It can happen to anyone: a friend of a friend joins for the evening and suddenly Catan is not an option.
What are your goto games in those situations?
Deception - Murder in Hongkong - for up to 12 people
These are the games my friends and I prefer currently:
- 7 Wonders
- Dominion
- Catan
- Anno 1800
- Fallout
I really like 7 Wonders, for 3-7 players and one round is also not too long with about 20 minutes ^^
Ethnos - area control/ set collection/ push your luck with very short turns; hard to get to the table with my group because of the art, but once we play, everyone liked it so far
Cosmic Encounter - classic game with a lot of diplomacy
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/18/roborally - chaos & mayhem, aka. a lot of fun; can drag a bit if players don’t get the mechanics
Catan has an expansion that supports more players. It makes the game longer, but I personally enjoy the change of pace.
Otherwise, there’s plenty of good suggestions on this thread already. Those that are of similar(ish) complexity and that I also enjoy:
- Bang! (Has player elimination, so make sure your friends are okay with sitting out for part of the game)
- 7 Wonders (Turns are taken in parallel, so much less down time. Great if you have slow players.)
- Sheriff of Nottingham
- Codenames (It’s marked as 2-8 players, but realistically, you can play with as many as you want.)
- Concept
With larger parties, you’ll often be waiting for that last person to arrive. Some simpler games if you want to fill that time:
- Coup/Complot
- Sushi go (Good warm-up to 7-Wonders if your group is new to the game)
Codenames isn’t really my type of game, since I don’t like abstract games and party games. And yet I have a lot of fun every single time I play it.
For us:
- Bang!: spaghetti western with secret teams, up to 7 players
- Fuji flush: easy card game, up to 8 players
- Exploding Kittens: silly cards where drawing may make you lose, up to 10 players (with the expansion)
- Secret Hitler: a kind of werewolf where you have to create governments and pass laws, up to 10 players
I prefer Bang! The dice game over the regular Bang!, because it eliminates the early game where nobody shoots. There’s almost always someone getting shot in every round even if you have no clue about the roles yet.
For Clank and Dominion we have the expansion to go up to 6 players 7 wonders if we are 5-7 people.
For more people it’s usually more casual/party games with the groups I play with