Tabletop Simulator

ThanatosRa · Post by **ThanatosRa** » Fri Feb 12, 2016 4:47 am #153653

Bottom post of the previous page:

ONE OF THESE DAYS I WILL LEARN TO PLAY IT I SWEAR

onleavedontatme · Sat Feb 13, 2016 11:51 pm

Dead of Winter is a fun co-op survival game you should play it.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Sun Feb 14, 2016 12:01 am #153972

Is Space Alert available on there? That's a game SS13 fans might like.

Not sure how the whole CD scenario thing would work tho.

Incomptinence · Sun Feb 14, 2016 10:13 am

Google says it is on the workshop so yes.

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Sun Feb 14, 2016 10:46 pm #154135

Me, Rotwood, and XSI just completed the most insane battlestar game ever.

One of my other friends was playing Cally, who ended up being the validhunter the station needed, not the one it deserved, as she shot XSI in the fact after discovering he was a Cylon, started mowing down raiders when they flooded the board so hard that we couldn't place anymore, executive actioned everyone at the right moment, and then shot two centurion boarders in the face. Every time it looked like we would lose Cally was there... and then during the last jump before Caprica she sacrificed her own life running the engines to force a jump during a crisis that would kill her when we jumped.

During the Caprica phase XSI kept taunting all of us about her death, repeatedly saying it was too bad Cally wasn't here as we repeatedly failed to kill occupiers.

Not-Dorsidarf · Sun Jul 30, 2023 1:33 am

Secret Hitler is fun

XSI · Post by **XSI** » Mon Feb 15, 2016 4:09 am #154173

dezzmont wrote:During the Caprica phase XSI kept taunting all of us about her death, repeatedly saying it was too bad Cally wasn't here as we repeatedly failed to kill occupiers.

Just a few times early on, after all, a toaster does what a toaster has to do
And it looked like I was going to win it too, until you got out with 1 population and 1 morale left, with one damage too little to let me blow up Galactica

That was seriously close

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Mon Feb 15, 2016 5:27 am #154183

Battlestar Galactica is balanced in such a way that even if the Cylons do fuck-all nothing, the humans will only just barely win. It's slanted very heavily against them so that the Cylon player(s) don't have to go hard fucking everything up at every chance. You can help the crew succeed on a few things to build up a false sense of security or earn trust.

Then fuck them over later and still make them lose.

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Mon Feb 15, 2016 5:08 pm #154291

There is also the interesting dynamic of revealed vs unrevealed cylons.

Specifically revealed cylons have an extremely hard time applying pressure to battlestar. Because they can only contribute 1 skill to a challenge its harder for them to overtly sabotage things, and with one weak turn compared to the human's strong turn they are rather passive, but it is more than that. Human cylons can wreck humans on important checks in absurdly subtle ways, by just underplaying their hand when they help. An unrevealed cylon just flat out not carrying their weight is arguably stronger than a revealed cylon, because the unrevealed human is causing checks to fail by making the humans too confident in addition to drawing their own crisis each turn. The cylon not being revealed also makes the Executive Order card a lot less powerful, as executive order is an insanely risky card to play on a potential cylon despite literally doubling the turn efficiency of humans if they can trust each other. And if you managed to jail a suspicious human and then stop overtly playing harmful cards out you clinch the game for the cylons hand down as you quietly sabotage crisis cards with low numbers.

I find that overt betrayals tend to be the beginning for the end for the cylon team. While humans tend to win by small margins, unless your reveal literally will literally lose the game for the humans, or unless you are about to be tossed in the brig, it is almost never worth it to unambigously betray the humans.

XSI · Post by **XSI** » Mon Feb 15, 2016 7:01 pm #154311

That is pretty much it, yeah
As soon as the human team can trust eachother, executive orders mean they'll take more actions than the cylons. And the cylons already have a rough time. The distrust is really the harshest part of it all.
If I wasn't caught, I'd have done more damage

That said, having two resources at 1 is what I would call close. Did the best I could on that
Much closer than it would be if it's just humans and an incompetent cylon

So, what do we play next?

Jazaen · Post by **Jazaen** » Mon Feb 15, 2016 9:09 pm #154348

Maybe Secret Hitler? It's max 10 players.
Speaking of 40k, there are some figures around the workshop, ranging from 3D to "Papercut placed on a stand". Not sure how it would handle Dark Heresy, but it seems to have no problem with other RPGs.

Wyzack · Post by **Wyzack** » Mon Feb 15, 2016 9:23 pm #154351

Tg run Only War when?

XSI · Post by **XSI** » Mon Feb 15, 2016 10:01 pm #154367

I still have a module I wrote for Dark Heresy laying around

But I'm not sure if I can handle running a third pen and paper. I already run two and play in two others

Jazaen · Post by **Jazaen** » Thu Feb 18, 2016 1:18 pm #154977

So... Anyone?

XSI · Post by **XSI** » Thu Feb 18, 2016 7:15 pm #155052

I'm up for Secret Hitler

What's your steam? I'll add you
Or skype
Whichever works

Jazaen · Post by **Jazaen** » Thu Feb 18, 2016 9:01 pm #155078

Just found this: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =625132276 (DEFINITELY not because it's on the top of the "Most popular" items list, no sir!)

EDIT: Also, why play Secret Evil-Charlie-Chaplin-Knockoff when we can play this? http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =597522954

XSI · Post by **XSI** » Fri Feb 19, 2016 2:00 am #155115

Those look neat
Downloaded

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Sun Feb 21, 2016 3:43 pm #155725

They got DMCA'ed, allegedly not because it was pirated but because they wanted to make it a official paid DLC.

Also there are so many good games on here and we already got an impromptu tabletop skype group going. I wanna wrap my head around Twilight of the Imperium and play that some time. Allegedly it is great, and despite its massive rulebook it doesn't seem more complicated than most space x4s.

Wyzack · Post by **Wyzack** » Sun Feb 21, 2016 3:57 pm #155726

Finally got the cash to get this, would love to learn twilight imperium

Tsaricide · Post by **Tsaricide** » Sun Feb 21, 2016 4:16 pm #155730

Kor wrote:Dead of Winter is a fun co-op survival game you should play it.

My favourite part is you can play as a dog who can use guns.

Tsaricide · Post by **Tsaricide** » Thu May 26, 2016 9:38 pm #180579

Does nobody play this game anymore?

Post by **Armhulen** » Thu May 26, 2016 9:49 pm #180589

no stop playing secret hitler, the hitler is my steam avatar, don't do it

XSI · Post by **XSI** » Thu May 26, 2016 10:51 pm #180614

I don't think we ever got together to do tabletop stuff for this

But we should

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Thu May 26, 2016 11:42 pm #180628

Lets play some fucking Twilight Imperium and bring out the rules lawyers in all of us.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Thu May 26, 2016 11:46 pm #180630

Twilight Imperium looks complicated as fuck, because it is, but it uses a lot of very obvious tokens and pieces to track every single thing, so you don't have to memorize jackshit while you play. It's all written down on the table right in front of you.

If I sat down and explained all the rules systems to someone, all the different roles and phases of the game, it would be insane.

If you sit down and play a game start to finish it's super easy to learn as you go and you can be rules-confident in one game. The problem is that one game can take 8+ hours.

If people REALLY want to learn and can schedule a time I'd teach, but you have to be fuckin' serious about wanting to learn. We'd start a game with me as star player and I'd guide you through everthing I do as we go through setup, picking roles, and then away we go.

I've played quite a few games of this over the last...shit...6+ years? I have a set of the game with expansions in my closet like...not 10 feet from where I'm sitting. My biggest gripe about the game is that it takes too damn long to play and finding people who wont get incredibly pissed off by the last third of the game is hard. It's hard not to get frustrated sometimes when you watch all your best laid plans crumble to dust after 6 hours of playing, and then people either rage-quit (which fucks up the board state for everyone else) or go on to play king-maker (I can't win, but I can choose who does!). Both of which fucking suck shit and make me want to murder the playgroup I had.

Incomptinence · Fri May 27, 2016 2:28 am

I like learning.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Fri May 27, 2016 5:57 am #180752

There are some difficulties with the game. Some of the races are imbalanced as fugg.

I never lose when I get to play as the Yssaril Tribes or Nekro Virus. 100% wins, out of a LOT of games.

The Yssaril Tribes have an ability to skip turns, which sounds silly but is actually OP as fuck. They can wait out other players' moves and then react to them or attack them when the player has passed and cannot respond until the next round starts. They can pick vital roles and then drag the game out before popping their abilities, forcing other players to re-order their moves or do things in orders that are less advantageous for them. If I were going to organize some kind of competitive play of TI the first thing I would do is fucking ban them from being played. I can't overstate how good this ability is.

The Nekro Virus get free techs from other players at the end of any space combat in which that player lost a unit. It doesn't matter if the Nekro Virus loses or their fleet gets completely wiped. This leads to really weird plays where you suicide cheap ships into large enemy fleets in hopes of killing a single fighter or small ship, basically buying one of your opponents techs for the price of a single ship. This is hyper efficient for the Nekro Virus, and also really aggravating for everyone else. The tech they pick IGNORES ALL REQUIREMENTS so they don't have to bother getting foundation stuff and just jump straight to the top of things. Their downside is that they have absolutely no political influence and can't vote. You would think that this would lead to players often ganging up on them politically and putting all kinds of wacky sanctions and shit on them, but people across the table from you typically LOVE having you terrifying the players sandwiched between you so they'll often get your back in votes. Plus you have a thermonuclear bomb with a smiley face painted on it that you can still send to Space Assemblies as your "diplomat" that nukes itself and kills everyone else's senators. So that's fun. They also CANNOT gain technologies in any way other than their special ability, but instead of gaining a tech from random effects they get three command counters instead, which is REALLY FUCKING GOOD. I'm not 100% sure but I'm relatively certain they were the inspiration for the Cravers in Endless Space. Whom I incidentally also love playing.

Oh yeah also the Nekro Virus' flagship has the hilarious ability than when it is destroyed it goes nuclear and obliterates every other ship in the same system as it. So it's basically a gigantic flying suicide bomb you throw at your opponents 1st fleet or if they've built Warsuns. You have no idea how many games I've been needling someone's fleet with the understanding that they let me do it, or else I will get serious and totally wipe them out. NEKRO VIRUS DEMANDS TRIBUTES. SEND ME A DESTROYER OR I WILL DESTROY YOU.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Fri May 27, 2016 2:20 pm #180835

Our group breaks up he game between two different sessions so people are not pressured by time to make rash decisions, and people don't end up super grumpy after 10 consecutive hours. This should be even easier with a computer game that presumably lets you save.

Our group also agrees on a minor nerf to the Yssaril. We find that simple starting them with one fewer carrier can do a lot when it comes to slowing down their early expansion. I mean, they, by default, start with XRD AND two carriers, making them one of the best early expansionist races in the game, which on top of their abilities is insane. The nerf doesn't make this game completely fair, but this game is full of bullshit anyways. It iust makes them. More tolerable and not a complete runaway best race ever.

We do the oppositewith the Sardakk, giving them an additional carrier at thr start. They're minor balance changes that doesn't require a total rules rewrite of their races and keeps their flavour.

And while the nekro are an incredible bitch to have in the game, I don't think they're anywhere near as annoying as the Yssaril can be.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Fri May 27, 2016 3:02 pm #180845

How do you guys do race selection?

Over the years we decided to go with a sort of limited lottery method. We divide up all the races amongst everyone randomly, and then each person picks one from the races they got dealt. Everyone usually ends up pretty happy this way.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Fri May 27, 2016 3:12 pm #180848

Similar. Everyone randomly picks 2-3 (depending on number of players) face down home systems and picks one from what they have to play.

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Fri May 27, 2016 9:12 pm #180947

I would kill to play Twilight of the imperium.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Tue Jun 07, 2016 3:27 am #184434

Saturday: Early Evening/Afternoon.
Twilight Imperium.

Happening. Sign up now.

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Tue Jun 07, 2016 3:30 am #184436

I am down to play.

This video is a rather easy to follow way to learn the game, rather than a 2 hour rules dump that doesn't go into the context of what happens.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Tue Jun 07, 2016 4:44 am #184453

>Internet Twilight on Saturday
>Hosting my own Twilight on Sunday

I actually have a suspended game on the table right behind me. But what the hell, I'm in.

I've taught the game to countless new players, but I'm not sure how well that will translate online.

Also we should discuss House Rules if any that we're playing with. I'm not sure how much the Simulator automates, either.

A few my group runs off the top of my head that I'd like to propose:
- Limited pick of race instead of random. Draw 2-3 random races, pick one of those to play
- Promissory notes can be given out at any time, in exchange for one action or non-action that is binding
- Sardakk N'orr starts with an extra carrier
- Yssaril starts with one fewer carrier

Otherwise, I'd like to keep it fairly RAW

We can probably talk about what strategy cards we want to play with, too.

The set I like to play with is:
Leadership
Diplomacy II
Assembly I (Played with representatives)
Production
Trade II
Warfare II (AND Warfare I if we have 4 or 8 players. For initiative, Warfare I would go first)
Technology II
Bureaucracy

Incomptinence · Tue Jun 07, 2016 4:47 am

Can we get an exact time for those of us in bad time zones?

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Tue Jun 07, 2016 9:06 am #184491

Timezone intentionally vague as we gather interest. I think myself, Dezzmont, and Ikky are all EST?

Ricotez · Post by **Ricotez** » Tue Jun 07, 2016 11:20 am #184515

I'll just have to drop out early again as is always the case with my timezone so I won't join.

Incomptinence · Tue Jun 07, 2016 11:22 am

I'm definitely interested unless you choose a time my GMT +10 ass cannot get up at.

XSI · Post by **XSI** » Tue Jun 07, 2016 11:54 am #184522

I'd join but my schedule isn't my own right now. Also when you say a time, say the timezone. "Early evening" can mean literally any hour on a 24 hour clock, so it's not so much intentionally vague and more just not saying anything at all

Incomptinence · Tue Jun 07, 2016 11:58 am

Wait would assembly 1 mean no spies? I've been picking at the tabletop sim version and am a bit confused on this.

Timbrewolf · Post by **Timbrewolf** » Tue Jun 07, 2016 12:28 pm #184529

I figured since I'm the one who coordinates everything all the time people would have figured that I'm always talking in EST by now.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Tue Jun 07, 2016 2:23 pm #184545

I'm Mountain Time, meaning -8 GMT

Incomptinence wrote:Wait would assembly 1 mean no spies? I've been picking at the tabletop sim version and am a bit confused on this.

We could still house rule it to play with representatives if we so choose. I just prefer it over the "draw 2 political cards" because it makes it more attractive, and since nobody ever holds on to political cards to use them other than as trade goods. Although I wouldn't mind playing with Assembly II, either. It depends gow strong you guys want to make the 3 card.

And Initiative & Logistics is boring as fuck so I'd rather not play with Political

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Tue Jun 07, 2016 7:13 pm #184658

Ikarrus wrote:>Internet Twilight on Saturday
>Hosting my own Twilight on Sunday

I actually have a suspended game on the table right behind me. But what the hell, I'm in.

I've taught the game to countless new players, but I'm not sure how well that will translate online.

Also we should discuss House Rules if any that we're playing with. I'm not sure how much the Simulator automates, either.

A few my group runs off the top of my head that I'd like to propose:
- Limited pick of race instead of random. Draw 2-3 random races, pick one of those to play
- Promissory notes can be given out at any time, in exchange for one action or non-action that is binding
- Sardakk N'orr starts with an extra carrier
- Yssaril starts with one fewer carrier

Otherwise, I'd like to keep it fairly RAW

We can probably talk about what strategy cards we want to play with, too.

The set I like to play with is:
Leadership
Diplomacy II
Assembly I (Played with representatives)
Production
Trade II
Warfare II (AND Warfare I if we have 4 or 8 players. For initiative, Warfare I would go first)
Technology II
Bureaucracy

The only things that should be binding are what are on the promissory notes, the diplomacy cards, and the promise to vote if given a promissory note during that election. If you truly want a binding agreement, you need to be given a note, and a binding agreement tends to be insanely strong for a reason. I do think we should toss out 'support for the throne' though.

I am a fan of soft randomization of races as well, being dealt 3 and picking 1 is ideal, as is flipping up twice the number of players and picking in order, early pick gets what they really want, late pick gets to see the state of the board.

Otherwise looks good, especially nerfing the Yssaril's early game.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Tue Jun 07, 2016 7:55 pm #184677

We've just found Promissory notes to be too restrictive if they're only used as written, as they're technically only allowed to be given out during Assembly, and only in exchange for securing votes. Allowing players to exchange them outside of assembly gives players the confidence to actually make deals (eg "I'll give you Territorial Consession if you DON'T take Diplomacy on your strategy phase") instead of taking a stupid risk in trusting other people.

Support of the throne I find is useful because it actually helps keep players in the game. It makes for a very good mitigating incentive when you can extort them for the Support of the Throne instead of eliminating them from the game. The last game I played I extorted my neighbor's Support of the Throne in exchange for me not destroying his only two space docks on the second round. As cool as it would be to assert my insectoid cock up his ass and taking him out early, we had more fun as a group in the end, and I was still rewarded for my strategic positioning.

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Tue Jun 07, 2016 8:45 pm #184692

Allowing free exchange of notes makes bubble victories more probable, but itself isn't the issue. More long term note deals should definitely be something you can go back on. Complicated binding agreements that are freely usable are rare as hell for a reason in this game. Basically they should have the same binding power as trade goods outside of the senate: none. There is also the problem that free note trade reduces the value of seat position and politics in general, but that is fine, I don't think people will care too much about that.

You basically ruin the political nature of this game if compulsive agreements are common and broad. Imagine being forced into a war against two people that can't ever be stopped because one traded a note for an alliance, a scenario that is deliberately not possible otherwise. If you absolutely have to have compelling deals, make sure they are deals that only matter while they are happening. Once any new information enters the picture, the deal is off, thanks for the note, promise not to use it to gain 2 VP. Any more stability than that and you aren't playing Twilight.

Throne support is like literally the worst because it creates an insane incentive to try to knock a player out in order to get VP where there formerly wouldn't be. It basically punishes every single player in the game for one weak player. The game is awesome specifically because there is no goal of conquest for conquest's sake, which support throws out the window. As a mechanic it encourages you to beat on weak players harder, rather than going with the original design intent of going to war to get specific objectives done. I don't mind playing with it, but we may have newer players and it heavily punishes inexperience and weak starts.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Tue Jun 07, 2016 9:15 pm #184719

make sure they are deals that only matter while they are happening.

That's exactly how we play them.

We only limit the binding agreements to just a single immediate action or non-action. You can trade in order to ask them to play a certain action card or whatever, but you can't use them for long-term agreements, like permanently make each other unable to attack each other. When I extorted Support, all I agreed to was not attack him that one turn. On his turn, he moved his space docks away to safety (He was playing Saar)

I'd like to keep Support, just because it does add this alternative when the situation does come up. Otherwise, you're always going to knock the other player out because why wouldn't you? Twilight can be a vicious game and intentionally trying not to eliminate one another ruins the spirit of it imo. You don't always have to try to eliminate a player to come across an opportunity to ruin their chance to win the game, as it's not necessarily always about elimination.

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Tue Jun 07, 2016 9:20 pm #184724

The game is rather famous for the fact that it is really really really hard to eliminate a player and in no way worth your time. Support adds nothing to the game it lacks.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Tue Jun 07, 2016 9:22 pm #184727

Then why are you worried about Support "encouraging" eliminations?

There are still other occasions where you would be willing to part with Support that doesn't involve elimination, whether it is to secure a strategy or some last-minute late-game gamble.

The fact that it's hard to actually eliminate a player means support isn't usually handed out for that, either. It was more about "I won't fuck you up horribly by exploiting this vulnerability". When I say "eliminate" I meant more "Putting them in a position where they're unlikely to recover in time"

I think Support and free Promissory Notes adds more to the game than there would have been otherwise. It gives players options, and my group always plays with it.

But if you're still opposed to it we can just fall back to Rules-As-Written.

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Tue Jun 07, 2016 9:36 pm #184732

I am saying that because player elimination is basically not a thing in Twilight, because the amount of unnecessary resources required to do something that is strictly speaking not helpful to you, Support as a method to encourage smaller empires to capitulate a VP does the exact opposite of what you want it to do, it encourages people to be more aggressive and more willing to eliminate players in order to extort a vp out of an action that isn't really fun or interesting or in theme for the game. You don't add any sort of diplomatic element to the game with the support note, you in fact dramatically reduce the value of diplomacy and duplicity because now there is a massive reward for pushing aggression even further rather than backing off or trading for something else.

This accelerates the game and punishes anyone who doesn't have such a weak neighbor, and removes a lot of fun elements of twilight that makes it so good. The fact that war suddenly becomes the end with a freely tradable support card in play linked to the ability to instantly kill aggression is dumb, and devalues the diplomacy cards, heavily punishes non-warrior races, and goes against the theme of the game.

But like I said, I don't really care if we use that. I am just more worried about using promissory notes as trade goods in general, which I think does weird things to the game, and really worried about the idea of binding 'treaties' which I think everyone agreed not to use. I actually like the idea of promissory notes being traded if they don't enforce their agreements as well, sort of like how the Haccan can trade action cards but suddenly decide not to give away a card if someone tried to cheat them or if they feel saucy. It creates a tension near the end game where suddenly it becomes a real risk that you are handing over a note in order to allow someone to backstab you and win the game with it.

Ikarrus · Post by **Ikarrus** » Tue Jun 07, 2016 9:39 pm #184733

Hey, I disagree, but I don't think either of us are going to change our minds so lets just stick with the Rules when it comes to Promissory Notes. Play with Support, but no Free Trade.

dezzmont · Post by **dezzmont** » Tue Jun 07, 2016 9:42 pm #184734

Ikarrus wrote:Hey, I disagree, but I don't think either of us are going to change our minds so lets just stick with the Rules when it comes to Promissory Notes. Play with Support, but no Free Trade.

I am 110% willing to play with the trading of notes if people are down for that. I am just stating why I think it sorta perverts the game design. If I am right, good players at the table will be obnoxious with them you will never want to use the houserule again, otherwise everything is dandy and you get a better game.