What boardgames did you just play?

Yeah, I'd be wary about blocking off 6 hours for a boardgame off the cuff, but 2-3? That's nothing. If your friends are balking at that, they might need more time with gateway games before going deeper. Or they might not be boardgame types at all.

Nah, they're board game types. I've played Puerto Rico, Settlers of Catan, Pandemic, and Axis & Allies with them.

I actually did manage to convince one of my friends to play Twilight Struggle. It was a very confusing but enjoyable game that ended early; I think by Turn 4.

carmen510 said:

I haven't played it yet, but I have acquired a copy of Twilight Struggle: Deluxe Edition, a strategic two-player card game based on the Cold War. I really do want to try it out, but not many of my friends would be willing to play a two-player game for 2-3+ hours. Any idea on how to entice some of them into doing so?

Click to expand...

I've actually been really wanting to learn how to play that game. My gaming group has the opposite problem, though--we usually have between 4 and 8 players, which usually results in two 3-4 player games being played at once.

carmen510 said:

Nah, they're board game types. I've played Puerto Rico, Settlers of Catan, Pandemic, and Axis & Allies with them.

I actually did manage to convince one of my friends to play Twilight Struggle. It was a very confusing but enjoyable game that ended early; I think by Turn 4.

Click to expand...

Good god, that game takes ages. It's as bad as Diplomacy and the Civilization board game.

CivCube said:

Dominion - Oh dear. I might be addicted after one game. Dominion's all-too-easy ABC* deckbuilding mechanic allows you to try out new strategies on the fly, as well as eagerly anticipating what the next hand might bring. Once your deck is as fat as your fist, then the game picks up a ferocious pace, with everyone frantically throwing more amazing combos on the table to pick up more gold, more cards, and most importantly, more of those victory points. It's interesting to see the game start slow, as you sludge through the first few buy phases. Even so, the available supply you can purchase from can be customized with every game, making those expansions all the more enticing. I shudder to think of the day when I own them all.

*play an Action, Buy a new card, Clean up your hand

Click to expand...

It's a great game. I played it pretty often in late spring/early summer. I've recently started playing some of the expansions (though not all yet) - they certainly do add to the options, and give some different strategies. And I've barely scratched the surface of playing with cards from more than one set at a time.

For me, Dominion is more fun than Catan, basically for the reasons you say. Don't get me wrong; I don't turn down chances to play Catan. But there's something about the anticipation of being able to play that awesome combo you have planned in Dominion, hoping someone else doesn't foil your plan with a Militia.

Militia - King's Court - Masquerade (with any +card +action drawing machine) is a great one for messing up people's strategies.

Catan is probably my least favorite of the "new age" board games just because of the die-rolling mechanic and the length of the game. Maybe I just play with slow people that drag out negotiations.

Antilogic said:

I've actually been really wanting to learn how to play that game. My gaming group has the opposite problem, though--we usually have between 4 and 8 players, which usually results in two 3-4 player games being played at once.

Good god, that game takes ages. It's as bad as Diplomacy and the Civilization board game.

Click to expand...

I've been able to play with a bunch of people on Wargameroom. I've had to use Hamachi most of the time to connect to games or host games, but it is really a blast. The people on Wargameroom are usually quite experienced, but they are usually willing to give feedback.

As for Axis & Allies, we managed to finish one game on the "short" version in 7 hours (13 cities to capture instead of 15, for the Anniversary Edition). Another game we had to abandon, but it was heavily tilted in the Axis's favor as Japan had just swept out most of Asia & the Pacific and Germany had sunk the British navy with its air units.

Nice. I haven't gone to online boardgaming yet, but I think for a game with that many pieces it would be convenient to have a computer keep track of the stuff.

Dominion is my favorite game right now. It never seems to get old but the other games I own have gotten old and I don't feel like playing them as often as I used too. This includes Settlers of Catan with the Seafarers Expansion, Ticket to Ride Europe, and Forbidden Island. Clue is the only game I enjoy replaying as much as Dominion.

I have also played Thunderstone Advance a few times but I've decided Dominion is much better. Thunderstone is a deck-building game similar to Dominion but a game of it takes a lot longer than Dominion. The cards in Thunderstone don't seem as well balanced as Dominion and some seem completely useless compared to the others. The one thing Thunderstone has going for it is that it has a better theme than Dominion and more of a RPG feel. Another good thing (that I believe was introduced in an expansion) is rules for a coop variant of the game. Unless you really love the theme or coop variant then I recommend playing Dominion instead.

There are lots of board games out there I want to try sometime like 7 Wonders, Eclipse, Race for the Galaxy, Terra Mystica, etc... pretty much anything with a high ranking on BoardGameGeek.com

Dominion has its share of useless cards, like the Chancellor. I've recently been playing with the Dark Ages expansion and it is a lot of fun.

Seafarers is good for Catan, but my family's favorite expansion is Cities & Knights. The aggressive use of armies in the field to block roads and hold city sites is oft encouraged and dreaded.

Do computer imports of board games count? Just tried the new Space Hulk, which is almost wholly faithful to the latest edition of the board game (only exception I've found so far: in the board game you can use spare command points in the enemy's turn to move, not just to unjam weapons, but as far as I can tell you can only unjam weapons in this version, and that happens automatically).

Given that the last edition of Space Hulk was released as a limited edition for well over twice the price asked for the computer version, it's okay and has a multiplayer mode. Just as well since the AI seems woeful.

I'm moving in a couple of weeks and my new roommate has a stack of boardgames So stoked.

Antilogic said:

It's as bad as Diplomacy and the Civilization board game.

Click to expand...

Those are my two favourite board games.

Bowsling said:

Those are my two favourite board games.

Click to expand...

Which Civ board game? The one based on Civ3 was just way too long. The more recent one with Civ-Rev style graphics is long for one night, but isn't terrible. I still felt like there was too much going on for it to be a board game, though, and I would often forget to do something I really wanted to do on my turn.

I found Ticket to Ride: India for $30. Just had to brag about that before playing.

I play Avalon Hill Civilization, a board game that predated the computer game by a decade. It takes like eight players and twelves hours though, so opportunities to play come rarely.

Android: Netrunner - Oh yes. Oh yes. This is fun. As my brother's Shaper deck zoomed up against my Jinteki Corp's firewalls, I could almost hear the Daft Punk soundtrack. Why not, pop "Escape From New York" into the DVD player. This game sports a scrappy 80s/90s punk attitude and successfully uses its mechanics to ooze theme all over the table. I also like being able to collect every card for once instead of diving back decades to find cards like in Magic (which is why I never really started Magic). For now, anyway. Wave 2 is already upon us, so if you want the launch boosters, I'd buy them soon. Do it, this is a great game.

Ticket to Ride: India - This is perfect for two players. My brother and I naively started in the south, working our way up to the northern cities. Here's the thing: like India in real life, the middle is ridiculously crowded. There are lots of single-train routes and blocking opportunities here. I was feeling the heat within five turns. God only knows how stressful a five-player game must be. I ended up winning thanks to the Mandala bonus that stacks with every round-trip route you complete for your tickets, which have pitiful scores in comparison to regular Ticket to Ride. I'll probably play the Switzerland map (it's a double-sided board) sometime soon.

Ingenious - What can I say, I still enjoy this. It's good for a quick 15-minute filler session at lunch. As with several Knizia games, it's whether your lowest score is higher than everyone else's that matters. It's so easy to lose track of one color you really should be scoring more points on. My brother crowed at getting 18-scores for a couple colors, only to realize that my last-place orange was still one more than his last-place yellow. Smug, smug victory.

Through The Desert - A nice little introductory version of Go and one I've owned for a while. Create lengthy chains of pastel-colored camels all over a hex grid that's covered with water holes and palm tree oases. If you seal off an area with one caravan, and there aren't any camels inside, you score all the water holes and oases. Final scoring also considers the longest chain of any color; like Ingenious, you don't have to have a huge chain, it just needs to be slightly longer than other players'. It's fun. In hindsight, it's also a good appetizer for Tigris & Euphrates. While in Through The Desert you're not allowed to have your caravan link up with an opponent's caravan of the same color, T&E brings the hammer on your tiles with civilization-shattering consequences should your civ link up with an opponent's. Which ohhhh gooodddd I'm spending too much money on boardgames.

At the beach I played Monopoly, Risk, and Sequence with my family. I had a great time with all of them, but Risk was the most fun for me because of the strategy aspect.

You might be interested in this list, nerdfighter. http://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Board_Game_Gift_Guide_2010#

Might I also suggest Kemet? It's somewhat similar to Risk only it doesn't have dice-throwing. I admit I haven't played it yet but it sounds awesome.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/127023/kemet

Thanks for the list. I will definitely look into some of these games. And Kemet seems like a good suggestion, since sometimes the dice can screw up everything. In one game of Risk, I had six armies on two, and lost, subsequently costing me the game.

Ahhhh nails on chalkboard! Risk and Monopoly have almost nothing over German board games (Catan being the best example) in terms of accessibility and being good for kids and being simple. I you're really interested in full-out strategic, cutthroat games where players are eliminated you might as well play Avalon Hill's Diplomacy.