Gaming/ Board Games

[HAMMER FRENZY]

Just wanted to see if any other people here play board games. I have recently gotten back into them. I am not much into RPG gaming, but I used to play quite a bit of Werewolf, Rifts Etc. I play mostly boardgames now, and not many of them. Can anyone recommend any good ones? I currently am into Zombies!!!, Last Night on Earth, Tigris and Euphrates, Etc, but I have heard a lot of good things about Settlers of Catan, Twilight Imperium, Puerto Rico, Zombie Town, and stuff like that. I would really like to get into more board games cause my family seems to really enjoy it.

On another note, for anyone who plays Zombies!!!, I am making a fan made expansion with all kinds of cool stuff. That game is pretty cool mostly because you can edit it it and make all kinds of fun scenarios.   

[Yegolev]

If I were to get seriously started in board games, I'd start reading here: http://www.gamerdad.com/list.cfm?listID=columns&itemID=12

I'm not going to do that, though.  When I do play board games these days, it's because I have boardgame-playing friends and that's pretty much what we do.  Actually, we all dislike boardgames to varying degrees except the one woman.  Personally, I swore off of board games after the Monopoly Rampage of 1996.

[Chenghiz]

Twilight Imperium is good if you can get 4-6 players together and have a long (read: very long) time to play. Settlers of Catan is a fun strategy type game that I would recommend. Junta, if you can find it, is a pretty hilarious tongue in cheek game in which you attempt to embezzle as much money as you can from US funds for a third world country. A lot of the board games from Fantasy Flight are worth looking into though they are usually pretty involved.

[Venkman]

Settlers of Catan is definitely worth checking out. It even works for "the hardest game we play is Monopoly" crowd, sort of an evolutionary next step.

For the rest, sounds like you could benefit from a visit to Board Game Geek. Excellent repository, from Connect 4 to Die Macher.

[Hutch]

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico is a fabulous game. You'll need 3 to 5 players. The only random element is the order in which plantation tiles appear, everything else is player decision-making. Multiple strategies are viable. An experienced player among newbs will almost certainly win, but it only takes a few games to figure everything out, and each game only takes 60-90 minutes.

[WayAbvPar]

I wish I could get enough people together to play board games regularly. I would love to play some Trivial Pursuit, but no one in my family will play with me any more. I can't help it if my mind is chock full of useless information!

[HAMMER FRENZY]

Yeah I visit BGG a lot. I like that site. I would like to find a fun stat game that doesn't take a long time to play and is not way too involved. Zombies!!! goes off well in my house cause the boy enjoys it and the old lady doesn't mind a board game here and there. The game also has its strategy elements, albeit, somewhat limited elements. The game is fun and the game play elements we added actually make it funner than some of the other zombie /horror games out there. I have heard so much good stuff about Last Night on Earth, but from my experience it is super involved. There is an absurd amount of dice rolling and stat silliness. I do like the game length though. 1 hour to an hour and a half is a good length. Zombies!!! can take 2 to 3 hours if things get nasty or if there are many players. IF you add expansions it gets even sillier.

I really liked Tigris and Euphratis though. It was a really fun little game.

On the more common board game front, I really enjoy Scrabble and Pictionary and Risk. I am awful at Scrabble though. I am an illustrator/designer by trade, so Pictionary is freaking awesome for me. 

I almost forgot, I used to play Hero Quest like freaking CRAZY when I was a kid. My buddy had it and a bunch of expansions and we had a goddamn blast with that. I am sure it is not nearly as cool as I remember but I remember having a LOT of fun with it.

I have to admit though. I really do not like monopoly in the slightest.

[Nebu]

Games that I enjoy:

Robo Rally

Acquire

Squad Leader (plus expansions)

The board game version of Civilization can also be fun with the right people. 

[Yoru]

Gloom is a fun storytelling game, but you need a creatively-minded group to get the most out of it.

Power Grid is an awesome deterministic strategy game, there's very few random mechanics, so a thoughtful player can do very well here. It's about 1-3 hours per game, depending on how many players you have and how experienced they are (i.e. how often do you consult the rules).

Ticket to Ride is a fun, light game, but it's excessively random. There's some strategy, but not much. Better for more casual or younger players, but I still drag it out now and then.

NOTHING but NOTHING compares to Apples To Apples when you have a lot of liquor, some like-minded friends and time to burn.

[Phildo]

Oh, I'm sorry.  I thought this thread was about Board Games.  Here I was all set to talk about Scrabble and Sorry!, and you guys have to take it all the way out there!  =)

[stray]

Seriously..

[Yoru]

Perhaps we should make a Casual Boardgames thread for you then? 

[stray]

Just saying though... It's a little obscuro right now to be anything other than Serious Business.

[HAMMER FRENZY]

We can talk about any board games. Doesn't matter. I saw this game called Hero Scape at the target, last couple times I went. It was like a was strategy game but you can by extra units and it had characters from the future and past and ninjas and knights, all kinds of shit. It looked cool. It reminded me of this game I used to play when I was young. It had all these cool army units, it was orcs and trolls vs. humans and you played on this giant play mat and it had cannons and archers and all kinds of cool stuff. The little miniatures were pretty neat too. It was called Battlemasters, I played that and Hero Quest pretty often. Turns out that both those games were designed for Milton Bradley by Games Workshop and Steven Baker. That it was a stripped down version of War Hammer.

Apparently there was a sci-fi version of Hero Quest in the UK and Australia called Space Crusade. Man I would have loved to play that.

[murdoc]

Twilight Imperium is good if you can get 4-6 players together and have a long (read: very long) time to play. Settlers of Catan is a fun strategy type game that I would recommend. Junta, if you can find it, is a pretty hilarious tongue in cheek game in which you attempt to embezzle as much money as you can from US funds for a third world country. A lot of the board games from Fantasy Flight are worth looking into though they are usually pretty involved.

Twilight Imperium is awesome, but yes... you do need a long time to play it. Also, gets better each time you play it, especially if you have the same guys. First time we played it, we played it a bit like Risk, where we were going to war and trying to take over each others home planets constantly. Not the way to play, it's much more strategic than that, and once we figured that out, the game got MUCH better.

[ShenMolo]

Played Settlers of Catan last night...what a sweet game! Anyone tried any of the expansions?

[Cheddar]

Talisman.  Damn, I need to get another copy now!

[Murgos]

Just gonna throw out Axis and Allies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_and_allies.  It's sounds a bit more involved a game than what you're looking for but if you want something to involve people over a long weekend it's a good way to go.  I recall games taking 3-6 hours usually and, uh, much longer at times.

Also, Dark Tower was a childhood fav.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Tower_(game)

[Samwise]

Played Settlers of Catan last night...what a sweet game! Anyone tried any of the expansions?

Yes.  Be prepared to spend all day on one game if you try a few of those out.   

[Tarami]

http://www.boardgameswithscott.com/

Fantastic boardgame video reviewer.

Edit:
I think what I was trying to say was, "Settlers of Catan is okay, if you're looking for (other) great games, consult this guy."

[Falconeer]

Heh. Talisman. Goodness! I have both the 3rd edition and the 2nd (which I paid a fortune on ebay). Recently though I acquired Runebound which is a good, advanced version of it. More complicated, but cool. Plays (and sometimes grinds) like a C-RPG.

My favourite boardgame of the last 10 years though is A Game of Thrones, from the R.R. Martin novels. An incredibly cool Diplomacy on steroid. Two expansions have been released, and they are both great.

[Tarami]

I own Runebound, Talisman 2nd ed. and Prophecy, but I don't like either of them. It's like playing Freecell in a group. I really only take them out when someone wants to play a long, dull game which involves no planning further than "how to manage my frustration next time the game fucks me up the ass." 

Been playing alot of Stone Age lately myself. Not an awesome game, but it goes well with the ladies, maybe because it got cute components and theme. One of recent years' many, many worker placement games and kinda constructed in its feel but worth the buck if you're not looking at getting Agricola or Pillars of the Earth. Did I mention that the components are fantastic?

Oh, and Carolus Magnus! It's like El Grande's less famous brother, what's not to like?

[ShenMolo]

I love Axis & Allies, have played it for, what, 20 years?

As for Dark Tower, check my avatar 

Talisman? I'll have to check it out!

Anyone tried Agricola?

[rattran]

The Hills Rise Wild, Cults Across America, Arkham Horror, and various CheapAss Games are fun. Save Doctor Lucky, Kill Doctor Lucky, Lord of the Fries, and Devil Bunny Needs a Ham are the best or CheapAss.

[JWIV]

The current thing that has eaten my brain is Dominion which is a simply fantastic quick-playing game with some very nice CCG-esque mechanics to it. 

[Tarami]

Anyone tried Agricola?

Yes, it's a very good game with a very homely feel to it. It's about assigning workers (family members) to actions and gathering food, livestock and materials to keep your farm running and improving. It's quite daunting for a Eurogame though. Don't expect to really "get it" the first two or three times you play it, a reason why I only bring it out when I got a relatively hardcore group. Mostly good components, with a few practical flaws.

If you're looking for a slightly lighter game in the same vein that's almost as good, have a look at Pillars of the Earth (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/24480) or A Castle for All Seasons (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/38386). I prefer the former, though, because of the superior pacing.

[Strazos]

Sword and Skull is a decent pirate game, not excessively complicated, but there's PvP and with enough players it can be very interesting.

Loot is an amusing card-based game. Played it at work once, and it was fun enough.

Descent, and its expansions, can be tons of fun...IF you can put up with the set-up time, both before and during the game (certain things are not set up until players go into an area). Games can be very lengthy to play.

Heroscape can be a lot of fun, but also somewhat lengthy to play, especially setting up your "board." I like to play "random" teams, where you pick unit cards out of a pile to fit under a certain point cap. Playing faction teams can be cool as well, though some units are very OP.


EDIT: WTF, a Pillars of the Earth game? With an expansion? Does it relate back to the book at all, or is it simply using the name for recognition?

[IainC]

I was at a con fairly recently and picked up a bunch of games that were mostly hits rather than misses.

In descending order of fun-ness they were:

Robo Rally - really rewards sneakiness and planning under pressure.
My Dwarves Fly - kind of an odd card game by SJG and Steve Kovalic
Munchkin the Boardgame - a nice variant on the well known card game.
Space Pirate Amazon Ninja Catgirls - fun but not terribly deep.

HammerFrenzy; Space Crusade and Advanced Space Crusade were licenced games produced by Milton Bradley in the mid 90s. They were both quite fun and copies regularly surface on Ebay.

[Grimwell]

Played Settlers of Catan last night...what a sweet game! Anyone tried any of the expansions?

I do. Unless you are really going to try some odd variant, most of the expansions don't add much time to the game. 30 minutes perhaps. Going to six player does add time, just due to the number of folks trying to trade. The chaos is worth it.

[apocrypha]

Used to play lots of boardgames, most of which have already been mentioned here.

There's a LOTR boardgame that's great - the players play cooperatively against Sauron (effectively an NPC) and it becomes a game of judging when to use cards and getting through sticky situations. Great fun if everyone's drinking, but then most games are 

[Trippy]

Cosmic Encounter.

Used to play a lot of Civilization (not the computer game, the original board game) in high school but I think it's out of print here in the US now.

[Druzil]

Carcassonne - for those who like Catan, this is a really great game

Supremacy - if you like Risk, this is a world domination game where you either rule the economy or nuke the other players

Junta - A military game where each player takes one or more positions (army, air force, navy, president, etc.), players form alliances and throw coups. The goal is to try and stockpile the most money to win the game


I also fully support Talisman, though it's a big investment to get into with all the expansions and whatnot.

[Sky]

I co-designed a board game once. It was a school project, from the AWESOME (ok, hot) teacher who was subbing for our normal art teacher who was out on maternity leave. She asked us for suggestions and ours (my eventual singer and I) were album cover and board game. The album cover turned into our band.

Anyway, it was a victorian jungle safari game, with a bit of Indiana Jones. You have your character and some basic gear, you have to find the lost city of gold. But really, it was just trying to survive, I don't think anyone ever won the game. Kinda Lovecraft-eque. We had wandering monster tables, counter tiles, combat tables, all kinds of ripped off ideas. It was great, wish I still had it.

[Mrbloodworth]

I really wish i could find the original version of Hero's Quest (for a reasonable price) and the expansions.

[Numtini]

Any recommendations for games that are viable for two players?