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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."
i can higly recommend the civilization boardgame
-- never underestimate someone who overestimates himself
Or work up to dice. Shake em up shake em up shake em up shake em. Nothing beats that shit.
When me and my buddies want to play board games, its either: 1 RoboRally (with all the expansions, especially Armed and Dangerous), or 2. Cosmic Encounter, which was the inspiration for Richard Garfield to create Magic: The Gathering
If you havent tried go, then I think it is about time to. It has a great handicap system for new players, yet allows people to improve over a life time.
Risk is the type of game that rises above the board when you're playing among other adults. What starts out as a game of pieces and movement generally becomes one of political intrigue, making alliances, and casting doubt upon other alliances. We've reached the point where everyone has to go to the porch for a smoke break at the same time because no one feels comfortable about what strategies might be birthed behind their backs...
I think most geeks would like Robo Rally. You use movement cards to "program" the movement of your robot in a race against other robots. Great fun!
This is not a sig.
Check the top rated games at BoardGameGeek. My personal favourite is Puerto Rico.
Munchkin Fu homepage
IceHouse is awesome! It's a game construction set and has rules for lots of games, and you can make up your own. It's perfect for the creative geeky type, for the easily bored type, check it out!
Looney Labs has lots of other neat games too, Fluxx, Aquarius, many more.
Shae Erisson - ScannedInAvian.com
If you like Settlers (and who doesn't?), you should pick up the expansions: Seafarers of Catan adds ships, a new resource type and a bunch of different board layout options. Cities & Knights of Catan ads so much it's like a whole different game. Also, check out the game Puerto Rico. Lots of Catan players migrated to it when it was released a few years ago.
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.
Fun Again Games is a great site to buy this stuff.
Recommended games: Loco, Princes of Florence, Puerto Rico, Tigris and Euphrates, and RoboRally.
because you know you want to believe that the Goldfish Fanciers are secretly controlling the Robot Sea Monsters that are actually behind the Republicans :-) fantastic game...
if by commitment, you mean set up your direct deposit to go to Games Workshop's bank acount rather than your own.
If you live anywhere near Lancaster, PA, you can get your game on at Cold Wars from April 8-10. Run by the Historical Miniatures Gaming Society, but there is also fansasy/sci-fi gaming.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
(Who Meta-Meta-Moderates the Meta-Moderators?)
I don't know if you can still get them, but they were among the best, and very portable too; I don't know how many lunch breaks I spent playing those at school. Ah, memories...
-chris
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
Avalon Hill publishes a game called Diplomacy which I highly recommend -- it's rather like Risk, but without the dice. It is a rather long play though. They've got another interesting game called Wizard's Quest but I'm not sure how hard it is to find a copy these days.
I want a new world. I think this one is broken.
Age of Renaissance is even better. Its like a improved version of Civilisation.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/26
can;t be beat..
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http://www.wunderland.com/LooneyLabs/Fluxx/Defaul
it's only a simple card game, but then it rapidly becomes a complex card game...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Why not look at the highest user-rated board games in existence, many or which are new, and then read the comments about the games in order to determine what sounds appealing to you? Board Game Geek.com has all of this information readily available right here: game rankings
"The television is the retina of the mind's eye" - Videodrome
But don't play it by yourself. That's depressing. And a little creepy.
-Rob
Marriage doesn't have to suck!
Looney Labs (and their weekly blog) make some excellent games that might fit your audience. They are perhaps best known for their card game Fluxx (my personal favorite), but also have a number of other games which are more board-game like.
The one that sounds most similar to what you're looking for is Chrononauts, the card game of time travel, which involves a time line that you build and control on the table. It also has an "Early American" version.
As already noted, they make the Icehouse pyramids which are most noted for games like Zendo and Ice Towers, but are also used for quite a few others.
Enjoy!
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.
I've written on these guys before, but let me do so again in a more straightforward manner:
Buy everything you see here. I assure that you will NOT be disappointed.
Days of Wonder is a great company who takes brilliant designs the world over and shares them with a geek-like audience. Me and my wife love Mystery of the Abbey. Think of it like a really interesting, deep version of Clue. No candlesticks, no ridiculous characters, and it actually has -strategy- incorporated, and everyone who has played it loves it immediately.
And no, I'm not even getting paid to say that (though of course, it would be nice).
You can also read some (tabletop) gaming blogs:
- BoardGamePlayer.com
- BoardGames-To-Go
- Chris Farrell's Gaming Blog
- Jeffro @ Mindsay
Lastly, I'd like to say that me and my wife's favorite non-boardgame is Bang!, an easy-to-learn great mechanic-filled game that anyone over the age of 7 will adore.
Oh, and of course, get all the recommendations you can handle over at the always fantastic BoardGameGeek.com.
Have fun!
Evan
CCGBlog.com - CCG Design, Theory, and Commentary
First, some suggestions on places to find info on what games are good:
The newsgroup rec.games.board is a great source of info on enthusiasts' opinions on board games. Someone maintains a database of ratings of games, as rated (mostly, or originally) by readers of the newsgroup. Search for "INTERNET TOP 100 GAMES LIST" (posted to the newsgroup every 2 weeks). Here's the current top 10, along with rating (1-10 scale) -- here's the link: http://scv.bu.edu/~aarondf/Top100
1 8.494 Puerto Rico
2 7.865 Euphrat & Tigris
3 7.756 Die Siedler von Catan
4 7.742 Die Fursten von Florenz
5 7.504 Modern Art
6 7.503 El Grande
7 7.451 Carcassonne
8 7.409 Ohne Furcht und Adel
9 7.399 Goa
10 7.387 Vinci
You'll see two of the games you mentioned on the list - Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan (note that the bulk of the best boardgames are German in origin -- the original German names are used in the list). I would guess that if you liked Carc and Settlers, that you match the taste profile of the contributors to the list fairly well, so you'd probably like many of the games on the list.
I've played maybe half the games on the top 10. Personally, I like Settlers, Euphrat & Tigris, and Modern Art particularly well.
One important question is: how many players do you have? 4 seems to be considered to be the optimal number for multi-player games (which are the most fun). If you have a different number, then there are specialized lists you should refer to. However, from your post, it sounds like you have several players, so the above list should be suitable.
Another question is: what type of games do you like? There are economics-style (e.g. Settlers), bidding-style (e.g. Modern Art), deal-making (e.g. Chinatown), path-connection style (e.g. Streetcar), war games (e.g. Axis & Allies), race games (e.g. Detroit-Cleveland Grand Prix), etc. etc. I guess you'd call this the genre.
Another thing to look for is the game designer. If you like a book by a certain author, you're likely to like other books by the same author. It's the same with games. Settlers was designed by Klaus Teuber -- a prolific game designer. So, you might look for other Teuber games. Many of the top-rated games were designed by Reiner Knizia -- I like just about every game of his which I've tried.
Another consideration is the complication of the game. You've mentioned Axis&Allies, which is relatively simple, and Settlers & Carc, which are moderately complex. Some of the games on the Top 100 list are fairly complex -- generally, at least as complex as Settlers and Carc.
Then there's game duration. If you like Axis & Allies, then you're probably not turned off by long-playing games. I'd think most games on the list would be OK.
There's a great website for boardgame enthusiasts, which you'd probably find useful in looking for new games: Boardgame Geek -- http://www.boardgamegeek.com
Finally, bearing all the above in mind, and considering the little scraps of information I have about you and your group, my tenuous suggestions:
I think you have maybe 4-6 people in your group. You have a taste for long games, and war and deal-making are appealing themes for you. Two classic games stand out in this category: Civilization (the board game which inspired the computer game), and Diplomacy. These are games which I would _most_ love to play, if I had a large enuf group of like-minded people available, and an unlimited amount of time. If you try Civilization, I recommend Advanced Civ over Civ.
I envy you, just starting to really delve into boardgames, with a group of enthusiastic players. You have some really great gaming to look forward to!
Good luck!
Risk 2210 is actually a lot of fun. I was sceptical when all the new variants of Risk started coming out, one for everyone and their uncle, but having played this one extensively I must say that it's very satisfying, and going back to the original on the occassions that, for whatever reason, we had to go back to the original, was met with a lot of grumbling.
It's way more complicated than the original Risk so it takes a while to get into, but some of the complexity goes a long way to alleviating the problems that made the original such a pain in the ass to play some times, like exponentially increasing army sizes and the potential for the game to never end. The rest of it is just fun.
If you haven't played this version but played the original, here are some highlights of what's new/different:
Having said all that, there's nothing preventing people from being very very bad losers, throwing pieces, getting whiny... I hope the next version comes with a tazer.
Even as you read this, your pants are strangling your loins! Aaa!
See here. To save you the time, here's a list of stuff I found from that story, games that sounded interesting or worth checking out.
.
First, I decided I should really get into Go. Some links from that Slashdot story: here, The Second Book of Go here, here, here, here, and here.
Other games:
Apples to Apples - got this for my cousin, they liked it.
Settlers of Catan - got this for myself, very nice game, try a local hobby shop or here or try Amazon.com
Others: Puerto Rico (Similar to Settlers of Catan), Lord of the Rings board game was mentioned, Kill Dr. Lucky, Deadwood, Give me the Brain, Lightspeed Games, Fluxx is fun, very random and quirky.
There's more! Mind Trap
Munchkin , Heroscape, Ticket to Ride, Mystery of the Abbey, Memoir '44, Queen's Necklace at Days of Wonder, Bang!, Betrayal at House on the Hill, Articulate
Killer Bunnies (and Quest for the Magic Carrot), Illuminati , Acquire
Some other reviews/top game lists here:
here
here
here
Happy gaming!
I cant believe with all the conspiracy/monopoly nuts we have around here that they missed out on the chance to BASH Hasbro Inc.
Hasbro spent the 80s and 90s buying up everything. They were even smart enough to buy The Avalon Hill Game Company. AH held the copyrights to a huge stack of games. I mean hundreds and hundreds of games. AH had in the early 80s bought the rights to all the old SPI games. James Dunnigan had created and edited hundreds of games and simulations for SPI.
Yet Hasbro has not rereleased ANY of these games in their original forms. And apparently plans not to.
They Live, We Sleep
- The Diplomatic Pouch
- The Stabbed
- diplomacy-archive.com
I've played with people all over the world at Diplomacy 2000, and I've never even owned a board. There are quite a few open source boards/adjucators (they do the logic behind the moves to determine movement success/failure). Of those, I recommend jDip, a feature-rich cross-platform java version.The game can get a bit involved, and there's a slight learning curve (very slight, especially if you've done Axis & Allies). Not for everyone, but it's worth a try if you like Risk.
However,
Even before you buy the game if you manage to find it, the above site will give you an idea about it and help out with expansions and rule changes for the better of the game. They have done a HECK of a lot of work on continuing the development of the game, adding comodities, calamities, technologies, expanding the board, adding more players, rule changes, etc., which all create an even more interesting game.
I will say this, if you can not get the Advanced Civilization expansion set, the game is not NEARLY as good. But this is what makes it so hard to find. The regular Civilization game shows up on Ebay about 1-2 times a week and usually goes for around $80 depending on condition. However, Advanced Civ only shows up 1-2 times a month and goes for between $100-200 depending on condition. That is a lot of money to spend on a game if you are not sure you like it. I was lucky enough to play it about a year after it stopped being in production and absolutly loved the game. I was also lucky enough to actually find a store which still had it in stock (I called up every game store I could find, and found a place 80 miles away which still had it, they held it for me and I bought them, if I recall for their retail price of between $35-40 each, which is an absolute bargain now).
Another GREAT game is Republic of Rome also by Avalon Hill. Again, this is also no longer being made and is fairly rare to find. I didn't want to pay more then $150 for it and it took me 7 months to win an auction on Ebay for that price. Yes, there were several that went for less then that, but those were games that the sellers did not know if all the pieces existed anymore.
I would also check out other great Avalon Hill games like "Merchants of Venus" and "Blackbeard". Not everyone likes Blackbeard, but we do. We made some rules changes to add another player, it also seems to balance the game better (basically you do not really go in "turns", the person who's current turn it is pulls a card at the end of the turn to find out who goes next (the cards have a place on them for the number of players in the game and either a "blank", "player 1", "player 2", "player 3", or "player 4"). The game was designed for 4 people max, and if the blank come up, it remains that person's turn OR if it come up with your number (say player 3), it is also your turn. The blanks are there for the single player version of the game... Anyway, we changed the rules so you use the line for the number of players that you have minus 1 (i.e. if you have 4 players you use the 3 player game line), and if a blank shows up, it remains your turn, but if a certain player shows up, it is the player who is that many from the left of the person who drew the card (i.e. if player 2 is shown on the card, the person 2 people to the left of the current player now has a turn). I really helps balance the game more as well as give all the people at the table more turns instead of it being the same players turn 3 or 4 times in a row while everyone else does nothing but sit there...
Again, civilization is probably one of the greated board games ever created, especially if you have a large number of people (8-19 or more with the civproject.net expanded rules). Now it will take some time for you to get/make the board, pieces, cards, etc., if you use the civproject.net's expanded board and rules, but it is worth it to do. The regular Advanced Civ game is for 2-8 players and is really good as well (we play this the most, we only use the extra board/rules when we have more players).
I know I didn't talk much about Republic of Rome. It is too hard to describe. Basically I will give you this paraphrased quote from the rule book "The complexity of this game will make games such as 'Diplomacy' seem like 'Shoots and Ladders'". And to give you a hint, "Diplomacy" is a complex game.... You will proba
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
A few of my favorites are:
Devil Bunny Needs a Ham
Spree! Hong Kong Edition
The Great Brain Robbery
Unexploded Cow
Captain Park's Imaginary Polar Expedition
There's a number of their games I haven't played, and more that I have that I haven't listed. However, there hasn't been one that I've played that I didn't really care for. Fun, often quick, always amusing.
If not now, when?
Diplomacy is a game of pure neogtiating skill and strategy. It's really a unique game because your success is entirely based on your effectiveness at manipulating your friends :).
I remember a game I played where one of the people involved was completely honest and open with everybody. However, when he talked to them, he always sounded like he was just about to stab them in the back. So of course people would betray him before he got the chance.
Of the tabletop style games, this is the only game that my wife will actually play. She can't stand Axis and Allies, etc, but with this game she has had quite a bit of fun.
One word of caution: NEVER EVER DRINK WHILE PLAYING DIPLOMACY. A game that is primarily based on back stabbing can get people really cranky when they've had a few.
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