Editor in Chief Bill | 20 Feb 2019 6:13 p.m. PST |
You were asked – TMP link What is the Best Boardgame for When You Aren't Doing Minis?In the final round of voting: 32% said "Kingmaker" 18% said "Risk!" 13% said "Settlers of Catan" |
Old Contemptibles | 20 Feb 2019 10:02 p.m. PST |
None of those. Britannia, Advance Civilization, Rail Baron, History of the World and Diplomacy. |
darthfozzywig | 20 Feb 2019 10:21 p.m. PST |
As with many TMP polls, this reflects the (high) average age of TMPers and (in this case) when they stopped playing boardgames. Kingmaker is a good idea in desperate need of an overhaul. |
Bashytubits | 20 Feb 2019 10:36 p.m. PST |
You all ought to be ashamed, Junta or the Awful Green Things from Outer Space are both must owns. |
UshCha | 21 Feb 2019 3:50 a.m. PST |
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mildbill | 21 Feb 2019 4:59 a.m. PST |
house divided is my go to and many of the other games mentioned are quite good. |
Blount | 21 Feb 2019 5:58 a.m. PST |
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Joes Shop | 21 Feb 2019 6:23 a.m. PST |
None of those for me too: AH's Tobruk and ASL. |
Andy Skinner | 21 Feb 2019 6:32 a.m. PST |
I think a lot of Combat Commander. Wiz War is probably my favorite, though. andy |
Stryderg | 21 Feb 2019 8:55 a.m. PST |
One of the games that's on my shelf? |
twicethecaffeine | 21 Feb 2019 9:09 a.m. PST |
We tend to play , A Game of Thrones the board game (2nd edition), Forbidden Stars, War of The Ring, Heroes of Normandie, Afrika Korps. BoardGameGeek.com (biggest site on the internet for Board Game information) lists the following as the top 5 rated board wargames….. Twilight Struggle (cold war) Paths Of Glory (WW1) D-Day Omaha Beach (WW2!) Triumph & Tragedy (Inter War to end of WW2) Combat Commander Pacific (WW2 in Pacific) Make of that what you will |
Winston Smith | 22 Feb 2019 9:25 a.m. PST |
Kingmaker is NOT "in desperate need of an overhaul". Harrumph. |
gisbygeo | 24 Feb 2019 12:24 p.m. PST |
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etotheipi | 25 Feb 2019 5:51 a.m. PST |
Risk: 2210 It was (I think) the first Risk! variant to come out. Instead of being Risk! in different clothes, it actually introduced a small number of rules to the standard ones that made interesting impacts on tactics and strategy. And it came with augmented rules that allowed you to play a more rich (but complex) game if you wanted. Of course, the traditional Risk! was still an inclusive subset of the new game, so you get the classic with the set, too. We've had it for over a decade, and it still has legs based on different ways to play and different subsets of people playing. And, of course, any Risk! game is a good campaign map for a series of wargames. |
Parzival | 25 Feb 2019 10:31 p.m. PST |
Just played 2210 this past Friday night. We added a 6th player; I was concerned this might not work with the existing card numbers, etc., but it seemed to play okay. We reduced the number of "nuked" territories to 3 rather than 4 to try and keep the initial distribution of territories more even. For the sake of speed, we used assigned territories by dealing out the deck, which saddled me personally with a too widely distributed array of Earth forces. Very quickly I was down to ONE Earth territory, but fortunately I had made a play for a Lunar presence early, and that kept me in the game. In fact, at the end of it all I was able to take over the bulk of the Moon, and wound up "rocketing" into third place! Had a few dice rolls gone better, I'd have held the entire Moon and possibly won— with nothing on Earth except my base in India! But while I do like 2210, but my favorite variant remains The Lord of the Rings (full map version). Keeps closer to the simplicity of the original, but with enough variety in the rules to make for very different play, and a nicely variable "turn clock" with the Ring's path to Mount Doom. |
Karellian Knight | 26 Feb 2019 6:38 a.m. PST |
"Kingmaker is NOT "in desperate need of an overhaul". Harrumph." I also feel it needs an overhaul, it felt dated when I was introduced to it in the mid 90s. |
etotheipi | 26 Feb 2019 9:01 a.m. PST |
and a nicely variable "turn clock" with the Ring's path to Mount Doom. I do very much like the variable turn clock (it's something that I work into a lot of my game designs) from LOTR Risk! I initially liked the solid five round game of 2210, simply because it was very different from regular Risk!, which could go on ad infinitum. We would use a variant where after a round, one player rolled a die. If the roll was greater than the current round number, then the number was advanced. We found this worked very well. It's similar to what they did in LOTR Risk!. We also toyed with moving the five-round counter after a round in which X territories exchanged hands. X could just be two times the number of players, or it could have a "count-down" effect, going lower as the game progresses. |
Parzival | 26 Feb 2019 6:00 p.m. PST |
RE: "Variable counters" I like those ideas. The knock against 2210 AD is that you can win by making sure you go last in Year Five. While that's not strictly true, an unpredictable final year isn't a bad approach. I also like the virtual clocks of the Star Wars versions, though really they don't have a time effect so much as differing goals that force a quicker end than standard Risk. (And invariably, nobody keeps a good watch on the Hutt…) The two-person one based on The Return of the Jedi (and based on the previous game The Queen's Gambit) plays quickly (an hour or less), but then it's not truly a Risk game at all. Of course, my nominee for fastest Risk variant is Castle Risk. If you try to play it like standard Risk, you'll be eliminated in one turn (maybe even sooner). |
etotheipi | 27 Feb 2019 7:02 a.m. PST |
We only have one of the Star Wars ones. I think the first one of those that came out didn't have anything intriguing – it was just Risk! in different clothes. We got one of the other Star Wars ones donated to us by a friend, and we like the dynamic in that one. We do like Risk! games to actually be Risk!, which as you point out, does eliminate some of them. I like lots of different variable clock mechanics (memoryless ones like dice, and ones with memory as well). The provide a reasonable surrogate for external pressure (politics, money, strife, etc.) on military operations without building and executing intricate PMESII models. After all, a common phrase used when explaining the external pressures to you, the military commander, is "The clock is ticking!". :) |
Fergal | 01 Mar 2019 2:41 p.m. PST |
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