Top 100 Board Games of All Time (80 - 71)

[Music] welcome to allies or enemies I'm Jess and I am Sean and today we are continuing our countdown of our top 100 favorite board games of all time and today we are counting them down from 80 to 71 and let's just get right to it and you're starting us off this time at number 80 is paladins of the West Kingdom and paladins of the West kingdom is still I think probably the heaviest of the Shem Phillips SJ McDonald games I haven't played all of the the new series the South tigis ones but of the ones that I've played this is definitely the the thinkest of all of the games it's really it's just a puzzle you get a few little dudes each round you're going to put those dudes in different places they're going to get you stuff you're going to use that stuff to get other stuff this is really what the game you're just exchanging stuff for stuff and you're trying to stretch that out as far as you can to unlock as much stuff as you can and it is so fun and it's so engaging and it is kind of a solo game it's definitely the best solo of the like West Kingdom series for sure and it is I I can happily play it by myself I can very happily play it with others and it is my number 80 my number 80 is Sonora and Sonora is a flick and right game you've got these great number discs that you flick into these four different zones and then at the end of the round you take the numbers that are in the different zones and you get to mark it off but as you mark it off it often leads to these like combos that interconnect with all the various zones but what I really like about it is I love the flicking because it can be cha otic you're always trying to decide where you want your disc to be but if possible how you can mess with the other person's disc as well and try them knock them off the spots they want to be so it's this great like mix of flicking and writing and combos that makes it my number 80 my number 79 is Carie and Carnegie is just this perfect mix of beige and beautiful and that definitely describes the board this game is so pretty it's like it's not pretty at first and then it's so pretty it's cuz it's classy but also just the mechanics and the theme and everything about it because in this you are you're like Andrew Carnegie and you're running like industry like a nebulous company that is I guess doing like steel stuff maybe and philanthropy I'm not even sure but youve got people who work in this company and they're going to move around to different rooms you're going to be adding different rooms as you go you're going to be putting stuff out on a map and then there's just there's all sorts of stuff that you are doing in this game it all connects to each other in these really interesting ways but I think the coolest part is it is one of my favorite mechanics which is I pick an action and then everyone else gets to do the action but the interesting thing in this one is it does that mechanic the meanest way I have ever seen that really your goal is to choose an action everyone else could do that action but try to time it so they definitely can't so you're always trying to like look for opportunities where it's like oh no one else has people in those rooms so now I'm going to do that so you're always trying to like sneak your way in to doing an action that no one else gets to take advantage of and I just I love how clever that is and it is my number 79 my number 79 is first rat and in first rat you are rron Nauts which are rat astronauts and it seems so simple cuz all you're doing is you are moving your rats along a one-way track to the end but where the cleverness comes in is when you can move multiple rats to land on the same colored spaces then you get to activate each of those rats and there's also like enough other things you're doing too because you can add like little like comic books that give you bonuses that you can do you can even turn some of them into like super rats and so it even though it seems so simple you're collecting resources changing those resources in to make like parts of a spaceship it ends up being like a really interesting puzzle for how quickly you go along the track and when you can combo your rats in just the right way and it is my number 79 my number 78 is Merchants Cove and at the heart of this it's a fairly simple game you're trying to make Goods then you're selling those goods and in the Merchant's Cove and you got boats coming in you're putting dudes on boats you're moving the boats to different places and that part's pretty interactive and pretty sneaky cuz you're trying to set it up so you got the right customers for what you're making but the cool thing is how you make your goods so You' got all of these super asymmetric characters and they all play as you would think as asymmetric characters very very differently but this is like as asymmetrical as any game that I have ever played so you've got someone playing a character that's all about dice placement you got someone else doing like a little roll and right you got someone else doing like a mini post explosion they're all just so wildly different and all of the characters are like they're fairly simple but I just I love that every time I play this it's such a different experience I find that so interesting and we got a bunch more on the way as well cuz we backed the kickstarter for the expansion so I'm super interested in playing with those ones too and it is my 78 my number 78 is harmonies and I am a sucker for nature games and I am a sucker for games that look great and this does both of them so this is a new game it came out this year and it is like a tile placement game but you're using these beautiful chunky tokens that represent the different Landscapes and so you have to draft your tokens put them on the board and then try and pair it also with the scoring cards that you're Drafting and it feels a little bit like Calico in that like that spatial puzzle that you're trying to figure out and it never works out like just just perfectly you're trying to find the synergies between the cards that score with your tiles and it ends up just being this like beautiful puzzle that makes it my number 78 my number 77 is 7 Wonders duel and at least for me this is the first time I remember there being a dual version of a larger board game it probably happened before I'm not sure if it did but this one does it so well and when Seven Wonders came out I didn't have a very big board game group I didn't have a lot of people to play with so I never really got a chance to play Seven Wonders I always heard it was so great so when Seven Wonders duel came out I finally got to scratch that itch and it is it just does such a tremendous job and now I've played Seven Wonders and Seven Wonders Architects but for me this is the most interesting most streamlined version of Seven Wonders and I love the pyramid drafting I think so interesting I will say that the first expansion does fix it a little bit it makes it just a a little bit less kind of predestined about what you're going to take but how they managed to adapt the you know the Army the culture all of the bits and Seven Wonders I think is so so clever and it is my 77 my number 77 is tital blades and in title blades you are like auditioning to be heroes of the reef it's created this beautiful world it's all designed art well the Arts all by Mr cuttington and it looks it looks incredible and I can almost like picture this world of these people that are trying to compete these different challenges so how you do that is through worker placement and you're using dice so you're constantly trying to get Dice and upgrade dice because then you have to spend those Dice and so you're managing your dice pool along with your actions to be able to impress the judge complete different skills as well as like fight the monsters that keep trying to get into the reef so I just I love the world that it's created but also the dice puzzle and managing those dice makes it my number 77 my number 76 is kahora and kahora is a really clever economy game and I'm not usually that into economy games so it says a lot if an economy game wins me over and this is based in Kora which is the European city of silver where it provided most of the silver to Europe at I don't know some point in time and in it you are you're building this city and you're also you're mining Silver and you're doing you know a bunch of stuff like you would think you would in a city building game but the interesting thing is each player is kind of responsible for three kinds of buildings so it's a whole mix of different buildings there's stuff like Lumber and silver obviously and beer obviously they would always need and so if whatever you are responsible for you can make that building and as you do the price of Goods is going to go up and down depending on supply and demand it's got this really clever years moving these cards moving the price back and forth then that affects the economy you get and it is I just really love that simple like sliders and moving the cards and it is my 76 my number 76 is the White Castle and the White Castle is this really clever dice drafting game and and what makes it so interesting is there are only nine turns in a game which seems like so few but you can actually do quite a bit because when you draft your dice you then put your dice down on an action spot and often the action spot might let you do like two actions depending on the color of the dice and you're always trying to like look for Combos and between the puzzle of trying to maximize what dice to take and where to put it all within like such a short time frame and short amount of turns keeps this game like so interesting and it's one that we definitely got better at the more we played cuz I think the very first game I was like you can't do anything and then the very next time we were already like figuring out like working it out on how to do better and it is my number 76 my number 75 is the crew mission deep sea this is a a trick-taking a Cooperative trick-taking game and so you got a bunch of goals that are laid out that you've all got to do so you know what the goals are and those are assigned to you at the start but you cannot say what cards you have in your hand and you're not allowed to we're really strict with this you're not allowed to like blink or like do any trixy things you just have to kind of read by the cards and just kind of hope and do your best with it and it's I I just I love the Silent Communication of it the like connection we only ever play the two-player variant of this to which I think is really solid I think they actually undersell how decent the two-player variant is I hear great things about the multiplayer which is the way it's kind of meant to be played but it is a really great game so if you want a co-op trick-taking game this is really the one to get and it is my 75 my number 75 is unlock and unlock I'm just grouping it as like its own category there are a ton of of them and they are basically like Escape rooms in a box most of the unlocks come as a package of three and so it always feels like a special occasion because you can only play each one once so we like we save it up and they're like okay now we're going to do one of them and you are trying to figure out the puzzle so it it's cooperative and it's also app based but even though I'm not usually a fan of app based games I do find the app integration works pretty well overall for this one I hate apps and it's really good yeah they do some like clever things and so it is very much box dependent but on average they're pretty solid and it is my number 75 my number 74 is tillum and I talked earlier about Carnegie being so beige and so pretty but this out beiges it times like a thousand this is the beest beige game you can ever find and I love it so the theme the theme is just kind of like Europe is the theme basically and you're putting out stuff you're building these little Cathedrals you're putting stuff in towns you're getting people into this board but the mechanics are so clever because how the main mechanic of the game is your drafting dice you got dice around this circle when you take a dice it's a number and that number is the number of resources of that kind that match the dice you get but there's also an action around that wheel that you get to do a number of times but that is in like direct opposition of the dice so if you take a five dice you're going to get five resources but you're only going to do two actions if you take a one dice you're going to get one resource but you're going to do six actions so you're always going to get something and you're not going to get something else and you've got to be able to build up the resources to be able to do stuff but there's also lots of cool little Roots into doing different stuff so combos in these really interesting ways it's just it's such a fun such a smart smart puzzle as long as you're cool with some beige I think people would really get into this one and it is my 74 my number 74 is Spirit Island and spirit island is a very heavy Cooperative game and I love the theme you are spirits that are trying to scare away the Invaders and so it is a really challenging puzzle because the Invaders they just keep invading they keep coming and getting stronger but at the the same time so is your spirit and it's all asymmetric Spirits so it's always an interesting puzzle to try and figure out your spirit and how to play them and how to play them well with what whoever else you're playing with too and so as your as the Invaders do more and more you are also doing more damage and it has this weird flow to the game where at the beginning it always feels like almost impossible and then you reach like this precipice when you kind of have the right combo that you can just like destroy very quickly and so because of the asymmetry because of the theme because of the really like cool Spirits you can be it is my number 74 my number 73 is prodigal club and prodigal Club has just one of my absolute favorite themes of any game so in prodigal Club you are these horrible rich people who have a a bet basically to lose all of their money so you're like it's like competitive ERS millions and so everybody is trying to lose all of this stuff you're trying to lose all your friends you're trying to lose all of your political standing you're trying to lose all of your money and all of your possessions this is a terrible why who would be part of this competition but it's really fun to play in a game so you're trying to get the lowest score possible but you only actually score for the one that you get the highest of so the one that you do kind of the best in which in this case is the worst is your score so you need everything to be down at the bottom the other cool thing with this is that there are three different possible sections but you're generally only supposed to play with two of those and they play very differently so it's really cool that you've got these kind of three different combinations of two different things that you can play with that kind of feels a little bit like three different games and so there's just so much flexibility in how this game plays and that theme is just absolutely killer and so it is my number 73 my number 73 is explorers of the North Sea and this is the second time on this section we had a Shem Phil game cuz you had paladins of the West Kingdom and explorers of the North Sea you are Vikings and you are exploring the Seas and how you're doing that is you always have to add a tile to these this ever growing land that everybody is using and exploring and you are sending your Vikings out you're collecting different animals you are are putting on like different buildings and it's just a really clever game that feels so different depending on how all of those islands get built sometimes we end up with like a few really large islands that we're vying for control other times we end up with more like tiny little islands and we have have our people like dotted all around them and like some of the best animal meeples are in this too and you get to put them in boats and sail with them as though they are your friends which I really like it's so hard not to do like an animal strategy because it's just so much fun to sell with the animals and so it is my number 73 my number 72 is Istanbul and Istanbul is first of all it's got this really cool board because how you put out the board is you got all these different tiles and you like kind of scatter them about and so it's going to be different every single game we always also play with both expansions so we always have quite a big giant board so you're moving around as this a merchant and you also have all these other dudes who are like you're apprentices and as you move you're going to leave them in different places to kind of do your bidding you're like hey you go buy this thing you go trade that other thing for gems and then when you move back you can pick them up again so you need to kind of figure out a path where you can leave these guys and then pick them back up and then move so that you always have them to go to cuz when you run out you got to like go to this mountain and yell everyone to come back to you and you kind of lose a turn and so it's really just finding this perfect route but that the efficiency of it the cleverness of leaving the people picking them up that how different the board is all that stuff makes it just a terrific game and it is my 72 my number 72 is it's a wonderful world and it's a wonderful world is a draft and pass game so you are drafting your various cards and then you've got to make a difficult de ision of which cards you're trying to keep and then which ones you want to discard to get your resource cubes and what you're doing is you are trying to build your cards which will eventually be the engine that will give you the ongoing Cube benefits so you're trying to set up yourself up for the right combo so you can get the right types of cubes in your engine going to build the cards later on in the line that you want to do and so I just find that puzzle like really interesting and it can be quite a challenge as well because obviously the ones that score really high are going to be the hardest ones to build so you're usually going to want to put those ones down early but then you're kind of committing yourself hoping that you can pull it off and it's just in this great like world as well it's this like dystopian theme so there's like the bright like blue happy guys which are probably like slightly Sinister behind Sinister and then like the more evil like red Ladies as well so it takes place in this great world and it is my number 72 my number 71 is tribes of the wind and thematically this is kind of the opposite of your last one which was just a dystopia that everyone was kind of Trapped In This is a little bit just after that so the world has kind of fallen and now this new thing is kind of being built up out of it and so you're clearing out the smog you're putting up trees you're populating those like wonderful little kind of nature indish towns it's all um very much based NASA Valley of the wind if you're familiar with that it's like a Miyazaki thing and it's it's just really beautiful Vincent D trit art but the game uses this really cool mechanic where to play cards you need there to be other cards present but the other cards kind of your resources are the backs of everyone else's cards so everyone's got their cards up in this card stand you can see the backs of everything else and you're going to have things like you need this many trees you need more trees than other people have or you need less water so I know there's a few other games out there that kind of have this mechanic like Hanabi but I don't know of another game that has it like this and it also has a really cool two-player variant and I actually really like this at two players where the row the card row where you're drafting from becomes the other player and that's cool because now you can affect both what you have and what that row has and that impacts both you and your opponent and just that like the decision of what do I want to draft and then what am I going to need next time so that I can do this thing so I have water and I can move and I can make my trees and all this stuff just so clever and I love that that back of the card read are so clever and it is my 71 my number 71 is Suburbia and in Suburbia you are building your own Suburban town and you're doing that by like getting these tiles out of the market but every time you put a tile down it's going to have its own effect and it's going to affect the surrounding neighboring tiles it could also potentially affect the other tiles in your town and even the like tiles that are in everybody else's town as well so you always have to like pay attention with what you have and the different almost like engines You're Building because you can find these really clever combos by getting like the right combination of tiles and it can feel like a lot to keep track of but it times it like so perfectly Because by the time you think I can't possibly remember one other thing it's always like then when the game ends which is really really clever and it has a really great catchup mechanic where as soon as like you get more and more population which is your points it means you've got to like decrease your income and the rate at which you gain population so if you go ahead quickly you're actually going to be gaining less and I think that's a really nice way of like helping people hopefully catch up or at least balancing it out and it is my number 71 and that is it that is another one in the books that is our numbers 80 all the way down to 71 which means next time we're going to be counting down the hits from 70 to 61 thank you so much for watching please let us know in the comments if you've played any of the games we talked about and as usual please like subscribe and hopefully we'll see you next time for another game [Music]