Notes from the Underground
In no particular order:
- Michael has clinched the AL pennant ... I split with the A's in todays set, and I believe he split or swept Scott yesterday. I'm not sure about the NL (the Mets have to play their week 7 and 8 series ... ). The Dominitable Nick Green wins the 'Golden Whiff' award, going 0-9 with 8 Ks. And as you would expect, with the Yankees out of contention today (Michael had to get swept for my series to matter) A-Rod had a great series.
- For those of you who played in Monday's Phoenicia game, I've posed the first turn as a problem and gotten quite a bit of responses (including from the designer). I've also got a two strategy articles. I definitely want to play with variable starts from now on.
- Michael has been pushing for 7 Ages, and I agree that it's been too long.
- Had a nice bout of Shadowfist tonight. If anyone wants to learn let me know and I'll bring a few simple decks to monday night. Or just show up on any Tuesday at DLair (by 6pm ish) and someone will teach you.
posted by Brian @ 11:56 PM
11 comments
11 Comments:
not really a game related link per se but would anybody in the group be interested in a fantasy hockey league?
Nice post.
I really like the theme of Shadowfist, but I can't imagine getting into a CCG. I just have far too many board games to waste my money on. Plus, I'm one of those people who can't stand to not have the complete set, so CCGs get expensive for me. Still, I'd love to take a hit off your crack pipe sometime.
I don't know about 7 Ages, but I did just pick up a copy of Vinci, and Mare Nostrum is always begging for play.
Let me try to explain some of the reasons why 7 ages is the best in its category:
Tons of theme: You have civs rising and falling at mostly historically appropriate periods of the game. Their goals are different and usually conflicting with other civs. The events add to everything.
Experience game: Winning and losing is not so relevant since a spectacular story can be made as well.
Truly Epic: Its length is a drawback to some, but when you are trying to replay thousands of years of human history in a single setting, I think too much compression hurts.
There are some flaws. I find the combat system a little Euro-y for such a game, and the length has precluded us from actually finishing a game yet, but I still look forward to any (complete or incomplete) game we get in.
Vinci has no theme relative to 7 ages. It is like some sort of highly distilled "civ" game, and comes across as way too dry for me.
Mare Nostrum is better, but still not reaching the heights of 7 ages. I guess the event cards and rise and fall nature of 7 ages makes things progress much more dynamically, with not as much ability to predict from turn to turn what will happen next. Mare Nostrum to me tends to become more static in that it is fairly easy to see what others will plan to do on a turn. Also, I haven't played a game of Mare Nostrum, where I walked away with a good story to tell a friend. "The romans and the carthaginians gang banged greece while egypt ran away with it" is missing that certain something.
I dunno, I haven't played Civilization yet and would be willing to try that some time, but for now 7 ages is the clear cut winner in this genre for me.
Now in the space civ genre, feel free to trot out TI3 any time.
Michael: Did we win Phoenicia?
Yeah. Two trackers turn one was insurmountable it turns out.
Hooray! So my win record for Phoenicia is 0.5-1.
You must have pulled in some refugees to fuel the hunting?
Hey, what are you doing up this early?
He never went to bed.
Yeah I did, pretty much right after making that post.
I'm always scared to try Shadowfist because I'm like Ben - if I liked it I'd have to have it all.
Ben - There's always LackeyCCG.com
Magic
SWCCG
NetRunner
VS
L5R
Lackey looks fantastic (i.e., the entire contents of many CCGs immediately yours for free), but it doesn't look too newbie friendly. Still, even if it was, I don't have enough time to enjoy all my board games let alone adding CCGs into the mix.
I've played Vinci once with Rob and his brother, and I thought it was great fun. True, the civs are generic, but I thought the various techs were well implemented, as was the expanding/declining cycle. How dare you besmirtch the reputation of a game I just spent $45 dollars on!
That said, when are we playing TI:3 again?
I propose TI3 this October. I should be able to host.
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