Talk:Eurogame/Archive 1

message: Nice article, but I think it is written too much from an U.S. point of view (and perhaps being a bit unfair towards American games?). If anyone familiar with the subject could try to define these kinds of games more independently of "lousy American games", it would definitively be an improvement. Jørgen 21:43, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As I understood it German-style board game was an American term for a genre of games.  It is not used to refer to all of the board games in Germany, that would be a different article :) Mathiastck 00:24, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too American-centred? 

message: "They often take between 60 and 120 minutes to finish, although there are of course longer and shorter games."
This number seems pretty far off. Designers usual try to keep games no more than an hour, and certainly rarely over 90 minutes. A lot of the cult following of these games in the United States seems more interested in games around 90 minutes. But the vast majority of these games are in a window of mayber 30 to 75 minutes or so. (Of course, playing styles, number of players, etc affect this, but that is usually the target area.)
As a particular example, when Reiner Knizia was designing Euphrat & Tigris, many people were excited simply because it was very unusual for him to design a game that takes over an hour. (He was targetting about 1.5 hours, which is pretty accurate for that game.)
:I would tend to agree that a 'German-style' game that took more than two hours would be exceptionally long. I suggest changing the description to 45 to 90 minutes, which I think is more indicative of the majority of games. --Millsdavid 02:24, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Either my friends and I have slower brains than you, or you didn't play enough of these kind of games. I've rarely finished a three-player or four-player game of El Grande under 90 minutes. Same goes for Domaine or Settlers of Catan with all expansions Wouter Lievens 09:05, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  There are definitely games which break this rule, but they are fairly rare. Very few of the german-style games in Germany are even substantially over an hour. I think hobby gamers, myself included, often prefer the longer and deeper games. However such games are pretty atypical for the genre. Maybe the wording should toned down a bit though. Something like "unusual" instead of "rarely". Rdore 15:03, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It depends on how they are played.  If they are played with little communication and lots of dice rolling, they go quickly.  If they are played like a game of Diplomacy there can be endless haggling rounds.  Mathiastck 00:26, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Time Length 

message: This article emphasizes the skill component of these games, and suggests they tend to involve almost zero luck. I think this is misleading, and shows a bias towards what American enthusiasts of the games prefer. Usually "german games" refers more to games that have (some of which are mentioned):
* High player interaction. The idea is that gaming is a social activity.
* No player elimination and minimal downtime. In the same vein, the goal is to keep everyone interested and involved. Trading and/or quick rotation of player turns is common.
* Quick to play and/or hidden scoring. Similarly, it's no fun for players to be sitting in a clearly losing position for several hours.
* Novel, but simple rules. The game should be fairly clever and unique, but quick to teach.
* Minimize direct conflict. This isn't a hard and fast rule, but the games usually have players reaching for some goal, and interacting through eachother by trading, competing for limitted resources, etc., rather than direct battles. It has been suggested that this is a strong anti-military conflict attitude in Germany after WW2.
* Highly variable setup or postioning. The game should keep being interested and different for many games. Usually there is at least some sort of randomness used here.
These games have become popular in other places because people are looking for more interesting games than the stuff you can buy in Toys R Us. And this usually means they gravitate towards the more heavy, and deeply strategic games. (Although anybody likes a game if it's just plain fun!) Take a look at the winners of the Spiel_des_Jahres award, usually considered the most prestigious award for such games. Popular heavier games such as Puerto Rico, Tigris and Euphrates, and Princes of Florence are all missing from this list. Related to that, I think "They usually finish in less than 2 hours" is a huge overstatement. It is very rare that a game in this genre is designed to take more than 90 minutes. Of course, if you play with player who spend a lot of time thinking out there moves, these targets can be exceeded. Rdore
: I agree with most of what you say here. We should of course include characteristics of both games that are 'heavier' and ones that aren't. Of course, this is a wiki, so feel free to change whatever you think needs changing. As I said above under "Time Length", I thought that 2 hours was too long as well, and reduced it to 45 to 90 minutes. It was changed back recently, so it may take a while to get some consensus on that point, at least. --Millsdavid 00:45, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Skill Emphasis? 

message: :Plenty of the games are designed and published in such places as France, The Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. In other markets, such as in the United States, they remain largely at niche status.
If there is a dichotomy to be drawn here, I doubt very much that all the countries have been placed on the right side of it.  In particular, I defy anyone to name a single aspect of the UK designer-game market which is better than the US one (except that the shipping from Germany is cheaper).  In my experience the UK gets nothing but a few imports of English-language editions of German or US publishers—and often pays a premium for importing them from the US.
For that matter, can anyone substantiate the claim that the situation in France is any better?  —Blotwell 08:37, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It definately is a lot better in Belgium and the Netherlands. I know of several stores which have in stock virtually any German-style game that was published in the last decade. Wouter Lievens 19:36, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Game market in various countries 

message: I don't like this section much at all. First it makes very strong claims about how influential German games have been on games in general. I'm not sure if this is true at all outside of other hobby gaming spheres (wargames, collectable card games, etc). And even in other types of hobby gaming I think the suggested level of influence is too strong.
Secondly, it talks a lot about magic in a very vague way. All I could really get out of reading it was Magic came out after this, wasn't well balanced, and there's a lot of luck in shuffling. I don't really see the point of saying any of that in this article.
I'm certainly not opposed to discussing influences German games may have had on other genres, but to be honest I'm quite skeptical about how much that has even occured. Rdore 00:33, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  value of "Influence over related genres" section 

message: I don't think you should say that German-Style games have simple rules, learning to play El Grande or Carcasonne or Domaine took me a bit longer than learning Monopoly or Risk, which have trivial rules. Wouter Lievens 18:38, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I stand by declarign German-Style board games to have simple_rules.  Learning a good strategy that can lead to victory is very different then learning the rules.  You are saying Carcasonne has more complicated rules then Risk?  Mathiastck 14:07, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Simple Rules? =

message: Although the article doesn't actually say so, the reader will be tempted to assume that the games listed here are all "German" games, but some of them clearly are not.  I like Twixt, but surely it is about as un-German as a game can be. Iglew 05:58, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that list is definitely in need of some cleaning up anyway. Go ahead, be bold. Rdore 15:09, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of Designers 

message: This move request has been open for a long time, and for better or for worse, I have to call it no consensus.  I have archived the move discussion here, and restored the rest of the talk page contents above.  Mangojuicetalk 15:07, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've put a notice in at the top, so this doesn't crop up again too soon. Percy Snoodle 15:46, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move request 

message: Are you sure it 'quickly sold millions'? is there a citation for this?
I went to the '1 millionth' party at Spiel in Essen 2003
I hardly call that quickly, and still doubt that it's reached the 2,000,000 mark yet
chrisboote 13:52, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's doing pretty well online too.  Mathiastck 14:08, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Settler's sales