Games I'd rather play with Two

I have as I’ve gotten deeper into the hobby; found more and more opportunity for gaming in groups, like my weekly board game club, the bi-weekly meet-up in my area, as well as frequent invites to game nights at friends’ places, and hosting my own, of course. However, even with all these, the player combination I play the most is two players, usually due to frequently gaming with my flatmate, and playing games one on one with various family members whenever I go home for a visit. Because of this I don’t often buy games that won’t work with two players in some way, shape or form, as this means the games will have a harder time hitting the table. However, I don’t generally seek out two-player only games either, because I do have all those other venues for gaming, and I prefer my collection to primarily catering to both situations.

Saying that I’d rather play these games with just two doesn’t necessarily mean I won’t play them with a larger player count. There are even some games that I might have included on this list at an earlier point in the hobby, such as Lords of Waterdeep, which I do really enjoy playing two player, but the more I have thought about it, the more I think that particular game, while excellent with two, probably is at its best with three. As for the games actually on the list, some of them I might enjoy a lot regardless of player count, and the two-player experience simply outshines the rest for one or two specific reasons. It might be down to variant rules, to how player count affects what I can do in the game, or other reasons.

My Village

This is probably the only game on this list that gives such a polarizing player experience due only to the player count. It’s a dice drafting game, where you grab and combine two dice to make a number. Different actions are paired up to different numbers, and when you play three or four players you only get one action per round, which can make the game brutal for players going last, as they don’t really have much to pick from when it becomes their turn. And as you need a specific dice combination to even grab starting player, you are really at the mercy of the other players leaving you with the numbers you need to do so.

When you play the game with two players, you use the same amount of dice as you would with four players, and each player ends up taking two turns in any single round. This might not seem like it does much, but it actually changes everything. It leaves enough dice in the pool to make your first action be something worthwhile, something you actually want to accomplish, and because of that you don’t care too much if the second one is more of a throw-away action. It also turns the taking of the starting player hand more of a timing matter than a necessity as you let the story points build up, and then hope you will be able to claim it at the right time. I say ‘hope’ because while the starting player is prohibited from grabbing the starting player hand with their first action, they are allowed to grab it with their second one to secure the story points.

This is the only game on this list that I will not play more than two for exactly this reason. It just gets too limiting, too unfair. With two players, however, it’s simply excellent.

Five Tribes

I absolutely love this game, and I will happily play it at any player count, but I do think two players is the more strategic way to play. In this game you bid for turn order, and then pick up and drop meeples mancala style from tile to tile until you trigger the actions you want to take. It can be a tense game of trying to get the best possible position on the turn order for the least amount of money as money counts as points at the end of the game. If someone else go ahead of you, you are desperately hoping they won’t spot or inadvertently place meeples in any way that might ruin your intended move. At the same time, you hope you don’t set up a good move for any opponent going after you.

When you play this game with two players, you bid for two spots on the turn order track, and that is how the game gets even better with two, as you can try positioning yourself on the turn order track so that you get two turns in a row, allowing yourself to both set up and cash in a good move. This makes the game even more analytical as you are not just trying to see the moves that are already there, but also what could be there if you add the right meeples to the right spots. It does make the game potentially AP prone, so always be mindful of who you play two players with.

A Castle for All Seasons

One of my favourite ways games can scale well into two-player territory is whenever they give you more that you can do on your turn the fewer players are in the game. In this game you are simultaneously selecting cards to play. The cards activate according to a set pattern and player order only counts when different players play cards of the same type. In a three to four player game, the players only choose one card, in a two-player game; the players choose two cards each. I’m a sucker for games that let me do more, but there’s also at least a little bit more calculation to the choices you make.

You always have to play two out of eight possible cards, and you don’t get to pick your card up until you play the master builder, so it’s easier to suss out if an opponent is likely to play a card that will either compete with you for something (being the first to put down a trader, or take resources from the tower, or build buildings and buy spots on the board) or a card you might get to take advantage of  (like a stone mason buying a resource from a worker, or the master builder earning points from opponents building or discouraging your opponents to build that turn).

This game works really well with other player counts for sure, but I just enjoy it that much more, because I get to do twice as much during my game when it’s just two.

Fields of Green

This game is an excellent drafting and tableau building game in and of itself, but it has a special drafting variant for when you are playing with two players that is just so enjoyable that I’d just much rather play that than the regular drafting done with more players. In this game you build up a hand of cards by choosing to draw cards from at least three of the four different decks. But instead of traditional drafting, both players’ hands are shuffled together and then a selection of six is turned over to make the ‘pool’ players may choose to buy their building from. Once both players has chosen a card each, two more cards are added to the pool, and this continues until both players has taken all of the cards from their combined ‘hand’. This does give the first player an advantage, but as the game is played over four rounds, giving each player equal turns to be the first player, it works.

While traditional drafting has the benefit of no players being ‘first’, having the open ‘pool’ just works so well, as both players are operating on the same information the whole time and never know what might be turned over next. The first player does have the benefit of always having dibs on the new cards in the ‘pool’, but it’s the second player that really determines the final card distribution of the hand in the first place, as they always pick their cards after the first player picks theirs, meaning they can use the knowledge of what the first player picked to determine what they contribute to the common deck. 

Kingdomino

Let me preface this by saying that I do really love this game with any player count, so much that I almost left it off the list. However, the more I thought about it, while I will happily play any player count, there is one two-player variant that just really outshines the rest in my eyes. In this game you are building up your kingdom which consists of domino-like landscape tiles, however you are restricted to a five by five grid, so placement is essential. Every turn a set amount of tiles are placed in ascending numerical order (all tiles have different numbers on the bag) and apart from the first round where the player meeples are randomly drawn to determine order, player order is determined by the position of the tile they chose the previous round. When placing tiles, players need to either place it adjacent to the wild castle tile they started with, or match one or more of the adjacent landscapes already in their kingdom. If they cannot legally place a tile, it will be discarded.

The way the regular game is played, the amount of tiles used in the game depends on the player count. Usually in a two or three player game a set amount of tiles are removed before the game starts, which makes the regular two-three player game a lot different from the full four player game where players are operating on the knowledge that every single tile in the game will be coming out at some point. This makes the regular two or three player game a little more prone to luck, as a player may build up a certain type of landscape and not have a single scoring tile for that landscape come up – which isn’t that much of a problem as this is very much a quick game.

However, there is a two-player variant that comes in the box that combines the best of two worlds. By extending the grid size from the regular five by five to a seven by seven, you can play with the full amount of tiles. You retain the strategy of the four-player game, while still getting to do more as a player. The expanded grid size is an additional bonus, as it doesn’t so quickly limit your options for tile placement. It is overall the most enjoyable way to play the game, and the reason why I would rather play this game with only two.

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What about you guys? Are there any games you would rather play with just two? What is it that makes them so much better with just two players? Are there any of my picks you disagree with? If so, what player count do you think is better?