Inky’s on one, Bloc’s on the other.
What, we never mentioned that we’re two people?
7 Likes
Pretty impressed with the BGA implementation of this game. Yes
4 Likes
Yunnan I’m sure there’s a fun game in there, but right now it’s type 3 fun for me.With all the good games, I’m not sure I can be bothered to play it again.
Pokemon: Splendor I need to get better at explaining evolutions in this game.
Sea, Salt & Paper The last chance call is so much fun, and elevates an otherwise standard set collection game
9 Likes
Regicide Legacy mission 6, and another one-shot success. I’m seeing that this mission is causing lots of problems for people (one couple reported 15 attempts to get the win), so very pleased with that (although I suspect it’s easier for a solo player than it is with more).
That means I’m half way through the campaign, and my non-destructive approach to the Legacy elements is still working nicely thus far.
5 Likes
Last night with nearby friends:
- FUSE, first game after a long gap was better than the second.
- The Spill,in the Pandemic / Flash Point coop tradition, don’t love it but I’d play again.
- Turing Machine, my explanation method works hurrah.
5 Likes
South African Railroads - Amazing Cube Rail game!! Potentially Top 20 material like Chicago Express or Prussian Rails. I need more plays because it could potentially be better than Chex. A sentence I didn’t think possible to say.
Small World: Underground - good light fun, but it can suck if people calculate their moves everytime.
Arcs - Arcs! It was great fun with very good drama going on, but I think I prefer Inis as an area control. Inis is a lot more clever. And I prefer Cosmic Encounter for the bullshit asymmetric powers. I only like the idea of owning An Infamous Traffic nowadays. I don’t have any Cole Werhle at the moment as I also sold AIT as I am anticipating a 2nd edition.
8 Likes
You swine! I already have train games I love but never play
Is this Age of Rails? Asking for a friend
5 Likes
Got my butt kicked by mission 7 of Regicide Legacy, and then went out into the sun and played some Tetrarchia for the first time in a while (comfort gaming; I have a cold), winning one game and losing two.
3 Likes
Yes. Age of Rail. I avoided that name. Will try the other maps next time in the expansion: La Pampa and Allegheny
3 Likes
Arigatō on BGA, with a group of Mastodon friends. Where I won with double the second-place score, and that was double the third and fourth places. I really have no idea how I did that; I just looked at the objectives for each round, did them if I could, and if not tried to prepare to make sure I got the next round’s objective.
Would I buy it? Goodness no.
2 Likes
The Old King’s Crown - 4 players and the teach of the general rules wasn’t that bad. it’s just that the cards can bend the rules in a way that is not clear in some cases.
I’ve played over 2.5K board games (of all sorts) and this is definitely eye-catching and unique. Unique as in, this is not Euro-remix #227.
It’s hard to talk about it since I know the rules but I don’t know what is going on. What is a good play? IDK. Which is what’s to be expected on a game that is a bit different. I am not sure on what to feel about the blind bidding of the cards. So I’m keen on a 2nd game.
Will I keep it? I’m really not sure. It has to fit within the 25 “main course” games i have. I’m not sure if it will fit when it clashes with games like Inis or Seasons - even if Seasons is very MPS (or maybe this is the time to retire Seasons and keep this instead?). The very big question is: is there a skill reward/depth here? Is this another game where you have committed players? So, again, need a 2nd game.
Keen to answer this soon so I can decide if I want to sell it or keep
10 Likes
Take Time, first play. A game my friends picked up from Pax. It’s a cooperative game, where you play cards to a clock face. Depending on which clock face you use (there are multiple chapters with different clock faces). We just did a couple from Chapter 1. On your turn, all you have to do is play a card on the clock face. The rules are that the total of the cards need to be ever increasing. There can be other rules, like placing a card of a particular colour (there are black and white cards). It feels a bit like The Mind. You can discuss things, but not after you’ve seen your cards, so I’m not sure what there is to discuss. Fairly quick playing filler game, was pretty good fun.
Kabuto Sumo, first play. This is a weird dexterity game, You play as a beetle, and on your turn you move a cardboard pushing platform up to the board, and then push a piece into the board. If you force another players token off the board, that round is over and you’ve won. Any other pieces that fall off can be used. We had four players, so we played in teams. Each beetle has its own special abilities and custom piece to push onto the board. Definitely a strange game, but fun.
Moon Colony Bloodbath, first play. This is a deck builder where you earn money and food, while building structures that house people. It all starts pretty easy, you’ll be doing one of the six main actions: restock (adds boxes to buildings), build (construct a building), mine (get money), farm (get food), and research (get new building cards). On each turn, you turn over a card from the progress deck. The deck starts with the same types of cards – work (you choose one of your actions), trouble (adds an event card to the deck), or twist (gives you a special ability). As you gain event cards, things get worse and worse for our intrepid moon colony people. Mostly you’ll lose people, and if you run about of those, you’ll need to trash a building for its people. The game ends when someone runs out of people, and then the winner is whoever had the most people. It’s a pretty quick game, and good fun.
QE, an auction game where you make up your bids, and they can be any number you can think of. Really want a card? Well, make a bid of a billion. Each player takes a turn at being the auctioneer, and they make a public bid. Then everyone writes their bid, and the auctioneer takes all the secret bids and determine the winner. You’re bidding on tiles that belong to a certain country, have a specific type, and also a point value. You want to win the tiles with a company or type matching yours.
Ghost Stories, certainly not our first play. We had four players, so I thought that might have given us a better chance. But yet again we failed. I think we did a bit better this time, we were only a few cards from seeing the boss. It’s a bit demoralising. I felt we rolled really badly. We always vow to use the Buddhas more, and then we get side tracked with haunters and ghosts that take away abilities or dice. It always feels like a desperate struggle just to stay alive. And then we just spiral down and lose. Sigh.
VIVO, another game my hosts picked up from Pax. We had played it before with a made up copy, it was nice to see the (very cute) artwork. It’s a trick taking game, but each trick has it’s own song requirement card. There are four types of requirement cards – solo, duo, trio, and quartet. If it’s a solo, then only one suit can be played into the trick. A duo requires two suits, a trio is three, a quartet is four. If a duo is drawn, and the first three players play the same suit, then the last player has to be play a different suit (if they can). The highest card wins the trick, but you really want to play the lowest card, because that’s worth victory points equal to the value of the card. Playing the highest card in a trick just gives you 2 points. Good fun, cool artwork.
Istanbul, it’s been a while since we played this, but it doesn’t take long to get up to speed. There are 16 tiles places into a four by four grid. On your turn you move your merchant and assistants between tiles. When you stop on a tile, you have a drop an assistant, unless there was one already there (from an earlier turn). There are four colours of goods to use. You can sell goods, use them at mosques to gain special ability tiles, do some gambling, go to the post office, and other stuff. It’s all about the gems, and there are a few ways to get them. To win you need five gems. It’s an efficiency puzzle, trying to drop your assistants so they can be picked up again. Good game, should play it more often.
9 Likes
Played Corvids from DVC games. I think everything of theirs I’ve tried has been good except this one. For a game about messy pecking and picking there’s a real beedly beedly fiddliness in the scoring.
4 Likes
Old King’s Crown - okay. This game is overrated. What I said previous are still true. I like how the game is essentially about winning clashes and the game got SOME levers to pull to manipulate those end states. But it suffers the same problem as Rising Sun. It has an elaborate rock-paper-scissor system that is all resolved with blind biddings.
There is repeated plays here where you can figure out what is the proper play for each faction once you played them enough. But then why not just play Root - which is also a pain-in-the-ass-to-learn game - okay, maybe not a good suggestion then? Or, better one, Cthulhu Wars - a much better “skill-reward-in-ratio-to-your-effort” game. Or Guards of Atlantis - a game with tons of cards that does different things, but there’s no question that it is a much better return for your effort with its high skill ceiling. Basically, there aren’t that many levers in this game than I would like
The criticisms of the table was also common. A lot of rule breaking cards, which sounds cool, but you have to crane your neck to read them out and if you don’t then it’s a gotcha! or a rug pull and you lost the clash. In that case, play Innovation. Way better skill-reward.
Or play Inis which I found to be more cerebral with its spatial and action-drafting questions that the game keeps tossing to you. And Inis is pretty. C’mon, you all have copies of Inis!
The game, in conclusion, feels too arbitrary for my taste but it asks so much from you. It’s not like Cosmic Encounter which is the biggest random bullshit generator machine, but the game is snappy and flows so well, despite all the randomness, and gotcha! take-that cards.
From this year’s releases so far, I had more fun with Pax Hispanica (a game with lot of effort but a banger), Apex Legends, Innovation Ultimate, and Nature. Man, Nature (aka Evolution) and InnoUlt are better card games this year than The Old King’s Crown. Or just play Guards of Atlantis
7 Likes
Twilight Imperium 4, 6 players, Prophecy of Kings.
Me (Naaz Roka), Mark (Ghosts), Mike (Keleres, Mentak Flavoured), Sam (Saar), Terry (Nekro), and Scott (Argent).
Early game saw the Keleres take Mecatol Rex, hold it for a few turns, and surge to an early 5 point lead.
And then, a tragedy in two parts:
This actually got us our first ever achievement!
Destroy 10 or more units with this particular artifact…
By the end of the game we were all close, but the early Keleres lead proved too strong. Turn 7 the Keleres landed their 10th point via winning a space combat and used a Secret Objective
One of the best games of TI4 I have played in a long, long time. The final turn can often feel very snippy and petty, but this one had a nice, clean finish. And very close!
I hope to get at least 2 or 3 more games in before the end of the year, but this one was a joy.
11 Likes
I’m playing another game of Carson City with strangers on BGA.
Hot dang.
We’re entering the last round, 18-18-18 tie. I grab the Sheriff, the Spaniard grabs the outlaw (planning on fighting), and the Belgian goes straight for the armory.
Schtuff is going to go down.
This all started in round 2 when I (I know, I know, the American) started drawing guns on the Belgian. At that time, he took the Sheriff and held down the scoring spot so no one else could use it. Facing a runaway lead that would prove hard to chase down, I systematically robbed and pilfered his holdings so that, in the theme of the game, the Sheriff was waiting at the bank and one riderless horse hobbled in with half a moneybag still tied to its saddle.
Like it or not, I’m going to rope a few of you into a game. I think I know who will like it.
edit: Yeah, the Belgian has just walked into my saloon and demanded half the money. But the Spanish Outlaw has also gone to the armory (predictably) so the Belgian may find his guns don’t show up…
And I think I’m going to go help some folks out of the prison. They’re handy in an (inevitable) fight… I just need to delay that plan long enough that no one notices…
8 Likes
Game night! 3 players
Wabash Cannonball It was fun but felt kinda loose at 3? Also end game scores were 64-42-38, so we were definitely overbidding on shares.
Castles of Burgundy I do really like this one.
Botswana Again another shares game that’s probably better with more, but binning 3 cards a round at 3 is pretty good.
7 Likes
Played some Perudo with my flat mates for their first time, my first time in years. Still a good time! Probably(?) not as good as Skull but maybe more accessible?
7 Likes
12 Rivers, first play. My hosts picked this up at PAX. It’s a cool looking board, with the 12 rivers starting from the top and passing thru various collection areas. Coloured balls (pearls) are released from the top of the board, and will come to rest again player tokens which block the path. You can improve your chances of grabbing a pearl if you place your token further up the board, but that will cost you (in cards you have to discard). Any pearls you pickup will be placed on your alpaca, and then later to villager tiles to score points. It’s a fairly light game, and quick to play – there are only five rounds. Good fun!
Moon Colony Bloodbath, another bash at this. And this time I was the loser. Even my Dome (that gave me 20 population) couldn’t help me. At a certain point everything just goes to hell. Still enjoying it!
My Gold Mine, a quick little filler of grabbing gold and avoiding the dragon.
Roam another light game, place your tokens on a grid of cards, gathering money and scoring for area majorities.
Dorfromantik: Sakura, our worse game – EVAR! We scored lower than even our first game. Needless to say, it was the games fault, we did our best. So many task tiles left over.
VIVO, fun little filler
10 Likes
Played Cosmolancer 2 player.
Really liked it. Kind of like a 2D Botswana
4 Likes