1761

You have a wife who plays Space Hulk and enjoys it? Crap.

1762

The real test will come if she starts losing…

1763

Indeed, which is why I’m going to expand the sample size. In the past, though, that first impression has proved pivotal to whether it turns into a worthy challenge or a source of frustration. We’re about at an even split win/loss at 2p Citadels long-term, and that’s still delivering.

1764

I know that feeling well.

I have a friend who if he wins the first game of something we play, will love the game. If he loses, he instantly dismisses the game. We force him to continue playing it and it can take 5+ replays, with him winning a couple for him to change his mind.

1765

I’m sure this question has been asked many times before, but I’m looking for some board game suggestions for my kid. I am not a board game guy, so I don’t know what I’m talking about at all. She’s 7. I gave her the base Ticket to Ride game for Christmas last year, and she loved it – wants to play it all the time. It is pretty much mandatory that it be possible to play with only 2 people, and it would be nice to be able to have 4 or 5. Thanks for any ideas.

1766

“Hey, that’s my fish” is awesome. Takes about 5 minutes, really replayable, you can be as mean or as nice to each other as personalities require and the theme is cute (penguins!).

1767

Zooloretto is another good pick. There are few actions, like in Ticket to Ride, but it has some good decisions. Kids often enjoy building their own zoo. It scales from 2 to 5. If you have an iPhone, you can try out the app to see if you like it.

1768

My game order arrived last week. In the box:

Forbidden Island
Castle Ravenloft
Betrayal at House on the Hill
Space Hulk: Death Angel

Somehow, I didn’t realize until unpacking things that every one of these is cooperative. That wasn’t really my intention.

We got in games of Betrayal and Forbidden Island at my last gaming night.

Betrayal was fun, but brutally unbalanced on this play. We wandered around the house exploring until zombies appeared. Then the zombies ate our brains. I’m not sure what we could have done to pull off a win; we had no characters with a credible chance at success in combat against the monsters, and the map pretty much forced combat on us.

I appreciated how quickly the game played. After we got over the initial hurdle of figuring out the rules, things moved along quite nicely. I think less than thirty minutes elapsed from zombie arrival to the end of the game, which was nice since it minimized the amount of time dead players had to sit around and wait.

There were issues with clarity in the rules. The zombies came along with a madman, and I’m still not certain if the madman is supposed to be played using the rules for an explorer or for a monster.

I’m looking forward to our next game of it. The variety in available scenarios is great, and should hopefully keep the game fresh for some time.

One caveat: I’d been warned here that this edition has problems with the cardstock warping. It does, in spades. None of the tiles sit flat. WotC is supposed to be replacing the tiles with fixed ones, though; I need to contact them about that.

Forbidden Island was very familiar to us, since we’ve played a lot of games of Pandemic. There was a lot of joking as we read through the rules: “To cure…I mean claim the disease…I mean idol…” Once we got started, however, it became apparent that while the core mechanics are very similar, the games have a substantially different feel.

Forbidden Island is a faster, more condensed version of Pandemic. There’s much less forward planning required, but the threat level ramps up very quickly and makes short-term tactical thinking essential. The rules are simpler, but the depth is still there. I see the two games as complementary; neither one replaces the other.

So far, I’m pleased. Tomorrow, I hope to get a chance to play Castle Ravenloft and Death Angel.

1769

Just received my copies of Navegador, 7 Wonders and Merchants of the Middle Ages. Anyone play Die Handler and can tell me how it might compare to Merchants?

1770

I own BSG and Shadows. I like them both. Merlin’s Company is a must have expansion for Shadows and is different enough from BSG to recommend it.

1771

I got to play a game of this last night. I think the difference is in the semantics. I consider a chaotic game to be different than a random one. A random game feels like it’s just chance that the game is out of your control. A chaotic one is one that the game state can change greatly from turn to turn, but that probably has little to do with random chance (dice rolls, card dealing, etc.).

I only played two players, but I can easily see how people who like a lot of long-term strategy in their games would be turned off playing this with more than three players. There is a lot going on, and everything can change very quickly. That said, I liked it. I’m not sure if I like it as much as the new Civ, but I do like it a lot, and hope to play again next week with more players.

In other news, I just read that Earth Reborn is shipping. It’s been holding up my Boards and Bits order for like two months. The theme and minis don’t do much for me, but the board construction and mission generation system intrigue me. Perhaps I’ll retheme with some other random minis I’ve got around- christ, I’ve got enough of 'em from various games. :D

1772

My wife enjoys Ticket to Ride and we tried Carcassonne, but no suck luck on that one. I am not well knowledged when it comes to board games. Any suggestions I should ask for this Christmas? I am dying to play the new Civ board game, but it doesn’t look like something she would enjoy.

1773

Does this mean it will just be you and your wife? I would not recommend Civ right off the bat based on my limited experience, as that seems more something that you want to build up to because while it is well designed and streamlined, it can seem very overwhelming at first. Do you think you might enjoy cooperative games? Games with bluffing? Traitor games? Are you Battlestar fans? Do you generally favor sci fi or fantasy settings?

1774

It will be primarily my wife and I. I am all about fantasy/sci fi settings. However, that is not her thing. I guess I am looking for a fairly simple game with real world/historic settings (not world war related) so that Ticket to Ride does not get stale. Thanks for your help. I appreciate it.

1775

You might find some suitable suggestions in this Boardgames for two thread.

1776

Nice. Didn’t know about that one.

1777

My wife really likes Attika, and she seems to have similar restrictions.

1778

We’ve now played Castle Ravenloft. The session went pretty well, although the difficulty curve across the game was a bit strange–things were touch-and-go for a while, but we mopped up the final room with surprisingly little trouble.

While I enjoyed the game, and I’m certain we’ll play it again, I’m not entirely happy with some aspects.

I don’t really like the tiles/squares distinction. Movement is measured in squares, but everything else seems to play out on tiles. Most of the time, your exact position isn’t important–only the tile you’re on. But some of the time (especially when moving), it is.

The rules are poorly-organized and frequently seem to be ambiguous. I’m certain there’s a rule somewhere in there that forbids firing a magic missile around a corner, but I didn’t find it.

I need a couple more sessions to be sure, but it doesn’t feel as if there’s enough variety in what goes on. Comparing to another lay-tiles-as-you-explore game, Betrayal at House on the Hill has three floors with potentially complex connections between them. (The basement is a trap that requires exploration to exit; various rooms act as a one-way path to a lower floor; rooms with obstacles are difficult to cross; etc.) In addition, many of Betrayal’s rooms have special rules associated with them that add flavor. Ravenloft doesn’t seem to have any of that. Each room is tactically identical to each other room.

So overall, I’m a bit conflicted on this one. It’s D&D 4E Lite, which I knew going in and am okay with, but the “Lite” may take things too far. I’m not sure this one has legs.

1779

The problem with 2-player games is that they are only fun if both players have a reasonable chance of winning. If your wife isn’t so much into board games and you are then it makes it lopsided which makes the game even less fun, and the more heavy and complex the game is the more frustrating it becomes.

1780

Thanks Gus. Where did you get it? Amazon is out and it is $70 on Ebay. Boardgamegeek has dirty used copies from folk I don’t know. Has anyone bought a game used from there?And there aren’t any good game shops in the DC area that I know of.

It looks like the main recommendations from the 2 player board game thread that meet my requirements are as follows:

  • Dominion
  • Lost Cities
  • Puerto Rico
  • Pandemic
  • Attika…if I can find it

Now the question is, which of these will do the trick? Are any of them like Carcasonne? If so, they are off the list. I am leaning towards Pandemic since the cooperative play sounds intriguing.