Anyone have thoughts on the best games for tournaments among SPers? I’ve played in Ascension and Twilight Struggle ones in the past, but TS tends to take forever. Perhaps something more like a league?
Ascension’s the first one that comes to mind for me, but other games that play relatively quickly and have solid multiplayer work well, too. Lost Cities and Star Realms are probably my favorites in that mold.
Among longer games, I’ve always enjoyed Carcassonne and Lords of Waterdeep as tourney games.
One caveat on Carcassonne and Lost Cities (and many other games, too): no idea how well the multiplayer works in iOS 10 after the death of Game Center.
What geigerm said. Good bite-sized tornament games - Ascension, Star Realms, Cthulhu Realms, Carcassonne, Lost Cities. This assumes a fairly basic set of Carcassonne options - using (for example) the Dragon will make games much longer.
These games also have the benefit of working despite Apple’s continuing lack of resolution/replacement of Game Center - iOS 10 just buried it without fixing it. Ascension and the Realms games each have their own Game Center independent “friends” systems. Carcassonne & Lost Cities recently added the ability to add to their friends (ie opponents) lists using iMessage so no longer rely on GC.
Ticket To Ride is another possibility. It can be strangely difficult to start games with specified players but usually works if all players are each others Days Of Wonder buddy lists.
Brass is another fine working async game. own server allows password protected friendly games with custom chess timers.
and the games are astoundingly short.
Ah, the Front Page article on Terra Mystica reminds of the DigiDiced gamers which also have their own eco-system. Patchwork works well - plus there is Le Havre: Inland Port & Agricola All Creatures Big and Small.
I guess I should stop just listing games now …
Is anyone else playing PvZ Heroes? (Sorta similar to Hearthstone but PvZ and I like it better)
I’m playing it – and loving it. Much deeper than it appears on first glance. WAY more actual thinking than has ever happened in a game of Hearthstone.
The “classic” card games are all tournament-ready: Ascension, Star Realms, Cthulhu Realms.
Lost Cities and Carcassonne are also good, although not everyone owns all the Carc. stuff. Neuroshima Hex is a great tournament game.
Summoner Wars and Waterdeep have had successful tournaments in the past.
Dark horses would include Ra, Samurai, War of the Roses, and Ticket to Ride.
A game I haven’t played enough of is Splendor, but it seems like it would work.
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What is your game name? I think I set mine to my standard gosenbach.
I’ll play you a few rounds.
I really did the way the plant amd zombie sides have completely different play styles because of that crazy turn order.
I’m all for Ascension / Smallworld / Star Realms / Cthulhu Realms / San Juan / Iowa / All Creatures / Inland Port.
I think those are all the asynchronous cross platform games I know of (as it’s far easier for me to take timely turns on my Android phone than my iPad Mini).
Anyone want to help me test the new non-Game Center matchmaking with Red7?
https://red7.app.link/NHmrn2oyVx
Looks like we are linked now.
I’m assuming it’s 100 percent live only.
I agree with most of the games listed above.
I’m particularly attached to Ascension/Star Realms/Lords of Waterdeep/Lost Cities, but also play most of the rest.
Le Havre: Inland Port is a nice implementation that I’ve only played a couple of times, but would be up for a tournament with that game.
I’ll play any game that hardco is rubbish at, otherwise we might as well stop before we start 
I played a whole heap of PvZ heroes in soft launch, and I loved it. Sadly the servers started to fail before the full launch (through updates or whatever) so I deleted it. Ive got no desire to rebuild my deck. I’d say it worth a look if youre into that kind of game
I gave it a go after the official launch and enjoyed it, but after taking on a new fairly high stress job I just don’t have time for a CCG anymore, so it found itself mulched from my phone.
Red7 can work async - however, my brother and I tried and found a potential bug. He kept coming up a card short when he would exit and re-enter.
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I was contemplating about making a Star Realms tournament over yonder as I missed the initial (digital) release of the final CRISIS Mini expansion “Fleets & Fortresses” (fun fact the official blog still lists it as “coming soon”) a week ago or so.
Now I think about hosting it here maybe - I am a bit slower in response time now then I like to admit due to chronic health issues (my eyes) and therefore I was a bit slow in reacting in the running “Twilight Strugge” tournament and my own “Lords of Waterdeep” tourney over there. If people are still fine with me running things albeit all this stuff I gladly volunteer for kicking off another SR tourney here?
Maybe I even host two tourneys, here and there as I am excited for this new place (which is shaping up rather awesome) but I am still invested enough into PT to not abandon it forever…
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the new game LANTERN: The Harvest Festival
seems like a good pick for a tourney.
and what we really need is another Summoner Wars rumble.
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I’d be up for all of those. Another Star Realms tournament to get my butt kicked? What’s not to like?
Since it’s in Beta now (and I’m assuming fully released soon) on Android, how about a thread posting top scores in Polytopia.
Perfection (30 turn game), Crazy Difficulty, 3 Opponents, Post a screenshot of the final score screen as proof.