Lowlands?
I’d second Concordia. It’s the most Euro modern game that’s popular. It even has a quintessentially Euro theme, unlike Terraforming Mars. It’s not my favorite, but it is quite good and a great representative of the “genre”.
Why not split the different and play Time of Crisis? In my experience, It’s one of the few games that is loved equally by both wargamers and eurogamers.
Time of Crisis is already on the list! I wouldn’t miss showing that game to at least one of these chaps.
Thanks for the suggestions. I played Kingsburg some years ago when a friend brought it to @tomchick’s but I don’t remember liking it. Don’t you have to roll a bunch of dice? I haven’t heard of Concordia but that’s one to look up.
I could teach them to play Notre Dame in advance by having them play the Brettspielwelt version Is BSW still a thing?
I will definitely show them Modern Art. Thanks for reminding me of that by saying “The Gallerist.”
Brass: Birmingham is a good one but maybe a bit too mind-twisty for one of the group.
I don’t play Stonemaier games so that excludes Scythe and Euphoria.
Oooh, is Champions of Midgard good? I also have Blood Rage.
There’s a lot to think about. Thanks for the cool ideas. If there aren’t any games that play well with four, I think I can find a fifth.
Why not go full Euro and do a Rosenberg game? Caverna is surprisingly good at high player counts. For highly strategic card based Euros with light area congrol, try Inis or Pax Pamir.
Caverns is ok. I wasn’t overly awed myself, but I am only tepid on that style of worker placement. I have a copy of Le Harve which is also… fine.
Both are superior to Agricola.
“Must play” games no longer exist for hobby board gamers. There is “the new hotness,” and plenty of enjoyable games. Sometimes these two categories overlap.
So many games…
Anyways, I would recommend Great Western Trail for having a lot going on, but still being manageable, and having unique mechanisms. I also find myself recommending Ponzi Scheme for four. Nothing else like its central mechanism, and the game is nothing but that central mechanism.
Yes, this is a thing in Kingsburg. Don’t fear the dice, Bruce!
I’ll third Concordia. Other good options could be SmallWorld, Istanbul (better with expansions), Tzolk’in: The Maya Calendar or Russian Railroads.
A thousand times yes. It’s a great hybrid of worker placement and dice chucker. I consider both expansions to be well worth the investment as well.
Both of these have strange timing that take a few games to get used to. OTOH, both are also available to play online at https://en.boardgamearena.com, (and other places) so you can get used to them. Concordia is available at http://www.boiteajeux.net
Yep, which makes them quite interesting cases to showcase different variations of eurogames.
We play Great Western Trail and Kanban the most when we play Euros. They both play fine with four players, Kanban more so.
I am fascinated by this statement. Please elaborate. Are you saying that given the huge universe of games that no one agrees on the “must-plays” in the same way that they did when there were 5-10 games that everyone knew were superlative? When would you say this ceased to be the case?
I’ve got a few suggestions here:
It really depends on what you’re group is into but the people sitting through Churchill, Pericles and Time of Crisis might find these Euros interesting. Well ok, Conquest of Paradise isn’t really a Euro but it has little wooden houses. That has to count for something there right?
Sleeping Gods popped up as a preview on my YouTube feed and I’m intrigued.
It’s a co-op for 1-4 players.
To sum up what they discuss: Atlas and story book for exploration and the campaign, an intriguing spatial combat system where you need to disable powerful abilities or break through armour before killing the creatures, engine building, an action economy that forces you to make hard choices.
It all sounds rather good. Unfortunately, it’s due on KS in August, which means we won’t get to play it any time soon. But I’ll keep an eye on it.
Is it not because of the growing of the hobby? Back in 2002, there were both fewer board games and fewer board gamers, it felt like we were all playing Puerto Rico. Now I’m part of some Facebook board game groups where it feels like there’s a ton of diversity in the games and types of gamers that are playing board games.
I have never played anything by Reiner Knizia, Vital Lacerda, or Phil Eklund. I would like to do so.
My thoughts would be Tigris and Euphrates and Pax Porfiriana, but I’m somewhat torn between Vinhos and Lisboa.
Does anybody have any strong arguments to offer? Was Tigris and Euphrates before anybody knew how to make good board games?
For what little it’s worth, Vinhos was my least favorite Lacerda game so far (but still genius). That said, you get a couple different versions in the current Deluxe release. Lisboa was great but a trifle grueling mentally.
Just play El Grande! It looks rubbish but it’s a brilliant game. I played it 2 months ago and it’s still better than most modern games.
ps: Wouldn’t it have been easier to post which games you actually own? :)