Dominion Strategy Forum
Miscellaneous => Other Games => Topic started by: theory on March 20, 2012, 09:46:06 am
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While working in London, I've made a little time to play some games with London on Board (http://www.meetup.com/LondonOnBoard/), for my money one of the best gaming groups you can find anywhere. I learned a bunch of new games with these guys, and wanted to share my thoughts on some of them. The games are ranked vaguely from top to bottom.
Hanabi (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/70918/hanabi-ikebana)is a cooperative game by Antoine Bauza. If you're anything like me, reading that sentence made you think, "Yuck, what is wrong with this guy, that is not for me, because I do not enjoy 7 Wonders OR coop games!" And indeed that is pretty much exactly what I thought. But Hanabi blew my mind. It's deep, satisfying, tense, brain-burning, and extraordinarily simple. I only played it once but I can't wait to play it again. It's a true co-op game insofar as it's not a game you could possibly play solitaire. It is also invulnerable to that usual co-op flaw of one-person-plays-the-game-while-everyone-else-obeys syndrome. It is unfortunately not available anywhere except France for now.
I was reintroduced to Tigris & Euphrates (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/42/tigris-euphrates). This game is definitely a game that takes two plays in order to appreciate. The first game of Tigris is kind of just fumbling around, not knowing what to do, but by the end of game 2 you finally start to "get" it. It's got great depth and is definitely my favorite "serious" Knizia.
6nimmt! (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/432/category-5) has the best fun/laughs to rules ratio of any game I've ever played.
Witch's Brew (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/34084/witchs-brew) is a nice intrigue-y game. The drafting and role selection is reminiscent of Citadels, but the actual role selection is much more meaningful and more like Race for the Galaxy, with the added feature of blocking/denying others as well as leeching. It contains a superb self-balancing mechanism whereby sometimes you want someone to backstab you so you can be better positioned next turn.
Eclipse (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/72125/eclipse)was pretty great, but I'm not a huge fan of space empire games. But if you like Twilight Imperium, Eclipse was basically everything I liked about TI:3 minus everything I hated about it. You can finally play a game in less than 11 hours!
Alien Frontiers (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/48726/alien-frontiers) I wasn't super impressed by. Maybe I was biased by having lost incredibly badly. But I couldn't get my 4th die early and just felt ridiculously behind the whole game. Also, you can't do any thinking / planning before your turn, so this is absolutely not a game to play with someone who suffers from AP.
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Witch's Brew (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/34084/witchs-brew) is a nice intrigue-y game. The drafting and role selection is reminiscent of Citadels, but the actual role selection is much more meaningful and more like Race for the Galaxy, with the added feature of blocking/denying others as well as leeching. It contains a superb self-balancing mechanism whereby sometimes you want someone to backstab you so you can be better positioned next turn.
I'm a huge fan of Witch's Brew. I don't necessarily get to pull it out among my friends that often. They surprised me when one of them said, "Hey, we haven't played Witch's Brew in a while. Pull that out."
I think the game, while fun, can overstay its welcome. I usually am done playing it after a few games. And I'm not jonesing for another game for a couple of months. Perhaps my friends are like that too, but it has a warmer welcome with me.
I feel that it's a good introduction for beginners. The number of role cards can be daunting, but the fun thing with this game is that you could have new players (and I force veterans to do this to make things fair) shuffle their role cards and draw five randomly for the first hand. It doesn't take long to figure out what each role does.
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Tigris&Euphrates was a classic game but I'm not sure it is any more. The rules and mechanics are very good but the design is confusing for new players. It seems abstract and simple but something about it just isn't intuitive at all. A friend once told me that T&E was the only game where her kids ended up crying when the father tried to explain the rules.
6nimmt is good card game filler for 20 minutes. Und Tschuss is another along the same lines.
I liked Witch's Brew but it never returned to the table for my gaming group. Don't know why.
Alien Frontiers has some good stuff and is fun to play until the end game leaves you disappointed. It shows why Donald X. made sure that Dominion attack cards hit every opponent.
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6nimmt! (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/432/category-5) has the best fun/laughs to rules ratio of any game I've ever played.
Me - "I know, I'll play this 38 which is perfectly safe as the row with 37 on it only has the one card in it!"
An opponent - "I play 2, picking up the 37, 38 goes next"
Me - "Oh hey look my 38 fills up this row worth -12 points!"
Every game of 6 Nimmt ever.
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Tigris&Euphrates was a classic game but I'm not sure it is any more. The rules and mechanics are very good but the design is confusing for new players. It seems abstract and simple but something about it just isn't intuitive at all. A friend once told me that T&E was the only game where her kids ended up crying when the father tried to explain the rules.
Oh god, yes. I'm pretty attentive during rules explanation time but even I zoned out the first time I learned T&E.
6nimmt! (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/432/category-5) has the best fun/laughs to rules ratio of any game I've ever played.
Me - "I know, I'll play this 38 which is perfectly safe as the row with 37 on it only has the one card in it!"
An opponent - "I play 2, picking up the 37, 38 goes next"
Me - "Oh hey look my 38 fills up this row worth -12 points!"
Every game of 6 Nimmt ever.
This. On the other hand, the metagame in this situation is deliciously addictive. You know someone's gonna take the 1 point, so you want to play right above them, but not so high that the row fills up a second time ...
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6nimmt! is a fun little card game. I especially like playing it heads-up with only the cards from 1 to 24, where you know exactly what cards your opponent has. With more players I prefer using the full deck and relish the randomness.
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Is it actually called '6Nimmt!' in English or was it a German edition?
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Is it actually called '6Nimmt!' in English or was it a German edition?
It's a German game, originally called "6 nimmt!". I've seen it in English as that and as "Take 5!". According to Wikipedia, it's also sometimes called "6 who loses!", "Take 6!", and "Category 5".
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Is it actually called '6Nimmt!' in English or was it a German edition?
It's a German game, originally called "6 nimmt!". I've seen it in English as that and as "Take 5!". According to Wikipedia, it's also sometimes called "6 who loses!", "Take 6!", and "Category 5".
I think the most common versions you'll see are 6 nimmt!, Take 5!, Category 5, and Slide 5. I've seen all of these in some incarnation.
Still not as confusing as Reiner Knizia's Lost Cities, Lost Cities the Board Game, Keltis (aka Lost Cities the Board Game), and Keltis the Card Game (aka Lost Cities the Board Game the Card Game)...
Or Civilization, its computer game version, Advanced Civilization, its computer game version, Civilization [the computer game by Sid Meier based off of Civilization], Sid Meier's Civilization the Boardgame, Civilization the Card Game, and Sid Meier's Civilization the Board Game.
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Is it actually called '6Nimmt!' in English or was it a German edition?
It's a German game, originally called "6 nimmt!". I've seen it in English as that and as "Take 5!". According to Wikipedia, it's also sometimes called "6 who loses!", "Take 6!", and "Category 5".
I think the most common versions you'll see are 6 nimmt!, Take 5!, Category 5, and Slide 5. I've seen all of these in some incarnation.
Still not as confusing as Reiner Knizia's Lost Cities, Lost Cities the Board Game, Keltis (aka Lost Cities the Board Game), and Keltis the Card Game (aka Lost Cities the Board Game the Card Game)...
Or Civilization, its computer game version, Advanced Civilization, its computer game version, Civilization [the computer game by Sid Meier based off of Civilization], Sid Meier's Civilization the Boardgame, Civilization the Card Game, and Sid Meier's Civilization the Board Game.
Or Through The Ages, which is a civ-themed card game closer to the Sid Meier computer games than anything else. Or Roll Through The Ages, which is for some reason a dice game very similar to the original Civilization boardgame.
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Is it actually called '6Nimmt!' in English or was it a German edition?
It's a German game, originally called "6 nimmt!". I've seen it in English as that and as "Take 5!". According to Wikipedia, it's also sometimes called "6 who loses!", "Take 6!", and "Category 5".
I knew it was a German game; I was just surprised to see somebody else than native German speakers use '6Nimmt!' since normally it's the other way round: we Germans adapt all the English words. ;-)
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A bunch more games, to be added to this list:
Kingdom Builder (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/107529/kingdom-builder) (by some guy, I dunno, maybe you've heard of him) was surprisingly fun. BGG is way harsher on this than it should be: I thought it was a nice gateway game. It's simple, it changes every game, there's not much downtime, and it's got decent depth to it. I don't see myself ever starting KingdomBuilderStrategy.com but I do recommend it if you're in the mood for a new gateway. I am a little disappointed by the name, though. If you ever read this, Donald: why did you stick with the name Kingdom Builder? Dominion is way better as Dominion instead of Castle Builder.
My God, how did Tikal (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/54/tikal) ever win Spiel des Jahres? I normally like games that everyone likes, but Tikal was a miserable experience for me. It suffers from that flaw that I mentioned in Alien Frontiers earlier: you have to do a ton of thinking on your turn, but you can't do any of it until your turn. In my game of Tikal I played 4 games of Tichu on my phone during all the downtime. You can easily make your moves, then walk away for about 10 minutes while your opponents take their turns. Add to that the luck of the tile draw and I'm definitely not a fan.
Haggis (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/37628/haggis) is a good Tichu (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/215/tichu) substitute. I can't see myself playing it instead of Tichu, but I am probably just biased from having played Tichu so much.
I'm the Boss! (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/115/im-the-boss) is a good shouting and yelling negotiation game. Ridiculously chaotic, but it's all part of the game.
Innovation (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/63888/innovation)I was super excited for, but a little disappointed by. It's like Glory to Rome, but you know how in Glory to Rome you build up to massive crazy combos in the end? Innovation felt like that the whole game. In its defense, I played it 3p, which is apparently utter madness (I can't imagine what 4p must be like) and inferior to 2p. Also, I do like its ending condition, which reminds me a lot of Dominion: you can go for the fast knockout cheap win, or build for the late game mega turns.
I still hate King of Tokyo (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/70323/king-of-tokyo). I'm not entirely sure why. I just dislike it immensely.
Pinguin Party (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/56933/pinguin-party) is a good filler by Knizia. If you want a super vicious filler this is it.
Yin Yang (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/83197/yin-yang) is another Knizia filler but it's almost too light to bear mentioning. Things happen to only two people per turn, and there are about 9 turns, so...
Saboteur (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/9220/saboteur) is the true "BSG (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/37111/battlestar-galactica) Lite" game, not The Resistance (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/41114/the-resistance), if you miss having some context in which to place the loyalty system. But it's a very, very Lite BSG, and not as satisfying as The Resistance.
Top Race (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/932/top-race) .... I feel like I shouldn't like games like these (see also Long Shot (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/40237/long-shot)) but maybe I just have a huge weakness for racing game luckfests. Totally out of character for me but goddamn they are exciting.
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If you ever read this, Donald: why did you stick with the name Kingdom Builder? Dominion is way better as Dominion instead of Castle Builder.
I was as surprised they called it that as anyone.
Dominion is not a great name for Dominion. It sounds like it will be something like Risk.
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I'm not sure if anyone's played Revolution, but it's a fun bidding game with lots of little strategies.
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I'm not sure if anyone's played Revolution, but it's a fun bidding game with lots of little strategies.
I like the bidding in Revolution. It gets particularly fierce in my group of friends, and there is a lot of bluffing, manipulating, and double-guessing. Toward the end of the game, there are many groans of anguish that come up when someone's carefully laid plan is thwarted by someone else.
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I'm not sure if anyone's played Revolution, but it's a fun bidding game with lots of little strategies.
I like the bidding in Revolution. It gets particularly fierce in my group of friends, and there is a lot of bluffing, manipulating, and double-guessing. Toward the end of the game, there are many groans of anguish that come up when someone's carefully laid plan is thwarted by someone else.
Ha ha, yeah I definitely can sympathize with that. The ending especially can be crazy. You think you've got the majority in a spot, but then someone swipes it last minute.
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If you ever read this, Donald: why did you stick with the name Kingdom Builder? Dominion is way better as Dominion instead of Castle Builder.
I was as surprised they called it that as anyone.
Dominion is not a great name for Dominion. It sounds like it will be something like Risk.
That's what I thought initially. When someone said to me "maybe next week we can play Dominion", I thougt it would be some world conquest game.
After I played it, I still loved it because it had such a great mechanic that I hadn't seen before.
But the name's kind of awkward.
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Hanabi (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/70918/hanabi-ikebana)is a cooperative game by Antoine Bauza. If you're anything like me, reading that sentence made you think, "Yuck, what is wrong with this guy, that is not for me, because I do not enjoy 7 Wonders OR coop games!" And indeed that is pretty much exactly what I thought. But Hanabi blew my mind. It's deep, satisfying, tense, brain-burning, and extraordinarily simple. I only played it once but I can't wait to play it again. It's a true co-op game insofar as it's not a game you could possibly play solitaire. It is also invulnerable to that usual co-op flaw of one-person-plays-the-game-while-everyone-else-obeys syndrome. It is unfortunately not available anywhere except France for now.
Theory and I just destroyed this game playing 2-player :-) Now we're going to play some other 2-player games.
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Hanabi (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/70918/hanabi-ikebana)is a cooperative game by Antoine Bauza. If you're anything like me, reading that sentence made you think, "Yuck, what is wrong with this guy, that is not for me, because I do not enjoy 7 Wonders OR coop games!" And indeed that is pretty much exactly what I thought. But Hanabi blew my mind. It's deep, satisfying, tense, brain-burning, and extraordinarily simple. I only played it once but I can't wait to play it again. It's a true co-op game insofar as it's not a game you could possibly play solitaire. It is also invulnerable to that usual co-op flaw of one-person-plays-the-game-while-everyone-else-obeys syndrome. It is unfortunately not available anywhere except France for now.
Theory and I just destroyed this game playing 2-player :-) Now we're going to play some other 2-player games.
Did you also destroy the "multicolor" expansion ? that's challenging !
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While working in London, I've made a little time to play some games with London on Board (http://www.meetup.com/LondonOnBoard/), for my money one of the best gaming groups you can find anywhere. I learned a bunch of new games with these guys, and wanted to share my thoughts on some of them. The games are ranked vaguely from top to bottom.
Hanabi (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/70918/hanabi-ikebana)is a cooperative game by Antoine Bauza. If you're anything like me, reading that sentence made you think, "Yuck, what is wrong with this guy, that is not for me, because I do not enjoy 7 Wonders OR coop games!" And indeed that is pretty much exactly what I thought. But Hanabi blew my mind. It's deep, satisfying, tense, brain-burning, and extraordinarily simple. I only played it once but I can't wait to play it again. It's a true co-op game insofar as it's not a game you could possibly play solitaire. It is also invulnerable to that usual co-op flaw of one-person-plays-the-game-while-everyone-else-obeys syndrome. It is unfortunately not available anywhere except France for now.
Hanabi is a masterpiece. It's short, and the more a group plays it, the better it gets. Luckily, it's getting reprinted in Germany, and it looks good. I do hope it'll be available here.
It deserves to be more popular. 8)
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Did you also destroy the "multicolor" expansion ? that's challenging !
Sadly my copy of Hanabi (purchased by a friend in Montreal) does not have the multicolor expansion.
Hanabi is a masterpiece. It's short, and the more a group plays it, the better it gets. Luckily, it's getting reprinted in Germany, and it looks good. I do hope it'll be available here.
It deserves to be more popular. 8)
This new edition will be available at Essen. Which is quite exciting.
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Sadly my copy of Hanabi (purchased by a friend in Montreal) does not have the multicolor expansion.
You can ask for it (not sure about availability), it's free (modulo the cost of a letter from Québec).
http://www.filofilo.com/nouvelles-details.php?id=187
(now, if your base cards are destroyed, that's maybe a better idea to wait for Essen ;) )
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By sheer coincidence I went to London on Board on Sunday at the invite for a friend (who was also new to the group).
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6nimmt! (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/432/category-5) has the best fun/laughs to rules ratio of any game I've ever played.
Not to mention an extremely favorable fun/$ ratio. I bought my copy for 5 euro, and have played many, many games. Embrace the chaos! Even better: cause the chaos! Then again, I'm one of those people who kept purposely picking up the diseases in the Atomic Bomberman videogame (http://www.dosgamesonline.com/index/game/650/Atomic_Bomberman.html) and laughing my ass off as 5 players including myself died in a sea of short fused thrown bombs...