The man with 1,500 board games

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Getting started:

European games are somewhat like American games, but may require a bit more strategy than luck.

Some of the already popular games get people excited about playing, as was the case with The Settlers of Catan for Omaha games collector Kaleb Michaud. Some games are a little more complex, and you might need help from someone who has played before, Michaud said.

Although many of the games available today were created in Europe, language isn't a barrier. Rules and other game verbiage are in English, and sometimes other languages.

Scott O'Dell, owner of Game Vault at 6307 Center St., offered lists of popular games for newcomers and veteran board-gamers alike. Most of the game descriptions are from Amazon or boardgamegeek.com.

Starter:



Ticket to Ride
Ticket to Ride is a cross-country train adventure in which players collect and play matching train cards to claim railway routes connecting cities throughout North America. The longer the routes, the more points they earn. Additional points come to those who can fulfill their Destination Tickets by connecting two distant cities, and to the player who builds the longest continuous railway.



Settlers of Catan
On the pristine island of Catan, you build settlements, harbors and roads, and trade as much as you can. The goal is to be the new ruler of Catan. Careful trade and clever building are keys to success. Catan looks a little different in each game and thus always requires new strategies.



Survive: Escape from Atlantis
Players seek to evacuate their pieces from an island that is breaking up, while remembering where highest-valued pieces are located to maximize the score.


Carcassonne
This clever tile-laying game is centered on the southern French city of Carcassonne, famous for its Roman and medieval fortifications. Players develop the area around Carcassonne and deploy their followers on roads, in cities, in cloisters and in fields.


Niagara
Niagara is set in the not particularly safe world of rushing waterfalls. In the late 18th century, the Shawnee and Iroquois Indians pointed white desperadoes, mercenaries and adventurers in the direction of hidden caches of jewels, in hopes of turning one against another and away from territorial expansion. Players are some of those adventurers.

Mid-Level:



Zombies!!!
A simple game in which players are people trapped in a town full of zombies. First to make it to the heliport or kill 25 zombies wins. Cards are used to represent events in the game, such as finding weapons or zombies.


Dominion
Each player is a monarch, a ruler of a small kingdom of rivers and evergreens. However, each player also wants a bigger kingdom, a dominion. Because your fellow players want the same thing, each must race to get as much unclaimed land as possible. Each ruler hires minions who construct buildings, spruce up the castle and fill the coffers of the ruler's treasury.


Small World
In this zany, light-hearted civilization game, players vie for conquest and control of a board that is too small to accommodate them.
Seven Wonders
A player is the leader of one of the seven great cities of the Ancient World who must gather resources, develop commercial routes and affirm military supremacy.


Zooloretto
Players use small, large, wild and exotic animals and their young to try and attract as many visitors as possible to their zoo. But the zoo must be carefully planned. Too many animals and lack of space for them results in minus points. The zoo can expand.

Mid- to Advanced Level


Agricola
Each player is a farmer in a wooden shack with a spouse and little else. On a turn, each player gets to take one of only two actions, one for you and one for the spouse to create a farm from scratch and maintain a livelihood.


Dixit
Players have hands of oversize cards with various artistic pictures. The active player secretly selects one of his cards and gives a very brief description. The other players secretly select their own cards that match the description. The chosen cards are shuffled and revealed, and players vote on which was chosen by the active player.


Puerto Rico
Each player utilizes different roles — mayor, captain, settler, trader, prospector, craftsman or builder — to score the most victory points with his colony. Players can act on every turn of the game, allowing them to choose between shipping goods for points or building an impressive city. Players must manage their colonists, erect buildings, build up their plantation and sell or ship goods.


Le Havre
A game about managing a harbor, building ships and constructing buildings. On each turn, players must decide whether to take the offered goods or carry out a building action. The player with the largest fortune wins.

Bingo! Kaleb Michaud found his passion for European board games after playing The Settlers of Catan with a college friend who worked for a games magazine.

Balderdash! Although that game and others like it were plentiful abroad, he had trouble finding them here.

But was it a Trivial Pursuit? Definitely not. The games are challenging, easy to learn and fun. They offer a chance for friends, including families with children, to get together socially without doing the bar scene. And these games generally don't take forever to finish.

By dogged determination, Michaud (pronounced "mish you") scoured the Internet and game stores. Over time, he has amassed 1,500 board games — make that 1,504, since last weekend — to fill the shelves of a large entry closet and a small room in the basement of his Dundee home.

The double-door entry closet already had shelves on all three sides. It could have been a selling point for the home if Michaud had the collection when he bought the house five years ago. The much visited closet is well organized with the most-often played games lined neatly like books, in vertical rows. A few favorites, like several versions of The Settlers of Catan, are stacked horizontally. The small room is floor to ceiling with games in their boxes and neatly lining storage-room shelves.

Even Michaud concedes that he may have a monopoly in the making.

He certainly has a following, although most of his friends at work don't know about his collection.

Michaud is a research professor in rheumatology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. He studies the effects of medications on diseases such as lupus and arthritis.

When time allows, he hosts game nights at his home or goes to the homes of friends, typically once a month.

"I spend my day on research. I work easily 60 hours a week, writing papers and such. It's fun to go home and not be working on the computer."

Michaud, 37, is single with a cat named Qbert, who demands a certain amount of attention. But Michaud, who is somewhat allergic to cats, keeps her out of the carpeted game storage room.

Beth Klein, one of the game night regulars in the past year, said that 20 to 25 people meet on those evenings and sometimes stay late. She estimated the age range to be between 20 and 50, with most somewhere in the middle.

But as Michaud has discovered, there are board games for any age and interest. Adults and children can play together and everyone enjoys it, he said, just as when he was growing up in Kansas.

"I played games like Monopoly and such with my parents and relatives," he said. The Settlers of Catan reignited his interest.

The game's premise is players trying to get into position to take over and rule the island of Catan. The island looks a little different in each game and thus players must come up with new strategies.

The New York Times reported last fall that 15 million copies of that game had been sold worldwide since its release in 1995.

Michaud said he sometimes finds the Euro board games, such as The Settlers of Catan, at mainstream stores such as Target but more often shops online or at stores such as Coliseum Gaming or the Game Vault, both in Omaha.

Scott O'Dell, owner of Game Vault at 63rd and Center Streets, said he will order games on request.

He, too, is a fan of the Euro board games. His favorite is Survive: Escape from Atlantis, a game of strategy where players try to successfully and safely get their "people" off a sinking island. Sharks and other hazards add to that challenge.

Euro board games require a bit more strategy than luck, O'Dell said. That's what sets them apart.

The Euro game names may sound foreign, too, to those whose board games includes the usual suspects: Scrabble, Risk, Monopoly, Clue and others.

Carcassonne is a French city; Dixit is a Latin word that means he (or she) said; and Agricola, again Latin, is what the word suggests, a game about agriculture. (That's Michaud's favorite of all the Euro games, for now.)

These aren't just for brainiacs, although Michaud has master's and doctorate degrees from Stanford University.

"I think people who like to play don't think it's geeky," Klein said. "They're a nice alternative to going out — and pretty cheap. Kaleb usually orders pizza."

Ultimately, Michaud would like to start a lending library to share his games. The reason for that is the price. Most sell for between $30 and $50. Michaud said he has bought some of the games in his collection at discount because they weren't selling.

But he suspects that as the games become more popular, there will be a demand for some of the early, out-of-print editions.

When will this lending library happen?

Michaud said he doesn't have a clue.

Contact the writer: 402-444-1059, rhonda.stansberry@owh.com

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