Lurker > Naye745

its good with any player count but probably 4

2 is definitely a much looser game, 3 is good but you will find yourself blocked off pretty rarely

5 is also fine but 5 players in games that take turns tend to drag a bit
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i didnt even bother with an attempt at a clever joke this year

kevin stallings sucks
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got to play a rousing round of millennium blades today

a lot more ameritrashy than the games i typically go for, but what it lacks in smoothness it makes up for in style and effort. there's also just a lot to sink into there - trading, economic management, deckbuilding, real-time elements, and even a healthy dose of screwage. it's really good at what it is trying to be, and i can't help but applaud the designers for simply going so far with the concept, and taking it beyond any reasonable expectation of a board game and making something pretty special.
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So I have a complaint about Sandra after rewatching the episode from Wednesday. I never thought Sandra as a catchphrase person. Now she is trying to hard. Like she is a character of herself. It is all "the queen stays queen" and "adios" in like all of her confessionals.

yeah i think rob and stephen in their podcast noted how sandra and tony both seemed to be playing up their "personas" to the cameras. i think there's a bit of fun in that but also some level of trying to meet fan expectations which probably isn't going to help their game much.


also tar25 is really damn good, maybe even a top 5 tar season (though the editing of the first 7 seasons is still the best and hasnt been matched by later ones imo). most of the 20s have been really not good though. 21 is pretty good (though i don't love the ending) and that's about it. glad we're at least getting a 29, though the twist is not good either. :\
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top 10 game for me

i'd like to make one of these lists someday but i'm too damn lazy
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istanbul is really good though, i was happy enough with the game expanded via mocha & baksheesh that i haven't really looked into letters & seals. the main game is fine, but having a third main area to "purchase" rubies from (and always racing to 6 in all player counts) helps reward divergent strategies in a way that gives the game longevity.

do you just do pure random on the setup? there are some "default" setups that seem okay but i dont think i've bothered with anything beyond the beginner game for first time players.
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i am not a big fan of worker placement games in general and i would definitely not consider istanbul to be one. there is minor blockage, but movement between spaces is more of the mechanic, and you can't be totally blocked out anyway, you just have to pay if somebody else is there.
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as soon as she knew tony was going to vote her out, she organized a majority alliance that brought everyone else along to get her way

sandra was clearly the most relevant person involved in this, even if tony blew it up by himself
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i dont think sandra is going to win this season, but can we finally put to rest all the criticism of her chops as a player? because tonight she went head-to-head with a big-time player, with the target on her back, and won without getting a single vote. GOAT.

Also, Cirie reminiscent of Phillipines Penner?
or cambodia stephen, i think. definitely a similar edit in my eyes...cirie is going to have an impact later on.
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i played blood rage for the first time on thursday night. it was a perfectly fine game, but man, i do not get the hype. admittedly, i am not a fan of dudes on a map games and direct-combat games, but the thing i was most underwhelmed by was the lack of anything really unique or special. card drafting is okay but not exciting. scoring for dying gloriously is cool i guess? miniatures are great, but i am not a miniatures person and that is not a sell to me in any way.

compare this to inis, which i played for the third time yesterday. inis also has drafting, but it's of the same deck every round, and results in a really tight, agonizing drafting phase. the random locations and the way the map is built up each game give each game a different feel. and the multiple win conditions really reward players for being clever and coming up with unique strategies, and not just overpowering opponents.

this is over-generalizing to an extent, but when i play an area-control fighting game, i want it to have a little more going on than just that mechanic. when i look at each game, i have no idea why (aside from timing of release) the two aren't switched in ranking on bgg.
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i have heard summoner wars is good, but it is totally not the kind of game i am into
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i got to play dungeon petz for the first time today

its more good ol' vlaada chvatil fun but didnt quite catch me like dungeon lords did. the "puzzle" aspect of it is a little less fascinating and a little more random

(still good though)
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7 wonder duel as predix for next
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i have heard kemet is really good. a friend of mine has it and i'll probably play it someday

but dudes on a map + fighting games are totally not my thing by default; it really takes someone else's interest in the game for me to end up playing them
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i would've much rather seen mike again tbqh

like mike was kind of erratic but he seems like a player with a lot of potential to play differently 2nd time around

ozzy is just going to do ozzy things again, whatever
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i like me some ciera
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My issue is that its difficulty does not seem to scale - it's insanely harder with more players, with more cards being drawn faster, more cards to get rid of per round, and no mitigating factors to make it any easier.

have you played much of forbidden desert? game is crazy hard with 5. i think all the leac*** co-ops tend to scale a little tougher with higher player counts but desert is just miles apart

edit: that censor though
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yeah its too many things to me, none of them very good. i prefer a game that feels tight mechanically almost any day though; i love stefan feld games, what the hell do i know?

the other thing that bugs me about dow is i dont understand what im supposed to represent. like im some band of various people, cool, but why are we collectively a hidden traitor with a secret goal? that part is weird.
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really dont like dead of winter

this is probably a little controversial but i'd much rather a game like dead of winter play like betrayal house on the hill. that game is fairly random and not balanced, but is deeply thematic and works because of that. dead of winter tries to be a better true "game" but the mechanics really do not work for me, and therefore it ends up doing less of everything
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last will or prodigals club for #11. (never played either one of those though!)
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tangential response to rose:
tragedy looper is really neat but it really involves a level of investment among a group to really make it worth it imho. we played the first story and liked it enough, but:
a. none of us can play first story again (except as the killer player)
b. to keep it from one player just always being killer one of us would have to be familiar and comfortable enough with the rulebook to play as killer so the game owner could be non-killer

like i said, in practice this is doable, but definitely requires a level of commitment greater than just playing another round of dominion or whatever

there are games where level of player knowledge is pretty important to making the game work that i like, and even those don't come close to the level of necessary involvement that tragedy looper has
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hey i was right!

i thought adrenaline looked cool but i havent had the chance to give it a go yet
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i havent had the chance to yet. it came out just last year, yeah? seems pretty recent from what i remember, along with the burgundy card game.

the mechanic is fairly reminiscent of glass road, which is my favorite uwe rosenberg game
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hint game: adrenaline?

broom service is good. i think the thing holding it back for me was that i liked the main gimmick but the rest of the game wasn't exciting enough to hold my interest. that said, i've only played "A" side of the board a couple times.
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i dug baseball highlights enough but i dont know if i'd ever play it consistently with someone and it really needs that to be worth buying

also i won an in-person dominion tournament today lol. taking down the competitive circuit one person at a time
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pictomania is super cool; it's a shame it got overshadowed by codenames so much imo
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spyfall is super great

you can totally get screwed by luck but the game is so short that it isn't really punishing, and that's a good thing
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i always recommend seaside as the first expansion of choice, but adventures is really rad and if you can handle the complexity it shakes up things in a lot of good ways
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damn. 19 spots too low
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i have seen this game before but i'll be damned if i know anything about it

as far as city building games go, i was more disappointed in quadropolis than satisfied
maybe dice city is better? dunno
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yeah I've never been very impressed with Smash Up

played it once and it was okay. the novelty of the "smash up" mechanic is overweighed by being a pretty underwhelming area control game
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bang? colt express? cash n guns?
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i liked seasons enough, but it was kind of underwhelming compared to other tableau-building/drafting games

like, i respect the idea of having to play all the cards you take (or face a penalty) but there are a lot of cases where you're just stuck with some not so good cards, and you are just playing cards for the sake of playing cards
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hey this is pretty cool

i kind of want to comment on the previous wups but its probably too late for that anyway

pretty solid choices so far, hopefully this doesn't descend into ameritrash oblivion lol :P
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