Top 5 Nerdier Party Games

Ticket To Ride
is a cross-country train adventure in which players collect and play matching train cards to claim railway routes connecting cities throughout North America.  There are many versions with other maps featuring: Asia, Europe, and Many More.

The longer the routes, the more points they earn.  Additional points come to those who can fulfill their Destination Tickets by connecting two distant cities, and to the player who builds the longest continuous railway.  The object of the game is to score the highest number of total points. 

This is a great game for a party of 2-6, though I have played on teams when we have had more than 6 guests over for one of our board game brunches.

Settlers of Catan: Normally this game can only be played with a maxim of 4 people.  So if you have a larger group of people coming over you will need to purchase the expansion pack to play with more.  Like Ticket to Ride, Settlers has many expansions with different worlds.  Every game you play of Settlers will be different.  Which is what makes it so exciting every time.  Every game your board, placement, where you want to build your villages changes!

I wont go into to much explaining here click the image for information on how to exactly play the game.  But I will say I have never needed wood and brick more, or maybe that’s ore and wheat! But what do you do with the sheep?

Carcassonne: Like Ticket to Ride and Settlers of Catan, Carcassone comes with many expansion packs to keep things interesting.  And like Settlers no game is the same. You can play this game with 2-5 guests.

The game board is a medieval landscape built by the players as the game progresses. The game starts with a single terrain tile face up and 71 others shuffled face down for the players to draw from. On each turn a player draws a new terrain tile and places it adjacent to tiles that are already face up.

After placing each new tile, the placing player may opt to station a piece (called a “follower”) on a feature of that newly-placed tile. The game ends when the last tile has been placed. At that time, all features (including fields) score points for the players with the most followers on them. The player with the most points wins the game.

7 Wonders: I can sometimes have some apprehension learning a new board game I hate reading all of the rules especially if it takes forever!!!! The first time I played 7 wonders the guy explaining how to play was intoxicated which made it even tougher.  But I won the game which is probably why I got over his poor rule explanations. 7 Wonders is a card development game. In 7 Wonders you are the leader of one of the 7 great cities of the Ancient World. Gather resources, develop commercial routes, and affirm your military supremacy. Build your city and erect an architectural wonder which will transcend future times.

7 Wonders lasts three ages. In each age, players receive seven cards from a particular deck, choose one of those cards, then pass the remainder to an adjacent player. Players reveal their cards simultaneously, paying resources if needed or collecting resources or interacting with other players in various ways.  Each player then chooses another card from the deck they were passed, and the process repeats until players have six cards in play from that age. After three ages, the game ends.  This game is for 3–7 players and there is an official 2-player variant included in the instructions but if you’re playing this at a party I hope you have 3-7 people there!

Lords of Waterdeep: Now the premise of this one threw me.  I feel I am on the verge of nerdome but I’m not quite there.  Lords of Waterdeep is from the dungeons and dragons franchise. “Waterdeep, the City of Splendors—the most resplendent jewel in the Forgotten Realms, and a den of political intrigue and shady back-alley dealings.” But here’s the thing. It’s a really fun game and I kind of just forget the premise do what I need to do to win and instead of calling all the little colored blocks by their themed names I just call them their colors… It makes the game easier and to me more fun only because I’m not into a theme when it comes to a game I’m just play to strategically win.

Lords of Waterdeep is a strategy board game for 2-5 players. You take on the role of one of the masked Lords of Waterdeep, secret rulers of the city. Through your agents, you recruit adventurers to go on quests on your behalf, earning rewards and increasing your influence over the city.

That is a rundown of my favorite nerdy party games… Do you have any more I should try out? Leave a comment and let me know!