Dominion was the first thing I thought of. So satisfying to see your engine come together and get to play your entire deck at once for a huge turn. I do agree that it tends to lead to the other players waiting and rolling their eyes though.

Aquatica comes to mind for me. Late game can be really fun, yet quick, combo turns of activating cards from the tableu. Recently I've been playing a lot of Root digitally, and this usually ends with someone taking a pretty big final turn.

My best Codenames moment: My spymaster was struggling and had never clued more than one word together. The other team had one word remaining and would surely win if given another turn. Okay, turn me loose, unlimited, do or die time. I had to find four words, knowing only that they had been too hard to clue. And I got 'em

Great topic! I definitely agree that Dune: Imperium has this in spades; the last game I played the winner came from behind with a 4 point turn! It was thrilling even though I wasn't the winner. As far as hand management + tableau-building games, my favorite big turn game is Obsession: you craft and manage your hand (as well as your tableau and your workers) in order to be able to host one massive event to which you invite a bunch of guests and receive a ton a favors. It's so satisfying when it comes together.

A couple that come to mind: - Oath: this game often falls into the timing category, in which you can string together several actions for a massive turn. The ability to save an additional supply for following turn can be benefited to having one big next turn. - Terraforming Mars: I think this falls into the ability trigger category, since there are turns where you you activate a bunch of you blue cards that cause a ripple effect. Additionally, you can save up money between rounds for a big turn.

For deckbuilding, I immediately thought of Taverns--that last round can be huge! -Kayla

My favourite points push big turn game is lords of Waterdeep. Many times I’ve been, or seen someone who looked like they were falling behind in the game just to have one big turn where they finish a quest worth 25 and jump past the lead player. Even more so at the end of the game where someone may slingshot in scoring because all the small quests they completed combo with their lord at the end of the game.

I love games that allow those big turns! I hadn't thought about this in Cartographers until hearing your overview here, but I think that is a big part of why I love that game so much. Deck-building is the mechanism that almost always entices me and the thrill of a big turn is probably the reason. Dominion was the game that gave me that feeling for the first time, but lately I've been enjoying it in Moonrakers 🔥

Jamey, another great video - I like this format where a topic is dissected into subcategories (another example is my favorite video - your 12 favorite mechanisms !) Based on this Sunday's video, I offer two other examples - Scoring - Like Cartographers, Gorinto has 4 scoring phases based on a pair of different community scoring missions before each phase (season). End Game Push - Circus Flohcati comes to an end when one player declares his/her 10-card gala (one of each suit).

Alien Frontiers ramps up amazingly toward that final end-game push where in a single turn a player might place 2-3 colonies and manipulate the position of others', engineering a big points swing to end and win the game.

My first thought (other than Wingspan) was Everdell. The autumn Prepare for Season can be very satisfying with a city full of green production cards and lead to several exciting turns during the final season.

Some of my favorite with what I call Domino effects are; Trismegistus Praga Caput Regni Doppelt So Clever First Class (that last scoring turn is one of the most satisfying exp in boardgame at least for me)

Dwellings of Eldervale would definitely me on my list for this. The tableau activation on regroup could be a huge moment.

I love Yedo! I don't see it mentioned too often now. Scythe was what got me into board gaming and Yedo was my second purchase.

Great video, this is one of my favorite feelings in games and one reason I like engine builders so much. Gizmos comes to mind as a game where you can set up some pretty epic turns with your engine that cascades actions off of one another.

Surprised you didn't mention Scythe for end-game push. For roll and writes, Fleet: the Dice Game is a great example, as you can earn "stars" that are spent as free actions. Occasionally you'll have a turn with 2 or 3 of those to use in addition to your main action. Castles of Burgundy is a game where you can have really big scoring turns as you finish off large regions or chain together some free actions due to building or castle powers. Tapestry might fall into that scoring category too as you can have massive income turns and suddenly leap up the score track. I'm surprised also you forgot Space Base for that Moonshot category (or for the tableau category). Glad you mentioned the downtime problem. I experienced that in Ecos. That's a game that's built around simultaneous play (it has a bingo style mechanism where all players are using a tile drawn from a bag), but when a player completes a card, they activate it. These activations can sometimes cascade to complete other cards. Activations happen in turn order, so if you're in a 5-player game of Ecos and 4 players have completed cards on a turn and you haven't, time suddenly stops.

I think that end game push game would be Scythe, I actually lost the game when another player right before me managed to get two stars, and game 18 points to beat me by 4 points including taking the factory! One of the most impressive final turns I have ever seen! Super fun even with losing:) great idea and list Jamey! Have you tried the new ladder climbing game Scout? One of the end game conditions in Scout is playing a set or run of cards that gets back to you. It feels like a really big play when you do it!

Great video 😊👍 I need to try some of these that I haven’t played, I love that kind of thing! I think Mystic Vale is one of those games. 😀

One of my favorite lime this right now is Taverns of Tiefenthal. It’s one of the only deck builders I’ve played where you can really set up for a big turn, and with not as many rounds as you would typically want, that big turn is crucial for winning. Being able to cull the deck enough to get useless cards out of your deck is fun to be able to see all the cool cars you bought come out. Such a great game if you haven’t played it yet!

Jamey: We designed Wingspan so you don’t activate the same row over and over again. If you have big turn after big turn, then the big turns don’t stand out as much. Me (sweating as I’m eyeing my maxed out egg row that lets me use eggs to gain resources, draw cards, and tuck/cache every single turn for 110+ score every game): Yeah haha that would be ridiculous.

Tablue activation 😂 Got to let us know if you have gotten Innovation to the table. When your tablue is amazing, and you hope to God it doesnt fall apart before you win.