A few years ago I discovered that there are literally THOUSANDS of different board games. Since then I've been spreading the gospel to my friends that there is all kinds of fun to be had in boxes of varying sizes.

Many people when thinking about board games first think about Monopoly, Risk, Sorry, etc, which tend to take a long time and involve a lot of luck/dice rolling. But board games can be so much more than that!

So I was just curious, what are some games you've played that you liked, some games you have interest in trying out, etc etc??

My current favorites include Hanabi (a cooperative card game), Concordia (resource management game), Dominion (a deck-builder), and Food Chain Magnate (economic game).

Settlers of Catan is a personal favorite. A simple to learn but complex in strategy game where you build settlements and cities.

The "Crayon Rails" games (Empire Builder, Euro Rails, Japan Rails, etc.) are also fantastic games. You build a network of rails and deliver resources to various cities, trying to reach $250 million and with six of seven major cities connected with each other.

Arkham Horror, based on the mythos of H.P. Lovecraft, is also a fun one, where you and other players cooperate in order to stop an eldrich horror from coming and ending the world as we know it. This one is not for novices however, as it is notoriously difficult to win. So much so that the game's publishers had to make various rule changes so as to prevent the possibility of the game being impossible to win before anyone takes a turn.

Finally, Diplomacy is a classic. It was created by a college professor in order to show why World War I happened. You negotiate with other players and create alliances in order to eliminate rivals, but you do so with the intent of later betraying your allies and eliminating them too. This one has no element of luck (dice rolls, card draws, etc.) to it: it all comes down to how well you can hold alliances and knowing when the time to betray your allies is right. I should warn you that this is not a game you play with friends if you value their friendship, as betrayal is a vital part to winning, and backstabbing your friends can lead to arguments and hurt feelings.

Have you played with any expansions for Catan?

I was surprised to find out my bf has Iron Dragon stashed away in the basement (it's a crayon rails game). We suffer from too many games though, not enough time/other similar problems so I haven't gotten to play it yet. I usually enjoy pick-up-and-deliver/network building games so I look forward to eventually trying such a game out.

I have never played Settlers of Catan with any expansions. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't need them. The base game itself is enough to make a memorable experience.

I've liked playing with the Explorers and Pirates expansion. The beginning of the game moves faster with the addition of gold. Cities and Knights seems interesting, but it makes Catan a more complex, meaner game. You ought as well play something else at that point.

Another fun one I should mention is Agricola. It's a resource gathering/management game where you have a family of pre-industrial farmers and use them to gather resources so that you can do things like herd pack animals, build expansions to your house (so you can get more family members), plow and sow fields, and so on. You need to have enough food for everyone to be able to do their part in the work.

One thing I would recommend is that you may want to ban certain cards when you play, because some of them break the game utterly. Some give the player holding them an almost certain win if they're halfway decent. A couple are so bad that even a complete novice could exploit them and win easily.

Eh heh that's how I feel about the Monopoly card in Catan.

Although there's been cases where a friend plays the Monopoly card and asks for a desired resource that no one has, and I kind of facepalm; you can look over at the bank supply and see that particular resource pile is very high while the other stacks are quite low. So maybe not the same vein.

Trust me, the game breakers in Agricola are so hideously overpowered that it's almost impossible to screw up using them. Particularly bad is the Taster card. You see, in Agricola, to be the starting player, you have to bid for it during a turn. The Taster lets you ignore that. It lets you declare each turn that you get to go first, which means that you get the prime pick of whatever resource it is you want or need, and thus lock out someone from a resource they need.

Wet Nurse is even worse: it makes adding family members ridiculously easy. Normally you need to spend considerable resources to add a family member. Wet Nurse allows you to do so at a cheap cost, thus you'll have more actions than anyone else for a good part of the game. The Lover is pretty bad too, but unlike the Wet Nurse, it can be used only once, and it does have a fair cost.