👈🏻 Back to Medium-High Complexity
Looking for a 5-player strategy game that is deep and filled with tough and satisfying decisions? Here are our recommendations.
⭐️ Top Picks
Our top recommendations in this category, and games that we personally own to fill this niche.
Agricola
🟢 Ryan’s #1 All-Time 🔴 Daniel’s #2 All-Time
Release Year: 2007 Complexity: Medium-High
👥 1-4* Players
⏰ 60-150 min
💸 ~$60
🎬 Review
🔗 Buy
*6 Players with 5-6 Player Expansion
Summary: Strategically build out a well-balanced farm by gathering resources, playing occupation and improvement cards, and growing your family; all while keeping enough food on the table.
You Might Like If… you enjoy tight games of resources management where you are constantly adapting to execute your strategy more efficiently, and want a game that has a ton of depth and replay value due to the randomized hands of card abilities that are dealt at the beginning of each game.
Terraforming Mars
🟢 Ryan’s #2 All-Time 🔴 Daniel’s #4 All-Time
Summary: Compete with rival corporations as you try to contribute the most to efforts to make Mars habitable through strategic card play and engine-building.
You Might Like If… you enjoy building up a powerful engine through a variety of card effects and combos, and are looking for a game with lots of strategic and tactical options that will play out differently every time.
Eldritch Horror
🟢 Ryan’s #10 All-Time 🔴 Daniel’s #5 All-Time
Summary: Adventure around the globe collecting clues, solving mysteries, and doing everything you can to stop the awakening of a Lovecraftian Ancient One.
You Might Like If… enjoy lots of die-rolling and light role-playing elements, and you want an epic and thematic cooperative game that is capable of generating a wide range of moments with no two games feeling the same.
👍 Honorable Mentions
Games that missed being top picks, but that we still think are great choices for a lot of people.
Scythe
🔴 Daniel’s #35 All-Time
Summary: Vie for dominance in a war-torn, mech-filled alternate history of 1920s Europe by upgrading your actions and expanding on the map.
You Might Like If… you enjoy games with that are a hybrid of strategic building and direct player conflict, and are looking for a game with asymmetrical player powers and great table presentation.
Cosmic Encounter
🔴 Daniel’s #31 All-Time
Release Year: 2008 Complexity: Medium-High
👥 3-5* Players
⏰ 45-90 min
💸 ~$60
🔗 Buy
* 6-8 players with the Cosmic Incursion, Cosmic Conflict, and Cosmic Alliance expansions.
Summary: Fight and negotiate your way to five foreign colonies as you navigate shifting alliances and take advantage of your unique alien power.
You Might Like If… you enjoy chaotic games where a lot of the strategy is in the social interactions among players, and are looking for a game that rewards repeated plays with the same group due to the huge variability in the power alien race abilities and a group dynamic that develops from game to game.
Star Wars: Imperial Assault
🔴 Daniel’s #8 All-Time
Summary: Pit one Imperial player against a team of Rebel players over a campaign of tactical combat set in the Star Wars universe.
You Might Like If… you enjoy the Star Wars theme and tactical combat on a map, and are looking for a one-versus-many campaign game that you can play with a consistent group.
👀 Worth a Look
Games we haven’t tried yet ourselves, but we believe could be a good choice in this category.
Kemet: Blood and Sand
Summary: Play as warring Egyptian Gods, building and upgrading the most powerful army to dominate Egypt.
You Might Like If… you enjoy games of direct conflict and war, and are looking for a game with lots of action and the ability to gain upgrades that differentiate you from other players.
🏠 Homepage ✉️ Contact Us 🎬 Watch on YouTube