Jack Whitham
United Kingdom
Norwich
Norfolk
-
Hi there, a mechanic I don't see mentioned often that I've realised I really love is action chaining.
Two games I own that demonstrate this are Castles of Burgundy and Dominion.
It's satisfying in those games having a simple limit to your turn that occasionally you can turn into a beautiful chain of actions "I buy this which allows me to place this, and that gives me this".
What other games provide this feel? I don't think I want another deckbuilder by the way.
-
-
-
La Granja - in the form of the cards,but it depends if you have them.There are 66 in total, but there is a limit in how many you see in a game.
Signorie - in the form of helpers. When you use the main action you get different bonuses
Madeira - not exactly chain, but you can use the building action
Trickerion: Legends of Illusion - in several form, like prophecies, special powers, or special assignment cards
Shipyard - in the form of bonuses that you get in game and you can use them when doing other actions
Nauticus - when you complete a ship you can get different bonuses and you can use them on other actions
-
'Bernard Wingrave'
United States
Wyoming
Ohio
-
In Glory to Rome, each turn you generally get one action. But when you choose the Craft or Architect action and complete certain buildings, you get a one-time effect that can start a chain of actions.
-
-
-
Kingdom Builder is an abtract game which is much about combining your basic move (place 3 houses) and the bonus action tiles you may achieve (like move one house, place one house,...) well.
A deep and pretty tough abstract Euro game where you can unlock more power and use special onetime tiles would be Hansa Teutonica.
-
maf man
United States
Waunakee (madison area)
WI
-
Alhambra - not based around that chain mechanic but has it as a bonus for using exact change when buying. The fact that is not standard makes it a strategic choice and feels more rewarding.
-
J M
United States
Scottdale
Georgia
-
+1 for La Granja, and not just in the cards. Every turn is like this, a puzzle you can figure out. You're allowed to interrupt your own actions to trade resources, use abilities, upgrade goods around your farm to make it all come together in a glorious turn.
-
J
United States
California
-
need to take a look at Imperial Settlers, the whole game is building up your empire so the last few rounds are exactly what you describe: chaining a whole bunch of actions together
-
Aniceto Pereira
India
Mumbai
Maharashtra
-
Castles of Mad King Ludwig has it when you build particular rooms.
-
John Burt
United States
Portland
Oregon
-
Some other deckbuilders do this, such as Valley of the Kings
But even better, if you can stand the steampunk theme, then there are two games that are explicitly designed to scratch your itch:
Steampunk Rally is all about building machines to race along a track. The machines generate energy, to generate movement and more energy and other resources, and so on. Someone even figured out how to create a perpetual motion action chain, which the designers had to fix with a rules change. Lots of fun.
Steam Works is similar to SPR, but more of a worker placement game. You are building machines that iterate and generate resources, money, and victory points. If you plan it right, you can make a machine that builds onto itself, or builds another machine, or iterates multiple times to generate massive VPs.
-
Seriously, turn off Facebook. You'll be happier.
United States
Riva
Maryland
-
What Price Glory?
-
Alison Mandible
United States
Cambridge
Massachusetts
-
The game you need is Impulse. It even comes with a token for keeping track of which impulse card started your current crazy action chain so that you don't get lost.
-
Jesse Rockwell
United States
Pennsylvania
-
ZhanGuo is a great engine builder. You only play one card per turn, but can set up a bunch of different actions with the one card.
-
Phil Hendrickson
United States
Seward
Nebraska
-
If you like action chaining in Castles of Burgundy, you really should try two more of Stefan Feld's games: Trajan and Bruges. Both incorporate the ability to set yourself up for bonus actions, but in particular, Trajan has bountiful opportunities to get bonus actions. It is a brilliant bit of fun if you can accept that the theme is only there to keep it from being an abstract game.
Also, +1 for La Granja, which pays homage to several top designers including Feld.
-
Todd Gabriel
United States
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
-
grasa_total wrote: The game you need is Impulse. It even comes with a token for keeping track of which impulse card started your current crazy action chain so that you don't get lost.
I totally agree. This game is primarily about trying to chain actions and even setting up the board to accommodate just that. I always try to make an infinite loop, which so far I've only done once but it was great.
In Starfighter one can also set up chaining actions but it a bit more tricky. Underrated game IMO.
-
Derry Salewski
United States
Augusta
Maine
I'm only happy when it rains...
-
Key Harvest A big aspect to playing that game well is planning your moves to trigger efficient chains of actions.
-
-
-
Race for the Galaxy has some pretty sweet combos especially when you get your engine going and are scoring 10+ money/points a turn.
-
Ian Kissell
United States
Dallas
Texas
-
Glory to Rome has some of the most glorious combos I have ever seen. I don't like it as much, but consider Mottainai as well.
-
-
-
In Nightfall chaining cards and building combos is the main focus of the game. It can be hard to get good ones together though depending upon what cards are available for drafting. Also, unfortunately sometimes getting that great chain/combo together leaves you open to the other players, so while you have it you may not actually want to play it.
-
Evan Dorn
United States
Pasadena
California
End Racism
-
grasa_total wrote:
Absolutely agreed. Also, Innovation, which is by the same designer as Impulse and shares the chaining mechanic.
-
Ash Night
United States
Concord
California
-
51st State: Master Set is the post-apocalyptic version of Imperial Settlers. My husband and I loooove Castles of Burgundy, and this game has shot to the top of our "always want to play" list.
Guildhall or some of the "fantasy" themed re-releases is really good for chaining actions. It's a tableau builder / set-collection game which doesn't sound that exciting, but the power of the card you play is determined by how many of that card set is already in your tableau, but you also need to destroy your tableau to turn into victory points. It's a game where if you're clever, you can chain up lots and lots of actions.
-
-
-
Quests of Valeria does this and has little to no engine building it (as most of the other suggestions do). In comparison it plays more light and quick, and gets going almost right off the bat. Also less depth obviously.
-
-
-
I think At the Gates of Loyang does this a bit. A reprint is in the works.
E.g. I will use this card now so that I only have to pay one coin to buy another card. I can now place the card I've just bought over there, which will let me complete this contact over there, which reveals this card below it, ...
I love that almost every game I get a really thinky period in the game where I have to figure out what order to do this sequence in. Completing this contract will give me eight coins. I can buy a leek with six of those coins so I can now do this contract which will earn me more if I complete it before this other contact, etc. It's my favourite aspect of the game.
For a spectacular chain reaction of events, Star Realms is fun but it is a deckbuilder. You sometimes get a huge turn where you keep drawing extra cards and score a massive amount of damage.
-
-
-
I love Race for the Galaxy but I think of it more as an engine-builder rather than action-chaining. It has a similar feel to action-chaining though in that, as mentioned, your tableau can become more powerful and can turn a standard action into a mega action (for example, instead of drawing two cards now I can draw four cards).
It's a co-op, and LCG, (works great as a solo experience) but The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game actually is satisfying in an action-chaining way because there there is no hand limit, no resource limit, no limit on number of cards that can be in play. So, with the right cards in hand you can accomplish a lot of things in just one turn. With the pretty sizable player card pool available, there are a lot of synergies to explore.
-
Brandon Long
United States
Howell
Michigan
-
mafman6 wrote: Alhambra - not based around that chain mechanic but has it as a bonus for using exact change when buying. The fact that is not standard makes it a strategic choice and feels more rewarding.
+1 to this. Don't know that I would have thought of it - but seeing it suggested, absolutely. You can have some powerhouse turns.
-
-
-
There's Deus. Maybe not exactly what you have in mind, but you can build a sequence of actions, firing the whole chain off each time.
-
|
|
