What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Gary Sax wrote: 2 players, 4 hours is basically one of the best game niches. I feel like BGG people who only play game night miss out on a LOT of great gaming.

Wow, that is a really astute statement there, and one that...I don't believe I've ever seen expressed. This drive toward big, communal game nights is part of the reason that these kinds of games have been rendered more niche.

When we do a big game night, we tend to wind up with the smaller/shorter stuff going on and also old favorites like CE, Imperial and so forth. But when I call up a friend or two to just come over to have a drink and play a longer game or just do some H2H type stuff, that's when I feel like the actual gaming time is more rewarding.

ST: Ascendancy is really suited for this kind of niche more than the game night culture that's been fostered, which is why I think it is somewhat less accessible than a lot of other popular titles.

aaxiom wrote:

Gary Sax wrote: 2 players, 4 hours is basically one of the best game niches. I feel like BGG people who only play game night miss out on a LOT of great gaming.

Well-put. The sense of feeling VESTED as well as the MEMORIES generated and NARRATIVE provided by the gaming experience are best-served with a longer game over a series of shorter ones.

Yeah, I'm definitely in that type of gaming too. I started board gaming with my brother only, oh and the time we spent on a full day BattleLore, 4 hours Android & a week Descent 2nd ed campaign... there's a reason I started my collection with 2 players viable games.

Michael Barnes wrote:

Gary Sax wrote: 2 players, 4 hours is basically one of the best game niches. I feel like BGG people who only play game night miss out on a LOT of great gaming.

Wow, that is a really astute statement there, and one that...I don't believe I've ever seen expressed. This drive toward big, communal game nights is part of the reason that these kinds of games have been rendered more niche.

I agree with all of this. I too, prefer the 4hour game. Multi-player or two-player. Crayon rails, wargames, minis games, they all fit in here. Two-player games with a good friend can be some of the best gaming had.

However, the upside to these communal game nights, board game cafes, meet-ups, is that you don't have to buy anything. A person can get all the weekly/daily gaming done they could ever want without having to own a single title. Stores have shelves full of 'Demo games', the cafes with their 'libraries', gamers buy titles on an almost weekly basis that they want to get played once or twice.

At one point I was thinking about doing a blog about a year of gaming without owning a single title. To be honest, I don't think my gaming would take a hit.

Unfortunately, I'm back into working on minis, so I do own a few.

Anyway, yes, I like to play the longer games or the ones that allow me to tinker before and after. Anything else....I'll play your copy.

Taught the wife, daughter, and mother-in-law Cockroach Poker this past weekend. For some reason the m-i-l had a heck of a time with the rule that you can pass the card on to your neighbor if they didn't play the card at first, but that didn't matter because it was insanely hard to lie about a card to her. We ended up changing seats every game so that the three of us could take turns losing to her. We got her eventually, but I think that either she was getting tired or she decided to let us win one.

RobertB wrote: Taught the wife, daughter, and mother-in-law Cockroach Poker this past weekend. For some reason the m-i-l had a heck of a time with the rule that you can pass the card on to your neighbor if they didn't play the card at first, but that didn't matter because it was insanely hard to lie about a card to her. We ended up changing seats every game so that the three of us could take turns losing to her. We got her eventually, but I think that either she was getting tired or she decided to let us win one.

Change seats?

Can't you pass the card to whoever you want in CP? Only caveat being they can't have already received the card that round.

charlest wrote:

Change seats?

Can't you pass the card to whoever you want in CP? Only caveat being they can't have already received the card that round.

Ah...oops. Oh well, wouldn't be the first time I've screwed up a game with only about three sentences of rules.

Anyone excited for Imperial Struggle ? Basically a simpler version of Twilight Struggle, same creators, that includes military options

I P500d it. The situation itself is a great, logical situation for the system.

What's P500?

Black Barney wrote: What's P500?

GMT's preorder system

www.gmtgames.com/s-2-p500.aspx

Hit Z Road: Really fun little adventure-ish card and dice game. Very simple game but the art is fantastic and spot on to the theme. It's the only Wallace game I've found that I not only can tolerate, but that I actually like.

Apocalypse Chaos, surprisingly, is pretty good too, and also, it is more Shadowrunny than Encounters: Shadowrun. Still trying to figure it out, but it's fun.

ST: Ascendancy continues to impress. We had a nail-biter of an ending last night. I was Fed and developed a Culture engine pretty strong early game. Romulans were close behind me and researching nice tech.

The Klingon player hit some early troubles running into hazards but caught back up in mid game. They were behind in Culture and he realized he couldn't win by Ascendancy so he had to go for conquest. Unfortunately he connected to me and put some pressure on my homeworld. I neglected Research for most of the game opting to instead cut straight towards victory and it hurt me.

He took my home planet while the Romulans connected to the other side of my cluster and took out of my bases. The Klingon player then powered through my sectors with warp and took the Romulan base in a sneaky offensive. His fleet was torn up by some mines but still manage to take out the ground defenses, razing the planet completely. If he could settle it on the following turn he'd win.

Fortunately for the Romulans, they had solid production from other planets and would retake their base. I would also retake my home planet by hegemony-ing the Klingon structures.

While I was in a frail position from a military/ship standpoint at end game, both the Romulan player and I ended the game with five Ascendancy. I lost on tie breaker due to him controlling one more planet than me.

Amazing game. So very cool and easy to play. Downtime got progressively shorter although one player struggled each turn on what to buy (was indecisive strategically) and I felt like my turns went way faster than both of theirs. This is a keeper even if I only get to play it once every 6-10 months.

I also got in a quick two player game of Agamemnon, which is a neat abstract-ish game in a slightly similar vein to Neuroshima Hex. You draw Greek units out of a bag and place them on spaces on the board to vie for area control. The trick is that you are trying to control strands of fate (you're playing a god manipulating the forces in the battle of Troy), and there are three different strands that are controlled in different ways.

One set is controlled by whoever has the most combat strength in that particular thread, another is by sheer number of units, and the last by highest ranked leader.

Interesting, fast playing game that felt very strategic and different. These are the only types of abstracts I enjoy (ones with ties to theme and some chaos/randomness) and I found it pretty fun.

Blood Rage came back out and I walloped a new player and a vet. I decided to go heavy battle supplemented by as many quests as I could get. Drafted the Dwarf Chieftan in the first round (one of my favorite cards no one really drafts), and snagged the highest battle cards most round. Focused on upping my Rage and they didn't have a chance.

Had 12 rage going into Age 2 which I've managed to accomplish in about 50% of my plays (for the last half dozen or so). So huge because then you can control the tempo of the round and no matter what you draft you can make it work.

It was nice winning with a heavy battle strategy as that hasn't been my MO in the last few plays.

Closed out the night with a Grey Fox prototype we playtested. It was like Pandemic but you're rushing to cooperatively build structures out of wooden blocks under a time limit. Reminded me of FUSE but more fun because watching people agonize over stacking and making certain oddly shaped blocks touch was entertaining.

How much does Ascendancy suffer if you have only two players ?

Msample wrote: How much does Ascendancy suffer if you have only two players ?

Officially you're not supposed to do that. Mechanically you wouldn't need to change anything and it would work. You'd probably have some wonky balance maybe and less checks and balances. Supremacy (conquest) victory would also be way easier. I know some people have played 2 player (seen it mentioned on BGG) and said it pretty much works, but GF9 don't officially recommend it. It will probably eternally stay a 3 player game for me. I never want to go to 4 because the downtime and game length.

Last night I played Victory or Death (the new Quartermaster General with Sparta/Athens) and didn't care for it. No surprise, though, since I didn't care for the original. Both QG and VoD are incremental tugs-of-war where the winning team is determined not by strength, not by holding ground, and not by clever play - but simply by staying awake longer than your opponents. Yawn.

But that's not why I'm posting. The big news is that, at the other game table, some buddies of mine played Risk: Europe and loved it. Trust me, no one was more surprised than they were.

I guess Risk:Europe is slowly becoming available in the US - at Target and online, I hear? Probably not my thing, but other folks on F:AT might be interested.

Also, my kickstarter copy of Hands in the Sea finally arrived. I'm a bit concerned because I replayed A Few Acres of Snow again recently (its inspiration) and liked it much less than I remember. But it's supposed to be a big improvement, so we'll see.