Lurker > Naye745

given her general attitude on social media im pretty confident eliza would rule as da

but hey you do you

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also denise rules and i don't want to ignore her either

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i'm totally fine with the boot order, excited to see sophie and yul crush it at the merge tbqh

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abi is killing me on the live kia

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i'm pretty sure everyone just agreed to boot rob unanimously beforehand and that the buddy system stuff was basically a facade that fooled only rob himself (and the audience, theoretically)
can't imagine sarah doesn't use her advantage if she thinks there's a chance she goes home

that said, a good episode tonight both for her and sophie (hell yeah, first idol! and she's only from a season after your win, "old-school" rob)

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season 20 suuuuuucks, holy hell

rachel is quite possibly my least favorite person to be on any reality show i watch that is above the category of genuinely terrible human being (such as abusers and sexual harassers who shall not be named)

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i actually loved the last episode, i thought it packed a ton of really nice character moments into what could have easily been a by-the-numbers boot episode

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dammit adam

really bummed to lose ethan this soon

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i dont blame kim for trying to leverage her advantage into making more allies, it just seems like she made the wrong choice (i actually think yul would be both willing to work with her and would appreciate the potential value of the half-idol)

fun episode again though. ethan especially is standing out as surprisingly funny and enjoyable

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was watching/listening to the live know-it-alls from last night and enjoying it for the most part (dan lue surprise appearance!)

and then brenchel shows up out of the blue and i immediately shut it off
yikes, what an unfortunate surprise

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Mega Mana posted...

I'd say my preseason favorites (not to win, just in general) were Yul, Sandra, Jeremy, Denise, and Sophie.

i had kim and ethan in mine instead of jeremy and denise but that's basically #6 and 7 on my list

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it's funny, given the hate from inviso and other people from this board, i kind of forgot why i loved yul so much the first time after 14 or whatever years. and then he speaks for like 3 seconds tonight, and it all comes flooding back

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(spoilers: my two preseason favorites aren't parvati and rob. though they've been fun enough too)

also regardless of how people felt about cambodia and voting blocs, they definitely appear to already be a big part of the show this season, just 2 votes in.

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that was fun. to see my two pre-season favorites enter into a power alliance together is a treat, regardless of how it goes from here.

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scythe is fine, it's not my type of game but it's certainly good

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i just remember vicki trying to have fun and nick basically being a jerk and ruining her good time basically throughout the season. i get some of my seasons mixed up, but the "villainous" team that was actually fun this season came in 5th place iirc, getting out of the way before the final worked out well for them overall imho. a lot of the early boots here are really solid too

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i always thought i'd be interested in glory to rome, but i didn't really like innovation after giving it a few tries. given the difficulty in finding gtr nowadays, i haven't been interested in trying to track it down lol

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tar 17 was great, the fourth place team was pretty unfortunate but the top two was grand and the race was pretty tense and exciting through

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power grid's a little heavier than i like, but for an economic game it stands the test of time as one of the greatest of the lot. also i think it's neat that it actually plays BETTER with 4-6 players, as most euros are better at their lower counts.

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there's a lot of good modern euros with dice, I think the randomness in a game with lots of mitigation and worthwhile decision making helps keep a game from feeling stale and solvable

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original bang was fun for a bit but got played out. I've heard good things about the dice version but I've never had a chance to try it

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dixit is fine. i feel like if i played it when it was new and not already somewhat pass i would feel a little differently, but mostly i just felt like games that have more "game" like mysterium basically trumped it
the art, of course, is lovely and exceptional

i like orleans a lot though i've never gone down the rabbit hole with it. maybe it's because it's 2-3 hours long? played the first expansion co-op module once and it was awesome. i've heard the 2nd expansion is great. but yeah...still just have the base game and i'm cool with that. i worry that with a play group you'd develop 1-2 main strategies surrounding a couple of the base buildings and that's kind of a bummer.
also played its "sequel", altiplano, which had alpacas and inherent starting variety and i think i liked it less for some reason.


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i enjoyed when i dream but it felt like the novelty would wear off sooner than later. neat concept though

magic maze rules though. i think that one still holds up very well after a healthy number of plays

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ive had fun with celestia but there are some take-that-y parts of it i don't particularly like. there are other press-your-luck games that i dig more, but it certainly is a gorgeous production and a very good game to boot

five tribes is awesome, but super prone to causing AP. i like it a lot, but wouldn't choose it all the time, if that makes sense.

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yeah there were plenty of underwhelming teams but there were also some good moments that season (and the best team is less painful to see eliminated as they got a 2nd chance)

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i love pandemic and there's a reason a mountain of co-op games following its general structure and formula have come out after

the alpha gamer thing is definitely a problem in the wrong groups though. perhaps i'm fortunate to have played it with the right folks. my group for legacy (s1 and 2) had a very good dynamic when it came to weighing options and giving our opinions

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cash n guns is fine

i had fun with it, i see the appeal, but there are just better games out there in basically every category that it does - better negotiation games, better bluffing games, better games with powers, better press-your-luck games

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i tried out decrypto at origins 2018 and it was fun, but my friend and i were just way better at it (or at least caught on faster) than our opponents

i've heard good things but this was the only chance i got to try it out! so overall i have no idea how good it actually is

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i have had fun with mysterium but my interest in playing it is very dependent on my mood and the people im with

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sure but eventually fan distaste swayed him from several previous bad ideas (thinking specifically of redemption island, first incarnation)

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glass road is my favorite! it has some of the same resourcey crunchiness, but combined with tactical decision making and really neat card play.

bohnanza and patchwork are probably my next favorites, THEN his big euros, excluding ora et labora, which is fine but totally too sprawling and unnecessarily long.

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yeah its not great. i'm actually kind of surprised how gung-ho probst is about it considering the very lukewarm (at best) reaction to its titular season and chris underwood's win

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i preferred caverna to agricola, but i understand why people like agricola more - the card play really adds an extra layer compared to the perpetually available buildings.

that said, they're both inferior to a particular uwe rosenberg resource accumulation game that never seems to get mentioned among the best!! :(

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cottage garden i havent played, but patchwork is pretty decent

that said there's a certain polyomino-placing game that i rather prefer to basically any rosenberg game!

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tzolkin was definitely a neat game but it kind of bugged me how there were like only 2 pathways to getting points, and if you didnt figure out how to sequence them early on you were going to lose

that said it was way earlier in my experience with eurogames so i'd probably enjoy it more now
(but i've preferred a couple of the designers' other titles - teotihuacan and voyages of marco polo - a lot more)

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the shape objectives feel more viable if you are playing with more players

the mind was really neat the one time i played it (we did a few rounds) but i do wonder how much legs it has long-term. it's a neat concept though! (as is THE GAME)

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i cant remember if i said this about TM but i havent played it, think i would generally like it, but mostly would wish it was shorter and more streamlined than it is

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pret a porter seemed pretty neat but had horribly awkward english rules in its older printing.

dunno what exactly theyre doing with the new version but the cover looks lovely

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dominion.isotropic.org?

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i'll get around to necrodancing my heart away someday

...someday

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i think 21 is actually pretty great, at least the cast is very good in general. just kind of had a crummy ending.

and yeah 23 and 24 are garbage!

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i need to play undertale. someday!

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ive played it in-person also. i actually liked it better online because it feels too sprawling for what it is in person!

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seasons is okay. i've enjoyed playing it online but i think your quote "less than the sum of its parts" is a really good summation of seasons and why i find it fairly underwhelming.

requiring (or at least point-penalizing) you to play all your cards makes the decisions of what to do with them much less interesting. and because you have to do that, you end up getting what i feel is too much time to run your engine - there's not enough tension between trying to build the perfect engine and not getting to run it for long enough.

it's still a decent enough engine builder, but it fails to capitalize on all the things i like most about engine-building games (and as a result, showcases why i think tom lehmann is an absolute genius)

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castles of MKL offers a little more excitement in terms of the tile placement (the odd shapes and general "castle"-building theme shine through more) but has a lot more downtime relative to isle of skye (where the bidding occurs simultaneously)

i prefer isle of skye but i could see liking both for sure

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i think 15 and 16 are both fine enough (16 has a fun ending at least imooo)

17 and 18 are both good!

and 19 and 20 uh, aren't.

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i really dig the variable scoring system in isle of skye

the tile laying and even bidding stuff work well but don't seem particularly groundbreaking
but the scoring options? good stuff

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the "god tiles" are actually different egyptian gods, so there is that

tokaido looks nice, but ive never played it

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i think ra definitely rewards skillful play, but you generally get to win some auctions and collect stuff regardless of skill - i don't think it's quite as painful as some of the more punishing euro games (both modern and old-school)
unless of course you get one of those wacky rounds where a bunch of ra tiles come out and everyone gets squeezed. those are both the best and worst, lol

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ah man, i actually think ra is WAY more streamlined than modern art, specifically because it takes out the biggest problem i have with most auction games that offer too much freedom in what to bid - "what the heck constitutes a good bid?"

in most bidding games you have newbies who don't know what number to bid (or even experienced players who bid a bit arbitrarily). by limiting the numbers you have, and putting everything on the table (literally), it makes it WAY easier for everyone to understand exactly where they stand. i know who can outbid me with a given number, how many "good" and "bad" options i'm leaving behind, and how that all factors for everyone else.

and despite this, the decision making from these small options is tense and outstanding. you will often find yourself in a position agonizing over whether you should bid or pass, and end up ruing that choice by the next turn. it's awesome.

the set collection stuff is secondary here, but it works well and provides a satisfying feeling akin to the multiple avenues of scoring of 7 wonders - you can do a little of everything, or go big in a couple categories

ra is knizia's masterpiece. and that's saying something, from a designer who has several games that could fit that mold (and i'm sure plenty of people would argue with me for tigris & euphrates or several others of his)

it's in my personal top five! i'm interested to see where this list takes us, because i have a feeling we're gonna get heavier and heavier as we go along (in general), but for my money, i still rate mostly ~1 hour games that are just full of tasty decisions and replayability at the top of the heap

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