It can be great fun but IMO there’s not much connection between your decisions and your outcomes. When I owned it I described it as “you are a cork on the seas of fate”.
5 Likes
But aren’t we all? I admit that if it wasn’t for the typing that it could involve, I’d love a game of Tales of Arabian Nights PBF
5 Likes
This alternative is coming in 2024:
A thread on BGG says “we are at the tail end of preproduction and plan to go to press early in the New Year.”
I’m looking forward to learning more details.
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Ah, good stuff!
3 Likes
Glad to hear news about this
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People Power - I may have skipped reporting this, but I’ve been playing People Power in a semi-regular basis. We might be done 7 plays since I’ve bought it. All been with standard scenarios.
The government is too powerful at the start of the game, which is standard COIN. But in PP, the Marcos player can achieve victory condition with a few moves. This makes it imperative that the Reformer player plays aggressively on early game.
Ugh. Board gaming is so social that I have to be a bit subtle when telling goddamn turtlers to be aggressive. Especially when THAT player want to play this specific game. This is a COIN game where we are balancing each other. Please be aggressive. This is not a Euro game. FFS!! People Power was designed in such a fragile rock-paper-scissors manner that if you play weak and cautious, you end up making the other player, that you’re suppose to put in check, win.
Is that a flaw in the design? I’m torn about it. But I’m veering towards negative when the game works in a rock-paper-scissors manner and it’s starting to piss me off.
I am keen now to play the full scenario where the board isn’t populated so the Marcos player doesn’t just autowin because they hold Manila. Manila is very important here compare to Cuba Libre’s Havana - where the latter is pretty much government haven. Winning Havana for 1 player is too powerful to offset the high risk+effort.
I played as the NPA (guerrilla faction) in our latest game and the government pretty much conceded the entire countryside to me, which was barely enough to win. It seems I have to grab the cities as well via Terror or Strikes. There is also this feeling that some Personalities and Acts of Desperation cards that are stronger than others. Embezzling is very good and Juan Ponce Enrile is the card you want to do straight up embezzlement. Which is points to the Marcos player that can only be reduced through ONE Reformer special action. By the 2nd round, the Marcos player indeed went for embezzling for pts rather than control of cities and provinces.
So, the NPA (me) controls the whole countryside, which achieves the victory condition. The Reformers control some cities. The government controls Manila, another city, and a big Swiss bank account, which also achieves their condition, but they have the bigger margin which gives them the win.
I would be keen on playing full scenario, which allows us to have a proper arc from small beginnings with different openings to a full blown fight, but these kind of games are just too long. Glad the table is still enjoying the game though. I’m happy with that, even if I am seeing more flaws with this game.
FTW! - Friesse’s new card game. It’s not a trick taker nor a shedder, so I’ve been lied lol! But the game is pretty interesting! It manage to avoid the cardinal sin of card games where some cards are inherently stronger than others. In here, there are reasons why you want high and low cards in your hand.
White Castle - this one follows Red Cathedral’s small-box-big-game formula which is neat. I was tired at this point so I’m not sure if the game is dreadfully boring resource-management game or I’m just tired.
8 Likes
Havalandi - new Knizia and it’s pretty cool! Not a Tier 1 Knizia but I had good time with it. I will be selling it off.
Suspects: Claire Harper Takes the Stage (Scenario 2) - I wasn’t with the group when they did Scenario 1. Suspects is very fun as it takes the same style as Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective. Except you’re playing against time with ranked results depending on your score. Rather than playing against the impossible Sherlock (but then, does anyone actually bother beating Sherlock and just have fun with the game?)
I really enjoy this. Except there is still small thing where there is one card that is gated by a set collecting mechanism. In our scenario, you need to have 3 of these X and you can access this specific card. Where would these X’s you’re looking for? Fuck knows. There’s no logic on where they are. Other than that, I do recommend Suspects! I would be buying the other Suspects title in the future.
Tempel des Schreckens - I pretended to be one of the insider team and I manage to get the last treasure that was hidden by one of the insiders by deducing it. Everyone was puzzled on what just happened.
Arboretum
Keyflower
5 Likes
Some games over the last week:
Tyrants of the Underdark, picked this one up because it was cheap and it’s actually pretty fun. I’m not normally a fan of a random market in deck builders but there’s enough overlap in the cards that you can normally buy what you’re after anyway. I was pretty sure I was losing as my opponents kept picking up vp chips for total control of key areas turn after turn, but I went heavy into promoting cards and that swung things for me in the end. I’m curious how different the other decks will be and it definitely seems like a lot of game in the box.
Cockroach Poker x2
Meadow, got my new copy of this to the table and it’s as fun as I remember. I didn’t get my last vp token out and spent far too long and too much effort trying to get my starting lynx in play, so I came second but it’s a lot of fun and easy enough to grasp that it’s fairly accessible.
5 Likes
We played The Barracks Emperors last night, first time with 4.
After a brief rules snafu we had an excellent game. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever played. 13 consecutive tricks where the cards you play will count for other players in different tricks. Plus there are powers! And hand management from an open market.
It’s bonkers. Totally mind bending with the spatial element as well.
But it’s not Tournament at Avalon style chaos, it’s a proper GMT game with accurate history on the Emperor cards. My wargaming friend who has an aversion to trick takers loved it.
I’d definitely recommend everyone playing this at least once, will bring it to AireCon for sure. It’s up there with That’s not a Hat for my game of the year.
8 Likes
Ticket to Rude: Legends of the West with my partner; it went better than @yashima because I lost, but we both enjoyed and will definitely play more.
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Is this the adult version?
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I recently bought and have been playing Fire!, which is a Friedemann Friese 1-or-2-player small-box maths puzzle game themed around classic Space Invaders video arcades. I think it’s delightful – it exercises the part of my brain that enjoys a bit of maths while I play, and the theme is lovely. It’s exactly what I wanted it to be.
Each level sets out an array of space invaders for you to shoot down. To damage an invader, you must attack with a power >= its current shields, which is the number on the edge of the invader card which is facing towards you. To defeat that enemy you must rotate it through all four sides, and the shield value gets smaller each time (for example: 12, 9, 6, 3), so it gets weaker as you damage it. Furthermore you can rotate it through multiple positions in a single attack if the attack value equals or exceeds the sum total of more than one of its remaining edges (e.g. an initial attack of 24 would cover 12+9 for the previous example, and rotate the card to the ‘6’). Along the same lines, if a shot destroys an enemy and there is another one behind it, any excess attack power could do damage to that next ship.
To make an attack, you draw your battery power cards one by one from the face-down deck, placing each battery on one of your three ships. You begin the game with a collection of 15 battery cards: 1x5, 2x4, 3x3, 4x2, 5x1. As soon as any ship equals or exceeds a value of 10 battery power, it fires at any bottom-row invader of your choosing, with an attack power which is calculated as (battery power - 10) multiplied by the number of battery cards involved. Hence a battery total of exactly 10 does no damage; and if you can play lots of small cards and then one big card to cross the threshold, you can do lots of damage. As the cards come out randomly, you don’t always get what you want! But the three ships gives you a measure of control to mitigate the luck of the draw.
And finally, the kicker: Every time a ship fires, regardless of the result, one of the batteries on that ship is destroyed (you must choose one and remove it from the game for the remainder of the level). The remaining cards from that ship go to the discard pile to recharge and, when you have no more cards to play from the draw deck, you shuffle the discard pile into a new draw deck. So your collection of batteries gets smaller and smaller with every shot, and eventually none of your ships will be capable of firing. Defeat the invaders before that happens, and you move on to the next level!
The game has 9 levels, and every new level introduces new invaders in a new arrangement, and new cards (or replacement cards) for your battery deck, changing up the rules, and making you more powerful in order to take on the new and greater threat. The game also doesn’t exactly ease you in gently – I started out playing quite casually and lost level 1 three times in a row before realising that the margins were a lot slimmer than I’d imagined and I had to attack with more purpose :).
The 2p team variant gives each player two ships and a personal battery pool (which is different to the solo pool), and provides them with a very limited ability to transfer battery power to the other player instead of playing it to their own ships. Each new level provides both solo and team cards.
I’m sure this isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but for my tastes it’s a lovely little solo puzzle/exercise, and I’m really glad I picked it up. It’s not complex or super-varied – you’re pretty much doing the same thing every level – but, just like playing Space Invaders, if you enjoy the core gameplay loop (being some light maths and card-based luck/mitigation), then all the little tweaks will likely keep you enjoying it as you move from level to level.
10 Likes
Raiders of the North Sea - 1/10 when I played it previously. Still a 1/10 now. Very boring
Hamlet - turns out to be a light weight 1hr game. Not really a “mid weight replacement” for Roads & Boats but it was still fun that we are communally sharing the hamlet together and score points competitively. I’m keen on getting the expansion now but I missed the campaign. I’m sure one of the retailers backed the deluxe edition.
6 Likes
I played What Next? with my brother and his kids. A fun, light hybrid between a Choose Your Own Adventure book and dexterity puzzles. We successfully rescued our mentor and escaped from a mega-koala.
With my wife, I played scenario 3 of the Marvel Champions: Mutant Genesis campaign. It seemed a bit easier than the first two scenarios, but that might have been because of the rewards that I think we got from doing well in the previous scenario.
This weekend, Spirit Island. Thunderspeaker (me) and Vital Strength of the Earth (my wife) combined to take down England level 3. A misplay on my part, leading to me being one Air short of what I needed, I thought had cost us the game but Earth’s repeat a power ability came to the rescue. This was the first time we’ve flipped the Healthy Island card to its Blighted side. The game is definitely getting hard as we crank up the difficulty of the Adversaries!
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I have played Uno 12 times in the past two days. If I never play Uno again in my life, I could die happy.
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I know your pain, especially this time of the year…
We had our Geekmas get together this weekend, and although I could only attend after lunch (gardening and chores in the morning) I managed two decently long games.
First Obsession between four. I have been after this one for a while. I did really enjoy it. Nice and easy rules that sink in after a couple of turns, and you’re off. I was lucky enough to get two purple cards in a row, as one of my objective cards was extra VPs for purple cards. This gave me an edge, so I could get the special guests early on. With an objective card that gave me extra points per servant, I kept on visiting the blue spot with my butler to get more and more staff in the house, and then it was just a matter of pick and choose from the market and managing my money, with a couple of times having a cook helping out with the higher level guests. I even wasted reputation in the end after hitting the max two rounds before the end turn.
I got a massive win with 154 over three low hundreds high 90s in the end, even though I had become a target of gossip several times, but house York won in the end.
Then I played a game of Nemesis. In line with CMON games, set up was a workload, and after a quick teach, we were on. I had the captain, and my colleagues were the engineer and scout. After I got slimed when finding the showers (handy that) our engineer found the queen early on after an encounter with a little one. I guess Queenie must had been looking for the little one. Poor engineer got away with two serious wounds, and we thought he was done for. I managed to get him out of there with an Order through my intercom. Soon an adult got me with an unlucky noise roll, and after 4 hits with my 6 rounders it was still alive.
This is the main thing that I don’t like about the game, how random are the enemy encounters. On a game that is definitely out to get you, the fact that on you first hit looks like an enemy needs 3 hits to die, and later on it needs 5 really got to me. Eventually I managed to escape with two light injuries, but the second adult that appeared on another tricky noise roll left me bleeding after two heavy injuries, my life was done for. I did the decent thing and moved to a room where I could luckily motivate the other two before I ended dying before reaching the comms room (which I needed for my objective). That gave them an extra card that got them out of trouble.
In the end, the scout also died bleeding out after three encounters and an infection, and the engineer found the emergency room where he healed himself and after visiting the comms room for his objective, activated the self destroy sequence and got to a escape pod, managing his objective two turns before destruction.
Overall, it is a great experience that IMO it needs some tweaking. I understand that aliens should be quite challenging, but I think the difficulty could be somehow better managed? I think Cthulhu DMD does it better in way less time.
9 Likes
My partner and I finished ticket to ride legacy. I am shocked at how close it was in the end. I thought I was cruising and I lost! Pfft.
It was really cool to see the game end like this. My partner played a slightly different strategy and pulled out some huge score at the end which was really cool to see. It does feel like a balanced game.
I think it’s a really cool game but probably a bit too hectic with rules and things that happen about 3/4 of the way through the game. I wish it was more chill and each game had a more specific feel (instead each game adds more but that thing can feel diluted depending on when it comes in).
We’ve now got a weird copy of ticket to ride which is very interesting. It changes some fundamental parts of ticket to ride and has a unique (ish) scoring which will also change the tone of the game.
8 Likes
Played first ever game of castles of burgundy. It’s a classic for a reason.
Some nice strategy with a reasonable amount of luck and enough options that you never feel too hamstrung. And you when you do get one of those chain reaction turns it feels well earned.
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Over the past week:
Fields of Green - Lost an area in the final harvest (I think for the first time ever?), had some really handy buildings and geese with a lot of water towers.
Pandemic - Just normal type. Lots of red cards came out, hardly any yellow. Our researcher got lucky with draws and was able to cure two disease basically unassisted. With some good events early we kept red in check and won.
Gravwell
No Thanks
Libertalia (new version) - Smoothes out some of the meanness but not all. I think the changes made sense and were good. I wasn’t the one teaching/explaining but I felt the secondhand pain because it seems people just cannot understand the various concepts in the game. Which is why I traded it away, and I’d do it again.
Ra - Second play of this ever. Got a lot of land and monuments but no flood in the second epoch so lost out on a lot of points. It went so quick I wish we had played it again after everybody understood its arc.
Letter Jam - People didn’t like my CATGUT clue. 
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The other night my wife and I played Lost Cities, which ended up being a pretty high scoring game, with me winning 212 - 184.
Afterwards we played Star Wars the Deckbuilding Game with me as the Rebels. As seems to be a regular occurrence, my wife won, though I would have destroyed her last base on my next turn.
We played it again tonight, this time with me as the Empire, and she won again. She had a good set of cards hit the galaxy row and was able to buy a good chunk of them, whereas I had good cards, but never seemed able to afford them.
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