What is your favorite board game for two players, both adults?

Answer 1

Really depends on the complexity and time you're willing to spend. For simple, relatively quick games, my current favorites are Battle Line from GMT Games and Caesar and Cleopatra from Rio Grande. Both are card games. The art on the cards for Caesar and Cleopatra is particularly good.
For more complexity, my current favorite is For the People by GMT Games. FtP is a "grand-strategic" game covering the American Civil War. While this game has the traditional map and units ("counters" in war game parlance), the action is driven by cards each player plays in turn. Combat is resolved by each side rolling a single six-sided die. The randomly dealt hands of cards makes for good replay value as you never know what your options or opportunities will be.

Answer 2

There are a ton out there. Another Answerer has already linked to Board Game Geek and I agree that it's a great site. I spend way too much time there myself. The only problem I have with this question is "What do you mean by challenging?". Do you mean difficult to learn? Or do you mean difficult to win? Sometimes it might not be the game itself that's difficult as much as it is the opponent you're playing against. I love the game Othello for instance, I've played it for years and think it's just a great game, but I can't play against my friend Marci because she always(ALWAYS) wins. So in that instance my favorite Challenging game is Othello, it's challenging because if I want a chance to win I have to do my absolute best every moment of the game. But if it's a game that's tough to learn but worth it because it always give lots of choices I'd have to say my favorite is "Puerto Rico". It's a game where each turn a player chooses a "role" from a number of roles which each allow specific actions and everyone gets to do that action with the person who chose the role getting an advantage. For instance there's the role of "Builder" which allows the person who chose it to get 1 gold off the cost of a building, so they get an instant discount for being the first to perform the action. The first game or so of this it is tough to know what to do since you aren't familiar enough with the game to play well. But once you learn how it all works it's well worth learning, it's a great game. I should also mention that I love simple games too. I had a great time with a very simple game called "Witch's Brew" a while ago. In it each player has an identical set of 12 role cards. Each round players choose 5 of the 12 to play as that round. Each role lets you do things, like gather ingredients or brew a potion. But only the person who last successfully claimed the role gets to do the task. This makes a lot more sense in game. Let me say it this way: None of us had played this, I was one of several who had never heard of it, and by the end of the game we all considered buying it. I'm still keeping my eye out for it as it's one of the easiest "role selection" games I've played and it's still deep enough that you can plan what you want to do. Basically what happens each turn is one player starts by choosing one of their characters and saying "I'm (whoever)" and if any other players have that same role they can either say "NO! I'm (same character)" or "So be it!". If a player says "So be it" they get a minor reward rather than the bigger reward that they'd get if they took control of the role, but if they take control they're likely to lose the role to another player who has the same character after them. Again, this is WAY easier than it sounds.

Answer 3

I play a lot of Magic: the Gathering two-players. Though that's not quite a board game.

Go is great and very challening.

Answer 4

Scrabble

Answer 5

Yahtzee

Answer 6

Crainium

Answer 7

Backgammon ,but i usual play online for real money :)
. i usual play on Play65- world's largest backgammon

http://traffic.tcads.net/?cl=1&cd=2339&xt=1&ln=0

Answer 8

Depending on the adult I am with, Chess or Passout.

Answer 9

Trivial pursuit.

(however if it with my boyfriend i like to play the Nookie board game).

Answer 10

Scene It