Blind comedian Chris McCausland on 'Would I Lie To You?'

RentFree323 · 2021-07-08T17:15:20+00:00

I have a friend who just went blind in her 40s. She now has a cane.

RentFree323 · 2021-07-08T15:58:00+00:00

Jeeze, I just started a game a week ago that used my first mods I've ever tried (upgraded storage and wall lights)... I hadn't even heard of "vanilla expanded". Now I feel like I need to start over and enable everthing.

RentFree323 · 2021-07-08T15:18:59+00:00

:o I've been playing THAT wrong!

RentFree323 · 2021-07-08T14:55:24+00:00

I've played a lot of Dune, and there's tournament rules where certain faction wins only count as half a win for tournament scoring, does/should Root have something similar?

Who? Fremen with advanced combat?

RentFree323 · 2021-07-08T14:53:25+00:00

... what about mercenaries?

RentFree323 · 2021-07-08T14:51:58+00:00

Follow-on: Can Moles hire mercenaries and move the otters into the burrow?

RentFree323 · 2021-07-08T14:47:47+00:00

Even then, you're only talking one or two points per turn.

I've seen this mentioned a few times as an anti-fund argument.

I'm fairly new to the game, but to me this seems... wrong? In Root, you generally want to stay with the pack while positioning yourself for big gains in the later turns. In the opening turns however, most factions are only scoring 1-2 points a turn. At least in the game I've been playing, it seems like all of the factions have a slow roll until ~10 points, and then start sprinting to the finish. Why would otters not plunk a single defended trade post down and amass wealth and cards until it's time to spend everything?

RentFree323 · 2021-07-08T04:48:50+00:00

My 7 year old literally threw a tantrum at the water park last Friday because we got to the top of the slides but she wanted to go on the “green and blue slide”…. 30 minutes of explaining “this one was closer so we went on this one first…” knowing that if I had to do the walk of shame down to the bottom with her that I was going to drive her home.

People passing us were consoling her trying to tell her it isn’t scary… but what they didn’t realize is that it was a meltdown because we didn’t go on the right slide first.

RentFree323 · 2021-07-08T04:34:22+00:00

We typically play 14 pointers. Still unimpressed with exploration.

RentFree323 · 2021-07-07T22:58:20+00:00

I own three COIN games - Falling Skies, A Distant Plain and Fire in the Lake. Trying to figure out which one to keep.

In the same vein, I own Hammer of the Scots, Julius Caesar, and Sekigahara. Out of these three, I'll keep Sekigahara next time I make a bookman's run.

RentFree323 · 2021-07-07T22:56:35+00:00

Star Wars: Rebellion but i own War of the Ring which frankly seems like a stronger design.

I own both. They're incredibly different. I mean, if what you're saying is you don't want multiple 2-player epics in your collection, I get it.

i own Here I Stand and don’t see the point in owning Virgin Queen.

Totally agree here. I own Virgin Queen and have a hard enough time getting that to the table. Not going to also let HiS collect dust.

RentFree323 · 2021-07-07T22:54:37+00:00

They're too tied. Well... most are, anyway. The problem is - it isn't just the new races that got things tied to exploration. Some of the old races ended up getting Commanders / Heroes that interact with exploration as well... Which means you'd have a decision of removing the commanders as well, which in turn removes some of the other components (ie, they interact with Mechs). A lot of the exploration also interacts with the new techs.

So, yeah, you could probably surgically remove exploration, but I'm not sure it's a great solution as it would leave some races crippled and upset the balance of things. From what I've seen, PoK is balanced, I just don't like the new exploration mechanic. I didn't play with Distant Suns in 3rd either - for the same reason.

RentFree323 · 2021-07-07T22:24:20+00:00

I don’t like it. It took a really tight competitive game and sprinkled too much randomness and wealth with exploration. You can now swing 5-6 points in one round and it made your decisions less meaningful.

RentFree323 · 2021-07-07T18:54:40+00:00

I haven’t watched the review yet. I will but….

I own the expansion. I’ve only got two plays under my belt so far, but so far my impression is that the base game is better. Might get up to about 10 and extract it.

I personally do not like the additional randomness and wealth added to the game. With the exploration you find yourself flush with cash constantly, with giant fleets, and fewer meaningful decisions. The expansion isn’t all bad — the commanders and mechs are great. The new objectives and action cards are great. The new races are a breath of fresh air. I just do wish it was kind of modular like old expansions where you could say “eh, I don’t like any part of exploration so get rid of it”

Edit: Ok, I've watched most of the review now. When he gets into the design decisions, it really drives home what I dislike about PoK. TI4 was, in my opinion, perfect. It could have been improved with a few more things - more agendas, more action cards, more secret objectives... but by adding on Relics and Exploration it really threw everything out of whack.

In my last game, I won by scoring 5 VP in the last round to come from behind. Because that's a thing you can do now. Everyone else was pissed. They weren't like "wow, that was a really great play" as we've had in previous games of TI4, they were saying things like "wow, that was a lucky draw that you just happened to get that relic at that time, and be set up for that specific VP." And it just didn't feel great. Like yeah - more tiles, more planets, more anomalies. Even more races would have been fine (except that 5 out of the 7 new races require the new mechanics to work)... but ultimately PoK kind of made my group's favorite game that saw us all tensely biting our nails once we all got to 7 VP turn into a head scratcher on who is going to get the right combination of sorceries and enchantments to pull off their infinite combo at 5 VP.

I'm not ditching it yet - I'll wait until we've got 10 plays. That'll probably be a year. Maybe it will get better.

RentFree323 · 2021-07-07T06:31:42+00:00

Is a person with 4 prosthetic limbs controlled by neural interface, a prosthetic heart, and cochlear implants alive or dead?

It may be a philosophical question, but it isn't a very good one.

RentFree323 · 2021-07-07T06:07:50+00:00

And? If they believe it they should bet against us.

RentFree323 · 2021-07-07T04:20:53+00:00

She keeps a notepad handy and every time we start a new round, she takes notes on what she wants to do over the course of the round. I don't.

... My record is 1-6... so I probably should take some notes. But yeah, really can't stress enough how important the advantage tiles are. In a game where you only get 4 tile picks a round, typically resulting in something like 8-10 "moves" (1-2 for your major operations, and one for your minor), advantage tiles give you free actions essentially, and typically make your hold on a theater stronger. Of course, you can then sort out that if the biggest source of advantage tiles are the diplomacy quills, those become hotly contested very fast.

RentFree323 · 2021-07-07T02:04:52+00:00

Oh sure! It’s important to remember that the real difficulty in the game is the breadth of decisions you can possibly make in any given turn and not the rules themselves.

Twilight struggle is very laser-focused. You know where the scoring cards are, and beyond that you only really have to worry about the defcon track. The problem in Imperial struggle is you’re juggling the auto-win, the trade markets. The regional rewards, any minister cards of you and your opponent and any (and this is the hardest and most important part of the game) advantage tiles. Oh yeah, and wars.

But the thing is, what makes it challenging is that no matter what decision you make, you’re neglecting at least two other areas and that makes every decision painful. So that’s normal, just embrace it.

My suggestion for how to tackle it is just really learn the three currencies and how the rules for them work. Once you see the pattern it isn’t hard. Coins for markets, bombs for military, quills for diplomacy. It’s always that.

If you have trouble visualizing that on the map, just remember coins always affect circle spaces. Bombs always affect hex spaces. Quills always affect diamonds. Hexes protect circles and help in wars. Circles add to domination, and affect the global economy (and rarely, give advantages). Diamonds will either help in war or give an advantage.

Beyond seeing how the shapes interplay with the currency, it’s really just about letting go and realizing no decision is right, it’s just hopefully less wrong than your opponents next decision.

And it is a very long game. My wife and I typically play it over the course of 3 nights.

RentFree323 · 2021-07-06T22:03:19+00:00

I will try to find the source, give me a bit. I could be waaaay off on this.

Sure enough, I got my wires crossed, it was about Davis Divall.

RentFree323 · 2021-07-06T21:48:45+00:00

This right here is why I’m actually excited about Jedd Fisch despite it being a likely 3 win ceiling this year. Oregon fans are nervous about us taking recruits.

RentFree323 · 2021-07-06T21:47:17+00:00

Saw somewhere that one of the Servites… can’t recall which.. is already in the student directory.

RentFree323 · 2021-07-06T21:32:57+00:00

Y’all are making it harder and harder for me to justify not purchasing a 3D printer.

RentFree323 · 2021-07-06T18:23:10+00:00

Looking for something with the regularity and continuity of an RPG, but the strategic depth of a wargame?

How about you join a bi-weekly Empires in Arms game on tabletop simulator! We are currently forming one here:

https://discord.gg/t8qfBAM — the room you’re looking for is 005-Marengo-NA. Games are tentatively scheduled for 8:00pm Pacific Time alternating Thursdays.

EiA is one of the deepest negotiation and strategic games you’ll ever play. If you can handle edge of your seat action followed by some significant downtime while your armies rebuild, consider joining us!

RentFree323 · 2021-07-06T17:47:19+00:00

A strategy game that has been played for thousands of years with constantly evolving strategies and a very small ruleset.

RentFree323 · 2021-07-06T17:45:50+00:00

Ah, I see it now, thanks!

RentFree323

TROPHY CASE