What are Euro games anyway?
Euro games - also Euro board games or Eurogames - are board games in which the mechanics are the focus. In other words: It's mostly about collecting victory points and the necessary optimization of your personal game strategy. Open confrontations with other players at the table are rather the exception - the Euro games thrive on the idea of making your own moves as efficiently as possible.
It is often criticized that Euro games are abstract and not very thematic. Nowadays, this is only partly true, as modern genre representatives can bring atmospheric themes to the gaming table without neglecting the basic concept, which is usually mechanically complex.
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What defines Euro games?
For a long time, the focus of Euro games was on easy planning as the main feature of the game process. The boundaries are now blurred because there are no longer just pure Euro board games on the market, but countless genre mixes. Basically, the focus on the mechanical elements known from Euro board games is now only a part of successful game concepts: The rather abstract collecting of points is linked with area control elements or asymmetrical game goals in order to create completely new gaming experiences. The luck factor is no longer taboo in Euro games: many representatives of the genre use dice or card events to ensure unforeseen situations.
Fans of classic Euro games, on the other hand, like the “dry” gameplay, appreciate the predictability of moves and strategies and are happy to avoid “material battles”. Eurogames have been around for a long time: They emerged from the so-called “German games”, typical board games from Germany in the seventies and eighties, in which the focus of the gaming fun was on scoring points. With the success of these abstract concepts came the triumph of Eurogames, which are now played all over the world and designed by authors.
Although Euro games rely on mechanics at their core, they are not necessarily more complicated than board games of other genres. Eurogames can also be found in different levels of difficulty and complexity. Some of the titles appeal to beginners, but they also include interlocking constructs that are only suitable for experts.
Which Euro games are particularly popular?
There are also many Euro games titles that have become particularly successful in their genre. These include, among others, Great Western Trail, A Feast for Odin, Rajas of the Ganges, Nusfjord, Vejen and Agricola - all of which are classics or at least on the way to becoming them.
Euro board games are often about resource management, trading and building. The themes used for Eurogames are often based on this: board games about agriculture, plantation management, supply or the development of production chains are often found.