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[badmagic]

The Washington Post desribes Settlers of Catan as a necessary social skill among entrepreneurs and venture capitalists (one tech chief executive calls it "the new golf"). It's joined Monopoly as a boardgame played by people who aren't interested in boardgames

Comments

[blueeowyn]

Some depends on what you mean by an introductory game. Is it time to play? Complexity of the rules? Complexity of strategy? All of the above

[badmagic]

"Introductory boardgame" = "Boardgame that will be enjoyed by people who don't already like boardgames."

[blueeowyn]

The challenge of introducing board games is similar to introducing roller coasters, you need to know the persons interests and anti-interests.

[vvalkyri]

true. All the things I listed in my response are based on my default tendency toward short attention span theatre and preference for socialness if I'm in a room with others.

[blaisepascal]

My problem with teaching people Carcassone is the great shift in the end-game. Farmers seem utterly irrelevant to the play the first time you play the game, until you get to the end-game, and then they are suddenly all-important.

I haven't found too many crayon-rails players around here. I agree they are a great way to teach geography (well, except for Iron Dragon, of course).

[blueeowyn]

I find that they are useful for teaching geography but when introducing a new person, find the one that has geography that they are most understanding of (of use Iron Dragon because that at least has regions).

[thelongshot]

There are many people who recommend not playing Farmers for an introductory game. I agree that that mechanic is very difficult to understand. (Personally, I still don't grok it.)

[dcseain]

I love the crayon-rail grames, especially British Rails and Lunar Rails.