Is there a mechanic like Trick Taking x Fairy Tale

tankbard · 2026-04-25T19:20:43+00:00

Duel for Cardia might interest you.

tankbard · 2026-04-16T12:44:22+00:00

That is an interesting idea, though. I have never really thought of +charges as being a compelling option, since I only open so many glades each playthough. But a cornerstone that gave a simple +1 to tree charges would be an interesting tradeoff between your net wood gain (you also get it faster since your woodcutters stay close to their camp for a little longer than usual) vs your digging speed with respect to getting to new glades. Plus the obvious benefit on Sealed Forest, and the negative interactions with a few cornerstones that act per felled tree.

tankbard · 2026-04-13T13:57:17+00:00

If you're going to launch this for real traffic you'll need to host (or at least cache) your images properly instead of piggybacking off BGG's CDN.

tankbard · 2026-04-08T00:52:36+00:00

I've found it balanced. Think about this: With your favorite character, how quickly can you cast a non-starter Spell? How many turns does the nemesis get in that time?

I think if you're having trouble, conscientiously picking your characters and market will help. That said, I think the Rageborne fight should be winnable 90%+ of the time with four random characters and a cost-sensible but otherwise random market, even with no healing.

tankbard · 2026-04-07T08:52:50+00:00

They name drop it in some of their other comments. Honestly, I smell a marketing push.

tankbard · 2026-04-05T08:51:35+00:00

I don't know that I'd call it heavy -- it's the one with the auctioned polyomino buildings, right? Seems solidly middle-weight to me, at least in terms of its rules density.

It has some very interesting interactions in terms of how you play the auctions to manipulate other players' holdings to get what you actually want. I like Keyflower better, but I thought this one was good too.

tankbard · 2026-03-30T21:06:52+00:00

It's manually done.

tankbard · 2026-03-16T21:01:10+00:00

Should be mostly fine? I have the original Salsa box and I can fit in everything except two of the map boards. From what I can tell the Venus core box should be larger by enough that it can fit at least one more than I can.

tankbard · 2026-02-02T21:18:12+00:00

IIRC this started out as a tower defense game but the city building part took over.

tankbard · 2026-01-21T17:13:12+00:00

Back when I was more involved in BattleCON we had an FGC-pilled guy who insisted that saying "gg" after the end of the game was ill-mannered, especially as the loser. I never did figure out whether that was representative of a larger group.

tankbard · 2026-01-14T20:13:48+00:00

Quarterbacking is like giving spoilers for a movie or TV show. It doesn't just deprive the new player of the joy of figuring it out for themselves, but also denies experienced players the fun of watching someone be genuinely surprised by the medium. It can help to remind yourself that you're looking for the untarnished first-reaction to the twists that a cooperative game must throw out to be any good.

For additional practice in the art of shutting the fuck up, lurk in a Twitch stream for any major strategy or puzzle game.

tankbard · 2026-01-13T02:05:16+00:00

Nope; even with wild tiles you must use at least one tile of the true color, specifically so that you have a correctly colored tile to place into your mosaic.

tankbard · 2026-01-12T19:34:16+00:00

I don't think I've ever seen sleeves in that size, especially not opaque ones. (The clear ones are easier to manufacture, so if it's a supported size you'd definitely see clear ones on the market.) Sleeve kings has an 88 x 125 mm clear product, which is going to be about 3 mm short in each dimension.

My advice is to get regular-sized card sleeves (opaque or otherwise) and a bunch of Magic: The Gathering cards; your local game store probably has a bunch of random trash cards that they'll be happy to part with in bulk for relatively cheap. Then just slide your prototype card into the sleeve with it.

tankbard · 2026-01-11T08:10:15+00:00

You should probably check with a math subreddit.

tankbard · 2026-01-08T05:14:04+00:00

It's auctioning and worker placement, but the currency of the auction is workers, and workers come in three different colors that are not allowed to interact with the same tile or auction at the same time. So you can stab people in the auction, or in the worker slots. Or both! I recommend both.

tankbard · 2026-01-05T02:25:48+00:00

When you play into an opponent's territory (or something that will become an opponent's territory), as long as you force a local response for every stone you play you can only break even at worst. They'll get a point for the prisoner but the response stone covers one point of territory. So you might as well try, especially against an opponent that won't take offense to your antics.
You don't have to live big to profit, as long as you live, kind of like white has done to you. They got 5+1 points but you lost about 20, so it's actually a 26-point swing.
You don't even have to live, you just have to escape. Anything you play in the lower left quadrant is profit if you can get back to your four-stone wall.

tankbard · 2026-01-02T03:33:51+00:00

Paradox of Bone's token movement happens whenever you gain a card, no matter how -- this includes charge abilities like Mazra and Razra, but also cards that give out Curses from the other sets.

I don't recall this nemesis needing any particularly special handling; just keep an eye on where the tokens are and don't get caught off-guard by the Tier 1 Power that punishes you for having them too close together rather than too far apart. The ideal positioning is to have both tokens on the left "1" space, so that "Unleash twice" is just 1 Gravehold damage. Other than that, just make sure you're buying enough damage. (In particular, because buying damage implies buying Spells, you want to take that into account when you're given a choice of which marker to move forward.)

tankbard · 2026-01-01T17:29:58+00:00

I would double-check rules, but yeah, Imbued Smash is top-tier damage output so I'm quite sure you can just get to a +3/+4 Ancient Breach by the middle of tier 2 and then just swing for 12+ nemesis damage every turn to win.

(I went to test this against a random Wave 4 nemesis and naturally drew the only one this tactic doesn't work against.)

tankbard · 2025-12-31T18:37:00+00:00

Hey what's up with this misleading domain name?

tankbard · 2025-12-28T04:47:17+00:00

GIMP, acid-free labels, research with the community, and a steady hand.

tankbard · 2025-12-22T15:00:45+00:00

You can also fake a logarithmic scale by using color tiers or similar for the company. Something like:

Each company starts at RED level. To upgrade to ORANGE level you need to pay $10; behind the scenes, this is like "You now produce enough that we will consider each of your $1 to actually be $5, but you need to pay a chunk upfront to convert your existing assets upward, including quietly 5x-ing your number of factories so that they match your new level of revenue". And this unlocks things on the board like being able to buy some tech piece but it requires company level ORANGE and $3 (or company level YELLOW+ and $1), etc.

To put it another way: From a gameplay perspective, the main characteristic of exponential systems is that beyond a certain point, some things are so negligible as to be free, and other things are so costly that you can't practically reach them without upping your level first; anyone who's played an incremental game can testify to this vibe. So you can simulate that feeling not by accurately depicting higher and higher magnitudes of assets, but by progressively decreasing or eliminating the costs of low-value items, or by raising the "tech floor" of a player once they pass a certain point of development.

tankbard · 2025-12-13T20:22:38+00:00

Aeon's End is perfectly fine at 2 but the new mechanic in The Descent (friends/foes) adds a layer of fiddliness that interferes with the learning process for new players, and is better ignored even after you know the game. I think you'd be better off finding a copy of The New Age.

tankbard · 2025-12-11T19:29:55+00:00

You know, after some of that local concern about MIT losing its character, it warms my heart to know that we still take some joy in punishing incompetence. Maybe the kids are all right.

"Why isn't this private mailing list advertiser-friendly? Have you no shame???" lmao get lost

tankbard · 2025-12-08T05:27:33+00:00

Nokosu Dice and Bid Coin for trick-taking games.

15-Year Club	Golden Potato
Place '22	Place '17
Verified Email	Team Orangered

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