Neil's Thoughts

In Part 1, I chose a starter collection of ten games for around £350. Accessible, varied, designed to be played by real people rather than admired on a shelf.

This list is different.

These are not the next ten boxes I would tell anyone to buy. They are possible destinations.

The step up is not only in price, box size or the number of pages in the rulebook. These games ask players to inhabit more complicated systems. Roles become more asymmetric, information less complete, incentives less aligned and consequences harder to trace back to a single decision.

Some are expensive. Some are difficult to find. Some require substantial preparation. One may consume most of a day and leave everyone discussing one political decision for the following week.

Money, time and shelf space have now been asked to wait outside.

11. Glory to Rome

One of my favourite games and one of the more difficult to explain. Almost nothing has only one purpose. The same card can become a building, a material, a client or part of the value stored in your vault. Its complexity comes from a relatively small number of rules interacting in ways that produce increasingly powerful and surprising combinations. It is confusing until it is brilliant. Unfortunately, it is also out of print and often expensive on the secondary market.

12. Battlestar Galactica

The best cooperative hidden-traitor game I have played. It captures the television series because it understands that the central problem is not simply fighting Cylons. It is trying to maintain a functioning community under pressure when trust is incomplete and every resource is disappearing. The result is not a game about discovering who is lying. It is a game about trying to act collectively when nobody can know everything. Like Glory to Rome, out of print and commanding unpleasant prices.

13. Oathsworn: Into the Deepwood

A vast cooperative campaign game combining narrative choices with large tactical encounters. It is the sort of box that appears to contain another, smaller flat. This is not a game to buy casually because the miniatures look impressive. It needs storage, repeated sessions and a willingness to learn its combat system. For people who want an unfolding shared story rather than a game reset completely after each evening, it offers an experience the first ten do not attempt.

14. Endeavor: Age of Sail

An elegant game of expansion, influence and development. The mechanisms interlock without requiring the physical bulk of several other games on this list. The theme carries historical weight; a game about European expansion and trade cannot treat slavery and colonialism as decorative background. It is a step up in interconnected decision-making rather than simply a step up in rules.

15. Ark Nova

Create and manage modern zoos through an enormous deck of animals, sponsors, conservation projects and specialist buildings. Five action cards move through positions of different strength, so using one action changes how powerful the others will be later. It works especially well for people who enjoyed Wingspan and want something more demanding, longer and less forgiving.

16. Marvel Zombies

Takes the approachable superhero theme of Marvel United and applies it to a much larger, more expensive miniatures game. It is energetic, excessive and expandable to a financially irresponsible degree. This is the destination for people who enjoyed accessible Marvel cooperation and concluded that what it really needed was a larger table, many more miniatures and moral uncertainty about eating civilians.

17. Hegemony: Lead Your Class to Victory

Political class conflict turned into a playable economic system. The Working Class, Middle Class, Capitalist Class and State occupy different structural positions, control different resources and pursue different routes to success. The game does not resolve arguments about capitalism, labour, taxation or the role of government. It makes the structures beneath those arguments playable. You may leave with the same political beliefs you brought to the table. You will have spent several hours experiencing why another participant might evaluate the same decision differently.

18. Viceroy

Not every game in the second ten needs an enormous box or a full day. A colourful card game in which players build pyramids of characters and laws. Where a card is placed affects both its cost and its benefit. Multiplayer auctions determine which cards people acquire, while gems, symbols and combinations create a layered scoring puzzle. Its depth is compressed rather than physically overwhelming.

19. Wonderland's War

Combines bag-building, area control and the visual excess of Lewis Carroll's world. Players gather supporters during a tea-party phase, then fight across Wonderland by drawing tokens from individual bags. Stronger forces improve the chance of success, but pushing too far risks drawing madness and losing everything. The central tension is excellent: accept the result, or keep drawing?

20. Twilight Imperium

Less a board game evening than a temporary form of government. Players control interstellar civilisations competing through expansion, technology, trade, negotiation, political votes and military force. A session can occupy most of a day. What justifies the commitment is the story created by the interaction of its systems. Trade affects diplomacy. Geography shapes security. Political votes alter the rules. I include it as the furthest destination rather than the inevitable final step. For those who attempt it, arranging the game may be the first strategic challenge.

A collection should lead somewhere, not everywhere

The first ten cost roughly the price of one heavily expanded miniatures campaign and will probably reach the table more often. But a first collection should create invitations rather than obligations. These ten show some of the places it might lead if the people, time and appetite are there.

If you are curious about what years of this hobby may have done to the way I think about governance and AI, I wrote about that separately.