I have still been playing board games (dispite the last few console game posts). Don't really have any reviews, but here are some impressions of games. Recently played 2 games which are "top of the class" to some people: Agricola and Descent: Journeys in the Dark.
Agricola is fun. It isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread. But it is fun. If you remember my gripe about 7 Ages (seemed too gamey because when an empire you have in China produces, your empire in the middle east can only produce if you take a point penalty).
My feelings could also be the result of how I was taught Agricola. After going on and on about how difficult the game was, and how a score of 20 points was "amazing" for first time players, the two new players scored a minimum of 28 points. I had 32 on my first game (which was 2 points away from the winner).
I wasn't thinking hard at all. Maybe the game is like Blue Moon City and scores are automatically close. I enjoyed Blue Moon City better. The decisions seem harder in Blue Moon City. It is a no-brainer to take 10 wood if you have no fences and there's a pile available.
It is like In the Year of the Dragon (in that it is a role-selection and engine building game), except that there is only 1 path to victory: the balanced farm. You don't have the dynamic interplay between prestige and victory points. Unlike ItYotD you only score points at the end so there's no tension between banking points now versus setting up big points at the end of the game. As long as you sit to the left of a player that wants to go first, you also end up with decent turn order for free (slight seating issue).
Agricola is still a fine game. I'd play it again. But it isn't a great game for me.
I also played one game of Descent. Descent feels like a tactical combat game more than a dungeon crawler. Also the person playing Overlord gave us gold chests instead of copper ones so the adventurers were really overpowered for the adventure.
I never felt that the adventurers were in any danger, but figuring out the optimal approach to take out the monsters we did face was interesting.
The mechanics of the game were fun. But it is very hard to evaluate the balance of the scenario we played because it was played wrong. There seems to be a good mix of ranged, magic, and melee options. I specialized in ranged attacks so I might have missed something. Also we didn't have a melee character in the game.
I would play Descent over Agricola if offered both. With mistakes in the scenario, I don't think Descent was given a fair deal. It would be fun to play the same scenario with a different character or even as the Overlord.
Showing posts with label Z-Man Games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Z-Man Games. Show all posts
Tuesday, 12 August 2008
Tuesday, 18 March 2008
Games I'm Looking Forward To (or instantly dated post)
There are tons of games that I am looking forward to in 2008, but in the interests of brevity (and blogger's 200 character label limit), I'll be talking about two in this post. Others might follow later, depending on comments and what else is going on.
As I've written earlier, I'm a fan of Marvel Heroes, but War of the Ring isn't enjoyable for me. I mentioned that the theme turned me off War of the Ring, but there are a few more quibbles with the game. The action dice serve to limit your choices and strategy. A lot of the game is spent working against the dice (and the dice have no direct link to Tolkien's prose).
I am not the biggest fan of Robert E. Howard, in general, and Conan stories in particular, but I am anticipating Nexus's new "Age of Conan" game with the ill-patience reserved for great games. Age of Conan sounds like a re-tooling of War of the Ring. So why am I so enthused given the theme and mechanics?
Because it sounds like the fantasy war game. It is really multiplayer (unlike War of the Ring which has a fixed 2 sides there are 4 countries players can be). The action dice are back but this time in a common pool. So if I take an action it means that others might not be able to do it, too. This sounds like it will add tactical decisions instead of taking away options (as the dice is War of the Ring could do).
There is also a diplomacy mechanic so war isn't the only path to victory (I enjoy multiple viable victory paths). And Conan is in the game. Auctions to steer the "force of nature" that is Conan might be the best implementation of Conan in board game form that I've heard. It does sound a bit like the Groo game, but the level of detail on Conan's activities, decks for each player nation, cards for events in neutral countries, and so on sounds like it will bring an immersive fantasy world to the table in a way not seen.
Age of Conan is very high on my radar. Here's hoping it is a great big sprawling epic game.
The other game, I'm interested in is actually an English reprint of a game already available in German: Agricola. It is about being a farmer in Europe. The fun in this game would be the same fun in economic games (see comments on Brass, 1825 and Industrial Waste for my love of economic games): building a profitable enterprise.
It also shares limited actions that make a lot of eurogames fun for me. With only 14 turns, it appears that figuring out what needs to be done now and what can wait until later will provide a delicious tension. Blocking other players actions sounds unthematic and just a way to interject interaction into the game, but since when have euros been judged on their thematic strengths?
But wait there's more (just like the infomercials say). You also get the first few planned expansions in the box. That's something like 350 cards. The cards do seem to have combinations, but simply being dealt a good hand doesn't hand the game to you on a silver platter. You have to take an action to play cards, and who knows what the opponents will do with their action advantage over you.
There doesn't appear to be any catch-up mechanism. So if you mess up then that's that. Player elimination is fine in games. It sounds like a tough game that doesn't cut much slack (other than allowing your family members to beg for food instead of staving, but even that comes with a big cost -3 points for each mouth you can't feed).
Looking over this post there doesn't seem to be much in common between the two games I'm anticipating. But that's probably good. If every game were exactly the same as every other one, then there'd be no reason to play different games. I guess variety is the spice of life.
As I've written earlier, I'm a fan of Marvel Heroes, but War of the Ring isn't enjoyable for me. I mentioned that the theme turned me off War of the Ring, but there are a few more quibbles with the game. The action dice serve to limit your choices and strategy. A lot of the game is spent working against the dice (and the dice have no direct link to Tolkien's prose).
I am not the biggest fan of Robert E. Howard, in general, and Conan stories in particular, but I am anticipating Nexus's new "Age of Conan" game with the ill-patience reserved for great games. Age of Conan sounds like a re-tooling of War of the Ring. So why am I so enthused given the theme and mechanics?
Because it sounds like the fantasy war game. It is really multiplayer (unlike War of the Ring which has a fixed 2 sides there are 4 countries players can be). The action dice are back but this time in a common pool. So if I take an action it means that others might not be able to do it, too. This sounds like it will add tactical decisions instead of taking away options (as the dice is War of the Ring could do).
There is also a diplomacy mechanic so war isn't the only path to victory (I enjoy multiple viable victory paths). And Conan is in the game. Auctions to steer the "force of nature" that is Conan might be the best implementation of Conan in board game form that I've heard. It does sound a bit like the Groo game, but the level of detail on Conan's activities, decks for each player nation, cards for events in neutral countries, and so on sounds like it will bring an immersive fantasy world to the table in a way not seen.
Age of Conan is very high on my radar. Here's hoping it is a great big sprawling epic game.
The other game, I'm interested in is actually an English reprint of a game already available in German: Agricola. It is about being a farmer in Europe. The fun in this game would be the same fun in economic games (see comments on Brass, 1825 and Industrial Waste for my love of economic games): building a profitable enterprise.
It also shares limited actions that make a lot of eurogames fun for me. With only 14 turns, it appears that figuring out what needs to be done now and what can wait until later will provide a delicious tension. Blocking other players actions sounds unthematic and just a way to interject interaction into the game, but since when have euros been judged on their thematic strengths?
But wait there's more (just like the infomercials say). You also get the first few planned expansions in the box. That's something like 350 cards. The cards do seem to have combinations, but simply being dealt a good hand doesn't hand the game to you on a silver platter. You have to take an action to play cards, and who knows what the opponents will do with their action advantage over you.
There doesn't appear to be any catch-up mechanism. So if you mess up then that's that. Player elimination is fine in games. It sounds like a tough game that doesn't cut much slack (other than allowing your family members to beg for food instead of staving, but even that comes with a big cost -3 points for each mouth you can't feed).
Looking over this post there doesn't seem to be much in common between the two games I'm anticipating. But that's probably good. If every game were exactly the same as every other one, then there'd be no reason to play different games. I guess variety is the spice of life.
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