Top 10 - Poll #4

[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 14th May. 

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

We're running the 3rd Poll in parallel, with some days over-lap; both are in progress at the same time!

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=3318.0

[Decar]

No nominations for me this week:

I really like Battleline - it's like a good poker 
My 2nd vote went to Voyages of Marco Polo -  I've not actually played it, but I've heard very good things about it.
I've not spent my 3rd vote yet - I've not played enough Santorini.  I don't think Cacao is a top-10 taker and I didn't enjoy the bidding mechanics of Isle of Skye.  Maybe Medici will get my votes, as we discovered at Essen, I was the bestest indigo trader ever.  I've not played may of the others Biblios could be a good contender.

[Paul]

Tough one. Had 4 on this list that I really like.

I chose these three (not in any particular order):

Cacao - Lovely leisure tile game, great for those 15-30 mins spare time if you just want to wind down or on the trip. One of those games you can talk to one another and not loose focus of the game.

Codenames - I'm sure many has heard of this somewhat new phenomenon. Great party game that can support up to 20 people or more if played in moderate. 2-3 games in one session before games become a bit dull. What's great about this game is, that it gets so exciting with new players, trying to figure out how they think, a key ingredient to winning.
  Although it has many versions (adult, 2 player only, and with images instead of words), the original is by far the best in my experience.

Istanbul - An interesting play mechanics that vary in regards to how many players participating. It also supports a variety of other setups where you can mix and experiment on the game layout. Although it has a lot of things on the board, the rules are pretty easy and that there are so many roads to victory makes it a less repeating game each time you start over.
  My very first game I almost won (came second by a margin) just by going for those cards!

What was omitted: Isle of Skye. Another tile laying game but I don't remember if I actually played it. I own it, or maybe owned it. Can't even remember if sold!

[franks]

Another list with many good choices but picked my top 3 fairly easily.

Dungeons and Dragons Adventure Board Games
I recommend this series for anyone that likes tile exploration games in a fantasy RPG style setting. These are not a Role Playing Games but they are fun quick adventures in the D&D fantasy worlds. I have all the complete sets and have collected all the pre-painted D&D miniatures. I have been active in the BGG Groups and have printed loads of fan additions to the game and have created at least 100 custom monsters as well. To me it is the quintessential 'sand box game', it is very easy to modify and would also classify is as a lifestyle game. There are currently four games in the series and another unannounced title coming this year;
Castle Ravenloft, (classic and revived D&D settings),
Wrath of Ashardalon, (more generic D&D setting but has some added elements to the gameplay).
Legend of Drizzt, (a favoured D&D character and setting, in this one you are exploring caverns in stead of a dungeon).
Temple of Elemental Evil, (a classic and revived D&D setting. This one has the best implementation of progressive elements between all 13 scenarios).
Of course there are a plethora of Dungeon Crawls but I still love the traditional D&D settings.

Isle of Skye
Would be surprised if this didn’t make the ultimate top 10. There is so much to love about this game. One of the best elements for me is the elevated player interaction compared to so many other games and the fact that it scales so well between the player counts!

Command & Colors: Ancients
Memoir 44 preceded the CCA series and would probably be a better gateway game in the Command and Colors game system. However I much prefer the historical period in this series. 

There are other honourably mentions on the list:
Cacao - the base game is still a very good gate-way game!
Marco Polo - Very high on my list for game to be played.
Santorini - would be a good choice as a Abstract for the top 10.

[jungleboy]

Oooh, great choices this week. I own seven games on the list (five of which I nominated myself) and all of them could be considered for a vote. I might do a mini review of all of them (except Chess, which speaks for itself) in separate posts to allow me to think about each one more deeply than usual.

First up is a game that will surely get one of my votes:

Biblios - Such a great little filler by Dr Steve Finn. It’s ‘just’ a set collection game but it has some really interesting mechanics that put it above many other fillers while remaining simple to teach to anyone. The theme of medieval manuscripts drew me in originally, and while it’s not at all thematic, this has never bothered me and I’m still glad it has the theme it has, for the art if nothing else. Very briefly, there are two phases of card acquisition - an ingenious drafting phase where you assign cards one by one either to yourself, to a common pool for other players to draft or to the auction pile, and an auction phase. It seems strange to have two different phases of card acquisition but they complement each other so well and work seamlessly together. During the drafting phase, you need to decide whether you want to work on your set collection or try to hoard gold for the auction phase and it’s always hard to find the right balance. Meanwhile, the other great mechanic is that how much you score for your sets varies depending on what is showing on the corresponding die; players have the ability to modify the dice throughout the game. So on one hand you have to try to up the value of the dice that correspond to the sets you’re going for, but on the other this gives away what you’re collecting which is valuable information for the other players. Great at all player counts (2-4) but is probably best with 3-4.

[Paul]

Follow up: Didn't realise Dungeon & Dragons meant those board games. Woops.
  They'd not be my choice in this poll, but I have all four of them, just never had a chance to play them. Looks awesome.

[franks]

Follow up: Didn't realise Dungeon & Dragons meant those board games. Woops.
  They'd not be my choice in this poll, but I have all four of them, just never had a chance to play them. Looks awesome.

Yeah, this was my nomination and I didn't want to name just one of the titles, though it would have made it more recognizable. These all fall under the BGG Family listing of Dungeons and Dragons Adventure System Board Games. This family listing is a handy feature that collects all the titles under one page.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamefamily/9547/dungeons-and-dragons-adventure-system-board-games

[dirk2112]

Suburbia and Voyages of Marco Polo are on the short list of games that I really want to try.  Code Names is a good game, but we have 4 of the Spiels des Jahres nominated games from 2016 and it is my least favorite.  Isle of Skye, Pandemic Legacy, and Imhotep are much better games IMHO. 

My wife prefers both Cacao and Isle of Skye to Carcassonne.  I really enjoy all 3 games and they are the best tile laying games out there.  They are different enough to have all 3 on your shelf.

Also, Santorini is awesome.  Best abstract game we own. 

[jungleboy]

Since this game has generated a lot of comments already, let me chime in with my two cents:

Isle of Skye - I own it and like it, even though I am terrible at it (admittedly having only played it four times). Firstly, as a tile-laying game there’s an obvious appeal for fans of Carcassonne. But the similarities quickly end there, as the tile question, tile placement and scoring are all very different in the two games, and Isle of Skye is a a more complex game.

The main distinguishing feature of Isle of Sky is the bidding mechanic for tiles. I was quite surprised to see Rahdo include Isle of Skye in his top 10 elegant games video this week, because I find this mechanic pretty clunky and not very intuitive or thematic - essentially the opposite of elegant. It’s also the part I struggle with the most. I never really know which tile to strike with the axe and how to value the other two tiles. The other thing I struggle with is the tile-matching, coming from a Carcassonne background. In some of the Carcassonne spinoffs that I like (e.g. Castle and City), you only have to match roads and not other features, which already takes some getting used to, but in Isle of Skye it’s reversed, which I find confusing. I also find farms hard to visualise because roads don’t divide them, again because of my Carcassonne background.

Despite all this, and the catch-up mechanism which is blatant and not hidden in any thematic way like, for example, in Touria, I like the game. The different scoring for each game gives a ton of replayability, the different scoring per round is cool, the art is nice, every tile is really important, and there are huge decisions every step of the way. I also feel that since I’m not good at it, that’s somehow a point in its favour. I feel like I have to keep playing to better understand the game and get better at it, and that’s a good thing, rather than just being completely on top of it from the first play. I also feel like this about Tigris and Euphrates, one of the best games I own.

In the end, although I nominated this game, I probably won’t vote for it in this round. But as franks said, I’m sure it will get a lot of votes.

[Whaleyland]

Wow. This list just proves how behind the times I am. I have only played three games on this, and two of them are Labyrinth and Chess. The third is Codenames, which my partner gifted me for Christmas. It is an okay game, but it definitely falls into the party game category, which is not a category from which I would ever choose a favourite game.

No votes from me this round.

[dirk2112]

I never really know which tile to strike with the axe and how to value the other two tiles.

It is very situational.  If one of your tiles helps out your opponents, but doesn't help you out, it gets the axe.  Also if you get the best possible tile for the current round (sheep score points and it has 4 sheep) and you do not have the most money, you axe it.  In a 2 player game, this bidding and axing is very basic.  In a 3 or more player game, there is the possibility that you won't get any tiles that turn.   That is to be avoided if possible.  Valuation is very important.  Assume anything you underbid on will be bought and never assume any price you set it too high.  I don't believe I have seen someone win if they had a round without tiles.   

[jungleboy]

Mini-review number 3 is a game that will probably get my vote in this round:

Istanbul - A great euro game and KdJ winner. The premise of it is so simple - whoever gets 5/6 rubies first (depending on the player count) wins. I like it how the end goal is not victory points. I feel like this streamlines the whole process and largely takes math(s) out of the game. At any given point in the game, you’re trying to figure out where your next ruby is coming from and what’s the most efficient way to get it. Explaining the point of the game is therefore very easy; the rest of it is just explaining the actions available at each location. The way you work towards getting rubies in the game as a merchant is by dropping off your assistants at various places in the city and performing the action associated with those places. But then you need to pick them up again or have them all meet you back at the fountain before you can use them again.

The modular board gives it a lot of replayability and a lot of opportunity for expansions (of which there are two major ones already). I have the first one, Coffee and Backsheesh, but haven’t had a chance to play it yet.

[danisthirty]

Wow. This list just proves how behind the times I am. I have only played three games on this, and two of them are Labyrinth and Chess. The third is Codenames, which my partner gifted me for Christmas. It is an okay game, but it definitely falls into the party game category, which is not a category from which I would ever choose a favourite game.

No votes from me this round.

  Much better to abstain than to vote something just because you've heard of it...

I voted for Suburbia which is a great city-building themed tile-placement game with some fun mechanics. I haven't played it enough to be completely familiar with the rules but as well as building your city you have to manage income and population and even the score track has some little modifiers on it which can add to the strategy.

I also voted for Zombie Fluxx which I don't expect anyone else to vote for, but I nominated it and felt obliged to vote for it all the same. Like Monopoly Deal, this has provided much entertainment in the Isthirty household and I love how varied the games are in terms of length and attempts at strategy. Sometimes it can go on forever, other times it's over within 5 minutes. But as long as I feel like I've vanquished a few zombies along the way it's always time well spent.

Santorini was my third vote. Even though I've never played it, I've seen a lot of love for it on BGG Facebook and also here. I've watched videos and read the rules and it seems simple, yet deep (a lot like Carcassonne) which is why I voted for it. It was one vote that Chess didn't have anyway, not that I have anything against Chess, but I may have to shoot myself if we as a community of enthusiastic and dedicated boardgamers end up suggesting a list of "top boardgames" that includes Poker and Chess. As hidden gems go, neither of these are very hidden.

[jungleboy]

Next up is one that I nominated but in this packed group it probably won’t get my vote:

Medici - a classic mid-90s auction game from Reiner Knizia early in his incredible run of great games for a period of several years. It’s a pure auction game that takes place over three ‘days of shipping’ (rounds) in Medici-era Florence. It’s very simple to explain and the hook of the game is basic but always provides good tactical and strategic decisions: with two ways to score, you want cards with high numbers to win high boat, but you want the right commodities on those cards to advance on the commodities track. Usually you don’t get the combination of numbers and commodities that you’re looking for when the auction cards are revealed (and if so, you might get outbid or the player setting the auction might recognise this and tack on an unwanted card onto the auction to mess up your plans). So you’re always making compromises and hoping it turns out for the best. Figuring out how much to bid on any given auction is also an interesting part of the game. The new Grail Games version has beautiful art (although the colours could pose problems for colour-blind players) and allows for two-player play, although it’s better at a higher player count.

Danisthirty is not a fan but he would be if Pepsi Max was one of the commodities. Decar liked it more when we played at Essen and won the game as I recall. That initial game was a bit underwhelming but I played some really good games after that with 2-3 players.

[thodekey]

I voted for 2 of my favourite games in this poll:

Codenames: as Paul said, great party game in which making links and thinking how others think gets fun and...very easy to explain to new players.  And, when -allthough i don't think that will happen- you really get bored by the words in the game box, you can easily throw in your own words.

Sherrif of Nottingham: my absolute n°1 favourite game of the moment- next to Carcassonne of course.  Finally a game where you can lie to your opponents or bribe them and get rewarded for it without the game getting too aggressive.  A remarkable thing is that everyone gets automatically into their role of honest baker/cheesemaker/...who has notting to hide to get their goods past the Sherrif. 
A nice extra fun element: the free & handy App which calculates all the scores and announces the winner in a fun way and most of all: it contains hilarious remarks which you can throw in when an opponent tries to get his illegal goods past the Sherrif.
For those not familiar with the game, check this link: