Board Games

[Razaele]

Hello, Playground! I've been compiling a list of board games/card games that I want to buy, and I realized that my knowledge of these types of games pretty much revolves around Fantasy Flight. I have a few other games from other companies under my belt, but I feel like I'm missing out on a good chunk of the market. Here is my list.


Currently Owned

1. Last Night on Earth (plus the Growing Hunger Expansion)
2. Arkham Horror
3. Yomi
4. Monopoly Deal
5. Cosmic Encounter (the one from Avalon Hill)

Tried, and Want to Buy

1. Cosmic Encounter (Fantasy Flight version)
2. Zombies!!
3. Settlers of Catan

Haven't Tried, Saw on the Internet, Considering Buying

1. Dominion
2. Pandemic
3. Castle Ravenloft
4. Mansions of Madness
5. Horus Heresy
6. Rune Wars
7. Fury of Dracula
8. Twilight Imperium


As you can see, the lists are heavily skewed towards Fantasy Flight. Could anyone give me a few recommendations? I'm willing to try any theme or genre, though I will probably pay more attention to suggestions that contain zombies, science fiction, or a really cool game mechanic.

[Xefas]

I think you'd be hard pressed to go wrong among Boardgamegeek's top 15 or so (http://boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame). In particular, its #2 game, Puerto Rico, I can't recommend highly enough.

[Razaele]

Alright, I watched a couple of reviews on Youtube about Puerto Rico. It sounds like it could be fun, but honestly I got a little lost with the complexity of the game. I feel like it could be a game like Arkham Horror, wherein there are tons of bits and pieces to learn about the game, but when you start playing everything falls into place.

What makes the game really enjoyable? Is there a lot of social interaction with the game? Are you allowed to do things like trade or negotiate with other players?

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Dominion is pretty fun and fast and a new type of game. Pandemic is AWESOME.

I've been having loads of fun with FFG's "A Storm of Swords" expansion to "A Game of Thrones", but that's also a pretty spendy game nowadays...although they're reprinting a revised edition of AGoT soon.

Settlers is classic, and I highly recommend Cities and Knights, which makes it a far more interesting game.

Carcassonne is one of my absolute favorites. It's very simple, with very deep strategy, and it's also a very different type of game.

Incan Gold (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/37759/incan-gold) is a fun "let's spend a quick bit of time playing something interesting" game. It's all about risk management and playing a game of chicken with the other players.

Puerto Rico is interesting (in my opinion) because of the in-game economy. You get to custom-craft an economic engine for yourself, in a rather elegant manner.

[Knaight]

Dominion and Pandemic are both incredible games that I highly recommend.

Dominion is a fast playing game, with learning to play a matter of minutes, and learning to play extremely well a matter of years. Moreover, there are thousands of different card combinations in play, each of which plays like a subtly different game. Just make sure you get Dominion: Intrigue.

Pandemic is a cooperative game that you can lose. Scratch that, it is a cooperative game that you will lose. Often. Its immensely fun, incredibly tense, and winning actually feels like an accomplishment.

I'd also recommend Guillotine. Like Dominion it is very fast in play, however it is simpler, looks simpler, and is much easier to get people who are hesitant to play "complicated" games to actually play. Dominion looks far more complicated and far less complex than it is, Guillotine looks far less complicated and far less complex than it is, while still being simple in the sense of complicated.

Catan is, of course, classic. I'd argue that Puerto Rico holds the same niche, and does a better job, but Catan is simply something one should have if they can. Cities and Knights is also a necessity, and greatly improves the game, Seafarers is decent and provides a change of pace, but isn't nearly as good. Traders and Barbarians should only be bought to round out a collection.

[Xefas]

Alright, I watched a couple of reviews on Youtube about Puerto Rico. It sounds like it could be fun, but honestly I got a little lost with the complexity of the game. I feel like it could be a game like Arkham Horror, wherein there are tons of bits and pieces to learn about the game, but when you start playing everything falls into place.

What makes the game really enjoyable? Is there a lot of social interaction with the game? Are you allowed to do things like trade or negotiate with other players?

It is definitely a game that looks extremely complicated, especially when compared to games like Settlers of Catan or Carcassonne. But, as you say, it falls into place fairly easily once you get into it.

The reason I like it so much is just a matter of elegance and depth. It plays quickly and intuitively, and just has an all-around lack of flaws. Winning feels good. Losing doesn't feel cheap. At no point have I ever felt like "Ugh, I've already lost, why do I have to sit here and play the rest of the game?".

Its the sort of lighthearted feeling I associate with games like Apples to Apples or Jungle Speed, even though, while those games are fun, it's obvious they lack a certain depth of strategy. Puerto Rico does not. It will satisfy your craving for a meaty strategy game, while not being a huge, weighty ordeal to play like Twilight Struggle and similar.

That's my take, anyway.

Also, to mimic the above posters, Dominion is also a very good game. Every time I feel the urge to shovel even more money into the furnace that is collectible card games (ala Magic the Gathering, etc), I wrench my hand from my wallet and play some Dominion. Scratches the same itch for me.

[Balain]

As was said you really can't go wrong with the top 10 or so games on boardgame geeks.

I love dominion but it seems to be 50/50 people love it or hate it.

Twilight Imperium is on my top 5 list of games I have and love.

Puerto Rico is very cool and I like it very much, but I love even more than Puerto Rico is is Agricola.

Another FF game I really like but is on the pricey side is Age of Conan.

My list of top 5 games is:
1. Napoleon in Europe (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3518/napoleon-in-europe) - this game maybe harder to find in local stores since Eagle games went broke and not sure if this got picked up like some of their other games and looks like who ever bought out the rest of eagle games only has pieces left to order on their website.

2. Twilight Imperium (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/12493/twilight-imperium-third-edition) With the expansions

3. Formula D (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/37904/formula-d) I love Racing cars

4. Agricola (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/31260/agricola) and all it's expansions

5. Red Dragon Inn (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/24310/the-red-dragon-inn) - especially with all the expansion and the gambling I'm in expansion

[Razaele]

It is definitely a game that looks extremely complicated, especially when compared to games like Settlers of Catan or Carcassonne. But, as you say, it falls into place fairly easily once you get into it.

The reason I like it so much is just a matter of elegance and depth. It plays quickly and intuitively, and just has an all-around lack of flaws. Winning feels good. Losing doesn't feel cheap. At no point have I ever felt like "Ugh, I've already lost, why do I have to sit here and play the rest of the game?".

Its the sort of lighthearted feeling I associate with games like Apples to Apples or Jungle Speed, even though, while those games are fun, it's obvious they lack a certain depth of strategy. Puerto Rico does not. It will satisfy your craving for a meaty strategy game, while not being a huge, weighty ordeal to play like Twilight Struggle and similar.

That's my take, anyway.

Also, to mimic the above posters, Dominion is also a very good game. Every time I feel the urge to shovel even more money into the furnace that is collectible card games (ala Magic the Gathering, etc), I wrench my hand from my wallet and play some Dominion. Scratches the same itch for me.

Ooh. Puerto Rico sounds very interesting. Alright, even if it doesn't contain anything remotely close to zombies or science fiction I'm going to give it a go.

I'd really appreciate it if you guys please elaborate on Dominion. Or on any of the games mentioned, for that matter.:smallsmile: I'm sorry, but I went through these lists even before I posted my question here. To be honest, I have trouble picking board games because I get mesmerized by box-art and I just feel like the descriptions on BBG don't give justice to what the gameplay will truly feel like.

It's kind of why I tend to lean towards Fantasy Flight stuff. Their box-art is pretty boss.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I'd really appreciate it if you guys please elaborate on Dominion. Or on any of the games mentioned, for that matter.:smallsmile: I'm sorry, but I went through these lists even before I posted my question here. To be honest, I have trouble picking board games because I get mesmerized by box-art and I just feel like the descriptions on BBG don't give justice to what the gameplay will truly feel like.

Dominion: a deck-building card game, where you start with 10 cards (some cash and a few point cards). Throughout the game, you're constantly buying cards to throw into your discard pile. Then, when your draw deck runs out and you need to draw a card, you reshuffle your discard pile and turn it into your draw pile. So, you're constantly building your deck, adapting to people's strategies, competing for popular cards. And every game, you choose 10 different stacks of cards, so the abilities and deck types are always going to be different.

Carcassonne: A tile-placement and worker-placement game. You take turns placing tiles on the map, completing features of a landscape (cities, roads, monasteries) and placing your little minions on the board in order to score points from those features. It's a brilliant use of spatial strategy: you're controlling space on the board, and using space to corner the market on points.

A Game of Thrones: A medium-weight strategy wargame, diceless, based off of George R. R. Martin's fantasy series. It's phase-based: everyone secretly lays out their orders, and then turns them up, executing the orders in phases (Raid, March, Consolidate Power). There's a lot of different subsystems to the game, but it's all rather intuitive. It takes a lot from Diplomacy, and then introduces strong game mechanics into the mix. I heavily recommend this game with the Storm of Swords expansion. Also keep an eye on the second edition (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite_sec.asp?eidm=172&esem=2) coming out soon, though I'm disappointed that they're no longer using wooden pieces.

Pandemic: A game where all the players work together as members of the CDC trying to eradicate four strains of disease. You travel through major cities in the world, as wooden cubes (representing infection in the cities) begin to pile up...and if too many pile up, cities outbreak and spread infection, possibly resulting in nasty chain reactions. There's a great sense of "you are so totally screwed" as all the players try to coordinate. Note: be advised that, very often, there is a role called the Dispatcher, and said player usually ends up being the coordinator/boss of everyone else, simply because of their ability.

Incan Gold: A game where players uncover treasures in ancient ruins. You turn over a card, count up its value, and split treasure equally between players. Any remainder goes on the card, which is placed on the path to the excavation. (So, for instance, if you have 6 players and you get a "7" card, one treasure goes to each player, and one treasure is left on the card. If you got a "5" card, five treasures would be left on the card.) Then, every player secretly chooses whether to go onward or to go back. All players who go back evenly split the treasures left on the cards. All players who go forward? They risk running into hazards and losing all the treasure they've accumulated.

[Xefas]

Dominion: a deck-building card game, where you start with 10 cards (some cash and a few point cards). Throughout the game, you're constantly buying cards to throw into your discard pile. Then, when your draw deck runs out and you need to draw a card, you reshuffle your discard pile and turn it into your draw pile. So, you're constantly building your deck, adapting to people's strategies, competing for popular cards. And every game, you choose 10 different stacks of cards, so the abilities and deck types are always going to be different.

To sum it up, it's a drafting game. You have limited communal resources, and you're trying to build a better point-generating machine than everyone else.

Later expansions give you options to screw with other peoples' machines.

My favorite feature of Dominion is that, while it takes a while to set up, once you have it set up, playing subsequent games after the first takes almost zero setup time. So you can burn through 6-10 games relatively quickly if everyone knows what they're doing. And, even with just the base set, swapping out the resources you have available can make those 10 games feel fairly different to one another.

[Kurgan]

One of my favorite games is Betrayal at House on the Hill (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10547/betrayal-at-house-on-the-hill).

The game starts with the players exploring a haunted house. There are three floors, the basement, base floor, and upper floor. You build the house as you go by drawing tiles, which have specific floors they are allowed on (so say: ground floor only, or basement and top floor only, and so on).

Each tile has one of four things on it, with the exception of "nothing" your turn ends after doing the action stated:

Nothing: nothing happens

Item: draw an item card, these vary from guns to books.

Event: draw an event card, often results in rolling a check, and if you pass, you gain boons, if you fail, you take damage.

Omen: draw an omen card. These are mostly useful, such as giving you a companion that gives you bonuses so long as they are alive. It also makes you roll a haunt roll with a difficulty equaling the number of Omen cards in play.

Haunt Roll: Every time an Omen card is drawn, the player who drew the card must make a haunt roll. The difficulty is the number of Omen cards in play, and you have six dice to equal or beat it (note: the dice are d6s, but the only pips they have are "0", "1" and "2"), so if 4 Omen cards are in play, you want to get a 4 or higher on your roll.

If the roll fails, the Haunting begins.

The Haunting:

One of the players is a traitor! Look into one of the accompanying books to see the scenario, which is based off of the Omen card drawn and the tile that the card was drawn on. The traitor and the players are now facing off against each other, and separate for five minutes or so to read up what their goals and objectives are.

The traitor often gets supernatural powers, cultists, or random monsters to fight along with him.

I'll just give one example, so as not to spoil too much of the game:


I was the traitor, and had sold my soul to the devil long ago. My big plan was to sacrifice the other adventurers in order to open a portal directly to hell. The tools I had for this set up was that I was immune to taking damage.

The other players had the key to defeating me in their separate booklet, which was awakening a spirit within a statue, which would then do one point of damage to me per turn.


The only problem is that some games, the traitor starts out in an unwinnable situation.

Games tend to last 45-90 minutes, depending on how long it takes people to take their turns.

[Knaight]

Later expansions give you options to screw with other peoples' machines.

It also often gives you options to either exploit people screwing with your machine, or strike them back. Pawning off curses on people who try to take your cards is always entertaining for instance.

[Joran]

It is definitely a game that looks extremely complicated, especially when compared to games like Settlers of Catan or Carcassonne. But, as you say, it falls into place fairly easily once you get into it.

The reason I like it so much is just a matter of elegance and depth. It plays quickly and intuitively, and just has an all-around lack of flaws. Winning feels good. Losing doesn't feel cheap. At no point have I ever felt like "Ugh, I've already lost, why do I have to sit here and play the rest of the game?".

Its the sort of lighthearted feeling I associate with games like Apples to Apples or Jungle Speed, even though, while those games are fun, it's obvious they lack a certain depth of strategy. Puerto Rico does not. It will satisfy your craving for a meaty strategy game, while not being a huge, weighty ordeal to play like Twilight Struggle and similar.

That's my take, anyway.


My gaming group picked up and then dropped Puerto Rico. We enjoyed it for awhile, but a couple issues arose:

1) Hard to introduce new players. We have a rotating group of people every week, so getting new people into the game is difficult.

2) Requires people of roughly the same skill. An issue is that the weakest player will make mistakes and make the game devolve into "sit next to the weakest player".

3) Too much thinking. If someone really wants to plot the optimal strategy, they can take a long time devising their next move, grinding the game to a halt.

If you have a stable group of people who really want to delve into a pretty deep game, then Puerto Rico is a good choice. If your group is going to be in flux and you want to introduce games to new people, then Puerto Rico isn't as good of a choice.

[Xefas]

If you have a stable group of people who really want to delve into a pretty deep game, then Puerto Rico is a good choice. If your group is going to be in flux and you want to introduce games to new people, then Puerto Rico isn't as good of a choice.I agree with this, more or less.

3) Too much thinking. If someone really wants to plot the optimal strategy, they can take a long time devising their next move, grinding the game to a halt.However, to quote the board game designer Sid Sackson, "What we do is we sit around and we begin to chant, 'Move or I will hit you. Move or I will hit you.' and if they do not make their move, we hit them. They learn their lesson." :smalltongue:

[Razaele]

Hmmm. I feel like I'm going to enjoy Dominion a lot, so I think I'll do some research on that when the weekend hits. Also, from the MTG comment I take it that once I buy the base set (and possibly expansions), I won't have to pony up for more cards in order to keep up with a meta-game, yes?

Pandemic seems like another all-around favorite, so I'm going to check that out too. I'm a little disappointed that you don't get to play as the virus though. I guess the Pandemic 2 flash game had my expectations going. Still, from the difficulty level it sounds like I'd enjoy playing this a lot.

Betrayal at House on the Hill sounds like something I would have probably picked if I had seen it on the Internet. Thanks! I'm going to give this one a look for sure.

Carcassonne sounds like it could be interesting, but I'm not sure that I'm getting what the game will be like when play begins. Could you please elaborate? Maybe tell us about a memorable moment when you played this game?

Incan Gold sounds a little... generic. No offense, but I'm kind of on a budget and I'm trying to filter out anything which doesn't grab my interest. Is there anything in it at all that makes it stand out from the rest?

Also, I'm hearing good things about Power Grid. Does anybody have any thoughts on this?

Lastly, I happened to find a cheap copy of "Fury of Dracula" being sold locally, so I'm probably going to grab that next week unless anyone has anything negative to say about the game.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Hmmm. I feel like I'm going to enjoy Dominion a lot, so I think I'll do some research on that when the weekend hits. Also, from the MTG comment I take it that once I buy the base set (and possibly expansions), I won't have to pony up for more cards in order to keep up with a meta-game, yes?
Nope, no meta-game to worry about.

Pandemic seems like another all-around favorite, so I'm going to check that out too. I'm a little disappointed that you don't get to play as the virus though. I guess the Pandemic 2 flash game had my expectations going. Still, from the difficulty level it sounds like I'd enjoy playing this a lot.
No...the flash games Pandemic and Pandemic 2 aren't actually related to the board game. It's just the same name. But it is definitely fun. I think Pandemic also has an expansion (Outbreak) that lets one player be a bioterrorist trying to spread pandemics around, so that's sorta similar.

Carcassonne sounds like it could be interesting, but I'm not sure that I'm getting what the game will be like when play begins. Could you please elaborate? Maybe tell us about a memorable moment when you played this game?
Most memorable moment? Well, let's see. At the end of the game, you score points for having workers in a field that touches a city (farmers). You also, if you outnumber another player in a field, control that field and get all the points, while they get none. The other catch is that you can't place a worker on the same feature that another worker is already on...so you spend some strategy on placing tiles to connect together features that your workers are on.

I connected every field together and had a mega-farm that touched every city, and I had the most workers in that field. I powered past everyone at the end of that game. Maybe not terribly efficient, but it was awesome.

Incan Gold sounds a little... generic. No offense, but I'm kind of on a budget and I'm trying to filter out anything which doesn't grab my interest. Is there anything in it at all that makes it stand out from the rest?
It sorta is, you're right. You could probably pass on it for now. Its most distinctive feature is that it's a fast game that you can play with a lot of people.

[Anonymouswizard]

Dominion (which requires the base set or intrigue to play, with the other expansions being optional (and seaside is highly recomended by me)) and Pandemic are great games, but enough people have talked about them that I won't fill in any more details.

For other games, well here's a list:

Agricola. Basically, everyone has to compete with each other and try to run their farm as best as they can. More family members=more actions, but more food is required. The people who get fireplaces/the upgrade (name escapes me) and animals early on have an advantage in that reguard, but it does cost them points in the endgame.

Pirates Cove is a good one, although in the unfortunate case you get destroyed in each of the first 4 or so turns, your basically out. The basic mechanics of the game boil down to go to an island to collect fame, money, treasure and tavern cards, fight other ships for more fame, and maybe even fight the legendary pirate ship for fame as well. And bury your treasure at treasure island for more fame, while upgrading your ship. it's a fun little game.

A scan of most of the posts reveals a distinct lack of the game 'Power Grid'. The idea is that everyone is bidding to try to get the best power stations, competing for resources and cities, and powering cities for more money all in a race to build 17 cities and power the most. One problem is that it is quite easy to make a bad move, but there are no true 'critical errors' (although don't go mad over power plant 50).

Those are the big three, but other games I'd recomend are apples to apples (a great card game, but a bit more of a party one), Dixit (works a little bit like a free-form apples to apples), munchkin (the great PnPRPG parody card game).

Carcasone is a brilliant family game as well as one that can be played with gaming friends. It and Catan share a familiar atmosphere, and the begning is much better if you use at least one of the river expansions. The expansions can be good, but get the tower if only for the great piece sotring piece. And inns and cathedrals for the extra player.

EDIT: get 7 wonders. This is the game that was so good when it was release they had SOLD OUT. The leaders expansion is argueable, but 7 wonders is the best standalone card game I have played [/completes third stage of his wonder].

[Razaele]

No...the flash games Pandemic and Pandemic 2 aren't actually related to the board game. It's just the same name. But it is definitely fun. I think Pandemic also has an expansion (Outbreak) that lets one player be a bioterrorist trying to spread pandemics around, so that's sorta similar.


Yeah. I just thought that they would have similar gameplay or something. Still, this bioterrorist bit intrigues me. I like full-coop games as much as the next guy, but sometimes games just tend to be a little more spicy when there's a bit of competition mixed in.



Most memorable moment? Well, let's see. At the end of the game, you score points for having workers in a field that touches a city (farmers). You also, if you outnumber another player in a field, control that field and get all the points, while they get none. The other catch is that you can't place a worker on the same feature that another worker is already on...so you spend some strategy on placing tiles to connect together features that your workers are on.

I connected every field together and had a mega-farm that touched every city, and I had the most workers in that field. I powered past everyone at the end of that game. Maybe not terribly efficient, but it was awesome.

Sounds like the type of victory that nobody sees coming. Awesome. Definitely going to give this a go.



It sorta is, you're right. You could probably pass on it for now. Its most distinctive feature is that it's a fast game that you can play with a lot of people.

If I still can, I'll probably give it a look though. You never know what will turn out to be a great game for a specific group of people.



Agricola. Basically, everyone has to compete with each other and try to run their farm as best as they can. More family members=more actions, but more food is required. The people who get fireplaces/the upgrade (name escapes me) and animals early on have an advantage in that reguard, but it does cost them points in the endgame.


Hmmm. This sounds like it has potential, but I'm not so sure about the overall theme. I tend to go for games which have elements such as science fiction, the supernatural, etc., because it helps me get into the game a lot easier. I usually only go for games with simple themes when they have some incredible mechanic/social interaction going for them. Would you be willing to elaborate more on the gameplay of Agricola?



Pirates Cove is a good one, although in the unfortunate case you get destroyed in each of the first 4 or so turns, your basically out. The basic mechanics of the game boil down to go to an island to collect fame, money, treasure and tavern cards, fight other ships for more fame, and maybe even fight the legendary pirate ship for fame as well. And bury your treasure at treasure island for more fame, while upgrading your ship. it's a fun little game.


Ooh. Kind of like a board game version of Sid Meier's Pirates? Also, I love games that feature upgrades or any other form of RPG mechanics.



A scan of most of the posts reveals a distinct lack of the game 'Power Grid'. The idea is that everyone is bidding to try to get the best power stations, competing for resources and cities, and powering cities for more money all in a race to build 17 cities and power the most. One problem is that it is quite easy to make a bad move, but there are no true 'critical errors' (although don't go mad over power plant 50).


Does this game include a lot of social interaction? The bit where you compete and bid sounds like it would contain lots of negotiations and possibly some alliances along the way.



Those are the big three, but other games I'd recomend are apples to apples (a great card game, but a bit more of a party one), Dixit (works a little bit like a free-form apples to apples), munchkin (the great PnPRPG parody card game).


Sorry, not really into short party games. I've heard of Munchkin though, and I'm a bit interested in it. Also, it kind of sounds like something that would contain a lot of inside jokes.



Carcasone is a brilliant family game as well as one that can be played with gaming friends. It and Catan share a familiar atmosphere, and the begning is much better if you use at least one of the river expansions. The expansions can be good, but get the tower if only for the great piece sotring piece. And inns and cathedrals for the extra player.


Ooh. Care to elaborate how it shares a familiar atmosphere with Catan?




EDIT: get 7 wonders. This is the game that was so good when it was release they had SOLD OUT. The leaders expansion is argueable, but 7 wonders is the best standalone card game I have played [/completes third stage of his wonder].

Oh yeah, I've heard of this game! Hmmm. How does it work? What's the gameplay like?

[Eldan]

Munchkin does not "contain" a lot of injokes as such. It consists of nothing but injokes. Expect something like 70% of all card titles being references to something. The "something" in question depends on the set. Star Munchkin was never all that interesting to me, as an example, since I neither really know Star Trek nor Star Wars.

[BlackSheep]

Carcassonne is a game about laying tiles and placing pieces (workers). There is a lot of strategy about where and when to place stuff, but that's about all there is to the game. I loved Settlers of Catan and its Cities and Knights expansion, but found Carcassonne boring because of the limited number of actions and lack of player interaction.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Oh yeah, I've heard of this game! Hmmm. How does it work? What's the gameplay like?
7 Wonders is a game where you draft a card hand and then build up a civilization. You put buildings down in your "capital city", and those buildings get you different types of resources.

It's very fast when you get the hang of it, we had either four or five players finish a game in half an hour. But the gameplay is still interesting enough to merit a lot of replay.

Carcassonne is a game about laying tiles and placing pieces (workers). There is a lot of strategy about where and when to place stuff, but that's about all there is to the game. I loved Settlers of Catan and its Cities and Knights expansion, but found Carcassonne boring because of the limited number of actions and lack of player interaction.
I would disagree here, actually. The number/type of actions may be limited, but the player interaction can be very cutthroat. It's just not immediately obvious to some. By your tile placement, you can often do one of two things...

A: mess up a player's plan to complete a feature (or force them to include you if they want to finish it)...this works mainly with cities.
B: a hostile takeover of another player's feature, by connecting, say, a city with one of your minions on it to a city where there's another of your minions and the minion of a second player. No more points for them from that city!

[Erloas]

There are a decent number of things you can do in Carcassonne to keep it competitive between players. Its generally not worth it to compete for roads, and you can't compete with churches, but in both of those cases you can place tiles in such a way as to make it difficult, if not impossible to finish the piece so the player can get their worker back.
The city and farms are definitely places to compete, especially as farms will win the game the majority of the time, they are the long term investments in the game. You can use tile placement to block off an opponent from connecting to good farm land and challenging you for it and you can make it so their piece sits there unused for most of the game and only has 1-2 cities to earn points from. And building cities can go from very quick to large sprawling cities that end up with 2-3 different people with chances to control them or shutting someone else out completely while you take a big city they had been building on for many turns or placing tiles so they just can't complete their cities which in turn effects how profitable farms end up being.

It isn't as directly competitive as a lot of games, but there is still a lot there. I find it to be more competitive and less randomly decided then Catan (at least the basic Catan, haven't tried the various expansions yet though I know everyone says they add a lot). In fact there is very little random about Carcassonne, most of it comes down to planning and strategy.

[Gorgondantess]

If you don't have Settlers yet, I'd advise you start with that. It's sortof the baseline to be compared against.

[BlackSheep]

Competition and interaction are not the same thing. At the end of the day, you place your pieces in the manner that seems best at the time that you place them. That's your only action in Carcassonne. You can't move other pieces, you can't trade pieces with other players nor steal them. You can conceivably team up with other people to deny a feature to someone who seems to be winning, but that's about as far as player interaction goes. As for the game being less reliant on randomness, aren't the tiles you get to place drawn randomly?

[Erloas]

Well yes, there is less direct player interaction in Carcassonne but it can still be fairly good when fighting over city control. Of course other then trading there is almost no player interaction in Catan either, other then just getting in each others way. Of course if you add expansion in Carcassonne then that changes a fair amount, as I'm sure it does in Catan as well. And maybe I would like Catan more with some of the expansions but I never found the base game compelling enough to expand it like I did with many of the other board games I have. I also found Catan to be a much more limited game, it just never seems to work well if you don't have 1 less player then the max for the map size.

As for randomness, Carcassonne does have random tile drawing but thats it for randomness. Catan has random tile placement, although done all at the beginning, but all of the other key points to advance in the game is random as well. And I know there are some variations on the Catan rules, as we've always played it with the numbers hidden until everyone has placed and when we played like that with some other people they complained about it saying you need to be able to see the numbers. But we've always found that gives way too much power to the person who places first because resources are no where near equal in usefulness and someone that is able to pretty much claim a 6/8 clay location for themselves practical has the game won before it even starts. Of course if playing with people that don't know the basic 2d6 bell curve they are also at a huge disadvantage when placing with numbers up.

[BlackSheep]

The base game of Settlers also has the development cards, which let you do things like move the robber and steal resources.

It sounds like you've been playing with a variant rule by hiding the numbers until after placement. That removes the advantage of placing first, but adds even more randomness since it allows 6/8 combinations to appear-- combinations which are prohibited by the original rules. My group always prefers placing last since you can place two settlements at the same time.

The expansions do add more options and choices. Do the Carcassonne expansions add anything other than more cards and workers? I haven't seen any of them yet.

[iyaerP]

I personally anti-recommend baseline settlers of catan. Catan of America and cities and knights of catan are both awesome, but the base game is FAR too dependant upon the random number god, and it invariably infuriates me when I play it.



Games I recommend:

Dominion: Everyone else has covered this game quite well, so I have nothing much to add other than a recommendation. And a story. Last night, during a game of prosperity, I had a turn where I bought TWO colonies. Was epic.

Seven Wonders: Again, this has been previously recommended and I too recommend it. Of special note, with more players, this game can be crazy close and competitive. Trying to keep track of who is building what, who needs what, and how much money/resources you will need to build up your city while denying cards to the next player is great fun. As for Leaders, I love it. It adds another level of tactical depth to the game in a relatively simple manner. Anyone who knows the base game can learn leaders in about 5 minutes, the only real delays to expect are when players need to look up what some of the symbols on the leader cards mean because there are about 20 new and unique ones.

Puerto Rico: The Gold standard of economic games. Buy it and play it.


And since you mentioned liking games that have a sci-fi/fantasy element to them, may I recommend to you...

Shadows over Camelot: You and up to six of your friends are knights of King Arthur's court in Camelot, doing heroic deeds like questing for Excalibur or the Holy Grail, fighting in the Saxon and Pict wars, taking the field in the tournament against the black knight, or even daring to face the dreaded dragon. But as you quest and fight, evil is slowly encroaching on Camelot, and dark forces work to hinder you. There is even a chance that one of your number is a perfidious traitor, working from within the ranks of the knights to sow disorder and bring about the downfall of Camelot. One of my favorite games and one that I heartily recommend.

Varient for those above 21: During your progression of evil phase, take a drink! If the black card is an evil charachter, take two drinks instead!

[Castaras]

Dominion, Puerto Rico, if you can get it Solar Trader (unlikely, old game), Once Upon a Time, Fluxx [well, the last two are card games, but eh. :smalltongue:].

[Erloas]

It sounds like you've been playing with a variant rule by hiding the numbers until after placement. That removes the advantage of placing first, but adds even more randomness since it allows 6/8 combinations to appear-- combinations which are prohibited by the original rules. My group always prefers placing last since you can place two settlements at the same time.

The expansions do add more options and choices. Do the Carcassonne expansions add anything other than more cards and workers? I haven't seen any of them yet.

We still place the numbers based on the letter codes on them so it still has the same base distribution, you just can't see the numbers until later.

As for the expansions of Carcassonne... I've got a lot of them but I don't have a good group of people to play with so I haven't got to use most of them. They don't play enough to know the basic rules without going over them quickly when we start, let alone learning new expanded rules. I do know that a few of them give you more ways to interact with other players, I just don't know how much it changes things.


Anyone else play Quarriors yet? It was released... last month I think, maybe early this month. Its a dice based deck building game. Its pretty good. The mechanics are pretty good but some of the dice/warriors aren't balanced all that well and tend to end the game quickly once people start getting them out. Some just seem too situational or weak to be of any real good, so even though there are 10ish dice to choose from in any given game there is probably only 1/2 to 1/3 of them worth actually taking. It is pretty fun, and relatively quick to play and doesn't take long to teach to new people.

[Razaele]

Thanks for all of the great suggestions guys! You've given me plenty to consider. Sorry for the late reply, been really busy at work lately. I'll let you all know what games I decide to buy and what my experiences with them were like. Feel free to keep posting on this thread, I'll still be checking on it regularly to see if there are any new recommendations.

[Shadow of the Sun]

Diplomacy. It's AMAZING.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

The expansions do add more options and choices. Do the Carcassonne expansions add anything other than more cards and workers? I haven't seen any of them yet.
Well, for one, the Princess and Dragon expansion adds two direct-competition elements. Far less subtle than the competition of the base game, so if you're looking for overt competition, that's where it's at.

Princess: a city tile with a picture of the Princess, who summons all knights on the connected city away to fight the dragon.

Dragon: a wooden dragon who rampages around the board when a player draws the dragon tile. Very useful for knocking off enemy farmers.

Many of them add new tile options, and the Traders and Builders expansion adds in a new victory condition (collecting trade goods). Bridges, Castles, and Bazaars tweaks some stuff, but most importantly incorporates auction tiles, which auction off a tile to each player. Inns and Cathedrals and Abbey and Mayor also tweak the game somewhat and make it more varied. And those are the only expansions I've played with.

[Emmerask]

I think no one has yet mentioned the battlestar galactica boardgame

You try to reach new caprica (or with the expansion some other planet) 1 or 2 players are secretly cylons and try to sabotage the mission...
Really fun game :smallbiggrin:

hmm I think there was a fun playthrough with spoony
http://spoonyexperiment.com/2010/06/05/battlestar-galactica-the-boardgame/

[iyaerP]

Problem that I had with the Battlestar Galactica boardgame is that it can become almost unwinnable with the base game setup simply due to luck of the draw spawning turn after turn of ever increasing raiders, heavy raiders and basestars. Oh, and every card that spawns those enemies, also spawns a bunch of retarded civvie ships, whish will die in droves despite anything and everything you try to do to save them.

The first expansion however, fixes that.

The second expansion decides to take the "hidden traitor" mechanic and throw it to the wind with the "final five" cylons and their wierd hidden agendas, and it pretty much ruins the game.

So if you feel the need to play battlesex flashbacktica, don't use the base game. Use the first expansion, but not the second.



Games played the last two board-game-nights at my local gamestore are Ghost Stories, Le Harve, Mines of Zavandor and the Starcraft Boardgame.

Thoughts: Le Harve: Its Agrigcola, but as an industrial age merchant trading simulator rather than a stone age farming simulator. It is fun and thinky.

Ghost Stories: Did you ever feel like Arkham Horror and Battlestar Galactica were too easy? That merely having a chance of winning isn't something that you like? Do you hate yourself and everyone you game with? If so, go soak your head in a bucket of ice water for an hour or so. If you think even that was just a refreshing pick-me-up, then I might have a game for you. Its called Ghost Stories, and you play as one of four taoist exorcists who works to protect a village from an endless swarm of ghosts. You fight ghosts by rolling dice, and can get aid from the village, but the villager powers are often only marginally useful and can frequently be more harmfull than helpfull. A ghost appears every turn, and they often cause debuffs of one kind or another to the players, the villagers, or everything at once. Furthermore, each ghost can be the kind of thing that is mathimatically impossible to beat without several buffs, and if you got unlucky with haunting placement so lost the villager you needed to get that buff, or your buffs happen to be of the wrong color, or any number of other arbitrary problems, you are S.O.L.

The game has some fun mechanics, but the balance is poor, and the whole thing is an exercize in futility, rage, and masochism. Avoid wasting your time and money on this game. Or, if you absolutely HAVE to headbut the wall down, try it with a greatly reduced deck (like use half the ghost cards) before trying a "normal" game on its easiest official difficulty.


Mines of Zavandor: You are one of several dwarven clans vieing for control of the next chance at the dwaren crown. This game combines resource management, auctioneering, planning, and diplomacy/bribery for a fun hour or so. The economy falls apart somewhat with only three players, and the game is almost pointless with only two. If you play this, do it with four.


Starcraft the Boardgame: Is a pale imitation of Starcraft the Computer game. Stick with that instead.

[Keld Denar]

Hmmm. I feel like I'm going to enjoy Dominion a lot, so I think I'll do some research on that when the weekend hits. Also, from the MTG comment I take it that once I buy the base set (and possibly expansions), I won't have to pony up for more cards in order to keep up with a meta-game, yes?

Dominion is self contained. Unlike M:tG, player money has nothing to do with winning the game. The more you spend, the more options EVERYONE has. Each set simply expands the number of cards you can play with. I have all of them, and 2/3 of the promo cards you can buy online. Thats like, $150, since the sets are about $30 each (except for the half sets, which are like, $20ish). Altogether, I have 26+26+26+26+12+13+2=131 different cards to play with. Given that you only play with 10 cards at a time, that means I could play 13 consecutive games WITHOUT TOUCHING THE SAME CARD TWICE. The odds of randomizing the same set of cards twice in the same night is so close to 0 its not funny. Since its not a "collectable cards game", and all players are playing from the same set of cards, the playing field is even and the guy with the most money isn't garunteed to win. Its more like any other self-contained board game (like Monopoly or Risk), just with cards instead of an actual board.

The guys who introduced me to Dominion made a comment that everyone they've taught the game to has gone out and bought their own set. I did. Nearly everyone I've taught it to...has also bought their own set. Its incredibly awesome.

My only real complaint is that setting up the game is a bit of a pain, and carrying around 6 boxes of cards is also a bit of a pain. If I get anymore sets, I'm gonna break out my old M:tG card boxes to carry all of my cards in.

Oh, and I sleave my cards. If you play a lot, and play with a lot of random people, I highly suggest it too. The Mayday standard sleaves are perfect, and relatively cheap. It costs me about $7 to sleave a full set, and about $5 for a half set.

Its so easy, I tought my parents, my girlfriend's parents, my girlfriend's 8 year old son, my non-gamer friends, and quite a few other people. That said, it stays fun no matter how many times you play it.

(to the guy bragging about buying 2 Colonies in a game...my current high score in a 2 player game was 96. Monuments + Villiages + Scrying Pool = play your whole deck, including ALL of your Monuments, every turn.)

Other games:
If you like Dominion, Thunderstone is pretty similar, but with a more epic fantasy feel.
Smallworld is also very fun. Lots of backstabbing.
Robo Rally is an old WotC game, but hellafun. Knocking people off cliffs and shooting them with lazers is awesome.
Citadels is another fun one. Lots of backstabbing.

[Emmerask]

The first expansion however, fixes that.

The second expansion decides to take the "hidden traitor" mechanic and throw it to the wind with the "final five" cylons and their wierd hidden agendas, and it pretty much ruins the game.

So if you feel the need to play battlesex flashbacktica, don't use the base game. Use the first expansion, but not the second.


Agreed, the hidden traitor mechanic is imo what makes the game fun, so yes playing without the second expansion (or atleast without the hidden agenda cylons) is the way to go.
I think there is a new expansion coming out for the bsg game this year, it will be interesting to see what they will do with this one ^^
Or it may already have been released, duno.

[Castaras]

I didn't like the battlestar galactica game much. I ended up winning the one game I played (I was a hidden cylon), but it was too long, too complicated, and by the end of it very boring for whoever didn't have a turn. Which, in the 6 player game, was most of the game. But I suppose for the right people, and with the right people playing, it could be fun. For me, the game lasted 5 hours. But yes, I found it boring. But that's just me. :smallsmile:

[Emmerask]

Ghost Stories: Did you ever feel like Arkham Horror and Battlestar Galactica were too easy?

Frankly Arkham Horror is a bit too easy in my opinion, out of 10 games played we only lost one, and that was due to really really unlucky draws and rolls.

The only thing that is hard is to win the game sealing (I think it was 5) portals with the seal but the end fight in most cases is pretty easy to win if you prepare correctly.
This I think is also the greatest flaw of the game you should try to avoid the coming of the old one and have a good chance doing so, instead you more or less ignore it (ie only seal those portals that really have to be sealed) and just prepare for the end fight.

Still a fun game :smallwink:

[Aidan305]

I'm slightly surprised that no-one's mentioned Chaos in the Old World yet. Made by Fantasy Flight and set in the Warhammer Fantasy Universe, it has the players taking on the roles of the four chaos gods as they wage battle against each other, corrupting and dominating their way through every region of the world. It's simple to pick up and play, but has layers and layers of complexity underneath with several added elements of chance to ensure that each game is like none you've played before.

No, I don't know why I sound like an ad for the game. I just like it a lot

[Knaight]

Frankly Arkham Horror is a bit too easy in my opinion, out of 10 games played we only lost one, and that was due to really really unlucky draws and rolls.
I think its supposed to be easy. After all, if you want difficult there is always Pandemic.

[iyaerP]

I think its supposed to be easy. After all, if you want difficult there is always Pandemic.

O.o


I have lost ONE game of pandemic our of like nine or so that I have played. And that was due to an uncontrollable outbreak-storm where the same three cities got put back on top like every couple turns, and even then, it was really only bad because we had no medic.

Arkhem horror I have only played a few games of (four I think) but only won once. And that was because we had some lucky gate placements and a person with the "teleport past the other worlds" spell.

The thing about Ghost Stories is that it gets played almost every week at Quarterstaff, and to date there have been TWO wins for the players. The store has had this as a demo game for slightly over a year.

[Gnoman]

[QUOTE=Keld Denar;11892936]
Oh, and I sleave my cards. If you play a lot, and play with a lot of random people, I highly suggest it too. The Mayday standard sleaves are perfect, and relatively cheap. It costs me about $7 to sleave a full set, and about $5 for a half set.

Why would anyone *not* sleeve cards for a card-based game?

[Emmerask]

Anyone played the game of thrones board game yet?

I like the books, the tv series was alright too, but I just don´t know if the boardgame is any good

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Anyone played the game of thrones board game yet?

I like the books, the tv series was alright too, but I just don´t know if the boardgame is any good
I personally love the game. It's a medium-weight wargame, with some cool, elegant mechanic designs that make things click really well. It's also just fun to play in Westeros...but for the core game, you really need to have all five players for balance.

If you want to play a four-player game, play with the Storm of Swords expansion, which in my opinion is superior to the original Game of Thrones boardgame.

[Keld Denar]

Why would anyone *not* sleeve cards for a card-based game?

Some of my friends don't like the way the cards shuffle when sleeved. I actually prefer it to unsleeved anymore. They just don't have any bulk without the sleeves, especially if you have a small deck.