Economic Board Games?

[Mercurius]

I don't know a huge amount about board games, and wanted to crowd-source some ideas from EN World. Basically I'm looking for board games that deal with economics and geopolitics as a whole, that I can play with my teenage students. I know Monopoly, of course, and Catan has a strong economic element. But what else? Ideally it is something that could be played in an hour or two, and is reasonably realistic in terms of depicting some element of economics, with possible secondary elements of government spending, politics, military, and other resources.

Any suggestions? Thanks!

 

[Baba]

I haven’t tried it yet, but Hegemony is supposed to be good. Maybe a bit to long for your purpose. Hegemony: Lead Your Class to Victory .

 

[Undrave]

You could try Concordia or Yokohama?

7 Wonders technically covers trade, economics, public spending and military, and it can play a lot of people at once (8 with an expansion!)... I'd say Terraforming Mars with the politics expansion but that stuff's gonna take way more than two hours.

I'm trying to remember a specific game I played before and I don't remember the name... You had multiple types of goods on a track, indicating the sale price of those goods on the market and one for the purchase of those goods, and whenever you sold that good it would send the token to the back of the track, but when you bought that goods it sent it forward, simulating supply and demand. I don't remember what it was called and it's driving me nuts.

You're asking for some pretty complex mechanics for a game under 2 hours so it'll be hard.

 

[Mercurius]

Thanks for the suggestions.

It doesn't have to be under two hours - we can play over multiple sessions. It would just be more convenient.

 

[ichabod]

Maybe Stone Age or Puerto Rico. Those are more general economics, in that you have a lot of resources and options on how to use/improve them. There are games that maybe have parts of economics to them, like Acquire (speculation) or Modern Art (auctions and speculation).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Another oldie but goodie is Acquire. I’ve played older, simpler versions and the newer ones with additional play options. Both are good.

 

[Pedantic]

Hegemony is a great call out. There's some really interesting historically niche board games, I'd call your attention to Pax Pamir as something relatively approachable.

 

[Stalker0]

Hegemony is a great call out.

yeah but its WAY too long for what the OP is looking for.

Concordia is a good game, the one issue though is that buying/selling is at the same price so you don't really get those "market forces" you might be looking for, but its an option.

 

[Undrave]

Another one I just remembered: Nippon!

And the game I was thinking is actually Arkwright! It's a VERY complex game but represents pretty well capitalism. You should check out this review.

 

[Pedantic]

yeah but its WAY too long for what the OP is looking for.

Concordia is a good game, the one issue though is that buying/selling is at the same price so you don't really get those "market forces" you might be looking for, but its an option.

See I thought I was being conservative. If you really want to engage with market forces, start with Iberian Gauge, work up to City of the Big Shoulders, play an intro 18XX like 18Chesapeake, then take the 12 hours to play 1817.

Ooh, actually how about Bear Market, that's actually a short and accessible economic game with a fun premise.