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Fukui San

By Fukui San
in Games

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Fukui San

Fukui San

Board Game Geeks unite! Let's have a thread for games you play in person, on cardboard and paper (and even digital versions of those games).

 

I haven't gamed much since my daughter was born about three years ago, so I have no idea what's up with new games.

 

Anyone have an opinion on the newly nominated Spiel Des Jahres finalists Camel Up, Splendor, and Concept?

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MarkHB

MarkHB

Ok, I'll start with my favorite game ever, a legend of the genre: Cosmic Encounter.  It started as a self-published (yet still decent quality) game by 3 guys who called themselves Eon Products, and they managed to put out 9 (!) expansion sets of which the last included a larger game box and an omnibus rulebook.  They later licensed editions to Mayfair and Avalon Hill (in their pre-Hasbro days) before landing at Fantasy Flight, where they are in the process of producing their fifth, fan-created expansion set, and the original creators of the game are still involved in its oversight.  There's also an online version at www.cosmicencounter.com with reduced functionality compared to the physical game.

 

The basic gameplay: each person rules a system of 5 planets and 20 ships.  The object is to land 5 stations in other people's systems; first person to do that wins, and multi-player wins are possible.  When it's your turn, you choose at random whose system you are going to attack, but you pick the planet.  Battle boils down to the simple equation of the ships you commit to the attack, plus the ships your allies committed, plus the card you play, versus the number of ships you opponent has on the planet, plus those her allies committed, plus the card she plays.  So to that point, it's kind of like "War".

 

But then they give everyone a power telling them how they can cheat.

 

Maybe you're the Clone and get to keep the card you played instead of discarding it (highly useful if you picked up the 40 card).  Maybe you're Zombie, and instead of losing ships to "the Warp" when you lose a battle, you get to keep them.  Or maybe you're the Virus, and the card you play is multiplied times the ships you put in rather than being added to them... but you're facing Antimatter, with the power of "low score wins", so you'd better hope you have the card with the value of negative 4.

 

And did I mention the card that allows you to steal the entire deck, bit by bit?

 

It's even inspired other game makers.  20+ years ago, some guys sat down with the idea of creating a card game that played like, and hopefully was as cool as, Cosmic Encounter.  I don't know if they succeeded as I've never played it, but I know it's a commercial success.  They named it "Magic: The Gathering."

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Sandman87

Sandman87

Just poking my nose in here for the first time.

 

My friends and I used to play Cosmic Encounter occasionally way back in high school. We very quickly decided that the powers were unbalanced, with some being too useful and some nearly useless. We started modifying the powers and rules with various tweaks to re-balance things. We eventually discovered that one could use a pencil eraser on the cards to make white space for writing in rule changes.

 

For a really unpredictable game, try giving each player two alien powers instead of one.

 

Heh. It's been years since I thought about CE. "Trip to Vermont" indeed...

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MarkHB

MarkHB

Which version of CE did you play?  There were at least a couple of editions between the Eon Products original (which I learned on) and the current one from Fantasy Flight.

 

When I first started playing, my friends would play 3 powers, and you could hide them until it was time to use them.  Plus they had all 9 of the Eon expansions, and had all the extra elements in effect except for the reversed hexes from Expansion 9.

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Sandman87

Sandman87

First edition, back in the days before there was an internet to spend all my time on.

 

Our group dabbled in a lot of different board games and RPGs after school back then. Hell, at one point one of them even talked me into trying a play-by-mail game called StarMaster (not related to the video game). I spent three days making my race, and got immediately annihilated by some other player. So much for that.

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Actionmage

Actionmage

Anyone here play Avalon Hill's Kingmaker? It was part of their Bookcase Games line- decent rectangular boxes that could be placed on a shelf like fancy books. It was the War of the Roses with the 2-6 players trying to control one of the 7 Tudors vying for the English throne. "Vacillating Nobles" almost always had me break into song for a few bars.

 

I also still have my TV Wars. (Being a long-time TVhead, I can't conceive of letting this artifact go anywhere out of my home!)

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Sandman87

Sandman87

Anyone here remember the series of Microgames from Metagaming/Steve Jackson Games? Ogre, Sticks & Stones, etc; they came in a plastic bag or box, and were all the perfect size to carry around in your pocket just in case you found yourself with a spare half-hour or so to spend on a quick war-game. I think my favorite was Rivets, a silly scenario based on a war between automated robot factories.

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scarynikki12

scarynikki12

What the hell is Settlers of Catan?

 

I'm beyond late, but, Settlers is an amazing game.  I do laugh at those who finish in 90 minutes.  My friends and I routinely take up to 4 hours to get through a game.  We are very meticulous. 

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Unusual Suspect

Unusual Suspect

I'm addicted to buying expansions for Smash Up. Just got the Pretty, Pretty Smash Up expansion, and it's my favourite yet. Splendor is another fav, it's quick to learn, and fun to play.

 

 

Since this is a TV site, how many here have played boardgames based on TV shows? We play Battlestar Galactica, it's a fun game. And I'm aware of the Firefly boardgame, but haven't played it.

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MarkHB

MarkHB

I mentioned Cosmic Encounter up above; in addition to the Fantasy Flight physical edition (and its expansions), it is now available as paid DLC for the Tabletop Simulator on Steam, with the involvement of the original authors.  I haven't looked into buying it yet, but I thought I'd mention it.

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MarkHB

MarkHB

4 hours ago, Colorado David said:

All the Avalon Hill games were my favorite games back in the day. Squad Leader, Panzer Leader, Afrika Korps, Wooden Ships and Iron Men. Starship Troopers. Anything with hexes I loved. Traveler was always a blast too.

Traveller the RPG with the little black rule books? I always thought I could be into that one but we could never keep a group going.

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MarkHB

MarkHB

6 hours ago, Hanahope said:

Any new games out that are good?  My husband loves board games so I try to get him a new one at Christmas.

How many players? If you have 4-6 on a regular basis I always recommend Cosmic Encounter 🙂 .

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