The funny thing is that going into a game where someone absolutely hates me (confined to the game), it was easy to get others to see them as being weak. The more people who hated me in Diplomacy, the easier the game became.
Was really surprised I had to scroll down so far to see Carcassone mentioned.
Some of the things I love about it include pretty much guaranteed gameplay time: amenable to beginners and experts; easy to explain; multiple strategies available; good blend of luck and strategy; interesting expansions; and more that will likely think of later.
Mom was in her 80s when I introduced her to Carcassone and she got good quick.
Leaving it with my ex was one of my few regrets about the divorce. :-)
My favorite board game is Gloomhaven. It's a cooperative dungeon crawler with a "campaign" of sorts. There's also a slimmer version of it called Gloomhaven: Jaws of The Lion that is less expansive and expansive, but is a great introduction to the game and feeds into the main product. It's also fun in its own right.
Not strictly a board game, but very board game adjacent, I have recently been playing a lot of Magic The Gathering and having a lot of fun with it. I have had bouts of playing it over the years, essentially one a decade since I was born, and it feels as good as ever.
It wasn’t complex so much as a slog to me. I had to give up eventually. It was just so tedious to set up each map. God forbid you don’t win the map. The actual gameplay was good.
I didn't find it as bad as I think I would have expected had I played the digital version first. The best part about playing with physical components is that if you get some minor interaction incorrect you don't know you got it wrong and you just keep playing and are not any worse off for it.
You can retcon silly mistakes as well, which is nice if you're like me and are in it for the fun of playing + hanging with friends instead of the fun of "besting" a specific set of rules an interactions.
I enjoyed Gloomhaven initially, but I found myself losing interest because it's almost exclusively combat oriented. I wish it had more roleplay mechanics, and interesting choices and story developments more often than every few hours.
Well, I stopped playing when I could't find players: I found myself in a middle ground where playing with noobs was extremely boring, and playing with good/semipro players was only a matter on how many movements would I last before the inevitable annihilation, or just falling in an opening trick they played without thinking.
There's no board, but I find that Bananagrams has the fun parts of Scrabble with a faster pace (no waiting for your little brother to figure out his optimal word).
Stretching even further, I love cribbage (hey, there's a board involved!). Of all the card games I've played, I find it's the most compelling combination of chance & skill. Lots of room to apply strategy once you've learned the basic rules.
Any of the four Azul games. They are all loosely based on each other and the rules between them have similarities even though all four are a completely different experience. They fit that great middle ground of being simple to play but have strategic elements for those that want to be competitive.
I didn't know there were 3 more Azules! Which would you recommend getting after the original? Wikipedia mentions Stained Glass of Sintra, Summer Pavilion and Queen's Garden.
In my opinion the rules increase in complexity in order of release, with Queen's Garden being by far the most complex. Depending on how much complexity you like, it's a linear scale in my opinion. All four are fun and they are soon to release a special edition of the first game that is chocolate themed.
It's extremely well-balanced, automatically penalizing or rewarding players based on their ranking as of the previous turn. That prevents players from falling too far behind, and also adds an interesting timing dynamic to the strategy.
Agree. But it doesn't reward bad players (e.g. over-bidding centrals, or not paying attention to the map expansion costs), just don't destroy them in the first rounds so they feel they are dragging the remaining game. Everybody feels the illusion they can win until the last couple of rounds, but only if you played well you win. Only after you lose you rethink your mistakes and how to avoid then in the next game, which makes you want "revenge" instead of hating the game.
Agricola got me into board games years ago, and it's always been a joy to go back to it. Uwe Rosenberg's games all have a similar vibe that just kinda works for my brain.
If you like Agricola (as do I), you may also like Caylus. It's a perfect information game with no randomness, and it's also the only board game that has ever truly made me feel like I am incapable of planning out even a single turn.
Spirit Island; an asymmetric co-op game that the thematic opposite of Settlers of Catan; you play the native spirits of an island just starting to get colonized, trying to kill and scare off the colonizers before they get a fully develop the island.
My friends and I have moved away from SoC because the haggling that arises takes forever. Ticket to Ride scratches a similar itch with planning and competing over resources (train lines, cards) but gives each player a single action per turn so it moves much quicker.
Nothing beats chess for me though because of the infinite replay value and strategy depth.
My favourite are games I can play with my family: Castles of Mad King Ludwig, Tiny Towns, Santorini, Sushi Go, Potion Explosion, Forbidden Desert. But I'd love to have a friend to play Feudum.
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[ 5.6 ms ] story [ 225 ms ] threadAsymmetric rules and victory conditions for each of four factions.
I try to play every 4th of July.
Castle Panic (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/43443/castle-panic)
Prime Climb (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/159375/prime-climb)
Forbidden Island (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/65244/forbidden-island)
Some of the things I love about it include pretty much guaranteed gameplay time: amenable to beginners and experts; easy to explain; multiple strategies available; good blend of luck and strategy; interesting expansions; and more that will likely think of later.
Mom was in her 80s when I introduced her to Carcassone and she got good quick.
Leaving it with my ex was one of my few regrets about the divorce. :-)
Not strictly a board game, but very board game adjacent, I have recently been playing a lot of Magic The Gathering and having a lot of fun with it. I have had bouts of playing it over the years, essentially one a decade since I was born, and it feels as good as ever.
You can retcon silly mistakes as well, which is nice if you're like me and are in it for the fun of playing + hanging with friends instead of the fun of "besting" a specific set of rules an interactions.
Stretching even further, I love cribbage (hey, there's a board involved!). Of all the card games I've played, I find it's the most compelling combination of chance & skill. Lots of room to apply strategy once you've learned the basic rules.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azul_(board_game)
I enjoyed it more the first three games, now it feels too much like constraint optimisation.
It's extremely well-balanced, automatically penalizing or rewarding players based on their ranking as of the previous turn. That prevents players from falling too far behind, and also adds an interesting timing dynamic to the strategy.
Nothing beats chess for me though because of the infinite replay value and strategy depth.
Le Havre: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/35677/le-havre
Container: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/26990/container