I am sure this has been a topic before but I don’t think it has been brought up in a while. My wife introduced me to modern board games a few years ago (she had been playing for years) and since then we build up a nice collection of a few dozen games. A few of our favorites at the moment:
Res Arcana: a fun engine building game where you try to make a handful of cards generate enough points to win.
It’s a Wonderful World: another card game. Where you draft cards to build up more resources to build more cards faster than your opponent.
Quest for El Dorado: A racing game.
Various flavors of Clank! A push your luck deck building game.
FIDE Chess
Korean Chess
Chinese Chess
Japanese Chess
Ploy (can be considered a Chess variant)
Realm
Mancala
Hijara (a great twist on 4-in-a-row)
Connect6 (get 6-in-a-row)
Onitama (odd Chess variant)
L-Game
3-Spot
I mentioned in the “games you play wrong” thread that I’m part of a Cosmic Encounters cult. We’ve been playing Macron and Void and Laser and the whole gang for a good number of decades now.
My family and friends are all fond of Settlers of Catan, which, to be horribly honest, I find stultifying. But I’ll play because, hey, why not? Go along to get along!
Is Wingspan overhyped? I didn’t realize that. We bought it for both my siblings & their families for Christmas, since we’ve been playing the snot out of it. Also Castles of Mad King Ludwig.
Unfortunately, not playing so much at the moment, but in the Before Times:
I’ll second Eggs & Empires as a light, filler game.
For light to medium-weight games:
King of Tokyo Sentinels of the Multiverse A Touch of Evil: Dark Gothic Deckbuilding Game
For heavy-weight, big box miniatures games:
A Touch of Evil Descent 2nd Edition (particularly with the App that makes it fully co-op) Imperial Assault (same) Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition Hellboy: The Board Game
I don’t particularly care for worker placement games, but my friends who enjoy them love Scythe and Lords of Waterdeep.
I’m a big fan of worker placement games and one of my favorites is Architects of the West Kingdom. It doesn’t have some of the features that annoy people about worker placement games. For example, there’s no location blocking. And there’s significant player interaction because of a rule that lets you capture pieces.
I play weekly with my local group online, and monthly with college friends. Both of these are on yucata. Snowdonia is popular but I play quite a variety.
I also play with other friends on BGA. I’m enjoying Marco Polo II
Scrabble. My wife was an aficionado when we started dating, and she used to regularly beat me until she taught me some tips & tricks. Now I beat her 90% of the time. I just beat her in a game a couple hours ago, in fact.
Stratego— when I was 10 or 11, I was unbeatable with my classmates. These days, I taught my 15 year old and he quickly figured out how to beat me. He’s untouchable when it comes to chess as well.
At the moment, mostly chess through the free chess.com app - it’s very good quality considering.
I’m not sure if it qualifies as ‘worker placement’, but my even more nerdy gamer friends are big fans of Gaia Project. I’ve played a couple of times and quite enjoyed it, but that wasn’t enough for me to fully understand the strategies (unsurprisingly). For a lighter, but still meaty, game along similar lines, I like Concordia (with the Salsa expansion).
Fairly recently I acquired a Khet (Egyptian laser chess!) set, but sadly I can’t persuade my wife to like it. Our go-to for strategy type games is Ticket to Ride (yes, I know - she’s just not that into more complex games), sometimes the UK or Pennsylvania versions.
My older son (6) has shown some interest in chess, The Viking Game (a sort of primitive chess but still with lots of strategy/tactics), Carcassonne, and Qwirkle (the latter two of which my wife also likes) but at the moment he’d generally rather play with Lego or toy cars/Transformers, so I’m not pushing it - plenty of time. He has also enjoyed Sheriff of Nottingham but my wife doesn’t like that one either for some reason. Possibly because she is even worse than me at lying - though not as bad as our son . He loves it if he ‘fools’ us though - adorable.
I can’t wait until we’re allowed to meet friends in person, indoors (hopeful for January) - then I can have an abstract games night with a colleague, including most of the above games and probably also Inis and Hive. Then we will need to schedule another evening for a game of Twilight Struggle, one of my all-time favourites.
I do like Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu, a re-skinning of Pandemic. The theme is more appealing to me, but also Pandemic as a cooperative worker placement game is a lot more fun for me personally than a competitive worker placement game.
Been playing a lot of Terraforming Mars with my son which has been great. We’ve split wins 50/50 and won in such various ways that we’re both still trying to pin down various strategies.
He likes 7 Wonders Duel also which is sort of similar but plays in less time.
For faster less complex games I still can’t get enough of Splendor or Jaipur.
There’s always Ticket to Ride. Never really gets old.
Bought Takenoko last year around this time and have been enjoying that. I’ve been working on a succinct speech to explain how to play but it’s difficult. It’s one of those games that’s really simple and easy once you understand it, but it’s hell to explain to someone new.
The card game Sushi Go! is a good one to travel with. Short, quick, portable, and fun. It does make you really want sushi, though.
Roll For It is a fun dice-and-card game. Comes with 4 sets of tiny dice to play with. Easy enough for small children to play, and there’s enough of a degree of chance involved for them to be competitive with adults.
. He loves it if he ‘fools’ us though - adorable.