Hi, me and my cousins had a good thing going for a long time playing Catan but we are looking to shake things up. We have played Catan regularly for over s year, but find that it’s getting a little stale. We are looking for a game that requires a lot of strategy, planning, teamwork but also betrayal and backstabbing, yet also not take half an hour to set up and dismantle.
In Catan we love that the board changes every game and therefore the strategy, but found that once we got to the castles and knights expansion there was one strategy that beat out all the rest which sort of deflated the fun (first person to get science bonus seemed to win 90% of the time).
Any other board games out there for beginners that don’t take forever to set up and put away? Not huge into role playing, but never say never I guess.
Carcassonne is a great beginner game! And it meets a lot of your requirements as well! The board is built as you play and lends to different strategies each game. It has loads of expansions if you decide you like it, but I recommend sticking with the base game + rivers to start.
Aside from that, I recommend for beginners who want to get a better overall board game experience to check out games that are known for doing 1 game mechanic really well to help introduce the new concept and expand your boardgame genre experiences without overcomplicating things. Once you’ve gotten some of those down, it’s much easier to dive into bigger, more complicated games that use multiple game mechanics. You’ll be able to sit down and recognize each mechanic as you learn!
If you ever get to that point, I HIGHLY recommend Eclipse. It’s one of my favorite games that also fits your criteria and is highly rewarding. Downsides are that it has more game mechanics to learn, it takes a while to setup, and you may need to watch a video to play it the first time. Once you’ve played it, it’s easy to remember and you can definitely get through games in 2 hours.
I hope this helps and I hope you enjoy Carcassonne if you end up trying it out!
Thanks for the suggestions, I’ll look into them. So many suggestions in this post it will take me awhile to decide on which one lol
Some other classics I love that I haven’t seen recommended yet:
- Power Grid
- Ticket to Ride
- Puerto Rico
- Agricola
- Viticulture
I agree with pretty much everyone else too! There are a ton of great boardgames to explore and starting with Catan and a regular group is a great place to be in.
I also meet up with my cousins semi-regularly for game nights and we love Catan! A game that I believe checks your boxes is “Here to Slay”, this is one that we seem to revisit every time we meet. Other games I would suggest are “King of Tokyo” and “Sheriff of Nottingham”. I hope that helps!
I popped on here to suggest King of Tokyo as well. Sets up fast, quick to teach, and if you’re into it, you can make it a little more complicated with the Power Uo expansion.
Thanks ks for the suggestions, briefly looked into sheriff of Nottingham and looks pretty interesting. I’ll check the others out too
Sheriff of Nottingham is a great social game full of deception! Love that one!
I might recommend Dominion as a great “starter” game that is a totally different feel from Catan but still has the “different every time” setup. Very quick to set up; it’s just cards. No teamwork though.
Something with teamwork and betrayal I would recommend is Dead of Winter. But I’ll be honest betrayal as a mechanic usually doesn’t work for me in general, so I don’t play with those rules when there is an option.
For a teamwork game, one classic is Pandemic, although once you win the game the first time the novelty wears off.
Ah, I think I played dominion years ago and liked it, but forgot the name of it. Thanks, I’ll check it out.
Dominion is a really good shout, once you have leant the basics there is so much variation in strategy depending on the kingdoms chosen.
Betrayal at House on the Hill is the closest one I can think of to what you described. The best part of it is the board gets setup as you play so it doesn’t take long at all to get going.
Dead of Winter is a zombie coop survival with a traitor. Setup is not super quick but it is pretty fun. And The Thing boardgame is pretty similar.
Thanks, I’ll check them all out
Wingspan! Easy to learn, difficult to master. And the theme makes it approachable for non-gamers too. Highly recommend!
War of Whispers is very quick to setup, doesn’t take too long, has simple mechanics, but lots of strategy and backstabbing.
