Top 5 DoaM Games

MattDP wrote:

Legomancer wrote: I'm not a big fan of the genre but here are ones I like

Why do you hate fun?

One look at his business card should say it all:

Dave Lartigue
Fun Vampire

The big thing for me is that while I like competition in games, that doesn't necessarily translate into a love of conflict. I like a lot of games WITH conflict, but I think as a genre DoaM tends to overemphasize how inherently terrific conflict actually is. I like deal-making too, but I'm more of a collaborator than a competitor. That works pretty well in games like Catan and Cosmic Encounter, but it's less useful in lots of other games.

Truthfully, the genre has come a very long way in the last fifteen years or so. Nexus Ops is kind of my platonic ideal, because it is just so straightforward. No faffing around building troops, no turtling, just all offense all the time for about 90 minutes. My other two games are much more elaborate affairs. Dune works really well for me because I just get such a charge out of seeing the special powers interact, and by how it embraces hidden information and creative solutions to problems. Clash of Cultures is just a lot of fun. I like the amount of conflict it has, it almost feels like a more aggro version of Catan to me. The expansion really pushed it over the top in my book.

I can think of a lot of other examples that I like, but either I haven't played in a long time (Cyclades, War of the Ring) or that I only played once (Runewars, Eclipse, TI3). I would be disingenuous if I put them on my list, because they really aren't on my radar that much.

Actually, it occurs to me that I'm being a little narrow in my definition. I think I could make a top 5 here...

1) Nexus Ops
2) Dune
3) Clash of Cultures
4) Small World
5) El Grande

El Grande
Nexus Ops
Cthulhu Wars
Imperial
Dune

Chaos in the Old World barely missed it here.

Struggle of Empires, there's another you do don't hear much about anymore.

Michael Barnes wrote: Struggle of Empires, there's another you do don't hear much about anymore.

The new Conquest of the Empire revised Struggle of Empires really well.

I don't see El Grande as a DoaM game. No map really, just boxes on top of an image of a map. Also, I feel that one of the core elements of a DoaM is attacking an area to take it over, not moving dudes in to obtain a majority.

ignoring 4x, 2 player games and Titan. Anything with plastic or stuff substituting plastic dudes (ascending empires does technically have plastic dudes)

1. Ascending Empires
2. Dirk Heinn Shogun - i never expected to rate this so high, but it is just sort of satisfying. I've found it always delivers, where as Dune can really misfire
3. Chaos in the Old World
4. Dune
5. Falling Sky - Gaelic Revolt

MattDP wrote:

Legomancer wrote: I'm not a big fan of the genre but here are ones I like

Why do you hate fun?

Please don't with this shit.

I didn't even think about Small World but yeah, that's up there as well. And I wouldn't really count El Grande for reasons others said.

Uba, while our Mare Nostrum games have conflict, we all tend to focus more on the trading. It just doesn't tend to spin out that way usually. That's fine with me, because, as I've said numerous times about Clash of Cultures, I don't want to sit down to play a game about one thing and then some other player decides we're playing Nexus Ops instead because that's all he ever wants to do.

Shellhead wrote: I don't see El Grande as a DoaM game. No map really, just boxes on top of an image of a map. Also, I feel that one of the core elements of a DoaM is attacking an area to take it over, not moving dudes in to obtain a majority.

It's absolutely a map, and the geography definitely matters.

Chaos in the Old World
Dune
Nexus Ops
Fortress America
Eclipse

Ti3 or Ti4
War of the Ring
Dune
Struggle of "Booze" I mean Empires
Frack if I know what's 5th. The first 4 were a piece of cake. maybe A&A, Nexus Ops, Risk Europe or Risk Legacy

Clash of Cultures
Forbidden Stars
War of the Ring
Dune

Recent addition is Lords of Hellas. My current game of the moment. Fired a lot of games for me.

OK, after much swearing and unmanly wailing I used some harsh definitions to whittle my games down to DoaM ones to select from and I have my Top Ten:

Made the Top 5
Fortress America
Twilight Imperium 3/4
Runewars
Forbidden Stars
Nexus Ops

Some how didn't make the Top 5
Mare Nostrum & Expansion
Age Of Conan
A Game Of Thrones 2e
Risk: Star Wars - Original Trilogy
Warrior Knights (FFG)

I've only picked ones that own, I couldn't really face going this process for all the games I've ever played (but Dune is probably the only one that may have made the list).

Based on all the responses in this thread so far (except for Superfly's unnecessary second round of voting):

1. Nexus Ops (17 votes)
2. Dune (13 votes)
3. Chaos in the Old World (8 votes)
4. Cthulhu Wars (6 votes)
5. Twilight Imperium 3/4 (6 votes)

Votes for Twilight Imperium sometimes specified an edition, and sometimes said 3/4, and they are functionally the same game, so I lumped them together, but left them one rank below Cthulhu Wars because of the edition issue. I didn't include Pete's vote for TI2, because that is functionally a different game from TI 3 or TI 4.

After that:

6. (tie) War of the Ring (5 votes)
6.(tie) Cyclades (5 votes)
8. (tie) Blood Rage (4 votes)
8. (tie) Risk: Legacy (4 votes)
10. A massive tie with 3 votes each for: Clash of Cultures, Eclipse, Forbidden Stars, Fortress America, History of the World, Kemet, Mare Nostrum, Runewars, Struggle of Empires, and Warrior Knight.