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(Redirected from German style board game) Type of board game For the multi-sport event, see EuroGames. For other uses, see Eurogames.
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Detailed view of the board during Terra Mystica gameplay

A Eurogame, also called a German-style board game, German game, or Euro-style game (generally just referred to as board games in Europe), is a class of tabletop games that generally has complex rules, indirect player interaction, and multiple ways to score points. Eurogames are sometimes contrasted with American-style board games, which generally involve more luck, conflict, and drama. They are usually less abstract than chess or Go, but more abstract than wargames. Likewise, they generally require more thought and planning than party games such as Pictionary or Trivial Pursuit.

History

The 1999 Hasbro version of Acquire

Due in part to postwar aversion to products which glorified conflict, the 3M series of strategy and economic games, including Acquire, became popular in Germany and provided a template for a new form of gameplay without direct conflict or warfare.

German family board games

The genre developed as a more concentrated design movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s in Germany. The genre has spread to other European countries such as France, the Netherlands, and Sweden. The Settlers of Catan, first published in 1995, paved the way for the genre outside Europe. Though neither the first Eurogame nor the first such game to find an audience outside Germany, it became much more popular than any of its predecessors. It quickly sold millions of copies in Germany, and in the process brought money and attention to the genre as a whole.

21st century

Residents of Germany purchased more board games per capita than any other country as of 2009. While many Eurogames are published and played in Anglophone markets such as the United States and the United Kingdom, they occupy a niche status there. Other games in the genre to achieve widespread popularity include Carcassonne, Puerto Rico, Ticket to Ride, and Alhambra.

Characteristics

A game of Agricola being set up

Eurogames tend to be focused on presenting a complex challenge to players. They feature economics and the acquisition of resources rather than direct conflict, and have a limited amount of luck. They also differ from abstract strategy games like chess by using themes tied to specific locales, and emphasize individual development and comparative achievement rather than direct conflict. Eurogames also emphasize the mechanical challenges of their systems over having the systems match the theme of the game. They are generally simpler than the wargames that flourished in the 1970s and 1980s from publishers such as SPI and Avalon Hill, but nonetheless often have a considerable depth of play.

One consequence of the increasing popularity of this genre has been an expansion upwards in complexity. Games such as Puerto Rico that were considered quite complex when Eurogames proliferated in the U.S. after the turn of the millennium are now the norm, with newer high-end titles like Terra Mystica and Tzolkin being significantly more difficult to master.

Incentive for social play

A four-player game of Ticket to Ride near the end of the game

While many titles (especially the strategically heavier ones) are enthusiastically played by gamers as a hobby, Eurogames are, for the most part, well-suited to social play. In keeping with this social function, various characteristics of the games tend to support that aspect well, and these have become quite common across the genre. In contrast to games such as Risk or Monopoly, in which a close game can extend indefinitely, Eurogames usually have a mechanism to stop the game within its stated playing time. Common mechanisms include a pre-determined winning score, a set number of game turns, or depletion of limited game resources. Playing time varies from a half-hour to a few hours, with one to two hours being typical. Generally Eurogames do not have a fixed number of players like chess or bridge; although there is a sizeable body of German-style games that are designed for exactly two players, most games can accommodate anywhere from two to six players (with varying degrees of suitability). Six-player games are somewhat rare, with Power Grid and Caverna (the latter supporting seven player games) being two examples, or require expansions, as with The Settlers of Catan or Carcassonne. Players usually play for themselves individually, rather than in a partnership or team.

A growing number of Eurogames support solo play with modified rulesets. To win, the player either has to achieve specific single-player campaign goals or beat the score of a simulated opponent that takes actions according to special rules outlined in the scenario. Recent Eurogames suitable for solo play include Wingspan, Terraforming Mars, and Spirit Island.

No player elimination

Another prominent characteristic of these games is the lack of player elimination. Eliminating players before the end of the game is seen as contrary to the social aspect of such games. Most of these games are designed to keep all players in the game as long as possible, so it is rare to be certain of victory or defeat until relatively late in the game. Related to no-player-elimination, Eurogame scoring systems are often designed so that hidden scoring or end-of-game bonuses can catapult a player who appears to be in a lagging position at end of play into the lead. A second-order consequence is that Eurogames tend to have multiple paths to victory (dependent on aiming at different end-of-game bonuses) and it is often not obvious to other players which strategic path a player is pursuing. Balancing mechanisms are often integrated into the rules, giving slight advantages to lagging players and slight hindrances to the leaders. This helps to keep the game competitive to the very end, an example of which is Power Grid, where the turn order is determined by number of cities (and biggest power plant as the tie-breaker), such that players further ahead are handicapped in their option of plays.

Game mechanics

A wide variety of often innovative mechanisms or mechanics are used, and familiar mechanics such as rolling dice and moving, capture, or trick taking are avoided. If a game has a board, the board is usually irregular rather than uniform or symmetric (such as Risk rather than chess or Scrabble). The board is often random (as in The Settlers of Catan) or has random elements (such as Tikal). Some boards are merely mnemonic or organizational and contribute only to ease of play, such as a cribbage board; examples of this include Puerto Rico and Princes of Florence. Random elements are often present but do not usually dominate the game. While rules are light to moderate, they allow depth of play, usually requiring thought, planning, and a shift of tactics through the game and featuring a chess- or backgammon-like opening game, middle game, and end game.

Stewart Woods' Eurogames cites six examples of mechanics common to eurogames:

  • Tile Placement – spatial placement of game components on the playing board.
  • Auctions – includes open and hidden auctions of both resources and actions from other players and the game system itself.
  • Trading/Negotiation – not simply trading resources of equivalent values, but allowing players to set markets.
  • Set Collection – collecting resources in specific groups that are then cashed in for points or other currency.
  • Area Control – also known as area majority or influence, this involves controlling a game element or board space through allocation of resources.
  • Worker Placement or Role Selection – players choose specific game actions in sequential order, with players disallowed from choosing a previously selected action.

Low randomness

Samurai is a game of tile placement, set collection, and area control.

Eurogame designs tend to de-emphasize luck and random elements. Often, the only random element of the game will be resource or terrain distribution in the initial setup, or (less frequently) the random order of a set of event or objective cards. The role played by deliberately random mechanics in other styles of game is instead fulfilled by the unpredictability of the behavior of other players.

Themes

Examples of themes are:

  • Carcassonne – build a medieval landscape complete with walled cities, monasteries, roads, and fields.
  • Puerto Rico – develop plantations on the island of Puerto Rico, set in the 18th century.
  • Power Grid – expand a power company's network and buy better plants.
  • Imperial – as an international investor, influence the politics of pre-World War I European empires.
  • Bruxelles 1893 – take the role of an Art Nouveau architect during the late 19th century and try to become the most famous architect in Belgium.

Game designer as author

Although not relevant to actual play, the name of the game's designer is often prominently mentioned on the box, or at least in the rule book. Top designers enjoy considerable following among enthusiasts of Eurogames. For this reason, the name "designer games" is often offered as a description of the genre. Recently, there has also been a wave of games designed as spin-offs of popular novels, such as the games taking their style from the German bestsellers Der Schwarm and Tintenherz.

Industry

Designers

Reiner Knizia and Bernd Brunnhofer at the Deutscher Spielepreis awards at Spiel 2003 in Essen, Germany

Designers of Eurogames include:

Events

At Deskohraní [cs] 2008, players trade currencies and place tiles to build an Andalusian palace in Alhambra.

The Internationale Spieltage, also known as Essen Spiel, or the Essen Games Fair, is the largest non-digital game convention in the world, and the place where the largest number of Eurogames are released each year. Founded in 1983 and held annually in Essen, Germany, the fair was founded with the objective of providing a venue for people to meet and play board games, and show gaming as an integral part of German culture.

A "World Boardgaming Championships" is held annually in July in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. The event is nine days long and includes tournament tracks of over a hundred games; while traditional wargames are played there, the most popular tournaments are Eurogames and it is generally perceived as a Eurogame-centered event. Attendance is international, though players from the U.S. and Canada predominate.

Awards

The most prestigious German board game award is the Spiel des Jahres ("Game of the Year"). The award is very family-oriented, with shorter, more approachable games such as Ticket to Ride and Elfenland usually preferred by the award committee.

In 2011, the jury responsible for the Spiel des Jahres created the Kennerspiel des Jahres, or connoisseur's game of the year, for more complex games.

The Deutscher Spiele Preis ("German game prize") is also awarded to games that are more complex and strategic, such as Puerto Rico. A few games have had broad enough appeal to win both awards: The Settlers of Catan (published 1995), Carcassonne (published 2000), and Dominion (published 2008).

Influence

Xbox Live Arcade has included popular games from the genre, with Catan being released to strong sales on May 13, 2007, Carcassonne being released on June 27, 2007. Lost Cities and Ticket to Ride soon followed. Alhambra was due to follow later in 2007 until being cancelled.

The iPhone received versions of The Settlers of Catan and Zooloretto in 2009. Carcassonne was added to the iPhone App Store in June 2010. Later, Ticket to Ride was developed for both the iPhone and the iPad, significantly boosting sales of the board game.

See also

References

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  3. ^ Woods, Stewart (2009). Eurogames: The Design, Culture and Play of Modern European Board Games. McFarland. ISBN 978-0786467976.
  4. Donovan, Tristan (2017). It's All a Game: The History of Board Games from Monopoly to Settlers of Catan. Thomas Dunne Books. ISBN 978-1250082725.
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External links

  • Brett and Board Archived 2020-07-29 at the Wayback Machine with information on German-style games (has not been updated in some time)
  • Luding.org – board game database with over 15,000 English and German reviewed games
  • BoardGameGeek – internet database of over 100,000 tabletop games, with online fan community.
  • Gamerate.net – internet database of board, card and electronic games.
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