• Twilight Struggle (iPad only)
  
  
  
  

  quote:

  Twilight Struggle is a two-player game simulating the forty-five year dance of intrigue, prestige, and occasional flares of warfare between the Soviet Union and the United States. The entire world is the stage on which these two titans fight to make the world safe for their own ideologies and ways of life. The game begins amidst the ruins of Europe as the two new "superpowers" scramble over the wreckage of the Second World War, and ends in 1989, when only the United States remained standing.
  
  Twilight Struggle inherits its fundamental systems from the card-driven classics We the People and Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage. It is a quick-playing, low-complexity game in that tradition. The game map is a world map of the period, whereon players move units and exert influence in attempts to gain allies and control for their superpower. As with GMT's other card-driven games, decision-making is a challenge; how to best use one's cards and units given consistently limited resources?
  
  Twilight Struggle's Event cards add detail and flavor to the game. They cover a vast array of historical happenings, from the Arab-Israeli conflicts of 1948 and 1967, to Vietnam and the U.S. peace movement, to the Cuban Missile Crisis and other such incidents that brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation. Subsystems capture the prestige-laden Space Race as well as nuclear tensions, with the possibility of game-ending nuclear war.

  Twilight Strategy is a good resource for players of all skill levels to get some insight into general strategies and specific points of interest for many of the cards in the game.
  
  
• Glass Road (iPad only)
  
  
  
  

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  In Glass Road, you will produce glass and bricks and collect wood, clay and many other resources to build buildings and create your own landscape.
  To accomplish this task, you will need the help of a variety of specialists. You have to choose 5 of them in every round but when choosing your specialists, try to anticipate which ones your opponents will choose to use your own more effectively. So carefully choose cards that you think no other player will choose to use them more effectively, but also choose some that you think will be played by other players to benefit from that as well.

• Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer
  
  
  
  

  quote:

  Ascension is a deck-building game in which players spend Runes to acquire more powerful cards for their deck. It offers a dynamic play experience where players have to react and adjust their strategy accordingly. Each player starts with a small deck of cards, and uses those cards to acquire more and better cards for their deck, with the goal of earning the most Honor Points by gaining cards and defeating monsters.

  
  
• Carcassonne
  
  
  
  

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  Carcassonne is a tile-placement game in which the players draw and place a tile with a piece of southern French landscape on it. The tile might feature a city, a road, a cloister, grassland or some combination thereof, and it must be placed adjacent to tiles that have already been played, in such a way that cities are connected to cities, roads to roads, etcetera. Having placed a tile, the player can then decide to place one of his meeples on one of the areas on it: on the city as a knight, on the road as a robber, on a cloister as a monk, or on the grass as a farmer. When that area is complete, that meeple scores points for its owner.
  
  During a game of Carcassonne, players are faced with decisions like: "Is it really worth putting my last meeple there?" or "Should I use this tile to expand my city, or should I place it near my opponent instead, giving him a hard time to complete his project and score points?" Since players place only one tile and have the option to place one meeple on it, turns proceed quickly even if it is a game full of options and possibilities.

  
  
• Lost Cities (iPhone only)
  
  
  
  

  quote:

  The object of the game is to gain points by mounting profitable archaeological expeditions to the different sites represented by the 5 colors. On a player's turn they must always first play one card, either to an expedition or by discarding it to the appropriate discard pile, and then draw one card. There is a separate discard pile for each color and a player may draw the top card of any discard pile or the top card of the deck. Cards played to expeditions must be in ascending order but they need not be consecutive.
  
  The game continues in this fashion with players alternating turns until the final card is taken from the draw pile. The rest of the cards in hand are then discarded and players score their expeditions. Expeditions start at a value of -20 so you must play at least 20 points of cards into an expedition in order to make a profit.

• Agricola
  
  
  
  

  quote:

  In Agricola, you're a farmer in a wooden shack with your spouse and little else. On a turn, you get to take only two actions, one for you and one for the spouse, from all the possibilities you'll find on a farm: collecting clay, wood, or stone; building fences; and so on. You might think about having kids in order to get more work accomplished, but first you need to expand your house. And what are you going to feed all the little rugrats?

  
  
• Le Havre
  
  
  
  

  quote:

  In Le Havre, a player’s turn consists of two parts: First, distribute newly supplied goods onto the offer spaces; then take an action. As an action, players may choose either to take all goods of one type from an offer space or to use one of the available buildings. Building actions allow players to upgrade goods, sell them or use them to build their own buildings and ships. Buildings are both an investment opportunity and a revenue stream, as players must pay an entry fee to use buildings that they do not own. Ships, on the other hand, are primarily used to provide the food that is needed to feed the workers.
  
  After every seven turns, the round ends: players’ cattle and grain may multiply through a Harvest, and players must feed their workers. After a fixed number of rounds, each player may carry out one final action, and then the game ends. Players add the value of their buildings and ships to their cash reserves. The player who has amassed the largest fortune is the winner.

  
  
• Lords of Waterdeep
  
  
  
  

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  In Lords of Waterdeep, a strategy board game for 2-5 players, you take on the role of one of the masked Lords of Waterdeep, secret rulers of the city. Through your agents, you recruit adventurers to go on quests on your behalf, earning rewards and increasing your influence over the city. Expand the city by purchasing new buildings that open up new actions on the board, and hinder – or help – the other lords by playing Intrigue cards to enact your carefully laid plans.

  
  
• Patchwork
  
  
  
  

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  In Patchwork, two players compete to build the most aesthetic (and high-scoring) patchwork quilt on a personal 9x9 game board. On a turn, a player either purchases one of the three patches standing clockwise of the spool or passes. To purchase a patch, you pay the cost in buttons shown on the patch, advance your time token on the time track a number of spaces equal to the time shown on the patch, move the spool to that patch's location in the circle, then add the patch to your game board. You're free to place the patch anywhere on your board that doesn't overlap other patches, but you probably want to fit things together as tightly as possible. If your time token is behind or on top of the other player's time token, then you take another turn; otherwise the opponent now goes. Instead of purchasing a patch, you can choose to pass; to do this, you move your time token to the space immediately in front of the opponent's time token, then take one button from the bank for each space you moved.

  
  
• Small World (iPad only)
  
  
  
  

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  In Small World, players vie for conquest and control of a world that is simply too small to accommodate them all.
  
  On each turn, you either use the multiple tiles of your chosen race (type of creatures) to occupy adjacent (normally) territories - possibly defeating weaker enemy races along the way, or you give up on your race letting it go "into decline". A race in decline is designated by flipping the tiles over to their black-and-white side.
  
  At the end of your turn, you score one point (coin) for each territory your races occupy. You may have one active race and one race in decline on the board at the same time. Your occupation total can vary depend on the special abilities of your race and the territories they occupy. After the final round, the player with the most coins wins.

• Caylus
  
  
  
  

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  The players embody master builders. By building the King's castle and developing the city around it, they earn prestige points and gain the King's favor. When the castle is finished, the player who has earned the most prestige wins the game.
  
  Each turn, players pay to place their workers in various buildings in the village. These buildings allow players to gather resources or money, or to build or upgrade buildings with those resources. Players can also use their resources to help build the castle itself, earning points and favors from the king, which provide larger bonuses. Building a building provides some immediate points, and potentially income throughout the game, since players receive bonuses when others use their buildings. The buildings chosen by the players have a heavy impact on the course of the game, since they determine the actions that will be available to all the players.

  
  
• Dominion (iPad only)
  
  
  
  

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  In Dominion, each player starts with an identical, very small deck of cards. In the center of the table is a selection of other cards the players can "buy" as they can afford them. Through their selection of cards to buy, and how they play their hands as they draw them, the players construct their deck on the fly, striving for the most efficient path to the precious victory points by game end.
  
  Dominion is not a CCG, but the play of the game is similar to the construction and play of a CCG deck. The game comes with 500 cards. You select 10 of the 25 Kingdom card types to include in any given play—leading to immense variety.

  Bullbar posted:

  Ugh Dominion just looks like a cheap Tanto Cuore knock off with the amazing theme removed
  

  
  
• Eclipse: New Dawn for the Galaxy (iPad only)
  
  
  
  

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  A game of Eclipse places you in control of a vast interstellar civilization, competing for success with its rivals. You will explore new star systems, research technologies, and build spaceships to wage war with. There are many potential paths to victory, so you need to plan your strategy according to the strengths and weaknesses of your species, while paying attention to the other civilizations' endeavors.

  
  
• Galaxy Trucker (iPad only)
  Galaxy Trucker Pocket (iPhone only)
  
  
  
  

  quote:

  Galaxy Trucker is a tile laying game that plays out over two phases: building and flying. The goal is to have the most credits at the end of the game. You can earn credits by delivering goods, defeating pirates, building an efficient ship, and being the furthest along the track at the end of the flying phase.

  
  
• Neuroshima Hex
  Neuroshima Hex Puzzle (Single player)
  
  
  
  

  quote:

  Neuroshima Hex! is a strategy game set in the post-apocalyptic world of Neuroshima, a Polish role-playing game. Each player leads one of four armies: Borgo, Hegemonia (Hegemony), Moloch, and Posterunek (Outpost). Each army deck consists of 34 tiles: soldiers, support tiles, and special actions. You win when all enemy headquarters are destroyed or when your headquarters is the least damaged at the end of the game.

  
  
• Pandemic
  
  
  
  

  quote:

  In Pandemic, several virulent diseases have broken out simultaneously all over the world! The players are disease-fighting specialists whose mission is to treat disease hotspots while researching cures for each of four plagues before they get out of hand.
  
  The game board depicts several major population centers on Earth. On each turn, a player can use up to four actions to travel between cities, treat infected populaces, discover a cure, or build a research station. A deck of cards provides the players with these abilities, but sprinkled throughout this deck are Epidemic! cards that accelerate and intensify the diseases' activity. A second, separate deck of cards controls the "normal" spread of the infections.
  
  Taking a unique role within the team, players must plan their strategy to mesh with their specialists' strengths in order to conquer the diseases. For example, the Operations Expert can build research stations which are needed to find cures for the diseases and which allow for greater mobility between cities; the Scientist needs only four cards of a particular disease to cure it instead of the normal five—but the diseases are spreading quickly and time is running out. If one or more diseases spreads beyond recovery or if too much time elapses, the players all lose. If they cure the four diseases, they all win!

  
  
• Ticket to Ride
  
  
  
  

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  With elegantly simple gameplay, Ticket to Ride can be learned in under 15 minutes, while providing players with intense strategic and tactical decisions every turn. Players collect cards of various types of train cars they then use to claim railway routes in North America. The longer the routes, the more points they earn. Additional points come to those who fulfill Destination Tickets – goal cards that connect distant cities; and to the player who builds the longest continuous route.

• Pocket Tactics is a really good iOS game review site that covers premium-grade games and ignores the dross. They don’t exclusively cover board games, but any new board game releases are very likely to show up there. You might also want to check out iPad Board Games, the 'Board' category at TouchArcade, or @iosboardgames on Twitter.
  
  
• Board Game Arena is a browser-based way to play a surprisingly large number of titles, many of which don’t have standalone apps. It doesn’t use Flash, so you should be able to use your iBlob just fine.
  
  
• There’s a regular board game thread for general discussion of games without digital ports. Also check out Board Game Geek for all the information you could want on any game ever.
  
  
• Quickpull has done a great post about the best chess apps available for iOS. If you're more into Go, I can recommend either the free PandaNet app for live games against humans, or the not-free (but very good) SmartGo Player to play an AI. If you have a hot tip on another 'classic' board game you are interested in, make a post - if there's interest, I'll dedicate a separate section to them.
  
  
• Did I mention the GroupMe app and the goon chat group? Click those links, you goof!
  

TACD fucked around with this message at 10:22 on Jun 26, 2016

• Galaxy of Trian
  
  
  
  

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  Galaxy of Trian is a dynamic tile-based sci-fi board game. During the game you take command over one of a few opposing races, fighting over a territory and technology left by a powerful race Trian. You have at your disposal few kinds of basic units and spaceships allowing a great deal of interaction. Different types of ships will come with the new add-ons. Tiles are two-sided and stacked into two piles during the game, which gives more tactical possibilities and, at the same time, limits randomness. Special tiles, like teleport, exmitter or trade station increase level of interaction and give even more tactical possibilities.

  Galaxy of Trian should be out June 30th.
  
  
• Codenames
  
  
  
  

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  Two rival spymasters know the secret identities of 25 agents. Their teammates know the agents only by their CODENAMES.
  
  In Codenames, two teams compete to see who can make contact with all of their agents first. Spymasters give one-word clues that can point to multiple words on the board. Their teammates try to guess words of the right color while avoiding those that belong to the opposing team. And everyone wants to avoid the assassin.

  
  
• Through The Ages
  
  
  
  

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  Through the Ages is a civilization building game. Each player attempts to build the best civilization through careful resource management, discovering new technologies, electing the right leaders, building wonders and maintaining a strong military. Weakness in any area can be exploited by your opponents. The game takes place throughout the ages beginning in the age of antiquity and ending in the modern age.

  You can read a bit more about these two here. Through the Ages is going to be huge if it's done well. I've spent entire days playing the cardboard version of this.
  
  
• Tokaido
  
  
  
  

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  In Tokaido, each player is a traveler crossing the "East sea road", one of the most magnificent roads of Japan. While traveling, you will meet people, taste fine meals, collect beautiful items, discover great panoramas, and visit temples and wild places but at the end of the day, when everyone has arrived at the end of the road you'll have to be the most initiated traveler – which means that you'll have to be the one who discovered the most interesting and varied things.

  Tokaido was shown off at Origins earlier this year.
  
  
• Agricola: All Creatures Big And Small
  
  
  
  

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  Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small is a new take on Uwe Rosenberg's Agricola designed for exactly two players and focused only on the animal husbandry aspect of that game. So long plows and veggies!

  Here's a bit more info on this one.

TACD fucked around with this message at 10:23 on Jun 26, 2016