I played Acquire once and felt like all that was wrong in the world.


Also, I assume it's probably bad form to start sign-ups for your next game when you're still running one, right?

I thought that Fantasy Flight had made great strides in improving their rulebooks in the past couple years (aside from the ugly 2-rulebook model they think everything has to have). Then I decided to pick up the new edition of Fury of Dracula. I'd say it's the worst rulebook they've put out in the past 5 years. Maybe more.

I'm left with the impression that once they finally pulled the trigger on committing to a new edition, they rushed it out so they could have it out the week of Halloween, and it didn't get the same level of proofing that their other rulebooks have.
I cannot recommend the Feast for Crows expansion enough. It makes the game faster, more streamlined, and more fun. The only downside is that it's designed for exactly 4 players--no more, no less.
I've never tried those cards. I feel like I should once, just to see how it play, but I suspect it will make the game worse instead of better.
It's Norton. So instead of saying that he doesn't like a game, he'll issue a grand proclamation about how the game is crap and imply that nobody should like it.
You have my sword.

Is that the one that added objective cards? I think that was the one we played, and I totally agree. It cuts out some of the diplomacy aspect, but I think it's worth it, we really enjoyed it.

Yeah. It adds the objective cards as a way to win instead of controlling castles. And it makes "reconcile supply" part of the regular turn order instead of only when the card comes up.

No, not at all. It happens a lot.

1) The game is considerably unbalanced in favour of the USSR.
2) You can be screwed by drawing too many scoring cards in the same way you can be screwed by drawing too many lands in Magic: The Gathering.
3) Some things depend entirely on the roll of a die, which diminishes the value of strategy. Extremely painful in a game that lasts three hours.
4) Gameplay is extremely restrictive. What I find particularly striking is that somebody wrote a book about Strategy in Twilight Struggle, and the first conclusion they come to is that there are only two effective starting setups. For what is supposed to be the best strategy game in existence, I find that laughable.

1) The game is like 1.8 starting influence unbalanced in favor of the USSR at the highest level of play. The 2015 league with a +2 starting influence for USA house ruled in and randomized sides, the USA won 159 games, the USSR won 149 games and there were 4 ties. Hardly a considerable imbalance and one that has a very simple fix.

2) There are 102 early war cards. 3 are scoring cards. You would hardly consider a starting hand in mtg with 3 lands call for a mulligan and drawing all of them is almost impossible. For the full deck, it's what? 7 cards out of about 300? I've played this dozens of times and I've only once drawn two scoring cards in a hand. Even if you did draw several scoring cards in one hand, these cards aren't a mystery. You should have been spending your last several turns making sure you were okay if your opponent played them. You should be ready to headline one to save OP points.

3) Out of your three OP choices, the most common one has no die roll at all, the second one should only be used against very low stability countries and/or with a high OP value such that you need only a 1 or a 2 to get things done and a 6 is just icing on the cake. The least common OP can have significant modifiers (+3 on a d6 roll off) for effective use and you get several rolls in a phase. I dare say if you feel like the dice screwed you in the end, you played poorly.

4) Please. Pandemic only has one setup. Chess only has one set up. There are around 200 phases in the game and each has an interesting choice for one or both players. Plus headlines plus setup. Sure, setup is the least interesting choice because you are so limited. That's a really silly reason to declare Twilight Struggle a game devoid of strategy.

I'm not familiar with Twilight Struggle, but having played a lot of Pandemic... um, it really doesn't have just one setup. I mean, sure, all the players start in Atlanta, but the disease breakouts can be anywhere and everywhere, which makes the game worth playing repeatedly.

Some claim that the split is 66/33 in favour of the USSR if you don't houserule it. Depends on the data sample you go by, I guess.
That people feel the need to fix the balance issue in the first place proves my point.

Happened to me in my first play, which has obviously influenced my opinion of the game.

You can play perfectly and the dice can still screw you.
And you fail to mention the space race, which is purely a gamble that rewards better dice rolling skills.

Not the same thing. Placing your starting influence in Twilight Struggle is the same as the first move you make in another game as it is the first decision you can make. So in Chess you have twenty possible options of equal viability for your first move that influence the way the game will go right from the beginning as opposed to the two possible effective starting moves in Twilight Struggle the scripted gameplay restricts you to.

I could sit here and tell you that Pandemic is my Catan, but that would be dishonorable, because few things are as bad as Catan, and Pandemic doesn't deserve that distinction.

But Pandemic is pretty bad. I haven't played Legacy, so maybe it's much better, maybe it has a communication mechanic (IMHO every coop game should have one), maybe it lends more player choices and more in-depth gameplay. Any or all of these things would get me to play.

My experience with Pandemic is that it is a painfully simple game, to the point where you can't plan out your own moves between turns. Your turn is so laughably simple that you can't help but plan out the whole board, and then sit there and try to stay silent, while you see the (obvious, to you) path to victory, but don't want to ruin it for others (this is a problem I regularly have with coops).

I pretty much told my friends I'll only play Pandemic with the Bio-Terrorist in play. It's not fun without it. I don't have to be the Bio-Terrorist, but it certainly helps with reeling back the desire to help too much. Then again, if you're playing Pandemic with a Bio-Terrorist, why aren't you playing the plethora of great traitor games out there?

Pretty much every time we feel like a coop game, Pandemic is at the bottom of the list for everyone. Hanabi, Atlantis Rising, Mysterium, Yggdrasil, Robinson Crusoe, X-Com, are all so much better.

I'd agree that Pandemic is not a great game, but I still consider it a fun activity. At its core it's just a puzzle, and for the most part solving a puzzle of this kind is most efficient when there is one person making the decisions rather than having several people making decisions more or less independently. I still think it's fun for all the players to be in it together. The same goes for other games that are basically Pandemic in diguise (Flash Point, Defenders of the Realm, Underground Railroad).
I bought Pandemic Legacy, but I have little hope to get the same group together for ~20 gaming sessions, so now I can only wait and see for how long I will be able to avoid spoilers.
Mysterium I don't consider a game at all, it's an exercise in kitchen sink psychology.

Not at all. I just recommend against posting it while your game is 'winding down', which might signal to the town / mafia that victory is within sight. Therefore, post signups either sooner or post after.

I don't like Pandemic because it is so 'simple', and it usually results in one/two players playing for everyone. That is boring.

I prefer other games that are co-op. I REALLY want to try Dead of Winter, which is semi-cooperative. I like that idea better than a purely cooperative game.

One setup for the players.

EN's complaint was lack of strategy during setup.

Yeah. Add in Vikings season 3 on Amazon and I'm screwed even with most of next week off.

Agreed. More streamlined, more fun, and the objective cards add a good element. I would rather not play GoT at all if we have five people playing a game but 6 for the main version or 4 for Feast is excellent. Well, before alliances, actions, and other things screw me.

I dislike co-op games in general, but I hated Pandemic. Part of it is personalities and people telling you what to do. Makes for no fun. Plus the one time I played we played with a bunch of nasty virus cards from an expansion and our crew had the worst possible combo. No Bio-terrorist. That being said, I've heard Legacy is awesome. Several of the guys like myself who won't play the regular at all have tried it and love it. Not that I would want to commit to the gaming sessions, but it's worth noting.

I got to try 504 last night. Really fun game. For those that don't know, it's called 504 because there are 504 different ways to play and you just pick which 3 of the 9 modules you want to use and in what order. It's not as good as some dedicated worker placement or warfare games, but the customization is awesome. And I also played Power Grid and once again, I sucked.

Also get to play Twilight Imperium tomorrow. I've never played and it's with all the expansions (that my friend has yet to fully unbox and organize). I'm scared but excited. Just need to find a good youtube tutorial or rules PDF.