Negotiation is one of my all-time favorite ingredients in tabletop games.  It’s a mechanism that steps out of the way and lets the players do the talking, literally.  For me, one of the most satisfying elements of this hobby is the above-the-table interaction that happens between opponents and/or teammates, and negotiation offers this in spades.  Not only that, but it often allows individuals to bring their own personalities into the competitive experience.  

Are you the generous type who offers favors out like candy at Halloween, all the while earning good karma that will pay off in the long run?  Or are you a greedy wheeler and dealer who tries to milk your competition for all they are worth?  As long as participants are open to making deals and hearing offers, then you’re bound to have a blast with a good negotiation game.

With Bitewing Games soon launching a crowdfunding project for not one but two negotiation games, I’ve been playing and exploring many of the all-time greats in this genre.  We are finally ready to reveal our own publications, so in celebration of that reveal I’d like to share my personal Top 10 Negotiation Games.  Be sure to stick around after perusing my list, because I’ll have some exciting new details to reveal for fans of this mechanism.

Chinatown

What better way to start this list off than with the 1999 classic, Chinatown?  Chinatown has become one of my all time favorite games to introduce to anybody (gamers, non-gamers, family, friends, you name it) thanks to its smooth approachability and lively antics.  Players are seeking to establish the most profitable businesses on the block by acquiring connected lots and building certain businesses on those lots.

Negotiation is at the beating heart of this game, as each round you’ll secretly choose to acquire a few lots from the hand of cards that are dealt to you.  You’ll also draw business tiles from a bag that range from take-out to laundry to flowers and more.  Then, you’ll reveal your lots and tiles and let the wild rumpus begin!  In real time (no clockwise turn structure here!), players simultaneously make offers and negotiate trades of their lots, business tiles, and money.  The rules offer complete freedom in what you offer, how you trade, and how you earn the most money to win the game.  The real fun comes in figuring out how to wring lot 43 from an opponent’s grasp or in realizing how desperately your neighbor wants your dim sum tile and basking in their desperation.  Chinatown never fails to be a hit at our table.

The King’s Dilemma

From a decades-old classic to the second-newest release on this list, The King’s Dilemma features an exciting mix of legacy role-playing, epic kingdom politicking, and tense auction voting.  This one is admittedly not quite as easy to get to the table as Chinatown, as it requires (ideally) 5-players who are willing to assemble semi-regularly and play through roughly 12-20 sessions.  But if you have the right group for it, then you are certainly in for a romp!

This one sees players acting as influential advisory houses to the king.  Together, your council faces an endless stream of dilemmas that have long-term consequences on the military, culture, economy, and moral of your people.  You will use your power (through voting auctions), your money (through bribing), and your wit (through persuasive conversation) to decide the fate of the kingdom as you seek to fulfill your house’s secret agenda.

Cosmic Encounter

Might as well keep the time period whiplash going by jumping back to the oldest game on my list: the legendary Cosmic Encounter.  This is one that I’ve labeled “the pizza” of board gaming, and I stand by that comparison.  The real draw of Cosmic Encounter, and the reason why it has stayed relevant and seen updated versions since its 1977 release, is the fact that it offers an infinite combination of wacky alien powers for players to explore.

Yet the element that keeps its old gears greased is undoubtedly the opportunity for negotiation.  It doesn’t matter that one player’s alien ability is infinitely more powerful than any other, because that simply means the opponents must team up to overcome the galaxy’s Goliath.  While it’s a competitive game at its core, Cosmic Encounter allows its players to collectively dictate who crosses the finish line and victoriously colonizes five planets—resulting in one or multiple winners.

Sidereal Confluence

Let’s continue along the space theme with my next pick, Sidereal Confluence.  While this one also features asymmetric alien powers, like Cosmic Encounter, its gameplay is actually much closer to Chinatown.  If Chinatown is the simultaneous negotiation game made for anyone and everyone, then Sidereal Confluence is the hardcore hobbyist version.

This one is so outlandishly ambitious that I still can’t believe how well it comes together.  I’ll tell you what: the first time I heard about this game I was immediately running in the opposite direction.  Featuring 268 cubes, 9 alien factions whose names simulate a spelling stroke, and multiple hours of resource conversion.  No thank you.  Yet beneath this rough exterior hides one of the greatest negotiation games ever designed.

Here, you’ll find all the chaotic fun of Chinatown with infinitely more layers of strategic possibilities.  All deals are binding and virtually nothing is off limits—you can promise a share of the profits from your convertor to the player who helps you fuel it, or even lend the convertor itself to a neighbor when you find it useless to your needs.  You can exchange planets for ships, ships for food, food for protection, protection for research—the list goes on!  While this sprawling game initially appears alien and unwieldy, it’s surprisingly straightforward, laser-focused, and entirely engaging once the rounds get going.

Quo Vadis?

From the new hotness to another old classic, let’s now examine Quo Vadis.  I never try to hide my biases on any post, but fair warning, I’m definitely biased and personally tied to this game (more on that later).  But even if Quo Vadis was completely unrelated to Bitewing Games, it would still be on my Top 10 Negotiation Games list.  That’s because this one is a playground of pure, zesty politics from one of my favorite designers, Reiner Knizia.

Believe it or not, Quo Vadis is now over 30 years old and among the very first notable releases from Dr. Knizia.  It is certainly starting to look its age in board game years, yet the core experience is as spicy as ever.  The game is a race to squeeze one or more of your senators into the Inner Sanctum before it fills up, because only those who have reached the Inner Sanctum qualify for victory.  The only problem is that it is extremely hard to get there without the help of your opponents.  Through bribing, voting, exchanging favors, and sometimes even backstabbing, only the most cunning players will rise to the top of the Roman Senate.  But you can be the last to cross the finish line—getting in by the skin of your teeth—and still claim the victory for yourself!  That’s because the winner will be the Inner Sanctum player who earns the most laurels from successful campaigns and lucrative deals along the way.  It’s simple, it’s fast, and it is incredibly thrilling.  One must balance the pressing urgency of reaching the Inner Sanctum with the lucrative opportunities to hang back and milk your opponents and the game board for laurels.

As much as I love this game, I’ll be the first to admit that has a few flaws.  Most notably, the board loses some of its tightness and the table some of its tension if you’re playing with 3 people instead of 4 or ideally 5.  And if those people are new to the game, then getting them excited about this grungy old box and bone-dry board is usually a challenge.  Finally, those who enjoy a broader trading sandbox from games like Sidereal Confluence will obviously feel a bit more restricted here.  It’s understandable for some players to come away from the relatively dry Quo Vadis being thirsty for a little more juice in their negotiations.  To that end, I’m thrilled to share that Bitewing Games and Reiner Knizia have worked to address every major flaw in this classic game—so stick around to hear about Quo Vadis evolved.  But for now, let’s pay our respects to the original Quo Vadis and continue on to my next pick…

Root

Root is one of a few picks on my list that features negotiation as a secondary or supplemental mechanism to the core experience.  In fact, the best place you’ll find negotiation in this game is actually within the first expansion thanks to the Riverfolk Company faction of profit-seeking otters.  This commercial crew offers their services to the other woodland critters by displaying their hand at all times and setting prices on their offerings.  Not only can opponents buy cards from your public hand, but they can also use your riverboats to get around the board easier and utilize your mercenaries to bully their targets more effectively.

Being a good merchant otter is not only about setting the right prices for your services, but it’s also about keeping your finger on the woodland’s pulse and enticing your opponents with offers they can’t refuse.  Yet negotiation can even be found outside of the Riverfolk Company as players can form an alliance with the Vagabond or collaborate with enemies to destabilize an even bigger threat.  Designer Cole Wehrle is known for embracing the memorable meta that can arise from a board game, and Root is all about gaming the players.

Oath: Chronicles of Empire and Exile

If gaming the players is the kind of thing you are looking for, then Mr. Wehrle’s later design, Oath, might be an even better fit for you.  Oath was my favorite release from last year—I’m now 11 meaty plays into it and still having a blast.  But that doesn’t mean it’s for everyone.  Nooooooo way, you better know what you’re getting into with Oath before you take the plunge.

If you too want to have a blast with Oath, then you ideally need a regular group of 3-5 players.  Your group needs to be totally okay with a lengthy rules explanation, a cloudy first play (or more), an unwieldy labyrinth of strategic possibilities, a wide range of emotional highs and lows, and the ever present possibility of kingmaking looming over each game’s outcome.  In many ways, Oath is less about reaching a competitive conclusion and more about charting a civilization’s journey.  But if you’re here for the negotiations and politicking, then you’ll find plenty to love.

Each result of a play of Oath has a direct effect on the setup of the next—like a pseudo legacy game that is constantly morphing and never ending.  The winner of one game always becomes crowned (or continues) as Chancellor in the next.  This Chancellor’s goal is to hold their new oath (a unique victory objective) while keeping the Exiles of the kingdom in check.  Often, the Exiles and their followers can become so dangerous and unwieldy that the Chancellor may be compelled to offer citizenship to a lowly Exile in a desperate attempt to retain control.  The problem is that this Exile-turned-Citizen will do everything in their power to succeed the Chancellor as they cooperate together.  

One of my most recent plays of this game saw one exiled player forcing his citizenship upon me, the Chancellor of the session, and convincing me to share my war bands and power with him to help maintain order in my Empire.  And each time I trusted him with my resources, he immediately stabbed me in the back by revealing secret plans and motives of his own.  Fortunately, the other exiles proved to be a large enough threat that he was compelled to concede his ulterior motives for the next era and help my Empire maintain its grasp on the land.

Inis

Interestingly, Cole has cited that one of his main inspirations for Oath was in fact Inis, by Christian Martinez.  That’s more due to the fact that Inis and Oath both feature multiple paths to victory within a tumultuous power struggle—yet they both possess elements of negotiation as well!  Ironically, the only place that you’ll really find negotiation in Inis is within the conflicts between warring players.

The thing I love about conflict in Inis is that it is completely devoid of things like combat dice and power cards.  These tropes are replaced by a simple question: “Would you like to stop fighting?”  If the answer is no, then players will continue to slap valuable troops out of each other’s armies or precious cards out of each other’s hands until one retreats or is wiped out.  But if the answer is yes—and both players can agree to stop before one or both are virtually annihilated—then the conflict is over.  Simple as that.  The different bands will simply coexist on the same board space.

Inis remains a brilliant game of political power grabbing that is further improved by several of the modules in its expansion.  I’m all ears for the recently announced second installment in this “political trilogy” from designer Martinez and publisher Matagot titled Galactic Renaissance.

Lords of Vegas

Speaking of one game being the inspiration for another, Lords of Vegas actually owes some of its DNA to the previously listed Chinatown according to the designers of this next game on my list.  It certainly makes sense when you look closely enough.  Both games see players taking control of lots on a square grid and seeking to erect businesses across connected lots in order to gain the most profits.  Yet where Chinatown is pure, unadulterated negotiation, Lords of Vegas is a game of cutthroat casinos ripe with entrepreneurial gambling and sprinkled with the opportunity for trading and negotiation.

In this 12-year-old fan favorite, players are constantly risking their hard-earned cash on ambitious endeavors.  These pursuits include everything from building, upgrading, and spreading owned casinos to hostile takeovers of the competition or even high-stakes gambling to steal each other’s cash.  With all of these thrillingly thematic possibilities, it can be easy to forget the advantageous opportunity to trade at any time.  The ability to trade most anything—including money, lots, dice in casinos, and actions—can really help tip the scales of luck in your favor.

Bohnanza

We’re going to close this Top 10 out with another classic trading game that has long been a favorite of many gamers across the world.  Apparently the gateway to becoming a legendary German game designer is by starting with a simple negotiation game.  As Reiner Knizia began his design journey with Quo Vadis (among others) so Uwe Rosenberg started his ludography with the bean-trading card game, Bohnanza. Many frown upon the garish art style of this game, but I personally find it to be quite charming and iconic.

While I personally gravitate toward games that offer more strategy and flexibly in their negotiation possibilities, Bohnanza remains a worthwhile and amusing classic thanks to its unique locked hand card play.  Here, you are not allowed to rearrange any cards in your hand, and you must play them into your fields in order.  This forces players to give up beans to their opponents in hopes of receiving others, as you’ll score more points if you are able to play multiple beans of a single type in a row.  For those who are curious, Bohnanza sits as the most family-friendly negotiation game on this list. If you’re wanting to get gamers or non-gamers hooked on this genre, then Bohnanza, Chinatown, and Quo Vadis are the three best entry points.

Honorable Mentions

No top 10 list is any good without a handful of honorable mentions, right?  At the very least, these mentions help to dampen the outrage of passionate fans who saw their favorite negotiation game shafted on my list.  So let’s get into them!

• John Company: Honestly, I have no doubt that the second edition of this game was merely a few months away from making my Top 10 list and pushing off another title listed above.  Cole Wehrle is a favorite designer of mine (if you didn’t notice from Root and Oath being mentioned above), and John Company is his most negotiation-focused game of all.  I can’t wait to dive into this one when it finally releases in Q3!
• Rising Sun: I’ve heard two main things about Rising Sun.  1) It claims to be a negotiation game but many detractors say that’s a weak claim at best.  2) Many folks also say that this is the weakest design of the Eric Lang / CMON trilogy (Blood Rage, Rising Sun, Ankh).  So will I ever get the chance to try it?  Who knows.  But here it is.
• Twilight Imperium: These next two games are probably the ones that will get me in the most trouble with negotiation fans (because they are on my honorable mentions rather than my Top 10).  I’m still not sure whether I would enjoy this 8-hour extravaganza or simply be annoyed that I didn’t spend an entire day playing 4-10 other games that I know I love instead.  But from the sound of it, those who enjoy TI are hooked from their first play and ever hungry for more plays.
• Diplomacy: Another beast of a game (roughly 6 hours) that apparently must be played at exactly 6 or 7 players who will likely enter as friends and leave as mortal enemies.  Diplomacy apparently takes the back-stabbing part of negotiation and makes it a glorified feature in this epic game of military might.
• Dune: Dune, like TI and Diplomacy, has been around for decades, although it recently received a facelift.  These games also share the common problem of possessing many barriers to entry and requiring the perfect group (in this case 6 players hungry for a heavy 3-hour game).  Dune features deeply asymmetric factions, shakey alliances, and secret treachery.
• Pax Pamir: While Pax Pamir is one of my all-time favorite board games, I couldn’t justify fitting it onto my Top 10 list when negotiation is such a light feature compared to the other games in contention.  The most negotiation you’ll find here is mostly in the table talk—convincing others to join or support your faction and work against opponents.  Of course, you can also waive the forced bribes present in the game if a player is seeking to help your cause—but most often those bribes are enforced because the economy is so tight here.
• Genoa: I’ve come close to tracking down a copy of Genoa, and perhaps that’ll happen before too long.  This one seems to be a bit more polarizing—either you love the dynamic gameplay that Genoa provides, or you hate it for being too long and dry.
• Moonrakers: This is undoubtedly the hottest negotiation game at the moment as Moonrakers is currently having its second smash-hit Kickstarter campaign featuring all kinds of expansion content. What happens when you combine negotiation with deck-building in space? Only Moonrakers can answer that question.
• Panic on Wall Street: I rarely hear about this 2011 game, but it still has its fans.  This one is about loudly negotiating and trading stocks for 3-11 players in only 30 minutes.
• Catan: “Two sheep for a wood?” How could I not mention one of the most popular trading games of all time?
• Spartacus: A Game of Blood and Treachery: Like Quo Vadis, Spartacus is also about competing for power in Ancient Rome.  Only the competition here plays out in gory gladiatorial arenas rather than dignified senatorial committees.  Apparently this one got a somewhat recent reskin as well.

Introducing Zoo Vadis and Gussy Gorillas

I started this post by sharing how negotiation is one of my all-time favorite ingredients in tabletop games.  So of course, as a publisher, I’m eager to keep this genre alive and contribute to the list of legends which include the games noted above.  For my tastes, this might be the most exciting project that we’ve had the privilege to work on.  Let’s dive into the next two releases coming from Bitewing Games… 

Zoo Vadis

When I reached out to Reiner regarding Quo Vadis, I had a vision for what the game could become.  We weren’t interested in simply painting over the cracks in the design.  Rather, I dug through over 30 years of data (thanks BGG) and presented my analysis to Reiner including several development goals for the game.  Then off he went with his decades-old design to give it new life—like a phoenix reborn from the flames.  I’ll be sharing a full publisher diary before too long on all the nitty gritty details behind the evolution of Quo Vadis to Zoo Vadis, but for now let me simply explain the end result, Zoo Vadis:

What if the animals were the ones who ran the zoo?  

…Presumably, this wild government would be built upon the support of fellow creatures and fueled by the fame, attention, and prestige of wide-eyed visitors.  Naturally, the most aspirational beasts would lobby for a position in the star exhibit, and the lead star would be elected Zoo Mascot.  

In order to join the star exhibit, each species must campaign its way up the hierarchy of enclosures with the majority support of animal voters.  And the lead star will be the species that has earned the most laurels from both raving fans and jealous rivals along the way.  

How does one gain support and earn laurels?  Through crafty politicking, clever negotiations, and ruthless schemes.  There can only be one Zoo Mascot, after all.

Where are you going?  That is the ultimate question of Zoo Vadis.

Zoo Vadis is an evolution of Reiner Knizia’s cult-classic negotiation game, Quo Vadis?.  It retains the elegant, political gameplay that fans have come to love while introducing many innovations and improvements by:

-Enhancing the 3-player game and tailoring the board to all player counts through neutral, bribable figures—roaming peacocks

-Widening the player count with a second game board for 6-7 players

-Expanding the possibilities for strategic negotiation with asymmetric animal abilities 

-Increasing tactical opportunities with new special laurel tokens

-Broadening the appeal of the theme and presentation with vibrant zoo art by Kwanchai Moriya and Brigette Indelicato

-Enlivening the production with chunky animal figures and functional player screens

Like the original design, the game ends immediately when the Star Exhibit is full.  Only the animals who have reached the Star Exhibit qualify for victory, and the winner is the player with the most laurels.

Gussy Gorillas

Before Bitewing Games had ever reached out to Reiner Knizia or Ryan Courtney, we had a couple designs of our own that had survived the gauntlet of playtesting and were games that we were eager to share with the community.  One of those is Gussy Gorillas, and we’re jazzed to finally be publishing it alongside Zoo Vadis in our upcoming negotiation games crowdfunding campaign…

Gussy Gorillas are a peculiar group of primates that strive to keep each other gussied up and well-groomed. Through social grooming, these apes remove dirt, insects, and debris from the difficult-to-reach and difficult-to-see places of each other’s fur. Reciprocation is expected and awarded in this kind of monkey business! The player who acquires the most diverse and exotic collection of groomed goods will earn the respect of their fellow primates and be awarded the golden banana of victory.

In Gussy Gorillas, players start out with a personal deck of face-down cards. Without looking at the card(s) in their hand, players simultaneously trade or keep their hand, one or two cards at a time, to form a personal collection. Once all cards have been traded or kept, players tally their collections and the highest score wins — but pairs can cancel out and special cards are not always helpful, so trade carefully!

Similar to the popular game Hanabi, in Gussy Gorillas players hold their cards facing away from themselves…but instead of being a co-operative memory game, this is a competitive negotiation and bluffing game. Things get even more interesting once players realize that every card can either be very good or very bad for one’s collection, depending on the context. You’ll have to convince your opponents to keep bad cards for themselves and give great cards to you if you want to swing away with the win…

There are still plenty more juicy details to share over the coming months and we hope to have your support when Zoo Vadis and Gussy Gorillas launch this January!  The best way to help Bitewing Games and not miss out on these upcoming releases is to subscribe to the Bitewing Games newsletter. Bitewing Games is only made possible and kept alive by the support of backers and fans of our published games.   Thanks for your support!

What is your favorite negotiation game?  Share in the comments below!

Article written by Nick Murray. Outside of practicing dentistry part-time, Nick has devoted his remaining work-time to collaborating with the world’s best designers, illustrators, and creators in producing classy board games that bite, including the upcoming Trailblazers by Ryan Courtney. He hopes you’ll join Bitewing Games in their quest to create and share experiences that, much like a bitewing x-ray, provide a unique perspective and refreshing interaction.

The post Top 10 Negotiation Board Games + A Bitewing Games Publication Reveal! appeared first on Bitewing Games.

Let’s talk about the games that are leaving or entering my collection, and why!  For “surge” games, I’ll stick with titles that are not recent releases as I already cover those in my monthly New Release 1st Impressions series.

PURGE:

PARKS & Tokaido

These games have quite a bit in common.  Both PARKS and Tokaido are gorgeous looking games about traveling or vacationing through scenic environments.  Both contain the chill mechanism of stopping along a one-way track to collect items or trigger effects.  Jumping far ahead guarantee’s that you’ll hit your desired spot, but you’ll be skipping lots of other good options along the way and leaving them open for your opponents.  

It’s rather unnecessary to possess both PARKS and Tokaido in one collection, yet here I am keeping neither.  While I can’t deny the appeal of their aesthetics and settings, I also can’t deny the weakness of their game-night appeal.  Neither game has made it to our table in over a year.

Perhaps what kills them for me is that their time-to-payoff ratio is a little lopsided for my tastes.  We have some comparably simple and chill card games that cram more fun into their shorter playtimes than either PARKS or Tokaido.  I’d say they’re both solid picks as family games, but we own plenty of other family games that I would play many times over before reaching for these.

SURGE:

The Knizia Flood: Ingenious, Yellow & Yangtze, Quo Vadis

As we prepare to publish our own Reiner Knizia designs, I’ve become increasingly keen on exploring the highlights of his portfolio.  I struggle to resist a good sale or interesting new release from the German designer who continues to entertain my gaming group.  Stay tuned for my thoughts on some of his newer releases, but in the meantime let’s talk about Ingenious, Yellow & Yangtze, and Quo Vadis.

Ingenious is touted on the box as “The Ultimate Family Strategy Game,” and for once I actually agree with a generic marketing description! Abstract games typically aren’t my go-to game style, but Ingenious really hits the spot.  This one takes the scoring mechanism of Tigris & Euphrates—where your final score is your color with the least points—and simplifies it down to placing hexagonal dominos and scoring matching colors. The elegant gameplay, layered depth, and breezy turns here shouldn’t come as any surprise to Knizia fans. Nobody makes a better tile-laying game than Reiner, and Ingenious is one of the many feathers in that ridiculously legendary cap.

Yellow & Yangtze has officially arrived at my doorstep (along with Whale Riders and Whale Riders: The Card Game).  And just in the nick of time, apparently, as this one is being dropped by the publisher this year.  With it’s spiritual sibling, Tigris & Euphrates, being my current #3 game of All Time, and Reiner’s other recent reiterations (Babylonia and Blue Lagoon) also being in my top 50, you could astutely predict that I’m thrilled to give Y&Y a try…  Thrilled enough, in fact, to already have my hand on my wallet holster for when the Yellow & Yangtze plastic and bamboo GeekUp tiles go on sale. 

Meanwhile, we’ve enjoyed a couple plays of Quo Vadis, a pure negotiation game from Dr. Knizia that originally released in the 90’s, yet I was able to track down a used copy for cheap.  Players progress their politician pieces on the board through a sequential network of committees. On your turn, you are usually requesting support from other players in your current committee to vote you through to the next committee, and often you have to sweeten the deal for others to get the votes you need. Points are awarded for voting others through and moving your pieces along certain paths, but your points are only valid if one of your politicians makes it to the final Senate position. A game this dry has no right to be so enjoyable, but here we are.  Quo Vadis is pure, simple, quick, tense negotiation in a smart, Knizian style.  I’m interested in exploring this one further to witness the possibilities.  Yet I don’t think I like the “special tokens” variant that Mayfair threw into the box.  They seem to detract from the tension of having to rely on others to progress forward.

PURGE:

Roll & Writes: Railroad Ink, Welcome To, On Tour

It was fun while it lasted, roll & writes!  Yet as I described in my recent impressions of Railroad Ink Challenge, I’m living the law of diminishing returns within this genre of games.  I used to believe that it was so cool how you could play these games with as many people as you had pads and writing utensils.  Although in practice, I’ve noticed that these tend to be the quietest and least interactive games you could possibly play at a party.  Low-interaction games such as roll & writes tend to take the wind out of the sails of interpersonal engagement, and I find these to be hollow forms of entertainment in group gatherings.

Most often, I’ve enjoyed these games in 2-player settings with my wife.  Yet we now own dozens of killer 2-player games that simply increase the opportunity cost of playing another roll & write.  But I haven’t shunned the genre entirely!  We’re still holding onto Super Skill Pinball, which does roll & writes better than the rest, in my opinion.  And for some reason, I haven’t quite convinced myself to get rid of That’s Pretty Clever…

SURGE:

Train Games: Age of Steam Maps, Stephenson’s Rocket Expansion, & Chicago Express

How many train games does one gamer need?!?  Ten, apparently.  Plus a bunch more maps for good measure.  I know what you’re thinking: I’ve already mentioned that I’m getting rid of Railroad Ink!  But don’t worry, I’ve preordered Iberian Gauge, so balance will soon be restored to the railroad collection universe.  I’m not so much obsessed with trains as I am obsessed with highly interactive games—and games with sprawling railroads and shared incentives lend themselves well to this dynamic.

Age of Steam and Stephenson’s Rocket both made my top 50 games of all time.  I couldn’t resist the opportunity to acquire more maps from them.  In both cases, these expansion maps mix up the feel of the core gameplay and help to keep players from getting too comfortable.  I already shared my most recent experience with Eastern US map of Stephenson’s Rocket from our recent board game marathon, and even more recently I had the chance to try the German map of Age of Steam.

I’d say the German map is a safe board for relative newcomers to stray from the starting map.  Some interesting wrinkles include hex spaces that contain specific, expensive prices for building track on them.  The high price tag spots general stick to the edges of the map and block off foreign terminals that can receive specific colors of cubes.  Additionally, the Engineer action is completely different—it now cuts the price of one of your track builds in half rather than increasing your building limit from three to four tiles.  The German map was an interesting change to what we’ve been playing up to this point, and I’m eager to explore the many other maps of Age of Steam.

Finally, Chicago Express is a cube rails style game from 2007 that shares much in common with the likes of Irish Gauge.  Each player takes their turn by selecting an action—auctioning a share of one railroad company, expanding the rail system of a company they own shares in, or developing one of the boards hexes.  For those of you who are familiar with Irish Gauge, this sounds eerily similar, right?  Well the key differences are that money spent on shares for a railroad company goes into that company pool, and those funds are used to expand the rail system.  No money in your company means no opportunity for expansion.  Additionally, these three action options are represented by meters on the board, and whenever a player takes a chosen action, they move the dial up on that action meter until it reaches its highest space.  At that point, nobody else can take that type of action, and once two meters are full, this triggers a dividend phase and a reset of the meters.

I had a great time with my first play of Chicago Express, so when I saw a local Facebooker post their copy for sale at a reasonable price, I just had to bite.

PURGE:

Letting go of Classics: Catan, Dixit, Clank, Sushi Go, & Deep Sea Adventure

Although it was now several years ago, my most recent play of Catan was the fastest ever.  We had invited our friend over for dinner and a game night.  After choosing our settlement and road starting positions and getting into the initial turns, our friend suddenly stood up, ran to our restroom, and puked everywhere.  And that was the end of Catan night.

Since then, I’ve found many more games to love, and Old Faithful Catan never really called to me.  I’ve only recently come to terms with the idea of booting it from my collection.  Part of me thinks it would be neat to keep it around for my kids to show them the game that took the world by storm.  But at the end of the day, I’ve got PLENTY of other accessible games I’d rather teach and play with them.

Dixit is an interesting one.  This is a likeable, colorful game that thankfully renders Apples to Apples obsolete.  Instead of one judge randomly determining their favorite card of the round, players are cleverly incentivized to deceive opponents while deducing and voting for the correct card.  Meanwhile the storyteller of the round must avoid giving a clue that is too hard or too easy.

You’d be hard pressed to find someone who hates this game, yet it feels like Dixit has been overshadowed by newer titles.  Mysterium uses these same types of visual cards, but also allows for collaboration, discussion, and debates.  Mysterium also raises the stakes with an all-win or all-lose premise.

Decrypto has the same interesting balance of giving clues that are neither too easy nor too hard, but it ratchets up the tension with 3 clues per round that become an increasingly thinner tightrope to walk with each successive round.

Wavelength has the same freedom of giving any kind of clue (a word, a sentence, a sound, etc.) but follows it up with a much more interesting discussion and dramatic reveal.

The above mentioned games also do a better job at discouraging inside joke clues compared to Dixit, which is probably one of its greatest weaknesses.  After taking a break from Dixit for several years and finally giving it another go, I can see why this one has been collecting dust on my shelf.  The predator has become the prey; the Apples-gobbling Dixit is now the obsolete game thanks to Mysterium, Decrypto, Wavelength, and many more.

Sushi Go always felt a little more bland than its colorful art style implied, and it never really clicked with me when I felt that 7 Wonders or 7 Wonders Duel did the same thing better.

On the other hand, we got a kick out of Clank from our first few plays of it.  The push-your-luck concept of deciding how deep to venture into the dungeon for greater treasures at the risk of succumbing to the dragon was highly amusing.  The problem is that we never made it past those first few plays.  I think the messy rulebook and setup were partially to blame.  The other thing that hurt Clank was us owning another deck-building board movement hybrid, The Quest for El Dorado, which has received many more plays thanks to its cleaner, tighter, and smarter design.  Despite my fond memories of our plays of Clank, I realized it was time to say goodbye when I noticed our last play was nearly two years ago.

Funnily enough, Deep Sea Adventure contains the exact same concept as Clank of venturing deeper for greater rewards but at a much higher risk of not making it back to the surface.  Of course, being an Oink game, it strips away everything else that Clank offers except for that core concept.  Yet after thoroughly enjoying other all-time greats from publisher Oink including Insider, Startups, A Fake Artist Goes to New York, and Durian, I just didn’t feel that Deep Sea Adventure reached the same heights of memorable, engaging fun. 

SURGE:

Picking up some Classics: Agricola, Bohnanza, Keyflower

Meanwhile, I’ve acquired a few new-to-me classics thanks to some irresistible deals.  Agricola is one such game that we finally got around to playing after spending a few months on our shelf in shrink-wrap.  As expected, this is a rock-solid Euro.  It certainly contains less rules than designer Uwe Rosenberg’s A Feast for Odin, but it’s also a less forgiving game.  It’s such a tight game of meager earnings that my wife found it to be more stressful than enjoyable, so hopefully I’ll find someone else to continue to play it with.  For me, the thing that puts Agricola above the thousands of other worker placement games that have been published since is the meaningful variety of the cards and impactful tightness of the board.

Speaking of Uwe classics, I also picked up a copy of Bohnanza that has yet to hit our table.  It’s a simple negotiation game with wacky beans that I have a vague memory of playing and enjoying one time several years ago.  Unfortunately, our intended plays of family-weight games has been a little bit backed up for the past year between anti-social COVID protocols and moving around for work.

And while we’re on the topic of classic games, the much-loved Keyflower landed a spot in my collection at last.  It took a wide breadth of critical acclaim and a gut-purchase Deal of the Day to get me to do it, but I’m excited to see what this unique worker placement game has to offer.

PURGE:

Saying goodbye to old friends: Dice Throne, Dragon Castle, Aerion

I can offer some comfort to my wife, Camille, in the fact that in the past few months I’ve sold and traded away more games than I’ve acquired.  So we’ll bookend this post with a final batch of purged games, specifically some old friends that we’ve enjoyed over the past several years.  Aerion was the first primarily solo board game that I ever purchased, and it was fun to see how a simple, challenging puzzle can hit the spot when I’m in the mood to sit at my kitchen table alone.  This is a solid dice game of managing probabilities and mitigating risks to assemble your flying machines before resources are depleted.  I didn’t quite explore all of the expansions and variants in this box, but I never had a bad session of Aerion.  With Under Falling Skies recently entering the fray, I simply found Aerion to be the less interesting of the two and an unnecessary possession for how infrequently I play solo games.

Dragon Castle hit our collection back when we were surfing the wave of abstract drafting games including Azul and Sagrada.  While its a solid offering in its own right, complete with chunky Mahjong tiles and an attractive presentation,  it is another game that never made it past our initial plays over two years ago.  The only reason it’s survived in our collection until now is because I wanted to give it one last play to be sure I was ok with dumping it.  But when I have an entire two years to make that happen and my reluctance keeps me from spending even one more hour with it, I finally had to accept that it doesn’t belong on my shelf.  Ultimately, Azul is the best of the bunch, so I’m ok with discarding the rest.

I’ve spoken much about Dice Throne recently after colliding with the recent expansion, Dice Throne Adventures.  In some ways, Adventures was perhaps a spoiler for the entire Dice Throne series for me.  Yet it was also one of the few Kickstarter campaigns I lost my hype for between pledging and receiving the rewards due to my changing tastes.  Revisiting the system’s latest offerings merely confirmed my fears that Dice Throne was no longer for me.  But that’s ok! 

The good news is that board games typically keep a great resell value, and when one doesn’t satisfy, there’s always another one around the corner ready to entertain its participants.  I’m happy to see my departing games find a new home and excited to see what adventures await in my recent acquisitions.

What games are you purging from or surging into your collection? Share with us in the comments below!

Article written by Nick Murray. And speaking of adding new games to one’s collection, keep an eye out for his first published design, Social Grooming, which will debut in a Kickstarter bundle alongside two games from critically acclaimed designer, Reiner Knizia! Don’t miss out on this killer filler bundle coming in 2021! Subscribe to the Bitewing Games monthly newsletter to stay in touch.

The post Purge & Surge: Games Recently Leaving or Entering My Collection, and Why appeared first on Bitewing Games.

In this podcast-exclusive episode, Nick and Kyle discuss their top 10 family board games. With Nick having a million cousins and Kyle doing nearly all his gaming with siblings, parents, and his spouse, we’ve put plenty of titles to the test with our “non-gamer” family members.

Find out which board games are guaranteed to please at your next family gathering!

If you like what you hear, why not subscribe to the Bitewing Games Podcast through your favorite Podcast app?

1:10 – What do we mean by “Family Games?” 
4:12 – Blokus
5:18 – Camel Up (Second Edition)
8:00 – Bohnanza
10:05 – Chinatown
13:18 – The Mind
15:15 – For Sale
18:03 – The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine
21:57 – Crokinole, Klask
24:52 – Ticket to Ride
26:05 – Condottiere
28:52 – On Tour
30:25 – Wavelength
33:27 – Ethnos
36:28 – Kingdomino
38:05 – Love Letter
41:02 – 7 Wonders, Sushi Go Party
42:57 – My City
47:26 – Between Two Cities
50:26 – Codenames, Decrypto
52:10 – Another teaser for our upcoming publications!

That’s all for our Top 10 Family Board Games! We’ll be back next week with our regular blog post & podcast episode! What are your favorite games to play with family and friends? Share with us in the comments below!

The post Top 10 Family Board Games appeared first on Bitewing Games.

New to the hobby of board games? Welcome! A seasoned vet looking for ways to get your friends and family into the hobby? You’re in the right place.

The worst thing you could do is introduce your friends/family to the wrong game, making them erroneously decide that board games aren’t for them. So what makes a good board game for beginners?

It needs to be fun!

Obvious right?!?! But seriously, what ingredients are guaranteed to provide an experience that will make the players hungry for more? The best board games for beginners need:

• Accessibility – short, easy to learn rules. No one entering the world of games wants to sit through 20 minutes of instructions before actually starting a game.
• Meaningful Decisions – how fun is it to have the person next to you tell you the best thing to do every turn of a game? I’ll answer for you – not fun at all! A game should allow players to make decisions on their own, where there isn’t necessarily a right or best choice.
• Memorable Moments – this can come from those decisions we just mentioned. Or they can come from unique mechanics of the game or intriguing player interaction.

Enough theoretical chit chat – lets get to the list!

10 Best Board Games for Beginners

1. Ticket to Ride – Forge a path across the country by collecting colorful train cards.
2. Azul – The tiles are beautiful, the decisions are interesting, this is a surefire hit.
3. Kingdomino – Lay domino-type tiles in a grid, striving to earn more points than your competitors.
4. Splendor – Collect and spend beautiful gem tokens to buy victory points and attract nobles.
5. Carcassonne – Connect square tiles to grow and build a kingdom – careful or others may sneak in and share or steal those points.
6. Catan – Roll the dice to earn resources to grow your settlements. Hoarders beware: the robber will show no mercy.
7. Wavelength – A group/party game that is sure to leave you with lots to talk about, and maybe even sore sides from laughter.
8. Bohnanza – A game of negotiation, trading, and bean farming, great for up to 7 players looking for fun interaction and strategy.
9. Pandemic – A cooperative board game where you’ll find you and your friends working as a team to save the world from an impending infectious doom.
10. Majesty: For the Realm – A quick game of collecting cards and taking actions, Majesty is one of the best board games for beginners.

1. Ticket to Ride

In an online poll, this game is by far the highest rated “gateway game” to get people into the hobby.

Ticket to Ride has you collecting train cards to forge a path across the country completing objectives. But each path can only be taken by one player – who will get it first?

Alan R. Moon, the board game creater himself said “The tension comes from being forced to balance greed – adding more cards to your hand, and fear – losing a critical route to a competitor.”

Lay your cards too early and give away exactly where you are going. Hold onto the cards for too long, and discover another player has stolen your path. Ticket to Ride stands out as a best board game for beginners for a reason! While it is easy to learn and play, it still heavily features meaningful decisions – where there isn’t one right way to do things.

Ticket to Ride America is the classic, the Vanilla. Feeling a little more adventurous? Check out one of the other versions – Europe and Africa are my 2 favorites.

2. Azul

This game checks off all 3 of my boxes for best board game for beginners.

Accesibility – Short rule book. Quick to teach and learn. Anyone can pick up the rules lickity-split.

Meaningful Decisions – You are collecting tiles from center draw piles. But each time you take tiles you are also making other tiles more availble for other players. Simple actions, with meaningful decisions attached.

Memorable Moments – Choose carefully which of the 5 rows of your player board you will lay these tiles on. The order and timing of where you lay the tiles is the crux of this game.

A perfect game for the newbie and the old-timer alike. More detail on Azul here. There are two additional versions of Azul beyond the original…so once you’ve gotten into one, you have more options to choose between down the road.

3. Kingdomino

This game uses tiles with two sections, similar to Dominoes. Each turn, each player will select a new domino to connect to their existing kingdom, making sure at least one of its sides connects to a matching terrain type already in play.

Select the cream of the crop tile now, and get stuck being the last one to choose your tile the next round. Talk about meaningful decisions each round!

Each game will provide unique objectives – ways to earn more points based off of which tiles you lay where. Kingdomino is easy to learn and fun to play. And it literally will play in 15 minutes.

4. Splendor

When it comes to the best board games for beginners, Splendor tops my list. While it may not top my list of all time favorite games, I have yet to teach it to someone who doesn’t instantly love it.

Splendor has amazing little poker chip style tokens; gem tokens. You will use your turns to collect these tokens. Upon growing your collection, you can now spend them to buy development cards – which give you points and also award you a bonus gem – a permanent discount on any future purchases.

Maybe there is one card out there that is really calling your name, but your neighbor almost has all the gems needed to buy it before you… No problem! You can reserve the card so no one else can take it.

Splendor is one of the easiest games to learn, and offers fun decision making.

5. Carcassonne

This game has a few unique concepts for the beginner to wrap their minds around, but that doesn’t mean it is difficult to learn.

Players will take turns placing tiles in the center of the table. Unlike most games where you play pieces on a board, you are actually creating the game board as you go, laying more and more tiles to create a French landscape.

Connecting roads to roads, cities to cities, players will grow and shape this central “playing board,” earning points along the way.

Not only will you lay tiles, but you will also play little wooden people (meeple) on the board, claiming stake of that road or that city. And here is where it gets really interesting – you can join or close off cities depending on if you play your tiles right – getting more points for you, or stopping another player from completing a city and earning any points at all.

Full of great decisions and introducing unique mechanics, Carcossonne is one of the best board games for beginners!

6. Catan

At what point does a game hit the status of “a classic,” cause Catan may be there. Catan, previously known as Settlers of Catan, gives players the opportunity to build settlements around hexagagonal tiles. New settlements and roads don’t appear out of thin air, they require lumber, ore, brick. Players will gain resources if they have a settlement built around a tile that has its number rolled.

This is a great board game for beginners because there is such a fun sense of growth as the game progresses. While there are decisions, they are not overwhelming so it is easy for the new player to catch on quickly.

7. Wavelength

I was torn putting a party-style game on a list of games for beginners…isn’t that like one step back? I wondered. But hear me out. You’ll split into 2 teams, one person will give a clue based off of a card, and the team will twist a dial to make their guess. While it is basically your classic 2 team party game, Wavelength stands out in its freshness. There isn’t quite as much riding on the cluegiver – making players less prone to dread the idea of being the cluegiver.

Wavelength also has a nice spinner and markers to keep score, not totally unlike other party games, but I think these things really get non-gamers more comfortable with tallying score and having more on the table than just a deck of playing cards or clue cards.

8. Bohnanza

If you ask me what strategy game the whole family can play – I’ll point you to Bohnanza. This easily makes it on my list of best board games for beginners. As a bean farmer you are trying to collect beans – the more of a type you collect the more they are worth.

The catch, you can’t reorder the cards in your hand…and you can only have 2 types of beans at a time that you’re collecting. So how do you get cards that you want? Negotiation! And that is where this game shines. Some games are played on the table – Splendor for example. I feel like there isn’t much chit chat going on in Splendor, just a bunch of people staring at the pieces of the board game. Bohnanza is the opposite – you will spend more time looking at and talking to players than you will looking at the cards on the table.

And Bohnanza plays up to 7 players, so for a bigger family or larger group of friends – Bohnanza is my game of choice!

9. Pandemic

Like Catan, Pandemic at this point is a Classic! Pandemic is a cooperative game – that means you are playing as a team trying to beat the game. The deck of cards and the clock are working against you as your team tries to cure a deadly disease that is threatening all of mankind…and womankind. Humankind?!?

Each player has a special ability, and if you can work together effectively you will be able to eradicate the disease by moving your characters around the board sharing information and curing disease outbreaks. This game works wonderfully with new players, because if they are confused they have no information to hide – you’re on a team, they can ask any question they like.

Just beware of the alpha-gamer. You know the kind, that one guy who knows what is best for everyone and isn’t afraid to tell you exactly what to do. Pandemic is a great board game for beginners!

10. Majesty: For the Realm

One of the most underrated games I have ever played. I said you don’t want to take 20 minutes to teach a game to a new player. In Majesty you can explain AND play this game in 20-30 minutes.

Each turn is as simple as take an available card. That is it! Each card you take will award you points for the character card you take, along with the combination of other cards you have already acquired. The points earned are straight forward and easy to tally – no degree in accounting needed. And don’t be decieved. Just because your only option is to take a card doesn’t mean that the game is simple or boring – plenty of meaningful decisions here!

Like I said, Risk, Monopoly, Uno…that’s just the tip of the iceburg. These 10 games are surefire hits for you as a new gamer, or your friends who aren’t (yet) into the world of board games. Now, stop reading and start playing!

Article Written by Kyle. With 7 siblings, all with varying interest in board games, Kyle is well acquainted with what games work well for “newcomers” in the board game hobby.

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