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Zeeroh Wrote:lies!
I'm curious which games you've played... I've never even heard of space pirates. 
I highly recommend the geek for the purpose of finding which games are worth buying - and for you vllad, I'd recommend Shogun, Twilight Imperium, or battlelore.
Quite a few of them (as a whole) do fall into that multi-player solitaire catagory - but the good ones have enough player interaction that you can still screw over your opponents while getting the goods yerself.
Incidentally - the only "space pirate" game I could find was by Steve Jackson (his games suck, sorry) called "SPANC - Space Pirate Amazon Ninja Catgirls" - I'm worried for you.
Instead of de-railing the other thread Zeeroh I thought I would bring it here.
Euro games are the masters of taking out any adverserail strategy in their products. They obviously don't play test their products very well either.
Dophuz and I go to a con every year and play not only our old standards but we always play new products. We can't get more then one or two plays out of Euro games because either they are to boring or they are broken.
Let me list them based on that criteria.
Boring:
Setters lf Cataan
Puerto Rico
Space Smuggler
Age of Renessiance
Broken:
Twilight Imperium
Race for the Galaxy
Kingdoms
Shadows over Camelot
These are the ones that come to mind. (Dophuz and I have played at least 20 more in the last 5 years) Twilight Imperium which you mentioned could have been something good. The way they assign the victory points are a joke. You can't hide VP's nor can you make them random. You could end up playing a race that has no chance to win however you never know if you are playing one of them since the VP's aren't revealed until the 10th turn or so.
They just plain didn't play test the game like it should have been.
Euro games are like soccer mom's. They don't want people to have to compete. Any game that doesn't require adverserial events to transpire in order to win is a failure in my opinion.
Granted I am comparing this to the games I grew up playing. The best games in my opinion on the market are all games that are not newer then 1991. Maybe if you grew up playing those games one just can not enjoy the crap they put out today.
The best board games ever made are:
Titan
Brittania
Empire and Arms
Diplomacy
Machiavelli
Republic of Rome
World in Flames
Avalon Hill Civil War series
East Front (Block version)
Arkam Horror
Once you play the games above playing a Euro game is like comparing "The Backstree Boys" to "Mozart".
Granted computer games have made games like Empire and Arms and World in Flames obsolete and I can live with that.
While I appreciate what Euro games have done for the board gaming community lets not pretend it has raised the bar. It is sad that when we left the con last labor day we had to discuss putting the TimJim guys back together to create some new board games to play so we could actually having something to play that doesn't make us yawn or throw it back in the box with in the first two turns.
Vllad
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Wow you are the only other person I've ever heard mention Arkham Horror. I see there is a new edition out, do you know if it the same as the old one?
Also, obviously Euro board games suck.. Everything about Europe sucks except the vacation time.
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Vllad, you didn't list Axis and Allies!
"Hamilton is really a Colossus to the anti republican party. Without numbers he is an host within himself. They have got themselves into a defile where they might be finished but too much security on the republican part will give time to his talents and indefatigableness to extricate them. We have had only middling performances to oppose to him. In truth when he comes forward there is nobody but yourself who can meet him. His adversaries having begun the attack he has the advantage of answering them and remains unanswered himself. For God's sake take up your pen and give a fundamental reply to Curtius and Camillas" - Thomas Jefferson to James Madison
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Titan is indeed fucking amazing.
I do enjoy Axis and Allies, altho recognize it has major problems. My friends and I also played Buck Rogers a TON when we were in high school, but Im sure my nostalgia for it outweighs the actually awesomeness of the game:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/548">http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/548</a><!-- m -->
My friends and I had somewhat of a Renaissance in gaming in our mid 20s, we did enjoy Settler's of Catan. We also got a kick out of Illuminati <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28">http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28</a><!-- m --> and Munchkin <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1927">http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1927</a><!-- m --> I will be the 1st to admit that both of those games should be taken with a grain of salt, but to us sitting around on a Friday night, drinking up a storm, these games were fun.
Extra credit also goes to the Buffy board game <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/805">http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/805</a><!-- m -->
and Star Wars Duels
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3284">http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3284</a><!-- m -->
Both games where we expected nothing from them, but they were actually pretty fun.
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I really liked Peurto Rico
Twilight Imperium I have played about 3-4 times. I dont remember it that well at the moment but besides it taking hours upon to play I remember it being fun too (though something does get the momry going about some races being FUBAR)
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Risk??
Chess??
Monopoly??
chutes and ladders??
Ive never actually played any of those board games except Catan, which is fun, but its not a real pvp type game. Not a huge amount of strategy.
Maul, the Bashing Shamie
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Arkam Horror has been totally revamped. It is one of the few games that have been fixed over time kind of like "History of the World". (Which is the best totally broken game of all time. History of the World would have gone on my list but it has a fatal flaw that I just can't get past)
Arkam has some decent expansions however the problem is if you play with the cool expansions the game gets to easy. If you want a real challenge just stick with the basic versions. Its to bad because the expansions are cool.
Axis and Allies is broken. I have used that game as an example before on this board. They didn't play test it enough. The Axis can't win if the Allies players are anything other then newbs.
(Spoiler if you play it regularly)
The Russians just need to build nothing but shit loads of infantry and plant it in the way of Germany. Germany can't build enough units to compete with the dice that Russia can throw. Throwing 30 dice needing 1's will out strip out anything the Germans can throw at them. Germany can only counter by throwing shit loads of infantry themselves. The problem with that is they can't advance if they take that route.
The only slim chance the Axis has is for Japan to roll well at Hawaii and then build pure armies and race for Moscow. IF Germany can hold out and Japan can reach Moscow then just maybe the Axis can win before the U.S. ruins Japans day. If the U.S. does their job though it is impossible for the Axis to win. With experienced players the Allies will win 9 out of 10 games.
Vllad
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Oh and how could I forget. probably the best gaming experience ever:
A couple of my friends developed a game I played over the span of two years that we called Kingdom. There was about 10 people playing. It was a combination of D&D and boardgame warfare. We had a gigantic map that took up half of my friend's basement, and was all hand drawn by us with hexes on oaktag. Each of us was a King/Leader of a Kingdom, I was King of the Ogres, another was King of the Dwarves...a Chaos Lord, a powerful mage with a tower and undead armies, Wood Elves, Humans led by a Paladin, the works. We used D&D for our Kings, we started with our characters being max level in class or mix, I started as a Warrior and after an audience with the Ogre god, became a cleric too.
We had a kingdom with armies. Armies couldnt be expanded unless our empire expanded. We had a table for dice rolls in combat. Each troop had a base attack value and then a base magic value. (Like I had Orge warrior troops with a 5 value, and then some Ogre Magi troops with a 4 +2M value). There were value points on the map, like gold mines or whatever that gave bonus gold to build up more troops or defenses, etc.
It was just an amazing time we had. It was at its base level a war strategy game, but there was also a roleplaying component that would always have a massive effect on the game as well. The only negative is the time component, the Game Master spent way too much time dealing with each player on a one by one basis because of the roleplay component so a lot of time was spent waiting for them to stop talking.
But the strategy component was just amazing and so realistic. It was very difficult to expand your empire, because any movement you made would have major repurcussions. I remember moving in to take over an NPC kingdom of Mounatin Dwarves for their gold mine and the player who was leader of the main Dwarven Kingdom told me if I moved on him he'd send a fleet down to deal with me, and we was way more powerful than me. So I went to the evil mage player and he offered some of his undead armies in return for half the gold profits from the mine. Just neat stuff like that that no board game could duplicate.
I know the creator of it always tried to turn it into a marketable game, but was never the motivated type to pull it off. The map is always a big issue. I mean it was literally 12 feet by 8 feet. Maybe in today's day in age they could make the map a PC based component.
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Vllad Wrote:Axis and Allies is broken. I have used that game as an example before on this board. They didn't play test it enough. The Axis can't win if the Allies players are anything other then newbs.
(Spoiler if you play it regularly)
The Russians just need to build nothing but shit loads of infantry and plant it in the way of Germany. Germany can't build enough units to compete with the dice that Russia can throw. Throwing 30 dice needing 1's will out strip out anything the Germans can throw at them. Germany can only counter by throwing shit loads of infantry themselves. The problem with that is they can't advance if they take that route.
The only slim chance the Axis has is for Japan to roll well at Hawaii and then build pure armies and race for Moscow. IF Germany can hold out and Japan can reach Moscow then just maybe the Axis can win before the U.S. ruins Japans day. If the U.S. does their job though it is impossible for the Axis to win. With experienced players the Allies will win 9 out of 10 games.
Vllad
Yeah that's exactly the case, but theyve made major changes in their 2004 release that balances both sides, altho while I own it, I have not actually played it. But they increased tank defense value to make them more desirable over piling up infantry, and they added artillery which you can bring with an attack that raise the attack value of infantry by a point, thereby making them more useful for invasion. I'd give it another shot and see what happens. They also change the map (particularly Eastern Europe) to prevent heavy fortifications, and they made the South Pacific more profitable to control.
they have an explanation of the rule changes in the wikipedia entry:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_and_Allies">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_and_Allies</a><!-- m -->
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I thoroughly enjoyed Britannia as well, god it's been years since i played it though, i need to get my geek street cred up and go to Dragon con this year.
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free online A&A with the balanced rules:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://www.gametableonline.com/gameinfo.php?gid=24">https://www.gametableonline.com/gameinfo.php?gid=24</a><!-- m -->
check it out Vllad and if anyone wants to play lets get it on! name is breetai3 on there.
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Venganza Wrote:I thoroughly enjoyed Britannia as well, god it's been years since i played it though, i need to get my geek street cred up and go to Dragon con this year.
Don't buy the newer version of Britannia. They screwed it up. Personally I think it is the best game ever made. I understand the argument for Titan but Britannia is perfect to me.
You have to play the original version though. That is what happens when you screw with perfection. People have tried to steal Britannia and recreate is and you end up with games like Taj Mahal. Which is the worst game Avalon Hill ever put out. It is the Ryan Leaf of board games.
Vllad
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I agree regarding the handicapped Germans in A & A. I didn't realize the problem was so drastic though. I probably have not played it nearly as much as others since (for me) it's a "once a year at the beach" game.
I'll need to check out the 2004 update. I think we bought it pre 2000.
"Hamilton is really a Colossus to the anti republican party. Without numbers he is an host within himself. They have got themselves into a defile where they might be finished but too much security on the republican part will give time to his talents and indefatigableness to extricate them. We have had only middling performances to oppose to him. In truth when he comes forward there is nobody but yourself who can meet him. His adversaries having begun the attack he has the advantage of answering them and remains unanswered himself. For God's sake take up your pen and give a fundamental reply to Curtius and Camillas" - Thomas Jefferson to James Madison
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Breand's idea is something you could probably do relatively easily as a PC game.
If you eliminate the need for a computer player and you are satisfied with fairly basic tile graphics then you could probably build it with relatively little trouble.
It's the AI and the graphics that makes computer games so hard to make.
On the other hand, I'm not sure how well the physical experience of board gaming will translate to PC gaming.
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I just played the online A&A in single player mode. Very interesting, some major changes from the old game. The Eastern European front becomes a real strategy because they broke it up into 4 regions, so both sides need to spread out their fortifications.
The Brits seem to get more troops in Africa and India to start. They also have a Navy in India which I dont seem to remember them having. And the Germans have more of a Navy, a few extra subs...and they have destroyers, new ship type.
Definitely check it out, it's pretty damn fun.
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