Woo! Darwin's Journey appreciation. What an incredibly deep and complex worker placement, I love the bonuses you get for fulfilling your worker cards, forcing you to either diversify or specialize each worker. and the Firelands expansion is just so dang incredible! My top game of 2023.
I Only tried that Barcelona expansion once. I don't think it's necessarily the most well executed mini-game, it's very Feld-like to me. However, I think I will almost always prefer Barcelona with it. Base game had 3 row/column options that were pretty boring and felt bad to take (The cloth/coin/Cerda +2 spaces) since they didn't progress any thing like the rest of the game does. The 3 new spaces are their own progression game that also makes the base resource a little less easy to get your hands on. To me this reminded me of the expansion for GWT, Rails to the north. Same game, but the same mechanism is just a little more involved. So if you're there with Barcelona, it's a welcome addition
Funny enough, I really like the Great Western Trail expansion a lot, despite not enjoying the base game that much! I look forward to trying Barcelona's. -Chris
As with all quality games, none is “better” than the other in some sort of objective (everyone agrees) way. Instead, it depends what YOU are looking for in your next game.
I prefer Legacy of Yu, but they are completely different. Legacy of Yu is a tight (and I mean TIGHT) resource management game where you have to optimize who to hire, which barbarians to defeat, when to build the river. Hadrian's Wall is also a resource management, but way less strict. There's lots of combos to be had (it IS a roll and write), but it's a lot less intense of a game.
That's one of those games that lives in an awkward limbo between a 2023 and 2024 game in my mind. Not quite in the top 10 from either year, but I like it a lot!
Ha-ha, indeed! I don't mind it, but I'll be lazy and just copy and pasted my comment from Mike's video: Zoo Vadis was disappointing to me. There isn't enough with which to trade and bribe. I want to try it again, except everyone gets a different set of tokens with which to negotiate with others. Then at the end of the game, players will score the tokens they received from others in the same way that different green-backed Civilization cards are scored in Stone Age. Also, note that the only way to score the tokens you started with are to get them back in a bribe.
It's one I fully understand when people don't love, even though I have a pretty great track record of people enjoying it when I teach them. There must be some sort of X-Factor that comes from playing with me :P Andrew, for me, I think there's plenty of bargaining chips, and I appreciate the minimal rules overhead. Your idea does sound great, and I'd be happy to play that in another game. Kinda reminds me of Twilight Imperium 4 trade goods.
@@thedicetower Everyone enjoyed it in my group but me, and I at least enjoyed the fact that others were having a good time. I just fundamentally dislike what to me is pure negotiation and nonsensical.
Woo! Darwin's Journey appreciation. What an incredibly deep and complex worker placement, I love the bonuses you get for fulfilling your worker cards, forcing you to either diversify or specialize each worker. and the Firelands expansion is just so dang incredible! My top game of 2023.
My favorite from Dice Tower 😎
I Only tried that Barcelona expansion once. I don't think it's necessarily the most well executed mini-game, it's very Feld-like to me. However, I think I will almost always prefer Barcelona with it. Base game had 3 row/column options that were pretty boring and felt bad to take (The cloth/coin/Cerda +2 spaces) since they didn't progress any thing like the rest of the game does. The 3 new spaces are their own progression game that also makes the base resource a little less easy to get your hands on.
To me this reminded me of the expansion for GWT, Rails to the north. Same game, but the same mechanism is just a little more involved. So if you're there with Barcelona, it's a welcome addition
Funny enough, I really like the Great Western Trail expansion a lot, despite not enjoying the base game that much! I look forward to trying Barcelona's. -Chris
We are almost buying a new copy for ticket to ride legacy as well, such a good game!
I’m also looking to play through it again…so much fun!
Which is the best Legacy of Yi or Hadrians wall ?
As with all quality games, none is “better” than the other in some sort of objective (everyone agrees) way. Instead, it depends what YOU are looking for in your next game.
I prefer Legacy of Yu, but they are completely different. Legacy of Yu is a tight (and I mean TIGHT) resource management game where you have to optimize who to hire, which barbarians to defeat, when to build the river. Hadrian's Wall is also a resource management, but way less strict. There's lots of combos to be had (it IS a roll and write), but it's a lot less intense of a game.
Where did Pirates of Maracaibo end up?
That's one of those games that lives in an awkward limbo between a 2023 and 2024 game in my mind. Not quite in the top 10 from either year, but I like it a lot!
Zoo Vadis is my least favorite game, cheers! :D
Ha-ha, indeed! I don't mind it, but I'll be lazy and just copy and pasted my comment from Mike's video: Zoo Vadis was disappointing to me. There isn't enough with which to trade and bribe. I want to try it again, except everyone gets a different set of tokens with which to negotiate with others. Then at the end of the game, players will score the tokens they received from others in the same way that different green-backed Civilization cards are scored in Stone Age. Also, note that the only way to score the tokens you started with are to get them back in a bribe.
It's one I fully understand when people don't love, even though I have a pretty great track record of people enjoying it when I teach them. There must be some sort of X-Factor that comes from playing with me :P
Andrew, for me, I think there's plenty of bargaining chips, and I appreciate the minimal rules overhead. Your idea does sound great, and I'd be happy to play that in another game. Kinda reminds me of Twilight Imperium 4 trade goods.
@@thedicetower Everyone enjoyed it in my group but me, and I at least enjoyed the fact that others were having a good time. I just fundamentally dislike what to me is pure negotiation and nonsensical.