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Dominion on BSW
I was disappointed that I didn't get a chance to play Dominion at the board game meetup thing, so I finally tried playing it on BSW.
The cards in your hand float and zoom in when you hover over them, in much the same way that suggested links show up at the bottom of videos on Youtube. It's every bit as annoying here and it is to me there. It just seems unnecessary, and it's not like there isn't enough space to display them all at full size. The way that it indicates that it's your turn isn't very obvious. I also didn't notice the "I don't want to buy anything" button right away, and couldn't figure out why it was still my turn at one point. And I accidentally bought a Garden instead of a Market once. That was...very upsetting. But I think with a little practice the interface will be just fine.
It was a three-player game, and we went for a completely random setup, which I've never actually done before. We got: chancellor, feast, throne room, gardens, thief, library, council room, laboratory, market, adventurer.
Someone bought a Thief early on, so I avoided buying silver or gold. My economy was based on Chancellors/Markets/Throne Rooms. To my amazement, it actually worked. Take that everyone who says the Chancellor is crap!
Each of us bought 4 of the Provinces, but I also bought a Garden, and a Duchy, and managed to win 33 to 29 to 27. The Garden was worth 3 at the end, so it didn't win me the game, but at least it didn't cost me the game either. Still, every time I drew it I shook my fist mentally at it for not being another Market.
One big plus for the BSW version is that, in spite of the interface issues, the fact that none of us had to actually shuffle cards sped things up to the point that the game only 20 minutes. So that was pretty cool.
The cards in your hand float and zoom in when you hover over them, in much the same way that suggested links show up at the bottom of videos on Youtube. It's every bit as annoying here and it is to me there. It just seems unnecessary, and it's not like there isn't enough space to display them all at full size. The way that it indicates that it's your turn isn't very obvious. I also didn't notice the "I don't want to buy anything" button right away, and couldn't figure out why it was still my turn at one point. And I accidentally bought a Garden instead of a Market once. That was...very upsetting. But I think with a little practice the interface will be just fine.
It was a three-player game, and we went for a completely random setup, which I've never actually done before. We got: chancellor, feast, throne room, gardens, thief, library, council room, laboratory, market, adventurer.
Someone bought a Thief early on, so I avoided buying silver or gold. My economy was based on Chancellors/Markets/Throne Rooms. To my amazement, it actually worked. Take that everyone who says the Chancellor is crap!
Each of us bought 4 of the Provinces, but I also bought a Garden, and a Duchy, and managed to win 33 to 29 to 27. The Garden was worth 3 at the end, so it didn't win me the game, but at least it didn't cost me the game either. Still, every time I drew it I shook my fist mentally at it for not being another Market.
One big plus for the BSW version is that, in spite of the interface issues, the fact that none of us had to actually shuffle cards sped things up to the point that the game only 20 minutes. So that was pretty cool.
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Heh, for a couple of years I played between one and three games of Carcassonne on BSW almost every day. I played it in real life now and then, too. I soured on it a bit when I was playing on BSW and my opponent (who was losing badly) ejected me from the game, accused me of cheating, and left to go play in another room. It was an appalling display of poor sportsmanship, and deeply troubling to me that it was done by someone who apparently had the power to eject people from games. We haven't played in real life lately either, since we acquired so many other games that currently have the spotlight. I think enough time has passed since then that I'd cheerfully play it again, though.
I've played Pandemic once, and thought it was just okay. I didn't feel like there were many decisions for me to make on my turn. Played Power Grid once and quite liked it, in spite of the fact that I think the veteran players gave me some bad advice. I've been wanting to try that one again, actually. I'd forgotten it was even on BSW.
For the real life group, we used to play a lot of Puerto Rico, Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, San Juan, and the occasional game of Caylus. Then we had this massive influx of games, and were more often playing the latest new thing. Lately we've been playing a lot of Race for the Galaxy, Dominion, and Thurn and Taxis. I've also a big fan of Khronos and Ra, and would like to play more games of Samurai and Alhambra. I have mixed feelings about Kingsburg – I think it's fun to play, but the dice add so much luck that you can play perfectly and still do awful.
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I'm actually glad to hear that you agree with me re: Pandemic. I always find it a little less fun than the other games I play. The cooperative aspect, while unusual and interesting, does detract massively from the individual player's experience in my opinion. I'm definitely looking forward to the expansion that will apparently allow one player to play as a bio-terrorist and try to covertly thwart the efforts of the team. That should add a more interesting dimension.
Power Grid is a fantastic game, but I've never played it with only two players and I can't imagine it'd be much fun that way. It definitely has the potential for some epic (and long-ass) games when you have a few guys to play with, though. I've heard a lot of good things about Settlers of Catan, but I don't actually know anything about it. I see it's on BSW, so maybe it's the next thing to try, along with Dominion which you seem to praise. =)
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I'm not actually on any kind of messaging serice. Email? I thought maybe we could just figure out something like "next Wednesday at X o'clock" or soemthing similar. As to my alleged skill at Carcassonne - meh, I've had a year or so to get rusty. I can't even remember if it's 6 or 7 tiles with 4 city edges in Basic/Expansion/King setups. 6? I used to know these things. = )
For cooperative games, I've played Pandemic, Shadows Over Camelot, and Arkham Horror. Of the three, I like Arkham Horror the best, and not merely for thematic reasons. With the other two it often seems like there's one particular thing you should be doing on your turn, and it's not that interesting. At least with Arkham Horror you've got some options. Sure, you'll probably all get eaten by Hastur anyway, but at least you had some say in what you did before it happens.
Settlers was my first taste of eurogames, and I was totally obsessed with it college. I still think it's an excellent game, it's just that I've found others that I think are better or that I haven't played as many times. I'd be happy to play that one with you on BSW too.
Dominion _is_ pretty cool, and well worth trying. The biggest learning curve there will be learing what all of the cards do so you don't spend a lot of time hovering over them for the reminder text.
Caylus scores big with me because almost nothing is left to luck. Puerto Rico is similar in that regard. I'd recommend Puerto Rico without reservation if only the buildings in the basic game were balanced better. The expansion is nice because it lets you remove the overpowered buildings and the useless buildings, and makes it one of my favorite games.