Have Fun While Exercising Your Brain: The Ten Best Strategy Games of 2021

Have Fun While Exercising Your Brain: The Ten Best Strategy Games of 2021

Strategy games have been around for millennia. From the early version of Chess to tabletop wargames, humans have always been looking for ways to challenge our friends in battles of wits. This guide is a starting point for discovering games that are fun, interactive, and challenging, and our picks are a great introduction for anyone looking to get more into games. Read on for our favourite strategy board games to introduce at your next game night.

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Why Strategy Board Games Outclass Video Games?

While we live in a world where video games have proliferated so much that it is ruining a lot of values that make us friendly and sociable. Strategy board games keep fun and entertainment intact along with making us more socially interactive with more face-to-face conversations. Also, spending hours on video games are stressful for your eyes and your body. You won’t have to upgrade your hardware once in a while to run new games with board games or be concerned about your Wifi speed. The only expense that you need to make it while you buy the game. Strategy board games give you fun in its simplest form.

10 Strategy Board Games

Apples to Apples

Apples to Apples is designed with a motive to make games full of knowledge and learning. It is made for four to ten players to play together. This wild card and party game helps to increase the cognitive ability of your child. The game has two decks of cards, namely, Things (red cards) and Descriptions (green cards). There are two groups in the game; one player is a judge and the rest of the players are guessers. The judge draws the description card, featuring an adjective and places it for all players to see. Then, the rest of the players secretly choose red cards, thinking the cards they are holding describe the green card the best. The judge reveals the green card to all players and decides the red card best matches the green card. The winner becomes the next judge player, and the game continues.

So, if there are children in many numbers in your family and you want them to get engaged in playing, Apples To Apples can be the best entertainment for them. Also, this board game is like a mentor and suites for the children who are above twelve.

Apples to Apples is available for Rs.2,640 on U Buy.

Dominion

If you want something more extensive and expensive, you can check the board game Dominion. It was the recipient of the German Game of the Year 2008. Dominion takes you to a wonderful kingdom with beautiful forests and rivers. In this role play game, you take the position as the monarch of the kingdom. The main objective in the game is to expand your limited territory and unify the scattered lands to build a Dominion. But the challenge is that there are other monarchs with the same plan, so you have to beat them off. Hence, you use your cards to get as much land as possible, fending the enemies along the way. This game is suitable for 2-4 players. Children above 13 are recommended to be suitable to play the game.

Dominion is available on Desert Cart for Rs. 36,819.

Pandemic

Pandemic is the kind of game that doesn’t run out of fashion. In this game, players play the role of scientists and they fight the deadly diseases to save society and humanity. Pandemic has a series of instalments that you can enjoy. The game can be played between two to four players where they have to collaborate and plan their strategy together. Either everyone wins or everyone loses. The main objective of the game is to the cure for the four diseases that have broken out in the world diseases before humanity vanishes. You will have to take the role of the scientists vying for the cure together. Understanding your character’s strength and planning your strategies accordingly is crucial to find success in the game.

Pandemic is available on U Buy for Rs.2,920.

War of the Ring

War of the Ring is the strategy game, which tells the story of good and evil, that children thoroughly enjoy listening and playing. To play this adventure and fantasy game, you have two options; either you control Free Peoples (FP) or lead Shadow Armies (SA). There lies an enormous map of the Middle Earth on the table and the game features more than 200 miniature figures, each representing the Fellowship, the Witch-King, and the Nazgul. The game can be played between 2-4 players and usually takes about 2 hours to complete. So, if your children are interested in fantasy and adventure stories, they might as well enjoy creating it themselves with this game.

War of the Ring board game is available at Rs.10,770 on Amazon.

Eye Found It! Disney Edition

Can you just imagine Mickey Mouse and friends, Radiator Springs, Alice’s Wonderland, Peter Pan’s Neverland, and Winnie the Pooh’s Hundred Acre Wood all into a single pack? Your kids surely can't resist loving Eye Found It! Disney Edition. Children from two to six in number can stay enjoying all the twelve worlds of Disney.

The game starts with the clock ticking and all the players working together to reach Cinderella's Castle before the clock strikes midnight. The players spin the spinner and either move, search or tick the clock forward on their turns. If you spin the golden Mickey Mouse, then it's time to search for it. Then, you flip over the search card, and other players also look for the item on the card. You can explore thousands of hidden treasure in the game. If all the players arrive at Cinderella's Castle before midnight, everyone wins. As either everyone wins and everybody loses together in the game, it can serve as a lesson of teamwork and cooperation with your kids. Eye Found It!

Disney Edition is available on U Buy for Rs.2,202.

Star Wars: Rebellion

If you are in a group and have a lot of time to spare, then you should check out Star Wars: Rebellion. Even learning the rules can take up to two hours. So, with this game, you will be getting an intensive gaming experience. Star Wars: Rebellion is an epic game of conflict between the Galactic Empire and the Rebel Alliance, and you can play this game in a group of four friends. Primarily, this strategy board game comes with a massive game board and 150 plastic miniatures that represent your military forces. You either take command of the Rebels or lead the Galactic Empire that conflicts with one another.

Children who are more than 14 years of age are recommended for this war strategy game. You will need 3-4 hours on average to complete the game. So, make sure that no other work will bother you for that period.

Star Wars: Rebellion is available on Desert Cart for Rs.14,469.

Western Legends

People who have watched films about the American Wild West, no doubt, end up fascinated with its aura. Western Legends brings such fascination to a board game. Set in the Wild West, the game provides you with an open-world sandbox tabletop adventure. Western Legends has deck poker cards, each of which has a special ability and you can use them while getting into a duel. You play characters from American Wild West, who forge the path into the history books, and you write the new history in this game.

Get ready for mining gold, buying weapons and steeds, robbing banks, winning duels, partying, playing poker and more in this game. Its beautiful artwork and presentation give life to this board game.

You can buy Western Legends from U Buy
for Rs.9,471.

Code Names

If you like detective games, then Codenames is a perfect game for you. In detail, Codenames set two spymasters opposing one another and they know the secret codes and names of the twenty-five agents. The spymasters fight each other to contact their agent first through the help of a clue that their master has given to them. Here the teammates should guess the right names based on the clues while avoiding them to be assassinated at the same time. You might win or lose, but what’s sure is that you will thoroughly enjoy playing this game. It is suitable for children above the age of 14 and it can be played between 2-8 players. You will not have to sit for long hours to complete the game as it takes only 15 minutes of playing time per game.

Codenames is available on U Buy for Rs.1,737.

A Game Of Thrones: Second Edition

If you have watched HBO series Game of Thrones, then this board game might be of particular interest to you. A Game Of Thrones is based on A Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels by George R.R and it is full of adventures and fantasies. In the second edition, King Robert Baratheon is dead and lands of Westeros prepares for battle. In this game, three to six players take the roles of the great Houses of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros and fight for the possession of the Iron Throne through the use of diplomacy and warfare. Through this game, you can show your strategic planning, masterful diplomacy, and clever card play among your friends. Prepare yourself for an intense battle in one of the best strategy board games and allocated a couple of hours for it before you begin.

A Game Of Thrones: Second Edition is available on U Buy for Rs.4,571.

Chronicles of Crime

If you are someone who enjoys acting like a detective and investigating things in your life, you should test your skills in the strategy board game Chronicles of Crime. This board game is a crime investigation game and contains a mix of cards and game apps that you use them to investigate disappearances, find stolen treasure, and even solve murders. You will be happy knowing that you can collect DNA, analyze a crime scene, navigate red herring leas and interrogate witnesses to solve the mysteries in this game. Chronicles Of Crime comes to you with physical components like the board, locations, characters, QR reader and other items which will enhance the excitement of solving mysteries. The game can be played between 1-4 players and it takes about 60-90 minutes to complete the game.

You can buy Chronicles Of Crime on Ubuy for Rs.2,947.

Tips on Playing Strategy Board Games

Learn the Rules

Have you really finished reading all the rules for the game before you start playing any game for the first time? Perhaps, you just skim over the listed paragraphs and start the game in a hurry. Indeed, you snub them thinking that you will learn the rules during the game. However, learning the basic rules always puts you at an advantage. Knowing the basics helps best you to devise your strategy and plan accordingly.

Pay Attention to Everything

There is no autopilot mode in the board game, not even the step guiding bubbles like video games. You have to play yourself and try your best to win. For it, you must keep your eye open to everything on the board, each move, card, check and position of your opponents. You can learn a lot from the mistakes of your opponent and plan accordingly.

Think Outside the Box

Why do you play the game? Perhaps, your answer will be that you join the game for entertainment and fun, but there are more reasons to play games than just fun. However, another major aspect of playing board games is to increase your reasoning ability. So, do not fix your eye on a singular way but think of every possibility that can aid you to advance the game.

Play the Gateway Games First

This trick works for those who are non-gamers and are getting into the game. The gateway games are easy to play with a simple strategy and less risk. This exposes you to different game mechanisms, like bidding, card-play, bluffing, drafting and worker placement or resource management.

Use Your Resources Effectively

Success in Strategy board games depends on how effectively you utilize the available resources. Your turns and your powers are limited and you cannot use them beyond the limitation. In such cases, timing matters a lot. So, practice using your resources effectively so that you use them in the right stages of the game.

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Games Can Make You a Better Strategist

The play has long infused the language of business: we talk of players, moves, end games, playbooks and so on. And now we hear often about the “gamification” of work—using elements of competition, feedback and point scoring to better engage employees and even track performance. We think that games have an important place in cultivating good strategists and that now more than ever games can give executives an edge over their competition. Games can create an experiential, interactive and tailored understanding of strategy at low cost and in a scalable manner. They allow managers to suspend normal rules in an acceptable way and they provide an effective audiovisual medium for absorbing ideas.