Topic of the Week: 1990-2005

Boardgames
21

For me this

Is why I never did this

I lived Necromunda. The campaign when I was 14/15 and the one I ran when I was 20/21. So much fun and I could still be boring about details for gangs and the campaigns as well as players. In the mean time I’ve played Confrontation which is superior and got in to board games and gone through a mechanics focussed phase. I won’t play Necromunda again as I don’t want to piss on my past by seeing the flaws now. A friend wanted me to play Space Crusade a few years ago which I regret as it’s made the memories of it ‘that was good because I didn’t know better’ which tarnishes the nostalgic glow.

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22

Oh gosh. Yeah, we’ll deep dive on TCG’s another week. Fallen Kingdoms, Arabian Nights, Mirage, Homelands… I was late Revised and early 4th.

I had an Underground Sea and Taiga, both valued around $200. Sold the Underground Sea a few years back. Couldn’t sell the Taiga as I’d traded it years ago for a Shiva Dragon… worth maybe $3. These things were both in circulation at the time and the market hadn’t yet diverged.

My only other valuable cards were a Demonic Tutor ($20) and Birds of Paradise ($5).

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23

I have a ton of nostalgia for various games, places, events… you name it. But the wine from vacation never tastes quite as good at home (exceptions apply). And that is fine: some things cannot be separated from the experience at that particular time…

People look back and praise the games they played 10, 20, 30 years ago but few of them are as great as our memories make them. Except of course for those few gems that really are as great.

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24

That looks awesome!
…So does Kings of War. Hmm.

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25

I’ve only played Settlers once. It was ok.

We quite like Ticket to Ride; it’s an easy family game when people want something undemanding but not totally brainless, and everyone can always remember how to play it, so no re-learning of rules is ever needed.

Carcassonne is a family staple, and essential. We have most of the expansions, and mix one or two in as and when we feel like it, depending on mood.

I didn’t play (or indeed hear of) any of them during the period in question, so there’s no nostalgia value for me.

But I’d certainly (and do) choose both TTR and Carcassonne to play with someone who’s never played any proper board games. They’re just really good games - easy to learn, and they just work

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26

Regarding the trifecta. I adore Ticket to Ride (and am loving the legacy game). It’s a bit too light for my taste generally but I rarely turn a game down.

Carcassonne is an activity for me. Something to do with a cup of coffee. It’s fine.

However, I’ve managed to teach both of these games to my parents which is a huge plus. I think both could be played much, much more competitively and cutthroat (and I’d get more out of them) but that’s not really my cup of tea.

Catan was bought early on when I got into the hobby, but I really don’t like it.

Looking at that list, blimey there were some great games produced. You could have a collection of nothing but Knizia’s produced in this timespan and have a great and varied gaming life (come on Samurai reprint).

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27

Team Carcassonne! Closely followed by TTR. Both can offer variety through expansions.

Catan I could play but wouldn’t be excited about it.

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28

I’m amazed you’ve only played this once. It’s probably the most addictive game I own!

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29

I own the complete trifecta. Catan is a curio at this point; or perhaps a conversation starter.

Unsuspecting Stranger: “That’s a lot of games you have. Have you heard of Catan? I heard that’s a really cool, new, modern game.”
Me, pulling it from the shelf and dusting it off: “Sure, absolutely. Would you like to play?”

Carcassonne is fine. It’s like competitive passive-aggression, yeah? I mean, if you can’t hear me place down the farmer in that field, with an audible click, then have I really placed a farmer?

I probably don’t have any reason to keep it; but it remains on the shelf.

My partner absolutely loves the Ticket to Ride series; it’s very easy for her to think through the game and plan out a strategy – it’s the right mix of rules weight and spatial reasoning and order-satisfaction that fits perfectly in the TTR-shaped spot in her brain.

And, as a way to keep me interested in playing it with her, we have most of the available Ticket to Ride variants and editions. We, however, do not have the original TTR box. 1) because the cards are too small and b) because I bought her the 10th Anniversary edition, with the giant board and lovely train cars. But even, now, that has been eclipsed by the 15th edition TTR: Europe box we now have.

But Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries was our first and still one of our favorites.

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30

I was going to put this on Games Played but it happens to fit here.

And pardon me, I’m about to slip into memoir mode for a hot sec…

This isn’t my first time bringing this up: I don’t get Carcassonne.

I mean, I got Carcassonne. Back in the day it was Settlers (not Catan) day and night. But that meant 3-4 players. If you wanted to play 2-6, you got Carcassonne.

My first play was at 2, and we both left empty, bored, completely untitillated.

Fast forward 20 years – still empty, bored, untitillated.

I’ve asked here and on Reddit what I’m missing and the usual response is, “Well, there isn’t much there actually. It’s chill. Maybe it’s not for you. Try drawing two tiles.”

Still, I kept Carcassonne and kept at it. I was bothered. Quinns called it still the best gateway game, alongside Pandemic and El Dorado. Paul Dean said he played it every night on his tablet, meaning it gave him as much ongoing pleasure as I get from Race for the Galaxy. On top of all that, it’s still there. It’s still being sold and talked about, and not like trash-talking your ex the way Catan gets discussed.

And here’s the clincher – I still lose. Like, third of three. Like Every. Single. Game. Against the easy AI. By 30-40 points.

I’m missing something.

So last week I set a new plan. I’m going to play until I win.
Night 1: Third place
Night 2: Third place. Maybe a shallower basement?
Night 3: I achieve second place (against two easy AI).
Night 4: I win. I enjoy myself. I find I’m looking forward to night 5.
Night 5: I am sure I lost. But I win. Two massive farms to the rescue. Night 6 is definitely happening.

So five nights and I’m enjoying Carcassonne. What changed? Nothing new about what the game is and isn’t, and the different “ways” to play (read: to dick or not to dick). What I’m noticing is that I am now seeing the board. Which seems an odd development, for someone who played Neuroshima Hex until it showed up on the insides of his eyelids while falling asleep. But I think I really wasn’t seeing the board.

The mental gamestate, before, was more of a shopping list. Started a city, got to check it off. On a road, got to check that off. Did I just draw a city or a road? OK, I just played adjacent to your big city, need to connect. When I played night 4, the board as a whole was taking shape. I saw the points and opportunities opening and closing by degrees all across the board. And, in that context, a dozen points of light tension stretched out, and each tile had an interesting space to fit into.

I also noticed that, where before my meeples tended to cluster around wherever the first one happened to go down, now my peeples were scattered everywhere. Leeching, blocking, aspiring.

Game 4 featured a lot of stealing and no farms. Game 5 instead had a massive Inn-Road for me and several contested fields. The games were different and they felt different as I was able to see the entire space take shape, rather than just my current “two roads and one city over here.”

So I get Carcassonne, at last? I like Carcassonne. It’s not going into my top 20 but it is coming of my “just keep it for the kids” shelf.

Night 6: Back into the basement. But I did enjoy myself.

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31

<pillbox eyes you intently as he places down a farmer>

~CLICK~

Yeah, I mean, I feel the same way. You could play it enough to get to the point where Neo sees the matrix.

Neo Matrix GIF - Neo Matrix - Discover & Share GIFs

“High level” Carcassonne play is more about “card counting” than anything. If that’s something you enjoy, have at. We might as well play Candyland, if you ask me.

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32

When Carcasonne becomes about tile counting, or TTR about route card memorization, or Chess about opening sequences, it stops being an object of play and becomes an object of study.

May we never get there.

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33

Ummpph, tricky area. I must say that besides Advance Hero Quest and Space Crusade, I did not play much else in the 90s (and party games a la Trivial Pursuit and Pictionary like), and hardly at all in the early 2000s. Back then I was more into videogames and dabbing a bit with RPGs (Call of Cthulhu, Vampire: The Masquerade). It has been in the late 2010s that I have come in contact with games from this era.
Out of the Trio (Carcassone, TTR, Catan), I have only played Ticket to Ride, which I mainly play with my children.
Games from that era that I enjoy:
Citadels, Twilight Struggle, definitely High Society (thanks Secret Santa), Betrayal at House on the Hill (I know there are better games, but so far the three or four times I played it I enjoyed it), Cockroach Poker.
Games that I have played and were OK: Puerto Rico, TtR/ TtR Europe, No Thanks!, Bohnanza (but I want to play it again), Incan Gold, Hey, that’s my fish, Stick’Em.

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34

It’s sad that I have a number of games from this period that I have yet to play. Namely: Citadels, Bohnanza, Saboteur, Battle Line, War of the Ring (well, 2nd edition), Once Upon a Time, Maharaja, China, Slamwich, and Star Wars Episode 1: Clash of the Lightsabers. Oh, also Monopoly: Star Wars Episode I, but beyond being a nice deluxe set, it’s still Monopoly, so not really all that chuffed that I haven’t played it, other than I don’t like having an unplayed gift. Most of the rest of these were also either gifts or purchased really cheap at a consignment sale. Exceptions are War of the Ring, which I just really wanted to own, Maharaja, which I got used at my FLGS during the Covid years, when retail therapy really kicked in, and Citadels, which I really did mean to play in the years I have owned it, it just hasn’t happened.

Otherwise:

Own and played

Catan (or Settlers of Catan, as my copy is named)
Carcassonne
Ticket to Ride
Munchkin
Betrayal at House on the Hill
Lost Cities
I do still own some Magic the Gathering cards
Tigris & Euphrates, though have not played a physical copy
Take 5 (6 Nimmt)
Tsuro
Shadows Over Camelot
El Grande
Ra
Hey, That’s My Fish!
The Princes of Florence
Zombies!!! (on the sell pile)
High Society
Chinatown
A Game of Thrones (2nd edition, and haven’t played my copy)
Condottiere
Mystery of the Abbey
Kill Doctor Lucky
Axis & Allies
Blood Bowl (third edition)
Star Munchkin
Super Munchkin (sell pile)
Star Wars CCG (I think I still have a bunch of cards, though I haven’t found them since our move way back when, so they may have been stolen)
Munchkin Fu (tempted to sell, but it was the first game my now wife purchased for me, so…)
Give Me the Brain!
Lord of the Fries
Trivial Pursuit: Star Wars Classic Trilogy Collector’s edition
Save Doctor Lucky
Nuclear Proliferation
Clue: the Card Game
Spellfire (probably still own the cards, anyway)
The Great Brain Robbery
SPANC: Space Pirate Amazon Ninja Catgirls (signed by Phil Foglio, definitely on the sell pile)
Star Fleet Battles: Captain’s Edition Basic set
Highlander the card game (probably have some decks still)

Played, but do not own

Ticket to Ride: Europe
Twilight Struggle (digital game)
No Thanks! (on Tabletop Simulator)
Chez Geek
Battle Masters
Munchkin Bites!
Master Labyrinth
Cosmic Encounter
Illuminati: NWO
Cashflow 101
The Great Dalmuti

I think that’s it.

Gaming as a hobby really started in high school, and we had a gaming club with a bunch of board games, which is where I got to play a lot of older stuff. This is also where I got into Magic the Gathering and the Star Wars CCG. Also played the Highlander card game, and this is where Spellfire showed up as well.

In college I found some people with similar interests, which is where I was introduced to Star Fleet Battles. Around this time, Cheapass Games became a thing and that is when I picked up those games. I also saw Blood Bowl being played at the local game store and really liked the look of it, and was lucky enough to hit one of those narrow windows where it was published so picked it up and taught my high school friends over the summer break.

Gaming kind of died down for a bit after college, other than with one group of friends I managed to meet up with occasionally, where I first played Betrayal at House on the Hill. Somewhere around this time I know I picked up Mystery of the Abbey and Carcassonne, but they barely got played, though Carc more than MotA.

Munchkin came in somewhere around here as well, and we played the heck out of it, which is why we had virtually all the sets. Star Munchkin will always have a soft spot, as we made a custom card to announce when my wife was pregnant and stacked the deck so she got it. It was “Implanted with alien embryos” and it gave you a level up, two levels if pregnant. :slight_smile:

Gaming really hit, though, with Wil Wheaton’s Tabletop show, as it’s where I saw Ticket to Ride, Pandemic, Sheriff of Nottingham and lots of other games for the first time, and that’s when I fell down the rabbit hole and have never come back.

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35

I love Carcassonne, and while the idea of anyone wanting to play it at a ‘high level’ sounds absurd to me, I think you’re being a bit unfair. Yes, an awareness of which tiles have been used and which haven’t is certainly part of the game (only a fool would start a city near the end of the game that will need a particular and unusual piece to complete it), it’s certainly not the main part.

And to equate Carcassonne with Candyland is just mean!!

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36

In the 80s and 90s I played a great deal of BattleTech, and I went through a similar transition: I directly perceived the board state in terms of firing opportunities, if I go here I’ll be at 6s against him but he’ll be on 10s against me, that kind of thing. And yeah, I won a lot more, but it stopped being fun, and I gave up regular play soon after that.

I suspect going over their game list now could be a topic in itself.

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37

I’m clearly much younger than everyone else here; this era includes my birth until age 7 :baby: I did have an interest in boardgames early on, though, and played whatever i could get my hands on. Yahtzee was a good one, because i could do it by myself; occasionally I could rope someone into playing Clue, Risk, or Monopoly.

Around 2008-2011, my parents finally opened the cabinet of games they’d played back when they were dating (around 1990). These were primarily word games: Scatergories, Taboo, Balderdash, PicturePicture, Mad Gab, Boggle, etc. This opened up the possibility of playing games with the family, and led to me getting a few games of my own, including Blokus, Stratego, and Apples to Apples.

Reading through the BGG list, I see a lot of Cranium games… these were the bane of fun :laughing: Seriously, the ideology of needing to make things “educational” in order for them to be worthwhile is just wrong. Also, they just were reliably bad, and gave me a fair bit of hesitation to agreeing to play games at other people’s houses. Along with Charades and Twister :nauseated_face:

I also noted Twilight Imperium 2, which I still find the most playable of the TIs… not that 4th loses anything by being huge and insane, it just makes it an event rather than a regular game.

I wouldn’t play the big “hobby” games until around 2016; Catan and TTR are still on my shelves for casual occasions, but not really something I’d pick. Carcassonne is something I like casually, but absolutely loathe at a “high level”. I also have Entdecker, aka “ocd Carcassonne”, which gets rid of the rough edges and holes by putting all of the tiles on a board. Don’t often play it, but it does exist :man_shrugging:

Other shoutouts are Power Grid (my mom’s favorite of my games), Chinatown (best Monopoly substitute), Santiago (best bean-killing simulator), Thunders Edge (Twilight Imperium’s stillborn sibling), and Starfarers of Catan (definitely a more interesting game than it’s parent)

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38

Team none of them here. Never enjoyed any of them and never owned any of them. Would actively avoid games of Settlers or TTR so maybe by default I’d be lumped with Carcassone.

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39

You’re the opposite end of our age distibution to RogerBw

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40

big influence here, too, I think. we loved the first couple seasons. but wasn’t it a little later then 2005?

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