I really got bored of American board games when growing up. So it was great for me to discover
www.boardgamegeek.com and the joy of Eurogames. Definitely turning my 7-year old daughter into a Eurogame snob. It'll be weird when she's older and she's never played Monopoly though.
Anyway, I've only bought a few board games and they are all geared towards the simple end. They have to be, my wife doesn't play board games and my daughter is my only regular board game opponent.
* Carcassonne--I've played the
Hunters and Gatherers version and the
original version with the Rivers expansion. This is a tile-laying game where you build cities and roads, claiming the cities and roads by placing your meeples on the appropriate place. Can be played almost solitarily, with you building your cities while your opponent builds there's. Or can be played more competitively, as you actively attempt to block your opponent's developments.
Surprisingly playable for a 7-year old. Without even guiding her, she quickly learned what pieces are rare, which are common and the strategy for not letting me expand my areas. Highly recommended.
*
Battle Line. A card game where you build 3 card poker hands to claim pawns. The game play is simple: you put 9 pawns in a row on the table. Each player is dealt a 7-card hand. Each turn, you put a card in front of one of the pawns. The goal is to win the pawn by having a higher hand in front of the pawn. The hand ranks have themed names, but I call them by their poker names, in order: 1) straight flush; 2) three of a kind; 3) flush; 4) straight; 5) no hand. Simple enough for my 7 year old to understand, yet it seems to be deep enough to have a lot of strategy for more sophisticated players. Recommended.
*
Gulo Gulo. My first foray into Eurogames. Unfortunately, not much depth to the game. You build a path to a nest. Each turn, you turn over a tile, which reveals a color. You then try to grab that color egg from nest. While it's more interesting than the children's board games my daughter has tried (e.g., Candyland, Chutes & Ladders, Mousetrap), it gets boring quick. It's supposed to be for ages 5 and up and my daughter outgrew it by age 6.