Eurogames as the New Trend of Board games
Over the past decade, the new “eurogames” has emerged and become so popular. Most of all has an excellent design feature that keeps all players actively engaged at all times. Please find my recommendation list below :
Rio Grande Stone Age
Players : 2 – 4 players
Recommended age : 10 & Up
This board game is not so light as to be dominated by luck or trivial to master. It is strategically deep and compelling, with many different paths to victory. Yet at the same time, it's easy to learn and you will make many decisions to win this game.
The board consists of approximately 15 different locations where workers might be deployed. Some locations give you more resources such as food, wood, and of course, stone. Other locations give you opportunities to spend your resources building huts or advancing your civilization, both of which contribute to your score. A third group of locations contribute to your "infrastructure", so to speak: you can plant crops to ease a food shortage, build tools to make workers more effective, or focus on increasing your population. If it sounds complex, it's not, it's actually done in a very straightforward and easy to understand way. |
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It is difficult to tell who will win because cards at the end add up in various ways to score and this is by design. The point is to acquire buildings which give immediate victory points (and may add a few points at the end if you combine with a builder card), and to acquire civilization cards which give some immediate benefits but also have many different ways of affecting your score. So while people try to keep generally up with one another scoring during the game with buildings, there is always this final reckoning that will decide the winner.
Buy Rio Grande Games Stone Age at Amazon.com >>>
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Carcassonne
Players : 2 – 5 players
Recommended age : 8 & Up
The southern French city of Carcassonne is famous for its unique roman and medieval fortifications. The players develop the area around Carcassonne and deploy their followers on the roads, in the cities, in the cloisters, and in the fields. The skill of the players to develop the area will determine who is victorious.
The game is easy to learn for a wide audience, it is reasonably quick to play (30 - 40 minutes).There are elements of strategy and luck, which makes for a "fun" game experience.
The game consists of laying tiles to build cities, roads and monasteries in the South of France. Points are gained by creating long roads, building large cities or farming multiple farms. It draws elements of building jigsaw puzzles together with a strategy game of competing for territory. |
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One trick is to complete a short road or small city (just two tiles, sometimes three) and then claim it, thus getting the points and getting the claim token back immediately.
What is so nice about this game is that there are no dice, no money to count and no constantly moving a piece around a board. Instead each player on his turn picks a cardboard tile(nice thick quality) and places it on the table, which acts as your board. You basically create your own puzzle each game, so it is never the same. Rivers match up to rivers, or city to city, road to road. You have to decide the best place to put the piece you just picked.
Buy Carcassonne Game at Amazon.com >>>
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The Settler of Catan
Players : 3 – 4 players
Recommended age : 12 & Up
Settlers of Catan is a trading and building game set in the mythical world of Catan. Players roll dice to determine which resources are generated each round and then must strategically trade those resources with other players to get what they need to build their settlements, cities, and roads. With multiple ways to gain victory points and a board that changes in every play, Settlers of Catan is a game that can be played hundreds of different ways.
It's easy to see why The Settlers of Catan has been recognized as a best-selling Game of the Year in both Germany and the U. S. We found this game to be fun and engaging for both children and adults, and the variable nature of the playing field really made us want to play again and again. |
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When we started pausing to contemplate our opponents' strategy and factoring the probability of different dice rolls into our moves, the game sometimes took longer than expected, but we were so engrossed we didn't even notice until it was all over.
Buy The Settlers of Catan at Amazon.com >>>
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Puerto Rico
Players : 2 – 5 players
Recommended age : 12 & Up
The players are plantation owners in Puerto Rico in the days when ships had sails. Growing up to five different kind of crops: Corn, Indigo, Coffee, Sugar and Tobacco, they must try to run their business more efficiently than their close competitors; growing crops and storing them efficiently, developing San Juan with useful buildings, deploying their colonists to best effect, selling crops at the right time, and most importantly, shipping their goods back to Europe for maximum benefit.
A novel game system lets players choose the order of the phases in each turn by allowing each player to choose a role from those remaining when it is their turn. No role can be selected twice in the same round. The player who selects the best roles to advance their position during the game will win.
There are two primary strategies used in Puerto Rico, corresponding to the two means of earning victory points. One route is to go with higher goods production, to send the goods back to the homeland for points. Corn is produced free and indigo has low investment cost. Therefore, these are commonly mass produced. However, money is harder to acquire.
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The other route is producing smaller cash crops (tobacco and coffee) and buying more buildings. Expensive buildings can give a player 3-4 victory points; however, fewer goods are likely to get moved to the homeland. However, in filling all the building spaces, a player can finish the game quickly and keep others from getting more shipment victory points.
Buy Puerto Rico at Amazon.com >>> |
Ticket to Ride
Players : 2 – 5 players
Recommended age : 8 & Up
This is an excellent game for 2-5 players, and especially for kids. There is no fake money involved! Just little cards with different colors. Easy, but challenging. It is a game where you can be nice and not mess with your opponents supposed destination, or you can try and block them.
October 2, 1900. 28 years to the day that noted London eccentric, Phileas Fogg accepted and then won a L20,000 bet that he could travel "Around the World in 80 Days". Now at the dawn of the century it was time for a new "impossible journey". Some old friends have gathered to celebrate Fogg's impetuous and lucrative gamble--and to propose a new wager of their own. The stakes: $1 Million in a winner-takes-all competition. The objective: to see which of them can travel by rail to the most cities in North America--in just 7 days. The journey begins immediately. |
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Each time you play you will be able to choose one of three different actions: claim a train route, collect train cards or gather destination tickets. Each of those actions implies further decisions: Do you take a red train or a blue train? The short Duluth or Phoenix? Risk the big payoff tickets or keep only the safer, smaller points destinations?
Buy Ticket to Ride at Amazon.com >>>
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St Petersburg
Players : 2 – 4 players
Recommended age : 10 & Up
On May 16, 1703, Czar Peter the Great lays the foundation for the first building in St. Petersburg. Quickly, impressive buildings are erected that are ever more grand and beautiful. Such buildings bring glory to the aristocracy and victory points to the players. But you need traders to bring the rubles necessary for all this magnificence; otherwise, the buildings are empty and bare. The competition never sleeps and may grab needed cards right from under your nose. This game is for 2 to 4 players and takes about 45 minutes to play.
This is one game that your child might enjoy. Not super complicated but it does have a lot of different things going on as well as some luck. Small kids will not appreciate it. This is a game that definitely gives an edge to people who have played it - there is a lot of delicate timing which you don't notice the first times you play. |
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Buy St. Petersburg at Amazon.com >>> |
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