I know The Landlord’s Game/Monopoly and Class Struggle, are there any others?
I looked it up on reddit, and there were some interesting games, but the usual cringe.
Spirit Island is a cooperative game of settler-destruction.
Each player plays a different spirit who lives on an island being invaded by European settlers and works together and with the indigenous people to kill all the settlers or at least enough that they fuck off forever.
I really enjoy Spirit Island (you can play it solo fairly well if you don’t mind playing two-handed). It’s one of the few board games that I feel the theme is something that actually aligns with my beliefs fairly well.
It’s…probably not something I would recommend to a newer board gamer though, because it is very heavy in execution.
Fair warning, it is a heavy co-op Ameritrash style game, which isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.
I like secret hitler because it shows the ineptitude of liberal democracies to combat rising fascism
Looking at my board game shelf right now, a few that have some class implications:
- Twilight struggle - Play through the cold war. Incredibly fun but complicated.
- Carcassone - a battle between feudal lords trying to capture as much of the commons as possible.
- Jaipur - Ruthless trading about buying as cheaply as possible, and selling for as much as possible.
- Ticket to ride - Railroad monopoly titans fighting over limited terrain.
- Risk - Napoleonic warfare, but IMO the capturing of countries and continents gaining you more soldiers each round, implies industrialization and colonialism. Axis and allies kinda the same deal.
- Pass the pigs - Do I need to elaborate on this one.
Jaipur is also a city in Rajasthan, India.
(If you are a potential tourist do not consider visiting Rajasthan/Jaipur. It is 0% fun.)
I know The Landlord’s Game/Monopoly
The Landlord’s Game is Georgist, and kind of a bad board game.
Georgism sounds like Adam Smith’s ideal capitalism. I personally own the game, but somehow have yet to play.
If you ever get around to playing it, don’t let anyone introduce house rules that keep money in the game or otherwise slow it down (e.g. fees paid to the bank get picked up by the player that next lands on Free Parking, skipping the auction phase on unpurchased properties). Maybe consider setting a time limit, too.
What about Root?
Some of the COIN games have cool settings, like Cuba Libre. I have to admit that they’re a bit too complex for me to justify buying - Root seems like the happy medium for this style of asymmetrical war games
I have a regular board game group who I play some pretty heavy games. We once played On a Distant Plain, the Afghanistan COIN game. By the end of it, the Coalition Forces player and the US player were legit at each other’s throats and tearing their hair out.
9.5/10 simulation of Afghanistan
2/10 if you actually want to have fun and retain friends
