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Much to the chagrin of the BGG crowd, Settlers of Catan is a much better gateway boardgame. It's easy to learn and it has a lot of social interaction. I'd also
by HelloMcFly 13y ago
Much to the chagrin of the BGG crowd, Settlers of Catan is a much better gateway boardgame. It's easy to learn and it has a lot of social interaction. I'd also recommend Ticket to Ride as the second-best gateway boardgame. I love Carcassone, but it's not nearly as intuitive on the first couple of playthroughs, and the scoring at the end is more than tedious.
- Yen 13y agoI've generally had the opposite experience. Carcassone is simpler, and a player can generally play competently on their first game. Catan, on the other hand, I've found difficult to teach, despite the rules being fairly obvious to me, and there's lots of edge-case rules. (I had one friend get fairly pissed at me that I didn't describe, at the beginning of the game, the rule that a new settlement can break a longest road, which is a rule that hardly ever comes up) Edit: That said, Catan probably is a better gateway game into European-style board games in general, since it uses many of the same concepts. Ticket to Ride would probably be my top pick now, though, for a gateway game.
- HelloMcFly 13y agoHave you played Trains yet? I think that may be one of my new go-to games with new people. It's like Dominion but a lot less abstract.
- eru 13y agoOh, Settlers of Catan is also fine. I just mentioned Carcassone as the first gateway game that came to mind. I don't really play Settlers anymore these days. It's nearly twenty years old; the first decade was fun, but it does get old after a while. There are also a few things that a modern game would do different---but beginners will enjoy themselves very much.