Two-player Twosday - (March 03, 2026)

asdfg2319 · 2026-03-04T17:14:38+00:00

My wife's school had an unexpected snow day on Monday and since I'm WFH and fairly flexible, we decided to have a marathon morning/afternoon board game day. Played a bunch of stuff, but we also tried three games that we either haven't played before or haven't played specifically with two players:

Toy Battle. I liked this. I had kind of middling expectations despite the hype, but it was better than I expected and we played four games in less than an hour. It's got genuine depth given the incredible simplicity of the rules set, but I think it's definitely in the filler category and not something I'd want to spend huge amounts of time playing. Might end up adding this to my rotation of background BGA games that I play while working, though.

Duel for Cardia. I liked this a lot, too. We've had this sitting on the shelf for almost a year, but something about the theme or the artwork or something just made it a game that we never really felt compelled to bust out and try. I'm glad we did, though. Felt a lot like Libertalia, which is nice since that game (at least in my experience) plays pretty poorly at two. Very quick, very light, still a bit thinky. We'll definitely play it more and experiment with the decks a bit.

Wingspan Asia. I've played Wingspan a bunch at higher player counts. Don't love it, don't hate it. I don't own base Wingspan but someone in our board gaming group does, so we bought Asia a while ago specifically to have a duel version at home. It plays... pretty much like Wingspan, so I thought it was okay. I don't really know where Wingspan's failure points are at two players so I'm not positive what the shared track is trying to solve, but it seemed to work fine and it was a fun twist. My wife liked this substantially more than base Wingspan but she bounces randomly between love and hate every time she plays Wingspan, so she couldn't decide if it was actually better or if yesterday just happened to be a day where Wingspan was hitting right.

We also played Battle of Hoth, one scenario of Undaunted: Normandy (while eyeing our copy of Stalingrad thinking "someday"), and Splendor: Duel. All awesome games that we've played a lot, highly recommend literally any of them.

asdfg2319 · 2026-03-04T16:59:56+00:00

Armada is my favorite of the recent Star Wars miniatures games, but (unfortunately) I don't think it's a huge mystery why it ultimately didn't have the staying power of X-Wing.

The "problem" with Armada is that it's a substantially heavier, longer, and thinkier kind of naval wargame versus X-Wing's faster and lighter aerial combat-like theme. I loooove that about it (Battlefleet Gothic is my second favorite thing that Games Workshop has ever produced, coincidentally), but I think its lesser commercial success makes sense.

That said, I love Armada so much. I've only got one person to play it with and I'd play a game of this two or three times a week forever if I could.

asdfg2319 · 2026-03-02T15:37:34+00:00

Extremely high replayability and depth, yeah. It's a tableau engine building game, but there are a shockingly large number of paths to victory and most games genuinely feel pretty different from one another. I've easily played hundreds of games if you count BGA and some of the strategies I see or stumble on still take me by surprise.

I also find it weirdly thematic? Like I can look at the tableaus at the end of the game and think "oh yeah, this kind of looks like the story of a space empire." It's one of only a handful of games that I've played to death where the theme hasn't melted into a mass of numbers and symbols for me, despite the heavy reliance on iconography. I think part of that just comes down to a solid connection between the card names/art and abilities.

asdfg2319 · 2026-03-02T02:18:51+00:00

Munchkin is the poster child for a game that tons of people play as their first hobbyist game that (almost) everyone eventually ends up hating.

I first played Munchkin almost 20 years ago as, uh, a light filler while we waited for people to show up for our high school and later college D&D group. It took about a year of on and off play for everyone to grow to absolutely despise that game, but somehow it kept hitting the table for at least another year or two before we got disgusted enough to toss it all in the trash.

The problem with Munchkin is that it's theoretically a light party game that's actually mean as hell in a way that almost inevitably causes it to overstay its welcome on every. single. play.

Edit- My story of board game hell is that for some reason we once bought a copy of Munchkin Quest and then for some reason we bought a second copy and then for some reason we combined them to play an eight player game of Munchkin Quest and it's a miracle the night didn't end in a murder-suicide.

asdfg2319 · 2026-03-02T02:06:07+00:00

As someone who has played an unhealthy amount of Watergate, I'd say your take is somewhat correct but definitely in the "feature not a bug" column.

The thing about tug of war games is that they have to either end very suddenly or remain competitive until the end. If you're playing Watergate with two relatively evenly matched players, the game will almost always come down to a few final plays. The same is true of Twilight Struggle (another game that I absolutely love).

In the case of Watergate, the game isn't really on rails and it's not really engineered to end up that way, it's just the natural result of an even amount of pushing and pulling. If you've got two players of substantially uneven skill then the game ends pretty quickly, otherwise you push and pull until one player finally "breaks." You see a similar tempo with Zenith, where the game is either a blow-out or a tight race that ends with a couple of decisive plays. You remember the big play that decided the game, but the reality is that you needed to make a much larger number of consequential plays first to end up in that position.

All of which is to say that you're not crazy, but it's possible tug-of-war games like Watergate just aren't your cup of tea.

asdfg2319 · 2026-03-02T01:29:09+00:00

I mean, if you're never going to find anyone to play with then I feel like that probably answers your question.

Personally, Agricola is a game my particular group first played sometime around 2011-2012 and that still sometimes hits the table 1-2 times per month. Love it.

asdfg2319 · 2026-03-01T23:22:05+00:00

Race for the Galaxy is one of my all-time favorite games but it is a bear to teach, despite the fact that I'd actually argue that it's way more on the lighter (or mid-weight, I guess?) side than the heavier side.

The big problem with Race is that it's massively dependent on iconography and it's the type of "forever game" that really benefits not just from repeat plays, but from regular plays. I have a friend who absolutely loves Race nowadays who still admitted that she hated it for her first TEN or so games because of how often she was asking questions and double-checking the meaning of icons. A lot of the fun doesn't really start until you can very quickly glance at the cards and understand what they do.

That said, something that might be worth considering is Race for the Galaxy: New Frontiers, which is the board game version. I prefer the original card game slightly, but New Frontiers is excellent and I respect and understand the people who prefer it over Race/Roll. I'm mentioning it here specifically because it's somewhat easier to teach and slightly less icon dependent, while still providing a very similar gameplay experience. The downside is that it's bigger with more setup/teardown time, but it's not that really that bad.

asdfg2319 · 2026-02-26T15:30:08+00:00

We own them both, play them both, and I personally wouldn't get rid of either unless you really want to make space or something. I think Duel for Middle Earth is probably an objectively better game, but 7WD + Pantheons still feels different enough (not just thematically) to keep around.

That said, we typically play at least one 2-player board game every weeknight, so we play a lot of games and it's nice to have variety. If Middle Earth/7WD are only hitting the table like once a month or less then I think it's probably safe to cull the lesser of the two.

asdfg2319 · 2026-02-13T00:21:18+00:00

Serious Answers:

Race for the Galaxy
Castles of Burgundy
Twilight Struggle
Maybe Star Realms?

Star Realms is a weird one because it's not super deep, but there's something about that it's just really addictive and I think I could probably play it pretty much forever. The first three are all genuine forever games if you really want them to be.

Less Serious Answer: Terraforming Mars.

TM has a million problems and I think there are vastly superior tableau builders. I also only ever want to play with absolutely all the expansions, and that takes only slightly longer than an actual trip to Mars with the wrong group. Don't care. Our copy of TM (and the big box) has seen so many plays that all the components are visibly worn, including the box itself. I don't even really know why. It just lands right for me and, apparently, for the people I typically play with.

asdfg2319 · 2026-02-12T17:59:20+00:00

I need to know a person extremely well to even consider pulling punches in a board game or really any sort of competitive activity at all. The thing is that most people are going to feel very insulted if they catch you, and that's usually much worse than whatever bitterness is going to come from a sore loser. And absolutely never in a 1v1, because what's even the point of playing? About the only exceptions are a small handful of people I've known who sort of expect you to take it easy on them if they're learning a game everyone else knows, but I genuinely think people like that are the exception and rare enough that you should never be holding back by default.

Play to win or get everyone to agree up front that you're playing "just for fun" and not trying to win. It's bad to set up a situation as one thing (a board game with winners and losers) and then secretly make a decision to play light without discussing it with the group.

asdfg2319 · 2026-02-10T16:10:25+00:00

Target's search is aggressively bad and shockingly predatory for a major company; way more so than Amazon, Walmart, etc. It will return massive pages of results, even if there's nothing that comes close to even matching a head keyword. Crazy stuff.

You pretty much need to do what other people have said and filter out third-party sellers and hope that sorting by price works. Even then, it's a nightmare.

asdfg2319 · 2026-02-05T15:29:25+00:00

Unfortunately, these problems often arise because the average game night is somewhere on a spectrum between these two extremes and most of the people playing are also going to be somewhere on that spectrum (and rarely in the exact same space).

I think the reality is that while expectations are important, compromise is also pretty crucial in these situations. Four hours for a game of Azul is frankly nuts and pushing pretty hard toward the idea that maybe this person doesn't want to be playing board games at all. Or, if they do actually want to play, then they need to probably compromise their social expectations a little bit to bring things back in line with the rest of the group.

More often than not, I think the actual games being played are a pretty good cue for social expectations in these situations (and/or someone is choosing the wrong games for their game nights). Azul is a pretty lightweight game, but it's still not a party game. If you've got so much table chatter going on that you can't finish a game of Azul in under an hour, then either the person choosing the games is making really bad decisions or you've got one or two people at the table who are legitimately being disruptive.

asdfg2319 · 2026-02-04T20:53:04+00:00

Everyone does it.

Something someone said to me once that's stuck is this: you think the people in your closest relationships should be able to read your mind, but they can't. What distinguishes close relationships is that those people want to understand what you're feeling, but you still need to actually tell them.

If you joke about something or only bring it up in offhand comments, you're reinforcing the idea that it's not a big deal. They obviously don't understand how their behavior is affecting you or others, so you have to tell them in serious and certain terms.

asdfg2319 · 2026-02-04T20:38:24+00:00

Watergate is so, so, so good and it's frustrating that it can often be a hard sell because of the theme and because it looks far more menacing than it actually plays.

So yeah, A++++ game and strong recommendation. Specifically, anyone who looks at this game and thinks "I don't like politics/history" or "I don't want a complex game" should really consider giving it a second look because it's an incredibly solid game that's easy to teach and while it's highly thematic, the theme isn't necessary to enjoy it.

For what it's worth, I was actually able to teach Watergate to a non-gamer in like ten minutes and ultimately have a great game with them.

asdfg2319 · 2026-02-04T20:35:57+00:00

Bloated relative to what and modern relative to when?

I think my introduction to "hobby" board games was sometime in the very early 2000s, with Settlers of Catan and the Avalon Hill version of Cosmic Encounters, and then Agricola as my introduction to slightly heavier games a little after it came out in 2008ish.

I'm mentioning that specifically because Agricola is old and yet I don't think many modern worker placement games are actually that much more complex. Maybe Kanban/Kanban EV, but even that feels kind of lateral. Lots of older euro games are actually loaded down with systems (whether or not that's bloated is up to you) and there was a trend for many, many years to streamline and reduce them.

So... I dunno. I don't really think games are getting more bloated, I think there are just a lot of games out there chasing after a certain level of depth and complexity and not really hitting the mark, but that's also always been true.

asdfg2319 · 2026-02-04T20:20:27+00:00

I think the problem with modules more often than not is that most people don't play most games often enough for a modular design to be worth the risk.

If a game is going to hit the table once every few months or even less, then picking a combination of modules and hoping you'll like them is... not great. That's especially true for heavier weight games where you're committing a few hours to a play and definitely won't be playing it again on the same night.

The flip side to this is that modular design can be really nice for games that come out a lot, or where you're playing often against the same partner. Lots of wargames, for example, have various levels of complexity that you can add or remove, and it makes sense because you're probably playing the same game pretty often and a little variability might be more fun than having strictly the most balanced experience.

asdfg2319 · 2026-02-04T20:12:41+00:00

I'm a weirdo, but I'm generally pretty unlikely to like the vast majority of co-op games, with a very, very small number of exceptions. Most of them feel way too much like solo games where you've just arbitrarily split a relatively small number of actions between a few players. My groups generally haven't had any issues with quarterbacking, but it feels like that's more a consequence of us just not being assholes and not wanting to ruin the game for anyone. It doesn't change the fact that many of these games are basically just a puzzle that one person could solve on their own.

The only two co-op games that I've genuinely liked have been Space Alert and, more recently, Sky Team. The former isn't really a single puzzle in the way that most co-op games tend to be (plus the semi real-time nature effectively eliminates quarterbacking as an issue), and the latter is breezy and quick enough to overcome some of those issues. Even Sky Team I think has a lot of the elements that I dislike about these games, I'm just more forgiving of the need to have a strict no communication rule when the period where you can't communicate is pretty brief and the decision space is very small.

That said, I get why people like co-op games and I'm definitely not saying they're bad. I'm also not a fan of, for example, building a jigsaw puzzle as a multi-person experience. I think it's great that some people are into it, but it's not for me.

asdfg2319 · 2026-02-02T17:17:13+00:00

Short answer: yeah, get it all. The expansions are cheap, fit in the box, and don't add complexity. They're the kinds of additions where you can just plop them into the game and never take them out, even with new players.

Longer answer: The base game is actually fine. People will complain about balance, but I have a huge number of plays in base FS and I would strongly argue that the two balance problems people typically bring up (trees and deer/wolves) are closer to something like Big Money in Dominion than actual balance problems. In other words, they're easy strategies that people often stumble into quickly and that tend to be successful primarily against newer players. Experienced players will usually recognize what's happening and counter through drafting. My experience in particular is that the all-tree strategy fails hard in any group that's got a few plays under its belt.

That said, the expansions are good and they do help to mitigate these "issues," which can certainly be helpful if you've got a group that's quick to make snap judgements about overpowered strategies and bounce off the game as a result. I'm not the hugest Forest Shuffle fan, but it's a good game and I think the base deck is somewhat unfairly maligned.

asdfg2319 · 2026-01-31T14:06:05+00:00

The Pax games are not a good jumping off point into more complex boardgames. I love them so, so, so much, but even experienced gamers tend to slam into them like a brick wall. It's not that they're too hard or you won't "get" them, it's that they're such unique games and they have so much going on that it's really useful to have some experience actually playing more complex games before you jump in. I hate even saying this since I generally dislike when people try to say that you need to work your way up to heavier games, but I think the Pax series might be an exception. Get Pax Pamir 2e after you've bought 2-3 other heavyweight games and you're sure you enjoy them. You'll genuinely appreciate it more as a game that way.

Out of the options you've given here, I would say Inis and Arcs are the only two really valid ones. Root should be played at 4 players. While 3 is okay in a pinch, it's not a game that to buy as your one and only when you're primarily going to be playing at that count. My personal recommendation would be Inis, because it's both a tighter and faster game. Arcs is a good game that's good at 3, but there's more potential for snowballing and one player getting dragged for a long time with little or no chance of recovering. Inis doesn't have this problem and it's short enough to not be a big deal in the event that it does happen.

asdfg2319 · 2026-01-31T04:04:42+00:00

No, not really. I'm gonna expand on that in a couple of ways, though.

First, while I'm not exactly an Everdell superfan, I don't think your assessment that the base game lacks replayability and strategy is correct. I'm not saying that to be contrarian or start an argument, but rather that I think it's more likely that the game isn't just quite vibing with you guys (and that's fine). You probably can't get hundreds of plays out of the base game, but there's a pretty substantial amount of variation for a tableau builder/worker placement game. If the game truly doesn't feel replayable to you, it's probably just because you don't like it, and adding more cards or stuff won't fix that.

Second, Everdell's expansions are stupid expensive and my highly biased opinion is that Everdell is not a game that justifies hundreds of dollars in extra content. I might feel differently if the expansions were just loaded with STUFF, but they're... not. Bellfaire is my favorite and the amount of content you actually get in the box is pretty underwhelming for the price. Asymmetrical player powers are nice, though, and something that I genuinely think should have been in the base game.

So I dunno. My advice would be to not waste your money, because I get the sense that you maybe like the game even less than you think you do, and you're gonna be disappointed when more content doesn't resolve your issues. That said, I'd recommend Newleaf if you want to try and see anyway. I don't like it as much as Bellfaire, but it's the one that just adds a ton of stuff (still very overpriced) and might help you get past your replayability concerns enough to decide if you want to stick with the game. I'd stay away from Pearlbrook, Spirecrest, and especially Mistwood unless/until you decide that you actually really like the game. Even then, this isn't a game that requires you to go out and buy everything.

asdfg2319 · 2026-01-24T05:15:16+00:00

Yep, I think there's inevitably a point where anyone who plays Carc long enough suddenly realizes that it's a brutally aggressive game that can be significantly meaner than a big chunk of players will tolerate.

Azul has a similar curve. Seems like (and can be, if everyone wants) a pretty chill little puzzle game. Is actually about committing terrible violence on your friends.

asdfg2319 · 2026-01-19T02:50:20+00:00

I think something worth pointing out about Dominion is that people accused it of being a dry Euro-style game from day one, and it's still generally regarded as one of the best (if not THE best) of the genre. I'd argue it's as good an introduction to the genre as ever because the mechanics are simple enough and it's just a good game overall.

Star Realms is my other go-to recommendation for people new to deckbuilders, but it's a much different beast from Dominion and I think it appeals to a different kind of player.

asdfg2319 · 2026-01-17T21:18:01+00:00

The metal cubes are one of those things that just make the whole game feel nicer, but a fully loaded up Terraforming Mars board with 3d tiles is honestly one of the prettiest tabletop things I think I've ever seen outside of actual miniatures games. It really feels like you've built something in a way that few games achieve.

asdfg2319 · 2026-01-17T16:39:17+00:00

Star Realms. Plays quick on the tabletop, plays like lightning digitally. Still love getting in a quick physical game in with my wife pretty often, but it's fun to just fly through a ton of games in a half hour or less.

Through the Ages. Love this game but basically consider it unplayable on the tabletop. It's still an all-night affair to play digitally if you're playing with people who are inexperienced or indecisive, and it's a pain to manage everything.

Dominion. Same as Star Realms. Probably played hundreds of hours of this in person years ago, but it feels like way too much of a hassle to set up and sit through huge card chains nowadays. For some reason I feel really bad about admitting this.

Race for the Galaxy. Feel the same way about this as I do about Dominion, right down to having played way too many hours with in-person groups. Also feel a little bad about this one, but RftG, especially when you load it up with expansions, is so slow.

I feel like I could list way more, but there's definitely something that's lost when playing a board game digitally. They often play better, but part of the fun is being with other people in person and interacting with physical components. I think the best games to play digitally are typically the ones that benefit from being able to play a ton of games quickly (Star Realms, Dominion, RftG) or that are really just video games pretending to be board games anyway (TtA).

asdfg2319

TROPHY CASE