Top 10 Games - Poll #2

[Decar]

If you've been following Carcassonne Central lately, you'll know I've been collecting nominations for the Carcassonne Fan's top 10 games (which are not Carcassonne).  Who better than to ask than you, members of the largest Carcassonne Community!

Nominations are now closed, with a whopping ~166 gaming franchises chosen by you all.  But that does leave us with a difficult question....Which are the top 10 games!

To be clear, I'm not going to attempt to rank all the games, just find those top 10 games we all enjoy.

I'll cut to the chase:  I've grouped the games up randomly into batches of ~20 games.  Every voter has 3 votes they may cast against any games.

You have 7 days to vote, voting will close and The top 2-3 games will be moved into the next knock-out round.  The other games, will be left forgotten.  Hopefully this will help us determine which games are our most favourite.

Here is today's poll - which will close on the 7th May. 

Don't vote hastily though, now is the time to persuade others to cast their votes wisely and back your game!

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=3294.0

[Decar]

No Nominations from me this week, so I'm voting for Subbuteo, Spades and Monopoly Deal. 

No seriously: there are lots of voting options here for the modern boardgamer, rather than voting for games I know well:
Jaipur is a very popular 2-player game, I tried it for the first time yesterday - But you can play it online for free Yucata and boardgamearena.
Pandemic - Never played it, but you'll know I purchased it yesterday, it's critical acclaimed and a game which have revolutionized modern boardgaming.
Citrus - because it's a lovely tile laying game, which I still need to get to the table.

Close 4th votes:
Splendor - another popular classic
St Petersburg - A HiG masterpiece.
Tsuro - because I'm the undefeated champion
SmallWorld - another modern classic which has introduced many people to boardgaming.
Star Realms - as above.
Port Royal  - I wanted to play this yesterday, but couldn't remember the rules well enough after Rich explained them to me.
Agricola - enough said....

Perhaps someone can sway me to change my mind.

[danisthirty]

There look to be a lot of good games on this list but I've voted as follows:

Monopoly Deal: Becky and I have been playing this for years and even though she always wins it's provided us with a lot of entertainment value for a set of 104 cards (or however many it is). It's easy to learn the rules and games usually only take 10 - 20 minutes depending on how aggressive we're feeling.

Tsuro: Whilst not a huge fan of the "of the seas" version, there's a lot I like about the classic version. It's great for introducing new people to the world of games beyond what they've heard of as it's quick and simple to play, can be played in largeish groups and is always a lot of fun. I think a lot of the flow of the game is lost with the seas version, and it adds unneeded complexity to a game that's better (in my opinion) without it, but the classic gets a lot of table time at home.

Love Letter: It amazes me that you can make a decent game out of a deck of only about 15 cards and the games I've played of this with my boardgaming group at work have always been a lot of fun. Some of us seem to be a lot better at it than others, and it's a pain if you lose early but the rounds never last long and you can come back fighting in the next game...

[dirk2112]

I can't vote for Citrus because I have never tried it.  It looks really good though.  Luckily there are 3 other games on this list that I really do like.  Splendor and Pandemic are no brainers though.  In my opinion, both lost the Spiels de Jahres to inferior games.

[Decar]

To save people looking:
Pandemic lost to Dominion (Finca was also nominated). 2009 - a golden year for modern gaming 
Splendor lost to Camel Up

[dirk2112]

To save people looking:
Pandemic lost to Dominion (Finca was also nominated). 2009 - a golden year for modern gaming 
Splendor lost to Camel Up

Remind me not to invite you to Trivia Night

By the way Dominion and Camel Up are good games.  I do like them both.  They just shouldn't have won.

[Decar]

As with most SdJ nominations, you either love them or hate them.  I'd hate to call even now which has the bigger following.  Thankfully there's room on my shelf for both.  Back in 2009, I wonder if Dominion showed more potential as an engine; where as all the Pandemic spin-offs have all happened recently.  I imagine a lot of people don't like the alpha-gamer issue that can happen in a co-op game.

I know a lot of people find Splendor boring, but I liked the Android version enough to add it to my collection.  I'm looking forward to the add on too.  I've not played Camel Up at all.

[Paul]

Went thru this poll one by one. Uhuh, uhuh, sure, uhu, Agricola nice, uhuh...

So devious putting Splendor last. Definately the best game in my opinion and put my only vote on it!

[Decar]

I'm glad you found a game you could vote on and could participate with us.

[franks]

Much tougher choices in this draw.

Hard not to put Splendor in the #1 spot for this list. It is my 3rd most played game (157 plays), next to Carc and Lords of Waterdeep!

Agricola (second choice) could have been number one but it requires a little more to get to the table. In the end it is a better game than Splendor, (different league really). Saying that, I personally wouldn't recommend this for folks that are new to the gaming hobby but I'll stick to it for my vote.

Finally for me I had to give the nod to Pandemic. It is a great game and a favourite to convert muggles, (as is Splendor).

[jungleboy]

My votes were for:

Citrus
A great tile-laying game (a mechanic that should appeal to fans of Carcassonne) where the board starts out very brown and dull and gets filled with a riot of colour as you begin making plantations of five different types of Citrus fruits. I like the 'simple yet deep' aspect of it; there are basically only two ways to score - harvesting plantations and by controlling fincas - but the two ways are at odds with each other. Harvesting brings your workers off the plantation but controlling fincas requires that they stay there, so you always have to balance the two when making your choices.

Since the point of this exercise (I think) is to find games that Carcassonne fans will like, here's what I said on that topic in my Citrus review:

To compare it a bit with Carcassonne, one similarity is that there’s a good combination of in-game scoring and end-game scoring (by scoring unharvested plantations, incomplete fincas and the wild horses bonus tiles), so you need to keep your eye on both. There are also bonus tokens that you can acquire which remind me of the wall tiles in Carcassonne: the Castle, and these are important both throughout the game and at the end of the game. One major difference is that there’s no glomming on and no other ‘negative’ interaction between the players, which is nice.

Overall I’d say the depth level, tile-laying aspect and the artwork/components make Citrus an excellent choice for fans of Carcassonne. We’ll definitely play it again soon!

Splendor
So simple and accessible. I read a fascinating post on BGG once by someone whose wife and him always lose to their daughter because she doesn't bother with engine-building and just takes gems every turn until she has enough to buy the expensive cards. Even though that's not how you're 'supposed' to play, she somehow beats her parents all the time. Some people complain that it's not thematic but that has never bothered me about games. For me it's important that the theme/art is appealing to me, but whether the game is thematic or not doesn't really mean anything to me. Biblios is another non-thematic game that I love.

Jaipur
I just played this today for the first time in a while. A great little filler game. There are a couple of simple hooks that create meaningful decisions. Firstly, that when selling, you can sell quickly to get the highest-scoring tokens or wait to try to gather enough goods for the bonus tokens with the caveat that your opponent might get in first for the best tokens. And secondly, that if you take the camels you open up the market for your opponent but they might not be able to take advantage of it if they have a small hand and no camels themselves (the second of which is quite possible if they recently replaced the market with camels to allow you to take the camels to begin with).

Honorable mentions to Tsuro (nice but I prefer Indigo as a route-building game), Spades (which I once played every day for a couple of weeks with some good friends that created some great memories) and Pandemic (I am halfway through Pandemic Legacy and while I am enjoying it, I don't think it's the best game of all time as its BGG rank indicates).

[Paul]

Agricola (second choice) could have been number one but it requires a little more to get to the table. In the end it is a better game than Splendor, (different league really). Saying that, I personally wouldn't recommend this for folks that are new to the gaming hobby but I'll stick to it for my vote.

I thought about boxing this as well. I only played it once or twice and found it to be a lovely game. Granted, the prep time (and cleanup) can be vigorous but the game itself is pretty easy to learn if you explain it well. I got tutored for about 10 mins before the game started and managed to do quite well during play. Even owned a copy with a few expansions but sold them not too long ago.

[Whaleyland]

Pandemic – Assuming this category includes the Legacy variants, this is one of the most cutting-edge games on the market today and one of the most politically astute. It is willing to take the risky position of global pandemic and run with it. That is a respectable challenge. But the mechanics are fun and easy to expand (hence three full-sized expansions for the base game), the art is appropriate, the components are all good quality, and, most importantly, the game play is great. Other games such as Forbidden Desert copy this game's mechanics, but not as well. Pandemic still reigns supreme.

Rivals for Catan – As a person introduced to gaming because of The Settlers of Catan, it felt strange for me to abandon that game in favour of the two-player card variant. But that is precisely what I did. The only Catan product I brought with me to New Zealand was Rivals for Catan, and it is was not a mistake. This game has endless potential, truly encapsulates the difficulties of building a civilisation from scratch, and has fun art and consistent theme. My only complaint is that the game takes a bit too long, but it still is head-over-heels better than Settlers. This game is a permanent resident of my top 10.

Small World – I've been a longtime fan of this Days of Wonder gem, so much so that I backed the iPad version on Kickstarter a few years back. While I did not bring the game to NZ, the digital version has me covered whenever I get that Small World itch. The game is fun, fast, and has endless variety. If you like Risk, you will love Small World.

[Decar]

Great write ups everyone; we've got 20-votes already.

I'd like to spend 30s to celebrate the greatest dexterity game of all time:


I have fond memories of this game being set up on our dining room table.

Image Courtesy of Google.

Taking it in turns to attempt to accurately flick miniatures into a proportionately oversized ball in the vein hope of knocking it into a goal, is my idea of an afternoon well spent.

The vast array of different models also adds to the charm:

Image Courtesy of Google.

and I'd happily red-card anyone to says otherwise:

Image Courtesy of Google.

Pandemic Legacy will be returning as a separate entry.

[Decar]

with so many votes so quickly, I may start Poll #3 a littler earlier than Sunday.  This one and subsequent ones will run for the full 7 days though.