Hamster's top 20 board games

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

5: Dominant Species

2-6 players

Boardgamegeek blurb: "90,000 B.C. -- A great ice age is fast approaching. Another titanic struggle for global supremacy has unwittingly commenced between the varying animal species.

Dominant Species is a game that abstractly recreates a tiny portion of ancient history: the ponderous encroachment of an ice age and what that entails for the living creatures trying to adapt to the slowly-changing earth.

Each player will assume the role of one of six major animal classes -- mammal, reptile, bird, amphibian, arachnid or insect. Each begins the game more or less in a state of natural balance in relation to one another. But that won’t last: It is indeed "survival of the fittest."

Through wily action pawn placement, players will strive to become dominant on as many different terrain tiles as possible in order to claim powerful card effects. Players will also want to propagate their individual species in order to earn victory points for their particular animal. Players will be aided in these endeavors via speciation, migration and adaptation actions, among others.

All of this eventually leads to the end game -- the final ascent of the ice age -- where the player having accumulated the most victory points will have his animal crowned the Dominant Species.

But somebody better become dominant quickly, because it’s getting mighty cold...."

A game about the survival of the fittest back in pre-history. Each player takes a different type of animal (mammals, arachnids, insects, birds etc) which each have a different ability. Then players compete to carry out different actions each turn such as taking a tile to allow their animals to survive in different types of land. However the lands are constantly changing and the ice age is slowly moving closer as the icy wastes advance across the map.

The game is a bit of a beast at at least 3 hours long and there's so much choice over what to do each turn. You get 5 or 6 actions that you can use to choose what to do (a bit like Agricola from earlier in the list) but it's all limited so players have to choose what's MOST important for them to do. There's scoring throughout as different animals prove to be the most dominant in different areas and also big scoring at the end when you see which animals are the most widespread.

Dominant Species came out last year and has caused quite a "stir" in the board game world. It's not a quick and easy game at all but it really feels like you've gone through a big story by the end as leads ebb and flow and people who look like they're losing can build for a big comeback. The board and pieces are pretty simplistic in graphical style but that's good for the game as it stops everything from looking too busy later on.

[Ruki]

I've always wanted to give Dominate Species a try...although, when I was thinking of buying games it was like...$70

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

4: Twilight Struggle

2 players ONLY

Boardgamegeek blurb: "In 1945, unlikely allies toppled Hitler's war machine, while humanity's most devastating weapons forced the Japanese Empire to its knees in a storm of fire. Where once there stood many great powers, there then stood only two. The world had scant months to sigh its collective relief before a new conflict threatened. Unlike the titanic struggles of the preceding decades, this conflict would be waged not primarily by soldiers and tanks, but by spies and politicians, scientists and intellectuals, artists and traitors. Twilight Struggle is a two-player game simulating the forty-five year dance of intrigue, prestige, and occasional flares of warfare between the Soviet Union and the United States. The entire world is the stage on which these two titans fight to make the world safe for their own ideologies and ways of life. The game begins amidst the ruins of Europe as the two new "superpowers" scramble over the wreckage of the Second World War, and ends in 1989, when only the United States remained standing.

Twilight Struggle inherits its fundamental systems from the card-driven classics We the People and Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage. It is a quick-playing, low-complexity game in that tradition. The game map is a world map of the period, whereon players move units and exert influence in attempts to gain allies and control for their superpower. As with GMT's other card-driven games, decision-making is a challenge; how to best use one's cards and units given consistently limited resources?

Twilight Struggle's Event cards add detail and flavor to the game. They cover a vast array of historical happenings, from the Arab- Israeli conflicts of 1948 and 1967, to Vietnam and the U.S. peace movement, to the Cuban Missile Crisis and other such incidents that brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation. Subsystems capture the prestige-laden Space Race as well as nuclear tensions, with the possibility of game-ending nuclear war."

Not a game about 15 year olds losing their virginity. Twilight Struggle is a 2 player wargame(ish) about the Cold War. One player is the US and one is Russia and play to score as many victory points as possible without taking the world to nuclear war (if the Defcon level does degrade to nuclear war then both players lose). The game is played through the use of cards which either allow you to play the action on it (such as Castro taking power in Cuba), or the action points on the card which allows you to place more influence in an area or attempt coups or whatever. Too much macho posturing leads to the Defcon level worsening while times of relative peace bring it up again. Different continents carry different levels of stability - for example Europe is hard to fight over and can't be done with worsened Defcon while Africa and South America are pretty much up for grabs.

The game is just a great experience with different ways to achieve your goals. There's even a space race allowing you to secure bonuses through your race to the moon. All the card actions are based around historical events and the fallout from said events and the game progresses from early, to middle, to late war as the entry of Thatcher and Gorbachov really mark the end of the game as players need to be more and more subtle about how they're scoring points.

For a two player only game it's fantastic and amazingly is currently rated as the best ever game on Boardgamegeek.com.

[stokeriño]

I nearly bought Twilight Struggle when I first heard of it, but had since forgotten about its existence.

I think the only thing holding me back is doubt in my ability to convince Stokerina to play it. Clearly I need to MAN UP.

[stokeriño]

Hahaha, showed her the pictures of the board. "Oh Jesus Christ," she says disdainfully.

I then casually mention the bit about both players losing if we reach DEFCON 1, and she suddenly gets excited. "*gasp*, it has DEFCON levels in it?! That's awesome!"

I've married a nutbar.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

3: Die Macher

3-5 players

Boardgamegeek blurb: "Die Macher is a game about seven sequential political races in different regions of Germany. Players are in charge of national political parties, and must manage limited resources to help their party to victory. The winning party will have the most victory points after all the regional elections. There are four different ways of scoring victory points. First, each regional election can supply one to eighty victory points, depending on the size of the region and how well your party does in it. Second, if a party wins a regional election and has some media influence in the region, then the party will receive some media-control victory points. Third, each party has a national party membership which will grow as the game progresses and this will supply a fair number of victory points. Lastly, parties score some victory points if their party platform matches the national opinions at the end of the game."

Yes. A German game about German politics and elections is my third favourite game. It used to be my favourite until quite recently but part of the reason for the drop is that it's impossible to get a game organised. It's a hard sell - "Hey, you wanna come over to play a 5 hour game about German politics?"

It is a really really top quality game though and the "downtime" (the amount of time spent waiting for your turn) is tiny as each turn is split up into ten smaller chunks which are all really short. That means that the 5 hours goes by really quickly. Also the game is really well balanced and in one game I won by a single point at the end (scoring something like 350 to their 349).

Basically you take on the role of a German political party and you run in 6 regional elections. You gain votes, choose your political stances on GM foods, energy, finance etc and try to match with the national and local stances (which differ of course) as well as trying to alter their stances with some good old fashioned TV propaganda. You can enter into coalitions with other parties if your stances are similar enough (or even force a stronger party into a coalition with you) for each regional election and then after all the elections you check with the final national board to score your final points to see who wins the election with most points (won by winning the most seats, most regional elections and having the most similar stances to the national consensus).

The game is epic and amazing but definitely needs 4 or 5 players who are happy to invest the time in it.

Most people sadly aren't. If you're interested in games though you really need to play this at least once because it's gained a cult status.

[NobBe Nobbs]

I have to say I'm getting a little more worried about the lack of Diplomacy so far.

[LUKIE]

I am compiling my list of games to buy...

... now I need friends to play with.

Hammie move to Australia <3

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

2: The World Cup Game

2-16 players

Boardgamegeek blurb: "The World Cup Game is a football (soccer) game that is like no other soccer game. This is the first of its kind that closely resembles the current genre of German-style boardgames that have become so popular in recent years.

It is not a quiz game and it is not a single match style soccer game, but it covers two complete tournaments - the 1930 tournament in Uruguay and the 2002 tournament in Korea and Japan. Two games in one box. The 1930 game takes around an hour to play, while the 2002 game takes around 3 hours to play."

Whooo! The beautiful game makes an appearance in my top 20 in the shape of this beauty. The board looks like a spreadsheet and gameplay involves playing cards and placing tiles rather than flicking a little ball around but it still feels like football and is really entertaining and nerve-wrecking.

Depending on the number of players you'll draw a few random teams that you are trying to get through to win the World Cup. Teams are seeded depending on their performance in the actual competition so those teams will generally perform better than the teams that bombed, but upsets are possible. Gameplay is simple - 3 cards in your hand, play 1 and draw another 1. Cards include 3 goals, 2 goals, 1 goal, attack, defence, offside, penalty etc and you play them to any of the matches (all group stage matches take place at the same time) so you can focus on getting your teams through or trying to get your opponent's Brazil or Germany knocked out by Ireland or China or someone.

The boxed game just comes with two world cups (2002 and 1930) but I've got a couple of expansions so I have another half dozen tournaments including 2006 and 1966 for plenty of variety.

It's a great, great game. I'll never refuse the chance to play it and I take it back whenever I visit England as my mates in Birmingham and I would often get together with some drinks to play through a tournament over the evening with ongoing commentary about players scoring or goals being disallowed or the "plucky" Belgians or whatever. Social and fun as anything. Brilliant.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

1: Antiquity

2-4 players

Boardgamegeek blurb: "Antiquity is set in an environment loosely modeled on Italy in the late Middle Ages.

Players choose their own victory conditions: they can focus on population growth, trade, conquest, or city building by choosing their patron saint. Each strategy requires a completely different style of play. Or you can choose Santa Maria, the most powerful saint of all, but you’ll be expected to build a civilization twice as impressive as any other player.

While your economy is constantly improving, with more and more advanced cities bringing new options each turn, the land around your cities is slowly being depleted, forcing you to travel further and further to gather your raw materials until finally, there is no more land left to farm.

Let’s hope one of you has won the game before that time!"

So, my favourite board game is pretty much The Settlers: The board game. The giant land tiles are set up at the start of the game with each player taking a starting city tile (the big multi-hex tile) which they place onto the land before taking a city sheet and loads of pieces of their colour. On their turn they then use resources (such as wood and stone) to build buildings in their city using tetris-esque pieces. Each building allows you to do something different in the game (such as the Cart House, Hospital, Dump etc). Then players move out into the countryside to send their workers to farm for foods, fish in the lakes, mine for gold or stone, chop down trees (which are then cleared and make space for more farming). Each turn you then have a harvest where you bring in the goods, store them and make sure you have enough food to avoid famine. Famine leads to graves clogging up your city. Whenever you farm or mine the land you leave behind pollution which prevents you from being able to use that land again until you clean it.

Players can extend their area of influence by building inns out in the countryside or building new cities allowing them more space for their tetris buildings.

Antiquity is a STUNNER. It's hard to get and expensive though which is a shame as it's a great game. There's a bit of interaction in that you can interfere with the other players by moving into their areas before they can farm there. There are also various ways to win depending on which Patron Saint you choose. The game is hard and unforgiving but everything makes sense and the flow of play is straight forward. When you first play it can be a bit of a monster (4-5 hours) but when you know what you're doing you can get it down to 2 hours quite easily which is what my wife and I can finish it in.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Sorry Be.

[NobBe Nobbs]

Booooooooooo.

[Maxx]

Needs more Crossfire.

[LL!]

CROSSFIRE! YOU'LL BE CAUGHT UP IN THE...

[Mr. X]

No HeroQuest? For shame.

Though some of these games do interest me. Antiquity looks pretty fun.

[Maxx]

CROSSFIRE! YOU'LL BE CAUGHT UP IN THE...

CROSSFIRE! CROSSFIRE! CROSSFIIIIYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

[Hickey]

Great list, Hammy. I'm really intrigued about all these games and I haven't played any of them.

Great explanations and an awesome list. I'm gonna have to invest in a few of these because I really love board games.

[Timmoru Suzuki]

Agricola looks like someone who couldn't afford a console wanted to play Harvest Moon.

EDIT - Just read the Civilization entry >_>

EDIT 2 - Only just realised there's more than once page. I feel somewhat silly.

Still. some of the games on here look coo; this coming from a man who has played Risk about three times ever, the odd game of Monopoly and Cluedo once.

Edited August 15, 2011 by Yoshihiro timmayyama

[Cymbols]

I used to love Monopoly before a German Exchange student cheated to beat me

[LUKIE]

Damnit these games are hard to find.

I have bought Dominant Species and Agricola online.

The rest I can't find:

Twilight Struggle

Shogun

Space Alert

Merchants & Marauders

Holding out on Carcassonne, since I can basically buy that whenever I want, so want to try and get the other games first... IMPOSSIBLE!