Boardgames

[Bartheus]

I haven't played RPGs since our latest gaming group dissolved due to people moving away from Helsinki some years ago, but lately I have rediscovered boardgames as a good way to spend time with friends as it is a lot easier to get a few friends over for a boardgame than to run a campaign. Namely these new German-style boardgames, like Carcassonne, the Settlers of Catan and the like.

This Christmas I got a boardgame called Thurn und Taxis as a present. It is a game of building a postal network in 15th century Germany, and even though I only have played it two times I can say that it seems to be a really intriguing game. At first I was a bit worried if it was too similar to Ticket to Ride (which I have with the good 1910 expansion), but even though the game is superficially similar with drawing cards and using them to build routes in the board, the actual gameplay is very different.

My brother and his kids got a lot of board games as well (mostly thanks to me), so Christmas was spent playing the afore mentioned Thurn und Taxis and also Through the Desert, Samurai and Hey! That's my Fish. All great games for different situations, but I must say that I liked Knizia's Samurai the most. Great production value with shiny tokens and a nice map of Japan and really elegant rules. Simple but deep, and seems to scale well from two to four players.

So, did any of you get any boardgames you'd recommend for Christmas?

[ed]

not that they would work for any non-american group of players, but i find cranium (http://www.cranium.com/) great fun. :>

ed

[Adam G]

I didn't get it for Christmas, but spent a fair chunk of Christmas playing Cathedral. I also tried to find a copy to give to friends, but had no luck.

http://www.amazon.com/Family-Games-607-cathedral-classic/dp/B00000IZXG/sr=1-1/qid=1167329042/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-7602355-6962026?ie=UTF8&s=toys-and-games

However there is a Cathedral variant on the market; same rules, but different pieces. In the variant, rather than use a cathedral and buildings as pieces, you use The People and various monuments (Great Wall of China, eg) instead.

http://www.amazon.com/Wrapables-Cathedral-World-Game/dp/B00079HSTK/sr=1-3/qid=1167329163/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3/105-7602355-6962026?ie=UTF8&s=toys-and-games

[Bartheus]

not that they would work for any non-american group of players, but i find cranium (http://www.cranium.com/) great fun. :>

I think that there must be a lot of versions of that game around, as it is localized to Finnish (http://www.cranium.com/our_products/cranium_fi.asp) as well. It seems interesting, though it is of the party-game variety (Pictionary, Alias and to some extent Trivial Pursuit) that I played too much during my years in lukio (~high school).

[Haze]

Between us DH & I own a goodly number of board games, I especially like Samurai & Draco.

[BattleNymph]

Although it's not a board game per-se, Killer Uno with 9 playes was heck of fun this holiday.
I find myself with the necessity now of buying not one, but two Uno decks.

[Origen]

If you can lay your hands on a 2nd Edition Talisman set, with as many of the expansions as you can find, I highly recommend that game.

If you have the city expansion, I recommend removing the High Mage from play.

We remove the Monk from play because he receives the equivalent of a continuous Psionic Blast spell, weapons or no weapons.

If you have the expansion that gives the alternative endings, like the Dragon King and the Abyss, I recommend allowing the Abyss to kill the character with no recovery instead of getting dumped into the Timescape. Anyone who can make it to the center region on the main board is generally strong enough to survive the Timescape. It gives a 1 in 5 shot of getting nuked no matter how strong you are, and makes the first person into the middle extremely nervous. The element of danger improves the game, I find.

[Mouser]

When I was a kid, we played a game called "Shach-Mat" or "The King Is Dead."

My father insisted on teaching it to my daughters.

You play it on a checkerboard, and it has these wierd looking pieces that have different powers and limitations.

It's supposed to be some sort of battle simulation, but I can't imagine it selling well any for any boardgame or battle simulation game manufacturer.

Here's a review I dug up on the internet:

SHACH-MAT
By Greg Kasavin

The latest offering in the rapidly overflowing
strategy genre is hard evidence that strategy games
need a real overhaul, and fast. Shach-Mat, a
small-scale tactical turn-based strategy game,
attempts to adopt the age-old "easy to learn,
difficult to master" parameter made popular by
Tetris. But the game's cumbersome play mechanics
and superficial depth and detail all add up to a
game that won't keep you busy for long.

Shach-Mat casts you as king of a small country at war
with a rival country of equivalent military power.
There is little background story to speak of, and by
and large the units in the game are utterly lacking
any character whatsoever. The faceless,
nondescript units are dubbed arbitrarily such labels
as "Knight" and "Bishop" while their appearance
reveals nothing to suggest these roles. To make
matters worse, the units on both playable sides are
entirely identical aside from a simple color palette
swap. The setting of the conflict is equally
uninspiring and consists merely of a two-color grid so
as to represent the two warring factions. Adding insult
to injury, there is only one available map- and it's
pathetically small, an 8x8 matrix (Red Alert
maps are up to 128x128 in size). The lack of more
expansive battlefields makes Shach-Mat feel like little more
than an over-glorified Minesweeper.

In a definite nod to Tetris, Shach-Mat eschews any kind of
personality and styling in order to emphasize its supposedly
addictive gameplay. Unfortunately, that gameplay is severely
lacking. For one thing, there are only six units in the game.
Of those six, two are practically worthless while one is an
overpowered "god" unit, the Queen. She's your typical Lara
Croft-esque 1990s "me, too" attempt to attract the fabled gaming
girl audience from out of the woodwork to help solidify a customer
base for a game that simply cannot sell itself on its own merits.
The Queen can attack in any direction and she is balanced solely
by the fact that both sides are equally equipped with only one.
Otherwise, the functions of the six Shach-Mat units feel entirely
arbitrary. For instance, Rooks can only move in horizontal lines,
unable to attack enemies at diagonal angles; yet Bishops can
move diagonally, but not horizontally. The result is a frustratingly
unrealistic effort at creating balance and strategy where there
is, in fact, very little of either element to be found.

Inexplicable pathing problems also plague Shach-Mat - the irritating
Pawns can only move straight ahead, but for some reason or other
they attack diagonally. Worst of all, your units are always deployed
in exactly the same fashion. While there might have been some
strategic element involved in cleverly deploying one's troops around
the undeniably constricted map, the designers saw fit to enforce a
"rule" about how the game should be set up. In the end, Shach-Mat matches
may often go on for a great length of time because your Pawns always
begin in front of your more useful forces, thereby blocking them off.

Only two players can compete simultaneously, thus severely limiting
any play life to be found. There is only one gameplay mode- no
capture the flag or team play - and that involves the two players
taking turns moving their units one by one. The moment a player's
King is threatened, that player is placed in a state of "check."
At this point, the player must defend his King with whatever means
are available. If he cannot defend his King, he is defeated. Yawn.
All units are killed by a single hit, so even a lowly Pawn can be
instrumental in defeating an opponent if you plan accordingly.
While the artificial balance of forcing equivalent deployment for
both sides turns Shach-Mat into something of a battle of wits, the
turn-based play is poorly paced and never really picks up speed
until halfway through a game, if then. And half the time, because
of the limited troops available (and no resources with which to
purchase more), matches end in disappointing stalemates.

This game attempts to accredit itself by virtue of its tactical
play mechanics. Yet those mechanics are tedious and difficult to grasp
and exacerbate Shach-Mat's other numerous failings. In fact, should you
actually memorize all the infuriating little rules governing how
the game is played, you'll find yourself growing weary of it all
in short order. There's just no payoff to a properly executed game,
because the restrictions on the units mean there's a "right" way to
play. Thus no real variety can exist between competent players.
The sluggish turn-based nature of Shach-Mat bogs the package still
further and renders this strategy game an irreverent exercise in
wasted time for all but the most die-hard turn-based strategy
enthusiasts.

It's more than likely that Shach-Mat, due to its self-conscious though
not entirely elegant simplicity, will garner a small handful of fans.
But in light of this game's boundless oversights and limitations,
there is no chance it could ever enjoy the sort of success that makes
games like Westwood's C&C: Red Alert and Blizzard's Warcraft II the
classics they are to this day.

[Blue Jackal]

Try out www.boardgamegeek.com, if you're unfamiliar with it.

A personal favorite of mine is A Game of Thrones (though it needs a couple house rules), but it's fairly long and involves treachery (yay!)

Puerto Rico is a good game, though it's sort of unintuitive.

There are more, of course.

[Bartheus]

Thanks for the suggestions. I am familiar with the boardgamegeek-site, it is just that the sheer amount of games listed in there is a bit daunting, even if you list them by ratings. I personally would like to play a bit more complex games, but to get more play out of the games, I have been buying these a bit lighter games that are easier to whip out and start playing even if there are people who are new to the game.

[Mouser]

Uno

Try that.

[Cranky Dog]

Didn't ask for any so didn't get any, but I do love boardgames.

Fortunately, I have a friend who does buy plenty of them. Most recently a new copy of Carcassone instead of a cardboard print-out. I've lost count of how many games he owns, but it's quite a few. Be they board or non-collectable card games, I've played over a dozen of them.

I played, excluding well known ones such as Monopoly or Risk and such and RPGs (looked at boardgamekeeks.com to recall some of them):
Carcassone, The Castle
Settlers of Catan (both regular and travel edition)
Settlers of Catan card game with several expansions.
War of the Rings (way too many pieces)
Labyrinth (card game)
Tigris & Euphrates
Acquire
Blokus
Blood Bowl
Attika
The Inventors (an old 70s game)
Arkham Horror, recent edition. He also has the Dunwich expansion
Order of the Stick Adventure Game (yes someone I know bought it and it was quite enjoyable even thoughg we misunderstood a few rules)
Axis & Allies
Full Métal Planète
Betrayal on House of the Hill (really fun IMO, but get the rules update on their website)
Empire Builder
Talisman
Mage Knights Dungeons
Gargon (simple card game)
Car Wars the card game
The Princes of Florence
Dragonlance boardgame
Wizards
Dragonhunt
The Hobbit (kid's game, though we used advanced rules we found on the web)
Conquest of the Empire
Citadels


And a few others I can't find the name anymore but maybe someone will know what it is:
-A card game with fantasy creatures where you "bid" on which creatures will win and which ones will be eliminated for the next turn.
-A card game of middle-eastern merchants who try to make money while mischievious genies destroy your markets.
-A sort of pipe game where you build a continuous pipe without any leaks while blocking your adversary. (kid's game)

And probably a few others I forgot about.

I never heard, nor seen this one before, but seems appropriate for this group:
http://files.boardgamegeek.com/bggimages/pic48653.jpg

Edit: remembered the name of a game


Cranky Dog
"I have a boardgame opinion, international!"

[Cranky Dog]

I personally would like to play a bit more complex games,
I find it amazing how the simpler games turn out to be the best games.

And then you have the other extreme with games like Advanced Squade Leader where the original version got the reputation of being the most complex boardgame ever. The later version got a bit simpler.


Cranky Dog
"I have a game complexity opinion, international!"

[Mouser]

How about "Backgammon?"

[Magnus Bergqvist]

If we are talking classics, then I say Go... =^_^=

/Magnus

[Grendel]

If you want the best complex board game ever made, then get a copy of Empires in Arms.

If you want a great simple game that is cheap and easy to play and lots of fun, try Kill Dr. Lucky. It is made by Cheapass Games (http://www.cheapass.com/products/index.html). There are lots of other games on the site that may be worth a look as well.

[Magnus Bergqvist]

If you want a great simple game that is cheap and easy to play and lots of fun, try Kill Dr. Lucky. It is made by Cheapass Games (http://www.cheapass.com/products/index.html). There are lots of other games on the site that may be worth a look as well.

Their quality is a bit uneven, sadly. Dr Lucky is very hard to kill. He lives up to his name.

/Magnus

[Grendel]

I've killed him with no weapon. It's all a matter of well-played cards.

[Mouser]

If we are talking classics, then I say Go... =^_^=


Go.... Go where?

You're talking about a grid and some stones?

That sounds like a game that old asians would play...

[Cranky Dog]

Go.... Go where?

You're talking about a grid and some stones?

That sounds like a game that old asians would play...
How about a nice game of checkers then?


Cranky Dog
"I have a basic game opinion, international!"

[Mouser]

How about a nice game of checkers then?


A game old crackers play?

[Magnus Bergqvist]

Go.... Go where?

You're talking about a grid and some stones?

That sounds like a game that old asians would play...

That is the game indeed...

/Magnus

[BattleNymph]

My families favorite board game is actually the original Pokemon board game. *ducks the rotted tomatoes and cabbage thrown her way*.

It's a really well-designed game that's heck of fun regardless of the franchise.

[Dreamweaver]

Heh I recieved Cranium for christmas, eventually I will find a group of people to play it with.

I love backgammon, scrabble, risk, bunco, apples to apples, ninja burger, munchkin (all the varieties there of), sorry, taboo, Le Guillitine, canasta, cribbage, Life, mononpoly, mahjong (the real game where you bet. not the match the tiles crap) oh and Junta.

[JasonStarfire]

My girlfriend bought a checkers variant at a yard sale called "Cube Checkers." It's basically like regular checkers, except that you essentially replace the checkers with 6 sided dice. It's refreshingly challenging. We've been playing that lately.

Other games we've been playing of the board/card game variety:

Aquarius
Canasta
Car Wars / Battle Cattle (the card game)
Chrononauts
Fluxx (and occasionally Stoner Fluxx)
Mille Bornes
Munchkin (and several variants)
SPANC (Space Pirate Amazon Ninja Catgirls!)
Three Dragon Ante
Wizard (neato card game played with a modified deck of playing cards cards)
Zombie Rally

I also got Arkham Horror as a gift this year, but we haven't played it yet.

[BlueNinja]

I love munchkin (all the varieties there of) Even Munchkin Bites? My friends and I (who have between us Bites, Star, Fu, Blender, and the original 1&2) think that Bites has too many 'lose a level' cards. Makes the games last three times as long because nobody can stay at level nine for more than a turn or two.

[Dreamweaver]

well that is the one varient that I mix with one of the other ones. but ya got to love the bats.

[ed]

DW: it gets fun when you run through all the cranium cards and start inventing your own, which is the point at which the mrs & i and our friends find ourselves. the custom cards, when fueled by alcohol, are very, very funny. :>

ed

[Blue Jackal]

I'd like to say Munchkin is a terrible game. ;) Except for the initial amusement. Played Space Munchkin once... that was enough. :)

[Dreamweaver]

I'd like to say Munchkin is a terrible game. ;) Except for the initial amusement. Played Space Munchkin once... that was enough. :)

how big of a group did you play with? the more people the more fun.

[Blue Jackal]

Only 4, I think.

Of course, I typically think that more people = more fun applies to most boardgames. (With some caveats, of course.)

[BlueNinja]

Our group had eight players, with all of the abovementioned cards. (shuffling was a real pain in the ass, let me assure you.) Three hours for the game. Then we took out the Bites cards. Half an hour for each of the next two games.

[Mouser]

Knots & Crosses!!

[Nagoff]

We play a lot of "Carcassone/Castle" as its one of our few games that is perfect for two. When we get more folks round we tend to go for San Juan - its a short card-game version of Puerto Rico and is easiest for non-gamers to get into easily. Carcassone and Settlers get honourary mentions.

For party game style we enjoy cranium too but my personal favourite is Absolute Balderdash.

Card-wise we have another couple we play canasta with (off to spend new year holed up in a Yorkshire cottage with 'em- yay!) and Mrs N and I play cribbage when we're on our own.

Oh and finally backgammon rocks as far as trad games go.

[Detritus]

Not a board game, strictly speaking, but Modern Art is pretty fun.

You might already know about Iron Dragon, but I'll mention it anyways. I like that one better than the Eurorails sort of games.

Titan is good with 3-5 players, but I don't know how easy it is to find these days. RIP Avalon Hill and all...

The occasional game of Stratego can be diverting.

Card games w/special decks -- GROO is pretty fun, and so is Once Upon a Time (in addition to the already-mentioned Mille Bornes). "Killer Uno" was also mentioned, I think it is also referred to as "Hot Death Uno." That game can get pretty messed up.

[Origen]

The occasional game of Stratego can be diverting.

I love, L-U-V, Stratego.

[Detritus]

I played a lot of Stratego in high school but haven't played that much since then. I can only handle the occasional game nowadays, I think I played it out in HS.

[Amso]

Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot and Curses are my 2 favorite games to play with a group.

[Blue Jackal]

We play a lot of "Carcassone/Castle" as its one of our few games that is perfect for two. When we get more folks round we tend to go for San Juan - its a short card-game version of Puerto Rico and is easiest for non-gamers to get into easily. Carcassone and Settlers get honourary mentions.

I played San Juan once and traded for it not too long ago... it's a nifty game, it may be a bit about "broken combos" (according to a friend), but I remember enjoying it.

[SilverDragon]

Lord of the Rings Stratego is a fun twist on an old favorite

Killer Bunnies is a game your wives and girlfriends will love as well

Twilight Imperium for when a friendly debate can only be settled with intergalactic war

Settlers of Catarn for when.... well hell its never NOT a good time for Settlers

Runebound for a D&D campaign-in-a-night sort of fix

Munchkin *only play past midnight*

Omega Virus for the biggest helping of CHEESE you've ever experienced

Pueto Rico *only to be played with alcohol*

[Blue Jackal]

I do enjoy Twilight Imperium (well, only played the 3rd edition), but it's another game that benefits from a few house rules.

But what theme-heavy game doesn't? :P

[Paulypalooza]

I can't believe nobody mentioned Risk. It's a classic!

True it does take forever to play on a board but so what. And if you don't want to bother with all the pieces and dice go here
http://www.windowsgames.co.uk/conquest.html
and get a clone of the game just with the name Conquest instead of Risk. But I warn you it is addictive.

[Valdier]

Runebound is very good (Talisman/D&D like)
Return of the Heroes is even better (even more talisman like, even more random)

Three dragon ante is extremely fun as well
Ticket to Ride and all its variants are good
Carcassone (hunters and gatherers is probably the best)
Axis and Allies - revised

Mille Bornes (an extremely easy family card game)

I own so many... I can't even recall them all...

[Cranky Dog]

As of the last two weeks, I have a few more games to add that I've played:

Labyrinth Master
Treasures of the Inca
Zaxxon (yes, based on the old arcade game, and it sucks without house rules)
Boardwalk (offshot of Monopoly)


Cranky Dog
"I have a boardgame maniac opinion, international!"

[Mouser]

I like Pente.

[Starhawk]

ZOMBIES!!! is lots of fun. Tried that last weekend.

[Magnus Bergqvist]

ZOMBIES!!! is lots of fun. Tried that last weekend.

The only disadvantage is that the zombies placed on tiles a long way from the players tokens, they will never make it to the players as there are too few zombies moving each turn. Which is why I wrote an alternative scenario (that should be availible on the homepage of the manufacturers of Zombies), called Lights camera action. There all zombies with a line of sight to any players move 1 step, then the normal movement.

/Magnus

[Detritus]

Since we're talking about board games again, I'll resurrect this thread.

Anyone else ever play the Battlestar Galactica game? I played it once a few months back, it was OK.

[Detritus]

A couple of other games that have yet to be mentioned: Robo Rally and Cosmic Encounter. Both are great fun and they stand up fairly well to repeated playing.

[Magnus Bergqvist]

A couple of other games that have yet to be mentioned: Robo Rally and Cosmic Encounter. Both are great fun and they stand up fairly well to repeated playing.

Robo Rally is fun. And nope, doesn't help being a computer programmer when playing it. To really mess things upp, have a time-limit on the time to program the bot. Like 1.5 minutes after everyone has gotten their cards (noone may lok at them until then), and if you don't succeed in time, the remaining cards randomly placed...

Some of the boards though are unplayable unless you have the right extra-cards, such as "crab-legs" or "bridges"...

Aat tournaments, they only go with the original sets of weapons, and remove "fire control" It is too good.

/Magnus

[Hitcher]

I've only played it once but Robo-rally is fun. I'd love to play it again.

I've also been hearing good things about Settlers of Catan.

Think we could do a version of Monopoly based on us? Or would Clue be a better fit?

Who killed Mr. Spammer? It was Starhawk in the Writer's Forum with the Banhammer!
Oh-hohoho!

[Valdier]

If you can lay your hands on a 2nd Edition Talisman set, with as many of the expansions as you can find, I highly recommend that game.

If you have the city expansion, I recommend removing the High Mage from play.

We remove the Monk from play because he receives the equivalent of a continuous Psionic Blast spell, weapons or no weapons.

If you have the expansion that gives the alternative endings, like the Dragon King and the Abyss, I recommend allowing the Abyss to kill the character with no recovery instead of getting dumped into the Timescape. Anyone who can make it to the center region on the main board is generally strong enough to survive the Timescape. It gives a 1 in 5 shot of getting nuked no matter how strong you are, and makes the first person into the middle extremely nervous. The element of danger improves the game, I find.

Also, Fantasy Flight took over the license for Talisman 4th edition... seriously, if you like talisman go buy this version, seriously. They just released the Reaper Expansion, and will be putting out the Dungeon expansion soon as well.

[wolf_mage]

There are a few good coop games out there - Pandemic and Battlestar Galactica are both a lot of fun.

I've actually really got into eurogames with two separate circles of friends over the last couple of years. Some real gems: Power Grid, Race for the Galaxy, El Grande, Senji, Dominion, Galaxy Trucker.

We just got Supernova and A Game of Thrones in the last month, but we haven't had a chance to play either much. A Game of Thrones seems pretty fun though, and we all are waiting for an opportunity to play it again.

Seriously, though - I think you can't go wrong with the top-ranked games on boardgamegeek.com, though obviously you need to read the games' descriptions to make sure you get something you want. (Some of them, like Twilight Struggle, are awesome but very very long. Others feature gameplay styles that simply might not be to people's liking...)

Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride are both good as introductory games to the eurogame genre, but both of my groups have found that they wear out pretty quickly - the strategies are not particularly varied or complex.


It's funny - there's a whole world of these board games out there, and most people (gamers included) have never heard of most of them. Settlers of Catan is perhaps most well-known, but I personally can't stand it.