Which games did you play - any tips, suggestions, warnings or awesome strategies? - Please share!
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Managed to get a 3 player game of Imperium: Classic in with my group. It was a tough teach but by the end we had reasonable grasp on the mechanics. Still very little clue what we should do. Points were pretty wild. One player stumbled on an absolute gold mine of points and won handily. I don’t yet see such a huge difference between the three easiest decks, we all played pretty much the same and after exhausting a good chunk of the common decks I’m worried that there’s not a whole lot of variability in that area. Downtime with 3 players is also pretty extreme towards the end. The game took us almost a full 3 hours (with teaching) and I’d say this is about the maximum that we can tolerate. We definitely prefer Earth in this regard. It also takes about this long but you’re doing stuff constantly. We’ll give it another shot one of these weeks before we decide on it’s future…
Played the first couple scenarios of Gloomhaven jaws of the lion with my partner, which amount to most of the tutorial lol. Last time I spent over a week on a game’s tutorial was Persona 5. It’s been a bit confusing, slow but also exciting so far.
I think I like the game but I’m frustrated by how the rules sometimes discourage discussion. Really looking forward to finishing the tutorial and doing this side quest my partner just unlocked.
The rules don’t discourage discussion. They discourage highly detailed planning. The idea is that you discuss priorities, make a rough plan and then go. I don’t know if jotl also has the battle goals and retirement goals but these together with the “don’t say the initiative number you’re playing” rule, the distinct player decks, and the unknown monster initiatives supress quarterbacking and analysis paralysis.
But yeah. GH is a beast to learn. I think we played half a dozen session before we had the rules more or less down. JotL is supposedly easier in that regard but you shouldn’t feel bad if it still takes you a while.
We’re a few sessions in now, we know the rules but still often forget things. I’m still finding it difficult to evaluate my cards, both for making my deck and for playing them.
I’m finding the ‘discourage discussion’ part more of a miscommunication issue. The guide stressed about not discussing details and selecting cards at the same time, and with me having no idea about the gameplay at the time, it just sounded like forcing a specific type of scenario in game theory.
Now that we’re more or less familiar with the rules, it feels much more natural. Occasionally we do break the discussion rules though, because we really enjoy highly detailed planning, and there’s no Gloomhaven police here to confiscate the game.
Btw JotL has battle goals. Not sure about retirement goals, we each have a pack of cards that we’re not supposed to open or read about till level 5.
Considering JotL only has 4? characters it’s entirely possible that there is no retirement. IDK
Yep only 4 characters
Port Royal: People recommended it for me and my son since we love Bohnanza and were looking for something with more variability. I got the Big Box for 14€ and it’s great! Easy to learn, exciting push of luck, a little tableau building, coop mode, vs mode, campaign mode,… neat little game!
Arkham Horror LCG: Just awesome.
For Sale: Played it in a pub. Super exciting and take that auction game. The game was over in 5–10min and I couldn’t develop a proper strategy, but we liked it.
We played some Bot Factory - 4 players. It was the first time playing it and I did not enjoy the gameplay loop that much. The game requires that you plan ahead a couple of moves, including predicting your opponents move and Sandra (the AI if you will). In a 4 player game this becomes extremely hard. I did win but had no fun getting there.
We also player a 3-player game of 7 Wonders Architects - its a super simple game with basic decision making. Rather nice production value and everything fits neatly into the box. I think once you have the normal 7-Wonders, Architects is not worth the addition but if you only want one, either is a fine simple game that are very similar.
Once again Ark Nova was on the table, I cant get enough of the game but my gf is getting upset playing against me. While she enjoys the gameplay immensely, it’s rarely enough to win. The last game was more or less a stomp, we didnt even count the points in the end. I am so addicted to it, its so fun! I think I need to let her win once in a while, maybe playing some crazy strategies.
Got a couple more games of Imperium Legends solo, still the best deckbuilding, i see Kempeth says that their game at 3 was over 3 hours, thankfully for me even at 3 it has always been below 2 hours and actually the games that have gone a bit longer than 2 with set up have been in solo. For me so far i loved how differently each deck has played, so far Egypt with fast development has been my favourite but also tried Atlanteans the other day and was blown away by how much everything changed starting as an Empire. I have not enjoyed Qin that much tho due to how many cards have dependance on other cards to be or not in play.
Got also to try The Hunger for the first time, pretty iterative deckbuilding, but at least has some more innovative ideas than Clank in how you move and having to manage hunting humans for points vs them staying in your deck. Basically, you only draw 3 cards each turn which means that even at 5 there is not that much gap between your turns and from the three cards you get an speed value which is used both for moving and for buying so you have to manage how much you want to move vs what you need to spend buying and also with how much you are willing to spend to move you have to take into account in which position you will be on the map if you want to have your turn be sooner than for the other players to have more options to buy in the market next turn as it only replenishes at the end of a round so if you go last you will have less stuff to buy.
Tried Rattus for the first time at 2 and at 5, at 2 its just okay, but at 5 it was pretty crazy and a ton of fun. I want to try more classes and modules that come on the big box as i have only tried the base game thus far. I love how fast turns go by and how enticed to look at the board you are even outside of your turn. Its a pretty great game but probably would only recommend it at 3+.
Also played The king is dead 2nd edition again after almost a year, actually played 4 games in 2 days with my gf, one of the best games, love how pure of a boardgame it is and how amazing the aesthethics are despite being basically an abstract game. At 2 is more cutthroat than i would like but still pretty fun, could play this game everyday. Its just so simple to teach but so thinky that is the perfect game if you want to play something deep with someone that doesnt enjoy game that are too heavy and with long setups.
Also played RRR but after so many games with my gf and my sister over the last three years i think im ready to stop playing, i think we have more games than combinations of tiles can appear(that feel different of course) and im already probably at 40+ plays. Its a really neat game that feels very chess like and abstract but it has more limitations than i like. I would love an expansion with new tiles tho.
A bit late to the party but during the first week of July my wife and I played Akropolis a few times while at the lake house on vacation. Last Friday we were able to get in a game of Yokohama while over at a friends house which was pretty fun as usual (that game is almost the definition of a point salad, but in a good way).
