I really really liked Power Grid at first. After a few dozen games though, I'm only lukewarm on it. I do like that between the deck and different players pacing the game out differently the game seems variable... but it doesn't hold my interest sufficiently. I'm not yet sure what I'm wanting out of it, maybe the problem is just who I play with. It seems like everyone spends minutes thinking about things that they should already know before their turn starts. But if everyone played as quickly as I do it would just become a procedure more than anything.
It seems like everyone spends minutes thinking about things that they should already know before their turn starts. But if everyone played as quickly as I do it would just become a procedure more than anything.
Welcome to being good at games. You can no longer play repeated games with people who aren't on the same level as you (or intelligent enough to be approaching that level) without frustration.
It seems like everyone spends minutes thinking about things that they should already know before their turn starts. But if everyone played as quickly as I do it would just become a procedure more than anything.
Welcome to being good at games. You can no longer play repeated games with people who aren't on the same level as you (or intelligent enough to be approaching that level) without frustration.
Sometimes I fantasize about being about to just play my favorite 10 or so games over and over again with a steady set of players. Unfortunately this is very far from reality as I am constantly hopping from group to group whenever my schedule permits me to get some gaming in. Also, my writing gigs force me to stay focused on playing the new hotness.
Somebody had better invent the geek retirement community in the next few decades.
I really really liked Power Grid at first. After a few dozen games though, I'm only lukewarm on it.
I'm in the same boat as well. The more I thought about how my friends and I played it the more it seemed to me that the game was over a few turns before the game said we were done. It seems to be pretty easy to keep track of everything in your head and mathematically figure who the winner is.
The real down side to that is most of my friends are as good as I am in keeping track of everything in the game and we lose a lot of will to keep playing for the last few turns.
I really really liked Power Grid at first. After a few dozen games though, I'm only lukewarm on it.
I'm in the same boat as well. The more I thought about how my friends and I played it the more it seemed to me that the game was over a few turns before the game said we were done. It seems to be pretty easy to keep track of everything in your head and mathematically figure who the winner is.
The real down side to that is most of my friends are as good as I am in keeping track of everything in the game and we lose a lot of will to keep playing for the last few turns.
There is a revised deck of power plant cards that they sell for like $7. If you use that, games tend to stay interesting and competitive until the very end.
There is a revised deck of power plant cards that they sell for like $7. If you use that, games tend to stay interesting and competitive until the very end.
Jeremy bought Reef Encounter a week after PAX East and we finally got around to playing it over the weekend. Scott taught him how to play, but I wasn't able to get in on the game.
Yay for tile placing games! We played a four player game and I wasn't really paying attention to the instructions Jeremy gave out. I only got the gist of the basics and just started laying tiles. I ended up taking second place because I wasn't paying attention to the blue/red/green pucks being placed on the tiles to lock down which color was dominant over the other colors. However, I was able to get a huge area of orange with the collection of 12 tiles into my points pile, so that's nice.
Will definitely have to take it to the play with my group of gaming friends. (AZN posse & crackers on the side.)
Well the question is, what do you want in a dungeon crawl table top? What do you not want?
It was just an idle thought, I was just wondering if there was one universally recognized good one. I loved Hero Quest when I was a kid, and I liked the idea of running your characters through multiple dungeons, collecting treasures, using spells, and carrying it all over from dungeon to dungeon. So really all I'm describing is the same kind of experience that you'd get from a pen and paper RPG or a console RPG, but with the shiny cards and sparkly pieces of a table top game.
Well the question is, what do you want in a dungeon crawl table top? What do you not want?
It was just an idle thought, I was just wondering if there was one universally recognized good one. I loved Hero Quest when I was a kid, and I liked the idea of running your characters through multiple dungeons, collecting treasures, using spells, and carrying it all over from dungeon to dungeon. So really all I'm describing is the same kind of experience that you'd get from a pen and paper RPG or a console RPG, but with the shiny cards and sparkly pieces of a table top game.
The game you are describing is Descent. I do not recommend it.
Spent the day board gaming yesterday, well I say board gaming, we played one game for 8ish hours and still didn't finish it. Step forward Twilight Imperium with expansions. Why they felt the need to expand the play area is beyond me, meant that for the first 3 rounds or so, we were just grabbing all that was around us and we all had the resources to get what we wanted. It was only when one player upset another with a trival thing that we went to war. I cannot help thinking of all the games of multiple board games we could have played in that time.
Well the question is, what do you want in a dungeon crawl table top? What do you not want?
It was just an idle thought, I was just wondering if there was one universally recognized good one. I loved Hero Quest when I was a kid, and I liked the idea of running your characters through multiple dungeons, collecting treasures, using spells, and carrying it all over from dungeon to dungeon. So really all I'm describing is the same kind of experience that you'd get from a pen and paper RPG or a console RPG, but with the shiny cards and sparkly pieces of a table top game.
The game you are describing is Descent. I do not recommend it.
I DO recommend Descent, but I'd wait until after GenCon when they're hopefully going to release the new second edition, which is more streamlined, faster, and has a better integrated campaign.
MTV is supposed to be sending me, but plans haven't been finalized yet. I've never been, and was scheduled to be sent last year, but it overlapped with birth of first child so life took priority. As of now it's fairly likely that I'll be going, but you never know with day job and family if something will pop up.
I never pay enough attention to Gencon anymore to actually get registered/rooms in time. Plus the hotels are way more expensive than PAX which kinda kills it being way cheaper for me to travel.
I never pay enough attention to Gencon anymore to actually get registered/rooms in time. Plus the hotels are way more expensive than PAX which kinda kills it being way cheaper for me to travel.
The hotel is the part I am really dreading. Gencon is notorious for having a bad hotel situation. This may be remedied for most con-goers since the area got majorly beefed up due to the Superbowl coming to town last year (it amazes me how much that event can spur development in any city). My situation is a bit different though. Our travel is always booked last-minute through some contract travel agency. They have ignored my calls to book Gencon early. The Gencon staff even offered to hook us up in a room block! If I do wind up getting sent now, it'll be probably be in west bumblefuck away from the con.
If I were to go again I either want to get a bunch of friends to go and rent out a BnB or something in the area, or get a couple suites in one of the adjoined hotels. If I'm going to throw $300/night plus vacation days at something, I want to make it worth it. And I don't want to split the cost with randoms... for various reasons.
Spent the day board gaming yesterday, well I say board gaming, we played one game for 8ish hours and still didn't finish it. Step forward Twilight Imperium with expansions. Why they felt the need to expand the play area is beyond me, meant that for the first 3 rounds or so, we were just grabbing all that was around us and we all had the resources to get what we wanted. It was only when one player upset another with a trival thing that we went to war. I cannot help thinking of all the games of multiple board games we could have played in that time.
TI does take a long time to finish at times! Most of the expansion rules are optional in an a la cart sort of way. My group likes to play with a huge map but we each tend to figure out what path to victory we want early on so our games tend to last at most 2.5 hours.
The easiest way is to make everything secondary to getting the victory points, prefer imperial over other strat cards, work the objective cards. Ignore your secret objectives, they all are way too difficult to complete compared to the other primary and secondary objectives out there.
The Order of the Stick boardgame has a rules variant that can make the game last, according to the book, "7+ hours". It's not an unheard-of thing for a board game to last super long.
The Order of the Stick boardgame has a rules variant that can make the game last, according to the book, "7+ hours". It's not an unheard-of thing for a board game to last super long.
Shit. You have got to really love Order of the Stick to even consider that...
I've only ever played one game that long, the combined version of Axis & Allies 1940 Global, and that was only fueled by nostalgia since it was a reunion of old college A&A-playing buddies.
The Order of the Stick boardgame has a rules variant that can make the game last, according to the book, "7+ hours". It's not an unheard-of thing for a board game to last super long.
Shit. You have got to really love Order of the Stick to even consider that...
I've only ever played one game that long, the combined version of Axis & Allies 1940 Global, and that was only fueled by nostalgia since it was a reunion of old college A&A-playing buddies.
The base game (No expansions, no alt rules) on the shortest setting is "2-3 hours" with two or so players.
TI does take a long time to finish at times! Most of the expansion rules are optional in an a la cart sort of way. My group likes to play with a huge map but we each tend to figure out what path to victory we want early on so our games tend to last at most 2.5 hours.
The easiest way is to make everything secondary to getting the victory points, prefer imperial over other strat cards, work the objective cards. Ignore your secret objectives, they all are way too difficult to complete compared to the other primary and secondary objectives out there.
I got my secret objective on turn 2 although I admit it was a dead easy one to get, just had to get 4 planets with the same tech bonus, which considering my home system was surrounded by such planets made it dead easy. The problem was that the imperial card wasn't hitting the table enough to get new objective. Which is strange considering that it gives you 2 points just for taking it, which is another rule I have a problem with because we got to the point where one person was about to win the game despite the fact he had nothing left but someone took his home world before he could.
The problem was that the imperial card wasn't hitting the table enough to get new objective
Why were you not taking the imperial card! 2 points a round wins you the game in 5 rounds if no one else takes it! it forces other people to fight for it the moment they realize that your just going to turtle and imperial the whole game. And then since Imperial would be happening every round the game will stop before round 10. It keeps the game shorter that way.
You got way lucky on that secret objective; too many times i've gotten then "take your neighbor's homeworld!" to look over at my Sardakk and Barony neighbors.
Because we had a game when people took it all the time and it was over very quickly so we swung way too over to one side. Plus I have a habit of not really playing to win games like this but to have fun. And the other players have a heavy background in war games (like warhammer) so they go for the build up huge fleets and go to war tactics.
Comments
Somebody had better invent the geek retirement community in the next few decades.
The real down side to that is most of my friends are as good as I am in keeping track of everything in the game and we lose a lot of will to keep playing for the last few turns.
Yay for tile placing games! We played a four player game and I wasn't really paying attention to the instructions Jeremy gave out. I only got the gist of the basics and just started laying tiles. I ended up taking second place because I wasn't paying attention to the blue/red/green pucks being placed on the tiles to lock down which color was dominant over the other colors. However, I was able to get a huge area of orange with the collection of 12 tiles into my points pile, so that's nice.
Will definitely have to take it to the play with my group of gaming friends. (AZN posse & crackers on the side.)
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/17226/descent-journeys-in-the-dark
I cannot help thinking of all the games of multiple board games we could have played in that time.
The easiest way is to make everything secondary to getting the victory points, prefer imperial over other strat cards, work the objective cards. Ignore your secret objectives, they all are way too difficult to complete compared to the other primary and secondary objectives out there.
I've only ever played one game that long, the combined version of Axis & Allies 1940 Global, and that was only fueled by nostalgia since it was a reunion of old college A&A-playing buddies.
The problem was that the imperial card wasn't hitting the table enough to get new objective. Which is strange considering that it gives you 2 points just for taking it, which is another rule I have a problem with because we got to the point where one person was about to win the game despite the fact he had nothing left but someone took his home world before he could.
You got way lucky on that secret objective; too many times i've gotten then "take your neighbor's homeworld!" to look over at my Sardakk and Barony neighbors.