Klaatu barata, I say, klaatu barata nikto, y’hear?

Canceled back when they offered Joe Rogan $Texas to make everyone stupider.

Believability is the nemesis of the GOP this cycle.

Walz is a villain? Not believable

Vance fucked a couch? Believable

Trump took illegal funds from Egypt? So believable

Playing the AI in Dune Imperium was humbling but by the time I got a game going with friends after a few rounds against the computer, I crushed them.

I think most or all of them have AI, so in general, yes, at least a few are. The only ones I can vouch for having played solo are Terraforming Mars (it has a race-the-turn-clock mode I think, along with AI players) and Dune Imperium, if you like getting your ass kicked by robots.

I think the social aspect is one of the best parts of board gaming, so playing solo can feel kind of lonely to me, but it’s definitely a common feature. Async is my favorite though, because you can wrangle a group of friends to play a game over the course of a few days during everyone’s free time. Sometimes everyone ends up online at the same time and you’ll knock out half a dozen turns, other times you’ll do a turn or two in a day.

My take:

Bottom line: if you like board games at all, this is well worth the $18 for the whole set.

I’ll give mini-reviews of the ones I know, with a weight rating (complexity, on a scale of 1=“I always bring Apples to Apples to parties” to 5=“I have strong opinions about deckbuilders and area control mechanics”) and an overall rating.

Root: interesting, hugely asymmetrical game where it’s basically like learning to play a new board game for each faction. As such, a bit unwieldy, but interesting at least.

Weight: 4/5

Overall: 3/5

Scythe: complex, deep, and satisfying strategic military industrial war game that can be won without a single battle but may take 2-3 games to really grasp how to succeed. Great steampunk alternate history style, excellent adaptation with asynchronous netplay (play your turn whenever you want and get a notification when it’s your turn again).

Weight: 4.5/5

Overall: 4.5/5

Wingspan: relaxing, fun, and pretty. A great gateway board game if you have a modicum of patience to play until the mechanics “click” for you.

Weight: 3/5

Overall: 4/5

Terraforming Mars: a classic that’s less complicated than it looks and every game is different. Beautiful implementation but the netplay has been buggy forever and I don’t know if they’ve fixed it. You can play asynchronously but back 2020/2021 I had several games go into a broken state that lost our progress.

Weight: 3.5/5

Overall: 4/5 (would be a 5 if the netplay was rock solid)

Everdell: a charming worker placement game that also takes about half a game or so before it clicks. Quite fun once it does, and a great art style.

Weight: 3.5/5

Overall: 4/5

Dune Imperium: brutally complex game that blends deckbuilding and worker placement in an impressively thematic structure with a fantastic digital implementation and async netplay. The game is almost a little TOO intricate though, and it can be easy to lose because you overlooked one of several facets of the strategy. Could be worth playing with a group that are all unfamiliar with it so you can all be terrible together.

Weight: 5/5

Overall: 3.5/5

EDIT: a useful note, I think all of the above games have mobile apps that are cross-compatible, so you can play on the go. Combined with async netplay and a couple friends, this is a great way to get a trickle feed of board gaming in your life.

Congress and the Supreme Court so I could once and for all make it so I’m the last one who ever does.

OMG this fucking face as the last frame

“But Mamaw, what about… couches?”

“Well, then God would be ashamed of you and you would no longer be welcome in His sight.”

The best source for rankings and reviews:

Independently, yes, I support the concept of a third party. If we can institute ranked choice voting or some other system, bring it on. Until then though, it’s just unrealistic and dangerous.

That’s adorable. TELL US EVERYTHING.

I think Jill Stein is entirely too suspicious to be considered a good faith third party. Others have provided evidence. You can attribute good intentions all you want, but it’s irresponsible to be blind to the impact at best, or simply inexcusable to bring it about at worst.

Well as soon as you start talking about enforcement of anything, you do run into the captured judiciary, which means we’re probably screwed.

I’m not a teacher and never have been, but isn’t part of the point of malicious compliance to make it a complicated matter of intent as to whether someone is breaking the rules in a way that can be punished? It forces the leadership to make “because I said so” rulings that start to raise the question of the validity of the leadership that has placed the unreasonable rules in place originally.

Running as a hopeless spoiler candidate designed to draw votes away from the left is not a well intentioned course.

Oppress your working class, but make sure to tip them well.

Malicious compliance mode activated: hey kids, today we’re learning about cults! Get out your Bibles!

For what it’s worth, Windows 8, while tragically mistargeted, was a marvel of streamlined engineering.

But your skepticism is sound. Microsoft hasn’t been able to execute a bold and cohesive vision in at least a decade, if arguably ever.

I think she is 1000x more intelligent and eloquent than he is, but a Fox News debate would be a massacre because she would be debating the entire channel, not Trump. They wouldn’t let it be a discussion. There are so many rhetorical cheats, fallacies, and subterfuges they could use and I guarantee you they would war game the show so hard there’s no chance she’d be able to say anything coherent without the moderator basically shouting her down or cutting her mic.

It would be like challenging Wayne Gretzky to a hockey match but when he arrives, the “hockey” match is actually a garbage eating contest and his opponent is a goat.