10 thoughts on “Board game reviews

  1. Small World is loads of fun with the right mix of people and definitely a quicker game than Risk or other strategy/”map conquering” games.

    Dominion is a phenomenal game that’s well-balanced and easy to pick up (though I do recommend using the starting decks the game suggests until you fully grasp the mechanics).

    Haven’t played any of the others, alas, but own the above two; at first, I thought CARCASSONNE was in your list and prepared to rave about another game, but it was a misread on my part. (Still, if you don’t have it, Carcassonne is an incredibly well done game–at least its core game and first few supplements–that hasn’t gotten tired even after 5 years of near-constant play.)

  2. Michael B Sullivan

    I have played Puerto Rico (a little) and Dominion (a whole hell of a lot).

    Dominion is in my mind maybe the best “board game” (no actual boards: it’s really a non-collectible card game) of the last decade. Its core mechanic is innovative and interesting, it has immense replay value, it can be expanded profitably, it plays well with two players and equally well (if slightly differently) with three or four. Its set-up time is not onerous, and it is fun at a variety of skill levels.

    Its downsides are maybe two:

    1. You’ll put a LOT of wear on the cards if you play it much, and eventually will probably notably degrade their quality. (The game involves a lot of shuffling).

    2. With the base set only, high level play tends to be slightly invariant, with only one or two decent strategies. Though this can be mitigated with the expansions (especially Prosperity) and may not be a factor at all for casual gamers.

    I strongly recommend Dominion. I think it’s fabulous.

    Puerto Rico is a game where I can tell that there’s quality there, but I haven’t played enough to do more than kind of cast around at random, and that’s annoying. I also don’t think it scales as well through number of players. In my opinion, a very important part of a board game is to handle two players well, since often it’s difficult to get a bigger group. Puerto Rico, I think, works better with four players.

  3. Small World and Dominion are both a lot of fun.

    I would look at Ticket to Ride as well. Ticket to Ride, Power Grid and Carcassonne are typically mentioned as “entry drug” games by board gamers.

  4. Lynette

    I really like Dominion, its easy to pick for the first couple of sets at least. Once you know the rules it plays fairly quick too.

    PR is pretty good, highly rated, but it takes a couple of hours.

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