Deeply strategic games especially appealing to experienced players. Often employ a myriad of game mechanisms and lean towards longer play times.
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2026
Winner – Molly House
Protect queer joy at all costs in a semi-cooperative game of avoiding the ire of the Society for the Reformation of Manners, whose informants are sneaking into the parties and masquerades of turn-of-the-century 1800s London.
Recommended
Above and Below: Haunted
Discover all-new caves in the marshes of Arzium in this anniversary sequel to the classic game of city-building and exploration.
Galactic Cruise
Oversee a luxury space vacation hopefully better than our Strategy Games Recommendation while completing company goals and advancing progress in this worker-placement game.
Nominated
Tidal Blades 2: Rise of the Unfolders
Covenant
2025
Winner – Fromage
Place your workers to age, sell, and make your product in this four-quadrant game where the winner is, truly, the big cheese.
Recommended
SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
Find life beyond our own planet in this heavy Eurogame of probes, signals, resources, and the quest to prove we’re not alone.
ARCS
Explore a “dark yet silly” universe in this space opera game of combat, tactics, and the occasional galactic-sized struggle.
Nominated
Black Forest
Andromeda’s Edge
2024
Winner – The White Castle
Earn favor with the Daimyo and build up your influence in this tight and complex game of dice drafting and resource management where every turn matters.
Recommended
Nucleum
Build and manage a growing economy in a 19th-century society energized by the unbounded power of the atom.
Earth
See how various organisms, biomes, and resources interact in this complex “open-world” engine-building game.
Nominated
Dune Imperium: Uprising
Motor City
2023
Winner – Carnegie
Build a mighty company as a titan of industry and extend your reach across America in this challenging and engaging game of planning, execution, and the occasional philanthropy.
Recommended
Frosthaven
Journey beyond Gloomhaven to solve mysteries, survive the seasons, and brave the cold.
My Father’s Work
Continue to build a legacy of questionably-ethical science as you try and complete experiments started by the generations that came before you.
Nominated
Ark Nova
Dead Reckoning
2022
Winner – Lost Ruins of Arnak
Explore an uninhabited island, gather Artifacts, and do research while avoiding Guardians in this strategic worker placement / deckbuilding hybrid.
Recommended
Bitoku
Help spirits reach transcendence and become the next great forest spirit in this hand-management and engine-building game.
Origins: First Builders
As Archons, guide your freemen to create history under the Builders’ watchful eye with worker placement, tile-laying, and a variety of other strategies.
Nominated
Sleeping Gods
Oath: Chronicles of Empire and Exile
2021
Winner – Dominations: Road to Civilization
Manage your Knowledge and your Mastery to build camps, cities, and monuments across three Ages in this tile-laying civilization game.
Recommended
Dune: Imperium
Use your Agents as means to your political ends in this spicy combination of deckbuilding and worker placement.
Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion
Take on monsters and look into some mysterious vanishings in this prequel to the popular Gloomhaven.
Nominated
On Mars
Bonfire
2020
Winner – The Taverns of Tiefenthal
Place your dice and build up your tavern before guests arrive in this deckbuilding and dice-rolling modular pub creation and management game.
Recommended
Barrage
Come into your own hydroelectric power by managing your Construction wheel and water flow in this good dam game.
Pax Pamir
Create your own coalitions and vie for Dominance in this tableau-building game of leaders and empires.
Nominated
Pipeline
Cthulhu: Death May Die
2019
Winner – Root
Wielding multi-use cards, players battle it out for the future of the forest in this asymmetrical game of war, adventure, and general anti-cat sentiment.
Recommended
Teotihuacan: City of Gods
Head to the past and help construct the Pyramid of the Sun in this complex worker placement game.
Gùgōng
Work to develop your influence in China’s past in a worker placement game of gifts, favor, decrees, and intrigue.
Nominated
Betrayal Legacy
Brass: Birmingham
