5 Area Control Board Games For Conquering All You Can See
Sometimes you just want to rule the world. In these area control board games, there’s no diplomacy here, only conquer or be conquered.
Small World
Small World is fantastic. Genuinely one of my favorite area control board games. Even if you discount the many expansions, the hundreds of unique combinations of race and class, and the many different maps to play on, it’s still wholly unique.
Small World uses a decline mechanic where after a few rounds, your current race goes into decline and must be abandoned. This keeps any overpowered faction combinations from holding power for too long. It’s like shuffling a deck of cards, you’ll never get the same game twice.
Defenders of the Wild
Not all area control games need to be competitive. In fact, I prefer cooperative games. Defenders of the Wild is one such cooperative area control game.
Wretched machines and factories have taken over the forest and its up to you to stop it. Players work together to push back against the machine threat and destroy the factories making them. It’s a game of risk vs reward, but heavily favoring the risk. But it’s also a game balanced around cooperation, where one player can’t get too strong on their own without someone to back them up.
Root
Okay so, technically, you don’t have to conquer the woodlands to win in Root, but it certainly helps. Root remains one of my favorite multiplayer games ever, and I still play the mobile game regularly. Especially now that the Marauders expansion came out recently!
Root‘s main drive is its asymmetry. Each faction has, not only unique powers, but unique mechanics and systems. It’s almost like playing entirely different games. It’d be impossible to summarize Root in just a paragraph. But if you’re a fan of area control board games, you must check out Root.
Star Wars: Rebellion
Movies have had a lot of famous fictional wars, but few have been as long-lasting as the Star Wars, as I assume they are called in fiction. I wouldn’t know, I’ve never seen them.
But in Star Wars: Rebellion, two teams work towards opposing goals. The Empire is trying to find and root out the rebel base, while the rebels are trying to garner support. There’s aspects of hidden movement alongside the area-control. This gives the game a really unique feeling among other area control board games. Fans of the series must check this one out.
Dune: Imperium – Uprising
Dune: Imperium is great. Good mechanics, good systems, good gameplay. But Dune: Imperium – Uprising just tweaks things a little bit to give it a more smoother flow, in my opinion. If you’ve already been playing Dune: Imperium, good news! Uprising fits in perfectly as a expansion to the base game. If you haven’t been playing Dune: Imperium, good news! Uprising works as a stand-alone game without needing the base game to play.
Absolutely smaller in scale than the other games in this list, it’s no less daunting of a task to take over the map. There’s a careful balance of units, resources, combat, and diplomacy. Resource management take s much higher priority in this game. If that’s something you’re into, check this one out.
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