by Petri

Skyswooper wrote:

As a consequence, you should aim in the end of round 1 for at least: 1 temple, 2 dwellings, 1 secured hex, 1 priest sent, 1 high cult

Otherwise completely agree, but the aim should be at 3 dwellings. Going beyond 3 is not important for the first 3 rounds, but getting up to 3 is important. After round 3 you have probably gotten all bonuses for 1-2 of your high cults and you can consider spending all those cult steps to expand rapidly. The expansion beyond 3 dwellings should happen on rounds 3-5 depending on the round scoring.

by oshfarms

I've only ever played solo and it's been awhile, so maybe I'm not sure how helpful this is...I seem to recall having lots of resources but still being unable to score the target score for a good game (500 points I think). My best score was 471.

I've only played a few times, but it seems like the solo game is about placing settlements and converting resources into point scoring items.

Again, sorry I can't compare it to the multiplayer game.

by albcann

nerman8r wrote:

Some people have put a great deal of effort into explaining how they made Pandemic Legacy a game you could play through more than once. Check the forums.

+1 here.

However, if you meant trying to have a repeatedly playable game after finishing PL 2, no.

Pick up regular Pandemic for $25.

by simba28

Hi
I have the boardgame and the app.
In the app. If I play 3 red cards, it searches for the red door and the gives me the option to take the door or discard the door.
Why would I ever dicard the door. I have just played 3 cards to get it, so why wouldn’t I take it.
This strategy is beyond me. Please enlighten me.
Thanks

by Morten Monrad Pedersen

In my previous post I introduced a system for classifying artificial board game opponents based on how large a part of a human player they simulate.

Let me start by saying that in that post I wasn’t sufficiently clear that I intended the scale to handle only bots that replace human players in the game, that is it must be a multiplayer game where a bot can take the seat of one of the humans.

As any other attempt to fit from the real world into neat categories there are games that refuse to be neat and instead insists on sitting awkwardly between categories. It’s rather impolite of them, but what can you do apart from stare disapprovingly at them?
Read more »

by Holly185

I think you only have the option to take or discard a door when one comes up in the deck and you have a key card in your hand. Playing the three cards will automatically unlock a door. When you have a key card in your hand and you draw a door, I suppose you might want to discard the door if you had other plans for the key (ie, to prophecy, etc.), but I've never discarded. I'll take the doors when I can get them! :)

by yonek

When i saw the factionboard of terrans the first time i also thought they look quit o.p.

Then i played them once and they felt neither o.p. nor easy to play.

And when Gaiaforming is a thing on a map i would always prefer choosing baltak instead of terrans for being much more flexible after heavy researching gaiatrack. :cool:

by fruityharris

Ranior wrote:

I recently picked Acolytes in one of my ladder games and did horrible with them--I had no clue how to play them and oouldn't find many/any strategy guides so I just had to look for some high scoring Acolytes games and divine what others were doing....and I didn't do well.

This thread has been very helpful in understanding this faction better and has shown me a lot of my mistakes in that game. Frankly I hated playing Acolytes as I felt so hamstrung to do anything, and I suggested I'd never play them again....but now this thread has me wanting to try again. So I think I'm trying to say thanks all for chiming in and for the OP starting the thread.

You're in one of my current Acolytes games... I said I try to screw over each opponent once but you'll be happy to hear I haven't worked out how to screw over you or Yetis yet! Poor Giants, on the other hand...

https://terra.snellman.net/game/FireIceLadderW6G8

by LudoH

I am among those that love GP even more than TM but I do not think it is a replacement: I prefer the look of TM, and I prefer to play TM with beginners because choices are easier I think (you have more ways to catch up and do a decent game if you screwed up the beginning ... you will not win of course).

I think choices in GP are more interesting and challenging and playing with other players of TM/GP I will prefer GP, because I prefer being screwed up by my choices than because somebody took the spot first ... I like the feeling of tension without aggression of GP is nice.

by Ranior

Vladvonbounce wrote:

I have tried Shetland a couple of times. The tempting of all those bonuses is very alluring but it takes a bit of effort to get them all and by then the game doesn't have all that many turns left in which to use them.

It also gives you little income and very few points. Not only that but to get the income you have to cover up squares that don't have negatives on them and if you want to get the beans resource you need even more tiles to go around it. On the other hand beans are not the best so maybe just covering them up is a better plan?

As you have pointed out though lots of the grey tiles work well on Shetland which leads me to think you want to get a longboat and go pillaging rather than whaling with this island?

Indeed it is tricky to utilize Shetland well but absolutely worth it if you can. If I am planning to open with Shetland I often want to plan for another exploration board to utilize the game meat that I'll upgrade and the silverware. I also usually plan on building at least two longhouses, and possibly even 3 to use those cabbage in. (3 longhouses is tough though and relies on me having a good source of red goods which usually means I at least have unlocked mead on my homeboard and probably have an island like Iceland/Greenland providing me a fish or Tierra Del Fuego's salt meat.)

My preferred opening is also a whaling boat and whaling, along with hunting. I mostly play solo so this path probably works best there, and admittedly is a bit risky since I'm hoping to pass two early die rolls. It also requires you to get pretty much every action, so yeah probably mostly works in solo. But here it is:

1 Viking to grab 2 wood
1 Viking to build Whaling Boat
3 Vikings to Whale
1 Viking to take Shetland

Place the skin and bones on homeboard to get 2 income.

1 Viking to Hunt
1 Viking to craft flax to linen
1 Vikings to upgrade game meat --> skin and bones, whale meat --> clothing

Your remaining vikings probably are focused on getting a little food to feast on (you have no reds to eat and you need all your silver). Additionally you'd like to get a few more resources, ideally some wood and ore. You can potentially replace the upgrades above with the combo grab resources and upgrade spots.

Anyhow at the end of R2 you then place the oil on the bottom left of Shetland, followed by 2 silver to the left of the beans. Then place skin and bones to unlock all 3 income. Then on the upper part place the fur upright to the far left, then place the clothing on the other side of the game meat bonus so that the upper right of the clothing is touching the silverware bonus. Place the linen upgright filling in the spaces to the right of the silverware bonus. Then take your remaining silver and fill in 5 remaining spots around the game meat and silverware.

At the end of R2 you have used all 7 of your silver admittedly, but you're now earning 5 income per turn along with the beans, game meat, and silverware bonuses.

R3 the dream is to build a longboat and hopefully place some ore on it. Then go pillaging for 2 vikings and get the cloakpin as it fits perfectly between the bonuses to the right. Using the linen already there and placing the cloakpin you unlock the Oil bonus, and then you only have 2 spaces to fill to get the Cabbage bonus.

From here in R4 you now have a longboat and quite a few bonuses built up with which to fill it. You can go pillaging/raiding along with whaling as you have the needed boats. R4 is a great time to grab Baffin if it just flipped, else Tierra Del Fuego can be a good pickup around this point too. Iceland isn't crazy either if it's still available (again my strategies tend to be solo focused as that's usually how I play, in multiplayer it's unlikely Iceland is available).

My best rounds with Shetland have probably come from the above all working out. It relies on quite a few die rolls to go your way, and helps if your early weapon draws work out to be what you need them to be. But when it all goes together you very quickly unlock the power of Shetland and earn a lot of bonuses that can fuel a very nice score.

by Mentat1231

I don't see why the Gleens or Bal'Taks can't be just as good in a setup with final/round/booster scoring for Gaia Planets. And then, I think part of the problem is that people haven't learned to leverage unrelated strengths of other factions. Itars, Nevlas, and several others are meant to be great at winning by Science. Terrans can't keep up with that. Ambas, Ivits, and (especially) Xenos are great at forming Federations.

Doc Cool (to whom I normally defer) says that Terrans will be very strong when there are the following conditions:

- both "colonize a Gaia planet" round scoring are in the game, preferrably in round 3+
- federation scoring in round 6
- "most satellites" final scoring
- "most Gaia planets" final scoring

But, in a setup like this, I think the Xenos could do extremely well. They get extra QIC income, and could just populate the normal Gaia Planets, and they are better at forming Federations by far (plus they get 3 starting planets, so they can either do a super-long-distance Federation for the Satellites, or just form 3 or 4 of them).

Besides, that's a very specific setup. If the Gaia Planet round scoring is in R1, the Terrans aren't any better than anyone else (the Gleens are actually going to capitalize a lot more)....

All that said, I really need to actually play some 4-player games, though. That may make the difference. I've only played with 1, 2, and 3 players (and the 3 player ones have always included a newbie). But Terrans never seemed particularly OP.

by Ranior

Shoecrown wrote:

It's still a fun game, but competitively it seems like we've figured it out. Has anyone else run into this issue?

I largely agree with you. The base game as it comes has a fairly serious issue of running out of exploration boards, and exploration is largely the path to victory. I've posted plenty about it in various places around here but it's the biggest issue I have with the game. (And even 3 players isn't all that bad as usually they can take Shetland, Iceland, and Greenland one a piece).

With that being said, the first answer is to get the 2 island mini-expansion. That alone practically solves all the issues. I still wish there were a few more islands but it's a huge improvement upon the game to have those extra boards.

Going further on some of your complaints, Iceland is probably only a few points better than Shetland or Greenland. It's really not that much better. I've played a lot and kept track of some stats, and would suggest that it's maybe 3-5 points better than the other two. That's not nothing, but it is well within the realm that some fortunate die rolls and occupations will easily overcome the gap.

Faroe is probably not as bad as most make it out to be, but it is admittedly about 10 points worse than Shetland/Greenland even when used at its best. Baffin though when it flips is quite good.

So in the base game I agree with many others here--the 4th player has a bit of a chance but it largely involves setting up animal breeding early on and getting ready for a Baffin flip on R4 where they can snag it. It's very hard to win without any exploration board so I believe that would be their best path. Early breeding isn't as good as an early island, but at the same time if you manage to snag Baffin and completely fill it in R4 that's quite powerful and a very strong position. The bonuses will easily help you fill your homeboard in and you can spend more actions in the end game emigrating or making houses for points.

Finally my only other many issue with what you post is that you proclaim the 4th player is at a significant disadvantage because they cannot rush boats or gather resources. That is partially true, the other players will all open to gather resources and build boats. But there are other reasonable openings whereby they can set up for future turns. It's not that crazy to just attempt to hunt, even with only one bow. Sure chances of passing are only 33% but that's not that crazy to gamble upon with your opening Viking, especially since the extra wood and bow can help you pass next round. You can always just attempt snaring right after as your path to unlocking 2 homeboard income in the opening. Essentially my point is that while grabbing an exploration board may be the best opening, it is only so because they are in such short supply. I strongly suspect if we get to the point where there are like 8 exploration boards in the game that the openings we see will be much more diversified. Getting an early boat may still be pretty popular, but a few other openings may also be reasonable. If the 4th player knows they can't rush a boat R1, then they should explore these other paths to open with and find an alternative route that will set them up well. They essentially know they won't run into competition along some paths because of how their opponents are opening, and this gives them a reasonable shot to compete.

Overall though you're largely correct. Base game AFFO isn't in any way what I would call solved, but I would say it's pretty well agreed upon that there is a pretty set opening plan for players 1-3 such that they don't have better alternatives. But after that R1 opening I'm really unwilling to suggest in any way that R2-R7 are in any way "solved" or even figured out. There's a lot of space to explore there still in what actions should be taken in what order and what not. How many emigrations should the Iceland player go for? How many long houses should the Shetland player aim for? Who should be fighting hardest for the build boat/house space in R4? None of that type of stuff is known for sure so I really don't think the game has been figured out, just the opening.

by CheddarLimbo

My input is that even though I had to trash the game upon completion, we played 12-16 games of it (way more than many titles on my shelf tbh), experienced a cool story and had a great time. It was definitely a good investment.

by La_Gofr

Estemy wrote:

The other issue here is: can you use tokens at night? I was struggling with that problem quite a while myself and I think that some tokens you can and some you can't (some you can save for later and let them sit in your resources pile, and other are immediate no matter what).

Yes, you can eat the goat. I often keep my goats in reserve for such a situation. If the weather effects destroy all your food, then this is the only way to feed yourself (or to get quick leather).

Hi !
You can use the discovery tokens anytime, except those who heal, as healing is only allowed during the night phase.
The 2 immediately traded discovery tokens are the 2 wood token and 2 food token.

by Ranior

fruityharris wrote:

You're in one of my current Acolytes games... I said I try to screw over each opponent once but you'll be happy to hear I haven't worked out how to screw over you or Yetis yet! Poor Giants, on the other hand...

https://terra.snellman.net/game/FireIceLadderW6G8

Yeah. I don't want to comment too much on a game in progress, but I will at least say watching you play Acolytes has also really given me quite a bit of insight. Not sure how it's going to end for you, but at least it looks like you're in a very reasonable position to be competing and growing economically. My one attempt thus far at Acolytes went very poorly, but I already see many of my mistakes so that's good.

Really I guess it shouldn't be a surprise. I've spent very little time with Fire and Ice factions thus far and some of them do play quite differently and require fairly unique strategies. I'm glad to be getting exposure to them, and glad this thread exists. (In general when learning how to play a faction I can start with the opening stats posts by DocCool and read the thread gaining quite a bit of insight, and then find a few other posts here and there. Lot harder with most of the Fire and Ice factions though)

by Limitless333

I think doing well with Gaia Planet scoring in rounds 4-6 and end game Gaia planet scoring comes down to Transdimensional Planets mostly. Gaia Planets are highly contested in the early rounds, especially by fast expanding factions like the Ambas, Gleens, and to a lesser extent the Xenos. This means that few Gaias are actually on the board by round 4. I think Terrans being considered OP is actually a case of undervaluing other Gaia Project factions and playing them appropriately, especially in the early game. If Terrans open PI+2M and Bal Taks open RL+2M the Terrans are clearly ahead. However, If Bal Taks open A+M the Bal are at least even or maybe even a little ahead on income. Any faction that opens RL+TS+2M or RL+4-5M or A+1-2M should be able to match or exceed the economic development of Terrans. Additionally if GP for 4 points is in rounds 5 or 6, I think many factions should plan on scoring 12 points from this round's scoring probably coupled with GP for 3 point tech tile. The factions that can most easily do this are the Itars and the Bal Taks, but only factions that specifically short on power from outside the game like Xenos are weak for Gaia Projects.

by Algathrac

As Simon mentioned earlier an altered overlay for the Terran fraction is added and an interchangeable element can be placed to fit the "Mad Androids".

I hope the picture helps.

by Shampoo4you

The problem is, unless your race is predisposed to go up the Purple track, you just aren't getting as much bang for your buck as the Terrans or other races. So yea, you can contest their transdims, but at the expense of your other science tracks. If there are more than two players, the third and fourth players who aren't involved in the competition for purples are benefiting from not having to keep the transdim race in check.

Ideally, you want a 2nd person to pick a transdim race if someone picks one, but it could always be the case that the only transdim race is picked last and then they can run roughshod over the purples.

by XDarkAngelX

Produce supplies are better in larger cities (and for Global production you get the benefit even if you're not in the city).

They mention in the rulebook that total population on the grid is a factor of your final score.

It cancels out the effect of future plague cubes so you can stay away from hitting 0.

by Steph

Hia Everyone!

Welcome to Part 2: The Gathering



Sunday Day 3:

A great day for learning games with amazing people! I had heard of the game Illusion and had to play. New to me!

This game was easily one of my favorites from the show! This game you are using images to put into a timeline sort of mechanic. say each card composes of 100% colors red, green, blue, yellow, and neutral white. Each round you will be focused on ONE of the colors and say it is red, you have to put the top of the deck card in the row. It goes from littlest amount of red to largest amount of red. You have to place the next card in the row where it belongs. The next person can either challenge you or place the next card below. If they challenge then the cards are revealed and if ANY mistakes in the row were made then you bust and they gain the point otherwise if it is correct they were wrong and you get the card.

It is so simple and the images are so interesting. It is so much fun! I am amazing at this game and Ron is terrible so that clearly helps form my opinion, but I just have so much fun trying to see the cards. Some of the % values are the same or 1 or 2 off an it is so crazy to see how it all plays out. I loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee this game.

We ended up playing 3 times this morning and I won 2 of them, Scott won by default once. :P It was a super amazing game and I really loved it. I ended up playing a whole bunch of times throughout the con when I could steal it away from Scott! He had the only copy at the show.

:star::nostar::star::nostar::star::nostar::star:



Scott wanted to play a party game with the folks at the table and it was called In or Out. New to me!

This game was interesting. You pull out 12 cards in the same category and on your turn you have to declare any card either In or Out! Like it meets the requirements of the category or not. Some of them are super challenging. Most of the time I was just guessing, not knowing the answer or other people would pick the cards I know.

I totally lost this game, but it was a close game with Lincoln, Scott and Ron! I thought for sure Ron would take it, but Lincoln pulled through and took the win in the final round.

I generally have fun with party games and this was pretty great! I would happily play this with the fam any time. Very cute. I don't know much though so I will likely always lose! I was shocked Ron didn't win!

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We had just been playing with Dominic and he had some prototypes to play so Ron and Eric and I played one he is working on called Paint the Roses Red. New to me!

This was the first time he was teaching the game so it was a bit rusty, but we got the idea. This is a co-op deduction game and easily one of the best prototypes I played! It was just awesome and my type of game. It is totally abstract and memory. Eric didn't like the memory part of the game, but I love that. There is so much information given when you place a cube on a location but there is also so much negative information when a cube is NOT played too.

The idea of the game is that you have a card in your hand it might have 2 colors or 2 shapes or the hardest cards might have a shape and a color. When its your turn you select a tile of 4 available tiles which is a color and shape. You place it on the board and the adjacent tiles will have information maybe other colors or shape or the same. If there is a match to your personal card with the tile you just placed and an adjacent tile then you put your cube down. For example, my card is red and blue if I put down a blue tile next to 2 red tiles then I would put down 2 of my cubes. If anyone else matches their pattern with the tile I just placed they would also put down a cube. Like they might have a heart and spade and I just played the blue spade next to a red heart it would be a match for that player.

So there is a lot of information and trying to remember what was played and who played what.

This game was just awesome. The queen is out to get you! OFF WITH YOUR HEAD! You are trying to fill the board with bushes before she catches you. She moves faster and faster the more points you get and the more guesses you do.

Super hard game and we ended up losing this one. I was doing all the heavy lifting. Ron doesn't really enjoy co-ops and Eric wasn't hooked like I was. So, I needed more conversation on what we were seeing and doing, but that is okay. This game won't be for everyone, but it was amazing fun. I can't wait for this one!

:star::nostar::star::nostar::star::nostar::star:


More games of The Mind! We played 3 times this day and I know we lost the game right after Paint the Roses Red. But later in the day when i played again with Eric we ended up winning! I won with WEM! YAY! We ended up doing the advanced mode with the cards face down after you win. You start the game with the amount of lives you ended with and you play Mamma Mia style with the cards face down with a big reveal at the end of the round.

I am shocked and proud of the fact that I won the Mind twice during the Gathering. It was amazing. So glad I got to play with Eric before he took off!

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After the Mind we played a quick Prototype called Goblins, Gold and Dragons. New to me!

It was a totally random-fest game. Everyone has the same cards that will be played one at a time in order of their choosing. But you are trying to claim stacks of gold with your dragon. All cards are played one at a time face down in 1 or 2 stacks. Once everyone plays all cards you reveal the stacks of cards, and in order goblins will steal whatever gold is beneath them and dragons will do the same.

Players just have one dragon so you just have to hope for the best.

This just didn't work so much for me. I felt no control and I might as well just play cards randomly. I think I did that in a round just to see what happened. It was fine. I don't think I got any gold collected, but I don't remember. I definitely lost though!

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Finally!! I got to play Ganz Schon Clever! New to me!

Everyone had been playing around the con and I got to play it! I have it on order and it is coming but I totally wanted to play it. This is a new Dice game with ALL THE OPTIONS! Six different colored dice all which do different things. On your turn you roll all dice and select 1 to take the action. Any dice LOWER than the one you selected goes to the middle. The others you roll and then take another die. You get 3 dice and the ones left over are in the middle and the other players get to take those. They can only select 1 of those dice though.

You are trying to cover your board with lots of numbers and X's trying to form combos and mega scoring. There are lots of symbols but once you know it, it makes sense and the game is just awesome. If you enjoy Roll n Writes then this is one not to miss. I didn't have enough to win this game and Eric killed us! I am just terrible at this one. I am sure I will get better... maybe! I can't wait till my copy comes in!

:star::nostar::star::nostar::star::nostar::star:



Another major hit for me at the con was Coimbra! New to me!

This is a beautiful Euro game coming from Eggertspiele. So yeah, if you enjoy theme, just stay away. If you are like me and enjoy interesting mechanics that are constantly making you think and planning, then this might be the next big game for you! I won't go too deep into game play but the general flow of the game works like this. There are 4 rounds and each round you will get 3 workers. The workers are colorful dice. You will select one of the pre-rolled dice for their face value. You will place the die in 1 of 4 regions. 3/4 regions will likely gain you a card if you pay for the card based on the pip value of the die. This card is 1 or 4 colors and are associated with an income track of the same color. You always will advance on this track with any card you select some number of steps. You might also get a constant effect, or an immediate, or end game bonus. Once everyone places the dice the regions activate the actions and players buy their cards etc. After all that then you gather income based on the colored dice you took. If I take 2 green dice I will collect green income twice. The dice are multi-purpose! It is brilliant! There is a side map you can travel along with purple income and get even more bonuses. There is so much to do and plan for. It is great and for 4 rounds you really get a big game feel.

The biggest con of this game is the AP can be quite bad. Don't play with AP prone people. The options and considerations are large and it can run super long.

I ended up playing twice but this first game was great, I played with Ron, Joe and Jeroen! I had a sweet engine going but Jeroen had better! Joe took the card I desperately needed! Of course I didn't know I would need it when it was available! :P

The game ended and each player was on a different side of the score board with Jeroen in first and I was like 30 behind him and then Ron and Joe definitely a big gap from First to last place.

Really great I ended up teaching it to Mina later in the week!

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I found Dale and wanted to play a game with him so I sat down to a game of Bumúntú. New to me!

This has awesome art. I really love the look of this game. It was still in prototype format but that was okay, the box is amazingly attractive. As far as game play it was fairly simple abstract game. You move from an animal tile and if you perform their ability then you get to claim that specific tile. It is set collection and each animal will score some number of points. Some tiles will affect the animals place on the scale for points so you want to go for those tiles to try and boost the animals you have collected the most of.

It was a cute game, the table didn't like it nearly as much as me, but I didn't mind it. I won though so maybe I am just so amazing at this game. Haha unlikely, but it was harmless. Referring back to the animal chart was not as much fun, but it was very clear and in your face so I am sure they will become more clear after a few plays. There are a bunch of types though that all did different things.

Happy I got to play, not sure I will ever play again, but I would try!

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They were planning for dinner, but Dan convinced them for a quick 5 minute game called Bon Voyage! New to me!

This was a Japanese game and I am always interested in those! This is a weird blind bidding game. You bid some number of chips and then reveal a card. Then in order of highest bid you may or may not have to pay your chips according to the card. It was a very weird bid mechanic. I can't explain the game too well since it was so fast and I am still confused on it. But it was like 3 rounds before someone was out of coins and the game was over. I would definitely want to play this one again, I was interested. It was weird for sure.

Dan ended up winning having the most chips, but it was cute!

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The day before I saw Joe H playing Beta Colony so I requested we try that. New to me!

This board is so colorful!! I was interested in playing and fortunately, Joe H was free to teach me Dan and Stefan how to play! It was just a 3 player game which was good! This is a Rondel game where you are moving around your ship around collecting resources and energy to supply the buildings to build them. There is an area control aspect and a advancements you want to look for. It was a solid game, and I would easily play again. It felt a bit long and one little mistake might throw your game.

In our play I just needed one fuel in order to get like a million points. I ended up losing by like 5 or something. It could have been a big swing in my favor if I had been paying slightly better attention. All in all I had a good time though. The icons on the rondel are terrible and stupid tiny for no reason. But all the colorful cubes and board is amazing fun and draws me in, clearly.

Happy I got to learn it! I think some folks will really be entertained with this game.

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I recently got A Column of Fire and saw Dale enjoyed it so I asked him to teach me! New to me!

I am so glad he taught me! This game is actually pretty straight forward and interesting dice game. The board in this game is stunningly beautiful! I can't wait to photograph it better!

On your turn you will roll all of your available dice some time will auto tick down, if they are already allocated to a card you have collected. Once they tick down you collect or do whatever the card offers. Each player is a type of religion either catholic or Protestant and this can change throughout the game. This matters for when you get to place a house in a given region on the board. You might get bonus points when the region scores for a specific religion. Once you roll your dice you will perform essential 2 actions if you have the dice. One will be used to claim a card. Each card will provide a preferred religion or neutral and it will go into the specific region you claimed the card from. If you don't already have a house there then you can put one in the spot valued of your die result. The die is then allocated to the card and the card is put in your tableau (later to be ticked down). You get to activate the card immediately when you get it. When you add the religion token there it might cause a scoring if it is the 4th token to be added. With the second die you will look to the bottom right corner of the board and take a bonus down there. Might be to sell goods or get goods just depends on the dice color you selected and where you already are located on the board.

Your goal is to get to 50 points which will trigger the end of the game and final round.

In this game I did pretty poorly. Other guys were selling their goods and getting a better engine than I was managing. But I held my own and caught up. I still passed the 50 point mark in the end but they were ahead of me. It was actually a very close game and I think we were all within 10 points of one another.

You can't alter your dice, but you have so many of them and the cards allow you to do interesting things so randomness on the dice didn't bother me in this game, which I suppose has bothered others. I had a fun time and I look forward to showing this to my group and Ron. I like dice games so this worked for me!

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I found WEM after that and got in a game of Welcome To...!

This game was a bit of a mixed bag since he was teaching the game and Jennifer wasn't catching on and played about 1/3rd of the game with a serious handicap of playing the nubers in order on her sheet when she didn't have to. We finsihed out the game and then Ron found us and told us we were playing the game all sorts of wrong all this time! We found out we had been playing the BIS card incorrectly and the correct rule of placing the number and then placing the BIS anywhere on the board is so much more powerful. After learning that I wanted to play again, but we didn't I got to try later in the week though.

It is a great game and happy to play it whenever!

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Eric was carrying around Menara so we ended up playing this a couple times. It was Me, Scott, Lincoln and Jennifer playing now. Eric explained though. The first game was super fast because it fell. I suggested to Lincoln that we should pitch the card he was trying to play since it was going to fall over. He had to pull the pillar from the bottom and it was a critical pillar it seemed... whoops!

So we tried again! In the second game we played much better, but Scott still was unclear about the end of the game, and why we were playing the way we were. We needed to build out and up since we had put the 5th level too small and getting higher would have been a problem I think In the end we drew a card that made us move a layer and it was just impossible, but we tried anyway.

Man this game is super hard! I really love it though and will need a copy for sure! Love it!

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Final game of the night was Decrypto. This game is just so much fun. It was teams of 3/3 and 2 people learning. I tried to convince the guys to play Boardgame clues only, but they didn't go for it. Didn't stop me though and I still clued in board games. It was quite a challenge though since #3 and #4 were words Blue and Orange. I mean REALLY! BLUE ORANGE that was unfortunate.

Eric was playing a clever game on the other side and clued in only numbers on his turn. It all made sense in the reveal at the end, but man it was hard! Our team totally tanked. It was rough going. I thought the boardgame crowd would appreciate the boardgame clues, and I was totally wrong. I think I played with the wrong people! lol

Eric and Scott both didn't enjoy the topical clues, alas it is not for everyone! I still had fun losing though! :D

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Monday Day 4:


Monday I got a later start to the day and really wanted to check out the new expansion for 7 Wonders. He gave me a time to meet up so I had some time to play some games. Ron and I found Adam and we played a few games of The Grizzled WITH The Grizzled: At Your Orders!.

I just learned this expansion at TotalCon so I was excited to play it again. I read over the rules and we just played 3 player to watch for time. I have been in games of this where they overstay their welcome. But, in this game we ended up dying like round 2.

Because the cards were just not coming out in our favor and lots and lots of traps! We ended up playing again right away. The second game was not as bad but we were dead in the water, I said we should continue playing until we actually died but we gave up since it was a lost cause and we ended up busting by mistake anyway.

Man this game is just so hard! The expansion just makes it more difficult, but adds some cool new mechanics that I really like. Brutal game and I want to play it more and more! Easy top 5 fav Co-op game.

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Through out the day I ended up playing The Mind 3 times. I know I lost each game though.

It is always such fun to play, however. It is usually a disaster when teaching people. But, I was still happy to teach and play. It is always hard to get into a groove though and takes a few games to do well.

Regardless, great game and many more logged plays!

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New Expansion for Terraforming Mars oh wait...

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So for a few days I was walking around and constantly seeing 7 Wonders: Armada being played, and I HAD to play it!!! New to me!

For those unfamiliar, 7 Wonders is in my top 5 favorite games. I LOVE this game so much. For a lot of gamers adding in all of the expansions is too much. This game became less and less popular among my group and it saddens me. Babel is noticeably the weakest of the expansions and rarely gets played, if ever. I still enjoy it for mostly the Projects module. Which brings me to this current expansion set for release at Essen!

Armada is AMAZING, and fits in so perfectly with the game. I am sure it will be amazing even more so with Leaders and Cities. Mostly Cities. They take the familiar Projects mechanic and makes it unique for each player. So in the expansion each player gets their own board with 4 tracks for Red, Yellow, Green and Blue! When you play one of those colored cards to your tableau, then you get to bump up the corresponding track if you can also pay for the track in resources and/or money (like the projects). The red track offers a whole new Naval battle for military points. You are now in combat with ALL players in the sea and this track provides a new military strength. It is challenging for sure. Nearly impossible to avoid military this time around. The yellow provides additional one time $ bumps and kills other players coins. The green track offers new cards which might boost the new tracks or give resources, or bonuses for various things. The blue gives MORE points at the end of the game.

It is brilliant and just expands the game so well! I had to play again the next day I loved it so much. In the first game I didn't get any military but I got a sea block so I didn't collect negative points for that, but it wasn't good enough. I did rather well with Science but it wasn't enough. Ron ended up winning by a few points that game! Jerk! I got him back in the next one though. ;)

I simply can't wait for this game. Gimme now!



[ImageID=4099210 medium rep]

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Next up I got to play a couple of Unpublished Prototype coming from Lautapelit.fi. One Tile placement and the other is Dice Workerplacement. I can't really go into too much detail, but they were cool!

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Later that night after dinner, Ron took off to play Eclipse or something. I found Rodney and offered to teach him a game. I was delighted and shocked to learn he hadn't yet played A Feast for Odin.

We sat down to play and Tom was interested in joining the fun so we kept it to 3 player. I did teach and Tom had played before so he wasn't paying attention to me. I am sure I was giving both of them a hard time, since I can be pretty sarcastic. Rodney was pleased with my teaching ability though. This game is pretty easy to teach to gamers, but they have to be in the right mind set to play.

Also to be fair Tom hadn't played all that many times and I could tell was remembering how to play as the game went on. I was trying to help out with my opinion on what they should be doing etc, but I didn't want to take the driving wheel for them since they know how to play games. :)

Ended up bring a pretty quick game for a learning game easily under 3 hours and I ended up kicking their butts. I was 92 to their mid 60s. Whoops! Didn't mean to own them too hard. On the plus side, Rodney really enjoyed the game and Tom had a good time as well.

It really is a great one! Everyone should play it! :D

I hope to teach Rodney Ginkgopolis next time I see him. That is a game everyone should learn too! Just sayin.

Oh Hey I just learned from Tom on his podcast that I made the cut for top 10 favorite gaming opponents! How bout that! Super nice of him to say. If you wanted to check that podcast out it is at the 15 minute mark: http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/c/8/0/c80583bafcd3763b/TDT552-TheD...

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Final game of the night was The Cat Game. New to me!

This is the game with the most ridiculous box ever! Pictured below. The game is amazing fun. You draw a card and then like pictionary you are drawing one of the clues in hopes of someone guessing it correctly.

This game is amazing fun because it comes with fun cat poses and a boards to underlay them so you are using these cats as props!It is wonderfully hilarious and a game that I will want to own in the future. So much fun!

It is silly and you play until someone gets 3 or 5 correct guesses, or whatever. it is just a fun party type game and super cute! Dan is terrible at drawing and Ron was clever. Some artwork below. :)

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Tuesday Day 5:


Scott wanted to learn Fields of Arle. I HAD TO BE THE ONE TO TEACH! I am the Arle queen after all.

We set a time to play and it was Tuesday morning! This game is just amazing. Before the show Ron dumped all of the new expansion into the box and it was a mess and barely fit in the box at all. I was sorting that all out since we weren't using it at all. I should get that played soon though!

Scott got to be BLUE, what is this madness. I explained the base game and it was busy in the hall with people stopping by and sayin hi, so the game went fairly long. Rodney snapped a pic of us playing and it was hijacked and graffitified by Ben on Twitter. You will have that pic in the next blog post when I share all of the social media pics from other users. To say the least it was hilarious!

I taught him well since he scored amazingly well for his first game. I only won by a few points, it was all around very close. I think I was about 116 and he was 110 or so.

I highly advise people not playing with the expansion on their first rodeo. I didn't teach it since he was just learning. Just my advice and I will keep saying it. Love this game so much. I think Scott realllllllllllllly enjoyed it too. Might not be a 10/10 for him but he still liked it a bunch! Yay! My job was complete! :D

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Ended up going to lunch with Scott, Lincoln, Henning, Ron and Jess. So of course Jess and I played a game of The Mind in the car. Too funny trying to play in the car. The roads were terrible and bumpy, and this was not our best game. Hahah we didn't win, but we tried!

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Once we got back Ron and I sat down for a game of Fae. New to me!

It was a 3 player game and it is an abstract. Everyone has a "hidden" role and you are actively moving the dudes on the map and trying to score them. You might be scoring for lots of colors when you do. On your turn you pick a region and move all dudes in that region to an adjacent region. It will cause a scoring if all adjacent regions are totally empty. Dudes can not move into an empty region also. The region scores for the number of dudes in it and each dude will get that many points. :P

It actually plays out pretty quick, but it was obvious who was which color by the end of the game. I had a major scoring with 4 of my guys getting like 12 points each for 48 points in one shot. It was a bit absurd, but totally awesome. I am apparently amazing at this game. I was well over 80 points and probably a few shy of 100 points by the end. I won, but everyone managed to get their score above 50 so that was good. I still ended up winning though.

I didn't mind the game and I would try it again, but nothing really jumped out at me saying play me again.

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On the table was a new game from Hans im Glück called Race to the New Found Land. New to me!

Once this game showed up I saw it being played quite a bit. The box is inviting so I was interested. I like the big ribbon score track in the middle of the game board. There was a function there for the score track to award bonuses as people entered that value in points. The game is not pick up and deliver but you are allocating your boats to do actions and it might be to get resources or fulfill contracts. The whole thing was a bit long, but I didn't mind playing it.

Ron was far in the lead as he was doing a completely different strategy from me, and it seemed to be working better for him. I was working on constructing the buildings and he was working on settling the islands. He got some major points for completed islands though.

Had I played optimally then I would have been within 10 points from him, but since I didn't think it would make a big difference, I played optimally for him to destroy and he was like 30 points different. I will just pretend I didn't make that big mistake and take a smaller loss.

On the plus side Dan still lost horribly! and Poor Michael in the back of the pack.

I would definitely try this game again, I am not sure there is much to keep it high on my want to play list but there was a game there and I would happily play again.

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Next up I was pleased to try out the game called Sunflower Valley. New to me!

This is a simple roll n write game with an adorable theme. Regular D6s and you are drafting the dice results into the various colors which align to regions. each number is a different symbol you have to draw in the region you selected. You are trying to get houses provided with sheep and the houses connected with railroads and lots and lots of sunflowers in the valleys!

You get to be creative and draw some nice pics on your board which was fun. The dry erase markers were awesome and fine point.

I ended up winning, somehow got lucky with a few last minute sheep in the areas I needed them and it all worked out for me. I didn't think it would but it was a very low scoring game, and everyone was in demand of the sheeps!

I would love to play this one again, and I thank Nicole for bringing this game around for me to try!

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After that dinner was calling and Ron and I got back and I taught him Duelosaur Island! OMG YAS!

So I got to play this at Unpub a month back and here is what I recall from that time I got to play with designer Ian Moss so it was cool to play with him and get his insider knowledge.

The game feels very much like Dinosaur Island but with a lot of updates to make this a truly awesome 2 player game. You have a number of phases much like the base game and you get to randomly draw really cool dice to roll each round. The cards are multipurpose cards that are used for either dinosaurs or attractions. You still have to collect DNA to make dinos and pay for attractions. There are no patrons that visit though, but you still lose points if your threat level is too high. What is new is the PR track and that was a cool bonus track you get to use if you build a ride attraction and at the end of each round. Sort of a minor catch up mechanic for the person behind gets a better reward than the other. That was cool and I think is going to be a module for the expansion for the base game.

Everything about this game was great and I know it will be awesome. Ian did a great job giving the feel of the base game but being totally different. Yah you can still get specialists too. I totally owned this game, kicked him, then most of the way through I realized I interpreted a symbol wrong and ended up “cheating” for some of it. So at best this game was an asterisk. Turns out I picked up a specialist that allowed for me to do exactly what I had been doing, and I only did it twice so it wasn’t such a big issue. I will still claim victory ;) haha it was great fun so I will be sure to back it. Still undecided about the expansion, but one feature the blue prints seem super cool so I will have to look deeper into that. If you enjoy 2p games I think this will be one for you.


So this time around I was teaching Ron and I didn't remember the rules like I thought I would so it was sort of a slow process. He played along with me though and it went okay. Jon Gilmour was at the table next to us for my questions. :P

Ron ended up winning because we forgot about the end game set collection. He had tons of sets and it was enough for him to take the lead and win. I forgot about the set collection! I am really looking forward for this game to come out! I think it will be great! :)

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I really wanted to play 7 Wonders: Armada again! The table was open and Stefan and Ron and I got to play with him a 3p game! We already knew the rules and jumped right into the game which took about 30 minutes to play. Super quick and amazing fun!

Since we knew what we were doing, I could plan better this game and I did a great job! I totally kicked major butt and won by 10 points over Ron! I went for military but just enough to keep me safe and win some wars. I was a bit all over the place in the best way possible.

Man, this expansion just hits all the right buttons! #needthisnow

#whydontmorepeoplelove7wonderslikeidoitisnotfair

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Found random passerby and asked him to play a game of Caverna: The Cave Farmers. Jonathan and he invited his friend along to play with me and Ron. It was a 4 player game and everyone knew the rules for the most part.

I gave them a hard time to play quickly and they did! :P I might have been a bit hard on him since he might have felt pressure. whoops! I don't think he minded! I have a sarcastic tone about me and my personality might come off too strong in first plays. haha we still had a great time!

This game we were playing and I was actually stumped at one point. I thought I was doing pretty well and I ended up doing pretty well, but not as well as Ron. He might have gotten his all time high score of 108 or something super high. I was just under 100 so it was pretty well done. The other guys possibly got stomped on, so whoops!

But they knew what they were getting into when I showed them all of the scoring sheets. Yahhhhh I might have played this game a lot.

Ron went off and then taught them how to play Russian Railroads and I went to find the next.

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I walked over to find Scott, Lincoln, Nikki, and Henning in a game of Word Slam. I sort of ruined the round and felt badly, but ended up taking Lincoln's spot for several rounds.

Nikki and I were on point. Perhaps I am better at this game in teams of 2. It could have been a language barrier though with Henning being German and all. Details.

Always an amazing time playing this game! Simple and so much fun!

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They had one more game in them and we ended up playing a round of Illusion.

I can't get enough of this game. Scott ended up ordering some copies and I think I get to claim one of them when I see him next... Where is the emoji for starry eyes?

Serously I have no idea who won but fun was had because this game is the bomb!

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Then it was time for a late night game of everyone's favorite, or just mine, Ginkgopolis.

Jess came over and asked for me to teach it to Zee and I was delighted to! I happened to bring it around that day so I had it with me.

This might have been the best teach I have ever done, I mean it was probably the person learning though. He wasn't confused at all with what I was saying and it was clear to him what he had to do. I had to fight Jess for being QUEEN GINK, but lets face it, I have been Queen Gink for years and years and she has played like 3 times and tried to call herself queen gink... hmmmm Not buying it! :P But, I am happy she loves it like I love it.

Fel was hanging out with us but, I wasn't allowing for a 4 player game, since that ruins it for me. I ended up playing with Fel a few nights later and it soon became one of his favorites!

So Zee trolled my photo below, but I don't think he enjoyed the experience quite like we did. Perhaps my sarcasm was too much for him at that hour. It was probably too late.

I ended up killing everyone by a large number. I doubled Zee's points. Whoops. sigh, I can't win them all...

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Please stay Tuned for Part 3! Final days at The Gathering!


New to the Collection:
Bunny Kingdom






Thanks for following along! I hope you have an amazing week.


Until next week!


Happy Gaming!!!


-Steph

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