Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why we still love board games

timharford.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–136 of 136 posts

Re: Why we still love board games

#131

Post by RTigger »

alphaBetaGamma wrote: post #116
RTigger wrote: post #57

Love this article. I think the end captures it perfectly - there's really nothing else that gets the same social interaction as board games. At work we use board games on a daily basis for team building, usually play a 1-hour-or-less game over every lunch. It's amazing how quickly you get to know someone and how those relationships build and blend into your work as well. You can see how someone teaches a new person h…

Could you suggest a good board game that is playable turn by turn? We are a group of friends in very different time zone, and playing a turn based game, about one turn a day works nicely. We have played Tigris & Euphrates, and it works great, but would be looking for something different. Thanks.

The games in that list that are turn based include Dominion, Lords of Waterdeep, and Stone Age.

We stick to 1-hour games mostly because of the lunch hour restriction, if you're spacing the game out over a series of days it might be more interesting to play some of the longer games since it doesn't matter how long you take anyways.

Re: Why we still love board games

#132

Post by henrik_w »

Not strictly a board game (nor German-style), but I'll just mention the card game Set too (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_(game)). It's quick to play, both adult and children can play together, and you can play against each other or work together to find the sets. We've brought it to a ski trip with two other families, and it was a hit.

Maybe it is well known, but I hadn't heard of it until I read about it here on HN (Peter Norvig had simulated the odds of not finding a set, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1303797). Having played for a while, I ran my own simulations. The results differed a bit from Peter Norvig's. I wrote it up here: http://henrikwarne.com/2011/09/30/set-probabilities-revisite...

Re: Why we still love board games

#133

Post by SatvikBeri »

luu wrote: post #3

What's interesting to me is new board games aren't just variants on existing games; there's noticable innovation in board game "technology". If you ever play board games from the 80s and 90s, they often feel dated and clunky, even more so than video games from the same era. I recently went back and played some classic Avalon Hill games that were popular when I was a kid. I can't believe me and my friends spent so muc…

Along the same lines, the game Innovation improves on Dominion by giving players different random decks, many more options for actions, a chance to come back no matter how far behind you fall, and yet still feels like skill is extremely important.

Re: Why we still love board games

#134

Post by qznc »

elemeno wrote: post #125
eru wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> although they provide a much more energetic vibe than boardgames, which may or may not be a good thing. Depends on your boardgames. Some can be rather vicious, and since people usually take longer to think about their actions, backstabbing and then turning the dagger, is even more fun and meaningful. (But I guess, I like the American dinosaur of a game, Diplomacy, way too much.)

I think that Diplomacy is a rarity as being a Board Game which actually plays better on the internet and by e-mail just because it gives you that bit more time to think and plan and communicate. If you're a fan, then I'm actually running a series of games at the moment on the DPPD judge ( http://www.floc.net/dpjudge/ ) - if you look at http://www.diplom.org/openings/openings.html#USDP for openings on the judge they'r…

I have recently player Diplomacy as a board game with some friends. WebDiplomacy.net is much more enjoyable, even if everybody would be in the same room. Never tried pbem, but i believe you would need something like jDip to visualize the map anyways.

Re: Why we still love board games

#135

Post by DanBC »

lmm wrote: post #11
simonw wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't agree more. German-style games make Monopoly etc look positively archaic. Two great starter games are Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne. I'm a big fan of Ticket to Ride as well. There are a couple of things that make these games so good. Firstly, they're extremely well balanced - unlike Monopoly, it's rare for one player to pull ahead to the point that it's impossible for anyone else to catch up with them. S…

I've never been able to stand Carcassonne, and Ticket to Ride falls firmly into my "meh" category - with multiple players you optimize your chances of winning by taking a lot of routes, and it's then mostly a matter of luck whether you get a set that overlaps enough to complete. Settlers is good if you play it with people who pay attention, but if not you can easily be waiting half an hour while everyone asks everyon…

> Ticket to Ride falls firmly into my "meh" category - with multiple players you optimize your chances of winning by taking a lot of routes, and it's then mostly a matter of luck whether you get a set that overlaps enough to complete.

You score points if you complete the route. You subtract tat route's points if you do not complete the route.

Thus, taking extra cards is a gamble - do you gain 12 points for completing a route or lose 12 points for not completing a route?

Re: Why we still love board games

#136

Post by lmm »

DanBC wrote: post #135
lmm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never been able to stand Carcassonne, and Ticket to Ride falls firmly into my "meh" category - with multiple players you optimize your chances of winning by taking a lot of routes, and it's then mostly a matter of luck whether you get a set that overlaps enough to complete. Settlers is good if you play it with people who pay attention, but if not you can easily be waiting half an hour while everyone asks everyon…

> Ticket to Ride falls firmly into my "meh" category - with multiple players you optimize your chances of winning by taking a lot of routes, and it's then mostly a matter of luck whether you get a set that overlaps enough to complete. You score points if you complete the route. You subtract tat route's points if you do not complete the route. Thus, taking extra cards is a gamble - do you gain 12 points for completing…

Yep. But if you treat the game as win/lose then your best strategy is to increase your variance, which you do by taking a whole lot of tickets. Since many ticket routes overlap, it becomes a game of pure luck - the game is mostly determined by who happened to get tickets that overlapped, and all your efforts in playing won't overcome such an advantage.
Post reply on HN