Agricola’s cool cause I almost always feel like I coulda done better. A lot of depth there.
As far as Sirlin’s games go, I think Puzzle Strike is his best so far (I have Yomi, Puzzle Strike, and Flash Duel Deluxe) but like most deck-building games it could really benefit from an expansion.
I’m down for Dominion online. It’s basically taken over every other game in my friends circle and I now play at least 10 4 player games a week. I’ve been doing that since half a year ago or more too.
Isn’t Puzzle Strike kind of touted as Sirlins attempt at improving Dominion?
Dominion is that beast mode? I may have to persuade somebody into dropping some money on it. Anybody else play Ascensions? My group was on it for a couple of weeks but I’m not big on it; I dislike it for the same reasons I dislike Munchkin (somebody can spend too many turns unable to do anything and its really easy to lame somebody out).
DUDE.
Risk
Risk 2210 (the best, hands down)
Risk GodStorm
Risk Lord of the Rings
Risk (that new one… you know.)
I also have a soft spot for Cranium.
Dominion is a really, really good game. There are several things it does that other games don’t that make it pretty addictive.
A) Every game feels different for the most part seeing as you get 10 random stacks of kingdom cards to work with.
B) Even when there are ‘broken’ strats on the board it’s up for the players to figure out what’s really powerful in that specific set.
C) Games rarely last longer than 30-45 minutes after people have learned how to play. Obviously that lets get more games in and more bang for your buck.
But most importantly, while there have been other games that are kinda like Dominion, each and every one of them just falls by the way side now. For instance, I own this card game Race for the Galaxy which I used to think was AMAZING. I still find it fun to play every now and then, but I’d be kidding myself if I said it was anything other than Dominion that caused a 95% decrease in RftG time.
The first day I bought Dominion I was itching for some people to play with. So I called up my friends and saw what they were doing, they said they had time to play a new game but they had a ton of shit to do that Friday night. They had dinner reservations and a show to go to. When I showed up with Dominion 2 games in my buddy Tony gets on the phone and I hear “Yeah cancel the reservation…and I’m not even sure about seeing that band. I’m thinking delivery.” We ended up playing Dominion from about 5 pm to 1-2 AM and all other plans were thrown out the door.
If you’re planning on getting Dominion the expansions are really good. Personally I still think Intrigue has the best set of cards of any of the ‘big’ sets and you either need it or the base set to start playing. The only bad expansion (read: terrrible) is Alchemy. Don’t touch it, don’t even look at it. It doesn’t exist.
Yeah he definitely started riding the wave of Dominion’s success. To be fair, he wasn’t the only one to try it, but essentially it’s Dominion where you’re trying to eliminate your opponent puzzle fighter style rather than out score them. What I’ve heard about it is if you like player interaction then it’s good for you. As fun as Dominion is there are definitely sets of cards that can devolve to 4 player solitaire, and the very nature of Puzzle Strike would preclude that from happening. The down side is that even though it’s considered a 2-4 player game I constantly hear about how really you just want to play it 2 player style. Many people find the chips that the game uses aggravating as well. By this day and age I’d hope most of us could shuffle cards in a semi-competent manner.
I’ll be honest though I have a grudge against Sirlin. His website promoting his games as “Premium designer games” is just a dick move. How many board games has he made? 3? Most of these games just borrow heavily from other games with a fighting game theme slapped on. Yomi is $100 for what essentially boils down to a nuanced rock paper scissors game for fucks sakes. I hate how on the front of his page he explains that he spends years making sure the game is balanced and fun for everyone as if other game designers don’t do that. I have no idea how much time Uwe Rosenberg spent developing Agricola but I’d be willing to bet he didn’t just shit something into his hands over night and call it a board game. Donald Vaccarino apparently made 7 sets of Dominion cards before he even released the base set even.
Anwyays, end rant. Here’s my board game collection along with my ratings on what I have.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/collection/user/Irennicus?own=1&subtype=boardgame&ff=1
I see that you have Power Grid. Do you play often? My friend has it and we’ve played only once or twice and found that the dominant strat is to just start on a piece of the board where the connections are the lowest and just go from there. Then you just save up and buy the largest power plants you can afford. Does the game get any deeper?
Has anyone played Last Night on Earth? It’s a zombie survival game. My sis has it but I’ve never played it because someone said that one side (either humans or zombies) are overpowered and unbalanced.
You know when we first touched Alchemy the game we had was 100% bias to Alchemy.
It was pretty bad, considering how limited of options the first turn was as well "lets all get herbalists guys!"
It was just basically transmute/FAMILIAR and shit.
So we tried to mix alchemy in sometimes but it’s not really the best either, and we def agreed to just get rid of possession, we had this pretty awful game of masquerades, possessions, saboteur, so the game was pretty slow as dick.
but yeah not gonna lie, i have played this game hella since i started, its mad addicting.
you know if you wanna hit us up on netplay for dominion you can try irc.mizuumi.net and #vp and talk to like me or brett or something. (most likely not tonight cause shits going on)
You gave Apples to Apples a 3? hahahaha (in serious need of the old smiley). Why the hate?
Didn’t see any domino board in your game collection. Nobody gets down with the tiles? I’m required to or they remove my Puerto Rican license.
We want the card sleeves from this, but that is like $60 a set not including shipping.
Alchemy is horrible. Seaside is good, prosperity is ok, cornucopia is… I dunno. I don’t like having to set up extra shit to play the game.
Is Adventurer a bad card or is it just me? It can work in a game with something like bank, but for the most part it just doesn’t seem that useful, especially considering the 6 cost.
It’s more important to start further away from your opponents even accepting larger connection costs than starting next to them and ending up having to pay multiple connection costs just to get your cities running. Either way, the key to the game is to watch out when a plant that fuels 5+ cities hits the board. Unless the resource market currently really doesn’t allow for it you’re usually safe spending shit tons of money on it. The reason is because of the 3 plant limit so each plant that fuels 5/6 cities becomes incredibly valuable especially when they show up early game. I often times save my money first turn or two in the hopes of buying good plants later on. If you spend money on 2’s and 3’s then your set will never fund more than 9 cities tops which isn’t a good game ending position, not to mention you’ve spent lots of money on inadaquate plants along the way. This isn’t to say you should never buy a 3 plant, but you should stay away from them for the most part.
How long does it take to “get” Dominion? All this talk makes me intrigued…
[LEFT]
[/LEFT]
[LEFT]Dominion is extremely easy to get into. I find I can show it to just about anyone and they can “get it” in a few minutes and have fun. It remains simple while having enough depth (and variation, due to the nature of the gameplay) to be intersting for a LONG time.[/LEFT]
[LEFT]It’s not my very favorite board/card game I own (that honor probably goes to Cosmic Encounter), but it may just be the one that hits the table the most frequently since it’s fun for everyone, seasoned gamers and normal people alike. [/LEFT]
[LEFT]Definitely a classic that belongs in everyone’s collection[/LEFT]
[LEFT]If you wanna read more about what the actual gameplay is like to see if it sounds interesting to you: **[COLOR=#000000]Dominion Review **[/COLOR][/LEFT]
[LEFT]P.S. Dominion has the base game, and then a bunch of “expansions.” The way I’d recommend doing it if you wanna try it is to get the base game Dominion, which is by far the easiest to learn and covers all of the basic “staple” cards, and then you’ll want to expand it because the base game alone can feel sort of “tame” if you’re used to more meaty games. It’s an intersting game, sure, but it doesn’t come close to reaching its potential until the more interesting cards are added in by the expansions (Particularly Intrigue, Seaside, and Prosperity)[/LEFT]
[LEFT]
[/LEFT]
[LEFT]I don’t see Sirlin talking his own games up as an insult to other games or designers. Sirlin is a good designer, he’s 3 for 3 with me so far. Maybe it’s the Street Fighter fan within me, but I’ve really enjoyed his rethemes of other games with Puzzle Strike and Flash Duel and don’t mind that they aren’t entirely original. As far as Yomi goes, it’s an original concept as far as I know and it’s pretty impressive how close he came to replicating the “feel” of playing a fighting game with cards.[/LEFT]
[LEFT]For what they are, though, his games do come off as quite expensive compared to other games, but then again the card quality in Yomi is much higher than something like Dominion.[/LEFT]
[LEFT]By the way Irennicus, what player counts do you think Agricola is most fun at? I’ve only tried the 2 and 4 player game so far.[/LEFT]
[LEFT]
[/COLOR][/LEFT]
[LEFT]Cool, here’s mine[/LEFT]
[LEFT]Some games I’m interested in trying out and possibly adding to my collection:[/LEFT]
[LEFT]**Nightfall - **New player vs player deck building game, some guys at my local group were saying that it dethrones Puzzle Strike as the premier player vs player deck builder. Anyone play it?[/LEFT]
[LEFT]**Starcraft **- Since I’m a huge fan of the computer game, I’ve always had my eye on this board game, but I’ve heard so many complaints about it being too long and drawn out and perhaps too complex for most people to bother with. Anyone play it?[/LEFT]
[LEFT]**1960: Making of the President - **I don’t even like politics, but I think a game about winning a presidential election is a really cool theme. Plus I could really use some more good 2 player games to round out my collection. Anyone play it?[/LEFT]
[LEFT]Next game I’ll get is probably **Battlestar Galactica. **Hate the show but the board game is cool.[/LEFT]
whoa whoa whoa
what’s this about chess with whirlwinds
sounds extreme
I’ve played scrabble with my grandparents and its brutal.
My grandma was kicked out of her local scrabble circle for knowing and using the 2 letter words you only see in scrabble dictionaries.
^ Scrabble is pretty gangster, they have an online community for it on Wordbiz and those guys destroy.
the grape escapeeeeeeeee
I’ve played Apples to Apples too much probably. If you had asked me for a rating after playing it only a couple of times I’d have given it an 8/9. After playing it a lot there’s nothing I dread more. It’s a game that I bring out in the face of nothing better to do now.