i´m from germany and all expansions are available here, so denmark should be good to go too imo...

some races or abilities are a little too bad (giants) or too good (elves, skeletons) imo, but few are really broken bad (dwarfs, maybe flames and drow[too little experience with underground yet]) or good...

thanks for the heads up hell yeah and welcome to POG

We got Smallworld from my mom for Christmas.. really great game, but I'm more annoyed than I should be by how poorly the packaging is designed. Nothing fits like it should in the picture. Ending up throwing everything out and using bags.

+10000000

Was so confused the first time trying to put all the tiles into that horribly designed "holder"

Did a lot of pandemic on new year's day. pretty fun.

my new holiday season games are vegas showdown (played once, loved it) and rails of new england (haven't played yet, really looking forward to it)

Played Power Grid for the first time over New Year's. Great game. We played with 6 players, and it actually worked quite well for a group that large.

literally the only thing that i dislike about power grid with 6 is how long it takes, everything else about it is great. i think 5 is pretty much optimal for it, though i now need to start trying out some new maps. i really want to play the korea map. the use of 2 resource markets looks super interesting

I'm kind of looking for 6 player games. We end up playing 7 Wonders and Dixit a lot and I haven't really checked my collection and just grabbed the first two I knew could handle 6.

Settlers is pretty meh with 6 on many board runouts imo. Usually I don't really want to play it anyways :P

Hoity Toity works very well with 6 imo.

I'm usually looking for good 3 player games. Most games seem ideal for 4, maybe 5. But getting a game that works really well with 3 is sometimes a challenge.

xDDD

i feel like there are a bunch of games that play well with 3-5. There's obviously small world, which is much loved in this thread, and has new boards for each number.

in my experience, puerto rico, stone age, steam, ra, glory to rome and glen more are all good with 3

Carcassone too.

Outside of Puerto Rico (which I've only played once or twice many years ago), I haven't played any of these yet (haven't even heard of the last two).

I didn't mean to say that no games work with 3 players, a lot just seem made for 4 and get quasi-bastardized into 3. Settlers of Catan (the base game) is probably the most obvious example of this.

What's great about Small World is that the game comes with boards especially made for 2, 3, 4 and 5 players.

for stone age, 2 and 4 are both a lot better than 3. the one on my list that does the best at having something like small world is glen more.

glen more has a really nice mechanic for playing with 2 or 3. The game is based around tile drafting on a track where you always have to pick a tile in front of you (if you really want a tile and move far, someone else can then sweep up all the tiles behind you before you get to go again, but at the end of the game there is a penalty for having the most tiles) and once everyone passes a tile, it comes off the track. when playing with 2 or 3, a die is placed on the track as a dummy 3rd or 4th player to speed the rate tiles are used at and sometimes steal the tile you wanted.

also i've heard good things about the robots expansion for playing power grid with 2 or 3 people

Although I bought Dominion a while ago (Xmas 2011), I hardly ever played it. Well, I played it once with my daughter but she was more into the DS she got for Xmas than the board game she got that Xmas, so we never brought it out again. I played a few games on isotropic, but not a lot.

Yesterday, my wife was itching to play a game. We'd been playing Oh Hell quite a lot and she and my daughter enjoyed it. But I thought it would be a good idea to bring out a new game. Well, new to her--Dominion. Since she's never been into games at all, I didn't think she would like it. And as the game began, I thought my fears were coming true--she needed constant clarification of rules and seemed frustrated and bored. Then it seemed like a light bulb clicked for her. She started realizing how to chain cards together to build an engine to buy better cards and VP. It turned into a really close (1 VP) game and the wife and kid really enjoyed it. Looks like this will be part of our gaming rotation. It took a while to play (over an hour), but I'm sure that will lessen as we get more experience as a group. I guess Dominion really can be a gateway game.

If we play more often, I'll have to look into getting an expansion. Looks like Donald X recommends Seaside as the first expansion, so I guess I'll get that first.

Yeah, I got Dominion and Smash Up for Christmas, and both are really fun.

Which Dominion expansions do people most strongly recommend? I've done some poking around, and it looks like all of them but Alchemy are pretty highly regarded.

Intrigue and Seaside for sure first. Intrigue is set up to be played by itself. Doesn't add any particularly new features, but adds a lot of cards. Seaside introduces duration cards which allow for bonuses your current turn, and next which are kind of cool. I understand Alchemy isn't the most popular, because it is kind of small, and possession can be the most tilting card in the game. But I think Vineyards and Scrying Pool are two of my favorite cards. Prosperity adds in a more expensive gold, and province card, and cards that earn you VP tokens. Prosperity games are definitely noticeably different. No one realizes how incredibly strong Goons and King's Court is at first. Cornucopia is set up to reward decks that are diverse. Though Young Witch, Tournament, and Hunting Party take some time for RL games. Hinterlands adds powers when you buy stuff. Dark Ages is just pretty insane. I would probably go something like

Intrigue->Seaside->Hinterlands->Prosperity->Cornucopia->Alchemy->Dark Ages

But really you can go in any order.

Thanks, chuckles. How is Dark Ages pretty insane?

Reading a bit more, some recommend saving Hinterlands for later. I guess I don't see that expansion as advanced as others do. Some even recommend getting Prosperity as the first expansion just because it is a pretty fun set and colonies and platinums (the upgraded provinces and golds) are pretty popular. It would be a rare game of prosperity where you would run out of VP chips, but possible. Then you would have to start counting them.

Dark Ages switches out your starting estates which 3 other cards of minimal value, but provides some options. There are are ruins which are like curses, but provide a minimal value. There are spoils which are one shot golds. Two cards which you can only gain from other cards. Just about every card has a dual purpose, one for playing one for when you trash it. Band of Misfits required its own long FAQ.

I mean Dark Ages is a cool set, I'd just save it for last for sure.

Interesting; thanks.

http://dominionstrategy.com/card-lists/

If you want to see what each set looks like

Got Citadels weeks ago but didn't try it out until this past weekend. Really enjoyable game, felt like there was some decent leveling going on when played with a small number of players.

anyone want to play small world with me on vassal?

hit me up on skype: pocketas227

FWIW, Donald X, the designer of the game, recommends getting Seaside first.

http://dominionstrategy.com/2012/12/...t-ii-dominion/