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What are your favorite logic and strategy games


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I want to incorporate some fun logic and stragegy games for Fridays for my middle school and lower high schooler. What are your favorites? I have one child that really struggles and I think this will help in ways that doesn't seem like learning but really is. 

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Evolution - lots of strategy, requires thinking about how your opponents may play and adapting your own strategy

Pandemic (and any of the sequels) - multiple choices to be made every turn, cooperative so strategy can be explicitly discussed along the way but each player still makes their own choices

Hogwarts Battle - also cooperative, so strategy can be discussed along the way. Ties in neatly if the person in question enjoyed the Harry Potter series, and is a really well done game, not the usual gimmicky tie-in.

Sagrada - more logic than strategy, you need to place pieces in ways that are advantageous without knowing what options will be available on future turns

Gobblet - this is a variant on tic-tac-toe, and actually a lot of fun to play. Games are super-quick, so easy to fit in.

Chess - an obvious pick, but for good reason

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7 Wonders is great because you have to choose one card from several. The hands keep getting passed around, too. 

I think Ticket to Ride might be good because you can figure out routes to possibly connect your tickets for the longest train as well as how to get around if you run into road blocks.

Castle Panic might be fun for them, and it's a cooperative game. 

I like Kingdom Builders because the board and scoring changes every game. Placement requires you use logic where you are building because you always have to build next to one of your pieces on the board whenever possible. 

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We love Carcasonne and Settlers of Catan.  I love SET (card game), which can also be played as solitaire.  The kids enjoy Labyrinth, but for some reason it's not my cup of tea.  We also love Clue, but my second kid is not quite old enough to really be into it, so ds and I have to wait until we have others over in order to play.  

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We like many of those already mentioned, especially Hive, Century, Catan, Set, Blokus, Carcassonne, Qwirkle and 7 Wonders.

Santorini is another my kids really like.  Abstract, engaging, and plays quickly.

Ultimate tic-tac-toe is our go to paper and pencil games for waiting in restaurants/waiting rooms etc.  We've even played it while camping by scratching the board into the dirt with a stick.

 

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Dungeons and Dragons isn't really what you're asking for, I don't think, but my kids have done a ton of learning with that game:  Story telling/creative writing, strategy, statistics, probability, social skills....  It's been quite amazing to see.

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Outbreak is one of my favorite strategy games for that age.

I've also tweaked Kingdominoes to be competitive.   You're supposed to just play in your own square.   In stead I connect the four castles by four pieces without any crowns on them, and no border restrictions.   You can add a territory piece each time or move your pieces (the two "Kings" of your color).  Any type of land (forest, wasteland, water, etc) you're castle is connected to is yours, unless another castle is also connected to it, in which case you split the score 50/50 at the end.   But, each person also has two "pieces" (the little kings) and you can move that piece to an unconnected stretch of land to obtain it, or add it to a "connected" piece of land to challenge it.

Land connected to castles count as one point, and land with "king" on it counts as one point,  so if you have a castle connected to land, and a king on it at the end, than that land is 50/50.   But if you have more "points" you take all. For exmple...

1 castle vs 1  King = 50/50 point split

1 castle vs. 2 kings = Two kings take all

1 castle + 1 King vs. 2 Kings = 50/50 split

1 castle + 2 kings vs. 2 kings = Castle and kings take all.

1 King vs 1 King = 50/50 point split

1 king vs 2 kings = 2 Kings take all.

If there are more than 2 players and 3 player's castles or kings are on one strip of land, than whoever has the most at the end takes it, and if all have the same than points from that are split evenly.   If all are equal all split equally, and if two or more are equal and most, they split it equally and all players with less get nothing. 
 

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