[Board Games] Discussions of Wil Wheaton's cardboard nerd-cred consolidated here.

jergarmar

Hey there! This thread is about board games. Let me tell you about them!

But first, story time! Once upon a time a member of my family announced a GAME NIGHT! Oh, that sounds fun! I come over to discover... Guitar Hero and Life. Nothing intrinsically wrong with either of these (I lied, Life is horrible horrible), but I knew deep in my soul that there must be something more. Thus began my journey (helped by previous incarnations of this thread) into games that are actually fun.

The first thing to say about board games is that there’s this wonderful website called BoardGameGeek.com.
See how I didn’t make that site a link yet? There’s a reason for that. You can’t just go running there and expect things to just work out. The site is huge and daunting, and if you start buying the top rated games there you will very likely be quite disappointed. So consider this your introduction into what is possible in cardboard, and then only AFTER that you can go and make irresponsible financial decisions.

Oh, and I promise some Wil Wheaton! The famous superstar! It's a new age in cardboard, I'm telling you.

GREAT GAMES TO INTRODUCE TO JUST ABOUT ANYONE:

Settlers of Catan

Ah, the grandfather of what’s called the “euro-game”. Little direct confrontation, trading, grabbing valuable resources or positions before your opponent, a bit abstract, and you win by accumulating the most points. You accumulate and trade to get certain combinations of resources to get cities and roads. Your cities help you gather more resources. It’s a bit grey around the temples these days, but it has stood the test of time and one huge reason to include it here is that you may have already played it. If you want an expansion, get “Seafarers”.

Ticket to Ride

Quite possibly one of the best entry-level games. Draw cards into your hands, claim a route between two cities with your train cars by laying down same-color cards that match a route on the board. Simple, intuitive. Kids can grasp it, adults can play it more cut-throat and get into deeper strategies. Many versions have been made; they are pretty much all great, but check to see how many people can play. There’s also plenty of expansion maps, including a highly-rated Asia map for team play up to 6.

Dominion

This genre-defining game is played entirely with cards. Hey, I thought we were talking about board games! We are, shut up, it’s a problem of semantics, whatever. Anyway, in this game you build up your own personal deck by accumulating money cards (to buy things), action cards (to make cool stuff happen), and victory cards (which give you points but clog up your deck). Each game has different action cards to buy so every game is different. There are a TON of expansions; Intrigue and Prosperity are particularly popular. It plays fast, but some of the expansions slow it down a bit. Don’t buy Village.

Carcassonne

Another older game, which has aged well because of its short length and wide appeal. Pick up a tile, add it to the tiles already placed so that you match the road, castle, or field. You may optionally “claim” a road, castle, or field with one of your followers or “meeples”, which gives you points. A great, quick game for pretty much all ages, but it is especially good for a younger crowd.

Small World
As promised, Wil Wheaton! In this very spoiler! But if you let him out you'll have to say his name three times to put him back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9QtdiRJYro

Choose from the randomized races, spread out, hold key areas, gain points every round. Once you have extended as much as you can, put the race into decline (i.e. you can’t do anything with it but it still gives you points), and choose a new race. You get the good feeling from wiping someone out without as much of the hurt feelings, because they can just get a new race and ethnic-cleanse you in return. Popular, has a bunch of expansions.

REALLY GOOD TWO-PLAYER GAMES:

Twilight Struggle

Probably the best epic 2-player game. Epic because of its length and scope. Intensely confrontational without being a wargame. Imagine a game about the Cold War where the mechanics take, at face value, the rhetoric of both sides. In other words, it’s the USA versus the USSR, and all the other nations in the world are just pawns to be influenced one way or the other. Influence is what you “spend” every round, to control a nation or even cause an uprising in a less-stable nation. Influence tends spreads through a region like a virus. You can use an event card for the event (which is some historical event or concept), or use it for influence, or even put it towards the space race. The only possible downside is that it’s long for a 2-player game, so it is hard to introduce to a casual gaming group.

Memoir '44

This is simply the easiest introduction into a whole family of light wargames: Commands & Colors: Ancients, Commands & Colors: Napoleonics, BattleLore, BattleCry. Most can be played within an hour, but can feel suitable epic. The basic idea is that the battlefield is divided into a left, center, and right flank. You play a card that “orders” units in a flank (or flanks), which allows it to move and attack. You attack by rolling dice, which can cause hits or retreats. You win by wiping out a set number of units. A brilliant system that each game has a special “spin” on. Memoir is a bit simpler and has a very appealing theme. Ancients is also highly regarded here (and is my favorite), which has a priority on melee attacks and gives additional benefits if your units are lined up.

Summoner Wars

Think of this as some strange asymmetric chess variant where the pieces are cards. Each player chooses a faction, and your goal is to kill the enemy summoner. Your units are ranged or melee, and have different attack strengths, and different hit points. You attack with dice. You bring new units out of your hand onto the board if you can pay the cost in magic. You gain magic by killing units or by dumping cards from your hand. Each faction plays VERY differently, and in fact every single card has some special ability (like moving extra spaces or attacking in a different way). There are a TON of factions for this game -- I think 16 right now -- so there’s a lot of combinations to try.

Battle Line

This SOUNDS like another combat game, but it’s not. It’s an abstract game where you’ve got 9 flags in a row, and you take turns playing one card in front of a flag. You need a better “set” of three cards in front of a flag to “claim” that flag as yours. Get 5 total flags or 3 flags in a row to win. It’s a game where you’re working through the odds of finishing a “set”, against a bit of guessing as to what your opponent is holding onto in his hand.

Hive

This is an abstract game where the entire game is 22 hexagon pieces of bakelite. There’s not even a board. The pieces are bugs, each of which moves in a particular way. The winner is the one that surrounds the enemy queen. It looks pretty nice as the game plays itself out, too.

Lost Cities

Probably one of the best “husband and wife” games. You play cards, one at a time, in same-color and increasing-value stacks. The trick is that if you place even a single card down of a particular color, you need 20 points in that color to break even, so you can’t get too aggressive or you’ll end up deep in the hole. Also, your opponent can draw from the discard pile, and each color has its own discard pile, so you often have to hang onto cards you’ll never play yourself. Pretty good introduction game, too.

BIG-GROUP FUN:

Dixit

Wait, isn’t this a party game? Well, sort of. In this game everybody is given a hand of imaginative, surreal, and evocative cards. The active player puts a card face down, and give a phrase, word, or noise that goes with it. Everyone else ALSO puts in a card that best goes with that “clue”. They are mixed up, shown, and people get points for picking the active player’s card, or for getting people to choose their card. But if the clue is too obvious, the active player gets NO points. So there are serious demands made on the imagination of the players -- dull clues or simply half-hearted ones diminish the game experience. But knowing that caveat, it’s a GREAT game.

Citadels

Straight-forward, almost bare-bones social game that is also great and plays up to 8. Pass around the role cards, pick one secretly, the king calls out the roles in order. A good way to introduce the “social” type of board games.

7 Wonders

VERY popular game these-a-days for a group of up to 7. You build up a civilization, which really just means you play cards that produce some product, or provide military strength, or give you points directly, or improves your science. So multiple win paths, which is always cool. Each player has a hand, but you only play ONE card before passing your hand to the adjacent player. You can also trade with your neighbors, so overall you are VERY interested in what other players are doing, and often have to change your strategy to thwart theirs. Highly recommended by this thread.

EPIC IN SCOPE/LENGTH/THEME:

Twilight Imperium

Ah, the game that defines epic space expansion and warfare. In a nutshell, the hex-based “board” is made up of planetary systems, which can be conquered. You “spend” command tokens to activate a system and move stuff there or build stuff. Then there’s technology research, trading, dice-based warfare, secret objectives, phase selection, a hand of action cards,... and on and on. Pretty intense. Pretty long. But there’s something about the theme that makes it almost irresistible. Read up on it. It should be mentioned here that there is a potential alternative: Eclipse. It came out last year to huge hype, plays in a fraction of the time, and yet still has stuff like designing your own spacecraft blueprints. So it might scratch that itch, but there’s truly nothing quite like an all-day session of Twilight Imperium.

Arkham Horror

In many ways this is on the other end of the spectrum from the sterile spaceships, planet-conquering, and mechanic-centricity of Twilight Imperium. This game is all about the atmosphere, and trying to hold it together while you avoid being devoured by nameless horrors. Those horrors are of the Lovecraftian kind, and the rulebook kind. Seriously, the FAQ has its own FAQ. But if you can pierce through the “rule crust” into the pulsing black heart of the game, you’ll probably... uh... go insane. But madmen are often happy, right?

Risk: Legacy

This has consistently been one of the most-talked-about games since it came out. If you haven’t heard about it, you must have been under a rock, but I’ll humor you anyway. It’s a streamlined version of Risk with a huge twist -- after each game you will permanently alter the board (naming a continent, adding a city), the cards (ripping up(!) one of them), and/or the rule book itself. It comes with packets that you will open after meeting certain criteria. It’s meant to be played over 15 games with the same group of people, producing a totally unique map which is also a testament to how all the games played out. Not all groups can make this kind of commitment, but we can dream, can’t we?

And here are some common board game categories, and some representative games for each:

DECK-BUILDING:

Dominion -- (mentioned above)

Thunderstone (Advance)

This was the next big game after Dominion that used the same mechanic, but it has a real theme! It’s a dungeon crawl. Wait, what? No, seriously! The basic idea is that you alternate between buying adventurers and weapons and stuff in the village to improve your deck, and then trying to defeat monsters in the dungeon, which also get added to your deck, giving you points and other benefits. Has a ton of expansions. There’s a new version of this called “Thunderstone Advance” that is probably your best choice if you’re starting off.

Quarriors

Dice. Lots of dice. Cool dice. You roll dice and buy things with... ugh... “quiddity” shown on them. You buy monsters that attack other players’ monsters. Doesn’t have a lot of depth, especially when compared to other games with this mechanic (I would lean towards calling it filler), but it’s flashy and quick and good for getting an “Oh, cool!” out of people you introduce it to. There are some officially-sanctioned variants out there, if you want to mix up the gameplay, and will supposedly get added to the next expansions.

ECONOMY:

Power Grid

A meaty, polished, economic game. Buy a network of cities, bid on power plants to power those cities, profit. You need to supply your power plants with resources (oil, nuclear, etc), but the cost of a resource goes up if everybody needs it. There’s math. LOTS of math. There’s also a bit of fiddling as you decide the turn order (and whether you’re going through it forwards or backwards), refilling resources, knowing when to go to “Step 2/3”, and so on. So not really an introductory-level game, but very satisfying.

Race for the Galaxy

Card-based space-exploration/conquest economic game, though the theme isn’t very strong. Players choose a phase simultaneously, and the only phases in the round are the ones that players picked. Has a pretty dense iconography, making it a bit daunting for new players, but it allows for a fleshed-out and satisfying game with multiple paths to victory. Low player interaction. Has a bunch of expansions; I suggest the first one (Gathering Storm), as it improves the base game and adds some optional goals to provide a focus for new players. Good with two players, also.

HIDDEN TRAITOR:

The Resistance

You ever play mafia or werewolf? Some smart guy boiled it down into a 5-10 player game that can be played in 30 minutes. Every round someone becomes the leader, who then chooses a team for a mission. Each person on the team secretly contribute a “pass” or “fail” card for that mission. Since there are spies, some missions are going to fail. Incriminations will fall like the rain on the moor. Best 3 out of 5 missions. An elegant and tense social game, but like all social games it is somewhat dependent on the group. Quick enough for multiple games (which will often be stridently demanded).

Battlestar Galactica

In the description for The Resistance, I called it “tense”. Battestar Galactica redefines the term into something devastating. It’s a game with a strong theme from the TV series, but the game is good enough to be fully enjoyed by people who have who have never seen the show. The goal is to get to Earth, but the ship is faced with environmental threats in deep space, hostile Cylon warships, and internal Cylon traitors. Each player has a hand of cards that is used to meet (or sabotage) these threats. The basic flow is “Jump into terrible location, deal with terrible event after terrible event, deal with an increasingly terrible Cylon armada, and then jump again... if anybody is still alive”. Popular here on the forums as PbP.

ABSTRACT:

Ingenious

Great, intuitive abstract that scales well from 2-4. Place a tile on the hexagonal board to score points for matching icons. You need to score well in EVERY icon type, because only your WORST icon score is your actual score. Get it? Part of the appeal of this game is the excellent component quality. Chunky plastic tiles, fabric bag, and solid cardboard.

Blokus

A more confrontational abstract, where you simply need to get as many of your pieces on the board as possible. Anything not placed counts against you. Blocking others is inevitable but still tricky. Simple enough for young players. A possible downside is that it is really best with 4 players. For a slightly more flexible (in terms of players) and forgiving variant, try Blokus Trigon. But my wife swears by the original.

Qwirkle

This has been described as “Scrabble without letters”, because of the way in which you lay down a group of tiles and connect to other groups. Has a mix of luck and strategy that makes it another good introduction game. Another game with really good components.

Hive -- (mentioned above)

WORKER-PLACEMENT:

Kingsburg

A pretty and fairly light dice-driven euro. Roll dice, place dice, manipulate dice. Build buildings and reap the rewards. Fairly high amounts of interaction. You’re fighting over resources, but at the end of every round you fight off a growing Horde. Each phase has lots of interesting choices. Has some catch-up mechanics too, making it fairly easy to introduce to new players.

Agricola

Farming-themed game of resource management. Sound exciting? It is! You struggle just to get your family fed, and yet you also need to scrabble for resources to improve your farm. One of the most satisfying things is upgrading your wood hut to stone. Quite possibly the easiest euro to teach, simply because the theme is so immediately understandable, and the turns are quick, and because at the end of the game, even if you lose, you can admire and show off the farm you made. So I would call it a good introduction to the longer euro games.

Puerto Rico

The premier euro game. Shoot, the premier board game. Rich, deep, and meaty. Grow crops, sell them, buy buildings which give you abilities and benefits, and you need laborers for all this stuff as well. You choose a role which helps you in some way every round. High player interaction. For such a deep game, it’s not actually that difficult to teach to new players, but there can be a big gulf in player skill. Some people who have played this forever can be a bit hostile to newbies, but that is NOT true of the people in this thread, that I’ve seen. Playable online -- many people here will help you get started if you ask.

NEGOTIATION:

Cosmic Encounter

A strange entry into this genre, but this is a difficult-to-classify and yet really good group game that I must mention. In this game each player has 5 planets and 20 ships, and to win they need to get at least one ship (a "colony") on 5 foreign worlds. Each player also gets an alien power, and some of them are absurdly powerful and unfair. But that just means that they will find everyone teaming up against them. You don't choose who to attack (the destiny deck decides that), but you CAN choose who to ally with. So it takes the fangs out of the confrontation, and fewer people get their feelings hurt. It's very much a social game that can be played as friendly or as back-stabby as the group wishes. It's not TOO serious or strategic, so it might not be the best for your hardcore wargame group, but it is a lighter game that has aged amazingly well.

Game of Thrones

I LOVE that I'm putting this game after Cosmic Encounter. They could not be more different in tone. CE is ponies and rainbows, and this one is flint knives and broken glass. In other games there is a back-stab mechanic -- in this game it is the driving force of the game. This is because you have your territory to defend, but you simply can’t defend against all threats. You place order tokens face down into different regions on the board, allowing for a surprise on the reveal phase. And even after you reveal, you have opportunities for deception (for example, promising to help defend but then you join the attack). Here’s a bible verse: “Behold, you are trusting in Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it.” Except that EVERYBODY is Egypt, including you. As soon as you reeeeally need someone to support you (or vice versa), that's when they will invade your unprotected flank, undoing what it took you half the game to build up. There seems to be some common sentiments that this is the kind of game where you can’t WAIT to play again... and also where you FEAR playing it again.

jergarmar

DEXTERITY:

Crokinole

Dexterity games are not mentioned much here, but they are still worth a look. Crokinole is a classic where the gameplay revolves around flicking disks into certain areas of a circular board. It’s also about letting your teammates down, after being set up for the perfect shot. This is an expensive game, but it can also be a beautiful conversation-starting display game.

Sorry! Sliders

This is a cheap, readily available dexterity game that kids seem to love. You slide pieces down a track to score points on a concentric-ring target. The track can be made longer for a more “adult” difficulty.

Pitchcar

A modern dexterity classic where you race around a track by flicking your car. There’s also a version of Sorry! Sliders (Cars 2?) with this mechanic that might be easier to find.

Catacombs

A newer dexterity game with a dungeon-crawl twist. You flick your heroes (or monsters) against the enemy to score “hits”. Some characters are ranged and have little discs to fire, also.

COOPERATIVE:

Pandemic

This is the most “mainline” of a group of games with similar mechanics. The others are Forbidden Island (search for treasure theme, a bit easier) and Defenders of the Realm (fantasy theme, a bit more involved). You play cooperatively against the game, needed to coordinate and combine your special abilities in order not to die horribly. In Pandemic the theme is fighting disease outbreaks all over the world.

Space Alert

In the “Pandemic family” of games, one criticism is that one knowledgeable player can power-game and boss the other players around. Space Alert seeks to solve this problem. You actually play a track off of a CD, which will give you a certain amount of time to meet each threat. You play cards to “go to this room, press this button” to deal with the threat. After the mission track is over, you go through everyone’s cards and determine whether you succeeded, or (much more likely) you determine which threat caused everyone to die a gruesome death. Super cool but also a much more intense and stressful games than some people enjoy. But those people don’t deserve to be your friends, now, do they?

AREA CONTROL:

El Grande

An older euro game, but the daddy of all area control games, and still very highly regarded. There are different event cards which drive the action every round. You play knights into regions adjacent to the movable “king” figure. You score points in a region by having more knights than the others. A bit abstract but still pretty approachable.

Chaos in the Old World

Area control meets Warhammer 40K chaos gods. Not exactly child-safe content (“Rain of Pus”, et al), but a strong theme meeting a solid euro mechanic. Encourages some deliciously evil role-playing and temporary alliances. The characters play out VERY differently in how they score points and manage their hand -- kudos for the (mostly) balanced asymmetrical play. Popular here as PbP.

Age of Empires III: Age of Discovery

A bit of genre-crossing while colonizing the new world. You place colonists to establish control of an area, but you’re also putting down buildings to get benefits and points, and doing some worker-placement to make stuff happen. “Stuff” can be over-generalized as discovery, trading, and colonizing, each of which is a valid path to victory. A nice way to scratch that civilization-building itch in just a couple of hours.

RACING:

RoboRally

Programmable robots! You choose 5 instruction cards out of your hand to move your robot on a board filled with hazards. Cards are revealed simultaneously, keeping the action moving along. You need to land on flags in order, which are scattered across the board. If you bump another robot, that robot continues its instructions for that round, potentially driving it into a pit or missing the flag. Hugely customizable -- it’s almost a game system in its own right, allowing and encouraging variants like “blocker” robots and team-based capture-the-flag.

Formula D

An attractive Formula 1 racing game. There are some flaws here, such as a runaway-leader problem and player elimination, but it plays quickly so it doesn’t matter TOO much. You want to get into the higher gears to move faster, but it has a contrary push-your-luck mechanic in that you have to stop X number of times in a corner. It also has drafting, customizable car stats, and fiery crashes. It plays a LOT of people, too -- up to 10.

TACTICAL MINIATURES

Earth Reborn

This game looks like it fell out of the 80's. Tongue-in-cheek post-apocalyptic mechs vs zombies. Not hugely popular, but those that play it love it to death. Part of that is because of the highly-regarded combat system, which works with your icon-dense character card to produce a fairly intuitive system. Has initiative bidding for things like LOS opportunity attacks. Also has a modular board which can be set up according to the standard missions, or you can create a new one with the mission-generating rules. The mission system can have things like switches, searching for loot, and torture. You heard me. Ramping up to the "full game" requires playing through some introductory missions, so there's a time investment required to really crack that shell.

Super Dungeon Explore

Some games here remind one of a video game (i.e. space exploration --> Masters of Orion); this game tries to evoke something like Gauntlet in a more direct way. Anime-style characters, monster spawning portals, light hack-n-slash gameplay, and really really impressive miniatures. But there's the rub -- you have to put the darn things together, and it is NOT trivial. But once you're done, you'll have something that turns heads when you bring it out.

FILLER:

No Thanks

Simple, light bidding (or perhaps anti-bidding) game that everybody enjoys. Each player is given chips, which give them the ability to "pass" and avoid taking a card. The chips build up on the card until somebody takes it. Plays in 20 minutes, tops.

For Sale

Simple auction game that everybody likes. In the first phase you bid on properties ranging from cardboard box to space station. In the second phase you blind bid properties to get checks. Count up the checks at the end and the person with the most money wins.

Yomi

Brilliant little game based on rock-paper-scissors. How is that fun? Well, it’s a fighting game, where attacks beat throws which beat blocks which beat attacks. You defeat other players by playing attacks, but blocks let you draw more cards and throws leave you “knocked down” and easier to attack. So the value of each move changes from round to round, and then you try to out-guess your opponent based on his situation. There are attack chains and special moves, too. Each deck is a different character, each of which has different strengths and special abilities.

good places to find out more about games:
-- BoardGameGeek
-- The Dice Tower (also has The Dice Tower podcast)
-- Shut Up and Sit Down
-- Critical Failures PbP Gaming Index

And finally, here are some previous incarnations of this thread (newest to oldest):
-- Risk Legacy is Neat...
-- Space Alert Owns...
-- Citadels For > 5 People...

jergarmar

Okay, here's the new OP. It's kind of ugly, but I hope it provides some kind of overview. Feedback is welcome.

I'm also consolidating my edits below, instead of replying over and over:

-- How the crap do you embed YouTube videos? I fail at OP.
-- Yay! YouTube embedded. I must have been brain-dead while trying to get this up last night. More pictures up. Also, added a mention of Blokus Trigon.
-- Fixed the Kingsburg pic.
-- Oh crud! I didn't even provide links to earlier versions of this thread. I apologize. I'll get those up tonight.
-- Moving stuff around. Moved "Big Group" section into top section, since it's a common request alongside 2-player games. Moved Cosmic Encounter there also.
-- Added pictures to some of the 2nd post, added blurb for Earth Reborn.
-- Added all pictures! Added blurb for Super Dungeon Explore. Moved stuff around again.
-- Created "negotiation" section. Added links at the bottom for old versions of the thread.

Belfast

jergarmar wrote: »

EDIT: How the crap do you embed YouTube videos? I fail at OP.

Don't you just post the full youtube link? Seems to work in the Preview.

Also: YAY! Board Games! I definitely need to try my hand at more than just Fantasy Flight Games games.

The Mantiz

jergarmar wrote: »

post reserved

EDIT: How the crap do you embed YouTube videos? I fail at OP.

It happens automatically when you post a normal youtube-link. Just paste it directly into the OP without making it an active link, and without using the short youtube-links, and it should work.

On Topic: Yay, new boardgame thread. My group just ordered Lords of Waterdeep, and I'm really looking forward to trying it, after all the talk about it in the previous thread.

Darian

Instead of vanilla Blokus I prefer and almost always recommend Blokus Trigon, which uses triangles instead of squares, is more difficult to get completely blocked out of an area, and plays just fine with 2, 3, or 4 (2p each takes two colors; for 3p the outer ring of triangles is out of play).

Lind

Junta is a pretty awesome game if you like to backstab your friends, and lets be honest here - who doesnt

Joe Dizzy

I've always felt that Junta is far less contentious in play than most other backstab-games. Every time I've played Junta people were laughing, putting on silly voices and joking. By the time we wrapped up the game itself nobody really cared as to who had won. It'll always have a special place on my shelf because of those sessions.

In comparison, games like Diplomacy or Game of Thrones are much more likely to create tensions and angry outbursts.

Bear is Driving

OP, you had me at Battle Line.

I don't know if anyone else P500'd 1989 but they're doing a little contest on BGG for a set of those custom dice that one custom dice guy makes and they look pretty nice. The rules are post in this thread boardgamegeek.com/thread/797172/1989-custom-dice-giveaway and then record a play once you have the game. I've yet to receive my shipment notification but that's likely because I'm in Canada and they're doing their domestic orders first (at least that's what I think is happening because only Americans are posting that they've gotten notification so far).

Pictures of said dice from another thread:





The dice guy does sets for Twilight Struggle and Labyrinth as well. I need to remember to pay attention for when he does an order because they're not badly priced for the character they add to the games.

Burtletoy

You img tag is broken for the Kingsburg spoiler

ArcticLancer

Bear is Driving wrote: »

I don't know if anyone else P500'd 1989 but they're doing a little contest on BGG for a set of those custom dice that one custom dice guy makes and they look pretty nice. The rules are post in this thread boardgamegeek.com/thread/797172/1989-custom-dice-giveaway and then record a play once you have the game. I've yet to receive my shipment notification but that's likely because I'm in Canada and they're doing their domestic orders first (at least that's what I think is happening because only Americans are posting that they've gotten notification so far).

Pictures of said dice from another thread:





The dice guy does sets for Twilight Struggle and Labyrinth as well. I need to remember to pay attention for when he does an order because they're not badly priced for the character they add to the games.

As an owner of Twilight Struggle, Labyrinth, and (soon) 1989, it makes me no end of sad that I have acquired none of these custom dice. I would love to enter this contest, but I know that I won't get to play 1989 any time soon after I acquire it ... I should subscribe to that guy to see if he ever puts up more orders.

Custom Special

Burtletoy wrote: »

You img tag is broken for the Kingsburg spoiler

Beat'd...

You need a ] after the first img tag. Very nice work, though.

PMAvers

Oh, hey, a rulebook for Courtier, the first in the Tempest line.

jergarmar

Bear is Driving wrote: »

OP, you had me at Battle Line.

I don't know if anyone else P500'd 1989 but they're doing a little contest on BGG for a set of those custom dice that one custom dice guy makes and they look pretty nice. The rules are post in this thread boardgamegeek.com/thread/797172/1989-custom-dice-giveaway and then record a play once you have the game. I've yet to receive my shipment notification but that's likely because I'm in Canada and they're doing their domestic orders first (at least that's what I think is happening because only Americans are posting that they've gotten notification so far).

Pictures of said dice from another thread:





The dice guy does sets for Twilight Struggle and Labyrinth as well. I need to remember to pay attention for when he does an order because they're not badly priced for the character they add to the games.

BiD, I have a feeling that our tastes are very, very similar. Do you have a BGG presence?

Tayrun

I feel like Eclipse got short-changed in the OP.

It deserves more than to be mentioned as "an alternative to TI".

jergarmar

Tayrun wrote: »

I feel like Eclipse got short-changed in the OP.

It deserves more than to be mentioned as "an alternative to TI".

Hm. Maybe I should just add a "space exploration and conquest" section and put Eclipse, Cosmic Encounter, and Core Worlds (or something) in there.

Oh, and don't take my categories too seriously -- they're clearly a bit arbitrary.

Tayrun

Actually I'd be tempted to make an Empire-buildy limited-action-selection section for TI, Eclipse and Dominant Species. Maybe Through the Ages too.

Bear is Driving

jergarmar wrote: »

BiD, I have a feeling that our tastes are very, very similar. Do you have a BGG presence?

It's here but in a very fledgling state.

I was in school until last year so I never had money or time to indulge in much board gaming but I lurked the hell out of that place without an account forever. Now, though, I have both money and time and BGG is super useful for keeping track of my wishlist and (too rapidly) growing collection.

tzeentchling

Actually a very informative, useful starting post! Proud to own most of the flagship games. Might Fluxx merit a mention in Filler? Technically a card game, but kind of a board game style. Same with Guillotine, which is immensely popular in my area and super fun for an introduction game.

blahmcblah

Hooray, new thread! Now I can feel less awful about being 1000+ posts behind in the last one.

admanb

I think I want to get Catacombs.

Gandalf_the_Crazed

Holy shit, dat OP. :^:

AaronKI

Has anyone played Stratego since getting into designer board games? Is it still enjoyable, or does it fall in with Monopoly?

Every time I mention my new obsession to my dad, he mentions that he used to like Stratego as a kid. Since most of my games are of a theme he doesn't really care for (fantasy and/or roleplaying), I was considering picking up one of the Vintage/Nostalgia printings of it sometime in the future. I'm a sucker for those wood boxes, even if they result in strange tri-fold boards.

Darian

Stratego is still good; the better modern implementation of the concept is "Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation"
Plays a bit quicker, with asymmetric forces representing the fellowship v. the forces of Sauron.

AaronKI

You're trying to attack my wooden box weakness, aren't you?

It was working until I realized that was a custom set. :P

jabrams007

I wrote this in the previous thread, which I now realize is dead, so I thought I'd repost it here.

Overall, great job on the OP, just have a couple thoughts:

Power Grid is not a "route-building" game. It is more of an auction/resource management game. You don't have to connect your cities to each other. Yes, it's certainly helpful if you cluster your cities, but in no way is it a "route-building" game like Ticket To Ride or other train games. To say that Power Grid is a "route-building" game is to say that Settlers of Catan is a "route-building" game because you connect your settlements/cities with roads.

Additionally, your "Euro-style" category is really a "worker-placement" category, with the exception of Race for the Galaxy, which is a "card based economy game." Race for the Galaxy shouldn't be in any category with Kingsburg, Agricola, and Puerto Rico (all worker placement games), with the possible exception that none of those games are "Ameritrash" (I hate that term).

ArcticLancer

Check it out! I realized I own more games than I felt like I did ...
Took a picture for friends after remarking as such:

sartori

Surprised Power Grid isn't in the Euro section, but I guess there is only so much room. I know rankings aren't everything, but it is in the top 10. My group loves it, and we play it at least once a month or so. It's always funny to see uranium become dirt cheap while everyone fights over coal/oil.

boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2651/power-grid

Tayrun

Arctic what's the big grey box just to the right of the centre?

Hensler

Awesome job, jergarmar!

jergarmar

Whoa, more nice comments about the OP than I was expecting. Yeah, I kind of grouped them haphazardly until I could get it all down and see the big picture. The "Euro-game" section makes no sense. Changing it to "worker placement" and moving out RFtG is a great idea. The "Route Building" section also makes no sense. I'll think about what to replace it with. I like Tayrun's idea of an "Empire Building" section. I also need to get the 2nd half of the pictures added. Stay tuned!

Magic Pink

Tayrun wrote: »

Arctic what's the big grey box just to the right of the centre?

That's Antiquity. And I have him beat by about ten fold. :P

ArcticLancer

Pink has it right. That's my very cherished copy of Antiquity.

As for beating me 10 fold, I assure you it's no contest. ;P I'm actually striving to keep my game count low so as to make sure the physical size doesn't get out of hand. That's why I keep regularly participating in math trades. 30 is as high as I want to go, but by the time 1989 and Virgin Queen come in, I'll be at 35. And that isn't counting some of my kickstarter items that are still in production ...
So, something's gotta give, here. And I think it's that I'll have to start cutting games that I actually like, but are not my favourites. Alas ...

Alistair Hutton

Magic Pink wrote: »

Tayrun wrote: »

Arctic what's the big grey box just to the right of the centre?

That's Antiquity. And I have him beat by about ten fold. :P

Yeah, I don't understand how someone can survive with so few board games. I bet he's played them all too.

ArcticLancer

Alistair Hutton wrote: »

Magic Pink wrote: »

Tayrun wrote: »

Arctic what's the big grey box just to the right of the centre?

That's Antiquity. And I have him beat by about ten fold. :P

Yeah, I don't understand how someone can survive with so few board games. I bet he's played them all too.

Have not!
I mean, that's even barring the fact that 3 of them arrived in the last 2 days from a math trade ...

JonBob

Maybe we should compile links to BGG collection pages too? It would be cool if we could use the BGG tools to come up with lists of the most-owned games among us, and stuff like that.

In other news, just clicked "Go" on my first prototype from The Game Crafter. The wait for them to print and mail it is going to be painful... I can't wait to playtest with real components instead of index cards.

Namrok

Man, I need to sell some of my games. The games I don't want but can't trade are piling up. Just can't get rid of Warhammer: Invasion, Cyclades or Battles of Westeros no matter how hard I try.

Hensler

Namrok wrote: »

Man, I need to sell some of my games. The games I don't want but can't trade are piling up. Just can't get rid of Warhammer: Invasion, Cyclades or Battles of Westeros no matter how hard I try.

Try trading them on BGG. That always makes it easier for me if I know I'm getting something cool in exchange for giving one up.

Namrok

Been trying. And to be honest, I've impulse bought too many games and am quickly running out of space. It's time to downsize, and not just trade.

ArcticLancer

I'm honestly surprised ... How big of a W:I collection is it? That math trade I was just in had two copies (mine and 1 other) each with a bunch of expansions. They both traded (I let mine go for both the new Batman games for the 360 - don't remember what the other guy got), so it seems like the game should move ... Anything you've been trying to get for it?
And Cyclades won't go either? That seems extra strange with the expansion having just come out ...

Maybe try throwing them up on the BGG marketplace? I've been considering getting into that myself.

Joe Dizzy

Namrok wrote: »

Man, I need to sell some of my games. The games I don't want but can't trade are piling up. Just can't get rid of Warhammer: Invasion, Cyclades or Battles of Westeros no matter how hard I try.

You're not in Europe, are you? I'd take Cyclades off your hands, if you were.