Cartagena

Cartagena is a fun, strategic board game that I've really enjoyed playing. The core gameplay is simple: you move your pirates along a track using cards, trying to be the first to get all six of your pirates to the end. But there's a lot of depth to the strategy, as you have to carefully decide when to move forward and when to move backward to draw more cards. The game includes several different variants, which add a lot of replayability. I particularly like the "Morgan" variant, which allows you to draw cards by moving an opponent's pirate ahead. It's a great way to shake up the gameplay. I also appreciate that the game comes with eight double-sided game boards, so you can customize the game to your liking. While the game is pretty simple to learn, it's still challenging enough to keep things interesting for adults, as evidenced by the fact that I often find myself getting beaten by my kids, aged 7-12. One minor drawback is that the quality of the components isn't the best, but I can overlook that considering the game is so much fun.