HACKER Q&A
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Which deep board and card games do you know/recommend?


I love playing tactically and/or strategically deep board/card games. I have played chess, Go, checkers, skat, poker and many TCGs such as Magic the Gathering. I have once tried Bridge but playing/learning it online seemed not so great.

I still play chess regularly but none of the others for different reasons. In general I am looking for non-TCG games where you always play with the same play set of cards/pieces. TCGs can also be very entertaining but they always need new sets and investments to stay interesting whereas games such as chess just work forever.

Do you have any other suggestions? I'd prefer if it is possible to play online since I just don't have the time to go to clubs anymore.

  👤 AlDante2 Accepted Answer ✓
If you like chess and Go, then give contract bridge another shot. It’s probably easier to learn at a club than online. Like chess and Go, you can play bridge at any level, from casual to all-consuming.

If there is no club near you, then pick up a book - I learned from Ben Cohen and Rhoda Lederer’s “All about Acol”. A little later, read Terence Reese’s “The Play of the Cards”.

If, rather than dive in, you want some motivation, read Victor Mollo’s “Bridge in the Menagerie” series or David Bird’s books about the Abbot and the monks of St Titus. Both highly entertaining reads that give more of the flavour of why bridge is enormous fun than any textbook can. (Although Rhoda Lederer’s version of Hamlet’s soliloquy is a very creditable effort )

👤 silentsea90
I love Carcassonne on Board Game Arena. It is much lighter than chess and takes 15-20 mins in a 2p game, but still offers enough challenge. There's excellent balance between trying to screw the other player (by stealing their roads, cities, blocking cities etc) and making your own points by completing your roads, cities etc. There's certainly an element of luck in terms of tiles you get in your hands so it doesn't always work out but it is 20% luck imo, and evens out across games. Also, it works incredibly well from 2 to 3 players, but 4 or more gets more luck based for me at least. 2 and 3p games are dramatically different in strategy, with 3p games being about competing and collaborating simultaneously at different places on the board - which is so much fun! Lots of trickery, probability and fun figuring out the best moves
👤 impendia
I love Hanabi. It is a cooperative card game, where you're not allowed to look at your own hand. Communication between players is constrained to things like pointing to all your partner's blue cards and saying "these cards are blue". What makes it deep is not only considering "what did my partner just tell me", but also "why did my partner tell this now". Indeed all sorts of wacky conventions are possible.

It plays well online if you can arrange to play with the same people repeatedly.

👤 demircancelebi
I might suggest taking a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tafl_games Very simple to learn but interesting anyway.

Disclaimer: I have a website where you can play it: https://litafl.com/

👤 ttpphd
I think you would really enjoy the game Codex.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/131111/codex-card-time-s...