Most Popular Board Games For Beginners
Most Popular Board Games for Beginners
Most popular board games for beginners! Tired of sitting on the couch by yourself playing Dark Souls for the tenth time? Do you want a new hobby that boosts your social life? Board gaming is the hobby you are looking for. Below is a short list of the most popular board games for new people to the hobby in my opinion.
5 Most Popular Board Games for Beginners
1. Catan
The first game I purchased was Settlers of Catan. Its name has since changed to Catan.
The premise is simple. You roll the dice and the players may or may not collect resources. The active player builds and develops his city. You can trade with players and there is some “take that” with a robber that moves around to steal and block resource collection. Settlements, cities, longest road, largest army, and development cards all provide points. The first person to ten points wins.
I played this game a lot when I first got it. The family loved it. We regularly held game nights, and I believe it brought us closer. My mom always used to say “bored” games, and we would have a good chuckle. She soon came to love it as well, but not as much as the next one on the list.
2. Ticket To Ride and Ticket To Ride Europe
I said Catan was a hit for family members, but the rules were still slightly lengthy and complex for a person with zero gaming experience. Enter Ticket To Ride Europe. Now don’t get me wrong, Ticket To Ride Europe is more complex than the original Ticket To Ride. So if you want the simplest version, pick up Ticket To Ride or Ticket To Ride – Play With Alexa.
I however went with Ticket To Ride Europe as it had the bigger train cards. I have relatively big hands, so the thought of tiny cards put me off. There is a version that comes with the 1910 expansion that has the bigger train cards.
Now, I won’t get into all the caveats* here, but the gist of the rules in the original game is the following. On your turn, you either draw two train card, claim a route of the matching card colors, or draw new destination tickets. Now surely it is not that simple? Yes it is and that is why the game is still selling like hot cakes to this day.
The Europe version adds some mechanics with train stations, tunnels, and ferries. And to be honest, that was always the more challenging part to explain to new people, but it was a hit nonetheless. I still play this game with the family to this day.
* If you draw a face up locomotive (multi colored) train card you can only draw one card.
3. Carcassonne
Carcassonne is an interesting one on this list for me. It had its time and place on the table and it is still in my collection to this day. It does not hit the table as often, but it is still a game I recommend to new people in the hobby. Why is that? Once again the simple rule-set and ease of introducing to new people. You pick and place a tile, decide to add a meeple, and score accordingly. The meeple can be a thief (highwayman), knight, monk, or farmer. The farmer concept and scoring was always a difficult one to introduce to new people, so I would often leave it out until later games.
You tally up the score when the tiles run out, and the person with the highest score wins. It is a simple concept, and a lot of fun to watch as the tiles construct a beautiful looking city. This is definitely one to pick up if you are couple looking for something to do together that is not a new series on Netflix.
4. Dominion
Magic the Gathering has been a passion of mine since the age of 12. My brother introduced me to the game, and I fell in love with it straight away. Magic was all I knew before board games came into my life, so obviously I looked into games that would be similar, but not as costly.
Dominion, the big daddy of deck-builders took the board gaming world by storm when it first released. All the cards you needed were in the box. There were no blind booster packs. Two (my recommendation) to four people build their deck up trying to generate the best point buying machine they could muster. You can even curse your opponents with negative points while doing this. I recommend picking up some sleeves with this one, as your cards will get a lot of wear and tear on them.
There have been many more deck builders since the release of dominion, but this is still the first one I would recommend to new players.
5. Stone Age
I know stone age might be the odd one out on this list. I just had to put it on though. This is the quintessential worker placement board game that I think all board game players should own. You place workers, make babies, roll dice, collect resources, and so much more. It even comes with a funky “leather” cup. I remember the first edition cups had a weird aroma to them. I am not sure if that is the case anymore. Pick this one up now. I promise you will not regret it.
On a side note. A friend who I had introduced to the hobby with Catan introduced this one to me. He has gone on to own over 300 board games now, all because I introduced him to Catan. So either I introduced him to a world of fun, or cost him an extraordinary amount of money, haha. Either way, the credit is due to him for showing me this one.
Conclusion to Most Popular Board Games for Beginners
I really believe starting out with the games listed above will be a good starting point for any new person to the hobby of board gaming. They are the games I often promote by word of mouth and I have not heard a bad thing yet.
There are so many other games I could talk about, but this is my list of five games I would still recommend.
I hope you enjoyed reading this. Let me know down in the comments below what I can improve upon, or what you enjoyed.
More about me here and at boardgamegeek. Peace, Denver.
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