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The Rise of German Board Games

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Rise of German Board Games

#91

Post by eru »

Tomte wrote: post #55
joshvm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever played Diplomacy? It makes Catan look like a picnic. https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2017/11/diplomacy-the-most-evi...

I am probably the only one playing Britain in the history of the game who never made it off the damn island. The game is really hard.

Even with board full of experienced players, every nation can have a bad start every once in a while. Sometimes people do gang up on you at the start.

However, if you play lots of games, and never get off the British Isles, you might want to look for a different hobby.

The game is meant to be hard: after all at most one in seven people can win. (Unless you are a drawmonger and consider that an acceptable outcome.)

Re: The Rise of German Board Games

#92

Post by Y_Y »

wallace_f wrote: post #75
koonsolo wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, it's always a challenge to play board games with my kids. They are now 8, 6 and 4, and none of them wants to lose. It always ends up with someone crying, sometimes with all of them crying (including the winner). For other parents who have the same issue: I was able to "fix" this situation by declaring the winner as the person who is able to take defeat without crying. After that I mostly can declare all of th…

Years ago when I was younger and overseas, I played Monopoly with a group of European 20-something girls and one of them ended up crying as defeat became clear.

Years ago I was younger too!

Anyway monopoly makes people of all ages and different sorts want to cry.

Re: The Rise of German Board Games

#93

Post by koonsolo »

5_minutes wrote: post #70
koonsolo wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, it's always a challenge to play board games with my kids. They are now 8, 6 and 4, and none of them wants to lose. It always ends up with someone crying, sometimes with all of them crying (including the winner). For other parents who have the same issue: I was able to "fix" this situation by declaring the winner as the person who is able to take defeat without crying. After that I mostly can declare all of th…

Hah! Definitely have the same problem, there's always someone crying. Which are some of those co-op games?

Whoowasit? is the one I mainly play with my kids. They love it.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/33643/whoowasit

Re: The Rise of German Board Games

#94

Post by contingencies »

chx wrote: post #31

Since the article mentions Monopoly in passing: it is NOT fine for children; it was created to teach about inequality; it is a horrible game even for children (or especially for children). If you are forced to play it, use this https://imgur.com/gallery/vX3zm tactic, it won't happen again.

My kid is 3 and loves Monopoly Junior. Every time anyone lands on one of her properties, she launches in to this apologetic refrain about how next time you can stay for free. She's gonna be a handful as a teenager.

Re: The Rise of German Board Games

#95

Post by shandor »

cycrutchfield wrote: post #73
joshvm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever played Diplomacy? It makes Catan look like a picnic. https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2017/11/diplomacy-the-most-evi...

Can confirm that a game of Diplomacy will take a group of happy friends and turn them into scheming backstabbers who will never trust one another ever again for the rest of their lives.

The solution is to only play Diplomacy with a group where everyone is a known scheming backstabber who will never trust one another ever again for the rest of their lives! Have tried, can confirm it works. Good times.

Re: The Rise of German Board Games

#96

Post by mcv »

taggart wrote: post #16

Wow, I had no idea Phil Eklund was such a superstar! I met him waaaay back in 1990 when he still lived in Tucson and would bring his whacky home made games to the “Historical Games Society” club at the U of A. Way to go Phil!

I know Phil Eklund primarily from hard-core science simulations such as High Frontier and Biosgenesis. I do know him, but I wouldn't rank him among game design superstars such as Uwe Rosenberg or Reiner Knizia. His games are not exactly mainstream.

Speaking of which, this article suggests that boardgames are niche, but games like Siedler von Catan, Agricola, or the many, many games by Reiner Knizia, are absolutely mainstream. At least in Europe. I spent 1997 giving everybody Siedler von Catan for their birthday (and later the Dutch translation), so I would hope everybody vaguely interested in boardgames has it by now.

Re: The Rise of German Board Games

#97

Post by andrey-p »

It feels weird to say there's no conflict in Eurogames.

Power Grid is pretty relentless and brutal - there's no violent aspect to it, but you can mess your opponents pretty badly, and it still hurts.

The only time I've managed to get my girlfriend to swear at me was when I stole the line she was clearly trying to build in Ticket to Ride.

Re: The Rise of German Board Games

#98

Post by usrusr »

vkou wrote: post #54
KenoFischer wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Catan has significantly more adversarial aspects than Monopoly; Cutting off roads that players need, controlling the placement of the robber, choosing who to steal from, denial of trade of resources. I think one of the things that makes Catan so rage-inciting, is that it's quite common to take actions to deny the other players points, even if it has a negative effect on your overall position.

Also, the random nature of the robber, and the kingmaker moves where a sore loser will decide which other player will win. Dealing with both of those things is part of the game... But I prefer games with less emphasis on those aspects.

They are part of the game to keep it somewhat interesting for those who were unlucky in the early buildup. How would a game designed to minimize kingmaking not end up being an isolated race to the high-score?

Maybe you would not mind these forms of interaction so much in a game that is more upfront about them? On the surface, Catan seems to be almost cooperative, I could imagine the "politics" to catch some players by surprise, over and over again. Something with a darker theme might help to put some distance between personal relationships and gametable betrayals.

Junta for example, my all time favorite despite some really crude game mechanics is all about bought loyalties and backstabbing (or maybe I like it because of the crude mechanics, there is even an annoying Risk minigame that occasionally pops up to completely change the pace) Informal alliances sometimes rise and fall apart before the even first turn is over.

Re: The Rise of German Board Games

#99

Post by mcv »

tonydiv wrote: post #3

Clearly the author has never played Settlers of Catan, it does not make friends. Hence the memes: https://imgur.com/a/tUGcn

I played Catan about 1000 times in 1997, and it did nothing to hurt my friendships. If your friendship can't survive this game, I wonder if there's any game it can survive. Well, there are friendlier games, but Catan is fairly middle of the road in how much you can screw someone over.

The only true dick move in the game is to trade away all of a certain good in lucrative trades, and then take it all back with a monopoly card. Most people have enough decency not to do that. Then again, at my house, we play it in a fairly friendly way and don't try to cripple each other unless we have to.

Re: The Rise of German Board Games

#100

Post by mcv »

gbhn wrote: post #50
lostlogin wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bet the damn robber was the crux of it.

We play a variant without the robber where a 7 means you just draw a resource of your choice. Much preferred if you aren't looking for a competitively enhanced game. :-)

We have a house rule that we re-roll 7s in the first two rounds. This after a 6 player game where the first round saw most people rolling a 7. It didn't particularly screw anyone, but it's just not a fun way to start the game.

Even with that rule, we usually only use the robber to hurt the leader. During the early game when nobody is clearly ahead, we prefer to place it on poor production fields, and use it just to steal a card.

This is not just fuzzy feel-good pacifism, it's good sense, because an enemy is not an asset, and it's harmful to make yourself a target. Hurt people who deserve it, but otherwise just go for the card.

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