Wow, well done. Looks fantastic. You should definitely put together a CP tutorial game.
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Yeah, I'd be totally down to host a CP tutorial game night. I've got a flexible schedule most weekday afternoons and weeknights, so if there's interest just post here or PM me, and I'll set something up.
Great Western Trail with Rails to the North expansion - this is my favorite game hands down. The expansion did so much for the game. It is way harder and way more interesting. I love it.
Splendor - my wife and I got a few smaller games to play on a weekday nights that don't take too long, and this one is a lot of fun. A game takes less than half an hour and it's about collecting cards that you pay for with different gems.
Terraforming Mars - I'm still a pretty big fan of this game even though it's not as good as some of my favorite Euro games. We have all the expansion sets but haven't tried them a yet. I don't think this game deserves the ranking it gets in board game geek but it's still fun. My wife kicks my ass every time.
Dinosaur Island - this is a pretty fun game, but there are some gripes. The dinosaurs in each level all have the same threat and excitement level, which makes collecting them boring. The water expansion pack changes this for marine dinosaurs, but they should have done the same for all dinosaurs.
Arboretum - this is another fun little short game that gets pretty competitive. Another good weeknight game.
Welcome to your perfect home - again a shorter weeknight game.
Wingspan - another game that isn't nearly as good as the board game geek rating into, but it's fun to play. It's a beautiful game with great artwork and a ton of different birds to collect.
Brass Birmingham - probably my second favorite game. It was so hard to play and get into at first but persistence has paid off. Just amazing.
Two other we have but haven't dived into yet are Teotihuacan and Maracaibo. Maracaibo has been attempted a couple of times but it hasn't grabbed us as of yet.
__________________
But living an honest life - for that you need the truth. That's the other thing I learned that day, that the truth, however shocking or uncomfortable, leads to liberation and dignity. -Ricky Gervais
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Great Western Trail with Rails to the North expansion - this is my favorite game hands down. The expansion did so much for the game. It is way harder and way more interesting. I love it.
Splendor - my wife and I got a few smaller games to play on a weekday nights that don't take too long, and this one is a lot of fun. A game takes less than half an hour and it's about collecting cards that you pay for with different gems.
Terraforming Mars - I'm still a pretty big fan of this game even though it's not as good as some of my favorite Euro games. We have all the expansion sets but haven't tried them a yet. I don't think this game deserves the ranking it gets in board game geek but it's still fun. My wife kicks my ass every time.
Dinosaur Island - this is a pretty fun game, but there are some gripes. The dinosaurs in each level all have the same threat and excitement level, which makes collecting them boring. The water expansion pack changes this for marine dinosaurs, but they should have done the same for all dinosaurs.
Arboretum - this is another fun little short game that gets pretty competitive. Another good weeknight game.
Welcome to your perfect home - again a shorter weeknight game.
Wingspan - another game that isn't nearly as good as the board game geek rating into, but it's fun to play. It's a beautiful game with great artwork and a ton of different birds to collect.
Brass Birmingham - probably my second favorite game. It was so hard to play and get into at first but persistence has paid off. Just amazing.
Two other we have but haven't dived into yet are Teotihuacan and Maracaibo. Maracaibo has been attempted a couple of times but it hasn't grabbed us as of yet.
I like GWT but haven't played the expansion yet. Splendor is a good quick simple game. Terraforming Mars is a great long engine builder. Have not played Dinosaur Island. Arboretum is fantastic. Have not played Welcome To but the North American publisher is rather disgusting so I never will.
Wingspan is the single most overrated game I've ever played. Complete garbage. Wouldn't take a copy if you gave it to me.
Not gotten around to playing my copy of Brass Birmingham yet but everyone I respect says that Brass:Lancashire, which I've played the app version, is the superior game.
I played Teotihuacan once. That was enough for me. It's a totally mediocre game. Not played Maricaibo. My other Alexander Pfister games don't get played enough.
What's the back story on the publisher of Welcome To being garbage?
__________________
But living an honest life - for that you need the truth. That's the other thing I learned that day, that the truth, however shocking or uncomfortable, leads to liberation and dignity. -Ricky Gervais
Wait, I'm not the only one who thinks Wingspan is mediocre?
LIke, it's okay, but you don't see enough birds to really make the choices you would want to, and there's nothing super exciting about it. It's just a rather generic engine builder.
Wait, I'm not the only one who thinks Wingspan is mediocre?
LIke, it's okay, but you don't see enough birds to really make the choices you would want to, and there's nothing super exciting about it. It's just a rather generic engine builder.
The European expansion makes it better, with more paths to victory. Some prefer to play with 6 birds face-up on offer, instead of 3 (to reduce luck of the draw). I think it is deeper than most people realize, and good players are hard to beat.
Honestly I think this is one of the hardest qualities to get into a game design, and I don't mean that I want the game design to be novel, but to be able to make exciting plays when I play it. I would like to find more games that are well designed and exciting.
I personally still love Catan, even though it's not well-regarded by modern standards. I feel like every build you make is a big play, particularly if it's contested. In terms of engine builders, nothing in Wingspan is as satisfying as getting down that big 6-cost in Race for the Galaxy that synergizes with your board, or sniping an award in Terraforming Mars with a card that you drafted at the start of the game.
Maybe what I mean by exciting is actually player interaction? But then I wouldn't really say that Agricola is particularly exciting, even though the interactions are very cutthroat.
Btw I do agree that the Euro expansion improves Wingspan, but I don't really think it brings more excitement, just better balance. Perhaps what excites me is to be able to use balanced components to do unbalanced things, and that's what Wingspan doesn't really offer? A lot of the birds are just variations on "when activated: gain a point". Sometimes I do things that I feel should be strong plays, but then when the points are added up it's like "I don't know why I bothered". (And if I were playing slower, I might know that in advance, but that's less like gaming and more like working.)
Just finished a game of Teotihuacan and all I can say is I'm underwhelmed. I have to give games more chances but man I'd sell this one right now if I could. I know a game like Brass Birmingham took awhile for me to get into and now I love it but this one...I don't know. I never felt capable of amassing many resources. I didn't like landing in an area and owing all of my cocoa because there was ready too many dice there. The final scoring was anticlimactic.
My opinions I think are sometimes unpopular. I can't stand Feast For Odin for example. But Teotihuacan...not sure I see many up sides.
__________________
But living an honest life - for that you need the truth. That's the other thing I learned that day, that the truth, however shocking or uncomfortable, leads to liberation and dignity. -Ricky Gervais
Teotihuacan takes many plays to get better at, and then it can be very satisfying. I can understand not wanting to put that much commitment into it. Good players do accumulate plenty of resources (using technologies, placing multiple dice). The action board set-up is important, and I would avoid taking an action that is already full of other dice. The worship action and mask gathering is normally of limited use in the base game, but become more powerful with the expansions. I'm still not great at it, but my scores are improving.
This was my second highest score ever, and I still lost by 39 points. The game is hard to master, but I am consistently scoring better. The winner took the lead in the last two rounds with some masterful planning - multiple dice on the construction board and two ascensions.
I like that the game is a big puzzle - trying to coordinate your actions into big combinations. More tactical than strategic. But, there is definitely a big learning curve to score well.
While not new games, my copies of Mansions of Madness and Arboretum arrived this week and I am excited to play them this weekend. I've played both editions of Mansions a few times each over the years and it's a game I really enjoy. I feel like FFG put way more effort into the app for Mansions then they did for Imperial Assault which is a shame.
We recently got Castles of Burgundy, Underwater Cities, and Twilight Struggle is on the way. Oh, and Five Tribes arrived. I can't blame my wife for these purchases anymore. I'm complicit.
We played Castles of Burgundy today and it is a lot of fun. It doesn't produce the stress levels that slightly more complex games do, but it's a good game. We also played Scythe today and both my wife and I love it.
__________________
But living an honest life - for that you need the truth. That's the other thing I learned that day, that the truth, however shocking or uncomfortable, leads to liberation and dignity. -Ricky Gervais
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