Modern Board Games: and why you should play them (2022)

Sky Team is great, I agree. For a few more 2p co-ops to try out, I can recommend Sail, Burgle Bros (give it a few playthroughs to get a feel), and Regicide. All are available on BGA if you want to try them and I've loved playing them.

Games I currently play:

- Race for the Galaxy

A fast paced SF card game. Players build galactic civilizations by simultaneously selecting roles (like Explore, Develop, or Settle), which dictates the phases that occur that round.

- New Frontiers

Often described as "Race for the Galaxy: The Board Game." It takes the core role-selection mechanisms of Race for the Galaxy but implements them into a more spatial and resource-driven board game format.

- Imperial Settlers

A deceptively cute but highly competitive engine-building card game. Players take on the role of asymmetrical historical factions (Romans, Barbarians, Egyptians, etc.) to gather resources, build locations, and occasionally raze their opponents' buildings to score the most victory points.

- Kyoto Shogi

A fast-paced micro-variant of traditional Japanese Shogi played on a tiny 5x5 board. Its defining twist is that pieces alternate between their promoted and demoted states every time they move, requiring serious forward-thinking and tactical planning.

- Seirawan Chess

A chess variant by grandmaster Yasser Seirawan. It is played on a standard 8x8 board but introduces two fairy pieces: the Elephant (combines movement of Knight & Rook) and the Hawk (combines movement of Knight & Bishop), which are dropped onto the board as the starting pieces move.

- Star Trek: Captain's Chair

An asymmetrical deck-building game where players take control of iconic captains and factions from the Star Trek universe (like the Federation, Klingons, or Romulans). It also has a strategic combat and resource management system.

- Gaia Project

An SF successor to Terra Mystica. You control one of 14 asymmetric alien factions, expanding across the galaxy by terraforming planets to match environmental needs. An economic eurogame with a tech tree.

- Cry Havoc

A card-driven, asymmetrical area control game set in a sci-fi universe. Four different factions (including native aliens and invading humans) fight for supremacy.

- AuZtralia / TaZmania (Expansion)

Set in an alternate-reality 1930s where humanity fled to Australia only to find it populated by Lovecraftian Old Ones. It blends economic route-building (railways and farming) with tower-defense combat. The TaZmania expansion has a dual-sided map specifically designed for solo or 2-player games, including a randomized terrain side.

- Lancaster

A 15th-century worker placement and area-majority game. Your "workers" are knights of varying strengths. Stronger knights can physically bump weaker knights out of locations. Players manage their forces to gain resources, vote on shifting game laws, and fight alongside the King in France.

- Calico

A cozy but brain-burning puzzle game. You draft different colored and patterned hex tiles to sew a patchwork quilt. Score points by completing design goals, sewing on buttons, and attract specific cats to sleep on their fav patterns.

I'd accept the epithet of "nerd", and I've never played a board game (assuming Baldur's Gate 3 doesn't count). Especially among the more complex ones, I don't see why someone would rather run the rules manually instead of letting a computer take care of the bookkeeping and just play.

I reject anything that has an excessive "weight" on boardgamegeek. The vast majority of high "weight" games are board games wanting to be computer games, as you correctly pointed out. Of course, "high" is subjective but I got burned too many times by thick manuals with tedious set up that makes me want to not play the game before I even open the box.

The problem we had with Arcs (and Root) is that we didn’t find the strategy as deep as Dune Imperium. If you think about Dune Imperium, when you make a turn, and even between turns, you are constantly considering reveal power vs card powers vs war power vs resources, and you are making long term strategic decisions vs short term tactical ones vs deck building vs even the order of operations within a turn and round. Every time an opponent makes a move, because the game is so zero sum, you constantly have to pivot your plan if a space is taken, if a war shifts, etc.

When we played Arcs, we found it was much more about making short term tactical decisions, and there wasn’t as much room for that kind of deep long term planning, so the experience felt less competitive and less tense for us.

So we are looking for something that gives a similar player experience of constantly balancing short and long term strategy like that, but without going all the way to something with very very complex rules like Twilight Imperium.

Does that make sense?