Holy crap, I'm beginning to loathe that board...

A while back (March, apparently), some of you might remember when somebody decided to spam the new game queue with about 20 Antastic games.  Partially out of a desire to move things along and partially because I wanted to increase my game count here, I joined all of them.

That, I'm sorry to say, was a mistake.

Half of the games are almost unplayable right now due to boots - all of the games I joined have experienced at least one boot, with some games losing a full 1/3 of the players.  Meanwhile, every game I've played on this board has followed the same template - grow a little, collect cards, grow a little more, collect cards, knock an opponent down briefly, collect cards, repeat, repeat... oh hey, card bonuses are getting big enough for us to kill each other!  Fantastic!  It is, beyond a doubt, one of the most tedious gaming experiences outside of the WF Texas board I have ever experienced.

Ugh.

I'm still in that Texas Tourny... at one point last game I consolidated my armies when it was apparent I couldn't win it. Ended up with a single stack of over 900 units.

So you joined them all eh? What were you smoking?

Hope it's not giving you nightmares..

StepOnMe gives it two thumbs up claiming there are "so many ways to play it.." ..sounds like you have first-hand knowledge of at least a few of those ways.

As for me, I'm too scared to play it. I have a morbid fear of being buried alive (except on weekends), and that board looks like a claustrophobic collection of choke-points to me.

M57 wrote: ... I have a morbid fear of being buried alive (except on weekends),...

Pondering this statement is like looking into the sun.  Do NOT ponder this statement with remaining eye!

Do NOT ponder this statement with remaining eye!

Shoot, I couldn't resist. Now I'm blind. Can we get speech recognition added to the player? I vote for that above scenarios.

I know, I know.. you're wondering if I'm fearful of being buried on weekdays, which would leave me dead by the weekend, or if I'm fearful on weekdays of being buried alive. If the latter, am I fearful of being buried on weekdays or weekends?   ..or perhaps either, or in special cases, both. Then you could ponder the metaphysical aspects of this phobia. For instance, would my fear still be alive if I was buried dead?

Of course, it might be better to just gaze into the sun.

I actually quite enjoy Antastic because of the choke points and unlimited transfers (haven't played it here so I assume that's the same but could have been done with transfer to any connecting). I do, however, also agree with everything that has been said here about the map.
I saw all those games and the same thing used to happen with ToS so I have now lumped Antastic in with any world Risk Map (aside for Infection) and any map of Europe (except Midieval Europe and Castles) which is to say I won't play it. I do think it is a good solid map.
How come we never see the Home Page spammed with RiskyMaps? Wouldn't it be fun if someone started 20 games of Romanian Rumble? Oh, how 'bout Light Cycles since that game almost never seems to end anyways!

There was a time, some might say a version, when Light Cycles ended.

Hugh wrote: There was a time, some might say a version, when Light Cycles ended.

Are you saying that you liked the ToS version better than this version?  I'm cool with that if you think so.  I didn't like the ToS version, but I don't think I like this version either.

I did like the other one better (same is true of Connect Some on ToS). Just my opinion, coolness with that opinion appreciated.

And I think 4v4 team Antastic would be the most ideal use of the space and structure of that board. Feels good to get these things off my chest.

I have a few great Antastic games in the vault.

Hugh wrote: And I think 4v4 team Antastic would be the most ideal use of the space and structure of that board. Feels good to get these things off my chest.

I would like to play this. Assuming team transfers and maybe placement are turned on. If team transfers are off, you've just described the worst game ever.

Oooh, I'd play!

I'm in.

i might actually break a self-imposed ban of that board if that were to happen.

asm wrote:

Hugh wrote: And I think 4v4 team Antastic would be the most ideal use of the space and structure of that board. Feels good to get these things off my chest.

I would like to play this. Assuming team transfers and maybe placement are turned on. If team transfers are off, you've just described the worst game ever.

This.

I've done Team Antastic (I think it was 2v2 when I did it) before and it is INFINITELY more playable that way. Being able to cover your teammates makes it possible to be much more aggressive and helps you get the game moving. In the future, that's the only way I'll touch the board again.

I don't mind choke points and unlimited transfers - if it weren't for them, the board would be unplayable. If you want a choke-free slog, let's bring the infamous Texas WF board here. There wasn't a choke point to be found on that thing. Heck, I'm half tempted to draft it up for old time's sake. The bigger issue that I have with Antastic is that, if you don't get out to a strong start, you're basically in "zombie" mode - there's no way you can win, but there's no way the leader can kill you off in a timely fashion because everyone else on the board will go straight to "lobster mode" (i.e. bring the "leader" back to the bottom of the bucket). It's annoying for both sides, and the only way out of it is to sit around for several turns until the cards get big enough to finally achieve domination. Granted, Antastic is certainly not the only board with this problem (large Risk-style boards in general seem to be prone to this), but it's the board that I'm experiencing 14 times a day, so it's the one I'm complaining about.

Lobster mode. I like that quite a bit. Isn't that more of a crab thing than a lobster thing, though? I only ask to clarify because I want to use this expression in future.

Speaking of Crabs, The Riskiest Catch is now available for public Beta.

http://www.wargear.net/boards/view/958

http://www.wargear.net/games/create?boardid=958

I haven't played a game on it yet but it's not complicated, just something to pass the time between actual ideas.