Trains This game with an ungoogleable name is very solid. Play cards to make a simple rail network. Build your deck as in Dominion or Clank. I got the 2014 AEG Black Friday Box edition, which is usually cheaper than the original. #boardgames

Pax Porfiriana I played a solo game to refresh my rules as there is no way I could remember how to play such a messy game otherwise. I still love it. Steeped in theme but interactive and fast-playing. #boardgames

Orbit This has been a big hit in the club. We think it might be the most consistently replayed game we've ever had - definitely among middle-weight games. It's not obviously by Reiner Knizia, no auctions or weakest-link scoring. It's a race game to visit all planets but they are moving around on orbits, propelled by player cards. You can mess the leader up but only temporarily and only at your own expense. Everyone has enjoyed its simplicity and playability. #boardgames

Panda Spin We enjoyed this Carl Chudyk climbing game very much. Every time your combo is beaten, you get it back and spin the cards 180⁰ to a more powerful rank. It's complicated and might be too difficult if you've never played a climbing game before. #boardgames

Battle of Hoth Simplest, cleanest version of Memoir '44 possible. You cannot go wrong with this system. I need one of the series in my collection. #boardgames

Sub Terra Simple co-op where you escape from a cave pursued by horrors. The twist is that it's designed to be played in the dark under UV light. Was a lot of fun but hard not to get sleepy. #boardgames

Ticket to Ride: Asia Partnership Ticket to Ride is good. You share some but not all of your tickets and contracts with your partner - so you can't be sure what they are aiming for. It hugely rewards getting extra tickets. My partner and I stuck with the base tickets and we were lapped on the score track. It would be fun to try with two teams of three players. #boardgames

Fishing Trick-taker by Friedemann Friese, the green-haired designer of Power Grid and many others. This one reminds me of Power Grid in that it's really all about the catch-up mechanism. You get 1 point for every card you win in tricks. You keep the cards you capture and recycle them for your next hand. If you don't have enough, you draw cards from the deck, which gets progressively more powerful with higher cards and trumps. This means that doing badly in a hand means your next hand will be much stronger. Powerful hands ebb and flow between the players, which is delightful, especially when playing with mixed abilities. Unfortunately I'm not convinced there's much skill as you can't card count or have much control which cards you receive. I'll keep playing, but I am not convinced it's a long-term keeper. #boardgames

They don't get it

Taj Mahal More confrontational than I remember. It is often called an auction game but they are are really small battles like in Ivanhoe/Condottiere. The area control reminds me a lot of Iwari/Web of Power/Tyrants of the Underdark. This is less intuitive than a regular Knizia. Not one of his best but memorable. #boardgames

Splendor Pokemon Regular Splendor is smooth and intuitive so I was a bit concerned that this might be gilding the lily. I shouldn't have hesitated. This version just replaces the nobles with upgrading (evolving) cards (pokemon). It's a nice thematic twist on the original. #boardgames

Rebirth I finally won this. Classic Reiner Knizia. Fast and smooth playing but tons to think about. #boardgames

I didn't realise that the OP_RETURN limit expansion in Core v30 is to prevent UTXO bloat - where spammy data is kept in the UTXO set. It's a pragmatic solution to spam damage - not an encouragement of spam This needs to be explained better. @Vlad, Bitcoin Takeover Podcast 🙏

Star Wars: Rebellion This is longer than I usually like and I don't often play 2 player games but I love Star Wars - at least the original 3 films. Fury of Dracula for two is a good summary as you're hunting for the rebel base around the galaxy. I was the Empire and got beaten pretty easily, but I did get to interrogate Han Solo and get him to tell me where the base was. #boardgames

Not even pretending to be a free country at this stage. How are they going to enforce this? "BoE officials said the central bank planned to press ahead with proposals for imposing ownership limits of £10,000 to £20,000 for individuals and £10mn for businesses on all systemic stablecoins — defined as any widely used for UK payments or likely to be in the future."

Client Challenge

Power Grid: The Stock Companies An expansion for Power Grid that turns it into an 18xx-style stock management game. It's a bit early to tell, but on the face of it this seems like a significant improvement. There's none of the turn-order rubber-banding - which spoiled the original for me. The only problem is that the English translation is poor and some finer points were a bit vague. Should be smoother next time. #boardgames

@Vlad, Bitcoin Takeover Podcast maybe interview Tadge Dryja?

Interesting podcast of an interview with an economic historian about the of the history of private money and the benefits of bitcoin and stablecoins. https://lnns.co/GwtJIK37hEZ

I posted a note via Nosotros and it shows 9 relays, but I only have 4 configured in settings? I deleted a few the other day as Jumble told me I had too many. @Cesar Dias