Board Games!

[Something_Smart]

ego

[Something_Smart]

Any other party/social deduction games? Group enjoys Secret Hitler/2rooms+Boom/Mafia, but is looking for something new.

Chameleon

[Something_Smart]

Island is better than desert imo, though it can have a problem with one person telling everyone what to do (I am certainly guilty of that).

[Something_Smart]

If the players are very aggressive traders and/or very indecisive in figuring out what to build, I could see that. Also maybe with expansions.

[Something_Smart]

I only played Clank once and I didn't like it because some of the cards are OP and if one of those comes up right before your turn then congrats, you just got a win button. It felt like the RNG mattered more than player choices did. Could just be that I'm spoiled by Dominion, though.

[Something_Smart]

Dominion is my favorite board game of all time, so I feel obligated to say something at least.

That said, (a) it's strategically deep but also has a lot of randomness, which is definitely not for everyone, (b) it only gets really great when you play with expansions, which is a lot of investment for something you might not like anyway, and (c) when you do play with expansions, there are a LOT of cards you have to memorize before you stop feeling lost every game.

The first edition of the base set especially did not do the game as a whole justice. And I guess it's reasonable to consider the first published edition to be the whole game and the expansions to be unnecessary things you can add if you really feel like it, but it still makes me sad to hear people dismiss it out of hand.

[Something_Smart]

It is.

Again, all of this stuff is improved by expansions, but even the base game has a ton of nuance and complexity to it.

Out of curiosity, what don't you like about it?

[Something_Smart]

The cards chosen tend to direct toward a clear winning strategy each game.

This is sometimes true, but even in games where the cards you want are pretty clear, there are a lot of things you have to figure out like what order to get them in, how many of each to get, which ones to play if you happen to not be able to play everything in your hand, and when to start buying victory cards. However this kind of stuff is pretty hard to figure out on your own; almost everything I know about Dominion strategy I learned from the online community (primarily the Discord). But the depth is definitely there.

In terms of expansions, the traditional answer for the first expansion you should get is Seaside; it adds one major new mechanic (duration cards that have an effect on your next turn) and is otherwise pretty simple. Renaissance is also a good one-- it's much more recent so the cards are more balanced, but it only adds a couple of new mechanics. Intrigue was an older one but it was updated to remove some of the really weak cards, so that's also a good pick.

On the other end of the spectrum, if you you're looking for ways to make the gameplay more complex, Dark Ages, Adventures, and Nocturne are the ones to look at, but they are a good bit more complicated.

[Something_Smart]

Just played Forbidden Sky for the first time. We got demolished on the easiest difficulty. But it was pretty fun; the strategy seems more nuanced than the first two games.

[Something_Smart]

I've played Machi Koro a handful of times. I enjoyed it.

Maybe I haven't played it often or seriously enough to see the optimal strategies.

[Something_Smart]

If you like co-op games, Forbidden Island is a good one story-wise. It's pretty quick and mechanically simple, but the feeling of racing against the clock trying to recover ancient relics while the island is literally sinking is pretty compelling. At least for me.