Wise Guy History's 'Top 10 games of all time!'

g'day folks and welcome to wiseguy history's top 10 board games of all time this is my personal list of my favorite games my 10 favorite games this is based on of course my criteria what i think are the best game based on what i like to play how did i come at this top 10 what are those criteria i think most importantly for me i love to play games that present players with what i often call tense interesting juicy decisions this means the game will present you with an opportunity where you may have a choice of several options or several paths or several actions to take and you need to think carefully about the pros and cons of those actions ultimately select one of those actions and follow your plan through to see what eventuates it's about weighing up the available information making that decision without really knowing for sure what's going to happen in in the long term nothing too deterministic nothing necessarily too random but having a lot of information to make a well-informed decision and see how that decision to see what develops as a result of that decision now of course i think that historical war games and conflict situations often do that best the the higher complexity level um the scale and the scope of coverage of many war games in terms of just basically what's on a map and that the the it's the the range of these decisions and the quantity of those decisions is often quite big so you're often thinking both about what's happening on a smaller scale on a map but also the implications of that on a broader scale so historical war games are often good at doing that but um hopefully i'll show you a couple of examples of heavier euro games that are often doing similar things outside of that wargaming genre okay so with that out of the way the first game to appear in my top 10 list narrowly scraping in is a game by one of my favorite designers vital sir i have a huge shelf of vital also the games i couldn't put them all here this one narrowly scrapes in as my favorite battalion game the gallerist this is all about you um sponsoring starving young artists sponsoring their work encouraging them to produce works of art buying that art up cheap um celebrating that art promoting it throughout the galleries and then selling it at a good price it seems like a really simple concept but what battalion does in many of his games is bring together various elements in a very in a richly thematic environment environment to have players making those juicy decisions the tile gives you a range of a limited range of decisions but the implications of those decisions are very much far-reaching and you're often developing quite detailed and complex plans hoping for a good outcome and then waiting to see what happens it is well worth checking out any of vital's game co2 is a great solitaire game he has bots in most of his games so he can play these solitaire but they're great two three four play games as well he includes titles such as uh liz bower which is all about rebuilding lisbon after the great earthquake and flood and fires escape plan all about escaping criminals escaping a city on mars there's all that settling mars kanban is all about manufacturing cars all of these towers are very richly thematic very heavy euros that guide players towards those really tense and exciting decisions and again my favorite and number 10 on my top 10 list is atar lasoda's the gallerist scraping in at number nine is of course mark signatures are dens 44. this narrowly pipped selling grade 42 for a place in the top 10. i i rate this a little bit higher marginally higher than stalingrad 42. both offer you those juicy decisions those tension the the range of opportunities available for attack what i love in particular about our dens 44 is studying those road networks through the idens looking not just at what combat i need to do on any given turn but thinking long term about the implications of that combat how if i succeed in that combat can i exploit through this area of the forest can i bring more units along that road can i potentially poke holes in the uh the allied defenses and drive and continue to strive for victory conditions um it is again a wonderful um example of the versatility of mark signature's sort of rule system used in that that 19xx series but for me starting our dens 44 really stands out at the top of at the top of uh of that series just for yeah the juiciness of of those decisions that you encounter during gameplay it is not necessarily the most complex of the titles in this series but i think it leads to facilitates some of the more most complex decision making processes that you'll see amongst this series so that is our dens 44 published by gmt games designed by mark simic sitting at number 9 in my top 10 list okay number eight in my list is rachel simmons's napoleon's triumph the battle of oscillate second of december 1805. this is just a game in a genre by itself it is outstandingly innovative and fascinating and so different to the vast bulk of of war games that um it is i wrote a review many years ago i said it's the most beautiful war game in the universe um simply because when you're laying all these these units out just the the the colors and the lines it just looks incredible the gameplay itself is the rules aren't overly complex but gameplay is quite complex particularly it uses a dice-less combat system where opponents units are typically hidden from your view so you don't know exactly what you're encountering it is the successor to bonaparte morengo which uses a similar system this came first um this takes that that fundamental block system and brings it up to a newer level bonaparte morengo could often feel sort of chest-like and abstract in terms of the movement counter movement navigation of forces around the battlefield um this has i guess a greater complexity in terms of of of combat that the fighting is is basically bigger there are more forces involved and um the the focus of fighting is often more tense um so yeah if you are not familiar with napoleon's triumph i would suggest check it out it is a wonderful two-player experience it is not really ideal for solitary play it is also for that reason it's not a game that i get to play very often every time a friend and i decide to get this out we 100 need to refresh our memory of the rules for me though it is always a wonderful experience and it sits at number eight on my top 10 games of all time okay coming in at number seven this may be a surprise there's a game called cooper island designed by andreas oder odendal it is uh a heavy euro game where you are in effect engine building resource managing uh it's a simple kind of mechanical description but it the blending of so many different aspects of this game the decisions you make are really fascinating and tense and interesting you basically manage a little sort of hex grid on a peninsula maybe it's the hexes that draw into this game but you manage this little hex grid where you are cultivating the resources on your little sort of part of that island it's a relatively small area but you're making really sort of both short-term immediate and long-term decisions about how to cultivate your land what kind of resources you want to cultivate and how you're going to spend those resources basically you build up a wonderful looking tier of terrain tiles every time you increase the height of these tears that tile will produce a type of resource and you need to spend that resource before you can build that tier up again you're spending this resource to facilitate various developments on your little player board so your kind of engine building whilst tile building and planning and resource managing because you need to spend those resources you can't let those resources just sit there it is multiplayer but there is a wonderful solitaire bot system and the experience of playing solitaire against the bot is is relatively similar it really does a really good job of replicating that experience of playing against people multiplayer game there is kind of minimal interaction it is not playing as other players really won't interfere too much with your broader plans um only sort of mildly so it doesn't have really a take that kind of element to it it's really just you're focusing on your building you're looking at what other people are doing another wonderfully innovative feature here is the the score track around the outside of the island um doubles as sort of an action bonus track so i should reach certain spaces you can take bonus actions so it's a really good use of that bigger point track again this is a heavy euro game that provides players with those opportunities for really tense exciting and juicy decisions and if you haven't seen this before it is one of the most underrated um euro games i think of all time check it out that is cooper island by uh oday okay folks number six for me is part of the grand tactics series the greatest day this is my favorite title in the grand tactical series and for me it it deserves a spot in the top ten within the greatest day wow uh countless countless hours of of playability and replayability there's so many different scenarios within this box it's quite a big box it's heavy there's a lot in here a massive footprint map i have never played through the the full campaign of gold juno sword i have just played through the many many other smaller introductory and intermediate scenarios and i've played countless hours of this game of course it uses the grand tactical series company scale movement of units uh around gold uni salt beach the system itself is wonderful this uses version two of the rules which is different to that seen in earlier titles um but yeah in terms of i guess value for money and playability for money you buy this title in the game this is one of those games that you could take to a desert island and play endlessly you play the same scenarios over and over again you'll get different experiences each time and of course if you play through the full campaign there's a lot there's a lot of um of gameplay in that larger battle so that is uh yeah the greatest day published by mmp and we're worth checking out um if you're interested in the grand tactical series okay folks number five for me is this big monster of a box it weighs a ton this is the base game plus i've got a couple of expansions in here that i've thrown at the big box this is a game called kingdom death monster i did a review and example played this a couple of years ago this is what i've described as a desert island game as well you what uh this is the game you can play forever there is kind of endless replayability in here this is in effect a kind of tactical skirmish game for one to four players each of those players will control a hero you can play it solitaire as i've done for hundreds of hours solo you control four heroes with two people i've played with my wife you control two heroes each you're fighting against a monster controlled by a sort of an ai deck system every monster has their own deck of ai cards which drives their behavior they might attack weak and vulnerable heroes or they might attack the closest hero or a hero they're just targeting and those tactical battles each battle against the monster runs for 20 to 80 minutes you'll fight this monster you'll try to defeat this monster and then the battle you'll try to basically harvest that monster for resources things like bones sinew fur and organs you'll then return to your very very basic settlement a gathering of people in this dark nightmarish world where you'll use those resources to enhance your sediment you might build workshops and use those workshops to build better armor or better weapons or equipment to take with you on the next skirmish um so what i love about that is that campaign element at the end of everybody you're coming home and you're talking with your friends about what are we going to do with this bone fur and so forth so in the first mission you fight what's called a white line you might return home with fur and bones and you'll build a workshop to allow you to convert those bones into bone swords or bone daggers or fur armor to protect you and enhance your ability to attack on the next battle you go into the next battle it might be another stronger white line you'll gain return with resources if you survive and use those resources to improve your settlement all the while these tactical battles are very very very difficult and it's it's possible that all four of your heroes will die and you'll lose that battle your emphasis then is not so much on the individual heroes you're not sort of role playing those heroes rather you're focusing upon the settlement itself the broader community your energy is directed towards enhancing the prospects of that community to survive long term um and defeat the threats in this nightmarish world and that's what i love about this game the idea of building up this community of building these workshops and driving your your tactics the workshops you build and the weapons and armor and equipment that they can manufacture with these resources drives and shapes the tactics you bring into combat you might focus on let's say a tanky hero so you build some armor for them but then some long-range weapons for your other heroes who can attack from range or you might just do four malay type heroes who charge in and attack and try and do a lot of damage instantly this all comes from your workshops and of course you need to have the people in your population which is usually very limited between 10 and 20 people [Music] to provide fighters for your your skirmishes um and the campaigns run as i said every every little skirmish runs for one to two hours the campaign planning element could run for additional time on top of that this is all part of this broader campaign where you're trying to survive this world and if you die you set up all over again and you're trying you've learned lessons from your past settlement and you're implementing those lessons in your new campaign it is a very expensive game there is a lot in this box as i said this is the type of game where it has endless replayability you can play this over and over and over again as i've done i've poured hundreds of hours into campaigns with this game and it's still going strong that is kingdom death monster okay we're into the top four now and sitting at number four for me is uh a title from the lover tales series from clash of arms games this is lava tail de mont central this is actually uh an expansion to linny and castro brass so you need both of those titles plus this expansion to play the battle of waterloo uh yes you can see it's a fairly small expansion gives you the um basically the waterloo maps and you use all the cameras all the armies basically from lily and carter to play that battle the series itself the tail is very heavy it's a very heavy war game um but what i loved about it was i played waterloo using the kind of introductory marie louise rules and for me at that time it took me three months to play spending about an hour hd playing through turns of uh that full battle but it gave me the full waterloo experience from this title i stepped up to using the regs 30 rules for subsequent publications but uh i look back on playing through the battle of waterloo i've only done it once but it's just a wonderful experience [Music] again decisions across this this massive battlefield deciding what to do with core and then divisions and regiments you've got narratives developing at so many different levels individual units moving and deciding where to move as part of a broader formation of what you're doing with that formation that's part of the broader core and what you're doing with the core as part of a broader strategy for the battle and what napoleon is doing or what wellington is doing so the game system itself is is great but i think when you when you bring that system to these these large battles it um it provides you with just layers upon layers of decision making and interesting narratives unfolding if you want to check that out i've done a series of playthroughs of of the battle both turn base and i've compiled them all into a single video um and you can check that out to give a sense of how that all um plays out that is lupita's more saint john by clash of arms games sitting for me at number four it's just one of the most um rewarding gaming experiences that i have had sitting at number three for me is a game that has long been one of my favorite games the game called demukka first published i believe back in 1986. this has to be one of the uh the driest themes for a board game that has ever been seen is a game about german politics and german elections in this game and this is uh the second edition published by valley games this is the third edition i believe published by spielworx in this game you play a german political party and you're trying to win elections and you get victory points basically for winning elections for getting lots of votes and for aligning your policies with a national platform uh it all sounds so dry and whenever i introduce this to friends i have to explain it's a dry theme it's really great game what i love about this game is the the blending of various kind of elements of that election so you've got sort of media markers and that represents how the media shapes public opinion in area a particular electorate will have a series of issues that they're passionate about they might be anti-tax and pro-genetically modified foods and pro-euro and they will like or dislike your party based on how your platform aligns with what they like so if they're anti-tax in your protests they may not like you and you're favoring that electorate will go down a little bit you then can sort of you can increase this by changing your platform or swaying their opinion if you control the media all the while you can organize party meetings in that electorate to increase your sort of vote multiplier when that electorate's election is determined you multiply your favor by the number of party meetings you've had to determine your vote for that area and basically the party with the highest vote wins the election in that electorate and then you move on to the next electorate and sort of repeat a similar process but again it's sort of the blending of all these different elements and the choices you're making and the planning and future planning you're looking not just at the current election being held but the next electorate and the next electorate to see how your platform matches what the people in those districts want often you're making sacrifices in one electorate losing the election so you can win the next one by a large margin there are things like coalition there are public opinion polls there's a lot of really fascinating elements to dimacca which has yeah kept it within my my collection of favorite games for for quite a long time it's again not a game you can really play solo ideally suits five people you can play it with four there is a long term game and a short term game um but really runs it's quite a long game as well runs for about three to five hours depending on the experience level of the people you're playing with that is maca uh by various publishers okay sitting at number two for me is a fairly recent discovery for me it is called dean essig's last blitzkrieg from the battalion combat series i think is the best game in the series um it of course covers the the ardennes offensive the battle of the bulge 1944. again as i've spoken about with uh ardennes 44 what i love about this is the choices you're making the opportunities and the options every time you activate a formation there is just a wealth of possibilities a wealth of choices that you're navigating through you're weighing up the pros and cons of discipline different possibilities it is a heavy game a heavy war game the the rules aren't overly complex there are some different concepts here that are difficult to initially wrap your head around but once you do that you you look at the the position and again every activation just gives you a wealth of choices and it's wonderful it's a wonderful experience to study those choices study the road network study the possibilities of different units within a formation study enemy possibilities and how the enemy might react and to make as i said an informed decision to make a plan and then see how that plan plays out so that is the last blizzcraft sitting for me at number two in my top ten it's one of the most amazing incredible and um yeah interesting games that i've ever played this last blitzkrieg published in 2016 by multi-man publishing and down to number one in my top 10 games this has long been my favorite game i first played parts of glory in about 2005 and instantly it was my my favorite game the moment i played this i think the first time i fell in love with it i'm of course the scholar of the first world war this is um a lot of people have criticized this for not being an accurate reflection of the first world war fair enough the russian revolution doesn't happen very often the americans don't often reach the western front but as far as gaming goes and as far as the decision-making process goes this is an outstanding game ted races piles of glory published by gmt games many different editions over the year um the the learning curve on this is huge it's a complex enough game i'd place this at medium to sort of yeah probably medium complexity but once you learn the game the the experiential learning curve is is quite huge and that's where a lot of people fall down it's not the kind of game that you can just set up and play and expect to get things right the first time there's a lot of sort of trial and error expected here and learning the game situation appreciating what's going on the need for example when the the french are in trouble on the western front there's a need for the russians to attack out in the east to relieve pressure to force the the germans to send replacements out to the east and that sending of german replacements to the east relieves the french of that pressure likewise if the russians are under attack or if um if the turks are under attack in the near east the central powers needs to relieve their pressure by attacking elsewhere perhaps putting pressure on italy a weak spot for the allies all these kind of things that you really only appreciate and value and know how to deal with through through practice and that takes many many different games of powers of glory so it's a game that i have played uh dozens of times uh somewhere probably between 50 and 100 games of parts of glory since i first discovered it 16 odd years ago and for me it has just remained number one on on my top 10 list for just the tension that that card driven system provides even just having a deck of cards when you're down to your final two cards do you play the event do you play ops do you bring replacements on do you strategically redeploy forces around the board and then what do you do if you play the ops you know is this an opportunity to seize the initiative and attack or should you rally some forces for a defense or should you play the ops for sort of typically for the event rather you often play the event for the long-term benefit it's um yeah the tension in all those different choices that for me places this and has long held this as number one so folks that's my top ten list and i think hopefully um having a look through those will give you a sense of what type of games i like to play there's a good mix here of hex encounter of various scales of war games and euro games and political games and games about art so i'm not particularly driven to any particular theme we've got here a game a couple games in the second world war d-day two games on the bulge we've got napoleonic warfare we've got the first world war we have german politics art galleries and um cultivating landscapes on mysterious islands so i'm not necessarily particularly drawn to certain themes over others as i said at the beginning what i love most about these games is the decision-making processes that they facilitate and that's what i love about these games and that's that's really what i love most about about gaming in general being confronted with this these exciting possibilities these interesting decisions and developing plans to see how they they play out so folks again hope that's given you some insight if you'd like to know more about any of these games hit me up i'm happy to do some more videos you may notice i've never done a play through or a review or a session report of one of my favorite games paths of glory um no reason for that but if you'd like to see more or any of these let me know and happy to accommodate thanks for watching everyone i hope it's been of interest and take care

Channel: Wise Guy History

Views: 891

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: ETC1bFgaxD4

Length: 27min 11sec (1631 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 06 2021