4 Euro Games I Love
I wrote this article for the Euro gamers out there. For those who yearn to build and plan without having to worry about their opponents or a die roll randomly ruining their play session. For those players who aren’t looking for a fight. For the lovers and the dreamers!
I’ve selected 4 Euro board games from my collection and present them at a steadily increasing “weight” starting relatively medium and eventually dropping headfirst into the depths. For some, this may introduce something new, for others a chance to read another player’s take on a beloved experience, and for others a chance to feel disgusted. “What? You like that game?”
So without further ado, here is the first of 4 carefully selected Euro board games for your reading pleasure.
Viticulture Tuscany “Seasons pass as you develop your vineyard, harvest grapes, make wine, and fill orders.” Well, when you put it like that it certainly sounds dry but the gameplay has always been accessible and well-liked within our local gaming group.
For 2–6 players with a playtime of about 90 minutes for ages 13+, Viticulture is a medium-weight worker placement game that I find absolutely essential to play with the Tuscany expansion. The game was enjoyable before using Tuscany but once you play with it I feel going back to the base game is just a lesser experience.
The theme of managing your very own Italian vineyard is certainly charming. This game is also much less intimidating than the other 3 games I’m going to talk about and even less intimidating than other wine-making games. I’m looking at you Vinhos!
In fact, there are multiple ways to approach Viticulture. You could focus on a “guests” strat (especially if you play with the wildly powerful base game cards), by building an early cottage and gaining your advantage from playing more strong summer/winter visitor cards than your opponents. You could also try a tried and true planting strategy. Plant vines early and often, build field-focused structures and upgrade your wine cellar ASAP in the hopes of filling it with profitable wines with which to dominate your opponents by filling large orders. You could also play a highly tactical game with an eye toward grabbing VP on the board through repeated trips to the trade action, buy/sell field action, etc.
V.T. provides that medium-weight worker placement experience that’s inviting for newer Euro gamers and includes enough depth in strategy to keep experienced players interested.
Miser’s Critique: Like some number of other worker placement games, some of the actions don’t scale well at all. In V.T. the “Train a worker” action is a glaring example. Among even mildly experienced players this action will be highly contested during the first 2 years of play and then basically ignored for the rest of the game. Why? Because it doesn’t do anything once you have all of your available workers unlocked.
If I were to provide a fix to this I would add a tile to the box that has the same “train a worker” action on the front side, but on the backside would have an action that would be playable (yet not powerful) during the rest of the game. The tile would flip after being triggered by some event, such as the start of year 4 or everyone has unlocked all of their workers, etc.
Overall, I enjoy Viticulture Tuscany and expect it to remain in my collection at least for the short term. BGG 8.5
“Electric vehicle factory workers optimize and innovate to stand out at the big board meeting.”
Next on my list is Kanban EV. A game for 1–4 players with a playtime of 60–180 minutes for ages 14+. The newest iteration of Vital Lacerda’s heavier worker placement games in which you…work in a factory. Hear me out, please! It’s great. I really enjoy this one.
First off, Ian O’Toole’s clean artistic style works wonders for making the new factory floor mainboard, box, blueprints, etc. look incredible. This is certainly a step-up in complexity from Viticulture Tuscany though.
How you decide to play this game will be somewhat dictated by what your opponents aren’t doing. The best-laid plans are laid to waste by your fellow co-workers when it comes to impressing the boss (Sandra) and whipping out sweet, sleek EVs. More so than in other games I can recall, Kanban EV will have you changing gears and considering your second best option ahead of time in anticipation of the block, and don’t forget to block others from a key department right before a board meeting!
Will you study early to earn department certifications to avoid Sandra’s wrath? Or will you focus on obtaining quality blueprints and parts to make high-scoring upgraded vehicles? Will you take advantage of the power and flexibility of the Admin department (with the Speed Charger expansion that is) to upgrade and utilize the department of your choice? It’s up to you…well sort of.
Some people love it, others can’t understand what all the fuss is about. I can’t point to a singular reason why I enjoy Kanban EV as much as I do, but if pushed to give an answer I’d say it provides challenges that I rarely face in other worker placement games.
Miser’s Critique: At times, you will feel locked out as the action you desperately needed is taken. The part, car, or blueprint you had your eye on is snatched up right in front of you. It can feel harsh.
All in all, I rate this game especially high because the experience it brings can be so different from my other worker placement games. BGG 10
Third up is the newest game on my list, Coffee Traders!
“Develop coffee regions around the world while building your coffee network.”
A game for 2–5 players with a playtime of 120–150 minutes for ages 12+, Coffee Traders is a game I expect many of you have never heard of and even more have never had the chance to play but that’s all right because I’m happy to introduce it to you!
Coffee Traders comes in a bit on the heavy side of things, more so than Kanban EV (I think) and certainly more complex than Viticulture.
The theme of this one really speaks to me. I love worker cooperatives and am interested in the history of the fair trade coffee movement which this game simulates, and like every civilized Euro gamer, I love coffee.
This game is a point salad bonanza. The good news is that practically everything you do gives you victory points. The bad news is it’s very hard to decide how best to maximize those victory points.
First off, this game has a lot going on but the player boards break it down from left to right so you can visualize the phases and see what is allowed at any point through well-placed icons. The game features many wooden components, metal coins, and a good feel with the “general ledger” style player boards.
Placing plantations in a given region will help you score endgame points for area control at the end of the game as well as increase the amount of coffee being produced in the region. You gain coffee not from creating plantations, or from supplying them with workers but from “switching hats” from a local farmer to a Belgian trader and buying the coffee to use as a resource later.
Coffee can be used to either fill contracts or sell to coffee bars around the world. It’s a resource just like anything else after all. I’ve enjoyed the thinky play this game provides and I give it a BGG 8.5
Miser’s Critique: It’s a tough teach and a long one at that and Coffee Traders is an absolute table hog. The footprint this game takes up in a 4–5 player game makes it unplayable on many standard size tables.
Finally, the last of today’s worker placement offerings. And it’s a mean one. If you like this game, you are either a true Euro worker placement diehard or someone in need of a friend.
“Be a part of the first Martian colony, striving to be the best contributor.”
For 1–4 players with a playtime from 90–150 minutes for ages 14+ On Mars is…let’s be real who is playing a 4 player game of On Mars in 90 minutes?
Another super heavy board game from the Lacerda/O’Toole duo. This one is a sort of line that many gamers refuse to cross and I respect that but I wouldn’t respect myself if I didn’t stick up for the amazing qualities inherent in this game.
In typical Lacerda fashion, On Mars features lots of diverse worker placement options and an almost “open-world” path to victory. What I mean by that is that you can go about this game in any number of ways and who is to say which way is best? The number of potential game states after the first worker is placed by each player makes games like Go and Chess blush.
It seems simple enough. Gain resources, acquire blueprints, contracts, scientists, build structures, place advanced buildings, share your scientist to access your opponent’s technology…wait this doesn’t sound simple at all.
On Mars gets better the more you play it. More so than any game in my collection. When something finally “clicks” it feels good. Among experienced players, the winner more often than not will have played more tactical than strategic (which took me some time to learn), taking advantage of turn-by-turn opportunities and forgetting plans with reckless abandon. They will become well-versed on when it feels right to take a given action and how many workers to dedicate to the task.
For me, this is the true terraforming mars experience. BGG 10
Miser’s Critique: It’s tough to learn and hard to teach. An AP-prone player can make the game drag out much longer than you’d like it to.
That’s it for today, folks. 4 games. What do you think of my choices? Which is your favorite? Which do you loathe?
-the BoardGameNerd
