Saw your post on board game geek. I was afraid that was the case, "Can't reuse Hex edges", is a pretty good rule of thumb.
Yeah - whenever I teach the game, that's the shorthand I'm going to use... but since a new player is drinking from the firehose, I don't think I'll lead with it.
Its a useful tip when you realize the game is "Build an E to W route to maximize profits". Especially how important it is to have multiple trains and to a lesser degree, companies.
About a month into the deluge of Essen games - it turns out the Funagain Essen airmail service wasn't exactly the one-stop-shop I had hoped for, because so far only two games have arrived (Gauner Raus and Gads Hill 1874). Everything else has individually arrived in US distribution over the course of the last month, as I cancel my preorders. But it does mean I'm forced to pace myself with new games.
Collection Played in 2016: 92%. 15 games to go. Games added: 1846, Micro Robots, Trick of the Rails, Dream Home, Fabled Fruit, Fuji Flush. Trade Pile: Terraforming Mars, Shadow Hunters, Oceanos.
Saloon Tycoon(new to me) - I like the idea, although the action cards don't feel fully-integrated to me. Still happy to play it some more, and Anthony seems happy to suggest it.
Tesla vs. Edison: War of Currents(new to me) - Stock game. Since you receive at most 8 shares during the game, and everyone starts with a free president's share that's worth 4 (!) shares, the best reason to buy your opponents (and boost their stock value) is so you can sell it later (and drop their stock value even more). There is an expansion that replaces the original victory condition (have the most money) with a euro-majority scoring thing in the stock market, which leaves little reason to hold onto stock and let it appreciate, because selling it to raise capital to buy your own stock can produce an 8-16 point swing then your opponent can go for tit-for-tat and put you both roughly back where you started). There is some board position stuff, but the stock market doesn't lead to interesting decisions in the rest of the game.
1846(new to me) - Stock game, albiet one that works much better for me. I've orbited around 18XX games for quite a while; Russian Railroads, Starship Merchants, and Poseidon all contain an increasingly-large share of DNA from economic train games, but I'd consider this the first "proper" 18XX I have played. After four games in the past two weeks 4p, 3p, 2p, and even a solo game as an experiment) I consider myself very interested in exploring 1846 further.
Trick of the Rails(new to me) - Continuing the theme, this is an 18XX-themed trick-taking game that we played with Coldguy at Extra Life. I found it pretty charming although I don't know how much control you really have.
Mob Town(new to me) - Surprisingly fun rummy game where you claim cards on a board and build out to adjacent spaces. Playing one hand only takes about 5 minutes.
Cacao - This is still a fine super-filler, and one Anthony suggests from time to time. The Chocolatl expansion is a nice twist on the base game, especially the module that adds a second conversion to turn beans into chocolate bars.
Gads Hill 1874 - Brian joined us at Extra Life for another play of Gads Hill. This seems to 'click' for people about halfway through the first game, once someone plays a card that sets off a chain reaction worth 10+ points.
America - Brian is incredibly dangerous at trivia games, and easily doubled our scores. However, I DID set a personal best by getting around the corner this time, which is all I wanted.
No Thanks! - We had some time to kill and busted out No Thanks. I lucked out two games in a row, taking early cards in the 30s that gave me enough chips to fuel the rest of the game and easily cross the finish line in first.
Kobayakawa - I traded away my copy last year, but Brian wanted to play this at Extra Life. I stand by my decision to trade away my copy. ;]
Fuji Flush(new to me) - One of Friedemann Friese's new games I've been waiting on, this is a pleasant little card game that I taught to a table full of co-workers. One of them made the comparison to Uno, which isn't entirely accurate, but you could easily play this with your non-gamer parents (yes, /your/ parents).
Fabled Fruit(new to me) - The other Friedemann game, which I'm quite taken with only two plays in. The moment that stands out the most is myself, poised on the cusp of victory... after opening up a new action that allowed every other player to pick over my hand and take all my sets of cards, everyone was laughing at that. Now I'm just waiting for Power Grid: The Card Game...
Dream Home(new to me) - Surprise of the month, I wasn't even looking forward to this one and I've already played it four times. Oceanos wore out for me quite quickly, but Dream Home presents many of the same ideas in a more streamlined fashion.
Evolution - With the Climate expand-alone. I prefer Climate, if for no other reason than it makes body size matter for more than just predation; small creatures suffer in the cold, and large creatures suffer in the heat. Good addition.
Parade - Similar to Arboretum, your hand becomes your own worst enemy. Not bad.
First Class: Unterwegs im Orient Express - Finally played with module D passengers and luggage), which confirmed that the modules add immeasurably to the interest of the game. I still haven't played with module C or E, so those are next up.
T.I.M.E Stories - We're two sessions into Marcy Case, and seem to be enjoying it more than the average reviewer. Maybe it's because we've been pacing ourselves enough that some of the more fatiguing aspects of this module can't wear us down.
Two weeks punctuated by Thanksgiving break. We didn't play too many games while visiting Anthony's family in California, but I did continue to play a surprising amount of 1846 on the weekends. Not bad, since I was worried about finding interested players. Haven't made much progress in playing the remaining games in my collection. Part of that is playing as much 1846 as I can. Some of it is indecisiveness over whether I actually want to keep certain games (I've been avoiding playing Terra Mystica, and I think I might be done with it).
Collection played in 2016: 92%. 16 games to go. Trade Pile: Stellar Conflict, Star Realms. Games Added: Honshu, Chariot Race
No Thanks! - I first played No Thanks in 2012, when I was refocusing my energy from RPGs to board games. That makes it the oldest (to me) game I played in November.
Colony - Haven't tried the solo variant, but I have played 2p with Anthony twice. Colony resists players' attempts to make progress more than its older cousin Age of Craft, which is why I suspect Colony makes a more interesting 2p game.
Trick of the Rails - Unsure with four players. I've read that partnerships inject some control back into the 4p game (ala Innovation). Interested to try it.
Ginkgopolis - I've heard friends complain about this game's length, but you will finish a game of Ginkgopolis in 30 minutes if Anthony and I are at the table.
1846 - Six plays in four weeks isn't bad. Extremely likely to be my favorite game of 2016.
Five Tribes - First play with The Artisans of Naqala expansion. The larger board created pockets of activity with big empty spaces in the middle, and the purple meeples increased the variance in the meeple distribution so the 'good' actions rapidly depleted. Meh.
Honshu(new to me) - The box describes this as a trick-taking game, but it feels more comfortable as an auction game. 12 auctions to wring as many points as possible out of 12 cards.
Schnappchen Jagd - I played Schnappchen Jagd for the first time back in January, but I finally hit my sixth play last week.
Fabled Fruit - We "reset" the game to play with Anthony's family over Thanksgiving, and quickly blew past the point we reached previously (three games in).
Pandemic: The Cure - With the Experimental Meds expansion, which mirrors Pandemic: On the Brink: three modules that add more cards, a fifth disease, and more dangerous epidemics. Enjoyable, doubly so because The Cure is my favorite Pandemic.
4 Gods - The timed-turns rule is a big improvement over the free-for-all.
Black Orchestra(new to me) - I tend to look at publisher and designer first when deciding which new games to try; Anthony brought a game with an interesting theme (German resistance during WW2) from a publisher and designer I never would have considered. Interested in trying this one again.
Gads Hill 1874 - Works well as a 2p game. I tried selecting personal buildings by AVOIDING the buildings in my opening hand, and it didn't really hurt my score. It did make the game a lot weirder and crazier, however.
I'm still pretty surprised that I enjoy 1846. Games longer than 2 hours tend to leave me pretty antsy and drained after they're over, but this one manages to keep me pretty engaged the whole way through; it's not my favorite game, but I will happily play it with Chris!
Our first play of Black Orchestra was super-exciting, and I want to play it again as soon as this shitty sore throat goes away so that I can talk.
I was surprised at the buzz for Black Orchestra. Game Salute had a small BGG.CON booth, and they used the entire booth just to promote that one game. This is very uncharacteristic of them. Putting out a good game is also very uncharacteristic of them. I had written it off at first site, but your posts are continuing to chip away at my armor, and I think I'll try it if it is sitting in front of me now.
As for the designer, I'm not immediately opposed by a Phillip duBarry game, given that I've played zero of his newer games. I remember enjoying Revolution! when I was first getting into board games again, but I'm not sure if I would like it now that my tastes have evolved.
Honshu had ridiculous buzz at BGG. Definitely one of the leading games in that department. I played a ton of stuff but didn't get around to that one.
Speaking of BGG.CON, it was amazing again. You folk would go nuts for this convention, I swear.
Games played (stars in front of the ones I really liked): *Crusaders (Tasty Minstrel prototype releasing next year, from Seth Jaffee) *Fabled Fruit Fields of Green Dream Home Power Grid: The Card Game Adrenaline Cottage Garden *Yamatai (Days of Wonder 2017 prototype) Lords of Vegas Fuji Flush Trick of the Rails *Camel Up Cards Sushi Go Party *Dr. Eureka Battling Tops Raptor *Lorenzo il Magnifico *Oracle at Delphi *Captain Sonar *Roll Player Inis First Class Bloodborne card game Touria *Strike *Hanamikoji *Untitled Matt Leacock dexterity spaceship game prototype. Spaceships are rings. You do pick-up-and-deliver by placing cubes inside the rings and then continuing to flick, which leads to some fun with physics
As for the designer, I'm not immediately opposed by a Phillip duBarry game, given that I've played zero of his newer games.
Revolution is the convergence of all of my least-favorite game mechanisms, so Phillip duBarry wasn't high on my designer rankings, either. But our first play of Black Orchestra was good (and since it's cooperative there is no blind-bidding, winner-take-all area majority, or unmitigated directed negative player interaction!)
Glad to hear you're enjoying Fabled Fruit, too; I'm still waiting to get my copy of Power Grid: The Card Game. And I am curious to see if that Matt Leacock prototype turns into anything over the next couple years (from the sounds of it, Chariot Race took 5+ years to finally get published)
I went complete 180 on the two 2F games put out by Stronghold. I originally was hot on Fuji Flush, but based on a quick rules demo, didn't think Fabled Fruit would be for me. Getting a chance to play Fabled Fruit totally changed my mind. It just works so well. Fuji Flush, on the other hand, was really fun at first, but I've had too many plays now where the end of the game is just several laps around the table where everyone is down to 1 or 2 cards, and you're just going through the motions.
Looking back at the month of November, my favorite new game is 1846, which wasn't widely available until GMT printed it this year. 1846 has a real shot at my top 10, which is currently a volatile list that turns over at a rate of about two games every year since I'm backfilling plays of games released well before I got into board gaming.
If it weren't for 1846, Fabled Fruit would be my favorite game from November. The basic mechanisms are enjoyable on their own, and I really do enjoy seeing the gradually shifting set of action choices.
There were also ten games I'd be happy to play again, all of them games that Anthony and I currently own: Black Orchestra is a thematically and mechanically unique cooperative game. Dream Home has had more staying power than Oceanos did last month. Honshu, Trick of the Rails, Fuji Flush, and Mob Town are all uniquely enjoyable card games. Evolution: Climate was an improvement over the base game for me. Micro Robots is a disappointment compared to Ricochet Robots, but variants exist that make it work better for me. Saloon Tycoon is a points race, but is a bit too tactical for me as you don't get a strong sense of development from the pieces you add to your board. New Bedford is fine, but does nothing to drive me to play it again.
That's the hole drill. Sidebar, I bought hansa wanting to play it. Settled down to read the rules.. WTF. These are about history, and somewhere buried in how trading was done in times of olde are the rules to hansa. Is there a better rulebook somewhere?
That's the hole drill. Sidebar, I bought hansa wanting to play it. Settled down to read the rules.. WTF. These are about history, and somewhere buried in how trading was done in times of olde are the rules to hansa. Is there a better rulebook somewhere?
Just listen to that podcast episode and you will be fine.
The past week was an enjoyable one, even though I'm accepting that I'm probably not going to play 100% of my games this year. And that's fine, really. However, I have taken the opportunity to clear out two games I have owned for 2 years and never once played.
Collection Played in 2016: 95%. 10 games to go. Trade Pile: Lord of the Rings, Winner's Circle, Impulse. Games added: Arkwright, North American Railways
North American Railways(new to me) - Not sure. It's short, opaque, and the rules for buying shares aren't particularly intuitive. They seem to point toward a relatively interesting game, but it's one that defies intuition.
1860: Railways on the Isle of Wight(new to me) - I was introduced to my third 18XX since Poseidon earlier this year. Potentially interesting, although I have a small worry that things might become stylized at 2p since the corporations come out in sets of two. Not a huge concern because game systems with shared incentives always lose something with two players. The train rush was fun, with lots of buying across among companies.
Rhino Hero(new to me) - I don't find the cards particularly enjoyable to stack, and most of the special powers feel regrettably anti-fun.
Chariot Race(new to me) - This is a pleasant game, which is a strange observation for a game with so much violence. The chariot you are driving is falling apart, and it's a challenge just to make it around two laps without getting smeared by the other chariots. It doesn't take very long, either (King of Tokyo is longer).
Fuji Flush - To properly enjoy Fuji Flush, you must accept the Fuji spirit. This is holding up so far.
6 nimmt! - I've played this six times each in the past two years, and maybe even won once; I wonder how long I can keep it up.
Micro Robots - I have enjoyed this as a 2p Ricochet Robots variant, but I'm not convinced about multiplayer.
Pandemic Iberia(new to me) - It's another take on Pandemic, and while it's not doing anything particularly new, I like seeing a historically-themed game using the system.
Canal Mania - Finally got to play this again after a year and... I still like it. Finding the right time to act and the right time to hold back one more turn to see if conditions improve is an interesting problem.
What are your 10 final games? Do we need to have a game night where we play for however long it takes to carry you over the finish line?
The last 10 games:
Arkwright
Rails of New England
Power Grid
Caverna
Terra Mystica
Brass
Speculation
Cosmic Encounter
Primordial Soup
Baseball Highlights 2045
Arkwright is a new acquisition so it shouldn't be hard to play it once. I'll probably end up playing Baseball Highlights sometime this month with Anthony. Of the remainder, the ones giving me a significant itch that cannot be scratched for lack of the right group are Rails of New England, Brass, and Cosmic Encounter. I've passed up so many games of Power Grid and Terra Mystica that I'm not entirely convinced I need to keep them.
I know that CCGs are highly looked down on in this forum, but I was dragged into Star Wars: Destiny, and I became a fan of the gameplay.
I also forgot how much fun the "trading" and "collecting" aspect of gaming can be, but we'll see how long this lasts.
I know that drugs are highly looked down on in this forum, but I was dragged into cocaine, and I became a fan of how it feels. I forgot how much the addicting aspect of drugs can be, but we'll see how long this lasts.
If you're going to spend a bunch of money, why not just play Netrunner?
I've heard the gameplay is pretty solid though. I was thinking of at least picking up a starter set to try playing it, but I don't imagine I'll get much into the collecting. That is, if you can find a copy. They seem to be REALLY sold out right now.
If you're going to spend a bunch of money, why not just play Netrunner?
I got plenty of expendable income, no children, pay taxes, and donate to charity. I also don't drink alcohol nor gamble regularly, so I figured I can excuse myself this extraneous expense.
Also, I'm already heavily into Netrunner and would like to try something new! Destiny's gameplay is strong (in my opinion), and the collecting/trading aspect of the game is something that is hard to replicate in any other medium.
At the very least, if I lose interest in the game, it'd be relatively easy to resell.
Comments
Good News - Packaged has shipped and is currently in Harrisburg.
Bad News - Delivery date is set for Tuesday of next week.
I'm hoping that's some worst case scenario and they don't just leave it in a warehouse for half a week.
Collection Played in 2016: 92%. 15 games to go. Games added: 1846, Micro Robots, Trick of the Rails, Dream Home, Fabled Fruit, Fuji Flush. Trade Pile: Terraforming Mars, Shadow Hunters, Oceanos.
Saloon Tycoon (new to me) - I like the idea, although the action cards don't feel fully-integrated to me. Still happy to play it some more, and Anthony seems happy to suggest it.
Tesla vs. Edison: War of Currents (new to me) - Stock game. Since you receive at most 8 shares during the game, and everyone starts with a free president's share that's worth 4 (!) shares, the best reason to buy your opponents (and boost their stock value) is so you can sell it later (and drop their stock value even more). There is an expansion that replaces the original victory condition (have the most money) with a euro-majority scoring thing in the stock market, which leaves little reason to hold onto stock and let it appreciate, because selling it to raise capital to buy your own stock can produce an 8-16 point swing then your opponent can go for tit-for-tat and put you both roughly back where you started). There is some board position stuff, but the stock market doesn't lead to interesting decisions in the rest of the game.
1846 (new to me) - Stock game, albiet one that works much better for me. I've orbited around 18XX games for quite a while; Russian Railroads, Starship Merchants, and Poseidon all contain an increasingly-large share of DNA from economic train games, but I'd consider this the first "proper" 18XX I have played. After four games in the past two weeks 4p, 3p, 2p, and even a solo game as an experiment) I consider myself very interested in exploring 1846 further.
Trick of the Rails (new to me) - Continuing the theme, this is an 18XX-themed trick-taking game that we played with Coldguy at Extra Life. I found it pretty charming although I don't know how much control you really have.
Mob Town (new to me) - Surprisingly fun rummy game where you claim cards on a board and build out to adjacent spaces. Playing one hand only takes about 5 minutes.
Cacao - This is still a fine super-filler, and one Anthony suggests from time to time. The Chocolatl expansion is a nice twist on the base game, especially the module that adds a second conversion to turn beans into chocolate bars.
Gads Hill 1874 - Brian joined us at Extra Life for another play of Gads Hill. This seems to 'click' for people about halfway through the first game, once someone plays a card that sets off a chain reaction worth 10+ points.
America - Brian is incredibly dangerous at trivia games, and easily doubled our scores. However, I DID set a personal best by getting around the corner this time, which is all I wanted.
No Thanks! - We had some time to kill and busted out No Thanks. I lucked out two games in a row, taking early cards in the 30s that gave me enough chips to fuel the rest of the game and easily cross the finish line in first.
Kobayakawa - I traded away my copy last year, but Brian wanted to play this at Extra Life. I stand by my decision to trade away my copy. ;]
Fuji Flush (new to me) - One of Friedemann Friese's new games I've been waiting on, this is a pleasant little card game that I taught to a table full of co-workers. One of them made the comparison to Uno, which isn't entirely accurate, but you could easily play this with your non-gamer parents (yes, /your/ parents).
Fabled Fruit (new to me) - The other Friedemann game, which I'm quite taken with only two plays in. The moment that stands out the most is myself, poised on the cusp of victory... after opening up a new action that allowed every other player to pick over my hand and take all my sets of cards, everyone was laughing at that. Now I'm just waiting for Power Grid: The Card Game...
Dream Home (new to me) - Surprise of the month, I wasn't even looking forward to this one and I've already played it four times. Oceanos wore out for me quite quickly, but Dream Home presents many of the same ideas in a more streamlined fashion.
Evolution - With the Climate expand-alone. I prefer Climate, if for no other reason than it makes body size matter for more than just predation; small creatures suffer in the cold, and large creatures suffer in the heat. Good addition.
Parade - Similar to Arboretum, your hand becomes your own worst enemy. Not bad.
Rumble in the House (new to me) - Nah.
First Class: Unterwegs im Orient Express - Finally played with module D passengers and luggage), which confirmed that the modules add immeasurably to the interest of the game. I still haven't played with module C or E, so those are next up.
T.I.M.E Stories - We're two sessions into Marcy Case, and seem to be enjoying it more than the average reviewer. Maybe it's because we've been pacing ourselves enough that some of the more fatiguing aspects of this module can't wear us down.
Oof. Two of those were pretty new. Once you added the draft element to Mars, I liked it more.
As for TvE, I think part of the reason I liked it was the trivia on the cards. Also it seemed like a nice alternative to Power Grid.
Ok, it's trash. But still.
It was C-3PO in the trash compactor with the thermal detonator.
Points for not being a cheap reskin of clue.
Collection played in 2016: 92%. 16 games to go. Trade Pile: Stellar Conflict, Star Realms. Games Added: Honshu, Chariot Race
No Thanks! - I first played No Thanks in 2012, when I was refocusing my energy from RPGs to board games. That makes it the oldest (to me) game I played in November.
Colony - Haven't tried the solo variant, but I have played 2p with Anthony twice. Colony resists players' attempts to make progress more than its older cousin Age of Craft, which is why I suspect Colony makes a more interesting 2p game.
Trick of the Rails - Unsure with four players. I've read that partnerships inject some control back into the 4p game (ala Innovation). Interested to try it.
Ginkgopolis - I've heard friends complain about this game's length, but you will finish a game of Ginkgopolis in 30 minutes if Anthony and I are at the table.
1846 - Six plays in four weeks isn't bad. Extremely likely to be my favorite game of 2016.
Five Tribes - First play with The Artisans of Naqala expansion. The larger board created pockets of activity with big empty spaces in the middle, and the purple meeples increased the variance in the meeple distribution so the 'good' actions rapidly depleted. Meh.
Honshu (new to me) - The box describes this as a trick-taking game, but it feels more comfortable as an auction game. 12 auctions to wring as many points as possible out of 12 cards.
Schnappchen Jagd - I played Schnappchen Jagd for the first time back in January, but I finally hit my sixth play last week.
Fabled Fruit - We "reset" the game to play with Anthony's family over Thanksgiving, and quickly blew past the point we reached previously (three games in).
Pandemic: The Cure - With the Experimental Meds expansion, which mirrors Pandemic: On the Brink: three modules that add more cards, a fifth disease, and more dangerous epidemics. Enjoyable, doubly so because The Cure is my favorite Pandemic.
4 Gods - The timed-turns rule is a big improvement over the free-for-all.
Black Orchestra (new to me) - I tend to look at publisher and designer first when deciding which new games to try; Anthony brought a game with an interesting theme (German resistance during WW2) from a publisher and designer I never would have considered. Interested in trying this one again.
Gads Hill 1874 - Works well as a 2p game. I tried selecting personal buildings by AVOIDING the buildings in my opening hand, and it didn't really hurt my score. It did make the game a lot weirder and crazier, however.
Our first play of Black Orchestra was super-exciting, and I want to play it again as soon as this shitty sore throat goes away so that I can talk.
As for the designer, I'm not immediately opposed by a Phillip duBarry game, given that I've played zero of his newer games. I remember enjoying Revolution! when I was first getting into board games again, but I'm not sure if I would like it now that my tastes have evolved.
Honshu had ridiculous buzz at BGG. Definitely one of the leading games in that department. I played a ton of stuff but didn't get around to that one.
Games played (stars in front of the ones I really liked):
*Crusaders (Tasty Minstrel prototype releasing next year, from Seth Jaffee)
*Fabled Fruit
Fields of Green
Dream Home
Power Grid: The Card Game
Adrenaline
Cottage Garden
*Yamatai (Days of Wonder 2017 prototype)
Lords of Vegas
Fuji Flush
Trick of the Rails
*Camel Up Cards
Sushi Go Party
*Dr. Eureka
Battling Tops
Raptor
*Lorenzo il Magnifico
*Oracle at Delphi
*Captain Sonar
*Roll Player
Inis
First Class
Bloodborne card game
Touria
*Strike
*Hanamikoji
*Untitled Matt Leacock dexterity spaceship game prototype. Spaceships are rings. You do pick-up-and-deliver by placing cubes inside the rings and then continuing to flick, which leads to some fun with physics
Glad to hear you're enjoying Fabled Fruit, too; I'm still waiting to get my copy of Power Grid: The Card Game. And I am curious to see if that Matt Leacock prototype turns into anything over the next couple years (from the sounds of it, Chariot Race took 5+ years to finally get published)
If it weren't for 1846, Fabled Fruit would be my favorite game from November. The basic mechanisms are enjoyable on their own, and I really do enjoy seeing the gradually shifting set of action choices.
There were also ten games I'd be happy to play again, all of them games that Anthony and I currently own: Black Orchestra is a thematically and mechanically unique cooperative game. Dream Home has had more staying power than Oceanos did last month. Honshu, Trick of the Rails, Fuji Flush, and Mob Town are all uniquely enjoyable card games. Evolution: Climate was an improvement over the base game for me. Micro Robots is a disappointment compared to Ricochet Robots, but variants exist that make it work better for me. Saloon Tycoon is a points race, but is a bit too tactical for me as you don't get a strong sense of development from the pieces you add to your board. New Bedford is fine, but does nothing to drive me to play it again.
Rumble in the House and Tesla vs Edison didn't work for me.
But the tabletop clock is tolling. The regular game nights will begin anew. I see the beacon fires in the distance.
Hansa is a different game.
Collection Played in 2016: 95%. 10 games to go. Trade Pile: Lord of the Rings, Winner's Circle, Impulse. Games added: Arkwright, North American Railways
North American Railways (new to me) - Not sure. It's short, opaque, and the rules for buying shares aren't particularly intuitive. They seem to point toward a relatively interesting game, but it's one that defies intuition.
1860: Railways on the Isle of Wight (new to me) - I was introduced to my third 18XX since Poseidon earlier this year. Potentially interesting, although I have a small worry that things might become stylized at 2p since the corporations come out in sets of two. Not a huge concern because game systems with shared incentives always lose something with two players. The train rush was fun, with lots of buying across among companies.
Rhino Hero (new to me) - I don't find the cards particularly enjoyable to stack, and most of the special powers feel regrettably anti-fun.
Chariot Race (new to me) - This is a pleasant game, which is a strange observation for a game with so much violence. The chariot you are driving is falling apart, and it's a challenge just to make it around two laps without getting smeared by the other chariots. It doesn't take very long, either (King of Tokyo is longer).
Fuji Flush - To properly enjoy Fuji Flush, you must accept the Fuji spirit. This is holding up so far.
6 nimmt! - I've played this six times each in the past two years, and maybe even won once; I wonder how long I can keep it up.
Micro Robots - I have enjoyed this as a 2p Ricochet Robots variant, but I'm not convinced about multiplayer.
Pandemic Iberia (new to me) - It's another take on Pandemic, and while it's not doing anything particularly new, I like seeing a historically-themed game using the system.
Canal Mania - Finally got to play this again after a year and... I still like it. Finding the right time to act and the right time to hold back one more turn to see if conditions improve is an interesting problem.
Arkwright is a new acquisition so it shouldn't be hard to play it once. I'll probably end up playing Baseball Highlights sometime this month with Anthony. Of the remainder, the ones giving me a significant itch that cannot be scratched for lack of the right group are Rails of New England, Brass, and Cosmic Encounter. I've passed up so many games of Power Grid and Terra Mystica that I'm not entirely convinced I need to keep them.
I also forgot how much fun the "trading" and "collecting" aspect of gaming can be, but we'll see how long this lasts.
If you're going to spend a bunch of money, why not just play Netrunner?
I've heard the gameplay is pretty solid though. I was thinking of at least picking up a starter set to try playing it, but I don't imagine I'll get much into the collecting. That is, if you can find a copy. They seem to be REALLY sold out right now.
Also, I'm already heavily into Netrunner and would like to try something new! Destiny's gameplay is strong (in my opinion), and the collecting/trading aspect of the game is something that is hard to replicate in any other medium.
At the very least, if I lose interest in the game, it'd be relatively easy to resell.