Board games

I play Trivial Pursuit with my family and I always win. Nobody will play Monopoly with me because I cheat. Scattergories is a game I love because it's a word game but bizarrely, I can't remember ever winning, no matter who the competition, except one time I technically won except I was ROBBED because nobody believed that there was a "W" TV show called "William's Wish Wellingtons" so my 3 points were disallowed.

Scotland Yard!

We had great fun playin Reiner Knizia's High Society out in my parents house last night.

A boardgame I have played recently and enjoyed a lot is Liberté. It is an election game based on revolutionary France, where the players compete for influence in three political factions and try to have the faction they like the most win elections. It is very exciting.

I likes the eurogames, but haven't played mine in months.

The Thread Where We Are Board Game Geeks

When I was young a neighbor and I used to play a Risk-like board game called The Civil War. We learned fairly soon that the North always won because the South was too poor in railroads. This was an iron rule. The South was doomed.

i'm trying to play more board and card games in 2016. i really enjoyed TICKET TO RIDE and hope to get a bigger group together to play SUSHI GO sometime soon.

anyone have any recommendations? i live right by this place, so sampling is easy:
http://knightmovescafe.com/game-library/

my gf and i received ticket to ride europe for xmas, currently locked at 1-1. whoever builds the stockholm-petrograd tunnel seems to win

Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan are the obvious biggies to mention if you've enjoyed Ticket To Ride, but you may well know them already.

I played boardgames every couple of weeks for a year or two with mates (who are serious geeks and would bring different games each week) until Nora arrived, now I get much less chance to. We're having a Pandemic session in a week and a bit though - a cooperative game where you lose together.

Slowly playing through the Space Hulk missions with my mate Jon, too.

We've just started a board game group. First meet-up tomorrow evening. So far though I've only really played Carcassonne + expansions and love it. We have a really decent board game shop near our house and I fancy getting something soon. There's so much on offer now and no real way to tell if a game is fun or complicated or too basic or better for lots of players/two players. Not played Catan yet but I fancy something a bit different from Carcassonne that's just as playable. I wonder what I should try?

Being horror fans, V and I kind of fancy one of the many Cthulhu-style games but I'm put off by the idea that some of them take a long time to setup and learn and are better for multiple players.

From that café list I can endorse Elder Sign, Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert (in that order), Gloom, Kill Doctor Lucky, King of Tokyo, Letters From Whitechapel, Lords of Waterdeep, Love Letter, Stone Age, Castles of Burgundy as having played and enjoyed.

Catan is definitely different enough from Carcassonne to make it worthwhile. Carc is quicker and simpler, anyone can pick it up quickly. Catan isn't complicated by any means, but there's more to it. I probably prefer it.

Cool. I might try it. Carcassonne gets a lot more interesting once you add the expansions. Inns & Cathedrals, Hills & Sheep and Princess & Dragon, especially when played together, can get really interesting.

That said, I can't seem to find expansions for sale any more and they've shot up in price online. The shops seem to be chocka with Carcassonne variations set on islands or in the arctic (which seem a bit pointless really).

been playing lots of carcassonne recently, really been enjoying it
played 'formula d' for the first time last night - superb game

Ah, apparently the expansions are out of print because they're re-printing them in line with the new version. Anyone know if these will work compatibly with my older Z-Man version? Like, will it be obvious which tiles are in the new style or not?

It won't work, the tiles are completely different. (I think even the size is out?)

well that's frustrating. guess i'll never get to check out the other expansions.

Buy them in German on ebay or amazon.de, get the rules in English off BGG. (Actually, this is pretty good money saving across the board)

cool, good tip thanks!

Been playing the most recent Azul Game (summer Pavilion) with my wife, as well as Wingspan but she is not so keen on that one. Played all of the Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective boxes via zoom during lockdown. Enjoy solo playing Sprawolopolis, Nemo's War, Robinson Crusoe.

what you playing?

is Wingspan worth it? Feel like it'll be a bit too time consuming when we normally just have a couple of hours to spare. the art looks amazing though

Really want to try out 'the crew' - but obvs we've been having to pause our board game nights in the past year

Seven Wonders: Duel was a good one for me and the wife on NYE. Scratched a bit of that Civ itch.

In the before times I really loved Mysterium, collaborative game where you have to nudge the other players into choosing the right cards via symbology.

Brian David Gilbert and Karen Han, formerly of Polygon, are making a board game and I am excite.

Seven Wonders: Duel was a good one for me and the wife on NYE. Scratched a bit of that Civ itch.

yeah we've loved this as a two-player thing.

Only played Mysterium one night but liked it. 7 Wonders Duel is an excellent adaptation for two-players, much better than the two-player variant suggested in the base 7 Wonders game

My group haven't played much recently but before we played a ton of Terraforming Mars, which is a resource management game. I wish the cards you start with didn't dictate your strategy so much (some of them feel overpowered), but it's still good fun and I love the terraforming theme

Re: Wingspan -- Games take us about an hour, maybe a little less, but that's with just two people. I'm sure player count would inflate the runtime.

Pretty much everyone says 7 Wonders Duel is great but I've hesitated for some weird reason that I cannot articulate.

We love wingspan in this household (birding people, us).

Summer Pavilions is really good, yeah. Just got Targi, which is a streamlined and involving Euro, and Mandala, a very headscratchy abstract strategy. Playing quite a bit of Hive as well.

Targi keeps coming up as something that I might like, but lately I've been privileging games w a solo mode cuz, well, no friends to hang out & play with, and wife not always in the mood.

My partner who is often not in the mood for games consistently loves Targi (possibly because she consistently beats me).

OK who's got some good two-player game recommendations for us? We are bored of Scrabble and confused by Patchwork.

Hi Steve sorry I didn’t reply to your group chat message I was too busy being depressed.

People like Jaipur
7 Wonders Duel
Caverna: Cave vs Cave
Azul: Summer Pavillion is not exclusively two player but it works fine as a two player game ime.

Or you could just get L into historical conflict simulations like you used to play back in the hex & counter days.

Do you guys do cooperative games at all? There’s some good stuff there too, but they might be too complicated for what you want. Robinson Crusoe, Eldritch Horror.

This game is a fun and very quick/simple historical war game that I have only played solo and may boy be for you guys but it’s remarkable as a war game you can set up and play in under 3-4 hours.
https://hollandspiele.com/products/with-it-or-on-it

OK who's got some good two-player game recommendations for us? We are bored of Scrabble and confused by Patchwork.

*takes notes*

thank you all!

I quite enjoy some of the weirder maps for ticket to ride one on one
Most notably India

I've probably said upthread but patchwork is my favourite board game of all time so would recommend another try too x

Our favourite in levels of complexity:

Jaipur
7 wonders duel
Viticulture
Orleans
Dune: Imperium
Twilight Struggle

MY FAVOURITE: Twilight Struggle
HER FAVOURITE: Viticulture

Twilight struggle is a cold war game we're you play as either the USSR or the US, ans vie against each other for influence/denominaati9n of countries. Based around event cards /w influence placement being the core mechanic of the game

Viticulture is about making wine. It's sick. Very pretty. Worker placement game.

Dune is about Dune, it's a deck/engine builder and deck/engine builders are always the best type of games

Oh, she also likes wingspan. It's alright, more on the simple side

xp OK explain Patchwork to me! last night L got everything right, she got all the single patches, and she had 8 empty spaces left while I had 11. But I won because I had more buttons? IDGI. Like, I can't figure out what I'm supposed to be doing during the game, the winner seems almost random.

"what I'm supposed to be doing" in terms of buying specific patches, or choosing to jump ahead. IDGI.

Ian I want to come over and play Wingspan! I should probably just text you.

Obviously it's randomised with each new game but a general strategy is to start with tiles that don't cost too much, have at least a button on it and doesn't move you too far ahead.

Skipping a turn in the early days isn't a bad manoever when you look and have a plan with some good tiles after the three presented.

The app is really good and the options to play vs computer has different difficulty levels to help improve with strategy.

u guys shld totally hang out

xp

and thanks for any/all Patchwork strategy explanations/tips

haven't been playing tons of games lately, L, but definitely would! text anytime.

I want people to play ROOT with me online

It’s just beer money on the app store

Also the 7x7 bonus is always worth going for, tactically picking up the free tiles to fill in gaps (or remove the option for your opponent) is a big part of the game :)

8x8* rather

no it's 7x7! that I know, lol

Ha yes sorry

Xps oooooooh is root any good? It's on special on steam right now and I'm tempted

Specifically two player not yet mentioned:

Caper/Caper Europe - collect minions, plan heists
Odin's Ravens - complete your journey before the other guy (good for travelling as outside the box it's just a modestly sized deck of cards and two tokens)
Hive - strategically place bugs (fairly compact for travel)

I also recently read about one called Paris: La Cite de la Lumiere, which sounds good but I haven't played

Multiplayer that scale down well enough:

Takenoko - build a bamboo garden
Taverns of Tiefenhal - run a pub

I've had the Quacks of Quedlinburg on my list for a while in this cateogy, but haven't played it

Takenoko and Wingspan are both on board game arena too.

Takeneko works best with three imo but would highly recommend too

Xps oooooooh is root any good? It's on special on steam right now and I'm tempted

OK so looking up 7 Wonders, which one do I need for 2 people? Do we get the base game and then the Duel expansion, or is there a separate version for 2-player?

JUST duel.

It is the 2 player version of the og.

thank you!

Recently played So Clover, which is a fun cooperative communication game. The box lists it as 3-6 players but it worked very well with 2

Sky Team is another fun cooperative game, more strategic, and designed for 2 players only (pilot and copilot trying to land the plane)

Was given Cascadia for my birthday. Bit like Azul in that you're each building your own thing in front of yourselves, but it's a bit more open and free in play.

The whole Pacific Northwest biome theme is nice. You can do a salmon run.

!!!

If you don't mind slightly longer and heavier, my wife and I have been playing a lot of Ark Nova recently.

You build a zoo, and try to balance appeal with responsibility - there are two scoring tracks and the game ends when they cross.

It takes a couple of hours for a two-player game, even with some experience. But there's a big enough deck of cards that there's a lot of replayability.

Wingspan (a lot better with the Oceania expansion) IMO and Quacks of Quedlinberg are our other games in high rotation at the moment.

Takeneko works best with three imo but would highly recommend too

― nxd, Sunday, 28 July 2024 14:38 (yesterday) link

ooh Cascadia looks like it would be good for us, thanks

It won the Spiele des Jahres and some other awards too, as you've likely seen, so it's a pretty safe bet. I like saying Spiele des Jahres.

How does one say that, actually

SPEEL-eh des yaa-res

so I got Jaipur, 7 Wonders Duel, and Cascadia. They arrive Friday, we will report back.

Have fun!

https://www.humblebundle.com/games

good deal for a bunch of great board games referred to above. The wife and I play a bunch of these already on the touchscreen laptop when we can't be bothered to set-up/pack-down a game hah. Convenience factor is very nice.

https://www.humblebundle.com/games/board-game-night-with-dire-wolf-digital-friends

I think this might be the link you wanted. Some heavy hitters on here; Dune: Imperium, Wingspan, Root, and more

sold, tombot let's play Root

Sorry yep thanks for fixing that!

Dune imperium not local hot-seat multiplayer :( everything else looks good for it though!