Bohnanza (1997) - still my trading game of choice.
Coloretto (2003) - push your luck games come and go, but Coloretto remains in my heart.
Age of Steam (2002) - how can a “pick up and delivery” game give you so much tough love.
Caylus (2005) and Agricola (2007) are still top tier worker placements. I would have said resource management, but Concordia got this.
Modern Art (1992) - i love this more as a commodity speculation game. And for me, it remains my fave.
Chicago Express - still the best Cube Rail. If you enjoyed Irish Gauge, try to play this one.
Ghost Stories (2008) - fave co-op. Havent played Last Bastion yet.
Imperial 2030 (2009) - surpassed original Imperial to me, as it became more open and the global map is also… global. I prefer the focus on conquering areas for tax revenues in this iteration. Theres thousands of “train companies with shares” games out there, but this one is very different. And no one tried to improve from this. Imperial 2030 is Mac Gerdt’s finest.
Acquire (1964) - my fave “Monopoly substitute”
Battle Line/Schotten Totten (1999) - small box 2 player game of choice
Tigris & Euphrates (1997) - tile laying? Say no more.
Completely agree with this thread about Race for the Galaxy
EDIT: Added battle line and tigers and pots.
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Still havent played some of the old CGE games. Dungeon Lords, Dungeon Pets, the Alchemists
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I adore Dungeon Petz and Alchemists is definitely in my top 5 games of all time.
I really need to try Dungeon Lords
6 Nimmt! - Easy to teach, copes with 3-7 players well. For a game that feels like a good traditional card game which makes it accessible, it’s the one I want to play most.
Indonesia - it’s unique. The merger mechanism hasn’t been stolen on any popular games. For tense auctions and positioning for the auctions it beats out Container and Chicago Express for me. Those games are great and would make my list were it not for this beauty. So much decision space and meaty strategic concern from such a light rule set.
Robo Rally - My favourite madcap game. Maybe a little too long but stays fun even when losing for newer gamers.
Sumeria - My favourite mostly abstract euro. So few actions and so agonising. The possibilities are largely calculable were it not for the random tile reward order it’d be stale yet somehow it sinks together in 30 minutes of brinkmanship and trap laying.
Suvive! Escape from Atlantis - This is my favourite in the category of games I played as a child that I still play now.
Games already mentioned that I have enthusiasm for are Chicago Express, Container, Tigris and Euphrates and the mighty Race for the Galaxy.
I feel Guillotine should maybe be in the list but couldn’t quite justify to myself with 6 Nimmt! being selected. Also Rush’n’Crush maybe is my favourite racing game but not sure Robo Rally isn’t quite not a racing game. Plus I’m really excited and interested in 18xx which has old roots but i’ve no idea of some recent ones are better than the classics so maybe they get precluded. My one title tried is older than 10 years I think but doesn’t quite work on the list
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Race for the Galaxy is gaining so many points to be my next purchase… It already was on my sights…
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i can only speak for Petz. There is no mechanism in the game that is all that complicated. However, when you put it all together, the Teach is very cumbersome. Took me 30 mins or so to go over everything, and things didn’t really click for my players until they played through a couple of rounds.
I mean, you’ve got worker placement and the bidding for turn order. You’ve got the Needs cards for your Petz and how to deal with them (food, cage strength and resistance, play, poop, etc). You’ve got the exhibitions and the judge’s booth. You’ve got selling petz to Dungeon Lords and the platform to increase the points of a sale. On top of all that you have customs, the hospital, artifacts, and enhancements.
It does all tie together in a sensible way, but it is a lot of explanation to get there. I have only played this once after owning it for three years or so partially because of the complexity of teaching it.
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When I taught it we did a dummy round. It both played and taught quicker that way. It’s not “fair” in that you can’t handle the first exhibition properly without enough info, but I basically ran a thematic overview in place of a rules overview and then explained rules as we went–detailing spots that weren’t taken after everyone had gone. I find this tends to work very well for co-op and indirect competition games.
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I also only have Petz and I’m a big fan of it. It’s definitely got lots of pieces to teach, but one thing I think really helps is all those pieces fit well with the theme. So I usually find once I go over all the rules and it “clicks” for someone, there’s very little need for rules reminders or as everything just makes sense and flows. Plus I just think it’s so gosh darn cute.
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I turned up the Game of Twenty Squares in some online research a couple of years ago. It was played in ancient Mesopotamia, and expensive boards for it were found by an archaeologist some decades ago:
Later on, the rules were reconstructed from cuneiform records. I borrowed it for my fantasy campaign Tapestry as a game played by Iltani, one of the three nixie women Hanno’s mother suggested as possible wives for him—with the tweak of making it a game about riverboat racing, as nixies are a race of natural swimmers and live along rivers.
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El Grande hasn’t been mentioned yet. All area control should be measured against this.
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The iconography takes a bit of getting used to, and the theme isn’t for everyone, but it’s great when you get your teeth into it.
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Going to add Ticket to Ride as the best game that should be in every household. It feels light now, but is still good fun. Easy to teach, fast set up, fast to play.
I have Race for the Galaxy but haven’t played it much. According to BGG it plays best at 2 rather than 3-4. I can see that because you’d have fewer actions. I want to play it more.
Pitch Car is my favourite dexterity game. The race element is great, riskier and riskier shots, highs and lows. I love it (although my eldest is far too good at it!) Which I’m now thinking I could set up in the garden for our gaming group so we can obey social distancing.
I adore Age of Steam and I think it has so much more to give with repeat plays.
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FWIW, I don’t think it is really any better at 2. If anything, the fact that it doesn’t slow down with 4 is remarkable. Also, I suspect that a lot of BGG players are going to be using the double action 2 player rules, meaning there are just as many as in 4 players, but you are choosing 2 of them.
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Worth knowing.
The way I know it’s a good game is that I really enjoy it but I’m terrible at it!
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That’s really interesting, I’ve played a lot of RftG at two, but never used the double action rules. Would you recommend using them?
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I guess so? The BGG community seems to think it’s better. I’ve hardly played any two-player games with single actions. The designer says they are both good ways to play.
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the simultaneous action selection made our 5 player game quick. Experience seems to be the one that slows down the game.
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I’ve mostly played it with three. I didn’t have any issues with the pacing.
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Meanwhile, I absolutely hate it for how much it requires you to know and understand the cards. It’s atrociously beginner unfriendly and the two times I’ve played it were some of the worst experiences I’ve had playing a game.
To answer the thread question and going completely the other way: Hey, That’s My Fish! is astonishingly simple and fun for all ages, while being an incredibly mean game.
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I’m not going to disagree with your experience, that would be silly, but the 10 cards in a game are all visible for everyone to read, right from the start. Looking purely at what requires card knowledge, I would have thought this is much better than randomly drawn markets like in Star Realms, etc., where you cannot know the market until you’ve played many times.
I do agree that an experienced player will be able to assess a market and make a plan in a way that a new player probably won’t, and that may make the winner a foregone conclusion, but to me that’s a feature, not a bug.
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