7 Games for the Thinking Man

One of the best ways the human brian process information is when the information is treated like a game. Games add competition, clear goals and objectives, and they help one to see the full picture of how things work. This cannot be said for all games though, in fact, only a handful can truly be said to be "thinking man" games. Here's a list of both classic board games and excellent strategy games:

Risk is a classic strategy board game that teaches the player the importance of choosing strategic defense and offense in fighting over territory. It also develops an understanding of when to attack and when to defend. Oddly enough, a military strategy game like this also shows how destructive war is and how inimical war is to mankind; this is only apparent to the reflective mind, but if you think about it for every turn you gain new recruits, those are citizens taken from the country and then destroyed. This action of world wide war, involving all parties shows that anyone who is after world domination will tyrannize over their own people to get there.

The Settlers of Catan is a game that revolves around settlement and economy. This game shows how a new world is settled over time and by competing factions. This game has elements of many different ideas within it such as resource scarcity and abundance, seaport trade, international trade, thieves, taxes, networking of roads, and control of resources among many other things. This game is an excellent tool in teaching the individual how to grow civilization.

Another game that speaks to the idea of settling a new world comes from Sid Meier's game Colonization. This game, like the last teaches many of the same things but it also adds brilliant insight to the actual colonization experience in both North and South America. The game starts with a single ship arriving from the old world full of immigrants who are looking for a new place to settle. As the game progresses the colony grows and becomes more advance, but so do the taxes and stringent government restrictions. Eventually the tyranny practiced over the colony insights revolution, and pending on the success of the war, the game is won.

Here is a sister game to Colonization, which is also a masterpiece from Sid Meier, called Civilization. What makes this game particularly attractive, is that it is like a playable history of the entirety of civilization. This game shows the progress of man, the consequences of war, the eminence of economy, and the critical importance of religion. This game is definite fit into the library of the thinking man.

This game gives another spin to the advancement of civilization idea, except that it is limited to just the advancement of antiquity. In the game, you start in the Stone Age and advance to the Tool Age, Bronze Age, and finally the Iron Age. Conditions for victory require that either you defeat your enemy, or build and maintain a wonder of the world. This game teaches military tactics, economic necessities, organization, history, and technology.

This game, is a classic in the realms of strategy. The objective of this game is to protect your own flag, while trying to capture the enemy's. To do this, one must place the pieces to optimal advantage for both offense and defense. Each piece has a different strength, and must be placed accordingly. A shroud of mystery is added when opponents don't know what the strengths of each other's pieces are. 

This is the father of all thinking man games, Chess. The qualities of Chess, and the things it teaches hardly needs to be reevaluated, but it is an excellent game full of strategy, math, foresight, and deployment. Chess, unlike many other games, is a dance in which the partners always have to predict the pother's move and counteract it. Chess is the king of the thinking man's game self.