Dope ass board games

[scarm]

Can someone explain to me why games such as Santorini or Onitama (and others) are quite popular and cited as great examples of chess-like head to heads for 2 players, but Stratego is frowned upon as a mass market game? I played the former two on Boardgamearena lately (which granted worsens the experience) and to me, all three of these games are just "dumbed-down chess" - which has advantages and disadvantages.

The Theme: Chess is obviously quite an abstract game which can put people off. I'd argue that Onitama is even more abstract though, because while chess pieces and their movement rules loosely correspond with Infantry, different kinds of cavalry and such, Onitama just is monks battling each other with animal abilities for some reason? Santorini falls in the middle to me, you are building a city with the help of the gods, so far so good. The pieces would obviously be great to look at in real life. But, to me Stratego is by far the least abstract of the games. It preserves the military branch = ability to some extent, makes the pieces actual soldiers with a rank, and revolves heavily around the concept of fog of war, which to me is quite a thematic representation of actual warfare.

The Puzzle: Chess' puzzle in my eyes is essentially just a geometrical area control puzzle with one special weakpoint you have to defend at all costs. Stratego does the same thing, but tones down the movement options and adds the fog of war and bluffing element. Santorini takes chess' puzzle and infuses it with some elements of tic tac toe or cowboy's checkers. Onitama's gist is the interactivity between players and the changing movement options. All three deviations in my opinion offer something unique. What one prefers is up to taste.

The strategy: None of these other games quite comes close in strategic depth and simple elegance to chess (which is fine, as chess is obviously really damn hard). The closest is in my opinion Santorini. The fact that you have two pieces, both of which can move to all 9 areas around them potentially, and build on all 9 of them gives you a ton of options to consider each turn, even more if you add godpowers. Onitama is more simplistic in its options, the complexity comes from the interaction with the other player. The main strategic depth in Stratego on the other hand comes from planning for mobility and area control in the first place, setup makes a huge difference here. It is more so focussed on using and preserving your ressources wisely and making your opponent believe you are committing more or less resources than you actually are. I think Santorini is a step above the other two in strategic depth, while the others are quite close.

The Other: Setup, ease of play and teach and such are imo not general considerations for any of these. Setup in Stratego is part of the game, and for the others is incredibly fast. I guess teardown could be slow for Santorini physically. As far as price is concerned, Santorini is the most expensive in my region, at about 30€, while you can get the others for 15€ easily.

Overall, i don't see why these other two games are inherently better than Stratego, other than "cult of the new" and "designer game bias". I think all three offer a refreshing, simplified take on an ages old concept, and which one you prefer comes down to if you prefer 1) "drafting" and high player interaction 2) bluffing and resource management or 3) a more complex geometrical puzzle.

[Goodspeed]

Considered it, read some reviews, and it has some major flaws so noty.
Assuming you're serious, maybe we can organize something else like twilight imperium? Has anyone here played that?

Yes, played 4th edition a couple of times. I like it.

Bump, with what player amounts have you played it and what did you like/dislike about those amounts?
Any house rules?

[edeholland]

I still only have a few plays because it's a nightmare to schedule and playing Gloomhaven/Spirit Island/D&D is just as fun imo.

I heavily recommend having more players rather than less. Strategy and negotiation work better in TI when there's more people because you have more time and possibilities to actually execute your plans. It's also harder to gang up on one person, ganging up on a weaker player just makes you vulnerable to getting attacked by someone else. Reading BBG, I get the impression 6 players is more balanced than 5 because of the map layout, apparently the expansion fixes that. But I haven't played enough to judge the balance.

Only 'house rules' we implemented is how we picked races. You want to make sure nobody is deliberately counter-picking, especially in your first games. Only important thing is that everyone has a race they enjoy playing. I recommend blind picks or giving players who pick their race first the chance to pick their starting position first as well, for example.

Once again, you may want to look into Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy. Haven't played it, but heard it's comparable to TI.

[Goodspeed]

I still only have a few plays because it's a nightmare to schedule and playing Gloomhaven/Spirit Island/D&D is just as fun imo.

It is hard to schedule but has a lot of replay value potential. I'm partial to diplo games because it really feels like you're playing against and interacting with your friends instead of trying to solve yet another efficiency puzzle. And TI is the first diplo game I've played that's more than just trying to convince people to fuck each other (e.g. Diplomacy itself) which does get old too.

[RefluxSemantic]

@Goodspeed you are a big fan of agricola, are you not?

If so, how is the game at 2 players? Is it a serious step down from 3-4 players?

[Goodspeed]

It's not at all diminished with 2p. Most of my Agricola games have been 2p actually.

Do you draft occupations and minor improvements? If not I highly recommend doing that if you've played more than 5 games.

[RefluxSemantic]

I do not own agricola. I was just wondering if its as good at 2 players before I throw more money at this hobby. On BGG 3-4 is the recommended count, which always makes me a little suspicious, as it is not too likely for me to play with anyone but my gf.

[Goodspeed]

Imo that should say 2-4, or 2-5 but I have never played with 5 so idk. Anyway it's definitely not the kind of game that gets better with more players.

[RefluxSemantic]

One of my favorite games that I bought in the past year is Ark Nova. It definitely deserves the praise it has gotten.

The system at its core is quite elegant: you have five action cards which are (randomly) ordered 1-5. Each turn you choose one of the actions to perform but the strength of the action depends on its place in the queue. After performing your chosen action, you put that action card at the first spot of the queue (corresponding to the lowest strength).

To maximize your efficiency, you want to always place the actions at the end of the queue, as this is when you get the most put of your turn. However, it may not necessarily be the action you want to perform. This quickly becomes strategic: to what extend do I favor playing action cards at the end of the queue (which are stronger) vs playing the actions I need now. After getting used to this system, you start going deeper: you start looking multiple turns ahead, comparing many different orders of activating your action cards. It becomes very crunchy very quickly.

Now you may be thinking: does this not cause heavy analysis paralysis? Fortunately, this is not the case. The cards in your hand are quite limited, so you can only plan so far ahead. And even then, a new card might show up that you desperately want and thus need to get asap before other players snatch it. Or maybe another player grabs a partner zoo or a university (these are only refilled at the end of a round) that you planned to take. Or maybe another player suddenly makes it possible for you to trigger the end of a round, getting that sweet x-token bonus. Your opponents subtly affect the state of the game, forcing you to backtrack on your meticulously thought out plan.

The combination of a simple but deep optimization puzzle, limited card draw and subtle but important player interaction is phenomenal.

Another thing Ark Nova does exceptionally well is iconography. Almost everything has a clear icon, and in combination with a handy iconography cheat sheet we quickly got ahold of all the rules.

I think an expansion, which has gotten very positive reviews and adresses some minor problems of the game, is coming out at the end of the month. Cant wait to pick that one up.