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This forum is specifically for discussing non-Mafia games
(board, card, video, we're not picky)
.
Playing
such games should happen in the Mish Mash forum, of course.
147 posts
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GreyICE
GreyICE
Fifty Shades
GreyICE
Fifty Shades
Fifty Shades
Posts: 15455
Joined: December 15, 2010
Post
Post #921 (isolation #0) » Tue Feb 18, 2014 2:46 pm
Postby GreyICE »
In post 919, Vi wrote:That's understandable. Any cooperative game is basically a single-player optimization experiment with the joy or frustration of dealing with other people. Maybe I haven't hit the point where it loses its fun.
I feel like some achieve a really good balance. Then again, my favorite is by far and away Darkest Night, and no one even knows what that is. So, like, yeah, there's a point to that.
If you like co-op but hate the "optimize the board and argue with others" Archipelago is semi co-op, but everyone has their own objectives (and one person could have the objective of completely fucking everyone over, so you can't 100% trust people to act in the Archipelago's interests).
Only warning I'd toss in is that it's basically about being colonial bastards and brutally exploiting, enslaving, and killing the natives. It's under a layer of abstraction, but that's the theme, and some people don't like that.
Post
Post #923 (isolation #1) » Tue Feb 18, 2014 4:46 pm
Postby GreyICE »
It's a lot of fun. The game is just very well put together.
Basically, you start out, small party of heroes. 4, to be exact. And the goal is to try and defeat a Necromancer, either by recovering holy relics, or by actually doing battle with him and beating him (this is hard). Meanwhile, he spawns these irritating blights that will start to overwhelm the board.
You have to go around the board, searching for keys to unlock the relic, and collecting artifacts, cards, and keys. The monastery is your "safe zone", close locations are mediocre (but safer) and the far locations have the best stuff, but are far away.
Okay, so what makes it tick? Just, so much cool stuff. Like, each class gets 10 ability cards, and you only get 3 (out of 4 predetermined abilities) to start. So you want to go after those other 6, because there's some REALLY cool skills hiding in there. But it doesn't directly help you out. But you want them! And you want the artifacts (they're amazing!). And all of the limited use stuff is awesome too! So you want to get it.
But see, you have this meter called "stealth." Different heroes have different amount, but a lot of the things you're doing are going to lower your stealth. And see, the necromancer rolls to determine how he moves, and if he gets a roll above your (steadily decreasing) stealth, he's going to stop moving randomly and charge you. The only way to recharge it is to move or retreat to the Monastery (where the Necromancer can't track you). So you can only do so much before the Necromancer notices you and starts to track you down. And you think you can control it, right? But you get an event card every turn. And some of the events get worse if you're at low stealth. So you might think "Oh I have at least a turn before he notices me" then get a bad event, lose stealth, and suddenly you're Necromancer bait. And you have to go running across the board to go cower in the Monastery until it's all over.
So the result is that you really feel a desire to push your luck. If you're on one of the far spaces, busy earning awesome artifacts, abilities, keys, chests, important things, you want to stay there. But each turn you do the likelihood rises that something goes terribly wrong.
Oh, and cool stuff? The heroes. Each one is different. We're not talking "different ability names." Oh no. The Prince rallies support from the countryside. He starts with horrible stealth (meaning even out the gate the Necromancer can notice him) but his abilities are often placed on locations, giving everyone there cool bonuses. Because he's rallied the locals, see? And there's the Acolyte, who is like a mini necromancer - his abilities work similar to the Necromancer's, and can even raise the darkness for bonuses (but bringing your loss closer). And there's the usual Rogue (Stealthy, can backstab people and spend and regain stealth in awesome manners), Priest (great healer), Fighter (obvious), Druid (transforms into awesome forms - you WANT to go diving for his abilities, because he has some great forms). There's a scholar who doesn't do great in combat, but he's absolutely great at finding things - he just wants to be left alone to research while everyone does important combat thingies.
The quality of components is a little meh, if that matters to you, and definitely get the hard board over the fold out mat - but the game itself is really, really, really fun. The "push your luck" mechanic and the chance (different from randomness) that can change your decisions means it's rather hard to just "solve" the way Pandemic can be. Everyone has a slightly different tolerance for risk, and if the dice like you, you might get far with some finger crossing. The different heroes make every game feel sufficiently different, and even replaying heroes you can end up with different abilities and a different feel.
In post 934, sthar8 wrote:Trains is a genre. I have a 'train games' shelf in the store.
And, according to my train game snob friend, Ticket to Ride is
not
a train game.
It's really not.
"Train Game" is more like "Worker Placement Game" than it is like "Pirate Game". That is to say that train games are literally a genre (like Wargames, etc.). Ticket to Ride is no more a train game than Race for the Galaxy is a Wargame.
String Railroad and Trains also fall into this weird twilight zone where they look like Train Games, but really aren't. Although Trains is pretty close.
Post
Post #942 (isolation #4) » Sat Feb 22, 2014 8:19 pm
Postby GreyICE »
In post 941, Chevre wrote:I just don't get what your definition of "train game" implies. Like, do you mean the idea that railroads are being built and then you pass resources along those routes to complete things? I guess you're getting at the idea that Ticket to Ride is simple enough that it could be rethemed and completely remove the idea of trains, but I think that's plausible for any game. I think if you're grouping under the criterion of "trains" then that's theme rather than mechanic. That's why I think War actually is a fairly suitable fit for the category of wargame because it is a game of two sides sparring against one another using some sort of system, even if it's pure luck.
Post
Post #946 (isolation #6) » Sun Feb 23, 2014 4:21 pm
Postby GreyICE »
The issue is that Ticket to Ride is a simple and cute set collection game, but it mechanically doesn't even attempt to represent trains. At best it attempts to represent rail lines in an extremely abstract manner (you don't pay for rail, except by collecting sets of colored cards which represent... something or other). But it doesn't represent trains at all.
You can't have a train game that doesn't have any trains in it. That's just something else entirely. (the same goes for the quite enjoyable Japanese game "Trains")
As an unrelated pet peeve, it's completely unplayable in my group because we have a colorblind player and it makes zero attempts to respect that color blindness is even a thing (would you like to build on the red route or the green route? How about the middle finger route?). Literally none. I have very rarely seen a board game that makes so little acknowledgment that color blindness is even a thing (and it would have been very simple to do).
In post 946, GreyICE wrote:As an unrelated pet peeve, it's completely unplayable in my group because we have a colorblind player and it makes zero attempts to respect that color blindness is even a thing (would you like to build on the red route or the green route? How about the middle finger route?). Literally none. I have very rarely seen a board game that makes so little acknowledgment that color blindness is even a thing (and it would have been very simple to do).
Except that EVERY route color has a separate and distinct symbol? On both the card and the route, last I checked (we only own the American version).
I mean, I get that it's cool to hate on TTR, but let's at least hate on it for things that are true.
Post
Post #954 (isolation #9) » Sun Feb 23, 2014 5:28 pm
Postby GreyICE »
Okay so later (in a new edition of the game I'd have to give them more money for) they added... an invisible dot to the center.
I greyscaled it. Anyone wanna play this game?
And yes, later versions they offered a very sad 'fix' for this issue, but frankly I'm not giving them more money for a game I didn't like very much in the first place.
Post
Post #955 (isolation #10) » Sun Feb 23, 2014 5:38 pm
Postby GreyICE »
I mean if it was some minor portion of the game, okay, we've worked around that in the past. Or if it was some game with shitty components we paid $10 for we could scribble all over the board without worries.
But how do they make a huge title like this where the central mechanic is color matching and never get around to asking "hey, what about 7% of the male population?" They could have just made every track a different shape and solved the entire problem...
Post
Post #957 (isolation #11) » Sun Feb 23, 2014 6:24 pm
Postby GreyICE »
In post 956, quadz08 wrote:I don't really know why it matters if ticket to ride is technically a train game or not?
Well it's useful to categorize games because there's an awfully large number of them, and when you're introducing them to new people it's good to have useful shorthands. So there's "worker placement games" and "deckbuilders" and "wargames" and "bluffing games" (such as Mafia) and so on and so forth.
Ticket to ride is most certainly a very simple set collection game (where you collect sets of things). Those can be extremely fun, and there's certainly nothing wrong with that, but if you tell people "Ticket to Ride is a train game" and they go and buy a Train game because they liked Ticket to ride, they're gonna be out some money and probably quite annoyed.
Post
Post #970 (isolation #13) » Mon Feb 24, 2014 4:39 am
Postby GreyICE »
Spiel der Jarles
GotY games are all extremely tight mechanical packages based around a central theme with no extraneous parts and deep tactical play. Dominion is the closest to violating that rule, but Dominion is literally revolutionary (it started the entire deckbuilder game set on its own, and it's still the tightest and best-designed deckbuilder out there - you might enjoy others more, but I can tell you exactly why Dominion did everything it and other games cannot say the same).
Alhambra - tight mechanical package, simple game with deep tactical play (often compared to Go)
Hanabi - central theme, extremely tight mechanical play, no extraneous parts
Kingdom Builder - central theme, extremely tight play, no extra parts.
Etc. All of them look like that. There's no room in
Spiel der Jarles
for the sprawling craziness of Archipelago, the 'oh fuck why not' design of Seasons.
Post
Post #1043 (isolation #20) » Tue Mar 18, 2014 7:52 am
Postby GreyICE »
Own Archipelago. It is HIGHLY patchworky. Don't get me wrong, it's a great game, but it has so many moving parts that all move separately. The entire game, in point of fact, is a tension between two moving parts - your own goals, win conditions, and agendas, and the ongoing crisis mess that can make you lose the game easily. Anything you do to stop a crisis usually lowers your chance of victory.
If you're playing with a fairly competitive crowd your island is going to explode the first time because you're all too busy trying to compete and the natives revolt.
Eventually you'll find the balance of churches, market sales, and idle worker management to effectively handle everything with little issue, but trust me the first time you'll play you'll realize there's five different gameboards, none of them are the ones you play the game on (that's done with hex tiles), you can build any one of four structures on those hexes, interact with any sideboard, there's an entire deck of cards that gives you a whole NEW mechanic for interaction, and then you'll be burned at the stake because you're a witch.
Post
Post #1046 (isolation #22) » Tue Mar 18, 2014 1:26 pm
Postby GreyICE »
Oh. Well it plays just as well with 3 or 4. Expansion also genius.
Basically it manages to be a completely one-mechanic game with absolute elegance of design that is quite balanced, and yet avoids the perils of games like Lords of Waterdeep - you never feel the game is overbalanced. Sheer brilliance in action, it reminds me of Dominion and that is not faint praise.
Archipeligo is a mash up of every mechanic the designers thought was cool, but it's been playtested enough that it actually kind of works really well despite the immense amount of noise.
Post
Post #1053 (isolation #23) » Wed Mar 19, 2014 6:28 pm
Postby GreyICE »
In post 1047, Chevre wrote:Suburbia does sound very interesting, but I've heard that there is a lot of bookkeeping since so many of the tiles can work together and continue to do so throughout turns and thus I'm hesitant about trying it.
It all works so well together that there's minimal bookkeeping. Basically it all just WORKS.
Post
Post #1103 (isolation #26) » Mon Mar 31, 2014 4:02 pm
Postby GreyICE »
Hmm, some googling tells me I have a second edition, that's the one where the pieces like to warp into curves.
-_-
Oh betrayal. I'd tend to agree with SU&SD that it's less a game and more a modern art piece, but what an absolutely fascinating modern art piece. I enjoy it, but I'm always hesitant to suggest it, because it sometimes feels like such an anticlimax. "Oh I shall play a game. Oh I shall explore a house! Egad, I am in a basement, let me poke around. Oh dear, water is rising and it appears we have not drawn one of two tiles that could save me. I guess that my objective is to flail about a bit and drown."
(for those who have never played it, it's a lot more fun than that, but that's not only a scenario that can happen, that exact scenario happened to someone who played in a game we played. He never really had a single input on whether or not he could live, and he died virtually immediately after he learned how he needed to win)
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Post #1352 (isolation #30) » Mon Aug 25, 2014 7:33 am
Postby GreyICE »
Eclipse Phase
- might just be the setting for you. Hard sci fi, with a strong transhuman theme. System is very reminiscent of GURPS. Not sure if you'd count it as "goofy stuff" - it definitely focuses on technology used to upgrade humanity, rather than the future simply having humans who use more advanced gizmos, but it's very good.
In the same vein,
Nova Praxis
is simply excellent. Fate based, so the rules are lighter and easier to get into, and quite flavorful.
Finally, if you just want a far-future flavor without really considering the ethical/moral issues of improving humanity (as well as the attendant DM issues of having to consider how transhumans approach a problem, which usually is very different from how humans might approach a problem) then
Dark Heresy
will be a nice breath of fresh air. Just don't get too attached to your characters, they are doomed to death.
Post
Post #1355 (isolation #31) » Mon Aug 25, 2014 9:49 am
Postby GreyICE »
I'm not normally one to bitch about the math too hard, but Savage Worlds has one of the least intuitive systems ever for GMs. There is no fucking way that gaining more skill should make a task HARDER to complete, but Savage Worlds.
Post
Post #1359 (isolation #32) » Mon Aug 25, 2014 12:11 pm
Postby GreyICE »
In post 1357, sthar8 wrote:
I disagree that this is true in any meaningful sense. And it probably wouldn't affect my enjoyment of the system if it were. But of course, YMMV.
Y'know, I'm fine with YMMV, but this is not YMMV. Going from d4 to d6 makes it less likely to succeed on many tasks due to exploding dice (namely difficulty 6, although 5 and 7 are virtually the same), and it's a system where even a master swordsman (d12) has a pretty good chance to lose to a neonate. Given that there's a bunch of things in the system that actually boil down to mathy bonuses (unlike Fate), you can't just shrug your shoulders and go "eh, math sucks". And even where a d4 isn't strictly better, having improvements in systems just doesn't feel extremely rewarding. It's a system where you will fail a moderately difficult task often, no matter what you roll (a difficulty 7 is only a 50/50 with a d12, after all).
I dunno. I feel the system has aged badly. YMMV, as you said, but I wouldn't pick it up when you can ALSO run everything with Fate, but with less fiddles and a system that scales nicely. And when you go from 2 to 3 it really feels important, rather than "oh yeah, well now I... I don't really know what happened". Although I will say rolling a big d12 FEELS really good, so there is that.
Post
Post #1363 (isolation #33) » Wed Aug 27, 2014 5:21 am
Postby GreyICE »
In post 1361, Mr. Flay wrote:I fucking hate Savage Worlds. It's so BORING to miss/fail all the time.
On that note, try any Powered By Apocalypse system (Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, Monster Hearts).
Failure is fucking amazing! In Dungeon World it's how you get XP. And it's never, ever boring (you do not 'fail to open the locked door', you 'alert the city guards' or 'break the lock so that it's obvious what you did' etc.).
It's really revolutionized how I look at games. Especially the "10+ = full success/7-9 = success at a cost" mechanic.
Post
Post #1385 (isolation #35) » Thu Aug 28, 2014 6:12 pm
Postby GreyICE »
Okay, I've decided.
Running
The Gates of Firestorm Peak
(no worries if you never heard of it, don't look it up (it's my module) using Dungeon World rules. The rules are fairly light - for board gamers, a little heavier than Settlers of Catan, but lighter than Battlestar Galactica. About 10 minutes to explain, usual classes (fighter, wizard, cleric, druid, paladin, etc.). Thursday nights, we'll start next thursday if I get 3-4 people interested.
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Post #1421 (isolation #39) » Mon Sep 08, 2014 5:44 am
Postby GreyICE »
That's why you have a games night. Once people have committed to playing games for 4 or 5 hours, you can get things like BSG to hit the table.
Otherwise they'll hang around and do jack shit for 4 or 5 hours, but they won't commit to playing a game because there's the chance they could do something else (even if they'd really enjoy the game).
for $25.32 with free Prime shipping. Anyone played this and want to give thoughts on it? Considering scooping it up.
It's... light. It's very light.
It's strategic, and it's got the basics of a good thing, but for my money there are better. Basically you pick up chips, buy stuff, and go for goals, but there's no sort of engine, and no real variety. It's extremely Euro.
Post
Post #1490 (isolation #42) » Wed Oct 08, 2014 2:53 pm
Postby GreyICE »
Haven't played King's Forge.
I would actually lean towards Spyrium as a replacement. It's going for a similar $25, and it's a damn good game. A little bit of worker placement feel, but with good bidding mechanics, and a lot more complexity and depth. Underrated little gem.
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Post #1494 (isolation #43) » Wed Oct 08, 2014 5:26 pm
Postby GreyICE »
In post 1491, xRECKONERx wrote:Huh, I've only seen Splendor for like $40 elsewhere. Doesn't seem like something I'd enjoy... "light" games, to me, need to be a 15-30 minute ordeal, not 30-60min.
I played with two the times I tried it, so maybe its longer with more, but I'd say around 20-30 minutes seems right if you have some experience.
Oh, for a really good light game, go with
No Thanks
! It's basically about taking cards, where you get 8 little red chips, and points are bad. On your turn, you can either send a card in front of you on to the next person by putting a red chip on it, or take it, and all of the red chips on it.
Simple as fuck, I just explained the entire game, plays pretty quickly, and has a lot more strategy than you'd think.
Post
Post #1508 (isolation #44) » Thu Oct 09, 2014 3:44 am
Postby GreyICE »
See, I never felt Splendor was an engine builder. I tend to think that an Engine Builder should have at least some form of engine. Take Seasons. There are just cards that work extremely well together in Seasons, but are fairly terrible on their own. Their mediocre nature only combines to form an engine if you aim for it and build it.
In contrast, Splendor has no engine. I can buy a card that makes everything 1 red gem cheaper. This combos with a card that makes everything 1 green gem cheaper to make all cards 1 red and 1 green gem cheaper. If my opponents take my green gem engine piece, all they'll get is everything... being 1 green gem cheaper.
Now maybe if one card gave you 1 red chip a turn, and another card let you get an additional red gem to spend whenever you used a red chip, and a third let you spend red like gold, you'd have an engine. You'd get a free red chip every turn that could be turned into a red + anything, without lifting a finger, and chances are that no one else really wants the "spend red like gold" card all that much, but it rocks for you. But that would add complexity, and Splendor isn't about complexity. It's about "elegance". There's nothing wrong with the game, but there's nothing particularly great. There's no amazing moments, no time when your friend completes his engine, no time when you laugh about how insane it was that someone won. Just a gentle progression towards 15.
As I said, for $25, get Spyrium. Maybe it takes half an hour longer, maybe it's "less elegant" because the cards actually do something interesting, rather than have blindingly obvious and trivial effects, maybe it has a hell of a lot more focus on "economy" in your game about "buying stuff". Maybe its a better game.
Post
Post #1510 (isolation #45) » Thu Oct 09, 2014 5:07 am
Postby GreyICE »
I don't want to argue semantics too much, because that's a straight shot into madness, but I really wish that there was any way to combo the cards or do anything. Each card gives each person the same benefit, there's no way to get any moving parts.
I feel like it has the tools to be a really good, fun, simple game, just by varying the card effects up a little so there was more than just "a gem" and "VP" as possible things cards did for you. It wouldn't have to be very much for me to like the game a lot, just something where you got it going and other people went "oh that's cool!" Maybe something that let you pay gems to reserve cards, or gave you bonuses for having a certain thing (3 Green gems gives you 2 red gems, does nothing if you have less than 3), or giving you a gold every time you bought a white or black card... just SOMETHING.
But I doubt I'm the target audience (Spyrium is still better for $25 dammit~)
Post
Post #1512 (isolation #46) » Thu Oct 09, 2014 6:07 am
Postby GreyICE »
I've only ever played it, and it's a bit of a unicorn, but if you can find Glory to Rome, highly recommended. Other than that, I have only praise for Mage Knight (although that's a little bit of everything to all people, but engine it definitely is when it gets rolling) and for $15 its hard to beat Star Realms, if its in print. Star Realms is definitely a tad on the simple side, and can feel pretty random sometimes, but it scratches the engine builder itch in a 2 player game, and plays quite quickly (15 minutes a game is not unreasonable)
In post 1512, GreyICE wrote:I've only ever played it, and it's a bit of a unicorn, but if you can find Glory to Rome, highly recommended. Other than that, I have only praise for Mage Knight (although that's a little bit of everything to all people, but engine it definitely is when it gets rolling) and for $15 its hard to beat Star Realms, if its in print. Star Realms is definitely a tad on the simple side, and can feel pretty random sometimes, but it scratches the engine builder itch in a 2 player game, and plays quite quickly (15 minutes a game is not unreasonable)
I was kind of "meh" on Glory to Rome. I do loooooove Mage Knight, and the expansions have been excellent. I'll definitely give Star Realms a try when I can.
Are you on Boardgamegeek at all? I'd be curious to see your game rankings if you are.
I read it on and off, and I have an account, but I can't recall me ever posting. Too many holy wars, too much random garbage.
Post
Post #1521 (isolation #49) » Thu Oct 09, 2014 1:13 pm
Postby GreyICE »
Carcassonne
is somewhat obvious as an intro area control game that is easy to teach. You're basically building a little medieval world, 1 tile at a time, and scoring based on area control. It's quite fun. Plays well with like 2-4 or so, doesn't gain too much time with extra players.
Flashpoint: Fire Rescue
is a great intro game because it's co-op. Simple rules, and can be made even simpler with a "family game" variant. You're firefighters putting out fires. Non-family games add a fire truck and roles, as well as hazardous materials Scales nicely up to 4 players. Enough randomness its resistant to quarterbacking, and quite fun to play because new players don't get this sinking "I'm going to lose" feeling.
Ticket to Ride
is, in my opinion, somewhat overrated. But it's still a nice intro game.
Post
Post #1537 (isolation #51) » Fri Oct 10, 2014 3:23 am
Postby GreyICE »
In post 1532, Oman wrote:I've heard that Twilight Struggle is really complex. She's pretty new to board games and I want to ease her in.
It is a hyper intimidating board with mediocre component quality and insanely deep strategy.
By the by, just picked up my Mage Wars expansion. It's really threatening to totally replace M:tG, if more people played it I think it would. Too goddamn cool.
Post
Post #1557 (isolation #52) » Fri Oct 10, 2014 4:02 pm
Postby GreyICE »
Played a game of it on Thursday.
I think
City of Horror
is better, but
Cosmic Encounter
is so amazingly silly. My major problem remains that it doesn't really have any time limit - our game lasted 2.5 hours due to a lot of back and forth, and I feel like that was a little bit of outstaying its welcome. City of Horror just runs faster and cleaner.
Still a great game that I'm not at all sad to own.
Post
Post #1559 (isolation #53) » Sat Oct 11, 2014 6:19 am
Postby GreyICE »
In post 1558, quadz08 wrote:Cosmic Encounter is super fun, but be careful not to play with too many people. My first game of Cosmic encounter took probably 2 hours and everybody got 1 turn.
Well some group was inviting too many people along on their encounters.
I think we got around 8 or 10 turns in or so in our game? It was hyper defensive, and negotiations just didn't happen.
Post
Post #1563 (isolation #54) » Sat Oct 11, 2014 7:07 am
Postby GreyICE »
In post 1561, Chevre wrote:Could Cosmic encounter work on forum/Vassal/BSW?
I think my first playthrough would be like 3-6 players, probably more likely lower numbers. But it's literally $46 and that would be the most I would have ever spent on a board game. (I know, I'm fortunate/cheap. The most I've ever spent is like $41 for
Stone Age
, which never gets played. :'( Anyone wanna trade?)
Speaking of which I woke up this morning and Amazon sent me mail telling me
Felix the Cat in the Sack
was on sale but it was still $35
I rather intensely dislike
Stone Age
... so that's a no.
I guess I would run cosmic on forum if people really wanted it, it would be fun to mod, but it's a very component-friendly game (you get 20 little UFOs that are a big part of the game). Best option is to find a gamestore with a library, and test it there.
In post 1561, Chevre wrote:Could Cosmic encounter work on forum/Vassal/BSW?
I think my first playthrough would be like 3-6 players, probably more likely lower numbers. But it's literally $46 and that would be the most I would have ever spent on a board game. (I know, I'm fortunate/cheap. The most I've ever spent is like $41 for
Stone Age
, which never gets played. :'( Anyone wanna trade?)
Speaking of which I woke up this morning and Amazon sent me mail telling me
Felix the Cat in the Sack
was on sale but it was still $35
I rather intensely dislike
Stone Age
... so that's a no.
I guess I would run cosmic on forum if people really wanted it, it would be fun to mod, but it's a very component-friendly game (you get 20 little UFOs that are a big part of the game). Best option is to find a gamestore with a library, and test it there.
Would play forum-Cosmic
Hells yes. MS people are the perfect people to play it with. You need to have a complete willingness to slit each other's throat in game combined with the ability to ignore the doubledealings when the game is over.
Post
Post #1604 (isolation #57) » Mon Oct 13, 2014 12:56 pm
Postby GreyICE »
Mafia
,
Resistance,
and
City of Horrors
being three of them. Or
Diplomacy
and
Game of Thrones
.
Negotiation/social deception games by their nature rely on having a good group of people. More solitary, strategic games let you get joy out of the pure strategy, outside the social aspect.
Post
Post #1606 (isolation #58) » Mon Oct 13, 2014 1:57 pm
Postby GreyICE »
Cosmic Encounters
is heavily reliant on negotiating with other players, and getting them to help you. The entire game is virtually all social negotiation. There's even a "Negotiate" card where if both people play one they have 1 minute to cut a deal (cards, powers, whatever). If you want to play your own game and not talk to other people, this is not the game for you.
I mean that and the wild powers the aliens have are basically most of the game (and how much fun 20 UFOs are... and how great the cards are... and there's like 6 expansions... it's just pure fun)
Last edited by GreyICE on Tue Oct 14, 2014 4:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post #1623 (isolation #59) » Thu Oct 16, 2014 3:58 am
Postby GreyICE »
OTOH 6 Epidemics isn't that tough really.
The key to Pandemic, and what makes it a less-than-great game IMHO is that chasing cubes is such an enormous waste of time. Everyone assumes the Medic is the strongest role at first, but the Medic is actually quite mediocre. The strongest role in the game is the Researcher. It's basically risk-mitigation, with you assuming exactly how little effort you have to do to stop a region from having more than one or two outbreaks, then playing race for the cure.
I hear In the Lab makes the cubes relevant again, so I'd like to pick it up.
Post
Post #1626 (isolation #60) » Thu Oct 16, 2014 4:54 am
Postby GreyICE »
Quarantine specialist is boss because you can do emergency responder a lot better than Medic, which often ends up pseudo-removing a bunch of cubes, but with less outbreaks than a medic would have.
Scientist is really boss with the Researcher (notice a pattern?) but overall works pretty well with Dispatcher or revised Operations Expert (first Operations Expert is a fairly dire role). Like the Researcher, you'll be hobo squatting in labs all game. Unlike the Researcher, there's a small chance you'll briefly leave the lab to go get a card. See, you think you're playing some large map-management resource game, but in actuality you're playing