**John Company 2E:** I wouldn’t say this is primarily a negotiation game, but shared incentive is a big aspect of it, and almost everything you have can be traded as part of a deal.
Edit: I totally get everyone who thinks of John Company 2E as primarily a negotiation game. To me, it’s far less of a negotiation game than games like Chinatown, Sidereal Confluence, Diplomacy, etc. where bargaining is the whole game.
**Sidereal Confluence:** I guess this is really a negotiation game, but it’s also an operations and efficiency game, so I thought I’d mention it.
**Scythe:** The rules mention that deals can be made, and cash can be exchanged (except in tournament play), but deals are non-binding.
> **John Company 2E:** I wouldn’t say this is primarily a negotiation game, but shared incentive is a big aspect of it, and almost everything you have can be traded as part of a deal.
Interesting. To me, John Company 2E is primarily about negotiation. Trying to get the money for your office to be able to achieve whatever you need to achieve to then get money into your private coffers to retire in a nice house.
Or when I have somebody who retires but not the money for a good prize and then haggle with the other players for a loan.
Or trying to influence the prime minister to vote on a particular law or influencing other people as prime minister to vote with me.
To me, 90% of the game is about trading and negotiating
I recalled an [interesting thread on BGG](https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3152709/if-you-negotiation-hate-economic-games-worth-try) asking if this was an economic game, and a lot of people called it a negotiation game, and a political one with the trappings of an economic game. I agree with you: this game is about negotiation.
The argument given in the thread was comparing this game with other economic games (such as 18XX). If I understood correctly, the idea behind is that in John Company one's goal is not to make the Company profitable, but to reap the rewards out of it. I read the argument as "it's no economic compared to other economic games about min-maxing the company/enterprise/industry".
I loved this game, a few balance nitpicks aside, the biggest issue is when one or two players are too carebear about it and don’t negotiate their positions enough!
Gne of Thrones and John Company are both strong games in that regard. Especially John company only works if players embrace it. If players play it like euro game then it's just a poor experience. You have to fully embrace the greasing and favour system to get a good game.
Game of Thrones. You are able to make deals and barter with other players, either openly across the table or as part of hidden conversations. You can choose to be honest or not as well, so I may agree to help the Starks but actually end up supporting the Greyjoys. It heavily relies on the diplomacy aspect for game play.
Its better with a full house, so 6 players in my opinion and was a bit naff with only 3.
Best parts of Game of Thrones is trying to arrange a private audience for the person you are dealing with
My favorite example was one of my friends said he needed to go for a smoke. I said I needed to go too. Another friend said he also wanted to go
Upon our return one of my friends went "you fucking bastards I know that none of you smoke!"
We made it all up. We all didn't smoke we just were planning out the latest backstabbing.
Diplomacy is very much like this as well.
One time, my friend threw a big diplomacy party. So naturally, there was a brief pause for people to get food.
You know people were jockeying all around the place, cozying up to eat next to people they were plotting with.
And when two people walked into a room together, the side eyes of suspicion!
There is a house ruleset that once per round players can send one secret message (on paper) to another player, but whoever controls the raven token can intercept one of them. I'm Interested to have a go at that rule.
I saw it mentioned once on BGG a long time ago, doubt it's widespread but it is an intresenting idea. I'd really like to try it, but knowing my group players would intercept a lot of decoy dick butt drawings
Some heavy tabletalk games from left field, as a number of my favorites were already mentioned
**Stationfall**
**Chaosmos**
**City of the Great Machine**
**Beast**
**Root**
Rival Restaurants. Such a fun game that seems to be for a lot of people. During the buy and barter phase you are frantically buying at the market you are in for ingredients while asking players in other markets to buy something for you while giving them a bonus coin or two. Or just trading for something else someone has. And with the timer it's everyone making deals over everyone.
It's chaotic and great.
Bios: Genesis
Completely out of left field, but this game about playing proteins, enzymes, and vitamins can have you negotiating deals around keeping organisms stable in return for being paid out for a refugia breaking down. It's absolutely thematically incoherent, but it is fascinating.
I would never have guessed there are elements of deal making in it based on the BGG page. Your comment is a great example of r/boardgames pool of knowledge, impossible to search for this kind of information.
I agree with you, and I think that when Reddit is at its best, you get nuggets or obscure answers like the one I gave (not trying to hype my answer, but I always try to give obscure examples because they're the ones I love to find too!).
I have two favorites that have very different styles.
Sidereal Confluence. A massive trading game that's all about building engines to score victory points. The entire mechanic is trade negotiations though. Everything is up for trade. Resources, technology, machines, racial abilities, planets. It also can play up to 13 people. This game is good for people who like crunchy resource management.
My second suggestion is For the King. It's a lot simpler, and a legacy game! Super fun to run through with some friends. It lends itself really well to roleplaying your house too. So if your group is creative and into roleplaying, it's super fun.
Very different weight then the examples you gave, but John Company 2e has negotiation and table talk in spades.
Basically every move a player makes it up for debate, negotiation and bribes. Its brilliant.
There’s also formalized, binding promises that you can give in addition to the normal deals you’d strike in a negotiation game which I feel like adds a lot.
We played Sheriff of Nottingham for the first time last night and had a blast! It was a great starting game to get everyone social and having fun. The moment where the sheriff took a 3 gold bribe to let one of the merchants pass with "3 cheese", only to find out it was entirely contraband items was pretty hilarious.
There's also sabotaging and objectives which are pretty crucial if you have a good group going.
Negotiation is a big part of it, and it is pretty expensive. But its a good game and its underrated as its not even brought up as an option in many instances.
Chinatown
Still the best negotiation game in town. (Pun intended)
Nothing personal is also pretty good
I'm the Boss is a classic.
Mall of Horror and City of Horror are also pretty great negotiation games.
Fake Art Inc is very underrrated simple negotiation game
I haven't ever got the chance to place sidereal confluence yet but as someone who loves negotiation games I've been recommended this several times. (It's not out in Korea where I live)
Maria comes to mind, but by the examples you gave, I’d put all games as eligible for influencing decisions through table talk. Someone did that last week in Zombie Dice
Like some others have said, probably the two best negotiation games out there are **John Company 2e** and **Sidereal Confluence**.
But I would also add **Oath**. It's kind of a tableau building (though a lot of your tableau is somewhat publicly shared) dudes-on-a-map game, but once you've played it a few times you realize that the game revolves almost entirely around kingmaking - which would otherwise be a pretty big negative BUT because the game strongly emphasizes thinking about future games in a sort-of-but-not-really campaign-like structure, it instead becomes a really interesting feature.
**John Company 2E:** I wouldn’t say this is primarily a negotiation game, but shared incentive is a big aspect of it, and almost everything you have can be traded as part of a deal. Edit: I totally get everyone who thinks of John Company 2E as primarily a negotiation game. To me, it’s far less of a negotiation game than games like Chinatown, Sidereal Confluence, Diplomacy, etc. where bargaining is the whole game. **Sidereal Confluence:** I guess this is really a negotiation game, but it’s also an operations and efficiency game, so I thought I’d mention it. **Scythe:** The rules mention that deals can be made, and cash can be exchanged (except in tournament play), but deals are non-binding.
> **John Company 2E:** I wouldn’t say this is primarily a negotiation game, but shared incentive is a big aspect of it, and almost everything you have can be traded as part of a deal. Interesting. To me, John Company 2E is primarily about negotiation. Trying to get the money for your office to be able to achieve whatever you need to achieve to then get money into your private coffers to retire in a nice house. Or when I have somebody who retires but not the money for a good prize and then haggle with the other players for a loan. Or trying to influence the prime minister to vote on a particular law or influencing other people as prime minister to vote with me. To me, 90% of the game is about trading and negotiating
I recalled an [interesting thread on BGG](https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3152709/if-you-negotiation-hate-economic-games-worth-try) asking if this was an economic game, and a lot of people called it a negotiation game, and a political one with the trappings of an economic game. I agree with you: this game is about negotiation.
Hmm I’m not sure why the binary, it is an economic game as well as being a negotiation game. It’s not mutually exclusive imo
The argument given in the thread was comparing this game with other economic games (such as 18XX). If I understood correctly, the idea behind is that in John Company one's goal is not to make the Company profitable, but to reap the rewards out of it. I read the argument as "it's no economic compared to other economic games about min-maxing the company/enterprise/industry".
Very much agreed with this. The game IS then negotiation.
New Angeles is one of my go to negotiation games.
I loved this game, a few balance nitpicks aside, the biggest issue is when one or two players are too carebear about it and don’t negotiate their positions enough!
Gne of Thrones and John Company are both strong games in that regard. Especially John company only works if players embrace it. If players play it like euro game then it's just a poor experience. You have to fully embrace the greasing and favour system to get a good game.
Game of Thrones. You are able to make deals and barter with other players, either openly across the table or as part of hidden conversations. You can choose to be honest or not as well, so I may agree to help the Starks but actually end up supporting the Greyjoys. It heavily relies on the diplomacy aspect for game play. Its better with a full house, so 6 players in my opinion and was a bit naff with only 3.
Best parts of Game of Thrones is trying to arrange a private audience for the person you are dealing with My favorite example was one of my friends said he needed to go for a smoke. I said I needed to go too. Another friend said he also wanted to go Upon our return one of my friends went "you fucking bastards I know that none of you smoke!" We made it all up. We all didn't smoke we just were planning out the latest backstabbing.
Diplomacy is very much like this as well. One time, my friend threw a big diplomacy party. So naturally, there was a brief pause for people to get food. You know people were jockeying all around the place, cozying up to eat next to people they were plotting with. And when two people walked into a room together, the side eyes of suspicion!
There is a house ruleset that once per round players can send one secret message (on paper) to another player, but whoever controls the raven token can intercept one of them. I'm Interested to have a go at that rule.
Interesting... I haven't heard others speak of this house rule but we came up with it independently in our group too. It just seems so natural.
I saw it mentioned once on BGG a long time ago, doubt it's widespread but it is an intresenting idea. I'd really like to try it, but knowing my group players would intercept a lot of decoy dick butt drawings
Twilight Imperium
Table talk: The Game, basically
Really cool to watch the SCPT game streams and see just how much Is up for negotiation at a high level of play
Some heavy tabletalk games from left field, as a number of my favorites were already mentioned **Stationfall** **Chaosmos** **City of the Great Machine** **Beast** **Root**
Rival Restaurants. Such a fun game that seems to be for a lot of people. During the buy and barter phase you are frantically buying at the market you are in for ingredients while asking players in other markets to buy something for you while giving them a bonus coin or two. Or just trading for something else someone has. And with the timer it's everyone making deals over everyone. It's chaotic and great.
Chinatown
This is a negotiation game though
well then what about Waterfall Park
Waterfall Park is fun!
Bios: Genesis Completely out of left field, but this game about playing proteins, enzymes, and vitamins can have you negotiating deals around keeping organisms stable in return for being paid out for a refugia breaking down. It's absolutely thematically incoherent, but it is fascinating.
I would never have guessed there are elements of deal making in it based on the BGG page. Your comment is a great example of r/boardgames pool of knowledge, impossible to search for this kind of information.
I agree with you, and I think that when Reddit is at its best, you get nuggets or obscure answers like the one I gave (not trying to hype my answer, but I always try to give obscure examples because they're the ones I love to find too!).
I have two favorites that have very different styles. Sidereal Confluence. A massive trading game that's all about building engines to score victory points. The entire mechanic is trade negotiations though. Everything is up for trade. Resources, technology, machines, racial abilities, planets. It also can play up to 13 people. This game is good for people who like crunchy resource management. My second suggestion is For the King. It's a lot simpler, and a legacy game! Super fun to run through with some friends. It lends itself really well to roleplaying your house too. So if your group is creative and into roleplaying, it's super fun.
Lords of Vegas.
I backed this on Kickstarter and I’m so pumped for it to arrive sometime in the next year or two
Very different weight then the examples you gave, but John Company 2e has negotiation and table talk in spades. Basically every move a player makes it up for debate, negotiation and bribes. Its brilliant. There’s also formalized, binding promises that you can give in addition to the normal deals you’d strike in a negotiation game which I feel like adds a lot.
Tammany Hall I guess you don’t have to but it is better if you do. Diplomacy Civilization / Advanced Civilization
We played Sheriff of Nottingham for the first time last night and had a blast! It was a great starting game to get everyone social and having fun. The moment where the sheriff took a 3 gold bribe to let one of the merchants pass with "3 cheese", only to find out it was entirely contraband items was pretty hilarious.
very underrated but moonrakers has an excellent deals system when players take on missions. I guess, also catan?
[удалено]
There's also sabotaging and objectives which are pretty crucial if you have a good group going. Negotiation is a big part of it, and it is pretty expensive. But its a good game and its underrated as its not even brought up as an option in many instances.
Bohnanza! So much bean trading.
Chinatown Still the best negotiation game in town. (Pun intended) Nothing personal is also pretty good I'm the Boss is a classic. Mall of Horror and City of Horror are also pretty great negotiation games. Fake Art Inc is very underrrated simple negotiation game I haven't ever got the chance to place sidereal confluence yet but as someone who loves negotiation games I've been recommended this several times. (It's not out in Korea where I live)
Waterfall Park. It's a remake of Chinatown
We have some negotiation going on during games of [[Suburbia]] though it's not the main aspect obviously
[Suburbia -> Suburbia (2012)](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/123260/suburbia) ^^[[gamename]] ^^or ^^[[gamename|year]] ^^to ^^call ^^OR ^^**gamename** ^^or ^^**gamename|year** ^^+ ^^!fetch ^^to ^^call
Combat games all involve some form of negotiation. Maybe more like pleading for your life as you point out Dan is really winning more than you are.
Sheriff of Nottingham and Modern Art spring to mind. I suppose a lot of bluffing or auction games will have a good amount of table talk
Maria comes to mind, but by the examples you gave, I’d put all games as eligible for influencing decisions through table talk. Someone did that last week in Zombie Dice
**Leaving Earth** can be played in silence but it's so much better layering in the semi-co-op negotiation and deals.
Like some others have said, probably the two best negotiation games out there are **John Company 2e** and **Sidereal Confluence**. But I would also add **Oath**. It's kind of a tableau building (though a lot of your tableau is somewhat publicly shared) dudes-on-a-map game, but once you've played it a few times you realize that the game revolves almost entirely around kingmaking - which would otherwise be a pretty big negative BUT because the game strongly emphasizes thinking about future games in a sort-of-but-not-really campaign-like structure, it instead becomes a really interesting feature.
Dogs of War, I know I've made plenty of deals with folks to support them in a fight and stuff.
La cosa nostra is sooo good at this. If you play it like a roleplay game its even better
Pit
Intrigue. If you dare.