The Thread Where We Are Board Game Geeks

man just watch a godzilla movie while playing draughts

I prefer Pandemic! More lasting power too.

I don't love king of tokyo, haven't played Pandemic

pandemic

More game in Pandemic.

Although to be honest I prefer reimplementations of both. KoNY > Kot; Forbidden Island, Forbidden Desert and especially Thunderbirds all > Pandemic imo.

KoNY > Kot

Yes and no; the newer game has more depth and decently removes the problem of easy pickings dice-roll VPs, but it is a lot fiddlier and not nearly as much of instant crowd pleaser ime.

How the fuck do you win Pandemic?

play w/ only 2 players

I do agree w/chap that KoNY is less fun for non-gamers and isn't nearly as immediate.

And Mordy's right, you should beat Pandemic with 2.

I had to share this, a review / session report to rival Roberto Bolaño's The Third Reich:

At Dawn We Ate Sugar Smacks: Wargaming Newbies Tackle the Monster of Monsters

wow

ok finally finished that, beautiful

finally got a chance to learn + play race for the galaxy. so good.

Yeah love it.

I know this is a semi-perennial question on this thread but it's been a while so I'll go for it again: any recommendations for beginners who want something not too hardcore?

Especially looking for something playable with only 2 players, easy to pick up and where games take an hour or maybe two max (even quicker than that is good too!)...

I have ordered Carcassonne (not arrived yet tho) and itt I am looking at Jeff's q/list and responses from Dec 2010 about 2-player games, will look into some of those. Thanks!

Carcassonne is great, and Ticket to Ride is another popular game very playable for two and readily available at most games shops. Also, I'm yet to play it, but I've recently heard high praise about Jaipur.

Five Tribes

Carcassonne is great and has a lot of replay value, although I don't know what they're playing at by having recently re-desigined the game, rendering my older version a bit useless if I want to buy add-ons or anything.

Splendor is good for two people. Not a lot of interaction though.

catan is really easy to pick up and extremely addictive xp

my roommates and i play every other night or so. it's the kind of game where people's true character really comes out, for better or worse. (usually worse)

Catan is great but needs three players.

Carcassonne is a lot of fun as an entry-level game, although I do feel the need to say that it is wayyyy less fun with 2 than with 3/4 which is really its ideal size. Catan is kinda the same deal imho. But neither is necessarily un-fun with just two. Will return here when I have a positive useful two-player suggestion!

love letter can be played 2 player and games are super quick. morels is a v cute game about collecting mushrooms.

play android: netrunner. Not super easy at first, but damn, it's great.

Netrunner is truly fantastic but I'd consider it hardcore.

Thanks for the recommendations, everyone!

I am very into the idea of a card game about collecting mushrooms and it's p. cheap too* so that's currently top of my list, but I'll definitely try to some of the others too.

(* or will be if I'm brave enough to go to the slightly daunting board game café/shop in town instead of Amazon. I am a little sad that according to BGG the Euro edition "Fungi" gives Latin names and not the more pronounceable names on the original Morels cards but it does still look v. cute)

try to some of the others too

I never some of the others

play the ticket to ride app two player with my bro and it passes time so well, super fun, india expansion v fun too

Well, here's a theme I haven't seen before: rabbit divorce.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/155495/kune-v-lakia-chronicle-royal-lapine-divorce-foreto

new Dominion expansion should be on shelves within days. Most exciting part of this one to me is the Landmarks, which provide alternate ways of earning (or losing) VP either during or at the end of the game. For example, one gives you 15 points if you have at least 10 coppers in your final deck. (And since like the Events from Adventures they're just one card you have out, you could proxy them pretty easily if you were so inclined.)

Dominion is probably my favorite game and I'm delighted Donald X. is still coming up with new ideas.

i wish i could get more into dominion. i've liked it when i've played (i have the core set and the Prosperity expansion) but something about it feels so sterile that it's kinda --yawn-- but i can see that clearly it's a super well designed game. idk what it is that i feel like it's missing.

It's sterile like a surgical instrument and I wouldn't have it otherwise tbh.

I don't find it serile, I think it's generally a real hoot - unless you have one of those really draggy kingdom card combos with hardly any plus actions or whatever.

I've been working my way through the Dominion expansions for about a year and a half now, most recently on Dark Ages, which I think is my favourite along with Prosperity and possibly Seaside. I like how each one has a different atmosphere to it as well as different mechanics.

I really need to get some kind of organiser for all my cards - it's a real pain getting them out and putting them back into the various expansion boxes.

I use the same solution Donald X does which is long cardboard trading card boxes. I got some dividers printed out too, everything is in alphabetical order and easily grabbed, it's pretty great.

Yeah I need to get something like that together.

Had a look at the new card list, some really fun ones! Though the art looks worse than usual.

my group won't play dominion anymore after someone discovered 'big money' & insists that's the only way to play and is unbeatable

p.sure that only applies for the base game but we never get the chance to try out the other expansions : /

Big Money isn't unbeatable. It's just a baseline strategy all others can be measured against. You can even beat it in the base game. Try Chapel, or Market and Gardens, or Witch.

Big money is often a winning tactic, but no one in my group ever plays it cos it's really boring.

played King of Tokyo yesterday - v fun. the card combo w/ roll 1,1,1 take an extra turn and turn any one die to 1 is game-breaking.

Race for the Galaxy has been on our shelf for about a year and I kept falling asleep reading the instructions.

Anyway, we finally started playing and it's pretty fantastic. We also just bought HIVE, which I just thought I'd mention as no one else has. It's a little rinkydink two player game, basically chess with bugs. The pieces are really well made and the game mechanics are really original and fun.

Anyway - I seek recommendations. What's else is good in a Carcassonne/Ticket to Ride kind of way? I.e. A board game rather than card game, easy to pick up, good for two players, some relatively sui generis mechanics rather than a trading/resource-developing thing.

As an aside, I just get crushed at internet backgammon by a guy in Iran. The internet is great, sometimes!

Good for two players is probably the toughie there - - - I've played so much stuff that clicks into gear with three, but seems like it'd just sit there awkwardly with two people alternating. But I feel that way about Carcassonne, so if you're enjoying that, hmmm... I dunno! Just flipped through my spotty BGG reviews and the only thing jumping out at me as a 'maybe' would be Seeland, which I remember finding quite enjoyable and sort of "medium-light."

I found Troyes fun with two, but my tastes may be different than yours. (I do love "trading/resource-developing games" like Agricola.) Merchants and Marauders can be a tad complicated but is also a very fun two-player "theme" game, if you play it in the race mode.

Some favourite card-based ones for two:
+ Dominion
simpler:
+ Lost Cities
+ Coloretto
+ Bohnanza

Thanks for the recs! I heard Agricola was good in two-player mode too? I do like the trading-developing stuff as well.

I like Labyrinth for 2 players but it's nothing like Carcassonne

Also there is an expansion coming momentarily! It will include contractors, ISIS, Syria, etc.

I mean Hive is probably the best new two player game of the last 15 years so you're setting your bar pretty high there.

It's really great, eh? We bought it by chance. And I've been playing online at BGA when I can't sleep. I've lost every single game.