Board Games!

[Plum]

Smallworld is awesome. Try Pillaging Orcs or Skeletons (heck, when I had Pillaging Orcs I cleared out most of my territories at the start of my turns just to get the maximum bonuses). Stout Ghouls are awesome. Try Berzerking Amazons (or Commando). Sorcerers are - wait zoraster covered that; in any case if enough people keep their territories held by more than one tile you get nothing for your trouble. And try changing things up by going into decline more or less frequently during the game.

Is going first really that big an advantage? Yeah, getting first pick is nice, but I've had games where I built strategies around that (I play it with my boyfriend, who owns it, and his ears are a bit pointy so he always goes first . . . but I think my winning percentage is pretty high). We've played with Be Not Afraid, an expansion with five extra Races and Special Powers, making strategy interesting. For instance, Pixies have huge numbers but can't leave more than one tile in a territory at the end of your turn. I've exploited the poor choice of another to take a combo with them first round with a Skeletons combo available and forced them into decline after getting some feeding done, and also taken them for the last few turns and together with the remnants of two in decline races (Spirit rocks!) boosted my per-round total super-high. And Leprechauns are allowed to place one pot of gold per territory for whichever territories the hold that they want at the end of each turn. If they're still there by the next turn, the player keeps them, if not, whoever conquered it from them keeps it, and each is worth one Victory Point. Now think about combining it with Fortified . . .

[Plum]

Hm. I've played a fair number of games of various sizes, and I've never felt much of a disadvantage to any spot in the order. I feel that first-player advantage is compensated for even in larger games because they do get attacked first - by the end of any one of the first few turns, they've been vulnerable longer (in a five player game, the last player has had noticeably fewer chances to be attacked than the first) and had less moves with strategic preparation for the evolving gamestate.

And the first player's last turn can mean giving other players points too - it has to do with how you redeploy and how much you spend trying to hurt opponents instead of helping yourself. Going first in the last round can be an advantage, admittedly, but not a big or consistent one, and certainly doesn't consistently outweigh the potential disadvantages of going first at the beginning. My feeling is that with a decent grasp of strategy there's no strong or consistent advantage to a specific place in the turn order. So, good balance, moderate but significant swinginess on that count, though I appreciate the arguments.

[Plum]

I've never played tournament anything, so.

But I feel that the options to successfully counter first-player last turn advantages are available. It's not a consistent advantage because of that. Getting attacked first, if it goes badly in the first couple of turns, in any size game, can be a major setback, and that's something the first player can only prepare for with a defensive Race/Powers choice, which signals to the next player(s) how to respond . . . And last-turn losses can be strategically minimized as well. It depends partly on the Race/Powers choices available initially and the degree to which the first player has the potential to avoid getting hit hard early, which vary and are partly randomized. I might be wrong, here, but I do think there's truth to this.

[Plum]

I lost handily at both Terraforming Mars and Tokaido on Saturday (an uncharacteristically poor showing for me for those games in my regular group) but in each game I scored exactly 69 points, so who's the real winner?

[Plum]

Can be a fun game, but so far sometimes we've had a player who gets stuck unable to do anything meaningful on their turn, which is very frustrating. Might just be an issue with those 1-2 factions in particular. The aesthetic is a big part of the draw if you like that aesthetic.

[Plum]

Fwiw I interpreted "didn't appreciate it" in that context as "it didn't click for them" and assumed exactly what you said, that finding those pirates was when you grasped the win condition and something about how to go about pursuing it. I also would say I don't appreciate games until I grok those.

[Plum]

not sure if this counts, but anyone here played Cultist simulator? While not

technically

a board game, it certainly can feel like one at times, and it has a lot of borrowed elements from, like, worker placement games

Have played it and enjoyed it. It is very system-y and in that respect has a lot in common with board games and is obviously laid out as if it were a solitaire card game on a table ... but I'd make a dedicated thread to discuss it because it is different enough from a board game and more in common with other single-player video games to warrant it.