Rahdo's Top 10 Games 

10. Shipyard (1:48) 9. Nations (5:49) 8. Peloponnes (12:14) 7. 7 Wonders (14:31) 6. Keyflower (17:12) 5. The Castles of Burgundy (20:24) 4. Troyes (23:55) 3. Pandemic (28:54) 2. Dungeon Petz (33:25) 1. Agricola (37:07)

Not that anyone would care, but here's my top 10: 1: Dominion 2: Troyes 3: Caylus 4: Trajan 5: Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar 6: Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization 7: The Castles of Burgundy 8: Race for the Galaxy 9: Agricola (revised edition) 10: Codenames

It's nice to finally find a RU-vidr whose focus isn't primarily theme. I love that you unashamedly list Euros in your top 10 because those are my favourite kinds of games too. I love playing games where my decisions REALLY matter. I don't think it's a bad thing when a game is designed in a way that the best player will almost ALWAYS win, but I've seen people say that's bad design.

Please do the 7 Wonders 2-player Run-Through! We have heard so many opposing views of how the 2-player variant and just cannot decide whether we want to get it. So please, OH PLEASE! do a run-through!

You should do a top 10 non-building game list.

Richard well bloody done. I actually love relaxing to your videos, and I have literally bought 10 games based on your preferences and your playthroughs! Well bloody done big lad. Keep it up. Yours. Your biggest Irish fan!

I love that these games aren't about 'tearing other players down'. That's one of my only peeves about a lot of competitive games. I'm a big fan of co-op stuff. Thanks for the tips, definitely added some games to my wishlist. I may possibly be the only person in the world who actually hasn't played Seven Wonders O.o

I'd love to see a 7 Wonders play through! We also are a 2-player household and I've been interested on the game for a long time but always heard/read it was not good with 2 players. Thanks!!!

Great video, and another vote here for a runthrough of 2-player 7 Wonders. We own the base game but it hasn't come out as much as I'd like since I have only 2 players 90% of the time.

My top 10 1. 5 Tribes 2. Terraforming Mars 3. Champions of Midgard 4. Istanbul 5. Islebound 6. 7 wonders 7. King of Tokyo 8. Clank! 9. Above and Below 10. Seasons

Lol... Richard: "Let's see if I can get through this video in TWENTY minutes!" Me: *laughs to self and looks at the time of the video - 45+ minutes* Me: "Yup, that's about right." Don't sweat it, people watch you for the exuberant ramblings. The crazed enthusiasm helps me stay awake at work.

Radho, I truly enjoy all your videos. I would highly suggest linking your spoilers to actual time stamps in your video. It would make going back and forth in the video effortless and amazing. Cheers!

Very good list. I think your best take on 'Why' these games are on your top ten. Thank you.

great top ten mr richard. found out I was developing similar taste in board games and this list helped me put keyflower and troyes on my must have list. also, really curious about dungeon petz. very strange this vlada chvatl.

yes ! i would love runthrough 7 wonders :) never got a chance to play it or see it :P and i would like to see it working as 2 player :)

Troyes, one of the most underrated games!!! Thank you Richard.

+1 for the 2-player run through of 7 wonders

My girlfriend and I are also huge Agricola fans. We actually expanded out the card thing a little further. What we do is start with 10 of each card, and then discard 3 - so we still only have 7 to play with, but we can establish a tighter strategy this way and experience a larger # of cards overall - and if we get stuck with a bum card or two it's not so bad, because we can discard them.

Love me some 7 Wonders and I find it funny that it also happened to be #7 on your list (mistakenly #8 in the video, etc etc). One of my favorite games but, regardless, would love to see a play-through. Many still have not played it, as popular as we know it is ;)

My daughter and I also very much enjoy "building" games. We played Ora and Labora not to long ago and her comment after the game was about how much she enjoyed seeing her little plot of land grow into such a big town. I would love to see the 2-player version of 7 Wonders, Richard. I really enjoy that game, but almost never have 2 other people to play it with.

Great video! A lot of these are new to me. Excuse me while I make some board game purchases. :D

I just discovered your series of runthroughs a few days ago, and I'm enjoying them very much! (though I can't usually spare the time for the extended play videos and have to get by with just the first one and final thoughts) This is an awesome video as well, and I literally laughed out loud about your 'poo machine' comments on Dungeon Petz! :) Oh, and one question - I noticed Ground Floor on your shelf. What are your and Jen's thoughts about it? I love it myself, but can't manage to find anyone else who does, so my copy just sits on the shelf and gathers dust. :(

Rahdo...first off, love your work! Also, great comment about using a verb to describe a game...that's brilliant! To offer a better perspective on your comment of Nations (about destroy vs. build). I can appreciate your love of building. I think many also share that desire to create. The notion to destroy is a test to see if one's work is the best. There are many ways to gauge this...but at the very core of that is this: Does the work that I created able to BEST what someone else created? I think THAT is how many gauge that, especially in entertaining fronts like board games. I only say this as one who's preferred verb is 'destroy'. Not mindlessly or for the sake of destruction...but to give merit to one's creation. I think our mutual fondness of the game "Stronghold" is a perfect example. Thank you for what you do and keep up the great work!

Have you ever tried Roads & Boats? After watching loads of your (excellent) videos i thought this one would be right up your alley. Haven't played it myself, but seriously considering it :)

My game collection is only 30 deep, but of those games I own and love four of the games listed here. #10, #6, #2 and #1. Three of which were directly influenced by your videos. Thankyou.

Love to see 7 Wonders in a two player run through.

After watching this and some of your runthroughs, i`m a born again eurogamer. Just ordered Keyflower, Castle of Burgundy and Troyes. Thanks Rahdo:)

Great list! It happens to feature a couple of my personal favorites too - Castles of Burgundy and Agricola. Also, couple really surprising choices: Nations over Through the Ages? 7 Wonders over... anything (I don't know, Seasons comes to mind)?

We tried dungeon petz online after your recommendation, but my wife didn't care for it at all. She didn't like that her animals never stayed around that long. She does like Castles of Burgandy.

Shocking. I think I played Agricola at the wrong time. Puerto Rico did for me what Agricola does for you. It was also spoiled when I was told beforehand what strategy wins the game consistently. I used it and crushed everyone first time through. Darrrrr! Thanks for your unique top 10.

I know what u mean by elegance. In addition, I think its a huge accomplishment by feld to limit your choices. In so many games, you are overwhelmed with thousands of possibilities to place your workers. Feld almost always limits you by throwing dice, or using some other mechanism to limit your opportunities to maximize your success. some think that is a bad thing. I think its great because even those "5-7" choices can be so crucial. sry for my grammar. greets from Germany ;)

The brilliance of 7 Wonders is that the game doesn't get any longer with more players (unless one is AP). VERY clever. Also, I agree with your assessment that it's a good 2 player game because having the 'neutral' civ adds decisions to each player throughout the game, and makes for a neat give and take mechanic, and lets you take cards out of the pool from your opponent. Very fun and clever.

I can't believe I missed this list!!!! I was busy getting married last month. Thanks Radho!!! you handsome devil!

It's so Rahdo to forget to mention a 10th game in his Top 10 list =P. I find it endearing

You know, we don't line up completely, but I will say that if I find a game I love that no one seems to talk much about, you seem to really like it. I still haven't figured out how Dungeon Petz can be so good, be ranked so high on BGG, and you seem to be the only playthrough/review guy who even talks about it. I couldn't even find a video review of Dark Alleys (as you say, you aren't a reviewer, I did appreciate your playthrough video, so thanks for that :P) And then seeing you mention the 11-20 on Reddit, Space Hulk: Death Angel is my go to for a game to stuff in a bag when I'm going somewhere overnight and don't have much space. Great little game. No one talks about it.

The only man on RU-vid brave enough to put his list in his Description section...

I wish you would do a short video on your top 5 or top 10 Agricola card decks.

So you don't like to destroy something another player has built but you do enjoy preventing them to build something! (15:50) haha

Hi Rahdo, I noticed that The Castles of Burgundy and Troyes both have the mechanism of using dice to do actions. I was just wondering what puts Troyes above The Castles of Burgundy for you; Also how much better do you like Troyes as opposed to Castles of Burgundy? It looks cool... I have known about The Castles of Burgundy and I have been wanting to try it, but now I would also like to try Troyes.

Have you played Kingsburg? It is a dice worker placement game that has nice art and is on the medium complexity/ moderate depth side. Works out well as a family game though not sure how good it would be as 2 player. I don't quite see eye-to-eye with you on games like Mage Knight, Pandemic, and Agricola. You did point out a gem of Claustrophobia though and I'm eyeing some euro games like Le Havre and Castles of Burgundy for a family and gamer groups, thus your thoughts and gameplay help immensely.

It's a bit of a spoiler with you sitting in front of your game shelf because the viewer can sort of figure out that you're not going to pull games off your shelf. Maybe next time, you can throw a twist and actually pull a game off the shelf? :D

I just played Nations recently for the first time and i too got the impression that military is very important. It determines the player order which means that you can take away cards from players that have weaker military, it enables you to get colonies, it enables you to wage wars against other players and who knows what other benefits it gives. There is also honestly no way, that i can see, to negate the effects of war effectively except going for military strength as well. When a player with a strong military buys a war, you as a player with low military will lose at least one victory point and some resources, maybe up to 10 food or ore. It's insanity. Yes, you could negate the effects a little bit with stability but there aren't enough cards that give you stability reliably. I was also honestly shocked at how similar it is to Through The Ages. Yes, there are differences, like more wars for example. I'm not against replicating things, building upon things, quite on the contrary but Through the Ages isn't objectively better. It's also not different enough, not innovative enough to warrant a seperate game i feel. But then again i haven't played the two games all that much anyway so maybe i don't know what i'm talking about. I'd play both Through The Ages and Nations but Through The Ages i like a little bit more, if only because it was there first.

Nations doesn't get enough love, it's a great game. Plays well solo too.

I have just finished your great video thank you so much! Was wondering though why did you pick 7 wonders over Among the stars? With my partner we really prefer the latter, especially the Ambassadors expansion elevated that game to a completely new level which 7 wonders could never reach for us (not even with the expansions!). What do you think?

Rahdo, have you ever tried dead of winter? its a co-op, which is my fav kind (i love it when we work together instead of against each other) but i do know what you mean about it just crapping on you over n over again and DOW has that in spades. But i still love it, it takes the castles of burgundy's use-your-dice-as-actions mechanic and drops it in a zombie apocalypse (which actually works really well with the bombarding beat down it dishes out). i only ask cus i cant find anything you have done on it and its like my fav!! (maybe 10 co-op games vid soon?)

Calling Troyes a building game is a bit stretching it :). At the end of the game, you can only look at the cathedral and see the product of your labor, but everyone else is there as well. The sense of accomplishment isn't in what you've built, but in counting your points how well you've converted resources.

you should totally make a list of top 10 games to play with spouse who is not a gamer... !!!

Yep! Just because the game recommends you get a bit of everything doesn't mean you absolutely must in Agricola. You can definitely decide to say fuck sheep or forget growing wheat. My girlfriend and I have played 30-40 times as well and we constantly come up with new and interesting combinations.

Maybe I just suck but damn I feel Caverna is brutal as well in trying to get your plan into action vs what the other players are doing

Rahdo, will you make an updated list of your top 10 anytime soon? :) it would be interesting to see if there's any changes.

I cannot agree with you more regarding your hatred of building something only to have it torn down for someone else to win. I love when a game provides enough challenge that it tries to tear me down, but not when the whole point of the game is to rip each other apart. My one exception to this thought is Game of Thrones. But that is because you can score in other ways and through subterfuge still win without being the most aggressive. Great List

However did you end up with the Lautapelit.fi version 0.o?

I would have bet, that Andor would make your Top 10.

Richard, just curious, Given your experience and exposure to so many boardgames , did you have the urge to try to create a cool boardgame for the world ?

Hey rahdo, I'd really enjoy watching your upcoming 2player runthrough of 7 Wonders! Please, make that happen! Plsplspls?

Kinda surprised Bilblios fell so far down your list, Rahdo...

I'm thinking about getting Pandemic. Is there a big difference between the old Pandemic and Pandemic 2nd Edition?

Hi Richard, has there been an update on this list? If not, any plans to do so?

was caverna out when this was made? how does caverna stack up to Agricola for you now rahdo? thanks!

1:42 "[Give me 30 minutes to finish this video]" Me: sets video playback speed to 1.5x

I never played Pandemic. And i want to try it. Is it better for me to try Pandemic or Pandemic: Iberia. Bcs i have a better price for Iberia, and it is rated better on BGG. What do you think?

Strange that you like Keyflower so much (although I agree, it's great). In my experience, that's one of the most cut-throat, screw-over-other-players games out there. Perhaps that's less of a factor with 2 players.

From his voice I always imagined him being ... 32 years old.

ha, you have Rampage. I want that game. I'm not seeing Takenoko up on that shelf. you should fix that.

do you have an Agricola runthrough, I still haven't manage to learn it

So Caverna did not change your mind upon after more plays?

40:15 Farty farty! J/k

Considering an update anytime soon?

Where is Tzolk'in!? I'm sad.. it's my fave game and I thought you liked it! :( Just kidding :P sort of... I'll have to check out those dice games eventually though.

nations above through the ages? I agree but many people will be angry! :)

30 minutes ;D

I like Nations, I really do but the component quality is junk and the price of the game is way too high.

I actually think 7 Wonders is a terrible seven player game and a better (although still not ranked highly on my list) 2 or 4 player game. Everything you said about "I want this card, but if I give my neighbor this card it's better for them..." goes out the window with a 7p game, because you simply can't control the rest of the table like that in a big game. You're only affected by 1/3 of the other armies, you CANT build sub-optimally just to stop one other person from building optimally, because both of you will lose to the other five - the depth of strategy for seven players is basically focus on one thing, get them all, and hope no one else decides to pick the same track; with less people, you can actually pick more than one track, interrupt others tracks, there can be tension with army builds.

I think you missed the 20 minutes goal by just a little tiny bit

Dungeon Petz.....really??? REALLY??? I love your vids Rahdo, but man, I can't stand that game nor it's predecessor Dungeon Lords. Glad to see Agricola on your list though :D

I guess you haven't played Caverna yet

No I would definitely define Agricola as survive, not thrive...

vulcans hahaha

Stephanie 4th Grade "What this game" Me "Agricola, it's about building a farm, see it's got wooden animeeples" Steph "Ummm, yeah...can we play Formula D, Smallworld or Memoir 44 instead? Me(sighing with relief) "Sure Steph" Agricola sucks.

Pandemic is basic, stressful, and repetitive... It's a good game but....

your channel is uber informative but your political commentary on games which involve conflict is tiresome ... not sure why it is repeated constantly to the point of possible tunnel vision

Meh. Eurocentric top 10s of all time are not for me. I subscribed to the channel and I assume I will unsub shortly. I was hoping for more varied play throughs.