Best board-game?

[sprior]

I should add Flat Top too. Best played double-blind with an umpire.

[madorosh]

ORIGINAL: LarryP

ORIGINAL: Michael Dorosh

This is about as silly a thread as "what's your favourite colour?" It lacks focus.

Then go away.

Nah, wrong answer. All you need to do is focus the question and make it interesting, and perhaps the answers will look like a discussion instead of a laundry list. Pick a genre; maybe pick a historical period. Or pick a design element you like and discuss that. Squad Leader's counting of firepower factors, for example - design elegance at play. Does it really offer advantages over an odds-based CRT? It's a fascinating question. Not much point in throwing out random names - you can find those at www.boardgamegeek.com - check out the GeekLists there for more of the same. At least they have pictures. [:)]

Board wargames are relatively new in history; in the modern commercial sense they only go back to 1958 or so (I think the first Tactics predated that by a couple of years). They didn't even try to do tactical games until 1969. Miniatures, on the other hand, have been around since the turn of the century, and wargaming itself in a non-commercial sense goes back to the 1800s at the least. If one includes Chess and other games as simulations of warfare, they go back to antiquity. This all confuses the issue even more.

But I'll focus it down to just two elements for you. What is more important to you - playabilty? Or realism?

[LarryP]

ORIGINAL: Michael Dorosh

ORIGINAL: LarryP

ORIGINAL: Michael Dorosh

This is about as silly a thread as "what's your favourite colour?" It lacks focus.

Then go away.

Nah, wrong answer. All you need to do is focus the question and make it interesting, and perhaps the answers will look like a discussion instead of a laundry list. Pick a genre; maybe pick a historical period. Or pick a design element you like and discuss that. Squad Leader's counting of firepower factors, for example - design elegance at play. Does it really offer advantages over an odds-based CRT? It's a fascinating question. Not much point in throwing out random names - you can find those at www.boardgamegeek.com - check out the GeekLists there for more of the same. At least they have pictures. [:)]

Board wargames are relatively new in history; in the modern commercial sense they only go back to 1958 or so (I think the first Tactics predated that by a couple of years). They didn't even try to do tactical games until 1969. Miniatures, on the other hand, have been around since the turn of the century, and wargaming itself in a non-commercial sense goes back to the 1800s at the least. If one includes Chess and other games as simulations of warfare, they go back to antiquity. This all confuses the issue even more.

But I'll focus it down to just two elements for you. What is more important to you - playabilty? Or realism?

Go and post a thread the way it should be done. It's free. I posted exactly the way I wanted so it's just perfect the way it is. Lots of good replies from almost 100% nice people.

[Joram]

Wow Michael, you sure know how to turn something fun into something nasty.

[madorosh]

ORIGINAL: Joram

Wow Michael, you sure know how to turn something fun into something nasty.

Which part was more fun for you - the five seconds it took to type the name of your favourite game, or the two minutes it took to read the laundry list of games you've never heard of? [:)][&:]

Not trying to be nasty, just trying to stimulate something more interesting than a list of people talking past each other. We've already seen chess, card games and monopoly listed among wargames - and the assertion that the ASL Monolith trumps them all. I'd be far more interested in knowing why people feel these games are "the best" or for that matter what they feel "best" means. Otherwise, it's just empty calories *burp*

You're not trying to tell me that the process of actually thinking beyond a list of names represents a burden on your sense of fun, are you?

[JAMiAM]

Speaking of lack of focus...

ORIGINAL: Michael Dorosh
We've already seen chess, card games and monopoly listed among wargames...

Try focusing on the thread title again, rather than trying to "stimulate" discussion...[;)]

It says "Best board-game?" Not "Best wargame?" Not "Best board wargame?" Not "Best mounted board wargame?" Not "Best mounted board wargame dealing with a limited set of criteria that will make arguing about a purely subjective matter, sufficiently close to being an objective exercise, so that pedantically overfocused individuals can claim to make a final and definitive argument for their favorite game?"

I, for one, find the open-ended nature of the question to be more pleasantly stimulating for discussion than focusing too narrowly. Your mileage may vary...[:)]

[Zap]

Its called nostalgia and I see nothing wrong with that at all.

[TheHellPatrol]

ORIGINAL: Michael Dorosh

perhaps the answers will look like a discussion instead of a laundry list.

[8|]That "laundry list" mentioned some games i've never heard of and i have had boardgamegeek bookmarked for ages[:-].

[ravinhood]

Another board game from Avalon Hill I grew very fond of and probably played as much as SL was "Magic Realm". I think I liked it for the board design. It has HUGE hexed tiles that you setup every game in a random order and everything connects and they all have a magic side that changes the way the tunnels and paths go and or the power of the tiles. Quite an impressive endeavor by whoever developed it. It could be as simple as getting from point A to point B for a game to a complete campaign with all kinds of monsters and npcs. Some npcs you could even recruit or get challenged by at the inns and various other spots. The combat was interesting in that you picked your attack from three catagories and your defense from three catagories and then compared, if you picked the proper box of attack to the defenders box of defense you got a hit. It had a plethora of choices for adventure characters from the White Knight to the Witch. My favorite was usually the Amazon or one of the knights (black or white). You could adventure solo or with some of the other player characters and even have 1 v 1 battles between them if they should meet along the way. Very open ended on how one wished to play it every game.
 
Later after that came an SPI game that my wargaming buddies all became attached to and wanted to play more than normal wargames and that was "Sword & Scorcery" an interesting take on wargaming with orcs and elves and dwarves and goblins and corflu cultists and Imperials and Mercs and Spiders. I believe the War of the South was the most fun scenario we liked to play. It brought in everyone of the factions the civil war of the game more or less as it pitted the north vs the south with several neutrals that you sent out diplomats to to gain their support. Sort of like a War of the Rings game as well as it pitted the Dark Lord "X the Unknown" and "Narklath" against the goodies of the South UnamitIhazredit and King (insert most any Norn name here> Linfalis pops up as an Elven leader I remember and Cronk as a Dwarven one. Slithis was the Swamp Creature leader I recall. Magic played a part in the game as well. If two leaders of opposing sides came in contact with each other I remember you could play out 1 v 1 duels between them and then fight out the battle between the units afterwards. There were solo missions that leaders could take also to find the "sword of everslaying" stuff like that. It was quite fun and another game that someone put in a lot of time to create a masterpiece.

[Kuokkanen]

What, hasn't anyone mentioned Classic BattleTech yet?

[ezzler]

If you want to play a fun game that causes the same kind of resentment, mistrust and backstabbing as Risk or Diplomacy or Kremlin then try  JUNTA. Excellent game and great fun.

Here are some more categories for you

Most monster / complicated game that was actually worth playing:  World in Flames
Most monster / complicated game that was never worth playing : Eagle against the sun
Most disappointing puchase Firepower 1950-1990 / plot to assisinate hitler / federation and empire
Suprise great games. Enemy in sight / For the republic / powerplay / steam and steel
Rule lawyers favourites : ASL / World in Flames / Europa series

[Procrustes]

The ones I had the most fun with were "Squad Leader" and that old AH game "Blitzkrieg" - I was happy as a clam when I found a remake of that game for TOAW. I also really liked "The Third Reich" - an overview of WW2.

My friend also had an SPI(?) game called "Sniper" that we loved - each counter was an individual soldier, and you fought an urban battle with a squad or two.

[ezzler]

Sniper .. great
Thats what made firepower such a let down. Much better components, much worse gameplay

[madorosh]

ORIGINAL: ezz

Sniper .. great
Thats what made firepower such a let down. Much better components, much worse gameplay

Sure, but there are some who feel quite the opposite. I'm not one of them. Any game will be a tradeoff between realism and playability. The quadrilateral buildings in Sniper! alone were a turn-off for some. To me, the play was the thing.

Conversely, look at Advanced Squad Leader - would anyone really choke on that 300 page rulebook if the boards were printed on poster paper and the counters had to be cut out by hand? I think part of ASL's attraction is at least as much due to the physical components as to anything else. Sniper! doesn't compare to Firepower in that sense, which came with mounted, hand-painted mapboards (though the urban board was pretty ugly and required that weird cardboard overlay for the 2nd levels). It's all about trade-offs, and in the end, individual tastes. There probably are people who would play ASL on homemade boards with homemade counters - in fact, I bet there are more than a few right now who do.

[Procrustes]

Yeah, the only thing that took a little getting used to in Sniper was that in order to get the buildings to fit onto the hex map board well they made everything into parallelograms instead of rectangles. Once you got the hang of it you found that it really improved play. Great game.


*** EDIT - I thought it helped because it eliminated the problems you have with half-hexes - can you see him or not? Am I exposed or not? Once the building were shaped to the map board a lot of that ambiguity went away. But I admit - it didn't "look right" for a while.

[Procrustes]

I never played ASL - but I played a lot of Squad Leader with the add-ons (Cross of Iron, Anvil of Victory, and the other one?). I loved the game, but as you got further into it it became hard to keep track of all the addenda and rule changes. I always figured that ASL would be an improvement - are people are suggesting it wasn't?

[madorosh]

ORIGINAL: Procrustes


I never played ASL - but I played a lot of Squad Leader with the add-ons (Cross of Iron, Anvil of Victory, and the other one?). I loved the game, but as you got further into it it became hard to keep track of all the addenda and rule changes. I always figured that ASL would be an improvement - are people are suggesting it wasn't?

That's an individual choice for each consumer to make. Clearly it wasn't to this fellow who bought the ASL Starter Kit and got hooked on it:

I am one of those veteran ASLers who bought Starter Kit#1 because I thought at last! a self-contained module to get people into the hobby. In fact, I bought two copies because I wanted to be able to lend one out and have one on hand. But then a funny thing happened. I got hooked. It started with the top-notch components--say what you like about MMP but they outclass AH in that department--and then when I played the game I got that old '78 Squad Leader rush. It was fun. What a relief to dispense with concealment counters, and recon through clumsiness. Or arguments over SANs: "I'm going to roll for my Sniper now." "You can't, we're past that." "I mentioned it when you rolled the first MC and would have done it then but you spent forty minutes determining HOB." Or weather rolls--if I could only have back the hours I've spent on that silliness. With Starter Kit#2 things got better. If you want to move that gun you have to push it. Classic, simple, learn the rule and get on with the game. SK#3 was more complicated but the big plus was the heave-ho given to the overrun rules. Hallelujah! Yep, I'm a convert. I'm selling off my ASL collection(anybody want to bid on Action Pack #1?)because the Starter Kit system gives me what I crave--a fun, fast-paced challenge. If I do show up at ASLOK this October I'm only going to bring and play the SKs. That way I don't have to entertain the thought of the IIFT(You want to use something that was designed to give the Germans an advantage? I don't think so)or play against some HASL VASL addict who likes to spend two hours on each and every phase. As an example of the benefits of SK I offer this: On a recent road trip I visited a friend down East whose local pub has a games night. We brought SK#1 to the bar and played a couple of scenarios over a few pints. Try doing that with ASL. And it was great to be out and about in the world, not tucked away in some fetid room with poor lighting. NB: I am, of course, referring to the average tournament venue, and not my friend's living arrangements. Don't get me wrong, ASL is a brilliant game, and I will continue to play it. My gaming buddies are still true believers. For me, however, devolution is the way to go. Who would have thought that Devo had it right all those years ago?

http://www.gamesquad.com/forums/showpos ... stcount=87

[Procrustes]

ORIGINAL: Michael Dorosh

That's an individual choice for each consumer to make. Clearly it wasn't to this fellow who bought the ASL Starter Kit and got hooked on it:

Good point. I admit, the SL games I enjoyed the most were the simpler, smaller ones.

[Sarge]

ORIGINAL: Michael Dorosh

Not trying to be nasty, just trying to stimulate something more interesting than a list of people talking past each other. We've already seen chess, card games and monopoly listed among wargames - and the assertion that the ASL Monolith trumps them all. I'd be far more interested in knowing why people feel these games are "the best" or for that matter what they feel "best" means. Otherwise, it's just empty calories *burp*

Is a explanation of the reasons one would choose “Chess” as holding a top slot in the all time list real needed ?

If so ,
Point out the titles mentioned in this thread not a distant relative of “Chess”

[ravinhood]

Magic Realm?.

Source of the Nile?

As far as the definition of Best Wargame to me means is one that I played more than any other and I still have and would still play had I had someone close who wanted to play a board wargame anymore. lol My friends today are all into comuter wargames and think those old board wargames are for the old folks home people. lol Goes to show even some of the old grognards have jumped ship for computer wargaming.