LogFAQs > #934945157

KommunistKoala posted...

I was actually looking at FCM earlier today. But it's like $130 now zzz

I got viticulture essential edition instead for a third of the price. maybe some day!

i've gotten more "real" plays out of VC than FCM. the learning curve is so different. so yeah, understandable!

Naye745 posted...

food chain magnate is too big a game for me to want to ever play tbqh. i'm sure it's good though

i mean it takes as long as dominion to set up...! (fun fact, last night, late, we were at 3p and were discussing what to play. i suggested dominion and catan. catan was turned down just for fun factor perhaps, and dominion, my friend who knew it felt the teach/setting up the market/explaining the cards would take too long.)

Great_Paul posted...

I've played FCM once and it was the usual situation where the one guy who knew the game crushed while me and the other guy were way behind the whole game.

yeah, i feel if you know the game in FCM, it is your responsibility to make sure no one is eliminated in the first three rounds. i always put myself first in turn order and highly recommend trainer/RG... a friend in 4p picked marketer and wound up getting destroyed. that game i unknowingly boxed myself in where i literally could access only one house. you can lose a short game of FCM in round 1.

cyko posted...

Food Chain Magnate is awesome. But it is definitely one of the most punishing games I have ever played. It looks innocent enough, but one early mistake will take you out of the game. Because of that, it has left a couple of my friends very turned off to it. They think it's terrible that a game would give newer players almost no chance to win. I sort of get their viewpoint, but that's why I prefer playing a game multiple times to really get to know it.

with so many games and only so much time to play them, it's hard to get people to commit to two hours for a learning game, with a promise that the next three hour game will be much more fun. for me at least.

imthestuntman posted...

Catan being so low hurts me deeply since it was my gateway game and I still enjoy it. I read your reasoning though and I guess I get it...

I've found that 3 players with the base game and 5 with the expansion are the absolute ideal ways to play. Anything else ends up being pretty strapped for resources and there are definitive winners and losers. The special building phase in 5/6 players helps create some excitement for me and balances it out pretty well.

I had kind of the opposite experience of you though where I grasped this style of game much quicker than my group. Catan to this day is a game I would rarely say no to playing, even if there are games I have enjoyed a lot more. I like to think of it as Monopoly, but with the chance of it not being an awful experience for everyone involved

catan hits a lot of the same pleasure buttons as monopoly with its dice rolls and trading. i've never played an expansion, but i agree fully that three is more fun than four, simply because it's not fun to get boxed in.
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness