What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Friday was Brimstone, and Saturday was the usual meetup, though a busy one with around 35 players showing up.

New to me was Inis, which I had heard about on podcasts, even subscribed to the game forums on BGG, but decided to stop paying attention to. Still, a good guy had brought it and I was happy to give it a try. It's basically Discword:Ankh-Morpork without the humour or charm. It's as soulless and abstract as possible, devoid of theme but still an interesting game that plays (with the right players) relatively quickly. One player groused about me playing cards in the middle of his clash with another player, and I won the game later in that round due to shutting down his side-benefits he would have got from that clash. The grousing still continued. Some people don't get strategy I guess. OK, maybe there was some meta-gaming as our opponent is an Italian and I knew (because he always says it) that he never backs out of a fight so I hadn't prodded him in the game. He had also offered to not attack as part of the clash (players can agree by mutual assent to not fight, and to co-exist instead) but that offer was refused, so he went all-in on that battle. It was fine, I'd play it again.

Port Royal was next as our Italian friend didn't have more than 45 minutes to play. He won that one, and I struggled to get an engine going. As a push-your-luck game that can be difficult, but I still think there's some strategy I'm missing. I'm sure there's some optimal number of cards to draw, and points where you should just stop to prevent yourself from offering the whole sweet shop to opponents. The winner had collected character cards for points, second place made it to 11 points with expedition/characters.

While we were playing that, some cheeky buggers took my copy of Terraforming Mars so three of us played Ticket to Ride: Pennsylvania. I won it pretty handily after choking one player out of South East PA, and the other player went way, way too deep in Pennsylvania Railroads shares. With only four tickets completed that was enough for the bonus, and I made sure I was in at least 2nd place for as many shares as possible.

Last game of the night was Terraforming Mars with one new player. I offered the choice of the beginner corps but she was happy to play with the proper ones, and I think the game is not so complicated that you can skip the beginner stuff honestly. I had a corp that got $2 back each time I played an event, which I think I got to use one time in the game, the main benefit was I started with 20 steel, which is good for 40 points of Building cards, and I had a bunch of those. I paid for 9 of 10 cards which was a lot, and I ended up with four cards at the end of the game but I was able to claim 2/3 of the milestones, make myself 2nd place in both sponsored awards, and positioned my cities to score off of everyone else's greeneries. I won, but the new player came in a good second not too far behind. Rather than get bored of this game after playing it every week, other players are asking about playing the longer "corporate era" game, in which instead of starting with one point of each production, you start with nothing at all, and have to use cards (more are added into the deck)/board actions to build your production. It's kind of a perfect game for our group right now. I'm sure we'll get bored of it, but it pushes all the right buttons.

First off, I'd just like to say that if it were released today, T&E would not be considered a Euro. Take Knizia's name (which doesn't hold the weight it used to anyway) off it and I think a lot of euro fans wouldn't touch it.

I play with a lot of euro fans and I lean more toward Bojack than many of you. I keep getting taught the hot new euro and it's the same damn thing over and over. La Granja, Voyages of Marco Polo, some damn thing with wives I don't even remember the name of; it's like a Taco Bell where you just pick the particular configuration of the same five ingredients. There are a few that sometimes get my attention, and I find it's because they have an old school design, where one thing is going on and everything ties directly to it, instead of multiple tracks and rondels and fantoozlers all just obfuscating a single optimum strategy.

THAT SAID, my fave game of the year is Terraforming Mars, which could easily be described in the terms I just used, so fuck me, I guess. I'm also the guy who doesn't know why anyone would need twelve "different" games where plastic soldiers fight each other.

The only Feld game I played was Luna (hated it) and the only Rosenberg games (before I got the tablet versions of Le Havre and ACBAS) were Bohnanza (card and dice). So La Granja was that perfect Greatest Hits game for me, and I can see where you're coming from.

Played a Warhammer 40k game for my league. It was 1,500 points of my Daemons vs. Dark Angels. I lost 7-3, though the game played a lot closer than that. I gave up 3 points in the second turn as my Tzeentch Daemon Prince wearing the Impossible Robe failed his Leadership roll after taking a wound and went poof. That was 3 points right there. It was a lot of fun and I seem to have a better grasp on how to play now as my princes (except stupid Tzeentch) managed to at least do some damage.

Random people complimented my now-finished Khorne Daemon Prince, which is a great ego booster.

Oddest part of the afternoon was a guy who came into the store with a full box of paint and minis with his own light and magnifying glass. He came in, sat down in the corner and just painted by himself the whole time. None of the people I was playing with greeted him and they literally greet EVERYBODY who walks into game table area of the store. I tried to start a conversation with him (because I question everyone about their painting), but he most definitely did not want to talk and stuck to one word answers. He's not the first person that came in and just painted or assembled stuff, but the people who have done that tend to sit near the games so they can chat.

I used to have a dude that would come into my store that would do something like that...he'd post up on a table and set up old Avalon Hill wargames. And then just kind of look over the rules and set it up. I asked him a couple of times if he needed someone to play with because I'd try any of that stuff, but he'd just say "no, I don't really know the rules". Other folks tried too, but this guy never played a single game with anyone in my shop and he barely spoke. It was kind of weird, but we also just kind of accepted it after a while.

Been playing a lot of Eldritch Horror for some close wins and some slaughters (ours), even my euro group like playing it for a change, interspersed with some Age of Conan, Merchants & Marauders, Elder Sign and Death Angel.

Still waiting for Star Trek: Ascendancy to arrive in the country (apparently this month) while picked up City of Remnants and Homeland off BGG trades and sales to try out.

While I'm waiting for my wood floors to be finished and to finally move into my new, 113 year old money pit of house in Reisterstown, MD I went to Game Clubs of Maryland's annual Euro love fest or drum roll and bring on the monster truck announcers "We bring you EURO-EURO-EURO QUEST 2016 in mud, mud, mud of Pikesville, Maryland." Since we're all suppose to be loving Euro's now I'll try not to bash the hot new Euro Essen games as much as I did in the good old days of 2008-2010.

First up was Power Grid the Card game . I think the real name was Funkenschlag Fuckin Fragame or something like that. I just called it Power Grid the card game. As a disclaimer I want to point out that I did not receive a free copy of Funkenschlag Fuckin Fragame or any other financial compensation from Friedemann Friese and that I'm really not a fan of Power Grid. I think Power Grid is an excellent design but I dislike games that I have to do that much math in my head. In fact, my dislike of Power grid is so strong that ever time Wkover or somebody else pulls out Power grid they take one look at me say "oh that's right Pete doesn't like Power Grid". The only other well designed, very popular games that I have more disdain for are T&E which gives me a head exploding migraine and Ticket to Ride which I get an uncontrollable nose bleed from every time I play.

So back to Power Grid the card game. So you start out bidding for power plants just like Power Grid the board game. Then the player order flip flops based on the leader. Next you buy resources to power up the plants. The first player buying resources will get them cheaper than later players in the turn order in fact they might get completely screwed for resources like I did. Then for every power power plant you power up you'll get a set amount of money printed on the power plant card. This goes on for about 45 minutes until a last round card appears and you finish the round. The player who powers up the highest total of power plants wins the games. The best thing about the card game was that there was no mind numbing math and it could be played in less than hour. TOS rating = 6 or (12+13-23) x what I rate Power Grid.

Next I played game that was like Carcassonne but with a Scottish theme. It was pretty forgettable which probably why I forgot the name and forgot what I would rate it. Ok, so let's move on.

I also played one game of Age of Steam and one game of Rails of Europe. I haven't played either game in over 2 years. But I still love both games. For me Railroad Tycoon is still my favorite TOS rating =9, Railway of Europe or the World=8.5, Age of Steam=8 and Steam = 7.5. I like the big map, tycoon cards, service bounties and other fun aspects of RRT and Rails of Europe most of all. Age of Steam is ugly and harsh but still a great game. Steam is ok but just seems a little watered down for me.

Me and Wkover also played 2 games Fading Glory while everyone else was drooling over the hot new Essen games. Overall, my favorite type of game at this stage in my life are lighter war games. So I really like Fading Glory. The game is quick to set up and has just enough depth and chrome. If Wkover didn't own, I would buy a copy in a second but I'm a cheap bastard so I'll just play his copy. But I might trade for copy in future. TOS rating = 8.5.

Since we were at Euroquest we decided to play Risk Europe. This is the 3rd time I've played and it still might be my game of the year for 2016 but I think there is a real flaw that this and other streamlined dudes on the map games have. I've been in 2 games where a player been able to run away with game pretty quickly if left uncheck. Since you only need 7 crowns or VPs to win it's possible to achieve that in 4-5 turns if nobody stops you. In streamlined Dudes on the map games with 4 players if you have 2 players fighting it out and the other 2 players playing pretty peacefully, one of the 2 players playing peacefully will probably win. I think it's similar to playing a game like Chaos in the Old World which is great if players players check each other but if your playing with new players its possible to have somebody run away with it. I can understand how Wkover was lukewarm about Risk Europe as he played the whole game without fighting a single battle. TOS rating = 8.5.

On Saturday both me and Euro Phil brought our daughters so we ended up play a lot of lighter fun games with them.

First up was a 6 player game Shadow Hunters. For some reason when ever my daughter plays with my friends she always gets killed off first and when ever I play with her friends I get killed off first. Still a fun game, I ended up a Hunter and Wkover and Euro Phil were Shadows. Somehow I managed to get them killed off before they killed me off. TOS rating = 7.5.

Next up was Bucket King with the Wkover cutthroat rules. This was the the first time my daughter played and she loved it. But I think she wants to make it into a drinking game. TOS rating = 9.0 with the cutthroat rules TOS rating = 5.0 with the original rules.

We were ready for something a little heavier so we played SC: Away Missions. We played the Bug Hunt on Uranus scenario with 5 players. This was actually the first time my daughter played the game without her Uncle Al or Mr. Dan giving her suggestions on what to do when she played. We had a shot of beating the scenario but we rolled terrible and couldn't find the Queens lair quick enough (it would have been the last scanned tile). I ended up being attacked by about 20 bugs on the last turn. If we had found the Queen lair a turn earlier we might have been able to beat it or maybe we needed Uncle Al or Mr. Dan to help us out. My TOS shrill rating of Al and Dan game = 11

Betrayal on the House on the hill with the new expansion and 5 players. We forced a haunt from the new expansion. It was epic but no spoilers here. TOS rating = 7.

I played Star Trek Panic twice and it was a surprise hit for me and my daughter. I guess I wasn't expecting much from this just Castle Panic with a pasted on theme. Well it ended up being Castle Panic with a pasted on theme but the theme was done very well and it was surprising a lot of fun to play. TOS rating = 8 with my daughter, TOS rating 6 without my daughter.

I also played 5 minute Abs Empire builder which was kind of a bad tiny empire knock off type game. The worst part of the game besides being 20 minutes too long and doing nothing for my abs was that it didn't come with enough cubes. Throughout the game we had scrounge around for thing to use a cubes. By the end of the game we had to use coins, bottle caps, playing cards and condom wrapper as cubes. TOS rating = 3. My friend homeless Army Pete who just bought the game said it was going in trade pile after one play.

The last game was Evolution with the Flight expansion. I can't even rate this. It was the last game I played Saturday night so I was tired. I played regular Evolution before but I basically suck at Evolution. I ended up having to eating my own crappy sloth of animal with my stupid as shit carnivore then Wkover giant flying T-Rex came over and ate my stupid as shit carnivore meanwhile my daughter had whole flock of super intelligent animals that had already invented modern farming and capitalism so they were somehow creating there own fucking food. The 4th guy we were playing with had animals with horns and other weapons so every time I went to eat his guys they kill one of my animals. As you can imagine I lost real badly. After my humiliating defeat I might never play another game for the rest of my life.

Here's the games I didn't play at Euroquest. I didn't play Twilight Struggle. There was a guy who tried to set up a "War" game or Twilight Struggle tournament at Euroquest. So I showed up to support his effort. The only people who showed up were me, him and one other guy. I told the other 2 guys to play and I tracked down Wkover for some gaming.

I didn't play Fest of Odin, I was actual interested in trying it out because I've been watching Vikings season 4 but the board looked like a hot mess of stuff. I didn't play Terri-forming Mars, I would have given a try again. I heard some good things about the Great Western trail, maybe I'll play that some point. Also, Euro Phil had good things to say about Revolution Rails. Finally, there was The Oracle of Delphi. Homeless Army Pete and Euro Phil ended up in a game of the Oracle of Delphi. Army Pete was begging me and Cody to take his place for his 3 hours of torture but I would rather poke my eyes out with a dull stick then play another Stefan Feld game.

I also didn't get a chance to play Forged in Steel which I was hoping to get to play again.

KingPut wrote: Next I played game that was like Carcassonne but with a Scottish theme. It was pretty forgettable which probably why I forgot the name and forgot what I would rate it. Ok, so let's move on.

Oh my god I already forgot the name... something about whiskey.

Looks up "previously owned games".

Isle of Skye!

A Talisker toast to Isle of Skye. I won't miss you.

KingPut wrote: Since we were at Euroquest we decided to play Risk Europe.

I lol'd.

Frohike wrote:

KingPut wrote: Next I played game that was like Carcassonne but with a Scottish theme. It was pretty forgettable which probably why I forgot the name and forgot what I would rate it. Ok, so let's move on.

Oh my god I already forgot the name... something about whiskey.
Looks up "previously owned games".
Isle of Skye!
A Talisker toast to Isle of Skye. I won't miss you.

Yep, that's it! I'm glad, I'm not the only one who forgot it's name. Isle of Skye was ok. I liked the whiskey part and selling tiles to other people so it was better than Carcassonne. I'd probably rate it about a 6.

I quickly checked back, using TOS rankings for convenience, and picked out the top 25-30 games listed as "strategy" (which is their way of saying euro in general), and got the following list from Before 2009

Twilight Struggle
Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization
Puerto Rico
Agricola
Brass
Power Grid
Le Havre
Caylus
El Grande
Race for the Galaxy
Twilight Imperium
Tigris & Euphrates
Dominion
Railways of the World
Age of Steam
Goa
Stone Age
Pandemic
The Princes of Florence
Tichu
Imperial
Age of Empires III: The Age of Discovery
1830: Railways & Robber Barons
Shogun
Die Macher
Ra
Glory to Rome
1960: The Making of the President
Antiquity
Roads & Boats
Indonesia


and this list after 2009
Pandemic Legacy: Season 1
Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization
Terra Mystica
Caverna: The Cave Farmers
Scythe
7 Wonders Duel
The Castles of Burgundy
Blood Rage
Mage Knight Board Game
Eclipse
Food Chain Magnate
Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar
Terraforming Mars
Keyflower
Orléans
The Voyages of Marco Polo
Fields of Arle
Concordia
Dominant Species
7 Wonders
Roll for the Galaxy
Viticulture Essential Edition
Five Tribes
Dominion: Intrigue
Trajan
Russian Railroads
Mombasa
Lords of Waterdeep
Castles of Mad King Ludwig
Ora et Labora
Troyes



Honestly I am surprised that people feel like there was some kind of euro renaissance, I havent seen it. It feels to me like most of the more positive developments have come in the "hybrid" genre, which i took as a tacit admission by some designers that this spreadsheet resource conversion nonsense had gone too far.


The only euro games in the period 2009-2016 I have played enough to be able to say I liked are Troyes, Steam, Food Chain Magnate. I played about 125 games of Troyes in a 3 month period which is why I burned out on it. Thats all F2F by the way, several games a night, most nights. And almost as many again via BGA. Steam is the only one of those Three I'd like to have played more, but will probably settle for an iPad game. FCM was good, but I Think it still has some of the issues typical to splotter that stop it being of interest to me in pursuing.

Some decent games that just didnt work for me, Through the Ages (and by extension Terraforming Mars), Dominant Species had some nice ideas but was too slow and too overwrought. I Think pandemic is awful. I didnt Always Think that.

Several games I enjoyed for a long while but just got bored of, probably my distaste and feelings about euro dreck are as much about my own change in tastes, but nonetheless I feel like there are a huge number of "Rahdo friendly" kickstarter type euro copy cats being released every year. And people lap that shit up. Like I said, good luck to everyone involved. It doesnt spoil my fun,

Tigris is still a Classic and still relevant today, almost 20 years on. Nobody will be even talking about Feast of Odin in 5 years time, probably not in 2 years time, maybe not even next year when Rosenbergs next coffin box resource fiddling farming resource conversion game hits the stores. Agricola was great, but with each successive iteration it just feels like the games get worse, but somehow get more popular. That just means my tastes dont line up with the crowd. Again, no problem, but its no less true than when Ive played keyflower and La Granja, Tzolkin and fucking Suburbia I dont Think Ive ever been so Close to just flipping the table, and burning the whole thing AS A FAVOUR to everyone else who might have to sit through that shit.

There might be some decent euros that have come out post 2008, but I dont see a general trend of excellence, or improvement and I sure as hell dont see shit that matches up with Tigris, El Grande, heck even Settlers I guess I just prefer that groundswell of originality and simplicity from the golden Knizia period. I guess Kingdom Builder might have followed somewhat on in that mould, and I did like that one too. Lords of Vegas is great, but I Think the "trash" of the Dice are what makes it, its not the kind of resource optimizing, spreadsheet puzzling, Point salad - own player board euro I am talking about and they are LEGION, and indistinguishable in their papness.

I've played these and they were just typical euro junk:

Terra Mystica
Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar
Keyflower
The Voyages of Marco Polo
Trajan
Russian Railroads
Ora et Labora
Troyes (I don't actually remember this one)

Mombasa I haven't played but it literally has a "bookkeeping track" so fuck that

Bojack wrote: There might be some decent euros that have come out post 2008, but I dont see a general trend of excellence, or improvement and I sure as hell dont see shit that matches up with Tigris, El Grande, heck even Settlers.

Something to keep in mind is that two new mechanics were introduced around 2008: worker placement and deck-building. WP has had a huge impact on Eurogaming, which isn't great for me personally because I don't like the mechanic. (Exception: Age of Empires III.) But tons of people LOVE it and consider it a Renaissance of sorts.

A few years ago, a friendly and affable Eurogamer joined our Wednesday gaming group. On his first visit he brought a sack full of games, and my vivid memory is that every single one of them - without exception - was a WP game. "Worker placement" and "Eurogame" were synonymous phrases for him, I think. (This is not a knock against him in any way. It was just his experience.)

P.S. I'm not a big fan of either El Grande or Settlers, but that's because I don't like area control or trading mechanics.

Based on my BGG ratings, these are my favorite Euros released since 2008:

Age of Industry
Spectral Rails
American Rails
Snow Tails
Steam
Lords of Vegas
Cavum
Evolution
Jager und Sammler (later released as Zombiegeddon, I think)
Power Grid: First Sparks
Small World

Not a big surprise that five of them are reworkings of older games (Age of Industry = Brass; American Rails = Chicago Express; Steam = Age of Steam; First Sparks = Power Grid; Small World = Vinci), and all of them have high levels of interaction. Then again, I've avoided playing most Euros released since 2008, which is not a coincidence given the rise of WP at that time. Also, I don't count co-ops as Euros, really, but if I did a whole bunch would be added to the above list.

wkover wrote: Something to keep in mind is that two new mechanics were introduced around 2008: worker placement and deck-building.

Worker placement has been around since before 2000, though.

Nodens wrote:

wkover wrote: Something to keep in mind is that two new mechanics were introduced around 2008: worker placement and deck-building.

Worker placement has been around since before 2000, though.

Fair enough. But it didn't become a "thing" (named, noticed, and increasingly widespread) until Agricola, Caylus, Le Havre, etc. came along.

If you look at this list, there's not much before 2006-7:

www.listchallenges.com/top-50-worker-placement-games-via-bgg

(And some items on the list are funny anyway. Aladdin's Dragons is more blind bidding than worker placement, which is what makes it fun. Moai's the same way, but it's even more awesome because it has cannibalism.)

I played Star Trek: Frontiers last night. I'm not a huge Vlaada fan, but like some of his stuff alright like Galaxy Trucker. I pretty much hated this game. Some neat ideas and mechanics, but hand management is not my thing so clearly already has a strike against it. I thought maybe the Trek theme could win me over, but I felt like I was just solving a big spreadsheet. Very little soul and sense of accomplishment in my actions. I can't call it a bad game, but for me it was a very unfun one. I had more enjoyment reading the rulebook to Star Trek: Ascendancy then I did playing Frontiers.