Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Davio]

I think it's a good idea to have a general topic for other board games that you'd like to mention, but which don't need their own thread (yet). Or maybe you're looking for recommendations for a good game? And we can just chat about things board game related, but not concerning a specific game.

I'll start with a question: What was the last game that really blew your mind?

For me, it was Mage Knight. I always thought "ameritrash" RPGs were all about throwing dice and hoping for a six.
The genius of Mage Knight is that it does provide randomness, but controlled randomness.

You can choose whether or not to confront an enemy and look at the cards you want to use before you engage in combat.
And leveling up is cool, because you get to pick new cards for your deck and special customized abilities.

I'm a sucker for games with theme and with ameritrash games the theme is usually there until the fighting starts. With Mage Knight, maybe there is less theme overall, but at least the fighting is done in style.

[Drab Emordnilap]

Amerigo. I am in love with Amerigo. Looking at it logically I should be bothered by how many things are busily going on at the same time, but that cube tower makes me feel things no man should feel for a board game.

[Watno]

I think for me it's Terra Mystica. There have been decent games since, but nothing really awesome.

My enthusiasm for TM has cooled off a bit, and the expansion doesn't look as promising as I hoped. But maybe it's more awesome than it looks at the first glance.

I played Amerigo only once and found it quite fun, haven't gotten to play it again since though.

[AdamH]

Amerigo. I am in love with Amerigo. Looking at it logically I should be bothered by how many things are busily going on at the same time, but that cube tower makes me feel things no man should feel for a board game.

I played Amerigo for the first time last night. It was amusing and I want to play it again. I think I will really enjoy the game except for one thing (that's probably mostly personal)

If you've ever played Fresco, there's this dynamic where the best strategy is to paint the most expensive tiles first because they're worth a lot of points, then the last two rounds of the game or so are spent just getting a few points where the outcome of the game is largely already decided. I worry that the board mechanic of Amerigo will be similar, or maybe there are just avenues we haven't explored yet. Either way, I'm excited to try different ways of getting points and I could very well be totally wrong.

Now to answer the question: the last game that just blew my mind is Modern Art. The mechanics are very simple -- just different types of bidding -- the game is so elegant in its simplicity but doing well in the game is SO complex. The game has such strategic depth, and there are even bluffing aspects to the game that you can work in. I know the game has been out of print for some time but it's so good and I can't recommend it highly enough.

[Teproc]

The problem with Modern Art is the same as most bidding games, which is why you don't see as many bidding games today : one new or bad player can ruin the game. Bidding is extremely skill-intensive especially when you have large amounts of money, which means positionning is super important (aka the Puerto Rico problem). It is a good game though, but that's the reason it has fallen out of favor I think, despite an excellent reprint a few years ago by Matagot.

[AdamH]

The problem with Modern Art is the same as most bidding games, which is why you don't see as many bidding games today : one new or bad player can ruin the game. Bidding is extremely skill-intensive especially when you have large amounts of money, which means positionning is super important (aka the Puerto Rico problem). It is a good game though, but that's the reason it has fallen out of favor I think, despite an excellent reprint a few years ago by Matagot.

I don't see why bidding games are the only culprit here. I can think of so many games that can be made worse by new players acting suboptimally, and I don't think Modern Art is particularly bad in this regard.

I (and several of my gaming friends) really enjoy bidding games because the bidding mechanic helps to balance out where other mechanics or players can cause unbalance in the game. I would think bidding games, if anything, help to mitigate this problem.

[Teproc]

Bidding makes it way worse because it is extremely hard for a new player to put an exact value on things, which is what bidding is all about. So they might end up bidding way too low which, depending on the nsituation, might benefit another player greatly, or bidding way too high which will prevent them from doing much of anything.

Compare to worker placement : if you chose the wrong action, chances are you still chose something decent, and while that does benefit the player immediately after you, the swings are much smaller.

Bidding can be awesome with the right group, don't get me wrong, but it's not the best with mixed groups. This is one of the things I love about Tikal for example : the basic version of the game has no bidding and is still pretty good, and then there's the "pro" version which adds bidding for turn order which makes the game significantly more strategic.

[AdamH]

We'll agree to disagree, then.

[Watno]

I usually don't like bidding mechanics. I much prefer decisions where the options are a lot more different.

[DG]

Modern Art's problems come from the random dealing of the hands. If you have worthless paintings in hand then no matter how hard you work they still tend to be worthless. Only if you have good cards in hand can you maximize their value for a win.

It is true that bidding games have an obvious learning 'wall' where players have to make a bid without experience. Other games often have the same wall and it just isn't as obvious to the players. You could lose Settlers of Catan with decisions made before turn one and that didn't prevent it from being a popular game.

[blueblimp]

It is true that bidding games have an obvious learning 'wall' where players have to make a bid without experience. Other games often have the same wall and it just isn't as obvious to the players. You could lose Settlers of Catan with decisions made before turn one and that didn't prevent it from being a popular game.

One reason bidding is particularly hard for beginners could be that new players are especially sensitive to the number of options available when there is a choice in a game. Experienced players can easily know which bids are reasonable, but for new players, if you're bidding from a pool of (play) money, there are effectively infinite options, which is pretty hard to deal with. It's not the prospect of making a bad choice that makes it intimidating, but instead having any reference point for what choice to make. When you have a small number of discrete options, it's more straightforward to think about each of them and pick one that you like best.

Trading can also be tough for this, but in Settlers, the resources are very discrete. You're usually just trading 1 or 2 at a time. Even for a beginner, that's pretty simple to reason through. I suppose bidding could also be made less intimidating for beginners by making the number of possible bids small.

[AdamH]

Modern Art's problems come from the random dealing of the hands. If you have worthless paintings in hand then no matter how hard you work they still tend to be worthless. Only if you have good cards in hand can you maximize their value for a win.

Maybe this is relevant, we quickly found out that the people who had the most doublers would often win, so we now force exactly one doubler to appear in each pack of cards people get -- it certainly helps the game.

As for colors being worthless and you never being able to do anything about it, I've never seen that happen. If you want other people to play a certain color painting, sell one to them.

Also there are two ways to make money in Modern Art. You can buy paintings for a profit and you can get paid for what's in your hand. While you usually need to do both well to win, only one of them has much to do with the "value" of what's in your hand. If you don't want a color to do well, buy those paintings and don't follow up on them.

[Teproc]

It is true that bidding games have an obvious learning 'wall' where players have to make a bid without experience. Other games often have the same wall and it just isn't as obvious to the players. You could lose Settlers of Catan with decisions made before turn one and that didn't prevent it from being a popular game.

One reason bidding is particularly hard for beginners could be that new players are especially sensitive to the number of options available when there is a choice in a game. Experienced players can easily know which bids are reasonable, but for new players, if you're bidding from a pool of (play) money, there are effectively infinite options, which is pretty hard to deal with. It's not the prospect of making a bad choice that makes it intimidating, but instead having any reference point for what choice to make. When you have a small number of discrete options, it's more straightforward to think about each of them and pick one that you like best.

Trading can also be tough for this, but in Settlers, the resources are very discrete. You're usually just trading 1 or 2 at a time. Even for a beginner, that's pretty simple to reason through. I suppose bidding could also be made less intimidating for beginners by making the number of possible bids small.

This is a much better formulation of what I was trying to say, and the main reason why bidding as a central mechanic has fallen out of style I think.

[DG]

As for colors being worthless and you never being able to do anything about it, I've never seen that happen. If you want other people to play a certain color painting, sell one to them.

Placing paintings with opponents is a valid tactic but even that works better if you plant valuable paintings on your opponents! They are even more likely to force their valuable assets into the payout zone.

While there are fewer new games with a bidding mechanic, a lot of the older ones still hit the table very regularly. Powergrid has not gone out of style.

Modern games seem to self balance by putting a cost on getting turn position, and if you want the better options you have to pay for position.

[mail-mi]

10 days in europe. Really good, has a lot of randomness, but still really fun.

[Kuildeous]

I've seen new players really struggle in Medici. That is a great example of players not knowing what's a good bid. You have to take into account how many points you can get for having the highest-value ship as well as scoring on the individual goods column. If you're not used to thinking, "I'll gain 5 points if I go from 3rd to 2nd, so I shouldn't increase my bid by more than 5," then you can easily find yourself bidding more than you should.

And Medici has a pretty unforgiving bidding system. You bid once. If you're the first to bid, then you have no idea what the market will support. If you bid too low, someone else will just outbid you. If you bid too high, well, you bid too high. The problem is that you really don't know if you bid too high because the end result is the same as if you bid just right: You got the goods. Although if everyone after you says, "Too rich for my blood," then you probably bid too high.

[theory]

I think Ra and Medici are excellent examples of how restrictions liberate gameplay and how total freedom can be paralyzing.

[AdamH]

You all see these things as flaws in games, I see them as more opportunities to introduce interesting and difficult decisions into games. The increased numbers of options available offers more possibilities for things that can happen. I think it's great.

So that makes me weird I guess.

[Kuildeous]

Not sure if my post sounded like I was harping on Medici, but to clear things up, I wasn't. It is an unforgiving bidding system, but I don't think it's a bad one. It is definitely newbie-hostile, though, but that sometimes is a good way to learn. Hanabi is also newbie-hostile, but it's still a great game.

It had been so long that we played Power Grid that when we did play, my wife was surprised to see bidding going around the table again. She was expecting Medici's style…which would make Power Grid play in an interesting fashion.

I like the bidding in Evo, but you're bidding on multiple prizes. That's a little different.

[theory]

I didn't think you were harping on Medici, but I most certainly was.  I think it is a terrible game compared to Ra.  Maybe it's better as an intellectual exercise, but as a game I would always prefer Ra precisely because it limits your options, which paradoxically leads to more interesting gameplay as a result. 

[Kuildeous]

But yeah, crippling freedom is what you get with that kind of bidding.

I feel bad for the first person to bid. Sky's wide open. Bid whatever you want and hope that you can scare the others away from it because you get no second chances!

Now that I think about it, I should probably always have the person to the left of the new person draw the tiles so the new person can bid second to last. He can be crippled with horrible, horrible freedom later.

[blueblimp]

This discussion reminds me that one clever thing about Dominion is how it makes new players feel like they have fewer options than they actually do. A common beginner pattern is to always buy the most expensive card that you can afford. That makes choices relatively easy, because there usually aren't a huge amount of cards at any one price point. As you become more experienced, you realize that you often prefer a lower-cost card to a higher-cost one, so the number of perceived options increases, but because you're more experienced, you're more able to evaluate the options too.

[eHalcyon]

Keyflower.  Has anybody else here played it?

It continues to blow my mind because it mixes so many different mechanisms but it doesn't feel busy or disconnected.  On the contrary, it is cohesive and elegant.

Mechanisms in the game include:

• auction/bidding
• worker placement
• tile laying
• pickup and deliver

The game plays out in four rounds ("seasons"), each of which introduces a set of hexagonal tiles in the center of the board.  On your turn, you can either make a bid for a tile or place a worker (or workers) on a tile to use its ability.  Bids are actually made with workers -- meeples (called "keyples" in the game) that come in red, blue and yellow (and green, if you use certain special tiles to get them).  Because the meeples are used for both bidding and activating tiles and the number of meeples in the game are limited, bids tend to stay low, which helps mitigate the problem being discussed above.

A further restriction really opens up the gameplay -- colour restriction.  In each round, each tile can only be used by a single colour.  If I bid 1 red on a tile or if I activate the tile with a red worker, only red meeples can go there from then on, whether for bidding or for working.

At the end of each season, the people who won bids for tiles take those tiles and add them to their own little village (tile laying!).  Any workers who were placed on that tile go with the tile, adding to the player's stock of available meeples for the next round.  Note that tiles in players' villages can also be used by workers.  If you use another player's village, the only drawback is that they will take that meeple into their stock at the end of the round.

Tiles can be upgraded.  You usually do this by generating the requisite resources and using a special tile action to transport the goods to the tile and upgrade it.  Pickup and deliver!  Well, generate and deliver.

It all plays very smoothly, even with the maximum of 6 players.

[DG]

Keyflower is one of those games that's so good it is difficult to find players with enough quality to play it.

[eHalcyon]

Keyflower is one of those games that's so good it is difficult to find players with enough quality to play it.

I'm not sure what you mean by this.  Other players aren't skilled enough to play the game at its best?  Other players tend to be intimidated?