Board Game Recommendations

[JA01]

Looking for some board game recommendations (hence the title) :D

[naan/steak-holding toll]

Twilight Struggle. Crazy political strategy game of Communism vs Capitalism

[Lake Winnipesaukee Mystery Stone]

Twilight Struggle. Crazy political strategy game of Communism vs Capitalism

Highly recommend. Hannibal Rome vs Carthage is another great 2 player game
Here I Stand: Wars of the Reformation 1517-1555 is a more complicated multi=player version of the above couple of games (i.e. played on a board, with card draws over a short number of terms). Burn Luther at the stake! Take Vienna as the Ottomans. Lead a madcap British invasion of Rome in a last gasp attempt to save the Reformation.

Ticket to Ride is a highly enjoyable German style board game. Seven Wonders is a fun, quick to setup and play card drawing game

[merv1618]

Betrayal at House on the Hill, History of the World, Galaxy Trucker, Small World, Mascarade all very fun

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

Marshall Steinbaum and myself are major proponents of the game "Power Grid", in which players compete to build the most efficient power distribution system in Germany.

[Auks Ran Ova]

Marshall Steinbaum and myself are major proponents of the game "Power Grid", in which players compete to build the most efficient power distribution system in Germany.

Power Grid remains the only German-style board game I've ever played, so it's got my endorsement!

[ryanrosenberg]

Diplomacy is incredibly fun if you've got six nerdy friends and seven hours.

[gimmedatguudsuccrose]

Bughouse

[Lake Winnipesaukee Mystery Stone]

Diplomacy is incredibly fun if you've got six nerdy friends and seven hours.

Also at least 3 of them may not speak to you for several weeks following your inevitable betrayal.

[Charm Bison]

And you can play Diplomacy online!

http://www.playdiplomacy.com

[Panayot Hitov]

Play Strat-o-matic

[Sam]

Marshall Steinbaum and myself are major proponents of the game "Power Grid", in which players compete to build the most efficient power distribution system in Germany.

Power Grid remains the only German-style board game I've ever played, so it's got my endorsement!

I don't think anyone who outranks me is on the forums, so I'll go ahead and say that Power Grid also has the Official Endorsement (TM) of the University of Minnesota Economics Department.

A fun non-strategy game is Dixit. It's kind of like Apples to Apples, but without the atmosphere of forced levity that can sometimes become tiring.

[AKKOLADE]

Pandemic is possibly my all time favorite game. Really intriguing strategy game that's flexible enough to change it up if you feel like winning would make everyone feel more at ease.

Also, if anyone has Slugfest Games' Kung Fu Fighting that was published like a decade ago, I will buy it off of you.

[Muriel Axon]

Marshall Steinbaum and myself are major proponents of the game "Power Grid", in which players compete to build the most efficient power distribution system in Germany.

Power Grid remains the only German-style board game I've ever played, so it's got my endorsement!

I don't think anyone who outranks me is on the forums, so I'll go ahead and say that Power Grid also has the Official Endorsement (TM) of the University of Minnesota Economics Department.

A fun non-strategy game is Dixit. It's kind of like Apples to Apples, but without the atmosphere of forced levity that can sometimes become tiring.

Ah, Dixit -- by far the greatest board game about monopolistic competition.

[Sima Guang Hater]

Thread might be dead, but Arkham Horror and its various expansions are a ton of fun.

[Ithaca Cricket Ump]

Twilight Struggle is great and highly recommended. Labyrinth: The War on Terror is just as good and maybe even a little better, since it comes with highly playable solo rules. (There are decent solo rules for TS that you can find online with a little searching, but they change the dynamic of the game in a way that the ones for Labyrinth do not.)

In the non-proprietary arena, backgammon, all day, every day. One of the greatest gambling games ever, thanks to the invention of the doubling cube, and unlike games like poker it is just as fun if you play it for nothing at all, and unlike chess has just enough variance in it where the inferior player will win enough to keep them interested (while the inferior team winning is not usually considered an optimal result in quizbowl, if you play for money it is absolutely essential to keep the donators in the game - you can shear a sheep many times, but slaughter it only once.) It can also be played by more than two players if you use the chouette format.

[Ithaca Cricket Ump]

Also, an out of print but generally relatively easy to find game called Facts in Five, made by Avalon Hill, would be of particular interest to quizbowlers, I think. It is basically a far more intellectual and diverse version of Scattergories, with scoring rules that reward deep knowledge since you are awarded points proportional to the SQUARE of the number of acceptable answers you can come up with in five minutes.

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

The game "Wits and Wagers" is the one where I've most been able to use my quizbowl knowledge to crush non-quizbowl people the most. It's a trivia game, with the twist that all of the answers are numbers (stuff like "What year was Liberia founded" or "how many feet tall is the Washington Monument"), each player writes down an answer, and then you all bet on which answer is closest (you can bet on not your own answer).

[ryanrosenberg]

The game "Wits and Wagers" is the one where I've most been able to use my quizbowl knowledge to crush non-quizbowl people the most. It's a trivia game, with the twist that all of the answers are numbers (stuff like "What year was Liberia founded" or "how many feet tall is the Washington Monument"), each player writes down an answer, and then you all bet on which answer is closest (you can bet on not your own answer).

Same here.

[dtaylor4]

Some aren't exactly board games, but I do have a few suggestions:

Roll For It. I got to beta test it at a local LGS a few years ago, and I find it a lot more fun than Yahtzee.

Fluxx. Simple game to learn, and the endless expansions can be meshed however you want.

Love Letter. Simple premise, and despite games being fairly quick, doesn't get boring.

Luchador! - I'm surprised Mike Cheyne or Fred didn't suggest this one. Takes a bit of set-up, but worth it.

[CPiGuy]

Not necessarily a "board game" per se, since the "board" consists of piles of cards, but Dominion is excellent and very replayable (especially if you have one or more expansion sets).

[Aaron's Rod]

Also not technically a board game, but another game that requires figuring stuff out and fast reaction times is Linkee. One player asks questions whose answers are all related, and without saying the answers out loud you're racing the other players to figure out what the connection is and say "Linkee." Would definitely recommend.

[Habitat_Against_Humanity]

The game "Wits and Wagers" is the one where I've most been able to use my quizbowl knowledge to crush non-quizbowl people the most. It's a trivia game, with the twist that all of the answers are numbers (stuff like "What year was Liberia founded" or "how many feet tall is the Washington Monument"), each player writes down an answer, and then you all bet on which answer is closest (you can bet on not your own answer).

I'm a beast at this thanks to quizbowl.

[merv1618]

The game "Wits and Wagers" is the one where I've most been able to use my quizbowl knowledge to crush non-quizbowl people the most. It's a trivia game, with the twist that all of the answers are numbers (stuff like "What year was Liberia founded" or "how many feet tall is the Washington Monument"), each player writes down an answer, and then you all bet on which answer is closest (you can bet on not your own answer).

I'm a beast at this thanks to quizbowl.

Same