Monocular Vision

In my last post, I discussed an attribute of European board games often missing in their American counterparts.  The ability to choose from different winning strategies is key to the fun of any board game.  I promised in the last post that I’d discuss a few of the Euro games that have found some popularity among American audiences.  While each of these games feature what we’re looking for, there is increasing complexity and decreasing chance as we move down the list:

Ticket to Ride (Days of Wonder)

Ticket to Ride was my “gateway” game.  Determined to get my wife a unique Christmas present, I decided she might like playing a new board game.  After a quick bit of research at BoardGameGeek.com (a site I highly recommend, by the way), I read reviews indicating that the combination of ease, production values and fun factor would be a hit, and it was.  We have played this game many times.

The game play of Ticket to Ride is simple: the board is a large map of the United States with routes connecting adjacent cities.  Players take turns claiming these routes with their trains by playing colored train cards which are drawn in a semi-random fashion (too complicated to discuss here).  The longer the route, the more points you score.  In addition to claiming routes, players can also try to complete a Destination Card by connecting two non-adjacent cities by claiming multiple routes between connecting cities.  Because the board is full of routes, there are many different ways to complete each Destination Card which leads to players constantly adjusting their strategies as other players claim their needed routes.  Occasionally, it leads to forced declarations of hatred towards your former friend.

The simplicity of the game means a newcomer can begin playing after only a short introduction.  And because of the decent amount of chance in drawing cards, even players not quite adept at strategy games have a chance of winning.  It also has the advantage of a short play time.  Most games can be completed in under an hour.

Trust me, you can’t go wrong by trying this game out.

Settlers of Catan (Mayfair Games)

This is a game you may have heard of thanks to its increasing popularity in the United States. Or maybe you’ve seen someone with the shirt. Regardless of how you may have heard of the game, Settlers of Catan is one you need to try. I’ve only met two people who, after playing this game, didn’t immediately want to play it again.  But we don’t speak of them.  Especially when talking in the third person.

Settlers of Catan is a resource/production game. You start out with two settlements on a large island made from hexagonal tiles. Each numbered tile is of a specific terrain and produces a given resource.  At the beginning of each person’s turn, two dice are rolled and added together.  If the number from the nice matches a tile’s number that you have a settlement or resource on, you produce that resource, even if it isn’t your turn. When it’s your turn, you can use the resources in your hand to build roads, settlements, cities or development cards.

But resources and production are only a small part of the story. The main attraction of Catan is the trading. When it’s your turn, you can offer to trade the resources you have with any of the other players. This leads to a social dynamic that I’ve never seen in other board games. Friendships can be created with a simple exchange of sheep and wheat. Marriages are destroyed when a trade is refused.  Fun times are had by all.

While the snobs of the gaming elite have begun to look down upon this game, I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a fun, social game.

Puerto Rico (Rio Grande)

Alright.  It’s late.  The “casuals” have gone home.  You know the type: only willing to play the likes of Apples to Apples and Scattegories.  Now it’s time to bring out the good stuff.

Puerto Rico is not a game for the weak-hearted.  This game will grab a hold of your face, shake you like a maraca and then punch you in the gut for good measure.  By the time our first try at this game had come to a close, three and a half hours had passed, and one member of the play group had forgotten his own name.

I’m not even going to begin to try to explain the details of this game.  At a high level, the game involves the choosing of a role which in turn determines what each player can do that round.  The roles all revolve around either earning doubloons or scoring victory points through the production and delivery of goods.  I’m pretty sure there’s a bunch of other stuff in there too, but my head hurts just thinking about it.

That’s not to say the game isn’t good: it’s phenomenal.  It can just feel incomprehensible the first few times you play due to the complex interaction between the roles and progressive steps one has to take to score victory points.  And yet, even after spending a few hours wading through its intricacies, the game begs.. neigh demands it be played again.  And again.  And again until you can reach the end of a game, look back at your strategy and make some sense of it all.

Unless you’re willing to put in hours to learn this game, I have to recommend the first two before you move on to a game as complicated as Puerto Rico.

Hope this post inspires some of you ditch the American roll-fests and try playing a board game that’s actually fun!  Game on!