So what Euros do ATers generally like?

I know Catan, T&E and Ra are usually considered the best of the Euros amongst ATers, and Caylus probably the worst, but what else? Any thoughts for someone who is most certianly an ATer but dabbles in the occasional euro?

I can control it, though, just a bit of elegance on the weekends with friends, I'm not addicted. Strong opinions on El Grande, Florence, Genoa, Notre Dame, Maharaja, Roads and Boats and the like? I realize this has probably been asked a thousand times before, and I promise I'll go back to being a lurker soon.

Catan is a great game. I like Niagara (which KenB. HATESHATESHATES), Puerto Rico (as a solo enterprise), and I don't mind San Juan. Ticket to Ride is fun too, and has awesome bits. The toughest thing about playing Euro games is that you usually play them with Eurogamers. If someone starts to sniffle because you cut off their TOTALLY TELEGRAPHED Ticket to Ride route, you should just find something else to do--no game is very fun when actually playing it is discouraged.

I'm more of a wargamer but Dynasties is a fast and fun 2p game, Carcassone Hunters and Gatherers is a blast, and Thebes (though really random) is good.

I really like Settlers, Citadels, and Ticket to Ride (not sure to what extent they are eurogames). I usually enjoy lighter Euros a lot more than the "heavy" ones that emphasize innovative mechanisms over fun.

I'm down with most lighter to middleweight Euros that avoid rampantly stupid or boring themes. Even then if a game is fun I can be persuaded to play it.

It's a weird thing...you're playing them because they have solid mechanics, but if they don't at least try to match their theme, the whole completely mechanical nature of the game becomes revealed. Oasis is this way. It's got light rules but there's zero theme matching there, it's just stupid putting tiles and camels on the board, the board resembling nothing.

Niagara...I should have enjoyed that game, but didn't. It feels completely mechanical. The damn discs don't work properly most of the time. And the victory conditions are stupid broken. The lunchtime crowd who usually eats this type of shit up were completely bored by it (as was I).


Euros I like:

Ra
Tigris and Euphrates
LOTR
San Juan
Carcassonne
Settlers
Al Cabohne (theme is stupid, but the system is pretty brutal and tough to beat)
Power Grid
Ticket to Ride
Colossal Arena (3player ONLY)
Modern Art
Citadels
I'm The Boss

I'm more of a visual/spatial person than a math geek so I like area-majority and tile-laying games the most as far as Euro's go. For what its worth I own El Grande, Maharaja, T&E, Reef Encounter, Lost Valley, Ra, Catan, and a few others. I'd rather play good Ameritrash than any of them though.

I've probably got a different range of euros or 'not quite AT' games (because we're all different) as I used to be an engineer so like building and train games as well as ones that get a bit of conflict into it .... anyway, checking my ratings:

Age of Steam (OK - I am a fanatic)
Power Grid
Puerto Rico (the euro-friendly people I play with don't have scripted plays so I have never been put off it)
Princes of the Renaissance
Citadels
Atlantic Star
Settlers
Big City
Tikal

I'll play Ra, Carcassonne, Modern Art and stuff with a bit of theme/substance if my group brings it out and I've just played something I like.

Settlers
Power Grid
Puerto Rico (somewhat but haven't played in ages)
Mare Nostrum
Thebes

Ones I don't like:
Caylus

TTR is okay....

Hmm. Euros I actually like?

Power Grid
Catan (Cities & Knights stongly prefered)
Pandemic
McMulti (way oop though)
Yspahan
Chinatown
Ra
Shogun
Empires of the Ancient World

I also like a lot of train games but I consider those to be a category in of themselves.

-Will

Ken B. wrote:

Euros I like:

Power Grid

Everyone keeps saying Power Grid...what is the appeal? It looks like such an extreme efficiency exercise, trying to wring out and count out every last dollar, dry to the bone.

I kinda like efficiency engines, it's just that there are way too many of them with little variation. Notre Dame, St-Pete and Caylus are OK (in that order). My top Euros are Power Grid and Amun-Re. Just below are Carcassonne (with Inns + Traders; more is less) and Thurn & Taxis (great 2-player on BSW, less so FTF).

dragonstout wrote:
"Everyone keeps saying Power Grid...what is the appeal? It looks like such an extreme efficiency exercise, trying to wring out and count out every last dollar, dry to the bone."
All the clearclaw fans are coming out of the closet today.

And all the Settlers fans . . . this IS Fortress: Ameritrash still? Or has it been taken over? (Yeah, I loathe Settlers.)

I really, really enjoy TAJ MAHAL, and I just traded away the loathsome Caylus for TIKAL. My wife particularly likes PRINCES OF FLORENCE, which we play every once in a while with another couple who dig it. I haven't played PANDEMIC yet but it looks decent.

Saving myself from death or torture is about the only thing that could motivate me to play POWER GRID ever again.

Euros I like:

Acquire
Citadels (which is probably more of a hybrid)

Euros I dislike:

Puerto Rico
El Grande
Princes of Florence
Ra
every rail game in existence
Wallenstein
Amun-Re
Through the Desert
Bootleggers
Industrial Waste
numerous other Euros too forgettable to name here

Princes of the Renaissance is a fun game, because it's really nasty and interactive for a Euro. I remember a girl in one game group I played with saying at one point "This game is from hell!" because of all the arguments it was causing. She had been in an auction for the dreaded 'French Invasion' tile that knocks a city down by 2 levels on the last round of the game, mainly bidding against this one guy. She cut a deal with him to let her have it, so long as she didn't play it on Florence, which he had a huge investment in (and which was tied for first with some other city), but then after she got the tile she realized she didn't really have any other options. In come the French, down goes Florence, and up goes the guy's temper. She was really upset about it after the game, hence the 'from hell' thing...

Settlers is really a lot of fun. It has what I think are VPs done the right way; you accumulate them through logical things like building cities and whoever gets 10 first wins. As opposed to the totally artificial 'scoring rounds', leading up to an artificial end where whoever happens to have the most wins. In Catan you can actually block people's plans and hold off a winner. Plus trading is fun, and the resource generation is really cool. I think unlike a lot of Eurogames I actually feel some sense of achievement when I play.

Shadows over Camelot and Lord of the Rings are fun because they're cooperative; there are still lots of games I'd rather play. Really when I want to play a quick (under 2 hr.) game I just break out Nexus Ops, LnoE or Clone Wars Risk. When you have those three packages of quick fun why bother with a Euro?