorcerer’s Hut to take out a haunter before it could cost us the game.
Came down to having two tiles already haunted, yellow taking out one haunter on her board one turn and them going for the second the following turn, but failing. I took a shot at it and failed as well, and we lost the game at the beginning of her turn. I could have killed myself a third time to use the Sorcerer’s Hut again to guarantee the kill, but we were pretty much doomed anyway. Still had six or so cards to get to Wu-Feng.
Looked at the cards that had been removed from the deck due to player count and found a bunch of 1 and 2 resistance ghosts.
F’n game! 
Well, we did not get a new game to the table this weekend after all. We were just really tired, which is a recipe for a bad first experience with a game.
So, I played a solo game of Marvel Champions, using Doctor Strange again against Klaw. I thought I was going to lose for a bit, as I was not drawing any damage spells, I had no Allies played, and Klaw had gathered a couple of minions. Luckily I drew a Magic Blast right when Whirlwind came out, and got lucky enough to draw a symbol causing extra damage, taking him out before he got an action. However, the first Scheme progressed soon after.
I was getting lucky with thwarting other schemes though. With a beginning draw of the Cloak of Levitation, I was able to use Strange’s THW twice in a row to remove the starting Defense Network scheme, and was able to remove the Immortal Klaw with Astral Projection when it came up in the encounter deck.
Finally the Crimson Bands came up in the Invocation deck, and I was able to progress to Klaw’s second phase, which brought out Immortal Klaw again. But I was again able to remove it easily with an Invocation card.
Somewhere in here I got knocked down to 4 health, but a Recovery from the Alter-ego side of things plus a Momentum Shift got me back on my feet. I had to reshuffle my deck and later the encounter deck, meanwhile we pinged each other a bit back and forth. Once the Crimson Bands came up again, I waited to get a Master of the Mystic Arts card in hand and eliminated Klaw with back to back hits with them.
Strange seems to need a bit of time to ramp up, and can be very vulnerable if too many minions come out, as his base attack is very weak, but of you can draw his spells at the right time, it helps a lot, as does hos Invocation deck.
Next up, time to try out Cap, maybe with another Hero to help out. Might dig into a new Villain as well.
I have a new Sprawlopolis Highscore of 10 
I didn’t see that one coming. I thought I was doing badly and then I wasn’t. It was with Master Planned, Sprawlopolis and Block Party. Those are all pretty easy especially because Master Planned feeds points into blocks as well and the other two are rather easy to fulfill. So even with only one huge block and two garden blocks I came out ahead. It helped that I had only 6 roads (my average is 8).
I just read the scoring rules and made that come to 44 points, or 16 points over the card total, so I’m slightly confused, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out when my copy arrives : )
FWIW, I’m counting:
10+4+16 for the cards
12+4+2+2 for the blocks
-6 for the roads
you are right. i miscounted a lot. was too early. that must be my all time highscore (i have played lots of games before tracking)
I played Harvest Dice with my partner for the first time in a long while, and it’s really good! I feel like I’ve never seen anyone talking about it; SUSD mentioned it very briefly in a podcast, but that’s it. It’s a lot more interactive than pretty much any roll and write I’ve ever seen (you draft dice and the final die not drafted makes that crop increase in value), but it still has the soothing joy of filling in your own little sheet. There’s a surprising amount of decisions for such a simple game, and it’s extremely cute and colorful.
Monday Games Night was interesting. First started with a 5 player game of Oceans (Kickstarter edition from another Guild member) where I did badly, besides being the only other player besides the owner that knew the rules.
Payed dearly for being first turn player (next time I am not holding my breath the longest), so I only managed to get 2 species going max. Still enjoyed it. I think it is a great game at showing what the theme intends. Evolution in the oceans and how species attack and react. But poor cards and great timing by the last player to end the game on his turn took the best of me, and I ended last with a poor 28 when I was just about to play a great deep card. Never mind. My only comment is that I don’t think it is a game intended for such a big number of players, I suspect it will be more balanced at 3 or 4.
Then we played Watson & Holmes. The case we played was “The Heroes of Kambula”.
I had the Motive and the person who did it, and even though I was not sure about the “weapon” used, another player pushed for the solution, so I went for it to try and snatch the win as I had more carriages. I had confused the mention of fabric during the description of the nature of the murder weapon (the victim had been strangled) due to not being able to take notes during that turn, and my bad use of Imperial measurements (4 inches being around 10cm not 5 as I thought, again no notes) also misguided me, so the fact that all of the dinner members were in their shirts made me think of their ties, not their belts for the murder utensil.
But I had clear that the Major was trying to hide his past War Crimes and burnt the manuscript that would compromise his up and coming political career, and that he had no alibi for all the time he was alone sitting drinking while everybody else left the table; and how calm and composed he was when all the guests came back to the dinner table proving even more he was capable of those war crimes in South Africa.
So I was out, and then the other person guessing had it all right. He had been to the war museum where they hint a lot the belt, and I hadn’t as it was blocked by the bobby hat for a long time.
Really enjoyed the game, even though I narrowly missed that win. Seems like that gist I have to guess what will happen in movies and books hidden twists can be put to use here.
I’ve only played at 3, so I can say the chaos is manageable. I’m still curious about playing it at 4. I can see how going first with so many players really puts you at a disadvantage. You’re probably just fodder most of the time. Was it very aggressive or was it just a result of so many species being in play? Also curious what modifiers you used on the ocean spaces. If you manage to get 4 people together, I’d be very curious how that goes!
Had a game of Rising Sun with @Whistle_Pig last night. I preferred it to Blood Rage because the action selection reminded me of Race For The Galaxy, which I’m playing a lot of at the moment.
It’s a good, DOAM game. Lots going on. Interesting battle mechanic rather than chucking loads of dice.
The most memorable moment however was when my wife accidentally deleted the table! (In TTS, not real life)
Carnegie - I didn’t know what I’m doing in this game because I didn’t read the rules. I tried guessing how the game works with some success! I was last place. Interesting game, indeed. I wish more games have Puerto Rico-style action selection (used by other games like Twilight Imperium)
Downforce - still unimpressed. 
The Mario Kart variant can’t even save the game’s dodgy bidding mechanism.
Tzolkin - still one of my fave Euros. Still brilliant
Innovation - invited a friend to play Innovation. We played twice and it was glorious
