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The Unstoppable Gravy Express said on December 11th, 2012 at 11:04 am

(Lords of Waterdeep is one of the better attempts to turn Caylus and Ticket to Ride into something more themey)

FIFY

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I’m trying to think of what Lords of Waterdeep and Ticket to Ride have in common and nope, not a hell of a lot.

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The Unstoppable Gravy Express said on December 11th, 2012 at 11:35 am

Insofar as you have small- and large-scoring Quests/Tickets, and if you dink around all game with small-scoring Quests/Tickets, you will lose handily.

At first you might think it is equally valid to go for either lots of small Quests/Tickets or a few big Quests/Tickets, but in reality you need the big Quests/Tickets to win.

Plus I hear there’s a Lords of Waterdeep: Marklin Edition coming out.

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mygif

Has anyone here played Alchemist? I’m thinking of getting it for my father for Christmas, but Boardgamegeek reviews are mixed. The strange but simple gameplay sounds like it’ll appeal to him, but I could go for a second opinion.

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A much-appreciated read!

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Isn’t there something kind of problematic about a game that turns chattel slavery into a mechanic? I find that board games, in their drive toward finding narrative justification for sweeping (and often literally global/mappable) economies, can at times maintain a certain romantic view of European imperialism, so this might just be an instance of subtext becoming text, but it strikes me as more than mildly problematic to design a game in which your ability to deploy/control a slave population–based, if only in abstract on the historical suffering of the myriad victims of Atlantic slavery–becomes nothing more than a source of positive entertainment.

Speaking as somebody who feels uncomfortable playing Puerto Rico, I will admit to not having played this game; if somebody can correct this, I would very much appreciate it. I’m not familiar enough with the board game community to know what is or isn’t being said about this game. All I can think of is that, were a videogame to try and pull this off, there would be some tangible cultural conversation; I hope that something similar has happened here.

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mygif

“…historical suffering of the myriad victims…nothing more than a source of positive entertainment.”

This is worth thinking about, bearing in mind that even more common are boardgames about all-out, globe-spanning war.

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