Board Games Feeds

by lacxox

After the first try the 2-player game felt a bit lacking, as if it had less tension than the 3- and 4-player games. Of course it’s the same hard (or easy) to win but it’s a lot easier to score high points than in a 4-player game. I mean, if you count with using all the 55 tiles, even distribution would mean something like
in a 4-player game: 13.75 tile per player (4.58 for each color if you have 3 columns, 3.44 if you have 4)
in a 3-player game: 18.67 tile per player (6.2 for each color if you have 3 columns, 4.67 if you have 4, 3.73 if you have 5 columns)
in a 2-player game: 27.5 tile per player (9.2 for each color if you have 3 columns, 6.88 if you have 4, 5.5 if you have 5 columns)
As you have maximum score for a column when it has 6 stones it seems the numbers aren’t that fine
So I’m thinking what should be done. In all the other Keltis games you use 30 cards less when playing 2-player, because of the same reason. So one thing you could do is taking 15 tiles off of the 55 and play the game with the remaining 40. But since this version is the most luck-dependent of the series, I’m not sure if it works. So what if in case of a 2-player game we stuck to the scoring of the original game instead?
1 stone (tile) of a color: - 4 points
2 stones of a color: - 3 points
3 stones of a color: - 2 points
4 stones of a color: +1 points
5 stones of a color: +2 points
6 stones of a color: +3 points
7 stones of a color: +6 points
8 stones of a color: +7 points
9 stones of a color: +10 points

As I’m just learning the game I can be totally wrong. I also know that in the upcoming weeks I won’t have the possibility to try the alternative scoring at home. So if you try this one please let me know how it felt And when I have time to try this version I’m also going to post how it went here.

by Shade_Jon

Gili 96, Jon 95, David 95, Elijah 93, Avraham 60

Just one game took the entire evening, from around 7:40 until 11:20 or so. I'm pretty sure most other game groups finish games more quickly than we do. Yeah, we have some AP, but it doesn't seem like THAT much.

First play for Avraham and Elijah, second for David, third for Gili, and fourth for me.

The end scores are all pretty hazy. Several final or interim decisions might have changed them. Also, I tried to discover a province with four colonists twice, once in each of the last two turns, and failed both times. If either had succeeded (which was overwhelmingly in my favor) I would have won; then again, I could simply have waited until I had six colonists on the last round and try only once, with guaranteed success. So this was also the result of a choice, only I didn't know how many points I needed exactly to win.

If they don't do anything to change the board depending on the number of players, worker placement games are optimized for the maximum number of players. In our case, for five players. Though the game was long, it didn't drag much and was pretty interesting the whole way. Elijah, as well as the others, enjoyed the game.

Gili played with heavy soldiers, killing off other colonists here and there; I finally put a stop to her killing mine with some soldiers of my own and then the defensive building that gives you a soldier in every area whenever you're attacked. I don't often say this, but this game could actually use just a tad more conflict.

David had very strong income with tiles and ships, and also a lot of missionaries and the bonus for missionaries. I had strong income with tiles, too, and I took the first building first, which was the one that gives $20 so that you can then go and buy two more buildings; it's always the first one chosen, so it may be somewhat broken. I think it's less broken in five players, because you don't necessarily get to pick your next building already on the first round. Still, there is one that gives $5 per round which I don't think of as broken, so I don't know what the fix would be.

I also had a captain in the discovery box each round, and played for as many of those as I could. Elijah and Avraham also did several discoveries. Avraham neglected everything else, including income, which is why his score was so low. He had a merchant every round, however.

We discovered that we were playing one rule incorrectly: that an area only scores once there are at least three colonists in it. This prevents areas discovered right before a scoring from counting during the scoring. I don't know how I feel about this rule.

by Jocinetu

When we start playing last night my friend who plays One Fist, first decide to play his hero ability this way: WHEN HE ATTACKS - HE ADD ONE RED & ONE GREEN DICE TO HIS ROLL!!! So he buy a sword which gives him one red, one yellow and two black dices & he roles one green (addition from hero ability) and after roll he roles another red (second addition roll from hero ability). This way almost every time he attack, he hit and would destroy his target, but after roll his second red (only one red is in the box) he always roll X, so miss... After few missed attacks we decides that we didn't play him right, so we figure out that he roll his ability roll after he first attack with his weapon. So his next attack was : Yellow, Red, two Black & after this if target is still alive he rolls Red & Green. We have another question right here... We plays 3rd quest in vanilla Descent, so in 3rd room we fight Nagas with 6 and 7 armor. Does he when he rolls his first attack (yellow, red, two black) and makes i think 7 damage, than roll second attack with hook (red & green) and count 'em like 7 from first roll plus 4 from second roll = 11 damage to Naga that have 7 armor, so Naga takes 4 wounds... Is this correct??? And finally my other friend (after read One Fists hero ability) figure out that One Fists additional attack add's another two black power dices to red & green because on the card writes that his second attack is melee and his melee threat is two black dices... What is right about this discussion??? I mean every time we plays, someone get hero with questionable ability, or draw skill that we can't figure out etc. Anyway this is great game and we love it , so i suppose that with this amount of rules and variability comes little confusion, but nothing that Descent gurus can't explain.

by Shade_Jon

I had never even read the rules, but it was simple enough to read them out loud and go through a sample turn.

OM is an expanded version of Bohnanza; that's all I could think the whole way through the game. They're not really identical in mechanics, but trading away cards you don't want to get what you do, and then planting them in sequenced groups, is the core of both games, and so it naturally leads to that conclusion.

OM is a game allegedly about shipping and Europe, etc, ho hum. Really it's about card management. Play a number of cards equal to a value set by your last turn, gain the bonuses or negatives on the cards (including points and more cards), and then "plant" the cards to be counted as points at the end of the game. You get points for having played cards in bunches, but not too many of the same type at once.

Oltre Mare has more to it. Each round, you have to play a certain number of cards and gain the value of these cards. It's just that each time you play, you determine not only this turn's results, but: a) the points you get based on the order you discard them, what you played last time, and will play next time, as well as b) your hand limit at the beginning of your next turn and c) the exact number of cards you are required to play next turn. Since the cards are designed to ensure that you can't generally get the best of all worlds on each play, you simply have to decide where to compromise each round. This is not that big of a deal, because, owing to the trading that happens on every players' turn, you can often make up for the compromise by the time it gets back to you again.

I thought it was a lovely game, with a few caveats. One is the mechanic that gives you a trade chip each time you trade with someone else on their turn. The player with the most trade chips at the middle and end of the games gains 6 points. Since this is entirely dependent on other players' whims, I dislike it. It's an unnecessary mechanic, anyway, since you already have incentives for trading. It's not too much of a deal, however.

What's bad is the trade rules. Each card has a "type", as well as symbols that indicate the types of actions you get when you play the cards, and the hand limit and number of cards you must play if the card ends up on top of your played stack. And the rules clearly say that you must tell the other players what types of cards you are trading them but may LIE about the other symbols.

As a Eurogamer, that mechanics simply turns me off, entirely. Some people may like it, war gamers mostly, and that's fine for them. In our game, we simply didn't bother to mention anything else on the card, trading entirely by card type.

One additional mechanic which I really dislike is the same one which annoyed me in a few other games, and it's the combination of a) a variable game ending trigger, and b) that the player to the right of the starting player always gets the last turn. This mechanic entirely screws the player who goes first, who typically has no control over when the game will end and is therefore typically caught entirely sunk after he has invested resources for his next turn, only to suddenly find that he has no next turn. Which is exactly what happened to me in this game, but I will point out that I objected to the mechanic already when the game started, entirely for this reason.

Other than these issues, the rest of the game is simple and should, in theory, be relatively quick.

by Shade_Jon

I had never even read the rules, but it was simple enough to read them out loud and go through a sample turn.

OM is an expanded version of Bohnanza; that's all I could think the whole way through the game. They're not really identical in mechanics, but trading away cards you don't want to get what you do, and then planting them in sequenced groups, is the core of both games, and so it naturally leads to that conclusion.

OM is a game allegedly about shipping and Europe, etc, ho hum. Really it's about card management. Play a number of cards equal to a value set by your last turn, gain the bonuses or negatives on the cards (including points and more cards), and then "plant" the cards to be counted as points at the end of the game. You get points for having played cards in bunches, but not too many of the same type at once.

Oltre Mare has more to it. Each round, you have to play a certain number of cards and gain the value of these cards. It's just that each time you play, you determine not only this turn's results, but: a) the points you get based on the order you discard them, what you played last time, and will play next time, as well as b) your hand limit at the beginning of your next turn and c) the exact number of cards you are required to play next turn. Since the cards are designed to ensure that you can't generally get the best of all worlds on each play, you simply have to decide where to compromise each round. This is not that big of a deal, because, owing to the trading that happens on every players' turn, you can often make up for the compromise by the time it gets back to you again.

I thought it was a lovely game, with a few caveats. One is the mechanic that gives you a trade chip each time you trade with someone else on their turn. The player with the most trade chips at the middle and end of the games gains 6 points. Since this is entirely dependent on other players' whims, I dislike it. It's an unnecessary mechanic, anyway, since you already have incentives for trading. It's not too much of a deal, however.

What's bad is the trade rules. Each card has a "type", as well as symbols that indicate the types of actions you get when you play the cards, and the hand limit and number of cards you must play if the card ends up on top of your played stack. And the rules clearly say that you must tell the other players what types of cards you are trading them but may LIE about the other symbols.

As a Eurogamer, that mechanics simply turns me off, entirely. Some people may like it, war gamers mostly, and that's fine for them. In our game, we simply didn't bother to mention anything else on the card, trading entirely by card type.

One additional mechanic which I really dislike is the same one which annoyed me in a few other games, and it's the combination of a) a variable game ending trigger, and b) that the player to the right of the starting player always gets the last turn. This mechanic entirely screws the player who goes first, who typically has no control over when the game will end and is therefore typically caught entirely sunk after he has invested resources for his next turn, only to suddenly find that he has no next turn. Which is exactly what happened to me in this game, but I will point out that I objected to the mechanic already when the game started, entirely for this reason.

Other than these issues, the rest of the game is simple and should, in theory, be relatively quick.

by Freedeath

My copy is complete, and I've read through the adventure book to account for all the tokens/cards.

1) The 'holy water' card has a 'treasure' card back, but appears to be used like an 'adventure treasure' (one coffin token says to take the holy water card). Are you supposed to dig through the treasure deck during play to find it, or perhaps is was misprinted (ie. was supposed to have an 'adventure treasure' back)?

2) I can't figure out why there are 2 'wooden stake' adventure treasure cards. Perhaps one of them was supposed to have a 'treasure' back? Maybe the 'holy water' and 2nd 'wooden stake' card have their backs reversed (speculation only).

3) Howling hag (adventure 8) refers to 25 crypt tiles (they have skulls printed on them): 4 corners, arcane circle, 20 crypt tiles. However, I have 27 tiles with skulls on them. Another misprint, perhaps?

With this game's component issues, I'm just making sure my copy (though complete) doesn't have printing errors, or has the same printing errors as other copies of the game. Thanks in advance for any info!

by Shade_Jon

Abraham+, Bill, Jon, Eitan, Emily, Nadine

And so, this was one of the few games that we could find that would sensibly accommodate all six of us (I thought of Antike a moment too late).

First play for Eitan and Emily, second for Abraham. Bill had played this once many years ago.

Rules: I used one board (Pit Trap) and two flags, without having to return to start. We each started with one option, and you didn't lose the option when you died (but you did restart with two damage points, and you could only die twice; you're out if you die three times). Also, you could decide at the end of the round if you wanted to power down on the next round.

The game took about 3.5 hours, which was too long for Nadine. It was one of the few times I've played the game where there was real competition and tension until the end.

Emily started the game by walking into a pit, and then did it again, and then spent the rest of the game on the wrong side of the board, trying (futilely, as it turns out) to avoid dying a third time.

Eitan was the first to touch the first flag, and though he had died twice, he looked like he might make it to the second flag. However, Bill, who had also touched the first flag by that point, targeted him and managed to shoot and push him off the edge of the board at the same time.

Nadine also managed to die three times, but she wasn't too unhappy about it, as her head was hurting by that point.

I only died once, and I came close to the first flag a few times, but each time I was blocked. By the end of the game, I finally touched the flag, and then I walked off the side of the board (for my second death) so that I could reappear closer to the second flag. I was one or two rounds back from Bill and Abraham, however.

Bill and Abraham had to figure out how to rest on the second flag by the end of the game, without having the other one push him off the board. Luckily for Abraham, Bill simply couldn't draw the right turn cards to position himself to shoot Abraham as he had shot Eitan, and so Abraham took the win.

by parduz

I own Song of Blades and Heroes, and i like it enough. Can someone write a good comparison?

Thanks

by Shade_Jon

Elijah 88, Gili 80, Jon 63, Miriam 44, Nadine 15*

With five players looking for a light game, I finally had my chance to try Mu, a highly-rated trick taking game for 4-6 players. The game has a table for the points required to make for your bid, and a separate table for bonus points for making your bid, and a number of interesting bidding and trump rules in between.

It's fun and interesting, but it's not really all that great. In fact, it's far better with four players than it is with five, which kind of defeats the point, since there are already so many good (better) card games for four. From my limited experience of three hands, it's biggest drawback is that, unlike many other cards games, you're simply going to do well if you have a good hand and poorly if you have a bad hand. Which is not the case for Bridge, Tichu, David and Goliath, and many other games.

Nevertheless, all of us except for Nadine enjoyed ourselves well enough. Nadine gave it two hands and then bowed out for the third. Elijah racked up a lot of points in the first two games, and neither chief was able to make his bid. In the third hand, played without Nadine, Gili was chief and took nearly all the tricks.

by alboy01

In my French cards there is a Blank one, what is this used for.

by Parmenides83

7.6 “Fortress battles are one position battles – both players deploy only in the center.”
Does it mean that there is no Reserve in such battles? What happens when player Reinforces a battle? Should reinforcing units arrive directly to the Center?
7.34 “Enfilading units may pursue units retreating from the enemy Center.”
When the attacker retreats from Fortress battle the defending units get Enfilading fire against Retreating units in the center?

Thanks for help!

by remus

So, I picked up a copy of Cyclades recently because it's all the rage and looks cool and seems like it could be fun. I was itching to get a game in and yesterday my friend came over and we decided to give it a go.

After the first few turns, things were going pretty smoothly and we each had 1 Priest card. Then my opponent won Zeus's favor (got another priest card) and used the Dryad (steal opponent's priest card).

Next thing I know, he has 3 priest cards, I have 0. The 3 GP bidding discount that gave my opponent made the game almost impossible to recover from.

That bidding discount allowed my opponent to shut me out of The Gods I needed every turn for the next 7 or 8 turns and he gained another priest almost every time and I regained 1 priest. It eventually got to 8 priests to 1 priest!!! Eventually further 9 to 2 priests.

That's just too much of a distinct advantage in a two player game. How can the other player possibly recover from that?

No one even had a Metropolis yet at this point. With 3 Metropolis' to win, we eventually quit the game thinking this has potential to be great with 4 or 5 players, but just plain sucks with 2.

Yes, the board is tight in a two player game, which is great. But each player getting two bids is kind of weird. Especially since the first bid is random order and it ended up I got the first two bids in a row and he had the final two. It should start random, but alternating.

One swing of luck, being able to capitalize on that Dryad, made the game too much of an uphill battle for me. Just not a whole lot of fun.

Maybe that's the nature of direct conflict games. It's not like I play a whole lot of them. I'm not expecting the game to have cheesey catch-up mechanisms or anything, but I think in a 4 or 5 player game, with each player only allowed to get 1 favor per turn, that situation with the huge priest lead would've never happened. He had enough bidding power to get another priest almost every round AND build up his army or navy. In a multiplayer game, he would have to abandon Zeus a bit if he wanted to continue to build in other areas, giving other players a chance to catch up with priests. But in a 2 player game, he could increase his bidding power AND build his army making it almost impossible for me to do anything of significant value.

I do want to try this again with 4 or 5. I will not be playing it again as a 2 player.

by helioa

You can find them here:
http://www.zmangames.com/boardgames/files/luna/Luna_Rules.pd...

by helioa

You can find them here:
http://www.zmangames.com/boardgames/files/inca_empire/IncaEm...

by helioa

You can find them here:
http://www.zmangames.com/boardgames/files/merchants_middleag...

by helioa

You can find them here:
http://www.zmangames.com/boardgames/files/cleo_caboose/Cleo_...

by Shade_Jon

Homesteaders is up there with the great Eurogames, nearly all pure resource management and optimization, tons of routes to victory, a stark progression throughout the game, and interaction through auctions and denying other people scarce rewards.

It's hard to get everything you want or need, and yet (in our game) money wasn't too tight or painful, since you can always try something else, instead. It will take several playing to figure out play beyond mere "decent" to "focused". Which is how it should be. I really love it. It has Alex Rockwell's signature all over it.

The game plays for ten rounds. Each round you auction for "action" tiles. If you win an action tile, you can use do the action: if the action is "buy a building", you have to pay for the building. Otherwise you get some small bonus for free. If you pass the auction altogether (which someone will have to do each round in a 3 or 4 player game), you get a small (but progressively better) bonus for free as consolation, and you get to keep your money for the next round.

The buildings give you resources, which let you buy other buildings and eventually buildings that give you victory points. There's a trading market which anyone can use as many times as they want whenever they want, but each trades costs a "trade chip", yet another resource. You can trade for any resource, except trade chips.

It's not perfect. It's actually a little short (!). And, while elegant, sensible, and straightforward, and theme looks like it should be dripping from the pieces, the theme doesn't come through much, and the game is not so ... immersive as Puerto Rico, Agricola, or some other games. It's very nerdy and calculating. You have to love planning and calculating. Trade this for that, these for those, swap these other things for one more of these, build a better income to get more of these, and gain move vp's with these others.

It's also a bit much for my analysis paralysis gamers, because they want to calculate all the possible points for all the possible swaps, and the time to value ratio for this is low. As for me, I just picked a few good paths and stuck with those that enhanced them, dismissing without calculating many other paths as not worth time thinking about. I'll play several more games, trying out a bunch of paths each game, and then I'll have a better idea about which ones work best.

The end buildings that let you buy them and then let you buy an additional building are killer buildings, as are a few of the buildings that appear in mid-game.

One other thing: I think the debt taking is a tad too easy. You can take them whenever you want and there is no sense whatsoever in paying them back before the end of the game. They should really cost $1 a turn to maintain, like people. Undoubtedly Alex tested and discarded this; I'd be interested to know why.

by Shade_Jon

Homesteaders is up there with the great Eurogames, nearly all pure resource management and optimization, tons of routes to victory, a stark progression throughout the game, and interaction through auctions and denying other people scarce rewards.

It's hard to get everything you want or need, and yet (in our game) money wasn't too tight or painful, since you can always try something else, instead. It will take several playing to figure out play beyond mere "decent" to "focused". Which is how it should be. I really love it. It has Alex Rockwell's signature all over it.

The game plays for ten rounds. Each round you auction for "action" tiles. If you win an action tile, you can use do the action: if the action is "buy a building", you have to pay for the building. Otherwise you get some small bonus for free. If you pass the auction altogether (which someone will have to do each round in a 3 or 4 player game), you get a small (but progressively better) bonus for free as consolation, and you get to keep your money for the next round.

The buildings give you resources, which let you buy other buildings and eventually buildings that give you victory points. There's a trading market which anyone can use as many times as they want whenever they want, but each trades costs a "trade chip", yet another resource. You can trade for any resource, except trade chips.

It's not perfect. It's actually a little short (!). And, while elegant, sensible, and straightforward, and theme looks like it should be dripping from the pieces, the theme doesn't come through much, and the game is not so ... immersive as Puerto Rico, Agricola, or some other games. It's very nerdy and calculating. You have to love planning and calculating. Trade this for that, these for those, swap these other things for one more of these, build a better income to get more of these, and gain move vp's with these others.

It's also a bit much for my analysis paralysis gamers, because they want to calculate all the possible points for all the possible swaps, and the time to value ratio for this is low. As for me, I just picked a few good paths and stuck with those that enhanced them, dismissing without calculating many other paths as not worth time thinking about. I'll play several more games, trying out a bunch of paths each game, and then I'll have a better idea about which ones work best.

The end buildings that let you buy them and then let you buy an additional building are killer buildings, as are a few of the buildings that appear in mid-game.

One other thing: I think the debt taking is a tad too easy. You can take them whenever you want and there is no sense whatsoever in paying them back before the end of the game. They should really cost $1 a turn to maintain, like people. Undoubtedly Alex tested and discarded this; I'd be interested to know why.

by chriscoffey

Hi,

I'm new to the game and just wanted to confirm that my understanding is correct that when the term "fellowship is in/not in" is used, it always refers to the position of the fellowship piece, and it doesn't matter if they are not actually there, i.e. if they have moved along the fellowship track.

So for example, where the "Candles of Corpses" card says "Play if the Fellowship is not in a region containing a Free Peoples Settlement", this can be played irrespective of whether the Fellowship Progress Marker has moved from zero on the track, as long as the Ring Bearers piece is not positioned at a Free Peoples Settlement.

Thanks.

by mythos999

If i am in front of an enemy unit can i move with an attack order to this enemy flank ( my own front) if this movement is without entering another enemy zoc? ( i am asking because with this movement i am not moving towards the enemy, as attack move rule states)