Simpler than many I expect to see listed here, but I'm a pretty big fan of Dominion. If the cards are always picked randomly, each play of the game is very different.
For a while each successive expansion was getting more and more powerful action cards to address this issue. Not sure if they followed that trend past Prosperity though.
That doesn't solve the problem. For any given set of 10 cards, there's an optimal strategy, and it typically involves relatively few of the cards. And some cards are effectively never worth touching in any game.
For me, it adds a good source of tension (barbarians) and competition (knights, defending or not), without being direct PvP combat. It also adds a variety of different special actions through progress cards (which replace development cards). Perhaps it adds a bit more randomness but it's fun to be able to drop a "power move" with a well-timed play of cards.
As someone who is a huge fan of the Cities and Knights expansion:
The expansion is a huge expansion to where the entire game changes.
What I like about it the most is that instead of cities getting a second of a resource, they get a new type of resource that is used to "level up" three categories. These categories have three purposes: an opportunity for a couple victory points for each category, increases the chance of getting the new type of development card, and the most interesting purpose is that it gives you a superpower at level 3. One superpower allows you to power up knights and I can't remember another, but the last allows you to get a resource of your choice whenever you get unlucky on the die roll and don't get a resource. Easily the least fun part of Catan is when the die rolls make it so that you don't get anything, so I love this power that offsets it.
It also adds the concept of knights and barbarians. Knights are a new thing to build, and they need a grain to activate. (There's also a wall that increases the number of cards that can be in your hand before the robber affects it so the expansion adds three new things to use resources for). Barbarians attack every now and then, and the number of active knights will determine whether you win or lose. A loss means that the people with the lowest number of active knights get a city destroyed, while a win means the people with the highest number of active knights either gets a victory point (if one person) or a card (if more than one person tied). Active knights can also be used to move the robber or move or even eliminate another knight in very particular situations.
To add some detail: you roll a second die at the beginning of your turn. There's a half chance the barbarians move closer to attack, and the other three possibilities correspond to the three categories of the new type of resource and link each one with a development card. There are now three types of development cards that have different slants of capabilities. Your level in each category goes from level 1-5. Level 1 grants a development card if the first die is a 1 or 2 and the second die corresponds to the category, level 2 grants a card if the first die is a 1, 2, or 3, and so on.
The last detail is that the first person to level 4 in a category gains a couple victory points and is granted immunity from pirates on a city, but the first person to level 5 in that category can steal it for the rest of the game.
That's pretty much it, as you can see it really is a completely different game from the original.
Hard to go wrong with Baduk/Go. Doesn't really scale to groups though.
Terra Mystica[0] and Tzolk'in[1] are both low randomness worker placement game that require long term planning and fun mechanics.
If war-games are more your speed, Diplomacy[2] and Twilight Imperium 3rd Ed[3] are some of the best in class. Both take all day (or more if you play Diplomacy by mail). I personally like Exocus: Proxima Centauri[4] a lot in this genre.
Baduk/Go doesn't scale well in groups but it also can impart a lot of important life lessons as you learn it.
The enemy's key point is yours
Beware of going back to patch up
Don't chase what you can't kill
Check escape routes first
Big dragons never die
Give your opponent what they want
Don't follow proverbs blindly
Diplomacy is wonderful. I find it hard to get 7 people to commit to 4+ hours to make it through a game, so the mail option is good, but IMO in person is more fun.
I commented it below too, but then I read your comment. I've found Hive is very enjoyable for a chess player (myself) since the strategy is different as the board is the pieces. If you want more level of skill, Terra Mystica was also very strategic balancing territory and resource control.
I really enjoy Agricola[0], because there are no elements of chance in the game, only strategy. It's also a little more approachable to people averse to conflict-focused games, because the only victory condition is "everybody has taken all their turns"
If you like Agricola, I recommend Caverna. Sort of a spiritual sequel to the game, and done better in my opinion, which is saying a lot because Agricola was one of my favorites.
I find Caverna lacks in replayability. My group played it a couple times and everyone started doing the same thing. Eventually we just migrated back to Agricola. Haven't touched Caverna in over a year.
There is quite a bit of chance in the game: The occupations and improvements you and the other players end up with changes the strategy you need to play successfully quite a bit. At least your cards are known to you at the beginning. The order the round cards appear are also somewhat randomized which can sometimes break your neck if you haven't planned sufficiently for the 2 or 3 possibilities.
My all time favourite is heroquest. I played that game (and it's counterpart, space crusade) to death in my youth, and then some more. Recently I've started making my own games for kicks, roughly based off the ruleset but with different themes. I made a zombie survival game and a space pirate adventure thing. Making board games is now my New favourite game
1. Settlers of Catan (with expansions)
2. Axis & Allies (standard edition)
3. Chess
4. Cranium
5. Scrabble
6. Monopoly (with modified rules that makes the game last about an hour)
At the top my list, even if it might not technically be a board game: Mah-Jong. The most complex part of the game tends to be the scoring, and agreeing on a set of rule variants your entire gaming group don't object to.
1) Cosmic Encounter. Plays 3-8 (best with 4-6), about 90 minutes. It's a negotiation game where each person has an asymmetric way they alone can break the rules. Cosmic is a strange game where the entire game takes place off the table, but you use the table to keep track of what's happening in the game. The first one or two times you play, you probably won't understand how deep and subtle the game is, but stick with it. (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/39463/cosmic-encounter)
2) Memoir '44. 2 Player, as written plays in about 30 minutes, but typically we switch sides between rounds, so 60 minutes. Light WWII war game. Lots of expansions (Russians, Japanese, British armies), and lots of ways to play (expansions allow up to 8 players). This game is just so much fun if you dig the WWII theme. (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10630/memoir-44)
3) Kemet. 3-5 players, about 90-120 minutes (depending on player count). "Dudes on a map" war game with excellent fighting mechanics. Very well balanced, with every player being able to attack all other players. Fun little monsters you can buy in the game. (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/127023/kemet)
4) Railways of the World. 2-6 players (depending on the map), 60-120 minutes (depending on the map). Nice railway game. Simple rules (about 10 minutes to explain), but just a great game. (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/17133/railways-world)
5) Star Wars Rebellion. 2 players, 90 minutes to 270. Thematic Star Wars game. Imperial player tries to find the rebel base, while the rebels just need to last long enough to have their cause take hold in the galaxy. Incredibly well balanced, despite the asymmetry between the players. (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/187645/star-wars-rebelli...)
6) Party games: Love Letter, Codenames, Wits & Wagers, Can't Stop. All are great games. One game, For Sale, deserves special mention because it explains so fast, but has such depth.
7) Eclipse. 2-9 players (best with 3-5), takes about 45-60 min/player. 4X game where you explore the galaxy and try to accumulate the most points through science, research, economy, battles, negotiations, and exploration. You should buy the Rise of the Ancients expansion to fix a subtly broken part of the game dealing with missiles.
That's just off the top of my head. Last night I played Patchwork and Quadropolis. Patchwork might be a great game -- too early to tell, and Quadropolis is fun, and likely worth the money, but I don't think has the staying power of some others.
- Codenames is a great party game. Easy to teach and works really well in larger groups. It is a word association game. One person gives a hint and the their team tries to guess all the right words on the board without hitting any of the other teams word, or the bomb that causes your team to instantly lose.
- Splendor another easy to teach game. 2-4 players its quick to play, around 20 minutes a game.
- Roll for the Galaxy. A much more complicated game although probably medium in complexity as far as the board game spectrum goes. You get to roll lots of dice.
- Dead of Winter. A story based secret information game. Everyone has a secret goal, and someone might be a traitor trying to sabotage the colony. Despite this you have to work as a team to try and survive the zombie apocalypse.
There are others, but I'll let others pick their favorites.
P.S
Not a strategy game, but Concept has hit the table a lot for us with lots of different types if people.
After hearing about Rithmomachy/Rithmomachia on HN six months ago [1,2], I recently laser-cut a board and set to try it out with. It sounds rather tedious from the description, but actually was pretty enjoyable. A nice feature is that the difficulty is very scalable--once you find a set of rules ([3] is one source), you can decide how many of them to actually follow before starting the game.
Hanabi: multi-player co-op, and you can see everyone's cards but your own. All about reasoning and inference.
Betrayal at House on the Hill: cooperative until it isn't, with a traitor arising halfway through the game. Many novel "haunt" scenarios for replay value.
Coup: Bluffing game, where you have a couple of hidden "role" cards, each role card has some abilities, but you can use the abilities of any role as a bluff, if another player doesn't call you on it.
Netrunner (note, not the new remake, the old out-of-print version): CCG with asymmetric sides, the "runner" trying to break in and the "corporation" trying to defend and advance their agenda.
Ascension: deckbuilding game with a large variety of cards. There are only 1-3 of any given card in the deck; every game tends to turn out differently, and any strategy has to adapt to the available cards.
Dixit: Interesting exercise in description, because you have to hint at the image on your card without being spot-on, so that some but not all players get it. Helps to know the other players.
I'll second Hanabi. In addition to being inherently very fun, collaborative games are a great way to bring in people who aren't as into board games and are worried about getting stomped on by experienced players.
An interesting and much more challenging variation for experienced Hanabi players is to disallow people from saying a number or color. You point to a set of cards in another player's hand and that's it. Those cards share some attribute, and all the other cards in the hand don't have that attribute, whatever it is.
> An interesting and much more challenging variation for experienced Hanabi players is to disallow people from saying a number or color. You point to a set of cards in another player's hand and that's it. Those cards share some attribute, and all the other cards in the hand don't have that attribute, whatever it is.
Interesting! That breaks so many common reasoning rules, especially if you're playing multicolor. I can see how that would add a huge amount of challenge.
I'd be interested to see some of the reasoning based on that variant.
63 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 142 ms ] threadWhat I like about it the most is that instead of cities getting a second of a resource, they get a new type of resource that is used to "level up" three categories. These categories have three purposes: an opportunity for a couple victory points for each category, increases the chance of getting the new type of development card, and the most interesting purpose is that it gives you a superpower at level 3. One superpower allows you to power up knights and I can't remember another, but the last allows you to get a resource of your choice whenever you get unlucky on the die roll and don't get a resource. Easily the least fun part of Catan is when the die rolls make it so that you don't get anything, so I love this power that offsets it.
It also adds the concept of knights and barbarians. Knights are a new thing to build, and they need a grain to activate. (There's also a wall that increases the number of cards that can be in your hand before the robber affects it so the expansion adds three new things to use resources for). Barbarians attack every now and then, and the number of active knights will determine whether you win or lose. A loss means that the people with the lowest number of active knights get a city destroyed, while a win means the people with the highest number of active knights either gets a victory point (if one person) or a card (if more than one person tied). Active knights can also be used to move the robber or move or even eliminate another knight in very particular situations.
To add some detail: you roll a second die at the beginning of your turn. There's a half chance the barbarians move closer to attack, and the other three possibilities correspond to the three categories of the new type of resource and link each one with a development card. There are now three types of development cards that have different slants of capabilities. Your level in each category goes from level 1-5. Level 1 grants a development card if the first die is a 1 or 2 and the second die corresponds to the category, level 2 grants a card if the first die is a 1, 2, or 3, and so on.
The last detail is that the first person to level 4 in a category gains a couple victory points and is granted immunity from pirates on a city, but the first person to level 5 in that category can steal it for the rest of the game.
That's pretty much it, as you can see it really is a completely different game from the original.
Terra Mystica[0] and Tzolk'in[1] are both low randomness worker placement game that require long term planning and fun mechanics.
If war-games are more your speed, Diplomacy[2] and Twilight Imperium 3rd Ed[3] are some of the best in class. Both take all day (or more if you play Diplomacy by mail). I personally like Exocus: Proxima Centauri[4] a lot in this genre.
[0] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/120677/terra-mystica
[1] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/126163/tzolk-mayan-calen...
[2] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/483/diplomacy
[3] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/12493/twilight-imperium-...
[4] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/122842/exodus-proxima-ce...
Go, Scrabble, chess... What modern games are like this?
Or, silly games where losing doesn't matter, it's fun anyway. My current favourites are Space Alert and Galaxy Trucker.
Others: Settlers of Catan, Ticket to ride, Dominion, Kingdom Builder, Civilization
[0] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/31260/agricola
After that, Scrabble and Puerto Rico.
- Concordia https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/124361/concordia
- Istanbul https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/148949/istanbul
- Lanterns https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/160851/lanterns-harvest-...
- Codenames https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/178900/codenames (this last one is more of a lighthearted party game, but still great fun)
1) Cosmic Encounter. Plays 3-8 (best with 4-6), about 90 minutes. It's a negotiation game where each person has an asymmetric way they alone can break the rules. Cosmic is a strange game where the entire game takes place off the table, but you use the table to keep track of what's happening in the game. The first one or two times you play, you probably won't understand how deep and subtle the game is, but stick with it. (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/39463/cosmic-encounter)
2) Memoir '44. 2 Player, as written plays in about 30 minutes, but typically we switch sides between rounds, so 60 minutes. Light WWII war game. Lots of expansions (Russians, Japanese, British armies), and lots of ways to play (expansions allow up to 8 players). This game is just so much fun if you dig the WWII theme. (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10630/memoir-44)
3) Kemet. 3-5 players, about 90-120 minutes (depending on player count). "Dudes on a map" war game with excellent fighting mechanics. Very well balanced, with every player being able to attack all other players. Fun little monsters you can buy in the game. (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/127023/kemet)
4) Railways of the World. 2-6 players (depending on the map), 60-120 minutes (depending on the map). Nice railway game. Simple rules (about 10 minutes to explain), but just a great game. (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/17133/railways-world)
5) Star Wars Rebellion. 2 players, 90 minutes to 270. Thematic Star Wars game. Imperial player tries to find the rebel base, while the rebels just need to last long enough to have their cause take hold in the galaxy. Incredibly well balanced, despite the asymmetry between the players. (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/187645/star-wars-rebelli...)
6) Party games: Love Letter, Codenames, Wits & Wagers, Can't Stop. All are great games. One game, For Sale, deserves special mention because it explains so fast, but has such depth.
7) Eclipse. 2-9 players (best with 3-5), takes about 45-60 min/player. 4X game where you explore the galaxy and try to accumulate the most points through science, research, economy, battles, negotiations, and exploration. You should buy the Rise of the Ancients expansion to fix a subtly broken part of the game dealing with missiles.
That's just off the top of my head. Last night I played Patchwork and Quadropolis. Patchwork might be a great game -- too early to tell, and Quadropolis is fun, and likely worth the money, but I don't think has the staying power of some others.
[0] http://www.escapefromthealiensinouterspace.com/
But I've also enjoyed playing Puerto Rico, Dominion, Race to the Galaxy, among others.
Ticket to Ride is great with my family, because of the player interaction.
- Splendor another easy to teach game. 2-4 players its quick to play, around 20 minutes a game.
- Roll for the Galaxy. A much more complicated game although probably medium in complexity as far as the board game spectrum goes. You get to roll lots of dice.
- Dead of Winter. A story based secret information game. Everyone has a secret goal, and someone might be a traitor trying to sabotage the colony. Despite this you have to work as a team to try and survive the zombie apocalypse.
The re-release of Elfenland just came out "Elfenroads" is a great buy. http://riograndegames.com/Game/1295-Elfenroads
There are others, but I'll let others pick their favorites. P.S Not a strategy game, but Concept has hit the table a lot for us with lots of different types if people.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11003320
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rithmomachy
[3] http://www.gamecabinet.com/rules/Rithmomachia.html
Twilight Imperium
Through the Ages
Terra Mystica
Suburbia
7 Wonders
Lords of Waterdeep
[0]: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/30549/pandemic
Betrayal at House on the Hill: cooperative until it isn't, with a traitor arising halfway through the game. Many novel "haunt" scenarios for replay value.
Coup: Bluffing game, where you have a couple of hidden "role" cards, each role card has some abilities, but you can use the abilities of any role as a bluff, if another player doesn't call you on it.
Netrunner (note, not the new remake, the old out-of-print version): CCG with asymmetric sides, the "runner" trying to break in and the "corporation" trying to defend and advance their agenda.
Ascension: deckbuilding game with a large variety of cards. There are only 1-3 of any given card in the deck; every game tends to turn out differently, and any strategy has to adapt to the available cards.
Dixit: Interesting exercise in description, because you have to hint at the image on your card without being spot-on, so that some but not all players get it. Helps to know the other players.
And if you don't already watch Tabletop, I recommend it: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4F80C7D2DC8D9B6C . (Note: that playlist is sorted in reverse order, for some reason; start at the bottom.)
That's in addition to various tabletop RPGs, which I find even more fun when we can get a group together for them.
An interesting and much more challenging variation for experienced Hanabi players is to disallow people from saying a number or color. You point to a set of cards in another player's hand and that's it. Those cards share some attribute, and all the other cards in the hand don't have that attribute, whatever it is.
Interesting! That breaks so many common reasoning rules, especially if you're playing multicolor. I can see how that would add a huge amount of challenge.
I'd be interested to see some of the reasoning based on that variant.