Were you playing one of Gareth’s Root games? Every time he asked if I wanted to join one I had just started a long game 
2 Likes
I have totally crippled the woodland alliance as cats before, simply by having 3+ units in clearings adjacent to them, or even on their clearing. They really struggle to add sympathy with the +1 card cost when no-one is fighting them.
In the base game, I’d say the Marquise counters the Alliance, who counter the Eyrie, who counter the Marquise. Meanwhile, the vagabond just wins, unless whoever is able to do so hits them every chance they get.
5 Likes
Not sure if we are talking about the same Gareth. I’ll say no; It was my copy that I got from @Captbnut .(thanks again!)
3 Likes
Played the lovely Shobu.
Make a move on one of the two boards nearest you, then repeat it on the board diagonal to it of the two furthest from you.
The first move can’t push anything, and is blocked by your pieces or your opponent’s. The second move can push your opponent’s pieces off that far board. The goal is to remove all 4 of your opponent’s pieces from any one of the two far boards.
It’s a lot of fun. Your pieces are vulnerable on the boards nearest you and there’s nothing you can do about it except make them run away. As you lose pieces near you, your options for using them to turn into attacks on the far boards diminish.
The components are awesome and handling them adds a lot to the experience.
There was a concern online that the endgame could drag out, as you chase the last piece around, but this didn’t happen in our first two games. If you have even two stones left to your opponent’s one, they won’t escape for long. Frequently it went 3-1.
My partner had a great time and we’ll go back to it.
8 Likes
If you do, you will be the third person I know to have bought it after playing with me and I’ve only had it since last year.
7 Likes
I’m not sure if this should be in a different thread, but I played A Feast for Odin again in real life at the weekend and am just finishing a game of it on BGA.
I cannot get better at it. Solo or multiplayer I am marooned between 70&100 points. I’ve tried different strategies, had good and bad luck with dice rolls but I can’t get over the hump.
I’m not asking for strategy tips, I’m just bemoaning my inability to break through. I know good players score 150+, I’m not terrible at games and I’ve now played it a lot. It’s not even getting blocked out because it’s not that kind of game.
I’ve been downright bad at games before, I’ve got better at games before, I just don’t see how to get those scores, even whilst playing with people who are. Has anyone else ever had a block like this with a game?
12 Likes
Plothook took down The Kraken in my first win of Paperback Adventures! This was his personal Book 3 Boss encounter, which meant I got to open his secret envelope and now have 4 cards from which to choose when starting a new game (still using a max. of 2). Without revealing anything, these appear to offer some extra viability in terms of what direction you might want to take your build. Very nice reward!
3 Likes
i did before you even owned a physical copy… after we played on TTS. they should hire you as Xia spokesperson
3 Likes
All right, fourth. 
1 Like
I think I hit my skill ceiling regarding social deduction games a long time ago!
2 Likes
(Sorry, can’t help myself)
Breeding seems like a dead-end to me, at least without the Norwegians expansion. My general rule (painstakingly developed after my extensive experience of two whole games of affo) is just to do as many things requiring boats and/or dice as possible.
5 Likes
Having played a few heavy euros with a couple in our club that owns most of the ones I played, and always expect you to learn a heap of rules in their rushed teaches, I have to admit that even though I tend to lose badly against them, I am certain now that I am not great at optimizing strategies or reading optimal ways to score the most points out of a situation in a game unless I know the game very well.
I think my IQ is not the issue, is just that I play against people that are often: a) more experienced b) know the rules and combos better than me c) have their brains wired better than me for that kind of game and also, I avoid taking too long to take decisions to avoid the games to drag on for too long (while one of them often doesn’t mind slowing down, even when they are winning big). So I play many of those games knowing I will get my ass whooped. Hence why I take their games with a drop counter.
But more to do with your issue about A Feast for Odin, I have the same issue with a few games, like Everdell, where I struggle to pass 40 points, and more often than not I end up at 30…
3 Likes
Having looked at my stats, I think mine might be Troyes
2 Likes
Had a few games lately.
Over the weekend, my wife, her brother, and I played Chinatown. I did terribly, not even breaking $1 million. My wife won, which I declared she was going to do when she got a complete five tile business on turn 3.
Yesterday we played Lost Cities, and I crushed it, nearly doubling her score.
Tonight I broke out Marvel Champions to finish off the last scenario in the Sinister Motives campaign. Aptly named, as I think that’s what the designers had when creating this last one. Venom Goblin is rough. To be fair, I had some really bad hands throughout the game, but he just has some really nasty attachments, one of which I was never able to get rid of which lets him activate against each player twice! I only got him down about halfway on his first phase before I never managed to damage him again.
I lost, so I set it up again and while I did better overall, I still got screwed by that one attachment and lost. Though in hindsight, I may have misplayed one turn, as he only gets the bonus activation once per player per round, and I think I did it twice one time. Still wouldn’t have changed the outcome. Every time I had a good hand of cards, something would happen to make me lose one, or a new threat would come out and I would have to deal with it instead of what I had planned to do. It was pretty frustrating.
Will try again at some point.
7 Likes
As mentioned elsewhere 2 days ago I played my first solo of Distilled and yesterday I played another fresh arrival Revive also as a solo. Both games are worth waiting for more time and a second game to write up in detail. But I am impressed by both for different reasons. So just a few notes:
- I know my partner will only be interested in one of them (Distilled).
- I am keen to play both with more players.
- Both have excellent non automa solomodes!
- Both have very different yet interesting cardplay.
- One has a very neat take on a tech-tree (Revive)
- One does recipe fulfillment with push-your-luck, the other has (more) combotastic opportunities
- Both are table hogs.
- One of them has a working insert and rulebook (Distilled)
- One of them has an intro campaign I am considering skipping (Revive)
- Love the materials for both (not much air in either box)
- Both are Euro games but one of them integrates its themes into the gameplay far better (Distilled)
- One is crowdfunded (Distilled)
- The teach for Distilled is going to be easier not least because they include a tutorial game (which I skipped because it assumes 2 players minimum)
- Teaching Revive is going to be easier than learning it from the rulebook… oO
- I am waffling which one to play next because Darwin’s Journey is also waiting for a first play…
Here just a couple of pictures:
Distilled (lower right corner is the solo mode), I lost this game
Revive (I managed a “minor victory”, which is better than a loss but quite a few points from a “Victory”)
I am quite tired now. Both are big games to set up, learn and play. I got way too little sleep this week
9 Likes
More Agricola. I think I’m done revisiting this. Very restrictive on strategy.
The Great Zimbabwe - played badly and taught badly as my brain wasn’t working well
4 Likes
Last night at Thirsty Meeples in Oxford:
A return to The King Is Dead, which we last played here in 2017. (The shop copy is a bit the worse for wear.) Still enjoyable, but I don’t feel the sense of “oh, wow” that many people apparently do.
On to Mysterium Park. Well, it fell a bit flat; with only two guessers, if one of them gets it right first time, the other is stuck for a series of all the cards left in the ghost’s hand being ones that weren’t part of their clue last time… I like the condensed layout and Codenames-style cards rather than the bulk of the screen in full Mysterium, but it does mean a successful player is hanging around rather than jumping forward to the next stage while a less-successful player is catching up. Hmm, I wonder whether I might build something to handle this as an app? That’s not usually my style, but this is already a very distancing game for the ghost.
King of Tokyo next, and I’ve done quite badly with this in the past, but managed to pull off a win this time – not I think from any particularly cunning tactics, but with only three players it’s easier to stay “in” through all other players’ turns and thus get a two point bonus at the start of one’s own.
Machi Koro, which I still think is broken: I loaded up on convenience stores to the point that I’d get 20 coins any time I rolled a 4, and this happened just often enough to give me the win.
And finally, a Marvel Comics version of Timeline (doesn’t seem to be on BGG) which came out more like Top Trumps: each card (hero, villain, etc.) has a strength, a thinking ability, and something else I now don’t remember, and one chooses one of those at the start of the game to use as the equivalent of a date. I had heard of about half of the characters so I was going by costume. Probably fun for people who actually know the Marvel setting.
7 Likes
iirc, the problem is that sticking with 1 die is just too good? It seems like it should be balanced more towards making it a tricky decision on when to pivot to 2 dice, but it’s just always better not to, for basically the reason you gave, until you buy the 2 die card for the win.
1 Like
Yeah, I stuck with one die all the way, while my opponents went to two relatively early. (You do still have the choice of rolling one after that card is bought.) Their using two dice meant my cafés didn’t pay off much, but I only bought those once I’d got all the available convenience stores
My guiding principle here is: there’s no point trying to save money from turn to turn because you can’t stop your opponents taking it away from you, so you need to try to get lots of money all in the same turn and then spend it at once.
1 Like
That is exactly why my one and only game of Machi Koro took 3 hours (that and other people having AP despite almost no decisions to make). Money just sloshed around and you had to luck into it sloshing to you enough on your turn to win. (It did for me.) Not a fan.
3 Likes