El Grande

El Grande arrives with the reputation of a classic, but it does not ask to be handled like a museum piece. The rules are straightforward, the pace is smooth, and it takes very little time to see why this old design still has teeth.

At heart, you are fighting for control of regions and facing the regular scorings where those positions become points. It needs no elaborate vocabulary to work: put your presence where it matters, then try not to hand a region to the person beside you.

Naturally, the person beside you is not waiting politely. If someone gets 15 or 20 points clear after the first scoring, the familiar runaway-leader problem can appear; an experienced table can still turn on them, deny them territory, and keep the game alive. At five, though, you can lose spectacularly without making any obvious mistake. Sometimes you simply landed on the wrong side of the brawl. Ouch.

We did not try the expansions, so I will not sell them as a cure for something I have not seen. The intrigue variant does sound especially tempting, though, because choosing cards promises to remove some of the randomness.

At five it has the quirks of an older design, but El Grande remains a very good choice when you want to look your friends in the eye and take a region from them. It belongs high on the five-player shortlist, alongside substantial names such as Dominant Species and Imperial 2030.