Recent Boardgames (Your Last Played Game Volume 2)

[Phil]

@SteveB_uk

I’m very interested in people’s opinions of this vs the newly-reviewed My Gold Mine, as I probably only need one pure push-your-luck game.

Unless I misunderstood, in MGM you only get to make decisions on your own turn, in which case with larger player counts you might find your fate is very much at the mercy of the decisions and luck of the other players, whereas in Diamant every round is an entirely communal affair – a card is flipped with some effect, and then everyone still in the mine makes a simultaneous decision to stay or leave.

The “simultaneous decision” part is both the clunky part of Diamant and also the reason why I’d probably choose it over MGM, but I’d guess that MGM might well be better at small player counts.

[COMaestro]

It did look like it was only the Exit cards that could effect everybody, other than the Dragons which destroy the farthest card. So that does mean there will be times when a few Dragons will be back to back in the deck, just by random chance, but most of the time, you should be able to factor in the number of players in regards to how close to the Dragon you are willing to be at the end of your turn.

And frankly, even if you get hit by the Dragon because three other players drew a Dragon card, the game seems short and silly enough to just laugh it off.

[Whistle_Pig]

A low turnout at the games group this week. We started off with Azul. We all knew the rules so were able to dive right in, which made a nice change! By the time we finished two more people had turned up so we had a quick game of 6 nimmt while we waited to see if anyone else would appear. Nobody did so we played a 6 player game of Isle of Cats. I did very badly but the cat art always makes up for it

[Phil]

@COMaestro

most of the time, you should be able to factor in the number of players in regards to how close to the Dragon you are willing to be at the end of your turn.

It plays up to 6 though, and it seemed to me that it might feel a bit too much with five turns between each of yours. Of course that drops as people leave or are eaten, so maybe it balances itself out. If it makes risk aversion the best strategy for the opening rounds, though, that wouldn’t be ideal. As you say, though, “short and silly enough to just laugh it off.”

[bort]

Frosthaven, easy enough win. There was the possibility of getting too many spawns, but we quickly destroyed the objects that would do the spawning, so it all worked out pretty well. I was a bit slow to get my tokens out (as Deathwalker), probably should have used the card that adds three tokens (loss card). I had it ready to go but decided to move instead, was a bad decision.

Ginkgopolis, always a great game. Scores were extremely close, I won by a single point. Got a rule slightly wrong, the guy in second place would have tied. I had told him that when there is a tie in a district, the winner is the player with the highest numbered tile. When it’s actually the highest floor, and then the highest number if required. My fault. I managed to win the largest district at the end. Even if I had lost, I still love this game.

Orichalcum to finish up.

[EnterTheWyvern]

Thursday saw not 1 but 2 games ofCthulhu Wars. First game I ran Black Goat against Cthulhu and Crawling Chaos. Oh gosh Crawling Chaos are annoying, they’re so fast and then there’s the really annoying steal or gain power ability. Black Goat I still find to be quite counter intuitive, I don’t think they’re super aggressive but maybe they should be played mobile and be annoying all over the place.

Second game I finally got to try out Bubastis and I was up against Crawling Chaos and Wind Walker. wind walker got pickled up in and so it became a shoot out between the cats and CC. Sending Bastet in to a death star and catnapping them all off to the moon was my highlight. Really enjoyed getting my favourite faction in terms of look and background to the table and they’re entertainingly weird. Want more games with them before I make any significant judgements. They do seem to need to hangout with opponents without fighting to stand any chance of winning but they’re also capable in combat with dice and rules on low numbers of minis. Very interesting.

Friday followed this up with a 4 player game of Cthulhu Wars. 3 first time players as a friend was over from Norway and wanted to try it out. Not much to report as it was all over the place as people got to grips with the rules.

One player left and La Granja was it requested. I’d had a few beers at this point so managed to forget an important source of points in the rules explanation. That aside I was reminded of how much I like the game. It’s got great opportunity costs on everything that’s done and the multi use cards are really well integrated into the other mechanisms. For me a top tier euro.

[Phil]

@Phil

Mists Over Carcassonne at level 4. I haven’t won on this level yet …
I’ve also been playing Cribbage against my laptop …

Another 3 games of Mists Over Carcassonne today at level 4, and I finally managed a win in the last attempt. With only 13 ghosts it’s important to keep them in check and I finally found a good balance of point-scoring to hit the mid-game targets without trying to go too big too soon, and being careful that I wasn’t likely to run out of ghosts along the way. I haven’t tried level 5 yet (I’ll probably stick at 4 until I find myself winning that more regularly).

And the other day I skunked the computer at Cribbage, which is always very satisfying.

[yashima]

I finally played Spirit Island for the first time this year. I know I know… how could this have happened? Well…

Most of the explanation is that I never felt relaxed enough due to the renovations.
It is not the kind of game I want to play when I am preoccupied (unlike Trailblazers or Cascadia)

The other half is that tons of other great solo games were clamoring for my attention: Ark Nova, Revive, Oranienburger Kanal. And my Spirit Island friend asked for Revive the last couple of times we met.

And the setup… just getting the wood monstrosity from atop its perch on the Kallax…

Anyway, I played as Thunderspeaker and Shifting Memory of the Ages without an opponent. It was really every bit as good as it always was. And if I had to reduce my collection to a single game, it would still be this one. (Luckily, I do not have to do that though lots of other lovely games). As usual Major Powers won the day. I got one for Thunderspeaker something something Voice of Command that just fit. And Shifting Memory really took the cake with one that could deal X damage where X was the energy you paid. The power‘s bonus activation included generating energy to spend. So….

I am taking it as a sign that the times are getting less stressful for us. I also finished a complete novel in a couple of days

[Phil]

@Phil

And the other day I skunked the computer at Cribbage, which is always very satisfying.

I have been punished for that – I just got double-skunked. I’ve played this cribbage program for years, and I believe the computer has never double-skunked me before. The hands were an absolute disaster from start to finish. I clawed my way to 60 and for a moment thought I’d dodged the bullet when their hand scored low (for what seemed like the very first time in the game), but sure enough my risky discard to the crib ended up producing the worst possible outcome… I’d screwed up my face and given them an 8 and a 9. The turn up card was a 7. What did the computer put in? A pair of 7s. 21 points. 129 to 60.

[Captbnut]

We had another go at War of the Ring:TGC

Finley and Kate against me. I was ahead until the final round and then ran out of cards. I think 2v2 would have meant my side would have had more chance of having cards from the correct faction to play (or 1v1 would have potentially diluted their side more). I wasn’t able to grab any battlegrounds for a long time because I simply didn’t have the right cards, and then they were very good at making me lose cards from hand so I could at least try to plan ahead.

Second play was much better than the first, I really need to read the books again now because the theme is so strong.

Same designer as Quartmaster General which helped as well.

Yesterday we played Underwater Cities for the first time in ages. We enjoyed it. It’s very Terraforming Marsy, lots of head down efficiency and minimal player interaction.

I won (I know), basically because I remembered to buy end of game scoring cards before Kate did!
It’s cool, in a huge, sprawling Euro with a post apocalyptic theme kind of way. Most of the pieces are alright. The player boards are awful - I’d definitely try to upgrade them if we decide to hold on to this.

More likely to be played than Great Western Trail (boo), less familiar than Terraforming Mars. Probably isn’t as good as either, but I can see us playing it more, for now at least

[lalunaverde]

Tzolkin - did badly where I was beaten to the 40 pointer monument by ONE round

It was difficult for me to pivot else where after that.

Hellapagos - coop game about surviving on an island. Well, coop until we start starving.

Power Grid: Benelux

[COMaestro]

Played Star Wars the Deckbuilding Game with my wife, once again I played as the Rebels. It was looking really good for me! Han Solo was in the opening draw of the galaxy row and I got him on my first turn. A bit later Luke came out and I was able to get him as well, and later a B-Wing and Cassian Andor, all of which have heavy attack power. On the other side, my wife got General Veers and an AT-AT pretty early, and then managed to nab Tarkin before I could take him out.

We went back and forth pretty evenly, and were both down to our third base when I got a hand that would take her out on my next turn. She needed to do 11 damage to my base to win. So, sadly, that’s exactly what she did. She got Veers, though did not get to draw a card for him, and a TIE bomber for 5 damage. She took out a card in the galaxy row with the bomber’s ability, and that was replaced with Darth Vader, which she grabbed almost squealing with joy, because she also had Tarkin in hand, which lets you take an Empire card from the row to your hand for free, you just have to remove it from the game at the end of the turn. With the Force now fully on her side (both Tarkin and Vader move it 2 spaces your way), Vader now had an attack of 10! So, yeah, my base got obliterated.

I had been looking at the game having a bit of favor towards the Rebel side of things, as my wife was winning games 2 - 1 over me, but after switching sides, she has won (I think) 3 games as the Empire to my 1 as the Rebels, and nearly every game has been close to the point the other person could win on the next turn. There’s just so much luck of the draw, both from your deck but also for what shows up for purchase, that I think the closeness of our games suggests the game really is pretty well balanced, and you just get lucky sometimes to have more decisive victories.

[Simfers]

Played three games of Ark Nova and lost all three. It was NOT my week-end, LOL. Maryse broke a score record in the first game, with 45 points to my 20-something. Most of those points came at her VERY LAST move, where she managed to play both the Siberian tiger and the Giant Panda simultaneously, which netted her 2 Reputation points, 4 Conservation points and 20 Attraction points. So it didn’t reflect the game as a whole, which was tight and tense.

The second game was also tight, but the third was anything but, with her undercutting me at every occasion. She actually managed to snipe the EXACT Conservation project I was gonna support/card I was gonna go for on my next action FOUR TIMES! The first time was on purpose, the others by accident. Or so she claims. THAT one ended 33 to -11.

Such a good game, though.

[Acacia]

So, Nusfjord. It’s taken me a couple plays to realize how deeply this stone cold classic runs.

Per past posts, and @Phil’s dismay, it does retain heavy relation to Viticulture. And Viticulture retains an edge of theme and “fun” and satisfaction that Nusfjord doesn’t quite get. But at the end of the day, Viticulture is that game you hang out with at the party because it’s fun and you’re bored and you won’t be there very long. Nusfjord is the game you marry.

It’s like a lawn that has been mowed by a gardener with a pair of scissors. Each blade, inspected, measured. Exact length. Every card, every action, every piece of cardboard has been evaluated and measured. Crafted so it all fits together.

I can see why it isn’t rated higher. It’s like Wagner’s Ring Cycle; gonna be hard to appreciate unless you’ve already studied opera. Or Fox in the Forest, which is going to be meh unless you’ve already gorged yourself on trick taking and are quick to notice all the tiny handles scattered on its sleek surface.

It’s never going to be one of my favorite games. By its very nature there’s no big moments. There’s no broken combos. There’s no chaos, no roll of the dice for a big reveal. It’s like London, or Mottainai, or even Race for the Galaxy where each play opens your eyes a little wider, one more piece of the game comes into focus and you figure out how to fit it into the larger puzzle box.

Superb, and I’m falling in love with it in a quiet way. Fitting.

[Simfers]

Absolutely top flight description there. Bravo!

[Phil]

@Acacia

Superb, and I’m falling in love with it in a quiet way. Fitting.

Hooray!

@Acacia

Eager to hear what you think, when you finally get to it!

Still haven’t played it!

[COMaestro]

Played two games of Resist! this evening. First game I lost about four missions in when my second civilian card got flipped and revealed a 3, and added to my 2, gave me a loss.

Set up and tried again and did much better this time, completing six missions, failing one, and only had one civilian casualty. However I had five spies in my very small deck and knew I had virtually no chance of completing any more missions, so ended the resistance with 11 points, which is considered a draw. Need a 14 for even a minor victory. No idea how that can be managed just yet, the game is rather brutal, but fun!

[Acacia]

Recently got a round of Search for Planet X in. This is my first against people.

Contrary to @Captbnut 's experience, there was a lot of table talk (“Did you find a comet? Did you find a comet?” - watching for any tick or tell). There was a lot of discussion when I revealed two incorrect theories. I’d actually submitted the opposite of what I’d intended (hey, we have a 7 week old) but the results were just as definitive this way, if not worth any points. But yeah, there was some discussion because for about 10 minutes she’d been completely confused as to what I’d found there (spoiler: nothing)

It was her first game so I did win. She also found Planet X, after me, but she’d needed some of my (correct) theories to be revealed to fill in a last gap or two.

At one point she realized a mistake and spent, I kid you not, 30 minutes on her turn reworking her chart from first principles. I didn’t mind. I know her, and I know how engrossed I’d be if I were in that position. I punched another new game while I waited and periodically teased her. Just nice to be together.

But this is the real worth of the evening: At one point, she just didn’t know. She submitted some theories, because that late in the game there’s no reason not to, and they were wrong. And she felt it. Like, I couldn’t do it, I made a mistake. That led to a long discussion on life and parenting and games I I think she finally got, a bit more, why I like games so much.

There’s little else in that space where it’s real and yet it isn’t. You can go out in life and make a mistake, and it hurts, and it might hurt other people, and there’s consequence or loss to deal with. Or you can read about mistakes in Daniel Tiger and it’s very true but academic. Games make things that aren’t real matter. She could make a mistake, experience it, feel it so deeply (she was bugged for at least 24 hours) and yet there’s no consequence, no ripple out to the broader world. Games have taught me so much about being a person and living and such because I can go out and experience, like really experience, simulated things that suddenly matter.

And yeah, I think she is a bit changed from the experience.

Kinda neat.

[raged_norm]

Finished the async game of Tigris and Euphrates with @Snobbydolphin, @COMaestro and @lalunaverde

It’s good! Based on my single async online play, I’m giving it 4/6. So likely a 5/6 in person.

Also holidays means I got 6Nimmt, Hollywood Blockbuster and Gang of Dice in this morning. Three player with the children.

HB is a fun set collection closed economy auction game.

Finally, also played Ankh, it’s good but ain’t no Kemet

[COMaestro]

I just could not catch up to @Snobbydolphin! He kept staying ahead by a point. Though even if I had caught up, he would have won with the tie breaker. Good game all.