Good two player board games?

The wife and I are looking for some board games that would be fun to play with just the two of us. Any suggestions?

The wife and I have been playing Lost Cities lately. It's a slightly glorified card game, short, easy to learn, and fun.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

The wife and I have been playing Lost Cities lately. It's a slightly glorified card game, short, easy to learn, and fun.

Seconded. It's on XBLA as well.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

The wife and I have been playing Lost Cities lately. It's a slightly glorified card game, short, easy to learn, and fun.

We've got this one in the stable already.

Hive, Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation, and Mr. Jack are my favourite games to play with the girlfriend.

Stratego!

Chess...sorry...I'll go back to standing in the corner.

inspiringsn wrote:

Chess...sorry...I'll go back to standing in the corner.

Don't feel bad, I was gonna say that too.

Hide the Salami: Boardgame edition

If you want something hardcore, Conflict of Heroes is a great WWII hex-based board game, and works real well for 2 players.

I like Jambo, and the Starfarers of Catan card game.

Dominion and Race for the Galaxy are multiplayer games that play pretty well with two players.

Carcassonne. I have the Hunters and Gatherers version, but I understand all of them are good with two.

And i can recommend Carcassonne The Castle if you like the system, 2 player only variant of Carc.

I'll voice caution on Lost Cities. It's a great game but my wife absolutely hated it.

Second recommendation for San Juan, it is a great game and works well with two. Dominion would be a good choice as well. My wife is also a fan of Mr. Jack as she likes deduction games. We also play quite a bit of Tsuro; with a few minor modifications it is quite a bit of fun with two. It is extremely light but my wife isn't big on strategy games so it is something she's always willing to play and it looks nice to boot.

Hunters and Gatherers is also my favorite Carcassonne. My wife likes it because of the animals on the tiles.

While I have yet to try it with my wife, I really like Dynasties. It's a really cool little area control game for two which is pretty uncommon.

Settlers of Catan the Card game is good. Make sure to pick up the expansion, in the U.S. its all five German expansions in one package, so it's a steal. The game is mainly about outperforming your opponent with only a few dirty tricks.

Another great game by the creator of settlers is called: ELASUND, the first city. Works for 2-4 players. But beware, this is one game where you can really grief the other players in order to win. You might win by outperforming them, but you can also tear down their building first chance you get. It's about each player creating building inside a shared city, and the game is designed so that there will never be space for all players, especially when 4 player play it (twice the amount of players but only 33% increase in space!). If you and your wife like to go competitive, this is the full Shawn Elliott experience.

If you feel more cooperative you can play Pandemic with only two players.
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Not available at Amazon though, ask your local geek supplier. If your German is not too rusty it is the current hype on Brettspielword.de and selling like crazy

AnimeJ wrote:
inspiringsn wrote:

Chess...sorry...I'll go back to standing in the corner.

Don't feel bad, I was gonna say that too.

If you like Chess, I'd really suggest looking into (as I already suggested) Hive and Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation. Both are obviously much simpler, but they are both very fun and work some of the same strategic brain muscles.

I don't have a good time playing two-player Pandemic because it's the team interaction that makes that game. Lost Cities, San Juan, and Carcasonne weren't too much of a success for me. I like the games, but she doesn't.

One more suggestion that I forgot to mention is Battle Line.

EDIT:

I disagree with the Conflict of Heroes suggestion. If you're set on trying out a war-themed game though, start with Memoir '44. I haven't tried playing this with my girlfriend, but depending on the person, it may work. Dice-fests are always good fun.

In a related note, one game that's been a huge success with her non-gaming friends is Last Night on Earth. Every time they come over, they request that we play it. And getting her friends into games is a great way of opening her up to the wonderful world of gaming.

Ingenious
Travel Blokus
Battle Line
Balloon Cup
Mystery Rummy: Jekyll & Hyde
Ticket To Ride (we still play the USA version, but the Switzerland map is supposedly better for 2-player, more competitive)

I will second the mentions of Hive and Pandemic.

Aside from the Classic-Backgammon, checkers chess?

Risk is pretty good 2 players. For one it tends to be quicker. One variant has you use a neutral third party that just takes up territory. 3 armies, 2 players. You deal out cards for everyone's territories. And play from there. The NPC cannot reinforce of attack, just defend.

For two players, I suggest looking more into card games than board games. Magic, in particular, is well tuned for two players. On the Tabletop many of the strategy titles work very well with two armies. I played a lot of 2 player 40 k in my life.

Seconded on Blokus and Ingenious. Also, if you like penguins, Hey! That's My Fish can get very mean with just two players. Also: Cribbage or crokinole, if you have the boards.

jonnypolite wrote:

And i can recommend Carcassonne The Castle if you like the system, 2 player only variant of Carc.

This. Fun and quick for two players, normal Carc is not that interesting with only two people (everyone starts building their half of the map, usually, which means less conflicts and more boredom).

Other than that we play Scrabble a lot.

My wife absolutely adores Ticket to Ride, so I can't recommend that enough. It's great fun when played with 2 people, but scales up nicely to 5 for when the family is over, etc.

Definitely second, third, whatever, Mr. Jack and Carcassonne.

wanderingtaoist wrote:

normal Carc is not that interesting with only two people (everyone starts building their half of the map, usually, which means less conflicts and more boredom).

This is crazy! Two player Carc is the best Carc. I guess it's boring if you just let your opponent do their own thing, but Carc is as much about tearing down your opponent as it is about building things for yourself, and keeping your opponent from screwing you over like you're trying to screw them over.

Thread necromancy! I was wondering if there have been any new games that folks would add to these suggestions. I was thinking I would try play games with my wife (who enjoys most games) in the evenings over watching a show, etc.

My daughter and I enjoy playing Quarriors. She is 10 and has been starting to get the hang of it. It is not a complicated game, and there is certainly a luck factor, but there are also some good combos that can be made. What she and I do is go over each creature and spell before the game starts, and I then give her some pointers on what may, or may not, work well together. An expansion for it just came out too. I bought the expansion but it is for Christmas, so will have to wait to find out how it plays.

To rez this back to life a bit: Lords of Waterdeep looks like it will play great with 2 players. I'm going to confirm this over the weekend, but unlike a lot of 'merican style games this is more like 'playing solitaire against each other'. If that makes sense?

Hellah fun game.

Waterderp is good times for two. Don't worry.

We like playing castle ravenloft and thunderstone with just two. Castle ravenloft is great because it is cooperative. Forbidden Island is also a good coop two player game. Some others....zombie fluxx, roll through the ages, hellas, dungeon lords, citadel and stone age are all great, too.

Easter Island is a pretty good board game. It's like tactical checkers where you shoot sun beams out of statue eyes.