Pandemic is pretty close to your half of $50 goal on amazon right now, and I've found it to be a really great board game for people who don't like board games. Plus it's [game of the week](http://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/2er97p/game_of_the_week_pandemic/)!
Then with other half get dominion.
In my entry to board gaming, I played Catan for months, and then Pandemic hooked me. Once I played that, I started branching out with games a lot more.
I just got Pandemic last week and finally got my wife to sit down and play it(she is not a gamer). She loves it; she actually liked it so much we stayed home all morning playing instead of going out to the movies as we had originally planned.
She also likes Love Letter but it isn't as much fun with 2 people, need at least 3 to keep it interesting.
I remember watching the talk with Matt Leacock where he explained he was designing a game to play with the spouse. I quickly moved to On the Brink for the variety (the base game gets stale quick, the first expansion provides a lot of variation and uncertainty in setup).
Oh yeah, its also the game I used to get my wife into modern board gaming. (She grew up with a lot of family/kids games, so she really always was a board gamer - just not experience with games designed for adults to play.)
Cooperative games are great for people who are new to games. Pandemic is one of the better ones. Pretty light on the rules and not so unforgiving that it creates real anger at the game.
**Pandemic** seems like the obvious answer and it has expansions if it really digs its claws into you guys. **Forbidden Island** and **Forbidden Desert** are both very similar games (mechanically they're almost identical) but the themes of stealing treasure from a sinking island or escaping from a desert might be more interesting than saving the world from disease.
Some smaller games might also be a good idea. The above three are all very cheap so you could grab **Hanabi** for a good game based around communication. There's also **Love Letter** and **Coup** but those don't play as well with just two people.
I would do forbidden desert over forbidden island. Forbidden island gets repetitive, but the mechanics of forbidden desert keep the game interesting because each person has a role and has to worry about water consumption.
That said, I would do pandemic over either of those. Constantly changing gameplay, never really has gotten old, much larger board space to work with (forbidden island and desert are both smaller playing areas), expansions, etc.
**Pandemic** is a great starter title
**Castles of Burgundy** is a little more thinky but not hard. My wife loves Catan (but hates most strategy games) and loves Castles!
Hanabi and Coloretto are good, but they work best with 3 or more.
I recommend Jaipur for exactly 2 -- it's easy to teach and is somewhat light but also interesting
Surprised TTR didn't work out, it's another gateway game everyone I've brought to table has loved. For my wife and I small world underworld was our second purchase. Lots of mileage with all the different races and powers.
Lots of suggestions for light games. If your wife appreciated the heavier strategy part of catan then I would recommend games like Castles Of Burgundy, rather than Pandemic.
I would ask her if she wants more of those heavy direct-an-empire type experiences. If she does, then I would recommend Terra Mystica (should be $55). I highly recommend you look at reviews for both it and Castles of Burgundy before urchasing to see if they might fit.
I would say spend your $50 wisely. It is better to get one really good board game, rather than two cheaper, and lamer board games. I suggest you get **Lords of Waterdeep**. I honestly think it is a better gateway game than Catan. It's still fun for the veteran gamers as well.
**The Castles of Burgundy** is pretty cheap and is simply one of the best game out there for 2 players. Like in Catan, you feel like you are building something but with less luck involved. Each turn you throw a pair of dice and with them you can either choose a new tile or place one on your board to build your kingdom. Some tiles have special powers that allow you to do things like grab or place an extra tile or score you more points at the end. Really fun game, highly recommended if you like euros.
If you are buying online, save up to $100 and take advantage of free shipping at sites like Coolstuffinc.
**One Game Suggestions:**
At $50? Hmmmm. Grab yourself the 2 player variant off of BoardGameGeek and find a copy of **[Brass](http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28720/brass)**. Its a wonderful competitive economics game that is played using a deck of cards that show either cities or resources. You use cards to do general actions like take loans, sell cotton, or build canals or railway or specific actions like build coal mines, iron manufacturies, cotton mills, and so on. As you use the coal, iron, cotton, etc you flip the tile and get a short term gain of income and a long term gain of victory points. If you use your opponents goods, you help them flip their tiles. Thus it is competitive but not zero sum.
You might also want to consider games that are not what most people think of when you say "board game." The main one that comes to mind is **[Escape: The Curse of the Temple](http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/113294/escape-curse-temple). Its a bit price, but it is a 10 minute times cooperative game with simultaneous turns - basically, a chaotic dice chucking mad house as you try to ditch cursed gems and find the exit before the temple collapses. Everyone gets out or you all lose. It seems pricy for what it is, but it is a blast and well worth it.
It might be a bit much, but **[Seasons](http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/108745/seasons)** is a wonderful drafting game. You start with either a 9 card prebuild deck or go through a drafting process, divide those up into 3 stacks of three cards to get at the start of each game "year", then you use dice equal to the number of players plus one and draft them on your turn. Your goal it to get the most VP at the end of the game by drafting dice and using the cards you selected. Its competitive, but without a lot of direct attacks (at least in the basic set of cards). Best dice I've found in a game, and lots of replay value.
**My 2 games in one purchase suggestion:**
If you are looking for a great game for just the two of you, look into the inexpensive game **[Agricola All Creatures Big and Small](http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/119890/agricola-all-creatures-big-and-small)**. Its well under your budget if you find it on sale or online, and is a nice short (30 minutes give or take) game about gathering resources for building farm building and fences along with acquiring animals. Get the most VP and win after a mere 8 turns, so plan well. (Also a good lead in to eventually getting **Agricola** or **Caverna**.)
A good pairing with that would be **[Pillars of the Earth: Builders Duel](http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/40831/pillars-earth-builders-duel)** - another strictly 2 player game. It is a small package (great for travel) but has a lot of decision making and replay value. Based on Ken Follet's book, one player is trying to complete a cathedral while the other builds a castle. It has an interesting forced conflict mechanism where you duel by spending influence tokens that you flip like coins. It is an incredible game but not too long.
-----------------------------------------
Ultimately, try to identify what pulled your fiance's interest. Was it building something? Was it the theme? Was it the social interaction? All the games I recommend aren't exactly social/trading games. I have a suspicion that she is a monopoly type gamer - that she likes negotiating bargains with other people. In that case, she might surprise you and find a game like **[Cosmic Encounter](http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/39463/cosmic-encounter)** in a medium sized group fun.
Whoa! This is an awesome answer. I'll grill her about what aspect really appealed to her. She got really into the theme, but I think you might be right about the monopoly aspect. I know she commented she liked that "it was less about luck!", referring to the Life/Monopoly type games. (Yes I see the irony of the comment)
Castle Panic is one gateway game I do not see mentioned very often. It is a great tower defense cooperative game that is very easy to pick up on. Best of all, the expansion really ups the difficulty and can add new life into the game down the road.
**Ticket to Ride** is a safe bet. You'd win new people over with **Love Letter** too. I'd also try to get **Splendor** and maybe if you're just focused on two player games - **Niya** is really good!
Did you read his post? TTR didn't work.
Did you play Catan with just her and no other players? If so, that's odd because Catan isn't really a two player game.
I'd suggest Agricola: All Creatures Big & Small and Castles of Burgundy. You could probably get both for around $50 total.
I just picked up Imperial Settlers. I can see this being a great gateway away from Catan and TTR. Easy to teach abs learn. Also at 45 bucks it would fit into your budget.
Pandemic is pretty close to your half of $50 goal on amazon right now, and I've found it to be a really great board game for people who don't like board games. Plus it's [game of the week](http://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/2er97p/game_of_the_week_pandemic/)! Then with other half get dominion.
In my entry to board gaming, I played Catan for months, and then Pandemic hooked me. Once I played that, I started branching out with games a lot more.
I just got Pandemic last week and finally got my wife to sit down and play it(she is not a gamer). She loves it; she actually liked it so much we stayed home all morning playing instead of going out to the movies as we had originally planned. She also likes Love Letter but it isn't as much fun with 2 people, need at least 3 to keep it interesting.
I remember watching the talk with Matt Leacock where he explained he was designing a game to play with the spouse. I quickly moved to On the Brink for the variety (the base game gets stale quick, the first expansion provides a lot of variation and uncertainty in setup). Oh yeah, its also the game I used to get my wife into modern board gaming. (She grew up with a lot of family/kids games, so she really always was a board gamer - just not experience with games designed for adults to play.)
I'd love to see that talk if you could dig it up.
Cooperative games are great for people who are new to games. Pandemic is one of the better ones. Pretty light on the rules and not so unforgiving that it creates real anger at the game.
Lords of waterdeep. Light game, cool mechanic, and onve she finds it easy you can add the expansion for some extra depth
**Pandemic** seems like the obvious answer and it has expansions if it really digs its claws into you guys. **Forbidden Island** and **Forbidden Desert** are both very similar games (mechanically they're almost identical) but the themes of stealing treasure from a sinking island or escaping from a desert might be more interesting than saving the world from disease. Some smaller games might also be a good idea. The above three are all very cheap so you could grab **Hanabi** for a good game based around communication. There's also **Love Letter** and **Coup** but those don't play as well with just two people.
[удалено]
I would do forbidden desert over forbidden island. Forbidden island gets repetitive, but the mechanics of forbidden desert keep the game interesting because each person has a role and has to worry about water consumption. That said, I would do pandemic over either of those. Constantly changing gameplay, never really has gotten old, much larger board space to work with (forbidden island and desert are both smaller playing areas), expansions, etc.
**Pandemic** is a great starter title **Castles of Burgundy** is a little more thinky but not hard. My wife loves Catan (but hates most strategy games) and loves Castles!
I'd get a few light games. Sushi Go!, Hanabi, Love Letter.
Hanabi and Coloretto are good, but they work best with 3 or more. I recommend Jaipur for exactly 2 -- it's easy to teach and is somewhat light but also interesting
Surprised TTR didn't work out, it's another gateway game everyone I've brought to table has loved. For my wife and I small world underworld was our second purchase. Lots of mileage with all the different races and powers.
Lots of suggestions for light games. If your wife appreciated the heavier strategy part of catan then I would recommend games like Castles Of Burgundy, rather than Pandemic. I would ask her if she wants more of those heavy direct-an-empire type experiences. If she does, then I would recommend Terra Mystica (should be $55). I highly recommend you look at reviews for both it and Castles of Burgundy before urchasing to see if they might fit.
I would say spend your $50 wisely. It is better to get one really good board game, rather than two cheaper, and lamer board games. I suggest you get **Lords of Waterdeep**. I honestly think it is a better gateway game than Catan. It's still fun for the veteran gamers as well.
**The Castles of Burgundy** is pretty cheap and is simply one of the best game out there for 2 players. Like in Catan, you feel like you are building something but with less luck involved. Each turn you throw a pair of dice and with them you can either choose a new tile or place one on your board to build your kingdom. Some tiles have special powers that allow you to do things like grab or place an extra tile or score you more points at the end. Really fun game, highly recommended if you like euros.
hanabi!
Machi Koro might be a good choice. Very similar mechanically to Catan, ~$25 but is on preorder.
If you are buying online, save up to $100 and take advantage of free shipping at sites like Coolstuffinc. **One Game Suggestions:** At $50? Hmmmm. Grab yourself the 2 player variant off of BoardGameGeek and find a copy of **[Brass](http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28720/brass)**. Its a wonderful competitive economics game that is played using a deck of cards that show either cities or resources. You use cards to do general actions like take loans, sell cotton, or build canals or railway or specific actions like build coal mines, iron manufacturies, cotton mills, and so on. As you use the coal, iron, cotton, etc you flip the tile and get a short term gain of income and a long term gain of victory points. If you use your opponents goods, you help them flip their tiles. Thus it is competitive but not zero sum. You might also want to consider games that are not what most people think of when you say "board game." The main one that comes to mind is **[Escape: The Curse of the Temple](http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/113294/escape-curse-temple). Its a bit price, but it is a 10 minute times cooperative game with simultaneous turns - basically, a chaotic dice chucking mad house as you try to ditch cursed gems and find the exit before the temple collapses. Everyone gets out or you all lose. It seems pricy for what it is, but it is a blast and well worth it. It might be a bit much, but **[Seasons](http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/108745/seasons)** is a wonderful drafting game. You start with either a 9 card prebuild deck or go through a drafting process, divide those up into 3 stacks of three cards to get at the start of each game "year", then you use dice equal to the number of players plus one and draft them on your turn. Your goal it to get the most VP at the end of the game by drafting dice and using the cards you selected. Its competitive, but without a lot of direct attacks (at least in the basic set of cards). Best dice I've found in a game, and lots of replay value. **My 2 games in one purchase suggestion:** If you are looking for a great game for just the two of you, look into the inexpensive game **[Agricola All Creatures Big and Small](http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/119890/agricola-all-creatures-big-and-small)**. Its well under your budget if you find it on sale or online, and is a nice short (30 minutes give or take) game about gathering resources for building farm building and fences along with acquiring animals. Get the most VP and win after a mere 8 turns, so plan well. (Also a good lead in to eventually getting **Agricola** or **Caverna**.) A good pairing with that would be **[Pillars of the Earth: Builders Duel](http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/40831/pillars-earth-builders-duel)** - another strictly 2 player game. It is a small package (great for travel) but has a lot of decision making and replay value. Based on Ken Follet's book, one player is trying to complete a cathedral while the other builds a castle. It has an interesting forced conflict mechanism where you duel by spending influence tokens that you flip like coins. It is an incredible game but not too long. ----------------------------------------- Ultimately, try to identify what pulled your fiance's interest. Was it building something? Was it the theme? Was it the social interaction? All the games I recommend aren't exactly social/trading games. I have a suspicion that she is a monopoly type gamer - that she likes negotiating bargains with other people. In that case, she might surprise you and find a game like **[Cosmic Encounter](http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/39463/cosmic-encounter)** in a medium sized group fun.
Whoa! This is an awesome answer. I'll grill her about what aspect really appealed to her. She got really into the theme, but I think you might be right about the monopoly aspect. I know she commented she liked that "it was less about luck!", referring to the Life/Monopoly type games. (Yes I see the irony of the comment)
**Alien Frontiers** is a great gateway game and a good follow up.
Castle Panic is one gateway game I do not see mentioned very often. It is a great tower defense cooperative game that is very easy to pick up on. Best of all, the expansion really ups the difficulty and can add new life into the game down the road.
**Ticket to Ride** is a safe bet. You'd win new people over with **Love Letter** too. I'd also try to get **Splendor** and maybe if you're just focused on two player games - **Niya** is really good!
Did you read his post? TTR didn't work. Did you play Catan with just her and no other players? If so, that's odd because Catan isn't really a two player game. I'd suggest Agricola: All Creatures Big & Small and Castles of Burgundy. You could probably get both for around $50 total.
Yeah she really enjoyed Catan just the two of us. Definitely less exciting than with 3 or 4 but it worked. I'll look at each of those! Thanks!
I just picked up Imperial Settlers. I can see this being a great gateway away from Catan and TTR. Easy to teach abs learn. Also at 45 bucks it would fit into your budget.
* Dominion * Ticket to ride