The Board Games Topic

[Frenetic]

Hey guys,

Do any of you play board games? I've been interested in playing more. I'm a fan of Puerto Rico, Race for the Galaxy, Agricola, and St. Petersberg. Recent games I've played and liked are Lords of Waterdeep and Avalon.

--the F-man

[Captain]

http://www.boardgame-online.com/

/end thread.

[stryc9]

I like my Ameritrash/thematic boardgames.

Duel of Ages II, Earth Reborn, Tannhauser, Dust Tactics etc. Mage Knight (more a AT/Euro hybrid) and Thunderbolt Apache Leader (solo wargame) too. I tend to dig the more complicated stuff as there's more depth and meaningful decisions to be made.

I've got the D&D Adventure System games as well, the miniatures are good but the actual game leaves something to be desired IMO.

Duel of Ages II is notable for it's incredible ability to tell a story through gameplay and has hundreds of characters, items and weapons to use, quests etc.

That and Mage Knight are just pure genius. So's Earth Reborn, but that one is admittedly difficult to get to the table unless you have a dedicated and extremely nerdy gaming partner capable of giving up hours of his/her life to learn the full game - which is about as detailed as a board game can get without being a computer game.

[MR_Soren]

Yeah, I really like board games. Tough to get people together though.

I like simple classics like Acquire, complicated giant games like Twilight Imperium, and everything in between.

Most recently, Arkham Horror has been played a fair bit.

[Ruldra]

I own Risk 2210 AD and I love it. Problem is, we rarely play it as one match can easily last 4 hours or more. Seems to be a major problem with complex boardgames, they last way too long.

When my friends come over we usually play good old Monopoly, everyone is familiar with the rules already and matches go by rather quickly.

[CMoon]

So I have been going to a session beer tap room that has lots of open space and has been taking over by a bunch of board game folks. Its taking me a while to warm up to it because so many new games seem to be about economics (*snore*). I'd play the occasional game of chess there, but then I just found about this game called Cave Evil from all my weirdo music friends. I like the idea and the whole indie nature of it...although I think board games are relatively 'indie' at this point.

Frentic> Let me know sometime you want to have a game session, I'm down.

[gct]

My favourite game for a few years by now is Dominion, and I find myself attracted to games with similar mechanics. I have not tried all the expansions, and I only own the Intrigue set, but I feel that any combination of base game + Intrigue + Prosperity can be fun, with the possibility of some interesting and powerful engines.

I recently got Thunderstone Advance, but found it to be a bit sloppily designed compared to Dominion. Beautiful artwork, really convoluted and often self-contradicting rules.

My friend showed me a game called Quarriors which I enjoyed, like Dominion with dice. I could do without the whole cutesy theme going on, and the nature of dice rolling takes away some tightness too, but once in a while I really appreciate not having to shuffle cards, though that's not so bad either since I sleeve my Dominion sets.

[Frenetic]

You should definitely join in and play some of those board games! The better ones are like chess, but you get to play against multiple people at once, heh.

Cave Evil? Oh, I think I've heard of that game...



I'll send ya a PM when the next gaming session is next week at this local game shop I go to.

--F

So I have been going to a session beer tap room that has lots of open space and has been taking over by a bunch of board game folks. Its taking me a while to warm up to it because so many new games seem to be about economics (*snore*). I'd play the occasional game of chess there, but then I just found about this game called Cave Evil from all my weirdo music friends. I like the idea and the whole indie nature of it...although I think board games are relatively 'indie' at this point.

Frenetic> Let me know sometime you want to have a game session, I'm down.

[JBC]

I know this isn exactly the kind of board game the thread is about, but I played Mancala for the first time ever yesterday & smashed my experienced opponent. I won 4 games in a row & she ragequit :>

I'm really interested in getting into the Judge Dredd miniatures game, but it's abit out of my price range at the moment.

[Davey]

My favourite game for a few years by now is Dominion, and I find myself attracted to games with similar mechanics. I have not tried all the expansions, and I only own the Intrigue set, but I feel that any combination of base game + Intrigue + Prosperity can be fun, with the possibility of some interesting and powerful engines.

Man, I love Dominion. I don't play in real life very often, but I've played a couple thousand games online over the years. Basically, the more sets you have the better the game gets IMHO, since the fun mainly comes from playing with a fresh set of cards every game and identifying the various synergies and weighing them against each other, and that process is more interesting with a greater variety of cards. Picking them up in chronological order is probably fine, except maybe saving Alchemy for last since it's a weird set (and not that great, comparatively).

[KindGrind]

The problem with Dominion is that it feels like a very simple version of MTG. We understood very quickly that Chapels, for example, were overpowered, and that no deck could beat it.

That being said, I have only the base set, but it hasn't impressed me much.

After having played some very intense strategy games (Brass - a masterpiece, Caylus, rather abstract but very deep, Tigris + Euphrates, which almost ended a few relationships etc.), we went back to shorter, more mainstream games so that our GFs would play along. We played a lot of Smallworld, 7 Wonders and Power Grid.

I feel 7 Wonders is great, but too short and relatively random. Power Grid is an altogether excellent game, but you have to give it time to grow on you. Smallworld, with expansions, is quite interesting. It's not as inherently beautiful as Brass, but it works well enough for a quick hour session.

I do own 30+ board games, but I play little these days. We played a lot more before the kids arrived, and we were willing to commit to learning new games a lot more easily. Once you know how to play a few games, everything becomes much easier. Learning new games is a lot quicker, as you tend to transfer knowledge from game to game. For example, once you play a "worker placement" board game like Agricola, it's not too hard to figure out the bulk of Caylus or Stone Age. In most of these games, you have points to score (winning) and resources to gather, and it's a matter of knowing when to start focusing less making money and more on scoring points.

I was planning on learning how to play Steam a few years ago, a game I bought but never got a chance to play. It looks right up my alley considering my love for Brass, Martin Wallace's other fabulous railroad game.

[MR_Soren]

Dominion is a fun game. Alchemy is an odd expansion because it introduces a new type of resource, so it only works if enough of the card stacks are from the alchemy expansion to justify buying the new resource.

I've noticed that there are lots of deck-building games / Dominion knockoffs nowdays. I've played several and enjoyed them all. Ascension, DC Comics Deck-Building Game, and Star Realms.

Star-Realms was interesting because it was the only one that is about attacking your opponents rather than filling your deck with victory points. Worth a look for a new take on the idea. I've only played it three times so far, so I don't know if it stays interesting in the long run. It's definitely less combo-ish than Dominion, but you still build towards having big turns in the late game.

[Davey]

The problem with Dominion is that it feels like a very simple version of MTG. We understood very quickly that Chapels, for example, were overpowered, and that no deck could beat it.

That being said, I have only the base set, but it hasn't impressed me much.

Chapel is definitely one of the most game warping cards in Dominion, and ignoring it is usually incorrect, but occasionally there are times where you don't want it. If you're just playing with the base set, though, I can't think of any scenarios where you wouldn't want to buy one.

Having said that, the base set mainly exists to be an introduction to the game. The cards in it were specifically chosen because of their simplicity. If you compare it to MTG, playing with just the base set is kind of like doing a core set draft.

Also it's kind of hard to compare the game to MTG since there is much less direct interaction and your hands generally play themselves or only have a couple meaningful decisions. In typical games, most of the strategy in Dominion is in the buy phase. Regardless, the game is best with two players and gets worse as you add more people in my opinion.

Alchemy is an odd expansion because it introduces a new type of resource, so it only works if enough of the card stacks are from the alchemy expansion to justify buying the new resource.

The main thing I don't like about Alchemy is that the potions really just add more variance to the game. When an important potion card like Familiar is available, you usually have to go for it even if it's the only potion card, but if your first potion hand is Copper, Copper, Potion, Estate, Estate, you're going to fall behind very quickly (unless your opponent has the same bad luck), especially if there are no good $2 cards available, which is often the case. God forbid this happens more than once.

I feel 7 Wonders is great, but too short and relatively random. Power Grid is an altogether excellent game, but you have to give it time to grow on you. Smallworld, with expansions, is quite interesting. It's not as inherently beautiful as Brass, but it works well enough for a quick hour session.

I played 7 Wonders a couple times, but I just don't "get" it. I don't really have any concrete reasons for not liking it, but I never do well in it, and after the game is over I'm still not sure what I should have done differently. Usually when that happens to me in a new game I want to play it again or at least analyze what I did wrong, but with 7 Wonders I'm just like "meh, whatever."

Power Grid is great, I wish I could play more often. It's definitely more of a gamer's game though, so it's not really an option for every play group.

I only played Smallworld once, but it seemed fine.

[Jeneki]

I'll give a shout out for abstract straregy games. I've played a ton of Blokus, Ingenious, Pueblo, and Rumis. And of course Go when I can find opponents.

[Immryr]

i highly recommend playing backgammon backwards to everyone! set the board up like normal but play as though your normal 13 point is your 24 and your 12 is your 1. there seems to be a lot more action when you play in this direction.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I namedropped Culdcept in that other thread.

[Blackbird]

I get together with my friends once a month and have a board game night, it's a ton of fun. We play tabletop RPGs like 13th Age every week as well. Last time, we played Betrayal at the House of the Hill, which is a fun horror-themed game where you start out playing cooperatively. First, your group explores this haunted mansion, discovering rooms, avoiding creepy stuff, and gathering useful items. Then at some point the "haunt" occurs and the game usually changes into a PVP scenario where one or more players betray the group and the rest have to survive whatever the traitor does to kill them. The variety of the game keeps it interesting, because there are a lot of different scenarios that can happen.

[Ixmucane2]

Then at some point the "haunt" occurs and the game usually changes into a PVP scenario where one or more players betray the group and the rest have to survive whatever the traitor does to kill them.

If you like that, I recommend the Battlestar Galactica board game. It doesn't require familiarity with the TV series beyond the basic premise: after an attack by the Cylon renegade robots all remaining humans are in a starship convoy led by the titular warship, and perfectly human-like Cylons are infiltrated among the passengers. Players are Galactica officers and other personalities, cooperating to defend the convoy and reach Earth, but some of them are Cylon traitors which, sooner or later, will stop cooperating...

[Stevens]

I get together with my friends once a month and have a board game night, it's a ton of fun. We play tabletop RPGs like 13th Age every week as well. Last time, we played Betrayal at the House of the Hill, which is a fun horror-themed game where you start out playing cooperatively. First, your group explores this haunted mansion, discovering rooms, avoiding creepy stuff, and gathering useful items. Then at some point the "haunt" occurs and the game usually changes into a PVP scenario where one or more players betray the group and the rest have to survive whatever the traitor does to kill them. The variety of the game keeps it interesting, because there are a lot of different scenarios that can happen.

Betrayal is my favorite board game. It was also the game that took my group the longest to wrap our heads around - probably played it about 5 times before we were all comfortable with the rules. I'm glad we stuck it out.

Other games in our groups rotation (no particular order):

Tsuro
Dominion
Small World
The Great Dalmuti
Red Dragon Inn
Coup/Resistance/Love Letter
King Of Tokyo
Forbidden Island
7 Wonders (do not like it either)
Ticket to Ride (don't like this one either)
Splendor
Legendary

I do like board game night:D

[Ixmucane2]

Recently tried boardgames:

Settlers of Catan

Almost complete information, a lot of skill required to play optimally, nice player interaction, generally fun (competitive, as it is a race to score before the others, but without hostility), the resource trading system allows players to exploit excessively nice or careless opponents and the late game tends to drag out.

Ticket to Ride

A straightforward game of resource accumulation with large random factors. The prevalence of hidden information causes serious anxiety: will an opponent steal a railway line I need? How well are the others really doing? What are their secret objectives? Skilled players are completely unable to take control.

Star Wars Armada

Simple but deep miniature game.

[cave hermit]

I haven't really played board games seriously since my early childhood, but I've been thinking of picking up Arkham Horror to play by myself and over at a friend's house time to time.

It's a pretty expensive set, but I recently got a $150 Barnes and Noble gift card from an awards dinner, so I guess I could splurge a bit on this!

[Blackbird]

Ticket to Ride is fun and a great game to get newcomers/non-gamers involved, but I've found that in our group the game always plays out the same way -- people hoard resources forever before they start playing to the board, because that's the clear optimal strategy. We're thinking about putting a hand size limit in place to force people to play to the board earlier.

I like Forbidden Island a lot. Another great newcomer game, the rules are very simple and it's cooperative. Once you have a grasp of the mechanics, it might be a bit on the easier side.

We usually have to find a good balance between depth and ease of play, because people don't like to sit through long rules instructions when we start a new game =P.

[Stevens]

I like Forbidden Island a lot. Another great newcomer game, the rules are very simple and it's cooperative. Once you have a grasp of the mechanics, it might be a bit on the easier side.

We usually have to find a good balance between depth and ease of play, because people don't like to sit through long rules instructions when we start a new game =P.

Yeah - we have a pretty strict hour time limit. It isn't fun when people are thinking/saying "when is this going to end?".

Forbidden Island is great. In fact owning it is almost unfortunate because it is basically Pandemic with rising water instead of disease. Four diseases in Pandemic/four treasures in FI. The difference is FI much easier to set up/put away. It also comes in a cool tin.

I haven't played Pandemic since I got it.

If you haven't already I would go here:

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/6524 ... den-island

There is a variant link in the forum section. Lots of custom maps and what not.

[Davey]

Ticket to Ride is fun and a great game to get newcomers/non-gamers involved, but I've found that in our group the game always plays out the same way -- people hoard resources forever before they start playing to the board, because that's the clear optimal strategy. We're thinking about putting a hand size limit in place to force people to play to the board earlier.

I don't know if that's clearly optimal. Every turn you have to weigh what color cards are available vs. what colors you need vs. what colors people have been taking (especially players immediately ahead of you) vs. what tracks have already been claimed. Yeah, early to mid game that skews heavily towards just drawing cards, but that's not to say there isn't any decision making in the process.

It's actually kind of interesting when you mix beginners with experienced players. Beginners are usually eager to claim tracks as soon as they have the cards to do so, not realizing that that gives away valuable information and takes away flexibility (or maybe just undervaluing those things). You can't hoard cards as long in those situations because they'll start taking routes before it's the "correct" thing to do, and you have to adjust accordingly or you get locked out. That has been my experience, anyway.

[amdiggywhut]

Would you suggest Forbidden Island to a guy looking for a collaborative, relatively easy-to-pick-up game to play on a casual Friday night whilst having drinks with the girlfriend?

Or is there a better option? Because that's what I'm looking for. Thanks!