Talk:Eurogame/Archive 1

Archive 1

Citadels link

I note that the Citadels link points to a page that is halfway to being a disambiguation page, which does not contain a mention of the "German board game" Citadels (which is actually more of a card game, but definitely German-style in the sense of this article). Should the link be moved to Citadels_(game), or perhaps Citadels (card game) given some of the other content on the current Citadels page? --AlexChurchill 14:11, Jun 14, 2004 (UTC)

Too American-centred?

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)

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)

Time Length

"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)

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)

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)

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)

Re-titling

In Germany, this style of boardgame is called "author game" (autorenspiel), or more appropriately "designer game", because they are developed with a design-related aesthetic. I think this may be a more appropriate title than "German-style". Morgenstraße 21:42, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

At least here in America these games are most commonly known as german-style board games, I've never heard them referred to as "author games", and i've played a long time. I also think it is Wiki policy to keep articles in the place where people would most likely look for them. I.E. the article for hobo spider isn't just titled Tengenaria agrestis, because most people aren't going to search for its binomial classification. Perhaps a redirect from Author game to this article, but I couldn't vote for moving the entire article... --Fxer 00:03, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Second thought: since "author game" is a mere translate, not a phrase with any real cultural currency in English, I tend to agree with you. "Designer game" might be better.

What term would be best would be one that actually describes, succinctly, for a person not familiar with these games, what kinds of games they are, and why they are nothing like what most Americans think of when they hear the words "board game". Morgenstraße 01:19, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

I would have to agree with Fxer, in my experience "German-style" is the most common description of these games. I don't think the term is misleading. On the other hand, I'm not sure most people involved in board games know what a "designer game" is - I do agree that a redirect would be good. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names). --Millsdavid 04:12, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Most people don't bother including the word "style" in there. It's just "German board game". Or just "German game", since the genre includes many card games that lack a board (e.g. Bohnanza and Citades). If you're including the word style, it's because you're already worried about style and technical correctness. In such a case, it would probably be better to just use "Designer Game", which I've heard many more times than "German-style game". Rdore

You have a point. Certainly, we should get rid of the word 'board'. --Millsdavid 00:33, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

I resigned myself to the fact that this page may need to be moved to another title. I've reverted the messy cut and paste move though (it's best to move pages using the 'move' tab because it preserves the history of the page). To move the page to "German game" might require an admin's assistance because the edit history is now non-trivial (I'm only guessing because I haven't tried). It could be listed at Wikipedia:Requested moves for that.

By the way, I'm not necessarily endorsing "German game" as the title. I can see the value of moving the page to "German game" or "Designer game" but I also see the value of keeping it where it is. It's not a huge issue, I guess. It's just a shame that there's no clear option (as I see it). --Millsdavid 09:14, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Eh, I don't care that much about the title. Sorry I didn't realize the proper way to move an article. In any case I do want to add the revisions I made at the other location, since I spent more time on that, and consider it more important anyway. Especially it seemed disorganized - it basically had two different sections listing game designers for example. Rdore

Nice work on the big cleanup/reorganization job, the changes make the article much better! --Fxer 21:04, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

I like "German" being somewhere in the title. I'm a gamer, so I already know what a "German" game is. I use this page to explain the term to friends who aren't familiar with gamer jargon. Iglew 06:00, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

My own opinion is that it should just be "German game" but I don't know if it's worth squabbling over much in any case. "Designer game" is a more accurate description in my opinion, but it is somewhat less popular. Rdore 15:05, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

My preference is for Designer game. I've also seen "Eurogame" used increasingly, especially on the 'geek. Percy Snoodle 12:05, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd vote strongly against Designer game, a term I have rarely seen in print (an have never heard) in over 20 years of play. "Eurogame" is, on the other hand, a term that is used just about as frequently as "German game", and is indeed used increasingly. All in all though, I can't see a compelling reason the retitle. AmbientArchitecture 14:02, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Being an author of these games, and not german, I am more and more biased against "german games", which seems to imply, well, that they're all german, and is less and less used. german-style games is better, since indeed this style of game originated from Germany, but Eurogames, or even better Euro-style games, sounds even better to me. Designer games, why not, but it doesn't give a clue as to what they are exactly.Bruno faidutti 15:14, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Another vote for Eurogame. Although many of these kinds of games come from Germany, quite a few of them don't. They are primarily European, however, and contrast markedly to American style games like Monopoly and wargames. I don't think "board" should be in the title, for the reasons already mentioned. --Jcbutler 19:58, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Skill Emphasis?

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)

Game market in various countries

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)

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)

value of "Influence over related genres" section

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)

Simple Rules? =

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)

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)

List of Designers

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)

I think that list is definitely in need of some cleaning up anyway. Go ahead, be bold. Rdore 15:09, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Another Try at Characterizing German Games

I considered editing the article: "be bold" but "don't be reckless". For now, I think I'll just suggest things to those who have invested a lot of time in the article.

First, I object to "board games". Settlers of Catan can be argued as a variable board, but Carcassonne is more akin to dominos, as is Alhambra. Puerto Rico has playing mats, but these are not boards in the traditional sense: the city and plantations could be equally represented as a tableau of 1-12 cards/pieces/chits each with cards/markers representing colonists. I suggest "Euro Game" or "Designer Game" as the base article (since the trend is expanding from Germany), though German Board Game should link to that article.

I think in characterizing German Games it's important to say what they're not and to relate them to the most popular existing games, ideally to traditional games that provide cross-cultural references, like chess. Here's my stab at defining them:

Euro games are by their nature hetrogenous, but as far as generalities can be made about such a huge and diverse number of games, generally:

• They do not have a fixed number of players like chess or bridge (though two-player exceptions exist); six player games are somewhat rare (or they require expansions, such as Catan or Carcassonne).
• Each each player plays for himself.
• They use a wide variety of mechanics, many innovative, and tend to avoid commonly used mechanics like rolling dice and moving, capture, or trick taking. [Or, do they commonly use a German game family of mechanics? "Buy and place" is a very common mechanic: Catan, Puerto Rico, Princes of Florence, maybe Torres.]
• While economic themes and mechanics are common, direct accumulation of wealth as a game goal is not.
• Combat themes are uncommon and player conflict is often indirect, as in competing for a scarce resource.
• If a game has a board, the board is usually irregular rather than uniform or symetric (like Risk instead of chess or Scrabble); the board is often random (like Settlers of Catan) or has random elements (like Tikal).
• They have a theme instead of being abstract, like Monopoly, not like go or backgammon.
• While they often have a simulation-like theme, they do not attempt to simulate, like kriegspielen (war games), Risk, or Monopoly.
• They are designed for international audiences, so they are not word games and usually do not contain much text outside of the rules.
• Numbers are usually small, often under ten, and the math is trivial.
• The random elements do not usually dominate the game: bridge and backgammon have more randomness than all but a few German games. [Catan comes to mind as a high-randomness game; since it is so well-known, I think varying randomness needs to be acknowledged. The author would be happy to play backgammon with anyone who thinks it's a random game--for money. :) ]
• The statement that bridge and backgammon are more dominated by random elements than German-style games is completely erroneous; I have removed it from the main article. If a game is dominated by random elements, one would expect those elements to determine the winners more than in a game dominated by strategic decisions. Look at the winners of the most prestiguous bridge championships, and you will see the same players win consistently. Look at the results of the World Boardgaming Championships in German-style games, and you will rarely see the same names. This is true despite the fact that the fields are much larger at the Bridge championships than at the WBC, and the fields are self-selected to be stronger at the bridge event. Most people who go to the Bridge Nationals don't even bother to play in the championship events, because they know they would have no chance, while at the WBC, the championships include many casual players. I've also played world champions at both backgammon and many German-style games, and I defeat the champions at the German-style games much more often, despite the fact that I have made a far greater effort to improve my skill at backgammon. The random elements do not dominate bridge and backgammon, and those who think they do are just unskilled players incorrectly blaming their losses on luck. Andylatto 19:12, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't disagree with what you're saying. Perhaps the problem is with the way the article is worded. The ideas is simply that luck is a big element in games like Bride and Backgammon even though, as you state, skill is generally the determining factor in victory. The point is that part of the skill is about overcoming luck: in fact, it's partly the luck element that makes them skillful games that are difficult to master. In many German-style games, luck is simply not a factor. You also make another observation that I think is worth incorporating into the article: German-style games, generally do not have a steep skill learning curve. Unlike games like Go or Bridge, you can "get good" at a German-style game without much practice. This is, in fact, part of their appeal: they can be quickly and reliably mastered by players with the right mindset. -- AmbientArchitecture 20:13, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

There are a few German-style games with no luck factor, but this is quite rare. There are also many, many, such games with a much larger luck factor than bridge or backgammon. Of all the deal-out-the-deck-and-play-cards sort of games I know, which include many popular games generally considered to be in the category of German-style games (Sticheln, Tichu, Foppen, Was Sticht? etc.), there's no question in my mind that Bridge is the least "dominated by luck" of any of them. You say in your explanation of the reversion that "original statement was correct; skill in both games only reliably influneces outcomes after a large number of plays)", but this is untrue; If I play 3 hours of bridge against the world champions, I would lose 999 times out of a thousand; if I played 3 hours of Princes of Florence against the world champion, I would win at least one time in 5. And Princes of Florence is generally considered to be one of the less luck-dominated of German games, and is one of the few where the same person has won the WBC championship more than once. Of the 18 competitive German-style games mentioned in this article, I think that, conservatively, at least 13 of them are more dominated by luck than bridge. I continue to think that the characterization of german games as less luck-dominated than bridge is completely inaccurate, and have removed it.

What are your qualifications for judging the relative luck-domination of Bridge and German-style games? I've played a fair amount of both Bridge and German-style games with several German-style-game world champions, and with bridge players who have won the US championship. And both agree with me that bridge is less luck-dominated than the vast majority of German games they have played. Casual players of games often overestimate the role that luck plays in determining the outcome.Andylatto 18:09, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Though I can't follow your logic above, your changes makes sense. There's no reason to single out Bridge and Backgammon as the older version did because that clearly resulted in confusion about the message being conveyed. Your changes are closer to the truth. -- AmbientArchitecture 19:28, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

• While rules are light to moderate (rarely as complex as chess), they have depth of play, usually requiring a shift of tactics through the game and often with a chess- or backgammon-like opening game, mid game, and end game. [I don't think "simple" can be applied to Puerto Rico, Princes of Florence, and many others in the genre.]
• Great care is taken with the look and feel of the game. They commonly have wooden pieces.

Your suggestions sound pretty good. I would say go ahead and edit the article, and if someone feels passionately about a particular part more discussion can ensue. One thing, though, is that this article is already too list laden already. It would be better if you incorporated it in a prose type format. Rdore 19:44, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

I feel like the dog who caught the car. :) Some notes: I didn't include no player elimination, a direct example being the Italian(?) card game Bang! and an indirect example being Settlers, where a player can be effectively eliminated by heming him in. "Heavy interaction" is a judgement call; I'd say Risk is heavy interaction, and few German games have that direct interaction. I dropped the minimum time to 1/2 hour; I regularly play Carcassonne that quickly, though with some players tic-tac-toe seemingly requires long pauses for tactical analysis ;). I didn't think "mechanics over theme" was justified considering the various Catans that reuse the same basic mechanics; German designers are as prone to milking a cash cow as anyone else it seems. Prices would have to be constantly updated, and exceptions exist on the low end for card games and at the upper end: Starfarers of Catan and the US$300 Catan anniversary set come to mind; in any case, the article mentions a number of German games and prices are readily available on the internet, via the linked Board Game Geek, for example. Prose as requested: it probably needs a proofread.

Don't get too hung up about the exact definition of the word "board game". It doesn't necessarily literally mean a game with a solid board; it's more of a genre title to, say, distinguish it from videogames. I own Carcassonne and have played Settlers of Catan a lot and we all agree they are "board games" despite having no single static board. --Cyde Weys 00:41, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I would distinguish "manual games" from "video games". Within manual games, I would distinguish card games (like San Juan), dice games (like [Call My] Bluff by Ravenburger), tiling games, and board games--at least. My concern is not primarily taxonomy, but whether we are confusing the reader.

Ok for definitions clear to a reader, think of your school days. Sports. Video games. Card games. Dice games. Board games. eg to most people Mah Jong was something played by either a "board game" club or a "card game" club until you got really specific, or a really general "indoor game club". Eurogames are almost always "board games", even if there is no board. Anybody who is going to mention "tile" in conjunction with "game" is already pretty close to the hobby space. --61.68.61.239 08:11, 1 July 2006 (UTC) Joe Grundy

ps Settlers of Catan has a non-trivial random element, but I assert that like backgammon (which I also play) the skilled player usually wins. Somewhere there was a mention of shutout in Settlers, but personally I've won a number of times only having built one additional road and settlement. I don't think Settlers is a great counter-example for either phenomenon.

What's a "German game"?

I don't quite agree with the definition given in the article, but perhaps I'm mistaken. The article, among other things, states:

• a huge and diverse group of games'
• usually designed as a vehicle to underpin a social gathering

This may apply when considering all games from Germany with credited authors, but I'm used to see "German Games" as a more specific term, also implying certain aspects of game mechanism

1. competition for resources
2. auctions
3. map

In exchange for #2 or #3 missing, the resource handling may be very diverse and/or multi-step, like in Puerto Rico.

I'd like to hear some more comments on this.

Another point: While rules are light to moderate (rarely as complex as chess). Come on, the rules of chess are easy, only mastering the game is complicated. I know many German Games which have far more complicated rules (O.K., not as epic as classical Avalon Hill war game, but compared to chess).

Pjacobi 17:32, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't think any of those three is a requirement at all. I can easily think of a half dozen examples that break each of those categories, and which I would definitely call german games. On the chess thing, I agree that statement is a too strong. (But you might be underestimating the rules of chess a little bit - things like how pawns move including en passant, castling, and various ways of drawing.) Rdore 19:42, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I wrote much of the current definition. I disagree with your three elements. Competition for resources can be thought of as nearly universal (competing for squares in tic-tac-toe), so it really isn't good as part of a definition: it's like a dictionary starting out by saying, "It's a word...." PR has neither auctions nor a map--a map implies position is significant, and positions are not significant on PR playing mats. Many games have neither auctions or maps, or only one; and games like Alhambra and Carcassonne which have map-like graphics are arguably domino mechanisms--dominos would be considered a map only in an arcane mathematical sense.

You have a point with your comment on chess. My intent was to compare German game complexity with the most commonly known complex board game. In addition to Rdore's comment on special cases, let me add that chess seems less complex because we've all known it since childhood. I will definitely agree that PR and Caylus are more complex than chess, but they are exceptionally complex. I think a lot of game complexity depends on how many rules must be memorized: most German games are very good about reducing memorization by use of rules put on pieces, tiles, or cheat sheets. But fundamentally, it would come down to a census of all German-style games. Only PR and Caylus come immediately to mind as definitely more complex than Chess, while the Catans, Carcassonnes, Ticket to Rides and Empire Builders (several games each), Bluff (FX Schmitt), Bang!, Torres, Tikal and others come to mind as less complex than chess. This is a subjective evaluation, admittedly. Another factor is, are we talking about number of games created, number of games sold, or number of games played? Especially the last will weight heavily to the lighter, shorter games. A final point: the target reader of this article is someone not experienced in German-style games--his introduciton to German-style games is very likely to be a game less complex than chess. Thus, I will argue for keeping the current wording on the basis of utility to the target audience.

PS: Spiel des Jahres nominees have just been announced, along with a special award to Caylus, the complex game award. SdJ seems to feel that Caylus is a very good game, but too complex to compete against usual German-style games. The point is that exceptionally complex games like Caylus and Puerto Rico, though excellent and very popular on BGG, should not bias the discussion of the broad range of German games: they're outliers on the bell-curve of German-style game complexity.

Still, it only takes a person a few minutes at most to explain the rules of chess. They can be written down in like 10 lines, a half sheet of paper would do. You can't do that for even the simpler German-style games, such as Catan. Perhaps Fjord is as simple as chess, but it's on the other side of your curve :-) Wouter Lievens 21:50, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

There's no way you could get the rules of chess in 10 lines. You need to describe how all the pieces move, including blocking. You need to mention how pawns move, including first move, caputring, en passant, and promotion. You need to describe castling and all the restrictions. You need to cover how you can't put yourself in check. You need endgame rules, including repeated postions, the 50-move rule (and when it's extended), stalemate, and insufficient material to checkmate. The rules of Carcasonne certainly aren't any more complicated than that. Rdore 20:49, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Including the rules for castling through threatened spaces, castling with a moved rook (you can't), en passant, pawn promotion, the criteria for a involuntarily drawn game et cetera? I doubt those can be written precisely and tutorially in ten lines. It's one thing to teach interactively, another to create a cheat sheet, and still another to write a clear but comprehensive tutorial.

But the practical, writing question remains, if not chess, then what other complex game is widely known enough for comparison? Or would you prefer treating the whole game, "German games are far simpler than chess"? I feel strongly it would be a positive harm to the target audience of the article (see above) to imply that German games generally have anything close to the complexity of chess.

Joe Grundy comments: I agree most eurogames have rules more complex than chess. But not a whole lot more complex. What the eurogame group shares as a whole though is that unlike chess you can launch into your first sitting of most "euros" and have a sense of objective and structure that's absent in most pure abstract games and buried in most complex wargames. In this sense, sorry to blaspheme, monopoly is a "eurogame". Where monopoly misses out on the classification is the huge influence of luck over skill, the lack of balance, the lack of real choices, and the literal presence of "roll and move". (There are very few sequential boards in eurogames.) ie Monopoly lacks the range of choices to allow style and significant skill at the game. Some eurogames do indeed have the potential depth of chess, and almost all have more than monopoly. btw I don't think having Spiel des Jahres considering Caylus as too complex for their recommendation is really part of the definition of a "eurogame". They are a body recommending games for general consumption amongst a particular community much as a game like Cranium can win choice awards for being well designed for a particular community. Spiel des Jahres are not an arbiter of use of Engligh language.

In one sense the question is largely whether the whole article is about games as played in Germany, or is it about a gaming style which has massively expanded over the globe in the last twenty years?

As for a commonly known game of similar complexity... "Risk" made it into rock music so there must be a vague handle on it. Personally I never played it so it wouldn't have helped me. The article might have to give up on looking for a direct similarity and position eurogames as being more strategic than monopoly, more colourful and accessible than chess.

This discussion seems to me to be moving in the direction of synthesizing an interpretation of why various games are considered "German style," i.e. original research.. Rather than try to work it out here, I suggest an enterprising volunteer find an analysis of the question that they can cite. The autorenspiel movement is vital enough that there must be a variety of these out there. Yeah, I know, I should do it myself. Feel free to beat me to it. --Stellmach 17:13, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Move request

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. Mangojuice^talk 15:07, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

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)

Settler's sales

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)

It's doing pretty well online too. Mathiastck 14:08, 6 October 2006 (UTC)