Hi all, I'm looking for a new worker placement for solo play. I love Paladins and Viscounts of the West kingdom but I want something a little quicker to set up that still has a bit of depth and replayability. Been thinking about Agricola or some old classic I've missed. Any ideas?

This week I had an amazing time playing Food Chain Magnate, one of my favorite games. I often heard about how heavy it is, so when I played for the first time some months ago I watched a video, scared of having a hard time learning the rules. They are SO EASY. Every detail goes great with the theme, so whenever I read a rule I thought: "Well yeah, it makes sense", and I don't even think there are so many rules. However, the amount of decisions, brain burning and depth of the game are incredible. This is tipically said to be something that Splotter does very well.

On the light side I can think of Concordia, a very elegant game that you can teach anyone in less than 10 minutes, but it will take time to master and optimize, and I would argue that it can be played by both noobs and "grognards".

What games do you feel are easy to learn but pack a lot of depth? Or even difficult to learn, but every bit of complexity counts? I often heard SVWAG criticize Lacerda games for this aspect, that rules sometimes are overly complex for what depth offers (I haven't had the chance to try any), so I'm curious to see if any heavy eurogamers include him on their list.

P.S: I specifically mentioned euros because abstracts like Hive or Chess would obviously win by a mile, but feel free to comment other types of games if you wish.

This is an excerpt from my recent blogpost, but more than self-promote I'd just like to hear if anyone has thoughts, and since this isn't allowed content on /r/roguelikedev, I thought I'd post just the roguelikes-relevant part here to see if anyone has some wisdom to impart:

Output randomness vs. input randomness

Traditional chess is fully deterministic, with no random factors. Everything depends on the players' decisions. In many other games and sports, much of the excitement comes from the combination of luck and skill. Their interplay allows for bold risk-taking and dramatic upsets. Far from the usual derision of chance as a factor that makes skill completely irrelevant, taking the right risks at the right time is a skill in itself. Reacting to unlikely chance occurrences can also be a kind of skill, as can knowing and regulating the impact of uncertainty on one's strategy.

The interplay of chance and skill in games can be broadly divided into two categories: chance that comes after a player's decision, and that which comes before a player's decision. In other words, "randomness of outcome" or output randomness, and "randomness of setup" or** input randomness**. For example, a chess variant in which the attacker must roll a die to determine the success of a capture has output randomness. This kind of randomness promotes the correct gauging of risk, but it typically has a very large effect on the game's outcome.

Meanwhile, a chess variant with randomized starting positions would be in the second category, having input randomness. The initial positions may have a large effect on the odds of wining, but beyond that, the only measure of skill is in how the players react and adapt to this new and surprising situation. The player makes an informed decision, and its result is deterministic.

It may be noted that within board games, the output randomness design pattern is more common in American-style boardgames such as Risk, which often include direct conflict, and combat resolution mechanics resembling wargames or Dungeons & Dragons. There, uncertainty is a tool to heighten drama. European-style games, meanwhile, have little or no output randomness, and typically less hidden information. A Eurogame may include input randomness through a randomized initial setup, but from there onward the players' decisions have largely deterministic results. This typically makes for a game that requires careful planning.

Chess, while considere

For example, here's BoardGameGeek's definition of a Eurogame: https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Eurogame

• Player conflict is indirect, with little or no combat.
• No player elimination.
• Minimal randomness i.e. dice are rare.
• Emphasis on the game designer i.e. their name on the front cover
• Attention to artwork, pieces, and theming.
• Deep strategy, with minimal game mechanics but multiple paths to victory.

The reason why this stuff confuses me is that so many strategy games would seem to fit this mold despite never being marketed as or considered Euros, especially with the disclaimer that not all Euro games need to meet all the points of the definition.

For example, Civilization would seem to fit when you apply BGG's definition, but I've never heard it called a Euro game. Is it a Euro game that's simply not marketed as such, or is there something more to the definition that I'm missing?

• While war is a game mechanic, Civ games are not wargames per se, with a huge variety of non-violent win conditions. You can certainly play it like a wargame if you want, but other ways to win involve indirect competition like building wonders first, spreading your religion, or gaining cultural influence.
• Players get eliminated in Civ, but this doesn't always happen and isn't strictly necessary for non-Domination victories.
• Randomness in starting position and combat. This is the biggest point against it being a Euro by BGG's definition, but the other points seem okay.
• It's Sid Meier's Civilization, so emphasis on the designer certainly fits.
• Maybe this is somewhat N/A or redundant since video games by definition always have some emphasis on graphics, but Civ has tons of detailed models of units, terrain, and cities. It also really does love its theming with you meeting historical leaders, civ-unique units, wonder buildings, and so on.
• The mechanics of Civ aren't minimalistic, but there is deep strategy and multiple ways to win.

We have FUMa Community and will play 2021 until you Konami see what yours players base are. #disablePes2022

Sometimes I feel that we are collectively caught up in the newest kickstarter craze and ignore some of the gems from the past. In the last year I've had the pleasant surprise of discovering that older games (some of them of course) are far superior to many of the eurogames released nowadays. Sure, in my case some of them are still relatively new (2010 or 2011), but they still feel classic.

What I've tried so far:

1. Brass Lancashire (sure, the edition I have is new, but the concept of the game is older).
2. Agricola
3. Le Havre
4. Castles of Burgundy (the new edition which I love)
5. Troyes
6. Firenze (the quined games reprint)

They feel so clean, they do so much with relatively fewer components than many of today's bloated games. What other older designs are still amazing to play today in your opinion?

Especially games that seemed to sneak in the end of the year... im actually shocked at how many great mid-heavy euro games there are. List includes but not limited to (because im sure im missing some):

Wingspan, On Mars, Maracaibo, Tapestry, Escape Plan, Black Angel, Pipeline, Barrage, Res Arcana, Pax Pamir 2E, Paladins of the West Kingdom, Caylus 1303, Floatilla, Aquatica, PARKS, Glen More II, Marco Polo II, Cooper Island, Trismegistus, Reavers of Midgard.

Im sure im missing a bunch but theres honestly so many promising euro games I feel like I'll be playing catchup on 2019 for the next while...

Edit: Whoops, clearly I mis-classified a lot of these games but I think the point still stands.

I'm building a half-race, half-eurogame where the player to reach the center of the board first gets a big chunk of Victory Points. The game has many ways to get VP; separate goal cards, places of interest on the board, etc.

Do you find it more satisfying to know who is ahead, so thus who to target (ex. Point coynter around the board)? Or do you prefer to count up all the points at the end in a tense moment of not knowing who might've won?

For my game, I'm leaning towards the latter, as the game ends when a player reaches the middle, scooping up the big block of points and everyone else wonders if they did enough to come out ahead. But I would like to know what other people prefer.

Denmark announced it is reopening its borders to fully vaccinated American and British tourists starting June 11th, just in time for WorldPride and the EuroGames.

https://happeningout.com/queernewstonight/queer-up-the-world/denmark-reopens-its-borders-in-time-for-worldpride-eurogames/3598/

War games don't get a lot of love. I find eurogames to be REALLY TOUGH to do well at. I'm surprised how popular they have become given that. But I have been enjoying war games way more because I find them way easier to grok. I can understand how to win at a war game but I can't understand how to win at a eurogame

Learned about all three today from the good ol wikipedia source. These things don't get much media attention it would seem.

The Gay Games actually used to be called the Gay Olympics, but then they got sued by the United States Olympic Committee and forced them to change their name to Gay Games. New name sounds better imo.

https://gaygames.org/

https://www.eglsf.info/eurogames/

https://lgbt.wikia.org/wiki/World_Outgames

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_Olympics_(disambiguation)

I've been playing solitaire games for a while. I enjoy all kind of games but I'm now looking for an euro game with theme, specially those with a scenario oriented goal. Some examples that I like

Spirit Island

Crisis at Steamfall

Scythe (maybe not a strictly talking euro game, but kind of)

Roll Player

Thanks!

In the comics, Ellie had a Walkman. When I heard licensed music in the game from the State of Play, I immediately wondered if Ellie would get her Walkman back in this game and we could have music like in MGSV. Does this quote confirm that?!?

Hey internet! First time user, longtime boardgame fan. I am generally the host and organizer of game nights in my circles and usually can explain things easily.

But we just tried our first eurogames, Concordia and Terra Mystica, and I completely botched both rules explanations and completely confused a group of experienced gamers.

Usually I explain a game by describing the goal and working backwards on how to achieve the goal. In the case of settlers of cataan: The goal of the game is to earn victory points. You get those victory points in these three ways by spending resources. You get resources by trading, etc.

I have had great success with teaching this way. But my style completely falls apart with eurogames.

Instead of three of four paths to victory, there may be a dozen and you don't need to do any of them. I spend half an hour droning on about all the different possibilities and leave everyone confused.

Has anyone had this problem? How do you teach your eurogames?

People are often very unclear on what the difference is between a tactic and a strategy. In this essay, I'm going to try to set out a crisp definition of what counts as a strategy, why that matters, how to use suits (e.g. spades, hearts, minerals, aliens, water) to reinforce and communicate strategic paths, and how optimizing the link between suits and strategies can improve the state of the art for classic-style Eurogames.

What is a strategy?

Strategic choices are:

• Scarce,
• Chunky, and
• Discretionary.

Most strategies are "long-term" in the sense that you have to keep working at them for several turns or actions, but that's not an absolute requirement -- the important thing is that strategic choices need to be scarce; when you make one, it stops you from making other, competing strategic choices, or at least it makes pursuing those other strategies much more expensive or difficult or unlikely to succeed. One way to make a strategy scarce is to force players to spend a third of the game pursuing a strategy in order to make it work (e.g., a pawn storm in chess, or a factory in Puerto Rico, or Platinum in Dominion), but that's not the only way to make strategies scarce; you could also just make strategies really expensive (e.g. the 6-cost developments in Race for the Galaxy), or limit players to one strategy per game by fiat (e.g. what alien species do you want to play in Eclipse or Galactic Dawn or Twilight Imperium). On the other hand, if I'm making a decision every single turn, then it's probably not strategic, even if I won't see the results until the endgame. For example, in Clue, I eliminate a possible suspect on most of my turns, and in Battlestar Galactica, I contribute to a perception of my character as either Human or Cylon on most of my turns, and none of that will typically pay off until the game is over, so there's a sense in which I'm working toward a long-term objective...but that work isn't scarce; I wind up doing this stuff as a matter of course, almost for free, simply by playing the game. I could also pivot and start taking some other type of action at any time without any real cost. If you're not making any commitments when you choose an option, then your choice isn't strategic.

By chunky, I mean that one strategy has to be meaningfully and sharply different from the next, and they can't seamlessly blend into each other. Synonyms for chunky are "staccato" and "discrete." In no-limit poker, if I can bet $3, or $4, or $5,

I think its safe to say that like most things, the widely accepted boardgame categories of Ameritrash and Euro are not binary, instead they make up a spectrum. So I have a three part question:

1. What games do you think define the very outer limits of the spectrum? What is the MOST Ameritrashy game, the MOST Euro game?

2. What game (or games) represent a the most perfect blend of the qualities that define the two categories? What games sit in the middle of the spectrum?

3. Would you define wargames as being somewhere on the spectrum, or would they add a third arm to it?

Sorry if this question has been posted before. Cheers!

Probably an unpopular opinion on this sub, but I really have a hard time getting into Eurogames

I am a person who loves background fluff and a strong theme, and I play board games for the player interaction elements. I love conflict, and even more, I love using a silver tongue with diplomacy to avoid conflict, or make my rivals fight amongst themselves.

Euros though...I am not sure where to start. They usually have some interesting mechanics, but usually after about five minutes my eyes glaze over after building my 3rd windmill. I recently tried scythe, which some players assured me I would like, and although the theme was cool, it was still a euro with a paintjob. Especially because it actively punished you for conflict through popularity.

Anyone else feel this way? I tried concordia recently and fell into a coma. Are there any euros I might like?

Last year it seemed like Scythe, Terraforming Mars, Great western trail and Feast for Odin were the big eurogames to be released. Which awesome games should we look out for this year?

I'm looking for your definitions of Eurogame and Ameritrash.

Can all games be placed on a spectrum from Eurogame to Ameritrash? Is that how it works? (If not, how does it work?)

Are these terms useful? How useful? Are there other ways of thinking about the differences between games that are also/more useful?

Edit:

(1) Thanks for your responses, I really appreciate it.

(2) Several have pointed out that the terms are somewhat historical and that games now often incorporate elements of both, but don't then define what the terms mean. If you'd care to revisit your post and add definitions, I'd be interested to read them.

(3) I got downvoted. I don't want to derail my own thread, but why? I can't see how my question can have offended someone or be 'wrong'?

I've recently been playing a lot more bigger eurogames. For the sake of consistency, I'm going to define "bigger eurogame" as one which lasts at least an hour and a half. These are my thoughts (and ranking) so far:

1. Agricola - first played in 2012, my absolute all-time favourite game. I love the pressure it puts on you, and the way that the cards you are dealt shape your strategy for the game. The last time I played I got forced into a vegetable-based strategy which I'd never tried before, and it was great.

• Terra Mystica - First played this year. This game is AMAZING. I love how building gets you more resources - you really need to snowball to a great victory, while also watching positions on the map to see what your opponents are planning. The components are great and I love the mana bowl system, although the priest track did seem a little bit tacked on (although I can definitely see how it's needed in case you get screwed on the main board).
• Caverna - First played in 2014. I like the stacking element of this game - the components are really nice. However it lacks the pressure of Agricola, and your strategy changes have to be purposeful so there is a tendency towards stagnation.
• Dungeon Lords - First played this year. Super cool worker placement game with an interesting twist. Getting to be the bad guy is so much fun and constructing your dungeon as you go is great!
• Puerto Rico - First played in 2015. I like that all the randomness is removed from this game, so it's just about building a good engine and rolling with it. It's hard for people to block you without also damaging themselves with the format of shipping. I've played it three times and won it twice so I feel pretty good about it.
• The Manhattan Project - First played in 2013. I like the way you build your own personal board for worker placement in this game, it's nice not to have to compete with other people for spaces. The bomb names always make me giggle, too.

In the near future I'm hoping to try Scythe, Power Grid, Le Havre, and Viticulture as those are the titles accessible to me.

Whats your favourite longer eurogame and why? Would you add any more to try onto my list?