Need boardgame recommendation

[Blackjack200]

Chess

😀

 

[mugs]

Got up a game of Axis and Allies with my 14 and 10 year old boys over the weekend. First time they've ever played it and they loved it. Didn't finish it so we kept it as is and last night the stupid cat laid on the board and scrambled pieces all over the place. We had taken a couple of pictures but they weren't clear enough to reset.

So, the boys want to play again this weekend, but I'm wondering what other games in the same vain they may enjoy. Want to get Ticket to Ride, but it's damn expensive. Any suggestions?

Also, what's the best place to get them at?

If they loved Axix & Allies there are of course a half dozen games in that series which cover specific theaters or even operations. Read up on them at Boardgamegeek to find which are best for your purposes (e.g. number of players).

If you want something beyond Axis & Allies I would suggest Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition. This uses A&A style combat, but the focus of the game isn't entirely on combat (you don't have to dominate the board to win). It adds politics, trade and technological research to the A&A formula and is set in space. It's really a civilization building game.

Downsides:
- Retail is $80, street price is $60
- It's best with 4+ players
- It might be over the 10 year old's head, but he'd probably get it after a couple of plays

Spend some time reading about it at board game geek if you're interested. You'll find that the first expansion has a lot of "bug fixes" in it and it really improves the game. You don't need to buy the first expansion to make the game playable, but I would print out copies of at least some of the expansion strategy cards to replace the broken ones that came in the base game.


I would also recommend Shogun http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/20551/shogun

It's an area-control game like Axis & Allies, and it has its share of combat. Instead of using dice for randomization it uses a cube tower into which you drop your armies. Some get stuck in the tower, some come out, and some perviously-stuck armies get knocked loose, so you never really know how many armies are going to fight for you. The ones that don't will stay in the tower to fight in a future battle. It's really cool and fun. It's also not about dominating the board though. The goal is to build buildings in your territories to improve their value, and in two scoring rounds (midpoint and end) you tally up the value of your territories and score points. The person who rules the greatest territory (not necessarily in size) wins. Combat in this game is used to expand your territory (more points) and to steal territory with those bonus buildings from your neighbors. It would probably also be slightly over the head of a 10 year old, but with some guidance he could probably pick it up.

 

[Beev]

Merchants and Marauders (best pirate game)

+1 for M&M. It's my favorite board game so far. Tales of the Arabian Nights is a close second, but it probably wouldn't be very fun for the 10 year old.

 

[GotIssues]

Agricola > Settlers of Catan. Similar game less reliant on pure luck.

Some of the games my friends and I play/have played that are fun:
Battlestar Galactica: Mix of Co-op and non-Co-op. It has a lot of the best elements of games to it.
Carson City: This could be exactly what you are looking for. Relatively simple with lots of different avenues to victory.
Agricola: A better Settlers of Catan. Less reliance on rolls of the dice and more on strategy
Civilization: Fun board game that we just got, haven't been able to play it much yet. It's true that if 2 people dogpile one person, but that's true of pretty much every game.
Citidels: Quicker game, simple, fun. Think about getting it as well as with a longer game.
Red November: Co-op game about gnomes on a submarine. Hilarity often ensues
Twilight Imperium: Long game. Space civilization. My biggest problem is that it's a space conquest game that never, ever ends with a space conquest. It's fun, but there just flat out isn't enough time or rewards for going military.

I'm sure there are a couple more I'm forgetting, but these are the ones that are coming to my mind atm. We play a lot of board games...

 

[CPA]

I love (BGG), however given that you like A & A, many of the games found on the geek are going to be much more abstract euro's than American Dice Rollers... (my favorites being - Agricola, At the gates of Loyang, Dominion...which are all great titles)

...but there may be some games/types of games which might appeal to your group.

Merchants and Marauders (best pirate game)
Memoir 44 (command and colors variant)
Twilight imperium
Through the Ages (a civ variant)
Small World (risk in a fantasy environment)
Settlers of Catan (No one can catan as catanilly as catan can catan)
Federation Commander (hex based combat)

Thanks. I was looking at a few of those yesterday.

I have played Settlers on XBox Live, only. Is the game played much different?

 

[CPA]

If they loved Axix & Allies there are of course a half dozen games in that series which cover specific theaters or even operations. Read up on them at Boardgamegeek to find which are best for your purposes (e.g. number of players).

If you want something beyond Axis & Allies I would suggest Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition. This uses A&A style combat, but the focus of the game isn't entirely on combat (you don't have to dominate the board to win). It adds politics, trade and technological research to the A&A formula and is set in space. It's really a civilization building game.

Downsides:
- Retail is $80, street price is $60
- It's best with 4+ players
- It might be over the 10 year old's head, but he'd probably get it after a couple of plays

Spend some time reading about it at board game geek if you're interested. You'll find that the first expansion has a lot of "bug fixes" in it and it really improves the game. You don't need to buy the first expansion to make the game playable, but I would print out copies of at least some of the expansion strategy cards to replace the broken ones that came in the base game.


I would also recommend Shogun http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/20551/shogun

It's an area-control game like Axis & Allies, and it has its share of combat. Instead of using dice for randomization it uses a cube tower into which you drop your armies. Some get stuck in the tower, some come out, and some perviously-stuck armies get knocked loose, so you never really know how many armies are going to fight for you. The ones that don't will stay in the tower to fight in a future battle. It's really cool and fun. It's also not about dominating the board though. The goal is to build buildings in your territories to improve their value, and in two scoring rounds (midpoint and end) you tally up the value of your territories and score points. The person who rules the greatest territory (not necessarily in size) wins. Combat in this game is used to expand your territory (more points) and to steal territory with those bonus buildings from your neighbors. It would probably also be slightly over the head of a 10 year old, but with some guidance he could probably pick it up.

Shogun sound neat. Thanks.

 

[CPA]

Agricola > Settlers of Catan. Similar game less reliant on pure luck.

Some of the games my friends and I play/have played that are fun:
Battlestar Galactica: Mix of Co-op and non-Co-op. It has a lot of the best elements of games to it.
Carson City: This could be exactly what you are looking for. Relatively simple with lots of different avenues to victory.
Agricola: A better Settlers of Catan. Less reliance on rolls of the dice and more on strategy
Civilization: Fun board game that we just got, haven't been able to play it much yet. It's true that if 2 people dogpile one person, but that's true of pretty much every game.
Citidels: Quicker game, simple, fun. Think about getting it as well as with a longer game.
Red November: Co-op game about gnomes on a submarine. Hilarity often ensues
Twilight Imperium: Long game. Space civilization. My biggest problem is that it's a space conquest game that never, ever ends with a space conquest. It's fun, but there just flat out isn't enough time or rewards for going military.

I'm sure there are a couple more I'm forgetting, but these are the ones that are coming to my mind atm. We play a lot of board games...

Thanks.

 

[Possessed Freak]

Agricola > Settlers of Catan. Similar game less reliant on pure luck.

They are not related at all, other than in the general sense of resource management. Catan is very luck based on dice throughout the game. Agricola is very luck based on the initial card draw. Catan has very few types of pieces and very few developmental paths. Agricola has a crap load of pieces and a crapload of developmental paths. Catan takes less than an hour to play, Agricola can take 30 minutes to put away!

 

[Newbian]

Agricola > Settlers of Catan. Similar game less reliant on pure luck.

Try the cities and knights expansion for Settlers of Catan.

It makes the game a lot better it seems, especially with some of the cards you can get that let you switch the numbers around or let you pick what number you will roll.

 

[Apple Of Sodom]

Munchkin. I know it is a card game (although there is a board game variant) but it is a lot of fun. My 8 year old daughter thinks it is hilarious. Her favorite variation is Munchkin Zombie.

 

[CPA]

They are not related at all, other than in the general sense of resource management. Catan is very luck based on dice throughout the game. Agricola is very luck based on the initial card draw. Catan has very few types of pieces and very few developmental paths. Agricola has a crap load of pieces and a crapload of developmental paths. Catan takes less than an hour to play, Agricola can take 30 minutes to put away!

Are any of the Agricola expansions necessary?

 

[The Boston Dangler]

was shogun heavily revised? what's described isn't quite the game i played 15ish years ago. could be a problem on my end tho 🙂

another game i played at the time was supremacy. i agree with the 5.46 rating 😛

 

[mugs]

Are any of the Agricola expansions necessary?

Absolutely not, especially the extra decks of cards. Many people consider the "family" version of the game (which doesn't use cards at all) a better game because it reduces the luck factor and makes it more strategic. Since you're playing with kids you should start with the family rules and add in the cards for a later play, then decide if you want to keep using them. Agricola may be a bit heavy for a 10 year old, but because there is no hidden information (aside from the cards which you shouldn't be using initially) you can give him advice for the first few games. Agricola really requires you to plan ahead.

was shogun heavily revised? what's described isn't quite the game i played 15ish years ago. could be a problem on my end tho 🙂

another game i played at the time was supremacy. i agree with the 5.46 rating 😛

There is another game called Shogun that was released in the 70s. I think there was also yet another Shogun game that I saw some guys playing in college, and they described it as being similar to Axis & Alies (this would have been before the "new" Shogun game was released). The one I posted about is the best game named Shogun. Don't get the wrong game! Another version of the game system, Wallenstein, is supposed to be reprinted in the fall. It's considered by some to be superior; I'm not a big fan of the Japan map myself, because it's long and narrow.

I can't wait for Wallenstein to come out, but I think I'm going to have to buy Shogun in the meantime.

 

[Manchimp]

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/games/c674/ Last Night on Earth.
zombie board game I found. looks cool but I havn't tried it.

 

[CPA]

Okay, I've got Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride in my cart. Debating over Agricola and Memoir 44.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/games/c674/ Last Night on Earth.
zombie board game I found. looks cool but I havn't tried it.

innnnnnteresting

 

[JTsyo]

I never feel like I've done well in Agricola even when I win. You get scored in everything and get negatives if you don't do enough in one area so it's very hard to get a bit of everything because everyone else is trying to get resources too. We've had games where people try to grab starting player 2 turns in advance if they think family growth is coming out.

 

[torpid]

Cities and Knights is a terrible expansion. It changes Catan into a geeky, painfully slow game. I recommend strongly against it. Seafarers is the best expansion for Catan that I've played.

Agricola, Dominion, Carcassonne are my current favorites. Dominion is kind of in a class of its own, really. Great variance, easy to get into, very good documentation, and quick. Agricola is probably the hardest game to get into I've played in years; the documentation is utterly abysmal and you have to actually play three or four times and re-read the manual after each to fully understand it.

mugs: interesting that people prefer the family version of agricola. It makes sense but I also wonder whether the game is too similar each time you play it that way.

 

[JTsyo]

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/games/c674/ Last Night on Earth.
zombie board game I found. looks cool but I havn't tried it.

L4D boardgame basically?

 

[CPA]

Cities and Knights is a terrible expansion. It changes Catan into a geeky, painfully slow game. I recommend strongly against it. Seafarers is the best expansion for Catan that I've played.

Agricola, Dominion, Carcassonne are my current favorites. Dominion is kind of in a class of its own, really. Great variance, easy to get into, very good documentation, and quick. Agricola is probably the hardest game to get into I've played in years; the documentation is utterly abysmal and you have to actually play three or four times and re-read the manual after each to fully understand it.

mugs: interesting that people prefer the family version of agricola. It makes sense but I also wonder whether the game is too similar each time you play it that way.

From what I gather Dominion is pretty much a card game, correct? Not sure that's going to interest us much. Part of the allure for the boys with Axis and Allies is the units. It looks cool to have tanks, infantry and planes scattered all over the board.

 

[Jeffg010]

Stop Theif
I feel the same way as this guy about the game.
http://jamesgroome.com/pages/personal_site/stopthief.html

 

[CPA]

Stop Theif
I feel the same way as this guy about the game.
http://jamesgroome.com/pages/personal_site/stopthief.html

LOL, I remember that game. Used to have it.

 

[Newbian]

Cities and Knights is a terrible expansion. It changes Catan into a geeky, painfully slow game. I recommend strongly against it. Seafarers is the best expansion for Catan that I've played.

Yet every review out there loves it and recommends it.

The seafarer was probably one of the worst I have tried as it does to the game what you described, you spend half of the game simply trying to reach another island and you spend a lot of time setting it up and taking it down for very little reward since half of the tiles become water tiles usually.

And honestly the cities and knights version goes faster for when I play it then the normal version as you tend to get more resources a lot faster in the game and someone wins that much quicker because of it.

Also all the seafarer version added was the addition of letting you build boats that really all it is was another way to build a long road but with boats instead to islands and then to play like the normal version on those islands so for the price it is not worth it simply for that alone.

 

[torpid]

From what I gather Dominion is pretty much a card game, correct? Not sure that's going to interest us much. Part of the allure for the boys with Axis and Allies is the units. It looks cool to have tanks, infantry and planes scattered all over the board.

It's a card game, yes. But it's also a sort of unit-building game. You start with the same 10 cards each game, and using those cards, you buy other cards (without losing the cards you used to buy them). The other cards can do a variety of things, including attacking other players to force them to discard, etc. Each game you can randomize the 10 "action cards" used so the game is highly varied.

Agricola's tokens are all basic geometric shapes and not very interesting compared to Axis and Allies or the like.

So if what you are looking for is cool tokens and meeple, neither game is for you.

 

[GotIssues]

They are not related at all, other than in the general sense of resource management. Catan is very luck based on dice throughout the game. Agricola is very luck based on the initial card draw. Catan has very few types of pieces and very few developmental paths. Agricola has a crap load of pieces and a crapload of developmental paths. Catan takes less than an hour to play, Agricola can take 30 minutes to put away!

The underlying premise and theory is quite similar, accomplished in slightly different manners. They are both heavy resource management games. Agricola relies a bit more on planning ahead and a good strategy, Settlers on luck. If you want/need family growth, you know roughly when it's coming and can plan for it. If you need wheat and trying to expand to a contested spot before someone else gets there, you are at the mercy of the dice rolls and SOL if they get there first. If someone takes a spot you want for Agricola, it just means that you need to wait a turn. As for the cleanup, I'm not sure if you are taking smoke breaks or what, but you need to assess what you do when putting the game away. It takes about 5 minutes for us.

Agricola's luck isn't as dependent on cards as you think. Cards make a difference, but the real "luck" aspect of Agricola is what everyone else is trying to do. I've won on more than one occassion without playing more than 2 cards, mainly because I altered my strategies slightly to take advantage of where others' strategies ignored.

I have heard that the peet moss and horse expansion (forget the name) for Agricola was fun and a good addition, but never tried it. We also have a few houserules that we use - no Taster card, as an example.