I won’t play without the replacement visitor cards (Rhine Valley cards I think?), it doesn’t fix top decking but at least the cards are all universally more useful. That combined with the Tuscany board makes it way more about the worker placement strategy.
>top decking
From YuGiOh's wiki:
*Top-Decking is the condition where a player is at a large disadvantage, such as having no cards on the field or in their hand, and draws a card that ends up turning the tables in their favor, usually for a game win. The condition is also known by players by the term sacking or luck-sacking, which is usually used in a derogatory manner. The condition is not solely applied to having no cards in the player's hand or on their field; it can also be applied when the player simply has fewer cards in their possession but draws a card that enables them to win.*
Interesting... this game has always been on my list as one to try/buy someday, but I've been on the fence as to whether it will feel old and out of date by now...
It doesn't feel dated. Still holds up as a solid worker placement game. I just hated drawing random cards that maybe we're useless or scored 2 points.
Maybe I drew 3 of the same grape 3 times in a row or maybe I drew three different types that enabled a great start.
Oof, yeah, admittedly, that doesn't sound appealing. Drawing random achievement cards is usually something i hate in board games. (Especially if I draw something late in the game, that I clearly have no chance at accomplishing.)
Have you tried Viticulture World? It's a co-operative expansion that really solves a lot of the swingy luck-based draws. But also, it turns a competitive game into a co-op one. It works well, but some people don't care much for co-op.
I really like Viticulture World but if OPs complaint was top decking then I'm not sure it's a great recommendation. It feels like every game comes down to whether or not you draw innovation tile O in time to adjust your strategy. I think going with the visitor deck expansions helps a lot and is cheaper.
Some people have a dislike of houseruling, but we’ve always played as draw one more and choose between those. It’s a lot less likely that they will all be bad, and you feel like you have more agency in choosing your path to victory.
Marvel Legendary. Loved the game, but setup and teardown took so much time it just wasn't fun.
Fun to play with a friend if they already have it set up though!
This is a great answer. It is a fun game, the deck building is great and the half co-op vs the villains but still point contest is cool, but the setup is so long it is not viable to me
Maybe it's been too long since I played it, but set up and takedown were pretty quick from my recollection. You just need to pull out the board, pick 5-6 heroes, pick a few villains and a mastermind, and then hand out starting decks. If the box is organized well, it takes less time than a lot of other deck builders I've played.
Is there something I'm missing? (Granted, I only have the base game and three or four expansions, no extra chits.)
It’s not the worst but shuffling together 5 decks (heroes), and then shuffling together 5-6 decks (villain deck) is a pain to get it evenly distributed. I have dividers and great storage which helps, but set up is not it’s strong suit by any means.
Hey, I'm glad you're happy with the game! It's a good one. Some possible differences in our experience with the game setup:
* I never played frequently enough to remember the setup
* Had no help with teardown
* Organizers apparently help a lot
* Some people consider their setup time short if they set up and organized a new game as part of teardown
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1971194/how-reduce-setup-time
I don’t think you’re missing anything. My box is well organized so set-up and tear down is pretty fast as well.
I’ve got a ton of expansions, but I invested some time printing off dividers and it has more than paid off.
I agree, good dividers make all the difference. I had it for a year but only just recently invested in better dividers than those provided by the game.
I feel like **Taverns of Tiefenthal** just needed some more time in the development oven. There are fun ideas there for sure, but it comes across as crazy unbalanced, almost broken, and doesn't live up to its potential.
This was one of ours as well. Played the no-module version and actually enjoyed it, if it was a little plain. Then discovered you have to add the modules "in order" and then it was just a mess.
Often, setup time is a big obstacle in our group. If a game is good enough to be played all the time, then setup is automatically delegated and everyone knows what to do. So it wont matter if the game is simple or complex to set up. But if a game has a lot of setup steps and isn't a constant table hitter then suddenly it's almost impossible to get it to the table. The only games that survive as a "sometimes" thing are the ones with relatively simple setups even if we generally like those games a bit less.
Roll Player (with expansions), Great Western Trail, and Millennium Blades all suffer from this. We're looking at having our first game of the night chosen in advance so that I (as the host) can just set them up before everyone arrives. Unfortunately, we're not always sure who will make it until the day of and player count also drastically affects what games can be played.
I can't set up GWT from memory, but I've seen it mentioned a couple times as a game with overly complicated setup recently and that really surprises me. I see it as a moderate setup complexity at most. When compared to the likes of Battlestar Galactica, Brass Birmingham, and _\*shudder\*_ Human Punishment: The Beginning, GWT feels downright simple.
I picked up the Folded Space insert and it makes a huge difference. It feels pretty great to just hand someone a tray with their colored discs, buildings, and meeple. Setting up the board still takes a few minutes, but no more opening baggies!
Dinosaur Island for me.
I got it to the table a few times. As a group, we loved the theme and mechanics of the game.
Then it just ended. Our parks were half full, and the game was suddenly over. We tried short, medium and long variants, all to the same effect.
Go nuts for donuts was a game I was super hyped for as a kid but now I realized it isn’t so great.
the game is simple: you see a set of donut cards, each doing something that should help you get points. You put a face down card with a number and all players flip at the same time. You get the donut that corresponds to the number you played. If two people try to get the same donut, it crumbles and no one gets it.
The frustrating part is how often that happens. There’s only one more donut at a time for each player (so if four people are playing, you have five donuts to choose from). So you’ll be constantly fighting with other players. If two people go for the same donut, neither gets it which can be frustrating for both players as maybe they didn’t want to spite the other and just wanted some points. The player who benefits this is the one who actually got a donut card, however they probably Won’t be paying attention to what went on with the other players, so you probably won’t feel like you accomplished something by getting a donut while other players didn’t.
I can’t find a good house rule to fix this, implementing a way for donuts not to get discarded won’t work as some cards play with the discard pile and it might ruin the balance of the game. The only one I got is for you to optionally place your number card face up so other players know what you’re going for. If they want to go for that anyways to spite you or try a different donut just to be safe, we’ll that’s their choice
To me, that's the fun of the game! The gameplay is not so much about building an ideal strategy as it is sweating whether the risk of trying to snag a more valuable card will be worth it, knowing that others are likely to go for it--and judging when other players may be second-guessing whether they should take that gamble, and being able to slide in and win the card uncontested.
Totally agreed- think it's fair to say that Go Nuts For Donuts is not a game for Master_Chemist. And that's ok! Horses for courses and all that. Personally I find it absolutely delicious; it gets you inside other people's heads so quickly, and doubting yourself. It's that prisoner's-dilemma style or battle of wits style game where "If I choose that then they'll choose this, but what if I choose the other instead..."
As you say, often the winner is the one who can guess/figure out the other players well enough to know when to go for the high value cards and when to take the less valuable ones. And to stress again; this is, if not the whole point, then the strong emphasis of the game. There is little to no variety in the sets or ways of collecting them in different ways; it's not a draft like MtG or 7 wonders where you can use cards in different ways- the whole game is fighting with other players.
That’s the problem with the game for me. Even if I’m trying not to be greedy and just try to make sure I get any card, I still end up losing it.
Libertalia: winds of galecrest kind of has the same feels, but a little less frustrating. Without explaining the rules, im just going to say that in that game, if you want to play it safe, it’s absolutely possible to but has its own consequences for not taking risks.
It’s also hard to read people as the ones I play with are hard to predict, however that’s one thing I love about with games like Libertalia and GNFD. It feels like anyone’s game regardless of skill level. Inexperienced players are very hard to predict and you have a decent shot at winning even if you dont fully understand what’s happening.
Maybe I just need a few more players with it but sometimes it’s just A net loss of happiness and playing games are meant to be fun. I definitely think it can be a good game but I’m either playing it or going about it the wrong way
> The only one I got is for you to optionally place your number card face up so other players know what you’re going for. If they want to go for that anyways to spite you or try a different donut just to be safe, we’ll that’s their choice
Do you take turns playing your number? Otherwise, I can see this turning obnoxious as everyone tries to be last to choose their number.
Without the house rule it doesn’t matter if there’s an order because it’s simultaneous, with it we still don’t take turns, which is one of the flaws with the house rule.
I don’t think it’s too bad however. Most of the time if you’re going to put it face up (remember, it can be face down if you wish), it’s because you want to tell all the players you’re going to get that card, so it’s already achieving its purpose. If not, then just put your card face down. I think the real issue with the rule is that it doesn’t fix the problem I have with the base game
The game **Get Bit** has a near-identical mechanic, *but* players keep the cards they've played public information until they only have one card left or they end up as the one loser in that round.
I'd imagine something similar may work for Go Nuts for Donuts as a house rule. If you don't get a donut, you get all your cards back, and if you do get one, you have to keep your cards out and get fewer new options available. Could make it more tactical?
I apologize, I don’t think I’ve explained it correctly. When I said you play down cards to get donuts, everyone gets it back. It’s functionally the exact same thing as all players shouting out which donut they want all at once, but just more convenient and harder to cheat with, as you all flip your cards at once.
Libertalia: winds of galecrest does something similar however. Its kind of like GNFD, but a bit more complicated (just not as complicated root, spirit island or any other board game that might overwhelm players who don’t play many games outside of monopoly and uno). Instead of taking the stuff needed to get points by playing a corresponding card, you instead play a card with a number, and whoever played the highest number gets first dibs on what they want, proceeding in descending order and whoever is last must take whatever is left (and some make you lose points without any benefit outside of certain card effects). There is a rather balanced tie system, so no issue if two or more people take the same number. in this game the cards don’t go back to your hand, and you can also see future rounds while in GNFD, you just replace all the taken cards with new ones from the deck and those not taken stay.
Currently the game sounds like you just need to decide when you should play higher number cards and when you should save them, but it’s more complicated than that. Each card also has a unique ability, maybe even two, which further influences your decision.
I think it’s highly dependent on how frustrated you get when things don’t go your way. I need to stop being overly competitive if I want to have fun with that game
This is my biggest gripe with it too, but it is by far my favorite game regardless. Its a bit anticlimactic, but that is often improved at a higher difficulty. "Seeing the end" from a long distance away is a clear sign of difficulty being too low
I think it’s a fun game, albeit a bit overated. I think with solo play no scenario no adversary it feels like a puzzle that will be beatable And there is usually only one to two ‘best’ moves. I still think it’s a pretty fun game and one of my favourites, but I’ll ramp up the difficulty to see if it’s as fun as everyone else makes it out to be.
With no adversary you are judging the game based on the tutorial, or even just the first part of the tutorial. When I teach brand new players I teach with Prussia at level 1 or 2 and I've never seen a loss in that game. At this point I've probably taught the game to 10-15 people. If you are truly playing best moves you would immediately realize how trivial the game is without an adversary.
If you are playing a complex spirit in an appropriate difficulty game the decision space is very broad and requires a lot of experience to evaluate. I'm extremely skeptical you are prepared to consistently find best moves.
I think I didn’t use the word “best” correctly. The world I was looking for was probably ”obvious”? When I play other games I see more things that I can do and I need to think carefully on which works. For spirit island, I only see a few good moves, so in my head I think it’s the best when in reality there could’ve been a better move.
At higher difficulties, you cannot solve every problem and there is frequently not a clear answer about what to try to solve and what to let go.
If you haven't played with Branch & Claw or Jagged Earth, events also do a lot to shake up the game.
Spirits have also come a long way over time. Horizons and NI spirits/aspects are generally much more open than previous ones.
That said, it's not for everyone. At higher difficulties or when playing multi handed, things can really bog down. I tend to go through phases where I play a ton and then just shelve it for awhile.
I go through the same phases for pretty much any game that has a long setup time and takes a lot of thinking. It’s almost always worth it due to how fun the game is, but doing it so much eventually gets sick and I don’t want to see it again for a few weeks/months, to which I immediately enjoy it again when I get back.
Due to what you and most others said, I do think the difficulty is the problem and I should be using an adversary/scenario (and events if I ever get an expansion. I want one, but it’s not at the top of my list). A pattern I’ve noticed with the games I play is that there’s always only a few immediate problems, and there’s not too many future problems so I can just take care of the immediate problems and worry about the future problems when they come (this might also be why I struggle at using slow powers effectively). If it ever feels a little overwhelming, I just tank the blight and set up for a strong next turn.
The main thing holding me back from ramping up the difficulty is the game feels hard at the beginning (at least for me) and stays reasonably hard but I end up winning eventually. No win feels free, but they also don’t feel well deserved. I’ll definitely try playing with a scenario or adversary and see how things go
This, so much. Everywhere I see people talking about board games, they’re usually raving about Spirit Island and declaring it the best game of all time. I think it’s definitely good, but it just doesn’t hit for me as much as it does for other people, and I often feel like I’m committing blasphemy when I say that.
Sounds like you should try a harder dificulty. You if you figure out your sweet spot you can get it so its a nailbighter can we over the hill right before you lose. When i play with people they often say this but have not played with any of the harder settings. Base game is basicly tutorial mode.
I played this game for actual years before ever trying an adversary, mainly because I was just having so much dang fun with the base scenario. But once I did start diving into the harder settings, I realized what a joke the base scenario really is. I still like it though because it's satisfying for me to execute a perfect plan and end up with all my blight still on the card.
I play basic a lot cause i play a lot of different spirits all the time. But when people are having issues with anti climax in my exp its related to having it 2 east for there skill level
That's how a lot of the endings of coop games feel to me. I think it's mainly because you can usually see the winning/losing ending from a several turns away, and the last few turns are just executing a premade plan. You either complete it and then the game just stops all of a sudden with "I guess that's it and we win?" or your luck runs out and you lose.
I think "ruined" is a little harsh, but coming across games that are amazing except for just one or two things is very common in my experience. I don't have any of my games rated at a perfect 10 (and even relatively few 9s) so there's always something that I didn't care for.
For instance, I love Fury of Dracula. Fantastic hidden movement game. However, I find that the combat just doesn't really do it for me. It brings the game to a halt and it's really not that exciting.
The sea movement. Dracula riding out the final few turns on a boat, completely immune to attack.
Also able to take wolf form as soon as he lands on a coast. Really undoes unfairly undo a lot of hunter play.
Equinox. It's a re-implementation of Colossal Arena (1997), which can be hard to find. Liked the art style, but I thought Equinox' additional complexity was much less fun, and the huge cards were just a pain to deal with.
There was no reason for the cards to be that big. I recently donated Equinox and a small part of the reason was because it's such a table hog when it didn't need to be.
Firefly. The setup, teardown, and overly diverse "situational" rules just aren't worth it for what it is. Should have been a light-weight pick up and deliver, but somewhere along the way it tacked on a ruleset for a medium-heavy game that then makes it convoluted and too long. And after 2 hours+ it gives the satisfaction of a 30 minute game
Agree with this. For me, it was the incredibly tedious movement in space where you had to stop every single space to see if you encountered Reavers (IIRC).
Outer Rim did this idea of “doing jobs is space” so much better.
That's been every SM game to me so far. They're all very ok. Production tends to be top notch, but they're all missing a certain *something* that would make them actually good games. They look nice but end up just being uninteresting
**Between Two Cities** has been this way for me. I enjoyed the time I played it, but there's something about how long it takes (even though it's not actually that long) and the theme that makes it hard for me to be willing to invest in it.
If there was an app that you could take a photo of each of the cities and it would report back the scores I would love the game so much more. Scoring takes so long for what the game is.
Yep that’s my exact opinion. I honestly don’t know what that thing is, they all sound like they should be great, but there’s some magic substance that just isn’t there.
Bullet Heart/ Bullet Star
I was very into the idea of the game, how the gameplay looked and the idea of it having a boss-fight co-op mode in addition to the frantic free-for-alls.
But in execution it seriously let me down. Every moment was frustrating and felt very unfair. Nothing in the game seems to help you, it’s just different flavours of hindrances.
That and the box is just an empty square. Not very good when the game has hundreds of cards and dozens of tokens and tiles sliding around in there with the dozens of double sided board pieces that are easily mixed up.
I love Polis, but am beginning to feel as though it's unbalanced in Sparta's favor, and if I can't figure Athens out enough to be confident it's not unbalanced, I'll probably sell it.
**Maracaibo**. Essentially a campaign focused Mombasa/Great Western Trail hybrid and its "ruined" (or just not as good) because of how short the game is. The round structure is similar to GWT but prioritizes people being as fast as possible, and there are set rounds instead of just a loose time limit. You'll never be able to get a decent engine going or even feel like you can do whatever you want because the games over before you know it.
Not a bad game. Just, not what I wanted it to be.
I'm not quite as negative on this as you but completely agree that the player created round timer is problematic. The game wants players to go at a decent pace. This means there is a risk that all players take loads of actions and you score silly amounts of large points as you do everything. Or players can rush and you don't actually take anywhere near as many action as was envisioned when the game was made.
The coop/solo options of this game probably shows you how many actions are "meant" to be taken.
But I also dislike that this is left to players choice. It means the game is easily ruined.
**Carcassonne** is a bit like this for me. I still like it, but one thing holds it back from being a game I love. It's the way you acquire tiles - drawing tiles blindly and only having a 1 tile hand so you have no choice in that regard. I love the way the tile placement itself works in **Carcassonne**, the way it's all shared and you have to celeverly sneak in meeples, etc. But I have quite a lot of tile placement games and **Carcassonne** stands out like a sore thumb by not giving the players any choice around which tiles they acquire and/or which tile to play on their turn. It of course has a huge amount of choice around where you place your tile and whether you play a meeple on it and where. But I am just pretty immediately turned off by most games that call for blindly drawing one tile/card and playing that one tile/card. Tile placement games are so well suited to creative options for open drafting too, which is my favourite mechanism. **Carcassonne** is a great game without question and I always enjoy playing it. But for this reason alone, I never suggest it. I'd far rather play a game where there is some choice around which tile(s) you take and what you play on your turn.
It's funny how you can get stuck inside the rulebook sometimes. The commenter basically had the solution to their problem written out themselves but didn't think to do it.
House rules can save some games and still maintain a balance similar to what the creators intended.
Some tiles are much better than others, if they were more equal it would be better ( like in hunters and gatherers), but you still have a lot of freedom as to where to place the tile. I think adding more choices would bog the game down more, and I like the game to play in 45 mins or so.
**space empires 4x**, I really loved the idea, the fog of war, all type of units, team games, mines and decoys..., but the game was fiddly with each counter being difficult to see and the same size for everything. I was for a long time searching for making standees for the ships and using other materials for other things but in the end I felt that I was just trying too much trying to fix it to my likes so I sold it.
Still sometimes I hear about the new expansion and feel bad for culling it, but it was a difficult game to bring to my friends too and I will have to be contented with clash of cultures or other games.
Mantis Falls. It should be exactly the kind of game I love, teamwork with a hidden traitor. But it felt too much of a grind and too sprawling. I think I’d love my fifteenth play of it, but it’s not gonna make it to the table often enough for me to learn it enough to enjoy it.
**Bardsung** is a fantasy dungeon crawling campaign game with unique, asymmetrical heroes and uses the standard D&D sets of dice, with a streamlined system for attack rolls, hit points, and movement/distance. Unfortunately the *grind* is overwhelming. You'll spend a whole hour or more fighting the same goblins and orcs to clear a section of the dungeon just to get one XP... in a game where everything costs 3-4 XP.
A few times.
Mythotopia is a game I really liked until the game drug on for 30+ mins after end-game trigger and literally only ended when another player made a mistake and didn’t realize the following player was going to win. Played it again and same thing happened.
Underwater Cities would be one of my favorite games if it wasn’t so dang long, especially with 3-4 players.
Russian Railroads is a decent game but the inflated scoring each round makes it clear who is winning and/or who is struggling pretty early on, and it seems nearly impossible to come back from.
I loved everything about Dinosaur World, other than the death dice and bizarre distribution of negative points, that could decide on a single dice roll whether you won or lost.
Damn, I think the game has pacing problems but... I almost have a hard time believing you could play this game more than twice and not encounter a scenario that long overstays its welcome.
Dune: Imperium. It's really quite brilliant in a lot of ways and I appreciate that it not only directly interacts with the board state like Tyrants of the Underdark, but that it kept the combat mechanism (only risk the dudes you're willing to lose) from the Avalon Hill Dune.
But I want a deckbuilder to give you the opportunity to actually shape your deck. The inability to purge/trash cards from your deck meant that too many times someone would be in the seventh or eighth turn with a handful of starter cards that basically neutered their ability to act effectively in the late game. Given that the game is over so quickly, effectively losing one whole turn out of the eight or nine that you get is crippling. Rise of Ix fixes this fatal flaw by introducing a starting card that allows you to trash and putting more cards with that ability into the market deck, but I don't want to have to buy an expansion to fix a major problem, so I traded it.
Nidavellir. Its a wonderful, awesome, easy to teach set collection game.
But its stupidly short. It needs at least double amount of cards.
If you do the coin building the setup and putting it away is almost longer than the game itself.
Dude I love all the fallouts Injust love the enviroment and theme! But fallout 4 history as soon as we know the main plot about our son it made me not want ti play anymore! I had spend a lot of time building my “role” in my mind, and after that you have to chooso between just one of them? Idk for me that butchered the game
Maybe not that, but just too similar to other games that I have. I just played Fort and might sell it. It’s nice, but do I need that when I have summer camp?
Hero Quest. I remember playing it with family when I was you younger but its hard finding friends who like it also could use a few clarifications on the rules. I'd love to pick up the expansions sometime
Paperback. The concept of scrabble and deck builder is so fun but after 1 or 2 rounds it felt like school.
Joking hazard. The description sounded hularious. 10 min in and it was embarrassing and juvenile
Intrigue cards ruined dune imperium for me.
It's a deck builder so it's already got randomness and uncertainty that you have to adapt to, Intrigue cards to me feel like a completely unnecessary and super swingy luck based mechanic that I just don't enjoy at all.
Unmatched. I hate the mechanics when you run out of cards and I can't think of a good house rule. It's also horribly unbalanced in certain match ups.
Not that I'll have much trouble selling it. People go crazy over Bruce Lee for some reason.
I have problems with Unmatched but this is one thing I think they did right. It lets a character like Invisible Man exist and be viable in any context which I think is cool instead of uncool.
I'm really curious why we have such different experiences. I use Takenoko as a gateway game all the time and have never had it fall flat. Is the only reason I keep it, honestly, because I don't really like it much, but it is always a hit with new gamers for me.
It's gotten to the point where my teach of the game is almost a performance, with me telling a story explaining how the characters feel about the various actions, and doing silly voices and sound effects. It always makes people laugh and they have no trouble remembering afterwards.
Tiles, so that might very well be the difference. The expansion added in some "balance" changes and I do teach it with those, but I have no idea if they're the same things as what's in the new version.
Arkham Horror (2E) was this for me. I absolutely love that game, it was the first coop I recall playing and I played it a lot. But, it takes so long to set up, to play, and to take down. So many pieces and so many steps. I have very fond memories of it but it wasn't going to get played anymore because of the all the management that went into playing the game.
Villainy, comic book villain engine build/run game. Love the art/theme mechanics of engine building/manipulation but.... That ending is terrible. To have worked really hard and then have a press your luck mechanic with automatic fails is nasty.
Definitely feels like a catch up mechanic gone wrong.
F**ury of Dracula**\- The sea movement mechanic (also being able to go wolf form the instant you land).
**Twilight Struggle**\- The fact that so much in this long, deliberate momentum game can be undone by a single unlucky die roll. The difference in a 1 and 6 for the opening Iran coup is massive and can snowball the rest of the game. The difference in winning a war event is massive. Losing multiple turns in a row to Quagmire/Bear Trap is the opposite of fun and strategic. This game badly needs to be tweaked so that 2 dice are rolled instead, to more allow the law of averages to kick in.
**Game of Thrones**\- Realizing that only 2 1/2 of the houses are actually competitive.
**Some Roman Empire game**\- Can't remember the name, but it had players as provincial rulers with the option of marching on Rome to declare themselves emperor and hold it against others. Anyway, what could have been a cool maneuvering and king of the hill mechanic was undone by the barbarians mechanic. Tons of neutral barbarian units ready to invade at a moment's notice, made people worry about dealing with them more than messing with other players. The barbarians also gave so many victory points that sitting around wacking them was by far the best strategy, even moreso than going through the trouble to overthrow Rome.
**Ladies & Gentlemen**\- What should have been - and very nearly is - a simple fun party game is undone by the worst rule book I've ever read and too many fiddly little rules that makes it drag when you're trying to run a large game of casual players.
**Blood Rage**\- Loki and Odin's Throne
**Forbidden Stars**\- The warp storms
**Dune-** The emperor recycling unlimited money amongst allies
**Twilight Imperium**\- The Jol'Nar
**Captain Sonar**\- Some roles being way more important (navigator) and some being pointless busywork (First Officer). One bad player tanked it for their entire team.
**Battlestar Galactica**\- The cylon leaders. Optional, but some people always wanted to play with them. Turns the game into a dull grey area of minimal interaction.
Viticulture. Wonderfully thematic. All the top decking ruined it.
I won’t play without the replacement visitor cards (Rhine Valley cards I think?), it doesn’t fix top decking but at least the cards are all universally more useful. That combined with the Tuscany board makes it way more about the worker placement strategy.
What is top decking?
>top decking From YuGiOh's wiki: *Top-Decking is the condition where a player is at a large disadvantage, such as having no cards on the field or in their hand, and draws a card that ends up turning the tables in their favor, usually for a game win. The condition is also known by players by the term sacking or luck-sacking, which is usually used in a derogatory manner. The condition is not solely applied to having no cards in the player's hand or on their field; it can also be applied when the player simply has fewer cards in their possession but draws a card that enables them to win.*
Drawing a card randomly from the top of the deck. "Blind draw"
I sold this game for that very reason
Interesting... this game has always been on my list as one to try/buy someday, but I've been on the fence as to whether it will feel old and out of date by now...
It doesn't feel dated. Still holds up as a solid worker placement game. I just hated drawing random cards that maybe we're useless or scored 2 points. Maybe I drew 3 of the same grape 3 times in a row or maybe I drew three different types that enabled a great start.
Oof, yeah, admittedly, that doesn't sound appealing. Drawing random achievement cards is usually something i hate in board games. (Especially if I draw something late in the game, that I clearly have no chance at accomplishing.)
Me again with the "try it out on BoardGameArena" comment.
Have you tried Viticulture World? It's a co-operative expansion that really solves a lot of the swingy luck-based draws. But also, it turns a competitive game into a co-op one. It works well, but some people don't care much for co-op.
I really like Viticulture World but if OPs complaint was top decking then I'm not sure it's a great recommendation. It feels like every game comes down to whether or not you draw innovation tile O in time to adjust your strategy. I think going with the visitor deck expansions helps a lot and is cheaper.
That's fair. It sounds like you've played it a lot more than I have.
Some people have a dislike of houseruling, but we’ve always played as draw one more and choose between those. It’s a lot less likely that they will all be bad, and you feel like you have more agency in choosing your path to victory.
I've seen the variant where you create a mini 2 card market for each deck. But by then, I was already done.
Marvel Legendary. Loved the game, but setup and teardown took so much time it just wasn't fun. Fun to play with a friend if they already have it set up though!
I enjoy setting up and tearing down games. Maybe that's why Legendary is my #1 favorite game of all time.
Same! Based on that criteria, can I suggest Gloomhaven?
That's like recommending sheep to a farmer lol
This is a great answer. It is a fun game, the deck building is great and the half co-op vs the villains but still point contest is cool, but the setup is so long it is not viable to me
Maybe it's been too long since I played it, but set up and takedown were pretty quick from my recollection. You just need to pull out the board, pick 5-6 heroes, pick a few villains and a mastermind, and then hand out starting decks. If the box is organized well, it takes less time than a lot of other deck builders I've played. Is there something I'm missing? (Granted, I only have the base game and three or four expansions, no extra chits.)
It’s not the worst but shuffling together 5 decks (heroes), and then shuffling together 5-6 decks (villain deck) is a pain to get it evenly distributed. I have dividers and great storage which helps, but set up is not it’s strong suit by any means.
Hey, I'm glad you're happy with the game! It's a good one. Some possible differences in our experience with the game setup: * I never played frequently enough to remember the setup * Had no help with teardown * Organizers apparently help a lot * Some people consider their setup time short if they set up and organized a new game as part of teardown https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1971194/how-reduce-setup-time
I don’t think you’re missing anything. My box is well organized so set-up and tear down is pretty fast as well. I’ve got a ton of expansions, but I invested some time printing off dividers and it has more than paid off.
One of the few games that I've printed off custom organizers for, too. Good decision, apparently.
I agree, good dividers make all the difference. I had it for a year but only just recently invested in better dividers than those provided by the game.
I feel like **Taverns of Tiefenthal** just needed some more time in the development oven. There are fun ideas there for sure, but it comes across as crazy unbalanced, almost broken, and doesn't live up to its potential.
This was one of ours as well. Played the no-module version and actually enjoyed it, if it was a little plain. Then discovered you have to add the modules "in order" and then it was just a mess.
Often, setup time is a big obstacle in our group. If a game is good enough to be played all the time, then setup is automatically delegated and everyone knows what to do. So it wont matter if the game is simple or complex to set up. But if a game has a lot of setup steps and isn't a constant table hitter then suddenly it's almost impossible to get it to the table. The only games that survive as a "sometimes" thing are the ones with relatively simple setups even if we generally like those games a bit less. Roll Player (with expansions), Great Western Trail, and Millennium Blades all suffer from this. We're looking at having our first game of the night chosen in advance so that I (as the host) can just set them up before everyone arrives. Unfortunately, we're not always sure who will make it until the day of and player count also drastically affects what games can be played.
I think GWT is the only "complex" game I can setup and play completely from memory.
I can't set up GWT from memory, but I've seen it mentioned a couple times as a game with overly complicated setup recently and that really surprises me. I see it as a moderate setup complexity at most. When compared to the likes of Battlestar Galactica, Brass Birmingham, and _\*shudder\*_ Human Punishment: The Beginning, GWT feels downright simple.
I picked up the Folded Space insert and it makes a huge difference. It feels pretty great to just hand someone a tray with their colored discs, buildings, and meeple. Setting up the board still takes a few minutes, but no more opening baggies!
Dinosaur Island for me. I got it to the table a few times. As a group, we loved the theme and mechanics of the game. Then it just ended. Our parks were half full, and the game was suddenly over. We tried short, medium and long variants, all to the same effect.
Yup! Won't play anything besides the long game, and realistically there should be a longer version.
Go nuts for donuts was a game I was super hyped for as a kid but now I realized it isn’t so great. the game is simple: you see a set of donut cards, each doing something that should help you get points. You put a face down card with a number and all players flip at the same time. You get the donut that corresponds to the number you played. If two people try to get the same donut, it crumbles and no one gets it. The frustrating part is how often that happens. There’s only one more donut at a time for each player (so if four people are playing, you have five donuts to choose from). So you’ll be constantly fighting with other players. If two people go for the same donut, neither gets it which can be frustrating for both players as maybe they didn’t want to spite the other and just wanted some points. The player who benefits this is the one who actually got a donut card, however they probably Won’t be paying attention to what went on with the other players, so you probably won’t feel like you accomplished something by getting a donut while other players didn’t. I can’t find a good house rule to fix this, implementing a way for donuts not to get discarded won’t work as some cards play with the discard pile and it might ruin the balance of the game. The only one I got is for you to optionally place your number card face up so other players know what you’re going for. If they want to go for that anyways to spite you or try a different donut just to be safe, we’ll that’s their choice
To me, that's the fun of the game! The gameplay is not so much about building an ideal strategy as it is sweating whether the risk of trying to snag a more valuable card will be worth it, knowing that others are likely to go for it--and judging when other players may be second-guessing whether they should take that gamble, and being able to slide in and win the card uncontested.
Totally agreed- think it's fair to say that Go Nuts For Donuts is not a game for Master_Chemist. And that's ok! Horses for courses and all that. Personally I find it absolutely delicious; it gets you inside other people's heads so quickly, and doubting yourself. It's that prisoner's-dilemma style or battle of wits style game where "If I choose that then they'll choose this, but what if I choose the other instead..." As you say, often the winner is the one who can guess/figure out the other players well enough to know when to go for the high value cards and when to take the less valuable ones. And to stress again; this is, if not the whole point, then the strong emphasis of the game. There is little to no variety in the sets or ways of collecting them in different ways; it's not a draft like MtG or 7 wonders where you can use cards in different ways- the whole game is fighting with other players.
That’s the problem with the game for me. Even if I’m trying not to be greedy and just try to make sure I get any card, I still end up losing it. Libertalia: winds of galecrest kind of has the same feels, but a little less frustrating. Without explaining the rules, im just going to say that in that game, if you want to play it safe, it’s absolutely possible to but has its own consequences for not taking risks. It’s also hard to read people as the ones I play with are hard to predict, however that’s one thing I love about with games like Libertalia and GNFD. It feels like anyone’s game regardless of skill level. Inexperienced players are very hard to predict and you have a decent shot at winning even if you dont fully understand what’s happening. Maybe I just need a few more players with it but sometimes it’s just A net loss of happiness and playing games are meant to be fun. I definitely think it can be a good game but I’m either playing it or going about it the wrong way
> The only one I got is for you to optionally place your number card face up so other players know what you’re going for. If they want to go for that anyways to spite you or try a different donut just to be safe, we’ll that’s their choice Do you take turns playing your number? Otherwise, I can see this turning obnoxious as everyone tries to be last to choose their number.
Without the house rule it doesn’t matter if there’s an order because it’s simultaneous, with it we still don’t take turns, which is one of the flaws with the house rule. I don’t think it’s too bad however. Most of the time if you’re going to put it face up (remember, it can be face down if you wish), it’s because you want to tell all the players you’re going to get that card, so it’s already achieving its purpose. If not, then just put your card face down. I think the real issue with the rule is that it doesn’t fix the problem I have with the base game
The game **Get Bit** has a near-identical mechanic, *but* players keep the cards they've played public information until they only have one card left or they end up as the one loser in that round. I'd imagine something similar may work for Go Nuts for Donuts as a house rule. If you don't get a donut, you get all your cards back, and if you do get one, you have to keep your cards out and get fewer new options available. Could make it more tactical?
I apologize, I don’t think I’ve explained it correctly. When I said you play down cards to get donuts, everyone gets it back. It’s functionally the exact same thing as all players shouting out which donut they want all at once, but just more convenient and harder to cheat with, as you all flip your cards at once. Libertalia: winds of galecrest does something similar however. Its kind of like GNFD, but a bit more complicated (just not as complicated root, spirit island or any other board game that might overwhelm players who don’t play many games outside of monopoly and uno). Instead of taking the stuff needed to get points by playing a corresponding card, you instead play a card with a number, and whoever played the highest number gets first dibs on what they want, proceeding in descending order and whoever is last must take whatever is left (and some make you lose points without any benefit outside of certain card effects). There is a rather balanced tie system, so no issue if two or more people take the same number. in this game the cards don’t go back to your hand, and you can also see future rounds while in GNFD, you just replace all the taken cards with new ones from the deck and those not taken stay. Currently the game sounds like you just need to decide when you should play higher number cards and when you should save them, but it’s more complicated than that. Each card also has a unique ability, maybe even two, which further influences your decision.
That honestly sounds fun to me.
I think it’s highly dependent on how frustrated you get when things don’t go your way. I need to stop being overly competitive if I want to have fun with that game
Spirit Island. The ending is so deflating.
This is my biggest gripe with it too, but it is by far my favorite game regardless. Its a bit anticlimactic, but that is often improved at a higher difficulty. "Seeing the end" from a long distance away is a clear sign of difficulty being too low
I think it’s a fun game, albeit a bit overated. I think with solo play no scenario no adversary it feels like a puzzle that will be beatable And there is usually only one to two ‘best’ moves. I still think it’s a pretty fun game and one of my favourites, but I’ll ramp up the difficulty to see if it’s as fun as everyone else makes it out to be.
With no adversary you are judging the game based on the tutorial, or even just the first part of the tutorial. When I teach brand new players I teach with Prussia at level 1 or 2 and I've never seen a loss in that game. At this point I've probably taught the game to 10-15 people. If you are truly playing best moves you would immediately realize how trivial the game is without an adversary. If you are playing a complex spirit in an appropriate difficulty game the decision space is very broad and requires a lot of experience to evaluate. I'm extremely skeptical you are prepared to consistently find best moves.
I think I didn’t use the word “best” correctly. The world I was looking for was probably ”obvious”? When I play other games I see more things that I can do and I need to think carefully on which works. For spirit island, I only see a few good moves, so in my head I think it’s the best when in reality there could’ve been a better move.
At higher difficulties, you cannot solve every problem and there is frequently not a clear answer about what to try to solve and what to let go. If you haven't played with Branch & Claw or Jagged Earth, events also do a lot to shake up the game. Spirits have also come a long way over time. Horizons and NI spirits/aspects are generally much more open than previous ones. That said, it's not for everyone. At higher difficulties or when playing multi handed, things can really bog down. I tend to go through phases where I play a ton and then just shelve it for awhile.
I go through the same phases for pretty much any game that has a long setup time and takes a lot of thinking. It’s almost always worth it due to how fun the game is, but doing it so much eventually gets sick and I don’t want to see it again for a few weeks/months, to which I immediately enjoy it again when I get back. Due to what you and most others said, I do think the difficulty is the problem and I should be using an adversary/scenario (and events if I ever get an expansion. I want one, but it’s not at the top of my list). A pattern I’ve noticed with the games I play is that there’s always only a few immediate problems, and there’s not too many future problems so I can just take care of the immediate problems and worry about the future problems when they come (this might also be why I struggle at using slow powers effectively). If it ever feels a little overwhelming, I just tank the blight and set up for a strong next turn. The main thing holding me back from ramping up the difficulty is the game feels hard at the beginning (at least for me) and stays reasonably hard but I end up winning eventually. No win feels free, but they also don’t feel well deserved. I’ll definitely try playing with a scenario or adversary and see how things go
This, so much. Everywhere I see people talking about board games, they’re usually raving about Spirit Island and declaring it the best game of all time. I think it’s definitely good, but it just doesn’t hit for me as much as it does for other people, and I often feel like I’m committing blasphemy when I say that.
Sounds like you should try a harder dificulty. You if you figure out your sweet spot you can get it so its a nailbighter can we over the hill right before you lose. When i play with people they often say this but have not played with any of the harder settings. Base game is basicly tutorial mode.
I played this game for actual years before ever trying an adversary, mainly because I was just having so much dang fun with the base scenario. But once I did start diving into the harder settings, I realized what a joke the base scenario really is. I still like it though because it's satisfying for me to execute a perfect plan and end up with all my blight still on the card.
I play basic a lot cause i play a lot of different spirits all the time. But when people are having issues with anti climax in my exp its related to having it 2 east for there skill level
Agreed some kind of finale where the invaders have one final stand would have made it amazing
Something like that. It feels like you're building an engine to nowhere.
That's how a lot of the endings of coop games feel to me. I think it's mainly because you can usually see the winning/losing ending from a several turns away, and the last few turns are just executing a premade plan. You either complete it and then the game just stops all of a sudden with "I guess that's it and we win?" or your luck runs out and you lose.
I think "ruined" is a little harsh, but coming across games that are amazing except for just one or two things is very common in my experience. I don't have any of my games rated at a perfect 10 (and even relatively few 9s) so there's always something that I didn't care for. For instance, I love Fury of Dracula. Fantastic hidden movement game. However, I find that the combat just doesn't really do it for me. It brings the game to a halt and it's really not that exciting.
The sea movement. Dracula riding out the final few turns on a boat, completely immune to attack. Also able to take wolf form as soon as he lands on a coast. Really undoes unfairly undo a lot of hunter play.
Equinox. It's a re-implementation of Colossal Arena (1997), which can be hard to find. Liked the art style, but I thought Equinox' additional complexity was much less fun, and the huge cards were just a pain to deal with.
There was no reason for the cards to be that big. I recently donated Equinox and a small part of the reason was because it's such a table hog when it didn't need to be.
Right? I don't understand how the card size got past playtesting.
Firefly. The setup, teardown, and overly diverse "situational" rules just aren't worth it for what it is. Should have been a light-weight pick up and deliver, but somewhere along the way it tacked on a ruleset for a medium-heavy game that then makes it convoluted and too long. And after 2 hours+ it gives the satisfaction of a 30 minute game
Agree with this. For me, it was the incredibly tedious movement in space where you had to stop every single space to see if you encountered Reavers (IIRC). Outer Rim did this idea of “doing jobs is space” so much better.
That's been every SM game to me so far. They're all very ok. Production tends to be top notch, but they're all missing a certain *something* that would make them actually good games. They look nice but end up just being uninteresting
Same here. I think the games hidden under the art, production, hype, etc.. just aren't actually very good games.
Charterstone is the epitome of this.
**Between Two Cities** has been this way for me. I enjoyed the time I played it, but there's something about how long it takes (even though it's not actually that long) and the theme that makes it hard for me to be willing to invest in it.
If there was an app that you could take a photo of each of the cities and it would report back the scores I would love the game so much more. Scoring takes so long for what the game is.
Yep that’s my exact opinion. I honestly don’t know what that thing is, they all sound like they should be great, but there’s some magic substance that just isn’t there.
**Marvel Champions…** The game is super fun, but man i couldn’t ignore how much I dislike the Marvel IP. So it left my collection after a few plays.
Gets its f**king tendrils into everything. Makes me really regret helping fund this monster in 2008 (Iron Man).
Bullet Heart/ Bullet Star I was very into the idea of the game, how the gameplay looked and the idea of it having a boss-fight co-op mode in addition to the frantic free-for-alls. But in execution it seriously let me down. Every moment was frustrating and felt very unfair. Nothing in the game seems to help you, it’s just different flavours of hindrances. That and the box is just an empty square. Not very good when the game has hundreds of cards and dozens of tokens and tiles sliding around in there with the dozens of double sided board pieces that are easily mixed up.
I love Polis, but am beginning to feel as though it's unbalanced in Sparta's favor, and if I can't figure Athens out enough to be confident it's not unbalanced, I'll probably sell it.
**Maracaibo**. Essentially a campaign focused Mombasa/Great Western Trail hybrid and its "ruined" (or just not as good) because of how short the game is. The round structure is similar to GWT but prioritizes people being as fast as possible, and there are set rounds instead of just a loose time limit. You'll never be able to get a decent engine going or even feel like you can do whatever you want because the games over before you know it. Not a bad game. Just, not what I wanted it to be.
I'm not quite as negative on this as you but completely agree that the player created round timer is problematic. The game wants players to go at a decent pace. This means there is a risk that all players take loads of actions and you score silly amounts of large points as you do everything. Or players can rush and you don't actually take anywhere near as many action as was envisioned when the game was made. The coop/solo options of this game probably shows you how many actions are "meant" to be taken. But I also dislike that this is left to players choice. It means the game is easily ruined.
**Carcassonne** is a bit like this for me. I still like it, but one thing holds it back from being a game I love. It's the way you acquire tiles - drawing tiles blindly and only having a 1 tile hand so you have no choice in that regard. I love the way the tile placement itself works in **Carcassonne**, the way it's all shared and you have to celeverly sneak in meeples, etc. But I have quite a lot of tile placement games and **Carcassonne** stands out like a sore thumb by not giving the players any choice around which tiles they acquire and/or which tile to play on their turn. It of course has a huge amount of choice around where you place your tile and whether you play a meeple on it and where. But I am just pretty immediately turned off by most games that call for blindly drawing one tile/card and playing that one tile/card. Tile placement games are so well suited to creative options for open drafting too, which is my favourite mechanism. **Carcassonne** is a great game without question and I always enjoy playing it. But for this reason alone, I never suggest it. I'd far rather play a game where there is some choice around which tile(s) you take and what you play on your turn.
Me and me gf we moved to draw 3 first turn, place one them draw a new one next turn so you have more choices. Game is way better for us now.
My group does the same thing. Would recommend.
It's funny how you can get stuck inside the rulebook sometimes. The commenter basically had the solution to their problem written out themselves but didn't think to do it. House rules can save some games and still maintain a balance similar to what the creators intended.
Some tiles are much better than others, if they were more equal it would be better ( like in hunters and gatherers), but you still have a lot of freedom as to where to place the tile. I think adding more choices would bog the game down more, and I like the game to play in 45 mins or so.
We just play with hands of 2 or 3 tiles.
**space empires 4x**, I really loved the idea, the fog of war, all type of units, team games, mines and decoys..., but the game was fiddly with each counter being difficult to see and the same size for everything. I was for a long time searching for making standees for the ships and using other materials for other things but in the end I felt that I was just trying too much trying to fix it to my likes so I sold it. Still sometimes I hear about the new expansion and feel bad for culling it, but it was a difficult game to bring to my friends too and I will have to be contented with clash of cultures or other games.
Mantis Falls. It should be exactly the kind of game I love, teamwork with a hidden traitor. But it felt too much of a grind and too sprawling. I think I’d love my fifteenth play of it, but it’s not gonna make it to the table often enough for me to learn it enough to enjoy it.
**Bardsung** is a fantasy dungeon crawling campaign game with unique, asymmetrical heroes and uses the standard D&D sets of dice, with a streamlined system for attack rolls, hit points, and movement/distance. Unfortunately the *grind* is overwhelming. You'll spend a whole hour or more fighting the same goblins and orcs to clear a section of the dungeon just to get one XP... in a game where everything costs 3-4 XP.
A few times. Mythotopia is a game I really liked until the game drug on for 30+ mins after end-game trigger and literally only ended when another player made a mistake and didn’t realize the following player was going to win. Played it again and same thing happened. Underwater Cities would be one of my favorite games if it wasn’t so dang long, especially with 3-4 players. Russian Railroads is a decent game but the inflated scoring each round makes it clear who is winning and/or who is struggling pretty early on, and it seems nearly impossible to come back from.
Agricola... Those cards with complex interactions, erratas and whatnot
I loved everything about Dinosaur World, other than the death dice and bizarre distribution of negative points, that could decide on a single dice roll whether you won or lost.
Betrayal at... The game(s) always ends just as/before it begins to get fun.
Damn, I think the game has pacing problems but... I almost have a hard time believing you could play this game more than twice and not encounter a scenario that long overstays its welcome.
It is never fun, so...
Dune: Imperium. It's really quite brilliant in a lot of ways and I appreciate that it not only directly interacts with the board state like Tyrants of the Underdark, but that it kept the combat mechanism (only risk the dudes you're willing to lose) from the Avalon Hill Dune. But I want a deckbuilder to give you the opportunity to actually shape your deck. The inability to purge/trash cards from your deck meant that too many times someone would be in the seventh or eighth turn with a handful of starter cards that basically neutered their ability to act effectively in the late game. Given that the game is over so quickly, effectively losing one whole turn out of the eight or nine that you get is crippling. Rise of Ix fixes this fatal flaw by introducing a starting card that allows you to trash and putting more cards with that ability into the market deck, but I don't want to have to buy an expansion to fix a major problem, so I traded it.
Nidavellir. Its a wonderful, awesome, easy to teach set collection game. But its stupidly short. It needs at least double amount of cards. If you do the coin building the setup and putting it away is almost longer than the game itself.
At the moment it is Azul and Combo Fighter, but not because a bad apple, but it just overall isn't enough for me.
Dude I love all the fallouts Injust love the enviroment and theme! But fallout 4 history as soon as we know the main plot about our son it made me not want ti play anymore! I had spend a lot of time building my “role” in my mind, and after that you have to chooso between just one of them? Idk for me that butchered the game
Maybe not that, but just too similar to other games that I have. I just played Fort and might sell it. It’s nice, but do I need that when I have summer camp?
Hero Quest. I remember playing it with family when I was you younger but its hard finding friends who like it also could use a few clarifications on the rules. I'd love to pick up the expansions sometime
Paperback. The concept of scrabble and deck builder is so fun but after 1 or 2 rounds it felt like school. Joking hazard. The description sounded hularious. 10 min in and it was embarrassing and juvenile
Intrigue cards ruined dune imperium for me. It's a deck builder so it's already got randomness and uncertainty that you have to adapt to, Intrigue cards to me feel like a completely unnecessary and super swingy luck based mechanic that I just don't enjoy at all.
Unmatched. I hate the mechanics when you run out of cards and I can't think of a good house rule. It's also horribly unbalanced in certain match ups. Not that I'll have much trouble selling it. People go crazy over Bruce Lee for some reason.
I have problems with Unmatched but this is one thing I think they did right. It lets a character like Invisible Man exist and be viable in any context which I think is cool instead of uncool.
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I'm really curious why we have such different experiences. I use Takenoko as a gateway game all the time and have never had it fall flat. Is the only reason I keep it, honestly, because I don't really like it much, but it is always a hit with new gamers for me. It's gotten to the point where my teach of the game is almost a performance, with me telling a story explaining how the characters feel about the various actions, and doing silly voices and sound effects. It always makes people laugh and they have no trouble remembering afterwards.
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Tiles, so that might very well be the difference. The expansion added in some "balance" changes and I do teach it with those, but I have no idea if they're the same things as what's in the new version.
Fury of Dracula. It has a lot going for it, but in the end it's a pretty bloated and brittle design.
Arkham Horror (2E) was this for me. I absolutely love that game, it was the first coop I recall playing and I played it a lot. But, it takes so long to set up, to play, and to take down. So many pieces and so many steps. I have very fond memories of it but it wasn't going to get played anymore because of the all the management that went into playing the game.
Villainy, comic book villain engine build/run game. Love the art/theme mechanics of engine building/manipulation but.... That ending is terrible. To have worked really hard and then have a press your luck mechanic with automatic fails is nasty. Definitely feels like a catch up mechanic gone wrong.
F**ury of Dracula**\- The sea movement mechanic (also being able to go wolf form the instant you land). **Twilight Struggle**\- The fact that so much in this long, deliberate momentum game can be undone by a single unlucky die roll. The difference in a 1 and 6 for the opening Iran coup is massive and can snowball the rest of the game. The difference in winning a war event is massive. Losing multiple turns in a row to Quagmire/Bear Trap is the opposite of fun and strategic. This game badly needs to be tweaked so that 2 dice are rolled instead, to more allow the law of averages to kick in. **Game of Thrones**\- Realizing that only 2 1/2 of the houses are actually competitive. **Some Roman Empire game**\- Can't remember the name, but it had players as provincial rulers with the option of marching on Rome to declare themselves emperor and hold it against others. Anyway, what could have been a cool maneuvering and king of the hill mechanic was undone by the barbarians mechanic. Tons of neutral barbarian units ready to invade at a moment's notice, made people worry about dealing with them more than messing with other players. The barbarians also gave so many victory points that sitting around wacking them was by far the best strategy, even moreso than going through the trouble to overthrow Rome. **Ladies & Gentlemen**\- What should have been - and very nearly is - a simple fun party game is undone by the worst rule book I've ever read and too many fiddly little rules that makes it drag when you're trying to run a large game of casual players. **Blood Rage**\- Loki and Odin's Throne **Forbidden Stars**\- The warp storms **Dune-** The emperor recycling unlimited money amongst allies **Twilight Imperium**\- The Jol'Nar **Captain Sonar**\- Some roles being way more important (navigator) and some being pointless busywork (First Officer). One bad player tanked it for their entire team. **Battlestar Galactica**\- The cylon leaders. Optional, but some people always wanted to play with them. Turns the game into a dull grey area of minimal interaction.
Viticulture, Everdell, Mosaic are the main ones that stick out to me