What Board Games are you playing?

The Game Room
102

This past weekend, my primary gaming group had a dinner-and-a-board-game get together.

We played Settlers of Catan, which despite being one of the seminal games of the current tabletop gaming renaissance, none of us had ever played. One of the members of the group had gotten a deluxe edition for Christmas, and he was eager to bring it to the table, so we played.

Meh.

I don’t particularly care for Eurogames to begin with. Even by the standards of Eurogames, I didn’t particularly care for it. But everyone else in the group (who all like Eurogames a lot more than I do) seemed to really enjoy it.

Ironically, the one player who didn’t really understand what he was doing won the game, by accidentally power-gaming. He built a port settlement that let him trade Grain 2:1 for any other resources, then complained because he thought he could trade any resource 2:1 for any other resource. But in order to do that, he built two settlements on a Grain hex, which he only built to access the port, and didn’t even realize he was building a game-winning synergy. He wound up with a ton of Grain he could trade for other resources, and once he realized he had accidentally created a power-gamed synergy, he easily won.

After that we played Sentinels of the Multiverse: Definitive Edition, which I recently got from a Kickstarter campaign. I love the first edition, which is one of my absolute favorite table-top games. The new edition boasts “new & improved” artwork and presentation. Honestly, I mostly prefer the artwork and presentation from the previous edition. There are a few rules tweaks in the new edition, and a lot of the Hero cards seem significantly more powerful. We only played one game, against Baron Blade, with a pre-sorted starter Villain deck. It was supposed to be kind of an easy intro, and it was. Too easy, I thought. We were barely challenged, and worse, didn’t get very far into any of the decks, so I didn’t think we got a very good feel for the new version. Still, I enjoyed it, and so did everyone else, so I’m hoping to get it to the table and play it more thoroughly in the future.

103

Has anyone played Charterstone? I’m hearing good things about it and am thinking of buying it, but at that pricetag and time commitment, I’d like more opinions.

104

I have played an entire campaign(12? games). We had 6 players (5 were consistent, the 6th spot was played by different people – you can play with less than 6 but IIRC it adds rules/dummy players). We played 2 games whenever we met. It is a perfectly fine euro. There is a story of sorts, and the board does evolve because folks build buildings. And like most legacy games new aspects open up (new types of cards, new possible actions, etc). I’m not sure I have the desire to play the campaign again – I can’t remember if you can play the completed board or not. But there are plenty of games that don’t get 12 plays…

Brian

105

AIUI, the completed board becomes a worker placement game.

106

Charterstone was not well-liked by our group. In fact it is the only campaign game in recent memory where we did not finish the game. We did read the end game story to make sure we didn’t miss anything important.

For me, they had a good idea of fun ways to evolve the board and gameplay but it felt very haphazard. The constantly changing rules were a problem - even for our experienced team. I also think there are some early decisions a player can make which will doom them to playing catch-up for the rest of the time. For example certain resources are more scarce, so if you control them then you control the whole board.

It would be a better fit if you are playing with children because of those cute and fun evolutionary events. But even then I think Near and Far or Clank Legacy would be a better overall choice.

107

I will be. And we like haphazard.

108

We played a bunch of new/unfamiliar games at a con about a week ago. It included the Spiel des Jahres judges coming over to teach attendees to play the nine nominated games, so we got a good look at some of those. I won’t list everything, but:

Calico - an abstract tile-laying game, with art by Beth Sobel (WIngspan, Lanterns, Viticulture, and like 90 other games). Cats & quilts, mostly parallel-play. It was okay, if you like abstracts, but I’d be most likely to play it if someone else was advocating strongly for it.

Cascadia - an abstract tile-laying game, with art by Beth Sobel (WIngspan, Lanterns, Viticulture, Calico, and like 89 other games). Terrain and wildlife building, maybe 85% parallel play. This was one of the SdJ nominees, and we liked it okay (I liked it better than Calico). We played I think three times, I’d give it a few more goes.

Living Forest - SdJ Kennerspiel (their category for more complex games), an engine-builder with a mild deck-building component. I liked this better than the first two I’ve listed. Multiples paths to victory, but not too much “point salad”, and some blocking-type interactions. Really creepy art on some cards, in a good way…demonic woodlands creatures.

Cryptid - also SdJ Kennerspiel. This was entertaining but required concentration… basically there’s a big old hex map where something is hidden, and you each have a single clue, and as you make guesses, and answer guesses, the possibilities begin to narrow. Clue/Cluedo on steroids.

Scout - SdJ. A card game that is not precisely trick-taking, and not precisely tableau-building, but it has elements of both. This is a great filler game.

We’ve been also playing Root at home lately. Not sure I’m sold on it yet, but I like the art.

109

In one of my first posts in this thread, I mentioned how much I liked Architects of the West Kingdom. This is still true. Enough so, that I’m currently in the middle of playing the Tomesaga campaign of the West Kingdom trilogy.

I’ve been playing the West Kingdom games recently to refamiliarize myself with them. And I got together with three friends yesterday to play the campaign. We played the first two games; Architects of the West Kingdom and Paladins of the West Kingdom. We had discussed the possibility of playing all three but it was getting late by the time we finished Paladins so we’re planning on playing Viscounts of the West Kingdom and finishing the series next Sunday.

As I said, I love Architects. It’s one of my favorites. However, I do not love Paladins. I don’t even like it very much. Viscounts falls in between.

110

I got Charterstone for my birthday, have not had an opportunity to start playing yet.

111

Since I started this thread my collection has only grown and grown. I really enjoy this hobby. A few recent games I really like (might have already mentioned a few of these, I didn’t go back to read past posts I made).

The Unmatched system. The newer sets just get better and better and while I prefer the public domain stuff (although the Jurassic Park T-Rex character is awesome!), they just released some Marvel characters.

Golem. A heavier game than we normally play but I was really drawn to the theme.

Meadow. Beautiful art and a theme that calms while the game play can be a bit cut throat (especially at two players).

Sheepy Time. Looks like a kids game but a really fun push you luck make combos game.

Tenpenny Parks. An amusement park polyominoe game with great components.

112

We played this one at the convention as well and enjoyed it. The decision on when to stop moving could be quite complex, which made it fun.
(fyi, the version we played did have a printing issue with the more advanced monsters, specifically that the card types and counts didn’t match the insert card showing what was supposed to be there)(ETA that might have been promo sets/expansions, not sure if it’s base set)

113

Yeah I think that error is universal but I saw on BoardGameGeek the designer confirmed the actual cards you get are correct.

A few others I wanted to mention:

The Hunger. A push your luck deck building game that gets compared to Clank but I think plays differently enough. You are Vampires trying to race home before the sun comes up but the more humans you eat the slower you move so you have to be careful. It’s a really fun and tense game.

Witchstone. The theme is kind of nonsense but you have a board with tiles that trigger two of six interconnected actions but the more icons you can link together the more times a particular action triggers and almost everything gives you points. It feels like pinball where your score just keeps popping off with combo after combo. We enjoyed it.

114

Got Bärenpark for an early Father’s Day present yesterday, and played a few times - a fun, quick tableau-builder using tiles. I was also given The Castles of Mad King Ludwig, haven’t unpacked that yet.

115

So, part of my Father’s Day was the fam playing our first Charterstone game. It was such fun! A bit of a learning curve to get used to rules that are revealed and changed as the game progresses, and careful reading of the cards is very important. But even the 10 y.o. could follow along, and everyone enjoyed it.

Am going to go for a radically different strategy in the next game compared to this one, though - less worrying about what others are doing, more concentrating on my own stuff.

116

Just lately: Baerenpark, Agricola, Cubitos, Castles of Mad King Ludwig. Also a ton of Race for the Galaxy online. Lots of games…just what I imagined retirement would be!

117

I’ve been playing a lot of Ark Nova lately. In lighter games, I picked up Lions of Lydia last month and have played that a few times.

118

We’ve now played 4 games of the Charterstone campaign, and it’s been great so far. Legacy games might just become my thing.

119

I have Ark Nova but have not played it yet. I bought The Siege of Runedar as part of a prime day Lightning sale and we are having a lot of fun with that. Really great components and the box forms your castle/game board. It’s a pretty tough cooperative game where you are trying to dig your way out before you are overrun by Orcs, Goblins and Trolls.

120

My most recent purchase is Neom: Building the City of the Future. It’s a game that looks like it’s going to be a shameless Suburbia rip-off, but turns out to be a shameless Seven Wonders rip-off. I’m really enjoying it!

You play the game buy purchasing city tiles that you add to your growing city. But instead of a marketplace, you get a hand of seven tiles, select one to play, then pass the hand to your left. It’s got a strong economic mechanic, where you need to produce certain resources, which you can use to build even better resources, which you can sell for massive amounts of cash and victory points. I genuinely think the game might have started off as a home expansion for Seven Wonders, which has a similar, but more limited, resources/economic model.

121

Okay, Neom sounds like something my family would enjoy. Thanks for the recommendation.