non-video games

[lazarus]

Who plays them?

I'm particularly into German or Euro style board games. This started with Settlers of Cataan, but has moved on to many others. Two of the highest rated on boardgamegeeks.com are also my favourites, Power Grid and Agricola.

These games strike a nice balance in difficulty. They make Risk look like Parcheesi (way too random), but aren't as involved as the old Avalon Hill games (which I dearly love, too).

For instance, Power Grid has a limited random element. You have a map of a country or region (I have all the expansions), for instance, Brazil. These have cities on them. Your objective is to buy power plants (which come up randomly in the market) to power cities. You have to strike a balance between capacity and customer base to win.

Agricola is difficult to describe. It's basically a resource management game with virtually no random element at all. Each player gets a number of actions each turn to develop a farm, grow a family (which gives you more actions on later turns), and feed everyone.

Another great resource management game is Puerto Rico. It's got a steeper learning curve, because you have to buy buildings, as well, so you need to understand what they all do. They each impact the rules a different way. The combinations of rules changes get very interesting.

What's great about all these Euro games is they're different every time you play them. There's no One Great Strategy to win, you have to adapt to the game environment and the other players each time.

I also like tabletop miniatures gaming, in particular, Battletech. I lost most of my stuff to an asshole ex-roommate, and was pleased to see a new company has taken over and brought in back into print. I'm saving up to buy some terrain and miniatures, and well as more books of mechs.