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× Talk about Eurogames here.

Tzolkin is utter shite

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02 Apr 2013 21:59 #149390 by wadenels
Replied by wadenels on topic Re: Tzolkin is utter shite
The problem I seem to have with most Eurogames is the same basic argument that everyone else here seems to be making: they tend to be basically the same thing. Most of them are really just engine-building games, which is fine, but how many engine-building games are necessary before it's been done? But if I left my argument there I'd be a hypocrite, because I have not less than four different editions of Risk on my shelf next to several other DoaM games.

What makes a Euro fun for me is the theme, as stale as a comment as that is. We've sold off a lot of games, but Euro-wise we've kept Ground Floor, Loyang, Stronghold, and Black Gold because the themes make some semblance of sense and that makes it easy to get into the game. Theme matters unless you've really just shown up to solve a puzzle. Theme isn't just for Euros and AT either; I preordered Cuba Libre and WarParty just because they look so damn fun, which prompted me to do a fair amount of research into them despite my never having played a COIN system or Lock n Load game.

I don't like Agricola because the limited action worker placement thing doesn't make any damn sense to me when I just really want to make a not-sucky farm. I think Carson City does a better job of limited action worker placement because there seems to be some thematic sense to it, and because it has an expansion that adds outlaws. Puerto Rico pisses me off on different levels, one for example is why is everyone building up huge resources and infrastructure on the island but nobody ever thought to expand the harbor or build any more damn boats?! I haven't played Terra Mystica or Tzolkin yet but I've seen them both on several occasions; thanks to this thread I'll consider myself warned.

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02 Apr 2013 22:05 #149394 by Shellhead

wadenels wrote: The problem I seem to have with most Eurogames is the same basic argument that everyone else here seems to be making: they tend to be basically the same thing. Most of them are really just engine-building games, which is fine, but how many engine-building games are necessary before it's been done? But if I left my argument there I'd be a hypocrite, because I have not less than four different editions of Risk on my shelf next to several other DoaM games.

What makes a Euro fun for me is the theme, as stale as a comment as that is. We've sold off a lot of games, but Euro-wise we've kept Ground Floor, Loyang, Stronghold, and Black Gold because the themes make some semblance of sense and that makes it easy to get into the game. Theme matters unless you've really just shown up to solve a puzzle. Theme isn't just for Euros and AT either; I preordered Cuba Libre and WarParty just because they look so damn fun, which prompted me to do a fair amount of research into them despite my never having played a COIN system or Lock n Load game.

I don't like Agricola because the limited action worker placement thing doesn't make any damn sense to me when I just really want to make a not-sucky farm. I think Carson City does a better job of limited action worker placement because there seems to be some thematic sense to it, and because it has an expansion that adds outlaws. Puerto Rico pisses me off on different levels, one for example is why is everyone building up huge resources and infrastructure on the island but nobody ever thought to expand the harbor or build any more damn boats?! I haven't played Terra Mystica or Tzolkin yet but I've seen them both on several occasions; thanks to this thread I'll consider myself warned.


I suppose that some worker placement games need the cockblocking factor, because otherwise everybody could just imitate the best player's moves.

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02 Apr 2013 23:23 #149406 by TheDukester

wadenels wrote: The problem I seem to have with most Eurogames is the same basic argument that everyone else here seems to be making: they tend to be basically the same thing.

I've been running into this lately, except in digital format.

I'd never played games like LeHavre and Stone Age (to use just two examples), but I've scooped them up recently in their iOS versions. And I need to stop doing that, because no amount of digital gloss can overcome their inherent dullness. I just spent $8 to play two turns of Stone Age before deleting it. I just couldn't take it for another minute; "I put this guy here to get that, then I put that guy here to get this ... my God, I've done this 10,000 times before."

Circling back to Tzolkin, I don't see anything there that's not just another Cult of the New worker-placement game. Yet it's about to break into the top 20 of all time at a certain well-known boardgames site. How? Why?

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02 Apr 2013 23:25 #149408 by bomber
Replied by bomber on topic Re: Tzolkin is utter shite

wadenels wrote: T I think Carson City does a better job of limited action worker placement because there seems to be some thematic sense to it, and because it has an expansion that adds outlaws. .


I did some of that :)

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02 Apr 2013 23:34 #149412 by Hatchling

Shellhead wrote: Somebody should design a 2-player game featuring a labor strike.


This is seriously a great idea. Labour strikes have lots of moving parts. I imagine a bidding/bargaining mechanism in there. Picket line support and control could have interesting siege tactics. Other variables: Scabs and linebreakers, media and public opinion, morale of strikers, resolve of the employer, support from other labour groups, and the sudden death that occurs if the employer gets the government to legislate the strikers back to work. There's tons to work with.

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03 Apr 2013 01:34 #149428 by Stonecutter

Hatchling wrote:

Shellhead wrote: Somebody should design a 2-player game featuring a labor strike.


This is seriously a great idea. Labour strikes have lots of moving parts. I imagine a bidding/bargaining mechanism in there. Picket line support and control could have interesting siege tactics. Other variables: Scabs and linebreakers, media and public opinion, morale of strikers, resolve of the employer, support from other labour groups, and the sudden death that occurs if the employer gets the government to legislate the strikers back to work. There's tons to work with.


I think this would also make an awesome CDG in the the TS/1989 vein.

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03 Apr 2013 01:36 #149429 by DukeofChutney
Thatcher vs Coal Miners, tha'd make a good game, despite the heavily niche theme it'd sell well with eurogamers no doubt.

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03 Apr 2013 02:16 #149431 by Dogmatix
Replied by Dogmatix on topic Re: Tzolkin is utter shite

Stonecutter wrote:

Hatchling wrote:

Shellhead wrote: Somebody should design a 2-player game featuring a labor strike.


This is seriously a great idea. Labour strikes have lots of moving parts. I imagine a bidding/bargaining mechanism in there. Picket line support and control could have interesting siege tactics. Other variables: Scabs and linebreakers, media and public opinion, morale of strikers, resolve of the employer, support from other labour groups, and the sudden death that occurs if the employer gets the government to legislate the strikers back to work. There's tons to work with.


I think this would also make an awesome CDG in the the TS/1989 vein.


Well, Ted Whatshisnuts (Torgerson?) already did something kind of close to this with the semi-predecessor to 1989, which focused on the '60s civil rights movement. I actually printed up a set on Artscow, gave it a shot, and found it to be a pretty good game. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about UK or other non-US labor struggles, but retheming it to US labor struggles wouldn't be tough from a political events/cards side at all. The map, on the other hand, might be something else entirely. You might need to fabricate a national labor movement as I'm not sure that the US labor wars of the 1930s offer quite enough meat to make it work thanks to being sandwiched between the Depression and the war. I think games like TS require a map with a fair number of spaces to make sure there's enough interaction. If the UK had a properly national labor struggle (or a mostly consecutive run of smaller/regional dustups over a long enough period of years that one could generate a sufficient number of events to fill out a deck), the Unhappy King Charles map might be the place to start.

Shellie might have been taking the piss out of the idea, but it's given me reason to go to a long-neglected corner of my academic shelves and flip through my 20th century labor histories. So, thanks for that! (My grandfather was a UTU/Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers & Firemen (BLE&F) officer for something like 40 years. He regularly photographed the UTU national convention for both the national and various locals, and actually had one of his photographs end up on the cover of Time during the big railroad strike in the 1960s. He .)

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03 Apr 2013 13:29 #149445 by Shellhead
No, I'm serious. The world already has far too many worker placement games, so how about a game about a labor strike instead? I was in a labor union for one summer, but I was young at the time and didn't get into any of the politics involved.

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03 Apr 2013 14:58 - 03 Apr 2013 14:58 #149456 by Bull Nakano

Shellhead wrote: No, I'm serious. The world already has far too many worker placement games, so how about a game about a labor strike instead? I was in a labor union for one summer, but I was young at the time and didn't get into any of the politics involved.

It could be a worker displacement game.
Last edit: 03 Apr 2013 14:58 by Bull Nakano.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Dogmatix, SebastianBludd

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03 Apr 2013 15:48 #149464 by Shellhead

Bull Nakano wrote:

Shellhead wrote: No, I'm serious. The world already has far too many worker placement games, so how about a game about a labor strike instead? I was in a labor union for one summer, but I was young at the time and didn't get into any of the politics involved.

It could be a worker displacement game.


No, that would be a game where players compete to increase stock value of their corporation by terminating employees. The stock value of all companies will continue to decline due to layoffs, but whoever can cut the most staff while maintaining profitability will win. Terminated (displaced) employees don't go on strike because their failure to show up to work won't impair operations.

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03 Apr 2013 15:55 #149466 by Bull Nakano

Shellhead wrote:

Bull Nakano wrote:

Shellhead wrote: No, I'm serious. The world already has far too many worker placement games, so how about a game about a labor strike instead? I was in a labor union for one summer, but I was young at the time and didn't get into any of the politics involved.

It could be a worker displacement game.


No, that would be a game where players compete to increase stock value of their corporation by terminating employees. The stock value of all companies will continue to decline due to layoffs, but whoever can cut the most staff while maintaining profitability will win. Terminated (displaced) employees don't go on strike because their failure to show up to work won't impair operations.

I won't quit my day job then.

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03 Apr 2013 23:46 #149510 by Nagajur
Replied by Nagajur on topic Re: Tzolkin is utter shite
I played Tzolk'in a couple of months ago and couldn't stop thinking about playing it again. I bought it and played it again recently. The second game was not as good as the first. Catching another player off guard on a feeding day by spinning the wheel twice is glorious. Was it as good as A Game of Thrones that followed? No.

I have about five worker placements in my collection. I don't have a problem with the genre as long as the games don't drag. It's extremely fast to setup while still having enough moving parts (ba-da-bing). I want to play it again real soon.

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