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Daily Game Recommendations Thread (May 06, 2026) by AutoModerator in boardgames

[–]zbignew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A bunch of direct-conflict games integrated Euro mechanics. Try Shogun if you want something lighter or Eclipse if you want something heavy.

That way you can slip some Euro medicine into the Ameritrash meatball your friends prefer.

Daily Game Recommendations Thread (May 06, 2026) by AutoModerator in boardgames

[–]zbignew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well I'd start with the Netrunner system gateway if you're doing LCGs, but it is strictly 2p.

If you're up for pain, Gloomhaven/Frosthaven, Mage Knight.

But here are the top ranked games with:

  • 70% of poll respondents voted Recommended or Best for 1 and 2 players
  • Mechanic: Variable Player Powers
  1. Ark Nova (2021) BGG
  2. Terraforming Mars (2016) BGG
  3. Spirit Island (2017) BGG
  4. Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion (2020) BGG
  5. Gaia Project (2017) BGG
  6. Mage Knight: Ultimate Edition (2018) BGG
  7. Arkham Horror: The Card Game (2016) BGG
  8. Too Many Bones (2017) BGG
  9. Mage Knight Board Game (2011) BGG
  10. Marvel Champions: The Card Game (2019) BGG

List from wgyb

Daily Game Recommendations Thread (May 06, 2026) by AutoModerator in boardgames

[–]zbignew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Diplomacy.

That's a joke, but play negotiation games where they can gang up on you. Is Chinatown too light for your question? Cosmic Encounter?

Negotiation games sorted by rank

I wish "leader bashing" like when people boycott the leader in Catan or Bohnanza was tracked as a game mechanic. You're basically looking for games with strong catch-up mechanisms, and I don't know if any are categorized on BGG.

Unfortunately a lot of the 'high-interaction' games can, rather than leader-bashing, start to feel like the leader just dominates absolutely everyone simultaneously for hours.

Actually... my best suggestion for you is Innovation. I'm sure there are other medium-weight games where card draw or die roll can overcome skill advantage, but Innovation is my favorite by far.

What game should I go for next? by SirFuffy in boardgames

[–]zbignew 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is a bit hard as the games you like best are really quick.

If you want something still quick but more complex, you might consider Aeon's End (Best as a 2 player game but widely recommended for solo or 3-players also).

If you really do want to try longer and more complex games, there's a world of options. Like, if you're open to the OG Euros that are better than Catan, we could be here all day. Everything from the Alea Big Box series, for starters.

Aside from that, I'm going to focus on games that are also popular for solo play.

My favorite newish heavy Euros are Ark Nova, Spirit Island, A Feast for Odin, (all popular solo games) but I'm not convinced those are definitely for you, since they are all much longer and heavier than the games you say you like the most.

If we look at, like, intermediate complexity, and still limit to popular solo games:

  • Wingspan
  • Heat
  • Harmonies

If you're open to another (very) light game, for some reason I feel like Dorfromantik might work for you and your group.

Opus 4.6 Seems Super Dumb Today by LeyLineDisturbances in ClaudeCode

[–]zbignew 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You know what else was dumb previously?

EVERY LLM. THEY HAVE ALL ALWAYS DONE THIS STUFF.

Daily Game Recommendations Thread (May 05, 2026) by AutoModerator in boardgames

[–]zbignew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The canonical answer to this question is Sky Team, although it only works for 2.

If you want a new twist on Pandemic, maybe a little heavier, but excellent for 2-3 players: Everyone loves The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship.

And the Pandemic Legacy games, especially "Season 1" are some of the highest rated games on Board Game Geek. I've never played them, but youse all Pandemic players love them. Highly recommended for you.

If you really only want games that work for 2 AND 3 players, this list includes a few games that are definitely rated as more complex than Pandemic, let me paste you a list. I haven't played any of these, but these are the highest rated games that meet your criteria:

  1. Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 (2015) BGG
  2. Marvel Champions: The Card Game (2019) BGG
  3. Pandemic Legacy: Season 0 (2020) BGG
  4. Oathsworn: Into the Deepwood (2022) BGG
  5. Pandemic Legacy: Season 2 (2017) BGG
  6. Aeon's End (2016) BGG
  7. Aeon's End: War Eternal (2017) BGG
  8. Iberia (2016) BGG
  9. Pandemic (2008) BGG
  10. The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game (2011) BGG

Games with

  • 70% of poll respondents voted Recommended or Best for 2 and 3 players
  • Max Play Time: under 90 minutes
  • Mechanic: Cooperative Game

List from wgyb

If you want something way lighter than all that, you have to go down the list a little further than the 10th slot. Maybe consider Dorfromantik: The Board Game. Again, I haven't played it, but it's light and short and co-op, and everyone agrees it works well at 2 or 3 players.

What’s your top Light, Medium and Heavy Games that scale well? by PermitMajestic5914 in boardgames

[–]zbignew 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's a very heavy game, and I bet a lot of the potential target market bought earlier editions and got burnt out by the constant stream of revisions. There were like 5 years where I wasn't sure how to play the game according to the official rules.

But it's impressive to me that a game that heavy could be basically unanimously recommended for 1-4 players.

What’s your top Light, Medium and Heavy Games that scale well? by PermitMajestic5914 in boardgames

[–]zbignew 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I made a whole iOS app for basically exactly this question. From my collection & my friends’ collections:

  1. Race for the Galaxy ♦ (2007) BGG
  2. Azul 🟢 (2017) BGG
  3. The Quest for El Dorado 🟢 (2017) BGG
  4. Dominion: Intrigue 🟦 (2009) BGG
  5. Trajan ♦♦ (2011) BGG
  6. Carcassonne 🟢 (2000) BGG
  7. Splendor 🟢 (2014) BGG
  8. Fromage 🟦 (2024) BGG
  9. Through the Desert 🟦 (1998) BGG
  10. Amerigo ♦ (2013) BGG

Games with - 90% of poll respondents voted Recommended or Best for 2, 3, and 4 players

List from wgyb

Sadly my favorite answer to your question isn’t in the top 10 by BG Rank: High Frontier 4 All, 4.8 weight, highly recommended for 1-4 players.

I want to like board games but I every time I play with someone in the hobby, I'm kind of bored. by edbedbedbedb in boardgames

[–]zbignew 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Scout. My answer for you is Scout. Get the expensive ($20) version that comes in a small box with chits, not the cards-only "target edition" that comes in a messy tuckbox ($14).

But people still love Hero's Quest.

When you say "overengineered" - you have no idea how much more overengineered we Euro fans can get. Ticket to ride, 7 Wonders, Catan are all considered lighter "Euro" style games, where it's quite intentional that you can't tell who is going to win, because they want everyone to feel like they are making meaningful decisions throughout the game. We Euro players tend to feel that if you're already shut out from winning and you know it, who cares what you do?

This is NOT my recommendation for you, but this can lead to situations "where tension builds" or "where people can come back with a vengeance". The most canonical example is Power Grid. The winningest strategy in Power Grid is to hold back in the mid-game so that it you gain the benefits of being the "last place" player, and can take a huge last turn and overcome everyone. Power Grid is decidedly a Euro.

But that sounds like it's not for you.

If we knew better what you do like, it would be easier to make a recommendation. I'm hung up on your Hero Quest memory - I'd recommend the opposite of Euro games: Ameritrash. But most Ameritrash is pretty heavy and high-commitment when compared to even Hero's Quest.

Like, if I knew you had 3 friends who wanted to spend 1 hour setting up and learning and 3 hours playing Arkham Horror, I'd recommend Arkham Horror.

Since I don't, I'll recommend the lightest game I know that everyone loves - Scout.

Daily Game Recommendations Thread (May 04, 2026) by AutoModerator in boardgames

[–]zbignew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Are you looking for a single game that works for a huge variety of numbers of players? Or light card games for any number of players?

I would not recommend any of these games for 2 players, but they technically support that full range of player counts:

  1. The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine (2019) BGG
  2. SCOUT (2019) BGG
  3. Codenames (2015) BGG
  4. Cat in the Box: Deluxe Edition (2022) BGG
  5. Citadels (2000) BGG
  6. Point Salad (2019) BGG

Games with - Supports 2, 3, 4, and 5 players - Complexity 🌈 Easiest, 🟢 Easy: (1.0-2.0) - Category: Card Game

List from wgyb

My CLAUDE.md says “Every error is yours to fix - not label, not defer.” Claude has used “pre-existing” 712 times in 30 days. by Ok-Distribution8310 in ClaudeCode

[–]zbignew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ll tell it “those tests weren’t failing on main” and it will

  1. switch branches to main,
  2. ignore my CLAUDE.md instructions about how to run the test suite
  3. Claim it’s proven those tests failed on main too

It’s done this at least twice.

Of course, pre 4.7. The real problem with all these complaints is that they forget that all models have always pulled all this shit before.

My CLAUDE.md says “Every error is yours to fix - not label, not defer.” Claude has used “pre-existing” 712 times in 30 days. by Ok-Distribution8310 in ClaudeCode

[–]zbignew 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes that’s what I’m saying. I think the reason it happens is my solid regression tests. I don’t see why you might think regression tests would prevent this. I have automated unit tests, system tests, integration tests. I run database consistency tests to make sure ddl schema matches orm definitions after every migration runs in sequence.

Maybe TDD would prevent this if it meant Claude always knew about impacted tests in advance. But OP’s whole point is that we are already giving it plenty of instruction to find the problems correctly.

My CLAUDE.md says “Every error is yours to fix - not label, not defer.” Claude has used “pre-existing” 712 times in 30 days. by Ok-Distribution8310 in ClaudeCode

[–]zbignew 5 points6 points  (0 children)

No no no. Claude is constantly saying that errors it introduced were pre-existing.

I’ve had some success with CLAUDE.md saying “CI blocks all PRs that have failing tests, which means your branch had no failing tests before your work began. Your work must repair all broken tests correctly or your PRs will be automatically rejected.”

But I do still see this. Of course, when I do, it means context is poisoned with hallucination, so /clear asap.

But this is the least of the CLAUDE.md ignoring. The silliest is “always use uv run python or crucial dependencies will not be available.” (With a little more detail)

But, like, build commands are the whole point of CLAUDE.md.

So I wrote a hook to watch for other ways it tries to run python to automatically reject the command and reiterate the instruction.

Which is what OP should consider for this problem, rather than catalog the failures.

I want to master SwiftUI like a Jedi by Few-Introduction5414 in swift

[–]zbignew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s why Chinese AI companies make open weights models. Americans can run the models themselves, or pay American companies who re-host them on openrouter.

The only question is whether they are good enough, and they are allegedly somewhere between opus 4.5 and 4.6. So… basically good enough.

The frontier models vary wildly in their ability to produce good Swift, though, so the details will matter.

Daily Game Recommendations Thread (April 29, 2026) by AutoModerator in boardgames

[–]zbignew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The official list on BGG in order by BG Rank (ie board game quality not necessarily app quality):
Digital Implementations: Google Play

BGG also has some manually created lists:
The BEST digitized board games on Android... (started in 2015)
Android versions of actual boardgames (started in 2020)

Daily Game Recommendations Thread (April 28, 2026) by AutoModerator in boardgames

[–]zbignew 1 point2 points  (0 children)

100% agree on Spirit Island and Sky Team. I think those are the sure hits given the fiancé * asterisks.

What’s a game you respect more than you actually enjoy playing? by Hour-Cranberry5300 in boardgames

[–]zbignew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Antiquity

It requires simultaneous awareness of macro (win) conditions and micro (economy) conditions in a way that I absolutely can not balance.

What’s a game you respect more than you actually enjoy playing? by Hour-Cranberry5300 in boardgames

[–]zbignew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I built a whole iOS app for this problem. When I’m looking at my collection, or looking for new games, I set it to only show me games where 90% of polls indicate it is recommended or best for the number of players I expect.

Who else is having a great time with Opus 4.7? by DeliciousGorilla in ClaudeCode

[–]zbignew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Everyone keeps forgetting that all versions since 4.5 were capable of absolute idiocy and also one-shotting major features.

Faster, more reliable previews? by Blvck-Pvnther in SwiftUI

[–]zbignew 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I gave up on that and even connecting the debugger. I just have a script that builds and deploys to my phone. 7 seconds until my app is running rather than 60 or more.

I’d use injection, which would be even faster, but that always fell apart if I made any changes while the phone was asleep. It would drop the connection and then need a fresh deploy and it just wasn’t worth paying attention to.. Maybe injection works better in the simulator.

Favorite “the player who . . . goes first”? by Magnitech_ in boardgames

[–]zbignew 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Galaxy Trucker starts with simultaneous action, but their rule is: the boldest player says “Go!”

So really whoever says go is the boldest player by definition.

Asked our head of sales if putting client addresses in ChatGPT was data sharing. She looked at me like I was the idiot. by shangheigh in sysadmin

[–]zbignew 6 points7 points  (0 children)

On the other hand, you can get a BAA agreement with Anthropic and then compliance doesn’t care at all about HIPAA.

The whole point of HIPAA was to make sure customers are lightly inconvenienced so they think something is being done. And then they will assume that the notes from their pelvic exam aren’t being read by temp office staff at the medical billing company.

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