Recently played a few rounds of
Archipelago with some friends.
I like the setting/idea of the game, but must admit it didn't feel balanced. After the first game everyone tried to get a 2 stone tile and spam churches to avoid crisis effects, removing most of the cooperative aspect of the game. I guess they are not as powerful if you play more aggressively and force others to build cities, so maybe it was just group think.
I also didn't like how the end game conditions were tied up with the win conditions. I think it would be better if they were on two different cards to make that aspect a bit more random - after the 3rd game we already knew what end condition was tied to what score goal, so we were able to deduce some player's combination rather quickly. Also the end conditions felt imbalanced. Games with "X churches" were usually over around turn 3-4, while the very first game had something "X cities", "empty bank" and "3 empty ressources" and thus lasted FOREVER.
Still, the overall feel as you explore and develope the board is quite nice, so we will probably play it again regardless of the things mentioned above.
I also played a few games of
Netrunner.
First I was a bit disappointed that I lost as Corp three times in a row - then we noticed we had overlooked a rule (we didn't use the "if the runner can't discard cards he is dead" thing
). After we "fixed" that the game turned into a giant match of bluffing, lying and daring hacking attempts. I think the balance of the cards isn't perfect - a lot of them seem very situational and some are clearly better than others, more or less must-have includes in any deck - but since there is a limit of how many non-faction cards you can include, I guess it is fine.
Strong theme, decent deck building even with the base game, but I guess it will get REALLY good if you buy the expansions. The LOTR game basicially had the same issue - base game was okay-ish, but once you had more cards the amount of viable decks incrased A LOT. So I can certainly recommend both games.
Race for the Galaxy is basically a 4-player, scifi-verison of 7 Wonders, where placing the cards on the desk plays a role (you place them in squares, some need energy and need to be next to a power reactor, some get bonuses, if other cards are around, etc.).
Plays pretty nice, but might need a bit more diversity, not sure.
Squares? Energy? Reactors? Did you play with that Alien Artifact expansion that has that mini dungeon?
As for diversity: If you like the game, getting the first two expansions is a very good idea. The first one shifts the focus away from the basic "produce/consume x2" strategy, while the second one makes ALL the strategies viable (even stuff like exploration, Gene worlds or Uplift focused ones). It also reduces the randomness factor at the start of the game by allowing you to choose between two starting worlds after you have drawn your starting hand. Very neat.
Kingdom builder is...no idea. You try to build/expand an area of your houses on a hex map, but before each round you draw a card, which tells you on which type of ground (farm land, hills, canyons, etc.) you can build (which is spread over the map). Additionally there are some "objectives" per game, e.g. more points for building next to mountains, and similar things.
Place good as well. Maybe not the most imersive though.
Kingdom builder felt really odd to me.
The gameplay is based purely on geometry and the rules have no connection to the theme whatsoever. To be frank, I think that game would work much better as a purely abstract experience where you just had different colors instead of terrain. As it was, I always had that nagging feeling of "no, that is SO wrong" while playing the game. But maybe that's just because I studied geography...
Anyway, the game did also feel rather simplistic to me. Not necessarily a bad thing, since Dominion wasn't a very complex game either. But it felt like it had a lot more randomness and strategy involved. I don't think we have playedKingdom Builder ever since.
, but I like the mechanics 
.
