Does anyone want to play Ticket to Ride online with me? I haven't tried it out yet, but I'd like to.

 

So....no one here play's Clue? Really? It was awesome and still is.

Other than that: Chess, go, stratego and monopoly...

Until drinking enters the picture.

 

I have played Clue (and the others you just mentioned), but when making this thread I was talking about the more advanced board games.....

Didn't feel that those games that everyone played as a kid really warranted a mention.

 

Clue is awesome regardless of age.

Evidence:

 

It's always Colonel Mustard. truefax.

 

I haven't posted here in awhile, but I've been avidly playing board games this whole time. I just wanted to pop in and recommend a game I recently bought.

Lords of Waterdeep is a game set in the Forgotten Realms. It is 2-5 players, and the number of players decides how many agents you get. You spend the game placing agents, collecting and playing intrigue cards, collecting and finishing quests, and building buildings. I like this game because of the high level of variance. It's really a game of supply and demand, as completely different buildings are built every game, which might mean that thieves are more plentiful, or perhaps clerics. (You use 'adventurers' to complete quests to get points)

You are a Lord (or Lady) of Waterdeep, and each one has a different condition for getting bonus points at the end of the game.

Obviously the rules are a bit more complicated than that, with the different effects from cards, buildings, etc.

Anyway, this is a game I've played a LOT since I bought it, and I'm still not tired of it. Off to play another game right now.

 

I am up for some Chess. (or any online version of a board game, I haven't played many but it should be fun. I was crazy about Scotland yard a few years ago.)

Hit me up if anyone wants a match.

 

Never been a large fan of board games but I love Scotland Yard, a simple basic detective game where I believe it's 5 players traverse London via taxi, tube & bus chasing the murderer played by another player who uses the same travel systems. It's really basic but good for a quick no brainer, I haven't played it in a couple of years so it's not as fresh as it should be.

Outside that, Cluedo, Risk and it's not really a board game, but I guess Zombie Dice can be thrown in here too. Speaking of which, nobody seems to have mentioned it yet (if they have, apologies) but Wil Wheaton does a series on youtube playing board games called 'Tabletop' - comes out every Thursday/Friday and I think there's 20 games in the first season, still going now. Good for a chuckle if you have 25 - 30 minutes to spare and it made me really want to try Fiasco sometimes.

 

Played Power Grid and Pandemic today. Both great games and I recommend them. More explanation on what they are below.

Pandemic is a Co-op board game where the players (up to 5) play against four diseases. You get to name them yourself so in today's game we cured aids but then the world died to Obesity. Each city featured on the globe can develop a case of a disease. If there are 3 cases of a disease in a city and another breaks out, an outbreak occurs and the disease spreads to all connecting cities.
Epidemic cards cause an instant 3 cases of disease in a city, then cause the deck to be reshuffled which leads to a very good chance that a fourth case will come very soon and cause an outbreak. As more epidemic cards are drawn, the amount of disease cases occuring per turn increase and if you reach a certain amount of outbreaks, you lose.
Players draw character classes randomly and get perks based on their classes. The medic can cure all disease in a city instead of just 1, the scientist can make a cure more easily, etc.

It's a great game for anyone, but particularly for a fun night with your less competitive friends (IE the girlfriends) or for those people who take games way too seriously (because you win or lose as a team).


Power Grid is a really fun board game kind of like Ticket to Ride. You fight to provide power to Germany (or America which is on the reverse side of the board). You provide power to a city. You earn money based on how many cities you provide power to, but you have to pay to buy the factories (which start out shit, 3 of a resource for 1 power, and slowly get better over time), buy the fuel for the factories, and pay to expand into new cities.

You make more money for more cities, but the player in first place gets the shaft in the next turn. Only so many resources are available, and they are replenished every turn by a set amount. The amount increases as the game proceeds, but the price you pay for the resources (coal, oil, garbage, and uranium) increases depending on how many are currently available. The player who is in last place gets to buy first and the first place player buys last. So if everyone is buying coal (since it's replenished most), the last place player could buy all of his for 2 or 3 each, while the first place player could have to pay 5/6 each. If you can't power your factory, you don't make money for any unpowered cities, and if you have to pay 18 of the 33 your earned last turn just to power your factory, you probably can't buy a new city.

The turn starts with players bidding on factories. The first place player selects first, but anyone can bid against him, so good factories are often things you have to pay a premium for. There are six factories out and the lowest three are for sale, so essentially everyone else can see what factories could be up for sale next, because when a factory sells, a new one is put out and the lowest three are for sale to the next player. If you pass or buy a factory (by outbidding on someone else's turn or using your own turn), you can't bid on any more. So last place can choose to bid against anyone who he wants to, or just buy whatever is left at cost. After that, the highest card of the six is put on the bottom of the deck and a new one comes out, keeping it somewhat of a fresh selection.

After that people buy resources (last place first) and then pay to build the infrastructure to control new cities. Last place, once again, builds first. While later stages of the game allow multiple players to build in a single city at increased cost (stage 2 triggers at a certain number of cities owned and stage 3 is triggered by a card placed on the bottom of the deck when the game starts), cities farther away from eachother cost more and you can be cut off pretty brutally and be forced to pay through the nose for more cities.

Game ends when a player reaches a certain score (based on # of players). The remaining players have till the end of the round to beat that score. Score is # of powered cities. Ties are solved by leftover money.

It keeps the game fresh and while you make 150+ a turn near the end, the game is super close and I got 2nd place twice. Once I lost by $2 and once I lost by $1.

A lot of calculations for the game (all in your head of course) but it's a lot of fun. I definitely got pretty sick of it towards the end of the six player game we played, but it was still entertaining. I had a lot more fun in the 3 player game, and I think it would be a better 3-4 player game.

Highly recommend both of them.

 

Risk Legacy is the shit if you've got a regular board gaming group. I'm ten games in with my regular group and while we started with the standard map of the world, we've made it ours.

You see, everyone gets 'scars' - stickers you put on territories that permanently change it. Russia and the Middle East are now practically indefensible, so in the most recent game they changed hands every single turn, because I didn't want them getting the Europe bonus and they didn't want me getting the Asia bonus. Europe is almost solid with cities, making it a near-crippling sink of troops to take over if you start there. Greenland and Iceland are both fortified, making the North America - Europe border as stable as anything.

The other thing about Risk Legacy is it's a game with spoilers. When you first get it it's like Risk with a handful of special rules. But there's empty squares all through the rulebook and each faction card has blank spots for stickers to go into. And there's compartments six sealed compartments in the game box - 'Open when a faction is eliminated from the game for the first time', 'open when someone is about to place thirty troops and has a missile', 'open when three missiles are used in the same battle', that sort of thing. Each of those introduce new shit, often drastically turning the tide of a game.

The only downside is, you can only play through it once - fifteen games worth, at which point the board is static - you've created a world you can continue to play Risk in, but it will be unchanging. You could buy a new board, but you know all the spoilers and what causes what to happen.

Even so, it's been more memrable than literally any other board game I have ever played, and some of the moments have ranked right up there with Bioshock's Would You Kindly. Plots twists in a board game. Fantastic.

Tehan's shortlist of other good games with player numbers required for them to not suck:

For two: Twilight Struggle, Space Hulk
For four: Chaos In The Old World
For 4+: Betrayal In The House On The Hill, Escape From Aliens In Outer Space, Dominant Species
For five: Battlestar Galactica, Chaos In The Old World (with Skaven expansion)
For six: A Game Of Thrones
For 2-5: Space Alert, Galaxy Trucker, Race For The Galaxy

If you're trying to wean people off shitty mass-produced board games for babies ('board games? You mean like Monopoly?' :facepalm) good starting points would be Pandemic or Ticket To Ride.

 

The Game of Thrones board game is best with 6. Otherwise, the 4 player map makes a 4 player game very fun as well. But 5 players? Less than ideal. And for the gamer with lots of friends, 9 player FOR THE FUCKING WIN.

 

Blast, it's been ages since I played and just remembered it's unbalanced if there's any slots left untaken, and google told me it was 3-5 players. Stupid first edition.

Fixed.

 

When played with four players with the standard rules, House Baratheon wins every time, even if all other players go against him/her.

But there are several threads in board game forums where this problem is adressed and discussed and the following rule changes are the best I've tried out (Keep in mind I'm talking about the second edition. Also, I did not came up with this changes, myself, but these where the best I found)

Also, I just played legens of Andor for the second time (second and third campaign) and I had a lot of fun while playing. It's a very good game, very balanced in my opinion, but I don't know yet, how good it will be, when you have played al campaings and repeat ones you've played before.

The game changes every time, so it is never the same, but there are still some doubts.

Nonetheless, I can hardly wait to find out.

 

I was referring to the 4 player A Storm of Swords expansion which has a special 4 player map. Playing 4 player on the 5 or 6 player (or 9 player) maps is kinda shitty, IMO. Playing 3 player, 2 or 3 houses each, makes more sense.

While on the topic, I made these custom house cards for the board game. They include Tully, Arryn, and Targaryen, because I play 9 player, but are still able to be used normally. Dunno if any of you are currently playing, though.

 

Risk Legacy sounds awesome, I will have to talk with my gaming buddies, but I will probably buy it.

 

For all of you game lovers, I'd highly reccomend watching Tabletop. Hosted by Will Wheaton, and produced by my most favorite person on earth, Felicia Day, the web series features a different board game every week. Every episode there are different players from all of the Nerd 'verse.

Personally, I've learned to play serveral board games just from watching the show, and have started playing The Resistance and Settlers of Catan.

 

I watched the Lords of Waterdeep episode recently because Aekiel recommended it to me due to my love of that game (and the fact that we played together). It was really hilarious, had Patrick Rothfuss and Felicia Day and....some guy.

 

LoW is great, and I've been a big fan of it since I first played it with my friends. There seems to be a new expansion out: Scoundrels of Skullport. Hopefully I get to play it soon.


Also looking forward to the iOS version of Waterdeep.

 

The Scoundrels of Skullport is a FANTASTIC expansion. Makes the game quite a bit longer, but that is easily avoided by playing 3 player.

I would definitely recommend acquiring it, it adds a lot to the game.