Eurogame

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 features indirect player interaction, lacks player elimination, and provides 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.
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. They offered a style of gameplay without direct conflict or warfare and led the way for designs that focused on resource management and competitive strategy through more peaceful means.
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. During this time, board games in Europe often featured shorter play times than their American counterparts, along with rules that encouraged all players to remain engaged until the end, thereby reducing the risk of early elimination.
Although German-style designs were already popular within Germany, The Settlers of Catan, first published in 1995, paved the way for the genre outside Europe. While it was not the first Eurogame and not the first to achieve popularity outside Germany, it became more successful than any of its predecessors. Millions of copies were sold in Germany alone. The game's success brought new interest, investment, and attention to this genre of board games emphasizing planning and negotiation rather than direct conflict. Game designers like Reiner Knizia became popular globally. Knizia's notable designs include Amun-Re, Blue Moon City, Ingenious, Keltis, Lord of the Rings, Medici, Modern Art, Ra, Taj Mahal, Tigris and Euphrates, and Through the Desert. Many of his designs incorporate mathematical principles, such as his repeated use of auction mechanics.
As the market expanded, some designers began creating deeper, more complex games often referred to as “gamer’s games” or “expert games.” Titles such as Agricola (2007) by Uwe Rosenberg and Terra Mystica (2012) by Helge Ostertag and Jens Drögemüller introduced more detailed resource management, longer playing times, and heightened decision depth. These games often came with multiple paths to victory, ensuring replay value and a variety of strategies for enthusiasts. 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, TransAmerica, Ticket to Ride, Alhambra, Brass, and Terraforming Mars. Today, Eurogames remain an important segment of the board gaming industry, appreciated for their emphasis on strategy, thoughtful interaction, and lack of player elimination that allows all participants to remain engaged. While Germany still leads in per capita board game purchases, the popularity of Eurogames has spread worldwide, and many titles now receive international distribution and acclaim. Conventions such as Essen Spiel in Germany gather thousands of fans annually.
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 still 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.
While many titles (especially the strategically heavier ones) are enthusiastically played by gamers as a hobby, most Eurogames are 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 predetermined 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 Eurogames that are designed for exactly two players, most games can accommodate between two to six players (with varying degrees of suitability). Six-player games are somewhat rare; examples include Power Grid and Caverna (the latter supporting seven-player games). Some require expansions, such as The Settlers of Catan or Carcassonne. Players usually play for themselves, 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.
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.
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:
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.
Examples of themes are:
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.
Designers of Eurogames include:
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.
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 Spielepreis ("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).
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.