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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
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.
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.
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?)
Age of Renaissance is even better. Its like a improved version of Civilisation.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/26
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!
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!
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!
- 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"
Local Game store went out of business.
Owner ran a 30% off sale. Picked up a new copy of Scottland Yard that day. Played it with the family, and they loved it. I wasnt sure if they would. My siblings and I played it for hours as kids.
When I asked the owner why he thought business hadnt worked out, his answer was:
"I wasnt sure why until this week. A lady and her son came in. The boy saw a game, and excitedly asked, 'mom, what about this one?' To which the mother replied, 'will I have to play it with you?' At that moment I knew that it wasn't that kids didn't want to play new games, but that parents didn't want to play with the kids"
I'm going to miss that store. We have an entire closet here at the house full of games. About half of them are the basic games one can find at Toys'r'Us and walmart. The rest are the "what kind of game is that???" stuff that really challange the mind. I love it when my kids bring an "off the wall game" and want to learn how to play it. Cooties are still fun for a 5 year old, but when he drags out Zertz, Apples to Apples, or Blink I know that he is going to grow up with an edge over the nintendo playing couch potatoes. It may not be a financial advantage, but at least he will enjoy the stimulation that comes from trying new things, learning new things.
----- LoboSoft specializes in Digital Language Lab