You don’t have to. I prefer doing it that way
2 Likes
My husband and I have played Robinson Crusoe three times over the past week or so. It has lived up to its reputation as an incredibly difficult co-op game. We lost every time.
7 Likes
I must have played it about ten times before I managed a win.
I love the game; I think it’s brilliant, but I can only play it solo because nobody else finds the almost certain death element of it as much fun as I do! It is really difficult!
4 Likes
Habitats got a game in with my father and nephew while visiting home. Very much enjoy this one still. Also, I think I finally understand why Nova Luna (and New York Zoo) exists… for those who don’t know, Uwe Rosenburg essentially re-published another designer’s Habitats as Nova Luna and I think Habitats is the better version.
However, Habitats ends with a score sheet and a huge tally of mental addition. Nova Luna is rejiggered so that you win by completing a set number of tiles, rather than highest score for however many tiles you complete. Since not all tiles are created equal, Nova Luna introduces Patchwork’s time mechanic - take a harder tile, spend less time (get more turns), take an easier tile, and lose time. This then shifted the tile market to a Patchwork rondel.
I prefer Habitats’s market (and art, and theme), but Nova Luna obviously wins the end of game experience. And I now understand why Uwe would accept an inferior market, it allows that end of game. Pick your poison.
NYZoo is similar, Barenpark is probably the better game but NYZoo turns it into a race, with a clear, clean ending, along with working at more player counts. Pick your poison.
Also Star Wars Deckbuilder, and this one also I got a little better insight into how it lives next to Star Realms. The game is slower; less draw, less scrapping. But the cards are thematic, so the growth of cards and the story of your deck (along with the progression through three chapters defined by your bases) give the game an arc. Star Realms feels like a morsel, Star Wars a bit more like a meal.
I again got screwed in the market (clogged with Rebel Capital Ships, which can’t be bought or fought) and grew a distaste for Outer Rim Pilots, which should clearly give combat instead of force (if their purpose is to give you an “out” and enter the market when you are cut out of it, which in this game sometimes requires combat). But I overall had a much better time with it and am jonesing for more. I got Vader and Jabba together which felt good.
Lastly, Haggis. For some reason, when I first read the rules years ago I left with the impression that it would be possible but tricky to play with a 52 card deck. Two player is, however, precisely a 52 card deck. Ah well, me and my money.
I enjoyed this. The loss of the soft-pass (which you get in higher player count games like Fight the Landlord, Tichu, Dalmuti, 535) is a big loss for me and the zero-sum of two player hurts the model. But the flexibility of your hand and the question of when to use the wild cards gives it some teeth. I like it though I’d rather play Tichu any day. Player-count willing, of course.
8 Likes
Belated other highlights from Handycon:
Weimar: the fight for democracy
An asymmetric war game set in the inter-war period in Germany. Two factions are more centrist political parties trying to hold the new republic together and two factions are radical parties trying to overthrow it. In a sensible design choice, nobody has to be the Nazis, and everyone loses if they end up with enough seats in parliament.
I was playing the communists (the KDP) whose main strategy seems to be to cause as much chaos as possible in the early game to take advantage of existing poverty, hyperinflation, and unrest. I almost won in round 1 (of 6), but my bid to take over Berlin failed on my last dice roll.
Eventually my husband (playing the other radical faction - the nationalists) managed to get enough control of the board to win, partly because the centrists were paying too much attention to what I was doing, and partly because I unwisely agreed to go into a coalition government, which removed my most effective way to dislodge him from the board.
Mechanically, I thought it was quite an interesting game. It has a similar card system to Twilight Struggle, in that you can play your cards for events or action points. You can use the action points either for street level actions (in my case, mostly demonstrations and riots) or for debates in parliament.
It’s mostly an area control game, but there are two separate areas to control (the streets and parliament) so there’s a bit of a push-pull over which to focus on.
Having won, my husband declared it to be basically luck because a lot of successes or failures are determined by dice rolls, so we had our usual debate about whether managing your situation to take the best advantage of the dice counted as “skill” or not 
Age of Steam
6 players on the Pacific Electric map, which was new to me. Very cramped, and you can’t deliver anything until you build a power plant, which is quite expensive, so we all took a lot of shares.
Ra
I’ve never played it before, so it was good to have a go. I did request that the people who had played before gave the newbies a vague idea of the value of things before they completely wiped the floor with us. I enjoyed the auction/push your luck combination, although not enough to have paid £80 for the fancy version 
Nokosu Dice
Finally got around to playing this after buying it months ago (blaming you lot, obvs). Impressions after one play are that it’s pretty clever, although possibly difficult to explain to people who haven’t played many trick taking games. I did not succeed in manipulating the central dice pool to get the trumps that I wanted
8 Likes
The manual for Nokosu Dice is pretty rough, and IME almost every new player gets confused by the idea that if the trump die is red 3 then not only red 5 but yellow 3 is also a trump. Roger's Pocketmod rules for a better manual. 
4 Likes
Yep - I messed it up!
Okay, I lost the campaign 7-6, but my worry that the game had become too easy (I’d won a couple of previous games quite handily) seems to have been misplaced. So that’s good!
I’ll certainly be playing another campaign of this some time.
7 Likes
I know that discussion all too well 
And I know that one despite my partner having been into the mathematics behind poker at some point and explaining to me at length how the better player will win in the long-term. Managing luck is a skill in my opinion. (Not discounting the fact that there are more than enough games that are absolutely luck-based and that I do not know the rules for Weimar and how bad or not bad it is regarding luck vs skill)
I still haven‘t even tried to learn the rules for Weimar… it‘s on my stack of games that are really nice knowing that I have them. One day… one day…
2 Likes
Yup. And sometimes the game will kick you in the face and you wouldn’t be able to do anything with it even if you knew up front exactly what each draw/roll would be. But I can live with that to get the lubricating effect of randomness that means the game isn’t simply “better player always wins”.
4 Likes
As with poker… true skill needs time for the probability math to do its thing And I like some amount of random in my games. The trick question then is „what is the right amount of luck“
4 Likes
I especially don’t mind it in historical war games, because history is full of examples of the “best player” not winning.
5 Likes
There is a Vassal module. If I ever get my act together I could be persuaded to do a PBF…
2 Likes
There is a player aid in the latest version which allows you to sort your dice according to trump, just to make it a bit easier to read (for everyone).
It’s also on BGG
4 Likes
I havent played all of the official exp maps from the new edition. I heard the Heavy Cardboard map is tough as well
3 Likes
I have that version, and it does make things easier 
2 Likes
Yup, thanks, the point of confusion comes when, red 3 trump, player 1 leads yellow 1, player 2 can’t play yellow 3 unless they have no non-trump yellow left.
2 Likes
Isn’t this basically the radio chatter when the X-wings are about to begin their attack against the Death Star?
8 Likes
Tried out the newly arrived Wilmot’s Warehouse with my wife. The beginning felt a bit forced but by the end we had a strong vision of our office entryway, what with its coat rack (with a long orange beard and a chimera in a bag hanging from it), a thumb-headed knight and his potion table, meteorological events, and of course the beach. Super easy to set up and get going, took about half an hour all told, talking and laughing most of the time. Happy with the purchase!
8 Likes
Games over the last couple of weeks or so:
Food Chain Island
Skulls of Sedlec x3
Circle the Wagons x2, a quick intro of this to my wife. Not sure it was as instant a hit as Sedlec and the changing goals might annoy her. We’ll see I guess.
No Thanks
Cockroach Poker, introduced this to a mostly new table and it went over a treat. Man, I was on fire with my calls though!
Cat in the Box x2, a couple of games of this after getting my own copy. One 5 player one 3 player. I’m quite bad at it, but it’s a lot of fun.
My City x3, started my first campaign of this with mum. we’re down to play the next envelope tomorrow and super keen to see how it develops. So far it’s been fairly simple but enjoyable. Gosh those non flippable tiles are rough though!
Apiary, my second game of this. It was good, definitely better with more than 2, as the ebb and flow of the worker bees is a big part of what makes the game satisfying. Still not one I think I need to own, but I’d play it again.
51st State Ultimate Edition, taught this to a table of folks who’d not played it before. Went well, loving the upgrade to Ultimate, though I’ve no idea when I’ll get all the expansions played. I played as Texas - they were a bit rough as I discovered they’re a flexible faction but can lack focus and I got off to a shoddy start - very few distance 1 buildings. I managed to turn it around by the end and won (though just!). One of the other players also had a tough start but being able to come back from that is hard when you’re new to it. Everyone enjoyed the game though, even our distant 4th player!
Scout x2, this is becoming one of the most requested games in my collection - it’s become a go-to to round out a gaming day.
Hansa Teutonica, had a great game of this after a rough teach (Quinns was right - it’s harder to teach than it should be…). Came in second to the player who managed to end it after reaching east to west. Our third player (of five) spent most of the game with only 2 actions so was really surprised how well he managed given that.
Endless Winter, long teach on this but the game was great fun when folks started getting into it. I made some not ideal plays in the last round but still ended with a solid lead. Again, everyone really enjoyed it so that’s really what makes me happy after a game more than how I did.
Jaipur, lost my first game due to lack of camels, managed a tie broken by bonus tokens for game two. My opponent lamented the setup time but I think we’ve both just been spoiled playing it on BGA.
6 Likes
I’ve seen someone win a 5 player game of HT without ever upgrading to 3 actions.
3 Likes