Played Carcassonne almost every night for two years, buying loads of expansions and eventually running out of table. Haven't played it for a while, but just picked up yet another expansion...
If you're playing 2-handed then good strategy game options are limited. I'd recomnend a deck-builder like Ascension or Star Realms.
Recently played Photosynthesis, which is a tree-growing game! Great for 4 players, but might get predictable with 2. Power Grid is similarly good for >2 players.
For 2 players you do need a random element, otherwise the game gets stale.
Yeah its a great game. What is your favorite expansion - like what would you recommend. The only expansion I have is builders and farmers so I don't know a whole lot about the others.
As far as deck builder games we have two versions of Dominion and a Harry Potter cooperative strategy game. I'm not a huge fan of deck building games personally. I've been looking at Photosynthesis for a little while now. So i'm glad to hear its good. Maybe I'll go ahead and get that one. We actually have Powergrid as well.
Bearing in mind we pretty much only play 2-player...
"Inns and Cathedrals" is the initial expansion, and the Cathedrals are a must-have.
The River expansions definitely make the opening of the game more interesting.
"Bridges, Castles & Bazaars" is my wife's favourite for the bridges - she gets a lot of mileage out of them.
"The Tower" is my wife's least favourite expansion, because I get a lot of mileage out of the towers :0)
"The Princess and the Dragon" is fun but the dragon doesn't really fly with two players.
"Traders and Builders" doesn't add much other than more complex scoring options.
"Abbey and Mayor", "Count, King & Robber" aren't too interesting.
We gave "The Catapult" a miss, and didn't know about "Hills & Sheep" until I just looked up all the expansions for this reply.
Have three different games awaiting play, so will post reviews when we get to them (hopefully next weekend).
Yeah we pretty much only play with two players as well. We have one other friend couple that we play games with but we have been seeing them a lot less since they had a baby. It's mostly just my wife and I that play.
You weren't kidding when you said you had loads of the expansions. That's quite the list. I appreciate the descriptions. I think castles, bridges and bazaars sounds interesting. I think i'll add that one to my list.
If you like card games at all you might want to check out Bohnanza! aka Beans. Its pretty good for two players or with a larger group. It's not overly strategic or anything but we've been playing for a while now and still quite enjoy it.