Looking for some recommended board/card games?

[tama chan]

Hello everyone! I'm sort of new to a lot of board and card games, and I'd like to play more of them. I own Pandemic which I really enjoy, and Fluxx. I recently picked up Dominion because I heard good reviews about it, but to be honest it seemed very slow and there wasn't much to it, I'm not sure if I was playing it wrong or not but it felt very bland. I don't really have any specific prefrences, I don't mind learning something if it's a bit more complicated, but I do like cooperative games like Pandemic I mentioned, and maybe trivia games. I don't really want to get too involved in anything like Magic, D&D or those types, just something self contained and not too expensive.

Thanks again! :)

 

[Vaati]

I've played a a fair share of Dominion and I have to ask, were you just playing the base game? It's highly unlikely that you would be playing with all of the expansions, but just one or two added expansions really changes up the game. The added cards are incredibly clever and game-changing. I had a lot of fun with Dominion once my friends and I understood what we were doing (which didn't take too long). There's rarely any downtime because turns are normally fast and everyone is always shuffling their discard piles and such. There are eight expansions making it one of the best games to play over and over again because you'll never play the same game twice (unless you created a set of ten kingdom cards that you really liked).

Another favorite of mine is Agricola. This one takes a long time to master and is fairly complex and challenging. Essentially you are a farmer and you have to do various things that farmers do like plow fields, sow crops, fence in livestock, expand your house, feed your family, etc. It would take me way too long to explain how to play it, but it's really fun if you take some time to learn it and have a few friends willing to try it out. Games usually last a decent length of time and you're going to wish that you had a lot more turns because there is so much that needs to be done in order to get a good amount of victory points.

Unlike Dominion or Agricola, Zombicide is a cooperative board game where you and your friends are survivors who are trying to survive in a city full of zombies. You create various scenarios that have different goals that need to be accomplished. It's another sort of complex game with a lot of replay value. Games can last awhile, but probably not quite as long as a game of Agricola.

The setup for Agricola and Zombicide can take awhile because there are a lot of parts to them and the rules are very lengthy. You can technically play both Agricola and Zombicide by yourself too, but I've never really considered it. If you want a really simple, easy to pickup game then you should play Parcheesi if you haven't already. It's a classic and tons of fun too.

 

[tama chan]

Thanks for all the info Vaati! I was playing the base game of Dominion. We started with the basic rules, and it was just two of us, my friend and I. to me it just seems like there is very little strategy because all of the card piles are exactly the same, and you can see every pile on the table so you just pick which ones are the best compared to the lesser cards that don't reward you with much. I thought I heard the Resident Evil version of Dominion has the piles randomized which sounds more interesting. I'd give it another shot but I don't think I'd spend more money on it again.

The Agricola and Zombicide sound pretty neat, I will definitely look into those!

 

[Vaati]

to me it just seems like there is very little strategy because all of the card piles are exactly the same, and you can see every pile on the table so you just pick which ones are the best compared to the lesser cards that don't reward you with much. I thought I heard the Resident Evil version of Dominion has the piles randomized which sounds more interesting. I'd give it another shot but I don't think I'd spend more money on it again.

The Agricola and Zombicide sound pretty neat, I will definitely look into those!

Even the base game requires quite a bit of strategy. Some of the early presets may not seem like they require much thought, but there are plenty of card combinations that will require a lot of thought and effort to win. Having the card piles be the same is necessary to eliminate an arbitrary level of randomness to the game. However, you can simply make ten randomly distributed card piles if you felt like it.

The whole point of the game is to formulate a varied deck of cards full of action cards and good coin cards (with not many victory cards at first). Each game starts off very simple, but as a game goes on you have to decide when it is right to buy victory cards, when to trash cards, when to get defensive cards, when to get attack cards, when to buy coin cards, what action cards are good, etc. Each game requires a different play-style based off the ten cards that are in play.

I have mainly played Dominion with three people. Three person games could be a lot more different than two player games. Obviously Dominion isn't for everyone, but I just wanted to add a little bit more as to why I enjoy Dominion so much. Agricola and Zombicide are super fun too! Hopefully you'll be able to try them out sometime.

 

[IncantatioN]

I very recently played the Game of Thrones card game and thought it was fun. We were three of us, my first time playing so there was a bit of rule telling at the beginning before we started. I understood most concepts pretty easily because it mirrored the Spartacus die-game in terms of the order of things and other bits and pieces from the GOT board game helped like Influence. We took about 4 hours to finish the game, satisfying end since we each were at 13, 12 and 14 when we needed to get to 15 and it could've been anyone's win that last round we played. I figure it'll go quicker next time around. The game came with basic decks for 4 houses. Expansions available ... there's about 70+ of them unfortunately.

Recommended (3 or 4 persons and playing it without any expansion).