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Ok, added Alien Frontiers, Spyrium and Suburbia added to my wishlist, or at least wish to play list :)

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What does everyone think of Terra Mystica? I recently bought it, but am having trouble getting people to play it due to the length. We have played it once (not counting the practice run I did of a 2-player game just to get the hang of the rules), and it definitely was too long, but subsequent games could turn out to be shorter. I know I took 15 minutes for my last turn, and I don't even remember whether it won me or lost me the game by 1 or 2 points. On the other hand I think on the whole it was really fun for most players.

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If you've got an iPad, Suburbia is on there for $5 or so. Having it digital automates all the fiddly bits of the physical version. Either way, I really like the game, and once you know the game, it plays very quickly.

 

I really like Terra Mystica, but it doesn't get to the table too often because of the length. Mind you, that's largely first time players thinking it'll be just as long on subsequent games, which I've found hasn't been the case. Now I want to play it again, it's been quite a while.

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Cool, I didn't even realize these were all available on Steam. Bought it, with the physical stuff. Also now I'm thinking that since I have a relatively big screen, maybe I could play some digital versions vertically in hot-seat mode. Probably not due to the games having secret information (or maybe all don't?).

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Cool, I didn't even realize these were all available on Steam. Bought it, with the physical stuff. Also now I'm thinking that since I have a relatively big screen, maybe I could play some digital versions vertically in hot-seat mode. Probably not due to the games having secret information (or maybe all don't?).

 

I'm hoping they will work with touch screen controls on my surface pro3.

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I know Small World would be fine for that as it has no secret information aside from points, assuming it supports it. Not sure about others? They might have an option where you need to click OK to switch to the next player so no info would be shown between turns. I wouldn't be surprised if they all supported local play in some way.

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Hidden information is key to Ticket to Ride, so you'll need multiple screens, but the Steam version can play with the Android tablet and iPad (but not iPhone :huh: ) versions.

 

Catan is also heavy on the hidden info. I can't speak to the quality of that version, but I doubt it supports any sort of local multiplayer.

 

Small World might support hot-seating. The iPad version is a great pass-and-play game. It's a pretty okay game overall - much better when you can speed through a game in ~10 minutes like you can on the digital versions. I think they all play together, like TTR.

 

Talisman is overlong roll-to-move trash and it makes me sad that it is one of the few board games with a nice Steam version.

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TTR iPhone is completely separate version (TTR Pocket) from the others. Not sure why they don't update it to bring it in line with all the others so they can all be played together.

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Why would you play a digital version of Talisman

 

Play any RPG and every time you have to make a decision, flip a coin, and sabotage yourself if it lands on tails

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Ok, added Alien Frontiers, Spyrium and Suburbia added to my wishlist, or at least wish to play list :)

For what it's worth, I found Spyrium to be wayyyyy too complex interaction-wise for the amount of fun it delivered.

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Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective appears to be entering the wild again! http://www.coolstuffinc.com/p/183130

 

I snapped one up, and I figured people here could be interested thanks to Idle Thumbs 180: Wars and Pieces.

 

PSA - back in stock again.  Sold out in a few hours last time

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I bought Cyclades: Titans last week and already played twice (5 and 3 players). Both games were rather similar in that one player got a huge advantage quickly and won. I'm rather disappointed after hearing that it's supposedly a really good expansion. In both games a player got ~10 income after 3 cycles, which is unheard of in the base game. In one game this translated to certain, but slightly delayed victory as soon as the sandals became available for purchase. Nobody could stop him because he could outbid anyone and still do a lot with his money during his turn. The second game was very similar (dumb of me to try a similar start twice after losing once, though), but the player made a mistake of not trying to win immediately and was almost beaten back down, but he still had such a huge income that while we had weakened him temporarily it took all our resources and he basically defeated us with money again in the end. The sandals and the caduceus seem hugely overpowered. I do not see how this game is even remotely balanced, but on the other hand it is quicker and even more hectic than the base game, which is kind of cool. I want to play some more soon, maybe there's something I have missed. I went for a start where I wouldn't get a high income, but got a metropolis quickly. Maybe you should never go for a start that leaves you with less than 2 income (if it's possible for all players to get that) even for a single cycle.

 

[edit] Fuck, I just realized we have been playing Cyclades very wrong for a long time: when a player finishes their turn, we put the marker on the first free spot, not the last one.

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Also I bought Alien Frontiers and man, that's a game with really good-looking components and solid gameplay. I lost in the end by forgetting to convert some resources and not getting a good dice roll, but it was fun.

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Alien Frontiers is one of my favourite games ever. It's also near the top of my list of "game components that I want to eat because they look like candy."

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I made up some printable 4x6" monster cards for the starter set adventure, I always get lost when DMing and forget about enemy spells, and abilities. I think they turned out pretty good. 

 

 


Wd9vkGZ.jpg


AmEMN96.jpg

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I was looking at why the new Merchants & Marauders expansion Seas of Glory seems to have such a low geekscore @ BGG and very few reviews available... then realized that it just came out in April. The rules make it seem awesome in most senses of the word -- it's both awe-inspiring and scary to add so many new pirate-y rules to an already rules-heavy game, and it will probably now take at least 6 hours to play in all its awesomeness (with my group). Seems to require a lot more table space, which was almost a problem already. It adds all kinds of cool things I never even thought of, but which make a lot of sense on first read at least. Nice of them to make it modular, but also makes me wonder how balanced it is. Also, at least the PDF version of the rules makes the graphics look a bit badly designed. I hope this is just how the PDF was made, and real components look better.

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I think you have the wrong non-video games thread. It also makes me sad that in 5th edition I'd have to make my own user-friendly monster stat blocks after they totally solved that problem last time around.   :(

 

Yeah, sorely missing some of the tools they had!

 

I figured I would post this here as this is the general tabletop thread, the online rpg thread is for setting up games/groups. 

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I think Cyclades has become my desert island game. The 3rd game of Titans was really awesome and yet relatively quick, taking 2+ hours. We had six players forming 3 teams (obligatory with 6) and one team again got a pretty good lead by being clever and attentive during setup, but what made them win was the rest of us not cooperating enough to stop them and bad battle luck.

The expansion adds even more variety and I liked the team play version, even though interaction between team-mates is limited. I think the game will get better as we gain experience and figure out more of the dynamics, and what the good starting positions are.

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Got to play my recently purchased XCOM The Board Game last night. Aside from people talking over explanations during the tutorial, I really liked it. Only messed up one rule, but it was only ever in a minor way so it barely would have affected the outcome of the game.

 

Only real complaint about the tutorial is that it doesn't mention some things early on that would effect some decisions, ie.: losing all unused credits at the end of each round. Aside from that, everything is pretty well covered, and having it walk you through the first two rounds really helps with learning.

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I have also played it and I really liked the way the different roles had to collaborate. I definitely want to play again as a different role.

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Yeah, I'm with you there. With the extra time you get for the tutorial, we had one player that kept trying to direct everything and then took forever on their action phase, which annoyed the hell out of me. I fully expect that to be a non-issue when the pressure is actually on.

 

Still a very positive experience, and I really like that the app plays music from the video game.

 

I'm very curious to see how money management will work out in a proper game too.

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We played Telestrations drawing from Cards Against Humanity tonight.  I'm not sure I've laughed that hard in years.  Some of the top contenders of the evening were "Disco Ninjas" and "Snowman who feels unsure about butt sex". 

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