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In post 2589, xRECKONERx wrote:

In post 2582, chamber wrote:The term is poorly defined and I think first came about to separate the european board games coming out in the early 2000's from the traditional like monopoly. I'd differentiate it from 'ameritrash' games in the following ways:

Indirect competition rather than direct competition (I'm going to out bid you for something, or use a limited resource before you can, not steal territory from you, or kill your units).
No elimination, you play to the end even if you are doing terribly.
Some abstracted victory condition like Victory Points rather than something like player elimination.

You can probably find counter examples where I'd ignore 1 or more of those though, like powergrid is euro as heck and doesn't use victory points.

I think that's all fairly accurate?

I would also say that in Ameritrash game, the "theme" wins out over the mechanics.

Like, Betrayal At House on the Hill... Ameritrash. Heavily themed, and the theme is most of the charm. Same with Arkham Horror, Battlestar Galactica, Cosmic Encounter.

Eurogames are way more "strategic". I don't even think Eurogames have to be particularly complex, it's more that they're all about the tactics/strategy and less about the journey.

That eurogames are more mechanism first and ameritrash games more theme first is a really good point that I overlooked. It should be on my list for sure.

I posed this question to LLD, but I wanted more of a sound off because one of the games she mentioned immediately jumped toward the top of our list.

So me and my girlfriend have recently been getting into games, the ones we currently own are Machi koro, Patchwork, Jaipur, Pandemic, and Munchkin. We've played a number of the mainstream party games as well and stuff like parcheesi and monopoly, obv. Also, I've played MtG but not really interested in teaching her that. But the question is, what games should we look into/add to that would give us even more variety to what we have and open us up to more themes/mechanics? LLD suggested a hidden movement game and it appealed to us and it's definitely on the list.

The requirements would be: 4-5 players max but probably best played with 2-3 people and preferably not to much more complicated than pandemic(anything rated above a 3.25 on board game geek for complexity is probably going to be a hard sell).

Hanabi.
*ducks thrown object*

Sushi Go! is basically 7 Wonders Lite, and is pretty easy to understand. That's a card drafting game.

Splendor is a solid pick and I don't think I've ever seen someone criticize it. That's a resource snowball game.

IDK I actually don't know too many two-player games. Dvonn was pretty good; it was like checkers/whatever that cone stacking game was, but for nerds.

Oh right, Ra. Auction game. I think LLD will hype it. But it's not for two players.

Sushi Go (and therefore Sushi Go Party) works well with 2.
We also play a lot of Tokaido with 2 players. Granted, we have the Crossroads expansion which adds a lot to the game.
Also Takenoko.

man, that's tricky. Not many games survive well being played together, unless they are designed for it, and then they are likely quite different with 3 or more players. Some of the games already named are some of the few I could see work. Carcassonne, Dominion, where dominion isn't hard but is a less luck based game, might not be ideal. Hanabi for something entirely different, but that's good with 2. Then there's ones that don't really hold up with 2 players but are doable, say your citadels, perhaps love letter?

Hey, Vi agrees with me.

Best with 3 is fine. Best with 4-5 is absolute max and probably wouldn't get played often. Doesn't have to be only 2 players.

Carcasonne is worker placement and "world building", so there's that. Love Letter is a really light game that's basically Coup Lite if memory serves.

I think all of the games I've mentioned are best with three. Love Letter probably wants more.

With three players Lords of Waterdeep can come in as a worker placement game as well. It has its flaws but there's a reason it has staying power. Five Tribes has been brought up and it's worth bringing up again because it's a neat board control/point salad/resource management game.

What is Citadels? I feel like that's something I should have heard of.

Game where you choose a character each round, out of 8, then they determine turn order and have some basic abilities (one can kill another character, one can steal money from them, some gain money from certain kinds of buildings etc), you try to make 8 buildings. It's awkward with two, good with 3 and 4, could handle more players, but gets a bit slow then. I know it as machiavelli, I think citadels was the English name for it.

For 3 players etc, I feel obliged to bring up settlers of catan as the classic basic eurogame. It's sadly pretty impossible to play with 2.

In post 2602, Vi wrote:Hanabi.
*ducks thrown object*

Sushi Go! is basically 7 Wonders Lite, and is pretty easy to understand. That's a card drafting game.

Splendor is a solid pick and I don't think I've ever seen someone criticize it. That's a resource snowball game.

IDK I actually don't know too many two-player games. Dvonn was pretty good; it was like checkers/whatever that cone stacking game was, but for nerds.

Oh right, Ra. Auction game. I think LLD will hype it. But it's not for two players.

RA MOTHERFUCKERSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

It's so fucking fun.

Definitely.

what's wrong with hanabi?

idk, I love it for what it is. It's cooperative, requires some memory, quick to play, not terribly deep. I guess if you want to find a bad point is that it could ruin relationships (I TOLD YOU ABOUT THAT CARD).

In post 2610, mykonian wrote:I guess if you want to find a bad point is that it could ruin relationships (I TOLD YOU ABOUT THAT CARD).

This, plus people will look at their own hand out of reflex for the first several attempts at games.
The last time I played it, I handed everyone their cards facing the right way and it worked out well.

But yeah it's one of those games where no one actually hates it but everyone groans from the bad memories when it gets suggested.

consensus on san juan?

In post 2601, PJ. wrote:I posed this question to LLD, but I wanted more of a sound off because one of the games she mentioned immediately jumped toward the top of our list.

So me and my girlfriend have recently been getting into games, the ones we currently own are Machi koro, Patchwork, Jaipur, Pandemic, and Munchkin. We've played a number of the mainstream party games as well and stuff like parcheesi and monopoly, obv. Also, I've played MtG but not really interested in teaching her that. But the question is, what games should we look into/add to that would give us even more variety to what we have and open us up to more themes/mechanics? LLD suggested a hidden movement game and it appealed to us and it's definitely on the list.

The requirements would be: 4-5 players max but probably best played with 2-3 people and preferably not to much more complicated than pandemic(anything rated above a 3.25 on board game geek for complexity is probably going to be a hard sell).

Mystic Vale works well with two/three players

Keyflower is my suggestion. (I've become a self parody).

chamber im reading about ra

why have we not done this

In post 2612, PJ. wrote:consensus on san juan?

race for the galaxy does it better

I agree with Buttons. Race for the Galaxy is designed by the same guy who did San Juan, but after learning from his mistakes. Either go for Race, or go all out on Puerto Rico.

i want to play ra so bad

Not enough mans for consistent Puerto Rico games

i played puerto rico for the first time in a few years a couple of weeks ago. I remembered liking it a lot more than I did this time.

me and chamber actually swore off p.rico for a couple years to how bad our experience with it had been

its now easily in my (and i suspect chambers) top 3 games

I feel similar. I played PR once and didn't like it much, but now that I have an idea how it works, etc.

It's definitely a game that heavily favors the person teaching you.

I've met two kinds of people when talking about Ra: the kind that can't stop smirking and the kind who hate it and you secretly think it's because they were played for patsies remorselessly.

Mystic Vale on the short list. It seems really funny and it looks so fucking slick. The clear cards are such a cool idea.

Also I wish I had more friends that'd be interested in Millennium Blades. It looks so cool.

In post 2623, PJ. wrote:Also I wish I had more friends that'd be interested in Millennium Blades. It looks so cool.

1) There's a module on TTS. It's not the best for a game like Millenium Blades, but it's good enough for playing with friends online.

2) I will play it with people, so.