The Town of Odyssey

Hey, guys.

What are your favorite board games? Especially interested in learning about cooperative games, but glad to hear about all your favorites.

Settlers of Catan, easily.

Monty_Whittaker wrote:Settlers of Catan, easily.

lol Yeah, that's a great one.

You know I've never yet played the physical game, though? I own it on my phone and have played it with lots of people hot seat-style that way. I think it would probably be more enjoyable with the physical game, though, because when you're passing a phone around, a large amount of the time you're just twiddling your fingers until you can see the board again. This is especially a problem when you're playing with people who have a serious competitive streak. The icy silence while they stare at the phone is painful.

Oooh board games.. Some of my favorites include Clue, Risk, The Farming Game, Monopoly , Tsuro, and so on.
For coop games Castle Panic is a fun one.

Old Brad wrote:Oooh board games.. Some of my favorites include Clue, Risk, The Farming Game, Monopoly , Tsuro, and so on.
For coop games Castle Panic is a fun one.

I love Monopoly, too! Any game that lets you make free-form deals with other players is fine in my book. I can't play with my siblings, though. They're too kind and trusting for my play style. It's not good for our relationships.

The Farming Game, huh? Is that this one? What's the game like?

Clue and Monopoly are childhood favourites. I'm not very competitive and I'm not very interested in learning new games or playing with people who care a lot about gaming so I don't play board games very often, but it is fun now and then. A cooperative game that I've heard a few game-appreciating friends discuss is Pandemic, where you have to work together and is apparently quite fun.

NatetheGreat wrote: The Farming Game, huh? Is that this one? What's the game like?

Yes it is! Do you want a basic or detailed explanation?

Catspaw wrote:Clue and Monopoly are childhood favourites. I'm not very competitive and I'm not very interested in learning new games or playing with people who care a lot about gaming so I don't play board games very often, but it is fun now and then. A cooperative game that I've heard a few game-appreciating friends discuss is Pandemic, where you have to work together and is apparently quite fun.

Yes, Pandemic is on my list to try!

I personally don't mind competition, as long as people are still good-natured and having fun. But when people are just laser-focused on winning, it kills the fun in even my favorite games.

Old Brad wrote:

NatetheGreat wrote: The Farming Game, huh? Is that this one? What's the game like?

Yes it is! Do you want a basic or detailed explanation?

Detailed, of course.

NatetheGreat wrote:

Old Brad wrote:

NatetheGreat wrote: The Farming Game, huh? Is that this one? What's the game like?

Yes it is! Do you want a basic or detailed explanation?

Detailed, of course.

Alright, you asked for it!


You start off with your farm, a few acres of hay and grain, and $5,000. The board goes through the calendar year and harvest your crops and collect O.T.B's (Option to Buy's). You can buy more crops (including hay, grain, and fruit trees, livestock, farm equipment, and ridges (allows you to have more cows than what you have on your farm). You are limited to when you can buy stuff though, you have to have the O.T.B. for it, and you can only buy stuff in between Christmas Vacation and Spring planting (one side of the board).

Besides O.T.B's, there are also Farmer's Fate cards and Operating expense cards. Farmer's Fate is similar to chance in monopoly; they might be something good like Uncle Bert dying and leaving you his tractor, or they could be bad like DDT getting into your cattle feed and you losing all the cows on your farm (if you have a ridge, those cows are safe). Operating expense comes into play when you are harvesting your crops.

When harvesting your crops, you roll a die and consult the harvest rate chart. That goes off of how many acres you have of the designated crop type and how high your dice roll was. For example if you have 10 acres of hay and you roll a 3, you get $1,000. Once you do that, you draw an operating expense card to see what that harvest cost you. If it cost you more than you're supposed to get, you pay the difference.

According to the rules whoever gets to $250,000 wins, but when my family would play we just played for a while then calculated how much our farm was worth to see who won.

Old Brad wrote:

NatetheGreat wrote:

Old Brad wrote:

NatetheGreat wrote: The Farming Game, huh? Is that this one? What's the game like?

Yes it is! Do you want a basic or detailed explanation?

Detailed, of course.

Alright, you asked for it!


You start off with your farm, a few acres of hay and grain, and $5,000. The board goes through the calendar year and harvest your crops and collect O.T.B's (Option to Buy's). You can buy more crops (including hay, grain, and fruit trees, livestock, farm equipment, and ridges (allows you to have more cows than what you have on your farm). You are limited to when you can buy stuff though, you have to have the O.T.B. for it, and you can only buy stuff in between Christmas Vacation and Spring planting (one side of the board).

Besides O.T.B's, there are also Farmer's Fate cards and Operating expense cards. Farmer's Fate is similar to chance in monopoly; they might be something good like Uncle Bert dying and leaving you his tractor, or they could be bad like DDT getting into your cattle feed and you losing all the cows on your farm (if you have a ridge, those cows are safe). Operating expense comes into play when you are harvesting your crops.

When harvesting your crops, you roll a die and consult the harvest rate chart. That goes off of how many acres you have of the designated crop type and how high your dice roll was. For example if you have 10 acres of hay and you roll a 3, you get $1,000. Once you do that, you draw an operating expense card to see what that harvest cost you. If it cost you more than you're supposed to get, you pay the difference.

According to the rules whoever gets to $250,000 wins, but when my family would play we just played for a while then calculated how much our farm was worth to see who won.

That sounds super fun! Definitely adding it to my wish list.

Great Cooperative Games include:
Forbidden Island. Forbidden Desert. (There's also Forbidden Sky that just came out, but I have yet to play it, so I'll have to give my review at a later date). Pandemic (and all the expansions/extensions/other iterations of the game are equally as, if not more fun than the original). Hanabi (incredibly difficult and frustrating if you're playing with impulsive people ). Betrayal at House on the Hill starts out as cooperative, but then one player "betrays" the others halfway through, and starts working against them.

Some of my favorite competitive games include:
Settlers of Catan (and all subsequent expansions, extensions, and iterations), though one of my favorite iterations of the game is Settlers of America; Trails to Rails. Splendor. Machi Koro. Power Grid (and all subsequent expansions, extensions, and iterations), which has been one of my absolute favorites, as of late. Carcasonne (and all subsequent expansions, extensions, and iterations), very simple base game, but the expansions can make it really cutthroat and fun. Ticket to Ride (and all subsequent expansions, extensions, and iterations) is fun, but a little too simplistic and monotonous for my tastes, even with the later iterations/expansions.

There are so many others that I enjoy that just aren't coming to mind right now. I will update my reccomendations list as I think of them.

~JCGJ~ wrote:Settlers of Catan (and all subsequent expansions, extensions, and iterations), though one of my favorite iterations of the game is Settlers of America; Trails to Rails.

Do you have a favorite expansion? My siblings and I really like the game, and I’m thinking of buying one for Christmas.

Ticket to Ride!!!