Board Games (besides chess)

I enjoy the game Carcassonne. I don't know if that is considered a board game or not, but it is really fun.

Checkers is under-rated. Very tough game. If it was more popular I would play it.

I have recently been trying to learn strategy for checkers. It is actually really complicated and fun.

When I win the lottery I am going to promote Checkers to a higher level.

Risk is good if you have a couple of hours to kill.

Rail Baron has always been a favorite of mine. I also loved Squad Leader but haven't had anyone to play against in 25 years. 😞

So many good ones.

Diplomacy is a great classic dice-less game but you really need 7 people and a lot of time to play it. One of those games that can work well in an online\correspondence model as you need a bunch of time for negotiating during each turn.

Settlers of Catan is a nice intro to the world of German board games. The rules are simple enough for casual gamers to learn but the interaction between players and multiple paths to victory give it a lot of depth and replayability. This game is so popular it has been ported to Xbox live. The previously mentioned Carcassonne is another fun German board game which has been ported to Xbox live.

My personal favorite is Puerto Rico. Multiple paths to victory means lots of different strategies and interaction between players. Requires a few games to get the feel, but has a ton of replayability due to all the potential strategies and the ways these strategies can interact.

Scrabble.

Anyone know of a good site where you can play turn-based Scrabble [like RHP but with Scrabble instead]? The ones I've seen have been pretty disappointing.

Stratego!

Plus if you are clever you can turn some of the dumb ones into drinking games...Candyland pretty much sucks after you turn 5 untill it becomes Brandyland...trying to make it to gumdrop mountain about 7 times before you pass out is a pretty good accomplishment.