Non traditional board games

Bossk128 said:
Catan is a winner, heard good things about Carcassonne and want to try Ticket to Ride. The afore mentioned triad did manage to have a few games of Hero Quest one nigh. A good time had by all, despite initial misgivings!
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Get both Carcassonne and Ticket To Ride. Both are excellent...well Ticket To Ride is more than excellent. It's epic.
 
I have:
Dominion (the base set only currently)
Strozzi
Zombie Dice

Probably more that I can't think of, as well as a bunch of "traditional" board games.

Thinking of getting a few more for my group - we currently play playing cards games at the pub weekly, but running out of steam with playing cards.

Any suggestions for a game to wean them off playing cards? We're all thinking-types, so preferably something with some decision making rather than dexterity.

We usually play for about 3 hours, but don't mind if it doesn't take that long so we can play a few different games.
 
Really need to arrange another weekend long Twilight Imperium game at some point this year, but when we occassionally play game it usually end up being Eclipse/Arkham Horror/BSG due to time contraints.

Often play Catan, Ticket To Ride, Carcassonne or Puerto Rico on the Ipad though.
 
Damnations Fury said:
Really need to arrange another weekend long Twilight Imperium game at some point this year, but when we occassionally play game it usually end up being Eclipse/Arkham Horror/BSG due to time contraints.

Often play Catan, Ticket To Ride, Carcassonne or Puerto Rico on the Ipad though.
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I have Twilight Imperium, you need a whole day to play that game...
 
chriscubed said:
I have:
Dominion (the base set only currently)
Strozzi
Zombie Dice

Probably more that I can't think of, as well as a bunch of "traditional" board games.

Thinking of getting a few more for my group - we currently play playing cards games at the pub weekly, but running out of steam with playing cards.

Any suggestions for a game to wean them off playing cards? We're all thinking-types, so preferably something with some decision making rather than dexterity.

We usually play for about 3 hours, but don't mind if it doesn't take that long so we can play a few different games.
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Hanabi if you can find a copy, lots of thinking there. Maybe some sort of worker placement game? Or something like klackerlacken poker, a fun quick bluffing card game.

Really want to play twilight imperium at some point. It can't be #1 on bgg for nothing, and it certainly sounds like a fun game to try out, even if it does take half a day to play.
 
I take it most of these games are rpg/ D&D type games?

I don't have any of those though back in the day did rather enjoy a good bit of Heroquest and it's expansions...

On a slightly different note I have loads of great games which my girlfriend has gotten me over the years, one I remember off the top of my head:

Quoridor
Ingenious
Solomons Stones
Fire and Ice
Chaos
Sequence

All are great fun and can be played with varying levels of skill.

We also very much enjoy Upwords, which is similar to Scrabble but personally I prefer the playing format of Upwords (you can put words over others, and every tile scores the same)
 
valve90210 said:
I take it most of these games are rpg/ D&D type games?
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Not really, they're mostly strategy games with varying themes, where the player usually has several choices on how to play the resources available to him.

This is contrary to the normal toys-r-us type board game where dice determine the outcome completely randomly.

I've got some of the 'staples', Carcassone, Ticket to Ride etc

I bought a load in the Works £7.99 sell-off the other year, haven't played most of them but the bits are nice to look at.

:edit: damn beaten like a cottage carpet.
 
Cool so similar to the games I posted then in a wqy, I shall have to check some of them out.

Most of the ones I've posted are very simple mechanics but can be played very strategically.

As you say more fun than games where the dice role can determine so much.
 
iviv said:
Ooh, you have all the 7 wonders expansions? What do they actually add?
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Both Leaders and Cities add new card types. With Leaders, you each draft for 'Leader' cards before you start game proper. Before each Age, you can play a single leader costing gold only. The leaders will add an ongoing scoring mechanism (e.g. one leader gives you 7 points for each 'set' of brown, grey, blue, yellow, green, red, purple), or a trading mechanism, or a science symbol. Leaders is IMO an essential, it doesn't add a lot of rules, but can add an awful lot of 'focus' to a strategy.

Cities adds in black cards, which represent less salubrious organisations such as assassins and black markets . A number of blacks is added to each age equal to the number of players and you are dealt 8 hand cards instead of 7. Blacks generally have a large 'money' element and have quite a few 'backstabby' mechanics.

Both expansions come with a couple of wonders too.


Anyway, did someone say board games meet? :D

iviv said:
Really want to play twilight imperium at some point. It can't be #1 on bgg for nothing, and it certainly sounds like a fun game to try out, even if it does take half a day to play.
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Twilight Struggle is BGG number one, which is a 2-3 hour two player game. Twilight Imperium is a lot lower down. Unfortunately, without the first expansion, it's fundamentally broken too, and IMO has been ousted by the wonder that is Eclipse.
 
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As mentioned, there are all sorts of games. Some reply on almost pure strategy, most have varying elements of luck, but there's a game for pretty much everything. Two of the more popular ones have been played on tabletop; Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride. These two are often seen as 'gateway' games getting into more strategic games. But there are some which are competitive, some where all the players have to work together towards a common goal.

BoardGameGeek's number one game of all time is one called Twilight Struggle, a game based around the cold war, one player taking the USSR and one as the US, trying to beat the other player without letting the fight descent into nuclear war.

Edit:
Twilight Struggle is BGG number one, which is a 2-3 hour two player game. Twilight Imperium is a lot lower down. Unfortunately, without the first expansion, it's fundamentally broken too, and IMO has been ousted by the wonder that is Eclipse.
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Oops, my bad! :o
 
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chriscubed said:
Thinking of getting a few more for my group - we currently play playing cards games at the pub weekly, but running out of steam with playing cards.

Any suggestions for a game to wean them off playing cards? We're all thinking-types, so preferably something with some decision making rather than dexterity.

We usually play for about 3 hours, but don't mind if it doesn't take that long so we can play a few different games.
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Do you want to wean them off playing 'cards' like Poker or Blackjack or do you mean card games? There are lots of excellent card games to play like Fleet, Citadels, Race for the Galaxy and more including Thunderstone.

Also plenty of board games that only take 60 minutes to play such as Lords of Waterdeep.
 
Hi guys,

I'm a board game noob even though I really enjoy them (chess, monopoly etc - not very cool I know)
The last one I played was Ingenius with the family over xmas and I thought it was great fun!

I'm trying to get my wife into them as we have a new thing where we, if we are free, play card games on Friday nights with some cheese and wine (so grown up I know) and I'd like to incorporate some good 2 player board games mentioned in this thread.

I have made a list of games mentioned that sound appealing - could you please point out which are really good for 2 players?

**Dominion
**Mage Knight
**Civ the boardgame
**Twilight Struggle
**Elder Sign

*Settlers of Catan
*Ticket to Ride (Europe version + 1912 + Marklin)
*Game of Thrones
*Carcassone (Inns & Cathedrals + Traders & Builders)
*7 Wonders
*Eclipse
*Munchkin
*Power Grid
*Race for the Galaxy
*Colditz
*Small World
*Arkham Horror
*Pandemic (+ On The Brink)
*Last Night on Earth

Caylus
Coup
Bohnanza
Battlestar Galactica (+ both expansions)
Talisman
Lovecraft
Saboteur
Order of the Stick
Call of Cthulhu
Twilight Imperium
Tsuro
Discworld
Stratego
Hero Quest

** Mentioned as 2 player
* Recommended more than once
 
Are the BSG expansions worth it?

I have played one game with the Pegasus expansion but it was my first ever game of BSG so I didn't quite pick up on the differences between it and the original.

I have now played the original a number of times.
 
Oxide™ said:
I have made a list of games mentioned that sound appealing - could you please point out which are really good for 2 players?

**Dominion - Good with 2
**Mage Knight - I've only played with 4, supposed to be great even with 1
**Civ the boardgame - Plays fine with 2, but a little limited. We found that we would play too defensively with 2. Better with 3+
**Twilight Struggle - 2 Player only :p
**Elder Sign - IIRC, if played with 2, you take 2 characters each. I've only played the real game once, which I found to have far too much downtime for such a 'light' game. That said, I love it on Android.

*Settlers of Catan - 3+ players out of the box, there are variants available.
*Ticket to Ride (Europe version + 1912 + Marklin) - Nordic Countries is the best version for 2, Europe IIRC works OK with 2.
*Game of Thrones - Haven't played. I know it works better with more.
*Carcassone (Inns & Cathedrals + Traders & Builders) - Absolutely great :)
*7 Wonders - 2 players is an official variant, works OK, but really comes into it's own with more players.
*Eclipse - Top notch, probably my favourite game atm from 2-9 players :)
*Munchkin -Ugh. It's OK I guess, but there's not much of a game there.
*Power Grid - Again, works fine with 2, but far better with more owing to the auction mechanic. There is a 'robots' expansion that improves playability with 2, but I haven't played it.
*Race for the Galaxy - This is basically multiplayer solitaire anyway (controversial!)
*Colditz - No idea.
*Small World - Works nicely with 2.
*Arkham Horror - Haven't played
*Pandemic (+ On The Brink) - Works perfectly with 2, though it does make it easier. You can counteract this by playing on harder difficulties ;)
*Last Night on Earth - Haven't played

Bohnanza - Haven't played, but I've heard that it plays nicely with 2
Battlestar Galactica (+ both expansions) - 3+ players, comes into its own with 5+
Discworld - Assuming you mean Martin Wallace's Ankh Morpork, I've only played with 5, but I thought was a quite a nice, variable goals and player powers, if a little light (for Martin Wallace ;)).


** Mentioned as 2 player
* Recommended more than once
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