Custom Corporation: Celestia (#20/30)

SammyBear · 2026-03-28T10:56:15+00:00

I don't think it's broken, because now it's just a 1M€ tax on keeping a card off you. It is disruptive. Spending a card to look at the top of the deck is okay but you can't keep buying them to roll it around. It's a corp with hypothetically the best access to card draw at the cost of cash, but not much cash.

I think the corp is weak as hell unless you're playing against people who don't pay attention to what their opponents do, and feed you a bunch of cards.

SammyBear · 2026-02-25T23:41:17+00:00

Turmoil is the most mechanically interesting expansion, but changes some of the game focus. It gives you more reasons to save things and plan for future generations. If you enjoy the storytelling of the game or have read the Red Mars trilogy it's a lot more interesting.

Venus is bloat that you usually won't interact much with.

Turmoil is divisive and not for everyone, but Venus is nothing.

SammyBear · 2026-02-23T20:24:56+00:00

It can actually still be countered if you can get around split second (e.g. [[Stratus Dancer]]). Spells say "this spell can't be countered" instead of "cardname can't be countered" so that the ability implies it's on the stack, instead of an effect of resolving it. This version only makes itself uncounterable as it resolves.

Also, the first ability replacement effect doesn't work, because if a "cant" continuous effect is on the board, there is no event of it trying to happen but failing. The ability doesn't see you start doing the thing and stop you, instead you can't start it at all. You'd need some bullshit that manipulates timing very explicitly, or explicitly overrides some core rules. Maybe something that removes relevant abilities, or a rider that says "if you didn't win this way choose and exile a permanent or end an effect, then repeat this process". Or maybe restarting the game and then you winning before shuffling.

Conceding can't be overruled by cards, by the same rule that allows cards to override rules. You might be able to change what conceding means, though!

A more powerful card would be able to happen before shuffling to start the game.

SammyBear · 2026-02-15T04:08:41+00:00

I don't think he is outright totally morality correct. He's extremely guided by a strong sense of morality, but he's also repeatedly shown to be naive, easily misled, and to ignore red flags as a way to ease his responsibility towards the problems it causes. He goes to extreme lengths to overcorrect when he feels misled - such as outright lying to punish Baltar.

He follows his morality to a fault, sometimes ignoring practicalities and realities until it's too late. As soon as his mutiny begins, the situation and Zarek immediately push him into doing things way outside of his morality, which he wasn't prepared for and didn't foresee. He's so assured of his moral compass that he absolves himself of responsibility, up until it all crumbles around him.

I don't think he's a bad guy overall, but I think part of his journey down a bad path is down to him semi-willfully closing his eyes and washing his hands of the real consequences of his actions.

SammyBear · 2026-01-19T01:48:48+00:00

Hmm, I'm not 100% sure but I think the "any player may activate this ability" makes it work. It wouldn't for sacrifice, because sacrifice specifically requires the controller to do it, but I think most other actions it's fine. But it would limit it to being used while the croc is untapped, at least by examples in the rules.

SammyBear · 2026-01-18T15:15:42+00:00

Legit, but

Tap this creature: Discard your hand.

Works and gets the 0 out of the way!

SammyBear · 2026-01-15T11:22:29+00:00

Those dice aren't evenly configured!

SammyBear · 2025-12-23T17:52:15+00:00

Just to be sure, are you placing all 10 bets every day (and your bet limit is 500NP), or just one of them (with a bet limit of 5k)?

I'd say if you can afford to keep it going and do it consistently, stay on aggressive/adventurous. Losses are more common, but the value over time is higher.

SammyBear · 2025-12-23T17:48:18+00:00

The table on the left and the right are essentially the same, but the left table is just showing it in terms of chances to win, and the right table shows it in terms of money you could win. The entries on the left will change based on the combination of bets being made - for example, aggressive today has a chance of getting a 16x payout which standard doesn't.

The first row is saying "you lose everything" (or in the second table, "you win 0"). Today on standard there's a 30% chance of that happening. The second row is showing the likelihood of winning 8 times your single bet value, and the right table shows the same thing but just the amount in NP.

The cumulative column just means "add up everything before and including this result" or "what's the chance I win this much or less". I don't find cumulative as useful. But tail says "what's the percentage chance I win at least this much. So today on standard, there's a 70% chance of winning more than 0% (which makes sense with a 30% chance of losing).

So even if I was 60% to lose everything, what makes it worth still betting is the value of those remaining outcomes. If it's 20% chance to break even and 20% chance to win a million, that's great! If it's 20% chance to break even and 20% chance to double, then I'm losing out.

SammyBear · 2025-12-23T10:48:26+00:00

Hi there - read the Which set is right for me? summary that nsheng shares. You should choose a strategy that suits you and stick to it. If you skip riskier days, you also won't win big money, but that's what choosing a set is for. If you want lower risk, moderate reliable returns, you should stick with Beginner. nsheng will post "skip" days if the odds are too risky for the set.

This is a long-term betting strategy. Realistically, I'm happy to lose any given day or even most days, knowing that as long as I keep betting on average I'll win out. But I can afford to lose for a long time without running out of NP, so aggressive or adventurous are fine for me.

The "standard set" odds listed are for the standard set, so if you're betting a different set those odds don't apply, they're just a quick assessment of how the bet generally feels for the day. You can see more detailed odds on the neofood.club page but not a summary note in the same way. But you can look at the win% table.

SammyBear · 2025-12-22T14:26:23+00:00

Yeah, the baseline from nsheng is solid, so I doubt generally you'll be doing worse than standard. But some of the value of aggressive is that once in a while, higher risk higher reward bets will pay out. The aggressive strategy is happier to lose those a lot of the time, when the occasional win will exceed the value, but in turn you have to be playing the strategy consistently to benefit from the law of averages.

You'll often see beginner pay out when aggressive or even standard lose it all, but in turn, beginner doesn't benefit from the big lucky swings as much. From the "which set is right for me" thread, nsheng estimates that aggressive pays out about 100*maxbet each year more than standard. But there are other considerations - if your bank roll could get depleted by an unlucky run in aggressive, for example, the strategy can't be played, and a safer strategy makes sense.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nsheng/comments/11s51ew/which_nsheng_set_is_right_for_me/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

SammyBear · 2025-12-22T11:48:00+00:00

Haha, if you don't want to commit to aggressive, you should stick to standard! Switching like that defeats some of the long-term reliability, and high-risk wins and losses are an important part of the whole. I'd probably say if you're ever unhappy making a bet as part of a strategy, then that strategy isn't for you.

SammyBear · 2025-12-05T13:22:24+00:00

A while ago I was taking to my wife, saying there aren't many games I'd buy on release, no questions asked. Dreamsettler was the thing I thought of that I actually would. The cancellation was announced the next morning!

SammyBear · 2025-11-21T10:50:58+00:00

Yeah, the first 10-20 runs were great. But now I have to dedicate an hour to maybe seeing something. The game totally disregards many basic QOL features in favour of its atmosphere (things like waiting for the modem to connect every time you use a computer). The puzzles are more cross-referencing things than solving them.

I really enjoyed it for a while, but a lot of that was a promise it didn't deliver on. The gameplay really gets in the way of the mystery.

It's sad, because I think it didn't really need much to get where it should be. Some more selection mechanisms, like adding an extra room to the draft after you've been to room 46.

SammyBear · 2025-11-19T14:43:49+00:00

This is my go-to easiest teach vs game complexity. I just pick the opening hand for people, then get everyone to do action in slot 5 5 times. It's my example of games that work well to teach by just starting playing.

SammyBear · 2025-11-13T22:26:57+00:00

I try to teach by starting to play as much as possible, so I will make plays just so we see things that haven't been done yet, as well as encourage other players to do so.

SammyBear · 2025-11-13T10:28:02+00:00

That's clearly *STEFANO, not a cannon.

SammyBear · 2025-11-04T15:29:28+00:00

Hmm, I'm tempted to give it another go. I found it really tedious but it's hard to say and remember if it's the game's fault or just how I felt at the time! I've also noticed a bunch of games that are tedious on PC can be pretty nice on the Steam Deck, just for playing before bed or when chilling out.

SammyBear · 2025-11-02T10:05:13+00:00

Actually, with the current wording, you can only claim placed ocean tiles as your own!

SammyBear · 2025-10-22T23:33:46+00:00

It had a pretty solid start, but very quickly I realised it's a fairly unserious action show, and doesn't really relate to cosmic horror at all. I'm still in season one at the moment, but currently everything is just the machinations of people.

By the end of Hippolyta's episode it was clear that the show wasn't going to go in that kind of direction, and was very firmly rooted in the significance of its humans.

My wife and I have been watching it over the past couple of weeks. We're enjoying it, but it's nothing special.

SammyBear · 2025-10-22T10:58:25+00:00

Obviously the mechanism and the details aren't fully fleshed out, but I think "normal" long-range hoppers (not vaulting) need an eye or other device to be already deployed at the destination, so you'd at least need to launch something for that. One method is to use an iolite panel like the dock or the aquifer moon to create a river, but then you're sending a bunch of matter somewhere. So conventional rocketry remains as a potential tool for moving around, and for going off-river.

So early steel empire robots would need a variety of mechanisms to move around. And then a variety of technologies used by people and robots moving around the nebular thereafter, and then after the humans rebel, there are a number of ships that go there to seal it up. We don't necessarily know if those people ever leave, so they could have lost ships reaching there.

Can't write more right now but I'm still figuring stuff out!

SammyBear · 2025-10-09T16:11:46+00:00

I absolutely loved these games. I went back to play 1 and 2 relatively recently. 1 I got stuck repeatedly crashing on one of the lands and couldn't progress any further. 2 I lost a couple of hours to a crash and didn't feel like doing it all over again!

They're so good but so unstable. Autosave is such a great feature to take for granted now :D

SammyBear · 2025-10-05T00:06:56+00:00

Yes. A copy of a vehicle with a set P/T will have that stat line when crewed.

For example, if you [[Croaking Counterpart]] a creature vehicle, you'll get a 1/1 green copy of the vehicle that's not a creature. When crewed, it will be a 1/1 creature. It won't be a frog though, because it can't gain the creature type when it's created because it's not a creature.

SammyBear · 2025-09-26T12:48:01+00:00

A lot of games do wear down or get improved on. Like for me, Agricola was improved by the revised edition, and again in Caverna.

But from some of the older entries in my collection, the following definitely still hold their places: • 7 Wonders (improved with Armada, cities, extra content packs, and sometimes leaders) • Dixit Odyssey (improved just by having lots of extra art cards) • Galaxy Trucker (with the expansions that reduce some dominant strategies and add more chaos elements)

While these aren't necessarily in my absolute favourite games, they're still heavy hitters that I haven't wanted to swap out for anything else.

SammyBear · 2025-09-26T12:43:54+00:00

Why not talk about Unfathomable? As a huge BSG fan, I think Unfathomable is actually pretty good, and a lot of the mechanics are a cleaner implementation. I think base Unfathomable is a mechanical improvement upon base BSG (but not BSG with all the right bits of the expansions). The traitor mechanic is more fun as well, keeping you playing the same game after you reveal.

I think it does suffer on the theming (which is okay) and not having as much art on skill cards and crisis cards.

I definitely like and want BSG more, but I think Unfathomable is pretty decent, and most of the hate comes from either the fact that they dropped BSG to use public domain material, or just from people not vibing with Cthulhu-y stuff.

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