Strategy Games

Anyone who knows me knows that I love games. A lot. In 2009, I played a game with some high school friends that would change the course of my life. I played Catan. I lost twice. But I enjoyed it, and it was a different kind of board game from the ones I had spent my whole life playing. Two of my brothers and I all had gift cards to Barnes & Noble, so when we saw Catan there, I suggested we all go in on it.

That was our gateway game.

Ten years later, my family is has shelves and shelves of strategy games, and we host multiple large game days every year. My dad has taken to buying, selling, and trading on BoardGameGeek.com, and gets lots of stuff on the cheap.

Today I'm going to give you my top ten board and card games.







1. Magic: the Gathering

The original trading card game, this game pioneered a new type of game while staying rooted in something simple and resonant: a medieval world filled with magic. The game has strategy, lore, and is incredibly customizable. You can play however you want to play. There's a reason why ten years after I started, I'm still playing and still heavily invested in this game.

2. Android: Netrunner

I'm not gonna lie: I have a weakness for collectible things. A:NR is at least an LCG (Living Card Game), which means that the cards you buy aren't random. If you buy a set, you get 3 of each card, which is as many as you can use in one deck.

What's great about A:NR is the asymmetric strategy. Both players have different goals: one is a megacorporation trying to do (allegedly) evil things, and the other is a hacker trying to steal their data for (allegedly) good purposes. Despite only running for six years, this card game has enormous depth of play and is a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I only have one friend willing to play it with me. (It's pretty complex)





3. Terraforming Mars

The first actual board game on my list. Terraforming Mars is another game with megacorporations. The difference here is that EVERY player is a megacorp, and each is looking to terraform the red planet in its own unique way.

The best part of this game is how huge it is. There are so many corporation options, and so many cards in the deck, that you can play dozens of times and still find new strategies. The best part of this is that even when I lose, I don't mind because I had a lot of fun accomplishing the things I did. My family has been obsessed with this game for probably a year now, and we're still enjoying it.




4. Dominion

Surprise, surprise. More deckbuilding. But this one has you build the deck during the game, and the replayability is incredibly high thanks to the fact that you only use ten out of twenty-five sets of cards whenever you play. This means there are 3 million ways to play in just the base set alone. Once you add an expansion, things get out of control quickly.

However, the game can start to feel stale if you just stick to the suggested sets of ten on the backs rulebook. That said, it's still one of my favorites. Pro tip: try to trash all your starting cards.




5. Castles of Burgundy

Castles of Burgundy is one of those games that offers you more to do than you can actually accomplish in a single game. This is both a blessing and a curse. It's frustrating that I can't fill my entire board, but it's good gameplay to make players pick and choose what will be the most beneficial game plan in the long term.


6. 7 Wonders

My family latched onto 7 Wonders hard because it's one of the only games that can play almost all of us. It's a drafting game (which I love), which is where you get a hand of cards, you get to pick one, and then you pass the rest to another player. Rinse and repeat until the cards are gone. Once you know what you're doing, games only take half an hour.





7. Concordia

Welcome to ancient Europe, where you will be buying and selling goods to build cities in various provinces. The cool part of this game is that the cards you play to determine your action each turn are also worth points in various ways, so you have to buy them both based on what they will do for you and how many points they give you. Pro tip: buy as many cards as you can.




8. Five Tribes

Like Castles of Burgundy, Five Tribes offers you more to do than you actually can. This is made more severe by the fact that all of your options affect (and are affected by) the options that other players take. You'll be playing the game, working on your strategy, and suddenly realize there are only two moves left in the game. The meeples dry up quickly out in the desert.

That said, the quick end leaves you wanting more. This is a great strategy game for when time is limited.





9. Scythe

The only war game that my family plays. Like most war games, it takes a long time to play. However, the game mechanic of moving your token to a different location on your board each turn, each with its own actions, is brilliant. It limits what you can do each turn in an interesting way and challenges you to find the most efficient combinations of effects.





10. Love Letter

This is an incredibly fast game. Rounds can take as little as a minute, though most probably run closer to three. Each player has a secret role and is trying to figure out who everyone else is while simultaneously switching out their role for a more powerful one.

It's an airtight social deduction game that, despite its simplicity, can entertain for hours (though it serves better as an in-between activity).




There you have it. Andrew's top ten games (as of now). Don't pay too much attention to the specific ranking (I didn't). Just know that these are all great games for people who like strategy. If you don't....I dunno, play Candyland.