What boardgames did you just play?

Pandemic - Likely the most-played co-op by boardgamers at the moment, aside from Descent. You and your co-players scurry all over the globe treating diseases, erecting research labs, raging at yet another Epidemic card that throws all the monkey wrenches in the works. My brother and I have lost twice now to Easy Mode. The second time we were this close to curing the fourth disease when we ran out of player cards and time. A nice, tight little design that's still flexible enough for future expansions. The best part is that losing will make you mad enough to try to beat it.
 
Agricola (beginner's variant) - Good gravy, that's a lot of wooden pieces. You and your opponents are constantly choosing from a menu of items that will add to your farmland. Anything not chosen remains for the next round. In a two-player game, this means that there might be atrociously-sized piles of goods that are just waiting for someone to pick them up. Will you take them all? Or maybe you should get the food from the fishing pond. Or maybe you should pick up another improvement. Or maybe you should get some more boars. Whatever you do, you deny the other players the chance to do that action that round, so make it snappy.

Oh, by the way, there are only fourteen rounds! And you better have a little of everything or you lose points. Whoooa. And we haven't played with the full game yet, which lets you play with cards that give you small power-ups.

Good gravy, there are a lot of wooden pieces.
 
Hot diggity, I forgot about 'dis thread.

So I've played...

Battlestar Galactica - Two great rounds, first time I was a second-half cylon Baltar that was able to blow up the ship with my reveal power. Came out of nowhere to cut the game short. We had a first turn admiral cylon that was picking short jumps but was able to capitalize on some confusion with a rapidly shifting presidency to stay secret. Second time I played as Dualla and helped the humans along to a victory, surviving another admiral cylon (Cain, who was playing loyal and picking good jumps because we had the destinations well-scouted, but was otherwise a bloodthirsty psychopath trying to execute people for morale hits).

Tammany Hall - I've played maybe three rounds of this recently, it's awesome. Fixing elections, slandering other politicians, running a machine in New York. I won twice up front, but lost narrowly to my Dad (it was a 30-28 game with others in the low 20s, I think) in a hard-fought game. I didn't win enough immigrant leaders early on and was struggling to get political favors until my catchup in the third and forth terms, but by then it was too late. Controlling the Italians in that game is pretty strong despite their low number.

Pathfinder - A few of my buddies got together to try the introductory adventure for D&D since they hadn't played before. I'm an old 2nd/3rd/3.5 vet, but I haven't played in years. We had some level-1 characters, fought some goblins and a spider, and were badly mangled by a dragon that fled after two rounds. I managed to waltz with style into two traps and had to burn all my spells healing (was the cleric, had a thieving rogue and a fighter too).

Paris Connection - This game is seriously underrated. It's a train game, but instead of having a particular color and maximizing your own points, every person can place trains of any color. Instead, you have a screen where you hide your "stocks" and your turn consists of either building a train line on the board or building your stock portfolio. Whoever has the most valuable portfolio at the end of the game wins. It's a wonderful idea with a really clean implementation, I like it.

Citadel - Yup, we played a round of Citadel, a role-selection card game. I overinvested in gold buildings so I kept trying to be king, and ended up spending my time getting assassinated. Another late-game comeback, but nowhere near enough to win.

Dominion - Did much better here. First game I played a Chapel-Feast (to get a Witch ASAP) strategy and just decimated the other players with curses. Second round, we took out the Witch so I went with Chapel-Silver, eventually building up a Village-Library-Woodcutter scheme with a few Markets because we didn't have optimal cards out. Still managed to eek out a 3ish point win.
 
I bow before the efficiency machine that is Chapel. I've never heard of Paris Connection before but it sounds mighty intriguing.
 
The place where I work has a board game library! It is actually just a couple of shelves in a hallway but you can fit a lot of good games on a couple shelves. I have been playing games regularly at lunch with a group of coworkers. Here are some of the games we play...

Favorites:
7 Wonders - This has replaced Dominion as my favorite game. I am very impressed with the game mechanics. Each turn everyone simultaneously picks a card to play from their hand then passes the hand to the next player. You have to make careful choices in what you play and need to pay attention to what your opponents are playing so you don't hand them something that will make them win. There is a lot more to it but I won't go into the details. Let me just say the way trading works and how your past choices can let you play future things for free is brilliant.
Pandemic - Best coop game. I have Forbidden Island at home but I like this one better. Great when you win and funny when you lose.

Fun once in a while:
Fluxx - A card game with an interesting concept: the rules and goals of the game constantly change. You begin with the basic rules, draw one card and play one card, and no goal. Some of the cards you play change the rules or the goal. However, the winner is mostly based off luck and I like things to be more skill.

Are we missing something?:
King of Tokyo - This game is highly rated on boardgamegeek but I don't like it. The theme is entertaining - you are giant monsters and robots battling over Tokyo. You have health, energy, and victory points, but it ultimately all boils down to rolling dice (think Yahtzee). There is a deck of power up cards to spend your energy on that seem like they would make the game more interesting, but the game always seems to end before anyone can make much use of those cards.

Too long for lunch:
Small World - We have tried to play this a few times during lunch but it is too long. Does seem like a lot of fun though. Hopefully someday I can complete an entire game of it.
 
Recently played Dominion and Small World.

Dominion was ok and i like the combos you can build up but it feels like your playing the deck and not the other players.

Really enjoyed Small World. I love that you get such a mix of races and specal abilities. I really like my flying wizards.

Oh yeah. Played some citadel too. Just didn't enjoy it. I think in general i prefer games with a physical board as the interaction between players is much higher.

Can any one recommend a good renaissance era game?
 
You should see Rosenburg's new game, Carvana. Agricola doesn't have many wooden pieces compared to that.

My brother will be pleased to hear that. He was actually gagging on the smell coming from Agricola's components. :lol:
 
Can any one recommend a good renaissance era game?

You just described 90% of Eurogames. Archipelago and Keyflower are both colonization games set in the Renaissance era. If you want to go all out (and I mean all out), look at Virgin Queen from GMT. It's designed by Ed Beach who did Civ 5's expansions.
 
I've played one round of Agricola, but it was the full game with role cards and I never figured out what I was doing. I think I also had a mad headache or was sick that day, it was awhile back. I ended up rotating farm animals through my house for entertainment value while the serious players fought it out.

I bow before the efficiency machine that is Chapel. I've never heard of Paris Connection before but it sounds mighty intriguing.

I play-tested the prerelease version called SNCF, you might have played that if you have access to Essen games. The game is a bit expensive because they decided to make little wooden locomotives instead of just using cubes, but I think it is well worth it. The game also plays through in a half hour or an hour, so it's a great wrap-up game or intermission between long ones.

The place where I work has a board game library! It is actually just a couple of shelves in a hallway but you can fit a lot of good games on a couple shelves. I have been playing games regularly at lunch with a group of coworkers. Here are some of the games we play...

Favorites:
7 Wonders - This has replaced Dominion as my favorite game. I am very impressed with the game mechanics. Each turn everyone simultaneously picks a card to play from their hand then passes the hand to the next player. You have to make careful choices in what you play and need to pay attention to what your opponents are playing so you don't hand them something that will make them win. There is a lot more to it but I won't go into the details. Let me just say the way trading works and how your past choices can let you play future things for free is brilliant.
Pandemic - Best coop game. I have Forbidden Island at home but I like this one better. Great when you win and funny when you lose.

Fun once in a while:
Fluxx - A card game with an interesting concept: the rules and goals of the game constantly change. You begin with the basic rules, draw one card and play one card, and no goal. Some of the cards you play change the rules or the goal. However, the winner is mostly based off luck and I like things to be more skill.

Are we missing something?:
King of Tokyo - This game is highly rated on boardgamegeek but I don't like it. The theme is entertaining - you are giant monsters and robots battling over Tokyo. You have health, energy, and victory points, but it ultimately all boils down to rolling dice (think Yahtzee). There is a deck of power up cards to spend your energy on that seem like they would make the game more interesting, but the game always seems to end before anyone can make much use of those cards.

Too long for lunch:
Small World - We have tried to play this a few times during lunch but it is too long. Does seem like a lot of fun though. Hopefully someday I can complete an entire game of it.

Small World is a great game for laughs, as is Pandemic (I talked about that one earlier in the thread, it's pretty good). I'm also new to 7 Wonders but I have enjoyed it the few times I have played. It might be a good one to buy next.

Recently played Dominion and Small World.

Dominion was ok and i like the combos you can build up but it feels like your playing the deck and not the other players.

Really enjoyed Small World. I love that you get such a mix of races and specal abilities. I really like my flying wizards.

Oh yeah. Played some citadel too. Just didn't enjoy it. I think in general i prefer games with a physical board as the interaction between players is much higher.

Can any one recommend a good renaissance era game?

Dominion varies in interaction based on what cards you have out. With cards like Militia, Bureaucrat, and Witch out simultaneously, there will be too much player interaction for comfort! In the expansions, you have stuff like the Masquerade and the Mountebank that just really amp up that factor as well.
 
I've played two games of Twilight Imperium over the past two months. Absolutely epic game, but it takes forever. Our last session ran 12 hours after two blocs of alliances formed and a Cold War ensued.

Also played the original iteration of Shogun/Samurai Swords/Ikusa. We played for 9 hours and no winner emerged.
 
Two huge games:

Power Grid: UK & Ireland/Second Power Plant Deck - Played this new board for the first time two days ago, it allows players to subvert blocking by setting up two networks (one in Ireland, one in the UK), and the final stage of the game occurs earlier because you put the step 3 card in the deck instead of at the bottom. It basically means the final turn resource crunch is a bit longer. Was strangled on coal by a rabid lunatic stockpiler the entire game (at one point, she unnecessarily bought up 6 coals, bringing her total resource cost to 72!), but managed to get the 3-ecological plant and the 8-nuclear plant and pull off a final two turn slingshot to 1st place. The auctions were amazing--I was able to bid everyone else up to 75-94 for their endgame plants while I slipped in for 50 at the end of the auction. It was a 17-17 city tie, and I won the cash tiebreaker 10-1.

Great Fire of London - Managed to pull off a 37-30-29-23 win against the family. I got lucky on the houses, there was a 10 point margin there, and also got the bucket for putting out the most fires (+2 points on top of the 8 or so fires I already put out). I bluffed on the first round, convincing the rest my objective was the Royal Exchange and after it burned two other players defended the Guild Hall in an alliance until the end of the game--I managed to pick up an extra 6 points there. With how trigger-happy the rest of the table was, that gave me a solid winning margin.

Oh. Mah. Gawd.

Awesome wins.
 
The group I'm in might be finally getting off the ground. At the coffee shop tonight we played:

Nations - Another civ game that mixes in some Agricola and ups the modularity. You buy buildings, military units, wonders, etc. on the main board and spend stone to place workers on your buildings. Every round an event card reveals a new challenge by which players are penalized should they fail to meet it. A round also ends once everyone has passed on an action. So in addition to the Agricola-like challenge of "what should I go for next and will someone else beat me to it," a round lasts as long as players want it to, which means there is a light tension that may have have you unnecessarily spending resources just to keep up.

It's definitely a good game. Like Agricola, there are several decks one can mix in to change the gameplay, as well as double-sided player mats to give different civs unique arrangements. In a way, it's sort of like Civ 5 minus the map (likely an improvement for many people); the difficulty levels are rather similar (Chieftain, Prince...). That doesn't mean I'm any good, though--my brother and I were trounced by our opponents. I think my mistake was going for the large military score when I didn't need to. That stalled my engine in gold and food, which doesn't help when rounds always end in a famine of random size.
 
I checked out Nations on BGG, never heard of it until now. I'm going to try and start going to the local board gaming club more often and see if they have a copy of it.
 
Tonight was a couple quick rounds of YINSH followed by Glen More. If Carcassonne is a gateway Euro, this is its nerdy older brother who has a math major. I dug this quite a bit. It's already unique for its rondel selection of resources -- all the resources are placed on a circular track. Whoever's piece is last gets to move anywhere ahead on the tile chain. Move too far ahead and you have to wait until everyone passes you before you can move...but what if that was a really good resource? You claim whatever resource you land on and fit it into your expanding Scottish village and forestry. It's actually quite a brain-burner trying to place tiles not only where they fit, but also to help activate neighboring tiles that have a meeple nearby. Then you have to move the meeples around so that you can place tiles in new areas... And best of all, you can score points with whiskey barrels!
 
I've been playing more games than I've had time to write about, apparently. :D

Lots of worker placements. :| My Spanish friend is drawn to Euros like moths to flame.

Yedo - Very similar to Lords of Waterdeep. A key difference lies in the auction for the main actions. The action phase lets you do the same things with less efficacy. Quinns hates this game but it seems all right so far. Maybe the stench of stale design will rise in later plays.

Alien Frontiers - This one is slow to start but really picks up once you know what you're doing. Like Quantum, you're using dice as playing pieces; unlike Quantum, this is...not Quantum. You roll dice and decide what you can do with the numbers, given certain areas can only accept certain values.

Descent 2nd Edition - I've done a couple day-long sessions. MUCH more streamlined than 1st edition, and that's a good thing. The smaller map pieces are less likely to eat your table and the focused objectives are less likely to eat your time. But both will be destroyed anyway should you choose to keep playing and buy more expansions. It's a great reason to end up in a regular gaming group: if someone else has the game, you don't have to buy it.

Archipelago - I bought this based on SU&SD's enthusiastic review and it does not disappoint. Think Catan if it had a long honeymoon with Civ 5: you get to explore new territory, set up nifty little towns, place your workers here and there. Even with my tortured rules explanation, my first session was very fun. The best part is how it comprises many aspects other games cover and fits them together in this thematic smorgasbord of opportunity. Even better, actually, is the loose structure that allows everyone to wheel and deal. And then there's the angry native population that everyone has to work together to quell, but then everyone's competing with each other, and the art design is well integrated, and the meeples, and how the economy is in crisis every round, and the single-player expansion so I can sit there by myself and--too much?

Shipyard - This would be a mundane worker placement were it not for its crazy obsession with rondel movement. It manages to solve a problem often seen in this type of game where there are so many options you end up losing your head. By mapping everything out with rondel movement, it's somehow more intuitive. And you get to build big ol' ships for points. Fun.
 
Been meaning to pick up both Descent and Archipelago. I always put off getting Descent because I don't have that many people to play boardgames with and... well... The prospect of 3021 expansions just makes me depressed.

Maniacal linked me to SU&SD's review of Tales of the Arabian Nights and I bought it instantly. It was a well done review with a strangely poignant ending.

We played it once last week, I wanna play it again. It's not really a game, more like a weird storytelling "let's laugh at what happens to us" sort of game. With a lot of randomness. But the amount of stuff that can happen is rather jarringly huge. We had a good time. The game probably appeals more to the crowd of people who also like table-top RPGs, those who play it to explore strange worlds and press buttons asking themselves "I wonder what'll happen" (so not so much for the min-maxers strategists RPG players who feed off the tables and the planning of the most powerful character).
 
I've played a few rounds of Battlestar Galactica plus the Pegasus Expansion since I wrote last. I've been human each time and the cylons have been whomping up. In the last game, we got hammered with three fleets that took out half of our civilian ships before the first jump, and our slingshot with Cain's blind jump failed in the worst possible way, losing more pop and only gaining a couple distance. Then the Cylon leader decided to just say eff it and screw trying to win, and became overtly hostile despite having a humans win mission.

We managed to get to distance 6, though, with all this against us.
 
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