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Fun Tabletop Games?
Mr. Ghost asks: "My friends and I have recently been in the market for a good new boardgame or other tabletop game. We have worked through the gamut of games like Axis & Allies, Supremacy, and War! Age of Imperialism. More recently we have been playing tile based games like Carcasonne and Settlers of Catan. I am looking for some suggestions on some new games we could get into."
Warhammer and Warhammer 40K are pretty fun. They do require a bit of a commitment though.
mod me down to hell if you will, but might I suggest you try an old and established game: the game of go
http://igs.joyjoy.net/
simple rules, yet computers have no chance against any decent human. addictive.
That game was introduced to me about 3 years ago and my now fiance and I play it whenever we have friends over. Since I live in lovely Florida, we had about a month off of work for all the hurricanes. I showed my folks how to play, now my family has been hooked.
Try getting one of the expansion, Knights of Cattan or Seafarers of Cattan.
Another good strategy game thats fairly quick is Sequence.
My son and I invent our own. The inventing process is at least 50% of the fun - and just occasionally, we come up with a really good one. For something totally off-the-wall, try 'Kniggits':
n ig gits
http://www.sjbaker.org/paper_and_pencil_games/k
(The URL is poorly chosen - it's not actually a paper and pencil game).
Gotta agree with the earlier post about the old Avalon Hill games - there were hundreds of them and 95% of them were really good. You should be able to find a zillion of them on eBay.
For something fairly simple, we've had a lot of fun with 'HeroScape' (from Milton Bradley) - but complexifying the game no end by adding our own rules. Also 'Pirates of the Spanish Main' from Wizkids (buy at least 10 packs to maximise the fun).
No list would be complete without mentioning Dungeons and Dragons - which is as much fun as the people you play it with - and is quite compatible with large quantities of alcohol.
www.sjbaker.org
Go is the most intense, addicting game I've ever played. Japanese rules are the rule-set we play by and it is amazing. If you have Mac OS X, check out Goban. For Linux, check out GNU Go. It is THE game.
Age of Renaissance is even better. Its like a improved version of Civilisation.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/26
http://www.ticket2ridegame.com, by Days of Wonder. We've been playing it at least once a day for the past month. Haven't worn it out from overuse yet.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
In Scotland Yard, one player takes the role of "Mr X" and attempts to evade the detectives. The playing area is a map of London, with routes marked in taxi, bus, underground, and ferry routes. Each player has a set of tickets they can use for each type of route. There are x of taxi tickets, y of bus tickets, and z of underground. Mr X is less limited. Mr X moves in secret, but every few turns, he must show himself.
I always liked this game, when I played it as a kid. As an adult, I found a copy of it in the game store. I told Chris, the owner, that I had played it as a kid, but forgotten about it. When I saw it on the shelf, I had to have it. It didn't matter that it cost around $30 at the time.
Chris informed me that this was a standard story. The game was rarely, if ever, advertised. Everyone who bought it did so because they had played it somewhere else, and found it hard to balk at the price. He said they had trouble keeping the game on the shelves. I believe it.
The beauty of the game is that every person who plays Mr X will do so differently. Inspectors are individuals. Every game is different, though the map stays the same.
Another favorite of mine is Empire Builder, but we're heading out to the truck stop for breakfast, so you'll have to do your own research on that one.
Visit Lockjaw's Lair. He won't bite.
Diplomoacy is a game of negotiation, with up to seven players controlling the seven empires in Europe in 1870. None are powerful enough to survive if others turn against them, so alliances are necessary. The game rules are relatively simple, so the game is all about intrigue: it's about the deals you make with the other players, and whether they believe they can trust you. In each round, players go off into corners or other rooms, negotiate, refuse to negotiate, make public gestures, make agreements (verbal or written, open or secret), keep or betray confidences, gether information, sound out rivals, and perform joint military planning. Then they hand the written orders (for their troops) to the adjudicator. All players moves (including any betrayals) are all revealed simultanously, and the outcomes of all movements or conflicts are resolved. No dice are used. Easily the best group board game I've ever played, because of its cleverly psychological nature. It inspired a Chess variant I once designed along similar lines.
I concur. This is easily the best boardgame that I've played. Even better than Machiavelli. Like Chess and Go and unlike Risk, there is no chance involved. However, success in Chess and Go is all about analytical skills, while Diplomacy balances the analytical skills with social skills. You have to have both to do well in this game. The strong social aspect of this game is also appealing to women, if you are looking for a co-ed type game.
Another nice aspect of this game is that every player is always in the game. You still have the opportunity to come back and win even when on the verge of elimination. Few games offer this opportunity: usually in other games, once you've dug your hole at the beginning, it is very difficult to get out.
This game should be a standard part of history and social studies courses. It would result in a better educated and informed voting public. It is a shame this isn't a more popular game in light of the U.S.'s recent foreign affairs exploits.
Attack takes everything I like about Axis and Allies (different units with offensive/defensive capabilities, an economic system, naval combat) with everything I like about Risk (picking your own territory and more or less random unit placement for a less predictable tactics and strategy) and manages to avoid most of the bad stuff from both. It can be found at Toys R Us currently for about $20, or you can order it from http://eaglegames.net/ for $30.
Best of all, if you like the basic game, which contains all the economic cards, land units, cards representing naval units, and a board representing the western hemisphere of the world, you can buy an expansion. The expansion contains plastic naval units with more complex combat rules, a political system (your governments can be fascists, communist, monarcy, or democracy, with different bonuses and strengths for each), and a board representing the other half of the world. The basic game is good for six players and three to six hours of play, the full game can support 10-12 for some all-day sessions.
The games rules are fairly easy to learn in one go, although the implications as far as tactics go take a while to sink in. The units and board look great, and are large and detailed. The game single handedly reawakened my group's interest in the genre, bridging the gap between beer and pretzels and more serious wargaming. (I don't want to mislead the grognards, its still pretty beer and pretzels, but if all you've played is Risk and A&A, it can stretch you a bit.)
Speaking of Risk, I also like the new Risk 2210. Its classic Risk, but with "hero" units that can roll eight sided die against the standard six, sea and moon bases to conquer, some battle and diplomacy cards (somewhat similar to Castle Risk), and nuclear devastation tokens that can completely alter the board from game to game. Its a pretty fun diversion for Risk fans.
Like my comments? Try my podcast: http://www.baldmove.com
If you like Risk (or LotR Risk), you might want to check out my Risk probability calculator. You may even find that you should adjust your tactics. :-)
- Ismo
Very interesting. Apparently the current rules help the defender slightly, but both models (and I mean the game models, not your webpage) are seriously bugged in the sense that a large attacking force usually wins against an entrenched enemy of greater size. This is almost never the case in real life, so I'm very surprised that that's how risk works. In the handfull of games I've played (all under the old rules), I assumed having an equal army meant I was safe from attack. Apparently my opponents made the same assumptions, because they only attacked me with larger numbers.
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I'll spare you the trouble of trying random numbers on the link provided by the parent. Here are the cutoff points where equal, -1 and -2 attacking armies usually win.
Old rules:
A1 vs D1 = 42%
A2 vs D2 = 51%
A7 vs D8 = 48%
A8 vs D9 = 50%
A9 vs D10 = 51% (10 v 10 = 61%)
A13 vs D15 = 49%
A14 vs D16 = 50%
A15 vs D17 = 51% (17 v 17 = 65%)
Current rules:
A4 vs D4 = 48%
A5 vs D5 = 52%
A10 vs D11 = 49%
A11 vs D12 = 51% (12 v 12 = 58%)
A16 vs D18 = 49%
A17 vs D19 = 50%
A18 vs D20 = 51% (20 v 20 = 63%)
http://www.princeton.edu/~mafia/rules.htm Very noisy game!
-ubuntu others as you would have others ubuntu you.