What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Gang of four...

I like Tichu, never played Gang of Four

Legomancer wrote: The things I didn't like about Tichu:

1) the goofy cards that do weirdo things you have to somehow figure out

2) not being able to decide if it's a climbing game or a trick-taking game

3) having a partner whose fate is attached to me figuring this stuff out.

GOF eliminates these things. It's strictly a climbing game, so no trick stuff. The few "weirdo" cards are pretty straightforward. And it's not a partnership.

I love all of those things about Tichu, and I still think Gang of Four is pretty darn good.

Trying to get in some game time with old friends before we leave the KC area in just a couple of weeks. Last week I got to play my first partnership game of Nexus Ops. It had a slow start because the dice were absurdly cold for everyone. Battles simply wouldn't finish up. They'd just stay contested for turns on end. One of the players (not my partner) kept trying to set up for the big score, which isn't really how Nexus Ops works. Better to go for the low-hanging fruit and live in the moment. That's intuitively how I play most games, but in a DoaM I can see how that operates against genre expectations. As to the partnership aspect, I initially didn't see the appeal. But as the game went on there were some moments where it became obvious that working with another player allowed for some cool tactical choices. In one case I went for the monolith without even thinking that my partner wanted it, and it cost us a three-point mission. The ability to pass cards back and forth is cool too. Nexus Ops is always beloved by me, and it was good to play it again. It didn't hurt that my team one.

Played a few games of Hanabi as well. After being kind of cool on it for a few years I think it's finally starting to grow on me. It helps to play it with the same people a lot. My wife and I were teaching another couple, so we didn't do great. It was still fun to play though.

For Sale hit the table too. The only fifteen-minute games anyone needs are Coup and this one. Still one of the best auction games ever designed.

Played Medici for the first time the other night. Really intense and deep, and we'll be playing it more and more, but I did get a LOT of the same feel as Ra, and I've always really loved that Ra, with its suns, makes the bidding decision more about *whether* to bid rather than *how much* to bid. Before every flip, you want to think about who would want the lot, how much they would bid for it, what their turn order is, who's in the lead, whether you want it and how much you'd pay, and you really want to recalculate how valuable everyone's boat is so far (and how much space they have left) and what color levels everyone's going to be on so far. A lot of this is in Ra, too, for sure, but despite Ra's convoluted scoring, I find it easier and faster to do the calculations for what each lot is worth for everyone in Ra. More importantly, the calculation of "how much to pay" isn't crucial at *all* in Ra; it's more "would they be willing to bid their 10, or only their 5?"

Anyway, point is: 1) feels like a lot of overlap between Ra and Medici in feel and 2) Medici feels like it has a lot more direct calculation to it, which is less appealing to me; Ra feels more viscerally psychological.

Yeah, For Sale is really good...I'll have to add that to the ERP list.

Another thing that Medici has in common with Ra is weighing out whether you want a lot with crap or actually harmful stuff in it. I really like that. I want the 5 corn, but I don't want the other trash that's in there. But someone else might want the other trash. Knizia's auction games (and mutations like High Society, Beowulf and The Hobbit) all have this kind of variable valuation among players mixed in with potentially negative effects...so you sometimes find yourself bidding a certain way to AVOID a lot/reward.

Some folks like Medici more, some folks like Ra more. I think there's a lot of difference between the games. Medici to me feels a lot easier and more casual.

Which do I like better? I dunno, usually Ra. But Modern Art is his best auction game, hands down.

Michael Barnes wrote: Yeah, For Sale is really good...I'll have to add that to the ERP list.

Another thing that Medici has in common with Ra is weighing out whether you want a lot with crap or actually harmful stuff in it. I really like that. I want the 5 corn, but I don't want the other trash that's in there. But someone else might want the other trash. Knizia's auction games (and mutations like High Society, Beowulf and The Hobbit) all have this kind of variable valuation among players mixed in with potentially negative effects...so you sometimes find yourself bidding a certain way to AVOID a lot/reward.

Some folks like Medici more, some folks like Ra more. I think there's a lot of difference between the games. Medici to me feels a lot easier and more casual.

Which do I like better? I dunno, usually Ra. But Modern Art is his best auction game, hands down.

Sometime I'd like to try For Sale...I always kind of figured, though: how many *pure* auction games do I really need? Other than brevity, what does it offer over the Knizia trilogy?

It's funny, I feel *completely* opposite about which between Medici and Ra is easier and more casual. Maybe Medici is less brain-exploding over time, but my impulse was that Medici might be a game that needs a turn timer to prevent the savage calculations that "should" be done with every move; I'd never consider that with Ra.

Agreed about Modern Art, though. To me, Modern Art feels completely different though. The commonalities with Medici and Ra to me are: 1) the once-around auction 2) the long-term vs. short-term scoring 3) the key decision about whether or not to extend a lot 4) the push-your-luck tension about the end of the round, specifically whether the last player to fill up his boat will be shafted or rewarded and 5) most tenuously, the restricted number of suns you have in Ra feels similar to the restricted number of boat-slots you have in Medici, as they ensure you can only win 2-3 auctions.

It was the coworkers again this weekend. We played:

Glory to Rome - I thought I had them squashed, but that turned out not to be the case. Vault cards can be bad if you're not paying proper attention.

Trains - I won that one. I still think I'm missing or underestimating the importance of getting rid of Waste cards, but I'm not going to rack my brain over it.

Love Letter - there were three of us, and one had never played before. He went from, "This is totally random," to, "Okay, I can see a fun little game here." His winning doesn't exactly sell the idea of it being on a par with chess, but it's better than Mexican Train dominoes.

dragonstout wrote: Sometime I'd like to try For Sale...I always kind of figured, though: how many *pure* auction games do I really need? Other than brevity, what does it offer over the Knizia trilogy?

For Sale's whole structure is actually in two sections of game. There are 30 cards that are numbered (1-30) and each one represents some piece of property. The first time through the auction is a situation where dropping out will get you the least valuable property. Besides that, only the winner (the last person in, that is) pays full price for their card. Everyone else pays half. It's the kind of thing that feels a whole lot more like poker or some other gambling game than a straight-up auction.

In the second part, you sell back all of the properties you won in the first half. Here it's all about double-guessing and anticipating what your opponents will do. There are a series of "checks" placed out of varying values, and each player secretly selects a property they will sell. The person who played the most valuable property gets the best check, second gets second best, and on down the line. So there are situations where you play your highest card without really needing to, or where a low card will get you an unexpectedly valuable amount of money, depending on what checks are available.

The two-tiered effect is very cool. Most auction games teach you to not bid on something you really don't want, but here it's almost a necessity. Part of that is because you aren't really bidding for a specific card, but sometimes to just not end up as the guy in the back.

So it's not really a straightforward auction, and especially one that isn't very calculating. It does a lot of cool stuff in fifteen minutes.

RobertB wrote: It was the coworkers again this weekend. We played:

Glory to Rome - I thought I had them squashed, but that turned out not to be the case. Vault cards can be bad if you're not paying proper attention.

Many games are won or lost by what's in the Vault.

RobertB wrote: Trains - I won that one. I still think I'm missing or underestimating the importance of getting rid of Waste cards, but I'm not going to rack my brain over it.

Waste cards simply clog your deck and make it less efficient.

Msample wrote:

Waste cards simply clog your deck and make it less efficient.

Right, but is it worthwhile to draft cards to fix the problem?

Due to very casual player attendance and a low turnout, we stopped playing D&D for a while during our last session. While waiting for the next player to arrive, we played a partial game of Love Letter. If you were to ask each player separately the most memorable thing about that session, they would all agree that "Mike is the princess." The only round that I didn't draw her, I forced another player to trade her to me.