The Board Game Thread

[ERCougar]

This can be a problem. It also makes a game like Pandemic a pretty good game to play with the young ones. I play Pandemic with Little Robin. We talk strategies and make consensus moves dominated 90% by me, but the interaction is great and he feels like he is in total control. So it could be good training wheels for budding young gamers (lil' Robin is nine).

That's a good thought. That's pretty much how we play Max, but it's getting a little dull for my oldest. I'll have to pick this one up.

[Babs]

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.

Carcassonne also works great for 7-10 year old kids as a puzzle building exercise. They just draw tiles and try to fit them together into a continuous city. Between the rivers, towns, and roads, it really challenges their developing critical thinking skills. If you're really brave, afterwards you can let them use the meeple to stage a battle for the kingdom, but you're risking all the casualty and loss concomitant with war when you do so.

SC: do you like Ticket to Ride? We've thought about buying that one.

[ERCougar]

Carcassonne also works great for 7-10 year old kids as a puzzle building exercise. They just draw tiles and try to fit them together into a continuous city. Between the rivers, towns, and roads, it really challenges their developing critical thinking skills. If you're really brave, afterwards you can let them use the meeple to stage a battle for the kingdom, but you're risking all the casualty and loss concomitant with war when you do so.

SC: do you like Ticket to Ride? We've thought about buying that one.

I've played this with my 6-yo and just excluding the farm rules. Not quite as good, but still fun.

[SCcoug]

Yes Ticket to Ride is a solid game. I like how you don't get hung up on one player's move since you can only do one thing on your move, draw a card place a route ect. So it moves along pretty well.

I might add this is a good game to teach basic geography to kids.

[OhioBlue]

Ohio...I remember having a big similar discussion with you on CB a long time ago. Didn't you used to live in Cedar City?

I lived there for about a year in 06-07, yes. I'm in UT County now. I think those of us who are interested should do a game night.

I had Modern Art and Acquire but ended up selling them, mostly because I couldn't get anyone to play them with me. My wife didn't care for either, I enjoyed them both. The good thing about selling Acquire though is we had a copy of one of the more recent reprints in quite good condition, and it had sold out several months previous from all stores. I sold it on da Bay for $85. We're thinking about selling our Cities and Knights stuff as I'm one of those who prefers just the basic game when we play it.

[OhioBlue]

I've played this with my 6-yo and just excluding the farm rules. Not quite as good, but still fun.

That's what we do as well. Our kids love it. I'm intrigued by the idea of playing Memoir with my son, I hadn't thought of that as being a game a younger kid could pick up but while reading this thread I pitched him the idea and he wants to learn it over my Christmas break. Thanks for the inspiration.

Someone asked about Ticket to Ride--my opinion on TTR is that it's a fairly light, easy, and entertaining game but certainly not as elegant as others out there. We use it with our friends when we're feeling brain dead. I think on my BGG profile it's my lowest rated game, but for families I'd give it a solid recommendation.

Has anyone played Caylus or Shogun yet? Shogun is supposed to be based on the same mechanic/system as Wallenstein, just with a different theme. I'd be interested to hear opinions.

[ERCougar]

I lived there for about a year in 06-07, yes. I'm in UT County now. I think those of us who are interested should do a game night.

I had Modern Art and Acquire but ended up selling them, mostly because I couldn't get anyone to play them with me. My wife didn't care for either, I enjoyed them both. The good thing about selling Acquire though is we had a copy of one of the more recent reprints in quite good condition, and it had sold out several months previous from all stores. I sold it on da Bay for $85. We're thinking about selling our Cities and Knights stuff as I'm one of those who prefers just the basic game when we play it.

I don't know if you knew this but the one good game store we had here (in Cedar City) closed just after we moved here.

My wife likes Modern Art. I love Knizia's games, but a lot of the themes seem "pasted on". I think Modern Art is an exception. LOTR:Confrontation is another exception. We now have a group that loves Modern Art, so it comes out a lot.

Acquire's a little less popular, as some people just don't love the financial theme. You also have to have the right people who just play on feel, and not on counting everyone's stocks, or this game can really drag.

I'm all for a game night. I think we talked about doing it before, but it got dropped. We need to get Finderson in town. Maybe coordinate it with a BYU game so everyone's around.

[ERCougar]

That's what we do as well. Our kids love it. I'm intrigued by the idea of playing Memoir with my son, I hadn't thought of that as being a game a younger kid could pick up but while reading this thread I pitched him the idea and he wants to learn it over my Christmas break. Thanks for the inspiration.

Someone asked about Ticket to Ride--my opinion on TTR is that it's a fairly light, easy, and entertaining game but certainly not as elegant as others out there. We use it with our friends when we're feeling brain dead. I think on my BGG profile it's my lowest rated game, but for families I'd give it a solid recommendation.

Has anyone played Caylus or Shogun yet? Shogun is supposed to be based on the same mechanic/system as Wallenstein, just with a different theme. I'd be interested to hear opinions.

Agreed on Ticket To Ride. Personally, I like it but don't love it, but it's one of those games that about anyone can pick up and will like, so it makes my favorites list. Transamerica is another train game that's even lighter. I would never play it with a group of gamers, but with some new friends, I can guarantee they'll like it.

Heard great things about Caylus, but I've been trying to buy games I can play with my kids lately--it's easier to justify the obsession to my wife.

What's you BGG profile? I haven't filled out any rankings on there, but I'm curious to see yours.

[ERCougar]

Just finished our M44 game and while I'm geeked out on games, I'm giving a recap. We played the Liberation of Paris, standard rules. I always have to play the Axis because my son can't handle the moral duplicity involved. I sent a few suicide units in on my right flank, they were ignored because of lack of command cards, and took out a few tanks in the jumbled mess. He regrouped and made me pay with his remaining tank units. I sent another suicide sortie into the armored units on my left flank, again successfully taking out a few units. The battle then came down to the German artillery unit in the center against repeated Allied infantry assaults. I took out one more unit, but he had me down to one gun, which if he takes out, he wins. He didn't have the roll for it and I countered on the left flank, and with a lucky roll and his lack of retreat options, took out a final armored unit for the win. So, Paris continues under the control of the good General von Choltitz, and I'm speaking German on my mission to France.

If that's not a good afternoon of fun with a 7yr old, I don't know what is.

[RobinFinderson]

Has anyone played Caylus or Shogun yet? Shogun is supposed to be based on the same mechanic/system as Wallenstein, just with a different theme. I'd be interested to hear opinions.

I have played Shogun a couple of times, and remember enjoying it. It is sort of a mix of a lot of different game mechanics -- area majority, bidding, and a little bit of the old school war games (Axis and Allies?) for people like me whose friends won't play those war games. It is one of those games where each player has a handful of actions that he can take any turn. Once you play an action, you can't play it again until you have worked through the rest of your actions. There is also a cool tower the determines the outcome of battles. You collect all of the armies of two states and drop them in the top of the tower. The winner is the person who has the most cubes come out the bottom (some get trapped in the tower). It isn't as luck-driven as something like Risk, however, because as your cubes get stuck in the tower, they become increasingly likely to pop out of the tower in future battles, so they aren't entirely lost.

[MarkGrace]

I can think of few things less entertaining than playing board games. If not for my wife's family, I don't know that I would ever play them. But alas, I will again be subjected to a three hour game of Risk on Christmas Eve this year. And of course that will be followed by the requisite taunting when I am the first player out -- as if I somehow gave a shit about board game.

[ERCougar]

I can think of few things less entertaining than playing board games. If not for my wife's family, I don't know that I would ever play them. But alas, I will again be subjected to a three hour game of Risk on Christmas Eve this year. And of course that will be followed by the requisite taunting when I am the first player out -- as if I somehow gave a shit about board game.

Judging boardgames based on playing Risk is sort of like basing a judgment of fine French cheeses on your sampling of Velveeta.

[TripletDaddy]

Judging boardgames based on playing Risk is sort of like basing a judgment of fine French cheeses on your sampling of Velveeta.

Except that risk is a boardgame.

Velveeta is not a french cheese.

[MarkGrace]

I'm not judging boardgames by Risk, it's just an example of a boardgame that I am occasionally forced to play. The in-laws also play Settler's, Diplomacy and Modern Art, and I've been forced to sit through those as well.

They are boardgame nuts, and when I was new to the fam I would join in their games, even though I could barely stand it. Now that we've been married for five years I very, very rarely give in to playing boardgames with them. I will say that I enjoy the family fights that inevitably occur as a result of their games. LOL. They get in fights over boardgames.

[MarkGrace]

Except that risk is a boardgame.

Velveeta is not a french cheese.

Haha...I actually wrote that very thing in my post but then deleted it before submitting.