Board Games

Board Games

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bobthedinosaur
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Board Games

Post by bobthedinosaur »

http://kotaku.com/5505087/advance-wars-the-board-game
now some one just needs to make a kernel panic board game
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Caydr
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Re: Board Games

Post by Caydr »

Cool, but the calculations you've gotta do every 5 seconds must be a huge drag.

Let's see... My infantry with 7 health is going to attack this other infantry over here with 6 health. He needs to cross this mountain though... *checks rulebook* ... ok infantry can cross mountains but it reduces their movement speed by X but he should still be able to get adjacent to the enemy infantry. *moves infantry tile* I'm attacking your infantry with my infantry here. Infantry does X damage at full health... multiplied by 0.7... you have 3 health left. No, wait, you're on a road, you have 1.51 health left... so 2. And in return you damage me for... well if you're defending you multiply by X but your health is already down to 6 so I've gotta multiply by 0.6 first... Ok I'm down to 6 health, you're down to 2 health. Now I just need to decide what I'll do with my 6 other infantry, 2 jeeps, 8 tanks, 3 artillery, 2 rocket artillery, factories, battleship, 3 cruisers, 2 submarines...

Maybe if you massively simplified things it would be easier but then it's not the same game, and even still it would be a huge asspain.

If you want to play a good boardgame, try this site: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/

I've heard Catan is a lot of fun, though I've not yet had an opportunity to play it myself, and the entire universe seems to have united behind one called "Puerto Rico". If you want something more guns-and-death oriented, there are games like that too. What's cool is, there are thousands of people on that site and they have actual intelligent conversations about board games, so you can get some really good suggestions about what to try.

I was blown away I was when I discovered that other people ALSO think that Risk and Monopoly are ruined by being too greatly influenced by chance. Most of the people in my small circle 3D friends seem to be of the opinion that these are immaculate classics that are beyond reasonable criticism. Sure, there's strategy involved, but I hate losing an entire 20-army force to one bloody douchebag in West Australia with a freaking rusty sword or something.

Monopoly's a lot of fun but it's just a race to the first residential doom fortress and from there you're shitting your pants every time you pass go. I do enjoy the bartering and backstabbing though.
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Raghna
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Re: Board Games

Post by Raghna »

I'm a happy owner of Starcraft: The Board Game
Google_Frog
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Re: Board Games

Post by Google_Frog »

Raghna wrote:I'm a happy owner of Starcraft: The Board Game
How long do games usually take? Whenever I play it's generally about 5 turns spread over 5 hours.
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KDR_11k
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Re: Board Games

Post by KDR_11k »

The advance wars rules aren't so complicated, stuff like Battletech is way worse in that respect.
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Pxtl
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Re: Board Games

Post by Pxtl »

Boardgamegeek here. Among the enthusiasts, all the "classics" are loathed as monstrosities. Boardgames _do_ develop over time, so people who still insist on playing only Monopoly and Risk are like people who insist on only playing Super Mario 1 or BattleToads. Sure, they were fun, but they have some serious flaws and really who wants to play the same thing all the time?

Yes, but Battletech generally relies on lower unit-counts. Each player should be commanding a half-dozen units, tops, unless you're a super-hardcore wargamer and really want to spend all day fighting a battle.

Either way, if you're looking for a good "lite" wargame, Risk 2210 is surprisingly awesome.

In the last few years, Milton Bradley realized something we all know: their boardgames suck. So, they released revised versions of each game made by modern designers. Connect 4x4 is 4-player and adds new pieces and strategies. Stratego CTF takes a fantasy theme and gives units special powers (like archery and non-suicidal scouting) and was designed by Reinier Knizia. Risk Revised adds a 5 turn limit and is focused on special secret missions instead of just wiping out the other players. Yahtzee FFA is about stealing dice. Monopoly was unsalvageable - City Monopoly fixes absolutely nothing, ditto Battleship. Also, most of the games are backwards-compatible so you can still play the classic form with them.

Avalon Hill, MB's "Serious Boardgames" subsidiary (they do Diplomacy and Axis and Allies) released a variant of risk called Risk 2210. It makes Risk into a very, very fun game.
1) 5-turn limit
2) No cashing in cards for units
3) You bid on turn-order, so going last isn't randomly-assigned.
4) Cards that are actually _fun_ (nukes, etc.)
5) A handful of special units.
6) Underwater colonies and moon colonies.

@Caydr,
If you don't like random games, then Settlers of Catan is _not_ for you. The core of Catan's gameplay is harvesting and trading resource cards (which you then use to buy things) - each territory you own has a number from 2-12 on it, and at the beginning of each turn the player roles the dice to determine which territories pay out. As a result, the game has a lot of randomness. Obviously, there is some control since territories closer to 7 pay out more often, but you're still at the whim of the dice. However, if you're okay with some randomness in your play, Catan is an excellent game.

Seriously though, for a solid round of combat-oriented gaming that avoids tedium, my favorite is Cosmic Encounter. The game has a wonderful unique feature: your enemy for this turn is randomly assigned (but 3rd-party players can choose which side of the conflict they ally with). As a result, alliances flow like butter. It isn't really a wargame for wargamers, though - it uses Risk-like super-simple stacks of grunts (no special units), and the map is just a set of locations, any location can attack any other location.
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PicassoCT
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Re: Board Games

Post by PicassoCT »

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CarRepairer
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Re: Board Games

Post by CarRepairer »

Pxtl wrote:ditto Battleship
Battleship is the best board game ever because you say a letter then a number and then the other guy says a letter and then a number and then you say a letter then a number and then the other guy says a letter and then a number and then you say a letter then a number and then the other guy says a letter and then a number and then you say a letter then a number and then the other guy says a letter and then a number and then you say a letter then a number and then the other guy says a letter and then a number and then you say a letter then a number and then the other guy says a letter and then a number and then you say a letter then a number and then the other guy says a letter and then a number and then you say a letter then a number and then the other guy says a letter and then a number and then you say a letter then a number and then the other guy says a letter and then a number and then you say a letter then a number and then the other guy says a letter and then a number and then you say a letter then a number and then the other guy says a letter and then a number and then you say a letter then a number and then the other guy says a letter and then a number and then you say a letter then a number and then the other guy says a letter and then a number and then you say a letter then a number and then the other guy says a letter and then a number and then...

Isn't this fun?
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PicassoCT
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Re: Board Games

Post by PicassoCT »

Its basically doin the collissiondetection of a Spring Seabattle manually. Oh my cerebralcereal is so numbercrunchy today - nom nom nom...
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Raghna
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Re: Board Games

Post by Raghna »

Google_Frog wrote:
Raghna wrote:I'm a happy owner of Starcraft: The Board Game
How long do games usually take? Whenever I play it's generally about 5 turns spread over 5 hours.
Sadly no one ever seem to want to play with me because 'the game just lasts too long'. Which suck so hard because it's such an epic game.

But when we do play it does take a huge while, but only because the other players are new and don't know the rules. If they would know them I think we could play it in less than an hour time (instead of 3) and change rules to add turns, because 5 turns really is too few imho.
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Erom
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Re: Board Games

Post by Erom »

Catan is, IMO, the best boardgame ever created. It's far better balanced than Carcassonne or Puerto Rico. And honestly, most of the add-ons for Catan take away more in complexity than they add in fun. Plain vanilla Catan, with the 5-6 player pack if you have enough people, is really all you need.
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Pxtl
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Re: Board Games

Post by Pxtl »

Erom wrote:Catan is, IMO, the best boardgame ever created. It's far better balanced than Carcassonne or Puerto Rico. And honestly, most of the add-ons for Catan take away more in complexity than they add in fun. Plain vanilla Catan, with the 5-6 player pack if you have enough people, is really all you need.
Agreed on the expansions. Vanilla Catan with 5-6 expansion is the best. I'm really not a fan of Carc, but I haven't tried PR yet. Still, I have to agree that Catan is by far the best of the well-known Eurogames, to the point that I don't bother with most others of the traditional Eurogame set...

however, I have to say there's a time and a place to bring out the Ameritrash, the hybrid games.

Again, Risk 2210 is awesome Ameritrash, and Cosmic Encounter is a perfect fusion of the genres.
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Raghna
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Re: Board Games

Post by Raghna »

Erom wrote:Catan is, IMO, the best boardgame ever created. It's far better balanced than Carcassonne or Puerto Rico. And honestly, most of the add-ons for Catan take away more in complexity than they add in fun. Plain vanilla Catan, with the 5-6 player pack if you have enough people, is really all you need.
Well Catan is nice, but what I absolutly HATE and by this I hate 90% of board games is the luck factor. How can you play a game that has any luck % above 1%? It's total nonsense... You might as well take turns to throw a dice and whoever gets the highest number of dots wins.
Auswaschbar
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Re: Board Games

Post by Auswaschbar »

Go ftw
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KaiserJ
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Re: Board Games

Post by KaiserJ »

i've had some fun with a boardgame "heroscape"

breaks down warhammer style gaming into something very, very simple... tabletop wargames are great, but i find the realism factor in a lot of them forces a) too much thinking for a game to drink beers with b) too much time taken over obscure rules stipulation c) hard for noobs to pick up

this one is like 20 mins setup, and 2 hours or so for a large-ish game; wheras warhammer with the same group takes at least two sittings... its in-depth enough that you can work out specific strategies, but not so complicated that your kid or your girlfriend couldn't play.

if anything is -bad- about it besides its simplicity, it would be that the dice rolls force a bit too much randomness into the game (but then again, if i dont want randies, i'll play chess)

plus its cheap as hell in comparison, pooling $100 each from three people gives us more variation of units, landscape and rules than we could ever hope to use

edit : didn't see catan or carcassonne until i re-read the thread... both are so much frustrating fun :D never tried puerto rico though but i heard its good
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Erom
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Re: Board Games

Post by Erom »

Raghna wrote:How can you play a game that has any luck % above 1%? It's total nonsense... You might as well take turns to throw a dice and whoever gets the highest number of dots wins.
OK, if you were looking for a board game to play super pro competition mode, I can see you wanting very low randomness. But randomness is a field leveler - it allows people of different skill levels to play and the noob still have some chance of beating the pro. This means you can get more people to play it, you don't feel pressured to play at 100% at all times (you can drink a beer while you play!) and people like my girlfriend will play with me because they still have a small chance of beating me even though I am better than them.

Think of team fortress 2 - the random crits are HATED by the pros trying to play it on a competition level, but they are great on random public servers because they mean one pro player can't come in and totally dominate, because eventually they are going to eat a crocket and die.

And anyway, I would say Catan has fairly low randomness compared to traditional monopoly/battleship etc fare. Yes, resources are random, but you know that going in and should build a strategy that expects to have booms and busts.

EDIT: Almost missed the understated Go reference - yes, Go is very good. Takes forever to learn, though, what with the quantum "is the game over or not" effect.
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JohannesH
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Re: Board Games

Post by JohannesH »

Raghna wrote:
Erom wrote:Catan is, IMO, the best boardgame ever created. It's far better balanced than Carcassonne or Puerto Rico. And honestly, most of the add-ons for Catan take away more in complexity than they add in fun. Plain vanilla Catan, with the 5-6 player pack if you have enough people, is really all you need.
Well Catan is nice, but what I absolutly HATE and by this I hate 90% of board games is the luck factor. How can you play a game that has any luck % above 1%? It's total nonsense... You might as well take turns to throw a dice and whoever gets the highest number of dots wins.
Might as well deal a hand of cards and then bet who got the best hand...
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Pxtl
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Re: Board Games

Post by Pxtl »

The problem is that non-random games tend to have too much planning, which means that games are ruined by analysis-paralysis. Obviously for a grim one-on-one deadlock this is a wonderful thing, but for a large group game over drinks, meticulously analyzing every move and planning ahead too far just bogs the play down.

For example, I'm a big fan of Robo Rally (a game that does have _some_ randomness), but you can only play that one with the most hardcore nerds. In Robo Rally, every turn is a puzzle - you need to lay down five "phases" of action for your robot, face down. Incredibly fun, but can take forever with players meticulously planning their turns.
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KDR_11k
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Re: Board Games

Post by KDR_11k »

My family finds Catan boring now, the randomness means that most turns are spent doing nothing and that's not fun. We played a lot of Puerto Rico for a while, later went with Agricola. Didn't really get much playtime out of Dominion yet. Carcassonne is more of a casual game for us.
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Pxtl
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Re: Board Games

Post by Pxtl »

Ick, I just googled the latest version of Cosmic Encounter, and they've bolted on researching and reusable cards onto the game. Plus, you need to buy an expansion to get the 6th player. The game was already a bit complex.
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