The Board Game Thread

[ERCougar]

We own Bang, but don't play it too much (it doesn't play 2-player very well, and Little Robin doesn't like it). It is a lot of fun, somewhat Rummy-esque, with a nice pairing of theme to game mechanic. The graphics are fun, and it comes in a little box (for the glove compartment!).

I wish we could find people to play this one with more. This, Phase Ten, and Rook would be a nice collection of small card games for a decent games night.

I love Bang. I'm not sure there's a better light card game. It's not my wife's favorite, as shooting each other with various weapons gets a little too confrontational. She also sucks at bluffing.

I'm not a fan of Phase Ten or Rook.

[ERCougar]

Great kids games:
Gulo Gulo - a dexterity game where your 3-4 yr old can actually beat you. Great wooden components--perfect example of a European game vs American mass-produced crap.
Rat-A-Tat Cat - if you've played Golf with cards, this is essentially the same game, but kids like the Rats and Cats theme. Fun, quick game
Max - cooperative mechanic with a good strategy element.

[ERCougar]

Boardgames are not for parties. I have a few party game recommendations, but in the right setting only, and they do not include Pictionary, Balderdash, or anything of the same ilk. The reason I love boardgames is that they serve as a prop for a few friends to get together, talk, and use their brains. Or they serve as a much better alternative to my kids watching TV or playing video games. And really, I don't know of a single kid who doesn't love boardgames. My kids would much rather play a boardgame than play Wii.

[ERCougar]

Oh man...so much to say on this. I'm a huge boardgame fan, a boardgamegeek.com regular, this is my mormon substitute for fine wines.

My top ten:
Puerto Rico--all time greatest game
Settlers--but we almost always play Cities and Knights. Settlers is probably a better "pure" game as the C&K mechanics probably overcomplicate things, but Settlers has gotten a little dull after this much play
Memoir 44 - I play this with my 7-yo now as a Sunday afternoon tradition. We have all the expansions and it's a blast. Great way to teach history to a kid and a really fun light wargame
Bang - is a great group card game. Lots of bluffing, lots of strategy, just a fun time. And you drink "beer" cards to recover from gunshots. How cool is that?
Lost Cities - Fun quick two-player card game.
Carcassonne - I have the basic with a few expansions but I like Hunters & Gatherers better
Ticket to Ride - We have the Europe version, as a few friends have the America map. I like Europe better. I've seen a few more versions since this one but haven't played them
Acquire - Old Sid Sackson classic that keeps getting re-released because it's just a dang good game
Diplomacy - Why people still play Risk is beyond me. Well, I guess you need 7 players for this, but it totally rocks. The perfect boardgame if you can get 6-7 people together for a few hours.
Robo Rally - Fun group game
Lord of The Rings Confrontation - two-player stratego-like game, but way funner. Reiner Knizia at his finest.
Modern Art - Great auction-mechanic game, another Knizia product.
Pitch Car - Dexterity racing game. Every adult and kid we play this with loves it.

That's probably more than 10. I have another group of favorites for kids that don't make you want to stab yourself in the eye (e.g. Candyland, Chutes and Ladderes). I'll save it for another post.

[Surfah]

I love trivia games. It exposes everybody for the frauds they are. "What's the capital of Iceland?..."Um, I don't know...let's play Pictionary!"

Exactly.

Something that everyone has to understand about Gidget is that she is the most caring and compassionate being alive. She loves board games too. But her personality won't let her win. She often sabotages her own self so that she doesn't win so as not to offend the competitive gamers. And you know the ones I'm talking about. Gidget has friends that play who seem to determine their self worth on how much ore or armies they can amass.

[Donuthole]

I just have never been bitten by the Settlers bug. I don't enjoy that sort of game.

Agreed. We "doubled" with a couple once, and they convinced us to come back to their place and play this game called "Settlers". After getting over the disappointment of learning that "playing Settlers" isn't secret code for partner swapping, I was forced to spend the next 2 hours bartering wool for ore. The other couple was having a blast (it was evident they were getting an adrenaline rush from the "strategy" and "confrontation" of it all) but I was bored. After the game, the told us they were ordering the "expansion" online, which would bring even more complexities into the game. They promised to have us over when they got it. Sadly, we were busy that night.

I don't like many board games, but one board game I really enjoy (and the only game I have ever purchased on my own) is Labyrinth. Not this Labyrinth:

(although this is a great "doctor's waiting room" game)
but this one:


It's a European maze game comprised of "slideable" pieces. Each turn you slide a piece to shift the maze in an attempt to move your marker to a designated item. It is very challenging with 4 players, as the maze will change 3 times before you get your next turn.

[RobinFinderson]

Ohio! I have played every single one of those games except for Memoir '44. We just played El Grande last weekend, and I was reminded why it is one of my favorite games (area majority and auction games are my specialties).

DDD, when we get together with our 'game whore' friends we are just two couples playing games, with the kids joining in once in a while. It isn't a party, so much as people just hanging out, the way we might have all done back in high school.

[Babs]

Over Thanksgiving I played the new Anniversary Edition of Axis & Allies... AMAZING! It adds Italy to the Axis and starts the game in 1941 rather than 1942. I love the original, but the Anniversary Edition is a great revision. Worth checking out for sure!

Tim

Thanks for this tip. I've never played and have no desire to, but my husband is a huge fan and I have absolutely zero ideas for him for Christmas. This is perfect.

[TripletDaddy]

you clearly still haven't played the right games. Some of the best euro-games take all of a half-hour to play (Samurai comes to mind). Others an hour, maybe hour and a half if you're playing with a couple people who get stuck in analysis paralysis.

I can do half hour. I can actually do a long game. I just have never been bitten by the Settlers bug. I don't enjoy that sort of game.

[OhioBlue]

I am totally with you. Board games are annoying. I don't have any interest spending 8 hours playing a game. Especially if the first 3 hours are dedicated to growing wheat, building churches, and putting in roads. Yawn.

you clearly still haven't played the right games. Some of the best euro-games take all of a half-hour to play (Samurai comes to mind). Others an hour, maybe hour and a half if you're playing with a couple people who get stuck in analysis paralysis.

[OhioBlue]

[TripletDaddy]

I hate board games. My introduction to Settlers of Catan was playing with Gidget while we were dating with her ex-boyfriend of 3 years and his dad in one of the most horribly awkward settings I have ever been in.

I just try and build the longest road every time which tends to piss people off.

I like trivia games. But nobody likes to play with me because I kick so much ass at trivia. I love the in-flight trivia game that I think Delta used to have. I had two guys once come back and find me at my seat to congratulate me for owning them from DC to SLC.

I am totally with you. Board games are annoying. I don't have any interest spending 8 hours playing a game. Especially if the first 3 hours are dedicated to growing wheat, building churches, and putting in roads. Yawn. We were at an LDS party once and this husband/wife combo that were total board game whores suggested we all sit down and play this game. Keep in mind that everyone was already have an enjoyable time conversing, eating, some were watching the game in another room, etc. Something about LDS parties, they always have to have these silly itineraries. Anyway, this couple harshes everyone's mellow and gets us to pair up and play this game. After spending about 20 minutes "explaining" the rules, we begin the game. It consists of doing what Surfah said...people saying, "I'm going to build a road!" or..."Im going to build a Church." The host couple explained that it generally takes about an hour or so to really get everything established. Holy hell! We are at a party and they want us to spend an hour planting wheat before the real fun begins. My wife and I made up an excuse about 30 minutes into it and went home.

I do not like party games, which I consider being distinct. Party games usually involve getting into groups and yelling out answers and being annoying on a larger scale. Party games almost never require any intelligence, but lack of shame usually comes in handy when you have to act out some ridiculous clue in front of 8 other people. There is the one that has the buzzer. If you break some rule, the other person points this garage door opener at you and buzzes you. Everyone laughs and says, "ha hah ha! You can't use that word because it is already part of the answer! ha ha ha!"

I do not like "some" card games. And by "some," I basically mean Hand and Foot. If someone suggest we all play hand and foot, I usually stop just shy of telling them to screw off and go to hell. And a little tip...I don't even play hand and foot and I have heard the same joke a thousand times..."You smell that? That's my foot....." Where is my rusty crowbar when I need it?

I love trivia games. It exposes everybody for the frauds they are.
"What's the capital of Iceland?..."Um, I don't know...let's play Pictionary!"

[OhioBlue]

I definitely enjoy a good boardgame. We've 'converted' many of our friends to the truth that is the euro-game, or more specifically, to the World Beyond Parker Brothers. It's funny how once you show people a good boardgame it's hard to go back and enjoy fatally flawed games like Monopoly and Risk (yeah, I'm not just a food snob).

Puerto Rico is right up there for me, as good a game as there is. We've put together a killer set of Carcassonne in a wood box that saw a lot of play over lunches at work, not so much now. I'm a sucker for just about any Reiner Knizia game and own/play Samurai, Tigris & Euphrates, Lord of the Rings, Amun-Re, and Lost Cities by the good doctor.

Others we enjoy are El Grande, Memoir '44, Ticket to Ride (good intro game), Citadels, and several of the Kosmos 2-player line. Settlers as well, from time to time. Games on the wish list include Caylus, Shogun, and Power Grid. If you're ever in UT county and want to play a game of Puerto Rico, just give me a holler.

[SCcoug]

Games the missus and I own: Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride (Europe), Diplomacy, Rummikub, Carrcasonne, and Blokus (Trigon). Most of these games play fairly fast and are still fun even with 2 people. Below I describe the game play.



Blokus is a game for 2-4 people and last about 30 min. You have 20 or so tetras looking pieces of various sizes that you try and place on the board but must have a corner, and not a side, touching one of your other pieces. You try to use up all of your pieces and block the other players from being able to play theirs. In the trigon version the pieces are triangles instead of rectangular.



Rummikub is another 2-4 player game that is around 30 minutes long. You start with 14 tiles, which are numbered 1-13 and are reb, blue, black or orange. You try and play all of your tiles by making runs, of the same color, or sets of like numbers. You can add on to another set or run that has been previously played or rearrange the tiles so as to be able to play. If you are unable to play you draw another tile.



Diplomacy is a long, take over the world type game for 2-7 players. There is no roll of the dice just diplomacy. You gain territory by out numbering your opponent. Success requires convincing opponents to ally with you, playing on side against and other and at the right moment stabbing you allies in the back.



Carcassonne is a 2-5 player game that takes from 30-60 minutes. On each player's turn you draw a tile,which is face down in a pile, and place it on the table face up. The tiles can be roads, cities, cloister or a combination of two of them. The only rule for placing tiles is that is make sense, so you wouldn't have a road randomly intersect with a city. Players score points by placing their men, called meeples, on the road, city, cloister or field. Once a road or city is complete you may score points by how large it is.

My favorite right now out of these games is probably blokus but that might be because that is the one we got most recently.

[RobinFinderson]

Over Thanksgiving I played the new Anniversary Edition of Axis & Allies... AMAZING! It adds Italy to the Axis and starts the game in 1941 rather than 1942. I love the original, but the Anniversary Edition is a great revision. Worth checking out for sure!

Tim

My game friends are only into the Euro-style games, so I haven't been able to play any Axis & Allies in years. I've seen the various new variations come out and wished I had folks to play them with.

Axis & Allies is better than Risk because it is A). More complex. B). Has a really fun connection to history. C). Has many different styles of play (depending on which country you end up playing -- USA, Germany, Russia, Japan, or GB. I used to play this with Mike back at DT. He was pretty good. Those were good times.