
Ask HN: What are your favorite board games? - martian
Hackers tend to have great taste in board games, especially ones involving complex strategy. So, what games do you like to play?
======
andy_wrote
I can't believe that I'm the first to mention One Night Ultimate Werewolf,
which has been the consensus favorite amongst my friends for a while now.

It has relatively simple rules but very solid strategy (rewards logic and
duplicity). The games are short, so you never feel "stuck" on a long game and
when you're a beginner, you can rapidly absorb new lessons and strategies and
apply them to the next round. The replay value is tremendous.

I have observed/heard about the game not "clicking" for some players the first
few times. You _can_ reason out substantial amounts of information by sharing
claims and thinking hard about what you personally know, and you _can_
tactically disrupt other people. I think if you have a crowd of new people, it
helps to have an experienced player sit out one round and emcee, encouraging
certain lines of thought and discouraging others. One of my friends said he
only really "got" it after the third round, when he saw me spin a story from
start to finish so that I could pin a wolf on someone when I in fact was a
wolf.

I also love Dominion, which others have mentioned. (That's my personal
favorite; Werewolf is my friend group-favorite.) It is in a very different
genre, but it also has fast-cycling games, deep strategy vs. simple rules, and
huge replay value, which are three aspects of board games that I really value.

~~~
k__
Is it better than regular werewolf?

We play this all the time, but it's a bit ugly for people who get out on the
first night.

I talk trash most of the time so some people just kill me on the first round
because they want their peace :D

~~~
andy_wrote
I've never played regular Werewolf, unless you are referring to what I know of
as the informal party game Mafia (several nights, one killer, several
townspeople, maybe one or two additional roles who get special abilities).

In that case, yes much better:

\- Everyone is involved start to finish, and a free phone app serves as the
emcee.

\- People receive cards with (usually) unique roles that furnish them some
special information in their own way. I think some Mafia variants have minor
special roles, but the makers of ONUW really did a good job thinking of
creative ones.

\- Many roles involve moving cards around at night, so when you wake up you
usually don't know for sure whether you're still the role you thought you
were, or whether a card you saw at night is still where it was when you saw
it.

------
litghost
Hard to go wrong with Baduk/Go. Doesn't really scale to groups though.

Terra Mystica[0] and Tzolk'in[1] are both low randomness worker placement game
that require long term planning and fun mechanics.

If war-games are more your speed, Diplomacy[2] and Twilight Imperium 3rd Ed[3]
are some of the best in class. Both take all day (or more if you play
Diplomacy by mail). I personally like Exocus: Proxima Centauri[4] a lot in
this genre.

[0] [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/120677/terra-
mystica](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/120677/terra-mystica)

[1] [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/126163/tzolk-mayan-
calen...](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/126163/tzolk-mayan-calendar)

[2]
[https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/483/diplomacy](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/483/diplomacy)

[3] [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/12493/twilight-
imperium-...](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/12493/twilight-imperium-
third-edition)

[4] [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/122842/exodus-proxima-
ce...](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/122842/exodus-proxima-centauri)

~~~
valarauca1
Baduk/Go doesn't scale well in groups but it also can impart a lot of
important life lessons as you learn it.

    
    
          The enemy's key point is yours
          Beware of going back to patch up
          Don't chase what you can't kill
          Check escape routes first
          Big dragons never die
          Give your opponent what they want
          Don't follow proverbs blindly
    

[http://senseis.xmp.net/?GoProverbs](http://senseis.xmp.net/?GoProverbs)

------
Dobbs
\- Codenames is a great party game. Easy to teach and works really well in
larger groups. It is a word association game. One person gives a hint and the
their team tries to guess all the right words on the board without hitting any
of the other teams word, or the bomb that causes your team to instantly lose.

\- Splendor another easy to teach game. 2-4 players its quick to play, around
20 minutes a game.

\- Roll for the Galaxy. A much more complicated game although probably medium
in complexity as far as the board game spectrum goes. You get to roll lots of
dice.

\- Dead of Winter. A story based secret information game. Everyone has a
secret goal, and someone _might_ be a traitor trying to sabotage the colony.
Despite this you have to work as a team to try and survive the zombie
apocalypse.

------
JoshTriplett
Hanabi: multi-player co-op, and you can see everyone's cards but your own. All
about reasoning and inference.

Betrayal at House on the Hill: cooperative until it isn't, with a traitor
arising halfway through the game. Many novel "haunt" scenarios for replay
value.

Coup: Bluffing game, where you have a couple of hidden "role" cards, each role
card has some abilities, but you can use the abilities of any role as a bluff,
if another player doesn't call you on it.

Netrunner (note, _not_ the new remake, the old out-of-print version): CCG with
asymmetric sides, the "runner" trying to break in and the "corporation" trying
to defend and advance their agenda.

Ascension: deckbuilding game with a large variety of cards. There are only 1-3
of any given card in the deck; every game tends to turn out differently, and
any strategy has to adapt to the available cards.

Dixit: Interesting exercise in description, because you have to hint at the
image on your card without being spot-on, so that _some_ but not _all_ players
get it. Helps to know the other players.

And if you don't already watch Tabletop, I recommend it:
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4F80C7D2DC8D9B6C](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4F80C7D2DC8D9B6C)
. (Note: that playlist is sorted in reverse order, for some reason; start at
the bottom.)

That's in addition to various tabletop RPGs, which I find even more fun when
we can get a group together for them.

~~~
andy_wrote
I'll second Hanabi. In addition to being inherently very fun, collaborative
games are a great way to bring in people who aren't as into board games and
are worried about getting stomped on by experienced players.

An interesting and much more challenging variation for experienced Hanabi
players is to disallow people from saying a number or color. You point to a
set of cards in another player's hand and that's it. Those cards share some
attribute, and all the other cards in the hand don't have that attribute,
whatever it is.

~~~
JoshTriplett
> An interesting and much more challenging variation for experienced Hanabi
> players is to disallow people from saying a number or color. You point to a
> set of cards in another player's hand and that's it. Those cards share some
> attribute, and all the other cards in the hand don't have that attribute,
> whatever it is.

Interesting! That breaks so many common reasoning rules, especially if you're
playing multicolor. I can see how that would add a huge amount of challenge.

I'd be interested to see some of the reasoning based on that variant.

------
thearn4
Simpler than many I expect to see listed here, but I'm a pretty big fan of
Dominion. If the cards are always picked randomly, each play of the game is
very different.

~~~
JoshTriplett
I used to enjoy Dominion, but it can become very mechanical. For any given set
of 10 cards, you usually want to ignore all but a few of them.

~~~
ng12
For a while each successive expansion was getting more and more powerful
action cards to address this issue. Not sure if they followed that trend past
Prosperity though.

~~~
JoshTriplett
That doesn't solve the problem. For any given set of 10 cards, there's an
optimal strategy, and it typically involves relatively few of the cards. And
some cards are effectively _never_ worth touching in any game.

------
piercebot
I really enjoy Agricola[0], because there are no elements of chance in the
game, only strategy. It's also a little more approachable to people averse to
conflict-focused games, because the only victory condition is "everybody has
taken all their turns"

[0]
[https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/31260/agricola](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/31260/agricola)

~~~
Pelerin
If you like Agricola, I recommend Caverna. Sort of a spiritual sequel to the
game, and done better in my opinion, which is saying a lot because Agricola
was one of my favorites.

~~~
egru
I find Caverna lacks in replayability. My group played it a couple times and
everyone started doing the same thing. Eventually we just migrated back to
Agricola. Haven't touched Caverna in over a year.

------
Pelerin
My family plays a lot of board games. Most recently we've been playing:

\- Concordia
[https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/124361/concordia](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/124361/concordia)

\- Istanbul
[https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/148949/istanbul](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/148949/istanbul)

\- Lanterns [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/160851/lanterns-
harvest-...](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/160851/lanterns-harvest-
festival)

\- Codenames
[https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/178900/codenames](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/178900/codenames)
(this last one is more of a lighthearted party game, but still great fun)

------
caylorme
\- Settlers of Catan: Cities and Knights \- Caracassonne \- Blokus \- Chess \-
Risk (Luxor, complex maps) \- Aquire

~~~
martian
Curious why you specify the Cities and Knights expansion?

~~~
pimlottc
For me, it adds a good source of tension (barbarians) and competition
(knights, defending or not), without being direct PvP combat. It also adds a
variety of different special actions through progress cards (which replace
development cards). Perhaps it adds a bit more randomness but it's fun to be
able to drop a "power move" with a well-timed play of cards.

------
BooneJS
My wife and I have 2 elementary school aged children, and we like playing
Pandemic[0].

[0]:
[https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/30549/pandemic](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/30549/pandemic)

------
mdturnerphys
After hearing about Rithmomachy/Rithmomachia on HN six months ago [1,2], I
recently laser-cut a board and set to try it out with. It sounds rather
tedious from the description, but actually was pretty enjoyable. A nice
feature is that the difficulty is very scalable--once you find a set of rules
([3] is one source), you can decide how many of them to actually follow before
starting the game.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11003320](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11003320)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rithmomachy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rithmomachy)

[3]
[http://www.gamecabinet.com/rules/Rithmomachia.html](http://www.gamecabinet.com/rules/Rithmomachia.html)

~~~
egru
Agricola

Twilight Imperium

Through the Ages

Terra Mystica

Suburbia

7 Wonders

Lords of Waterdeep

------
DanBC
I prefer simple games at the moment, so Carcassone, Bohnanza, and Lost Cities
are currently my favourite.

But I've also enjoyed playing Puerto Rico, Dominion, Race to the Galaxy, among
others.

Ticket to Ride is great with my family, because of the player interaction.

------
wilwade
El Grande is an older, but great game.

The re-release of Elfenland just came out "Elfenroads" is a great buy.
[http://riograndegames.com/Game/1295-Elfenroads](http://riograndegames.com/Game/1295-Elfenroads)

There are others, but I'll let others pick their favorites. P.S Not a strategy
game, but Concept has hit the table a lot for us with lots of different types
if people.

------
roryisok
My all time favourite is heroquest. I played that game (and it's counterpart,
space crusade) to death in my youth, and then some more. Recently I've started
making my own games for kicks, roughly based off the ruleset but with
different themes. I made a zombie survival game and a space pirate adventure
thing. Making board games is now my New favourite game

------
IdahoEv
By category:

1) Heavy Strategy: Eclipse and Terra Mystica (tie)

2) Strategy Cardgame: Race for the Galaxy & expansions

3) Abstract: Arimaa. Runner up: tie between Go and Hive.

4) Real-Time Co-op: Damage Report. Runner up: Space Alert

5) Co-Op: Mysterium

6) Wargame: War of the Ring. Runner up: Twilight Struggle

7) CCG or LCG: Lord of the Rings LCG

8) Party Game: Time's Up Title Recall Runner up: Concept

9) Reaction time: Jungle Speed.

10) Most _disliked_ game: Catan or any spinoff thereof

~~~
IdahoEv
Forgot one:

11) Social Deduction: Two Rooms and a Boom

------
anotherevan
Backgammon.

It's a good metaphor for life. You have to weigh up probabilities and likely
outcomes, know when to take a risk and when to play safe. Sometimes the other
player plays better than you, sometimes worse, and sometimes the dice just
come along and kick your arse.

------
Symbiote
Strategy games which are simple to explain, but allow skilled players to
compete without getting bored.

Go, Scrabble, chess... What modern games are like this?

Or, silly games where losing doesn't matter, it's fun anyway. My current
favourites are Space Alert and Galaxy Trucker.

~~~
vinchuco
I commented it below too, but then I read your comment. I've found Hive is
very enjoyable for a chess player (myself) since the strategy is different as
the board is the pieces. If you want more level of skill, Terra Mystica was
also very strategic balancing territory and resource control.

------
bostik
At the top my list, even if it might not technically be a board game: Mah-
Jong. The most complex part of the game tends to be the scoring, and agreeing
on a set of rule variants your entire gaming group don't object to.

After that, Scrabble and Puerto Rico.

------
guiseroom
Quelf is always a good time. [https://www.amazon.com/Spin-Master-
Games-20053371-Quelf/dp/B...](https://www.amazon.com/Spin-Master-
Games-20053371-Quelf/dp/B008N6KJMC)

~~~
roryisok
+1 for Quelf, lots of fun with a group of people

------
GavinMcG
Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space [0] – you can get a print-and-play
edition for a buck fifty!

[0]
[http://www.escapefromthealiensinouterspace.com/](http://www.escapefromthealiensinouterspace.com/)

------
apjana
Chess

~~~
vinchuco
And hive

------
lackbeard
My favorites: Power Grid, Terra Mystica, Dominion, Race for the Galaxy.

------
lefstathiou
1\. Settlers of Catan (with expansions) 2\. Axis & Allies (standard edition)
3\. Chess 4\. Cranium 5\. Scrabble 6\. Monopoly (with modified rules that
makes the game last about an hour)

~~~
eitland
A lot of people around here would do well just to _read_ the official rules
carefully and _follow_ them.

------
w00dy73
All time favorite: Risk (especially Risk Legacy)

Others: Settlers of Catan, Ticket to ride, Dominion, Kingdom Builder,
Civilization

------
IgorPartola
I really enjoy Resistance, but you have to have the right group of people for
it.

------
nappy-doo
Top games:

1) Cosmic Encounter. Plays 3-8 (best with 4-6), about 90 minutes. It's a
negotiation game where each person has an asymmetric way they alone can break
the rules. Cosmic is a strange game where the entire game takes place off the
table, but you use the table to keep track of what's happening in the game.
The first one or two times you play, you probably won't understand how deep
and subtle the game is, but stick with it.
([https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/39463/cosmic-
encounter](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/39463/cosmic-encounter))

2) Memoir '44\. 2 Player, as written plays in about 30 minutes, but typically
we switch sides between rounds, so 60 minutes. Light WWII war game. Lots of
expansions (Russians, Japanese, British armies), and lots of ways to play
(expansions allow up to 8 players). This game is just so much fun if you dig
the WWII theme.
([https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10630/memoir-44](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10630/memoir-44))

3) Kemet. 3-5 players, about 90-120 minutes (depending on player count).
"Dudes on a map" war game with excellent fighting mechanics. Very well
balanced, with every player being able to attack all other players. Fun little
monsters you can buy in the game.
([https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/127023/kemet](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/127023/kemet))

4) Railways of the World. 2-6 players (depending on the map), 60-120 minutes
(depending on the map). Nice railway game. Simple rules (about 10 minutes to
explain), but just a great game.
([https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/17133/railways-
world](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/17133/railways-world))

5) Star Wars Rebellion. 2 players, 90 minutes to 270. Thematic Star Wars game.
Imperial player tries to find the rebel base, while the rebels just need to
last long enough to have their cause take hold in the galaxy. Incredibly well
balanced, despite the asymmetry between the players.
([https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/187645/star-wars-
rebelli...](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/187645/star-wars-rebellion))

6) Party games: Love Letter, Codenames, Wits & Wagers, Can't Stop. All are
great games. One game, For Sale, deserves special mention because it explains
so fast, but has such depth.

7) Eclipse. 2-9 players (best with 3-5), takes about 45-60 min/player. 4X game
where you explore the galaxy and try to accumulate the most points through
science, research, economy, battles, negotiations, and exploration. You should
buy the Rise of the Ancients expansion to fix a subtly broken part of the game
dealing with missiles.

That's just off the top of my head. Last night I played Patchwork and
Quadropolis. Patchwork might be a great game -- too early to tell, and
Quadropolis is fun, and likely worth the money, but I don't think has the
staying power of some others.

------
chvid
Backgammon

------
jtacon
Splendor

------
9214
Zertz and Tzaar from GIPF project.

------
kamilszybalski
absolutely settlers of catan

------
Al-Khwarizmi
In my group of friends we have more than 50 games, most of them involving
complex strategy (as we do like that). Here is a list of my personal top 10:

1) Shogun. Archetypical Risk-like game of moving soldiers and conquering
provinces, but with a unique twist that makes it outstanding in my view:
instead of dice, it uses a cube tower to generate randomness. The outcome of
fights is based in the number of cubes from each player that come out of the
tower. If you get bad luck in a battle (because your cubes stay inside) then
the tower will be loaded in your favor for the next battles (those hidden
cubes can come out at any moment). I love this because, although I think some
randomness is good in strategic battle games to spice things up and so that
the game doesn't turn a chess-like prediction game, I don't like the winner
being dependent on luck. The tower introduces randomness, but guarantees that
no one will be too lucky or unlucky, which is great. Combine with a setting in
feudal Japan, complete with rice farming and starving populace revolving
against you, and you get an amazing game.

2) Imperial 2030. Another typical Risk-like game of moving soldiers and taking
countries... except that it's not. You don't control the empires themselves,
instead you are a banker that buys each empire's bonds. At a given point in
the game, the banker that holds more bonds for a particular empire is the one
controlling its politics. So maybe right now I control China, but I know that
you have a lot of cash and are looking at Chinese bonds with greedy eyes, so I
send the Chinese army on an unnecessarily painful military campaign to wither
down its power in case you are going to control it in the next turn. This
makes for awesome mechanics in a really strategic game. By the way, it doesn't
have any random elements at all, so it's a good game if you are against that.

3) Galaxy Trucker. This game is great due to its sheer concept... first you
use pieces from a scrapyard (competing for the pieces with the other players)
to build a spaceship with its cannons, shields, cargo holds, etc. and then all
of you have to fly them in a journey littered with space pirates, meteorites
than can tear off pieces of your ship, merchant planets, smugglers and more.
The feeling when one of your rival ships is tore in two by a meteorite is
unbeatable.

4) Star Wars: Imperial Assault. When a friend of mine got this game, I thought
"they have the Star Wars franchise so it will probably be a crappy game - they
will sell anyway". But no. It's actually a very good tactics game with lots of
choices, characters with very different styles, special abilities, and a set
of rules that (albeit unspecified at times) go very well together.

5) Robo Rally. A classic from Richard Garfield, the guy that brought you MtG.
OK, maybe this doesn't fit that much into "complex strategy", but it's also a
game that hackers should like because it's about programming after all! You
have to program your robot with randomly-dealt cards to try and survive pits,
traps and the other robots' lasers. A huge strong point of this game is that
the maps and missions are hugely customizable, supporting different sets of
rules like races, capture the flag, deathmatch, and others that you can come
up with. It supports up to 8 players, you can build different maps putting
together map boards, and there are editors online to print your own map
boards, so it's the ultimate customizable game. I think it's out of print but
a new edition has been announced, although it only supports 6 players sadly.

6) Carcassone. One of the best known modern board games, together with Catan.
But while Catan is IMHO too shallow and too random, featuring few meaningful
decisions, in Carcassone every tile you place is a meaningful decision. The
experience is very different in 2-player games (much more offensive) than in
games with more players. Some expansions (the builder, the granary and pig,
the mayor, the resources, etc.) really enhance the game although others are
prescindible.

7) Discworld Ankh Morpork. A deception game: you have to work towards your
goal and the other characters don't know what it is. You don't have to know
Discworld to like it (one of my friends hasn't read any of the books and loves
it). Drawback: unbalanced, it's easier to win with some characters than
others. If you care much about that, it's probably not your game.

8) Goblins Inc. Similar mechanic to Galaxy Trucker (probably inspired on it),
but with goblins that build robots of doom instead of spaceships, and with
direct combat. Contrary to Galaxy Trucker, it's team-based (2v2) but it also
gives you the possibility of being a traitor to your partner. Less flexible
than Galaxy Trucker (this one only really works with 4 players) but loads of
fun!

9) Power Grid. A classic game where you have to build a power network. Lots of
strategy and decisions, although the beginning depends too much on player
location and the endgame turns a bit too much into an arithmetic-fest counting
to the last nickel IMO.

10) Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space. A quite original board game in that
it doesn't have a board, the board is in each players' head. Some players are
humans and others are aliens, but they can't see where each other is, except
with certain clues (people making noise) and items. The humans must escape the
aliens. It's a lot of fun and it involves both abstract thought and
psychology/bluffing/etc. The drawback is that some maps and situations can be
unbalanced, especially if you play with the stock rules (a door to exit the
ship can randomly work or not) a player can lose very unfairly. It should be
pretty easy to customize the rules though.

Also go is awesome, but I don't think it's the kind of game you were looking
for advice about (and it's difficult to compare to the others as it's on an
entirely different category).

------
olafleur
Pandemy is awesome.

~~~
nappy-doo
I think you mean Pandemic
([https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/30549/pandemic](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/30549/pandemic)).

------
egru
Agricola

Twilight Imperium

Through the Ages

Terra Mystica

Suburbia

7 Wonders

Lords of Waterdeep

