I wasn’t really enarmored by the solo play, but I only have the Nemesis solo card. It doesn’t feel like playing the game at all, because the Nemesis is just something that punishes you every turn and you try desperately to survive. It’s not the back-and-forth you would have with a real opponent or even the AI from the app. It is very puzzly, so normally would be something I enjoy, but in the case of the Nemesis it is just too punishing. And quite a few abilities of your cards just plain don’t matter (anything related to opponent discard). Felt more “meh” than “yay” to me.

I wasn’t really enarmored by the solo play, but I only have the Nemesis solo card. It doesn’t feel like playing the game at all, because the Nemesis is just something that punishes you every turn and you try desperately to survive. It’s not the back-and-forth you would have with a real opponent or even the AI from the app. It is very puzzly, so normally would be something I enjoy, but in the case of the Nemesis it is just too punishing. And quite a few abilities of your cards just plain don’t matter (anything related to opponent discard). Felt more “meh” than “yay” to me.

San Juan works fine on smaller tables if you are just two players. And even with more players, the needes space is essentially a way to put down up to 12 cards per player, so kinda like what a dining set requires. And the already suggested Jaipur works fine in cramped quarters – I played it on the plane with my wife during a long flight. Another one you could play with two is Tide of Times, but that’s a two-person filler. If you ditch the score board and replace it by some D10 to count culture and victory points, you can get Nations: The Dice Game to play on some astonishingly small area. Valley of the Kings doesn’t take up much space, either, and is a fun deck builder (and there are two versions of it out, so you get quite a bit of replayability by mixing sets). And my wife and I play Paperback on a smallish balcony table without big problems, but that’s probably stretching it a bit – I wouldn’t even think about playing that on a train table for example, while the others shouldn’t pose a big problem there (especially VotK or San Juan). For dice games, get a dice tray – that helps keep the footprint small and prevents bumping stuff out of places by rolling dice.

San Juan works fine on smaller tables if you are just two players. And even with more players, the needes space is essentially a way to put down up to 12 cards per player, so kinda like what a dining set requires. And the already suggested Jaipur works fine in cramped quarters – I played it on the plane with my wife during a long flight. Another one you could play with two is Tide of Times, but that’s a two-person filler. If you ditch the score board and replace it by some D10 to count culture and victory points, you can get Nations: The Dice Game to play on some astonishingly small area. Valley of the Kings doesn’t take up much space, either, and is a fun deck builder (and there are two versions of it out, so you get quite a bit of replayability by mixing sets). And my wife and I play Paperback on a smallish balcony table without big problems, but that’s probably stretching it a bit – I wouldn’t even think about playing that on a train table for example, while the others shouldn’t pose a big problem there (especially VotK or San Juan). For dice games, get a dice tray – that helps keep the footprint small and prevents bumping stuff out of places by rolling dice.

Well, I don’t use plays as the only deciding factor for the same reason – my wife dislikes fantasy and scifi themes and so those games won’t see play with her. But for example I had Paperback on a 7 rating for a long time until I realised, that I actually like to get it out with any random group of players, because I can teach it in the first two rounds and then play it with noobs and still have lot of fun. And it is probably the number one game I get asked to bring when people know it already, and I totally don’t mind and am even happy to do so.

Sure, in the overall theme of things, it is a rather standard deck builder with some twists and a rater abstract theme (essentially themeless word building), so it wouldn’t be something to give top ratings. But the amount of fun from actually playing makes it a solid 9 for me now.

I still will keep Mage Knight on a 9, even if I only rarely play it, because when I do, I almost celebrate that occasion and it is something I look forward to the I know my wife is out for a full day. And there are some other exceptions like that, where a good rating doesn’t go with higher play counts, but for games I played at least 5 tomes, I think it is valid to bump ratings up or down based on play numbers.

Well, I don’t use plays as the only deciding factor for the same reason – my wife dislikes fantasy and scifi themes and so those games won’t see play with her. But for example I had Paperback on a 7 rating for a long time until I realised, that I actually like to get it out with any random group of players, because I can teach it in the first two rounds and then play it with noobs and still have lot of fun. And it is probably the number one game I get asked to bring when people know it already, and I totally don’t mind and am even happy to do so.

Sure, in the overall theme of things, it is a rather standard deck builder with some twists and a rater abstract theme (essentially themeless word building), so it wouldn’t be something to give top ratings. But the amount of fun from actually playing makes it a solid 9 for me now.

I still will keep Mage Knight on a 9, even if I only rarely play it, because when I do, I almost celebrate that occasion and it is something I look forward to the I know my wife is out for a full day. And there are some other exceptions like that, where a good rating doesn’t go with higher play counts, but for games I played at least 5 tomes, I think it is valid to bump ratings up or down based on play numbers.

I actually started to take plays into account when rating games a while ago. Before that switch, some of my 9 ratings were games I hoped to play whenever asked to play, but never got asked for. Rather pointless if the game I have played over 100 times only sitting at a 7 when obviously I was willing to play that game whenever asked, because I got asked to play it very often 😉

In the end some games made it up to the deserved 9 rating just on the fact that I play them so much (Progress: Evolution of Technology is the one with over 100 plays and Paperback has almost 60), while some “whish someone would ask me to play” games went down to 8 or 7.

This is especially true with soloable games where I noticed I don’t pull them out, because setup complexity or rules fiddlyness – and instead other games get played by me. I thought it being silly to rate those rare-playing solo games higher if even I myself without any outside influences obviously don’t like them enough to pull them out more regularly.

I actually started to take plays into account when rating games a while ago. Before that switch, some of my 9 ratings were games I hoped to play whenever asked to play, but never got asked for. Rather pointless if the game I have played over 100 times only sitting at a 7 when obviously I was willing to play that game whenever asked, because I got asked to play it very often 😉

In the end some games made it up to the deserved 9 rating just on the fact that I play them so much (Progress: Evolution of Technology is the one with over 100 plays and Paperback has almost 60), while some “whish someone would ask me to play” games went down to 8 or 7.

This is especially true with soloable games where I noticed I don’t pull them out, because setup complexity or rules fiddlyness – and instead other games get played by me. I thought it being silly to rate those rare-playing solo games higher if even I myself without any outside influences obviously don’t like them enough to pull them out more regularly.

Can vouch for Wir sind das Volk being a god game of two hours length. It has some specifics wit regards to game feel, though, that makes it a bit different from TS. It feels more like a economic simulation than a political struggle to me, due to the high focus on economic factors for the Western Germany player and the interactions feel more like petty kicks to the shin than big global struggles for power. But then all of that is perfectly embedded in its theme, Germany rivalry during the cold war was mostly “petty kicks to the shin”. Scope of the theme is smaller and you feel it in play, but that play still is great.