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Topics - dirk2112
16
« on: January 06, 2017, 07:45:16 AM »
In the Cundco "open letter" thread a bunch of us were discussing asking Cundco for one more old art expansion full of rarities. I have been thinking more about this and I imagine the only way to get Cundco to even consider it is if we limited ourselves to: - Cundco made expansions (no spielbox or Hobby world)
- Expansions that are tiles only
- 12 tiles only as that seems to be the max size on a sheet.
So what are the Cundco rarities? I would say Corn Circles 1, besiegers, and the River 2 and 3. Corn Circles 1 is 6 tiles. The river 3 is 12 tiles, but only 4 are different than the standard river (2 sheep and 2 vineyards). That leaves 2 tiles that could be the split river rock tile and either the tile that ends in a volcano or the one that ends in a city for the folks without the River 2. Would anyone be interested in a mini expansion of those 12 tiles? Call it corn circles and river extender expansion. Can anyone think of a better way to maximize the 12 tiles? Besiegers and Corn Circles 1 could work for example. MoneySo in order to pursued Cundco to print this for us, we need to make it worth their while. I don't know how many they need to sell at 5€, but I imagine it would be 100 or more. So anyone interested may have to buy a few. I am willing to buy a bunch, keep 2 or 3, and sell the rest on Ebay at cost to me (new envelopes, shipping fees, etc). Anyone else?
17
« on: December 30, 2016, 06:29:37 PM »
Sorry for the Sublime reference, but it was either that or the old, "What's a Grecian urn? 30 drachmas an hour" joke. PlayersThe game can be played with 2 or 3 players. There is a 4 player "team" option in the directions, but I am not going to bother with that EVER. ThemeThe theme is top notch. I love Greek Mythology and I have always wondered why it went away and was replaced by boring old monotheism. The components and God cards all look great. The board is elevated which is gimmicky, but it works. How it works (Without God powers) During your turn, you move to one of the possible 8 surrounding squares and then build a section also on one of the surrounding squares. The buildings are at most 4 stories tall (3 if you are British and call the Bottom floor the "ground" floor). You can only climb up one level, but you can go down any number of levels. The top floor is the blue dome. If a building has a blue dome, you cannot move to it. If any of your workers makes it to the top of the 3rd floor, you win. You can also win if your opponents cannot move their workers. The game is very simple until you factor in.... GodsThere are 30 God cards in the deck and I believe 25 more cards in the Golden Fleece expansion. We haven't opened the Golden Fleece, so that review will be wayyyy down the road. Anyway the 30 Gods have various powers and they greatly affect game play. Some God cards let you move more, build more, destroy buildings, push your opponents around, etc etc. Because there are so many God cards, it is unlikely that any 2 games will play out the same way. The God powers really change strategy and will keep the game fresh. KidsA kid who has been taught to play Chess well may be able to play this game. My son can use some more practice. 3 Player gameOur 3 player games were over in under 10 minutes. I did not like playing this with 3 players at all. I felt really at the mercy of my opponents as you can't adequately play defense against 2 other people. In our first game, my wife and child were going to win on their next turns. I basically got to play the spoiler and be the king maker. The second game (picture 1 below) I decided to avoid them and just build up to a victory while they got in each other's way. With 3 different players, your strategy against one of their God powers could aid the other player's God powers. 2 Player gameThe 2 player game was much better. To keep it simple we took turns playing as Athena and Atlas. When one of Athena's workers climbs a level, her opponent's workers cannot climb on their next turn. Atlas can build a dome on any level of any building. These 2 God's powers really offset each other well and made for an enjoyable few games. The second picture below shows our best game where almost all of the building pieces were used. ConclusionI really enjoy this as a 2 player game. I also really enjoy the components and I think you get a lot for your money (or in this case, my wife's money  ). Maybe once we get a lot more 2 player games in, we will try 3 player again and see if maybe our initial impressions are wrong. My wife had trouble getting everything back into the box, so we took a picture (#3) of how we store the game just in case anyone needs it.
18
« on: December 29, 2016, 05:56:52 AM »
Potion Explosion appeared to me like the board game version of Bejeweled and I really had no interest in it. My wife and son played a demo somewhere and loved it. The Jolly fat man brought it on 12/25 and we got to put it together and play a few games. PlayersThe game only supports up to 4 players. We have only played with 3, so I can't tell you how it plays with 2. I will say that I do not like to be the first player when playing this game. ThemeThe witches and wizards create various potions to prove who is the greatest brew-master of them all. The marbles act as different ingredients required to make the different potions. There are only 4 ingredients, which to me doesn't seem like enough for a wizard or alchemist, but whatever. The theme could have easily been "beer explosion" with the marbles being grain, hops, top yeast, and bottom yeast. How it worksEach player starts the game with 2 easy potion recipes. These are picked out ahead of time and the players pick their first potion clockwise and their second counter clockwise. So the first player will have the best and worst starting potions. During your turn you can drink a potion at any time. There are 8 kinds of potions with different affects, but you only play with 6 different potions in any one game. The potions let you steal ingredients from a rival, take a pair of different ingredients from the board, remove a certain color of ingredients from a row on the board, etc. Doing so does not trigger any explosions. You can also deduct 2 points from your score to remove any 1 ingredient without triggering explosions. During the main part of your turn you take 1 ingredient and hope to trigger explosions. Say one of the rows looks like this:     You could drink a potion or take the negative 2 points to remove the Now you have: If you take the , the meeples collide and all explode. Then the collide and explode, so you get 6 total marbles to use in your potion. KidsMost kids should be able to play this game and find it enjoyable. My son has trouble remembering to use the potions to increase the explosions created on his turn. End gameThe end game is triggered by the removal of the last 4 point bonus chip. You get these chips for either A) Creating 3 of the same potion or B) Creating 5 different potions. When the end game is triggered, the round finishes and then ends. This is where the first player can have a disadvantage. If player 2 triggers the end game, player 1 doesn't get an extra turn to use all his/her potions to maximize scoring. The disadvantage is mitigated by carefully watching what other players have. Unfortunately for a small child, this can be hard to do so I recommend having the children go last. ConclusionSo far I enjoy this game. It is much more fun and interesting than I first imagined. Everything made of cardboard fits together nicely and the game itself looks great. The company seems to have some quality control issues with the marbles though. We were missing black marbles and had quite a few damaged red marbles. Getting replacements from the company wasn't as easy as I would have hoped, but after a lot of back and forth with them, they did promise to send us the few marbles we needed.
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« on: December 19, 2016, 06:20:14 PM »
My wife got an elf on the shelf for our son a few years ago. I am not a big fan of it, but when I get stuck working with the elf (and his dinosaur & monkey friends), I have him play boardgames. He has played Connect 4 and Battleship in the past. This year I had him play newer games.
20
« on: November 01, 2016, 06:16:39 AM »
There are a number of games that we have where conceding happens more often than the game reaching it's conclusion. I was always taught to finish a game I have started no matter the score. Some games seem to be built with concession in mind. I was wondering what other people think of games that lend themselves to this.
War games:
Games like Axis and Allies, Chess, and Risk tend to never end as intended. In most games the writing is on the wall and both winner and loser are happy to end the game.
Card games:
In Magic the Gathering or Pokémon, a bad opening hand or a great opponent opening hand spells a quick defeat by concession. Both winner and loser of these types of games seem to be 100% ok with concessions as it allows more games to be played.
In most of the above games, it is 1v1 or team vs team. I don't believe it is ever* ok to concede a game if there are multiple opponents unless all but 1 are also willing to concede.
*Monopoly - if no player can get a monopoly, the game will go on forever . Just end it!
21
« on: August 13, 2016, 01:37:30 AM »
We finally got a game we kickstarted. So far we have played it twice and we really like it. I want to start off with the biggest drawback of this game. It takes an entire dining room table to play. No card table can hold all of the components.
The game can be played by up to 4 players. The box says it takes 40 to 80 minutes to play. It took us closer to 80 both times. The game also suggests you keep score as you go. We tried that the first time, but it was just too much. On the second go we didn't give points for buildings and we counted them at the end. That worked better for us.
You start off with a saloon and you can build up and out as you acquire money, citizens, and outlaws. You get open claims which can be scored at any time and are seen by everyone and secret claims which are scored at the end. Points are scored for completing claims, building rooms, and having citizens. Outlaws will come to your town and cause havok. They can be bribed or driven away with cards.
I really like the game. It is deeper than I thought it would be. There are a lot of different strategies. In the picture below you will see my saloon below and my son's to the left. My saloon is more aesthetically pleasing and has an outhouse. My son is missing some roofs, has nowhere to poo, and has a scorpion farm. He does have a brothel, so he has that going for him. You may think I won this game, but you would be wrong. I lost by 2 points. He completed all his claims and prevented me from completing 2 of mine. He also had 1 more citizen.
22
« on: May 30, 2016, 06:01:30 PM »
My wife wanted Pandemic Legacy for her birthday. Upon opening it, she was eager to play it. I got her the blue version which has something scientifically wrong on the cover, but is otherwise exactly the same as the red version. The blue version is regularly $5 cheaper because of this...  I'll try to keep these session reports spoiler free, which will be more challenging than the game itself. January - VICTORY  ) Player characters - Medic, Dispatcher, Researcher, and Scientist An epidemic card came up pretty early and Khartoum had an outbreak before we could get anyone there to treat it. After that the yellow disease didn't cause us much trouble for the rest of the game. Most of our trouble was in the middle east and Asia. The medic kept the red disease at bay while the other 3 characters worked to collect the necessary cards to cure the diseases. The yellow disease was cured quite quickly and the red soon after. The Medic actually eliminated the red disease entirely. This is a really good thing to do as it gives you more options before the next month starts. The black plague was in full effect and even though we tried our best, 2 epidemic cards came up close together and Karachi had an outbreak. The dispatcher and the medic worked tirelessly to beat it back while the other 2 characters were able to cure the blue disease. After that it was everything went our way and the mission was accomplished. Outbreak cities - Khartoum and Karachi Worst disease - Black plague Cards left in player deck - 5 Lesson learned - Have the dispatcher go before the medic.
23
« on: May 03, 2016, 02:57:06 PM »
I found that my local store has old Spielbox magazines. They were hidden in the area where you can paint your miniatures. I got really excited hoping to find something really cool or rare. The only Carcassonne issue was the one that contains the meeple stickers. My wife wanted to buy them, but I did not. I liked the idea of meeple stickers, but I worried that I would regret putting them on my brightly colored happy meeple.
Did anyone actually use these? If not, is there any really cool uses for them aside from decorating a game shelf or box?
24
« on: April 18, 2016, 08:15:14 AM »
We went to the board game store to try a few games out that people have been talking about lately. We mainly went to play Tokaido, which was ok but not something we wanted to buy. We then saw Mysterium set up and we bought it after learning the mechanics. What is Mysterium?Ever wonder what our board games do when we aren't around to play them? Well, probably not. In this case, the game of Clue (Cluedo) started a relationship with Dixit and Mysterium is their offspring. Players?The box says you can play with 2 players, but you really shouldn't. That would be terrible. I would say 3 players is the absolute minimum, but the game gets better with additional players. We have only played with 3 and 4, but can't wait to play with 5 or 6. ThemeTHERE HAS BEEN A MURDER... or several perhaps. A ghost haunts Warwick Manor and a number of psychics have arrived to help the ghost find peace by catching the murderer. The ghost communicates through visions (~Dixit cards) to help each psychic figure out a suspect, a place, and a weapon. How it worksOne player plays as the ghost, while the rest are psychics. Each psychic will come up with different suspects, places, and weapons used in different crimes committed at the manor. The players have to find one thing at a time. First you work on the suspect, then the room, then the weapon. You get 7 tries to get all 3 correct. Every psychic must get all 3 correct or everyone loses. At the end game, the players have to figure out which psychic's scenario relates to the ghost. For example, I may have the nun, in the shed, with a pistol. Decar may have the magician, in the library, with a hammer. Paul may have the police officer, near the pool, with the statue. At the end the players have to correctly guess which psychic has the scenario specific to the ghost's murder. The ghost uses 3 cards and the majority rules deciding on the correct scenario. Back to the example, the ghost may hand out cards featuring a top hat, a ladder, and a wrench. The top hat definitely reeks of magician, but the ladder seems more like something in the shed. If you look at the library card, you can see a ladder, so Decar's scenario is looking good. Then a wrench is a tool, a hammer is a tool, that has to be it. Most of the time it isn't that easy.
CooperativeLike all cooperative games, the players win or lose together. After the ghost hands out the vision cards, the psychics have 2 minutes (there is a timer) to discuss what the visions could mean. There is a difference between the original Polish version of the game and the newer English version. In the English version psychics can vote if they agree or disagree with other psychic's choices. Being correct will give them a better shot at the end game.
The Ghost
The ghost is the most important player in the game as it hands out the visions to all of the players. A bad ghost is guaranteed to cause a loss for all players. The ghost WANTS to help the psychics because when they win, it wins. The ghost will be verbally harassed by psychics not liking their vision cards and rarely thanked for doing a good job. The ghost is not allowed to speak, so all the punishment it receives during the game has to be internalized. When the psychics make a guess, the ghost can knock once for correct or twice for incorrect. The ghost is also given raven tokens (amount various by difficulty) that allows it to get a different hand of cards to deal to the psychics. The cards are sometimes completely unhelpful, and these tokens have saved the day on occasion. The psychicsMore psychics bring more chaos. The ghost gives psychic A a card with a wrench. Psychic A may believe that the ghost is telling her that the driver is her suspect. Psychic B might suggest that next to the wrench is a gear, so he thinks that psychic A should pick the clock maker. Psychic A gets to make the final decision about her scenario, but will she go with her gut or with what the group thinks? KidsKids can make great psychics. Sometimes the mind of a child is needed to point out the most basic of things. In one game as the ghost, I passed my son a picture of a snake charmer sitting next to a vase. The weapon was the vase and my son quickly identified it. My wife then said that that the weapon was poison because she associated the snake venom with poison. She talked him out of the correct choice, but that is part of the game. My kid is a terrible ghost. Absolutely terrible. He loves it though, so we humor him. He has trouble keeping track of which psychic is going after which suspect, weapon, or room. One time, he wanted me to pick the Kitchen as the room and handed me a picture with tigers on it. I later asked him why he associated tigers with a kitchen and he said, "when you look at tigers, don't you think of meat?" I explained to him that people don't eat tigers as they are quite endangered and don't taste nearly as good as spotted owls . ConclusionWe enjoy this game. We really love Clue though, so there is that. We never much liked Dixit. This game gives Dixit a purpose, so we really like that about it. If you don't like Clue or Dixit, avoid this game. There is an expansion coming out and we will have to buy it. Unfortunately with games like this and Dixit, we get used to the cards and the game becomes too easy. I have heard you can throw dixit cards into the mix, but haven't tried that yet. Like every game, try before you buy.
25
« on: April 14, 2016, 08:31:48 PM »
Decar thought this question was good enough to temporarily bump the others he has planned for you. The question we have is: What start tile do you prefer to play with?At first I was going to ask which start tile was your favorite, but that leaves too much room for interpretation. You might think Carcassonne town looks the best or maybe you might pick the school for the cause it supports. Let's not worry about any of that. For game play purposes only, what is your preference? When we first got the game, we played with the standard start tile and the spring. Back and forth we went. More recently, we obtained all but one of the start tiles (as you can tell from the photos below). As my family and I were trying different tiles, I asked them which they preferred and all of us had different answers. I am curious to see if there is an even split between 2 or 3 of the options or one big runaway winner. Thanks to Decar for letting me be the guest pollster. He said to wait until tomorrow and it is tomorrow his time, so hopefully I don't get sacked.
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« on: April 12, 2016, 04:17:34 AM »
when I clicked on the "pay with PayPal" option, it would not let me do that (something about their website not being able to accept PayPal from other countries?). I changed my payment method to "bank transfer", and the order seemed to go through, but I have no idea how I am supposed to make the payment to them. I never received an order confirmation e-mail from them, and my e-mail to them has not been answered yet, after 5 days. I'm in Maryland and Cundco orders take 10 days to get here. It may take an extra day to get to you in Illinois, but it shouldn't be 3 weeks. Paypal is the only way I have done business with cundco and nostheide.de. I have no idea why you got that message. I can't speak to the bank transfer method. It seems very popular with German Ebay sellers, but I have avoided it like the plague (until the plague went on sale). I'm not sure what Europeans have against credit cards exactly, but Paypal is the way to go. The site keeps great track of when the payment was made and who it went to so they can't say you didn't pay them. Possibly my favourite mini-expansion; not because of the mechanics, but the spacial boundaries it broke, it feels very different to any other expansion and generally simple to implement. I always thought the Blue Rose should have been the start tile.
I don't like the Blue Rose at all. It doesn't really make sense and it rarely makes a difference. If it comes out first, it basically becomes the start tile. If it comes out last, it does nothing. It is predicted that the poles will shift in our world someday. The consequences of that go from bad to catastrophic. When it happens in Carcassonne, the pig doesn't even fall over.
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« on: April 07, 2016, 05:00:18 PM »
We collect these small coins called pathtags that we find while geocaching. We have one of our own already, but I was thinking of making a Carcassonne themed pathtag. A pathtag is about the size of an American quarter, so I can only do so much with the space. I am also limited to very basic colors. That lends itself well to meeple, but not so much the other features. The other issue is giving a 2 dimensional game 3 dimensions in appearance. I have 2 VERY rough drafts attached. My first idea is to have a meeple on the wall watching something happening in the distance.
If anyone has any suggestions or better ideas let me know.
28
« on: April 07, 2016, 05:46:13 AM »
My wife and son love the mage and the witch, but they never really made a difference when we played with them. After going back and forth with Christopher about it in another thread, I decided to purchase a second set of tiles. We played 2 games with 16 mage and witch tiles and they made a bigger difference.
Game 1 (2X Mage & Witch, Wind Roses, new German Cathedrals)
My son used 2 wind rose tiles to score an extra 6 points and close a few cities. My wife used 1 wind rose tiles to score 3 extra points and start a new city. I got the last wind rose tile close to the game end and used it to complete a 12 point city, but didn't get the bonus 3 points. The wind rose bonus points were not a game changer by any means, but my wife seemed to enjoy them.
The German Cathedrals were played differently by each player. My wife never made an archbishop. She used the roads exclusively and because of that her meeple were never trapped. My son uses robbers a lot more than I do and he would close a decent sized road off with the Cathedral and then install an archbishop. If we ever play this with Abbey and Mayor, the wagon may be deadly with these. My son's best archbishop scored 22 points. I did not do a good job with the archbishops. Low on meeple after competing with my wife on farmland, I scored small numbers of points just trying to get my archbishops back.
The mage and witch tiles were used exclusively in cities. I thought the German Cathedral bonus may cause them to appear on roads, but it never happened. I was able to close 2 cities with the mage gaining a total of 20 bonus points. My wife and son fought each other with the witch. My wife lost at least 10 points to the witch whereas my son lost only 4. With 16 tiles, the mage only made a difference twice and the witch 3 times. That means there were 7 occasions where the tiles came out to spare a city from the witch or move the mage. I won this game by 19 points in part due to the feuding of the other players, but mainly to well placed farmers.
Game 2 (2X Mage & Witch, Corn Circles II, Halflings I)
The mage and witch were passed around and around. Like the previous game, they were used exclusively in cities. My son and I scored a bunch of extra points with the mage. My wife would move the witch to our cities and then close them for us. She finished far in last place, so I don't think this was a really good strategy. The mage and witch were a lot of fun, but were not the game changer that the other 2 expansions were.
The corn circles really changed the game. My wife wondered why cundco didn't create a little UFO/martian meeple for this expansion. I am sure if they did, we would all buy it. We never used them to add a meeple. The robber corn circle was used by my wife to steal and later close a 9 tile road my son was working on. I had the best field and my wife had the second best. My son played the farmer corn circle and kicked us off. I was able to get the best farm back on a subsequent turn. My wife was able to use the shield corn circle to steal a city that had the mage present. We thought that was the play of the game....
The halflings were used by me to close cities and cloisters to get meeple back. I used two of them to close a really big city that my son had run roads into. My wife used hers to do the same. My wife pulled the last pitch fork corn circle and placed it. She saw that I had a farm with 5 cities and one with 4 cities and her lone farm was only connected to 2 completed cities. She yanked her farmer and I chose to yank the 4 city farmer. My son then played the perfect Halfling to unite the 2 now vacant farms and place his farmer. He spent the rest of the game defending that farm and adding cities to it. He doesn't like farmers and he rarely wins because he never plays them. My wife thought she was going to compete with me to get the big farm back, she totally didn't see him doing that. That farm ended up with 8 completed cities for 24 points. He scored 189 points total beating me by 12.
Impressions:
Mage & Witch - 16 tiles is a big improvement.
Halflings - At first my wife and son thought they were stupid, but after one game they both really liked them. They are very powerful.
Corn Circles - My wife loves the theme, my son loves how they work, I think the pitchforks can be a bit too powerful depending on when they come out.
29
« on: March 29, 2016, 12:40:59 PM »
That isn't true exactly. The big guy and the girl covered in flower tattoos are nice. The mustached man who leaves the mailbox open in the rain though  All I got today were coupons for Dunkin Donuts. The coupons weren't even for donuts. What's up with that? Where are my German Cathedrals? Where are my Splendor Tiles? Where are my extra Mage & Witch tiles. Tell me postman ...WHERE?!?!
30
« on: March 15, 2016, 08:01:09 AM »
Forbidden Dessert would be better, but today I wanted to talk about Forbidden Desert and Forbidden Island. Forbidden IslandForbidden Island came out first. You and your team search for 4 pieces of treasure and try to make it back to the helicopter pad before the island sinks into the ocean. Treasure can be earned by collecting sets of cards. After every turn, tiles become flooded. You can spend your time shoring up flooded tiles, moving, collecting treasure, or using your character's unique ability. I'm not sure how exactly you shore up the tiles, I guess everyone carries around an enormous pump and lots of sand bags. Anyway, if anyone dies or you miss out on treasure everyone loses. You also lose if the helicopter pad sinks. Forbidden DesertForbidden Desert is a game about survival. Your team crash lands in a desert and you have to find the pieces of a flying ship to escape. During your turn you can unearth tiles, dig up sand, move, or use your character's unique ability. When unearthing tiles, you can find clues (that create a grid) as to where the parts of the ship are hidden. While this is happening a storm is moving around dumping sand on everything. Also, the sun comes out and makes your character drink water. If anyone dies of thirst, the game ends and everyone loses. My ComparisonForbidden Desert's method of finding the ship parts is much cooler than Forbidden Island's card collection mechanic. I enjoy the tile art a bit more for Forbidden Island. Forbidden Desert is a lot more difficult to win than Forbidden Island. You would have to really play poorly to lose Forbidden Island on Novice, but you can definitely lose on Novice while playing Forbidden Desert. Luck is a factor on both games, but I feel it is a bigger factor on Forbidden Desert. The storm moves based on card flips. Sometimes your team will luck out and the storm will get stuck in a corner several times. When the storm acts favorably, it is easy to win. We have played a few games where the storm never got stuck and we didn't come close to winning any of those. I enjoy the roles more in Forbidden Island as they give you some really cool options (like the diver being able to swim through missing tiles). The roles in Forbidden Desert can sometimes be limiting. It is no fun being the water carrier for instance, but it helps everyone else out immensely. The Desert must be in a 5x5 grid, but there isn't anything stopping you from setting the Island up differently. Almost all of my gaming friends have migrated from Forbidden Island to Forbidden Desert. They feel the game is more challenging, they prefer the part finding mechanic, they like that the parts can be placed on the ship, etc. I can agree with a lot of that, but I prefer Forbidden Island for 2 big reasons. 1. The luck factor. It really stinks when you have 3 water left when you end your turn only to die during other people's turns when the "sun beats down". As I said earlier the storm can be all up in your business or it can leave you alone most of the game. 2. The theme doesn't make sense in Forbidden Desert. In Forbidden Island, your team is there to collect treasure. When you miss out on a treasure or one of your team members die, losing makes sense. This treasure is really nice, but it wasn't worth Samantha's life... In Forbidden Desert, your team is just trying to survive. Why does everyone lose just because Larry ran out of water? On several games we had all of the parts and 2 of us were waiting on the launch pad only to have the 3rd one die. Here we are with a way to escape, but nope game over. BOOO! So am I the only one who really likes Forbidden Island, but doesn't care for Forbidden Desert? My friends think I am nuts. 
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