h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You keep learning stuff around here.

My 2-player board game collection is currently being threatened with eviction (except the ones the missus actually enjoys playing, natch), and when I brought home a second-hand box of Dungeons & Dragons I was warned not to even take the lid off for fear of divorce.

On reflection, I am quite happy to remain a D&D virgin, despite a brief dabble with Hero Quest in my youth.

The current bete noire in our household is Memoir 44, which I adore, but she is refusing to play with me.

B

I'm a sanctioned RPGA DM, however I used to play/DM with the old red and blue boxes when I was supposed to be using 3Ed so I might have gotten that taken off me if WoTC had ever found out. I just got a copy of Diplomacy for £1 but I'm not overly impressed so it may end up on ebay.

Still got HQ and Advanced HQ somewhere.

Hmm...I had an abandware version of Diplomacy for Windows which was excellent. Might be worth digging that out.

B

I'm quite lucky, I've recently met a bloke who plays some of the games I used to play back when I lived in civilisation Got to try to arrange a gaming session or two

Dipomacy is one of the few ganes that is much better played online- in fact, I was thinking of setting up a new email based game at some point. You guys want in? I haven't any other players yet though.

http://realpolitik.sourceforge.net/ is where I'd get my copy from. It means you can play across different maps and such rather than only the original board too- there's even a four player varient which tends to be pretty quick! I like it because it's easy to plan moves in advance, second guess your opponents, etc etc and then reset the board back to current with a couple of clicks.

Any 2-player games that you'd recommend, B? Most of mine are 3+ and at the moment we have nobody to play with. It's mostly Scrabble and Crib for us these days.

God, yes.

Look for the Kosmos series of 2-player games: all fairly cheap at around £11. They've all got merit, but I can particularly recommend Caesar & Cleopatra, Hera & Zeus, Dracula, Babel, Kahuna and Jambo.

Carcassonne is excellent with two, and there is a smaller simpler version called Fjords which is excellent too.

Memoir '44 comes highly recommended; Goa is a four-player, but plays very well with two.

Polarity is a superb game, if slightly crazy.

B

I'd recommend stratego for two player goodness or car wars, I could email you mini car wars

Oh and the zombies games from cheapass are normally quite good

Carcasonne I know and love, but I shall look out for the others, thanks!

Zombies... are they the card games?

Mini car wars sounds good to me: I'm at gmail dot com, and the name is laurabarrance. Mangles for spiders, as usual.

Cheap ass are at http://www.cheapass.com/products/index.html and they even have free stuff. Games Workshop have some of their old games available free too.

I'll go and search out mini carwars and then send it to you...just don't tell Steve Jackson

Found and sent, hope you like it, it cost me a whole 50p new

Thanks! I won't have a chance to look at it right away, but I got it no problems.

Hurrah!

I've played some cheapass games in the past; never bought any, mind you.

B

Considering the price they are very good

If anyone's even remotely interested, when I say collection I mean this http://www.boardgamegeek.com/collection/user/gaspode

Ooh! Is Thud any good?

I've been pondering it for a while, but the missus isn't too hot at chess, so I think she'd get bored quickly.

B

It's not bad, you have to play two rounds per game, switching sides between rounds. The rules are on the Thud website so you could, theoretically, make your own set to try out the game.

I finally picked up Thud, by the by. It's not bad.

B