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What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?
- Sagrilarus
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- D20
- Pull the Goalie
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- Legomancer
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- D10
- Dave Lartigue
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The another TMG microgame, This Town Ain't Big Enough for the 2-4 Of Us. I didn't back this one and I'm glad for it. It's okay, nothing special, but I just don't see an occasion to play it. It's short, it has one interesting idea to it, and I don't know why you'd pick it to play over something else, including not playing anything at all. I'll say more in the microgame thread.
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- SuperflyPete
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- Salty AF
- SMH
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I stood and watched an entire demo, but you are correct, I didn't play it.Josh Look wrote:
SuperflyTNT wrote: The cards didn't have any flavor whatsoever...it was Random Marine #1 who has X attack and Y value being played with your character card (which I did like). With Marvel, each card has a purpose and a reason to exist.
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I'm guess you only saw it and didn't play it.
It seemed pretty much like "Generic Dude A" and "Generic Dude B", to me. I saw the Nostromo location.The cards have SOOOOOOOOOO much flavor. Quarantine Proceedure, which allows you to throw out the top card of your deck if you want is the only way to get rid of Chestbursters. Electric Prod lets you move Aliens to a different location. I'd have to check for the names of the cards to list more, but literally EVERY card has a name paired with an effect that makes sense. Top that off with the shit going on with Event cards doing things based on what objective you're on and Hazard cards that do different things based on where you are and how many you've pulled (this is where the Nostromo went into self destruct)...so much theme here.
There was a Sergeant, and some named dudes, but it really just kind of seemed generic to me.I think you saw the starting deck cards, Pete, which are generic dudes. You do buy up cards for all the characters from the movies and (surprise) they all shit you see them do in the movies. Marvel also starts you off with generic S.H.I.E.L.D. dudes.
Yeah, the facedown thing was a difference, and did add some tension from what I saw. As I said, there were character cards and the life was a new thing, but I still posit that Marvel feels like a more fully integrated theme, and this just seems like a modification to that game's system, with a theme tacked on. I can't really blame them...I mean, how many Marines are there in the films, and of those, how many are really memorable? They didn't have that much to work with.And really, it couldn't get any farther from Alien pasted on Legendary. Cards from the Alien deck coming out facedown, moving throughout the ship has a feel not at all dissimilar to how blip counters work in Space Hulk, and we all know where that idea really came from. You have hit points. There is player elimination, which Marvel does not have. Wounds work completely differently. The list goes on and on.
I didn't see those cards come up, so thanks for clarifying.And for the record, every piece of art on the mat is on a card somewhere in the game. I'll agree with you on the art, though....yeesh.
Take a look at a video GreyElephant made of the game, whoever's following along:
I think I'll have to play it a couple times to be sure, but I'm pretty much sold on the idea that Legendary is a better product.
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- SuperflyPete
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Josh Look wrote:
SuperflyTNT wrote:
wadenels wrote: Played Mini Car Wars. Not impressed. There's some ideas that could translate to a good game, but in this case that didn't happen. This really feels like a game I would have designed on graph paper in 7th grade, and that ain't a compliment.
boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/68504/outrider
We have the technology.
I'm getting a review copy, I'll let you know how it goes. They are KSing it (shocker) and it looks outstanding. Might even back it if it doesn't suck.
I have the PNP of Outrider. It blows. Granted, I only have what was in the base game, if you can call it that, but I was entirely unimpressed (and I really get into the Mad Max car chase shit). The base game gave me no incentive to buy/print more stuff out for it.
Shit.
Thanks for the heads-up. I'm always amazed how under-developed this genre is. I mean, we have Thunder Road, and that's about it. If you don't mind a little more complexity, try Wastelands 3: Total Meltdown, which is a miniatures game at its core, but has vehicle rules. Another GREAT one, and really simple, is Warlords of the Wastelands: www.skankgame.com/Downloads/Warlord2085Game.pdf
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- Legomancer
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- Dave Lartigue
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Gary Sax wrote: Hey Legomancer, people are bitching a lot on BGG about how confrontational Imperial Settlers is and how unbalanced confrontational special buildings are... what was your experience? I never know if complaints about stuff like that over there are because of a prevailing non-confrontational preference or it is actually an issue. Where would it fall on the scale over here, where people tend to like confrontation and direct interaction?
I don't doubt it. IS presents itself as a cheerful family game but it's wicked. You can blow up other peoples' buildings. Mostly this is limited to the common buildings, not the faction buildings, which are the more powerful ones, so generally this is not too bad.
Each of the factions has some buildings that are powerful. Japan and Rome each have cards that can take out *any* opponent building. They're not completely unstoppable, as they are a little expensive to use and can only be used once per turn (of 5 turns). Egypt has a building that "steals" buildings from others for the round (again, once per turn). I'm not sure what the Barbarians' killer card is. They seem fairly well balanced, but here's the catch: it's one card out of a deck of 30, and you aren't going to draw a ton out of that deck. So if someone else gets their biggie and you never see yours, I suppose there's a chance for some balance issues.
I've only played 4p games twice now, but in each one the killer card didn't win but building synergy did. You want to get your faction buildings built, period. They're where the points are. In our game last night, I was Japan and did really well and never used my killer building. Rome lagged behind and then got its faction buildings going and zoomed past everyone. But Egypt took it and only built their big building at the end and used it once. Egypt got a lot of its faction stuff built, allowing it to combo into tons of points. (When I won as Rome, Egypt was my big threat and I *did* use the Engineers to take out its point-generating cards.)
So far I am not seeing any balance problems, but yeah, it is more confrontational than it appears on the surface. It also has a thing where, to build most faction buildings you have to discard an already built building. A lot of players don't like this because they want all their stuff to last forever, and you're not always getting a direct upgrade. You also get resources by razing cards out of your hand or making deals with them, which means having to give up a potentially good building later for a stone now, and that seems to bug some folks.
All of these things are possibly problematic to people who look at the art and think it's a light, fluffy, friendly game of impressing the magistrate. It's not.
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- Legomancer
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- Dave Lartigue
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Imperial Settlers: An Apple With a Razor Blade Inside
This is the game I was most looking forward to at Gen Con. Not only is Ignacy Trzewiczek a designer whose games I like, Imperial Settlers is a lighter, cleaner version of The New Era, one of my favorite games. It was designed to take the core tableau-building concept from The New Era and make it more streamlined and accessible, shedding the dismal post-apocalyptic theme in the process.
As a result you have the box cover, in which a jolly little guy and his dog caper under the marshmallow title. That's a major difference from the Neuroshima universe of The New Era. This continues on the cards, full of roly-poly little cute citizens inhabiting the Roman, Barbarian, Japanese, and Egyptian worlds. The worker tokens are plump little pink figures, "food" is represented by charming red apples, and even the raze tokens, which are swords, have a chunky cartoony look to them.
Yes, raze tokens. As in razing something to the ground. Because you're going to be doing that. You're going to be attacking your opponents' tableaus and hoping you're wrecking their plans and bringing ruin to their nation. Imperial Settlers is like one of those adorable red apples, only filled with razor blades. If you prefer your games to be ones where you try to build the best civilization in order to win a ribbon from the magistrate, you might want to pass it by.
Be aware, this game is more confrontational than it appears on the surface. It also has a thing where, to build most faction buildings you have to get rid of an already built building. A lot of players don't like this because they want all their stuff to last forever, and you're not always getting a direct upgrade (i.e., trading a building that produces one food for one that produces two). You also get resources by razing cards out of your hand or making deals with them, which means having to give up a potentially good building later for a stone now, and that seems to bug some folks. Your settlement will change. Cards will come and cards will go, sometimes through the actions of others and sometimes through your own.
I'm not going to go into the rules, but there are some details to know. There are four factions, and they are not identical. Your settlement will consist of two types of cards: common cards, drawn and drafted from a single deck, and faction cards, which are specific to that faction. Faction cards usually require destroying one of your own buildings (probably a common one) as part of their cost. In addition to what the buildings do as themselves, common cards can be razed to provide one-time resources and faction cards can be used as "deals" that provide ongoing resources. Cards that can be razed can be razed from your hand (for one raze token) or from other players' tableaus (for two or more), and in the latter case the victim receives a wood token and flips the building over, allowing it to still be used as a foundation for a faction building. At the end of the game common buildings are worth one point, faction buildings are worth two. Both types of buildings generate resources or victory points during the game.
From what I have seen so far in my plays, the Romans are about building synergy; they have a lot of buildings that work together to score big points. Barbarians do a lot with workers and generate tons of them. When they get going, they are all about razing. Japan has a weakness in that its faction buildings can also be razed, but it can deploy workers as samurai to protect them. Egypt has a lot of just straight up VP point buildings.
Whenever a game has asymmetric factions, there are immediate complaints about balance, and Imperial Settlers already has been accused of having overpowered factions. It's true that each of the factions has some buildings that are powerful. For example, Japan and Rome each have cards that can take out any opponent building. They're not completely unstoppable, as they are a little expensive to use and can only be used once per turn (of 5 turns). Egypt has a building that "steals" buildings from others for the round (again, once per turn). I'm not sure what the Barbarians' killer card is. They seem fairly well balanced, but here's the catch: it's one card out of a deck of 30, and you aren't going to draw a ton out of that deck. So if someone else gets their biggie and you never see yours, I suppose there's a chance for some balance issues.
I've only played 4p games twice now, but in each one the killer card didn't win as much as building synergy did. You want to get your faction buildings built, period. They're where the points are. In my most recent game, I was Japan and did really well and never used my killer building. Rome lagged behind and then got its faction buildings going and zoomed past everyone. But Egypt took it and only built their big building at the end and used it once. Egypt got a lot of its faction stuff built, allowing it to combo into tons of points. (When I won as Rome, Egypt was my big threat and I did use the Engineers to take out its point-generating cards.)
I do have a couple of complaints. The card text and icons are tiny, which is a problem considering you will want to know which of your opponent's cards across the table you hate the most. Thematically, some of the factions don't really add up for me. The Romans can store raze tokens while the Barbarians can store workers. That seems opposite to me, though I guess I can see the argument for how they are. Some of the card names are misleading: there's a "Wood Storage" building that does not, in fact, store wood.
On the other hand, it's nice to have a New Era-type game that is easy to teach and plays briskly. The design has some great elements, including a clever method for guiding you on how to arrange your tableau. The artwork is delightful, and the rulebook, unlike many of Portal's previous releases, is well done.
I'm only a few games in and already I'm a fan. Although I prefer the grit and depth of The New Era, I feel there's definitely a place for Imperial Settlers on my shelf. I'm looking forward to getting new factions to play with.
You're going to have to make some tough choices in this game, and you're going to have some of them made for you when your opponents decide to come wreck your stuff. That little guy on the cover isn't coming to give you a hand, he's coming to beat you with his shovel. Don't let the fluffy package fool you; this kitten has claws.
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