What is the opinion on Terra Mystica around these parts?
I posted earlier in the thread about it I think. Itās elaborate and interesting but a little too fiddly/arbitrary and too tight to feel interesting or rewarding for me, but I have that problem with nearly all recent (3rd generation?) euros.
Iād rather play agricola or eclipse if not something lighter, basically.
Hereās what a couple of posters think about Terra Mystica. I played it once and then, every time the opportunity came up to play it again, we always chose Dominant Species.
Oops, I searched the thread but those posts must not have loaded or something. Thanks!
ANOTHER QUESTION: Which dense, heavy games do people most recommend here?
Depends on your definition of ādenseā and āheavyā really. As far as heavy Euros go, I like Food Chain Magnate and other Splotter games, Arkwright, Dominant Species, Argent: The Consortium, Through The Ages, and others that arenāt coming to mind off the top of my head. Thereās also the entire 18XX and wargame genres to look into. The crew at the Heavy Cardboard podcast specializes in that kind of stuff, so Iād give that a listen if youāre interested.
Regarding Terra Mystica, I like it a lot now, but it took a few plays for me to appreciate it, and it definitely wants 4-5 players otherwise youāre not interacting a whole lot.
I have played and really like Argent: the Consortium, and Brass.
There is indeed the entire wargame subgenre (you can basically just pick a high complexity game from GMT Games and it will probably be what you want)
I liked Dominant Species, Iām not sure Iām really looking for wargames, though. I guess I meant more like the Dominant Species kind of heavy, not super duper dense stuff.
In actual game playing news, I played Gloom for the first time. I really liked the story telling nature of it and the overlaying cards, but it was also hard remembering all the stories and boy howdy does it go on for way longer than it should. Also, unpleasant incest jokes.
To be fair, thereās been a bit of blending between traditional wargame and Euros nowadays, like the COIN series and CDGs in general. And even DS itself is a bit of a wargame/Euro hybrid. If youāre down with two player games Iād recommend Combat Commander, also by Chad Jensen. Itās around the same weight as DS and itās a great tactical-level game which uses cards to drive player actions. Plus, being a Chad game, it has one of the best written manuals out there.
have none of you played eclipse or something?
I want to play FCM but Iām waiting until it gets picked up by a bigger publisher so it gets some nicer components and a lower price. I may have already posted that.
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oh durr I forgot the obvious choice of dense heavy game: the Mage Knight Board Game
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I love vlaada but there is way way way too much consulting of rulebooks in mage knight
I will never convince anyone to commit to Mage Knight : (
Has anybody played Eclipse Phase? I like the sound of the setting, at least
@Mikey The setting is cool, the rules are very 90s/early 00s: overcomplicated and youā're better off just ignoring them and using whatever your favorite rule system is. edit: I should note that the pdfs are all released under creative commons: https://robboyle.wordpress.com/eclipse-phase-pdfs/
This evening, @drobe and I played Keyflower over BoardGameArena. It was very good, though Iām intimidated with how little I understand the mechanics (even though I won). It was a close game, ultimately giving me victory from one tile in final scoring. Drobeās town was much better set up, much more efficient formation, whereas mine was a complete mess (all my resource generators were 2 tiles away from scoring tiles).
I recommend against CC:E (or Pacific), itās a huge change to adapt to when coming from a strong euro background. Itās basically Up Front with a hex map, which makes sense to grogs but can be baffling to others. A Few Acres of Snow is a better ātransitionā games (plus you get to work out how itās broken).
I second the COIN recommendation, also Twilight Struggle/Paths of Glory (heavy) or Commands and Color: Ancients (not heavy) or Maneuver (super not heavy).
If you hate hex and counter, why not try a block game? Columbia Games do a nice line of light games + GMT just announced theyāre reprinting Sekigahara.
It goes without saying these are all 2-player games (except COIN).
For multiple players, go with GMTās Here I Stand, or Maria/Friedrich from Histogames Or you can pry my copy of Kƶnig von Siam out of my cold dead hands.
I like terra mystica.
Could the frog fractions of board games be 504?
183018301830183018301830183018301830
Or maybe 1889
Or maybe roads & boats
2-3h to 6h+ is a big jump!