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Kevin Klemme
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Mycelia Board Game Review

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River Wild Board Game Review

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Outback Crossing Review

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05 Dec 2014 10:30 #191996 by Rafael Silva
I’ve moved recently so there isn’t much time to game around here.

My sister-in-law came by and we played Puerto Rico. She had not played it before but really enjoyed it. She got a tobacco production going and went almost unchallenged due to tile luck, my wife invested pretty early in a lot of quarries and I was stuck with the “low” crops till the endgame. I like this game with three but this session went so fast, I felt that when I got my engine going the game ended. My wife won by 3 pts.

After that we played Catan twice. I won both, my sister-in-law had never played it either and the game with three has so much space that two or three trades early game made it easy. My wife doesn’t like to play negotiation games with me because she doesn’t put as much focus in making deals as I do, so although my sister-in-law said she liked it I think as if she hasn’t played Catan proper.

I’ve to think about 3-player games now because she’ll be around a lot and I don’t play many games with 3. Any ideas? I have Runebound, San Juan, Biblios, Ascending Empires, Stone Age, Middle-Earth Quest, Snow Tails, Lord of the Rings, Arkham Horror and Talisman that I think would go over well with three. Does anyone have any thoughts if Die Macher, El Grande, Imperial 2030, Citadels and 7 Wonders play well with 3?
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05 Dec 2014 11:09 #192000 by charlest
Troyes is perfect with 3.
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05 Dec 2014 11:11 #192001 by JEM
I'd think 7 Wonders would work well with three. I hated it with eight...

The Road to Canterbury was designed for three players, is a really nice game, and sometimes shows up cheap.
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05 Dec 2014 14:30 #192011 by Sagrilarus
El Grande is a no for three.

Alhambra is a definite yes for three.

If you can find it Queen's Necklace is a yes for three.

S.
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05 Dec 2014 14:56 #192017 by RobertB
Die Macher is best for 4 or 5.

I'd second 7 Wonders for three.

San Juan is good for three as well.

My experience with Runebound is that it kind of sucks with more than three. Player number 4 has to spend too much time travelling to get loot, or ends up losing to mobs that are too hard for their level. That was 1st edition, and was ages ago, so my memory could be playing tricks on me.
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05 Dec 2014 15:04 #192018 by hotseatgames
I had a lot of fun with 3 player Nexus Ops.
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05 Dec 2014 17:07 #192024 by stormseeker75
Biblios, obviously.

Ingenious is a great choice.

Carc is great, but no more than three for me.

Knights of Charlemagne is a perfect 3-player game. Don't play it with just 2.
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06 Dec 2014 09:28 #192039 by DukeofChutney
played a game of City Council yesterday. Having thought about republic of rome a lot lately i think City Council on some metrics might be a better game. It works better as a competitive coop despite its flaws. The main problem that Council has is you can just draw good objective cards (you get 1 per turn, and you want to score them by negotiating the construction of certain buildings, or allowing crime to build up or building cash reserves etc) that have already been fulfilled on the board qithout your input. The winner often is the person who pulls a couple of cards that just happened to be done on the board in the late game. However, it does work as semi coop without the players needing to agree a social contract. No player can easily sink the ship in one round, or even at all. The ship only sinks if players are persistently selfish over 5 or 6 rounds (this can and does happen). So there is the coop element but its not too harsh. Secondly, yo have to help each other to help yourself. You will sometimes support other players votes or building choices because it also helps you, or because you want their support for your proposal. You cannot lose score and victory cards are hidden, so there's no easy sabotage either. It's a game that delivers on the dishonest negotiations front.


Also played some more Bohnanza. This is growing on me. Definitely better with 5. You can get some good negotiating going and strike some deals. I like its simplicity and openness.

Hellenes, this is a block war game from GMT on the Sparta vs Athens Peloponnesian War. The third game I have played on this conflict. Its good, its got quite a lot of extra rules for sieges, attrition, sacrifices to gods etc over the standard block stuff. I actually like the extra rules weight. Many of the standard columbia games can get very samey, there's just enough here to make it different. Hellenes won't appeal to all though. Like the history fighting battles and assaulting city walls was very risky, pillaging countryside and setting up attritional sieges is the smart choice. It becomes a game of wearing down the opponent and forcing him or her to make risky attacks. Interesting and strategic but not really an action game.

Had good times with some GW Dungeonquest, Mahjong and Tichu too.
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06 Dec 2014 11:18 #192042 by Gary Sax
City council sounds like fun, I'll check it out.

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06 Dec 2014 16:06 #192044 by DukeofChutney
Played The Castles of Mad King Ludwig this afternoon. A mechanical exercise in tedium.

The main attraction here is you can be creative building your castle layout. We all love minecraft, or building cities or bases in video games. Games like Caverna, or Castles of Burgundy tap this desire, as does this game. The issue i have with it is the arbitrary scoring, as the game from a competitive standpoint is entirely built around maximizing score. You score points for; placing rooms, putting other rooms at all the exits to a room, getting bonuses, hidden objectives, and end game bonus tiles, and your cash. This ends up being needlessly convoluted for a simple tile placement game, and it feels as though score is just meaningless nonsense than anything 'thematic'. Also it results in players miscalculating their scores and recounting, which slows things down and adds to the tedium. On one occasion i was sure a player scored themselves twice but couldn't be sure. You can never really tell who is winning or losing or whether there is a game. In one sense who cares you get to have fun building a castle, but then, if that's what we are here for, why bother with the scoring at all? Building things in minecraft or video games is fun because some ass doesn't come and tell us how many points its worth. In a boardgame it has to be judged for no other reason than that the game wouldn't work. There seems to be an evolution occurring in euro games. Scoring systems need to get more and more complex. Why, what does it actually add other than a false sense of depth?

Also there is a passive aggressive auction system for buying tiles.
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