My thoughts are very similar. Visually it’s a lovely little thing – and in a wee card box that takes up no more space than it has to. And those are the only reasons I still have it, because I would never choose to play this game, but it’s attractive and doesn’t really waste any space. The little “story” you get at the end is cute but also minimal and inconsequential – I’d certainly grasp at it in an attempt to derive some satisfaction from the game, but it doesn’t provide any motivation to play.
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SVWAG seem to regard all-modules as the good playable version of the game rather than the too-simple one.
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Ha. It got another one. Great work @EnterTheWyvern & @lalunaverde 
An old friend–A–visited over the week-end and on Saturday we got in a couple of games with my way-back group (my partner, A and number 4 is G who lives locally at least–and who introduced me to M:tG in 1996). I wish we could get together more often. A is the one I’ve been playing non-stop Hardback with since I introduced him to it on BGA.
Besides talking we got in a few games–but not Hardback even though A returned my German copy to me.
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Die Knuffies just works. It’s still wild to me that I own this game and that it makes it to the table at any game night I’ve had since buying it.
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Then A asked to play live Beyond the Sun, as we have so far only played on BGA… I had something else in mind though that I thought was an even better fit for this particular group: The LOOP. (I love BtS a lot, The LOOP is not better than BtS but… BtS is on BGA after all). And I was right The LOOP was perfect. Never had a smoother teach. I had to explain almost nothing, they just grokked gameplay intuitively. It was a joy not not have to go over a single rule again or explain how to use cards and all. G said something like “Just like M:tG” and proceeded to take a jaw-dropping first turn. A decided it was more like Robo Ralley (fitting as he was playing Robo Finisher 404). We proceeded to wipe the timeline with Dr. Foo. Also the humor was just perfect for the group, we’ve watched so many movies together and every single item that came out got a laugh.
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After dinner, I got out my copy of Dixit b/c this is the group I first played this with one legendery New Year’s Eve more than 10 years ago and obviously it was a blast. Could play all night but then we had to show G the episode from The Witcher with the dragon because G has a huge Bildungslücke due not not having Netflix
“Digital Progress”
“Metaverse”
(We always add a random card, those can sometimes make for the best laughs when they accidentally fit)
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Two more games of Cthulhu: Death May Die. I stuck to the first episode, but tried two different characters (Sister Beth and Rasputin). In my initial game I’d played two characters with ranged attacks, but this time my characters had to be in the same location as their target – which makes quite a difference (as you’d imagine) to the likelihood of them hitting you back. Rasputin can come back from the dead (1-3 times), while Sister Beth is more successful at dice rolls when she keeps the “lose sanity” results.
In my previous game I’d failed to interrupt the ritual in time, so Cthulhu had arrived on the board due to having progressed too far on its track.
This time I threw caution to the wind in an effort to achieve my objectives faster. This then led to my losing my first attempt when Sister Beth perished before Cthulhu was on the board at all (if the old one is not yet on the board, then losing a player character ends the game – which for a co-op game is a nice way of ensuring that players who are knocked out of the game won’t be left sitting around for ages, while still enabling things to go pear-shaped in the end-game).
Resetting with the same characters, I then had a narrow victory (like my first victory I was down to one character with no sanity left to lose). The only reason I stayed in the game was that Sister Beth had acquired a companion who was regularly saving her from losing sanity; but then that kind of saving grace is probably more or less the idea.
I had one absolutely epic turn in that game. Rasputin had just gone mad while fighting the Star Spawn, but had reduced it to a single health point. Cthulhu was on the board with a cultist, and Sister Beth needed to attack it; so in she ran – bringing a Fire Vampire and another cultist with her (monsters follow you if you run past them in this game!). Two big attacks did 10 damage, which was two short of moving Cthulhu to its next phase. I then drew a card which moved the Star Spawn two spaces towards me (from Rasputin’s gibbering form), which meant that it joined the rest of that horrifying gathering…
(This was taking place in a single-square room on the map, which is barely large enough to contain Cthulhu on its own, so the collection of miniatures was overflowing the available space in a fairly hilarious manner.)
At this point I had Cthulhu, the Star Spawn, a Fire Vampire, and two cultists about to attack me. What I also had was a beaker of flammable liquid which would do damage to everything in the location (myself included) equal to the number of fire tokens in that location. There was only a single fire token in that room, but a trip to the rule book confirmed that I could use the beaker at any time, and that the monsters would attack me in the order that I chose…
When Fire Vampires attack they add a fire token to the location. Cthulhu had two health (for its current phase); the Star Spawn only had a single health point; Cultists only have two health to begin with; and Sister Beth had more than two heath herself. I let the Fire Vampire attack me, fended it off successfully, and then everything else that would have attacked was consumed by a large and incredibly satisfying fireball : )
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I laid out Atlantis Rising for a game last night but the kiddo stayed up, so I left it out to try the solo mode this morning. I lost in a narrow but nonetheless crushing defeat.
At the end of my second last round I had a card to protect from a flood, and barriers in two good locations. The event deck had been thinned enough to know basically where the next few floods would land… so of course I drew the card that shuffles the whole discard pile back into play, reducing my card counting to pure guesswork. I survived that Wrath of the Gods phase, and all I needed to do was survive the next disaster phase to complete the last two portal modules. Before the reshuffle I had a slim chance, but here it was on my first (of four!) draws pulling a controlled flood and no locations with two tiles. This cascaded and ended things with a pretty good thud.
SO close, no cigar. This plays better solo than I anticipated; I’m glad I gave it a shot!
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I love Taverns with all modules (and more so with the expansion), anything else is just a way to learn how the game plays imo.
Ooooooooh boy.
Hansa! Teutonica!
Had that rescheduled online, synchronous game night (since a sick child disrupted the last one). I’ve had HT pretty much since the start of the pandemic but finally got a chance to play. “Fighty Euro” is a pair of words that warms my heart with tireless consistency. Tigris, El Grande (does this count?), Keyflower, and Troyes are all way up on my list and The Great Zimbabwe recently broke through my “no more games” barrier.
So Hansa was just beautiful.
We were all figuring it out as we went but I think some fortunate, early insights let me run away with the game. Initially we were mobbing the action and income upgrades; with I and my friend deviating to put one Trading post in the respective cities and get some prestige in the mix. I managed to get up to four actions first, then planted a vagrant trader on the action upgrade track (daring them to bump me over to the city keys upgrade track). They both declined for the rest of the game, which was likely their downfall.
I also controlled the cities at both ends of the Privilegium upgrade city, which I used to rack up prestige and privilege at the same time and also kept them away.
In the end, my one extra action and exclusive Privilegium allowed me to create a massive network and control all the shared cities.
Big fan, looking forward to the next one. I think it is online here (https://gameparlor.online/) if anyone wants to pile on and show me how much I still have to learn.
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Citadels has been on my “I should probably sell it” pile for… what, 20 years? Every time I play it I’m left just curious enough - it’s a little better than I remember it, maybe there is something there.
I’d heard about swapping the warlord for the (Diplomat, in my edition) to prevent game drag. Assassin for Witch makes sense as well. I appreciate your ability to articulate what these swaps do for the game!
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El Grande fits in the old school definition of “Euro”. The term today is different, ofc.
And did you said FIGHTY EUROS!?!? I got a Geeklist for you!
Ignore the people arguing in the comments, and ignore my trashy comments too.
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Played Calico last night for the first time since we got Cascadia. Having both in the collection, it’s funny how much more frustrating Calico feels! The game arc is practically inverted, where in Calico you start with so many grand plans that slowly fall away, whereas Cascadia your options only really seem to increase throughout. Calico flopped a little last night, we were both tired and should have realised the more laid back and peaceful game of Cascadia would have worked better. I lost by 5 points, though both scores were pretty awful.
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I don’t know if it’s in other versions, but the rulebook for the big fancy version has some recommended setups (that include certain unique districts as well).
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Yes, I felt exactly the same about these two!
Ah yes. I see Settlers of Catan on that list. It’s…
so…
toothy?
I guess the presence of a single interactive mechanism is enough to get on the list 
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I need to give a shout out to @yashima for mentioning Formosa Tea. I had literally never heard of it. I also have people who live and breath Taiwan in my family. Like, You-Can’t-Go-See-The-Chinese-Pandas-At-The-Zoo Taiwanese. They bleed green.
I think I got literally the last affordable second-hand copy in North America - it was out of print anyway but was distributed through Tasty Minstrel which seems like it may be going out of business?
Two handed to get a feel for it. It’s great! Despite the workers, it’s not properly worker placement as there are no constraints on any spots - more of an action point allocation system. Harvesting tea is a spatial puzzle somewhat reminiscent of Bruxelles 189X. Processing your tea leaves is a neat timing puzzle where you want to do it first AND last, but of course have to do it before or after something else so you are always torn. It’s got tech tracks that remind me of Terra Mystica (more than Gaia, for some reason - maybe because climbing them always feels like a distraction but you must make time for that distraction), and the Super Tea Processing Powers you unlock make you feel God-Tier when you dehydrate those wet green tea leaves… Aaaa. It’s nice.
It’s also a bit Concordia-ish. There’s a lot of interaction, but that interaction is always positive. It’s really a game of minimizing how much you help your opponents, as opposed to being mean. If you play poorly, you can inadvertently process someone else’s tea for them or serve them up that perfect contract that they couldn’t otherwise obtain.
Lastly, there is So Much To Do and So Little Time in the way many games capture, that keeps you raring for your next turn and maybe for the next game.
Before I ramble any further, great game. Nothing individually innovative going on, but a surprising number of familiar concepts deftly melded together.
Hopefully I can get some of my family members around the table before … oo-long. Oh no I had to.
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I heard about Formosa Tea here on the forums. I think it was @apcshields who first mentioned it to my knowledge.
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It’s an open Geeklist so anyone can add in. Raiders of the North Sea isnt what i think of a game with a bite
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It has a bit of take that from a couple of cards, but I’d say it is very mild-mannered…
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Well, the list puts Chicago Express back on my radar.
I’ve somehow lived my life without touching Power Grid and at this point I think I need to continue doing so. But a local friend has it, so maybe one day…
Also really itching for Archipelago and Condottiere.
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I’m still enjoying it. (Yay!) My wife asked me recently to reassess my top games. (Big question: is Great Western Trail still in the top three?? Spoiler: No, but it’s close.) I listed Formosa Tea as my number four, although it might have to share the spot. 
As you say, @Acacia, Aaaa. It’s nice. 
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Now I want to play it, I believe it’s on Yucata