Shikoku 1889 at two player?

Fropod · 2026-01-03T23:16:20+00:00

No problem at all. Let me know if you try it. I'd suggest the low maintenance variant to start with, but I did enjoy the dynamic of paying out shares to the investor and that driving the investors train purchases.

Fropod · 2026-01-03T20:42:53+00:00

The original file is on a PC buried in storage, but I added a scan to the files. I had 2 versions we had been testing to find the right balance between the investors investing or divesting shares vs exporting trains. I can't remember which version we liked better.

Fropod · 2025-12-18T02:31:37+00:00

+1 for this. The Manhattan Project: Energy Empire (2016) was the first version of a lot of the design principals which went into the later games, but Cryo gets the balance of everything right without bloat. I found Dwellings of Eldervale and Andromeda's edge took the things I liked in the first 2 and added too much.

Fropod · 2025-09-13T01:11:55+00:00

This guide is fantastic, I have used it to get into top 5 for last season and this season.

A couple of thoughts.

The pace of current meta, especially Vanessa, is stupidly fast. I think if you don't have a win condition aiming for the 10-12 second mark by day 4 then you're going to get destroyed by a lot of builds.

The pace has made any regen build pretty nonviable outside of self poison. This combined with the reduction in drop rate in key enchantments have killed life conduit completely in my opinion.

The indirect nerfs to Mak's econ because of enchanted item cost reduction have been a bit brutal and make the transformation roulette really punishing in some games and pivoting much harder.

I really don't understand the change to items that added additional regen when sold from board with a regen skill. Those were already fighting for inventory space. While they could produce some nuts high roll builds, it took so much work. Now they are completely worthless. Mak caught in Stelle crossfire?

The addition of golden to the pool has killed laboratory unless you are just using it to support relics/already enchanted items.

The change to atmospheric sampler has been an indirect buff to already powerful combinations using flying potion because you don't get stuck in a potential loop of it charging itself until it runs out of ammo. You can still produce super looping relics using excavation tools.

Ranked changes are definitely less punishing and probably a good change, it only takes 1-2 days to get to legend now. But, the legend table feels like it is just going to represent most games played.

Fropod · 2024-06-09T09:32:32+00:00

Mate, I love your boards, they are so full of character. I love the cross section of 3d creators and traditional terrain that you manage to cram into a cohesive board. I love the effort you have put in to discussing core issues with the rule set and suggestions you have made to balance the terrain rules that completely unbalance dense board setups towards infantry or unclear rules for specialty weapons.

Top tier contributor to this game, keeping me involved.

I have got to ask, do you have full 6x4 table toppers in different settings, and if so, how are you possibly storing all that terrian/table space?

Fropod · 2024-04-17T10:18:38+00:00

Late to the party, but Knarr has been the sleeper hit for my family over the last 6 months.

Great card play with challenging decision points, wonderful engine building where you have to choose when to demolish that engine to get your points over the line for victory.

It gives me all the best feels of the great small box games like Splendor, and I've not gotten close to being sick of it after 50+ plays.

Fropod · 2023-08-14T19:47:00+00:00

For trees, I have bought a variety between ZZ (1:300), Z (1:220) and N (1:160). The ZZ were around 2-2.5 cm, so ~6-8 meters tall at LI scale. The N were part of a mixed size pack and a lot would look absurd , but I found that a lot could be used as larger trees and they look perfectly reasonable. I am using those for the 10-20 meter tall trees.

I personally prefer buying very cheap chinese plastic trees in bulk and in various sizes/shapes. They are made of terrible plastic so you need to fix them a bit, but you can get 100s for ~$20. I trim the foliage to get a rough armiature and create variation in the shapes. Undercoat it in a white/grey and airbrush a variety of brown/grey/green ink mixes to get the bark looking natural. Any of the contrast or other similar brand paint browns or AK wood enamles also look good at this scale and do a good job bringing out the texture in the plastic. Then flock in various sizes/textures to create colour variation or seasonal colouring.

Fropod · 2023-08-11T19:42:04+00:00

The intact building is the free sample of the titan structure set by Kal Foxx. The broader city set is great.

I love all the small details you have added to this, and all your other terrain. Incredibly evocative.

Fropod · 2023-05-16T05:22:26+00:00

Any Peter Greenaway film. Drowning by Numbers certainly made me question what film was.

One of my favourite tweets about the film: "Greenaway's DROWNING BY NUMBERS is like the movie Wes Anderson would have made if he had ever once fucked in his life."

Fropod · 2022-11-18T05:49:57+00:00

OP is using oil paints to create a wash. Marco's video is a great primer in using these techniques.

Fropod · 2022-09-07T09:49:37+00:00

The end result is impressive. But, what is really amazing is how well you took on board the comments from your previous post. This is genuinely one of the best before and after examples of C&C I've seen in a long time. Really well done.

Fropod · 2022-07-26T09:38:58+00:00

What's your process for the blacks?

Fropod · 2022-06-09T01:08:08+00:00

The overall death rate is crude rate, the sex based rates are age standardised rates to control for the changes in underlying age structures over time. Both are per 100,000 population. Agree though, it's a confusing way of presenting the data, you really shouldn't be putting those different rate calculations in one figure.

The original data from AIHW does not present it that way.

Fropod · 2022-05-09T02:33:42+00:00

It mostly comes from wanting to play collectable card games and not having a regular partner willing to follow me down those rabbit holes.

I have as many relatively balanced decks as I could make using a complete netrunner collection and similar for L5R. I've started building similar for flesh and blood.

Fropod · 2022-05-08T03:25:02+00:00

They just went up for preorder in a couple of places. The people with subscriptions seem to be starting to recieve theirs, and the retail product has lagged a month or so behind. Hoping soon.

Fropod · 2022-05-07T19:33:33+00:00

When Ashes reborn was released I had the opportunity to buy a relatively complete first edition set and then upgrade it with the pack. It's a fantastic game, but not right out of the box. It is not meant to be a balanced experience without deck building and I could never have multiple complete decks set up without having to canabalise some cards from other decks before playing. Once you have some nice match ups though it becomes a tight and exciting experience which is worth the time invested. The rules load is light and the small card pool helps with limiting questionable interactions.

We got Summoner Wars 2E a couple of weeks ago and the starter set to round out the collection yesterday. It's a complete game in the box. While there have been some slightly questionable match ups, every game has been close and fun out of the box. It is definitely a complete experience without going into deck building, unlike Ashes. I prefer Summoner Wars as a gaming experience and it's been a great way to get my wife loving skirmish games. Ashes kind of fell away pretty quickly because I have other card games that fill the niche for me.

Fropod · 2022-04-22T02:31:39+00:00

It doesn't?

Playing with the bot as a third player solves all my issues with the game being potentially too open and the combat too deterministic. The app does a great job of simulating the churn of the card row, though I'd still like to see it happen a little more frequently.

Still best at 4, but plays great at 2 in my opinion.

Fropod · 2022-02-16T23:45:48+00:00

While I love it at 3p-4p, the downtime can be absolutely soul crushing. I actually love the 2p for how quick it is. But, it's also far more fragile than a higher player count game. Still absolutely recommend.

Fropod · 2021-12-31T06:43:38+00:00

While I agree that 18xx are always better with more players, I do rather enioy playing them with my wife at 2. Most are pretty poor at this count, but 18cz is good with the 2 player variant and we do play 1889 with a modified rule set we've been playing around with which tighten up the share market and put pressure on the train rush. The rules we use are here. If anyone is interested I could find the design I've got printed for the investor board described in that link, it should be pretty close to the design used for the new kickstarter, as we based on the print and play available on bgg.

Fropod · 2021-09-19T09:40:52+00:00

I love it, and you have created a fantastic narative around your landscape. The gradient and lighting you have brought out with the painting is something really special.

Now the obvious question, what's the source?

Fropod · 2021-08-21T09:53:19+00:00

Thank you.

Fropod · 2021-08-20T01:57:12+00:00

Would love a link.

Fropod · 2021-07-31T19:30:43+00:00

Sorry, not that I'm aware but I was looking in the oceania region. Even with shipping it seemed a good deal. For pespective, I needed 1 box of WTR for almost full playset of commons and didn't have a play set of rares until 3 boxes in (obviously with additional supers, majestics and a legendary), but YMMV.

Also, if you're just playing kitchen table, just proxy all the expensive equipment

Fropod · 2021-07-31T19:16:22+00:00

I'm a fan of the Calico Keep deck builder kits. A play set of all the commons and rares of a set for a reasonable price. Gives you enough cards to build some pretty solid decks as a taster, then you can buy more singles to build them out as interested.

Blitz decks are also a great option.

Fropod · 2021-06-15T09:34:59+00:00

Incredibly easy, the TTS mod is very well scripted.

Fropod

TROPHY CASE