What boardgames did you just play?

Snerk said:

I think I really want the Cyclades expansion Titans, looks awesome. But my group plays so infrequently so I can't really justify spending money on new board game when there's a few games laying around we've barely touched. Notably Istanbul, Escape, Elder Sign and Carcassonne (I've actually only played carcassonne once)

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Istanbul and Carcassonne are both pretty good, although the latter is quite casual.

I like Carcassonne, especially as you can explain the basic game to someone in about one minute flat.

This week, I played three games of Ticket to Ride: Europe. I lost all three, one time by just one point.

I think thats one of the key selling points of Carcassone that its a simple game and yet gives the players plenty of choice in where to move. Its also reasonably short whilst the games I've played have been reasonably close. The game today effectively came down to one card right near the end. One player did get lapped though which isn't great.

Played 7 Wonders for the first time today and its turned into one of my favourite board games. I think the key thing for me is that you can interfere with each other's plans but you can't outright block them due to the numerous ways of winning. All four games we played ended up being so close that it was difficult to tell who had won with the last one having all three players split by a couple of points. Given how many different routes there are to get points it seems like it would be rare for someone to know they had lost early on. I also like its a short game so its easy to play it several times.

Also played Agricola for the first time. I wasn't so keen on this one as it seemed a lot harder to pick up and work out what I should be doing. By about a third of the game it was clear I had lost which isn't great when its a moderately lengthy game. I guess it didn't help that I was playing two people who had played it before and I think a second game might go better.

7 Wonders is amazing because it doesn't have an explicit catch-up mechanic, but given how you can bury good cards for other people and the card strengths scale pretty well through the three Ages, it usually feels like you are in the mix.

I think that 3- or 4-player games of 7 Wonders are best, because then you're playing with everyone at the table. Five or more seems really too disparate for my tastes.

Arakhor said:

I think that 3- or 4-player games of 7 Wonders are best, because then you're playing with everyone at the table. Five or more seems really too disparate for my tastes.

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With more people it feels like you are playing a game with the 3-4 people on your left and on your right and you're not really paying attention to what's going on at the other side of the table. Still, it's brilliant that the game works so well with more people.

I do think the game gets a bit more intentionally cut-throat with 3 players because there are not replicas of any cards (so i.e. if you are Gizah, you need to make sure nobody buries the double-stone brown card to screw you on wonder building), and stuff like the red game becomes very zero-sum. If you invest heavily in military in a 5-player game, a more distant player can still beat you with a solid green/blue game. But in 3-player, red/green is an even more powerful combo.

Small World 2

Before that, Ticket to Ride but it gets old after 100+ hours. I haven't tried the new Nordic map though.

Tried to get into Hive but it doesn't have tooltip so it's a bit hard to remember the rules and learn the game.

Pathfinders adventures on Android
Pretty nice combination of RPG and Dominion.

Prosperity

A nice concept, but sadly it is a bit too much of a "puzzle game" for my taste. No real player interaction either.

This is slightly outside the scope of this thread, but I finally took the plunge and signed up for the Kickstarter to Anachrony. It's an intense worker placement game with cool depth and theme. The Kickstarter ends tomorrow, so if you like deep and complex games you should take a look. There are some cool videos on youtube for it.

At £40 a go, plus P&P, I think I'd rather wait until it arrives in this country.

Played some more Dominion this week, as well as some Drakon, a silly little dungeon game where you lay tiles and moving your dude onto them to activate shenanigans. I had almost forgotten how fun Dominion actually is! The randomized kingdoms really do make it replayable. It hooked one new guy into boardgames.

So yeah, thread. It's been a while.

Captain Sonar is a hoot and will challenge your communication skills in a good way. Real time Battleship, only it actually nails The Hunt for Red October.

Splendor is, well, splendid. Think of it as a remix of Ticket to Ride--the gin rummy mechanic is still there, with the points you win actually serving to help the game go faster. The randomized objective cards also help to keep your brain sufficiently toasted as you figure out what your opponents are up to.

Fortune and Glory is...okay. It's part of that Arkham Horror genre of "move your guy, roll the dice to see if anything happened". Not really for me but I'll play it if people really want to.

Sheriff of Nottingham is fantastic and hilarious. "Hey! You weren't even trying to smuggle anything!"

We got through the first third of Blood Rage before having to stop. Like a co-player said, it really is saved by the card mechanics. The limited mana pool for the cards makes it a really tight game.

Oh yeah, and we were playing at a brewery all day yesterday.

Played Ticket to Ride for the first time yesterday. Very accessible and fun for everybody, and there's certainly an element of real strategy involved. But also get's samey and a little dull.

Also played a magnetic levitation jenga-type game that was pretty cool. Pretty short though as it doesn't allow for tall constructions of any kind.

Blood Rage might be a little underbalanced on some cards but perhaps that's mitigated with experience. It's hilarious how often a huge Yggsdrasil fight can just wipe out all units leaving no winner. I can see this becoming an exceedingly tight and gritty slugfest when everyone knows the cards backward and forward...which is possible! I'm not going to say no to this game. We had a come from behind Third Age victory when he played an upgrade that doubled all quest points for himself...like I said, possibly a little underbalanced but this might quell SUSD's chief complaint.

Alas, our playthrough of Rex was aborted by our too-quick player who deployed units in three fortress spaces unopposed. Really?

Cyclades is every bit the classic I thought it was going to be. Basing the win condition on dynamic actions instead of another victory point race means the game goes as long as the number of players who are awake. No one's going to let you get away with buying four Philosopher cards if they can help it, for example. In our game, my brother built a metropolis under everyone's noses--suddenly, the game became more tense and swingy, like a good football game. Two more players built their cities, a few battles were fought, and someone won only because I biffed it and missed the city he was about to finish. This could have been avoided if I bid for my god by one less coin! There's a very organic co-op feel that develops as players pile up against more developed opponents. I found myself getting a breath of air once the game snapped to a finish. All this in addition to the ridiculous back and forth fun that is bidding for gods. Must play again.

Only got through a little bit of Kemet before heading out. The goofy Egypt-punk theme lends itself well to the urgent pace set by placing victory points all over the place, particularly by just bull-rushing your opponents. You can defeat your opponent while taking more blows and you can recall all your troops regardless of battle outcome, so you get a lot of scenes that would fit well in a GI Joe/Transformers cartoon. "We'll be baaaaaaack," hisses Megatron Sobek, "Return to my siiiide, miiiinnniiioonnsss!!" Matagot could have just gone with another God of War theme like for Cyclades but they really went over the wall into a really crazy, creative space for this game. The mechanics and the theme are of a piece.

I like playing Pandemic.

I would so love to play this: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/409329472/defense-grid-the-board-game/description

But I don't know anyone who plays board games and it's kind of out of my budget right now.

I just picked up Xiang Qi in Taiwan.
Apparently this Chinese chess is the most played board game in the world.

There are different variances, the 'closed' one being more simple, and the real 'open' one is more complex.

But both very much fun.
I wonder how many people in the west know/play it.

The Game of Thrones LCG is quite good and still friendly to newcomers two cycles in.

Theov said:

I wonder how many people in the west know/play it.

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I have not heard of this! I'll have to do some research now.