The NEW New Boardgames Thread

[Berkut]

Then, once the game gets to the point where you have private companies,  those private companies can trade and make money themselves, rather than through the East India Company. This is cool, and fun, and a neat twist to the game.

But on the last turn, at the end of the game, any money made by private companies is just turned directly into VPs at a 2:1 rate.

Ok. I got to see the early company, without the private ones. Historically, this is indeed what happened, once the state-like monopoly of the EIC had "normalized" trade with India, and reduced the risk - or rather, passed on the risks to the state - political opponents started clamoring, first for loosening the monopoly terms (and these new companies were indeed usually set up by EIC insiders), then for its demise. It may be a case where the VP rule mirrors history to the detriment of the game...

VPs are an arbirary measure of how the players are doing against one another. Ideally you would like them to align in a game modeled on some historical event to encourage players to act with the same constraints and pressures that the historical actors engaged in.

The mechanics of how *money* is made once the monopoly is gone is delicious. It absolutely makes it clear that the poor company is doomed. The people making the decisions are incented to do things that are terribly damaging to the company.

How you reward those decisions with VPs is another matter entirely, and that is just plain broken.

I mean the chosen ratio is arbitrary, right? You get 1 VP per 2 bucks made. Why 1:2? Why not 1:10? 1:1? 1:3?

Why, in this case, is there even a conversion of money straight to VPs at all, when in every other aspect of the game, you cannot convert money to VPs, except by taking actual actions to purchase much more abstract VP artifacts?

I suspect that in playtesting, they ran into a problem. On the last turn (and it is pretty obvious when it is going to be the last turn), players quit trying to trade for money, because hey, you win with VPs, right? Money is only useful as a engine to drive the game (which we know is ending) or to buy VPs (which you cannot do normally at the end of the game). So whoila! I think they just said "OK, well, we need the players to keep playing as if money is what matters, so lets just let them convert it straight to VP! 1:2 seems like a good ratio!"

[Barrister]

I think I may have asked this question before several years ago, but I'll try asking again.

Tracy and I like playing board games with friends and family.  For years it was just Settlers of Cataan, but we have slightly broadened our horizons to include Ticket to Ride and Pandemic.

Can anyone suggest some board games that are easily accessible to a broad audience, but are perhaps just a tiny bit crunchier than the titles I've mentioned?

[PRC]

I think I may have asked this question before several years ago, but I'll try asking again.

Tracy and I like playing board games with friends and family.  For years it was just Settlers of Cataan, but we have slightly broadened our horizons to include Ticket to Ride and Pandemic.

Can anyone suggest some board games that are easily accessible to a broad audience, but are perhaps just a tiny bit crunchier than the titles I've mentioned?

Your local game store should have most of these, they're a similar complexity level to what you mentioned, maybe slightly less, maybe slightly more:

Kingdomino
Queendomino
Agricola
Caverna
At the Gates of Loyang
The Castles of Burgundy
7 Wonders
Spirit Island
Blue Lagoon
Tikal
Imhotep
Jaipur (2P only)
Torres
King of Tokyo (great for young kids too)
Alhambra
Reef

[frunk]

Working from lightest to heaviest:

Dixit is really a party game but tremendous fun with some fantastic art that still gets played at even pretty crunchy game nights.

Werewords is 20 Questions which you can win whether you get the answer right or not by guessing who is working against you.

Carcassonne is a classic series, with my favorite version being Hunters and Gatherers.

Forbidden Sky is by the designer of Pandemic.  It's also a cooperative which if you successfully complete you create a working circuit.

US Telegraph is a new version of Attika, one of my favorite two player games (it'll accommodate up to 4).

Concordia is a great game with an interesting interplay between board position and card play.

Power Grid is a gateway to auction and economic style games that goes very deep in board gaming (just ask any 18xx head).

[Oexmelin]

I suspect that in playtesting, they ran into a problem. On the last turn (and it is pretty obvious when it is going to be the last turn), players quit trying to trade for money, because hey, you win with VPs, right? Money is only useful as a engine to drive the game (which we know is ending) or to buy VPs (which you cannot do normally at the end of the game). So whoila! I think they just said "OK, well, we need the players to keep playing as if money is what matters, so lets just let them convert it straight to VP! 1:2 seems like a good ratio!"

Totally possible. Hopefully revised in a future reprint. The game is sold out and Wehrle has ruled out any reissue for at least a couple of years - by then it may benefit from his post-Root successes.

[Oexmelin]

I think I may have asked this question before several years ago, but I'll try asking again.

Tracy and I like playing board games with friends and family.  For years it was just Settlers of Cataan, but we have slightly broadened our horizons to include Ticket to Ride and Pandemic.

Can anyone suggest some board games that are easily accessible to a broad audience, but are perhaps just a tiny bit crunchier than the titles I've mentioned?

To those that have already been mentioned:

I second Power Grid. It will feel natural after Ticket to Ride.

If you want a good cooperative game (and I remember that you are a Trekkie/er), you should look up The Captain is Dead. Looks complex, but is not. The crew tries to save a spaceship under attack by alien ships. Much less complex than the great Spirit Island.

Mysterium is a variant on Dixit. One player plays a ghost, who must send visions in the form of ambiguous images. The other players are mediums who attempt to determine the cause of death.

Tokaido is gorgeous to look at, and quite simple too. Pilgrims travel in Japan, and must experience different things. It's one of those games I am less interested in the outcome than the aesthetic.

A pretty good "worker placement game" is D&D Lords of Waterdeep. It's very simple to learn.

[11B4V]

Finally scored a copy

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10394/avalanche-salerno-landings

[Maladict]

Any comments on GMT dropping Scramble for Africa?

That title did make me a little uneasy when it was announced, its tone seemed out of place for GMT.
And from the announcement it does seem someone had been sleeping at the wheel.

Of course, on social media everyone is up in arms over GMT caving in to snow flakes.

[Habbaku]

I'm really glad they dropped it, but odds are it wasn't going to be printed anyway. It wasn't exactly getting a ton of orders.

I am laughing over the people up in arms about it. The game was basically a historically-themed Euro, made no attempts to actually represent history, and looked to be pretty cookie-cutter based upon what little there was. The people decrying pulling it from P500 are acting like some grand historical artifact is being lost.

As usual, the real snowflakes are the ones screaming "snowflake!".

[The Minsky Moment]

Seems like the developers of this game were particularly clueless and thus this outcome doesn't necessarily imply anything broader.
However, I do think these issues are going to keep coming up.  Especially if stories keep running about the "alt right" involvement in the hobby - look what happened with Paraodox and Crusader Kings and HoI.

A former Charles Roberts award nominee is being reprinted now in a deluxe edition; it's rulebook contains the following: "If the Tsar is stacked with a RED unit (flip Tsar to Arrested!), RED may attempt to execute the Tsar by activating the space and rolling a die: 1-4 Tsar executed, 5-6 No effect."  This rule is giving a player an option to re-enact a horrific historical crime - the mass murder of Nicolas II and his family, even as it subtly minimizes it ("the Tsar" as opposed to the royal family).  I can recall playing WW2 era games where a player can act to suppress partisan activities.  If you are playing Nazi Germany and elect to "suppress partisans" in say Poland, that has a certain unavoidable meaning and connotation.  One can go on with hundreds of such examples - from the Taliban player carrying out "insurgency" operations in the COIN series to engaging in "foraging" operations in any number of games.  I haven't even mentioned one of my favorite games from my youth - Pax Brittanica - a game that raises some similar issues to this one.

Like most of you here, I've been involved in the hobby for a long enough time that I can put these kinds of mechanics into context, but the more people outside the hobby start looking into it, the more these kinds of questions are going to be raised.

[Oexmelin]

The scale of the game, the theme of the game, the distance from the theme - all will frame the ethical and moral questions in different ways. War has long enjoyed romantic treatment, and wargames have long been framed as abstract, outcome oriented games. Which is one thing when we assume the consequences of the conflict fully belong to the past. It's another when the consequences are still visibly felt. The Grizzled offers a completely different experience of WW1 than, say, Offensive à outrance. It's easier to abstract human beings when they are Carthaginians cardboard pieces with cavalry symbol.

I was thinking about that as I contemplated using The Underground Railroad as a teaching device. I haven't decided yet: I do feel uncomfortable about using cubes to represent enslaved people. That being said, if one is invested in the game, and its outcome, "losing" someone can have profound (and disturbing) meaning. Sometimes, abstraction is good; sometimes it can have deleterious effects. 

And I think it would be a mistake to ignore the attraction of these wargames as revenge fantasies for nazi fanboys and white supremacists.

[The Minsky Moment]

It's a tricky question as to how explicitly to handle these issues. For example in a game about the Russian Civil War, the execution of the royal family is a meaningful strategic event.  It could be handled as an event where the player has no direct control but does that wash the player of responsibility?  Hard to say which is better or worse a priori.

I'm reminded of the computer game Decisive Campaigns Barbarossa which I have not had time to play yet (but recall berkut's AAR). Most WW2 games do not explicitly model the Shoah for obvious reasons.  In DC however, I understand that the German player can choose whether to permit Einsatzgruppen to operate freely along the front.  Meanwhile as Stalin the player has opportunities to purge generals etc. There is something to be said about honest portrayal of these realities of the war as opposed to the usual approach of sweeping them under the rug using scale as a defense (either too big to address such "details" or too small for them to manifest).  But it can be jarring to confront these issues directly in the context of a game.

[Maladict]

I think the main difference is that most higher end wargames try very hard to respectfully model the conflict, giving all opposing sides their own particular aims and constraints.
With the Africa game, there is only one side (the Europeans) engaging in a lighthearted adventure of exploitation that cheerfully ignores the Africans altogether.

Also, I didn't realize the wargaming community was so full of bigots.

[The Brain]

I can't shake the feeling that if wargames upset you then don't play wargames. Problem solved.

[Habbaku]

I agree in general. But this new game was going to be a Euro.