kk. I didn’t realize quite how much was going on here.
I’m generally a proponent of the 6 continent lobby but I’m good with whatever on this one.
Final edit:
Hey, let’s discuss Pluto now!
3 Likes
Not a planet.
/discussion
2 Likes
Politically, England is not a sovereign country. The UK is.
England is a nation (meaning it’s an entity ties to a political identity). It’s possible to have a national identity and not have a sovereign country - ask the [insert controversial topic here].
Being “European” used to be a cultural identity, born out of the Enlightenment Age. To decouple religion out of it, “Christendom” became “Europe”. Nowadays, it sits both as a political AND cultural identities. Which only confused people.
5 Likes
I always get a chuckle when I remember that French Guiana is both European (politically) and South American (geographically).
2 Likes
Pluto has a heart. Your comment does not.
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Pluto is a dog. Space talk is so nebulous.
I finally got around to playing a solo game of Mind MGMT since the full release of the app went live. I’ll need more plays to see how it holds up (particularly once the [modified] SHIFT stuff gets tossed in), but so far the AI seems like it’s been plenty well implemented. The recruiter used its immortals very well, keeping my agent movements in check without revealing too much information, and scooping up 5 recruits on their own by game’s end.
(*This is early on)
The bot got tricky about two-thirds of the way through the game when it finally used a mindslip token at just the right time. Not only did it throw me off the scent for a few turns, but it left things ambiguous as to which recruiter I was up against, which ended up coming back to bite me.
On the last (Rogue Agent) turn, I needed to take my shot. Meru was in position to capture in either of the two locations the Recruiter had to be—unless I had woefully screwed up somewhere. If they were the Ad Man, then they had painted themselves into a corner (a forced loss condition unless they reveal the win concurrently…), but Pipe Girl could Slip away easily. The spot higher up was the better choice to make, but surely the Recruiter wouldn’t endanger themselves by coming this way as the Ad Man. Surely!
I took my shot. It was the Ad Man. 
Meru is on location 15, which is where she made her capture attempt (and is where the Recruiter ended). At the time, they were one space above (location 14). Tricky SOB risked the capture knowing they’d have either escaped via time-out or won via recruitment if I missed.
I think I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again anyway: this is my most exciting game.
9 Likes
Got Bardsung to the table for the first proper chapter. The rulebook is not the greatest, but far from the worst. I’m sure I missed a few edge case rules, but it seemed at about the right level of difficulty for an opening chapter. 3-handed solo is pretty straightforward (which is an achievement for a beefy dungeon crawler like this.) I might try a true solo run at the next chapter. Lots of fun, and Forteller narration continues to not disappoint.
I’m glad I printed up my own card vaults. Otherwise this thing would have exploded across the table even more than it did.
6 Likes
Pluto is a planet.
Dinosaurs do not have feathers.
4 Likes
I can explain it. 2000 years of messing about with government…
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Wales is a country. I believe we like to say that Cardiff is the youngest capital city (in Europe?). We very much have our own national anthem.
We have an assembly rather than a parliament. Wales sets it’s own health and education policy but doesn’t have tax raising power. I believe the Scottish Parliament has some wiggle room compared to UK policy on income tax.
But we are essentially governed from London as part of the UK.
2 Likes
I played my first (and thus far only) game of Longshot the Dice Game solo yesterday.
It was pretty good! I crushed the AI (“Roland Wright”) 144-80, but I don’t know how much of that was misunderstanding the rules.
In case y’all have noticed yet, I am not great with specifics. I do really well with generalities… so in general I understand that if you can’t do a specific action on the AI chart you are supposed to do the default action at the bottom of the column… but…
If it says “Buy horse in the lead,” and Roland can’t afford that specific horse, do you then buy the first horse that he can afford that is closest to the lead? Or just say “Nope!” and do the default?
If it says “Place $1 bet on all horses” and Roland is $1 short, does he do all the bets he can, or again does he do the default?
The race finished and Horse 8 had moved exactly 1 space, but I managed to bet heavily on the winner a moment before he lurched across the finish line.
I really like this little game… the Concession element makes no thematic sense, but gosh if it doesn’t work a treat mechanically.
As a single player game I think Under Falling Skies and Warp’s Edge remain stronger, but those are unfair comparisons: those are both single player exclusive games, and this one goes up to 8. Excited to try it on/with my friends in a few (insert post-COVID estimate that is reasonable for your town/province/country)!
5 Likes
Yokohama - not my style, but the moving around Yokohama bit is enjoyable. The map is tight as you move around (think Istanbul), but the blocking are mostly accidental.
Wonderland Wars - troops on a map with bag builder as combat. It is fairly unique that I enjoyed my game of it. But I think I end up preferring Eric Lang’s hybrids - which aren’t really my fave. Still I enjoyed Wonderland Wars. I am pretty easy when it comes to troops on a map.
New Amsterdam - okay. This is one of the Euros I really enjoy. It definitely straddling between old school and modern a la Hansa Toot. You have a set of actions on the board and players bid on which set they want. The game is divided into 3 phases which are interconnected. The city allows you to control parts of the city and score points and make it expensive for players to use the city distracts for actions (and money is tight here). Land and trade is how to get resources which helps you on your cycle of building up and scoring them for pts.
It’s a very difficult game and definitely strategic - as in, there’s front loaded decisions at the start and you don’t want to screw up. I really like it and I will keep my copy of it.
4 Likes
I am currently playing that campaign as well, and Phandalin I have no issue with, but I keep calling the Redbrands gang the Red Ferns (I think the female NZ teams have White and Black Ferns, so I am making up a new one with Forgotten Realms ruffians, seems like)
I had that feeling too. I got the game out, and I admit there are some issues, but I am also managing three characters on my campaign. I just have managed to finish the intro on Saturday night, and I am very jealous of your card holding system…
Sunday night, I had a go also three handed, at Townsfolk Tussle. What a lot of fun that was. Played against the first baddie, Penny Pinchetti, and the card system for the baddie had me cracking. We managed to defeat her by the skin of our teeth, so I “saved” the characters (thanks BGG for the character sheets)
Yesterday we were still on Public Holiday (Easter Monday?) and the girls felt like having a board games morning, so we played Cluedo, which my eldest daughter won, and then Oceans, which I won by a landslide, I have played it way too much on the app, and I killed the game with a good combination of a deep card that gave me heaps of foraging. Even though my daughter managed to put together a super predator to balance it, she could not achieve as many satellite species as I did, so I got away on the scores after a few rounds.
Then last night I continued my solo adventure on Townsfolk Tussle. I went through two more bosses, Samuel Strawman (he was tough) and Lawman Dozy. Both of them managed to knock out Norman Fisherman guy, so he is a bit under on the scores to become sheriff, but we will see with the last stand (maybe tonight) against the final boss
3 Likes
Local Game Group:
The Quacks of Quedlinburg, which I tend to run away with and did so again. Wish I could work out what I’m doing right.
Century: Eastern Wonders, and I felt that having the map tiles made it much less a blatant Splendor ripoff and more its own thing, with room for planning two or three turns ahead. Not perfect but I enjoyed it rather more than C: Spice Road.
6 Likes
Best strategy is to draw the tiles you want out of the bag, and not the white ones.
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The rules sound duff to me.
I guess if you care for an i reckon my question would revolve around - does the AI feel like it simulates a real person at all? If so I think you can make the decision to do the worst possible choice for you (at the risk of making an AI becoming a NoI and you’re just playing yourself).
If the AI is just there as a stupid blocker then I think the rules need to be more precise or maybe just ignore the constraints? It seems weird that the rules would be so bland on the choices available but hamper it with considerations like money when the AI can’t know how much money it has.
1 Like
Kinda tempted by this one. I continue to search for a next great bag builder not called Orleans (Meeples and Monsters wasn’t it).
2 Likes
Fast & Furious: Highway Heist , first play. Yet another Prospero Hall game based on a popular IP. About all I know about the Fast and the Furious movies is that they involve cars. There are three scenarios to play, and we started with the Tank Assault, where we have to stop a tank. Generally, you damage the tank by dropping wrecked cars in its path. You choose a character and a car, and the two combined boards give you your stats – speed, control, athletics, and defense. Each of the actions you can take use one of these stats, and may involve a skill roll. So, you can drive around, ram the other AI cars, force another car to drive somewhere, leap into another car, shake someone off your car, fight someone on your car, and hijack an enemy car (maybe because your initial car was destroyed). You can never die, you just move onto another car.
While you play, you can also do stunts, which rely on a particular positioning of your car, other player cars, and enemy cars. The stunts usually result in a wrecked enemy car, which you can hopefully put in front of the tank to do damage.
We had fun playing this, it’s pretty light. We did manage to complete the scenario, but it was very close. You do have to play as a team, another player can line up the stunt and then you do it on your turn. Feels good when it comes off.
5-Minute Mystery , first play. Another deduction game, but obviously a very quick one. The introductory case actually takes nine minutes. You have to find the culprit in a murder by eliminating everyone else. First you have to find various symbols on a scene card. Most are obvious, some are a bit hidden. There are five basic shapes, but each one has a few variations. Once you find all the symbols, you choose a clue card which will describe something about the murderer, like if they have a hat, or carry an umbrella. You each go thru your hand of cards to chuck out any that don’t apply, and hopefully solve the crime. I expected the intro case to be pretty easy, but it wasn’t. We failed on our first attempt, and then our second. And then got the win. It was entertaining enough I guess, would rather play other deduction games.
So Clover! , our first perfect game, no mistakes. Wooooo.
Break the Code , another crack at this. We didn’t really get it in the first game, but this went a lot smoother. Although noone won, again. A couple of us got three (out of five) correct, and realised the mistakes we had made.
Karate Tomate , a quick playing Knizia. Good fun I thought, extremely light. Play cards, take victory cards which have either points on them, and/or knives. Points are, well, obviously points. But whoever has the lowest number of knives automatically loses. Reminded me a bit of High Society there.
Pictures , I thought it had been a while since we played this. Still very enjoyable, laughing at peoples attempts to recreate pictures. I’m keen for the upcoming expansion.
Drop It , quick easy dexterity game. So much fun, sometimes those shapes just don’t drop where you want them to.
Noch Mal!
5 Likes
I realized after the hours of caliper measurements, modeling and 3D printing that it would have been way faster and cheaper to just hot glue some foamcore. It did make a significant difference in my set up and card hunting time. If you enjoy the game enough to keep it (I do), then I would recommend taking the time.
Added bonus: It let me dispose of what felt like a cubic yard of disappointing plastic inserts.
4 Likes
I played 1.5 learning games of Hex-Azul also known as Azul Queen’s Garden or something similar enough but I am too lazy to look it up.
1.5 games because I had to reset halfway through after discovering I had made a big enough rules-blunder to invalidate both player boards. (You get jokers when you surround certain hexes with tiles and the number of jokers varies depending on wether you surround a pavillion, a statue or a bench)
So this game is basically what would happen if a cat discovered your box of Azul and tried to make a blanket from the tiles? Or in game terms: Hex-Azul is to Azul and Calico as Terraforming Mars Ares Expedition is to Terraforming Mars and Race for the Galaxy. Except that Ares Expedition is a bunch less complex than either of its parents while Hex Azul manages to gain on both parents…
I really like Calico and I like Azul (some of the incarnations more than others).
I think Calico is a relaxing little solo-puzzle to play with a cup of some hot beverage for some brain warm-up before work. (Yeah, Calico has a multiplayer mode I hear…)
But Hex-Azul is not a solo game. Nor does it have a solo-mode. And here lies the problem. Just as in Calico you have six colors and six symbols/patterns and to get to the pointy bits you need to arrange them just so.
- I’ll skip over how the drafting works: fine–or it would be if drafting didn’t include the decision which tiles to take.
- Because you need to be able to use those tiles eventually and you can only store so many in your storage. And all the tiles blocking your storage need to be paid for and placed or used as payment or discarded for negative points.
- Each different symbol has a cost from 1-6 and if you want the tile in your garden you have to discard as many of the same symbol but different color (each! no doubles!) or of the same color but different symbol as tile cost–with the tile in question counting as #1. So a Tree tile with a cost of 1 can be placed without additional payment while whatever that weirdo burst at 6 is needs to have 5 tiles discarded.
- also you have to draft building space for your garden which also has symbols on it
- You get jokers to help you out but only if you surround one of the decorations of the garden with your tiles.
- All this is and now you need to place your tiles either bordering on no other tiles or matching colors or symbols to form groups but the same tile cannot be in any group twice
You quickly discover that the tile you needed to fill that one spot is not there and it is the last round now and no more new tiles and you are not getting any of the jokers you needed to pay for that expensive tile you wanted to place in that other spot which was supposed to get you the jokers for the other thing and now you have a storage full of useless tiles and all you can do is somehow scrounge up “something” to prevent getting all those negative points at the end.
As a solo puzzle I would love it. As it is my partner promised me 1 (in words: ONE!) game and unless some very huge surprise happens and he unexpectedly likes this and doesn’t get “pillar of salt” AP, I am afraid this may end up going to the sad pile of “going out of my collection”. I should have known. Azul games came progressively more AP prone with each incarnation which is the reason I had the OG version and none of the others.
4 Likes