At the Gates of Loyang - Why do I hate it? Hot

I suppose if I wanted to offer an opinion, I would have to play it. That seems unlikely.

@Repoman

The alternate choice was Castles of Burgenbarf.

You're dead to me.

S.

Your brother too.

S.

As someone who spent his childhood dreaming of Hershey Park, and who farts in Nestle's general direction, I can't take this commentary. It's too much to bear!!!

It could be that you don't like Hershey's because it is simply TOO AWESOME. I can understand that. Some people don't eat meat, because it's too awesome. I don't get that, though.

I think you don't like At The Gates of Loyang because it reminds you of Chinese food you once had that gave you intestinal discomfort once. Something about that box design, maybe, reminds you of the little happy dragon on the little white box with the tin handle that irritated your bowel once.

I know, I'm reaching here. But it can't be Hershey's fault. That's like accusing Mickey Mouse of being a crackhead. I mean...mice don't even have opposable thumbs? How the fuck would they light it?

No, definitely the box design. Or the vegetables, which reminds you of vegetarians, which reminds you of Hersheys, which you don't like.

Hershey's Chocolate is like Budweiser Beer. Technically, I suppose, it is what it claims to be and maybe you even buy into that line of thinking. Right up to the second you try some of the real good stuff. One beer from a small bar in Germany, one candy bar from Belgium and you will never be able to look at Hershey or Budweiser in the same way again.

As to Burgen von Burgenblarf, if you had chosen that Uba, I could help you a little. Why I hate it is for the same reason I would hate to eat plain bran. It's got no flavor. It's got no zip. Yah it'll clean out your digestive track just fine but you will have no joy in eating it.

When you're a kid, and you get some Hershey's, it might as well be manna from heaven. Sure, there's better, but man, does it do the trick. Birch beer, Yoo Hoo, and Hershey's with almonds. I think the mongol was wrong...THOSE are what is best in life. I mean, I'm not taking away from slaughter and the lamentation of the women, but those things are up there.

AS TO THE GATES OF LOYANG....
I think it's because it's contrived, and not in a clever way, and it's about one of the least exciting things on earth: farming. The fact that you have to play cards to sell veggies, it's lame. The fact that you have to then convert money to VPs, is lame. Why can't Cash/Kasu be the VPs? Why do you need to have that extra step and resource? It's to make the game seem smarter than it is, to add another layer of what some would call depth (which is simply another conversion, and yields little actual depth other than having to weigh the need for money against VPs).

My brother never said whether he liked or disliked Hershey's chocolate. He simply has the expertise to identify the parts that go together to make up the whole, and has the langauge to describe those parts in precise, jargon-free language.

It's interesting to talk to KingPut about food. He never judges a food or flavor as good or bad, and rarely expresses his likes or dislikes. Liking or disliking a specific flavor or combination of flavors, textures and colors, is clearly subjective, and whether he like or dislikes something has no bearing on whether I will like or dislike something. However, by making me aware of the individual flavors, textures and colors that are present in a specific food, he has increased my appreciation and enjoyment of food in general. I also think I now make better choices when shopping for food. There is less "meh" in my kitchen cupboards and on the dinner table than there used to be.

Was somebody talking just then? For a moment I thought I heard a voice from the great beyond.

I grew up just a few miles away from the Hershey plant in Pennslylvania, so I knew a lot of people that worked for Hershey and it subcontractors. Some of my friends were out the the Milton S. Hershey School. For me a Hershey Bar tastes like childhood, so I don't have the most impartial perspective to the subject. I find the higher quality chocolates to be too heavy for my tastes. A Hershey Kiss (in spite of not originally being a Hershey product) is the benchmark for me of a good chocolate treat. Right taste, right size.

As I've grown older I've moved away from almost all chocolate tastes (ice cream, cakes, etc.) but still enjoy straight milk chocolate.

S.

Loyang is the very definition of work in a box. You get stuff turn it into other stuff, then get stuff with your stuff to score points. Fucking fantastic. That's why I hate it. Fiddly as all fuck, too.

@SuperflyTNT

I think you are circling in on the reason I dislike it, but you haven't quite pinnined it down exactly yet.

A The Gates of Loyang isn't actually about farming, it's about buying/producing something and then selling at a profit. This can certainly make for an interesting game, even if the thing being sold is vegetables, rather than jems or real estate or used cars. Also the vegetables are kind of cute, so I know that it isn't the farming or vegetables that makes the game dull and lifeless for me.

The fact that it uses card drafting isn't a problem for me either.

Converting money into VPs isn't a huge issue. Lots of games I like allow you to convert money into VPs.

But there is a way in which the cards and the conversions come together that requires players to make repeated tedious calculations to determine the best choice given the known information. Every time you do something, you have to re-run all the possible scenarios and add up the numbers in your head to make the best choice. Some people clearly enjoy this kind of thing, but to me it feels like I'm taking a grammer school math test. I feel like I'd rather be playing Quarriors with the original rules. At least with Quarriors it's obvious that choice is an illusion, and you don't have to run through several differnt sets of numbers, to figure out how much you have to spend and that the best die to pick up is the most is the most expensive one that you can afford.

We don't listen to people from New Jersey here.

S.

Uba grew up in Hershey country in the Mid-Atlantic US but while she's 100% Ameritrash about her games, she's a total Euro-snob when comes to milk chocolates.

For Milk Chocolates:

Hershey = Medium to strong chocolate note, background sour almost cheesy milk note, slight bitterness, slightly crumbly texture

Dove = Weaker chocolate note, sweet, low dairy notes, creamy texture (while some people like dove)

Nestle = Medium chocolate note, cereal/grain background notes

Lindt = Medium chocolate, cooked, evaporated milk background note

Cadbury and Symphony = Medium chocolate, background carmelized sugar notes, some sweetened condensed milk notes, soft creamy texture.

Cheap Easter candy = Weak chocolate, overly sweet

I like a wide range milk chocolates. Personally, I like the pronounced dairy note in my milk chocolates so Lindt is probably my favorite but Hershey is probably #2.

Next week we'll have chocolate and bourbon pairings.

That would be awesome King Put. Have you had our local chocolate from Monson's?

That's my plan for WBC. I can stop in Lititz to pick up Wilbur as well, the Lancaster's local microbrew.

S.

With bourbon, you have to do the intense dark chocolate. Milk and booze is blughhhh.

"The Dude" would be disappointed to hear you say that "a caucasian" is blughhhh. :)

Pete: I would posit that crumbly is not a good analogy for Hershey's. It has a stiff pasta texture, if anything, unless chilled. It's not gooey, it's not crumbly. You can snap it off.

My wife, the chocolatier, says "it's creamy, melty, and delicious, but granular" as when it dissolves on your tongue it's as if you can taste the sugar granules breaking down.

I don't know about that, but I know that it's the nummahs.

I'd agree with you or your wive calling Hershey's chocolate granular with snap. That's probably a better term than crumbly. Some other terms that can be used to compare Hershey to Dove. Hershey is harder, less deformable (as you put force on to a product how likily will it be to break apeart or snap vs. deforming), less cohesive (ability for a food to stick to itself). As you said Hershey has a mouthfeel that's rougher sugar granules vs. Dove which is creamy or fattier. It's been a long, long time since I trained with Hershey's expert taste panel.

I'm definitely not any kind of expert on food. For the sake of economy and efficiency, I have been known to eat the same food for dinner for several nights in a row. But I do know that I've never been a fan of Hershey's chocolate. I don't hate it, I just don't enjoy it enough to bother with it. I prefer Nestle's, or better yet, Ghiradelli.

Pete: Your credentials have expired.(pffffft raspberry) LOL

I think of all the chocolatiers, I think for flavor, I like Jacobs Suchard. Toblerone (now Kraft...ugh) is my favorite candy. Ferrero Rocher with the hazelnuts is a very, very close second. Almond Roca is right there too.

All else is a distant follower. But, I'm not big on sweets, unless it's pie. I love pie more than anything. Except Pumpkin...that's just nasty.

Shellie: I've thought about it a little more. I think what you don't like is games that make things harder than they need to be, pretensiously trying to be deeper "feeling" than they need to be for the sole purpose of serving faux depth.

I think there's quite a few games out there that do that, making things that should be simple much harder or "gamey" for the sole purpose of making you have to do arithmetic or something or adding layers of unneccesary complexity.

I don't know you IRL, but you seem to be a no-bullshit kind of gal, which is one of the reasons I like and respect you. And I think anything that is fake, or pretensious just to serve itself rubs you a little bit wrong. Pair that with you trying to do something you like, like playing a game, and there's a sticking point. Hence, I think that's the root cause of your dislike of Gates.

I may be wrong in your character, which would make this assessment wrong. That's my "2 cents".

I think that the truth is that I like games where gathering up all the open and available information is quick and easy, but once you have that information the decision isn't so easy because there is so clear right choice. Deciding what your best choice is should require a creative thinking and/or some uncertainty due to the human variable (you don't know what the other players are going to do) and/or a random factor. Randomness is best if there is an understandable risk/reward scale. Finally, the best games are the ones where the series of choices you make, shape the game, changing it so that the beginning, middle and end of the game are different from each other.

I hate games in which gathering up all the information is slow and tedious, but particularly challenging; then once you have all the information, there is only one clear right choice.

oh man, chocolate with ginger, or with peppers... delicious! Chocolatiers are working with cool spices these days giving very nice flavours. Talked to one guy one day, he was a reformed sommelier, and he started talking about different brands of chocolate, and which he used to make the outside, and which for the filling.

And which went best with which wine. I of course forgot all he said, but I remember getting very hungry