I like wargames. Especially wargames of the card-driven game (“CDG”) sub genre. A couple of favourites among those are: Empire of the Sun (2 players) Paths of Glory (2 players) Virgin Queen (6 players)
The famous cold war game “Twilight Struggle” is also in this genre, but significantly lighter than any of the above ones. I wouldn’t call Twilight Struggle a casual game either, but probably a good place to start if one wants to check out the CDGs. The others I mention takes quite a lot of effort to learn.
While not actually CDGs (or wargames), the COIN series of games are related to the above ones and excellent. Of those I have played, Cuba Libre (4 players) is relatively easy to learn and is a lot of fun.
Another wargame subgenre I enjoy a lot is wargames on a “tactical scale”. Think soldiers running from hedge to hedge, throwing grenades into buildings kind of gameplay. Two favourites in this genre are: Advanced Squad Leader (INSANELY complex, but can be learned gradually via Starter Kits 1-4) Combat Commander (much, much easier to learn and faster to play, but still a solid wargame experience)
I am currently in the middle of a Arkham Horror the Card Game campaign with some friends (but corona appears to have put that on hold for the time being). Love that game, despite the steep cost involved. My wife and I sometimes play Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, a very challenging set of SH mysteries of varying quality. But at its best it is an excellent co-op experience suitable for an evening accompanied by wine and good food.
Before Pandemic i got into playing a game called Secret Hitler. Its very fun…
There are two teams, The Fascists and the Liberals. Players are given their random identity and Party affiliation in mini dossiers at the start. One player is Secret Hitler.
After everyone looks at their party affiliation, there is a period where everyone closes their eyes and puts their heads down. Secret Hitler then keeps their eyes shut and puts their thumb up. The Fascists open their eyes and can see who the secret Hitler is. The Liberals are in the dark as to anybodys identity.
What follows is a turn based gameplay where the role of President is rotated, the president nominates a new Chancellor and everyone votes yay or nay.
Legislation has to be passed and it is either Liberal legislation or Fascist legislation.
The goal of the fascists is to either elect the secret Hitler Chancellor, but only after three articles of Fascist legislation have been passed, or to win by passing 5 articles of Fascist legislation.
The Liberals win by either passing a determined number of articles of Liberal Legislation or by killing Secret Hitler. Inorder to gain the powers to assassinate other players, Fascist Legislation must be passed.
Its a great game of secret identities, subversive psychology, and paranoia.
The main problem with it is that you need at LEAST 5 players, and it works better with more.
I suppose one could get really clever and figure out a way to do it over Zoom, but i dont know…
Also, at one dinner party i took the game to, pre pandemic, one other guest (the new wife of a very old friend) was scandalized at the insensitivity of it and sequestered herself in the kitchen, rage whispering at her husband at how awful we all were amd how she wanted to leave NOW…
Nevermind the fact that the majority of people at the table playing the game and enjoying themselves very much were of Jewish ancestry.
I give this game very high marks once you can get people to be willing to learn the rather simple rules and play along. Its a lot of fun.
Optional rule that we adopted to make it a bit more fun was to name what each act of legislation was E.G Liberal Policy : The City must now have a snow cone stand on every corver
Fascist Policy : The snow cones must be made out of dog pee.
etc etc…
Also: Joking Hazard
Also: Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards
„Eclipse, new dawn for the Galaxy“ is my favourite. It‘s my Octatrack of board games: Seems complex at the beginning and gets insane fun once you know how it works, while there are sometimes updates with new features added.
A typical universe 4x board game. Play time 2-4h
…and there‘s a MKII version of it (Second dawn of the galaxy)
Finally! A boardgame thread. Ive thought about starting one for a long time on hear so thankyou @LyingDalai
Recommendations? Depends what you like.
Probably my favourite euro is Concordia. Other euros I like, Carcassone, photosynthesis, Oceans.
Stategy games - Feudo (man that game rocks so hard once you fully get the rules) 7 Ronin, Undaunted Normandy (even if you’re not into ww2, this is a brilliant 2 player game)
Ive also got an 80s copy of Talisman from when I was a kid.
Ive always got time for a ticket to ride, Star Wars Outer Rim, Letters from Whitechapel, Hunt for the ring, and Alhambra.
Lately I have been playing Omega Protocol with my Lady, brilliant game. Asymmetric Dungeon crawler a bit like Space Hulk, but minus the ridiculous price tag and annoying flaws of the original. This might appeal as a two player game, definitely worth taking a look. Not an easy game, the campaign mode is insane hard, but very engaging.
Huge Bloodbowl fan, probably my favourite game. League play makes this brilliant game phenomenal. Again I only play this two player, we have multiple team each, there’s the league. Epic.
As for gloomhaven, I didn’t like it. Have never played Pandemic.
We were into Wingspan, just added the European expansion when Covid hit.
Weve played mostly 3 player and some two player , since last March we’ve played over 100 times. Don’t find it slow moving at all, with 2-3 we finish now in a little over an hour. We love this game!
Before that, mostly C&K of Catan, Ticket to Ride, Castles of Burgundy, Pillars of the Earth, a little Agricola, Chinatown, and Vegas Showdown mixed in with some Hearts, Phase 10, and Rummikub.
Nice! Yucata also has some great games. I haven’t played there for years, but I believe it is still free. Also, rules are enforced, so a nice way to learn how to play: https://www.yucata.de/en
A Few Acres of Snow is my favourite in there.
But my go-to solution for online gaming is Vassal. It is a piece of software you install on your computer, and then you add modules for the games you want to play. Rules aren’t enforced, so you will still need to learn the game before playing. One interesting feature is that you can play async. Play by email-kind of thing. Some games (like the COIN series I mentioned above) is very well suited for this kind of playing. http://www.vassalengine.org/
List of games that will suit both casuals and experts around the same table :
All “Clank !” games are must play. 1 hour all extensionas and versions are good. Space is deeper and sophistcated yet very enjoyeable by non gamers.
“The crew” is a simple yet incredible game ! Fast paced coop “belotte” variant with story !
“Star realms” with all of its extensions. Deck builders. Play fast, fit in pocket and have quite a depth if you try to understand its mechanics. ( Yep, luck can be highly mitigated ! )
“Cthulu realms” same as star realms but based on lovecraft’s book. No text on cards, only symbols, more technical and complex combos.
“The loop” Solo / coop, space travel pop chaos ! technical !
“Space Alert” one of the most incredible coop board game I ever played ! 10 minutes in space to prevent your ship from disintegrating…Play with good friends only, pressure is pretty strong here !
“Colt express” and extensions…Plan, fail, adapt…Fun !
“Carcassonne”. Get a cognac, enjoy with friends while listening to Saint Saens.
“Formule D” Old time classic formula one game. Simple but incredibly accurate !
If you have 8 friends, “space cadet” is tons of fun !
While drinking a beer or two responsibly , zombie dice is not that bad…
All these game have a good time to fun factor ratio IMHO !
Codenames is a lot of fun. There’s also a browser version which can be played for free and works really well. Pretty cool for having fun with friends you can’t meet in person in corona times.
Mage Knight is my all time favorite. It can be a very long game, but it can be played solo, cooperative, and competitive. Highly recommend playing the tutorial first, as many try to jump in too fast. It even tells you that in the rule book
Cosmic Encounter is a close 2nd. So many great memories playing that game and laughing with friends. It was also the game I played as a kid that opened my eyes to diverse rule sets, and the new version is great. I have all the expansions for it.
I am also a board game fanatic; I play every sunday night with a group of friends since 1992!!!
We have tried most of the games you mentioned.
Pandemic Legacy is incredible: we loved the season 1 and 2 and we immediately bought the season 0 as soon as the italian version was available. Then there was this paradox: we can’t play Pandemic because of a real pandemic: in Italy there is a curfew at 22. These days we only play on Board Game Arena online, every sunday.
Strange is, one of the best games ever wasn’t mentioned before: Puerto Rico
It is a deeply strategic game, but there are million ways to win. If you didn’t try it yet, just do!!
