Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Someone in my gaming group has The Resistance, we just haven't played it yet, but I have heard good things. The reason I'm hung up on Takenoko is, as much as I like to pretend like I want to use pretty components to rope in non-gamers, I like them equally as much

. Do you find there being much depth to the strategy even in spite of it being easy to teach/play?
As for Mage Knight: I did watch the Radho runthrough on it and while it seemed complicated, it didn't seem completely incomprehensible. I'd like to think that my 15 years+ of video gaming me would make it somewhat easier to grasp with time but I'm also open to other good solo game suggestions that are a bit less complicated. Since I am moving soon, I am trying to limit myself to owning only six board games, so I am trying make sure each game in the collection is unique and highly utilized.