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Morrigan
Crone of War

Joined: Sat Aug 10, 2002 7:27 am
Posts: 10528
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Sat Jan 09, 2016 5:18 pm 
 

Isn't Elder Sign the one where the gameplay is just lame dice rolls? I hated that one.
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Von Cichlid wrote:
I work with plenty of Oriental and Indian persons and we get along pretty good, and some females as well.

Markeri, in 2013 wrote:
a fairly agreed upon date [of the beginning of metal] is 1969. Metal is almost 25 years old

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CrushedRevelation
Devil's right hand

Joined: Sat Nov 12, 2005 8:47 am
Posts: 6070
Location: The cavern's core
PostPosted: Sat Jan 09, 2016 7:32 pm 
 

Morrigan wrote:
Isn't Elder Sign the one where the gameplay is just lame dice rolls? I hated that one.


That's the one yeah. It is like Arkham Horror lite, but it's still loads of fun. What didn't you like about it?
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Morrigan
Crone of War

Joined: Sat Aug 10, 2002 7:27 am
Posts: 10528
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Sat Jan 09, 2016 7:37 pm 
 

It wasn't fun at all. It was just about dice rolls and very little about planning, strategy or anything like that. And the flavour texts were just boring.
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Von Cichlid wrote:
I work with plenty of Oriental and Indian persons and we get along pretty good, and some females as well.

Markeri, in 2013 wrote:
a fairly agreed upon date [of the beginning of metal] is 1969. Metal is almost 25 years old

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CrushedRevelation
Devil's right hand

Joined: Sat Nov 12, 2005 8:47 am
Posts: 6070
Location: The cavern's core
PostPosted: Sat Jan 09, 2016 7:54 pm 
 

Fair enough. I had only played Elder Sign before Arkham, and if I'm honest, I would rather spend a whole evening with Arkham Horror, as it is more complex and challenging, but when it's just the two of us at home, Elder Sign's quick and less complex nature will keep us entertained :)

Hopefully more Saturday nights will be spent playing Arkham in the future.
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Napero
GedankenPanzer

Joined: Sun Jan 02, 2005 4:16 pm
Posts: 8817
Location: Finland
PostPosted: Sun Jan 10, 2016 2:40 pm 
 

I intend to get the folks from quarter of a century back to play a game of the original Illuminati before the end of January. It's the number one friendship killer game ever. And no, I do not mean the collectible card game, but the real thing.
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failsafeman
Digital Dictator

Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 8:45 am
Posts: 11852
Location: In the Arena
PostPosted: Sun Jan 10, 2016 4:08 pm 
 

You mean actually joining the organization that has been secretly controlling all the world governments for centuries? Can I play too?
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So the winner is Destruction and Infernal Overkill is the motherfucking skullcrushing poserkilling satan-worshiping 666 FUCK YOU greatest german thrash record.

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Wilytank
Not a Flying Toy

Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2009 7:21 am
Posts: 5861
Location: 717
PostPosted: Mon Jan 11, 2016 12:18 am 
 

Playtested a Quartermaster General expansion. Never played the game at all, but it's pretty fun so long as you're not the faction that got their resources fucked early game and can't recover. Much shorter than Axis and Allies though.
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Grave_Wyrm
Metal Sloth

Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2012 5:55 pm
Posts: 3928
PostPosted: Wed Jan 13, 2016 11:23 am 
 

Morrigan wrote:
Isn't Elder Sign the one where the gameplay is just lame dice rolls? I hated that one.

Yes. I don't happen to mind that aspect, but yeah. I guess it's more fun when you think about the results as narrative and a running out of time to accomplish an "adventure" (really more a minor task); like .. in the Alien Autopsy I found something horrible and I investigated it. My exertions taxed my sanity. During the autopsy some part of it created peril and I had to either figure it out or get harmed and made less sane. That definitely helps vs "well shit, didn't get enough magnifying glasses. And I got a tentacle thing which means I lose one blue." Also, it worked as a decent group game because of the mounting anticipation, but I can see the dice rolling aspect staling. Far more silly to me than the dice mechanic is the detail that in the story of the game you have to leave the museum during business hours. The mad scramble to refute the appearence of tremendous beings must respect the business day!

Anyone played Blood Rage? Looks promising.
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PhilosophicalFrog
The Hypercube

Joined: Thu May 04, 2006 7:08 pm
Posts: 7631
Location: United States
PostPosted: Wed Jan 13, 2016 12:23 pm 
 

^ Blood Rage looks super rad!

One of my friends bought Space Hulk for the incredible price of 60 bucks, and we just played it last night for his birthday. Oh man, what a tense game! Cramped terminators hunting down artifacts and Tyranid abominations search for our exposed throats....took about an hour and a half moving slowly and figuring things out. Made me want to pick up some other 40k games. Anyone played Relic, or Death Angel? I would play the actual miniatures, but I'm the only one who plays around here :(

Hard to convince the lady to play a four hour tabletop battle game...
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HellBlazer
Metalhead

Joined: Sat Aug 10, 2002 6:48 am
Posts: 2119
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Wed Jan 13, 2016 5:27 pm 
 

PhilosophicalFrog wrote:
Anyone played Relic, or Death Angel?


If you mean "Space Hulk: Death Angel: The Card Game" (this), don't bother. It's pretty crappy. It's a rather basic game, with very limited strategic options, and just... not really fun.

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Grave_Wyrm
Metal Sloth

Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2012 5:55 pm
Posts: 3928
PostPosted: Thu Jan 14, 2016 11:22 am 
 

What are your favorites these days, HB?
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newp
Veteran

Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2008 2:07 pm
Posts: 2697
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Sat Jan 16, 2016 2:52 am 
 

Grave_Wyrm wrote:
I had the good fortune to be introduced to Rebel Assault before Ep VII came out. Looking forward to playing that again.

Did you play a skirmish or try out the campaign? The campaign is pretty neat and a decent bit of Star Wars themed tactical combat fun (the game is based off of Descent for anyone who's played that, with a similar campaign system- asymmetrical 1 player v 4 player game with about 10-12 sessions and various events and rewards based on who wins each mission). Somewhat unfortunately in my group the Rebels steamrolled the Imperial player, after about halfway through the campaign we had leveled up and bought so much sweet gear with our rewards he didn't stand much of a chance. I think they didn't quite nail the balance on it, seems like a number of groups have reported one side or the other running away with it.

I played a few games of Space Alert tonight (or as I call it, "the most stressful game ever invented"). It's actually a really neat game, the players work cooperatively to defend their space ship from alien attacks and other threats. The game unfolds in a series of rounds where each player plays a card face down to denote what task they will attend to that turn as everyone tries to coordinate between what cards they have, where they are in the ship, what needs to be done, etc. The fun/stressful part is that the game is played in real-time with an audio track blaring enemy threats at you, sending new information, disrupting communications (ie no one can talk while it blasts static at you). You do this for however many turns over the 10 minute audio track, playing all your cards face down, and then you resolve all the player and enemy actions and see if you survived or if you failed horribly.

It's... a lot to keep track off. When it all comes together and your team saves the ship it feels like you just built a goddamn swiss watch. But often enough you end up tripping over each other in the turbolift, forgetting you were supposed to charge the laser on round 5 not 6 so now your teammate is firing blanks at the enemy, and then someone forgets to wiggle the mouse on the computer so the lighting system goes out and now the whole plan is fucked but it really isn't your fault because you swear to fucking god Randy said he was going to do it on turn 9!

Just kidding, I don't know anyone named Randy. If the idea of a potentially chaotic, real-time, intensely cooperative game catches your fancy, check out Space Alert!

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metroplex
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2006 1:28 am
Posts: 1030
Location: Peru
PostPosted: Sat Jan 16, 2016 2:00 pm 
 

Just wanted to say that Zombiecide is so much fun with friends and beer.

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Grave_Wyrm
Metal Sloth

Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2012 5:55 pm
Posts: 3928
PostPosted: Sat Jan 16, 2016 3:20 pm 
 

^ not a lie.

Corpsey, I just had a one-off to get my feet wet, and it was fun enough that it looks like I'm going to take a stab at joining a biweekly campaign. Hopefully school doesn't bitch me. :/
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HellBlazer
Metalhead

Joined: Sat Aug 10, 2002 6:48 am
Posts: 2119
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Sat Jan 16, 2016 3:25 pm 
 

Grave_Wyrm wrote:
What are your favorites these days, HB?


Hmm, I guess my favorites haven't changed in quite a while: Dominion and Small World, I would say.

I got a game recently called Alchemists, which seems pretty cool, though we've only played once up to now. It's based on logic puzzles, and determining the alchemical properties of ingredients by doing experiments and taking note of the results. It's played with a mobile app used to scan the ingredient cards, which gives you the results of experiments - since the properties are randomized each game, the app is used to keep track of them without revealing the info to the players. The actual scanning part is a bit finicky, but it's a cool idea. Pretty novel and interesting game overall.

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metroplex
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2006 1:28 am
Posts: 1030
Location: Peru
PostPosted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 1:16 pm 
 

I'm addicted to 7 Wonders and Splendor, both great and easy to learn games that don't take too long to play.

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andersbang
Metalhead

Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2009 9:28 am
Posts: 1069
PostPosted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 1:47 pm 
 

My favorite game is probably Blood Bowl Team Manager which has great replay value. Admittedly, I haven't played -that- many games. Small World and Seven Wonders are great too.

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Grave_Wyrm
Metal Sloth

Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2012 5:55 pm
Posts: 3928
PostPosted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 7:31 pm 
 

HellBlazer wrote:
Hmm, I guess my favorites haven't changed in quite a while: Dominion and Small World, I would say.

Ah rad. Yeah, we have Dominion, but only the base game. I like it a lot, but my girlfriend absolutely destroys me (Smallworld is also one of her favorites, as it happens). She played in college a lot with a devoted couple of hammerers, so she caught on pretty fast to principles I'm just starting to be able to juggle. Also, no expansions yet. Any recommendations for expansions to get and avoid would be welcome, since that game is super fun.

Alchemists sounds interesting. Cool sounding premise, and integration of a phone!? wha!?


PhilosophicalFrog wrote:
Blood Rage looks super rad!

It is! I fucking sucked on my first game, but a friend who came along literally lapped the table on glory points in the final reckoning. It was glorious. He will truly live forever in the golden halls. Really looking forward to playing that more. It's versatile, has some intriguing mechanics, and looks really cool. More importantly it seems like replay value is high. I'll play it a few more times before I decide on whether to purchase. It's pretty likely unless I hit some ceiling of indifference that I can't forsee at this point. It's difficult to imagine getting ambivalent about that game considering the variability of play and what a good group game it is. Plus mini painting. :D
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failsafeman
Digital Dictator

Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 8:45 am
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Location: In the Arena
PostPosted: Mon Jan 18, 2016 9:34 pm 
 

The key to being good at Dominion is just playing it over and over and over, not so much "practice makes perfect" as seeing how all the cards interact with each other. There are a shitload of possible combinations, and knowing which ones work best together is a must when you're starting a new board. Most times it's a rush to get more of the best cards than the others, and if you only got 2 Laboratories or King's Courts or whatever when your opponents each got 4, you're definitely going to lose.
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So the winner is Destruction and Infernal Overkill is the motherfucking skullcrushing poserkilling satan-worshiping 666 FUCK YOU greatest german thrash record.

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Grave_Wyrm
Metal Sloth

Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2012 5:55 pm
Posts: 3928
PostPosted: Tue Jan 19, 2016 2:16 am 
 

Absolutely true, and it's just those principles that she explains to me as I stare morosely at the bullshit deck I've constructed and she's gearing up to truly crush me.
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HellBlazer
Metalhead

Joined: Sat Aug 10, 2002 6:48 am
Posts: 2119
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Tue Jan 19, 2016 3:18 am 
 

Grave_Wyrm wrote:
Any recommendations for expansions to get and avoid would be welcome, since that game is super fun.


I'd say start out with Seaside or Prosperity, lots of cool cards in both of those sets. After that, maybe Intrigue or Hinterlands. The latest one called Adventures seems pretty cool too, but I only played once with those cards up to now. The expansion called Alchemy should probably be avoided, as its main gimmick is that it adds potion cards that are used to pay the cost of certain cards, in addition to coins. It's just a pain to buy and amass potions in addition to regular treasures though, so even though some of the cards they allow you to buy are cool, it's just not really a fun mechanic to add to the game.

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failsafeman
Digital Dictator

Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 8:45 am
Posts: 11852
Location: In the Arena
PostPosted: Tue Jan 19, 2016 6:24 am 
 

I dunno, I always liked Alchemy. Some really insane combo cards in that one, probably the most comb-riffic possibilities short of King's Court. Scrying Pool, Golem, and Alchemist are all amazing.
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So the winner is Destruction and Infernal Overkill is the motherfucking skullcrushing poserkilling satan-worshiping 666 FUCK YOU greatest german thrash record.

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Grave_Wyrm
Metal Sloth

Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2012 5:55 pm
Posts: 3928
PostPosted: Tue Jan 26, 2016 1:22 am 
 

HellBlazer wrote:
Grave_Wyrm wrote:
Any recommendations for expansions to get and avoid would be welcome, since that game is super fun.


I'd say start out with Seaside or Prosperity, lots of cool cards in both of those sets. After that, maybe Intrigue or Hinterlands. The latest one called Adventures seems pretty cool too, but I only played once with those cards up to now. The expansion called Alchemy should probably be avoided, as its main gimmick is that it adds potion cards that are used to pay the cost of certain cards, in addition to coins. It's just a pain to buy and amass potions in addition to regular treasures though, so even though some of the cards they allow you to buy are cool, it's just not really a fun mechanic to add to the game.

Very good. Thanks.

I went into the game shop to buy a puzzle for the breakroom at work (before I saw Hellblazer's post, unfortunately) and asked the cashier if they sold Imperial Assault dice. She said that Fantasy Flight itself was out of stock. It reminded me of that time that the world ran out of Sriracha.
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HellBlazer
Metalhead

Joined: Sat Aug 10, 2002 6:48 am
Posts: 2119
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Tue Jan 26, 2016 2:05 am 
 

Grave_Wyrm wrote:
I went into the game shop to buy a puzzle for the breakroom at work (before I saw Hellblazer's post, unfortunately) and asked the cashier if they sold Imperial Assault dice. She said that Fantasy Flight itself was out of stock. It reminded me of that time that the world ran out of Sriracha.


Looks in stock to me: https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/p ... dice-pack/ ;)

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Grave_Wyrm
Metal Sloth

Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2012 5:55 pm
Posts: 3928
PostPosted: Wed Jan 27, 2016 1:27 am 
 

Well then what the shit was she talking about!? You have set me on the path of rightness.
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HellBlazer
Metalhead

Joined: Sat Aug 10, 2002 6:48 am
Posts: 2119
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Wed Jan 27, 2016 1:42 am 
 

She wanted to keep all the dice for herself!

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Grave_Wyrm
Metal Sloth

Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2012 5:55 pm
Posts: 3928
PostPosted: Wed Jan 27, 2016 1:57 am 
 

I will find her on Amazon and leave a very harsh comment.
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hots_towel
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2013 2:19 am
Posts: 426
Location: United States
PostPosted: Wed Jan 27, 2016 4:49 am 
 

played Pandemic for he first time at a friends house. the game beat us the first 4 times, but damn its fun! and stressful...

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Grave_Wyrm
Metal Sloth

Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2012 5:55 pm
Posts: 3928
PostPosted: Mon Feb 01, 2016 7:04 pm 
 

Got to play a round of Forbidden Stars, the Warhammer 40K area-control game. Would play again. Laying out the order tokens took almost the entire game to get used to. Really odd mechanic and I fucked up plenty. Deck-building + dice = stressful. I really enjoy the (unfortunately limited) realm of 2 player games. I don't know of too many good ones with a 2 player max, but Forbidden Stars is a good one to try on.

Got a look at Robinson Crusoe and have been almost obsessed with it ever since. If that game is anything like as immersive as it looks, I'll be in a dorky sort of heaven. Super awesome that it was designed by an author, and that it plays like a story. Not to mention all the scenarios that make it a remarkably variable game. Almost more appealing than the introduction was the fact that it can apparently be a really good one-player game.


HellBlazer wrote:
She wanted to keep all the dice for herself!

I went back the other day and got the last pack in the store! They will inevitably re-up and steal my glory, but I was well chuffed and immediately went back to work and found the nearest nerd to celebrate with.
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failsafeman
Digital Dictator

Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 8:45 am
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Location: In the Arena
PostPosted: Mon Feb 01, 2016 8:23 pm 
 

Yeah I much prefer either cooperative games, or competitive games with more than 2 players. It gets too competitive I feel when it's just one-on-one, whereas with more than two there's not one winner and one loser left out in the cold, there's one winner and a group of losers who can commiserate. Plus, if one person is more experienced/just plain better, in a chess-type situation that person is just going to paddle the other one barring a lot of randomness in the game like dice rolling or whatever. I can guarantee you that I would absolutely dominate someone who's only played Dominion a few times. I'd beat them 10 out of 10 games, and while it might be a "learning experience" for them, I doubt it would be very fun. Increase the players to 3 or 4 though and even if they are inexperienced, shit's a lot less certain. Also, while this wouldn't work in Dominion, in a game like Risk with more direct attacking capabilities, weaker players will naturally gang up on someone who's been winning a lot, and that will do a lot to even out any skill imbalance.

Basically, two-player competitive games are only fun if you and your opponent are at the same level of skill, which in a group of friends is pretty unlikely.
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OneRodeToAsaBay
Unangeschnallt den Bullen reingefahren

Joined: Sun Mar 16, 2008 5:49 pm
Posts: 2199
PostPosted: Mon Feb 01, 2016 10:32 pm 
 

hots_towel wrote:
played Pandemic for he first time at a friends house. the game beat us the first 4 times, but damn its fun! and stressful...
Only played this a handful of times but I absolutely loved it. I think we lost the first few times until we cottoned on to the best strategy to keep on top of the outbreaks (don't let shit build up, in short). Loved the artwork too--that board really is gorgeous, and not just because I've always loved maps! Will need to play it again soon.

Been trying to set up a Warhammer game for some months now but my only friend who is a giant Warhammer nerd has a 9-month old daughter and moved a half hour away so it's hard to get it going on a weekend when we're all in town and have free time. I keep telling him he should bring his daughter along so we can teach her the basics early but I guess babies have early bedtimes or somethin' lame like that... :grumble:

Other than that, yeah, co-op >>>>>>>> competitive, especially if you're a giant weenie like me. :oh shit:

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Grave_Wyrm
Metal Sloth

Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2012 5:55 pm
Posts: 3928
PostPosted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 12:51 am 
 

I'm tending to like cooperative games more than head to head, generally, Ortab, so I'm with you there. I'm a selective weenie and while I don't mind smashing on people I don't know too well, clobbering loved ones has always been a challenge for me. It's one of the reasons I was never that good at fighting games. That's one of the reasons I was so smitten by the potential of Robinson Crusoe. Expansive, immersive, cooperative, and dangerous. By the same token, I don't want to play a cooperative game that relies on deception, like Dead of Winter. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have fun with that kind of set up. Fuckin hell I'd love to play actual Warhammer 40k, though. Bloodlust would abound. That's why we started listening to Bolt Thrower! :)

FSM, you're right about the lopsided claw hammering to be not fun. It's depressing. Luckily my girlfriend isn't SO good at Dominion that I can't close the gap with some practice (won for the second time last night woo hoo!), but the uphill battle is punishing. I totally agree that a group of 3 or more makes a competitive game more variable. Blood Rage is fun and more balanced in that respect, too, because even if a person or two is really experienced, it's a perfectly valid strategy to figure out ways to die hugely and makes the competition a lot more tricky and fun. But I got demolished in Forbidden Stars because of that same experience gap; one not easily closed, either.
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failsafeman
Digital Dictator

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PostPosted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 9:14 pm 
 

Man, it's too bad they took down the old online unofficial Dominion back in 2013. You could've practiced a lot in secret and trounced your girlfriend! The new official version fucking SUCKS, way too much multimedia bullcrap, loads slowly, microtransaction bullshit, it's just terrible. The old one was rather barebones-looking, but it ran smooth as butter and you could always find a game. As you can see, I played it way too much:

https://dominion.isotropic.org/leaderboard/

(ranked 119 out of nearly 6000, with about 2000 ranked games played)

I tried the official one a few times but it's just unplayable. Don't bother.
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Grave_Wyrm
Metal Sloth

Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2012 5:55 pm
Posts: 3928
PostPosted: Wed Feb 03, 2016 6:57 pm 
 

I'll practice in the library instead of doing homework. THAT'LL SHOW HER!!

Well done. That's a shit tonne of games. I wouldn't play online, I don't think, though it would save shuffling time. It's disappointing when further versions of things suck ass. My friend told me he used to be really into Dominion, but doesn't like it as much anymore because some of the games that it spawned were so much better. He didn't give me any titles, but maybe you know what he's referring to. Maybe Xenosyft or something. I'm unconvinced I could be swayed from it so completely. I'd definitely play others, but to abandon it entirely, I dunno. I like its storybook aesthetic too much.
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failsafeman
Digital Dictator

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PostPosted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 7:41 pm 
 

The best thing about playing online is that a lot of the more annoying mechanics are just handled by the system - for example when you start playing King's Court (activate the effect of this card 3 times) on another King's Court and then do it AGAIN...it starts to become essentially impossible to work out exactly how many actions and buys and whatnot you get.

And yeah, the problem with Dominion is that it became so popular that lots and lots of game developers worked to resolve some of the fundamental kinks in the game - for example, even though you're competing, it's a very passive-aggressive game, with no ability to directly target any of your opponents. Instead what attack cards there are do very passive-aggressive things, like seed your opponents' decks with useless curse cards or have a chance to trash useful cards. Another problem is that in a game that features these cards, chances are your opponents will get just as many as you do, meaning you'll all just fill each other's decks with curses or constantly trash each other's money and end up with a really slow, boring game. IN ADDITION, with there being relatively few attack cards of any kind, it's very likely you'll get a board with no attack cards at all, and just sit around like a nice sewing circle.

For that reason, there's not really that much to keep your attention during other people's turns - you have to keep an eye on the stacks, and watch for when they start buying Provinces, but otherwise you can basically just watch your phone until it's your turn. This is a problem a lot of games have, but many have found ways to solve it.

Another problem Dominion has is that its theme is very poorly tied to the actual mechanics. There are some thematic links, sure, a Thief steals money, a Pirate Ship pillages everyone's decks, but why do villages give you extra actions? Why do woodcutters give you money and increase the number of cards you can buy in a turn? Why does a laboratory give you extra cards? You can sort of see some of the connections there if you work at it, but you very quickly stop seeing the cards as what they represent thematically and just see them in game-terms. Oh, a Throne Room, it lets me use an action card twice! Oh crap, estates and copper, they gobble up space, if only I could get a card that let me trash them. It gives lip service to the theme at best, and the only real purpose is to make it easier to identify the cards.

One deck-building game that did a pretty good job of solving those problems is Arctic Scavengers, a game about survival in a post-apocalyptic ice age. The goal is to recruit the biggest tribe, but along the way you have to compete with your teammates for limited resources. The direct competition comes into play in the form of skirmishes - during your turn, you can choose to play your cards as usual, or, you can choose to hold some back for the upcoming skirmish. Your opponents don't get to see what cards you're saving - only how many. At the end of a cycle of rounds, everyone reveals what cards they held back, and the player with the highest Fight rating from the combined cards wins a card from the coveted Contested Resource Deck, which has easily the best cards in the game. The downside of course is that if you save a lot of cards and lose, it's a wasted turn - you could've used those cards to acquire weaker but less risky rewards. In addition, you can completely bluff your opponents - maybe you save 4 cards for the skirmish, and your opponents decide not to risk going up against what may be stiff competition, but when the skirmish rolls around perhaps you reveal total junk and snap up the prize without any competition.

All of this means you'll want to be watching every single one of your opponents' turns very very carefully - how many cards are they bringing to this skirmish? Did they play a lot of strong cards during their last few turns, meaning it's unlikely they're bringing anything strong to the skirmish? Or is it likely they're bringing their big guns?

This all ties very strongly into the themes, as well - you're scrabbling to attract the best fighters to your tribe with promises of food, you're fighting competing tribes for the limited old-world tools and medicine available, you want to ditch the weak links in your tribe who do little more than eat your food and take up space, and all the stats for the cards make perfect sense. Don't get me wrong, I love Dominion, but Arctic Scavengers is much better in a lot of ways.

Here's the video review that sold me on it in the first place:

http://www.shutupandsitdown.com/videos/ ... cavengers/
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Grave_Wyrm
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Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2012 5:55 pm
Posts: 3928
PostPosted: Mon Feb 08, 2016 1:36 am 
 

failsafeman wrote:
Don't get me wrong, I love Dominion, but Arctic Scavengers is much better in a lot of ways.

Here's the video review that sold me on it in the first place:

http://www.shutupandsitdown.com/videos/ ... cavengers/

*scribbles* Arctic .. Scavengers. *tap* Thanks!

A giant dolop of character and human gravy onto the experience. Yeah, that was a good sell and a good review. I'll check the game. Good review website, too.
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andersbang
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Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2009 9:28 am
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 09, 2016 2:02 pm 
 

I've never played Arkham Horror, but some dude close to me is selling it for about half price, so I'm contemplating buying it and giving it a go. I haven't played many co op games, but enjoyed the ones I have. I haven't got any hard core board gaming buddies, but many casual ones, so I guess I won't be able to play it very often, since each game seems like quite an investment in time and energy, at least if you're not a regular board gamer or only play easy going ones. I love the Mythos though, and I'd like to try the game (though I can probably borrow it if I just want to give some time). What are you guys' thought about the game? (yes, in a perfect world I'd borrow the game and try it before buying, but this guy just put it up for sale, so if I want this one there won't be time for that)

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MrMcThrasher II
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Joined: Sat Dec 29, 2012 6:01 pm
Posts: 1321
Location: United States
PostPosted: Tue Feb 09, 2016 2:12 pm 
 

Not sure if I ever made mention of One Night Werewolf, but that game is frickin' excellent.
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HellBlazer
Metalhead

Joined: Sat Aug 10, 2002 6:48 am
Posts: 2119
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Tue Feb 09, 2016 3:42 pm 
 

andersbang wrote:
I've never played Arkham Horror, but some dude close to me is selling it for about half price, so I'm contemplating buying it and giving it a go. I haven't played many co op games, but enjoyed the ones I have. I haven't got any hard core board gaming buddies, but many casual ones, so I guess I won't be able to play it very often, since each game seems like quite an investment in time and energy, at least if you're not a regular board gamer or only play easy going ones. I love the Mythos though, and I'd like to try the game (though I can probably borrow it if I just want to give some time). What are you guys' thought about the game? (yes, in a perfect world I'd borrow the game and try it before buying, but this guy just put it up for sale, so if I want this one there won't be time for that)


Very complicated, but very cool game. I'd say go for it.

Of course though, if you don't know anyone who'd want to play a complex 4-5-hour long game, well... You can play on your own, controlling multiple characters, but that's not quite as fun.

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newp
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Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2008 2:07 pm
Posts: 2697
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Tue Feb 09, 2016 3:58 pm 
 

Have you had a chance to try Eldritch Horror, HellBlazer? I quite like it, I've picked up a couple of the expansions. I've only played a couple games of Arkham and that was quite a while ago so I don't really know it well enough to do a proper comparison of the two.

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