Games I own

[dagibbs]

I intend this to be an ongoing catalog of my games, with a few notes on each -- including the listed number of players and playing time, as well as my feeling as to the actual values that are reasonable for each. This is primarily for reference when planning gaming, rather than a review section.

Settlers of Catan (two sets)
Seafarers of Catan
Cities and Knights of Catan
Iron Dragon: 2-6 players, 4 hours. Biggest/longest of the crayon rails games, you won't get out in under 5 hours for 4 people, more hours with more people.
India Rails: 2-6 players, 3 hours. Looks like a smaller/shorter crayon rail, 3 hours still seems quick. First game (6 players) took almost 7 hours. Learning new map and routes probably extended that.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer The Game: 2-5 players. Not a bad game, for a mass-market (Milton Bradley) game.
Unexploded Cow: 3-6 players, Cheapass game.
Witch Trial: 3-7 players, Cheapass game. We don't play this one quickly.
Carcassone: 2-5 players, 30-45 minutes. Tile laying game, plays decently two-player, closer to an hour.
Torres: 2-4 players, 60 minutes. Plays well with 3 or 4. Longer than 60 minutes.
El Grande: 2-5 players, 90 minutes. Don't think it would work well 2 player. Longer.
San Marco: 3-4 players, 75 minutes. Seems longer. Has balance issues if one player weaker (has a divide/choose mechanism -- if one player divides badly, will give an unfair advantage to the chooser paired with them).
The Princes of Florence: 3-5 players, 75-100 minutes. Played well with 4.
Puerto Rico: 3-5 players, 90-150 minutes. Times look pretty good. A favourite.
King's Gate:2-4 players, 20-40 minutes. Maybe closer to an hour, plays ok with 2.
Tigris & Euphrates: 3-4 players, 1-2 hours. Usually longer, some pretty complex analysis in this one.
Tikal: 2-4 players, 90 minutes. Plays well with 3 or 4, haven't tried 2. 90 minutes seems a bit short, 2.5 hours.
The Traders of Genoa: 2-5 players, 60-120 minutes. Very good, bid for actions is fun, and keeps all players involved all the time. Seemed to run close to the 2 hours for first game. Doesn't work well with 3 players nor (I expect) 2.
Samurai: 2-4 players, 45 minutes. Plays well with 3 or 4, ok with 2. Longer than 45 minutes.
Fluxx: Many players, 30 seconds - unbounded. Card game with dynamic rules and victory conditions, almost any number can join/play, and players can easily join an active game.
Bang!:multiplayer card game.
San Juan: 2-4 players, 45-60 minutes. Card game based on Puerto Rico. Good, but not as good as Puerto Rico - though definitely shorter. Nice trade-off of shorter playing time for complexity as compared to Puerto Rico.
Kingdoms: 2-4 players, 20-40 minutes. It was shortish, and fun. Plays reasonably well with 2.
FBI: 2-5 players, 30 minutes. Card game, didn't play very well with 2 players, but would probably play better with more.
Apples to Apples: 4-10 players, 20-30 minutes. A good party game, but not a strategy game. Does player fairly quickly, and can be quite fun.
Gloom: 2-4 players, ? minutes. Seems about 30-60 minutes.
Gloom: Unhappy Homes: Adds 5th player and more cards to Gloom.
Trans Europa: 2-6 players, 30 minutes. Played well with 4-6, time was fairly quick, even with 5-6 players. (Shouldn't get longer with more players.)
In The Shadow of the Emperor: 2-4 players, 90 minutes. Played once, rules a bit finicky.
Ricochet Robots: 2-infinity players, 30 minutes. 30 minutes seems a bit short, but is reasonably time limitted, will possibly get longer with multiple players, but shouldn't get much longer, and really is unlimitted in #. Well, number of people to be able to clearly see the board would be a limit. A fun competitive puzzle game (rather than strategy/tactics).
Maya: 3-5 players, 60/60-90 (side says 60, bottom says 60-90) minutes. 60-90 seems reasonable after one playing.
Dos Rios: 2-4 players, 70 minutes. Haven't played to completion. (Started at a convention, but didn't get to finish, enjoyed it enough to buy it, though.)
Pirateer: 2-4 players, no time given. Haven't played.
Jungle Speed: 2-80 players (yes, that's what it says), no time given. Really, it's best with a mid-sized group, about 4-10. This is a pattern-recognition and reaction-time game that is fast and fun. Probably 5-20 minutes per game.
Jenga: Any number of players, no time given. Hand dexterity/steadiness block removal and stacking game.
Saint Peterburg: 2-4 players, 45-60 minutes. Time seems about right, and this is a solid game, not too complex a set of rules, but some depth to the play. Plays well with 2 as well as more.
Thurn and Taxis: 2-4 players, 60 minutes. Time seems about right, at least for 2 players. Seems to play decently with two, haven't tried it with more yet.

More "classic" board/war type games:

Multiplayer older games:
Diplomacy: 2-7 players. Long. Even the rules make it clear that 7 is best. 6 is almost ok. Less just isn't worht it.
Titan:2-6 players, 2-12 hours. Wow, that's honesty on the game length. Still a great game.
Naval War - multiplayer card game.
Axis and Allies: 2-5 players. I have both the Nova Games version (cardboard counters) and the Milton Bradley version (plastic figurines). It is, really, a two player game -- but for more the two sides are sub-divided.
Star Fire: And it's two expansions. Original version of Empires, not the re-released one.
Star Fleet Battles: Well, early SFB, not all the extended Commander's Edition and ongoing stuff.
Kings and Things - A Tom Wham game, bit silly but fun.
Amoeba Wars: 2-6 players, 1-3 hours, Avalon Hill.
Spies - SPI.
Divine Right: 2-6 players. TSR Games.
Demon's Run:2-4 players, 2-3 hours. Yaquinto.
Car Wars:any number of players, very variable length. Steve Jackson Games. I've got lots of Car Wars stuff.
Starfall 1-4 players, 2-6 hours. Yaquinto.


Two-player "traditional" war games:
Insurgency Heritage Models, Inc.
Ogre: Metagaming.
G.E.V. : Metagaming.
Asteroid Zero-Four: Task Force Games.
Kursk: SPI
Robots!: Task Force Games.
Stellar Wars: published by author.
Galactic War: Tabletop Games and Heritage Models, Inc.
A House Divided: 30min - 3hours. GDW. American civil war -- good game, nice mechanics.
Alexander the Great: Avalon Hill.
The Major Battles of General George S. Patton: House of Games (Waddingtons).
Mech War 2: SPI
Dragon Pass: Avalon Hill, primarily 2 player.
World War 3 1976-1984: SPI
Richtofen's War: Avalon Hill
Nomad Gods: Chaosium
Starlord: 1 hour. Gamma 2 Games.
Hitler's War: 2-3 players (really 2), 1-5 hours. Metagaming
Dimension Demons: Metagaming.
StarForce 'Alpha Centauri': 4 hours. SPI


Traditional or Ancient Board Games
Wari
Go also known as Ba-duk (Korean) and Wei-chi (Chinese), with those names approximate anglicizations.
Chess

Comments

[leolac.livejournal.com]

we SO have to have a board game night!!

I'll bring tea and goodies!!

hugs

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

I would love a board gaming night. I'm doing board-gaming days both of the next upcoming Saturdays, already.

And tea and goodies are always very welcome for board gaming. :)

[leolac.livejournal.com]

unfortunately I have to work all of Saturdays...so another time, =).

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

I'm booked through next Sunday, so it would have to be sometime after the 20th. An evening that week (other than Thursday) would work for me.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

Hmmm and Wednesday is probably a poker night.

[concordantnexus.livejournal.com]

what odds of convincing you to come visit the 514 bearing Games?

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

Maybe. What is "the 514"?

[concordantnexus.livejournal.com]

Why tis the area code for Montreal and hence a euphemism for Montreal. ;)

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

I thought it was, but for some reason my brain was saying, "no, the area code for Montreal is 519". But, that's London, Ontario.

I used to call there fairly often, too, so guess that's why I was confused.

And, yes, if I come to 514 by car, I can bring the games. If I come by bike -- well the suitcase doesn't fit on the bike very well.

[tammylc.livejournal.com]

North American's will often find their playing time of German games to be longer than the printed range. That's because we tend to get stuck in analysis paralysis and take longer to make decisions. My understanding is that the Germans take them much less seriously.

Princes of Florence is a great, great game. I think you'd like it a lot.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

That makes some sense for the German games -- but Iron Dragon, for instance, is by a North American publisher. Also, it may partially be an issue of familiarity -- if they time a particular game the 50th time a group/family plays it, it may play a lot faster than the 2nd or 3rd.

Also, on the German games they may be giving the times when played as a family game with children -- that will give a very different playing style and speed.

Still and all, playing style will definitely make a difference.

[foms.livejournal.com]

It might be good to take Swashbuckler or Robo-Rally or some other beer and pretzels games where players must preplot their actions as an example of how to achieve these times. When it doesn't matter what one does and the results are funny any way one goes, one tends to go for the quick humour aspect.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

I found Robo-Rally really needed a timer for programming the robots, as otherwise people tried to plot out the various results of the various sliders, belts, turn-arounds, etc, to get the correct result. I know I did. I also found programming the robot just too much like work -- at the time I played it I was sitll more programmer than trainer. I guess if you play with people who are about the silly, rather than the win, Robo-Rally could run quick.

Yeah, definitely need an egg-timer or something, with a rule that if the time runs out and people don't have cards down, either they don't play cards (not sure if rules allow that?) or they get a random draw from their remaining cards for the rest of the slots.

[beable]

Oooh, robo-rally! For some a reason a group of my then otherwise computer-fearing friends loved this in university! (Well not all computer hating).

We were quite silly, when we tried to figure out the robot moves and timing conflicts, we would jump around the room.

I don't get the "egg-timer" thing, but I may be misremembering the game rules. I remembered RR as a game in which one had to play one's moves and then they all got resolved, so I'm not sure about the playing cards after thing?

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

The egg-timer is for restricting how long people take in deciding which moves and in what order to select for the robot. The resolution is fairly easy -- doesn't need to be timed, is all pre-determined. But, if someone wants to spend 15 minutes working all the possible combinations of moves they could do, to come up with the best possible choice, it really really slows down the game. The egg-timer is to put a maximum time limit on move selection, and then if a player hasn't finished, to handle this situation rather than the "just another second" argument.

[beable]

Ah ok. We never had this problem, because we were playing for silliness rather than contingency planning.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

Exactly, which was my original comment -- if played for silly, wouldn't be an issue. I am a person who is, and game with people who are, often quite competitive.

[foms.livejournal.com]

Samurai plays quite well with two players.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

I did know, and remember, that you had told me that before. I just didn't know if I wanted to get into writing "and I'm told that this plays well two player" rather than actually posting from my own experience.

[eviljohn.livejournal.com]

You should check out Boardgamegeek (http://www.boardgamegeek.com). It has an automated way of listing all of your games and you can rate them as well as add comments. I found it quite useful for cataloging my game collection.

You can see it here (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/viewcollection.php3?username=emcglohon&own=1&startletter=ALL), after you sign up for a free account.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

I think you posted about your game list there in your LJ a while ago, and I visited the list at the time.

I do know when I started doing this, I thought about using such a site (because I'd seen yours), rather than LJ, but decided on LJ. (I also contemplated just writing the html and putting it in my own webspace.)

If this gets too heavy, I may move that way. But, I don't have nearly as many games as you and tammylc.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

I finally went this route. I've started putting my games list in, and finding that I have a few games that boardgamegeek hasn't heard of. I'll have to figure out the interface for adding a new game listing.

I'm dagibbs on there.