Board 8 > I think I need a new board game

(+) Yeah! (+)

For a large group of friends, I hear great things about Cosmic Encounter.

Also, Tom Vassel of The Dice Tower does reviews of board games on youtube, and I bet that if you poked around his channel you'd almost certainly find something that interests you.

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on 4ways: right now they have inherent flaws, but could be easily fixed by implementing approval voting! ~ToadYoshi 1. SoAL 2. MKW/64 3. FE7 4. TF2 5. FFCC

I will name 3 board games that are amazing.

Settlers of Catan
Arkham Horror
Tales of Arabian Nights


Since no one has discussed Tales here, I will do so.

Tales of Arabian Nights throws you and other players into the One Thousand One Arabian Nights. You travel through the Middle Ages throughout Europe and Asia. Every turn, you move somewhere, and based on a few things, the player to your left(?) reads a paragraph out of a large book.

These paragraphs basically tell a story, and you travel throughout the board trying to achieve victory conditions. The fun of the game comes from making crazy decisions and having weird things happen and super fun stuff.

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Don't worry, Bill Murray!
Its things like this that make you wonder why the company that makes M&Ms don't make butter

Also SpeedYoshi, what is your sig from? A google search of it produces a bunch of dead gamefaqs topics, probably ones you posted in. I think it's a funny line and would love to know the context.

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on 4ways: right now they have inherent flaws, but could be easily fixed by implementing approval voting! ~ToadYoshi 1. SoAL 2. MKW/64 3. FE7 4. TF2 5. FFCC

From: RX7InfinitiIII | #045
I remember b8 diplomacy, I lost in about 6 turns. That was probably the most fun I've had since b8 monopoly >:)

Catan is definitely the better one-night game though


RX7

Well, you were France. Games imitate life.

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##Alec

SpeedYoshi posted...
how long do these games last? There are times we'll play 3 games of monopoly just because they move decently fast (like 30 minute games)

Bang! will probably take a while, especially since learning all the cards takes some getting used to. It has an interesting flow. You'll be either a criminal or law enforcement. Of the criminals, there are two types: Outlaw and Renegade. Outlaws want the Sheriff dead but everyone else needs the Outlaws dead (first) in order to win. I've seen games end in one round where the Outlaws are able to pull together and pick off the Sheriff.

Betrayal can be short but I'd average that it takes about an hour. The Haunt (which will trigger one of 50 scenarios) can happen turn one if you manage to roll all zeros with the dice, but it usually happens after a fair portion of the house is explored. I enjoy it because it's got a different story each time: Werewolves, falling into Hell, stuck in space, etc.

Shadow Hunters is similar to Bang! but shorter and different in terms of role secrecy.

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"Coinflip is sacred."

To elaborate on A Game of Thrones a bit...

There are 5 players representing 5 of the great houses from the book series. The goal is to take control of 7 castles on the map within the 10 turn time limit. Like Diplomacy, moves are played at the same time and there's essentially no luck (there are universal-effect cards drawn at each turn start but that's it). The game is more complicated than diplomacy in the sense that there are multiple unit types, battle cards, and other elements that create a much greater degree of strategic possibilities. At the same time, the turn limit and lower player count make it play much faster.

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"The U.S. should detonate all its nukes on its own soil."-Terran [Evil Republican]
Play Der Langrisser.

From: Glenn_and_Toad | #053
Also SpeedYoshi, what is your sig from? A google search of it produces a bunch of dead gamefaqs topics, probably ones you posted in. I think it's a funny line and would love to know the context.

It came from when we were playing spades. My friend bid like.. 4 or 5 when his hand consisted of 80% clubs. His partner (a super competitive guy) was baffled at the bid (the bidder had some experience with the game but wasn't that good). So he kept making comments like, 'Guys, don't worry, I got this, I have all the clubs.' and 'Gonna make this bid easy, so many clubs in my hand' and so on and so forth. Probably one of my favorite friend quotes, and definately the only one that translates into a sig

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Don't worry guys, I have all the clubs

Bought Settlers of Catan!

should be here tuesday (2 day shipping gone wrong)

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Don't worry guys, I have all the clubs

Yesssss

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yE frE me Kweku Ananse Papa
me:http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/1508/masterplumgm3.jpg

I almost bought that game a while ago since it's apparently one of the go-to intro games for non-roll-and-move games (like Monopoly), but I try to get only 2-player+ games. I have yet to play it... :(

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"Filthy lawbreaker, unhand that vending machine!" - Casey Jones

unless risk or sorry counts as non-roll-and-move I'm not sure I've played one before!

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Don't worry guys, I have all the clubs

oh my god Settlers of Catan

It's so amazing, I've played 120+ games of Catan with my friends over the past 2 years. Unquestionably a masterpiece. Great choice! About 90% of them were with Seafarer's expansion though. I've bought all the expansions and even some of the other versions, but that is the best (after that is Traders & Barbarians). My advice to you is to read through the rules yourself multiple times before you explain the game to your friends. When explaining, showing what you're talking about is much better than talking. It's also best to focus on the objective of the game first. I'm usually the person who teaches the board games (since I'm the one who buys 'em), so here's vaguely the best order to teach Catan:

* The objective is to build things. That's the point of the game. Specifically, you want to build the little houses, called Settlements, and upgrade them into Cities. The first person to ten victory points wins. The settlements are worth 1 vp, the cities are worth 2.

* The way you build things is with resources. You'll have these resources hidden in your hand. When it's your turn, you can spend them to build things. A settlement needs blah blah blah. To upgrade one into a city requires blah blah blah.

* How do you get these resources? When the dice are rolled at the beginning of every person's turn, the result of the dice roll refers to numbers on the board. If an 8 is rolled, the hexagons on the board that have an 8 on them produce resources for people's houses on that hexagon. (e.g. if red and blue have settlements on wheat with an 8, they both get a wheat from the bank. you have to work together your first game to figure out who gets what)

* The interesting part of the game is that certain numbers are more commonly rolled. 2's and 12's are almost never rolled, so if you build a house on those hexagons, that's bad, because they'll rarely generate resources for you. On the other hand, 6's and 8's are common, so you want to get your houses on those.

* Everyone starts with 2 settlements and 2 roads (your first game's board is specifically designed in the manual for fairness). Roads are not worth victory points, the point of them is that you have to keep building roads to get to spots where you can build a settlement. You can't just build a settlement anywhere, you have to build roads to get there. The most important rule of all is that no two settlements can be adjacent to each other. Settlements can only be built two spots apart. So you always have to build multiple roads to get to a legal spot for a settlement.

* The way the game works is taking turns. On your turn you roll the dice, some people get resources, then for the rest of your turn you can build stuff and trade stuff. You can trade resources with other people as much as you like. Other people are not allowed to trade with each other. You can also trade with the bank: 4 of one type of resource for any 1 resource you want. It's expensive and not desirable. When you build settlements on harbors, trading with the bank is better.

After that it's hard to teach cause there are a lot of little things to explain (the robber, 7 cards rule, longest road, longest knight, development cards rules, and how cities get double resources).

Good luck, hope you enjoy it!

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People who don't finish their sentences
I'm a Castlevania superfan! Ask me anything!

Thanks!

I'll probably just show your post to a couple of my friends.

I'm also the one who teaches games, also because I'm the only one who owns or knows them.

How much luck is involved with the resources? Just curious (not really against it too much, as we play monopoly and risk.. and recently mario kart haha)

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Don't worry guys, I have all the clubs

SpeedYoshi posted...
How much luck is involved with the resources? Just curious (not really against it too much, as we play monopoly and risk.. and recently mario kart haha)

Resource gain is dependent on the dice roll. If you're built on numbers that never or rarely get rolled, sucks to be you. For initial placement and expanding to new settlements, a variety of numbers is usually a safe choice. That said, I played a game where I didn't have much variety in numbers on the board but they got rolled often and I won because of it.

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"Coinflip is sacred."

My friend introduced me to Settlers of Catan 2 years ago. I got hooked instantly.

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Okay, Chief, take 'em away. I'm gonna go home and sleep with my wife. ~ Mr. Green
Enjoy the silence.

From: speedpunk | #064
Resource gain is dependent on the dice roll. If you're built on numbers that never or rarely get rolled, sucks to be you. For initial placement and expanding to new settlements, a variety of numbers is usually a safe choice. That said, I played a game where I didn't have much variety in numbers on the board but they got rolled often and I won because of it.

But if you get a bad string of luck or someone gets a good string of luck, is the game essentially over(for you or everyone)? Or are these scenarios regularly avoidable with mediocre/good strategy?

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Don't worry guys, I have all the clubs

Catan's website has an interactive tutorial that's pretty good. But it doesn't quite cover everything. There are a lot of little rules that you're almost guaranteed to screw up, and not find out you're playing wrong for a while. We played for 3 months before we realized you start the game with only the resources from your second settlement, not both. We also thought that if you tied someone's longest road they had to give longest road back to the bank, but actually they keep it til someone else has a longer road. Not a big deal really I guess.

http://www.catan.com/profeasy.html

I'd say Catan's got about the same level of luck as Risk, where chance is a factor in every step, but it's always unclear whether chance is affecting the overall result. For one thing, I win less than 5% of the time :( so statistically, there's no way I can be blaming luck at this point. (My gf wins at least 40% of the time so maybe masterplum's right about it being a business game =] )

After this many games I'd say the game its definitely extremely deep so don't worry about that, at least. I always used to focus on being settled on all 5 resources and always getting the 3:1 trading harbor, but these days I'm finding I prefer to focus on ore/wheat/sheep so I can get as many development cards as possible early on. I've also always simply tried to settle on the most probable numbers no matter what...but these days I've been finding I do best when I focus on getting good combinations of cards all at once. For example, if you can get 3 settlements on an ore hexagon, and 2 on a wheat hexagon, and both hexagons have the same number, then whenever that number is rolled you are ready to build a city without any trouble. That is awesome! It feels like a free city. On the games where I do really really poorly, it's when I'm touching ore and brick, and both hexagons have the same number. So basically, when that number is rolled, I get two cards that are never useful together, so one is guaranteed to take up space in my hand and I'm likely to go over the 7 card limit. I might be getting more cards, but I'm probably being stolen from a lot, and probably losing a lot to the robber as well. Moral of the story, getting good combinations of resources is more important than getting a lot of resources.

My gf is a god at the game, though. She gets the longest road almost every freaking time, and it's always like 12 roads long, totally out of reach for the rest of us. Even if someone goes for it, she always somehow is able to get it back when she's ready to win.

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People who don't finish their sentences
I'm a Castlevania superfan! Ask me anything!

Oh and my absolute favorite twist about Catan is the robber. It's an element of the game that specifically hurts the people in the lead. When 7 is rolled, anyone who has more than 7 resources has to give up half rounded down, and there's more: whoever rolled the 7 gets to move the robber onto any hexagon, covering up the number, so that hexagon doesn't produce resources for a long time...and there's even more: the player gets to steal a random resource from one person who is touching that hexagon.

I love the idea so much I've added it to other games. In casual croquet, someone always pulls waaay ahead of the pack, and the game is practically settled when it's only half over. So the robber rule I invented in croquet makes the game climactic at the end every single time. The way it works is, normally in croquet when you hit your ball through a wicket, you get to take a bonus hit. Well, the robber rule says that if you're about to take a bonus hit, but your ball is in the lead, you lose your bonus hit. Lastly, the rule is only in effect after the halfway point of the game. This single rule transformed croquet for us from being a pretty meh outdoor activity into an exciting race with a guaranteed photo finish every single game. The beauty is that, any game is more fun when there's a spectacular comeback with an exciting last second victory, rather than a total blowout. The balance is making it so that people who are behind have assistance, and yet people who are ahead still have the advantage of their lead.

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People who don't finish their sentences
I'm a Castlevania superfan! Ask me anything!

I.. dislike your croquet robber rule

Are the expansions stand alone or do they go with the actual game?

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Don't worry guys, I have all the clubs

SpeedYoshi posted...
From: speedpunk | #064
Resource gain is dependent on the dice roll. If you're built on numbers that never or rarely get rolled, sucks to be you. For initial placement and expanding to new settlements, a variety of numbers is usually a safe choice. That said, I played a game where I didn't have much variety in numbers on the board but they got rolled often and I won because of it.


But if you get a bad string of luck or someone gets a good string of luck, is the game essentially over(for you or everyone)? Or are these scenarios regularly avoidable with mediocre/good strategy?

If you are the best, you will win 90% of the time. I can only think of once I was screwed by rolls

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yE frE me Kweku Ananse Papa
me:http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/1508/masterplumgm3.jpg

That's good to hear

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Don't worry guys, I have all the clubs

From: SpeedYoshi | #069
Are the expansions stand alone or do they go with the actual game?

They go with the game. It makes things get a bit expensive... if you want to play Cities and Knights with 6 players, for example, you need the base set, the base 6 player extension, the Cities and Knights expansion, and the Cities and Knights 6 player extension.

Oof.

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No amount of planning will ever replace dumb luck.

I think... I'd rather buy a different game and buy 2 expansions to play 1 expansion haha

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Don't worry guys, I have all the clubs

Yeah, that's my thought. I'd rather get a completely different game than Cities and Knights. I mean, it's a bit more interesting, but it's still just Catan.

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No amount of planning will ever replace dumb luck.

Diplomacy is only worth playing if you have the following 3 things

7 people total. With less than 7 the game increasingly becomes a less and less interesting scenario

Loads of time. I've actually never finished a game of this, and this is including some 3+ hour play sessions. It gets tiring. People who are losing tend to stop caring.

People who aren't dicks or who don't take things too seriously. You know how theres always that kid that gets really angry that you backstabbed him in risk? Imagine this, but with everyone in the game like that. Its not fun getting backstabbed in this game.


That being said, if you have the following 3, its an amazing game.


Although I'd just go with Catan because its both fun and easy and not headache inducing