"Boardgames that you played solitaire?" Topic

I am an only child and had to play games by myself. I played Monopoly, Payday and Prize Property alone. I wanted Rock 'em Sock 'em robots but I never got it. I don't think that would have made a good solitaire game. What boardgames did you play solitair?

When I was a lad? None. As an adult I would sometimes play three or four sides against each other at "Titan". And recently I played a couple of games of Arkham Horror by myself (after first reading the rulebook – wanted to learn the mechanics well before teaching others to play).

Blitzkreig

I'd set it up and play it more as ww1 than ww2.

About every Avalon Hill Wargame.

Have you tried computer games?

I found the cards as manuever options mechanism for Battlecry makes it a fun solitaire game. I suspect Battle Lore or C&C Ancients would work as well.

boardgamegeek.com/game/551

Jake

C&C Ancients occasionally.
Mostly computer games, still a big fan of Steel Panthers.

All the old Avalon Hill boardgames.
I used to play them by mail, and solo play was a good way to develop the best moves for that turn.

Squad Leader

As a teenager a home-brew cricket simulation game. Very realistic; took about 15 hours to play a test match. I think I replayed every test from 1987-1989, and sadly can still remember some of the great performances. I drew the line at one-dayers. Not real cricket at all, it was far too hasty…

Indeed, sir, I am a vagabond and a wastrel!

Ambush! – it was meant to be played solitaire anyway. I later got into the habit of playing it with my girlfriend where we'd each take half the squad. She really enjoyed it.

Arkham Horror – plays great as a solitaire game but is exceedingly tough that way.

Oh and Runebound is also pretty good solitaire.

As a kid (long, LONG before the term "computer games" had even been conceived, much less begun), I played Milton Bradley's "Dogfight" solo. I tried alternate rules for "Feudal", without satisfaction. Chess, of course. And the most successful was "Formula One", also a Milton Bradley game. But I took it to new heights, by using Matchbox cars and the like, and drawing my own tracks on poster board, and holding entire racing seasons solo. Killed many hours that way.

Still have my old Avalon Hill games -- Blitzkrieg, D-Day, Tobruk, Russian Campaign, Jutland, Victory In The Pacific, Wooden Ships & Iron Men, Midway, and a few others I don't recall. I was an only child, too, but two of my friends played wargames and we often had marathon games all weekend. To learn the rules of a new game, I would sometimes play solitaire, but not regularly. Years later, I tried playing some AH games solitaire but the "surprise element" was missing and it just wasn't much fun. Currently I like to play an older computer game, Civil War Generals II by Sierra. It's turn-based ("I go, you go") and the map is divided into hexagons, just like a board game. Playing against the computer is way better (to me) than any solitaire game.

CorpCommander is right – Runebound makes a good solo game.

Every Avalon Hill game I own.
Every SPI game I own.
Every Victory game I own.
Duel in the Dark "Early Nights" (playtesting it)

My old favorites – I didn't play these solitaire once but LOTS of times:
The Third Reich
B-17 (well, not entirely fair as the game was supposed to be a solitaire game!)
The Guns of August
Blitzkrieg
Squad Leader
Paydirt
War and Peace
Richtofen's War
Victory in the Pacific
War at Sea
All the SPI ACW quad games
Panzerblitz and France 1940 (my first two games)

These were fun, fun, fun. I was planning on getting rid of them until we had a boy. Now I'm waiting about 8 years until he's 10 to break them out and playing them all over again!

Me, too, EVERY AH game I own(ed)

Every AH, SPI, and GDW game I owned. When I was in high school myself and three friends played AH's Le Man's for twenty four hours.

Ah, LeMans, still my favorite racing game out there. My buddies and I created a bunch of additional cars for it when I was in college, and my ran several seasons. Great stuff!

Based on where I lived and the few gamers around, I have played almost all of my boardgames solitare at one time or another.

I got rid of my Victory in the Pacific and Squad Leader games at some point in the last five years. I can't remember where they went, but they disappeared. I recently purchased another copy of Squad Leader, but haven't picked up Victory in the Pacific again. I didn't play Victory in the Pacific solo, as I convinced my sister to play with me.

I currently play
Compass Games' Silent War solo (as it has been designed as a solo game),
Family Pastimes' Ice Breakers to the Rescue (and there's some other games of theirs that can be played solo that I'm curious about),
Ravensburgers Road Rails and Rivers,
numerous hex and counter wargames from Khyber Pass Games, and
an abtract game called micropul solo.

When I was a kid, I used to play Avalon Hill's Amoeba Wars, and D&D, Scrabble, and Boggle solo.

I hear that these games play well solo, but I have not played them (solo)

JKLM Games 18xx series (has many solo maps)
Arkham Horror
Lord of the Rings
DVG's Hornet Leader series and Corsair Leader

Phil,

It's good to know there were other people annoying their parents by staying up all night playing games. I can still recall the angry look on my dad's face when he came down to go to work around 5:30AM knowing I had burned electricity all night playing Third Reich or Guns of August.

Fun memories!

Michael

As a kid, mostly sports-related games, card games and a few table-top games, rather than board games.

In the sixties, Topps included cards in their individual packs that when all of them were collected enabled you to play a simplistic baseball game.

I collected two full decks, combined them and added extra strike-outs and made a few specialty cards to give it a slightly more realistic feel and played hundreds of games.

Coneco (?) Basketball.
Photo-electric Football
Another well-known football game from that era. I would choose the offensive play by rolling a die and choose the defensive play the same way.

Offense uses three dice, a black and two whites resulting in a roll of between 10 and 39. Defense uses two, red and green.

Table-top hockey. The type that had the steel players attached to runners and the rod was spun to shoot.
I had accidently bent the blade of one of the defensemen and he had a wicked rising slapshot from his own blue line that would sail over the goalies's shoulder.

I intentionally bent the rest of the players' blades, but without the same result.

Table-top pool, with marbles and spring-loaded "sticks". I wrote previously that I also played this game with the cat.
She was left-handed and never missed.

I used the pawns, fairly tall, slender guys, of my chess set and a ring to play football (passing only). My dad gave me a .22 when I was fourteen. There was a sheet of stickers with the various calibres of rifles and shotguns printed on them. I used those for the "players'" numbers and kept statistics on the number of touchdowns and inteceptions each one had.

Card game: Crazy Eights, with a variation. Each "player" laid down as many cards as he could, using the same rules of matching number, suit or using an eight to make a change.

Chess

The World's Greatest Hockey Game. It took four years, but I played a full 80-game schedule during the twenty-one team NHL.

One game of TRK hockey, but I preferred TWGHG.

One game of TWGBBG, but the pitcher fatigue rules made it too complicated to play solo.

I had a "counters" WWII game in the '80's dealing with Germany's invasion of Poland. I only played it a few times.
A walk-over and it was too hard to set up for solo play.

More recently it's been "Family Business (another card game), Formula de and Shadows Over Camelot.

I've always wanted to play Clue solo, event though I know it isn't possible.

Good question!

JW

Pretty much any of the AH or SPI line. These days, I solitaire the games that come in S&T- the mapsheets don't require a lot of space and usually I can play them fairly quickly.

I have some games on my website – each is rated for solitaire value.

saxongames.co.uk

MB's Dogfight and Formule One mainly. Also Broadside. I made up a lot of my own rules, even before I knew wargaming existed.

I only played Panzer Leader and Panzer Blitz with other gamers. All my Wargames (100s) were more for reference and study. I think I played Feudal a few times with a friend. Other then that everything was solo as far as board games (historical wargames) goes.

VR
James Mattes

The Fantasy Trip – Melee / Wizard, especially with the Deathtest and Grail Quest supplements. But I also liked just pitching up battles as a one off. a dragon against a group of humans or dwarves etc.

Car Wars was another favourite, and I think I played that solo a few times.

……TFT I'm hoping to get back into again. I'm currently in the process of painting a load of minis for it.

(How sad is that? Even playing solo, I can't use unpainted minis?????)