Board game recommendations?

[quick_comment]

Can anyone recommend me some board games? I've been very satisfied with Ticket to Ride for a while, but some variation might be nice. I have a few criteria:
Possible and fun to play with both 2 and 3 players. This is essential. Bonus points if it's also fun with 4 players.
Not too deep. Players of somewhat unequal skill should be able to have an interesting game, without applying handicap or playing a teaching game. This rules out things like Go and Chess, where a regular player will totally crush a casual one.
Not too shallow. I'd like a game where I can gradually learn the game and improve my strategy. It doesn't need to be as deep as Go or Chess, but things like simple card games are out for this reason. Ticket to Ride seems to strike a nice balance for our purposes, but I wouldn't mind something a tiny bit deeper.
Lightly themed or abstract. This is personal preference, and I might be convinced otherwise if the underlying game is really good. Agricola seems to me like an example of something too heavily themed for my tastes (though I haven't actually played it).
No "realistic" wargaming. Nothing with significantly more explicit simulation of small- or large-scale armed conflict than Chess. Definitely no Memoir '44. Wargaming with my family would just get awkward.
Reasonable playing time. 30 to 90 minutes sounds fine; more than 2 hours is probably out.
I've been looking at Carcassonne, does that sound like a good idea? Settlers of Catan also sounds nice, but is apparently not playable with just two players? I'm also intrigued by the concept of co-operative games, but I think I'll wait until swine flu blows over before trying Pandemic.

[Zherog]

My family enjoys Carcassonne. Fun game. It's an easy enough concept that my kids (ages 7 1/2 and 8 1/2) can grasp it, but deep enough that my wife and I can play without them and have a good time.

We also love Ticket to Ride. Great game. We just got the "1910 expansion" as a gift, and that adds some fun layers to the game.

I've never played Settlers, but I have some friends who love it. I believe it does require 3 (or more) players.

[Corlindale]

I'll throw in a vote for Small World (http://www.daysofwonder.com/smallworld/en/), also by Days of Wonder (like Ticket to Ride, which is also awesome).

It's quite easy to learn and not heavily themed (no theme beyond "generic fantasy world"). It's the most fun with 4 or 5 players, but easily playable with 2 or 3 as well. Not only is it playable, there is actually a seperate board for each number of players between 2 and 5 to ensure proper balance regardless of number, which I think is an extremely nice gesture on the creators' part.

Gameplay is fairly simple. There is a set number of rounds depending on number of players, and whoever's scored the most points at the end win. Points are scored by conquering territories with various fantasy-themed races, which come with various special abilities (such as humans scoring extra points for holding farmlands, tritons being able to take coastal land more easily, or orcs getting extra points every time they conquer a territory) - these should be easily learned within a couple of games.

The game is overall quite easy to learn. I even taught it to my sister who has little interest in fantasy and isn't good at English, and she picked it up quickly - and even, I'm ashamed to admit, outdid myself in points at the end. The only thing that might take a while is learning all races and special abilities, but there's a handy reference sheet for all players, and in any case only a few of them will come up at a time when playing with 2-3 players, so it shouldn't be too hard to figure things out on the fly.

Part of the fun is that each race is randomly combined with a special ability for each game, so you can end up with oddities like Flying Giants and Merchant Amazons, as well as more normal stuff like Seafaring Humans and Berserker Orcs. The interesting combinations that emerge here for each game provides interesting variety and ensures that different tactics have to be adopted between games.

Actual combat is extremely simple and involves little to no die-rolling, so the game shouldn't fall for your excessive combat simulation restriction.

It's a really fun game, I simply had to buy it for myself after another player in our RP group brought it along for a session, and we've played it countless times ever since. Definetely recommended.

[Erloas]

Well I was going to recommend Carcassonne as well. Settlers of Catan is pretty good too, but I don't like it quite as much. I also think its a bit more complicated to learn, though I don't think its a big issue.

Carcassonne probably isn't the best game for just 2 players, it gets a lot more interesting when you have more players. But I'm not sure of many board games that are all that great for just 2 players.

In fact, thinking about it, I think the complexity of a good game is inversely proportinal to the number of players. A really good game for 5-10 players needs to be fairly simple and it can still be fun, but a game simple enough for 10 people to play (because you can never get 10 people together that are all going to pay attention to something for very long) and designed to work with that many people simply isn't going to work right with just 2 people. A good 2 player game generally needs to be fairly complex and in depth or it will get boring rather quickly.
So you might look for some games designed specifically for 2 players, as well as games that are designed for 3-6 or so.

[quick_comment]

Thanks for the recommendations so far! Small World sounds interesting. As for expansions for TTR, we already play with Europe, which is a nice addition. I'd like just one game that works for both 2 and 3 players, even though I know that eliminates a large class of nice games. TTR seems to do it pretty well..

Has anyone played Dominion, the 2009 Spiel des Jahres?

[Corlindale]

Here's a quite in-depth video review of Small World, that's probably more illustrative than what I've said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RQ9iI3ORig

Settlers is good too, but I think it's much better with 4 players than with 3 - it's just more interesting with more resource trading, make-shift alliances and more competition for land.

[banjo1985]

Catan is a great choice, I'd also recommend Ticket to Ride, nice little game that can be played in 40 minutes with a surprising amount of depth.

[EleventhHour]

I enjoyed Settlers of Catan. But that's just because I get fairly lucky, and had a road that ran length-ways of the map, one time. :smalltongue:

[Thane of Fife]

I really like Agricola, though I'm not sure if it works with 2. I'd highly recommend it.

Race for the Galaxy is a lot of fun, as is Puerto Rico.

I've only played Shadows over Camelot a few times, but I enjoyed it, so if you're interested in Co-op games (with the possibility of a traitor), it's worth a shot.

These might be too wargame for you, but both Samurai Swords and Axis and Allies are games of almost Risk-level abstraction, but which are more enjoyable.