Well, if you love Twilight Imperium, you certainly don’t have to worry about avoiding games that are too heavy. :)
Are you looking for something similar to Twilight Imperium? Or would something different (e.g. not war oriented work)? There are plenty of possibilities, like Dominant Species, Le Havre, Agricola, etc. that work well enough with three.
Finished the second scenario in Earth Reborn today. After organising the box, setup took about 10 minutes, with takedown another 5. It was a close game: my units (Salemites) needed to kill one of the three NORAD troops before they escaped to the chapel, which had been blessed by a local priest and was zombie-proof. I had cornered Nick Bolter with one of my zombies, Jessica Holster, and Jack Saw, but I decided to take it easy on my seven-year-old and not go full-brunt. My mistake: a series of terrible rolls saw Bolter not only kill my zombie, but escape to the roof, placing him out of the mission. Meanwhile, Monica Vasquez and James Woo managed to slip into the chapel, destroying one of the doors to get in and ending the game after about 20 minutes.
The scenarios are introducing the game rules in a steady progression; the son is excited about range weapons in the third scenario. They also introduce a sort-of linear plot allowing us to get to know the characters and game world a bit more.
The PC gamer in me wonders why something like this hasn’t been done for the PC: imagine a game that let you build your own “dungeon” and play an X-COM-style tactical battle against AI or another opponent. Making my own maps in the board game version is onerous; on the computer, with the ability to save and share maps, it would be a lot easier (and a lot more fun).
SlyFrog is spot-on here. All three that he mentions are great three player games, and in the case of Dominant Species is even better with a full compliment of players (6). Along with those, I would also suggest Steam (or Age of Steam).
If you don’t mind something a little older and a little less heavy, I highly suggest Ra or El Grande. Ra is actually best with three and El Grande is good with three, great with five.
Earth Reborn is a tough one for me. I pre-ordered it, (one of the few (only?) games I ever have). I really like the linear-progression-rules/scenarios in theory. In practice, however, I’ve played the first two scenarios against four different people, and since the second on I’ve tried to stress that this is really only a mechanics-learning thing, and that any tactics they think they may be learning will be pretty much thrown out the window with the next scenario, when you learn about interrupts/ranged/radio/etc. Yeah, the game and mechanics are modular, but most of those are pretty basic, and you’re realistically never going to play without them. The games go on for a really long time with players trying to grok the mechanics and WIN- we get through two scenarios at most.
The long and short of is that in the end, the system as a whole is nearly as complex as ASL, and most players just aren’t into that, almost including myself. I’d love to get through all the scenarios and play a few games with the SAGS to be sure, though. SAGS is the reason I was sold on the game (an auto-scenario-generation-system is a holy grail of mine), and I’d love to see how it actually works out in practice, but getting there (and the amount of wacky mechanics once I am) is hard. :(
Yeah, I don’t mind long games.
Thanks for the advice, I’ll look into those. Our plan was to play Game of Thrones, but I read the thread about it and apparently it’s not very suited for three players. We’re usually into the space and war stuff, but I don’t mind trying out new games.
3 people is a tough number. I’d second Slyfrog’s Dominant Species recommendation, and add Cyclades which is a fast-playing Euro’d terrain control game that has really thorough scaling. If you like Euros, though, there are a number of the less directly interactive ones like Agricola that are carefully designed to include 3 players rather than just stapling it on. Personally, I was surprised to find that I prefer Hansa Teutonica to Agricola despite it being equally dry in theme, simply because of how central mild player screwage is to getting further in the game, but I’ve only played it with 2, 4, and 5.
Apparently, the Game of Thrones Living Card Game (not collectible, but same idea without the infinite spending) is good with 3, and if you are into the theme that might be a more solid option in terms of gameplay.
Citadels is my go-to recommendation for any number of players from 2-6. It plays very differently with 2, 3, and 4+, but they are all good in their own way.
Have you considered abducting a fourth? It really opens a vast panorama of games, from my current favorite of Chaos in the Old World to lighter fare like Alien Frontiers and Dungeon Lords, and even gets your foot in the door for a decent Galactica game with the latest expansion’s new rules.
ALSO: assuming the stars align I’ll be able to try outBattleship Galaxiesthis weekend with my new copy, and I’ll be able to let you know if what it promises actually delivers for 3 players. In that same vein, Battle Beyond Space is out later this summer and has the makings of being an equally focused space combat title on a different scale of abstraction and balance of power mechanic, and it’s also supposed to work with 3.
Taj Mahal is great with three.
I’ve enjoyed it all the times, I’ve played it, but: 1) you don’t want to play with too many people; with three people everyone always has something to do, even if it’s just cross-referencing adjectives to get a number; and 2) you really really really have to be thinking of it as a story/experience and getting into it, rather than just checking out when it’s not your turn or strategizing how you’re going to win.
Also 3) I’ve never played a game to the end, because while it’s good to have goals, that would be absurdly long and it would completely wear out its welcome long before that. Just play until everyone decides they’re done and put it away, is what I say.
Oh, are we recommending three-player games? Specifically, war games? I’ll go with a couple of slightly odd, but still readily available options.
First, I’ll put up The End of the Triumvirate, a euro/wargame hybrid I picked up used down in Portland a couple of months ago, specifically designed for three players.
I’ve only gotten it to the table three times since then, but it’s been an interesting exercise each time. It’s funny, reading the 'geek, a Military victory is supposed to be the hardest, but each time we’ve played, that’s how the game has been won. I can see how it would get stagnant and fall prey to group-think after several games (fixed map and setup, little randomness), but each game we’ve played has had radical differences from the last, and knowing our group (which is still pulling out wacky strategies in Scepter Of Zavandor after literally dozens of plays).
Second, a game I haven’t actually gotten to the table, but won in a raffle a little while back, but seems like it’ll be really interesting when we actually play it, Bushido: Way of the Warrior.
Other than that, the previous recommendation of Chaos in the Old World is great. Don’t listen to the naysayers that think that three players is inferior or you have to play with Khorne if so. The game is just different with three players than it is with four. It actually requires more thought and actual use of warriors for the other powers than it does with four, with each power having to keep each other in check. I’m not saying it’s better with three, but it really isn’t any worse, either, and some of the more unusual Upgrades actually become interesting. I did pick up the expansion last month, but we haven’t gotten to play with it yet- we actually played CitOW last night, but I’d left my copy at home, so we played the store’s copy (sans expansion). Next week, perhaps.
Yes, ideally I’d like to form a 4-person group, as I’m a bit of a sucker for the more theme-heavy games. Chaos in the Old World looks great, and even the 4-person TI games I played were quite fun.
Between Dominant Species, Cyclades, Citadels, Agricola, Taj Mahal and Hansa Teutonica, which one is less dry in theme?
Battleship galaxies looks like it’s right up my alley, I’m looking forward to your opinion on it.
My opinion - Cyclades. It has nice little plastic figures instead of the usual wooden blocks.
Cyclades does look nice, but now that Don Quixote said that CitOW works with three I’m very tempted by that, we’re all into the Warhammer lore.
Dominant Species is not rich in theme in a traditional sense, but it nails the pseudosciency feel of what you’re supposed to be doing with a hint of the kind of thing you normally only get from really hardcore games like Megafauna or High Frontier. Typically one look at the board and you either appreciate its spartan devotion to function or move on, but mechanically I think it’s one of the more interesting designs I’ve come across.
Citadels is extremely rich in theme for what it is, which is a 20-40 minute very portable card game with a few bits where you play roles each turn and they more or less do a very streamlined action related to their profession (eg the Assassin has to guess what someone else chose and if he gets it right they get killed and lose their turn, the Thief takes your loot, The Witch possesses the other’s role, the Architect gets to build at an accelerated rate and draw more of the vital building cards, etc). What I like about it is how it evolves over time with the same players, and also how new players attack it from very different ways. Sometimes you get a group where the assassin is king, and everyone thinks that card is overpowered until they have more experience and realize the assassin can’t hit anything if you aren’t going after your most obvious move, and that one or two misses will be a huge opportunity cost. Sometimes you get a very defensive group where the bishop and the building powers take center stage. And despite having dozens of games under my belt, I can still get beat on a 1v1 by a player I just taught the game to that psyched me out at some crucial points or that I underestimated. It’s typically <20$ where I’ve bought it, and I’ve played it with everyone from kids to grandparents.
I think Cyclades has a really cool Greek overlay to the game especially once you get the training wheels off and people really start using the “roles” (you choose a god to sacrifice to each turn, which affords you your on-board options and turn order) and the nifty mythological creature cards start taking center stage. I also applaud it for having a symbol system that goes from incomprehensible to “I SEE EVERYTHING AND I KNOW HOW IT WORKS” in seconds after you get it explained to you. I think the city-building is probably the weakest part of the game if you have a passive group that is fearful of combat and turtles up, but it can get pretty cutthroat with just a few aggressive moves. What’s funny about Cyclades is that I almost never set out to play it, but it ends up hitting the table a good amount because it seems to be something a lot of people are willing to compromise on. That sounds like faint praise, but it means a good deal to me.
Of the others, I can’t speak to Taj Mahal. I find Agricola and Hansa equally dry but the interactivity in Hansa makes it a lot more enjoyable to me. Nevertheless, I expect most people find the farm theme of Agricola acceptable or it wouldn’t be so popular, and they seem to get a lot of mileage out of subbing in cheap plastic farm animals and livening up the board.
Quixote is the first person I’ve heard say Chaos works well with 3, but I’ve never tested it myself since I’m lucky enough to have 4 relatively often. I want to believe, since it’s one of my favorite games. When I look back at good games versus bad games, the key variable seems more that everyone playing was on the ball and not griefing/dead weight, and I suppose if your crew is sharp enough they can counterbalance each other proactively. Still, my impression was that the three player variant was kind of an afterthought for the box bullet point.
Taj Mahal and Hansa Teutonica are both totally dry mathy Euros. I think they’re both pretty good games, but they’re definitely the kind of game where you’ll feel like you may have already played them.
Agricola is more themey, what with building fences and putting down little sheeps and so forth. (The animeeples not only make the game look better, they remove that irritating “wait, a brown cube is a pig or a cow?” hesitation.)
Thanks for the detailed descriptions. I’ve narrowed down my choice to Cyclades, Citadels and possibly Dominant Species, which at least seems to have a cool subject, on the other hand I don’t think I’ll be able to get into a game about farming no matter how great the mechanics are.
I’ll probably get Chaos in the Old World anyways for when I find a fourth player and to try out with three.
Buy everything is always the right answer! If you look through the galleries at BGG and check out some video reviews I’m sure you can cut through to a narrower filter. I have a feeling the Skaven god from the Chaos expansion is going to really spice things up, so I’m excited about that as well.
In that case I think you might want to consider Citadels and one of either Cyclades or Dominant Species. Citadels is a great game to have around because it works in so many situations but it’s never the go to game when I have 3 or 4 real gamer buddies around. Plus, it’s cheap. I like it quite a bit but there’s no way I’d recommend it over any of the other games you’re considering if you’re set on only buying one game.
If you do that I think you can’t go wrong either way. Just keep in mind that Dominant Species can be a long game and you really have to be dedicated to playing it a few times before it starts to sink in.
But LK is right, though. Buy everything :) Those are all great choices.
Interesting things on those lists. I’ll look into Triumvirate and Liberte also caught my eye, with the big Martin Wallace question mark over it and all.
