As a family game I like Puerto Rico by Andreas Seyfarth, I think the American publisher is Rio Grande Games.

And my favourite game, but not necessarily a family game, is Junta published by West End Games, I think.

Are you familiar with the Catan games? Settlers is good, as is Carcassone by the same company.

Have Settler + expansions AND Carcassone....Love them both.

Never tried Puerto Rico or Junta...will look in to them.

Catan....on of the junior Pastors in teh church I used to attend played it a lot. Used to introduce it to people he had over to his house. When this came up in casual conversation with other church members, he was *often* accused of cheating....coming up with new rules mid-play (or informing players of rules they didn't know about when he first taught them...) Bastard. He one of those guys that has killed religion for me...

i've never really played that much with my family, i do like alhambra and i hate risk... it's not the kind of game i'd be interested in playing at the best of times...

Puerto Rico is fantastic, and so is Carcassone. Played them both several times with my housemates over the last year and we haven't gotten bored yet.

i'm not that big a fan of settlers, though it has entertained me for some time, the only new thing i can suggest is pandemic.

I do like the game-play in dominion, it's very good for a card game, though i've mostly played it online, i enjoy it a lot.

i prefer Cosmic encounter and Bang!
they are really fun games to play

Small World! races and abilities are paired in almost an endless combinations, especially with the expansions, so we can just keep playing and playing without feeling a repetitive pattern in this game - and the minimal influence of dice are also a plus in my group.

Citadels - for a card game, it is very interactive and strategic, a lot of level-thinking, and it plays from 2 to 8 players! most recommended with 2-4 players, since there's a lot of downtime with more players.

Puerto Rico - like the others have already said, its great! minimal luck, great subtle player interaction, and generally just a nice strategy game.

Dust - my group has been very positive about this Risk-like game, but I do fear that the joy might wear over soon... its fun and aggressive, but it does get a bit the same, plus it takes around 6 hours for the epic ruleset to play (the shorter rules suck!)

Seconding Settlers, that's just a quality game. Has some randomness to it though.

It's only 2-player, but I really enjoy Go. Simple at first but deeper than it looks ...

Bang! is a great card game if you have a handful of people to play it with.

Quality stuff here, Settlers, Carcasonne, Puerto Rico, Bang!, Go... Though we usually still mostly play classic card games in family, noone wants to think too much and noone is willing to remember the rules or set-up the board.

I also like Sankt Petersburg, a card game where it's all about checking what the others do. Blood Bowl is cool but not really a family game - only for 2 players and contains lots of gore!

Pandemic - Eh....OK....my daughter likes it (all that cooperation stuff...
Small World - close to good...need to play it more...
Cosmis Encounter is Awesome! But, my one daughter doesn't like aliens! So she rebels at the game when we play it...lol

Puerto Rico has several mentions....I'll have to look in to that.

Paranoia is supposed to be good. But that's more of a role-playing game.

My gosh, Krellin, I am surprised that you would rank RISK as second over AXIS AND ALLIES. I can only assume you have never played? Without a doubt, Axis and Allies is the best board game I play.

Whereas Risk has one unit type, Axis and Allies has fifteen different types. It offers naval combat and air combat in an effective and simple way. Industrial Centers work like home centres in Diplomacy - you may only build on them. (No more of this "Build 50 units on Indonesia and take over all of Asia" crap)

More importantly, I dare say that the units sculpts add a great quality to the game.

I second Axis and Allies, but as an experienced player I warn you that the dice rolls for the axis in the first year is 75 percent of the game. A rare gem among similar titles is Warlords of Europe. Also you may want to try command and colors: Ancients.

is there any of these games that you can play online similar to this site?

Rommel - Haven't played Axis and Allies in about 25 years! lol I do recall that it is a good game. risk is a totally diffrent type of game from Axis and Allies, though. It *certainly* has strategy. I think you underestimate the "simplicity" of Risk.

Used to play a game called Squad Leader when I was a kid - company was Avalon Hill, now part of some other company. Squad-based WWII simulation. Excellent game.

Squad leader is beyond excellent, it is arguable one of the best high complexity board games ever made. Too bad it's terribly out of print. You can play axis and allies on gametable.com although you have to pay ten bucks to "purchase" the game.

I have Squad Leader and many expansions in a closet collecting dust. Have lots of old-school games like that from my childhood.

If you're slow on A&A, I strongly suggest playing the 50th anniversary edition (NOT buying, the game cost almost 100$ to buy!)

Agricola... best game ever. though not "casual gaming" for the family.
A simple deck of playing cards... so many possibilities.
Junta. Again, not casual family type though.
just browse through boardgamegeek... you can't really go wrong with any one from the top of their lists:
http://boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame

Love Agricola. Bought it when my kids were about 8 and 9...it's been fun watching them learn how to work the strategy. But good game - definitely has in-depth strategy requirements.

Anyone here know PowerGrid? It's a game about supplying power to different markets? It's pretty neat.

"And my favourite game, but not necessarily a family game, is Junta published by West End Games, I think."
I still play this with my friends on occasion. It's really fun, but out of print. My box says (c) 1985.

Nightmare Chess. Take Chess and add a twist to it. Also, 4 player chess is quite enjoyable.

Roborally, Catan, Carcasone, and one I didn't notice at a glance on here, Feudal (old 3M game bought by Avalon Hill). Also, the extended family enjoys Ticket to Ride.

Feudal! Excellent Game!

@ rayNimagi

There is 3rd edition of the game from 2005. It really is good fun, but you need 7 good players, who can handle the constant backstabbing.

Was surprised this got so far without a mention of Ticket to Ride. Great game, especially good for introducing peeps to boardgaming who might be turned off by other 'genre' or 'war' themed games.

Ticket to Ride, Carcassone, Dominion, and Alhambra get lots of play in my family but my favourite is probably another vote for Puerto Rico - it's a little bit more complicated than those others but for lovers of strategy board games it's much deeper and more varied in strategy and should definitely be played.

Powergrid - Spread sheet the game!

51st State - Card game full of strategy and decent artwork.

Gloom - Fun with friends and can be as strategy heavy as you choose.

Citadels is great as is Catan. If you're feelin' froggy, there's always Go...

You know what's kind of a neat game that flies under the radar a lot? Fluxx. It's a quick game that can take as little as five minutes, but that just sets it up for repeated replaying.

Actually, with a perfect draw you can win on the first turn, but that's very unlikely.

democ/krellin, what version of Cosmic Encounters do you play? It is my favorite game, or at least the Mayfair version is. Haven't played the original Eon addition. The Avalon Hill/Hasbro version that came out in 2000 was a super dumbed down version that should be avoided. The new Fantasy Flight version that came out in 2008 seems decent, but I prefer the Mayfair version still. Of course the Mayfair version can be really hard to get a hold of a copy of. Often $200 or so on ebay.

For those that don't know, boardgamegeek.com is a good website for board game information, images, reviews, and such.

Fluxx is definitely a fun game. I don't like the later versions that really slow the game down. The original Fluxx or even Eco-Fluxx is quite good. Inflation is my favorite card.

Bohnanza is a fun game and good from 2-7 or so players. Lots of flexibility.

Fjords is a fun 2 player game.

@Venemous - You must have overlooked my mention of Ticket to Ride. It's a fun family game.

"with a perfect draw you can win on the first turn:

Not a game for me then. I don't like games where randomness plays *that* much of a determining factor. Cards are one thing (i.e. nightmare chess and my love of poker), but when you can win without trying...

It's only slightly more likely than getting dealt a royal flush in poker, so the chance of it happening isn't that much. You get three cards, out of...I want to say 120. You have the draw the exact correct three cards in order to first turn win. There's a couple combinations that work, but they're all really unlikely. I've never seen it happen and I've played probably 300 times or so.

So about 1.7 million to 1 against. OK, that's better.

Fluxx is still a game of luck in large part. You can't do much planning while it is other's turns because you could have completely different cards, goals, and rules by the time it is your turn.

But it is a very light, fun, quick game and good as a change of pace from the heavier games. It can be good to play while waiting for the last person in your group to arrive so you can then play Cosmic, Settlers, or whatever.

Ah. Our group usually plays "Bang!" for that purpose.

Only played that a couple of times, was fun.