Seeking a new board game for my settlers gaming group [Archive]

SKarious

2012-09-17, 12:31 PM

So, I'm going to be spending some days with 2-5 friends, and was looking for a new board game to help pass the time and enjoy. We have been playing Settlers: Cities & Knights For a while and I think we need a new game, as I'm getting tired of playing the same game for 8+ years.

Our interests:
- Competitive, PvP game. My friend won't touch Co-op games unless they're extremely good and there's a way to declare a single "winner" when the game ends.
- Trading and player interactions. Direct ability to interrupt another's plans is highly rquired. We dropped Puerto Rico because we there was not enough intercation between players.

- A bit of randomness, a lot of planning. Too much randomness, such as in Cosmic Encounter, could turn them off. It should be possible to plan for your next turns and goals, but the game shouldn't be too rigid or completely deterministic. There should be some chance of fun and the odd surprise or bad luck streak.

- Number of players: usually 4. Although having a game suitable for 2 or 5 would be good, it isn't needed.

Games we've tried before:
Settlers: Cities & Knights - Good game, but I'm getting very tired of it.
Settlers: Traders & Barbarians - Not bad. But C&K was better and I couldn't get them to switch.
Cosmic Encounter & expansions - We'd had some fun games, but it was declared "too random". Also not liked because of many rules & timing conflicts. Also, they did not like to share victories.
Starfarers - Played a bit and then stopped, because it did have not enough PvP.
Puerto Rico - Same there.
Robo-Rally - Was too fast-paced.
Munchkin - Was fun for a while. But got too repetitive and I really did not like the "runaway leader" problem.
Arkham Horror - Couldn't get them to play it. (I think it's great and love the setting, but it was a cooperative game with too complex rules to teach for the short time we had.)

So far, I've been thinking of Dominion, but I'd love to hear other suggestions.
Board game night is approaching, and I'm tired of building aqueducts.

Forbiddenwar

2012-09-17, 02:10 PM

Have you tried Order of the Stick?

Haven't played it, but I did get the full game as part of the kickstarter and it looks really fun. Some pvp fighting over loot, lots of interrupt other players actions, and the humor of the comic.

The deluxe came with a new game mode as well, wandering xykon.

Ivellius

2012-09-17, 02:26 PM

Small World is my go-to recommendation these days. I'm plugging it as the next Settlers in the sense that I think it will eventually catch on in a more widespread way. Explaining the basic rules takes almost no time (although every race and power "breaks" the rules in some way).

It's a territory control game with a more-or-less goofy fantasy veneer. You select a race with an additional randomly associated power, try to take over territories, and eventually abandon them and start the process with another race.

There's no trading, but the entire game is about gaining coins through taking territory (generally at the expense of other players).

The randomness is essentially in the combinations of races and powers that come up; bad ones can be skipped for a price, while good ones are in high demand. Conquering territory requires 2 tokens + an amount equal to whatever's already in the territory, so there's no randomness there.

Vampire: Prince of the City might also fit your requirements, although I've only played a couple of 3-player games. My nickname for it is "Vampire Gang Fight," and I think that's pretty accurate. It's relatively complicated--you control sections of the city by bidding influence tokens, can fight the other would-be Vampire Princes, and navigate your way through diplomacy to become the baddest vampire in the city.

boj0

2012-09-17, 02:37 PM

If your group loves PvP, you should give Frag a shot!
It combines various tropes of online FPS games and a solid dose of Steve Jackson humor.
It plays quickly but supports tournament style "seasons" as well, I've played a few games in my time and find it hilariously fun.

The_Jackal

2012-09-17, 02:39 PM

I HIGHLY recommend Age of Renaissance (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/26/age-of-renaissance) from Avalon Hill. This is a very, very cool game about colonialism and conquest from the middle ages into the pre-industrial era. Class-A strategy game.

SKarious

2012-09-17, 05:15 PM

Weezer

2012-09-17, 06:05 PM

Thanks for the recommendations so far. Keep ' coming, please.
Small World sounds just right so far. I'll read on it.
We have tried the Order of the Stick game, but found it too long for our group. I fogot to mention it.

I agree with you on the too long part, I really enjoy it and the game mechanics, but it's simple way too long. If it were pared down to only taking like 3 or 4 hours, I'd love it.

psilontech

2012-09-17, 06:17 PM

Twilight Imperium?

Forbiddenwar

2012-09-17, 06:35 PM

I agree with you on the too long part, I really enjoy it and the game mechanics, but it's simple way too long. If it were pared down to only taking like 3 or 4 hours, I'd love it.

:smallconfused:
The game is labeled at one to 1.5 hours.

At least that's what the deluxe game says.

Weezer

2012-09-17, 07:35 PM

:smallconfused:
The game is labeled at one to 1.5 hours.

At least that's what the deluxe game says.

From my experience it takes much, much, much longer than that. Maybe my group and I was an aberration of some form or another, I dunno. People who love multi-hour games of risk would repeatedly get bored and lose interest in playing.

Balain

2012-09-17, 09:41 PM

order of the stick board game is a fine game but the time on the box is way off. We had a couple minor house rules that helped a little. Tried the shortening once and it did seem to shorten our play time.

One of my favourite games is Napoleon in Europe. It maybe hard to find now. I enjoy twilight emporium, Eclipse is another good one along the same idea as T.I. Actually I think eclipse improves on somethings T.I does.

Age of Conan or Merchant and Marauders maybe.

houlio

2012-09-17, 10:28 PM

I haven't seen any mention of Agricola yet. Although, based on your description of Puerto Rico not having enough PvP, it might not be for you. In my experience, it has more interaction between players because you have to compete for those much-vaunted action spaces (taking a spot stops other people from taking it that turn). It also has a bit more sense of urgency to it since everyone has to try to build up to a certain point every few turns to avoid starving.

Xondoure

2012-09-17, 10:57 PM

I don't know of any games that do trading as well as Settler's but here's a few for the list to try for pvp:

A Game of Thrones: The Board Game. - take over westeros in a mad bid for the iron throne. Involves plenty of competing over resources through combat. up to 6 players I think? Stark, Lannister, Greyjoy, Baratheon, Tyrell, with Dorne as an expansion... It's been a long time so not sure.

Imperial: Economic warfare at its finest. You are the people with all the true power in early 20th century Europe: I speak of course of the wealthy. Take control of countries by investing the most in them and use them to collect more money by taxing them and collecting interest. Along the way build up armies to ransack nations where you lack investments and conquer unclaimed territory to increase the populace of whom you tax. But be wary lest your opponent buys Germany out from under you at the last possible second. And do not underestimate the value of driving a nation into the ground should you benefit from it. It's a favorite among quite a few of the gamers I know. Highly recommended. 2-6 players

Edit: Agricola is fun, and competitive in a "you took all the wood!" sort of way.
Smallville is very simple, but makes for a good time. Hope all this helps.

Edit2: Unfortunately for your requirements, there's little luck in Imperial. That said, you could certainly add some by randomly distributing the easy start investment cards. Additionally, it can often feel like a luck game simply because it's hard to tell which nations will do the best, and therefore where your investments should lie (We all thought Britain was useless until I took over the ocean.)

GolemsVoice

2012-09-18, 05:48 AM

polity4life

2012-09-18, 07:08 AM

How about Junta? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junta_%28game%29) It's a free-for-all-PvP-fest, requires some planning and some luck, and is great fun. I played it and enjoyed it immensely. Especially if your players like to discuss and bargain.

This here is the winner. This game, in my opinion, set the bar for competitive board gaming.

Just remember one thing; if you have the votes, back the current president. The rebels will kill you.

Brumski

2012-09-19, 10:55 AM

I'll second Small World, especially if you really want a more antagonistic going after each other feel to your games. We don't play it that much anymore because of that fact, gfs and more casual gamer friends get turned off to it.
And Small World: Underground, also good. Added variety in that there are special treasures and areas to be found on the map that are random for each game, which causes for more planning, but also more rule reading. Haven't yet used the little mini-expansion that lets you put the two game boards together for one uber-game.
Oh, and no run-away leaders in these games. If anyone decides they want to demolish you territory, your going to be hurting, but so will they. Actually that's why I think my old roommate's gf has the most wins in this game, we ended up being so busy countering each other, she just sits in the corner, quitely collecting the majority of the points.

Wiz-War is great. 2-4 wizards running around a crazy (yet simple) labyrinth, blasting away with spells and trying to steal each others treasure. A little randomness in what spells you draw (there are 6 different "spell decks," of which you only play a game with 3 of them, yay variety). The same Smallworld winning gf got mad at this game cause she felt very ineffectual, but that was because I kept her that way by conjuring a wall in her path, negating her spell that let her pass thru the wall, stunning her with a lightning bolt, and rotating the board sector she was on to get her away from my treasure.

Wayac

2012-09-19, 11:47 AM

I would recommend trying out Dominion. Very fun and quick game once you learn how to play. Also the attack cards can get rather vicious so there's room for some interesting PvP.

If you've got time, you can browse through the games played on Table Top (http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4F80C7D2DC8D9B6C&feature=plcp) though a lot of them seem more like party games than super competitive games.

Chen

2012-09-19, 12:36 PM

I find a very big problem with Small World. If someone takes the lead someone needs to sacrifice their own points to take over the opponents squares (using more tokens to hurt the other player rather than just taking over the easiest to use squares). The problem is if one person does that the leader gets taken down but they also hurt themselves. So no one wants to do it, but then the leader stays the leader. This is particularly problematic when certain race combinations come out.

Example, one player had Spirit Trolls. They added caves to mountain areas and even after declining once, they stick around. The problem was a troll/cave/mountain requires 5 tokens to take over. No one wanted to waste their whole turn getting 2 points, but left unchecked the troll player just keeps racking in points. It becomes very metagamy to say "well each of us will take out one of his trolls" when its really in the best interest of the last player to just do his own thing and get a ton of points instead while the rest of the players (and the troll player) got minimum points that turn.

It is a good quick game for a more casual crowd. I find its far too frustrating for a group who wants a deeper more thought out game.

Kurgan

2012-09-19, 12:50 PM

Well, a game I rather like is Age of Gods (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/13071/age-of-gods). At the beginning of the game, each player picks a god to play as from two random choices, and then guides their races to victory or defeat. The twist: all gods get 4 races, but only know one of them at game start, and also, unless you reveal it yourself, the other players will not know who you are the god of. Game lasts 10 turns, and on turn 7, you can decide to abandon your races and bet some other race will win.

The gods are not restricted to using their own race, so it is entirely possible to accidentally blob out another player's race, or in some cases intentionally destroy yours in order to make the other players assume you aren't playing that race [dead races can come back, and usually in hilarious ways].

The game usually lasts about 45-60 minutes, and with my group at least with half of the map either completely sterile of life or filled with superfortresses [you can fortify a land, then the dwarven special ability adds more, and then one of the gods allows for further forts :smallbiggrin:].

On order of the stick, I have never seen a game of that last less than 3 hours. Fun game, really silly, but time consuming. Isn't there even a "weekend killer" mode?

Wookieetank

2012-09-19, 12:55 PM

Asending Empires: You're building an Empire (in SPACE!) and move your ships around the board by flicking them. You can upgrade your planets to give you different bonuses (improve number of actions you can take, improve combat ability, get extra units when you produce, etc). Its a very fun game, kinda quick, but very competitive, at least in my experience.

Dungeon Lords: Plays similarly too Dungeon Keeper except in board game version. You build up a dungeon and enlist monsters to guard it while competing for resources to do both of the above. Every so many turns you have to pay taxes/upkeep on your dungeon, and the end of a year an adventuring party comes and raids your dungeon. The more evil you are the stronger the adventurers you have to face, and if you get too evil the dreded paladin will attempt to vanquish you! (or present you with loads of points if you prepare properly and defeat him).

Chen

2012-09-19, 02:37 PM

Dungeon Lords: Plays similarly too Dungeon Keeper except in board game version. You build up a dungeon and enlist monsters to guard it while competing for resources to do both of the above. Every so many turns you have to pay taxes/upkeep on your dungeon, and the end of a year an adventuring party comes and raids your dungeon. The more evil you are the stronger the adventurers you have to face, and if you get too evil the dreded paladin will attempt to vanquish you! (or present you with loads of points if you prepare properly and defeat him).

This game is fun but I also find it has quite a bit of downtime when people are resolving their dungeon phases. The other phases though are very interesting strategically though. I'd be afraid if people didn't like Puerto Rico, they'd find even less interaction in Dungeon Lords though.

Brumski

2012-09-19, 02:42 PM

Originally I was going to suggest Core Worlds but I don't know if it would be directly competitive enough for the OP. Main reason it came to mind is because it plays 2-5 people, oh, and I think it's pretty sweet. A space deck-building game, where you only get so much energy and actions and you have to decide whether to use those resources to buy new unit/tech cards, deploy ones you already have, or conquer available planets. Units and tech usually give you some mix of Ground or Fleet strength, and planets require a specific mix of the two kinds of strength to conquer. Every two game rounds you move one sector closer to the core worlds, and thus units you can buy are stronger, and planets are tougher, but also give you more resources. Very little direct antagonism (I think a couple of tech cards let you steal some energy), typically the best you can do is buy a card or conquer a planet that you can tell someone is gunning for.

Example, one player had Spirit Trolls. They added caves to mountain areas and even after declining once, they stick around. The problem was a troll/cave/mountain requires 5 tokens to take over. No one wanted to waste their whole turn getting 2 points, but left unchecked the troll player just keeps racking in points. It becomes very metagamy to say "well each of us will take out one of his trolls" when its really in the best interest of the last player to just do his own thing and get a ton of points instead while the rest of the players (and the troll player) got minimum points that turn.

This is very true, can definitely happen. I think that's why reviews of hard-core gamers are hard on it. My buddy got Commando Skeletons one time, which are BA, but that put a huge target on his back. I think they only lasted two turns before he went into decline.

Aidan305

2012-09-19, 03:12 PM

I'll throw another recommendation the way of Small World.

I'll also recommend Chaos in the Old World a PvP game where you take on the role of the 4 gods of Chaos in Warhammer fantasy and do battle against each other as you try to take over/destroy the world. 'Tis one of my go-to games when I feel like some fightin' board games.

LordZarth

2012-09-19, 07:33 PM

Yeah, Small World is an amazing game. I'd add two points:

1. For my gaming group at least, which is highly strategy-focused and usually figures games out pretty fast, it's still a mystery. We just have no clue what we're doing. It's great! :smallbiggrin:

2. The races are somehow all overpowered. Happen to have the Flying trait? Congratulations, geography is irrelevant and you can invade any territory from anywhere. Merchant? You just get extra victory points (coins) all the time. Seafaring? There are territories that only you can occupy (and occupying more territory = more victory points). Are you Elves? Enjoy never losing units, Mr. Commando. Spirit? You are now playing two races simultaneously. You catch my drift... every player gets to feel overpowered at the same time.

Vitruviansquid

2012-09-19, 07:55 PM

Chaos in the Old World is *really* fun, but be warned, it can only ever be played with 3-4 players (maybe you can do 5 with the expansion?)

Scowling Dragon

2012-09-20, 12:54 AM

Try Nexus ops. Its like Settlers: Except your out to kill each other with alien monsters.

Its even got a similar game board!

iyaerP

2012-09-22, 02:39 PM

Race for the Galaxy. Think if Puerto Rico and Dominion had a baby. In space. It takes about an hour and is pretty simple rules wise. Direct and indirect conflict both occur, but the direct combat requires an expansion.

Twilight Imperium's Rex is probably more down your route. Military standoff on a contested world by various alien powers, each with unique abilities and stengths. Resource control and management is just as important as board position, and diplomacy/manipulation is almost always going to be the key to victory. The combat mechanics are awesome, with armies being equal to each other, but boosted by which commander you choose (in secret), and any tactics card you deploy. The tactics cards play tactical rock paper scissors only slightly more complicated. The game as a whole is pretty much a straight up remake of the classic 1980s Dune game reskinned for the Twilight Imperium Fluff, but that is not a bad thing. Tons of fun, but very similar to game of thrones game which is probably going to overshadow it simply on brand recognition more than anything else.

CarpeGuitarrem

2012-09-23, 01:32 AM

I honestly find Small World to be a bit iffy by this point, but it's fun enough with an on-and-off basis.

Other thoughts...

Try Lords of Waterdeep; it's a not-too-heavy trading/economics game that plays pretty dang well. The competition partially comes from "sabotage your opponents" cards, and also because space is at a premium. You're placing workers on buildings, and each building can only hold one worker. So you wind up not just assigning workers to get things done; you also assign workers to block your opponents out.

Inglenook

2012-09-24, 07:33 PM

Another vote for Small World and Dominion here.

7 Wonders is also fun, and has a small PvP element (you want to have more Combat cards than the two players sitting beside you).

Hiro Protagonest

2012-09-24, 07:37 PM

Brewdude

2012-09-25, 07:39 AM

5 regular players?

Risk: Legacy.
No, I'm not joking. games take between longer to set up than to play to about 2 hours max, because winning is about controlling HQs, not the board.

PairO'Dice Lost

2012-09-27, 06:13 PM

The Battlestar Galactica board game looks like it would be up your alley. No knowledge of the show is required, and in fact two people in the group I usually play it with dislike the show but love the game. Just expect some spoilers if you want to watch BSG after playing.

Basically, you're the humans of the spaceship Galactica being attacked by the Cylons (robots/cyborgs that can disguise themselves as humans). You're trying to make enough hyperspace jumps to outrun them while preventing political coups, keeping allied civilian ships alive, and so forth. You have resources to manage communally, Cylon raids to fight off, crises to handle, and other stuff; mechanically, there are ways to enable or restrict each other's actions and trade cards, the central mechanic is a bidding "skill check", and every player has a character they play with their own perks and drawbacks.

The game usually takes 3-4 hours, sometimes as short as 2 if the humans get unlucky and die early or as long as 5 if the Cylons are going for a war of attrition. Randomness can definitely be be a factor--you need to get Jump Distance 8 to win as humans so if you keep drawing Distance 1 Jump cards you give the Cylons a lot of time to mess with you, and if you're outnumbered by Cylon ships and want to nuke them you'd better hope you roll high on the d8--but choices of what cards to play, what choices to make for crises, and such outweigh the random factors unless your choices happen to lead to an all-or-nothing roll (like nuking the enemy fleet).

Now, as to the PvP part. At the start of the game, you get loyalty cards, which make you either a human (who wants to cooperate with everyone else), a Cylon (who wants to secretly sabotage the humans), or a human Cylon-sympathizer (someone whose loyalties shift based on resource levels and such); if a Cylon wants to work against the humans openly, he can reveal himself and access a separate set of abilities like controlling the Cylon raiders or making the crises the humans have to handle more dangerous. The win condition is by team, either humans or Cylons, and there will always be roughly half-and-half human and Cylon players; the Cylon Sympathizer only comes into play with odd numbers of players, giving each team even odds of being the larger one, and I've played games with everywhere from 3 to 8 people and it worked out well, though 4-5 is best. The expansions allow for Cylon Leader characters, who start the game as openly-Cylon players but have agendas where they might want to have the humans win but screw them over in some fashion or vice versa for the Cylons, so even then you don't know where their loyalties lie.

Corlindale

2012-09-28, 11:16 AM

Small World is indeed quite fun, but it may fall short of your "limited player interaction"-aversion. There's not a lot to do when it isn't your turn - and turns can take a while in a big game - so sometimes there's a little too much waiting time for my tastes. Of course this drawback is lessened as people grow more experienced and hence play faster.

Dominion is my favourite game ever, so many possiblities and emergent combos possible with all the cards. Note that once again there is not much interaction between your turns - but turns tend to go super-fast with an experienced group anyway, so it's not a huge issue. Plus, good players will be quite occupied with paying close attention to what their opponents buy.

Ivellius

2012-09-28, 05:40 PM

5 regular players?

Risk: Legacy.
No, I'm not joking. games take between longer to set up than to play to about 2 hours max, because winning is about controlling HQs, not the board.

I would second this if the focus is more on "fun PvP board games," but there's no trading involved.

Small World is indeed quite fun, but it may fall short of your "limited player interaction"-aversion. There's not a lot to do when it isn't your turn - and turns can take a while in a big game - so sometimes there's a little too much waiting time for my tastes. Of course this drawback is lessened as people grow more experienced and hence play faster.

I would kind of agree, except I think the "table talk" is what keeps it interesting. Suggest to an opponent that he really needs to worry about those elves over there, they're strongest, while you secretly extend your Spirit Troll empire into the mountains. It's been my experience that most players play pretty quickly when you get turns under your belt, and I spend most of my downtime plotting moves and/or diplomacizing.

The_Jackal

2012-09-28, 05:48 PM

Re: BSG Boardgame

Just play Shadows over Camelot (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/15062/shadows-over-camelot).

Wookieetank

2012-10-01, 10:36 AM

Re: BSG Boardgame

Just play Shadows over Camelot (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/15062/shadows-over-camelot).

Although to play this game all you really need to do is hand out the loyalty cards, and whoever gets the traitor card gets declared winner. I do enjoy playing this game, but have yet to play a game where the traitor doesn't win.:smallfrown:

CarpeGuitarrem

2012-10-01, 12:19 PM

Whilst we're discussing traitor games, I've found The Resistance to be head-and-shoulders above Shadows and Werewolf/Mafia, and like a faster-playing version of BSG. Check it out; the game gets very intense, and it plays out in a half-hour.

Basically, the group is comprised of resistance fighters, some of whom are moles for the oppressive government. Each round, a different player chooses players to go on a mission, and the players vote on whether that team will be sent. Then, if it's cleared, the "mission team" players secretly vote on whether the mission succeeds or fails; one "fail" vote is enough to sink the mission.

The spies and the resistance are fighting to get three out of five missions failed/passed (spies want to fail, resistance wants to pass, naturally).

It's quick, has all of the accusation-throwing of Werewolf/Mafia (with none of the player elimination or total clue disorientation), and is pretty balanced.

Inglenook

2012-10-01, 12:36 PM

Betrayal at House on the Hill also has a traitor mechanic, although it's not present until the latter half of the game. I like the Halloweeny feel and the modular board.

Erloas

2012-10-01, 12:44 PM

Have you watched any of the Sit Down and Shut Up videos on Penny Arcade? (at least now, I know they have their own site and older videos around)
They review all kinds of board games and some of them seem very interesting. A lot of games I wouldn't really have thought about or known about and they give you a pretty good idea of what the game is like.
One of the first ones they did on PA was... K2 which seemed to mostly fit what you were asking for.

Dominion is a great game, but it has limited interaction between players in the base version. I think the expansion Intrigue has a lot more player interaction type cards.

What I would probably do though is just not play the same game all the time. Is there a specific reason you are looking for one specific game to play? If you aren't looking for a single game to fulfill everything you want you can play different games that focus on different things every couple of months.

Douglas

2012-10-01, 01:01 PM

It takes several hours to play, but Axis and Allies is a superb board game for up to 5 players. You start with an initial troop strength and layout based on historical data from a point in WW2 where it looked like the war could go either way, and play it out from there. They managed to craft the rules such that they combine with the initial state to naturally encourage strategies very similar to what historically happened despite having no nation-specific rules (unless you bring in some optional variants), while still leaving a lot of room for clever play to influence things. U.S. + U.K. + Russia vs Germany/Italy + Japan.

I remember one game against my brother where Germany (I was playing both Axis countries) got an unexpected early breakthrough in rocketry. I proceeded to bombard London with large quantities of rockets through the rest of the game, crippling the U.K.'s economy and ultimately leading to my victory.

AdmiralCheez

2012-10-01, 07:54 PM

houlio

2012-10-01, 08:25 PM

There's always Diplomacy, the game that is nothing but PvP, planning, and negotiating between players. I haven't actually played it myself, so I can't confirm if it's actually fun or not. But from what I know of it, there's a diplomacy round where players meet in secret to formulate plans against other players, then a troop movement round where you write your battle plans for that turn, and then everything happens at once. Betrayal is a common strategy, like making a deal with another player to commit all their troops to invade a common enemy, then secretly moving your own forces into their now undefended territory.

I find Diplomacy quite enjoyable, but it is rather long for a board game. I also know it's extremely hit or miss depending on the person.

To alleviate both of these concerns, there are a few websites which allow you to play diplomacy with your friends on the internet, with turns taking anything from a day to a week before passing. I found this nice since it didn't involve finding 7 people with a day of total freedom to play, and it's a lot less grating to get crushed by betrayal.

Klose_the_Sith

2012-10-01, 09:21 PM

I find Diplomacy quite enjoyable, but it is rather long for a board game. I also know it's extremely hit or miss depending on the person.

To alleviate both of these concerns, there are a few websites which allow you to play diplomacy with your friends on the internet, with turns taking anything from a day to a week before passing. I found this nice since it didn't involve finding 7 people with a day of total freedom to play, and it's a lot less grating to get crushed by betrayal.

I think the issue here with Diplomacy is that it doesn't have the randomness that was asked for. I am a pretty big Diplomacy fan, though. I printed out the 1900 variant map on canvas and play with that instead of the standard, though. So much more balanced and historical :smallbiggrin:

Artanis

2012-10-01, 11:26 PM

If you can find it, you might try Mutant Chronicles: The Siege of the Citadel. It's partly co-op and partly PVP in that one player (who rotates every game) plays the bad guys and the others play the good guys. Also, while the good guys are nominally on the same team, there's several situations where they can (and will) screw each other over.

A single mission can last upwards of an hour, and you can chain together several missions in a campaign. Along the way, the players get points for killing/wounding the enemy, and whoever has the most points when you finish wins.

As for strategy vs. randomness, the game involves a lot of strategy in deciding where to go and who to shoot, while attacks are resolved randomly with dice and each player gets some randomly-distributed bonuses.

The game is designed with 5 players in mind, but has rules for 2-4 players that work reasonably well.

The main problem is getting your hands on it, since it's been out of print for a while :smallfrown: