Which one of these have you tried? At what point should it just be a computer game?
Personally, most complex game I tried is Ark Nova which did not even make it on this list.
Even some simpler games can have a lot of dependencies that make playing tedious like Hogwarts Battle
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None of these games are even remotely close to the most complex board games.
The campaign for North Africa is by far the most complex game, being as it was created specifically for that purpose and nobody has ever managed to even complete a singlr game of it.
Behind that are dozens and dozens of games in the 18xx genre, which is a giant cluster of rules from bespoke stock market operation details to complex route profit calculations to natural disasters and a million other things. Games can often take 8+ hours.
After that you have the entire hex and chit wargame genre, which will have tons of complex rules for combat, tables for looking up results, a million classes of units, and usually many rules that are included not even for game design purposes, but just for historical accuracy.
This is an awful click bait article just designed to get views for a more casual audience with popular well known games.
I wouldn’t call it awful ckick bait article. It’s just heavy games the writter happens to enjoy. It’s not like they are bad games or games with fancy IPs.
The campaign for North Africa would just be a waste of a slot, no one is actually interested in completing a play. It takes 20 years and a group of 8-10 players (yes, that’s a real player range). I would also argue that wargames are their own tabletop category. A factual top 10 most complex boardgames would be, without a doubt, 10 wargames.
I agree with you here, well said
He didn’t call his list “the most complex games I enjoy”. He called his list the 10 most complex games, which it absolutely isn’t. You’re ignoring the reality of what he published.
To be fair I was expecting a lot worse from a videogame website. It may not be the absolute top 10 but it’s a plausible list of some of the most complex games that the average boardgame player is likely to encounter.
For comparison, BGG search for gameplay weight over 4 and at least 100 votes
(which needs to be taken with a grain of salt too but it’s what we’ve got)“Some of the average games that are a bit more complex” is a useless arbitrary list.
By your own criteria, that list had none of the games over 4.7 weight with more than 100 votes on bgg
I’ve played gloomhaven, spirit island, and mage knight. Mage knight is the only one I found overwhelming and sold it after a few plays. I don’t have any interest in trying Oath or Twilight Imperium but the rest I’d like to play one day. I feel like this list is “popular complex games”, I’m sure there are larger rule sets out there.
We love spirit island here, it’s often inside the (dining room/gaming) table waiting for the next time we have time.
Inverse Catan
I’ve played Gloomhaven and Frosthaven (not on the list, but a bit more complex) and they are brilliant games. They take a long while to set up so we basically went out and bought a separate table - now we have a Frosthaven table.
I know there are some computer renditions of Gloomhaven, but honestly, it doesn’t have the same appeal to me. Part of the fun is painting the minis and actually touching the game.
For Gloomhaven, I had to put it away after each session because cats.
Since then, I’ve moved and I now have a dedicated board game room that cats are not allowed in. So Frosthaven gets to stay out. It’s very nice.
Oh wow, a dedicated table for the game! Sound like you need a boardgame table that has two layers :)
Yeah, that’s spot on. Our table has one layer and a couple of drawers but it’s still not enough. Still have to put away some stuff between sessions, but significantly less :D
Future plans involve something the size of a pool table, like Wil Wheaton had on Tabletop. That should suffice, I think. Maybe…
How does Dune’s complexity rank anywhere near any of the other games listed? Feels like the author was just cherry picking popular games for the list
Are you sure you are not mistaking Dune for Dune: Imperium? Dune is indeed a far more complex game than Dune:Imperium.
I’ve played both. They’re extremely different beasts, but at least to me Dune was less ‘heavy’ and more ‘lengthy’ due to negotiations. Might just be that I need to get more plays in, but I don’t see the strategy complexity yet
ASL would like a word.
I love ASL and SK, just reading the pocket RB is a treat!
The most complex game I’ve ever played was the original Android game from FFG. That game is some kind of crazy fever dream. It’s a cyberpunk mystery inspired by Blade Runner. It has 8 different playable characters, each with their own unique rules. I only managed to get it to the table once and we weren’t even able to finish it. It was definitely a very unique and interesting board game experience.
I guess its this one? Android looks kinda cool! So own the game but its too tedious to play or why was it only ever once on the table?
Basically yeah, it’s hard to get to the table because it’s a massive commitment. Also the rules are pretty crazy, you really need to have several people know the rules otherwise you’ll probably be missing things. It was definitely a cool experience though, just one that’s hard to get to the table since I either play with my family (who would never play a game this heavy) or friends who are typically busy with kids so we need to keep games under 2 hours.
I was excited to see someone mention this game! I have it too, but have yet to find anyone to play it with.
I would highly recommend checking out some of the files that users have posted on Board Game Geek, which include player-made rules variants that think improve the game - a major rules variant I have always wanted to try is the Co-Op variant, which allows you to work with other players to solve the murder and work against the conspiracy to cover it up.
It doesn’t solve the problem of complexity, as there is a LOT to cover, especially since the way the Co-Op rules materials were created basically require learning the game twice: learning the original rules and then learning what is added/changed when making the game Co-Op. I felt like the Co-Op rules improved a lot, though, especially because the original rules had the “ask” of learning such a complex game followed by you causing extreme trauma to the other player’s characters (ex. “haha, I just caused your character’s wife to leave him and now he’s contemplating suicide”).
Making the game cooperative helps with that saltiness; at least you, the teacher, are no longer responsible for the bad things happening to the other player’s characters.
Woah thanks for that. I’ll check it out. It was definitely an experience to play. I’d love to be able to dedicate a day to it again, especially with my Netrunner group.
Yeah it makes sense, sounds like a pity though! But maybe the game could use a redesign to make it a bit less tedious
Definitely, the concept of a cyberpunk murder mystery is very cool. When you play it, you definitely feel like you’re in a blade runner like story. It’s just the mechanics are fiddly and the game is definitely weighed down by its complexity.
I’ve played most of these but nothing comes even close to Lisboa!
I tried playing Human Punishment the Beginning and it just wouldn’t click in my head. That’s probably the most complex game I have (or the game with the shittiest rulebook).
This is a pretty good list that balances how fun the game is with complexity and popularity. I’ve played all the games except Star Wars and War of the Ring, and I liked them all (except maybe Gaia Project, because I like Terra Mystica more).
Of course there are a lot of war games that are more complicated, but I can’t think of any war game that’s more complicated, more popular, and more fun than the games on the list.
I don’t know the author of the article, so, for all I know, they might have just searched for the top complicated games on BGG, but the result is a pretty good list.
I agree with that, well said. I think the discussion about some complex wargames became a bit elitist to some degree. The list itself is a decent collection of complex yet fun games to play. Nobody ever is going to play some over the top complex wargame that takes 10 years to complete
I own most of the titles in the list, and they definitely forgotten about Imperial Steam.
Thanks for pointing that out! Typically these lists are a bit lazy journalism for lack of a better term. But it serves as a platform to discuss among us :)
What do you think is the most complex game in your collection?
definitely imperial steam, although very rewarding to play once understood. it’s my favorite game in collection, tied with terraforming mars.
I saw a tutorial for Voidfall yesterday and I gotta say that game wins for the most complex ruleset out there though :)
I have played WotR 2nd edition a lot. And after literally more than 100 plays I have to agree with the list that it is one of the most complex games ever. Not necessarily the core mechanics/rules, but there are really a lot of special/edge cases that you have to keep in mind. Especially when adding expansions. Dune is also really complex, I agree, but it’s also an outstanding and epic game.
I learned all too quickly to never go all in on Isengard attacking Rohan. Despite all laws of probability, my opponent has a 100% chance of having both ent cards and a companion near Fangorn forest.
What is WotR?
Its war of the ring
Thanks!
@dpunked I playtested Oath, but I’ve never played the final ruleset (we did all of our contributions at the beginning before covid started). It is complex though, and requires people to really sign on for that experience so I agree with that inclusion.
I’ve played a snot load of Terra Mystica and I’ve heard that Gaia Project is effectively “Space TM w/ a variable setup.” I’ve also played a lot of FCM, the expansion really helps the game, if for nothing else than the new milestones. I would have nominated Indonesia over FCM, but that’s purely personal.
Even if you exclude wargames though (so ASL, Here I Stand, etc which all have monster level rulebooks), the one omission I’m surprised about is that John Company 2nd didn’t make it. That’s like 45 pages but its doable. It’s not like it’s out of print or just unavailable either. Might not be able to walk into a generic hobby game store and pick it up, but that’s a bending of the criteria IMHO (even if the article is intended to be a list of complex stuff that would be something you graduate to, which excludes High Frontier for example). Overall not a bad list.
PS: High Frontier should be a computer game for the rules enforcement standpoint and I’ll die on that hill. Also, while the rules are only 1 sheet of paper, Southern Pacific from Winsome should be a computer game for the automated accounting alone…
