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[Ozle]

Smallworld is not at all political, I think. I don't play it that way.

What happens when there are no empty spaces to attack?

[Lekkit]

You attack what's best for you. You could play Pillage and choose to discard a good card for one opponent and a bad for another. But in the end, you would rather help yourself than hurt another player.

[Davio]

Dominion has a lot of ways to be political.

Just sit next to the player you want to hurt/help.

[theory]

I mean, is a game still a good game if you never play it?

Tree. Forest. Noise.

As a young father, your answer should be affirmative.

I haven't played any of the three 18XX games I possess for more than a decade. Or Britannia. Or Age of Renaissance. And boy they are great games. My children aren't yet ready for that level of complexity or duration (while they do enjoy the occasional Power Grid, Ursuppe, or Through The Ages, so ... soon ...).

Maybe a better way to put it is -- if you have the opportunity to play any game you want, and you pass up a chance to play X, can X possibly be a good game?

[Ozle]

I mean, is a game still a good game if you never play it?

Tree. Forest. Noise.

As a young father, your answer should be affirmative.

I haven't played any of the three 18XX games I possess for more than a decade. Or Britannia. Or Age of Renaissance. And boy they are great games. My children aren't yet ready for that level of complexity or duration (while they do enjoy the occasional Power Grid, Ursuppe, or Through The Ages, so ... soon ...).

Maybe a better way to put it is -- if you have the opportunity to play any game you want, and you pass up a chance to play X, can X possibly be a good game?

Surely that depends on the other options and Time?

I play Dominion a lot with my group, its clearly the best game I own. that doesnt mean it always get played when we are deciding to play a game.

Also I may already have played a game (Settlers) and thought that was a good game, but then a better one comes along and I don't play that old one anymore. Its still good, just not as good as the new one

[Captain_Frisk]

I mean, is a game still a good game if you never play it?

Tree. Forest. Noise.

As a young father, your answer should be affirmative.

I haven't played any of the three 18XX games I possess for more than a decade. Or Britannia. Or Age of Renaissance. And boy they are great games. My children aren't yet ready for that level of complexity or duration (while they do enjoy the occasional Power Grid, Ursuppe, or Through The Ages, so ... soon ...).

Maybe a better way to put it is -- if you have the opportunity to play any game you want, and you pass up a chance to play X, can X possibly be a good game?

By that definition you would very few "good" games.  I pass up the opportunity to play chess several times a day.

[Kuildeous]

I guess it depends on what you mean by political.

If you mean having the choice of interfering with someone else's plans and harming the leader, then Smallworld would definitely fit.

If you mean making decisions based on grudges and how nice someone was to you, then I would say that Smallworld can be political but is not typically so.

In Smallworld, you win mostly by serving your best needs. If Bob over there decimated your active race, it rarely is worth it to devote your resources to crushing Bob as revenge. You want to choose the race combination that'll make up for the pain and get those points back. If it so happens that you can maximize your points by attacking Bob, then great, but I've rarely seen revenge plots work in this game. All you end up doing is ensuring that you and the other guy don't win. You shrug it off and pull yourself back up to 10+ VP per turn.

When you sit down with a bunch of strangers, though, you should prepare for those in the former group. New players may not quite realize that there's no profit in revenge. There is profit, however, in smacking the hell out of the guy raking in 18 VP per turn and maximizing your own points.

[Qvist]

I just started a game of forum based Pandemic. So feel free to join.
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5355.0

[Davio]

I mean, is a game still a good game if you never play it?

Tree. Forest. Noise.

As a young father, your answer should be affirmative.

I haven't played any of the three 18XX games I possess for more than a decade. Or Britannia. Or Age of Renaissance. And boy they are great games. My children aren't yet ready for that level of complexity or duration (while they do enjoy the occasional Power Grid, Ursuppe, or Through The Ages, so ... soon ...).

Maybe a better way to put it is -- if you have the opportunity to play any game you want, and you pass up a chance to play X, can X possibly be a good game?

By that definition you would very few "good" games.  I pass up the opportunity to play chess several times a day.

I think it depends on your definition of "good".

For me, a game is good if it hits the table, otherwise it's just taking up shelf space.
I try to keep a balanced game collection and rarely sell any games although I probably should, but that's just because I like collecting.

But that's not all, it's also about potential.
I too, rarely play chess anymore, but I would never refuse a game with my wife, dad or my brother in law, but alas, so little time.

[SwitchedFromStarcraft]

Carcassonne really rubs me the wrong way, too often especially if you add expansions its like well I need this tile, and well we all know what happens when you pull a tile out of that bag.

I love pulling the tile that I know someone else needs and purposefully placing it in one of the stupidest, most useless spots.

But I'm a jerk.

Jerks win.

-rrenaud

[Autumn]

In order of preference:
03. Agricola 10/10
10. Power Grid 9/10
01. Dominion 9/10
02. 7 Wonders 8/10
09. Race for the Galaxy 8/10
08. Small World 7/10
07. Settlers of Catan 7/10
06. Carcassonne 6/10
04. Ticket To Ride 6/10
05. Pandemic 5/10

Also, I really don't understand the whole Small World not being political thing. Whenever I've played it it has always been super political. People were making alliances, backstabbing one another, agreeing to team up on someone who was a threat, not attacking a certain player because they were afraid of repercussions. Personally I'm not a big fan of that type of gameplay, otherwise Small World would probably be ranked higher.

[zahlman]

I played Small World once. It struck me as the kind of thing I'd rather play 2-player *anyway*. Whereas Settlers, arguably King of Politics, really doesn't work as 2-player.

[Davio]

I guess some groups can make any game political and some groups can even make Diplomacy non-political. 

[Ozle]

I guess some groups can make any game political and some groups can even make Diplomacy boring. 

FTFY *grins*

[Davio]

Not forum Diplomacy, that was great! Too bad a second installment hasn't yet started.

[ipofanes]

Settlers, arguably King of Politics,

*ahem*

groups can even make Diplomacy non-political

[zahlman]

Oh, right, that game.

The first time I played it was in high school with mostly people from upper years who I didn't really know and two of whom I had confused with each other. x.x

[shraeye]

Not forum Diplomacy, that was great! Too bad a second installment hasn't yet started.

Y'all should try this game out.  It's still forming, 4 spots left.  New people encouraged; I was completely new to this game when I played f.DS's first installment of Diplomacy.

[chwhite]

I've played all of the top 10.  In order of preference, with gaps where there's a big gap:

1. Dominon (of course)

2. Race for the Galaxy (definitely needs the first two expansions to come into its own, BoW is good but non-essential)
3. Small World (I thought Vinci was a brilliant idea, with gamebreaking flaws, and SW fixed every single one of them)
4. Agricola (these three are very close; Le Havre would beat out RFTG though)

5. 7 Wonders

6. Power Grid (as much as I prefer heavier games with maps, and Power Grid fits the bill at least on this list, something about having to calculate auctions down to the dollar doesn't quite do it for me as much)
7. Ticket to Ride (I actually like the Europe map best FWIW)
8. Settlers of Catan (yes it is fixed Monopoly, and there's nothing wrong with that)

9. Pandemic (co-ops aren't my thing)

10. Carcassone (I don't know why I hate this game, but I do)

I'll happily play the top 5 almost any time, and I'll agree to the top 8 most of the time.

[zahlman]

I just got to try Carcassone this weekend. It seems interesting, except that I really couldn't get a feeling for strategy early - especially WRT farmers.

[hsiale]

Farmers are Carcassonne's Big Money

This summer I played Carcassonne (2-player, base game + Inns and Cathedrals - first expansion, considered by many rather a fix of problems the base game has, it's very common to suggest this expansion straight away for people learning the game) really a lot. I think something like 300-400 games, all against my girfriend, we both were new to the game. When one of us found a new trick, the other looked for a way to go around it, and so on. When recently I started to learn Dominion, I noticed similarities to how we learned Carcassonne.

First you just have fun laying tiles so they fit together. Meeples go on the table, score, come back. A light family game. If you play just to have a bit of fun, you stay at this level. But if you like competing, you look for efficient ways to the win. After a few games a big farm will be scored. Something like 10 cities, singlehandedly deciding the win. Then you see that nearly every game has a high scoring farm. If you place tiles semirandomly, with no big plan, it tends to go this way. So you discover "the broken strategy". Farmer wars begin - the game is a contest to claim the big farm with a side activity of trying to score some points when this doesn't hurt the farm assault. But those points are only a tiebreaker in case the farm is claimed by both players.

You can stop there. Carcassonne becomes a random game with one dominant strategy for you. Or you can find other possibilities. Often ignored and placed anywhere on the side road tiles can be good farm dividers keeping your farming opponent in check. If a chance comes, a big city, long road or a few cloisters adjacent to each other can score big points too. Suddenly farms are important, but the big farm no longer is the main game decider.

And probably there are more layers above that. I guess it takes way more games to truly master this game. But, as after 3 months of playing small Carcassonne set I bought Big Box + some extras, we moved to playing Mega-Carc, a brain burner with over 200 tiles, over 10 ways to score, 3 very different ways to kill your opponent's meeples and a few other twists, including new ways both to divide and to connect farms. This is a really hard game, mostly because there are very many things going on and you have to watch out for everything while managing 12-15 meeples with various properties and additional pieces you are given. The only downside of this game is that it takes more time - even experienced, quick players need an hour or more to complete it. That's why I feel Carcassonne and Dominion fit to each other - both are big game systems with many possibilities so it's likely someone will have fun playing both, but one is a long game and the other short, so you can choose depending on time you have.

[Tables]

As people are weighing in lists, here's mine.

03. Agricola (Have not played, but want to)

09. Race for the Galaxy (Played once, did not enjoy, did not seem exciting enough to want to play again)
07. Settlers of Catan (It's the Monopoly of Eurogames. It was a real breakaway game in terms of re-inventing the hobby, but it's very political, long, and really not all that exciting. A game I'll try to avoid playing most of the time.)
06. Carcasonne (Carcassone is a good game, just not one I enjoy playing)
04. Ticket To Ride (It's quick and it's okay, but I've never been very enthralled by it.)
08. Smallworld (I don't mind Smallword. It's a bit of fun, but not a favourite)

(Gap)

10. Powergrid (Generally fun, tight, and has some extremely well designed mechanics (in particular a behind player always has a chance make this a good game. Not good with beginners, but a game I love to play with more experienced gamers.)
02. 7 Wonders (In all honesty, I don't think there's a huge amount of strategic depth to 7 Wonders, but it offers good variety and crucially, scales wonderfully and plays quickly, making it a favourite in my local group.)
(Small Gap)
05. Pandemic (My favourite Co-op. Really needs the expansion to shine, but is fun on it's own nevertheless.)
01. Dominion (My favourite game. Like Pandemic, it needs expansions (more than one!), but with them it's a pretty much endlessly replayable game.

[Davio]

Funnily enough, I played Agricola for the first time yesterday.

It wasn't really the first time, but I only played the simpler family version with my wife once so that doesn't count.

What struck me most about it, was how simple it actually was. I always thought: "It's a heavy euro, so it must be difficult." But it really wasn't! You start with 7 Worker cards and 7 Small investment cards and they tend to overwhelm you at first. A good idea is to sort them in a logical order (cost or points) so you have an idea which cards might be good at the start and which might be good in the end.

Then you start playing and you take whatever the game gives you. In the game we played yesterday, one player played an early card which meant we had to give him 1 Food whenever we used the "Get Grain" action. So instead of getting grain, I focused early on sheep for food. Pretty soon, I had the furnace and was well on my way. I played a worker which allowed me to put sheep, cattle and pigs together in the same area, which was a big bonus for me. I also played a small investment which allowed me to choose the plow action and get two plowed fields instead of one.

So what I liked about this game is that the cards can steer you in a direction, but it's still up to you to make the most of them, kind of like the Leaders in 7 Wonders. If you want to ignore them, go ahead, but often you can't really do so.

We also tend to have AP prone players, but yesterday it wasn't a big deal, which surprised me, because of the sheer number of actions. Sure, some turns took longer than others, but it was well within limits and we all had fun.

In the end I got 2nd after the guy who played it the most, so I was happy with my strategy and result.

[aaron0013]

Come on guys, you have to admit that Monopoly is a pretty good game. Sure, Settlers might be somewhat better, but I wouldn't say it fixes Monopoly. Some people like games that take 3 or 4.....or 40 hours.

[Octo]

Why Monopoly is rubbish (and it is genuinely bad in my opinion):

1) Too long. Games that are too long kill the evening (for my group at least) as everyone feels drained afterwards and doesn't want to play any more. It's so long that people usually give up or wander off before it ends (this is true of many classic games actually).
2) Player elimination. This is not inherently bad in games, but in a long game like monopoly it is bad because people will be sitting around out of the game for ages. Not fun. Because of this, a lot of people don't like to be the one that eliminates someone, so ...(see next point)
3) Players have to be restrained from making all kinds of crazy deals (eg rent-free landing on property in return for letting them off the mayfair rent this time), often as they don't want to elimate someone, and they can make the descend into unending chaos.
4) Cash. Change and all that jazz gets really fiddely. The cash is fun, but never having enough change is annoying.
5) Player blocking. If you need a 3rd property to finish a set so that you can build on it and that person simply refuses to sell it to you ... you're stuffed. You could try and barter with other people to get something that guy wants, yeah, but blocking behaviour is common and really craps the game up.
6) First player advantage can be strong. First players round the board can snap up the properties. Last player in a larger game could land on owned properties a lot. In one game I went twice round the board without landing on single buyable property.
7) It gets needlessly complicated by mass-mortgaging of properties.
8 ) Not the game's fault, but so many people don't play the auction rule (any unsold property landed on has to be bought or auctioned)

There's more, but whatever.

It's a fun beginning and scooting round collecting properties is enjoyable, as well as a bit of trade and haggling, but after that it starts to go downhill and the game ends up being decided on really stand-out unlucky moments (like landing on the one property that has a hotel). Eesh. I don't mind playing it, but now that I have so many better games I would only play this if someone really was desperate.