Most folks might include Monopoly and Chess on their list of Top Five Strategy Board Games, but I'm going a different direction with mine. Several of these games are of the Eurogames genre.
As a plantation owner on the island of Puerto Rico, you must grow crops, store, sell and ship them back to England, build necessary buildings, employ colonists, and you must do it better than the competition!
Not really a board game ... because there's no board, just cards. In the award-winning Dominion, you start with a small deck of cards and buy other cards that allow you to complete a host of actions, such as acquiring treasure or stealing it from others. Each game is played with just a portion of the 500 cards that come with Dominion, so no two games are ever alike.
The object of Empire Builder is simple: Build rail lines to connect major North American cities, pick up goods, then transport them along the rails for delivery in other cities for cash. First player to $250 million wins. Learn some geography along the way, too. Since the debut of Empire Builder, Mayfair Games has created many other "Rails" games for locations around the world and ... yes, even Mars!
Another train game that involves building rail lines between cities. In Ticket to Ride, though, the object is to be the first to use all of your train cars in completing your routes and scoring the most points for completing the longest and most valuable routes.
Carcassonne doesn't have a board, either. You build the board as you play by laying tiles that pictures roads, parts of cities and fields. Send your followers out to develop an area to score the most points and win the game.
So, go ahead, put the Monopoly game away and try one of these challenging strategy board games for a change of pace!
select one here...