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The Rise of German Board Games

237 points by IntronExon 9y ago

JoeAltmaier 9y ago
Wow, this explains so well why I despise Eurogames. Instead of eliminating opponents, everybody plays until the end after some arbitrary score limit is reached (or turn limit or whatever). I play Dominion or Catan and I'm working away and suddenly somebody says "game over! I won!" and I'm thinking, well that was a waste of time. I'm resentful and frustrated - what did I do all that for if it ends at such a meaningless point?
- thriftwy 9y ago
  But it's realistic. These days you don't get to eliminate your opponents. What you do is endless rat race on tiny margins. Plug: "Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards" are pretty awesome if you insist on elimination.
  - arno_v 9y ago
    Yeah,Epic Spell Wars is awesome!
  - LearnerHerzog 9y ago
    Looks fun— that artwork reminds me of the show "SuperJail" https://goo.gl/Sc12Qb https://goo.gl/Sc12Qb
- detaro 9y ago
  At least with Dominion, I'd say that predicting when the game is ending and adjusting your play is an important part of the game. And unless it's really one-sided (which sucks, and maybe there is an argument that Dominion lends itself to develop one-sided games without recovery) or whoever you are playing against is keeping mental count of everyone's point (which wouldn't be impossible, but I've never met someone actually bothering to do it) they won't be able to say "I won" before everyone has counted out their points.
  - vkou 9y ago
    Given that points tend to come from provinces/dutchies/etc, it's pretty easy to keep mental counts. When you've bought half the provinces in a three player game, and are not behind on dutchies, it's often safe to predict that you won the game, before any card counting.
  - jonreem 9y ago
    When I play I always count victory points - how do you know what to do if you don’t know how many points people have or how close the game is to ending? Adjusting your play during the course of the game as the game gets closer to ending is a crucial part of the game. If you’re surprised when the game ends you weren’t paying enough attention!
    - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
      Exactly. I was paying attention to people at the table, to activity, to eating and drinking and socializing. You know, what you do while 'playing a game'.
- tnzn 9y ago
  How is that meaningless ? Do you also consider races meaningless ? Do you consider most sports meaningless ? You probably don't like it because that's not how you learned to enjoy games, not because it's inherently worse than Ameritrash
  - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
    Sports don't stop the race randomly because somebody has found 'victory points' under their chair. Payers' efforts are rewarded with clearly recognized progress (down the field/on the scoreboard). There are time limits and buzzers and some sense of tension. Not just grind along and then, randomly, 'its over, and you lost'.
    - sirclueless 9y ago
      It sounds like you just haven't properly learned to account for the strategy of the game, or are not correctly tracking win conditions and using them to inform decisions. If you just blithely play out a self-centered strategy and are somehow surprised when Charlie claims the Longest Road card and declares himself the winner, then sure it might feel disappointing to lose. Instead try to be aware that for the last two turns Amanda has been 2 ore away from completing her last city and winning, but someone would need to roll exactly a 9 to do it on her own, while Bob has already completed all his cities but is unable to build more roads and Caroline is staying one Knight ahead of his army size through the help of Amanda giving her resources for the greater good. Maybe your win-con is going to have to be to steal Amanda's longest-road card and build another settlement which is gonna be a long shot but maybe given Amanda's desperation for ore and everyone-but-you's unwillingness to trade with Bob, you can do it. Maybe you can beat the odds and come from behind, maybe you can't, but either way an abrupt "it's over you lost" can never happen -- only someone executing their win-con better than you did, with the table unable to stop them.
    - tnzn 9y ago
      It just seems you play german board games as if you were a tenisman who doesn't count points and is surprised when we tell him the set is finished.
- k__ 9y ago
  I think a good game lets everyone play till the end AND gives them the opportunity to win at any time. Otherwise you lose too early OR have to look at the rest of the crowd winnig...
  - IntronExon 9y ago
    Monopoly is like that, and your point dovetails with the tendency of that game to end abruptly when someone quits in a rage. Who wants to spend dozens of rounds slowly, yet inevitably losing?
    - arkh 9y ago
      Here is the trick: gang up on the current winner. Playing with at least 3 or 4 players most games become more about diplomacy and getting other players to do what you want than getting good roll / cards. A good trick is to get hit hard at the start of the game (when you win a lot it is not hard to be a target) then once someone start getting ahead focus everyone on them while retelling how everyone fucked you over early-on. When you get in a position to win start speaking less to not attract any attention, don't use flashy combos. Then win. If you play a lot, learn how one game can help you for next one: if don't break your promises or help someone when they need it; you may get some help next game. Or people will be a lot more willing to trust you, until breaking this trust can give you a win.
      - Yen 9y ago
        I'd like to specifically advise caution with the "gang up on the current winner" strategy. One the one hand, yes, it can make games more fairly balanced. It works well when a) all players are roughly on the same skill level, and can independently agree on who the current winner is, b) players are all playing to win, and c) players are willing to recognize that it's still just a game, and not take losing personally. It can fail hard, though, and make a gaming experience more miserable. "retelling how everyone fucked you over early-on" reinforces the negative parts of the game play experience, and eventually you get people arguing over who's been screwed over worse. You get players who've had a strong showing arguing that "I'm not really the leader", and feeling singled out and attacked when they inevitably get ganged-up upon. Except then it's not merely their perception - the other players have discussed ganging up on them! My immediate family is almost entirely board game enthusiasts, but arguments of that variety have almost driven apart that board-game-playing shared interest. Games such as Settlers of Catan are effectively banned, since they're really hard to prevent from devolving into "who got screwed over more" arguments.
- quink 9y ago
  Assuming that you really consider the destination to be the goal rather than the journey, Splendor and Patchwork are two highly rated cheap games that while they don't eliminate players early have no hidden information and transparent scoring as you go, with quality iOS apps if you want to try that first. I think the downvotes you're getting are unjustified, yours is a valid opinion to have. Player elimination games can be excellent, but IMO mostly only if they're short. Love Letter is a great example. King of Tokyo/New York and Loopin' Louie are two others I have. Player elimination is a pretty good mechanic for short games, so I'm reading your comment as more of a perfectly legitimate complaint about long games with hidden information rather than a lack of player elimination.
  - StephanTLavavej 9y ago
    Splendor has a small bit of hidden info - when you blind reserve a card, you get to look at it, but it stays secret from other players. However, blind reserves are very rare, so you’re basically accurate.
- Karrot_Kream 9y ago
  Different people play games differently. On the converse, I find a game with elimination to encourage petty behavior and find the overall experience of longer games with big elimination mechanics to be arbitrary. I'm glad that Eurogames give me a chance to play without all of us attempting to specifically undermine the other.
- techsupporter 9y ago
  I agree with you to some extent, at least if the game does it poorly. "Points reached, game over" is the only quibble I have with the two-player version of Agricola, "All Creatures Big and Small." The end game condition is reached far too quickly for my tastes so I wind up asking the other player if he or she would like to have a "house rule" of more points.
- labster 9y ago
  Upvoted because everyone is entitled to their own preferences in games. It's wonderful that the world is full of such different people. Also, I'm not definitely inviting you to my gaming group.
  - adamredwoods 9y ago
    He's probably a grognard.
    - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
      I host a gaming club. We're in test for 5 games. They vary from simple card games to collectible sets to party games to complex deck-building board games. They all have one thing in common: they're social. You play with other people, rather than in the same room as other people. I've watched some family members play Catan every holiday for years. They sit in virtual silence for 2-4 hours, all looking grim, hardly speaking. When its over, they seem relieved and exhausted. Its depressing. Our club games have people talking constantly, laughing, chanting, enjoying themselves to the limit. They're fun. And that seems to me to be a critical threshold to deserve inclusion in the category 'game'.
      - newen 9y ago
        It depends on the group that you're playing with. Catan with my family is fun because we chat the whole time, try to get each other in trouble, etc. Quiet time is pretty rare in Catan for us. Actually the one game that really tells you the character of a group is Codenames. In certain groups, the entire game is super serious and quiet with lots of time spent on thinking, while in other groups the game is fun and filled with discussion and jokes and so on.
      - dagw 9y ago
        I get your point, but allow me to offer a counterpoint. A game I can play (and win) without concentration or any real mental effort is a dull game. Sure playing the games can be a lot of fun with the right people but then they're fun despite the game and not because of the game. The game itself is just a catalyst for social interaction (which I guess in itself is a perfectly valid scale to judge a game on). However I believe that if it's a great game I should also be able to enjoy playing it in virtual silence against complete strangers. Ironically I consider Catan a game that is mainly fun because of the social interaction the results from it. And that seems to me to be a critical threshold to deserve inclusion in the category 'game'. Is chess a game?
- pwinnski 9y ago
  It is fascinating to me that something you hate about Eurogames is what I love most about them. Vive la différence!
- Pxtl 9y ago
  Because you aren't thinking about the game right. Victory is elimination. Watch the other players like a hawk, keep an eye on everybody's score, and orchestrate a pile-on when somebody gets a visible lead. Try playing some of these group games like Carcassonne or Splendor in a 1v1 format. 1v1 strips away the chaos and makes every victory a corresponding defeat, and teaches you the mechanics in their barest form. Then you come back to a big 4-player table with a newfound grokking of the game.
- yesenadam 9y ago
  Couldn't you equally say that about games where everybody plays until the end after some arbitrary time limit is reached? Like uh football (of all kinds), basketball etc etc etc - most games/sports.
- mcv 9y ago
  If you don't see the end of the game coming, you're not paying attention. In any case, the sudden end is better than the drawn-out torture that is Monopoly.
- lmm 9y ago
  A "build your own thing" game always needs a point at which you draw a line under it and count up and decide who won. The better games will find a way to at least vaguely integrate it with the theme - e.g. in Keyflower you play through Spring/Summer/Autumn/Winter, in Barbarossa you play until someone captures Moscow. Still, even for a straight "first to 10 points" or "play 5 rounds", to my mind the positives outweigh the negatives. If you play until all but one player is knocked out then a) most players are gonna lose in a very personal, direct way b) players who've lost have to find something else to do while the game finishes c) there's no way to predict or plan how long the game's going to go on for. A lot of competitions involve a fairly arbitrary limit - why run for 100m rather than 110 or 90? Why play football for 90 minutes rather than 80 or 100? Why do 18 holes of golf rather than 17 or 19? Why drive 3 laps in Mario Kart rather than 2 or 4? Sometimes all you can do is find a point at which to draw a line under it.
  - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
    Sure its nice for everybody to be in it until the end. I guess I object to a race that ends when somebody steps on a crack seemingly randomly, and the one with the most bling on their vest then wins. Its the part about 'you have to come up with something to end it'. The theme breaks down then. Makes the game seem unfinished, like they couldn't think of some reasonable way to wind it up so they just gave up. Pandemic ends when you contain the plague, or it kills everybody. You talk and socialize and cajole until the end, with everybody. There's a well-made game.
tonydiv 9y ago
Clearly the author has never played Settlers of Catan, it does not make friends. Hence the memes: https://imgur.com/a/tUGcn https://imgur.com/a/tUGcn
- newen 9y ago
  Seriously though, Euro board games are how I made friends in grad school, and how I spend a lot of my time with friends and family.
- a_e_k 9y ago
  Heck, I've played a few games of Catan where it's tested marriages.
  - lostlogin 9y ago
    Bet the damn robber was the crux of it.
    - gbhn 9y ago
      We play a variant without the robber where a 7 means you just draw a resource of your choice. Much preferred if you aren't looking for a competitively enhanced game. :-)
      - mcv 9y ago
        We have a house rule that we re-roll 7s in the first two rounds. This after a 6 player game where the first round saw most people rolling a 7. It didn't particularly screw anyone, but it's just not a fun way to start the game. Even with that rule, we usually only use the robber to hurt the leader. During the early game when nobody is clearly ahead, we prefer to place it on poor production fields, and use it just to steal a card. This is not just fuzzy feel-good pacifism, it's good sense, because an enemy is not an asset, and it's harmful to make yourself a target. Hurt people who deserve it, but otherwise just go for the card.
        9y ago
5_minutes 9y ago
I love playing board games with my kids, gets them away from anything digital: nintendo’s, ipads or tv stuff. And hey having a 8 year old thinking about his Stratego setup, is a good thing!
- ideonexus 9y ago
  Seconding this. My boys love their tablets and their Xbox, which I play with them and don't discourage (video games have their positives), but our real quality time is playing board games. It's wonderful to watch my four and six-year-old "get it" while interacting with them on a personal level. Earlier this year I discovered thrift stores are a wealth of games and I'll bring home a stack of new ones to try out every couple of weeks for less than $20. We try them out and it's like trying out novel ways of thinking much of the time. I highly recommend this as a way of connecting to your kids.
  - adrianN 9y ago
    https://boardgamegeek.com/ https://boardgamegeek.com/ has an active second hand market where you can find less mainstream games. I've personally bought a couple of games on there.
  - ido 9y ago
    If you live in a big city you can try finding a "game café/pub" such as Storm Crow Tavern in Vancouver or Spielwiese Berlin.
  - cableshaft 9y ago
    > We try them out and it's like trying out novel ways of thinking much of the time. This is why I'm addicting to playing (and designing) board games. You get to learn how to think in a different way for awhile. So much fun.
- shitloadofbooks 9y ago
  I got started with Stratego around age 7-8 after my dad taught me. I showed my friend group and we got bored of the base game very quickly, so we started modifying it and making custom versions. We had a double-wide version (just a hand drawn grid hanging off the side and custom pieces made out of cardboard and stickytape), rivers, boulders, tanks (2x1 pieces), 1v1v1, custom scenarios, etc. We eventually moved on to HeroQuest and then discovered Warhammer (but couldn't afford it so we used to play our own DIY version with LEGO and dice). Those rapid prototyping and iteration skills I learned at an early age massively helped me in life and they're used daily in my role as an Infra/Ops Engineer. I also have a published board game (and hopefully more to come)!
taggart 9y ago
Wow, I had no idea Phil Eklund was such a superstar! I met him waaaay back in 1990 when he still lived in Tucson and would bring his whacky home made games to the “Historical Games Society” club at the U of A. Way to go Phil!
- droopyEyelids 9y ago
  Have you met other famous or successful people?
- thriftwy 9y ago
  This does kind of happen. I have a friend who used to drag us to play Camelot in some strange bar. Fast forward 10 years, he translated or edited most of titles I play these days. As in, his name in credits of every other box.
- mcv 9y ago
  I know Phil Eklund primarily from hard-core science simulations such as High Frontier and Biosgenesis. I do know him, but I wouldn't rank him among game design superstars such as Uwe Rosenberg or Reiner Knizia. His games are not exactly mainstream. Speaking of which, this article suggests that boardgames are niche, but games like Siedler von Catan, Agricola, or the many, many games by Reiner Knizia, are absolutely mainstream. At least in Europe. I spent 1997 giving everybody Siedler von Catan for their birthday (and later the Dutch translation), so I would hope everybody vaguely interested in boardgames has it by now.
solarkraft 9y ago
Fun article about a topic I'm somewhat familiar with (am German and in board game circles). However I am really not sure if it fits the aggregator.
DyslexicAtheist 9y ago
"Menschärgeredichnicht" anyone?
- susi22 9y ago
  Try "Tac" for a new/spiced-up version of the game. It's really fun.
  - TomAnthony 9y ago
    IS that this: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/17991/tac https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/17991/tac?
    - susi22 9y ago
      Yes! It's really good.
- bananicorn 9y ago
  We did play it a lot as kids, meaning my parents, me and one of my brothers - it's pretty popular in German-speaking countries (well, for obvious reasons)^^
- Sylos 9y ago
  The Wikipedia-Article describes it aptly: "Mensch ärgere Dich nicht is a German board game (but not a German-style board game)". And the name translates to "Don't get angry, man", so the game creator was quite self-aware here, too.
branchless 9y ago
I know it's not the main thrust of the article but to note: monopoly is supposed to end with one winner by a landslide because it was created as a critique of capitalism without land value tax. The original game had two sets of rules, one that was sustainable and one based on the current insanity you can find outside your window.
dizzy3gg 9y ago
Bomben Auf England, classic. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/23577/bomben-auf-england https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/23577/bomben-auf-england
- tim333 9y ago
  Made in my family's games factory that one. Although it wasn't under our control at the time.
chx 9y ago
Since the article mentions Monopoly in passing: it is NOT fine for children; it was created to teach about inequality; it is a horrible game even for children (or especially for children). If you are forced to play it, use this https://imgur.com/gallery/vX3zm https://imgur.com/gallery/vX3zm tactic, it won't happen again.
- jackaroe78 9y ago
  As the oldest of 6, I can confirm that a pleasant game of Monopoly can turn south real quck. That & "Sorry!"
- jimktrains2 9y ago
  It was created to teach about the downside of capitalism. I don't see what's so terrible about that. Capitalism isn't perfect nor the Devil. When people don't actually play by the rules it turns into a mess.
  - mynameishere 9y ago
    It would be an okay game if it taught about the "X of Y" in which X is anything and Y is anything. But really it's just a game of "who can roll the dice best?" where the players influence the outcome of the game as much as in Candyland. (Of course, the players do have to play "correctly", which means "purchase everything you land on".)
    - jimktrains2 9y ago
      > But really it's just a game of "who can roll the dice best?" where the players influence the outcome of the game as much as in Candyland. That's mostly true, but deciding what to buy, how to bid, and negotiating for properties are all important parts of the game. Part of the purpose of the game is showing how capitalism is unfair because it exploits people by randomness of birth and circumstances rather than their ability to work.
    - smallnamespace 9y ago
      It teaches that property breeds property, and by the laws of compound interest, whoever gets a big lead first usually wins. Everyone who's played Monopoly more than a few times quickly understands that: 1. If it's early and you have an opportunity to acquire property, you take it 2. If you are out of cash and land on an unbought property, it's usually best to mortgage your other properties. This teaches the lesson of how leverage and debt, judiciously used, is to the capitalists's advantage. 3. If it's getting later in the game, usually nobody should willingly grant someone else a monopoly unless they themselves get one in return.
cdelsolar 9y ago
Decent article, except for lumping the excellent board game of Scrabble with Monopoly
- jackaroe78 9y ago
  I never land on Boardwalk or Park Place either
- TylerE 9y ago
  Monopoly is a perfectly fine game. The problem is no one bothers to actually play it by the rules (auctions, no dumb house rules like fines go to free parking).
  - yesenadam 9y ago
    I don't think that's the problem! It's (as noted in many online articles) the last 2/3 of every game is the richest person getting more and more so, until too long later they win. Kind of a drag for everyone else. (p.s. I play it by the rules.)
    - tim333 9y ago
      That was kind of by design to illustrate the evils of capitalism and advocate for a land value tax. Bit of a pity it didn't work. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizzie_Magie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizzie_Magie)
    - michaelt 9y ago
      I think what TylerE means is: A well-known criticism of the game is it goes on too long after the winner is already clear - and though _part_ of that is the game's design, _part_ of it is house rules that make the game take longer, like not auctioning properties and putting fines on free parking.
  - once_inc 9y ago
    Monopoly is in its core a flawed game, because it was created as criticism against capitalism. The 'cutt-throat' way to play it is buying 4 houses on your streets, but not getting a hotel. Since there is a limited supply of houses, you prevent other players from getting better, then win by attrition. The title of the game is about getting a monopoly on houses.
amenghra 9y ago
http://images.mentalfloss.com/sites/default/files/styles/insert_main_wide_image/public/boardgame.jpg http://images.mentalfloss.com/sites/default/files/styles/ins... is a humorfilled flowchart. Might help you pick your next game?
- tallanvor 9y ago
  According to that image, Candy Land is only appropriate for "Girly Girls Only". That's humor for a 10 year old, maybe.
andrey-p 9y ago
It feels weird to say there's no conflict in Eurogames. Power Grid is pretty relentless and brutal - there's no violent aspect to it, but you can mess your opponents pretty badly, and it still hurts. The only time I've managed to get my girlfriend to swear at me was when I stole the line she was clearly trying to build in Ticket to Ride.
- FearNotDaniel 9y ago
  Agreed - kind of - since even in Carcassonne (Original and South Seas edition) there are opportunities to 'steal' someone else's farming/fishing territory, which inevitably prompts my wife to call me a "meanie". But I still concur with the overall principle, that opportunities for attack/conflict in these games tend to be indirect and somewhat secondary.
mariushn 9y ago
How do you copyright game ideas? Say one has a game idea, pretty worked out. What would be next best steps to take, without being copied/stolen in the process? Unlike startups, with boardgames ideas matter much more than execution. Copyright is the only protection for successful games from being duplicated, since materials are so cheap.

237 points by IntronExon 9y ago

Wow, this explains so well why I despise Eurogames. Instead of eliminating opponents, everybody plays until the end after some arbitrary score limit is reached (or turn limit or whatever). I play Dominion or Catan and I'm working away and suddenly somebody says "game over! I won!" and I'm thinking, well that was a waste of time. I'm resentful and frustrated - what did I do all that for if it ends at such a meaningless point?

thriftwy 9y ago
But it's realistic. These days you don't get to eliminate your opponents. What you do is endless rat race on tiny margins. Plug: "Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards" are pretty awesome if you insist on elimination.
- arno_v 9y ago
  Yeah,Epic Spell Wars is awesome!
- LearnerHerzog 9y ago
  Looks fun— that artwork reminds me of the show "SuperJail" https://goo.gl/Sc12Qb https://goo.gl/Sc12Qb
detaro 9y ago
At least with Dominion, I'd say that predicting when the game is ending and adjusting your play is an important part of the game. And unless it's really one-sided (which sucks, and maybe there is an argument that Dominion lends itself to develop one-sided games without recovery) or whoever you are playing against is keeping mental count of everyone's point (which wouldn't be impossible, but I've never met someone actually bothering to do it) they won't be able to say "I won" before everyone has counted out their points.
- vkou 9y ago
  Given that points tend to come from provinces/dutchies/etc, it's pretty easy to keep mental counts. When you've bought half the provinces in a three player game, and are not behind on dutchies, it's often safe to predict that you won the game, before any card counting.
- jonreem 9y ago
  When I play I always count victory points - how do you know what to do if you don’t know how many points people have or how close the game is to ending? Adjusting your play during the course of the game as the game gets closer to ending is a crucial part of the game. If you’re surprised when the game ends you weren’t paying enough attention!
  - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
    Exactly. I was paying attention to people at the table, to activity, to eating and drinking and socializing. You know, what you do while 'playing a game'.
tnzn 9y ago
How is that meaningless ? Do you also consider races meaningless ? Do you consider most sports meaningless ? You probably don't like it because that's not how you learned to enjoy games, not because it's inherently worse than Ameritrash
- JoeAltmaier 9y ago
  Sports don't stop the race randomly because somebody has found 'victory points' under their chair. Payers' efforts are rewarded with clearly recognized progress (down the field/on the scoreboard). There are time limits and buzzers and some sense of tension. Not just grind along and then, randomly, 'its over, and you lost'.
  - sirclueless 9y ago
    It sounds like you just haven't properly learned to account for the strategy of the game, or are not correctly tracking win conditions and using them to inform decisions. If you just blithely play out a self-centered strategy and are somehow surprised when Charlie claims the Longest Road card and declares himself the winner, then sure it might feel disappointing to lose. Instead try to be aware that for the last two turns Amanda has been 2 ore away from completing her last city and winning, but someone would need to roll exactly a 9 to do it on her own, while Bob has already completed all his cities but is unable to build more roads and Caroline is staying one Knight ahead of his army size through the help of Amanda giving her resources for the greater good. Maybe your win-con is going to have to be to steal Amanda's longest-road card and build another settlement which is gonna be a long shot but maybe given Amanda's desperation for ore and everyone-but-you's unwillingness to trade with Bob, you can do it. Maybe you can beat the odds and come from behind, maybe you can't, but either way an abrupt "it's over you lost" can never happen -- only someone executing their win-con better than you did, with the table unable to stop them.
  - tnzn 9y ago
    It just seems you play german board games as if you were a tenisman who doesn't count points and is surprised when we tell him the set is finished.
k__ 9y ago
I think a good game lets everyone play till the end AND gives them the opportunity to win at any time. Otherwise you lose too early OR have to look at the rest of the crowd winnig...
- IntronExon 9y ago
  Monopoly is like that, and your point dovetails with the tendency of that game to end abruptly when someone quits in a rage. Who wants to spend dozens of rounds slowly, yet inevitably losing?
  - arkh 9y ago
    Here is the trick: gang up on the current winner. Playing with at least 3 or 4 players most games become more about diplomacy and getting other players to do what you want than getting good roll / cards. A good trick is to get hit hard at the start of the game (when you win a lot it is not hard to be a target) then once someone start getting ahead focus everyone on them while retelling how everyone fucked you over early-on. When you get in a position to win start speaking less to not attract any attention, don't use flashy combos. Then win. If you play a lot, learn how one game can help you for next one: if don't break your promises or help someone when they need it; you may get some help next game. Or people will be a lot more willing to trust you, until breaking this trust can give you a win.
    - Yen 9y ago
      I'd like to specifically advise caution with the "gang up on the current winner" strategy. One the one hand, yes, it can make games more fairly balanced. It works well when a) all players are roughly on the same skill level, and can independently agree on who the current winner is, b) players are all playing to win, and c) players are willing to recognize that it's still just a game, and not take losing personally. It can fail hard, though, and make a gaming experience more miserable. "retelling how everyone fucked you over early-on" reinforces the negative parts of the game play experience, and eventually you get people arguing over who's been screwed over worse. You get players who've had a strong showing arguing that "I'm not really the leader", and feeling singled out and attacked when they inevitably get ganged-up upon. Except then it's not merely their perception - the other players have discussed ganging up on them! My immediate family is almost entirely board game enthusiasts, but arguments of that variety have almost driven apart that board-game-playing shared interest. Games such as Settlers of Catan are effectively banned, since they're really hard to prevent from devolving into "who got screwed over more" arguments.
quink 9y ago
Assuming that you really consider the destination to be the goal rather than the journey, Splendor and Patchwork are two highly rated cheap games that while they don't eliminate players early have no hidden information and transparent scoring as you go, with quality iOS apps if you want to try that first. I think the downvotes you're getting are unjustified, yours is a valid opinion to have. Player elimination games can be excellent, but IMO mostly only if they're short. Love Letter is a great example. King of Tokyo/New York and Loopin' Louie are two others I have. Player elimination is a pretty good mechanic for short games, so I'm reading your comment as more of a perfectly legitimate complaint about long games with hidden information rather than a lack of player elimination.
- StephanTLavavej 9y ago
  Splendor has a small bit of hidden info - when you blind reserve a card, you get to look at it, but it stays secret from other players. However, blind reserves are very rare, so you’re basically accurate.
Karrot_Kream 9y ago
Different people play games differently. On the converse, I find a game with elimination to encourage petty behavior and find the overall experience of longer games with big elimination mechanics to be arbitrary. I'm glad that Eurogames give me a chance to play without all of us attempting to specifically undermine the other.
techsupporter 9y ago
I agree with you to some extent, at least if the game does it poorly. "Points reached, game over" is the only quibble I have with the two-player version of Agricola, "All Creatures Big and Small." The end game condition is reached far too quickly for my tastes so I wind up asking the other player if he or she would like to have a "house rule" of more points.
labster 9y ago
Upvoted because everyone is entitled to their own preferences in games. It's wonderful that the world is full of such different people. Also, I'm not definitely inviting you to my gaming group.
- adamredwoods 9y ago
  He's probably a grognard.
  - JoeAltmaier 9y ago
    I host a gaming club. We're in test for 5 games. They vary from simple card games to collectible sets to party games to complex deck-building board games. They all have one thing in common: they're social. You play with other people, rather than in the same room as other people. I've watched some family members play Catan every holiday for years. They sit in virtual silence for 2-4 hours, all looking grim, hardly speaking. When its over, they seem relieved and exhausted. Its depressing. Our club games have people talking constantly, laughing, chanting, enjoying themselves to the limit. They're fun. And that seems to me to be a critical threshold to deserve inclusion in the category 'game'.
    - newen 9y ago
      It depends on the group that you're playing with. Catan with my family is fun because we chat the whole time, try to get each other in trouble, etc. Quiet time is pretty rare in Catan for us. Actually the one game that really tells you the character of a group is Codenames. In certain groups, the entire game is super serious and quiet with lots of time spent on thinking, while in other groups the game is fun and filled with discussion and jokes and so on.
    - dagw 9y ago
      I get your point, but allow me to offer a counterpoint. A game I can play (and win) without concentration or any real mental effort is a dull game. Sure playing the games can be a lot of fun with the right people but then they're fun despite the game and not because of the game. The game itself is just a catalyst for social interaction (which I guess in itself is a perfectly valid scale to judge a game on). However I believe that if it's a great game I should also be able to enjoy playing it in virtual silence against complete strangers. Ironically I consider Catan a game that is mainly fun because of the social interaction the results from it. And that seems to me to be a critical threshold to deserve inclusion in the category 'game'. Is chess a game?
pwinnski 9y ago
It is fascinating to me that something you hate about Eurogames is what I love most about them. Vive la différence!
Pxtl 9y ago
Because you aren't thinking about the game right. Victory is elimination. Watch the other players like a hawk, keep an eye on everybody's score, and orchestrate a pile-on when somebody gets a visible lead. Try playing some of these group games like Carcassonne or Splendor in a 1v1 format. 1v1 strips away the chaos and makes every victory a corresponding defeat, and teaches you the mechanics in their barest form. Then you come back to a big 4-player table with a newfound grokking of the game.
yesenadam 9y ago
Couldn't you equally say that about games where everybody plays until the end after some arbitrary time limit is reached? Like uh football (of all kinds), basketball etc etc etc - most games/sports.
mcv 9y ago
If you don't see the end of the game coming, you're not paying attention. In any case, the sudden end is better than the drawn-out torture that is Monopoly.
lmm 9y ago
A "build your own thing" game always needs a point at which you draw a line under it and count up and decide who won. The better games will find a way to at least vaguely integrate it with the theme - e.g. in Keyflower you play through Spring/Summer/Autumn/Winter, in Barbarossa you play until someone captures Moscow. Still, even for a straight "first to 10 points" or "play 5 rounds", to my mind the positives outweigh the negatives. If you play until all but one player is knocked out then a) most players are gonna lose in a very personal, direct way b) players who've lost have to find something else to do while the game finishes c) there's no way to predict or plan how long the game's going to go on for. A lot of competitions involve a fairly arbitrary limit - why run for 100m rather than 110 or 90? Why play football for 90 minutes rather than 80 or 100? Why do 18 holes of golf rather than 17 or 19? Why drive 3 laps in Mario Kart rather than 2 or 4? Sometimes all you can do is find a point at which to draw a line under it.
- JoeAltmaier 9y ago
  Sure its nice for everybody to be in it until the end. I guess I object to a race that ends when somebody steps on a crack seemingly randomly, and the one with the most bling on their vest then wins. Its the part about 'you have to come up with something to end it'. The theme breaks down then. Makes the game seem unfinished, like they couldn't think of some reasonable way to wind it up so they just gave up. Pandemic ends when you contain the plague, or it kills everybody. You talk and socialize and cajole until the end, with everybody. There's a well-made game.

tonydiv 9y ago

Clearly the author has never played Settlers of Catan, it does not make friends. Hence the memes: https://imgur.com/a/tUGcn https://imgur.com/a/tUGcn

newen 9y ago
Seriously though, Euro board games are how I made friends in grad school, and how I spend a lot of my time with friends and family.
a_e_k 9y ago
Heck, I've played a few games of Catan where it's tested marriages.
- lostlogin 9y ago
  Bet the damn robber was the crux of it.
  - gbhn 9y ago
    We play a variant without the robber where a 7 means you just draw a resource of your choice. Much preferred if you aren't looking for a competitively enhanced game. :-)
    - mcv 9y ago
      We have a house rule that we re-roll 7s in the first two rounds. This after a 6 player game where the first round saw most people rolling a 7. It didn't particularly screw anyone, but it's just not a fun way to start the game. Even with that rule, we usually only use the robber to hurt the leader. During the early game when nobody is clearly ahead, we prefer to place it on poor production fields, and use it just to steal a card. This is not just fuzzy feel-good pacifism, it's good sense, because an enemy is not an asset, and it's harmful to make yourself a target. Hurt people who deserve it, but otherwise just go for the card.
      - 9y ago

5_minutes 9y ago

I love playing board games with my kids, gets them away from anything digital: nintendo’s, ipads or tv stuff. And hey having a 8 year old thinking about his Stratego setup, is a good thing!

ideonexus 9y ago
Seconding this. My boys love their tablets and their Xbox, which I play with them and don't discourage (video games have their positives), but our real quality time is playing board games. It's wonderful to watch my four and six-year-old "get it" while interacting with them on a personal level. Earlier this year I discovered thrift stores are a wealth of games and I'll bring home a stack of new ones to try out every couple of weeks for less than $20. We try them out and it's like trying out novel ways of thinking much of the time. I highly recommend this as a way of connecting to your kids.
- adrianN 9y ago
  https://boardgamegeek.com/ https://boardgamegeek.com/ has an active second hand market where you can find less mainstream games. I've personally bought a couple of games on there.
- ido 9y ago
  If you live in a big city you can try finding a "game café/pub" such as Storm Crow Tavern in Vancouver or Spielwiese Berlin.
- cableshaft 9y ago
  > We try them out and it's like trying out novel ways of thinking much of the time. This is why I'm addicting to playing (and designing) board games. You get to learn how to think in a different way for awhile. So much fun.
shitloadofbooks 9y ago
I got started with Stratego around age 7-8 after my dad taught me. I showed my friend group and we got bored of the base game very quickly, so we started modifying it and making custom versions. We had a double-wide version (just a hand drawn grid hanging off the side and custom pieces made out of cardboard and stickytape), rivers, boulders, tanks (2x1 pieces), 1v1v1, custom scenarios, etc. We eventually moved on to HeroQuest and then discovered Warhammer (but couldn't afford it so we used to play our own DIY version with LEGO and dice). Those rapid prototyping and iteration skills I learned at an early age massively helped me in life and they're used daily in my role as an Infra/Ops Engineer. I also have a published board game (and hopefully more to come)!

taggart 9y ago

Wow, I had no idea Phil Eklund was such a superstar! I met him waaaay back in 1990 when he still lived in Tucson and would bring his whacky home made games to the “Historical Games Society” club at the U of A. Way to go Phil!

droopyEyelids 9y ago
Have you met other famous or successful people?
thriftwy 9y ago
This does kind of happen. I have a friend who used to drag us to play Camelot in some strange bar. Fast forward 10 years, he translated or edited most of titles I play these days. As in, his name in credits of every other box.
mcv 9y ago
I know Phil Eklund primarily from hard-core science simulations such as High Frontier and Biosgenesis. I do know him, but I wouldn't rank him among game design superstars such as Uwe Rosenberg or Reiner Knizia. His games are not exactly mainstream. Speaking of which, this article suggests that boardgames are niche, but games like Siedler von Catan, Agricola, or the many, many games by Reiner Knizia, are absolutely mainstream. At least in Europe. I spent 1997 giving everybody Siedler von Catan for their birthday (and later the Dutch translation), so I would hope everybody vaguely interested in boardgames has it by now.

solarkraft 9y ago

Fun article about a topic I'm somewhat familiar with (am German and in board game circles). However I am really not sure if it fits the aggregator.

DyslexicAtheist 9y ago

"Menschärgeredichnicht" anyone?

susi22 9y ago
Try "Tac" for a new/spiced-up version of the game. It's really fun.
- TomAnthony 9y ago
  IS that this: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/17991/tac https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/17991/tac?
  - susi22 9y ago
    Yes! It's really good.
bananicorn 9y ago
We did play it a lot as kids, meaning my parents, me and one of my brothers - it's pretty popular in German-speaking countries (well, for obvious reasons)^^
Sylos 9y ago
The Wikipedia-Article describes it aptly: "Mensch ärgere Dich nicht is a German board game (but not a German-style board game)". And the name translates to "Don't get angry, man", so the game creator was quite self-aware here, too.

branchless 9y ago

I know it's not the main thrust of the article but to note: monopoly is supposed to end with one winner by a landslide because it was created as a critique of capitalism without land value tax. The original game had two sets of rules, one that was sustainable and one based on the current insanity you can find outside your window.

dizzy3gg 9y ago

Bomben Auf England, classic. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/23577/bomben-auf-england https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/23577/bomben-auf-england

tim333 9y ago
Made in my family's games factory that one. Although it wasn't under our control at the time.

chx 9y ago

Since the article mentions Monopoly in passing: it is NOT fine for children; it was created to teach about inequality; it is a horrible game even for children (or especially for children). If you are forced to play it, use this https://imgur.com/gallery/vX3zm https://imgur.com/gallery/vX3zm tactic, it won't happen again.

jackaroe78 9y ago
As the oldest of 6, I can confirm that a pleasant game of Monopoly can turn south real quck. That & "Sorry!"
jimktrains2 9y ago
It was created to teach about the downside of capitalism. I don't see what's so terrible about that. Capitalism isn't perfect nor the Devil. When people don't actually play by the rules it turns into a mess.
- mynameishere 9y ago
  It would be an okay game if it taught about the "X of Y" in which X is anything and Y is anything. But really it's just a game of "who can roll the dice best?" where the players influence the outcome of the game as much as in Candyland. (Of course, the players do have to play "correctly", which means "purchase everything you land on".)
  - jimktrains2 9y ago
    > But really it's just a game of "who can roll the dice best?" where the players influence the outcome of the game as much as in Candyland. That's mostly true, but deciding what to buy, how to bid, and negotiating for properties are all important parts of the game. Part of the purpose of the game is showing how capitalism is unfair because it exploits people by randomness of birth and circumstances rather than their ability to work.
  - smallnamespace 9y ago
    It teaches that property breeds property, and by the laws of compound interest, whoever gets a big lead first usually wins. Everyone who's played Monopoly more than a few times quickly understands that: 1. If it's early and you have an opportunity to acquire property, you take it 2. If you are out of cash and land on an unbought property, it's usually best to mortgage your other properties. This teaches the lesson of how leverage and debt, judiciously used, is to the capitalists's advantage. 3. If it's getting later in the game, usually nobody should willingly grant someone else a monopoly unless they themselves get one in return.

cdelsolar 9y ago

Decent article, except for lumping the excellent board game of Scrabble with Monopoly

jackaroe78 9y ago
I never land on Boardwalk or Park Place either
TylerE 9y ago
Monopoly is a perfectly fine game. The problem is no one bothers to actually play it by the rules (auctions, no dumb house rules like fines go to free parking).
- yesenadam 9y ago
  I don't think that's the problem! It's (as noted in many online articles) the last 2/3 of every game is the richest person getting more and more so, until too long later they win. Kind of a drag for everyone else. (p.s. I play it by the rules.)
  - tim333 9y ago
    That was kind of by design to illustrate the evils of capitalism and advocate for a land value tax. Bit of a pity it didn't work. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizzie_Magie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizzie_Magie)
  - michaelt 9y ago
    I think what TylerE means is: A well-known criticism of the game is it goes on too long after the winner is already clear - and though _part_ of that is the game's design, _part_ of it is house rules that make the game take longer, like not auctioning properties and putting fines on free parking.
- once_inc 9y ago
  Monopoly is in its core a flawed game, because it was created as criticism against capitalism. The 'cutt-throat' way to play it is buying 4 houses on your streets, but not getting a hotel. Since there is a limited supply of houses, you prevent other players from getting better, then win by attrition. The title of the game is about getting a monopoly on houses.

amenghra 9y ago

http://images.mentalfloss.com/sites/default/files/styles/insert_main_wide_image/public/boardgame.jpg http://images.mentalfloss.com/sites/default/files/styles/ins... is a humorfilled flowchart. Might help you pick your next game?

tallanvor 9y ago
According to that image, Candy Land is only appropriate for "Girly Girls Only". That's humor for a 10 year old, maybe.

andrey-p 9y ago

It feels weird to say there's no conflict in Eurogames. Power Grid is pretty relentless and brutal - there's no violent aspect to it, but you can mess your opponents pretty badly, and it still hurts. The only time I've managed to get my girlfriend to swear at me was when I stole the line she was clearly trying to build in Ticket to Ride.

FearNotDaniel 9y ago
Agreed - kind of - since even in Carcassonne (Original and South Seas edition) there are opportunities to 'steal' someone else's farming/fishing territory, which inevitably prompts my wife to call me a "meanie". But I still concur with the overall principle, that opportunities for attack/conflict in these games tend to be indirect and somewhat secondary.

mariushn 9y ago

How do you copyright game ideas? Say one has a game idea, pretty worked out. What would be next best steps to take, without being copied/stolen in the process? Unlike startups, with boardgames ideas matter much more than execution. Copyright is the only protection for successful games from being duplicated, since materials are so cheap.