1. dominion - the all-time classic. absurdly replayable, even with a handful of the now (also absurd) 13 expansions. 2. race for the galaxy - the ultimate value-for-time game, there's so much to chew on in a 30-60 minute, well, race. 3. the castles of burgundy - stefan feld is my guy, and this is arguably his best game, and undoubtedly his most popular. has a lot of depth but is also pretty accessible. 4. bora bora - stefan feld again, this one is sadly out of print and feels like it kind of flew under the radar of some of his bigger hits but man. what a supremely satisfying amalgamation of worker placement, engine/tableau building, and goal completion. it's one of those games that you spend the first half struggling to stop spinning your wheels, but when (and how) you get through makes it feel so good. 5. ra - the ultimate bidding game, and legendary designer reiner knizia's masterpiece. a testament to the "less-is-more" school of game design, and how much game you can pack in a handful of choices if you truly do it right. i'm always amazed at the clever plays and brutal mistakes i make every single time i play this one.
recently i've been playing a ton of macao (also stefan feld) on yucata.de and although it has solidly hung in the 6-10 zone in my rankings i feel like it could easily displace something here. another engine/tableau builder swirling around the most clever dice/action point mechanism of all time
1. covered dominion in my writeup obviously, but just yesterday, was thinking how awesome it was that donald X actually invented the deckbuilding mechanic while trying to make an entirely different game. less is more indeed!
4. rarely hear about bora bora, perhaps because feld's oeuvre is so deep. i find it kind of unlikely i'll get to play this anytime soon, but i'll keep its name in mind!
re: macao - for a second i thought this was cacao and was seriously puzzled. a 10-second read of its mechanisms does sound interesting.
Naye745 posted...
some comments on previously mentioned games: puerto rico is a classic for a reason - the pieces around its central role-selection battle are good, but the battle to jockey for the perfect position with all the individual roles is always exceptional. you're pretty much guaranteed to have at least one play where you screw someone else over, and one play where you get screwed over, and it's grand. although race for the galaxy takes some cues from this one, the race for the galaxy board game (new frontiers) is basically puerto rico both rethemed and with a little more spice, and i'd recommend it for anyone who is lukewarm on PR for the "iffy" theme
millennium blades actually surprised me how much i enjoyed it - it's a lot more fiddly and overwrought than anything i'm usually into, but the real-time aspect along with the success of carrying over the theme's "feel" to the actual game did a heck of a lot. level 99's other stuff left me lukewarm at best, this one's easily my favorite
voyages of marco polo is right around my top 10, and it's funny that you mention it as "another midweight euro" because that's totally how it comes across! but somehow it's surprisingly addictive - it's an exceptionally well-crafted game with lots of familiar systems, yet they work in tandem beautifully here. if there's one thing that sticks out, it's also a game where each player gets a unique power - and the characters' powers are both unique abilities (not just stuff found elsewhere in the game) and super super strong. some reviewer once described it as everyone looking around the table and calling each other's characters OP, and i think that sums it up pretty nicely.
fuse is super cool, my only beef is that it's exceptionally hard for 2 and much more trivial with 5; it's not a disaster because you can always modify the difficulty if you want, but i wish it were a tad better balanced.
castles of mad king ludwig is one of those games people who like tend to REALLY like, and i'm oddly a bit in the middle. the fun shaped pieces make castle building legitimately exciting, you're not just tossing hexagons together like in suburbia, but really making something that feels unique. the master builder is a "good" mechanic but man it can be an AP disaster, even for people like me that usually move along pretty well. the desire to not be punished immediately by someone else buying what you need or getting what they want cheap just brings out the agony.
RE: marco polo - it's still relatively recent and is kind of a "hotness" game, so now i'm hoping that i run into it at a meetup!
RE: castles of mad king ludwig - i think it needs more plays. the master builder mechanic is very similar to isle of skye, but for whatever reason IOS has hit the table a lot and not COMKL - it's just how the cookie crumbles. suburbia is def on my want-to-play list.
Maniac64 posted...
My family has been playing a lot of codenames online during this pandemic.
nice! glad that you guys are staying in contact and playing games together! ---
yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness