Your Last Played Game Volume 3

[COMaestro]

Ah-ha! At last, a new game played! My wife and her brother went to a movie with their cousins leaving me home with the kids, both of whom fell asleep before they had even left!

After a bit of tidying up, I decided to try out Pandemic: Fall of Rome, which I have owned for years and had yet to play. Got it set up, ran through the rules real quick, and I was off.

Played two handed, using the Consul and the Regina Foederata. I got lucky as the RF started with an event card that could place a fort for free, and she started at the city green and white use as an entry point, so dropped that there, raised some legions, and that really slowed their progress. As the game went on, she drew heavily into black cards while the Consul had a good green/orange split.

Finally got enough to ally with black, and then green. Orange followed soon after and the RF was close for white. Meanwhile blue had barely entered the board, and a turn later I had eliminated them. So, of course, right when I got the fifth card I needed to ally with white, blue decided to show up on their other entry point, far from both my characters. The RF only had two blue cards I was saving for a potential alliance, and the Consul only had green and orange cards, so no quick sail to head that off. RF drew a white card at the end of her turn though.

Using some good teamwork, the Consul met with the RF and summoned up two legions. Then on her turn she sailed with those legions to the spot of the most recent blue placement. Then using her ability, she moved it and the two legions to the entry city. Third action was a free Enlist Barbarians to convert the white cubes there to legions and then she attacked, wiping out blue.

This left one blue cube on the board with the Consul. Luckily no more came out and on his turn he summoned up three legions and attacked, wiping it out. Victory to Rome!

There were only four cards left in the player deck, so I was really pushing it, but I pulled through. Interesting spin on the Pandemic formula, one which I know the LotR version cribbed from. Would like to try it with more players.

[bort]

SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, first play. Finally my mate turns up with his copy, so we got this played. It’s pretty intimidating, lots of pieces and a huge stack of cards. But once you’re into it, it’s not so bad. There are seven main actions – launch a probe, orbit a planet, land on a planet, scan nearby stars, analyse data, play a card for its effect, and research a tech. And of course you can pass. Most of the actions are straightforward enough, move one of your pieces around on the board. The board shows the solar system that you launch probes and scan. It has several moving pieces that rotate around, which makes it possible to move into the various planets (or at least to move onto them easily). Technology is important, it allows some new things (like being able to land on a moon), or make stuff cheaper (also good). There are lots of objectives to do as well, worth end game points. Oh, and there are aliens, which stay hidden until you research them. It’s a lot at first, but made more sense as we progressed. And we had lovely 3d printed bits and boxes.

Timeline: Music & Cinema. Something a bit lighter after SETI. There are a lot of games in the Timeline series, and they all follow the same basic rules. Take a card, place it next to cards already played so that the dates are correct. So a card might be “Star Wars” (which of course was from 1977). The object is to place all your cards correctly. Miss one, and you’ll pick up a new card. I’ve got a few of these games, but hadn’t played a movie/music one. I did very very badly.

The Key: Sabotage at Lucky Llama Land. Played Murder at the Oakdale Club last week, so thought this would be an easier one to play (being rated at 1 out of 3, compared to Oakdales 2 out of 3). But we all struggled with it, our winner from last week finished first, but with the wrong answer. I eventually got the answer, but it took me a lot of cards (over 50). I had totally forgotten how some of the cards worked, was trying to match up stuff on the main map. which was incorrect, and I didn’t realise my mistake until I was looking for something else in the book. Still happy to get the correct answer (its a moral victory).

Mysterium to close out the day. We had four players (including the ghost), which makes a better experience I reckon. I still like this game a lot. We ignored the clairvoyancy system, too fiddley. Things went fairly ok, had some trouble with one player, just wasn’t getting the clues I was giving him (I was the ghost). But we figured it all out, just came down to the last bit when the actual culprits are revealed. Sadly, we lost…

[RogerBW]

Last night with nearby friends: Spirit Island, which I’ve been havering over for a while. I enjoy it, but it’s never really grabbed me the way Flash Point has.

This evening was different. Three players, all easy spirits (Lightning, River and Shadows; River used the standard power development list, the others didn’t.) And something about it made it all fit together: I can do this, which will affect that, so that can then be knocked down by the other thing, and so on.

We didn’t pay much attention to map board boundaries, which probably helped; I had my own region under control relatively early and was able to lend a hand elsewhere, and River got everywhere. We managed to get a decent Fear treadmill going, and once that was happening we had a Fear card in most rounds.

We won at terror level 2 with no settlements left, though admittedly there were only two Blight still available. It could clearly have gone horribly wrong. But it didn’t, and our sprint for victory was successful.

With no insult intended to the more experienced players with whom I’ve played this before, I think it helped not to have any advice available; rather than getting down into just the tactical details, I also had to plan ahead, not only for what I could do but also for what my fellow spirits would do.

At least for now this has moved back out of the “maybe move it on” pile, and I’ll give it a try with some more complex spirits.

[lalunaverde]

Puerto Rico 1897 - it’s the same old Puerto Rico but now 100% slave free!! We played with 4 players and yeah, I can see why it’s a classic and it still great - still better than most board games today, despite the left-right binding problem. I try to mitigate this by coaching the new player by the rest of the table. The Craftsman action is just bad, in general.

Downforce - with the variant rules that makes it an actual game. Still crazy fun

Diamant - this is a classic filler game

Magical Athlete - maybe it’s just me but I think Hot Streak is more fun that MA seems to shine less in my eyes.

Mongoose x2 - played the prototype with Rikki several months back and they added more into it. There’s two new actions that I didn’t know. It seems that only doing hunt actions created a edge case that broke the game

Still good fun. This is another banger from them. I might prefer Senators and Coup though.

Fair Enough - the Essen Spiel board game of this year by Friesse. And unlike the previous SPIEL board game, this one isn’t ass. It was good fun.

Las Vegas - the one by Rudiger Dorn. 30min filler fun and we had a blast with it. Simple dice game rules and we’re at each other’s face trying to steal each other’s money. I will hunt down the expansion

[Acacia]

@lalunaverde

Puerto Rico 1897

My Awaken Realms Puerto Rico is scheduled to arrive Monday. Woot! I sold my first edition for more than half the cost so feeling good about the whole thing.

Independent Island.
Tiles for balanced rules.
Deck for solo and dummy third player.

Still wondering if I’ll just end up playing New Frontiers though!

[Marx]

Was supposed to try playing Arcs Blighted Reach campaign last night, but we had a cancellation, but then another player stepped up to be the 4th, but then he had to cancel because of 40cm of snow (ANOTHER 40cm) in his town. With only 3 of us, I figured we could pivot to a game better with 3…

So I pulled out Cry Havoc! This used to be my favourite knife-fight-in-a-phone-booth, until I received a copy of Forbidden Stars. I think FS is better, but Cry Havoc has this really neat combat/battle system that I adore. But it’s been years since I pulled it out, and I still haven’t tried the expansion.

Anyway, I tried the Pilgrims (Protoss), Mike took the Mechs, and Justin took the Humans. Justin managed a massive point swing on one turn through triggering scoring, using his Human skill to score his territories by discarding a card, and winning a bunch of fights to gain crystals and score them.

Since it had been so long, there were a few stumbles (like how the Trogs behave with 3 players), but a very satisfying game regardless. And I do want to try the expansion (which should be called “Let Slip!” but is, instead, called “Aftermath”). Final scores were Justin 57, me with 40, and Mike with 29.

Then we pulled out Beyond the Sun, and I finally tried an Advanced Faction (the Brotherhood of Zheng gain a Level 4 ship and some ore once all the crates in Columns A and B are converted, and a bunch of free moves or free upgrades once Columns C and D are also empty). Mike usually crushes me at BtS, but I don’t know what conjunction of the spheres occurred but I just kinda crushed it? I got 4 high value colonies, getting me an objective star, and I managed to actually research a Level 4 tech for the first time in… a long, long time, and that rewarded me with cheaper colonies (by the end I was spending 2 less ore and/or 1 less person to colonize). Mike realized that I was on the precipice of being unstoppable and ended the game by researching a Level 4 tech of his own, but it was too little, too late. Final scores were me with 56, Justin with 45 and Mike with 44.

Apparently I’m quite good at BtS? I’m a little surprised, honestly, because my memory of it is that I always have a really good time and I have no idea how well or poorly I do, but apparently I tend to win most of the time. I have specific memories of games I am good at (Terraforming Mars, Hanamikoji, Cosmic Encounter, Galaxy Trucker, Robo Rally) and games I am almost always bad at (Dune, Twilight Imperium, Gloomhaven, WarMachine, Forbidden Stars), but I don’t remember being good at BtS, just always have a great time with it.

Who knew!

[Benkyo]

Fwliw, I suspect Arcs campaign might be better at 3? Not that I’ve even tried it, but cutting the 1s from the deck seems like an improvement, and less downtime and one less tableau to parse…

[yashima]

I have played the first 2 games of Artengarten (boring English title: “Sanctuary”)
And I really like it.

Recommended for anyone looking for a Speedy ArkNova-Cascadia mashup.

It’s still Ark Nova-ish with the action selection but there are now only 4 actions. 3 of them allow you to place 1 (upgraded 2) animals from one of 3 habitats (water, rock, woods). The 4th action is projects. The non-animal cards (hex fields) are now divided into two types: projects and buildings.

Your turn goes like this:

1. Depending on where your projects card arrow points to that is your reach for the card market. First pick a card within reach
2. Pick an action and perform it (all actions have an alternate that allows you to draw cards). When placing animals you may need to place additional “open areas” in certain positions (arrows on the card) from your hand of cards. Those get flipped and are worth 1 point at the end. Or if you chose projects place a project. You have to place adjacent to entry or existing squares as per Ark Nova
3. Check if you can place a building, you can place a maximum of 1 building per turn. Buildings have placement conditions.
4. Check if you can and want to support one of the projects (aka you have enough symbols). Everyone has 4 tokens and there are 5 projects. The tokens are for 2,3,4 and 5 symbols. If placed they are worth points.
5. Check if you fulfill one of the 4 upgrade conditions and upgrade an action if you do.

Game ends when one of 3 conditions is fulfilled:

• no more cards in the stack (possible with higher player counts not in solo)
• someone filled their board completely (so far this is what happened)
• someone placed all their project support tokens.

You still have this feeling of collecting symbols and managing your actions and combining just the right animals with the perfect projects and buildings.

But the complexity is way toned down. No more managing your little workers or being desperate to gain another one or choosing between a worker or upgrading a card. The actions are simplified a lot. There is no income to manage. Animals just require the action to be high enough on the action ladder now.

I really enjoy it. The solo mode is well-done: 18 tokens that determine which card gets removed from the marked randomly and whatever tokens are left at the end generate additional points. Solo it plays as fast as Cascadia.

Different enough from Ark Nova to own both. Or so I think.

PS: sorry for the bad translation the project cards are not the same as the “support” projects. But I don’t really know what these things are called in English.

[lalunaverde]

Onward - another MOBA game. I would say it is even simpler than Guards of Atlantis 2 and it goes from 2 to 4, so kinda easier to table. I played with 2 players so far and I would love to play with 3 or 4.

I really like it. It is simpler and in theory, faster. I don’t think it will replace Guards because the latter is deeper and the team play is so engaging and dynamic.

Castles of Burgundy - classic fun

[BertFill]

@yashima

Recommended for anyone looking for a Speed-ArkNova-Cascadia mashup.

I wasn’t looking for one of these, but now I know one exists, I’m sorely tempted!

[lalunaverde]

I’m also tempted when she said it’s like Ark Nova/Cascadia mixed with Speed.

[mistercrayon]

I would also recommend it. I think there’s a fair amount going on despite being a “lighter” game.

[yashima]

„on speed“ as in much faster playing than Ark Nova and certainly fewer turns to finish a game,

[Number1TheLarch]

Have you heard of this game called Agricola? Man, it’s as if no-one’s talking about it. Every time someone enters a room, they should be like “Why aren’t we playing Agricola?”.

Played it for the first (and second) time, and my sizzling hot take on this super new game is: It’s really rather good, isn’t it? I’ve never really got on with newer worker placement games, but this was my jam (as was it my wife’s).

The thing you’re doing in the game feels like the thing the game supposes you’re doing?

A small number of action cards with the rules written clearly in plain language?

The ability to teach the game as you’re playing?

Decisions feel big?

Moment-to-moment decision-space isn’t massive?

When I play a game like Agricola or Concordia, I’m reminded of how useless BGG’s weight ratings are to me - someone who plays games regularly, but not super frequently, mainly with family. It doesn’t really matter to me how deep/complex the game is after everyone’s learned it fully. What matters to me is how easy it is to teach to someone who isn’t a hobbyist boardgamer. This is particularly important because I’m probably going to have to re-teach it every time we play, and if people remember an arduous teach then they’re less likely to want to play it again. I found Agricola so much easier to teach than many games which BGG considers ‘light-medium’. The mechanisms make sense, important information is written on the board/cards (and crucially, there aren’t loads of them in each game), and that information is revealed gradually as you play. BGG tells me that games like Duel or Istanbul are much lighter, but every card/tile has its own rule written in hieroglyphics that you have to explain in full before you start playing, and they don’t always work in a way that makes sense thematically. If you were to ask my family which of these games is ‘heavier’, I don’t think it would match up with BGG’s weight ratings.

Anyway, our first game resulted in a 28-20 win for me using a childless strategy - empty house, full plates baby! Now let’s consult the manual to see how I should feel about this:

A score of 30 points is considered respectable for someone who plays Agricola for the first time.

Piss.

[mistercrayon]

I really like Rosenbergs consistent adherence to word based power cards.

[lalunaverde]

@Acacia

Still wondering if I’ll just end up playing New Frontiers though!

What’s weird is that they feel different despite the same foundational design. NF is more modern combotastic Euro, while PR is very old school. I think NF feels better (I think), but PR got those weird chess moves that are interesting.

[Acacia]

I agree. I wanted NF to kill PR but it didn’t and I continue to have both.

Coming off of PR, I first had to learn what NF wasn’t before I could enjoy it. In the end, I concluded that New Frontiers is all about the follow. Anticipating and prepping to take advantage of every action, and setting yourself up to take actions that distract or skip other players.

Puerto, as you said, has this chesslike destructive vibe. Craftsman > Trader, Craftsman > Captain, all about blocking and excluding and forcing discards. Also the race for the Guild Hall.

[lalunaverde]

@Acacia

Puerto, as you said, has this chesslike destructive vibe. Craftsman > Trader, Craftsman > Captain, all about blocking and excluding and forcing discards. Also the race for the Guild Hall.

That’s a different meta. Our games usually never end with VPs running out

[yashima]

I have now played a total of 5 solos of Artengarten / Sanctuary and it really scratches that Cascadia itch for me. And the combo-ing from Ark Nova. Definitely a keeper. Ark Nova addicted friends have already ordered their own copy.

[COMaestro]

Played two games of Agent Avenue on BGA with @mr.ister. Fun little game, and so simple to play. Won both games. Curious to try out the advanced mode which adds Black Market cards.

I could see picking this up. It looks like it’d be great for a little 5-10 minute filler using the basic mode. Advanced may add a little complexity, but it might even make the games quicker since some cards will add new win/loss conditions.