Author Topic: What to buy next? A capitalist 'must spend now' topic  (Read 9378 times)

Offline Valheru

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What to buy next? A capitalist 'must spend now' topic
« on: April 21, 2016, 04:31:40 PM »
Hello, my fellow Carcassonians,

With the arrival of the Tunnels and Tower expansion I personally consider my Carcassonne collection functionally almost complete (1-tile Count starter tile and windroses needed). Gameplay-wise, I feel I have everything to play Carcassone with enough variant possibilities while maintaining the fun-factor. Having no intention at starting to collect spin-offs or 2.0, and loving board games more and more every day, I am now looking at other options to broaden my collection of games and enjoying others next to Carcassonne.

Now, I want to broaden this topic and not create it especially for me so the intention of this topic is to help you solve any dilemma's regarding board games in general. Should you buy something or not, ask for advice, weigh options when considering buying something new etc... Discussing the buy is half of the fun, I feel. You can even place an 'add' here for others to suggest games to you. Just mention which elements you find key in your next purchase, even add a price range.. The possibilities are endless.

I have been reading a lot of your topics on variant games but I'm definitely not sure WHAT I want (tile-laying, cardgames, classics,...). I have played a few other games and I've come to the following list of the ones I'm interested in at this moment. I would like to buy them all but financially, that's a no go since I'm still looking for my first job (graduated 'recently'). Therefore price is probably a big factor. Anything above 40 euro I find a bit much (per box, not in total)

The genre of the games I like is most of the time a very strategic approach. Come up with a masterplan, try to deal with your opponents and change your plan accordingly to seal the win. It has to be able to be played well with 3 persons at the minimum.

-Dominion: A lot of possibilities with various expansions, seems never to bore because of the variation and is tactically really interesting.

-Colt Express: It looks brilliant, plays nice according to you guys and girls and is fairly new so many more things to come. Not sure about the strategy aspect?

-Space Hulk: Death Angel -> A cooperative strategic cardgame in the Warhammer 40k universe. It looks really interesting, can be played      solo and it in one of my favorite fantasy universes. There are also a few expansions for it. Anyone any experience with this one?

- 7Wonders: Well, where to begin... Everybody here is really fond of this game, it does look interesting. Which expansions would be a must-buy as well? Is it fun playing with 3 people? How steep is the learning curve?

Other suggestions are welcome of course!

In essence: which one would you buy? ;)





Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=2653.0
« Last Edit: April 21, 2016, 04:41:10 PM by Valheru »
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Offline dirk2112

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Re: What to buy next? A capitalist 'must spend now' topic
« Reply #1 on: April 21, 2016, 05:06:18 PM »
Colt Express is pretty random.  Something unexpected can happen and strategy goes right out the window.

Have you tried New York 1901 yet?  That is building laying game. 

Offline SRBO

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Re: What to buy next? A capitalist 'must spend now' topic
« Reply #2 on: April 21, 2016, 11:38:02 PM »
7 ,wonders. Just buy them all. Its one of our favorite games. Sadly it takes a while to setup the game.
And with 2 players I dont like it.
Best is with 4 I think

Offline Decar

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Re: What to buy next? A capitalist 'must spend now' topic
« Reply #3 on: April 22, 2016, 01:17:31 AM »
You might want to invest in the Kickstarter thread too.  :(y) :(y) Though it has been quiet of late.

I like 2-player 7 Wonders, the 3rd bot player isn't annoying, but best to give it a try if you're not sure.  If you're interested get all the things!  7 Wonders Duel is great too, for two player.

I started to play Dominion online; it's quite fun, but there is no shuffling on digital versions, so it probably plays much faster.

Offline Clownfeet

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Re: What to buy next? A capitalist 'must spend now' topic
« Reply #4 on: April 22, 2016, 01:18:48 AM »
7 wonders duel is excellent with 2 players and i would suggest that over 7 wonders now i think....although it's different moods for different times kind of thing.

now i know these aren;t your suggestions but here's a few that i love and play regularly:

I'm big into medium-heavy Euros. If you haven't played it before and want something that you will still be playing in 10 years from now then i cannot suggest Terra Mystica enough. There's a reason it's in the top 5 of BGG. I have a group in London where we try to play it every week and every single time i still come away thinking about the game, running back through my moves and where i went wrong and the whole game we are all chatting about strategies and moves. It has so much bang for buck. Yeah it's big, yeah it's rule book is long, but it's actually a fairly easy to follow game but just has so many possibilities.

Others that i highly recommend to people who like Euro/carc genre games:

Keyflower - similar yet very different to carc if that makes sense. an excellent game with lots of strategy, loads of variability and what we all love, several promos/expansions to try and source and collect

Bruges - A great canal/"town"/people builder with lots of different strategies and winning mechanics.

Isle of Skye - similar layout system to carcassonne (although the "roads don't need to match" thing is weird!) but the mechanic of putting a price on tiles and discarding another is really great. And also the varieable scoring tiles are great for replayability.

must...collect...more...tiles....

Offline Whaleyland

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Re: What to buy next? A capitalist 'must spend now' topic
« Reply #5 on: April 22, 2016, 02:28:39 AM »
Dominion is excellent from 3-4 players. It has a few problems at 5+ (card availability, mostly – you have to buy Intrigue or Base Cards to get it above 4 anyway, though) and it is a slightly different game with only 2 players, although that's how I usually play it. For expansions, Adventures sounds really fun, Prosperity brings in more valuable money and VP cards, and Dark Ages adds some very interesting mechanics. Empires is releasing in a month, too, so you may want to read up on that around release time.

7 Wonders is great from 3-7 players (or 8 players with Cities). No complaints at all from me. I even like the 2 player mode, although it is not quite as good. I'd recommend skipping Leaders at first and go for Cities, as an expansion. Save Babel for last, if at all.

Offline jungleboy

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Re: What to buy next? A capitalist 'must spend now' topic
« Reply #6 on: April 22, 2016, 04:22:23 AM »
Cool topic, I've also been going through this process in the last few months (though doing so in various threads here!). I'll write a proper response when I have some more time later, but for now I just wanted to touch on one thing in the original post.

Having no intention at starting to collect spin-offs or 2.0, and loving board games more and more every day, I am now looking at other options to broaden my collection of games and enjoying others next to Carcassonne.

I see that you're trying to expand out of Carcassonne, but I wouldn't necessarily dismiss the spinoffs so quickly. It's true that some of them are quite similar to regular Carcassonne with just a different theme and some minor mechanical changes (e.g. Hunters and Gatherers, Ark of the Covenant), but others - specifically The City and The Castle of the ones that I've played - are quite different. They're still tile-laying, area control games of course, but you definitely don't play them and think to yourself, 'This is just like regular Carcassonne, what's the point?'

Offline Valheru

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Re: What to buy next? A capitalist 'must spend now' topic
« Reply #7 on: April 22, 2016, 04:30:49 AM »
I think the main 'problem' with The City and The Castle is that they don't attract me visually for some odd reason. It just doesn't do it for me.

Offline Decar

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Re: What to buy next? A capitalist 'must spend now' topic
« Reply #8 on: April 22, 2016, 04:47:28 AM »
That's sad to hear - I really like the artwork for The Castle/Die Burg.  I like seeing all the individual people going about their business  inside the City. The tiles do look a tad-dated now, but there is definitely charm.  You should try South Seas, it's probably the most different after the two mentioned and Uber Stock Und Stein is surprisingly different because of the tile distributions + the artwork from Doris Matthaus is incredible!

Offline jungleboy

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Re: What to buy next? A capitalist 'must spend now' topic
« Reply #9 on: April 22, 2016, 04:49:35 AM »
I think the main 'problem' with The City and The Castle is that they don't attract me visually for some odd reason. It just doesn't do it for me.

I agree on the City but like Decar I quite like the Castle artwork. Plus the chapel tiles from the Falcon expansion add some new colour to it.

Offline dirk2112

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Re: What to buy next? A capitalist 'must spend now' topic
« Reply #10 on: April 22, 2016, 06:25:49 AM »
I am frequently tempted to acquire another version of Carcassonne, but always prevent it from happening.  The City and the Castle are dead right?  No longer being printed and no future expansions, right?   So for me, those are out.  South Seas is kind of cool and I think it is currently supported and perhaps more expansions are planned.  I have tried gold rush and it wasn't different enough from Carcassonne for me to be interested.  The winter edition is the one I really like, but they haven't done anything different (besides the Gingerbread man) to make me buy it. 

There is really a lot of Carcassonne going on right now with all of these different games.  Too be honest, I think there are too many choices and when faced with that, I frequently avoid making a choice entirely.  I have enough trouble figuring out what expansions to Carc I that I want to play with let alone which version to play.

Offline Decar

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Re: What to buy next? A capitalist 'must spend now' topic
« Reply #11 on: April 22, 2016, 06:31:43 AM »
Sometimes knowing there's not new expansions coming is a good thing - at least you know where you stand.  TBH, most of the Carcassonne games are good in their own merit and at least you know no expansions are coming that will break a load of the existing rules (I'm looking at you Halflings  C:-))

Offline Curt194

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Re: What to buy next? A capitalist 'must spend now' topic
« Reply #12 on: April 22, 2016, 06:34:03 AM »
Dominion is a really fun game for me and if you like strategy planning etc then it's great. I usually play with 2 or 3 people and always really enjoy it!

The fact that all players start with the same deck and then build it as you go makes for some very interesting strategic decisions and it's fun to see what strategies other people come up with. I'm not as good at this game as some of my friends but I always really enjoy it.

I have the base set and adventures and still find new and interesting strategies based on the cards that are available to buy. I would definitely recommend this one.

Colt express is good fun, but planning isn't really something you can do very well/easily. It's a really fun game but not so good if you're looking for lots of strategy!

Offline Decar

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Re: What to buy next? A capitalist 'must spend now' topic
« Reply #13 on: April 22, 2016, 08:03:43 AM »
You can always throw your money at X-Wing games - plenty to collect there - I've never played it, but the mechanics look fairly solid.

Offline jungleboy

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Re: What to buy next? A capitalist 'must spend now' topic
« Reply #14 on: April 22, 2016, 08:41:29 AM »
I have been reading a lot of your topics on variant games but I'm definitely not sure WHAT I want (tile-laying, cardgames, classics,...)...The genre of the games I like is most of the time a very strategic approach. Come up with a masterplan, try to deal with your opponents and change your plan accordingly to seal the win. It has to be able to be played well with 3 persons at the minimum.

You already have a few games in mind, so you're on the right track. I would delve into Carcassonne even further and think about what exactly attracts you to the game. Tile-laying? Area control? Medieval theme? Expansions? The gateway / light to medium aspect? You can go to BGG and see lists of games for each of those criteria.

Some suggestions for games based on my recent splurges and things on my wish-list (the first three are the only ones I've actually played):

Cacao
Medina
Tigris and Euphrates
Citrus
Istanbul
Isle of Skye
The Cave
Escape: Curse of the Temple
Mexica
Fresco
Alhambra


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