I just played a game of Pandemic! and it's pretty awesome and lots of fun. We won with one card left in the deck (if the deck is exhausted players lose).

It's a co-op game where the players try to find cures for the 4 deadly diseases. The players have different roles that give them certain benefits (scientist only needs to collect 4 of the color, doctor can cure 3 markers with one action, constructor can build science labs anywhere without the card etc).

You get 4 country cards to start the game and need to collect 5 matching colors (Asia=red; Europe=blue etc) to find a cure for that color. You'll need to be at a science lab to turn those cards into a cure.

You can also use these country cards to fly to said country or if you are in said country to fly to any country on the map otherwise you can move to adjacent countries (you get 4 actions per turn so you can move upto 4 fields or use the actions for other stuff).

Actions: travel, fly, science lab to science lab transfer, build science lab (need to have the card of the location you want to build it at and be there), research cure (need to be in science lab and have 5 matching cards), give card to player or take card from player (players need to be at the same location), remove one disease marker at current location.
After the action the player draws two cards from the play-deck (contains country cards, helpfull events and epidemics)
And after that two countries drawn from the top of the infection-deck are infected with one marker each.

If an epidemic is drawn, the bottom card from the infection-deck is infected with 3 markers; epidemic counter is advanced (if advanced twice, the number of infected countries per turn rises) and the discard pile of infected countries is shuffled and put back ON TOP of the infection pile (thus making reinfections more likely)
If a country is already infected by 3 the infection spreads (spread marker is also moved up one) and all adjacent countries get one marker...this can lead to nasty chain reactions.

If all infection markers of one color are on the board, players lose.
Players also lose if the "spread" marker is advanced to 8.

pandemic is superfun the first time you play it, regular fun the second time, and then you never play it again because you're done with everything interesting about it.

race for the galaxy is awesome as a two-player game. ditto twilight struggle (but this is a fixed map game).

Pandemic video

I could see that for Pandemic (not so great replayability) but tbh I also can't see how to ever beat it in the hardest setting if you play with 4 people and by god I'll try till it's done
Will test Arkham Horror on Monday (depending on how I feel after the dentist); I also picked up the Illuminati cardgame+Germany only extension. I know this game and the strength (awesome) and weaknesses (games can become stalling-fests sometimes) already though.

wow soon as i saw this thread I Cntr+f apples to apples and BOOM!! , alice poasts it.

nobody understands my genius whenever I play apples to apples
I should win every game but people just don't understand my genius

is there a place to play online? vs some AI? I mentioned it above, but i've only ever read about it (All quiet on the western front - top 10 books of all time?). I've read the rules, but I wasn't particularly struck with desire to play.

Ingenious is one of the games i described badly above. It's pretty good two player and multiway.

Roborally is another one i played recently that was quite fun. I dunno how replayable it would be.

My professor talked to me about it. It has a lot of strategy. Pretty crazy bidding and having to tell your partner what you have in your hand with what card you play may be tricky if there is a high skill difference.

Skat does not have a lot of strategy in fact I think it's rather boring. If you really want to learn an interesting German cardgame: Doppelkopf is much more fun.

bobman0330: I don't own it but the addon to pandemic is supposed to be a lot of fun as well especially the bio-terrorist variatiation where one player plays vs the team.

I don't think Skat is boring, I really enjoy playing it. To answer kokiri's question, no I don't know a good website to play online unfortunately.
I heard Doppelkopf is fun as well, but I have never played it and don't know the rules.

i've played pandemic once at work...we just did standard setup and it was super easy, but i'm sure it gets really tough on the harder settings

it was fun, but i can't really see enjoying it as much on game 27 as on games 1-3, so i likely won't buy it but just play it occasionally at work

The fun part about Doppelkopf is that it has a poker/WW-y element because you play it with 4 players but don't know for sure which two players are on the same side untill certain cards have fallen (or if someone plays a solo vs the other three but even then it can be a hidden solo).

doublehead?

Nich: update? What did u get?

for now dominion, dominion:intrigue and carcassonne:new world are enough for us

i'm looking to get something later this year prolly, but not yet

Hungry Hungry Hippo's and Rock'em Sock'em Robots rule the world.

My faves are:
-Settlers of Catan, especially the Cities and Knights expansion. If you ahven't played settlers before, learn that before trying the expansion cause it adds just as many rules, but makes it even more fun.
-Apples to Apples
-Things (aka Things in a Box or The Game of Things)

Also a fan of games like Boggle and Scrabble but don't play those as much anymore

Also, forgot about Bohnanza, it's fun too

Yeah pretty awesome cardgame with a bunch of addons and prett cheap. I usually bring this (and UNO+a regular deck of cards lol) along whenever I go on longish bus/train trips or whatnot.

Yeah, only played bohnanza once (it's bean field one, right?) but I liked it a lot

there is also a card game with cards 1-38...on your turn you either take the top card or you put a chip on it....anybody know name of that game?

taboo is pretty fun
[x] emme itt

No Thanks

A pretty fun light game

yeah, no thanks

i like that game; will prolly run it on POG at some point

Has anyone that has dominion or a similar game with cards put everything in sleeves to protect the cards? I'm thinking if I play it a bunch certain cards will end up more worn than others, and it gets worse if I get an expansion at some point.

I don't really like the really cheap thin ones though, and getting 500 dragon shield/ultra pro seems like it will cost as much as a whole new game.

9 Navies War by Dicision Games is a great Strat game but it's also a good 'Beer and Pretzels' game as well. Simple gameplay coupled with long range planning keeps it interesting. Also the nature of the game is random each turn with different ports being activated in a random sequence every turn keeps the replayability of this game high.

Combat is resolved somewhat like Risk but a 6=Hit and 5=Disabled (go back to port)

Hypothetical WW I BattleShip Combat game (Germans knock the French out of the war and capture some of the French Fleet . Italy stays in the CP and is joined by Spain and Greece) Just played a full campaign Game on Saturday at the Toronto Area Board Game Society [TABSCon] and had a blast. It's a lite wargame so it should not scare off the Euro-gamer crowd. Highly recommend it for a 2 player game.

I hate the thought of sleeving.

on the other hand, dominion (from what I understand - haven't played but about to buy it, I think) has you shuffling your cards all the time. and there are some cards that you'll use all the time, and some that you won't, so the uneven wear issue seems like a specific issue here?

My preference would be to play unsleeved and then, if they get worn enough that it's an issue, to buy sleeves with an opaque back. I don't know the availability of those, though, given the sizing issues.

I'm also open to the playing-in-the-dark option