Boardgames lately
Jul. 25th, 2012 01:01 amHey, it's the entry I meant to write earlier. (So "lately" here stretches back a bit.) Not going to write about any games played in Boston, I already covered that.
So yeah, actually been playing boardgames once again these days. This is due to several things. As regards my friends in the math department, I'm no longer perpetually out of the loop as to what everyone is doing, and also Geoff Scott is back in town. And come August, I'm moving into Julian's/Nic's/Zach's/Kurt's office -- well, it won't be Kurt's anymore -- so I'll have access to the Dominion set whenever I want[4].
(Dark Ages previews start August 6th! I mean, OK, I hardly play Dominion compared to the others here, so I'm actually more just excited to find out what the cards do -- in particular what the hell the mysterious Ruin and Shelter are -- than to actually play with them. :P Still! I am going to be disappointed if Ruin[5] is just the old Confusion card, though I'll admit I don't have a clue as to what else it could be.)
Geoff hosted a game night too long ago, but everyone was tired and so we mostly ended up just playing Eat Poop You Cat aka Fax Machine aka Paper Game. (Yes, they called it "Paper Game".) I kept the results, maybe I'll scan some of them? Nah, I don't think I'll bother.
(Also, some time ago I played a game of Bean Game[8] against Nic, Julian, and Hunter where there were actually interesting trades made! I feel like usually most of the trading is pretty repetitive...)
As regards my friends from Truth House, Dan has injured his hands and can't play video games for several months. (It's actually pretty bad -- I mean, several months. He can't click a mouse without hurting his hands. He uses dwell click, apparently. I assume he must not have too much trouble with a keyboard or he couldn't really do his job very well, though I must say that's a little puzzling. Maybe he's typing two-fingered?)
So he's been playing a bunch of Chess against Mike Milligan and me. I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned this before but I am *horrid* at Chess. I have now gotten a tiny bit better, but I'm still terrible. In particular: I still every now and then just totally fail to notice that one of my pieces is (or will be after I move) be under threat from a piece all the way across the board.
I say that I'm now a tiny bit better -- though I still haven't won a single game against Dan[0] -- because I've learned two things. (And yes, these are really basic. Like I said, I'm really bad at Chess.)
1. Instead of protecting my pieces by retreating, I can protect them, by, y'know, using protection.
2. Offensive pressure! (In particular, I may be able to protect one of my pieces by threatening the opposing queen.)
Both these, though really basic, just don't seem to be part of how I think naturally; I had to explicitly learn them. Actually, I remember having to explicitly figure out an equivalent of #1 back when I was playing Kongai[3]. When I started out, I tried to play around whatever seemed like the worst thing the opponent could do to me (judging by damage and proc). It took me a while to realize (some obvious cases, namely super-moves like Chi Blast, excepted) that oftentimes my opponent might not *want* to do this, because it cost enough energy that it would leave them in a bad position. Once I learned to start watching my opponent's energy meter not just to determine what they could do but what they would likely want to do, I started doing much better.
Anyway I also introduced Dan and Milligan to Nexus Ops, which seems to have become an instant hit. Apparently there's a new edition of it, and it's now being published by FFG? Yeah, there's no way I'm getting that. More on that later.
I also played Yinsh against Dan once. I used to not understand the strategy, now I really don't understand the strategy. After Dan realized the strategic value of corner spaces in the first game, the second game got played mostly around the edges, with hardly anyone able to score any points, until the game ended in a draw when we ran out of pieces. I had no idea there was a rule for what happens when you run out of pieces, but there is one -- the game is a draw. So yes, I'm considerably more confused now. Maybe I should actually go read about it online? I don't think I'll bother.
Also Dan and Milligan want to play AGoT sometime. I think Eric Gamble's somewhere in town, guess we could get him for a fourth? Not Sherri, certainly. Oh man -- Dan and Milligan convinced me to play this stupid game called Blasphemy that Dan's brother got for free. It's just this stupid roll-and-move game, hardly any meaningful decisions; it's supposed to be making fun of the gospels? Except there isn't anything actually funny about it. I don't know, Dan and Milligan and Sherri all thought it was hilarious for some reason. :-/ In any case, that, Sherri will play. (Actually, the rules are surprisingly complicated for a game whose outcome is essentially random, so I guess it's not rules complexity she has a problem with. :P ) That, and Cards Against Humanity[7] (aka, exactly the same thing as Apples to Apples[6], but dark and/or offensive and/or raunchy), which, since I've now played it, let me actually make a comment on. You may recall, there was an expansion for Apples to Apples where all the cards were pairs of things? Which I thought was horrible? A lot of the cards in Cards Against Humanity have the same problem -- overcomplicated concepts. The humor should come from the novel combination of the cards, not from individual cards. Not to mention such overly-specific cards are just kind of hard to use.
In any case, I was thinking about picking up the second edition of AGoT; it looks like it's probably better overall (though more complicated, because it has ports; I'm going to finally have to actually internalize how those work). Although the "when you get the Iron Throne you get it immediately" rule seems stupid; I guess we can just play without that.
I don't know; getting the second edition of a game I already have just seems kind of off to me. But then, I've always been something of a stingy bastard. (I get maybe one game every few years, probably? Well, OK, that's more because until just recently, they really weren't getting played much. I think I bought a bunch of them back in high school.) If I do get it, I should get it soon, because I certainly don't want to have to explain both first *and* second edition rules to Dan and the rest (or whoever I play with). Actually, I went into Get Your Game On today to see how much it cost, and I saw that now there's a new edition of Nexus Ops as well -- published by Fantasy Flight now. Definitely no need for that. (I think FFG added like $20 to the price, might I add.) And of course they have the third edition of Twilight Struggle -- but that's been around for years, I still have no intention of picking that up. (Though I just learned, apparently at one time there was an upgrade kit for those with first or second edition? It doesn't seem to be available anymore, unfortunately.) Which reminds me, Trades of Genoa has for quite some time now just been Genoa (but I don't think they changed anything, aside from making the colors of the cubes easier to tell apart). And there's the second edition of Flash Duel. Hm, actually, maybe I should pick that up as well, though they don't have that at GYGO, I'll have to order it...
-Harry
[0]I did win one game against Milligan. Still not quite sure how.
[3]I still play Kongai on occasion; there's a tiny number of people still playing. Still waiting for Kongregate to get on with issuing rereleases of the item cards. Would be nice if someone could, like, buy it from them or something, but that's not going to happen.
[4]Some of the expansions were originally bought by Nic, some by Ari, but it's generally agreed now that they're all property of Hunter. Nonetheless, none of them are kept in his office. We'll see who pays for Dark Ages, I guess.
[5]Confusion was a card that was in early playtest versions of Dominion before being removed from the final game for being redundant. It was the same as a Curse, except it was worth 0 instead of -1. All we know about Ruin so far is that (like Confusion) it's something bad that you give your opponents instead of a Curse.
[6]OK, so it adds the innovation of having ones where you have to play multiple cards on it.
[7]Am I the only one whose thought on seeing this name is to take it literally?
[8]What Hunter and I call Bohnanza. We seem to have come up with the label independently.
So yeah, actually been playing boardgames once again these days. This is due to several things. As regards my friends in the math department, I'm no longer perpetually out of the loop as to what everyone is doing, and also Geoff Scott is back in town. And come August, I'm moving into Julian's/Nic's/Zach's/Kurt's office -- well, it won't be Kurt's anymore -- so I'll have access to the Dominion set whenever I want[4].
(Dark Ages previews start August 6th! I mean, OK, I hardly play Dominion compared to the others here, so I'm actually more just excited to find out what the cards do -- in particular what the hell the mysterious Ruin and Shelter are -- than to actually play with them. :P Still! I am going to be disappointed if Ruin[5] is just the old Confusion card, though I'll admit I don't have a clue as to what else it could be.)
Geoff hosted a game night too long ago, but everyone was tired and so we mostly ended up just playing Eat Poop You Cat aka Fax Machine aka Paper Game. (Yes, they called it "Paper Game".) I kept the results, maybe I'll scan some of them? Nah, I don't think I'll bother.
(Also, some time ago I played a game of Bean Game[8] against Nic, Julian, and Hunter where there were actually interesting trades made! I feel like usually most of the trading is pretty repetitive...)
As regards my friends from Truth House, Dan has injured his hands and can't play video games for several months. (It's actually pretty bad -- I mean, several months. He can't click a mouse without hurting his hands. He uses dwell click, apparently. I assume he must not have too much trouble with a keyboard or he couldn't really do his job very well, though I must say that's a little puzzling. Maybe he's typing two-fingered?)
So he's been playing a bunch of Chess against Mike Milligan and me. I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned this before but I am *horrid* at Chess. I have now gotten a tiny bit better, but I'm still terrible. In particular: I still every now and then just totally fail to notice that one of my pieces is (or will be after I move) be under threat from a piece all the way across the board.
I say that I'm now a tiny bit better -- though I still haven't won a single game against Dan[0] -- because I've learned two things. (And yes, these are really basic. Like I said, I'm really bad at Chess.)
1. Instead of protecting my pieces by retreating, I can protect them, by, y'know, using protection.
2. Offensive pressure! (In particular, I may be able to protect one of my pieces by threatening the opposing queen.)
Both these, though really basic, just don't seem to be part of how I think naturally; I had to explicitly learn them. Actually, I remember having to explicitly figure out an equivalent of #1 back when I was playing Kongai[3]. When I started out, I tried to play around whatever seemed like the worst thing the opponent could do to me (judging by damage and proc). It took me a while to realize (some obvious cases, namely super-moves like Chi Blast, excepted) that oftentimes my opponent might not *want* to do this, because it cost enough energy that it would leave them in a bad position. Once I learned to start watching my opponent's energy meter not just to determine what they could do but what they would likely want to do, I started doing much better.
Anyway I also introduced Dan and Milligan to Nexus Ops, which seems to have become an instant hit. Apparently there's a new edition of it, and it's now being published by FFG? Yeah, there's no way I'm getting that. More on that later.
I also played Yinsh against Dan once. I used to not understand the strategy, now I really don't understand the strategy. After Dan realized the strategic value of corner spaces in the first game, the second game got played mostly around the edges, with hardly anyone able to score any points, until the game ended in a draw when we ran out of pieces. I had no idea there was a rule for what happens when you run out of pieces, but there is one -- the game is a draw. So yes, I'm considerably more confused now. Maybe I should actually go read about it online? I don't think I'll bother.
Also Dan and Milligan want to play AGoT sometime. I think Eric Gamble's somewhere in town, guess we could get him for a fourth? Not Sherri, certainly. Oh man -- Dan and Milligan convinced me to play this stupid game called Blasphemy that Dan's brother got for free. It's just this stupid roll-and-move game, hardly any meaningful decisions; it's supposed to be making fun of the gospels? Except there isn't anything actually funny about it. I don't know, Dan and Milligan and Sherri all thought it was hilarious for some reason. :-/ In any case, that, Sherri will play. (Actually, the rules are surprisingly complicated for a game whose outcome is essentially random, so I guess it's not rules complexity she has a problem with. :P ) That, and Cards Against Humanity[7] (aka, exactly the same thing as Apples to Apples[6], but dark and/or offensive and/or raunchy), which, since I've now played it, let me actually make a comment on. You may recall, there was an expansion for Apples to Apples where all the cards were pairs of things? Which I thought was horrible? A lot of the cards in Cards Against Humanity have the same problem -- overcomplicated concepts. The humor should come from the novel combination of the cards, not from individual cards. Not to mention such overly-specific cards are just kind of hard to use.
In any case, I was thinking about picking up the second edition of AGoT; it looks like it's probably better overall (though more complicated, because it has ports; I'm going to finally have to actually internalize how those work). Although the "when you get the Iron Throne you get it immediately" rule seems stupid; I guess we can just play without that.
I don't know; getting the second edition of a game I already have just seems kind of off to me. But then, I've always been something of a stingy bastard. (I get maybe one game every few years, probably? Well, OK, that's more because until just recently, they really weren't getting played much. I think I bought a bunch of them back in high school.) If I do get it, I should get it soon, because I certainly don't want to have to explain both first *and* second edition rules to Dan and the rest (or whoever I play with). Actually, I went into Get Your Game On today to see how much it cost, and I saw that now there's a new edition of Nexus Ops as well -- published by Fantasy Flight now. Definitely no need for that. (I think FFG added like $20 to the price, might I add.) And of course they have the third edition of Twilight Struggle -- but that's been around for years, I still have no intention of picking that up. (Though I just learned, apparently at one time there was an upgrade kit for those with first or second edition? It doesn't seem to be available anymore, unfortunately.) Which reminds me, Trades of Genoa has for quite some time now just been Genoa (but I don't think they changed anything, aside from making the colors of the cubes easier to tell apart). And there's the second edition of Flash Duel. Hm, actually, maybe I should pick that up as well, though they don't have that at GYGO, I'll have to order it...
-Harry
[0]I did win one game against Milligan. Still not quite sure how.
[3]I still play Kongai on occasion; there's a tiny number of people still playing. Still waiting for Kongregate to get on with issuing rereleases of the item cards. Would be nice if someone could, like, buy it from them or something, but that's not going to happen.
[4]Some of the expansions were originally bought by Nic, some by Ari, but it's generally agreed now that they're all property of Hunter. Nonetheless, none of them are kept in his office. We'll see who pays for Dark Ages, I guess.
[5]Confusion was a card that was in early playtest versions of Dominion before being removed from the final game for being redundant. It was the same as a Curse, except it was worth 0 instead of -1. All we know about Ruin so far is that (like Confusion) it's something bad that you give your opponents instead of a Curse.
[6]OK, so it adds the innovation of having ones where you have to play multiple cards on it.
[7]Am I the only one whose thought on seeing this name is to take it literally?
[8]What Hunter and I call Bohnanza. We seem to have come up with the label independently.
