/bgg/ Board Game General - calm reasoned discussion edition

Waterdeep is more of an intro game, not really mid-weight. Maybe Istanbul?

Concordia, Power Grid and Viticulture are some of my favorite mid weights.

Tableau builders are supposed to be dry, what the hell did you expect, hombre?

That said, reviews for Alien Artifacts are negative. They say it's a game with lazy-ass "draw a random card and score points" mechanic that's 60 minutes too long for what it is.

Lords of Waterdeep is a good choice, and it has nothing to do with DnD.

Also check out Broom Service and Isle of Skye.

How are the Deckscape games? I am looking for a last minute Christmas gift. Are they worth the 15€ price?

Also is there any board game like Football Manager (the video game)?

is it just me or do pretty much all deckbuilders feel the same? Just picked up Heart of Crown because the Etrain Odyssey artist did some cards and it was ok but very similar to Dominion or Thunderstone or Licensed Deckbuilder #20XX. One thing I liked about it was that instead of +Action written on cards there were arrows. If it has an arrow you can connect another card to it, if it has two connect 2 and 0 just ends your action chain.

Have at least a skim read of the Learn to Play you fuck. My first game took 14 hours partly because one of the players didn't bother to try reading the rules first.

I'll always have a soft spot for betrayal but playing it with newbies can make for a pretty unfun experience, especially if the newbie has to be the betrayer

Anyone play Twilight Imperium 4th Ed. here?
I have few questions after first game.

1. When you activate a system, can you move units there AND also use the production ability of Space Dock?
2. Is the Hybrid War Sun of Muaat really THAT good? It shoots once and deals 3 damage to your units? What the hell?

>What's your most middle of the road, un-offensive board game opinion?
Blood Rage and Feast of Odin are okay
>What widely popular game do you enjoy despite all the shit it gets here?
Star Realms
>What game do you play/own just because "it's fun"?
Does having the app version of Elder Sign count?

People here generally don't hate Feast for Odin, but do hate Blood Rage. Why is that?

Rate my wishlist, Veeky Forums:

1960: the Making of the President
7 Wonders Duel + Pantheon
Agricola
Altiplano
Bärenpark
Century: Spice Road
Clank!
Concordia
Deception: Murder in Hong Kong
A Feast for Odin
Five Tribes: the Artisans of Naqala
Five Tribes: the Thieves of Naqala
Hannibal & Hamilcar
Imperial Settlers
The Lost Expedition
No Retreat: the Russian Front
Patchwork
Through the Ages

What should I add? What shuold I remove from the list? Keep in mind that I will not purchase every title in the list, I just like to have a good number of choices. Let me peek at your wishlists too!

Keep 1960, Condordia,and TtA, don't know Hannibal or No Retreat but you can safely cross off the rest. Add in some other GMT stuff (Dominant Species / Coin game) and maybe a Feld or two.

> What's your most middle of the road, un-offensive board game opinion?
It's ok to enjoy yourself. I hunt for "deep strategic games" and try to analyze a board game if it isn't broken... and then I play Mansions of Madness or Last Night on Earth. Sometimes a board game is just an experience and that's Ok.
> What widely popular game do you enjoy despite all the shit it gets here?
Exploding Kittens. It can be explained in 5 minutes, the games don't last that long, everybody is having fun and you do a lot of cost/benefit analysis when you're playing it.
> What game do you play/own just because "it's fun"?
A lot.
Fury of Dracula is completely broken but I don't mind because the theme is so engaging.
Last Night on Earth is more or less playing with dolls in a 80s zombie movie setting. Whether you win or lose is basically random, with the zombie players being more prone to lose.
Nightfall - I think it hit the table like 5 times. I really enjoy the theme and mechanics though.

>Dominant Species
recommending that OOP jizz

is this getting printed again? it's on my list too but I don't want to $200 for sealed copy

>What game do you play/own just because "it's fun"?

none of the games I own are fun. Something about buying, learning, storing, packing, taking, not-playing, storing again, taking again, not-playing again, storing again, taking and finally teaching just sucks all the goddamned fun out of everything for me.

>Short answer
CMoN
>Long answer
Eric Lang reworked Midgard (maybe 2 minor things IIRC) and added big plastic minis and suddenly the game went from somewhere in the top 2000games ever to top 10. Whether that's because people pay attention now, or they just like models.............. either way leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

As for AFfO, that's just Uwe rehash #793 so people who like it like it, those who don't ignore it.

>As for AFfO, that's just Uwe rehash #793
Not really, it's an original game and different from anything else on the market today.

It's a mashup of his previous worker placements with the tetris mechanic of Cottage Garden/Patchwork added. Is it a new twist? Sure but original is a bit much

I don't really mind playing Blood Rage but once everyone is familiar with it, it isn't great. It's sorta like they just ignored late stage playtesting.

Just played the digital version of Star Realms after hearing about what a great deck builder it is but the game feels like it has a lot of luck. The tiny card market every turn means you can just get fucked hard if your opponent gets a 5 money draw into incredibly good cards very early. Did any of you get a different impression when you played it, digitally or physically?

>Star Realms after hearing about what a great deck builder it is but the game feels like it has a lot of luck

I played the free version on Android and felt the same thing. It has scenarios but even on the most difficult you just apply one strategy and play and replay until the luck factor gives you the right cards.

Basically when you play the exact same way you can have widely varying results, from utter defeat to flawless victory just based on the RNG of the cards.

I asked several times how or why the IRL game was fun in light of this but never got a real answer. Nice to know someone else felt this way about it.

>Star Realms after hearing about what a great deck builder it is
You were lied to. Star Realms is at best an OK deckbuilder, and frankly it doesn't meet the survival bar of beating Dominion. The truly good deckbuilders are Tanto Cuore, Heart of Crown, and Valley of Kings.

Just picked up Terraforming Mars and had one half-game with the kids and then 2 solo games.

It's a fantastic game. It doesn't seem balanced, and it does seem to involve a fair bit of luck, but that's probably just the learning curve.

You can order any GMT game on their website, after there's enough people they run another print.

>it does seem to involve a fair bit of luck

I think this is true. I've played twice with very experienced players and crushed them handily. I honestly can't tell if it's lucky luck or if I'm really fucking good at mitigation i.e. playing the shit I draw. I do tend to buy and hold very powerful cards with the intention of playing them later. I think I ended the last game with a hand of like 17 cards.

I really need to get my ass handed to me to judge properly I guess, haha. I have really enjoyed playing it both times even when it seemed like shit was going belly up.

...

is this 1990s blue and red shit supposed to be a website? is that the right place?

also how do you know when they are near a printing?

I think it requires a certain mindset, or a certain style of play is more productive than other styles.

Getting distracted with a sudden hand of flashy cards that are related to each other (but completely unrelated to the path you set yourself on/the direction of the game) is a good way to set you back a couple of turns.

>tfw haven't played board games in months because my local gameshop is having problems getting card sleeves

>is this 1990s blue and red shit supposed to be a website
Wargamers user, they don't need fancy faceberg white space design
>how do you know when they are near a printing
P500 stats; if you're looking at Dominant Species, it's "not there yet" with 404 orders. It'll make the cut at 500, there will be a period between that and printing, and then shipping

well it should be 406 now mofos

also
>enter card number
>choose card type
>not knowing the card type is the first part of the fucking number

seriously that website is making me RRRRREEEEEEEEEEEE

>It'll make the cut at 500
I remember reading somewhere that Dominant Species is one of their "evergreen" games or something like that, so it'll get a reprint even if it doesn't have 500 preorders.

They use the P500 system for both new and reprints, even of wildly popular shit. Don't go to many cons because they don't feel like it's worth the money unless it's a massive wargamer event and they know they can clear the warehouse. Are you surprised the website is ancient?

Yes, it's in their P500 reprint page
>So we set aside a large segment of our strategic reserve funds every year to reprint key games. We use those funds in concert with P500 Reprint orders to amass the cash necessary to do updated editions of those games ($30-50K per game, generally, although for larger print runs, as with Twilight Struggle and Dominant Species, it's a LOT more).
I haven't watched the stats on either of those, but I'd bet they do a run every 18-24mo at most.

It isn't a 'mashup' and there isn't a Tetris mechanic.

Yes, it is different.

tetris blokus puzzle

>you fucking know what he meant

> tetris blokus puzzle

It isn't, it's a different kind of puzzle that hasn't been done before. There's a little bit of tetris, but it's by far not the main thing in the game.

Do LCGs count as board games? Arkham Horror is well comfy.

Geez, don't give yourself a hernia shifting those goalposts

Friend picked this up for our Dominion collection.

My least favorite expansion by far! Super fiddly and complicated, one player's turn legit took 5+ min to resolve.

>doesn't seem balanced
>does seem to involve a fair bit of luck

>fantastic game
No, no it's not.

LoTR Lcg is real comfy too especially with the movies sound track in the background

I'm not shifting anything. If you've played the game then you know that it feels nothing like tetris.

Yeah, apart from where you need to fit tetrominoes on a board, it's nothing like those games where you need to fit tetrominoes on a board

What's a good game to play with my five-year-old? I can't stand candyland chutes and ladders etc

Depends on what you'd enjoy; memory, dexterity, co-op, puzzle, dice chucker, abstract, random silly shit?

Doesn't matter really, just nothing too dumbed down. Candyland et al are moronic.

Did anyone try this?
kickstarter.com/projects/blackforeststudio/infected-0

There's junior versions of Carc and Stone Age that are pretty decent (Stone Age is more memory than anything tho); 5 might be a little young for Dungeon Fighter as a more involved dex game but Ice Cool, Rhino Hero, Coconuts, etc. Hey that's my Fish or Battlesheep for an abstract (or blokus/santorini/whatever else); maybe Ghost Fightin' Treasure Hunters for a co-op, or Flash Point/Forbidden Island? DIamant/Celestia/KoT for a push your luck option. ANY of the Iello Tales & Games series are good. Loony Quest, Magic Labyrinth are fun puzzle games. Kinda depends how advanced your kid is what works best for them though.

Don't waste your time, he's been shitting up the thread claiming tetromino games don't mean games are like tetris for a while now. It's just a weird attempt at a troll.

Because frankly Dominion nearly perfected the "pure" deckbuilder and the only ones worth trying if you've played it are the ones that try to twist it. Arctic Scavengers goes for theme, Trains and Clank! add a board, Marvel Legendary goes co op, etc. But HoC makes no bones about just being weeb Dominion. The only actual refinement of deck building for the sake of deck building I know of is Valley of the Kings.
A lot of those are on my wish list too. Good taste. On one hand I want Deception, on the other I don't need it because to me Resistance Avalon is the perfect social deduction game.

Anyway anons, is Mage Knight really worth it for solo play? I'm tempted to grab it for myself.

Thanks mate.

No prob; if you're forced to go too simple, Loopin' Chewie or Chupacabra. Both can be played one handed while you play an actual game with non-tiny people, or do something else engaging.

Well she can practically read and she loves math so I have high hopes.

And Mage Knight

What board-game do I get my 9yr old sister for christmas?

I'm considering a few: Catan, Bang!, Machi Koro, Dobble or Jungle Speed. Maybe something else?

castles of burgundy is the best midweight euro so you're not gonna find a real competitor

Rhino fucking Hero hombre

I honestly think CoB is boring as shit

I was going to keep writing up stuff but it's easier to post the chart, I've not played them all, some are other anons from /bgg/ and recs from BGG, but like 90% I can speak to as very good for tiny people.

>not on the chart because it's an old edit
Blue Orange games, Dr Eureka/Top That/Go Go Gelato. Help with learning and they're fun dex/speed games that adults can play drunk for laughs.

Oh and Bang TDG over straight Bang!, no question. Card variant can get repetitious and will bore tiny people if it drags too long.

Mage Knight is awesome. Can really recommend it if you play solo at least once a month. Less than that and you run the risk of forgetting some of the more fiddly rules.

I think I might hate Gloomhaven. Anyone have experience with it? I feel like I've seen nothing but praise for it.

What are some good 3-4 player deckbuilding games that don't need extra sets or expansions and will remain fun for at least 50 plays?

Trains: Rising Sun (and base Trains)
Marvel Legendary
Clank!
are all well liked and recommended for 3-4.
Problem is most deckbuilders shine at 2, and I've only played none of these but I've heard the rest are good with some replay value.

Boy, I just started a campaign with some friends and let me tell you I'm not sure what to think. Its not a bad game but I have some issues with it.

There's a lot of charm in it, but the whole experience feels like a bit of a slog for me. Where in a lot of Board Games (like Mage Knight) you get stronger and gain cool abilities and combos as you play, in Gloomhaven you do that BETWEEN games. Which for me makes the actual levels less exciting than the average board game.

And they really like to pad out the game. You have to play the game about 3-4 times to get enough money/xp to get an item or level up (keep in mind each game is around 90 minutes). Its very grindy is what I'm getting at, and I'm not too fond of how the game dangles a carrot in front of my face all the time and keeps telling me something interesting will happen.

Whoops, meant to respond to this

So guys, what's the comfiest board game for winter evenings?

Odin's Ravens. Dim the lights, get some mulled wine brewed, a cosy adventuring soundtrack playing and enjoy a few hours of chill competitiveness and conversation.

You should try Aeon's end, it's co-op and shakes up the rules of deck builder.
The turn order is randomized, you choose in which order you discard your cards and you don't shuffle your deck when you have to draw.

>Tableau builders are supposed to be dry
Imperial Settlers isn't that dry, and TtA and Nations have some crazy combos.
There are no combos in Alien Artifacts. There are four kinds of planets which each do the exact same thing. There are four kinds of ships which each do the exact same thing. There's a huge amount of variety in tech, but it's useless because planet-gouging is the dominant strategy so unless you get a tech which gives you VP for planets you won't be winning the race.

that one game you play with candles

That's sad to hear. I'm a big fan of Imperial Settlers and it seemed that Alien Artifacts fixed two big things with Imperial Settlers
1 - alleviated the luck factor in the first rounds e.g that you NEED to get production in the first rounds or you're not going anywhere and that's impossible if you only draw features and actions. Splitting the decks into three makes perfect sense
2 - removed the "stall until opponent passes, execute combo" mechanic, because now your opponent also has to say how long will the round be.

Ah right, Clank!.
Any opinions on regular (+expansion maybe) vs clank in space?

I get the question because I feel like every deckbuilder ever is missing some essential element. Like I really like AS' attempt at win conditions and interactivity at different points of the game but the core set doesn't really have enough variety and while it's acceptable with expansions they feel a bit half-hearted and unwilling to really push its mechanics. Marvel Legendary gets fun with the expansions but is incredibly samey game-by-game for the most part despite an immense number of different interchangeable parts, and the extent to which you can play against people is pretty limited.

But it feels like there SHOULD BE a game, right? The perfect deckbuilder game. The one that pulls all this stuff together in this tight, cohesive, incredibly engaging whole. You can perceive the space that game should occupy and its existence by the extent to which the other games, the ones you do play, fail to reach it. But I haven't found it.

I see. Well, 'tis the season to shit up the thread...

that's a beautiful insert

>tfw you realise Eric Lang isn't just a meme in these threads

You're right. He's more of a joke.

Don't buy Agricola, buy Caverna instead. It's a superior game that also doesn't make you feel miserable and as stressed while playing it. I would only recommend agricola over caverna if you're a diehard rosenberg fan who absolutely has to have all his games

>our Dominion collection.

>What's your most middle of the road, un-offensive board game opinion?
I like the witcher boardgame. Yes, it's not a very good game, yet i still enjoy it. And no, it's not because i've played the games/read the books. It's the opposite in fact: playing the boardgame and enjoying it is what made me try the vidya.
>What widely popular game do you enjoy despite all the shit it gets here?
Ticket to ride. It's one of the 5 games that i'm always in the mood for
>What game do you play/own just because "it's fun"?
All of them, duh. If the game is not fun, then what's the fucking point?

I have all the Dominion expansion except Nocturne and promo cards. Fite me.

I was just watching a review where he was openly mocked in the middle of it. /bgg/ changing hearts and minds.

>play 1830 robber barons last year christmas
>already have some experience with the game so we know what we're doing
>decide to upgrade the game by getting cigars from a guy I know who got it as business gift but stopped smoking
>get some hard liquor
>everyone dressed nicely, we start
>couple of hours in, everyone drunk and cannot breathe due the cigar smoke
>after 4 hours put a hold on the game so everyone can go home, get some fresh breath and sober up
>continue next day with a completely messed up strat
COMFY as fuck though if you dont count the hangover. The last time we played though it was pretty cold so I got cacao and milk for some hot choco. That was pretty comfy as well.

>Fite me.
First wait a couple of minutes as I work through my entire deck with my engine deck

I never thought of him as some great designer, just a decent one, but I actually had more respect for him before I knew what he looked like.

>but I actually had more respect for him before I knew what he looked like
You sound like a tool m8.

Had more respect for him before he sold out to CMON.

Neither are you are wrong, but if you've only played the app scenarios you really haven't played the game. The scenarios are just window dressing to add variation for a solo player and are tailored to only be beatable using a particular strategy and getting lucky with the card draw.

One on one with an actual opponent is where SR shines and knowing the tactical advantage and strategies of each color/faction becomes important. Absolutely the trade row can eff you over, but good players will know ways to mitigate this. The RNG factor still comes into play and i think even optimal players only win about 60% of the time, but I have enjoyed learning enough of the strategy to raise my win percentage above 50%