I have 50$'s
I want to buy a board game that my friends and I can enjoy. As of right now the ones I have in mind are
SmallWorld (or Underground)
SuperFight
King of Tokyo/NY
Haunting at the House on the Hill
Munchkin
Sheriff of Nottingham
One Night Werewolf
I already have Splendor, Cards Against Humanity and Catan, and for the most part am leaning toward SmallWorld.
With Smallworld though I am unsure if I should buy just Smallworld, or if I should get Smallworld Underground instead.
Smallworld: Great risk replacement. Fun theme, constantly changing gameplay with the races thing. Replayable. Recommended for anywhere from newcomers to intermediate fans.
King of Tokyo: Fast game, it's alright. Works for super casuals to beginners. Most of your game will come down to dice. You're basically just playing chicken with the dice, which can be fun.
Haunting at the House on the Hill: Random scenarios range from boring super one sided to a lot of fun. There's some really lame random scenarios you can roll, but for the most part it's really fun. Requires a very awkward pause in the action when the betrayer is revealed to setup and get everyone to know their roles. This is one game where I think the new version with the app will significantly improve it in that regard.
Munchkin and One Night Werewolf I only recommend for super casuals when you have a LOT of people in the room and want something that needs very little explaining or setup.
As for Underground, I recommend regular Smallworld first.
These are all really good choices. SmallWorld has the most replayability, imo and has enough expansions you can add later to keep things fresh.
1) SmallWorld 2) Munchkin 3) Haunting 4) KoT 5) Sherrif 6) Superfight 7)One Night Werewolf
>As for Underground, I recommend regular Smallworld first.
Even if I've played Underground and thought that it was some damn good fun?
What all changes between the two?
I can comment on the following:
>King of Tokyo/NY
It's a nice dynamic filler, I would not pick it as a main game unless everyone in your group is their teens still (physically or mentally). Decent replay value, even after you know all the cards. NY>Tokyo, if nothing else then for the PAINBOW!
>Haunting at the House on the Hill
Solid, but Betrayal is strictly better (not sure it it fits in the budget)
>Munchkin
Nope, jokes get old quick, little replay value besides dicking each other over. If you want some Steve Jackson game Chez Geek is better option.
Admittedly I meant Betrayal, but I figured you guys would get the point.
ages 19-24
>Sheriff of Nottingham
This game would only work if your friends are not shy to talk a lot.
It is about lying, bribing and diplomacy.
Whatever you do, don't pick Smallworlds. It's pretty much turtling game and stops being funny after first two turns and becomes "who turtle better" competition after them.
Small World is a lot of fun. Really the biggest issue I have with it is one that's common to many-player games: the victor is largely determined by who gets ganged up on the least. And Small World is actually a bit better about this than most, because things come and go in waves, with de facto alliances shifting as civilizations rise and fall. Still, the outcomes of games tend to seem a bit arbitrary to me, and not the result of somebody outplaying everybody else.
I played a few games of team Small World, which I thought significantly improved the game. Basically, we had two teams of two, and took staggered turns (so that the two players on a team didn't act one after the other). Play worked exactly like it normally did, only you added your points to your teammate's at the end of the game when seeing which team won.
The only big issue is that certain powers aren't calibrated well to that kind of game. Offensive powers aren't usually a problem, but defensive ones can kill the game. And I mean defensive in a broad sense. The second game we played we got destroyed by ever multiplying skeletons that got so plentiful that we could barely kill them fast enough to deplete their numbers. With a free-for-all, people would've just teamed up on him for round and stomped him into either mediocrity or oblivion. With a teammate running interference and him fortifying himself along our routes of access, we basically had expend so much effort to kill him that it threw the game.
Attached are some house rules I threw together to try to balance shit out. I haven't gotten a chance to play with them yet, but I've little doubt that, on the whole, they will be a significant improvement for a team game.
I wouldn't recommend Superfight, it's not even one of the better CAH style games.
You've obviously never played Small World, because one of the great things about it is that turtling is pretty much impossible. You're packed in too close to avoid contact with other civilizations, and since you don't lose anybody when attacking, you'd have to be an idiot not to go on the offensive when you can.
Saying that turtling is the winning strategy in Small World is like saying that the winning strategy in chess is to get your king into the middle of the board as fast as humanly possible.
A suggestion: Dead of Winter is about $50 on amazon and is a pretty fun coop game.
Isn't Superfight literally just people arguing over which combination of cards is best? Looked incredibly stupid when I saw it being played at my LGS.
Smallworld is fun, haven't played in a while.
Betrayal is fun in a good group. Since you're playing with friends already, it should be a good choice.
Munchkin is a game of massive dickery. Highly recommended.
I haven't played the others.
Also consider the following:
Coup (Cheap, and a lot of fun)
Dead Of Winter
The Big Book Of Madness
>Turtling is not possible
>Heroic Humans
>Trolls in mountains
>Shitload of other combinations
Not even him, but there is shitload of combination that makes it entirely possible to hold 3 or 5 (depending on board size) regions with inpunity and win, while everyone else bleeds out.
Coup is good and super-quick. It's a great game to play in the pub as people come and go.
>Isn't Superfight literally just people arguing over which combination of cards is best?
Pretty much, it has the same flaw as CAH in that all the humour comes from the cards and so it gets stale really fast.
Better games of that sort are things like Snake Oil or Funemployed, because you've got to do a pitch so the humour comes from the players and so is different all the time.
I hear Red Flags is a good one too but I've not tried that myself.
>play in the pub
Is that actually a thing? man, my country is so ass-backwards. if someone broke out a boardgame at a pub here you'd have a jock-type knocking it off your table while the bartender laughed within ten minutes.
Turtleing is possible. Stopping someone from turtling requires multiple people to attack them.
It requires a lot of successful diplomacy. Since in a multiplayer game, hurting one player instead of maximizing your gains is a losing strategy.
At least in the UK, you see it fairly often in nicer pubs.
There's a couple near me that have a boardgame night that cycles between them on different weeks.
If your group is large (4+) and casual, consider Fluxx. It does best with 5-6 good friends.
Coup is a card game.
>SmallWorld (or Underground)
It's fun, although not everyone's cup of tea. Some of my friend said he found it too mathy.
>King of Tokyo/NY
A very light game, the luck element is too much for me (it is just a thematic yahtzee).
>Munchkin
This is only fun in the firts few games. After that it get's too repetitive.
>Sheriff of Nottingham
Haven't played it, but seemed enjoyable with the right group.
>One Night Werewolf
This is group dependant too, but with the right one it is hillarious, after everybody realises the tricks of the game.
you'll note that the quoted selection does not mention the game itself, but the concept of playing a game in a pub.
Just holding 3 to 5 regions isn't usually to your advantage. Even if other people bleed out, they're usually grabbing territory when it's their turn, and one of them is probably doing better than the others... and you. (And the cards that have strong defensive powers don't grant extra victory points and such.) And in any case, you're talking about a case where one person turtles, not everybody, like he seemed to be talking about.
>Stopping someone from turtling requires multiple people to attack them.
In my experience, whenever somebody gains a significant advantage, he gets stomped into oblivion by everybody else. And if one player gets an advantage from not participating in this, he'll get his own stomping in due course.
>Since in a multiplayer game, hurting one player instead of maximizing your gains is a losing strategy.
Actually, not pulling out in front and get your shit stomped by the other players is a good strategy, so knocking out a leader at the expense of getting only slightly less gains is usually the way to go.
>Some of my friend said he found it too mathy.
Small World? All you really have to do is count. It's not at all difficult.
I agree with you, he just hates math. (And I take some time to estimate the best moves, when chosing a new race, and he not so precise with his choice,)