And now the moment everyone has been waiting for, the end of this series! (For methodology and introduction, please see the first post in the series.) The bestest game in the whole world is…

1. Great Western Trail (2016)

Great Western Trail! What a game! Shooting past Burgundy and Birmingham since last time around. I like it so much that I upgraded to the second edition earlier this year – after testing a friend’s copy. You can’t go wrong with either editions, but I like the upgrades they have done – both graphically (The cowboys have hats(!), the game is slightly more inclusive, and I can finally get rid of the ugliest game cover in my collection!), and also the small rules tweaks (the draw/discard tokens that has been backported from Rails to the North, the nerfing of delivering to Kansas (this can easily be house ruled, of course), the new upgradeable cows, etc). There are even official solo rules that are non-fiddly and fun. I don’t think Rails to the North is needed but it does add variation, so I’m happy it has been released for the second edition as well. (For even more variation on the same theme and mechanisms I’m looking forward to try out Great Western Trail: Argentina and the upcoming New Zealand.)

Game Great Western Trail
What Wrangle your herd of cows across the Midwest prairie and deliver it to Kansas City.
How deck building, hand management, rondell movement, engine building, …
Playtime 2 hours
BGG Weight 3.71

1

Summary

So, there you have it my favourite game in the whole world as of December 2022 is Great Western Trail (Second edition, if you must).

All together now

In table form my Top 50 board games as of December 2022 would look something like this:

Rank Game Year Change
1 Great Western Trail 2016 ↑2
2 Brass: Birmingham 2018 ↓1
3 Ark Nova 2022 NEW
4 The Castles of Burgundy 2011 ↓2
5 Terraforming Mars 2017 ↓1
6 Paladins of the West Kingdom 2019 ↑15
7 A Feast for Odin 2016 NEW
8 Maracaibo 2020 ↑3
9 On Mars 2020 ↓1
10 Roll for the Galaxy 2014 N/A
11 Lisboa 2017 ↓4
12 Clans of Caledonia 2017 ↓6
13 Anno 1800 2021 NEW
14 Railways of the World 2009 ↓5
15 Brass: Lancashire 2018 ↓10
16 Race for the Galaxy 2007 ↓3
17 Architects of the West Kingdom 2018 ↑2
18 Viscounts of the West Kingdom 2020 ↑2
19 Gaia Project 2017 ↓3
20 New Frontiers 2018 NEW
21 Lost Ruins of Arnak 2021 NEW
22 It’s a Wonderful World 2019 ↓7
23 La Granja 2015 ↓11
24 The Gallerist 2015 NEW
25 Terra Mystica 2012 N/A
26 Underwater Cities 2018 NEW
27 Dune: Imperium 2020 NEW
28 Expedition to Newdale 2020 NEW
29 Viticulture 2014 ↓12
30 Cascadia 2021 NEW
31 Heat 2022 NEW
32 Welcome to the Moon 2021 NEW
33 Wingspan 2019 N/A
34 Paleo 2021 NEW
35 Caverna: The Cave Farmers 2013 N/A
36 It’s a Wonderful Kingdom 2021 NEW
37 Go -2200 ↓23
38 Everdell 2018 NEW
39 Evolution: Climate 2016 N/A
40 Puerto Rico 2002 ↓17
41 Les Petites Bourgades 2019 N/A
42 Terramara 2019 N/A
43 The Crew: Mission Sous-Marine 2021 NEW
44 7 Wonders Duel 2015 ↓20
45 Ecos: Continent Originel 2020 NEW
46 Russian Railroads 2013 N/A
47 Suburbia 2013 ↓25
48 San Juan 2004 N/A
49 Dominion 2008 N/A
50 Splendor 2014 N/A

Best game per year

Another interesting way to look at this is my favourite game per release year:

Year Best game Best game position Number of games
2022 Ark Nova 2 2
2021 Anno 1800 13 7
2020 Maracaibo 8 6
2019 Paladins of the West Kingdom 6 5
2018 Brass: Birmingham 2 6
2017 Terraforming Mars 5 4
2016 Great Western Trail 1 3
2015 La Granja 23 3
2014 Roll for the Galaxy 10 3
2013 Caverna: The Cave Farmers 35 3
2012 Terra Mystica 25 1
2011 The Castles of Burgundy 4 1
2009 Railways of the World 14 1
2008 Dominion 49 1
2007 Race for the Galaxy 16 1
2006 Thurn und Taxis N/A 0
2005 Incan Gold N/A 0
2004 San Juan 48 1
2003 Coloretto N/A 0
2002 Puerto Rico 40 1
2001 Hive N/A 0
2000 Carcassonne N/A 0
-2200 Go 37 1

(I’ve added games for the missing years as well…)

We can also numpy that the median year on the top 50 list is 2018 (the mean is 2016.51 (if we disregard our blatant outlier)).

Or pyplot it, like so:

Conclusion

I guess the conclusion here must be that either board games are getting better – or I’m heavily influenced by the cult of the new…

It is tempting to do as Rahdo does and update my ratings to reflect this ranking. Probably by rating number 1 at 9.50, number 2 at 9.49 etc… Also, I wonder what would have happened if I expanded my criteria to all games that I’ve rated higher than 8.5? (Apart from the fact that the number of PubMeeple comparisons would skyrocket, of course…) Would things shift around? Probably. It would also be tempting to program my own similar ranking engine with the added functionality of visualising the resulting graph… (To see how many loops there are…)

Voilà, God Jul everybody!