Tzolkin is utter shite

i haven't and probably won't play Tzolkin. This is still an interesting thread though.

Did Uwe Rosenburg, complete the Euro, and for the Euro is it all downhill from here?

When i say euro im talking explicitly a certain model of euro, efficiency/resources/workplacement/action selection, not area control or Knizia style abstracts.

I've played Agricola, and whilst it doesn't do a lot for me, i can see that its probably the best rendition of the euro i have come across, and like Dogmatix has suggested, short of a 'new mechanic', that grail of modern boardgaming is the euro done?

Certainly in terms of popularity it seems to be waning. the new cool on bgg is hybrids and i see this reflected in the gamers i know.

I just Googled "too many worker placement games" and got 2.99 million hits.

The Cult of the New needs to play a new meta-game that I just made up. It's called "Potlatch." Each player brings a bunch of new boardgames, ideally worker placement and zombie boardgames. Then they take turns destroying the games that they brought, and whoever runs out games to destroy last is the winner.

But ... but ... it's the 24th-best game in history!

goo.gl/fgsG8

I know. It's utterly depressing. I mean, I can dig that games are well liked and well rated even if it's not my thing, but this. and its ilk

no, just.... no

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.

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.

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?

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

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.