Our schedule prohibits traveling back to Ohio to visit with family members this Thanksgiving Day.  Between school schedules and my work activities, we decided to stay in Omaha for the holiday.

When talking with one of my friends from work we realized that there was an opportunity for our two families to get together and spend the day playing board games.  We’ll also stay for dinner and just make a great day of it.  Since we’re the invited guests we will be bringing a gift, but instead of a bottle of wine we thought we’d donate a new board game.  I’m not going to say which one since my friend may read this before Thanksgiving day arrives.  But it is a new additional copy of one of the games we are bringing.

Since I obviously own a large selection of excellent board games, we’ll bring along several for playing.  I thought it would be good to share here which games we selected to bring and why.  First, some parameters.  There will be 6 adults present and several children, ranging from 5 to late teen years of age.  Probably the youngest will not really be playing board games.  I imagine that we’ll have several games running in parallel.  My friend’s family enjoys playing board games and has a few very nice Euro Games already.  For example they love playing Ticket To Ride, Nexus Ops and Pandemic.  Excellent games. 

We also discussed the challenge levels of the games we will play and agreed that a mix of lighter fare, like Ticket To Ride and heavier games like Power Grid would work well.  Here are the games we’ll be bringing along.  I’m not certain we’ll play them all but it’s a good selection.  The list is alphabetical and not in any favored order.  Although, as it happens, the fist entry in the list is one of my newer favorites.

1 to 5 players

120 minutes

Ages 12 and up

This board game is currently number 1 on Board Game Geek.  It’s a great choice because it’s very easy to teach yet has great depth and fun.  It has a “family” version of rules, and a more in-depth “gamers” version.  We play the heavier version because it’s easy to understand and is quite engaging.

Agricola is a new game about farming.  It sounds dull, but it’s actually a lot of fun.  Each turn goes very fast and every decision can be difficult.

Ave Caesar

2 - 6 players

30 minutes

Ages 12 and up

This is a fun racing game.  It’s very easy to teach.  Ave Caesar has a beautiful board and nice little chariots that each player races around the track.  Think “Ben Hur” and you get the idea.

It’s a lightweight game and should provide plenty entertainment for the younger boys and girls.  Although I’ve played this game several times with adults and it’s fun too.

2 - 5 players

60 minutes

Ages 8 and up

This is the most famous euro-style tile laying strategy game.  It’s easy to learn, with maybe the exception of scoring the Farmers, and provides a lot of enjoyment.

We own all the expansions to Carcassonne and it’s one of my wife’s absolute favorite games.  The interesting thing about Carcassonne is that, depending on the players, it can vary from being lightweight fun to an outright battle-to-the-death strategy game.

Escalation!

2 - 6 players

15 minutes

Ages 10 and up

I’ve written a review about this game.  It’s a fast-paced easy to learn card game that always generates plenty of laughs.  Escalation! is one of my favorite games design by Reiner Knizia.

We often use Escalation! to start our gaming sessions.  It gets everyone in the right mood.  It’s light, fun and plays quickly.  I’m thinking this game will probably be played in parallel to the “deeper” games by younger members.

Galaxy Trucker

2 - 4 players

60 minutes

Ages 10 and up

This is a new game with great components and fun.  It’s lightweight and plays pretty quick.

Each player has to build a spaceship out of components you place together on a game board.  They can only be assembled in a “correct” manner, and you’re racing against the other players to get finished.

Then, once you have your majestic space ship assembled, all players go on a hazardous journey encountering space pirates, asteroids and other challenges.  Pieces of your space ship may become damaged and very likely fall off and be destroyed.  The fun in this game, believe it or not, is how much fun it is watching yours and your competition’s ship get pummeled to bits as the game proceeds.  It’s quite a bit of fun and easy to learn.

2 - 4 players

30 minutes

Ages 8 and up

This is also a new board game.  It’s easy to learn but gets your brain going in no time.  I’d rate this a game that’s only slightly more difficult to play than Ticket To Ride.

Each  player places wooden building components, almost in an auction-style game mechanic, onto the game board.  You have to pay attention to what your opponents are trying to do and plan your steps accordingly.

We play this game at the office over lunch some times.  My friend mentioned that he really liked this game and wanted to introduce it to his family.

Power Grid

2 - 6 players

120 minutes

Ages 12 and up

I love this game.  It’s one of my favorite deeper Euro games.  At it’s heart this is an economics game.  Each player is buying power plants that operate on varying kinds of fuel (coal, oil, burning trash, nuclear, or solar).  They must also build a network of powered cities onto the game board.

The purchase price of power plants increase as they become more powerful and efficient.  You end up bidding against the other players to buy power plants.  The resources needed to power your plants are available on a sliding demand scale right on the board.  As the availability of resources declines their price go up.  Each player, as they take turns, can purchase and stock resources.  This has the ability to influence what the other players may pay for resources they need.  It’s even possible to starve another player out since there’s a limited number of resources available in the game.  And lastly, as you place cities on the grid it also costs money.  Earlier investments in a location are cheaper.

With every turn you also generate electricity and power the cities connected on your grid.  The more cities you power the more income you receive.  The game has tight economics and every turn has interesting choices for players to make as they compete to have the most cities powered at the games’ end.  This is a great deeper strategy game.

Shadows over Camelot

3 - 7 players

(with the expansion it supports 8 players)

90 minutes

Ages 10 and up

Shadows over Camelot is a co-operative game.  With a twist.  The players are knights of King Arthur’s Round Table and they are trying to defend against evils on multiple fronts at once. 

The rules are easy to learn and the board game and components, just like all the Day of Wonder games, are beautiful and outstanding.

The game is already difficult to “beat”.  But here’s the real twist that makes this game so much fun.  One of the players is potentially secretly a traitor and working to make everyone else lose.  It’s not assured in every game that someone is a traitor, but the odds are high that it happens.  The traitor is randomly, secretly, chosen by a card deal at the beginning of the game. 

That potential for a possible traitor makes for a lot of additional tension and built-in doubts about the agenda of your fellow team mates.  Did he or she do that action because it was the best that they could do, or are they secretly a traitor?  Of course, you can accuse another player of being a traitor, but you better be right.  The interesting things is that a game may coincidently not actually have a traitor present, but no one knows for sure, so everyone scrutinizes and wonders about everything.  With the expansion, which we’ll be using, the game supports eight players and there’s actually the possibility for there to be 2 secret traitors.

Starfarers of Catan

3 - 4 players

(with the expansion it supports up to 6 players)

120 minutes

Ages 10 and up

This is a great science fiction themed edition to the Settlers of Catan series.  We like this game a great deal.  It has excellent components, with some of the best looking retro-space ships available for each player.  The game has an additional exploration component, as each player explores the cosmos they discover what the various star systems provide as resources.  There’s also alien races to encounter and develop trade relations with.  We purchased the optional painted alien figures for our game to just add to the overall fun.

This game, like Ticket To Ride and Power Grid, was one of the first Euro board games our family learned to play and it still has a special place among our favorites.  It’s another one of my wife’s favorite games.  It’s middle-weight in depth and learning.  The only downside is that the game can take a long time with inexperienced players.  Although we can support up to 6 players, I think this game plays best with 3 or 4.

(Also known as Jenseits von Theben)

2 - 4 players

60 minutes

Ages 10 and up

In this game you feel like an explorer seeking treasures and artifacts from ancient ruins around the globe.  It’s easy to imagine yourself as Indiana Jones.  You travel to exotic locations and “dig” for hidden treasures.  You can also return to various countries in Europe and exhibit your discoveries for points.

This game is lightweight and fun.  There’s a strong element of luck to it.  The components are outstanding.  There’s little colored cloth bags representing each dig site.  When you “dig” at the site you randomly extract cardboard chits from the bag.  Most of them will be “sand”, empty and of no value.  However there are also tablets, and statues and other rare artifacts that can bring you many points.  One of the cool thematic game mechanics concerns these bags.  When you draw out the useless “sand” chits you put them back in the bag at the end of your turn.  This makes the odds of the next player visiting the same dig site even worse.  Very cool.