Any recommendations, cool strategies or warnings! Please share :)
Tow classics in our round of 5 players on Saturday night:
5-minute Dungeon: Utter chaos. But extremely cathartic with 5 lads who just watched their favorite football club lose 4:0.
Ticket to Ride: Europe: A classic. We’ve played it before with 4 out of the 5 players attending and had a lot of fun. But it was completely the wrong game for the occasion this time. I guess reading the room/group is an important part of picking the right game.
Oh! What happened during Ticket to Ride? Just a lot of frustration?
It was just too slow of a game for the occasion. We’ve all had a couple of beers and explaining the game to one of the four, while reminding the other 3 how to play and also having played a very active/loud game before, was just a bit of a buzzkill. I realized that when the others had a hard time following what was happening and who’s turn it was and so on. Just a bad pick for the night I guess.
Two rounds of Earth. We both played it for the first time and in both rounds the player that thought, he’d be losing won - which was also the player that didn’t complete the grid.
Learned: Take a close look at the bonus cards. Sometimes it’s better to fulfill them partially than to go for the highest score, as that one might limit your options to score points elsewhere. (E.g. 5 cards of type x score 28 points, 6 cards score 30 points. As you can only play 16 cards, playing only 5 cards and then other cards will probably yield more points than these 2 extra points for the 6th card)
A few games of Cascadia: Those time in easy mode, to introduce some kids to this game.
And last but not least a game of Brass: Lancashire. Cool game, but you can severely f yourself if you don’t pay attention. There’s no real catch up mechanism. Start into the second age having a or better several piles of coal strategically placed on the board, having much money and being the first player to move is crucial here. Otherwise this transition will cost you your game.
I need to stop reading this thread. Every week I want to buy a different game. Earth looks beautiful!
I’m still seriously in love with Cascadia. It has so much replayability due to the changing scoring mechanic.
Me and my group initially wanted to get Ark Nova but two of us got to test it and both didn’t really like it. Then we found Earth and fell in love with it. It also features a huge replayability.
On the central board, 4 animals get drawn randomly. These set “milestones”. Players that fullfill their requirements can claim the card. If your’re first to claim it, you gain more points than the later players. Also two ecosystem cards are drawn randomly, that award points for specific ways that you have built your grid. All of these cards are double sided, so we usually toss a coin for each one to determine which side gets chosen. Then each player gets an island card, a climate card and an eco system card. As they’re double sided, each player gets to choose for their own, which side gets placed on their tableau (and thus, which actions they allow or which player specific bonus points are active, how many ressources they start with,…).
This setup is really variable and every game forces you to rethink and build a new strategy. Also almost every ressource in the game is worth victory points, which means, that there are tons of ways to gain (and exchange/lose) points. No two games feel the same.
Oh: And there’s no downtime, as everyone gets to participate in the other players turn and also gain ressources / activate their cards. At least after a few rounds, when everyone is able to play in parallel. In the beginning, I recommend to take turns, so that everyone can learn from your actions and also everyone is on the same page interpreting the rules, etc.
Tuesday:
Coup - Quick game while waiting for people to arrive, it’s pretty good but we’ve played it so much that it’s gotten a bit samey.
ALIEN: Fate of the Nostromo - A game based on the Alien movie, it was cooperative and kinda cool. The issue was we were trying to move everybody to the same space, but people kept drawing a card that sent them to a different place and so we spent like half the time just sitting in the Galley while waiting for the other people to move there. And we should have made more items in the beginning. Pretty cool but I was pretty ready for it to be over because of that one card and we had lost a ton of health in the beginning so we were pretty doomed.
Horrified - A lot of similarities to ALIEN, except it was better imo. Instead of just one monster there were three, with cool objectives in order to defeat them. The map was smaller so you usually didn’t have to spend your entire turn just moving. Items were pretty cool and doubled as a form of health. NPC villagers you had to save from the monsters were also pretty cool. Might have to try ALIEN again but this just seems better after playing both for the first time.
Friday:
7 Wonders Architect - Like 7 Wonders but simpler. Was pretty fun, got rid of some complexity that was kinda weird in 7 Wonders, and we had a good time, but normal 7 Wonders was also pretty good.
King’s Dilemma - Our second session of this legacy game, where you play one campaign that’s like fifteen sessions long and then it’s over. It’s been pretty fun, voting for things and trying to manipulate the kingdom to match our goals. Our kingdom is doing pretty bad though but it’s fine, it’s more memorable that way. Good game.
Ticket to Ride - Was pretty fun, we played very non-competitively and just stuck to our own things so most people got everything done. Cool game but it was a little long, although it was the first time for a couple people.
18xx. So much 18xx. A dozen or more games, the most I’ve played in a long time.
Our usual players were moving house this week, so they were pretty occupied! I was worried this meant that no games at all this week, but some other friends came round for Bonfire Night, and they brought Cascadia.
I haven’t played before, but I have heard of parallels to Calico, and I can see why! I think Cascadia has another layer of gameplay to it that made it a more enjoyable experience for me. Whilst the interactivity was very low (hate drafting being the only way to do anything), it was interesting watching the other players shoot for different objective sets.
Fun time, but took us longer than it should because we kept getting distracted!
Tikal - boardgame of the year 1999. Won the game. The box has way too much shelf presence for what it is. We played the base version with two players. It was ok but nothing I need to revisit.
Tribes of the wind - at two and four players. Won both times. Because I need to write a review a tried to look at it from different angles. I won with different Tribe leaders. Some combos of the leaders feel extra powerful. You really need to keep your eyes on your opponents boards to determine when they will pull the trigger to end the game. Winning the race to build the fifth tree seems a good winning strategy. At two players I like that your choice of cards will influence the second set of cards you’ll base your turns on.
Who did it? - I am not the fastes and I don’t like the theme but it is one of the best ice breaker and funny Absacker (drink or in this case last game of the night with no special requirements often fast and light hearted)
Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza - in comparison to who did it is this game much more dangerous 😅 me and a friend hurt ourselves playing it.
Alhambra card game - I am a big fan of Alhambra. But we visited the in laws and even so they play games like clever, you need to bring new elements slowly to the table. Therefore I brought this lighter version as Bonn edition. They can identify cards and have fun talking about the locations and understand buying cards with different currencies. Next time I hope I can play the big game with them.
Qwinto and that’s pretty clever - always lose against the in laws. Maybe I try to hard to win. A good activity between two meals, cake and coffee.
Istanbul: The Dice Game - A simple but solid dice based take on the original Istanbul. Like in the original you are racing to get 5 or 6 rubies and the rolled dice faces, saved up resources, upgrade tiles and card draws give you various ways to get there. Nice chunky dice.
Maul Peak - a new version of Skulk Hollow. Only one play so far but looking forward to exploring this further. Very nice production.
