Another Board Game Thread

[Faulty Logic]

As a huge board game geek, and given that the group sounds relatively casual:
Bohnanza is the best bean-trading game you will ever play.

Acsension: Chronicles of the Godslayer

Medici (auction game)

Seven Wonders (drafting game with meat on the bones)

The Adventurers (push-your luck filler)

Pandemic

Space Alert is awesome (but be prepared to die, horribly, repeatedly, from any mistake).

Acquire

Lord of the Rings (coop by Reiner Knizia)

Dominion

St. Petersburg

Galaxy trucker

Ticket to Ride

Goldland

Zombiegeddon

Might post more...these are just off the top.

[x4000]

Dominion is excellent, as others have noted.  The expansions add a fair bit, too.  It's also a pretty fast game, especially with 3 players.

Scotland Yard and Clue: The Museum Caper are both pretty fun and also light.  The latter is out of print, but can be gotten on ebay fairly cheaply.  I liked the latter more as a kid.

Lord of the Rings Trilogy Risk is fun, but it's basically risk plus some other rules.

Ahlambra is fairly fun citybuilding.

Carcasonne is the citybuilder to end all citybuilders.  Very fast and fun and easy to pick up.  Expansions add a lot to that one, too.

Princes of Florence is one that looks like it would be dull, but is actually really fun.  I think it's probably best with 4-5 players, but it does support 3 IIRC.

Most everything else I play is technically a card game not a board game, but there are dozens of good ones of those.  Not sure if those are of interest or not.

[relmz32]

There have been some great games listed, but i wanted to point out that:
 'To court the King' is fun if you like a very strategic dice game.
Stone Age is great fun,
Small world is good times,
Citadels is a fun card game,
samurai is a good 3p strategy game.

[zespri]

Space Alert, yes. After I posted my initial thought on the co-op games, I had a chance to chat with a friend who played this game. It looks, like it's a really great game if you want to stress test your team coordination. A review is here, it's quite amusing: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/06/11/not-cardboard-children-space-alert/

[madcow]

Space alert really does call to me, it looks unique and interesting. Alas I can't get anybody else to agree. Or at least they agree with the unique bit, and that's what turns them off.

[zespri]

On Coolstuffinc Smash Up is trending. While it has low rank on BGG, the reviews are mostly positive. And the negative ones are from hard-core gamers who would like something deeper. Have not tried this one, but might be fun as a casual game.

[Echo35]

Space alert really does call to me, it looks unique and interesting. Alas I can't get anybody else to agree. Or at least they agree with the unique bit, and that's what turns them off.

FTL the board game. Basically.

[madcow]

So, put in some board game play. One game that I picked up cheap, and had a surprisingly good bit of fun with my group was saboteur. Even though it isn't the deepest game, it's gotten laughs from seeing somebody messing us all up at the end. The relatively simple rules and fast playtime really helps.

Agricola has been surprisingly fun once we figured out how to play (it was one the group picked of the choices presented). Unfortunately it has an issue of somebody making a bad choice, like not getting enough food, leaving them sour for the rest of the game - or wanting to make a pretty farm or horde a million sheep (at the expense of points). Both issues stemming from people not really trying to strategize the game. Which is probably why they like saboteur

[zespri]

Just played Space Alert several times in a row and I was disappointed.
The main thing, is that I did not expect that the game is actually two parts - first you "program" your actions - this is while the sound track runs - and seconds programmed actions of all players get replayed and every one sees what they led to. This second part is done completely mechanically, i.e. no one gets to make any decisions, just everyone cards gets open in order and everyone just observe.

When I was reading about the game, it looked to me that under time pressure you are trying to do something quick and coordinated and see how it goes. That sounded fun (on paper). In reality it was not fun for me (although everything else in the group enjoyed it a lot). For me it looked that you are rather fire without looking and hope that it works (which it never does and you lose), or you took systematic approach and try to execute your "program" first time around - as sound track plays. If you efficient enough in communications, you get it right, and you win, or if you screwed up the "program" on any of the 12 steps you fail. If you win there is no satisfaction, since you knew this already (because you chose actions carefully and ran the results  in real time) if you fail you feel frustration, as any mistakes are by definitions unintentional and causes to fail something that once worked.

So I had to cross it out of my "to buy" list.

But then again, everyone else but me enjoyed it a lot.

[tigersfan]

I finally got around to playing Dominion. Yeah, I can't disagree with anything said about it, it really is an awesome game.

[x4000]

I just played Space Alert for the first few times last week myself; holy cow, was that fun!

I'm not sure that I see the complaint about the second phase just being playback -- that's rather the point, and it was something that reviews of the game made really clear.  The purpose of the two phases is to let you play fast and loose with the rules in the first phase, trying to get things right but not meaning you're "cheating" if you skip past something.  And then in the second phase you find out the consequences of any slipups.  It seems brilliantly structured to me; and the whole theme of multiple sub-phases in the first phase, where you can keep changing your card assignments around until you get past each phase, also really ties in well.  I was very impressed.

That said, there's a long way to go to master a game like that.  I like how their tutorials start you off with partial mechanics and then work in more as you go.  That's something where you can play multiple times in a single tutorial phase, but with different cards of course, and you get different experiences as you learn the ropes of that level of gameplay.  I thought that was really classy, too.

Still, I can understand it's not a game for everyone.  The high risk of loss, and the chaos and emphasis on numbers in the second phase, really make it more of a niche game.  But it's one of my new favorites for sure.

[Echo35]

Super bumping this because I got some board games recently and I just wanted to say that Mage Wars and The Resistance are both pretty amazing

[x4000]

How many players supported? I'm always on the lookout for something that can do (or be adapted to do) six.

[madcow]

I've recently heard of "cards against humanity" which is good for six (or plus) and sounds hilarious. But not for the thin-skinned

I know the resistance supports 5-10 and is quite fun as well.  It's like werewolf/mafia except without being randomly eliminated from the game through no fault of your own.

[x4000]

Nice!  Will have to check all of the above out when I get some time... someday.