

A classic case of having too much to do and too little to do it with, every action of every round feels weighted with impossible priorities, keeping you stretched right up until the points are tallied. But don’t be fooled into thinking this is a random game: rather, the dice are there to keep throwing you curveballs you have to dodge around as you build a strategy. Fortunately, it’s a dice-based game where the roll each turn limits your choices of where you can take actions. The Castles of BurgundyĬoming into this game of estate-building in medieval France you could be forgiven for feeling overwhelmed by the options to grow your castle. Its particular genius is its huge decks of cards, only a handful of which are used in each game, which ensures lots of strategic variety and allows you to tailor things like complexity and interaction to your group’s tastes. As a result, Agricola conjures a real sense of growing and developing your humble plantation into a thriving stead, with plenty of interesting strategic bumps to navigate along the way. Stepping back from the theme, however, growing a family to work on a family farm is a dead ringer for the popular Worker Placement mechanism. AgricolaĪnother game that spent its time in the “best game ever” limelight is this unlikely game about farming. In addition to the superb strategic workout, you might even learn some history too. This makes every hand a thrilling, tactical dance of play and counterplay as you try to move your plans forward while also nullifying enemy events. If you play an opponent’s card you can still make moves on the board but their event also occurs. Players have hands of event cards that replicate key moments from the conflict, keyed to either their side or their opponent. But there’s a reason it was widely acclaimed as the best game of all time after its 2009 release. Twilight Struggleīilled as a cold war simulation and with bullet-pointed rules, Twilight Struggle can appear daunting to the uninitiated. It’s a magical combination that has spawned two further seasons, creating an epic arc of story and strategy to enjoy with a gaming group or even as one of the best family board games. So in addition to offering a very personal tale to engage you, Pandemic: Legacy also individualizes your strategic experience.

After a few plays, your copy will be a unique record of your group’s play. If combat-based narrative campaigns aren’t your thing, how about working together to purge the world of infectious diseases? Building on the success of the original Pandemic, this introduces “legacy” concepts to the game, in which components are added or removed as you progress through the game, based on your decisions, successes and failures.

And not for nothing, both of these iterations also made it on our best board games for adults list as well. And if the cost is a bit much, Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion offers a smaller campaign at a much smaller price tag.
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Truly all things to all gamers - even fans of the best solo board games - Gloomhaven deserves its staggering level of acclaim.
#Gloomhaven board game plus
But if you want heavyweight strategy then deck-building and resource gathering over the campaign plus the in-scenario exhaustion mechanic gives you plenty of meat. If you’re a sucker for tactical combat then its cunning, card-driven face-offs against a staggering variety of foes will thrill you. If you like old-fashioned dungeon crawls with a strong narrative, well, the 95-scenario campaign of fantasy adventure has you covered. The current king of the board gaming pile got that way through an ingenious bit of genre-blending. Crammed with variety, tactical decisions and more dramatic reversals than a prime-time soap opera, Cosmic Encounter may be the only negotiation game you need. Back in 1977, the designers of Cosmic Encounter had a brainwave: why not get rid of the territory and cut to the chase? The result is this hilarious game of shifting alliances where every player has a game-breaking alien power to leverage in the race to win colonies on five of your opponent’s planets. Lots of games that revolve around grabbing territory tend to involve the kind of tentative alliances and festering enmities that mimic real-world diplomacy.
