Non traditional board games

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Board games have been around for hundreds of years, going back to games like Chess and Go, though now when you talk of 'board games' the general person will immediately thing of something like Risk, Monopoly or even Snakes and Ladders. But there are many hidden gems out there which are slowly starting to become more popular. Games such as Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride.
Websites such as Rock Paper Shotgun have started to cover these in their weekly cardboard children column, Wil Whetaon has a weekly youtube show called Tabletop where he explains and plays through a game with various celebrity friends.

In short, these 'non traditional' board games are slowly becoming more popular. For those of you in London, I'm part of a group called 'London on Board', there are 4-5 meetings a week either on weekday evenings after work, or through the day on weekends. 50-80 gamers descend on a pub, take most of it over, and spend hours playing games. Current favorites include the Game of Thrones board game, Dominion, Power Grid and Coup. And membership is open and free to attend, we are always getting new players and are happy to explain the rules to anyone who hasn't played a game before (I've been going for a few months and I'm still learning different games!)

And with that plug over, what board games do you lot play? And if you don't play any, why not? They are great fun!

 

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I really enjoy 7 wonders, though I am so terrible at it. Always too focused on getting good access to resources, and then it's suddenly the end of the game and I have no victory points!

Currently, I own ticket to ride Europe, the 1912 expansion for it, TTR Marklin, Catan, munchkin plus various expansions, and my current favourite game of all time: Galaxy Trucker.
Trucker is an awesome game, you have a pile of spaceship components sitting face down in he middle of the table, and everyone has to race to grab pieces and either stick them on to their ship (there is an outline to limit size and shape) or stick them back in the middle. All of this racing against the clock. By far my favourite game, every game is different but it is always good fun!

 

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I've played loads of bsg with all the expansions and love it. But then this weekend I played it just with the base game. Ugh, never again! So few characters to pick from, the cylon attack method, the lack of options for revealed cylons... It's just painful!

 

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http://boardgamegeek.com/

BGG is probably the number one source for board game information, with something like 10k games all listed. Often there are copies of rulebooks, there's a forum with reviews, strategy talk and general chat for each game. Its pretty much the best place to go if you want to know stuff about a game.

I recommend munchkin and a game called order of the stick, its a boardgame that take light hearted micky taking of D&D type games and has a good system, one of my favs.

Munchkin was one of the first games I played, discovered it when I joined the Northumbria uni Gaming and Roleplay society and really enjoyed it at the time, we played it nearly every week. But nowadays its more of a 'once in a while' game. Its fun, but the games tend to drag on for ages, every extra player makes the game exponentially longer.
That said, last week I won a super quick game. Got up to Lv6 fairly quickly despite having only one item that gave me bonuses, and I was a gnome warrior. Looked for trouble against a Lv6 or something just to get another easy level, and someone wandering monster'ed in a Lv17 to get me. So I used the gnome ability to play the Lv20 Katrina from my hand as an illusion to help me win, someone else wandering monster'ed a Lv11 in so I was loosing again, so I played a couple of monster enhancers on Katrina, nobody else could do anything and because of all the monsters they threw in, I hit Lv10

 

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I've recently discovered the PC game Dominion.net. As the name suggests, it is a copy of the game Dominion coded in .net with all the expansions included. Its only single player, but the AI is surprisingly good for a fan game like this.

The rules can be found here, but essentially the game is card drafting. You start off with a deck of 10 cards - 7 copper and 3 1vp cards. There are 10 randomly selected cards you can buy on the table, and there are 10 of each of those cards. There are also stacks of copper, silver and gold which you can buy, and 1, 3 and 6VP cards you can buy.

On your turn you start off with one action and one buy. An action is essentially playing a card, and doing what the card says. They can give you more actions, more buys, more coins for the round, and many other things. Once you have no more action cards to play (Or no more actions to play them) you play all the treasure cards you have, and use the money they generate to buy a card from the table. Then you discard everything left in your hand and draw 5 cards, and your turn is over and the next person plays. If you don't have any cards to draw, you just shuffle the discard pile and draw from that deck again.
The game ends when either 4 of the stacks of cards have been emptied, or the highest VP stack of cards is empty. VP cards are important because obviously they are what you use to score, but they are also essentially wasted space. You win simply by having them in your deck, but when you draw them into your hand, they are a dead card. You can't play them, they aren't worth money to buy more cards with, they just get discarded at the end of the turn, taking up a space which could have had something more useful in. But equally, you need the cards to win. So you have to make the balance between having useful cards in your deck while making sure you have enough VPs in your deck to win. Its a very interesting balancing act, and the game plays out very well.

And despite being a relatively simple game once you understand the rules, there are so many different action cards that can be chosen to form the 10 available on the table to buy, it means that every game is going to be different due to different combinations of cards available to buy. Some interact really well together, some are a real pain.

 

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Down for my first game of thrones on Sunday, can't wait! Going to be a load of newbies learning and backstabbing, just what you want in a game! Just reading the rule book but still looking forward to it.

But now, time to promote a couple of small filler games which while being simple, are amazing ideas and great fun to play. The fist one is callas Hanabi. You have a deck of cards, the cards are one of 5 colors, and each card is numbered from 1-5. There are three 1s for each colour, two of each 2-4 and one 5. The idea is simple, on yor turn you play a card from your hand onto the table, and you have to go from 1-5 with each colour. The catch is that you hold your hand backwards. That is, you can't see what cards you have, only the other players can. If you play an invalid card ( a red 4 when there is only a red 2 out, or a blue 1 when a blue 1 has already been played, you loose a life. 3 and it's game over for the whole team. But instead of playing a card, you can use a clue token. You start with 8 of these, and they allow you to tell a player one of two things. Either indicate to him all of the cards of a certain colour, or all of a certain number. It is up to them to decipher the information given to them. Of course, giving other clues or hints is cheating, so no pointing harder at one card or winking or things like that. Finally you can discard a card from your hand instead of playing one. This obviously removes it from the game, so better hope you don't discard a 5! But by discarding, you get a clue back.

The game itself is so simple, but the level of thought to play it is surprisingly high. If someone points out to you that two of your cards are fours, how do you keep that info. Does it mean you should play one since there is a green 3 on the table, they might have told you because they were both green 4s so you will be safe! Or they might hope you wait so someone on their next turn can tell you which is green. When I've played it, we tend to score around the high teens, actually getting a 5 played only happens a couple of times per game.

 

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Just a thought, but since i have no idea what to get my brother for his birthday, and he's really into Settlers of Catan... suggestions?

Ticket to Ride is a very popular 'entry' boardgame. Get the Europe version if you do go for it! It is also available on Steam

I highly recommend Battlestar Galactica if you can find 4-5 friends to play it with. On the surface it's a co-op game. However, one or more players is a Cylon secretly working against the group. You can imagine the paranoia and accusations that fly around the table.

Agreed, though as mentioned earlier, the base game by itself is a little lacking, something you'll appreciate once you play with the expansions. They fix some mechanics and add more player characters. Like Cally, who's once per game is always fun to threaten people with

Another game people should check out is Coup.

Agin, it extremely simple, games will rarely take more than 15 minutes, so it is a strong filler game, but one that often leaves you wanting 'one more game'. Up to 6 players, there are 15 cards in a deck, three copies of 5 different characters. The Duke, Captain, Ambassador, Contessa and Assassin.
You are playing as the head of a high ranking family in italy, vying for control of the country. You get dealt two cards from the deck which you keep face down, these represent your influence. If you lose both of your influence then you are out of the game.

http://i.imgur.com/eZN9UzB.jpg

On your turn you can do one of these actions. For instance, if you have a duke then you can take 3 gold from the bank. If not, you could take Foreign Aid and take two coins, but someone with a duke could block you, and you get nothing. The coup is unblockable, removing one players influence instantly for 7 coins.

The key thing is that the cards are all face down. Nobody knows what cards you have, and you don't know what cards anyone else has. At any point in the game when someone claims to have a certain character (A duke when taxing, for example) you can call them on it. If they were bluffing, they lose an influence and turn one of their cards face up, that card is out of the game, so everyone knows there is one less of that card. Or if they do reveal a card of that name, you lose an influence for an incorrect challenge. I've seen games where all 6 players on their first turned used the Tax action, despite there only being 3 dukes in the game.

Again, a very simple game to learn, there are only 5 different cards and everyone gets a copy of the cheat sheet, which is essentially the rules, but it plays so well with all the bluffing and backstabbing.

 

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Small world got a few mentions in here. Only played it once, but it just didn't grab me like most of the games have. I think I prefer longer term games where you don't just control a race for a couple of turns before replacing it with another one.
Days of wonder did have a kickstarter going for a remake of the iPad app for small world. Currently there is an app out there but it hasnt been updated in a while. Hey were going to add in expansions, new features and possibly pc and android support as well. But the kickstarter page they made with all the pledge levels and so on was so confusing so they closed it down wih plans to restart the kickstarter in the near future.

 

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My BGG collection sits at 82 entries as at today. That said, I've got stuff to add

http://boardgamegeek.com/collection/user/Apopcalyptic

Ooh, you have all the 7 wonders expansions? What do they actually add?

My list is somewhat smaller, and mostly made up of expansions XD

http://boardgamegeek.com/collection/user/Iviv Aitylin

 

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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.

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.

 

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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.

Oops, my bad!

 

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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.

In my opinion, very yes. The base game only has 10 characters, and the cylon attack mechanic is pretty awful. Especially when playing as a pilot, you get stuck waiting around for ages, finally a load of ships show up then you just jump away. I forget which expansion adds the cylon fleet board, but it removes the cylon attack cards from the destiny deck, and instead whenever you draw a card where the enemy ships activate but there are none of that type on the board, the cyclon jump track goes up, sometimes adding more civilian ships, and the humans can see the fleet building up on the cylon board, they can see where they will arrive, and they can prepare for it. You still don't know when exactly they will appear but it is better than nothing.
One expansion adds Callie, and she is just fun to play. They also add some weird new victory conditions but I don't think they are as good.

 

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Hi guys,
**Dominion - Check out dominion.net only single player vs AI, but gives you a good idea of the game and lets you play with all of the expansions and deals with all of the cards and so on. Personally, Dominion has for me always seemed like a card game that was better of designed as a computer game because of the need to keep track of how many actions and buys you are allowed.

*Settlers of Catan - Not great when playing with only 2 players.
*Ticket to Ride (Europe version + 1912 + Marklin) - While most TTR maps can be played with 2 players, they are left a little lacking. However there are two expansions - Nordic Countries and Switzerland which are designed for 2-3 players, so should be much better for you.
*Munchkin - Again, not great with only 2 people, ideally you want 4 otherwise it just turns into pure random luck in who draws what. When you have 4 players there are enough of you to gang up on someone being lucky.
*Power Grid - Yet again, due to the auction and competitive nature of the game, 2 players don't work that well with this.

Coup - An amazing game, never played it 2 player but I'm not sure how well it would work with 2 people.
Battlestar Galactica (+ both expansions) - There's no way that I can see this working as a 2 player game. A key part of the game is trying to figure out who is human and who is cylon. With only two players there's no guessing at all, either you are the cylon or they are.

Just my comments for the games I know. Depending on who you are playing with age group and style wise, I have heard great things of Twilight struggle which is a 2 player game, but never had the chance to play it at any of the LoB meetups.
Space Hulk is rare as hens teeth to find as it is out of print, but it is a great game, especially if you enjoy the Warhammer 40k universe.

 

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I've just discovered the Vassal engine. Its a java program (Requires java to be installed!) but it lets you download modules which consist of board games, and then lets you play those games online multiplayer, either live or as a play by email game. And you get something like this:

(clicky for big pic)
Would anyone be interested in a 5 player BSG play by email game?

Edit: Side note, the game is up there with FFG's permission, on the grounds that the loyalty cards are all blank. That way, only people who own a copy of the game can play it. Though I'm sure those who are missing the odd expansion could be helped out by others!

 

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If we can find 5 people willing to give a bsg game a try on vassal that would be awesome. Would we go for real time or pbem? A game of bsg is going to last a couple of hours at least, plus extra for figuring out how exactly the program works. But playing live would probably allow for voice comma and would make it a more social event, plus it would be more fun to accuse people of being cylons! Either way, if we get people I may well try and take a few screenshots and make a separate thread for it in pc gaming.
What expansions would we go for? Personally, I prefer the expansions over the base game, the cylon fleet board is a better mechanic, it gives pilots more to do, and there are more characters to pick from. But again, it adds more complicated things into the game like the cylon and Pegasus boards, and for a first game it may be better to keep things simple. Majority rules though!

 

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I would like to try it but I don't have the games, I'm guessing it would be difficult/impossible without them?

Actually, the rule books are freely available online, and the vassal module contains 99% of the game content. The only thing you would be missing is the text on the loyalty cards. Most of those would be irrelevant anyway - you are not a cylon cards have no relevant text on them, just flavour. The 'you are a cylon' cards all contain an ability for that cylon when they reveal, and are different for each cylon. Hose cards are blank in vassal to make sure people have access to the game when they play. Through the power of google I have jpgs of a few of the cylon cards, but if anyone could care to provide a full set of pics that would be handy!

 

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I got a blank space in firefox, but the map loaded ok for me in chrome after I allowed it to use my location. I guess there location script isn't running properly in firefox for whatever reason, and it didn't load the map until it knows where you are.

 

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21615083

BBC wrote about London on Board and boardgaming in general

 

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Was lucky enough to play Dixit on Sunday! And... I can't work out if its a good game or not. For reference:

I really see what they were doing with the game, and its a good idea. But after playing a game, I'm not sure if the actual game works and how much of it is a guessing game. It was quite good fun though, I just imagine it works better when you're with a group of friends you know well. Definitely worth playing a couple of games of it if you can though, if only for the experience. And also for the time when someone gives their clue and you think 'oh god, this card I have is absolutely perfect!'

 

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I watched that Dixit video just a day or two ago, quite an interesting concept though I think my clues would all be far too obvious. Probably need to be with fairly creative or well read friends to really make it interesting.
Kinda similar to Fiasco really, I really don't think that I am creative enough to play that game.

I'm certainly looking forward to playing it again, but I wouldn't call it an amazing game. While there is to an extent the angle that you can aim your clues towards certain players and not others, essentially it is luck based. If the other players have cards which could match what you're saying then you're fine. If everyone has nothing at all useful then you're not going to score much that round.
And creativity doesn't really come into it so much, I'm not a hugely creative person. That said, I'm pretty proud of my clue 'I hate you so much, quit weighing me down!'
My card was obvious, an anchor in a desert somewhere. If I'd simply done the 'quit weighing me down' then it would have been incredibly obvious. But the 'I hate you so much' bit at the front meant that another player was able to play a card which featured a couple arguing or something, and someone assumed the anchor was too obvious.
But again, that's down to luck more than judgement.

So, like I said, a fun game that I'll enjoy playing once in a while, but I don't see it becoming a classic.