Arkham Horror vs Power Grid

Currently there are 8 licensed expansions on the manufacturer's site. There are also many fan made expansions available online as well thanks to the games large and friendly community. Both the manufacturer's and community expansions add plenty of new content to the game including cards, investigators, board addons, Heralds (mini-bosses), Ancient Ones, spells, and items.

The game supports up to 8 players, which is something of a feat for a game of its size and components. Makes for a great party game due to the size of players it allows. However, at the lower end it can also be enjoyed with one or two players, making it great for intimate gaming session. No matter how few players you have available, you'll be able to enjoy the game.

The win conditions of the game are quite slim and require one to know the rules ins and outs, so while not a game for casual players it is a game for the hardcore who enjoy a challenge.

Big map, lots of items and heroes with their own graphics, player figures on plastic stands; lots of tokens and monster cards made of firm cardboard.

Each location offers you different opportunities to trade for and to explore. The imaginary hero class (like tank, mage, support, stealth) is up to you and usually not well-tied to hero abilities.

Even when apocalypse comes, you still (might) have a chance to defeat the planetary evil.

Your weak heroes have to dive into parallel realities, use magic, defeat unknown guests and apply unique artifacts. Each game's location has its own secrets and 'contacts' with various outcomes — good and bad.

You either choose by yourself or get a random hero, and play with them the whole party (if you were not killed, of course). You and your hero have skills, items, unique qualities and effects, and their story.

The game itself encourages role-playing elements to dive into the Lovecraftian environment.

Though the rules do highlight "best players of the game" via basic calculations, the game itself is aimed towards collaboration. To win, everyone must commit to the victory, and you often forget about the existence of a "best player".

The game allows players to exchange items or help other players via skills, special abilities and magic. In practice, players often compete their tasks in pairs and more, e.g. they close gates in pairs, where one has to clean the entrance from monsters, and the other seals the gates.

The game starts by choosing a random boss and/or heroes. Each turn begins with the myth phase, whose effects apply from a random card in the deck. These effects include monster movement, game-wide buffs and de-buffs, quests, monster gate breaches, etc. You will never know if you will be able to win the game.

Items and skills are usually taken randomly too.

The concepts are pretty easy to grab a hold of (buy power plants, connect different cities together, buy resources for your power plants, then make money and repeat). Each step has strategy involved with it - when you buy power plants you want to diversify from others as resources more in demand cost more - when connecting cities you are looking at pricing but also blocking other players off - you can buy extra resources to boost the price on other players, or buy the bare minimum for that turn etc etc.

You know those games where one player has a great start, and nobody can even dream of catching up? That doesn't happen in Power Grid. It balances itself out - the player currently winning goes first when buying power plants (they get only the current selection), and they build new cities last (worst selection) and pay the most for raw materials.

While the game punishes (at least in a way) the leading player, it helps to balance games and make them more fun overall. In addition, you can strategically not build more cities and hold yourself back if you need the advantage.

There is almost no randomness involved in the game, making achieving mastery of the game about understanding your opponents' plans and working around them.