What are your favorite classic board games?

[CapitanGarlic]

Chess, risk, A&A.

I suck at the last two...but if I can get australia in risk, I'm happy

[Adalbertus]

Originally posted by Ming
JUNTA... JUNTA... JUNTA!

Why am I not surprised?
The probably only game which gets a recommendation "over 18 years" in Germany without having a pornographic background?


Edit: Junta is listed. It involves bananas!

[Adalbertus]

I wonder why Monotony is so popular. In my experience, there first two tours around the board are interesting, and then those two when people are about to die. Nothing more. Not enough fun to be a really good game.

[Ming]

Originally posted by Adalbertus
Junta is listed. It involves bananas!

The trick to Junta is not being the first president. The first president may stash a ton of money in the bank (assuming he doesn't get assasinated on the way to the bank), but after he leaves office, everybody gangs up on him because he is the leader at that point.

Being president later in the game is usually key to success. And NEVER EVER trust the PM.

[Kepler]

Originally posted by Dissident
anyone remember Stratego?

The 0-7-4 iron triangle is nearly unbeatable, unless you're foolish enough to let the opponent's S take your 1.

Nah, never heard of it...

[Urban Ranger]

My favourite boardgame is Starfleet Battles (hi Chris ), a game that had come out before Axis and Allies. Speaking of which, the first version of A&A was published by a small company called Nova.

Another one is Grav Armor, a small (the game is physically small) game about futuristic motorised battles with a set of unusual rules.

Civilization is excellent, but I prefer the original.

Titan is an interesting strategy game but it takes a very long time to finish. At least 6-8 hours.

I see that nobody has mentioned Illuminati yet. Even though it is not a boardgame, but neither are Nuclear War and Naval War. All these are very silly yet fun games.

Oh, and Go, one of the really classic ones.

[Kepler]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
I can't beleive that I am the only vote for diplomacy so far...

Jon Miller

I LOVED the board version of Diplomacy and I have the PC version, but I can't even begin to figure out its f****ed up interface. If I did, I'd give you a decent game. Leave it to the French to put their navy at "Brest."

[Kepler]

The computer version of A&A would be wonderful if the AI was better. As it stands, the only way to have a 50/50 game playing solitaire is to be the Axis, and just stock the borders of one of your powers with infantry, then go after the world with the other one.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Adalbertus
I wonder why Monotony is so popular. In my experience, there first two tours around the board are interesting, and then those two when people are about to die. Nothing more. Not enough fun to be a really good game.

The real fun is in making gray-market deals with your opponents/allies. I played a game against a coupla friends recently in which friend A wound up with the Boardwalk/Park Place monopoly by luck (being the first to land on the two properties), and eventually all of the land was claimed without me or friend B holding a monopoly. So, I swapped properties with friend B, giving him a Red property (the land between Free Parking and the Yellows) in return for Baltic Avenue and three hundred dollars cash, giving him the Red monopoly and giving me the crappy Purple monopoly right next to Go. (This was my only chance at a monopoly, since through bad luck early on I owned a fat total of five properties, no two of which were from the same color). I was able to put hotels on my crappy monopoly right off the bat (it costs a mere $500 to upgrade both properties to hotels), meanwhile friends A and B were shelling out $200 and $150 respectively to upgrade their properties. They spend all of their cash to upgrade, even mortgaging a few properties in the process, and friend A winds up with three houses on Boardwalk and Park Place while friend B gets two houses on each of the Reds. Then the fun began. Friend A lands on Baltic, forcing her to mortgage some more property and still leaving her strapped for cash, but she doesn't particularly mind since I'm going to be going through her Boardwalk/Park Place combo in two turns, which costs about $1200 to land on at this point. Here's where the illicit deals make the game fun. I lend friend B a helluva lot of cash (what am I going to spend cash on? My monopoly cost to expand) in return for two railroads and one "free rent" agreement (I get to land on his monopoly once without having to pay), allowing him to upgrade his monopoly to hotels. Friend A lands on his monopoly the turn before I have to go through hers, forcing her to sell all of her houses in order to foot the bill (which lets friend B pay me back the cash I'm owed, too). I land on Boardwalk the next turn, but guess what, it's mortgaged now.

Anyway, to make a long story slightly less long, I wound up winning the game with a Baltic/Mediterranean Avenue monopoly, pitted against somebody with a Boardwalk/Park Place monopoly and somebody with the Reds monopoly, all thanks to the gray market. Wutang.

[Lorizael]

Civilization (and Advanced), definetely one of my favorites. Grain is where it's at! Though the Renaissance version isn't very good.

Stratego, though I'm not very good at it.

British Rails, pretty self explanatory as to what this game is.

And Cathedral, this game where you have different pieces that you try and place on a board, against an opponent. The point of the game is to have more pieces on the borad then your opponent does at the end of the game. There is variety in the game because the Cathedral is placed in a different position each game. Damn, wish I still had all the pieces to that one.

Edit: Thought of a way to describe the game! It's like Tetris with an enemy, and played on a flat surface. Oh and there's this big cathedral in the way.

[Nubclear]

Ok, now.....wtf is Stratego for us uninformed peoples

[Adalbertus]

Ok, now.....wtf is Stratego for us uninformed peoples

If I don't confuse it with another game, it is roughly like chess, only that the gaming board is a bit fancier and you don't see the type of the enemy's units unless you attack them. There are also special units like bombs and spies.

[Jules]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Another favorite, though too little known to be a classic I suppose, is MB's Hotels. Anyone know it?

I do! I got it for Christmas when I was a kid. In fact, I think it's still at my parents' house someplace, cardboard hotels and all.

[CapTVK]

Ah...diplomacy...the grand game

Sure is a timekiller though.

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

I see that nobody has mentioned Illuminati yet. Even though it is not a boardgame, but neither are Nuclear War and Naval War. All these are very silly yet fun games.

Oh, and Go, one of the really classic ones.

Are you referring to the boardgame or the cardgame?

[orange]

Pretending to be British is my job