Board Games!

[Axxle]

The base game has pretty limited strategic options. Haven't played base in a while though. Big money plus a few support cards tend to do best. I've only really played 2 player though.

[Sudo_Nym]

I like to fill my deck with Golds and Villages, so that I can buy provinces and terminal actions. Shut up, it's fun.

[zoraster]

Playing boring but effective makes you a competitive person and the game is at fault. Playing boring but ineffective makes you thoughtless or a jerk and you're at fault.

Don't get me wrong. I understand the wonderful feeling of cycling through a deck. In the base set, Lab+Chapel is basically the dominant strategy if available. Just saying that if you're going to annoy your friends, at least do it in a way that helps you beat them.

[Sudo_Nym]

Except I almost always win playing my way, so I have no incentive to change. If I were playing on like BSW with high quality players, I'd certainly want to upgrade my play.

[zoraster]

[Sudo_Nym]

So, who wants to play some Diplomacy?

[zoraster]

Wouldn't you prefer a good game of Chess?

[Sudo_Nym]

Diplomacy offers wider backstabbing potential.

[Mr. Flay]

Except I almost always win playing my way, so I have no incentive to change. If I were playing on like BSW with high quality players, I'd certainly want to upgrade my play.

Sounds like your monotonous playstyle annoyed your friends out of playing before they could develop an effective counter. *shrug*

[Sudo_Nym]

Except I almost always win playing my way, so I have no incentive to change. If I were playing on like BSW with high quality players, I'd certainly want to upgrade my play.

Sounds like your monotonous playstyle annoyed your friends out of playing before they could develop an effective counter. *shrug*

In other words, I've achieved Permanent Victory!

[zoraster]

It's lonely at the top!

[Chevre]

So Hanabi won Spiel des Jahres. Anybody played this? It seems like people are saying it's more of a cooperative brain challenge than a game. It is pretty inexpensive however.

[mykonian]

second that question.

[inspiratieloos]

We played it a few times at the UK meet, it was pretty fun imo, although the communication part is generally way more important than the puzzle part.

[Nexus]

I loved Hanabi when we played it. It was so much fun.

[inHimshallibe]

I need a new game, I haven't picked anything up since the holidays. Give me the lowdown on, say, Dominant Species and Cosmic Encounter.

[zoraster]

cosmic encounter is a good game if you like games where teaming up against people is kind of the point, not just something to avoid. it's also great because it has so much variety. it's also more fun (I think) with at least 5 playing. it's not a great game if you purely want to prove who's the smartest. the roles vary a lot in strength and people can pretty effectively maintain the balance of power so to speak.

[quadz08]

cosmic encounter is AMAZING

I was going to purchase it then found out how expensive board games are >_>

[mith]

So Hanabi won Spiel des Jahres. Anybody played this? It seems like people are saying it's more of a cooperative brain challenge than a game. It is pretty inexpensive however.

Hanabi is excellent if you like cooperatives. It is the most effective cooperative in terms of avoiding the "one person tell everyone else what to do" problem, since you can't see your own cards and table talk has to be minimal to avoid giving anything away unfairly.

(Pretty much any cooperative skews more toward "puzzle", though you can also think of them as games with the board/deck/etc. as the opponent.)

[mith]

I need a new game, I haven't picked anything up since the holidays. Give me the lowdown on, say, Dominant Species and Cosmic Encounter.

Dominant Species is also excellent, but definitely on the heavy and long end of the gaming spectrum. My play of it (with four) took about 5 hours with teaching (and I was the only new player, so the teaching went more quickly than it would with mostly new players and/or an inexperienced explainer).

[hasdgfas]

I need a new game, I haven't picked anything up since the holidays. Give me the lowdown on, say, Dominant Species and Cosmic Encounter.

Dominant Species is also excellent, but definitely on the heavy and long end of the gaming spectrum. My play of it (with four) took about 5 hours with teaching (and I was the only new player, so the teaching went more quickly than it would with mostly new players and/or an inexperienced explainer).

It's also one of my favorite games. However, it only went about 3-3.5 hours with teaching a new player last time that I played it. I find it has a great balance of long-term strategy with having to deal with things that come up. It's an area control/worker placement game. Pretty hard to describe without seeing it, I think.

[Chevre]

So I asked my friends over Facebook what they liked about Settlers:

Strategy - yay you really narrowed it down
Trading - Surprisingly, there isn't a lot according to BGG, but I'm getting Bohnanza. I think my group will really like it, plus it's very inexpensive. I mean, there are other suggestions, but they seem a lot weightier than Catan, and my group is sort of poking at how "hard" they believe it is, so I don't want to escalate too fast.
Sheep - Unfortunately, BGG doesn't have any way to find games which involve sheep. ...any suggestions?

EDIT: Just kidding about there not being a lot of trading games; BGG has a deceptively short list, but 244 pages to go through.

[Sudo_Nym]

Other games which involve sheep include Agricola, Risk, and Galaxy Trucker.

[Chevre]

I've played Risk, but never seen any sheep.

[Sudo_Nym]

I suppose it depends on your house rules.