100 Reiner Knizia Board Games Ranked
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ย. 2024
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I tier rank 100 board games designed by Reiner Knizia, the greatest board game designer who has ever lived.
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🛒Links to buy:
Loot - geni.us/lootgame
Modern Art - geni.us/modern...
High Society - geni.us/highso...
Samurai - geni.us/samura...
Through The Desert - geni.us/throug...
Lost Cities - geni.us/lostci...
Ra - geni.us/ragame
Schotten Totten - geni.us/schott...
Nightmare Productions (aka Hollywood Golden Age) -
geni.us/nightm...
Battle Line - geni.us/battle...
Winner’s Circle - geni.us/winner...
Lord of the Rings Confrontation - geni.us/lotrco...
Butterfly Garden - geni.us/butter...
Quest for El Dorado - geni.us/theque...
Blue Lagoon - geni.us/bluela...
Babylonia - geni.us/babylonia
LLAMA - geni.us/LLAMA
Schotten Totten 2 - geni.us/schott...
Mille Fiori - geni.us/millef...
Reif Fur De Insel - geni.us/reiffu...
Marabunta - geni.us/marabunta
Zoo Vadis - geni.us/zoovadis
Cascadero - geni.us/cascadero
MLEM: Space Agency - geni.us/mlem
Cascadito - geni.us/cascadito
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CREDITS:
Edited by Joaquin Reinoso
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Do Patreon members get the other 700?
What a concept for a video. I really dig it! So, Uwe Rosenberg next? :)
Amazing that you gave me an idea of how the games work, why they are put where they end up and still not take a lot of time. Thank you, that must have been a lot of work.
Absolute madman Jon Purkis with a 2 hour mega-video (love it, the weirder the better)
This is what i needed tonight a 2 hour Actualol video
Really. How did he know
I checked out Lost Cities from my library based on Actuallol's recommendation. I was surprised by how much I liked it!
You absolute madman. You actually ranked 100 games. No shortcuts, no BS. Color me impressed.
Funner Fact:
The German word 'reiner' actually is the comparative of the word 'rein' which means pure. So technically, 'reiner' means purer ;)
Well he is purer than most magicians … GOB Bluth is very impure
@@mattvucu6706 COME ON!
just when I thought you couldn't make a video any more tailored for me
Some others that are worth a mention:
- Spectaculum: simple but interesting spatial stock game.
- Orongo: hybrid closed economy auction and tile laying game that has bad components but is actually a lot of fun.
- Municipium: slightly obscure Reiner area control game but well liked by the die hard Knizia philes
I liked more of these than Jon and booed a little when some of my favorites got panned (Justice for kingdoms, Tigris and Botswana!), but it’s really hard to argue with the ones that did rise above the rest, which makes this a really useful list for people who are not going to dig up every Knizia and just want some recommended good ones to grab.
Thanks for the tips! Those three were definitely on my hunting list but I didn't come close to finding copies of them 😭
The Tigris & Euphrates bit... ouch. "Just a game"? Below even "designer" level? It was a BGG #1 for years for a reason. It is at the top of many, many best of lists for a reason. I... really think you should have found a second-hand version somewhere before doing this list. :-/
Tigris & Euphrates is in my top 3 of all time. Seriously a great game, imho his best ever
There is just no other designer like Reiner Knizia. He is the GOAT and it is not even close. His ability to create such amazing, tense gameplay scenarios out of rules that can be explained in 2 minutes is unbelievable to me. There are probably 15 games of his that just blow my mind when I think that an actual human came up with that idea
Referring to Tigris as “just a game” as a board game reviewer is a BOLD move. And I love it
In our family, High Score is very much liked. This is one disagreed with. It’s not a masterpiece but it deserved more that the worst category.
I totally agree, it hits a table quite often with my gaming groups and everyone seems to like it.
I can't believe you left out all of his best games! I can't take any Knizia list seriously that doesn't include 3D Memo Smurfs, Harry Potter: Honeydukes,
Monster High: Potworrrnie wciągająca gra!, Disney Party Party!, Hot Wheels Speed Rallye, Playmobil: Piraten-Fang, Queen of the Cupcakes, Go Lightning McQueen, and Cars 2: Race Champions!
In all serious, this video rules. I enjoy almost every video talking about the literal mountain of work Knizia has published over his career. I'm looking at my shelf for games of his that weren't covered (I hope I'm not mistaken on any of these, I was watching while playing a solo game of Imperium: Classics lol): Stephenson's Rocket, Blue Moon Legends, Abandon Ship, and I think that's it?
I guess I'll also mention Bunte Runde, not because it's a good game (it's not very good), but the fact that it's basically a stockholding game for kids is kinda wild to me? 6 shapes in 6 colors = 36 blocks, take turns walking a pawn around the circle Patchwork style to claim blocks, once all of a shape or color is claimed everyone takes 1 of the 36 coins for each block they have of that type. So the whole game is just trying to get paid for both the color and shape of your blocks as much as possible. I think about Bunte Runde a lot.
Great list. I agree with almost everythibg. Ingenious and Tigris and Euphrates deserve better. They are both excellent examples of unique scoring that only the Good Dr. can make work.
Wow - what a thorough video. I have the Polish version of Great Wall of China, retitled "You can't stand there!" (in Polish). The theme really fits the gameplay. It's set in communist block times where people spend ages queueing for items outside shops with limited stock. So each shop has a line of depressed looking people (cards) queueing for toothpaste, Levis, or digital watches.
There is a real chance that Reiner himself sees this video
Are you kidding me? My group LOVES Africa!
Lincoln convinced me to get it, and I've had a lot of good game nights with it. I'd rank it at least Game Boy, probably higher.
But we do agree on Lord of the Rings. Thanks for the video!
What! Blue Moon City is on the List but not Blue Moon?
Blue Moon was a LCG before the term was a thing.
And it was awesome and basically made me a board gamer😅
Biggest difference of opinion: Ingenious, which goes into "He Walks Among Us" for me
That was my thought too. I love ingenious.
"Too much down time?" When are we supposed to do our drinking if not while other players contemplate their turn?! :)
Lost Cities is the first game I picked up on your recommendation, and it immediately became a favourite.
Wow, was not expecting this video to ever pop up on my feed! So excited to watch this, thank you!
A 2-hour Actualol video! Let me pop some popcorn and light some candles
I love High Score, it is a lot of fun!
I’ve played exactly one Knizia game and after watching this entire video, I’m certainly motivated to try some
2 hour actualol? THANK YOU!!!
HONEYBEARS ! One of the best Dr Reiner games ever, and yet not mentioned at all. (Republished as “Bucket Brigade”, but not as thematic as racing bears.)
Good list. Reiner knizia is the master of pasted on themes which leads to a lot of his games reprinted with different themes. I do like Lord of the Rings but I can see why people do not like this.
Rebirth? Too recent and couldn’t test it? Great video, and agree with all of it!! Except Lost Cities,
I just don’t get the appeal.
Games I think worth trying that you didn’t feature:
Taj mahal
Sushizock im gockelwock
Star trek expeditions
Formula motor racing
Risk express (art of war)
Fits
I highly recommend Yellow & Yangtze on iOS. It takes out all the fiddliness and allows the design to shine. It’s my #1 game of all time. Spectaculum and Yangtze are worth a play but they probably won’t rise to the top of your rankings. Ingenious, Tigris & Euphrates, Taj Mahal, Botswana and Medici are all “He Walks Among Us” for me.
This video makes me really happy, My favorite reviewer with 100!!! mini reviews about games from my favorite designer! Sometimes life is just good man, thanks!
Fantastic video. Loved all the rankings. I have all your top picks except through the desert. Very nice!
You did so many games dirty! Excape, high score, poison,blue moon city, marshmellow test, art robbery, sunrise lane, hot lead, circus flohcati, and botswana are all either A or B tier. They are really good games. Sunrise lane has just as much luck as TTR but it prevents players from stockpiling cards. Its all about using the cards you have. Sometimes you need to burn a card to kill a 5 point space because if you cant have it no one can! You should play botswana more. Once everyone gets the strategy it becomes really fun to see who holds out on which cards, especially if a suit is about to end the game. Its awesome.
45:18 I can tell you why the older the game is the less you can trust its rating on BGG is because board gaming is more popular now than years ago. And older board games simply don't have the amount of ratings that a new game has. For BGGs rating system it uses something called a Bayesian average. This is a way to calculate an average that takes into account not only the data you have but also some prior knowledge or assumptions. It's especially useful when you have only a small number of data points and want to avoid getting extreme values.
Imagine you want to know how good a restaurant is based on reviews. If one restaurant has only 2 reviews and both are 5 stars, should you assume it's perfect? Probably not, because there aren't many reviews yet.
So, with a Bayesian average, you start with a "prior" assumption, like the average rating for all restaurants is 3 stars. Then you combine this with the actual reviews. The fewer reviews you have, the more weight your prior assumption gets. As you get more reviews, the actual data gets more weight, and the Bayesian average moves closer to the regular average.
Basically, BGG fills its ratings with dummy ratings to give low review games lower scores. Older games don't get many reviews so the genuine reviewers cant get past the dummy reviews and so ratings wise the score usually ends up somewhere in the middle 4-6 ratings.
Hope this helps. Love your content mate.
Glad you like Mille Fiori. We enjoy it too.
Can't wait for the next 100 of his you play.
Will you do this with other designers? I enjoyed this.
Others have mentioned them, but definitely don't skip out on Orongo and Blue Moon (or Blue Moon Legends). I honestly don't how much/if you'll like them, but definitely worth a try if you can find reasonably-priced copies!
On the topic of BGG's ratings, I feel as what's happened is basically the same as we've seen happen to video games, where the reviewers have become almost afraid to give an actual critical score, forcing people to read between the lines to discern what the true score is on a scale of 1-10 than the scale of 7-10 the reviewer uses.
A great example I can think of is a game called Draconic Dice. This is an absolutely terrible game that is 99% luck based (to the point where a player can win on the very first turn of the game), and yet it somehow has a 6.6 rating on BGG and a 4.6 rating on Amazon.
There's a super early super short early Knizia auction game that we think Ou might like. It's called Das letzte Paradies from Kosmos. It has this simultaneous vickrey auction for a region (winner pays what second place bid) and then you negotiate with the players what you do with the tile. Really strong environmental theme with a rapidly fluctuating economy. It comes with a warning that everyone will lose the first you play.
What a fantastic video, a truly impressive and it shines as a labor of love, I will certainly take advice this to build my collection and gift to my friends, and thank you for this.
You’ve played a lot more than I have - but I’ve very little to quibble about (apart from, maybe, Llama). Was pleased to see high rankings for Mille Fiori and Marabunta - great new games and it’s impressive that he’s still making games that are so fresh and innovative whilst still being quintessential Knizia.
Brave of you to share the editing setup, here's all the expected internet feedback in one comment:
- Stuck on a playlist from 2020?!
- You really need to dust off your KRK's
- Call that cable management?
- No beers in the fridge, what is this, an office?
Jokes aside, great (long!) vid, Jon.
My game group cracked open Mlem on our most recent game night. We enjoyed it, but we messed up on one big rule for movement, where we read the rules as 1 die = 1 space regardless of the number rolled instead of "move the total number of pips on dice used", so we didn't get into deep space often. In our defense though, the rulebook in their movement example, uses 1s as the dice rolled, further reinforcing the confusion.
You should try Abandon Ship, which we have nicknamed "Rat Overboard." Lots of laughs and groans with this one!
Wow good ranking for llama card game. When I first played it I thought is this game the simplest game in the world or sth? But ends up playing maybe 100+ now. Plus many of those games are with my 5 years old son ❤
I skipped to the end but I promise to watch the whole thing! I'm actually picking out games for a weekend with some friends and played a me vs me game of Through the Desert and got totally engrossed (I won! The me I was rooting for!) Makes me sad seeing El Dorado up there as I can't get most of the expansions here in the states :(
Good to see you pivot from the frustration with the struggle of being a content creator on youtube to making feature lenght videos. Keep up the great work. Beer is on me :) Uwe Rosenberg next ! After the beer of course.
The good Dr.!!! 😊
Love it! Just saw a new interview with The Good Doctor on The Gameschooler Podcast, and now this! I’m in Reiner Heaven! Thank you!
The first digital picture of him could double for Jimmy Carr.
Art robbery is just SO COOL. I love it. All the adrenaline
My kingdom for a timestamp! Impressive video tho!!
Will watch tomorrow but it already gets a thumbs up!
Looks like I'm finding that DS game😂
Ooo will Rebirth be in this list?! Time to watch and find out! ❤
New edition of Samurai would be awesome!!
Don’t forget the free roll n write Decathlon
Love Dr K. Thanks for the video.
very best from the currywurst 😂🤣
Happy to have a new video!!!❤
Hollywood Golden Age FTW!
You madman, you actually did it!
It was bound to happen 😂
next Stefan Feld? :P
Ohhh instaclicked🎉
Wooooooow great video ❤❤
Exciting concept !
please time stamp
Lost cities ❤
Brilliant! ❤
Ooohh
thanks 😊
das tu meny!
My favorite is still Lost Cities :)
Oh, and "Rein" means pure ;)
Google translate always lets me down 😔
@@actualol Oh, sorry. Was not meant to put you down!
The ending "er" stands for "more" That makes "Reiner" more pure or purer :)
@@HansJoachimMaier It's all good! Thanks for educating me 🙂
+
Great Video :)
Thank you 🙏
Love it!
Also, cola?
It does look like cola but it's actually an ale this time!
@@actualolfoiled again…I’ll be back.
Innovation and impact on the future might have made good qualities to think about for some of these instead of just raw quality.
I know he’s incredibly popular, but he’s just not my cup of tea. To each his own.
It all depends on the game, not the designer.
Earth = Hell
First!