I already have El Grande but would most definitely buy another copy if it was cyberpunk rethemed. Every player would play as a hacker. The board would represent a computer system and its partitions. Cubes played would be bits representing a player gaining control of a given section of the mainframe, with the castillo actually being a trojan horse virus that anyone could use to attack partitions. The king would represent systems security.

A Trojan version of El Grande. I can hear the gutter worthy jokes beginning to simmer.

abstaining for now. will vote for EG is a tiebreak is required. It's on my wishlist... even though I didn't particular care for Rattus... which I'm told is EG lite.

Interesting, I've never heard that comment before.

I have higher hopes for EG.

What made this different from the other BGG top 20 you played?

I played El Grande for the first time in December 2010. The BGG top 20 that I had played were:

Agricola - I rate it a 5, a lot of my friends really like it, I just don't care for it

Puerto Rico - I rated it a 6 for a long time, partly because my wife hates it and only 2 others in my group would play, and once I learned the building strategy I couldn't be beaten in a 3 player game by them. I traded it away to a local BGGer who, in all probability, will be a friend until death, so I consider it my best trade ever (we met to make this trade). I have since played it at another friends house with more than 3 players and have grown to like it more than a 6 rating.

Race for the Galaxy - I played at GenCon in 2009, found all the icons confusing, rate it a 3.

Tigris & Euphrates - a friend brought his copy over and taught it to me. I see how it appeals to gamers, but it seemed dry to me. I rated it a 4.

I had not played Power Grid at that time. I played 3 months later and enjoyed it as well.

Just had to post here to say it's brilliant to find a friend like that. Goes far beyond gaming as I'm sure you know.

Huh. I'm fascinated to hear about this one for 2p -- it's one of the perennial top games that has withstood the test of time, but I've never tried it because I hear it needs a full table of people.

This old gentlemen continues to quietly push through the brackets.

Au contraire.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if many a new player has been scared off by the know-it-all gamer spending 90 minutes instructing them in exactly what they need to do to win the game.

Never seen this happen. As often as this complaint is used, I think its occurrence is quite rare. And when it does happen, it's the fault of the know-it-all gamer, not the cooperative genre.

I've never understood the complete disdain some people have for co-op games. Co-ops are great for the hobby. My wife hates board games. I bought Pandemic and convinced her to play. We quickly lost, and she immediately wanted to play again. We introduced it to at least 4 other couples, none of which play board games, and they all raved about it. One couple went out and bought their own copy, and another recently asked to borrow my copy so they could play it with some of their other friends.

Heaven forbid we have games out there that attract new (and different) people to the hobby.

I've never understood the complete disdain some people have for co-op games. Co-ops are great for the hobby. My wife hates board games. I bought Pandemic and convinced her to play. We quickly lost, and she immediately wanted to play again. We introduced it to at least 4 other couples, none of which play board games, and they all raved about it. One couple went out and bought their own copy, and another recently asked to borrow my copy so they could play it with some of their other friends.

Heaven forbid we have games out there that attract new (and different) people to the hobby.