OT: Board Games
 

Just curious, any Dom 3 players into board games and what do you recommend? I used to play Talsiman quite a bit back in the day, then pretty much stopped board gaming for many years, then got sucked in a few years ago with Settlers of Catan. Since then, I have had a lot of fun with some games like Puerto Rico, Battlelore, and most recently Race for the Galaxy and Space Trucker. I have always kept an eye out for fantasy war games (Battlelore for example), it being a particularly appealing genre, but haven't found much to be interesting. One game Conan Boardgame on the horizon looks good.


Happy Friday (on the US West coast anyway)!

Re: OT: Board Games
 

hmmm if pplz could answer a related question while posting here:

what board games are nice for 2 persons (I personally think most games are only fun in multiplayer or are not for 2 pplz (catan, puerto rico, runebound etc etc etc)

plz give your 2 player answer too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Don:
I like runebound (and puerto rico and catan etc etc), though I usually can only play with 2 players.. with more players it might be more fun even though it's a bit simple and quite dependent on luck (usually that makes me discard games)

Re: OT: Board Games
 

Quick and easy 2 player games:

a) Lost Cities (very female friendly)
b) Jambo
c) Lord of the Rings/Confrontation
D) stratego!
Brilliant 2 player strategy games:
a)Victory Games Civil War
B) many other war games, particularly double blind games like Tobruk or Market Garden.
c) squad leader

Multiplayer Board games for non-hardcore gamers:
RA: Perfect for 3 players, again very female friendly
Ticket to Ride
Citadels: Combo Card/strategy game
War of the Rings: Heard mixed things but some folks like it.

Re: OT: Board Games
 

hoo:

Stratego is more like chess + memory http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I like it, but cannot get anyone to play it as I win all the time [I don't think I've lost even once in last few years].

Re: OT: Board Games
 

One of my coworkers is a Board Game fanatic, so I've had a chance to play quite a few. I tend to like the more hardcore strategic ones. I've really enjoyed:

Power Grid
Age of Empires 3
Goa
Princes of Florence
In the Year of the Dragon
Domaine
Attika

http://www.boardgamegeek.com is a great place to find additional info

Re: OT: Board Games
 

Nice list. The wife and I play Lost Cities every night. Counting at turn end is very good for the brain too.

-SSJ

Re: OT: Board Games
 

hoo: what qualifies a board game as female friendly? are some board games female antagonistic? a misogynistic board game? i don't get it.

Re: OT: Board Games
 

i interpret hoo's comment as game's you can get your wife / gf to play with you. unless you are "lucky", it has been my experience and that of my buddies that our wives / gfs won't be too psyched to sit down for a game of Battlelore.

funny how similar people's experiences are in this as the only game i have had any traction in getting my wife to play is also Lost Cities.

Re: OT: Board Games
 

Ive played many but my all time favorite is still
Magic Realm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Realm
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/viewitem.php3?gameid=22
Its so unfortunate that it feel just prior to the birth of computer games so that its wonderful efforts at creating a random game-board, and random placements of treasure and opponents went unnoticed. Also its a shame that its never been computerized (altho there are open source efforts along that line)

Also I loved Car Wars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Wars
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/2795
which did eventually get computerized for the Commodore. Id love to see a remake.

By the way; in the discussions of board games, links to Board Game Geek can be helpful.

Re: OT: Board Games
 

Yeah, I've never been successful at getting women to play "Pimp Dat Ho" with me. >.>


But anyway. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif Is there a requirement that it be a physical board game? Because my favorite "short head to head strategy" game of all time absolutely has to be MULE, or E-hORsE or however they do it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif I haven't tried that version yet (shortage of opponents to justify the cost), but if it's faithful to the original, it has everything you could want from a board game. Except no dice rolling, and no sharks with frickin laser beams attached to their heads. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Also, 3M used to make a bunch of very interesting 1v1 games that I had a blast with. For 1v1 strategy, Feudal was particularly engaging.

Re: OT: Board Games
 

Magic realm sounds nice.. 2 bad it's out of print.. how does it compare to say talisman or runebound btw?

Re: OT: Board Games
 

I've managed to get some friends to play some lighter strategy boardgames, such as Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico, San Juan, LOTR Risk, and Arkham Horror... but unfortunately it's hard to get a decent group together to play something with more depth/serious or time consuming (though Arkham Horror is plenty time consuming, and chess doesn't count).

Also, I can recommend Doom the boardgame, I played a beta version several years back at a con, and if it's anything like that, it should be great.

Btw, what's RA?

Re: OT: Board Games
 

Simple rules, quick to play and not a war based game. Simple rules doesn't mean simple strategy (see Citadels, Ticket to Ride or even Ra). Other females I know have liked Lost Cities enough to purchase the game to play with their significant others.

This is a gross simplification but I've encountered very, very few females who want to sit down and read the rules to Star Fleet Battles, or heck even Axis and Allies or so. I don't know many who want to play a tactical or strategic war game. Granted there's not a lot of males who want to do that either, but the pool of women who want to play a detailed wargame is pretty darn small.

OTOH hand, trading games, building games or games that can be relatively quick and taught easily are quite popular.

If you are trying to get together a mixed sex game group, Settlers or Ticket will be much more successful than a Talisman or War of the Ring (statistically more likely to be successful anyway).

RA = if not the best auction style game ever made in the top 3. http://boardgamegeek.com/game/12

Re: OT: Board Games
 

Heh, thanks... I thought it was an abbreviation for something, and I couldn't figure it out.

Re: OT: Board Games
 

Aweful Green Things
18XX
War of the Ring + Exp. (the best LoTR game ever!)
Through the Ages
Advanced Civi
Roads and Boats
Caylus
Puerto Rico
Paths of Glory
Britania
...

I also play Lost City, Carcasonne, etc. with my wife.

I could list more than 100 i like to play http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: OT: Board Games
 

my GF likes runebound though (probably mostly the reason I like to too... it's a fantasy game I can actually play .. even though it's not that strategic and very much luck based http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif) no idea why though..

Re: OT: Board Games
 

Light-hearted:
--------------
Cults Across America http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif (arguably a vicious game, too :p)


Vicious bastard:
----------------
Settlers of Catan (2p card version)
Blood Feud: New York
Diplomacy


Logistics/grand strategy:
-------------------------
Empires in Arms



Simulations that should have been on computers, not board:
----------------------------------------------------------
Panzer (the 1979 game)... manual LOS and facing checks :p



Of those, my favorite would be Cults, because it combines both silly humor and the potential for very, VERY nasty play.

Re: OT: Board Games
 

2p catan is nice but I've played it to much...

diplomacy rocks but is not for few players

need to look into the other games (will start with cults ASAP)

Re: OT: Board Games
 

arg best played with 5-6 player according to boardgamegeek... 2 bad... looked like a nice game..

do you think it's fun to play with 2 players? is it still for sale btw?

Re: OT: Board Games
 

http://www.atlas-games.com/product_tables/AG1210.php

Official site. Downloadable rules. The downloadable card list won't tell you that much, since it only gives card names.

Goes well with alcohol. Doesn't go well with very serious players who dislike a rather strong element of chance and expect to be able to rely on grand plans. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: OT: Board Games
 

hmmm well... if it's not good for 2 players I'm not buying these days http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif... all other things are less important if it's fun (I like that idiotic dungeon crawling game too.. even though it's very luck based ...dn't have it htough.. not so nice with 2 players)

Re: OT: Board Games
 

Awful Green Things is great. Even better if you have two sets and a GM and play with your opponent 'hidden' http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Powergrid is a little heavier than Peurto Rico but I prefer it but is a classic 'Euro' game. Perhaps my favourite of that type.

Dune (an old out of print game now) is a classic and really good with the right set of players. You need at least 4 and preferably 5 or 6 for it to really work though. Successive win attempts mean that the cards and money should circulate and keep everyone in the game. Titan is excellent with 2 or 3 but too slow (too much down time when others decide to fight out the battles) with more.

I like the 18XX games but they are quite long for games which you often know you are out of early. Same with Civ & Advanced Civ. This is a fault with a lot of the 'older' games. Players are effectively out of the game but you need them to stay playing for a few hours or the game folds. Sound familiar http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Paths of Glory and the other card driven war games tend to be very good. They are really taking over the strategic war game market (with the block games). Perhaps because they can be played in between 6-10 hours (and can be played via Vassel & Cyberboard) but have the scope and skill of some of the larger strategic wargames of the past. You know the ones we all have stuck up in the loft that take 10 hours to set up and 100 to play....

RA is a great auction game. But if it is a pure auction action you are after Modern Art is also very good.

Colossal Arena is decent hidden betting game with a fantasy theme. Evo is a great dinosaur evolution game with you bidding on genes to improve you dino (but spending victory points to do so) before the meteor strikes. Primordeal soup is similar but involves you bidding for genes on your amoeba and drifting around looking for the right coloured mixture of food to eat while cr**ing out your own colour that your opponents like to feed on http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

For lighter games Carcassonne & Ticket to Ride are good. But I prefer card games like Wyatt Earp, Schnappchen Jagd, Bohnanza, Frank's Zoo and For Sale for lighter quicker games.

Boardgame geek is a great resource for all things boardgame. The link is in many of the above posts. They also have a great system of Geekgold which is used to buy yourself avatars and to exclude adds etc from the site. You get it for contributing to the site - reviews, pictures etc. and you can also gift it to others.

Re: OT: Board Games
 

In the not quite boardgames category:

Nuclear War (And Nuclear Escalation) -- Woof! You lose 20 million people!

Illuminati (The original not the trading card version) -- "Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow" are controlling the Boy Scouts?

Re: OT: Board Games
 

Wiz War!

Family Business is great, but it's best with 5 or 6.

LOTR Risk turns out to be far more fun than it sounds.

Re: OT: Board Games
 

Wiz War! been waiting for this to be re-released for years.

Oh and I misnamed one of my top picks so here it is again:
Galaxy Trucker

This game is a blast, not deep but fun. You have to build a space ship with limited time and then try and ship your cargo through the dangers of deep space. You will cry when an asteroid splits your spaceship in two due to faulty design on your part. Hilarious.

Re: OT: Board Games
 

It compares it the way it is greatly more complex, immensely more depth and very less graphic (about half of the characters are very bad drawn). It's an Avalon Hill golden age, you know.
If you watch on bgg there is a good guy that has completly remade the graphics and they are beautiful. There is a discussion about how to publish all the new components.
Also, the very difficult original rules have been rewritten and "translated" in plain english.

Btw, speaking of wonderful pdf games, for those who love talisman and have a good color printer, I heartly recommend Djarhun (look on bgg).

Re: OT: Board Games
 

The remade rules and graphics for Magic Realm, plus some major extensions making the game bigger, are also part of the open source project on it. So besides BoardGameGeek.com you might also check SurceForge.net for your favorite old games.