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Taurus Gamers (Astrology Files) · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:00
  Welcome to Pick Up and Deliver, the podcast where I pick up my audio recorder as I step
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  out for a walk and deliver an episode to you while I stroll around.
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  I'm Brendan Riley.
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  [music]
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  Well, good afternoon, Listener.
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  It's a lovely day here in suburban Chicago and I'm out for a walk.
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  The sun is shining.
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  There's a light breeze blowing and it is a lovely day.
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  I'm looking forward to a nice stroll to the library and back.
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  I don't have anything particular to get at the library but I thought I'd take a look
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  around, maybe pick out a graphic novel and generally just enjoy the weather.
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  Although I do see some clouds over there, I hope I don't get rained on.
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  It looks like it did rain earlier.
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  There's some water in the gutters, so maybe that's what we're dealing with.
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  I was looking around and it's been 15 episodes or so since I dove into the
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  secret and mysterious arts of the cosmos with my astrology files.
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  For those of you who knew this segment, astrology files is a series in which I look at the
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  idea of astrology and the common ideas about different astrological signs in the context
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  of board gaming.
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  Now, I will fully admit I don't particularly put a lot of stock in astrology as a phenomenon
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  but I think it's an amusing way to sort the world and there are some people who do put
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  a lot of stock in it, so maybe I'll learn something by making this video.
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  So usually what I do for the astrology files is I pick whatever astrological sign is
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  currently in, I don't know, ascendancy in current space.
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  It applies to people born right now and I look at a website that sort of tells what the
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  characteristics of people with that sign are supposed to be and then I talk about board games
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  that fit those characteristics.
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  So if you want to read the summary that I read before I came up with the answers to this
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  topic, head to rattleboxgames.com where I posted the show notes for this episode which
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  include the link to the website that explains this star sign and its qualities.
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  So with that in mind, let's talk about gamers who are
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  Taurus from recording this episode in late April and so just past the end of whatever was
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  in early April and we're now in Taurus.
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  The star sign of Taurus is the bowl and according to the website I was looking at, the dominant
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  planet is Venus.
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  So first it talks about that like the majestic cosmic bowl, Tauruses enjoy relaxing in serene
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  and bucolic environments.
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  You know that stereotype of how bowls like to relax in serene bucolic environments.
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  So that first thing, that's the first call of you that popped out to me and I figured that
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  strikes me as games that take place in serene bucolic environments and have a relaxing feel.
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  So for example I'm not including Agricola in this list because Agricola is often very
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  high tension.
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  The tension involved in trying to manage the food supply so that you can feed your family
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  while also making your way around getting different professions and trying to maximize your
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  points is often not relaxing.
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  It's in fact intense.
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  Sometimes they call that game misery farm.
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  But from what I've read it seems like the relaxing version of that or the version that
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  fits better with the sense of peace and calm that we'd be looking for in this context would
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  be uve Rosenberg's Ora et Labora.
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  This is not a game I've had a chance to try.
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  It's been out of print for a while and whenever I've encountered a version of it that I would
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  like to try I've never been able to acquire it either.
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  It's too expensive or if it's like a trade or something I never actually win it in the
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  trade but the result is I haven't played aura at labora but I would enjoy trying it at
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  some point.
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  The two other games that I thought of that seem to fit this perspective.
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  One of them is based on a video game.
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  It's called Dorfromantik.
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  Dorfromantik is a game in which you are enjoying the feeling of romance and relaxation in a village
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  and trying to get the most out of laying the tiles down in a careful way.
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  Dorfromantik is a cooperative game so you're working together with the other players trying
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  to maximize your score.
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  The challenge is of course there's a variety of different ways that your score can be influenced
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  by different points that are set up in the game and so part of the trick is trying to
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  walk that line, try to find the best combination of points.
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  But generally the game is pretty chill.
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  It's a nice relaxing game and while you're trying to get a good score you can just kind of
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  enjoy making a nice puzzle out of the pieces and that sort of thing.
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  The name Dorfromantik actually comes from the German word for the pleasant feeling of
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  being in a village.
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  It's literally enjoying relaxing in a serene and bucolic fashion so not surprising to
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  me that that would be a good fit for Dorfromantik or for the Taurus.
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  The third one on point two is similarly a very relaxing tile placement game.
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  There is a little bit of competition if you, especially if you're getting into like,
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  if you're going for the sheep, the person who has the most sheep gets a special award.
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  But generally you're just kind of trying to lay out a nice array of tiles and this is
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  in their burn hearts, tipperary, which is a relatively light tile placement game.
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  It's just sort of a delightful experience.
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  So that is the relaxing in serene bucolic environments part of the Taurus gamers astrology
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  files.
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  Next up I want to focus on the presence of Venus.
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  So in the description, the idea of the presence of Venus is the presence of love, beauty and
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  money, which seems sort of summarized in the interest or engagement with the idea of
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  luxury.
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  So apparently Taurus is enjoy luxury.
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  I mean, don't we all?
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  But I was thinking about like, so if you were enjoying luxury or you wanted a game about
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  luxury, here's a couple that came to mind.
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  First off, Rococo is a really interesting worker placement game or card management game
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  maybe about built creating dresses for fancy balls.
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  And it's long had a very strong reputation.
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  Eagle-Gryphon Games released a deluxe edition of it a few years back that I did get to play
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  and I thought it was pretty good.
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  I didn't think it was quite as amazing as that I always heard, but certainly really interesting
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  in a game that I would like to try again at some point, I think.
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  Definitely one you should try if you're a Taurus.
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  And you're interested in playing a game about luxury.
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  Two more that came to mind that are from that same idea of like trying to acquire luxury.
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  One is where you're trying to acquire all the luxury as fast as you can.
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  This is Last Will from one of my favorite designers, Vladimir Suchy and artist Thomas Kusarovsky.
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  I'm sure I said his name wrong.
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  In Last Will you play somebody who's inherited a ton of money, but you only get to keep it
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  if you spend it faster than the other people who've inherited a ton of money.
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  The idea is it's a sort of, I can't remember the name, but there's a movie where Richard
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  Pryor and Herod's all this money, but he has to spend it all in 30 days in order to inherit
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  the rest, something like that.
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  And that's the way Last Will works.
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  The person who spends the money fastest inherits the rest.
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  It's a very silly game, but it's all about like obscene luxury and displays of wealth.
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  And it can't involve like buying stuff that you could turn around and sell for profit again,
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  like property.
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  You can't buy a house with the money.
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  So that's Last Will.
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  The third one that's about luxury that I wanted to point out was ladies and gentlemen.
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  It's a really dumb game where players play couples in a Victorian era, high society.
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  The game is very stuck in traditional gender roles and traditional pairings.
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  One player plays the gentleman and one player plays the lady and they play separate games.
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  The ladies go shopping each round and they try to acquire the best stuff that's going to
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  get them points in trying to develop the best outfit for the ball.
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  And the ladies are the gentlemen.
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  They go and play the stock market and try to make money on the trading market each day with
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  this sort of dumb scramble to find these tokens.
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  Well, I keep using word dumb because the game itself is fine.
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  I think the collecting the outfit game is a little more interesting than the men's trading
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  game, but they're both pretty dumb.
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  Where the game becomes, I don't know, at least amusing is the next phase where the ladies
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  have to negotiate with the gentleman to please buy the stuff they want and the gentleman
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  have to say yes or no based on how much money they have, but they're not allowed to talk
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  about how much money they have.
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  There's this amusing back and forth.
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  I think we really think we should buy these things in the gentleman if they don't have enough
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  money, they have to kind of hem and haw.
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  They can pay to keep something un-hold or they can just refuse to buy it.
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  It's an interesting and kind of grim view of marital relations in Victorian England.
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  And then at the end of seven days, the couple whose wife has the best outfit wins.
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  So these are all games about luxury that are worth checking out if you're a tourist and
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  luxury is your thing as influenced by Venus.
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  Third thing, the article says that tourists, people, are driven by consistency and reliability
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  and they stick to plans which on the negative side can be seen as an tendency towards stubbornness
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  and that they often will stick with a thing too long or stay in a relationship longer than
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  they should, that sort of thing.
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  So the way I was thinking about that, I was thinking about three games where stubbornness
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  or consistency are crucial parts of the gameplay.
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  First one is Sidereal Confluence, which is a trading game where consistency is crucial.
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  In fact, it's required by the game.
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  You have to be consistent and truthful in your negotiations.
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  You can't fail to deliver.
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  The game doesn't allow it.
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  Significant penalties if you do.
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  On the negative side does sound like this consistency or the stubbornness can be a flaw for
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  tourists.
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  If you have made an alliance with somebody and you stay longer than you should, that's
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  often how you lose is the person that you should have broken your alliance with and betrayed
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  them.
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  In fact, betrays you instead and you end up with the sharp end of the stick, so to speak.
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  And that makes for a very unpleasant experience, of course.
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  But there's also the question of like tenacity or consistency stubbornness.
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  And I think one game to point to that maybe benefits from this kind of experience are very
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  difficult cooperative games, something like Arkham Horror, the Card Game or Gloomhaven
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  / Frosthaven.
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  These are games where you and the other players benefit from you being very tenacious, very
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  consistent, very stubborn and very careful because you're anticipating trouble or you're
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  anticipating danger and so your preparations and your play often are reacting in line with
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  the fact that you might have to resolve things in challenging circumstances.
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  And so I think the effect of the idea of stubbornness or consistency and reliability is that
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  you are challenging or you are an effective co-player in something like Gloomhaven / Frosthaven
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  or Arkham Horror, the Card Game.
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  So I can put that as a positive characteristic for our friends of Taurus is out there.
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  Next up we've got, so finally the last characteristic.
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  I always like to end with something about the actual sign itself.
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  The sign of the Taurus is the bowl and the planet that is most closely associated with
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  it is Venus.
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  So I think about games that have to do with Venus.
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  There are games that have to do with bowl of course would be like stock market stuff.
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  I thought about that but I wanted to go a different way.
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  That one felt too obvious.
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  So I decided to go to the games that have Venus in the title or are using Venus the planet.
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  So the three that I came up with, the first one is Concordia Venus which is the newest
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  edition of Concordia.
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  I didn't really understand what it was.
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  I thought when it came out it was just like a dedicated two-player version.
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  But everything I've seen just said it says it's like the second edition of Concordia.
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  If you have Concordia Venus that's enough to play the game.
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  You don't need the first one at all.
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  Which is a really interesting, I don't know, twist, weird part of the game to me.
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  And then the first expansion of Terraforming Mars was Venus next in which you can have these
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  floating colonies that are mining clouds from the atmosphere of Venus which I think is
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  really nice.
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  There's a lot of people who don't like that expansion.
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  I think that expansion is just fine.
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  In fact I think it's pretty fun.
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  So the Venus next expansion.
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  And then finally Martin Wallace made this weird IP-based game called Onward to Venus which
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  is based in the idea of like a Victorian space exploration with a kind of steam punk aesthetic.
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  And the game that you're playing there is really goofy.
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  There's aliens and Martians and you're occupying different planets and you're exploring.
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  It's a combat, a war game or a combat game.
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  I really like it.
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  It's weird but pretty fun and it's got a strange setup.
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  It's got these like circular discs as the map of the game which is really unusual on
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  well with checking out.
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  So those are Venus games which seems like a good last thing.
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  So I'm curious.
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  Are any of you tourists?
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  Do these fit with the kinds of games you enjoy?
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  Head over to board game geek guild 3269 and share your thoughts about Tauruses, bulls,
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  luxury, consistency, reliability and Venus over there.
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  Well thanks for joining me on my walk today.
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  I hope your next walk is as much as mine was.
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  Bye bye.
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  [Music]
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  Brought to you by Rattlebox Games.
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  [Music]
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  (gentle music)