My project managers would be jealous of these colors! But… otherwise… yes.
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I often see Terraforming Mars abbreviated as TfM, likely specifically because Terra Mystica was here first
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In all fairness, I have seen worse table hogs…
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Just played my second solo game of Hallertau.
My first one I scored a measly 56 points of the 100 required for the solo to count as a win. I had no idea what I did wrong, I felt like I was winning.
Then I watched Radhos runthrough (partially) and his final thoughts and learned two things: I’d made a huge mistake that would have allowed me to draw additional cards when I played some of my cards and I had not focussed enough on the cards, instead trying to optimize everything with worker actions.
My second game today I scored 111 points 
Which not only counts as a win but a pretty good one!
Also, even more fun using the cards to get combo-ing bonuses and it’s actually easier to play? I guess I would have figured out the card play on my own eventually. Also: lots of sheep!
I really need to play a whole week-end of my big Rosenbergs at one point to decide which one is best. I really shouldn’t have 4 big boxes of worker placement by the same designer, should I? Arler Erde, A Feast for Odin, Nusfjord and Hallertau.
In any case now that I’ve played again, it is my goal to convince people to play this one with me. It seems the most accessible of the four and the specific theme is probably sold easiest to some of my friends.
PS: forgot to say something mean about Odin like I planned to… A Feast for Odin has one of the most chaotic table presences in my collection, Gaia Project has nothing on that. Hallertau on the other hand is very neat and very clean, especially with just one player it feels like a “small game” 
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I have come to the same conclusion. Unless I have more space to keep another Kallax shelf, I’m pruning these. So far, I’m keeping Glass Road (GlasstraBe) for the card selection and the resource dial.
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My favourite Uwe.
I really like the over eager glass makers represented by the resource dial.
“Hey we made glass!”
“Errr… I wanted that wood to build a house”
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Shiny new Glass Road coming soon I believe…
…with no changes to the game other than the addition of all previously released promos: the Oktoberfest and Adventskalender tiles and the Harlekin card for use in the solitaire version of the game.
U.S. publisher Capstone Games will release this new edition in English, although the release date is not yet set. Says Capstone’s Clay Ross, “We’ll have a limited supply of the same promo punchboard for gamers who already have a previous edition.”
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Damn. That link got me interested in Five Ravens/Nine Ravens, but then I looked at the pics on BGG and it seems like there are no actual ravens involved? Terrible.
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Played the tutorial mission of Chronicles of Crime: 1400. I really like it. The feeling of chasing down evidence and seeing through lies is great (even when the supposedly medieval French setting is navigated with… a phone and QR codes.)
Doing it solo could use some voiceover narration rather than reading text, but reading it aloud to a 2nd player would be fine. I bought this primarily to play with my girlfriend, think it’ll be perfect for that.
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Tonight we played Yokohama, and it was glorious. Also I won, which was decidedly inglorious as my partner outplayed me throughout, but missed out on some easy final points (it was her first game).
In my defense, I spotted and told her about a gnarly final play at the church, but she got distracted by the base point value of another move and lost out on an extra 8 points right there.
I hadn’t played Yokohama since it was relatively new back in 2017. It made a huge impression on me at the time, particularly as someone new to the heavier boardgames space. It took a while for me to finally source a (vetted) copy of the original Deluxified edition of it, and it didn’t come cheap so I was eager to get it played; Sometimes it’s hard to know how rose tinted your specs are. Thrilled to find it’s still got that magical combination [of: here’s your board. Just go get some points!] that kept me thinking about it for the last few years.
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That’s nice to hear that it lived up to your expectations 
Dreams don’t always do that.
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Played Gaia Project on TTS with @Whistle_Pig. First play, although I’ve played a bit of Terra Mystica. Somehow, I won!
I had my usual TM sulk feeling in the early game when I couldn’t do anything and the others were running away. Then I fluked into a move (I was trying to set up for something else) and had a ‘hang on, can I build there?’ moment. Managed to snowball it from there. Some actions allow you to add power back to your bowls which is new and very useful.
It’s hard to compare to TM when I’ve not played GP IRL. I like the big chunky wooden pieces.
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Not sure if this belongs here… because I didn’t actually “play” but I made two attempts at On Mars this afternoon.
Two attempts because I had to abort the game each time before my colony even reached level 2. I noticed I had made some bad rules mistakes and it made little sense to go on. Also the first time my right hand got really stuck–with no resources…
(I usually do not start with solo mode until I grasp the game two handed)
In any case, it will take more attempts to learn this beast. But I can already see how systems interact and how to get a productive colony up and running. Still, I got a bit of rules internalizing to go and then playing and then at some point… strategy? I do feel like I jumped in the deep-end of the Lacerdas… from what I’ve seen the Gallerist and Vinhos seem a bit less–intricate?
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I’m a bit late in discussing, but a couple weeks ago my partner and I sat down and got out an old favorite (mostly hers, but I do enjoy it): Mysterium. She was a bit overwhelmed with life right now, so she wasn’t feeling ambitious enough to learn Mysterium Park, so we went back to an old standard. She played as the ghost and I played as 2 charlatans psychics. I worked through the first 3 phases rather quickly, going into the final round in round 5. Unfortunately, due to a bad hand, my partner struggled to give a strong final 3 clues and we lost.
Other than that, the only cardboard I’ve been prodding around my table has been as I’ve been working through my solo variant for 18CZ’s Bohemia Variant (a 2-player variant that comes in the box, and my solo variant for that variant). I published it over a year ago (I think?) and for a while thought it was hopeless as I tried to hone it. However, recently another BGGer commented on the thread and gave some additional feedback that provided some inspiration and reintroduced some of my previously-lost excitement. I think I’m getting close to bringing this solo variant out of the realm of “waste of time” and closer to “maybe worth someone’s time (as long as they aren’t too busy)”
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Last night my wife and I kicked off my 2021 game challenge with Istanbul. I managed to pull of the win a turn or two before she would have been able to, and I think it was because she kept returning my family member to jail while I only returned hers once. Ended the game with it, sending the family member to the gemstone dealer for my last ruby.
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Just finished up a solo game of Marvel Champions, second game for my 2021 challenge. I tried out my new Doctor Strange deck against Klaw, and probably won? I realized too late that I forgot to search the encounter deck for a minion at the beginning of the game, so my start was a little easier than it should have been.
I also forgot about acceleration from side schemes for a couple of rounds when The Immortal Klaw came out in his second stage, but that was easy to correct, though it put me 1 threat away from losing. Luckily, I had a spell in hand that ended up removing 6 of the 7 threat on the card.
Removing the Immortal Klaw scheme, then using a couple of Crimson Band attacks from the Invocation deck, followed by a Magic Blast on the next turn gave me the win, even though a couple of Masters of Evil had since engaged me.
Despite the win, I feel Strange might do better fighting with other heroes, though I may need a few more plays to confirm that. Good fun, in any event.
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Played the first two games of Lost Ruins of Arnak, one against my girlfriend and the other solo. Its such a lovely game with a theme I really enjoy. The theme is also worked in to the mechanics really nicely, so that unlike some games you don’t forget what you’re actually doing. The way the arc of the game ramps up with the cards providing lots of opportunities for clever combos is so satisfying too.
A good measure of game we’re both going to enjoy is how close the scores are in the first few games. In this one, I won 78 points to 77. Needless to say we both love it. I won the solo game, which was surprisingly enjoyable. Not sure I’ll play it solo that much, there’s a lot of set up and I prefer my solo plays a little smaller.
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I really like Dr Strange as a hero deck. Yes, the dream is to use the “use your spell again” card to get Crimson Bands twice in a row
He works really well with another hero, because Strange can do everything to fill in the gaps. But at the moment he’s also one of the strongest at most tasks. I even had a lot of success playing Doctor Strange / Protection.
His Nemesis is a nightmare though, which is fitting for one of the more powerful heroes. I just really like that they have some very straightforward heroes (punch, get up again, punch) and then this one which is incredibly strong but the cards you want are not quite within reach and it’s all a bit chaotic, but if you can just manage the shifting winds of magic…
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I had an impromptu city building session after lunch today.
- Sprawlopolis, which I lost with -2 points because I nearly always loose when the one that needs blue between two red blocks comes up. I got 4 but would have needed 6 to break even. It’s curious to me that in nearly every game I have 8 roads at the end.
- Followed by my first play of Mint Cooperative which I’ve had for a while (after tons of delays) but didn’t feel motivated to take a look at (KS can be dangerous because of the long delay between buying and getting a game). It’s a pretty classic little coop game. In this case the evil mastermind removes little mint tokens from the 8 city fields and the player meeples have to replace those mint tokens to prevent the populace from panicking. You win if you survive three Mayhem events without reaching “maximum panic”. There are a bunch of different bosses. I messed up the first game completely by mixing up the leftover “Trouble” card stack with the one that had the Mayhem cards… it’s neat and if one is into micro games this is a nice little filler to carry around
- Railroad Ink not really a city builder I just wanted to play again–Cartographers kind of soured me on roll & writes for while there and so I didn’t even play my favorite for half a year or so. I roughly beat my average but 54 points isn’t that great of a score. No expansion used, just basic dice.
- MicroCity another Kickstarter from the same phase as Mint Cooperative. Both of these were my attempt to find another Sprawlopolis. This one has a lot of little expansions in the box. It’s a second edition so the game is rounded enough and plays quite smooth. There’s a 4 by 4 grid city where your engineer moves from quarter to quarter with the help of cards from your hand. Each round the player rolls two dice they can use to power up their card action or the quarter action. The goal is to acquire enough resources to build all the stages of one of a number of mega buildings within a certain number of rounds. There are a lot of different buildings and 3 difficulty settings for each… but each game feels kinda the same despite that. The goal may be different resources but it’s still: get enough resources and do build actions.
Final thoughts: nothing comes close to the elegance of Sprawlopolis. I had no idea what I was backing when I backed that one, it was just a random game Kickstarter way before my big backing sprees started. I did back Agropolis the official sequel… but there’s no guarantee it can come close to the fascination the first game holds for me.
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I need to get my copy played at some point. I enjoy Mint Works (it’s not the best game ever, but the size makes it worth keeping around), but was underwhelmed by Mint Delivery.
I’ve not even looked that closely at their new one, Mint Bid, as it’s not really a genre were the world is lacking in portable games …
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