Your favorite Eurogames

How can we be on page 3 and not have anyone mention Imperial or Imperial 2030?

Whatever you think a Euro is, Imperial is the best one.

Erik Twice wrote:

Steam: Rails to Riches, Brass Birmingham, Liberté
Terraforming Mars
Chicago Express and friends
Intrigue
Dominion

How good is Liberte? I've considered picking it up a few times but never gone for it.



Back on the main topic. This past year, mostly due to the being at home with my house mates a lot, i've played Chicargo Express and London more than any other games. They've both grown on me over time, which i did not expect. I still find Chicargo Express kind of stressful at moments as the game is in calculating the values of teh shares right down and I am to lazy to run the maths, but i like how tight it is as a game. London is also fairly brutal on mistakes and quite tight in its focus. I guess my general preference in euros is to focused and harsh on errors than get points for everything.


For whatever reason Imperial didn't really click with me. It has all the ingredients I should like, war and shares! But i played 2-3 times and never really enjoyed it much.

Matt Thrower wrote: How can we be on page 3 and not have anyone mention Imperial or Imperial 2030?

Whatever you think a Euro is, Imperial is the best one.

I was very excited to play Imperial because you all guys love it but I found the share-dealing so constriction it ruined things for me. I may be too used to the free-wheeling of Chicago Express

ubarose wrote:

Erik Twice wrote: I argue that it's an artistic movement like, say, romanticism.

I like that. I would say I very much enjoy Neo-Ameritrash and German Revival. However I find Post-Euro rather drab and procedural.

I see we’ve moved to the darkened room of socialites, martini glasses and cigarettes in holders.

DukeofChutney wrote: How good is Liberte? I've considered picking it up a few times but never gone for it.

It's great but also a bit rough.

Here's the thing: Of all area control games I've played, it has the most, more interesting decisions. The game is really two area control games put one on top of the other. On one hand, you have factions trying to control the board. On the other, you have players trying to control the factions. This is very tricky to balance: You need to support the same factions as other players but also be the one who supports them the most. Numbers are very tight, with stacks not being able to go above 3.

Another important aspect is that the round end is player-controlled: When one of the factions runs out of blocks, it's over. On your turn you can either draw a card or play a card so there's a tricky balance between gaining material advantages and actually bringing them to the board before things wrap up. Couple this with the instant victory conditions and there's quite a bit of tension to the basic gameplay.

The main issue is whether to use a variant or not. The cards you draw have values of 1, 2 and 3. People at BGG found this quite random and introduced a variant by which you can play and draw two 1-value cards at once. This was seen as an improvement so it became the default way to play in the rulebook. However, I think it leads to a problem.

Since you can play and draw more cards, the deck depletes more quickly. The deck is composed of two eras, representing the realities of the revolution. There are more monarchists in the first half and more radicals in the second. In other words, by going faster through the deck you ruin its balance a bit: Radicals become too common too quickly. I suspect that the original complain about "luck" was wrong and that playing it as designed would help but I've never played that way.

Matt Thrower wrote: How can we be on page 3 and not have anyone mention Imperial or Imperial 2030?

Whatever you think a Euro is, Imperial is the best one.

I might have agreed with this five years ago, but Imperial is one game that didn't make the move abroad with me, and I don't miss it that much. It might qualify as one I respect more than I enjoy. It's a brilliant design though.

DukeofChutney wrote: How good is Liberte? I've considered picking it up a few times but never gone for it.

I played it last well over 15 years ago, when Euros were starting to turn from German-type games into multi-mechanic points salad games.
I liked it from my very vague memories and Erik is probably accurate in his appraisal, it was a game that you had to do something rather than try and earn VPs everywhere and I liked that part of it.

ubarose wrote:

southernman wrote:
Just because you say that it is not a genre (who actually defines what genres are ?) ... OK, Style could be a better word than genre, fair point.

I agree. It isn't worth debating what is "genre." I'll leave that to people with more letters after their names. Heck, academics have been arguing as to whether or not "Media" is one of the main genres of literature for decades. But I think that we could all agree that Euro and Ameritrash are, at the very least, styles.

We use labels to communicate ideas. Sometimes broad ideas. Sometimes very specific ideas. As vague as the terms Euro and Ameritrash are, they are useful, when communicating or soliciting information about a game with people who are familiar with the terms. When someone asks what are your favorite Euro games, we may prevaricate over including Merchant of Venus or not, but we do know that Talisman, Warhammer40k, The Gothic Game, King of Tokyo, Crokinole, and Command & Colors Ancients isn't what they meant.

I just watched Paul Grogan's (from 'Gaming Rules') Top 10 Games of 2019 (he does his a year later so he has time to play all the Oct-Dec releases enough times). This guy is apparently well known in the hobby, he collaborates as a developer and rulebook writer (he is doing the ISS: Vanguard rules for Awaken Realms ... thank God for that) and appears to like playing different styles & genres - anyway, in the video he describes himself as a Eurogamer and then describes an FFG game ('Outer Rim' I think) as an American style game, so the terminology is still alive and kicking ... just there's no fights, or passive-aggressive insults on BGG, anymore.
And as a Eurogamer he loves all types of games, his Top 10 included three FFG titles and Tainted Grail along with some hard points-fest euros - well worth a watch.

Matt Thrower wrote: How can we be on page 3 and not have anyone mention Imperial or Imperial 2030?

Whatever you think a Euro is, Imperial is the best one.

[swoon]

A few of my favourites

Fresh Fish
Mexica
Konig von Siam
For Sale
Babylonia

Also, I've always thought that the nomenclature debate kind of misses the point. I do, like uba, find distinctions between types of games, or styles, or genres, or whatever the hell they are. Oliver Kiley's "schools of design" article, which argues that the different "schools" have different priorities - or perhaps, different appealing factors, or different central tenets, or different feelings - really makes quite a bit of sense to me. Paraphrasing from memory, but Ameritrash is about drama, those older Euros are about engagement, newer kitchen sink Euros are about puzzling out a strategy, wargames are about simulating something. I find those distinctions useful.

Played Concordia a couple of times over the past week. Might be the best euro..

DukeofChutney wrote: Played Concordia a couple of times over the past week. Might be the best euro..

Right?

I used to see it at the game store and I knew it came highly recommended by people I trust, but I'd look at that box and I'd glaze over. Who knew that such a great game was in there?

ooof it put me to sleep.

I feel like I should REALLY like Gerdts but every one so far has left me a bit cold. Imperial is his last shot with me, not that the chances are high of me ever getting to play it.

I've played Navegador, which is fine but forgettable and Imperial which had two elements that i love; war and stock markets. It just wasn't mean enough and lacked the big game moments I expected.