/bgg/ - Board Game General - Expansion Edition

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What are some essential expansions that make the base game so much better or even unplayable without it? What are your favorite expansions?

Is oh my goods any good?

I may have too many space games on my wishlist. I really need to start filtering.

There are no expansions that make the base game better. Except for games like MtG and such.

here you go, now there are three empty spots on your wishlist

Noooo! Stop it! I already presented only the space games from the list. All you did is add another one!

I agree in general but Kemet and Mage Knight both have amazing expacs.

Alien Frontiers is easily the best game on here. Period.

Drop TI4 from your list unless you play board games with people weekly and you all like long games that aren't deeper than shorter games.

TI's playtime is 1-2 hours PER PLAYER and the high level gameplay turns it into a shit version of cosmic encounter.

Alien Artifacts is garbage and the only reason you should buy it instead of literally any other tableau builder is because the space theme means that much to you.

TtR's 1910 expansion makes the base game better, just for doing away with the fucking mini euro cards.

>he doesn't know about Cyclades: Titans

more factory boards for roborally, checkmate atheist

no I made more space.

get it

>want to play big sprawling modular board games
>most cost-effective to do that is to find board games which have good expacs
>realize you catch more flies with vinegar than honey
Bravo, user.

>Alien Frontiers is easily the best game on here.

Shouldn't that be "realize you'll troll more flies with vinegar than honey"

TI4 is literally the best game on his wish-list.

If you have any IRL friends who enjoy RTS or grand straregy pc games, get it. They will fall in love with it.

No they won't because the game takes 90 minutes per player to play and doesn't have any actual combat in it (one of the group brings up that it's not a game about combat).

Out of a group of 10 people only 2 ever want to play it, the other 8 (including me) refuse to play it period.

I rather play 3-4 games of kemet in the time it takes to play one TI4 game. I rather play Wallenstein than TI4. I rather play almost any board game ever made than TI4.

I was GM in SC2, I grew up playing RTS games, we all grew up with civ2 or civ3 (lanning it and shit) and only two of us can stomach TI4. It has glaring balance problems, random universe generation (haha hope you looked up online that everyone house rules that part), and is largely unoptimized.

The only guy who defends it and maintains that it's good is the guy who bought it, everyone else agrees that you can get the exact same gameplay feelings in much shorter games.

The kick in the teeth is the fucker bought TI3 last year shortly before TI4 was announced. He still bought TI4 (managed to sell TI3 to a retard) because twilight imperium is a shit game that appeals to a very small niche of gamers who refuse to try other games.

Don't give me that shit that it's "an event game" and you need to plan a weekend around it. It's a poorly designed board game which leaves you better off either: Playing a grand strategy video game, or playing a board game that gives you the same flavors of gameplay in a shorter time frame.

There's better teching in other games, better fighting in other games, better diplomacy in other games. Kemet is the big one which jumps to mind because right from turn 1 Kemet slaps you in the face and you're fighting everyone at the table for research, map control, and actually fighting in battles. None of this risk australia shit where you don't have contact with other players.

Looking for a euro game set around the middle ages in europe. decent player interaction, not TOO heavy, and certainly not worker placement (i have some games with that mechanism). What are some suggestions? I am eyeing castles of burgundy, glen more, isle of skye, Colosseum.

>What are some essential expansions that make the base game so much better or even unplayable without it? What are your favorite expansions?
Cant think of any but the scoundrels of skullport expansion makes lords of waterdeep a much more "thematic" game. In the sense of being evil at a price.

>What are some essential expansions that make the base game so much better or even unplayable without it?

Catan was originally developed as seafarers of catan, it was the publisher who cut it out into an expansion.

That's why the resource value in base game Catan is so fucked and why sheep get much more valuable in seafarers. The game was designed with boats in mind.

samefag, curious if Hansa Teutonica is solid.

finally updated

rape my shit

If you could only have one deckbuilder, what would it be?

Tanto Cuore. It's just plain better than Dominion, a straight upgrade. So the theme's not for everybody, I don't care, it's the best fixed-array deckbuilder. Sad to lose Valley of the Kings though.

>rummikub, skip-bo, uno, upwords
I hope those were gifts/10
>chupacabra
my shilling works/10
>51st master set, af, broom service, SoA
You're doing just fine user

>51st state
thanks for beta testing imperial setlers

>7 wonders
memed into buying it by reddit and reviewers congrats

>card wars
children's cartoon trash, thanks for supporting capitalism

>arctic scavengers
surprisingly solid for what's on the rest of your list

>die burgen von burgund
An actual gem

>century spice road
FoTM garbage which fell off so hard I can't believe you actually bought it

>clank x2
ahahahaha

>conan
kickshitter

>dominant species + evolution
surprising desu

>fairytale
Did you know that BLOOD RAGE TM by ERIC LANG has drafting in it?

>Fluxx
Nothing I can say about this will embarrass you more than you actually owning fluxx

>Forbidden Island
Cute to see you didn't buy Forbidden Desert, I'm assuming you're playing this with a mentally handicapped child which is why you didn't get Desert

>Galaxy Trucker
I love this game, it's a euro game disguised as ameritrash except the score card is always random and usually makes you feel like a retard. Love it.

>innovation
ugly game, dropped off really hard, I like the splay mechanism but the game itself has major balance problems

>sons of anarchy
what the fuck user

>roll for the galaxy
another solid game in a sea of literal shit

>sushi go
see what I wrote for fairy tale

I started this post as a joke but most of what you won is actual trash

How's Nefarious? The theme seems fun but the gameplay I wasn't totally sold on and there was just nobody talking about it.

Sorry your friends suck so much, I play TI dozens of times a year. Be less of a cunt and maybe people will want to spend time with you.

>I play TI dozens of times a year.
I bet your favorite breakfast is oatmeal with nothing added and a slice of toast with no toppings

What is that even supposed to mean?

>>sons of anarchy
>what the fuck user
It receives a massive amount of (not unjustified) shilling on this thread.

So you're the kind of person who plays every game she buys once and never again?

>game she buys

redditor spotted

heart of crown > tanto

>consumerist
>doesn't replay things so doesn't try to learn strategy
>spouting snarky replies instead of real conversation
It's glaringly obvious your body contains more estrogen than test.

I replay the good games until the cardboard wears out and I have to get a second copy

I'm just smart enough not to justify buying garbage by playing it dozens of times a year.

I'm smart enough not to buy garbage to begin with but apparently you're not quite at that stage yet. Maybe when you learn a bit more about board games you'll be able to dodge the stinkers

Haven't played that one, I'll have to check it out.

This entire posts reads like it was written by an angsty 12 year old. I play the game dozens of time a year because it's fun. Sorry your life is so sad that you've forgotten what it's like to get together with friends and do things you all enjoy. Maybe someday you'll get those good feelings back. I'll pray for you, user. Until you do, try not to judge those of us enjoying our time alive too harshly, ok?

>all my opinions are fact

You are in no position to claim that you are smart or mature. Fuck off boy.

...

So how we doin'? I'm trying to think if we've gotten anything since these pics, but I think it was all expansions. My buddy has Rising Sun on the way.

I heard Thunderstone is supposed to be a deck building game with a board. Is this accurate and if so how is the board implemented?

>original box Rampage
How's your board, any warpage?

Oh, Terraforming Mars. We've gotten that since then.

iirc its a deck builder on a mat... but i only played it once (fyi not the poster of the pic)

its implemented pretty darn well.

There's a board, but it just shows where to put stacks of cards. When you turn out the monsters, it does matter what order they're in for the purpose of how much light there is to fight them, so it helps with that.

You know, I haven't checked in a bit. Last time I did, there wasn't any, but some other games like Betrayal with cardboard pieces are damn near unplayable because of it.

What kind of estrogen riddled sub-human doesn't have twilight imperium. Fuck off boy.

And these pics don't include the shelves of shame where we banished games we didn't like. Like Kingdom of Loathing's Mr. Card Game. Though we did keep the useful meat tokens from it.

Simply hasn't been acquired yet. Me and the guy whose place this is, we own most of these games, and we're really the only ones that like the big space strategy games. Only reason I own Eclipse is because I worked at Barnes and Noble and I hid it during a clearance sale and bought it for two dollars.

...

Figured I'd ask, I heard horror stories that original printing had a lot of warping copies; been debating buying one on the secondary market but don't want to get burned on it. ANA will replace some stuff, but that's pretty far back to get a new board.

It was actually fun as hell. I instantly bought it after a few back to back 3 player games.

It's got a weird little mechanic where you get money for choosing the thing you're on, so there is some guesstimation of what your opponents are doing next.

After that it would just be a little point buying game race to 20 points thing, except for the "Twists".

The twist cards are what really makes it because you really have to change your game and think about how they affect things. All the twist cards we played with really changed it and they are what made it fun as hell-
>Yes, 9 coins and now... ahh I have to discard down to 5.

I'm kind of banking on not having seen three really great variants combos out of a bunch of mediocre possibilities, and I have yet to get it on the table myself. I'll put it in my bag for tomorrow night and give you some more feedback when possible.

I bet your fat.

My wishlist is a lot cooler

>trolling
>puts unearth on there

I mean it's not GOTY but it's not star realms

Know how I know you're not GM in Starcraft?
You like Kemet.
Kemet is the Eurogamer's low-test version of a wargame.
It's for wargames what SUSD is for reviews, full of dumb safeguards so nobodies feefees get hurt because they were eliminated or gets bored because god forbid you pay attention to anything for longer than 10 minutes or actually have to plan ahead or ever feel unfairly treated.

confirmed your friends are shit at strategy

I, for one, enjoy going to my friend's house to spend hours watching others play games I've been eliminated from, and nothing makes me happier than feeling like they're going out of their way to treat me unfairly.

Oh, wait. I don't have the weirdest fetish ever.

>I, for one, enjoy going to my friend's house to spend hours watching others play games I've been eliminated from, and nothing makes me happier than feeling like they're going out of their way to treat me unfairly.
We'll play diplomacy, you can play france

So as a kid I loved what little of boardgames I knew.

I love strategy video games and things like that, I play DnD, I have shelves full of novels.

I love the feel of cardboard and playing with people at a table.
By any metric I should love boardgames, but every game I look at just seems fucking terrible.

Either the game is just a shoddy dressing over what amounts to you mindlessly executing the engine you figured out once (if your game gets boring by looking up strategies, it's a bad game) or they are choked up with random events to gloss over the lack of mechanics that allow interaction.

Where's the spiritual successors to Diplomacy? Where are the games that are actually about outwitting your enemies and not about autistically scrounging together the most victory points?

People like you, thin-skinned with an inferiority complex, are the reason games suck.

Instead of (poorly) talking shit, why don't you explain what it is that you get out of playing long-ass games where one player might be eliminated really early that you can't get out of games designed to avoid that?

Unless there is actually some amount of joy that comes directly from a player being eliminated early and then having nothing to do for hours. Is there? And if so, what is it? I'm genuinely asking.

here.
To be clear, I'm not that user and I've never even played Kemet.

>Where's the spiritual successors to Diplomacy? Where are the games that are actually about outwitting your enemies and not about autistically scrounging together the most victory points?

Kemet, Wallenstein, Blood Rage, El Grande, also depends by what you want out of diplomacy, if you want to stab your friends in the back there's hundreds of games like that.

Black Gold, Las Vegas, Chinatown, Airlines Europe are all about money management where you can outplay your opponents.

Something like Nexus Ops which is basically an RTS in a box or Empires: Age of Discovery which is a worker placement game in the vein of Age of Empires (it was originally an official age of empires product but was renamed for the second printing due to license issues)

>blood rage

>Instead of (poorly) talking shit, why don't you explain what it is that you get out of playing long-ass games where one player might be eliminated really early that you can't get out of games designed to avoid that?
The handholding limits design. When players need to be unkillable, many win conditions aren't viable and games become much less cut-throat

>Unless there is actually some amount of joy that comes directly from a player being eliminated early and then having nothing to do for hours. Is there? And if so, what is it? I'm genuinely asking.
Do you know what social interaction is? Do you just not talk to people other than ingame talk?

>Kemet, Wallenstein, Blood Rage, El Grande
All garbage, thanks for making my point

>Black Gold, Las Vegas, Chinatown, Airlines Europe
Neat, more autistic engines that are solved after some basic maths!

>All garbage, thanks for making my point

low quality bait my friend

>The handholding limits design. When players need to be unkillable, many win conditions aren't viable and games become much less cut-throat
That's pretty fair, actually.

I still find it unenjoyable to have someone lose quickly in a game that will go on for another three hours. I have no problem with games like that existing, though I am a bit confused about your seeming hostility to there being any games where that ISN'T the case.

>Do you know what social interaction is? Do you just not talk to people other than ingame talk?
I love interacting socially. If I'm not actually playing, though, then I'm either watching a game in which I have no personal investment, standing around doing nothing part of the time while they're playing, or being a jackass and distracting everyone from the game by trying to carry on a conversation the whole time. None of these are especially ideal.

This is mitigated a bit once the second person is eliminated, to be fair, since another game can be started or at least the two can hang out and have a conversation that doesn't start-and-stop while one plays and the other, I dunno, jerks off or something.

...

It's not bait. None of them comes close to being as good or as deep as Diplomacy, despite having 5 times the rules.

Kemet is Risk for people with even less patience, Wallenstein isn't even deterministic, >Blood Rage, and El Grande is another autistic points collector in disguise.

>your seeming hostility to there being any games where that ISN'T the case
Because there aren't any modern games that are not like that.
Literally the most recent game that actually looked like it didn't pull its punches is Kingdom Death and that's a fucking co-op.

>I love interacting socially. If I'm not actually playing, though, then I'm either watching a game in which I have no personal investment, standing around doing nothing part of the time while they're playing, or being a jackass and distracting everyone from the game by trying to carry on a conversation the whole time. None of these are especially ideal.
That sounds terrible, user. Are you or the people in your group legit on the spectrum?

>None of them comes close to being as good or as deep as Diplomacy,
here's your (you)

>Oh boy rushing white tech to victory sure is a greatstrat, cool I figured that out man I'm smart. Thank god I don't have to account for my enemies because that would upset my 'tism!

I played Diplomacy for the first time recently. I'd owned it for a long time but never had the chance to play.

I had this friend, we'll call him Greg, who'd been having trouble with his girlfriend lately. I won't go into the details, but things were rocky, and I suggested a game night as something to cheer him up.

It was going fine for a while. Well, better than fine. We'd forged an alliance and were doing quite well for ourselves. I saw him smile for the first time in well over a week and I knew I had him in the palm of my hand.

It was less than fifteen minutes later that I betrayed him. He didn't even look upset at first... just confused. When he did realize what was going on, he was pretty upset, but when he started to show it, I shamed him into continuing to play, and ensured that he was never totally out of the game but was in a shitty spot for the rest of the night.

Two days later, he called me crying. He'd had a fight with his girlfriend the morning after our game night, and she'd just called him to break up. I consoled him and told him how sorry I was, and when we hung up, I called her.

I said I'd heard about the breakup and wanted to make sure she was alright. Invited her out to dinner, suggesting that getting some fresh air might be good for her.

After dinner, I hugged her, and she cried into my shoulder. And when I tried to kiss her, to become her rebound, she kissed me back.

I was a very giving lover. I didn't even get off that night. But I made sure she enjoyed it. I needed her to, for the next part of my plan to work.

(cont'd...)

I am but a wanderer in these parts but I wondered friend if you might take a moment and tell me of the ways of your land, specifically I am curious about these things I see called b a t t l e . s h e e p , from whence they came and how doth these fare upon the stump one treed?

(part 2/2)
I "accidentally" let slip to a mutual acquaintance that I'd had sex with his (now-ex-) girlfriend, and pretty soon he was blowing up both our phones.

I convinced her that she didn't owe him an explanation, and neither of us picked up, nor did we answer when he came banging on our doors.

Several days later, he tried to take his own life. I went to him, apologizing, saying that I'd only meant to comfort her, but I'd drank too much when we met for dinner, and... well, I was sorry.

I convinced him to check himself into a mental hospital, for his own safety.

My girlfriend and I hope he gets the help he needs.

This is Diplomacy, and, well, if you think that's unfair, you're a fucking casual.

...

kek'ed

>make believe gf doesn't play Diplomacy
>calls other people "casuals"

Battlesheep is an abstract area control game where the objective of the game is to ruthlessly murder your opponent's sheep by trapping them in small sections of the board.

Every player has a stack of nice thick plastic coins with cute looking sheep on them. On your turn you take any number of sheep off your stack (leaving at least one behind) and move them as far as you can in a straight line (hex based tiles).

Through taking % of your stacks you aim to claim as many hexes as possible.

It's a very simple abstract, virtually no theme, components are nice and chunky, you might have printing problems on the sheep graphics.

It's certainly an enjoyable little game if you have the right players for it.

>Opponents are incapable of reacting to you rushing white
Are you playing against preschoolers?

when is the reprint of fury of dracula?

Someone recommend me some PC versions of board games that I can play against an AI?

(I want to play with an AI because I'm going to play while I'm doing other things so I don't want a move timer or to make anyone wait all day for me.)

Twilight Struggle.

Why not turn based video games?

Also, there's lots of scripted board games on websites

I don't find the AI good to play against, it DEFCON suicides often, coups pretty much every time it can and rarely uses events.

are you me

Reprint? Never.
New edition? Probably later this year, but we don't know anything much beyond that it is happening.

you should have just said "mid 2018 is when the wizkids reprints start coming out so sometime after then and they haven't said anything else"

>Why not turn based video games?
Because I'm trying to expand my knowledge of video games as well as having some fun.

*my knowledge of board games as well as

Dominant Species.

>Alien Frontiers is best game on list
You’re a mongoloid.

>Cosmic Encounter is better than TI4
You’re a mega mongoloid

To much ameritrash/10
Work some more euros into your collection.

Rate my collection nerds.

Same boring collection as the last 3 or 4 threads/10.

This isn't actually as much as it seems like.

Your standards are impossibly high since I bought 4 news games this Month. Cleopatra, captain sonar, stroop and islebound. Let's see your collection shelflet.

I'm and I'm seconding

In his recent "top ten gateway games" video, Rahdo suggested "This War of Mine: The Board Game" as something that could show more of what board games could do, where players might feel the weight of in-game ethical decisions and make sub-optimal choices to avoid leaving someone behind, etc.

Is this an accurate assessment? Is the game that good?

What other games would you suggest that really explore what a board game can be?