Caracassonne vs. Settlers of Catan?

[jmucchiello]

1) Age of Mythology - Actually, this one isn't old, and it's for 2-4 players - but it's still about 3-4 hours, rather than the 1.5 for Carc or Settlers. It came out last year or the year before and is the easily best game that Eagle Games has put out. All of their games have beautiful pieces, but Age of Mythology is, in fact, an excellent game based on the MS computer game of the same name. Very nice balance of resource management and combat. You can check out Eagles other games (Sid Meier's Civilization, American Civil War, etc.) for more *fantastic* bits, but the games themselves aren't as good, IMHO.

Yes, it's a real-time strategy computer game adapted to board play. The pieces are nice to look at.

2) The new Hasbro edition of Diplomacy is very pretty, and seems like it would be great for you guys if you can come up with the players (5-7. 7 is easily best). There is absolutely no luck involved, and the negotiation leads to great immersiveness. 4+ hours.

Kinda boring to look at. This game is all immersion. It is 1901 and you are the leader of one of 7 powers of Europe. Your goal is to conquer Europe. There is nothing random in this game. It is pure negotiation and strategy. Play it only with extremely close friends or people you will never see again. It really only plays well with 7 people (on the default board). The best information about Dip is found at The Diplomatic Pouch.

 

[Staffan]

My favorite boardgame is unfortunately out of print - Civilization with Advanced Civilization. I'm talking about the old game, not the one based on the computer game.

Unfortunately, Advanced Civ is unlikely to ever see the light of day again, on account of rights issues. As I understand it:
* Civilization is made by some company (I *think* Gibson Games, but I'm not sure).
* Avalon Hill licenses it, and produces their own version with slight differences.
* Avalon Hill makes an expansion called Advanced Civilization (they also made the Western Expansion Map, but that's beside the point).
* Long time passes.
* Avalon Hill goes bankrupt, is bought by Hasbro, and placed under the WOTC umbrella. The rights to Civilization revert to Gibson Games (or whomever).

This means that AH-via-Hasbro/WOTC doesn't have the rights to the basic Civilization game, and Gibson Games doesn't have the rights to Advanced Civilization. Which is a darn shame, because Advanced Civilization is a lot better than original Civ (two types of trade goods and two different calamities for each trade number, no limit on the amount of techs available or how many you can have, more techs, all techs have game effects, and so on, improved trade system).

 

[Hypersmurf]

Play it only with extremely close friends or people you will never see again.

My parents' primary piece of advice for Diplomacy has always been "Couples should take separate cars".

-Hyp.

 

[jmucchiello]

My favorite boardgame is unfortunately out of print - Civilization with Advanced Civilization. I'm talking about the old game, not the one based on the computer game.

But that's not a casual game. It's a 12 hour investment. In fact it can take 6 hours just to get the game to the interesting parts. It's also a game that need 6 or more people to play correctly.

 

[Staffan]

But that's not a casual game. It's a 12 hour investment. In fact it can take 6 hours just to get the game to the interesting parts. It's also a game that need 6 or more people to play correctly.

True. But if you can get the people together for long enough, it's a wonderful game. And it beats the honkytonk out of that namestealing board game based on the computer game.

 

[Capellan]

But that's not a casual game. It's a 12 hour investment. In fact it can take 6 hours just to get the game to the interesting parts. It's also a game that need 6 or more people to play correctly.

Bah. 12 hours? That's nothing! Try World in Flames, some time