Board games

[Nabubrush]

Any interest/has this been covered already? I have a great friend who is very, very into games and game theory. He pretty much never plays video games (although he's willing to watch others do so), but I've been getting more into playing board games and such with him, my wife, and other friends lately. Anyway, the games I've been playing over the last little bit are:

Zombie Fluxx: pretty intersting. We've been keeping a loose eye on what combinations win, and they aren't what we expected. I have a few expansion cards, from a variety of sets, and sometimes it feels like not very much thought was put into this game.
Zombies!!!: This game is ok, but it sure feels like it needs some house rules. I haven't checked out any of the expansions.
Carcassonne: This is a solid game. Feels simple and luck-based at first, but complexities come out the more you play it.
New World: This is sort of a knock-off of Carcassonne, but it is surprising how different it plays. I'm still working on the dynamics of it, and strategies.

Other than this, I play a lot of Cribbage. I've heard a lot about The Settlers of Catan, but I've never tried it. When I was a kid my family played a lot of games (Scrabble, Boggle, Risk, Monopoly, card games, Backgammon, etc etc) but it has been a while since I've been into it. I'm primarily looking for games that work best in a two-player format, but 2-4 is great.

[CortJstr]

Catan is popular but I wouldn't mention it to your friend. People who are into eurogames tend to look down on it for having dice/being popular with normal people.

Be careful with Carcassonne, it has about 50 expansions which range from "lots of fun" to "huge waste of money." And since they all add tiles they all make the game longer. Which can be good or bad.

Small World is often described as "like Risk, but actually fun." I like it a lot.

Balloon Cup is a solid 2-player game and is really quick to learn.

I don't often play with 2 but I can recommend a few more in the 2-4 range. I've only even played Small World with 4-5 but I went ahead and mentioned it since you said you liked Risk.

[Nabubrush]

I think he said he'd played Catan once or twice. He's the kind of guy who is really excited by the news that a new edition of Ogre is coming out (but he's really bummed that it's going to cost $100).

Any and all recommendations are good and welcome. I want to say he mentioned something about Small World at some point, but I'm not sure. I've also been playing some dice game where you score for various combos (can't remember the name) but he really looks down his nose at that kind of thing.

[pmcd9]

I have a friend that is totally into board games.  He even went to a board game convention in Dallas a few months ago.  I didn't even know such as that existed.  Like your friend Nabu, he doesn't play video games either.

[jay-ell]

We were getting really into board games about the time the Boy was born, so we learned a little about what's cool and then stopped playing for five years. We've got a good collection of games we've played a few times each, but we're not really up on what's new.

Here are some of our favorites:

• Carcasonne, which has been mentioned, and which has a great iPhone/iPad app for $10. Anyone gets the app, I'm up for playing anyone and everyone. PM me for my screen name, though if you know me at all you can probably guess it.
• Bang! is great for groups of six or more, fast to pick up but is pretty complex. Very good for groups that play together often and/or know each other well, but don't try it with less than four.
• Caesar and Cleopatra is the best game in the universe for two players, especially couples, unless one or both of you are very competitive. It's got some luck to it, but the biggest component of the game is figuring out your opponent's strategy and figuring out how to use it against him. Excellent.
• Bohnanza is a fun, fast game that is a great mixer. It's also good if your group includes kids (8ish and up) or people who don't like to read (my brother-in-law has a learning disability that makes reading small text tedious for him -- it's not quite dyslexia, but similar).
• Guillotine is good with two, three, or four; after that it gets too crazy. There's a lot of reading in this one -- each card changes the rules of the game slightly. Like Bohnanza, it's a good icebreaker for groups of people who don't know each other well, and also like Bohnanza, the card designs are really light and fun.

Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head that we've tested and played with a variety of people. There's also Eurorails, but that's a game that's best with 2 or 3 and can take three or four hours to play a single game. It's very involved and takes a long time to get moving and even longer to get the hang of. I can't recommend it to anyone but a real hard-core, strategy-loving tabletop gamer.

Oh! Oh! We don't own this but we'd like to -- Pandemic. It's a cooperative game in which all the players (3 - 5 I think?) play against the board. It's fascinating. I think there's an online version of it. I've only played the tabletop version, and only once, but it was a blast and I can't wait to do it again. Best with a full table.

[Nabubrush]

I've been considering the iPhone Carcassonne, but my friend is of somewhat limited means and I'm not sure he would buy it. If I get it, I will get in touch. Thanks for all the reccies!

[jay-ell]

I can't believe I forgot Munchkin. It's a quick(ish) card game directed at anyone who has ever played a tabletop RPG, but it's fun for just about anyone. (Non-RPGers might not get all the jokes, but that's ancillary.) Best with groups of 4 and lots and lots of beer.

[Nabubrush]

I've been looking at that off and on.

[jaydub]

I don't care if it makes me common and low, I love Settlers of Catan.

[theinevitable]

over the summer when I was unemployed and my friends were around, I played Catan probably 3 times a night, every night.

I got so damn good. Then I lost it all.

[Asherdan]

I play Munchkin willingly.

That says a lot because I like to see spades on my cards as a general rule.

[smick]

Dominion.

It's a card game, but it falls in with Settlers and Carcassonneassonneasse

[jay-ell]

Oooh, ooh. We went for a geeky board game date tonght and played Ticket to Ride. It was good, but Pedro moved from "I am figuring out the rules and how to score points" to "I have figured out how to score points and now I'm going to do everything in my power to screw with you" much faster than I was ready for.

There was, perhaps, a minor scene in the middle of the game store, in which I may or may not have shouted, "Why? Why? Because even after seventeen years I still inexplicably have faith in your humanity!"

He beat me by One. Single. Point. Now I want to buy a copy so that I can kick his ass repeatedly and thoroughly. They were out of stock except the demo copy, though.

We picked up the Back to the Future card game. It's based on Chrononauts, if you're familiar with that one, but of course tied into the movie. We're planning to play after the kids go to bed -- because I have not suffered enough for one day, apparently -- so I'll let you know. It looks cool, but I would probably say to check out Chrononauts instead if you're interested unless you have a gigantic crush on Michael J. Fox (like me) or Lea Thompson (like Pedro).

I'll let you know if it's good, though.

[CortJstr]

OK, this week has kind of sucked, but I'm finally here with some recommendations.

Ticket to Ride Europe. This is a case where the sequel is better than the original. TtR: Europe is better for new players than vanilla TtR because adds a mechanic where you can piggback on another person's work but it costs you points. It intended as a last resort to keep you from getting screwed and it has fewer spots where only one player can be to begin with. I've played with 3-5 people and it works well. I've taught it to 2 different couples and both rushed out and bought their own copy the very next week. If you get one thing off my list make it this.

Small World. Risk but with a Tolkienesque setting. Your armies are things like elves and wizards. The board is purposely too small so you must attack the other players. Instead of rolling dice you just need strength in numbers. It takes two chits to take an empty territory and one extra chit per chit in the territory already. But each race has special powers and each race also has a randomly chosen descriptor that can give more powers. So one game you could have Swamp Elves that gain extra VP for conquering swamp territories. But the next game you have Marauding Elves which gain extra VP for attacking the other players.

Dominion is very popular right now. It's a non-collectible card game. Meaning it has a tiny bit in common with games like Magic but instead of buying packs of cards hoping for good ones you buy the game and are good to go. This means all players have access to the same cards so it's very fair. There are several expansions but again, they all add cards that are available to everybody and you can only have 10 of the cards in any given game so you don't have to memorize hundreds of card powers or go up against some jack-off that's spent years crafting a special deck. The major downside is there can be very little interaction with the other players. Critics call it "solitaire while sitting next to other people."

Blue Moon City. Hard to describe because it's not like most other games. Basically you have cards that represent labor. You use labor to acquire money, you spend money to earn victory. The key is deciding when to stop focusing on money and start focusing on victory. Plus it has little plastic dragons.

Gloom. Some of my gamer friends hate this but with the right crowd (e.g. anybody on TOAUMB) it's fantastic. The art "borrows" heavily from Gorey and The Adams Family. Each player has a family. You want to make them as miserable as possible then kill them while playing cards that make the other players' families happier and more alive. The fun is that each card has an alliterative sentence explaining how it makes the person sadder or happier. The players are encouraged to string these together into fantastical and hilarious stories. If the people you play with are willing to do the story bit this will easily be Game of the Night. If they just want to play the cards and win the game it's not worth getting out. Avoid all the expansions.

Thurn and Taxis. A game about the early German postal system that's way more fun than it has any right to be. You draw cards representing cities and try to play them in order to complete mail routes between cities.

Vegas Showdown. Each player is basically Trump. We're all trying to build the best and most awesome casino in Vegas to prove our dick is bigger than the other players'. You spend money to add games or attractions which bring in more guests or money each turn. You must spend money to make money.

Zooloretto. You run a zoo with a couple of animal pens. Only one type of animal can be in a pen an any animals that don't fit are negative points. Try to fill your own pens while forcing your opponent to take animals they don't want. At heart it's a press-your-luck game.

Revolution. Made by the same people as Munchkin. You use force, blackmail, and money to gain favors and influence in a city undergoing a revolution. Each player has a screen behind which they decide what citizens they're going to try to influence. All players lift their screens simultaneously to see who was successful. So if I tried to bribe the General with 3 gold and you offered him 4 then you win his influence that turn. Much of the game is trying to deduce what the other players will choose.

For buying games I recommend Thought Hammer. Their website is straight out of 1998 but it's where all the gamers shop. Their prices are lower than Amazon's and shipping is a flat $9 for orders under $100 and free for orders over that.

That's what I can think of right now.

[Lister]

Dominion is a REALLY fun game where you basically build your strategy as you go.  The game crew at work has all the expansions and will play it until 3 AM.  On Tuesday nights.

I personally enjoy Fluxx and its variants, but it's not in favor with others at work because it's got a very high degree of randomness in it.

Mall of Horror is a great deal of fun, even to watch.  It's centered around a mall that is, naturally, under attack by zombies.  Each player has 3 pieces - a strong guy, a guy with a gun, and a girl.  Each of them has an advantage - the strong guy counts as two people when "holding back" zombies (if zombies at a room outnumber people in it, they break in and eat someone), the girl is worth the most points if she survives, and the gun guy counts as two votes if the room has to have one.  Votes determine who gets the room's bonus (some have things you can use) or who dies if zombies break in.  It's really funny, allows a decent amount of backstabbing, and has just enough randomness to allow a lucky player to beat the one with the better strategy.  The game ends when there are only two players left or if all the remaining characters are in the same room.

Medici is a really fun trading game.  Every player has a boat with 5 slots for goods, and you take turns drawing random goods out of a bag, which everyone then bids money on to put in their boat.  Depending on how you build your boat, you can get money for having the most valuable cargo, or for having the most goods of the same type, or both.  It's a really simple game to grasp, but offers a lot of fun little choices for both overall strategy and individual tactics.

Age of Steam is a good game, but not necessarily a fun game.  It's heavily strategic in the Ticket to Ride "screw everyone else" mode and in the Agricola "I can't do everything every turn" mode.  You'll spend a lot of time doing math and planning ahead, only for someone else to build over where you were going to go.  On the other hand, you build trains!  And train tracks!  And move cubes of goods to towns that need them!

fixin bbcodes - choop
fixin text 'cause I can't apparently fix bbcodes - Lister