Strategy Games

BGG #2 and #9 respectively. Two of the greatest board games ever designed, both card-driven engine builders, both sitting in the 90-150 minute range, both beloved by heavy euro fans worldwide. If you can only pick one, this comparison is for you. Short version: the “right” answer depends entirely on what you want from a game night. Long version: keep reading. The Games at a Glance Ark Nova Terraforming Mars BGG Rank #2 #9 Rating 8.54 8.33 Weight 3.80 / 5 3.27 / 5 Players 1-4 (best 2) 1-5 Play Time 90-150 min 120 min Year 2021 2016 Designer Mathias Wigge Jacob Fryxelius Both games share a genre label - card-driven engine builder - but under the surface they’re doing completely different things. Understanding how they differ is what makes the choice obvious once you know your own preferences. ...

Every round of Ticket to Ride ends with the same quiet satisfaction: your railway connects two distant cities, the route card flips face up, and you bank the points. Simple. Clean. Deeply pleasant. Now look at Brass: Birmingham - the #1 game on BGG. Your coal mines feed your ironworks. Your canal links carry goods to distant markets. The network you build isn’t just about geography; it’s a living supply chain where every connection either opens new possibilities or exposes a dependency your opponents will immediately exploit. ...

Here is a game that does almost everything right. It has a gorgeous table presence with vibrant Japanese artwork. It has a deeply satisfying central mechanism that is unlike anything else in the hobby. It has tremendous replayability through a modular board. It is designed by one of Japan’s most talented designers. It sits at #156 on BGG, rated 7.79 by nearly 14,000 people, with a strategy game rank of #116. ...

It’s the most beautiful box on your shelf. It’s also the heaviest, the most expensive, and - let’s face it - the one you’ve touched the least since you bought it. Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition sits at #7 on BGG’s all-time rankings with a rating of 8.56, owned by over 33,000 collectors. And a staggering number of those copies have never been opened. You’re not alone. You’re not even unusual. But you can fix this. ...

Let me describe a board game to you. It is set in medieval Germany. You are a trader. You place cubes on a map. The box art looks like something you might find in a business textbook from 1997. The colour palette peaks at “muted brown” and descends from there. The name is virtually unpronounceable. Every single thing about this game’s exterior is designed, seemingly on purpose, to make you walk past it. ...

Two of the ten highest-rated board games ever made. Both card-driven tableau builders. Both games where you draft from a huge deck, build an engine over two hours, and feel genuinely clever by the end. And both sitting in nearly every serious collection already. So why compare them? Because if you only have room (or budget) for one, the choice is less obvious than it looks. Terraforming Mars and Ark Nova share a skeleton - play cards, build combos, race toward a finish condition - but the experience at the table is surprisingly different. ...