/bgg/ Board Game General - there can only be one edition

Jesus Christ I like heavy games too, and I don't throw around the "lol autism" meme lightly, but are you people so autistic that you can find zero value in social games? I mean fuck that's like 40% of TI

I would throw out Coup just because its one of my favorites. Everyone seems to like Ticket to Ride if you want something more heavy and euro.

What does everyone think of Star Realms? I think it's a pretty fun and casual card game, good for introducing people to tabletop gaming/deck builders.

It's fun for a bit and not a bad game, but I've spent more than enough time with it honestly.

Dog puke is a better game than Machi Koro

Thank you for your recommendation

That's why I am looking for recommendations for other good deck builders. I want to pick up the expansions for Star Realms, but I am not sure which ones are the best.

Smash up is fun for casual play

>with a dozen friends;
What does this even mean

I'm looking for 3 player games--games best at 3 players not games that can be 3 players.

Also, Agricola or Caverna? I've never played a worker placement game (I think) and I'm looking to try one.

what is this "friend" thing everyone keeps talking about?

Lots of people, myself included, think that Marvel Legendary is best with three if deck builiding is your thing

not a deck builder
Honestly Dominion is my favorite but I know it's not for everyone. If you want something similarly small to Star Realms but with more decision making, look at Valley of the Kings. It's especially popular in this thread for some reason but it's more than just a meme.

If you've never played a worker placement, Agricola and Caverna can be a bit much to jump into. What other games do you like and how heavy is your gaming experience? I'd say they're slightly more than medium weight.
Agricola is definitely punishing until you get into its groove, even more so if it's your first worker placement. Some players like the tension this produces, but others like games that make them feel good.
Caverna still has responsibilities to deal with but it gives you a lot of options to freely explore.
If you want a gateway, Viticulture is in the business of making you feel good. Also has an expansion if you want more out of it. Lords of Waterdeep is also popular, but it's much better with the expansion.
I can vouch for Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar and The Voyages of Marco Polo as personal favorites if you want to jump in headfirst.
Of course, if after looking into a bunch of the genre's offerings, Agric/Caverna sound best (or another Rosenberg like A Feast For Odin) then grab whatever sounds most fun. It's a broad mechanic with a lot of applications and most games with WP don't actually feel that similar.

CAMEL UP
A
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>CAMEL UP
Looks interesting, any other suggestions?

Guys, I'm throwing down TI4 Monday and I'm going completely nuts trying to come up with a good map.

Why aren't there more damn tiles in this box. I never thought I'd be desperate for more empty systems.

What? Just use the recommended set up. Or the regular 'deal out a stack to each player' method. Or use the 'co-op' galaxy build I've heard some people use, where you build the galaxy same as normal with each player taking turns placing tiles. But you do the process after you chose races but you randomize starting locations AFTER you build the galaxy. So you're pretty incentivized to build things balanced.

The first two methods almost always result in really turtle-heavy pie slice pattern expansion in TI3 and I can't see a reason they'd be different for TI4. Probably even more so due to the game being generally richer in resources.

The SA star-by-star method can be really good with an experienced group, but Monday I'm mostly running with new players. And I'm worried that the increased VP value of Mecatol Rex in TI4 vs SA will make the kind of fun asymmetrical setup you can get from that harder to balance.

>using the recommended set up in 2018

Rhino Hero and Pitchcar Mini. Those two along with Camel Up have been huge hits with my family (who all legitimately think that monopoly is a good game)

I don't see the problem if its mostly new players.

It is incredibly cute that you play King of Tokyo with your grandmother

I'm hoping I can come up with something more dramatic to help get them hooked.

Just play TI3. TI4 won't be better until the SA guy gets to it.

Heaviest game is a historical wargame, but heaviest board game I've played is probably Kemet or Chaos in the Old World. Which now that I've noticed makes me feel a bit stupid.

But I'll look into those. Might give Lords of Waterdeep a try on Steam. Thanks.

Terraforming Mars is a good game. Interesting card play. Definitely play with the corporations and drafting.

First Martians is similar to Robinson Crusoe. It’s a tough cooperative game with some storytelling elements. The rule book is trash, so look for a vid. The game is ok. Worth a play, but RC is better.

Downforce
Jamaica
The Climbers

>this guy

You would rather play TI3 with crappy trade and half of the politics deck is useless...

Then take out half the politics and homerule the trade strat.

or just play TI4, since it does that anyway. You won't actually miss all the fluff. I thought I would miss mercs, space mines, refineries etc, all the cool little bits that got added in over the years.

Nope. TI4 is basically TI3 with better trade, Imperial II in the box, refined politics and action card deck and much better components. Many of the races have been fixed (Yssaril finally not OP)

I've owned TI3 for about 10 years and have both expansions, and played it about 60 maybe 70 times.

I do like the Star by Star setup from SA, which is easily used in TI4 or 3, but 4 is better in every way.

King of Tokyo is truly, truly the game that brings all types together. It is so wonderful.

>I do like the Star by Star setup from SA, which is easily used in TI4 or 3
And the guy points out that the group isn't experienced enough for SbS.

First game she was like "I don't like this, let's play another"

Because she lost. 7 games later I leave to go see friends and she keeps playing with my mother. It's adorable.

so why recommend TI3 which has little minor annoying rules like

"you can't build a space dock on the same turn as you took control of the planet"

and

"you can't build at a space dock the same turn you built it"

Those, and many other small rules like it, do not exist in TI4.

You can, take over a planet, wait for someone to use Construction, build a space dock, and if you can somehow refresh the planets and take back your activation token, you can then build in it.

Yeah, fuck it. He should introduce the group to a real game, like Puerto Rico, or Mage Knight.

>Mage Knight
Everyone that recommends this always says it plays best with 1.

Why would I want to play a solo puzzle?

Sell it to me. There is a copy at my local for a pretty cheap price and I get 20% off for being a regular.

>Why would I want to play a solo puzzle?
Because it has like five different game modes and one is king of the hill.

Ah okay. You can probably try anything, you won't be making a huge leap to something heavy. Of course if you can try things digitally that doesn't hurt.

>I'm looking for 3 player games--games best at 3 players not games that can be 3 players.
That would be every German game ever made. (Well, except the ones that come with a "duel version" subtitle.)

>Also, Agricola or Caverna?
Go for Agricola.

Also check out Churchill and Triumph & Tragedy.

Lords of Vegas
Survive: Escape From Atlantis

The King is Dead
Triumph & Tragedy
Churchill
I personally find Imperial to be great at 3 players

>Lords of Waterdeep is also popular, but it's much better with the expansion.
I don't agree. The expansion turns a tight, well-balanced and well-designed set collection game into a lolrandom meme game about drawing the cool winning card.

Seconding King is Dead. Best with 3, okay with 4, bad with 2.

>can find zero value in social games
Depends how much game is in the social game. There is no value in a game that is basically 'stand/sit around and make-believe you're a sherlock holmes savant at deciphering people except you fucking aint'. You can be just as social playing an actual game and get a decent play out of it at the same time.

Just play Yedo instead. LoW is just boring shit through and through.

>Just play Yedo instead.
No thanks.
>LoW is just boring shit through and through.
No it isn't, you're just bad at boardgames.

>someone's skill determines whether they can be allowed to call a game boring
not even that guy but this was just a dumb thing for you to say. also LoW is just babbys first worker placement. it's the dominion of wp; everything it does has been done better

Congratulations for typing a post that causes me instant disgust, I really thought I'd been here long enough.

Maria is also absolutely excellent, and only works at 3

>>LoW is just boring shit through and through.
>No it isn't, you're just bad at boardgames.
Coins are worth .25, thieves and warriors .5, and wizards and priests 1. Utility quests are worth it in the first half of the game and not in the second. You want to aim for at least one point of value every turn. Bam, done.

>everyone brings TI4
>build huge galaxy
>use 12/17 races (burn all the Winnaran components to make comfy fire)
>setup galaxy
>play 3 rounds
>weekend over

or do this with Star Trek Ascendancy in 2025 when they have finished releasing the 20 promised expansions

Gloomhaven is the best game I've played in months.

Start playing quality games more regularly.

>20 promised expansions
I thought it was only 7.
>feddies, klinks, and roms
>borg
>cardies
>ferengi
What's left? Dominion, Gorn, Tholians, and... Voth?

How's the game? Just glanced at it on Amazon and I'm intrigued by a Star Trek war game of sorts.

It's shit.
Well, it's okay, but it's not nearly as good as (depending on what you're looking for) Star Trek Frontiers or Star Trek Fleet Captains.

To be fair, neither of the alternatives you listed are even remotely similar to Ascendancy. Frontiers is just a Mage Knight reskin and fleet captains is kind of like X-Wing.

>and fleet captains is kind of like X-Wing
That's Attack Fleet. Look up Fleet Captains.

I'm sorry, *Attack Wing*.

You're right I got that wrong. Fleet Captains looks cool, I haven't played that one.

Yeah, but I said I don't want to play a meme game.

I like social games. That's why I play board games. That's why I hate stuff like terraforming mars and other dry Euro's.

TI is a good social game that is better than "haha you're a spy", "no I'm not, you are".

Terraforming Mars isn't a Euro, it's a wildly unbalanced Munchkin with fewer ways to fuck the leader.

It's pretty good though. I'd like to play it more often, but I only meet for campaign stuff twice a month, and the other time we play Shadows of Brimstone.

sorry to get your terminology wrong, I didn't mean to offend you, King of the Euros and arbiter of all boardgame definitions.

>tumblr snark
Don't cry too hard snowflake. Go post on plebbit, they'll tell you that your cube pusher was worth the 60 bucks you paid and then some. Don't forget how much replayability is added when you double the cost of the "not munchkin" game by buying both expansions!

I hate Euros, or didn't you read the part where I said "That's why I hate stuff like terraforming mars and other dry Euro's" right here

This was a reply to you

I don't keep up with your personal blog. This is the tab where you have Veeky Forums open, not instatumblrsnap or whatever the hell else it is you're using at the same time.

> Open up /bgg/ after a while
> See
Yep, nothing changed.
> Close /bgg/

I'm trying to find a game that's light, but not auto-pilot or too much solitaire for a varied group of individuals.

Does anyone have thoughts on
>Ethnos
>Mission: Red Planet
>Azul
>Broom Service
>Fields of Green

What are some good cooperative games you would suggest to a guy who doesn't like competition?
Dungeon crawlers are not his cup of tea.

i have not played ethnos or mission: red planet, but i played the other 3. azul is probably the most acccessible out of the 3. i really love broom service and the mechanism build around brave and cowardly actions. also downtime is almost nonexistent in both games. fields of green on the other hand feels just like another tile laying game. it is more complex then azul, but i'd rather play the other 3.

>also LoW is just babbys first worker placement. it's the dominion of wp; everything it does has been done better
>Coins are worth .25, thieves and warriors .5, and wizards and priests 1. Utility quests are worth it in the first half of the game and not in the second. You want to aim for at least one point of value every turn. Bam, done.

Two points:

First, just because a game has simple rules doesn't mean it isn't deep. See go and chess for examples.

Second, "worker placement" isn't a real thing. LoW isn't an economic efficiency game like other "worker placements". Lumping LoW and Agricola together is like lumping together Agricola and blackjack because both are "card drawing and bidding" games.

Because the base game totally doesn't boil down to quest and intrigue luck when every action is perfectly balanced around 4=2=1 and you'll eventually need a bit of every resource anyway in case someone picked what you need right now.

I'm looking for suggestions, I mostly play with my gf but scalable to 4 is a plus

>games we love
Castle of Burgundy
Targi
Sherlock Holmes

>games she dislikes
Arboretum
Valley of Kings

also no abstract

they promised 20 expansion early on, before sweigart died:(
from what i can gauge it's 10 player factions and 10 other. dominion and borg being the other category.
10 player factions are
feds
roms
klingons
cardies
ferengi
vulcans
andorians
tholians
gorn
breen

but don't quote me on that :P
how the starbases etc fit into their given 20 idk...

it's a very basic TI - extremely thematic, but needs houserules, once you get that going it's good.
sadly tho the game is average when playing the rules as is (poorly written mess that the rulebooks are...)

If you're into tinkering with your games you should def. get it or if you just love star trek

>Because the base game totally doesn't boil down to quest and intrigue luck when every action is perfectly balanced around 4=2=1 and you'll eventually need a bit of every resource anyway in case someone picked what you need right now.
It doesn't, you dumbass. The buildings (what to chose and when to build) are decisive when playing with someone who knows what he's doing.

Got the Borg expansion recently. Tried playing it, but it didnt quite feel right based on how I interpeted the rule book. Since Borg ships cant move through other player ships, and initiates combat before it moves, isn’t it just possible to safely block/delay the Borg ship by moving at impulse away from it one spacelane at a time?

The head SA guy really isn't interested in doing TI4.
And yeah, I'd rather be doing TI3:SA, all things considered, but the guys playing voted to do TI4 over helping me update TI3 to SA and then playing that.

>Refined politics.
Streamlined maybe but not refined. The TI4 system has some issues I'm not happy about.

So I'm new to board games. I've played the usual ones, of course -- Monopoly, Clue, Sorry!, and so on.

As for "growed up" board games, I've only played a couple: Munchkin, Pandemic, Arkham Horror, and a couple games of Ticket to Ride. I liked most of them, except that Pandemic felt like it was too easy when we were playing even a little seriously.

So first, what's the deal with Eurogames? How seriously should I be looking at them?

Second, uh... like, what's good?

There are so many dungeon crawlers, but which one would you guys suggest... that's not Gloomhaven ($264 on Amazon. It can wait.).

Zombicide Regular/Black Plague
Brimstone
The Others
Conan
Space Cadets
S&S
Mice and Mystics
Descent
etc
etc
etc
The list just keeps growing.

Mechanics/depth/fun > Theme

My personal experience with crawlers is Heroquest and Mutant Chronicles Siege of the Citadel (not really a crawler).

Need an intro worker placement? Get Stone Age. The dice keep this from being completely stale. Also don't listen to the starvation strategy hate, it can be defeated.

Is it out of print or something?

Depend on what he likes

>Hanabi
Quick little card game for 2 to 5 players with no theme. Revolve aroubd limited information and communication.

>Aeon's End
Deck-builder for 1 to 4 (best with 2 or 3) with smart mecanics to mitigate random card drawn and tough boss to fight.

>Sherlock Holmes: Counsulting detective
Playable at any player count (but I don't think it's wise to play with more than 6). It's like a book where you are the hero where you have to race Sherlock and find the murderer with less clues than him.

>Zombicide
Plastic pusher and dice chucker but hey! If that's his thing...

You can look at Robinson Crusoe too but I didn't play it. There is also the "escape room" type games but I'm not thrilled by them.

Oh and you should look at Pandemic Legacy. I know it hated here but you get your money worth of game if that's what you're afraid of.

Depends on a lot my firend. What type of game do you enjoy. What is your normal gaming group size? Does theme matter?

Default recommend castles of burgundy which you can get for about 25 USD now and then on Amazon, if not cheaper

>what’s the deal with Euro games?
Do you like building an economic engine? Trading? Calculating efficient routes to victory? Then you should take a look at Euro games.

>What’s good?
Depends on what you like. There’s a fuckton of variety in the marketplace now, so you can find something that matches your tastes.

user's not wrong. Even though it's not an economy engine builder, It's a game about points and can be reduced to stats, mathed out and theorycrafted to maximise the points-per-turn output. There will always be a more efficient action to take compared to others.

>worker placement isn't a real thing
This entire post was shameful, but that quote was just sad.