OT: Board Games

[hoo]

Omnirizon said:
hoo: what qualifies a board game as female friendly? are some board games female antagonistic? a misogynistic board game? i don't get it.

Simple rules, quick to play and not a war based game. Simple rules doesn't mean simple strategy (see Citadels, Ticket to Ride or even Ra). Other females I know have liked Lost Cities enough to purchase the game to play with their significant others.

This is a gross simplification but I've encountered very, very few females who want to sit down and read the rules to Star Fleet Battles, or heck even Axis and Allies or so. I don't know many who want to play a tactical or strategic war game. Granted there's not a lot of males who want to do that either, but the pool of women who want to play a detailed wargame is pretty darn small.

OTOH hand, trading games, building games or games that can be relatively quick and taught easily are quite popular.

If you are trying to get together a mixed sex game group, Settlers or Ticket will be much more successful than a Talisman or War of the Ring (statistically more likely to be successful anyway).

RA = if not the best auction style game ever made in the top 3. http://boardgamegeek.com/game/12

[Saulot]

Heh, thanks... I thought it was an abbreviation for something, and I couldn't figure it out.

[Aezeal]

my GF likes runebound though (probably mostly the reason I like to too... it's a fantasy game I can actually play .. even though it's not that strategic and very much luck based ) no idea why though..

[Taqwus]

Light-hearted:
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Cults Across America (arguably a vicious game, too )


Vicious bastard:
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Settlers of Catan (2p card version)
Blood Feud: New York
Diplomacy


Logistics/grand strategy:
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Empires in Arms



Simulations that should have been on computers, not board:
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Panzer (the 1979 game)... manual LOS and facing checks



Of those, my favorite would be Cults, because it combines both silly humor and the potential for very, VERY nasty play.

[Aezeal]

2p catan is nice but I've played it to much...

diplomacy rocks but is not for few players

need to look into the other games (will start with cults ASAP)

[Aezeal]

arg best played with 5-6 player according to boardgamegeek... 2 bad... looked like a nice game..

do you think it's fun to play with 2 players? is it still for sale btw?

[Taqwus]

http://www.atlas-games.com/product_tables/AG1210.php

Official site. Downloadable rules. The downloadable card list won't tell you that much, since it only gives card names.

Goes well with alcohol. Doesn't go well with very serious players who dislike a rather strong element of chance and expect to be able to rely on grand plans.

[Aezeal]

hmmm well... if it's not good for 2 players I'm not buying these days ... all other things are less important if it's fun (I like that idiotic dungeon crawling game too.. even though it's very luck based ...dn't have it htough.. not so nice with 2 players)

[Hoplosternum]

Awful Green Things is great. Even better if you have two sets and a GM and play with your opponent 'hidden'

Powergrid is a little heavier than Peurto Rico but I prefer it but is a classic 'Euro' game. Perhaps my favourite of that type.

Dune (an old out of print game now) is a classic and really good with the right set of players. You need at least 4 and preferably 5 or 6 for it to really work though. Successive win attempts mean that the cards and money should circulate and keep everyone in the game. Titan is excellent with 2 or 3 but too slow (too much down time when others decide to fight out the battles) with more.

I like the 18XX games but they are quite long for games which you often know you are out of early. Same with Civ & Advanced Civ. This is a fault with a lot of the 'older' games. Players are effectively out of the game but you need them to stay playing for a few hours or the game folds. Sound familiar

Paths of Glory and the other card driven war games tend to be very good. They are really taking over the strategic war game market (with the block games). Perhaps because they can be played in between 6-10 hours (and can be played via Vassel & Cyberboard) but have the scope and skill of some of the larger strategic wargames of the past. You know the ones we all have stuck up in the loft that take 10 hours to set up and 100 to play....

RA is a great auction game. But if it is a pure auction action you are after Modern Art is also very good.

Colossal Arena is decent hidden betting game with a fantasy theme. Evo is a great dinosaur evolution game with you bidding on genes to improve you dino (but spending victory points to do so) before the meteor strikes. Primordeal soup is similar but involves you bidding for genes on your amoeba and drifting around looking for the right coloured mixture of food to eat while cr**ing out your own colour that your opponents like to feed on

For lighter games Carcassonne & Ticket to Ride are good. But I prefer card games like Wyatt Earp, Schnappchen Jagd, Bohnanza, Frank's Zoo and For Sale for lighter quicker games.

Boardgame geek is a great resource for all things boardgame. The link is in many of the above posts. They also have a great system of Geekgold which is used to buy yourself avatars and to exclude adds etc from the site. You get it for contributing to the site - reviews, pictures etc. and you can also gift it to others.

[thejeff]

In the not quite boardgames category:

Nuclear War (And Nuclear Escalation) -- Woof! You lose 20 million people!

Illuminati (The original not the trading card version) -- "Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow" are controlling the Boy Scouts?