Contemporary board games are not my area of expertise, but I've gotten a lot more familiar with them over the past year. I will share my opinions on several of the games I've played as a relative newcomer to the genre. Today I will be covering several "Eurogames,"
a genre defined by resource-management, indirect competition, and non-elimination gameplay.
Settlers of Catan is a staple of modern board games. It has sold more than 15 million copies and has dozens of spin-offs including expansions, a dice game, and videogames. It has come to define the Eurogame genre in America.
The core game involves players placing cities at the corners of randomized hexes, each of which provides a specific resource with a fixed chance of production each turn. As the game progresses, players use these resources to purchase more roads, settlements, and cities in order to harvest more resources.
Catan's biggest strength is the game's strategic depth despite simple rules - there are a wide variety of valid routes to victory and many economic and tactical mechanics going on at any given time. It is a popular tournament game for competetive players, but is still very accessible for families and casual gamers.
My biggest problem with Catan is the luck factor. Not that it exists, as almost all strategy games involve a large component of luck, but the way it feels. For most games, part of the strategy is figuring out what to do when you're down on your luck. In Catan, you can't do anything when the dice don't go your way. The game is completely out of your control and becomes frustrating and disappointing. There are many games where you can lose to bad luck, but in few does is it feel as unfun as Catan. Added to this is the fact that making comebacks is extremely difficult in economy based games, meaning that a run of bad luck early can leave you boxed in and undeveloped. The game's supporters seem somewhat aware of this, as the Wikipedia page laughably touts, "players who are behind can strive towards goals that are within their reach."
Verdict: Settlers of Catan is a very well-designed game, and can be enjoyed by casual players who don't mind its harsh nature and tournament players who appreciate that harshness. However, if you're a gamer like me who enjoys casual competition with friends, Catan is not your best choice.
Carcassonne
Carcassonne is the top-selling franchise for Rio Grande Games, an American company who were founded with the specific goal of developing European style board games. It is a very simple game with a large number of available expansions.
Each turn, a player flips over a landscape tile and uses it to expand the board, then play place a marker to indicate that they are collecting points from one aspect of that tile. For example, a tile might have a segment of road passing by the corner of a city, in which case the player could place a knight in the city, a bandit on the road, or a farmer on the grass. They would eventually receive points based on the number of tiles eventually comprising the completed road, city, or field.
Carcassonne is fun and easy to learn, but doesn't have a whole lot of depth. Most of the strategic decisions are fairly simple and the interaction with opponents is fairly minimal. It is also one of the few games I have played which I like better as a two-player game than with three or more players. Multiple players can often cooperate to "share" very large territories, leaving the other players who were unable to get in on the territory extremely far behind.
Verdict: I've enjoyed playing Carcassonne casually and occasionally, but there isn't a lot of meat on those bones. A good game for playing with acquaintances and parents, but probably not the right choice for playing with avid gamers.
Dominion
Also published by Rio Grande Games, Dominion is a much more complicated game than Carcassonne. There are a number of stand-alone versions available, which can be played on their own or mixed with the basic set.
As the game progresses, each player continually improves their deck by purchasing new cards, which in turn help them purchase even better cards the next time the go through the deck. Eventually, players begin purchasing "Victory" cards, which contribute to final score but do nothing when drawn. At the end of the game, the number and value of each player's Victory cards determine the winner.
Dominion is the best self-contained tabletop game I've played in a long time. I love deckbuilding for games like Magic, so I love the fact that Dominion has deckbuilding as a fundamental part of gameplay. The gameplay is both fast-paced and strategy intensive, with specific options changing each game.
My biggest complaint about the game is a seeming prevalence of "griefer" cards - effects that seem designed more to annoy or upset your opponents than provide actual strategic advantage. Most of the groups I've played with avoid certain cards that have proven particularly annoying.
Verdict: Dominion will almost certainly be the next game I purchase - I love pretty much everything about it. That said, the game is somewhat complicated and highly strategic, so I don't feel that it would be the best choice for playing with children or non-gamers.
Tomorrow in Part 2 - I review RoboRally, Betrayal at House on the Hill, and more!
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