PAX South 2017

Conventions
21

1846 is the only 3+ hour game I care to play. It’s like a handcar t-boning a freighter!

1 Like
22
23

Restarted our FreeMarket thread. I don’t think I’ve heard from @Andy?

24

I’m in, I’ll be there.

25

After 2 months of being in Houston, I’ll get to fly to Chicago just in time to fly to San Antonio!

1 Like
26

I didn’t realize it because they are listed on the schedule as “SuperMES” but MES stands for Mariachi Entertainment System. They have been Thing of the Day on GeekNights at least once, and maybe twice. Friday Night concert. I’m going.

1 Like
27

Train time

1 Like
28

They are so damn good. There concerts lineups got some big turnover, so I’ve been listening. MES has been the standout of my foray into the new artists, by far.

29

Check this out:

30

Aight, I’m packing…

old Spiel des Jahres recommends:

  • Mamma Mia
  • Show Manager
  • Thebes

one Kennerspiel recommend:

  • Tzolk’in

a former BGG top-10, alongside Puerto Rico / Power Grid / Caylus, from the same designers as El Grande:

  • The Princes of Florence

2016 games:

31

I’ve never played it in full. We were at PAX Aus and exhausted, so we read the rules and half-played through just to get a feel for it.

32

I have never seen a designer diary or anything, but I imagine Tzolk’in started out as Caylus, and iteratively changed every part until it was a completely different game of the same shape.

33

It’s not made by the same people as Caylus, so I guess they “stole” it?

34

Sure, although it’s not close enough that I’ve ever heard anyone complain about it. The wheel performs one of the duties of the provost, but it doesn’t block spaces. The castle is very roughly analogous to the temples but all of the details are different, etc. It’s probably just my headcanon.

35

Caylus doesn’t have crystal skulls. Also, the only time we half-played it, it was really hard to get crystal skulls.

36

Yeah, the easiest way to get crystal skulls is to max out the tech track that gives you skulls when you tag the top rung. Otherwise you’re waiting a long time for a single skull from the one spot on the wheel that gets you building materials.

37

More skulls is only great if only one person is aiming for them from the get-go. Two players just hamstring each other if they both go for it. Besides, who needs skulls when you can own all the corn? Corn is king in this game of marshmallows.

38

It was the first time I ever played the game. So obviously the strategy is to find “the castle” and just hammer it because you don’t have enough experience to know the optimal strategies yet. I couldn’t figure out what “the castle” was from the instructions, but crystal skulls were worth a lot of points, and were really fucking cool. So I went for them to the exclusion of all else.

39

Thanks to Amazon I will replace my POS laptop to a study standby laptop for presentation. I will have a battery again!

40

There will be a hoodie. I’m not a fan of orange, so I’ll pass. Why would anyone want an orange band across their lower back? I hope it’s not indicative of the East and West hoodies for 2017.

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