Maracaibo
My go-to strategy game. It became an instant favorite for me after the first game. I just knew that this was going to see a lot of play!
Run around the Caribbean while visiting cities, villages, build cards from your hand, explore the jungle for rewards, combat alongside any of the 3 colonizing nations for mutual rewards, and much more. Every game can be very different, and I never feel like I don't have solid options to go for. Sometimes in TM I can feel "card dead" and not getting the right cards. I don't feel card draw is as punishing in Maracaibo. It also helps that you have an active display that you can draw cards from, expand your hand size, use cards you don't need for quests/trading goods or selling them to assistants. Even if we reach 200+ points, we usually find it is extremely close at the end!
I also like that you can dictate the round length! If someone is trying to build up a huge engine, you can advance more quickly through the map, which forces...