Board games, I love them.
But no, I won’t play Monopoly with you. Or Apples to Apples. Or Scattergories or Outburst or Life. Just as I’m a food snob, movie snob and beer snob, I’m also a board game snob. I play board games that are usually classified as Eurogames or German-style board games.
Like many gamers, I started with The Settlers of Catan. Settlers is an easy to learn Eurogame that is widely popular in the United States and easy to pick up at stores like Target. It is a great introduction to Eurogames, and for me, a starting point to a whole new world of board games.
(Settlers of Catan)
Every Sunday from fall to spring, I invite anyone who wants to play to my house for a meal and board games. I supply a simple vegetarian soup and access to my games and my guests bring what they want to drink and any games they want to play. In doing this, I’ve met a lot of new people, played new games, and found some great soup recipes. We play for three to five hours, sometimes having up to three different games going at once.
Some games, like Through the Ages, need full days set aside to play. To play the full Through the Ages game takes six hours for a four person game, but is worth every minute. 7 Wonders, another popular game, only takes 30 minutes to play and is great for older kids and adults with short attention spans.
(Through the Ages)
My favorite game right now is Power Grid. Basically, you try to supply the most cities with power by building a network of power plants. You purchase the power plants and the raw materials needed to run the plants to expand your network and receive money back for the cities you supply power to. It takes about two hours to play, which is long enough to really get into the game, but short enough to keep peoples’ interest.
Do you play board games? What are your favorites? Can you imagine playing a six hour game, or do you think I’m just wasting my time when I could be doing something useful?
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June 19th, 2012 at 8:26 am
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June 19th, 2012 at 9:05 am
Carcassonne is by far my favorite, especially with the variety of expansion packs. The iOS version is pretty sweet as well.
June 19th, 2012 at 9:12 am
ooh i love games, but I haven’t played very many. Settlers of Catan is fun (Side note: did you know there’s an official version of the game marketed to Mormons called Settlers of Zarahemla, all about the ancient city mentioned in the Book of Mormon?).
Ticket to Ride is fun. TransEuropa is cool, too (and bonus it only takes 15 minutes to play). Kill Dr. Lucky is like Clue in reverse, so that’s fun. And Carcassonne is fun, also.
Yay games! But games are tough with a 1-year-old who just wants to eat all the parts.
June 19th, 2012 at 9:37 am
We have gotten into games lately, too and it’s such a fun thing to do with the kids (ages 5 and 8). Most of them we can only play with the 8 year old, but a few are good for the 5 year old, too!
First, we love Ticket to Ride (or the German version, Zug um Zug). You get mission cards with cities to connect with railroads. The iPad/iPhone version of the game is good, too, which lets you play with someone else (either online or a local player via bluetooth) for all the fun of the game with none of the setting up!
My husband and I like sitting down for a quick game of Ingenious (there’s an iOS app) and have recently started playing Dominion (iOS app for this one, too!). Even got the 5 year old playing that one, although the box states ages 13 and up. But with help in reading the cards, he can pretty much kick any of our butts!
Another fun one to play with the kids is Dixit. We have the Dixit Odyessy version and I also picked up the expansion pack of cards. This game is like a cross between Apples to Apples and Balderdash, but much more artistic. We’ve only playing with 5 people at the most so far, but you can have up to 12 and I can’t wait to play with that many people – it would make the game much more interesting!
We also just recently got Carcassonne and I wasn’t aware that there was an expansion pack – will have to check it out!
June 19th, 2012 at 10:48 am
Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride are our favorites. Carcassonne is a great game too and is on my list to buy.
June 19th, 2012 at 11:53 am
Carcassonne on the iPad is pretty great, as mentioned. I haven’t played Dominion on an iOS device. Are the expansion available too? I really like the Alchemy expansion.
And lots of mention of Ticket To Ride. I’ve played a couple times and really enjoyed it. It has been on my list to buy for some time.
June 19th, 2012 at 12:31 pm
I like ticket to ride on my IPAD. My favorite board game right now is Last Night on Earth. Wil Wheaton does a biweekly show on the internet where he and a group of friends play a different game and explain how the game is played. Great way to see game play before investions. It is called Tabletop.
June 19th, 2012 at 7:38 pm
I’m actually more of a card game girl, myself, but the past couple of years at Renfest, I’ve invested in some of their “board” games (which are actually on canvas for travelling purposes) like Pope Joan and Backgammon, which the more I play, the more I enjoy them. Thanks for the tips on these, though, Kassie. I’m going to definitely have to try these out! :)
June 19th, 2012 at 7:40 pm
I’ve played a lot of Settlers and Carcassonne over the years, and Ticket to Ride and Dominion a few times as well. I play a lot of board and card games with my family when we’re together, though it tends to be the more casual games like Apples to Apples (which I think actually has a lot of depth in that it’s all about being able to get into people’s heads) or classics like Scrabble. I’m also a big fan of cooperative board games as well like Pandemic; they make for a different kind of challenge. I’m even getting back into chess (after teaching someone to play) and want to eventually get better at poker and blackjack as well.
June 20th, 2012 at 4:40 am
Sounds fun! I have never played any of the above games you mention but am looking forward to checking them out. I have a couple of groups I hang out with once in awhile so it sounds like something new is in order when we get together. Thanks for the inspiration!
June 25th, 2012 at 4:42 pm
Empire Builder is a good train game I have played, you’ll never have more fun drawing with crayons.
Another board game I enjoy is called Starfire. Mostly because the sheer complexity of it makes it somehow feel more important. Doing something so simple as attacking a lone starship involves consulting overly complex and long charts of system codes. Your starships are each represented by a string of systems for example CT [2]SSSAAAAQ(I)(I)(I)F[6] which means it’s a corvette with a steering value of 2, 3 shield systems, 4 armour systems , 1 life support/crew quarters, 3 inertialless engines, a mounted forcebeam weapon, and a move value of 6, all of which can be damaged/disabled during battle.
http://18inchfly.net/starfire/tech/3er.html
Possessing reams of arcane knowledge only used to play a game can be rewarding in and of itself.
Game of thrones (both the board game and tcg) are newer ones I play as well.