Recommendations for a Board Game? [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

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Vesth

2013-01-10, 08:02 AM

Avilan the Grey

2013-01-10, 08:39 AM

Unfortunately I have never played either of these.

I personally strongly recommend the table top version of Battlestar Galactica; a franchise game that actually is REALLY good.

Btw, subsribe to Geek and Saundry produced by Felicia Day on Youtube. Every two weeks (I think) Will Weaton demoes a table top game together with geek friends for you in the section Tabletop.

Chen

2013-01-10, 08:50 AM

Now that my exams are over, I hopped by to the best board game store in the area, and the guy there recommended my a couple of games:

Pandemic
Shadow Hunters
Dominion
Betrayal at the House on the Hill
Castle Ravenloft
Shadows Over Camelot
Ascension.

Which do you think would be the best to get? If you have any other suggestions, I'll be glad to hear them - I'll ask about it when I get the chance to go there again.

Thanks in advance!

Betrayal at the House on the Hill is a good quick game to play several sessions of. Its best with more players I find though. Not super deep strategically or anything, but its fun.

Pandemic is a co-op game and I found it wasn't all that impressive. Apparently the expansion does spice things up a bit, but I haven't played it.

Dominion is an excellent game with TONS of expansions. I feel its a better deckbuilding game than Ascension if you're going to go the deckbuilding route.

CarpeGuitarrem

2013-01-10, 10:08 AM

Pandemic: I've played it a great many times. Love it. Great cooperative game--the players are working against the game itself. Expect to lose a lot, even on easy. The coolest part of the game is figuring out how to use different characters with drastically different abilities in synergy.

Shadow Hunters: Fun, fun game. Like Bang! (or Mafia), but better-balanced. Good party game with a little bit of advanced rules. Cool damage mechanic: you roll two dice, and subtract the lower result from the higher.

Dominion: Very robust, interesting, and fast deckbuilding game. You have ten different cards in the center of the table, and your deck includes money cards and point cards. As you play, you use your money cards to buy more action cards, money cards, and point cards. (The point cards do nothing other than give you points at the end of the game...so they're essential to win, but otherwise useless.) It's all about finding an efficient combo that you can lean on to generate lots of money (to get lots of points).

Betrayal at the House on the Hill: Fun Cthulhu-themed dungeon-crawler. It's like an RPG lite. The traitor mechanic works out well.

Castle Ravenloft: Like Betrayal, it's an RPG lite, but the RPG is now 4th Edition D&D. The game is gorgeously-designed. I personally don't like it much, because I prefer my board games to either be more sophisticated, more elegant, or both. Here, the only real mechanics are "move and roll to hit".

Shadows Over Camelot: Fun Arthurian-themed game, although I played this a long time ago, before I really got into boardgaming. So I don't know how I'd evaluate it now. I remembered it being a very enjoyable game, though, with diverse subsystems.

Ascension: Haven't played, but it looks like another deckbuilding game.

As for suggestions? There's a lot of games out there, depends on the style you're looking for.

The Resistance: Mafia+, with all of the kinks worked out--a much more satisfying game. Its core mechanic is effectively the traitor mechanic from the Battlestar Galactica game, so it's a far more condensed (and really fast) game.

Agricola: A bit more involved than the other games, this one's an incredibly rich eurogame...all about farmers. Even if the theme sounds boring, it's actually pretty engaging.

Carcassonne: one of the classics, and the mechanics are really interesting--you lay down tiles to build a map, and you gain points for controlling features of the map (cities, roads, fields) with your minions.

Shogun: look into this when you have more games under your belt--it's basically Shogun Total War: the (unofficial) Boardgame. Combat is quick and brutal (for both sides).

7 Wonders: A drafting game where you're one of the ancient cities, building yourself to prosperity with the resources at your disposal. Plays ridiculously fast, faster than Dominion, when everyone knows the rules.

Scowling Dragon

2013-01-10, 10:14 AM

If you want a D&D based Risk with actual strategy in it, try conquest of nerath.

Four different armies duke it out and stuff. Its good with a few house rules.

Corlindale

2013-01-10, 11:29 AM

Dominion is fantastic, my favourite game ever! Even the base without expansions offers a lot of fun and variety. It's also good because it can be played equally well with 2, 3 or 4 players (which is not true of some of the others). This (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ENsEhRbVIM) will give you an impression of what the game's like.

Betrayal is also quite fun. Game takes a bit longer, but there are many interesting mechanics. It's best with 4+ players, though, so you need to know that you'll regularly have that many players. Due to the scenario mechanic it may eventually become less replayable as you see more and more of the scenarios (but there are a lot, so it won't be a concern for a long while).

I haven't played the others much.

MindALot

2013-01-10, 01:03 PM

A few popular strategy board games that our local group plays

Settlers of Catan
build cities on a random map
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/13/the-settlers-of-catan

Puerto Rico
build your town
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3076/puerto-rico

Power Grid
buy power plans (using bidding) to power cities
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2651/power-grid

The_Jackal

2013-01-10, 01:31 PM

Battlestar Galactica is basically a re-skin of Shadows over Camelot, with the cast of BSG replacing the Knights of the Round table. While these games are fun in a 'sit around with your friends and goof' sense, they're really not very interesting from a competitive or strategic angle, since the winning move tends to be 'get dealt the traitor card'.

I'm a BIG fan of Shogun, it's basically Axis and Allies set in Feudal Japan, ie: Risk on steroids. It's pretty cool.

CarpeGuitarrem

2013-01-10, 03:21 PM

I'm a BIG fan of Shogun, it's basically Axis and Allies set in Feudal Japan, ie: Risk on steroids. It's pretty cool.
I really, really need to order this in at the FLGS. (They also have an expansion at the store, is that any good?)

The_Jackal

2013-01-10, 03:55 PM

I've never played the expansion, so I'm not equipped to say.

Inglenook

2013-01-10, 07:18 PM

Pandemic is great fun as long as you're playing with people who are vocal and willing to discuss things. If there's someone who sits there just waiting to be told what to do, it drags things down a little bit.

Betrayal at House on the Hill is good, though not a very deep or strategic game, if that's what you're looking for.

I've only played Dominion once, but I enjoyed it.

Seconding some other ones that have been mentioned already:
- Agricola
- 7 Wonders
- Carcassonne
- Settlers of Catan
- Power Grid
- Puerto Rico

Anonymouswizard

2013-01-10, 08:45 PM

Pandemic is a good game but hard, not much else that I can think of that hasn't been said.

Dominion is one of my favourite board games, and if you randomly generate the cards available the game can remain enjoyable. Both the basic game and Intrigue are full games, differing mainly in the action cards they provide (and Intrigue also introduces cards with multiple types, like action/victory cards). Both sets can also be combined to provide money and victory cards for a larger game.

Ascension is basically the same as dominion, except with monsters and victory points as tokens rather than cards. It is a good game in it's own right but personally I would recommend dominion over it.

Settlers of Catan is a classic game in my mind, and can basically be described as be the best at resource management and building (although in my experience there is always one of the resources that is in short supply normally clay or stone, and almost always one of the ones that should be the most common).

Agricola is one of the best games I wish I owned a copy of (right up there with 7 wonders and dominion), and is basically you competing to build the best farm you can within the turn limit (just a tip, family growth is one of the best actions, especially if taken early. There will be competition for it).

Carcassonne is an awesome game that I have never played with someone who has disliked it, and is extremely simple. I suggest playing with the river expansion to increase the starting area from a single tile, and the player who tries to build the giant city (and the player who tries to sneak a man into it) will almost never actually complete it in my experience.

7 Wonders is a drafting game, and a really great one to play if you have a group of 6 or 7 people. In addition, I remember hearing that the first printing managed to sell out before it was released.

Small World is a world conquest game. In a fantasy world. With possibly every fantasy race in western fantasy appearing within the 9/10 turn limit.

Other games I rate highly:
Pastische
Qwarriors, which is a little bit like dominion with dice instead of cards.
Dungeon Lords
Power Grid
Pirates Cove

Brewdude

2013-01-10, 09:07 PM

I've been jonesing on Kingsburg and its expansions lately.

Resource generation is by dice roll...but any particular number can only be chosen by one person, so you get interesting dilemmas of "do I use all three dice for the 14, or go for the 8 and 6?" Then you use those resources to build buildings and soldiers, and after every three turns, you fight the bad guys. 5 rounds of that, and the game is over. High score at the end wins.

AttilaTheGeek

2013-01-13, 01:20 PM

When I first heard about Settlers of Catan, it was described to me as "The board game to end all board games". It's so true.

warty goblin

2013-01-13, 01:41 PM

When I first heard about Settlers of Catan, it was described to me as "The board game to end all board games". It's so true.

I've given up even trying to get my family to play anything else.

AttilaTheGeek

2013-01-13, 03:53 PM

I've given up even trying to get my family to play anything else.

Exactly.

(blah blah, 10 character requirement)

CarpeGuitarrem

2013-01-13, 05:25 PM

When I first heard about Settlers of Catan, it was described to me as "The board game to end all board games". It's so true.
Ironically enough, I think of it not as that but as the gateway to more robust boardgames.

Emmerask

2013-01-13, 06:04 PM

Now that my exams are over, I hopped by to the best board game store in the area, and the guy there recommended my a couple of games:

Pandemic
Shadow Hunters
Dominion
Betrayal at the House on the Hill
Castle Ravenloft
Shadows Over Camelot
Ascension.

Which do you think would be the best to get? If you have any other suggestions, I'll be glad to hear them - I'll ask about it when I get the chance to go there again.

Thanks in advance!

Well it would be good to know what you are looking for to give you sound advice.

The only thing I can tell you atm is that I was extremely disappointed with castle ravenloft.
Its much too simple, predictable and in the end boring.
The only good thing I can say about it is that the minis are of good quality :smalleek:

Overall instead of this Descent: Journeys in the Dark (One not two, two lags any depth atm which may come with future expansions) is superior in pretty much any respect and if you want a coop only games there are rules for that too (online) which work pretty well.

warty goblin

2013-01-13, 06:08 PM

On the actual topic, I've had a fair amount of fun playing Defenders of the Realm solo. Plus it's illustrated by Larry Elmore, so it's constantly gorgeous.

Inglenook

2013-01-13, 10:04 PM

I played Catan's Cities and Knights expansion for the first time tonight, and while it felt almost like a different game, in a way it was quite fun.

Of course I might be biased, since I won. :smallbiggrin:

Sith_Happens

2013-01-14, 03:11 AM

Pokemon Master Trainer (http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pokémon_Master_Trainer_(1999)).

...What?:smallconfused:

Morbis Meh

2013-01-14, 12:40 PM

Out of all those games I have only tried Betrayl at the house on the hill and I will say that it is certainly a very entertaining game and works well with a group of 4-6 people.

Dominion... haven't played but my friends play it and love it

Settlers of Catan.... where to begin, my friends and I have renamed this game to "The game of Rage" this is the only game I have ever played that makes other players want to murder each other wholesale lol it is a lot of fun and requires paying close attention to your resourcesand the resources of other players. I myself am probably the best player out of my friends and my fiancee's family (My win record is somewhere around 16 wins to 3 losses lol with an eleven game win streak)

Vesth

2013-01-19, 12:17 PM

Thank you so much guys! Judging from your comments, I'll most likely get Dominion or Shadow Hunters.

On the topic of board games, me and my friends are trying to make one ourselves, so if we ever need playtesters...we'll know who to PM! :smallbiggrin:

tonberrian

2013-01-20, 06:01 PM

I enjoy Ticket to Ride myself. A fun little game about claiming train routes.

One_Wolf

2013-01-21, 12:42 AM

Sounds like you are taking your first steps into a bigger world of boardgaming. You must check out www.boardgamegeek.com. That site will tell you all you need to know about the boardgames you listed as well as many many more.

-One Wolf

Joran

2013-01-21, 01:03 AM

Now that my exams are over, I hopped by to the best board game store in the area, and the guy there recommended my a couple of games:

Pandemic
Shadow Hunters
Dominion
Betrayal at the House on the Hill
Castle Ravenloft
Shadows Over Camelot
Ascension.

Which do you think would be the best to get? If you have any other suggestions, I'll be glad to hear them - I'll ask about it when I get the chance to go there again.

Thanks in advance!

An important question is how many people are generally in your play group?

Dominion can only support 2-4. The problem with Dominion is that the base set is pretty limited. I found with the expansion Intrigue, it helped open up the game a bit, but there's like 8 expansions.

Pandemic's game play can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytK1zDPPDhw. Wil Wheaton's Tabletop series does a pretty good job of giving you the feel of a game.

I have a house rule that all cards are face-up but limit the amount of table talk. This helps mitigate the primary problem of Pandemic that it's possible for a few people to boss around the other players, leading to them just being pawns that move pieces than actual participants.

Aidan305

2013-01-21, 04:15 AM

All are good games, though none would be in my preferred games to play. What sort of playstyle do you prefer? Competitive or co-op? That can strongly change which games I'd recommend of those listed.

Poison_Fish

2013-01-21, 05:32 AM

I'll also throw my voice behind Dominion. I've had it and two expansions for a few years and each time my friends and I pull it out we have a great time.

If you are into a more cooperative long term board game, there is Arkham Horror. It's a 1920's Lovecraftian pulpy game where you play as investigators attempting to prevent the awakening of a big old thing from beyond.

Scowling Dragon

2013-01-21, 07:56 AM

Also watch this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9QtdiRJYro&list=PL4F80C7D2DC8D9B6C). Its a pleasure onto itself.

Krazzman

2013-01-21, 09:51 AM

First off: I absolutly hate board games. Strategical board games even more.

But what I think other people like is:
Talisman:
You draw a random hero and go PvP against each other. Beat monsters, raise your attributes do stuff and try to conquer all and everything.

Descend:
We... tried to play it a few times and I have to say you either die or you die awesomely. It depends on dungeonmaster in this case as the guy we let be our dm was nefarious and well he spawned stuff everywhere so we couldn't survive.

Doom:
Similar to Descend but I have to say a bit more balanced.

SpaceHulk
Similar to Descend and Doom but from what I experienced better balanced than both.

Then there were some other games we tried but except for ZOMBIES! I can't remember the names but ZOMBIES! was quite awesome...

CarpeGuitarrem

2013-01-21, 10:28 AM

If you are into a more cooperative long term board game, there is Arkham Horror. It's a 1920's Lovecraftian pulpy game where you play as investigators attempting to prevent the awakening of a big old thing from beyond.
To be honest, I liked Elder Sign better; it has all of the theme and action of Arkham Horror, more interesting mechanics, and it plays much faster. AH has mechanics that are rather thin; it's most enjoyable if you treat it as a highly restricted RPG, and make particular efforts to get into the story.

iyaerP

2013-01-21, 10:29 AM

Chen

2013-01-21, 11:24 AM

Other people in this thread have covered most of the bases I can see with one glaring exception of my favorite game of all: Race for the Galaxy.

It plays rather like if Puerto Rico knocked up Dominion, but the baby ended up with a star wars/trek themed room. And it has the huge advantage over puerto rico of taking an hour tops for a game.

It is pretty awesome. The only downside is that until you learn what all the various symbols mean, it can be very confusing to try and figure out what a card does.

Me and my GF love Race for the Galaxy. But there's a significant problem with getting new people to play with experienced people. Knowing what cards are in the deck (in general terms) is a massive advantage. Dominion shows you right away what all the cards do and nothing is hidden. Same with Puerto Rico. Here you have a hidden deck so you gain a big advantage in knowing what CAN come out.

iyaerP

2013-01-21, 02:23 PM

Me and my GF love Race for the Galaxy. But there's a significant problem with getting new people to play with experienced people. Knowing what cards are in the deck (in general terms) is a massive advantage. Dominion shows you right away what all the cards do and nothing is hidden. Same with Puerto Rico. Here you have a hidden deck so you gain a big advantage in knowing what CAN come out.

My experiance has generally been that it takes two games of it to fully grasp anyway, and by the third, they are doing well. Ignoring most of the expansion rules to start (prestige and takeovers being the worst offenders) also really helps break in new players.

Chen

2013-01-22, 08:31 AM

My experiance has generally been that it takes two games of it to fully grasp anyway, and by the third, they are doing well. Ignoring most of the expansion rules to start (prestige and takeovers being the worst offenders) also really helps break in new players.

The only point was that if you have people who play significantly more often than others, there is a marked advantage for those people. While this is the case for most games, it seems exacerbated by the fact that the deck has a HUGE number of distinct cards in it and knowing what can come up is a definite advantage.

Aidan305

2013-01-22, 09:07 AM

I'll throw out a couple that haven't been mentioned yet:

The first is a co-operative game for between 2 and 5 players called Sentinels of the Multiverse. You, the players, take on the role of a group of comic book superheros who are working together to defeat a supervillain played by the game. The game is made distinct by the fact that each hero has their own deck of cards containing abilities unique to that hero that give each character a distinct playstyle - Legacy (A Superman/Captain America expy) supports, re-directs damage to himself, and boosts the party's damage, while Tachyon (Flash expy) cycles quickly through her deck building up the size of her discard pile before unleashing all the power in a single burst and The Wraith (Female Batman) utilises a variety of gadgets to control how the villain is being played.
It's a very simple game to pick up, and quick to play, with an astonishing depth of lore created by the flavour text of the cards which combine with each other to create the world in which these character live and work. It's also a living world with multiple expansions introducing new storylines, the latest of which, Shattered Timelines, features events hinted at in the flavour text and artwork of some of the earliest cards.

The second game is a competitive risk-like game for four players (5 with the expansion) called Chaos in the Old World. Take on the role of the four gods of Chaos in your bid to take over, corrupt, and ruin the world of Warhammer Fantasy. Each of the four gods are carefully balanced against each other, so you do need to have all four players playing and actively working against each other (Don't rely on Khorne to do it for you. Seriously. It's a bad idea)

iyaerP

2013-01-22, 09:23 AM

I have played chaos in the old world only once, but it was awesome, and I won. As Khorne. Mostly because the other gods kept trying to set up their victory conditions with cultists or whatever and I would just charge in and lay waste to everything. BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD and all that jazz.

CarpeGuitarrem

2013-01-22, 09:41 AM

Me and my GF love Race for the Galaxy. But there's a significant problem with getting new people to play with experienced people. Knowing what cards are in the deck (in general terms) is a massive advantage. Dominion shows you right away what all the cards do and nothing is hidden. Same with Puerto Rico. Here you have a hidden deck so you gain a big advantage in knowing what CAN come out.
Eminent Domain could help to avoid that problem. It's a fast-playing game that I've heard is very much like Race to the Galaxy, but simpler. You have five different cards that you can build into your deck, each one corresponding to a different action that you can take. All five cards are very visible to all players.

Chen

2013-01-23, 08:47 AM

Eminent Domain could help to avoid that problem. It's a fast-playing game that I've heard is very much like Race to the Galaxy, but simpler. You have five different cards that you can build into your deck, each one corresponding to a different action that you can take. All five cards are very visible to all players.

I have this game as well. And I agree its MUCH easier to play with people who are less familiar with it. There are tech cards to learn but these are all visible information while playing. Eminent Domain is pretty much a mix of Race for the Galaxy (in terms of choosing roles each turn) and Dominion (since each role you choose gets added to your deck).

Lentrax

2013-01-23, 09:47 AM

A couple of other games that haven't been mentioned yet:

Tsuro. A fun little tile game. Basically you are trying to make your path as long as possible without running off the board. It works for two or three people, but is a lot more fun with six.

Merchant of Venus. An explore/trade game. It takes a long time to play, and the nav system is confusing, but it is so entertaining to play.

Alhambra. A fun city building game where you buy different tiles to build your city better than the other players can.

Vesth

2013-01-23, 10:21 AM

Wow wow wow. So many board games, so little cash >.>

I personally prefer a little competition in my board games...though it seems that Arkham Horror is a popular choice for a co-op game!

Speaking of Descent...did anyone try this (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/01/14/cardboard-children-descent-quest-vault/)? It seems quite fun.

@Scowling Dragon: ...Grant Imahara? From Mythbusters...?

snoopy13a

2013-01-23, 10:51 AM

Settlers of Catan.... where to begin, my friends and I have renamed this game to "The game of Rage" this is the only game I have ever played that makes other players want to murder each other wholesale lol

You've never gotten that feeling playing Monopoly?

Dakcenturi

2013-01-23, 04:00 PM

Don't know how long your free time is going to last but a pretty good semi-competative/semi-cooperative board game coming out end of Feb/Early march that I got to play at GenCon called Zpocalypse (http://greenbriergames.com/gbg/index.php/games/zpocalypse/) would be a suggestion from me!

It's pretty involved but it's a great time and a really good one to play with a group of people.