Board Games

I don't know if I'm more happy that FFG knows you need computer-assist to enjoy their games, or more disappointed that the games are designed to have so many components that they work best with computer-assist.

Now where's the Earth Reborn robot that automatically sets up the board for you and flips to the right section of the rules when you have a question (and plays it with you, since finding a willing human is impossible)?

Playdek has a deal with Ludically and it's been confirmed that it's not for Dungeon Twister, so you may get your wish, Baker.

Hesitant like.

Ain't that the truth. Christian Petersen must have gotten a PhD in Bureaucracy, since FFG's games are full of it.

The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.

So I've been listening to podcasts with like "Best of 2012" stuff, and man, that is dangerous. So many games sound so interesting -- Escape, Mage Wars, Exodus, Space Cadets, Tzolkin, Legendary, Seasons, 1989, Zombicide...

And right there, I've listed more new games than I'll probably get a chance to play in all of 2013, and I just need to remind myself that while something can be one of the best games of 2012, that doesn't even mean they'd make a list of the top hundred games out there, and I already have tons and tons of really good games that have been badly underplayed, so I really don't need a pile of new ones.

In response to this, what are good board game podcasts? I know Troy Goodfellow 's podcasts on boardgaming have been really good (the ones on A Few Acres of Snow and Risk Legacy were fantastic), but I wonder what any/all of you listen to?

I listen to The Dice Tower pretty regularly. Kinda long-winded (the episodes are often 1.5-2 hours), but well put together and interesting.

They also have a short associated news podcast that's 5-10 minutes three times a week to just keep you up to date on new stuff

Seconding the Dice Tower. I've listened to Boardgame Babylon and Into the Gamescape in the past, but they are (were?) so irregular that I kept forgetting to check for new episodes. The Dice Tower has a regular weekly schedule, which is nice.

Oh yeah, the Dice Tower also has a nice 'enhanced' version of the podcast with images in the audio file so you can see a picture of the game they're talking about if your player supports it. It works well on my iPhone, so I end up listening to that one pretty much exclusively.

And you didn't even include Kingdom Builder or Village, which won Spiel des Jahres and Kennerspiel des Jahres (enthusiast GOTY) respectively. I was tempted to pick up Village last weekend, but ultimately decided not to because I already have a bunch of worker allocation games. Instead I got Pandemic and quite enjoyed it, in part because the cooperative nature eliminates the post-game recrimination from my girlfriend when I win.

Nice. I need to do some quality control on my podcast list - too many Warmachine ones where people can't pronounce "Harbinger" or say "Heighdth" instead of "height". Some people should just not be allowed near a microphone.

Do you have any recommendations for a non-crappy Warmachine podcast? I used to listen to Guts'n'Gears, but the FOUR HOURS OF PODCAST thing was a little hard to take. Sometimes I'll listen to Lost Hemisphere or Hand Cannon Online, but they're not fantastic.

Maybe I'll see if D6 Generation doesn't suck. They seem tabletop-y.

Check out Muse on Minis. They have a couple of different ones hosted at the moment, and the best seems to be the one they actually call "MoM's podcast - a Warmachine and Hordes podcast". EpicFM is there too and is new and very English. And are the ones with the odd pronunciation.

I'm fond of Chain Attack because I like battle reports and it's a great way to learn how certain casters work without facing them, but I appreciate their scoring is uh controversial.

This weekend I went to a family gathering which I have managed to secretly convert into a decent board game group ever since I started becoming the guy who always brings a new board game every year. People have started buying their own games to bring, and we usually manage to get quite a few games in over 2 days.

Unfortunately, the games I ordered for this weekend (which I mentioned upthread) didn't arrive in time, so I ended up taking three we had already played (7 Wonders, King of Tokyo, and Survive!). However, one of my cousins ended up bringing a game I had absolutely no experience with, Fantasy Flight's Deadwood.

This game totally caught me by surprise, because I really really liked it. At it's core, its a worker placement game with a city that can contain a variety of buildings, each with different effects. However, grafted over the top of that worker placement game is a gunfight dice rolling game which allows you to actually attack other players' cowboys (workers) to remove them from the buildings you would like to have.

There's a couple drawbacks. First, it's pretty random at points, and its fairly easy for the other players to gang up and screw you. Also, the icons on the building tiles themselves are pretty cryptic, so you essentially have to check the manual for every single building until you can memorize what each of the buildings do.

Other than that, it was a great game! We have a weakness for cowboy games at this group, and this one was a great addition.

Played 7 Wonders last night. It's a pretty awesome game! Definitely added to The List.

I almost won our first game as Ephesos building blues and buying my way into constructing the buildings I was building because, uh, Ephesos. Yeah.

Second game I was Zeus at Olympia (by the powers of this Statue, I hereby construct a Palace!), but I was trying to build science and there were three other people trying to do so as well, which means I got kinda screwed on cards. I ended up with three turns straight where I could only build military in the third age, which was hilarious, but not particularly effective.

Was it base 7 Wonders or were any expansions added on? The base game is pretty groovy but the Leaders expansion adds a welcome layer of choice to your endgame decisions. Haven't tried the latest expansion but I hear great things.

Regarding 7 Wonders expansions, if you had to pick and only play with one I'd say Leaders adds more good stuff to the game than Cities does. The biggest draw for Cities I think is that the addition of a 7th card to build each turn and the espionage cards (which count as a Science symbol at endgame) makes the Science strategy a little more viable, which in turn is good for diversity in the game.

I'd like to try Cities. My group just didn't care for Leaders, It felt like an extraneous add-on.

The biggest draw with Cities for me was that you can add an 8th player, but I think if I get Leaders I will just use it to play with 9.

The science strategy is plenty viable!

The cards are worth crap if you don't have a ton of them so people mostly don't want them, but a huge load of points if you collect many. Sure, people will often burn them to build their wonder, but you only need 6 to beat 5 points a card -- and if you can complete a 3rd tier that's another 25 more points and a likely win.

Other players burning them for Wonders in practice isn't really enough to stop Science as the cards have to be in the right place at the right time. So somebody else will have to actually /build/ them too -- but doing so handicaps them vs. the non-Science players, and so everyone hopes another player will do it.

With the expansions I think Science has become easily the strongest strategy, though as with any 7 Wonders strategy you can get hosed by table dynamics.

Leaders adds much more variety to the opening game. If you only play 7 Wonders a few times this won't matter, but after you've played it a bit the base game's opening becomes very stale.

Cities makes Money more important and complex, as other players can make you lose cash that you have plans for. It's a subtle change, but enough of an improvement to overcome the increased length. It also adds a bit more variety.

I just got word that Race to Adventure is printed and will be shipping soon. It's been quite a while since I was this excited about an upcoming board game. (Well, okay. About a year. But still!) Anyone else who is in on the Kickstarter looking to get it soon?

That's kind of a weak caveat to put at the end. The problem with science is that you have to commit to it right from the beginning and it's immediately obvious to everyone what you're doing. If you're playing with newbs it's a pretty easy win because it has the most complex scoring and they only realize after the fact how the scoring graph curves, but after even two games it's highly unlikely the person on your left is going to let you get the last couple cards that really make the strategy pay off. And if more than two players are going for science, it's unlikely any of them will get a big score out of it. When I've played with a more experienced group, the winner is usually someone who has a few points in every column rather than one big number and a bunch of zeros, because even though we aren't especially cutthroat most people will block an obvious play.

What Shadarr said. My experience is the same - Science wins at inexperienced tables but dies in a fire when people realize they don't have to pitch all the green cards, just whichever kind you don't have that that prevents you from completing sets, since without the set bonus the best you can get is 4-of-a-kind for an unremarkable 4-points-per-card which will usually result in a middle-of-the-pack end score.

What you see as the expansions making Science the strongest strategy, I see as the expansions simply making it a viable strategy for an experienced table. You still need to be one of the civilizations that gets some sort of science bonus, draft a Leader that works with Science, and you still need to hope the random black cards from Cities are the Science ones, but it's now something that given the circumstances I'd actually attempt when playing with my group that knows the game inside and out.

It is a weak caveat, yes -- that's why I think it's easily the strongest strategy. I think you are underestimating science; in the several score games we've played a science based strategy is easily more common victor than any other (one) strategy, and that's despite having other players strategize against it.

In order to "not let you get the last couple of cards" any one player has to over the course of the game dispose of 3 or 4 science cards, more if other players don't do the same. This is not easily done without severe cost to one's own position, especially with the alternate sources of science from Leaders and the ability to copy a neighbor's science from Cities.

Sure, if two players go for Science in a game with 4 or less players it'll hamper you, but:
- Players generally don't pursue science.
- Generally only one player can really pursue science regardless of what they wish -- there are only a few science buildings and they require resources that are rare early.
- If it does happen you can choose not to continue pursuing it and instead become a science spoiler with a set of 3 or something and hope they don't spy on you. Going science is frequently worth such risk, especially if your city or leaders match suit.

And sure, there are counters. But they are sort of midling:
- Use science cards to build your wonder. Difficult as a science card isn't always handy when you want to build, and sometimes you need another card on the same play. Effective, but limited.
- Build science yourself. Lots of opportunity cost, and you risk leaving yourself with two 1-pt cards at the end of the game. Plus if you're a neighbor they can just Spy on you to copy them.
- Discard science cards for cash. Effective! But if you're discarding cards rather than playing them you're (usually) losing. Sometimes opponents can even play discarded cards.
- Hope that someone else spends their opportunities to stop the science player. This is what the science player is banking on.

It was the base game, and it was super goddamn fun.

I've pretty much only ever played with 6-8 players, so I don't know if it's different in a small game, but in my experience science is a heck of a lot harder to achieve than it is to block. Probably because you usually have two players going for it, so right there they are effectively blocking each other from racking up the really astronomical score. My general recollection is that the science player usually is in the top three or four, but doesn't win.

The problem is in visibility. If I have three green cards sitting there, you know what I want to do and you also know that I have committed to the gamble. Whereas if I have a bunch of resources or a bunch of blue or yellow cards, I can hit some big points in the third round but that isn't their only value. You might get stuck with a card you want, the resource multiplier or the 8-point blue card all in the same hand. Whereas with science, it's generally pretty obvious exactly what I need to make it viable, and it's less likely that two of the same science card come around in the same hand.

I dunno how much you've played it, I wouldn't say I've really mastered it but I've certainly played more than a couple dozen games and after the teaching round, science almost never wins. I don't think that's because of a lack of people going for science, because somebody always does.

Aye, the set bonuses are where it's at. Difficult to stop someone from at least getting 2 or even 3 by pitching merely one or two green cards. Also 4-of-a-kind isn't the best you can get -- even the base set can see 6 of a kind. Pitching cards also won't help you against the city that can play cards from the discard pile -- one of the more likely science players. And that still leaves aside the opportunity cost of pitching cards -- you might stop the science player, but someone else who didn't pitch will likely be the one to capitolize.

Come now. "Experienced tables"? "Experienced groups"? Sly, but surely the two of you can see how such appeals to authority are offensive -- as if I've barely played the game and the people I play with are idiots.

[Bah, snipped the peckish and overly reactionary bits]


Anyway, I agree that it helps having a science bonus from your city or leaders, and generally wouldn't pursue a Science victory cold. However, usually someone at the table does enjoy such benefits! I certainly don't think victory is automatic for them, just that they'll have better than average odds and it's the strongest strategy.

It's obvious when someone is going for such a strategy, true, but still fairly hard to stop them unless the opening hand of cards in round 2 and 3 are dealt out in your favor.

In contrast it's often fairly easy to hamper someone looking to score points off yellow/brown/grey as there are only a few key cards you need to stick under your wonder. Someone looking to score lots off blue cards is dealt with by simply building them yourself.

The science strategy in a nutshell from BGG.

I also wanted to add that the by-far highest rated strategy guide for 7 Wonders on BGG (with 220 upvotes) that goes into a lot of detail analyzing the distribution of every card at every count of players suggests that the most science it's worth ever going for in any given game is 6 cards to complete 2 sets to score 26 points (a third of your cards devoted to earning a bit less than half of your final points), and even then it's typically only worth trying for this if you've got the Science Wonder or at a minimum start with one of the manufactured goods and you see that nobody else is bothering. And even then he suggests that you only grab 2-3 science cards before Age 3 and hopefully fill in the blanks with greens that people will pass you because you don't give the appearance that you're going to make a monster score off of them (because you're not).

I'm not trying to insult you with an appeal to authority, but your experiences with this are so outside the norm that I feel like something's up with the way you guys are doing it.

FWIW, science has worked well in my plays -- but one key thing is that the games I've played have been very much of the "multiplayer solitaire" variety. The idea of paying attention to what your neighbor is doing and trying to block them is... what is this, something cutthroat like Diplomacy or Ticket to Ride?

Uh, yes, it's actually more confrontational than Ticket to Ride, which is really not that cut-throat (the way we play). It's certainly no Illuminati, which can end relationships. But if you aren't worrying about what the other players are doing, you're missing out on like 2/3 of the game. One third being fucking over your neighbours (or using them as a giant Walmart for resources where you always pay staff prices), and the other third being discussing what other players are going for, and how you can communally fuck over that player.

All of what you just said about 7 Wonders applies to Ticket to Ride (particularly stuff like the Swiss map). I've never understood why people think it's a pleasant family game. You CAN play it that way, but what's the point?

Ticket to Ride is brutal. Or at least it is the way I play it. I always try to make certain I can build one big route and then every route I make can just be extended off of my main route. Once I feel I have enough done, I then stop bothering with routes and focus entirely on blocking everyone else. It's worked well for me so far! Especially when playing TTR on iOS, where people are far less prone to pay attention to what other players are doing. I'm sure if I ever played with another me, I'd get infuriated at the same tactics being used against me, but it hasn't happened yet. (That said, I hate base TTR and will only play if it's Marklin.)

I once saw someone nearly assault her boyfriend over a game of Ticket to Ride. And, uh, I was doing some shouting at that game, too. Though to be fair, most of the Ticket to Ride games I've played weren't quite as acrimonious as that one... Still, it set a new high bar for game-based frothing, in my experience, and made me swear never to touch Diplomacy.

I've gotten some glares over TTR, but nothing violent. (And on the flip side, I met my wife over a TTR game!)

Still have yet to play a game of Diplomacy despite owning the box.

Most angry I've seen in a board game was the first time I ever played History of the World. It was with a group of MMO devs including one ex-M:TG dev, who explained the game to us. He said repeatedly, "Don't give the most powerful faction to the player in the lead at the start of the last round." And that's exactly what another player did. I thought the explainer guy was going to go over the table at him. "You've wasted the last three hours!" Good times.

Played Battles of Westeros for the first time last night. My buddy and I took out all the pieces, assembled the minis, and did the recommended starter scenario, Battle on the Kingsroad. It only took us two rounds to get a handle on the game, although obviously we'd need to play a lot to remember what all the different units can do. I was surprised at how much luck is a factor in the game, especially compared to the Game of Thrones boardgame. The level of luck reminded of Last Night on Earth, where you've got your card draws AND your dice rolls to worry about. Arguably it's even worse in BoW since you roll dice to determine even which units you can give orders to in a round!

Overall we enjoyed it, and plan to try another scenario next month sometime.

(Oh, and I should say -- the game was a gift from Talisker from the BF Secret Santa exchange. Thanks Talisker!)

I was surprised how much I liked BoW, given that I worship at the shrine of Command & Colors: Ancients. I actually bought a set, and am on the lookout for expansions. But I've only played the one initial battle, and I'm curious about the others.

Of course, I think the Game of Thrones boardgame is TOTALLY luck/event driven. Blarg!

PICS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN

(that, and I'm curious to see how much stuff was in there :)