Board Game Decade in Review
Here's my take on the best board games of the last decade, broken down year by year:
2000 - Carcasonne
A really good game, and a truly innovative design space to explore as well. It's no longer in regular rotation for me, but Santa brought "The Kids of Carcasonne" for Kira this year and I highly recommend that variant for anyone with a budding gamer who's 4-7 years old. It's easy to learn and no reading is required, but it's got a surprising amount of depth of strategy — enough to keep things interesting for parents too.
2001 - Transamerica over Risk 2210, I guess
Nothing I saw when searching through Board Game Geek by publishing year really seems to have stood the test of time. I've heard that Risk 2210 is quite a good variant, but I've never actually played it myself and it's a Wizards of the Coast design so my info could easily be biased. Meanwhile, Transamerica is fun enough that we still bust it out every once in a while at the ongoing WotC R&D board game night.
2002 - Puerto Rico
This was ranked #1 for many years on Board Game Geek and with good reason. The action-drafting mechanic is really clever and the strategies in the game are quite deep. It's been recently edged on Board Game Geek by a game that does the action drafting mechanic a bit better in my opinion (Agricola) but you've got to give Puerto Rico credit not only for being the best board game of 2002, but also blazing a trail for future game designers to follow.
2003 - Amun Re
A bit less heralded than many of the others on this list (it's only #57 on the 'Geek), but I for one really enjoy this game and our circle of gamers considers it the go-to game when we have 5 people who want to play. I think it only truly shines with 5 players, but if you've got 5 then it might just be the best game of the decade.
2004 - St. Petersburg (over Ticket to Ride)
I have played a ton of Ticket to Ride (esp in various digital incarnations), and it was a fine choice for Spiel des Jahres in 2004, but when given the choice I choose to play St. Petersburg just about every time. A few of the cards from the original game were overpowered or underpowered and so we now use the versions of the Mistress, Observatory, and Academy that came with the 2008 expansion; but we don't use any of the other stuff from the expansion. With those few "development" tweaks the base game remains a remarkably deep, re-playable game that clocks in a good bit under an hour even at 4 players.
2005 - Vegas Showdown (over Railroad Tycoon)
This could be the a Wizards of the Coast bias, but I think Vegas Showdown was quite a good game. It's the only one of the WotC-design Avalon Hill games that I actually like, so I can't be completely biased by having been there all those years. I still break this out and play it from time to time, both in person and over on GameTableOnline (where you can even play against an AI), and I enjoy it with 3, 4, or 5 players (which is actually a bit unusual for me). Meanwhile, I did want to call out Railroad Tycoon since I think it's quite a well-done train game. Probably the best train game of the decade, assuming you have a good space for setting up the massive board (edging out Ticket to Ride and Thurn and Taxis).
2006 - Through the Ages
I have been playing the hell out of this game non-stop since I was introduced to it early in 2009. It is quite long (figure 90 minutes per player unless everyone really knows what they're doing, and even then it's still 4 hours for a 3-player game) and it is both complicated and unforgiving (unlike most other civilization-building games you cannot ignore military ... if you fall behind you will get crushed and never be able to recover). However, the hard-core gamer side of my crowd seems to agree with me that it is remarkably well balanced and the way in which you shuffle the decks and then draft the cards works out to give it a shocking amount of re-playability. I've now played around 50 games of it and I continue to be surprised by the ways in which games can evolve. A lot of the skill in the game is being able to improvise and take advantage of whatever opportunities the game has randomly presented you with. In that sense, it actually reminds me a lot of Magic (which I still consider to be the best strategy game of all time), only if Magic games took 4 hours to play themselves out.
2007 - Agricola
A truly great "thinking" game and totally worthy of the #1 spot on Board Game Geek. It's got a lot of "fiddly bits," but I wouldn't cut any of them even if I could. The mechanics are tied together really well and this game shows once again how much re-playability you can get from shuffling a deck of cards and then dealing out some of the resources randomly. Interestingly, the German game critics who award Spiel des Jahres every year for the best "family style" board game called out a separate category for "Complex Games" so that they could acknowledge how good this was with a special prize.
2008 - Dominion
Pure awesome, and I was glad to see it win Spiel des Jahres. The idea of constructing your deck on the fly by buying cards each turn that you then shuffle in so you can draw them on future turns is really brilliant. I wish the expansions were able to live up to the promise of the base game, but so far they have not. So far most of the cards in the expansions just make the game more complicated, which I guess might make some people happy as the original card set can start to feel like a solved puzzle if you've played it hundreds of times, however my advice is just to stick to the base game and to introduce it to all of your friends. If you're reading this blog then I'm sure all your gamer-friends will like it and even some of the ones who don't normally like games will probably like it too.
2009 - Smallworld?
Here's where I'm supposed to end the blog entry by crowning a winner for the year that has just ended, but I'm not sure i have anything compelling to say. The Agricola expansion that just came out (Farmers of the Moor) seems really good, but I've only played it a couple of times and I'm not sure an expansion is supposed to qualify as the best game of the year (though this one might be a special case as it changes the game dramatically and the new game seems to be really good). Vlaada Chvatil's latest game (Dungeon Lords) has me pretty excited, and it does have a 2009 publication date according to the 'Geek, but it has yet to be distributed in the States so I haven't played it yet. I guess Smallworld is the best new game I have played this year. It's got some flaws (primarily that it's vulnerable to politics because using table talk to convince your opponents to attack your other opponents is very powerful), but the flavor is awesome and the mechanics are definitely fun as long as you aren't taking things too seriously. It you like multi-player Magic then I highly recommend it, but if you hate multi-player Magic then you probably won't want to play it more than 2 or 3 times.
My top 3 overall for the decade would be Dominion, Agricola, and Through the Ages. TTA is my personal favorite, but the ordering of which I want to play at any given time changes completely depending on who I am playing with, how hard-core they are, and how much time we have to play.
There you go, the decade in board games from the perspective of a thinking gamer.
2000 - Carcasonne
A really good game, and a truly innovative design space to explore as well. It's no longer in regular rotation for me, but Santa brought "The Kids of Carcasonne" for Kira this year and I highly recommend that variant for anyone with a budding gamer who's 4-7 years old. It's easy to learn and no reading is required, but it's got a surprising amount of depth of strategy — enough to keep things interesting for parents too.
2001 - Transamerica over Risk 2210, I guess
Nothing I saw when searching through Board Game Geek by publishing year really seems to have stood the test of time. I've heard that Risk 2210 is quite a good variant, but I've never actually played it myself and it's a Wizards of the Coast design so my info could easily be biased. Meanwhile, Transamerica is fun enough that we still bust it out every once in a while at the ongoing WotC R&D board game night.
2002 - Puerto Rico
This was ranked #1 for many years on Board Game Geek and with good reason. The action-drafting mechanic is really clever and the strategies in the game are quite deep. It's been recently edged on Board Game Geek by a game that does the action drafting mechanic a bit better in my opinion (Agricola) but you've got to give Puerto Rico credit not only for being the best board game of 2002, but also blazing a trail for future game designers to follow.
2003 - Amun Re
A bit less heralded than many of the others on this list (it's only #57 on the 'Geek), but I for one really enjoy this game and our circle of gamers considers it the go-to game when we have 5 people who want to play. I think it only truly shines with 5 players, but if you've got 5 then it might just be the best game of the decade.
2004 - St. Petersburg (over Ticket to Ride)
I have played a ton of Ticket to Ride (esp in various digital incarnations), and it was a fine choice for Spiel des Jahres in 2004, but when given the choice I choose to play St. Petersburg just about every time. A few of the cards from the original game were overpowered or underpowered and so we now use the versions of the Mistress, Observatory, and Academy that came with the 2008 expansion; but we don't use any of the other stuff from the expansion. With those few "development" tweaks the base game remains a remarkably deep, re-playable game that clocks in a good bit under an hour even at 4 players.
2005 - Vegas Showdown (over Railroad Tycoon)
This could be the a Wizards of the Coast bias, but I think Vegas Showdown was quite a good game. It's the only one of the WotC-design Avalon Hill games that I actually like, so I can't be completely biased by having been there all those years. I still break this out and play it from time to time, both in person and over on GameTableOnline (where you can even play against an AI), and I enjoy it with 3, 4, or 5 players (which is actually a bit unusual for me). Meanwhile, I did want to call out Railroad Tycoon since I think it's quite a well-done train game. Probably the best train game of the decade, assuming you have a good space for setting up the massive board (edging out Ticket to Ride and Thurn and Taxis).
2006 - Through the Ages
I have been playing the hell out of this game non-stop since I was introduced to it early in 2009. It is quite long (figure 90 minutes per player unless everyone really knows what they're doing, and even then it's still 4 hours for a 3-player game) and it is both complicated and unforgiving (unlike most other civilization-building games you cannot ignore military ... if you fall behind you will get crushed and never be able to recover). However, the hard-core gamer side of my crowd seems to agree with me that it is remarkably well balanced and the way in which you shuffle the decks and then draft the cards works out to give it a shocking amount of re-playability. I've now played around 50 games of it and I continue to be surprised by the ways in which games can evolve. A lot of the skill in the game is being able to improvise and take advantage of whatever opportunities the game has randomly presented you with. In that sense, it actually reminds me a lot of Magic (which I still consider to be the best strategy game of all time), only if Magic games took 4 hours to play themselves out.
2007 - Agricola
A truly great "thinking" game and totally worthy of the #1 spot on Board Game Geek. It's got a lot of "fiddly bits," but I wouldn't cut any of them even if I could. The mechanics are tied together really well and this game shows once again how much re-playability you can get from shuffling a deck of cards and then dealing out some of the resources randomly. Interestingly, the German game critics who award Spiel des Jahres every year for the best "family style" board game called out a separate category for "Complex Games" so that they could acknowledge how good this was with a special prize.
2008 - Dominion
Pure awesome, and I was glad to see it win Spiel des Jahres. The idea of constructing your deck on the fly by buying cards each turn that you then shuffle in so you can draw them on future turns is really brilliant. I wish the expansions were able to live up to the promise of the base game, but so far they have not. So far most of the cards in the expansions just make the game more complicated, which I guess might make some people happy as the original card set can start to feel like a solved puzzle if you've played it hundreds of times, however my advice is just to stick to the base game and to introduce it to all of your friends. If you're reading this blog then I'm sure all your gamer-friends will like it and even some of the ones who don't normally like games will probably like it too.
2009 - Smallworld?
Here's where I'm supposed to end the blog entry by crowning a winner for the year that has just ended, but I'm not sure i have anything compelling to say. The Agricola expansion that just came out (Farmers of the Moor) seems really good, but I've only played it a couple of times and I'm not sure an expansion is supposed to qualify as the best game of the year (though this one might be a special case as it changes the game dramatically and the new game seems to be really good). Vlaada Chvatil's latest game (Dungeon Lords) has me pretty excited, and it does have a 2009 publication date according to the 'Geek, but it has yet to be distributed in the States so I haven't played it yet. I guess Smallworld is the best new game I have played this year. It's got some flaws (primarily that it's vulnerable to politics because using table talk to convince your opponents to attack your other opponents is very powerful), but the flavor is awesome and the mechanics are definitely fun as long as you aren't taking things too seriously. It you like multi-player Magic then I highly recommend it, but if you hate multi-player Magic then you probably won't want to play it more than 2 or 3 times.
My top 3 overall for the decade would be Dominion, Agricola, and Through the Ages. TTA is my personal favorite, but the ordering of which I want to play at any given time changes completely depending on who I am playing with, how hard-core they are, and how much time we have to play.
There you go, the decade in board games from the perspective of a thinking gamer.
I think Too Many Cooks and Dragon's Gold are both better than Transamerica, which is in my book is at best a filler game.
Also, Vegas Showdown is a fine game, but Caylus is way better.
Lastly, Puerto Rico is massively overrated. San Juan bascially fixed all of the bugs in Puerto Rico, as far as I'm concerned.
Reply to this
I wasn't claiming that Transamerica is exciting, just that I personally didn't see anything better in what looked to me to be the weakest year of the decade. I haven't played either of the games you mention, but my inclination is just to believe you that they're better.
Puerto Rico can be overrated and still be the best game of 2002, right? Then again maybe I'm just a sucker for games that innovate rather than games which fine-tune and fix all the problems. For what it's worth, it's in the bottom half of my yearly winners in terms of the number of times I've played it, mostly because games without any randomness to the set-up tend to lose their appeal once I understand more or less how they work.
And while I like Caylus, I'm pretty sure I enjoy Vegas Showdown more. I like a good bidding game (1999's Ra is another favorite of mine, plus Amun Re is essentially a bidding game too) and Caylus doesn't seem to me to have enough diversity upon re-play to hold my attention.
Reply to this
I've played all but through the ages (which just sounds too long for me). Dragon's Gold v Trans is an interesting question for me, but the year definitely sounds weak.
Reply to this
Totally agree about Small World being excessively based around table talk, but I've actually been having a lot of fun playing it head to head. The strategy is surprisingly deep and a lot of the valuations change in good ways (e.g. the combat abilities become much stronger and well balanced against the point-giving abilities).
I want to like San Juan a lot more than I do. My problem with it is just that there are only two real strategies, both of them are highly dependent on a specific card, and one of them (in my experience) is largely better than the other. These days I look at it as a good way to ease people into playing Race for the Galaxy, which could have a place on your list except that it happens to be from the same year as Agricola.
Reply to this
This is a really good list. I've played all but through the ages (which just sounds too long for me). Dragon's Gold v Trans is an interesting question for me, but the year definitely sounds weak. Caylus gets a lotof good press, but I agree that Vegas Showdown is just more fun. Also, I wish Race could have swung an honorable mention (even though Agricola definitely wins).
Also, can't abide hating on Puerto Rico. I really didn't think anything would pass it until I played Agricola.
Reply to this
I also think that Caylus is way better than Vegas Showdown. But interestingly I don't get your choice for 2004. I liked St Peterburg very much that I played it wround 100 times, but If I would have to choose I would prefer Power Grid and Goa as way better Games Especially Power Grid also is a highlight of the year gaping the development between Puerto Rico and Caylus and Agricola.
Regarding San Juan: for me it is inferior to Puerto Rico. The luck factor is too high for a game of that caliber and even that I see Race for the Galaxy as the better san Juan.
And Risk 2210 is really amazing. The design is open enough to even have space for cool expasions and the Idea of an organized play league for it was one of the best from WotC.
For 2009 we still have to choose ourselfs, but we prefere Egizia, Magister Navis and Macao all over Small World which just is the rerelease of thte great Vinci. A good rerelease but not good enough for us.
Reply to this
All of you are posting great comments -- thank you! I knew I would probably leave out some worthy games and I was hoping that exactly this dialog would break out ... makes me that much more likely to finish the video game decade in review that it already sketched out in my head too.
I'm willing to concede that I should have called out Caylus as an honorable mention, and it could have won 2001 or 2009, but I'm still sticking with my idiosyncratic choice of Vegas Showdown.
When it comes to Power Grid, I don't see what all the fuss is about. I sought it out thanks to a comment you made on a previous blog entry, plus I know it's #3 on board game geek, but I didn't care for it. My issues are similar to those with Le Havre (which is #7 on the 'Geek): it's just a relatively straight-forward econ sim with very little re-playability. With no variety in the set-up, the game plays out the same way every time and the skill that exists is all very micro. You've just got to optimize each little tiny detail and get do some brute force look ahead and get them all right. I like my games strategic rather than tactical and I like my games to have more randomization to the set-up and/or turn-by-turn resources.
Now I recognize that I must not be entirely normal in this regard, because games like Power Grid and Le Havre are extremely well-regarded, esp. over on the 'Geek. However, my most common board game partner is Mike Turian and he likes that style of game even less than I do, quickly identifying them as the biggest flaw with the Board Game Geek ratings.
I'm delighted to have some 2009 recommendations to try out, thanks for those. And I agree that Smallworld is just Vinci plus fantasy sauce (plus a better way to pair races with abilities), but that's a nice combination for what seems (so far) like a pretty weak year.
Reply to this
Power Grid comes with two different maps, each map is actually several different setups as you don't use all the regions, and past the first five the power stations come out in a random order. I don't know how this is 'no variety in the setup'.
Personally I don't find Caylus very interesting, as it takes too long and there is no variety in the setup.
Reply to this
Great list.
Thanks in part to this blog, I received both Dominion and Agricola for Xmas. In the last week, we've played 2 games of Dominion with our family of 5 (kids ages 6,9,11) and my 11 year old and I have played 1 family game of Agricola.
Dominion is a clear hit. The difference in the supply between between the 2 games made it completely different. We're already working on devising family rules to make sure the supply is better balanced (e.g. having Thief and Witch without a Moat is troubling).
Agricola looks promising but we'll need to grow into as it definitely requires a lot more thinking and strategy. I demolished my 11 year old. I don't think the rest of my kids will handle even the family game well at this point. But I look forward to having enough adult gamers to try the full version.
Reply to this
2004 is an especially deep year for boardgames, but I gotta say that Betrayal at the House on the Hill was such a fantastic game that deserves a second look. If you're a fan of the Horror Genre (or even satire horror) I really recommend this game.
Reply to this
Betrayal is cute, and good enough that it got busted out at my New Year's Eve party on Thursday, but I chose to play something else instead. I have two issues with Betrayal: 1) I know too much about how the sausage was made (each scenario was only playtested once or twice, it's full of sloppy editing mistakes like missing information, a lake that can appear on the second floor, etc.). Wizards never did figure out how to made board games that were both high-quality products and also profitable. This one wound up being a clever idea that suffered from a few too many cut corners. 2) It's more fun than strategic. My own personal tastes tend to be more competitive than social so this game will inherently appeal to others rather than me. (In other words, I'm a Magic player, not a D&D player, and this game is much closer to an RPG than to a card game, right down to the way that you're constantly looking up and reading new rules just to figure out what's happening.)
I have no problems recommending Betrayal at House on the Hill to folks who want a fun, clever, fairly social experience where there's a ton of variety. But as a thinking game, I don't rate it as game of the year quality.
Reply to this
I'm often in a weird spot with my game-playing. If I play with non-work people, I'm going to be the best gamer at the table. If I play with work people, I usually get killed, mostly because I don't get to play often and am learning the rules when others are implementing honed strategy.
So what I look for in a game is one where less-experienced players can feel competitive, even if they aren't going to win. I like Carcassonne* for that reason, and Small World really stands up in that category. Dominion does not, really, but I do love it. What other games fit that bill?
*: I played a bunch with the Intrigue expansion, and while, yes, most of it is just complex and different for different's sake, I relly enjoy the griefer cards that mess up your opponent's deck, like Swindler and Masquerade.
Reply to this
Ok Randy, you inspired me to make my own list. It's at http://algorithmancy.livejournal.com/54354.html
Reply to this
Any chance we can retire MY title as king griefer and pass it on to Forsythe at this point? Seems fair given recent events!
Reply to this
Long live King Nagle.
Reply to this
I don't get why people like Dominion so much. At first I thought it was pretty cool, but the more I played it the more it just felt like 4 guys seeing who could solitaire the best. The game just does not have enough meaningful interaction between players in my opinion to be fun, and all of the cards that try to encourage interacting seem to be a lot worse than the cards that just make your deck better at winning.
Other than that I'd say all of these games are excellent. Though personally I enjoying playing Ticket more than St. Petes, they are both exceptionally fun.
Reply to this
Great list, Randy! I know everyone has their personal preferences.
I think Dominion is easily the game of the decade, and I love the expansions. Well, I like Intrigue alright and I think some of the cards in it are great, and a couple are horrible. But Seaside is brilliant. The delay mechanic adds a lot to the game, and some of the other cards are standouts.
Reply to this
I have to agree that I prefer tactical games over strategic games, and LeHavre is way more tactical compared to Agricola. But it still has way more varity as you may have found in it. Starting with the different order of resource chips and the building cards the games can behave dfferently from this. But the Special Buildings can throw off every game and make it a new experience.
Regarding Power Grid I see also very differnt games based on the order the cards come up. Do the nuclear or the waste ones show up earlier, do the cheap ones have to be discarded or the expensive ones come to early. How far are my players open to go for a bid. And don't forget the number of boards is now at ten. each comes with a new rule like to different ressource markets in Corea or no nuclear energy for Poland and Austria. etc...
So it's fine if you don't like them, but if these are your arguments you might want to try these games again.
A game where I'm missing variey and see only one road to victory is Stone Age, and that has some good marks as well, for a reason still unknown to me.
Reply to this
Great list, I really enjoy reading these posts and I've already downloaded (and subsequently gotten hooked on) Drop7 based on your video game list.
What I was wondering is if you'd recommend Through the Ages for 2 players? And also if you'd have any other recommendations for games that are particularly good for 2 players?
Reply to this
I've never played it heads up, but there are rules for it and it seems like it should work reasonably well (plus BGG recommends it for 2, 3, or 4 and they're usually pretty accurate about that).
Meanwhile Lost Cities is pretty fun with 2 people, though when I'm looking for a 2-player game I almost always wind up playing Magic. Have you tried Winston drafting? It's quite a good 1v1 draft format.
Reply to this
I've played about ten games of Through the Ages, about eight of them with two players, and I can say that the game works very well. I actually picked it up after playing it with a friend *because* it plays so well with 2 people, and I don't have many games I can say that for (Lost Cities being one exception).
Reply to this
A truly great "thinking" game and totally worthy of the #1 spot on Board Game Geek. It's got a lot of "fiddly bits," but I wouldn't cut any of them even if I could. The mechanics are tied together really well and this game shows once again how much re-playability you can get from shuffling a deck of cards and then dealing out some of the resources randomly. Interestingly, the German game critics who award Spiel des Jahres every year for the best "family style" board game called out a separate category for "Complex Games" so that they could acknowledge how good this was with a special prize.
Reply to this
I remember watching so many of those moments. My favorite is obviously Manning to Tyree. I remember as soon as that play happened I said to my dad that would be the greatest play in Giants and Football history.
Reply to this
Very interesting review on the board game for the period of a decade. These games are really very interesting.
Reply to this
Lol...i am a big fan of this game now...thanks for the discussion...
Reply to this