Game mechanics - board & war

[scalydemon]

Just wanted to start a thread on this subject as it interests me and hopefully others.

Feel free to chime in on any opinions or thoughts relating to individual boardgame or wargame mechanics.


I'll start

I have been playing different euro style board games more frequently of late. Many of them seem to break you down from a mechanic standpoint of having 3 or 4 limited choices when it gets to be your turn, ie. take card, take money, take gems, or take other action.
I think they do this to make the games easy to learn and approachable by the non gamer masses. They also seem to mainly take a basic set of mechanics and bake or wrap some type of theme around it. I have fun playing these types of games (not ripping on them), this is just an observation from playing quite a few of them lately. A lot of them fit this basic mold.

Probably why overall I prefer hex & chit style wargames over these games if I can get the game to the table. The choices don't seem as constrained..

Please feel free to chime in on this specific topic - or discuss a different mechanic type thought

[Deleted]

That is a deliberate design feature of "Euro" games. They are intended to be played by a wide range of ages, at once, and to finish in less than two hours.

[skars]

Many of the game mechanics used in Eurogames originated in earlier games and have just been regurgitated with high production value pieces and rules organized to be read at the table much like family games used to have the rules just printed on the top of the box. Some of the common mechanics are:

1. Bidding
2. Area Control
3. Resource Management
4. Worker Placement
5. Hand Management
6. Set Collection
7. Tile Placement
8. Cooperative play
9. Drafting
10. City Building

My favorite game mechanic is Chit-pull, commonplace in hex and counter wargames after '99 or so (certainly used before but much more prevalent in the 2000s) and it not only improves solitaire suitability but it also can really help with replay value as no two battles will play out the same.

[scalydemon]

Nice list/breakdown of the common boardgame mechanic types.
I have never tried a 'worker placement' game, I believe Agricola is a popular one.
I have minimal experience with bidding games, though I did buy a copy of 'Ra' it has yet to reach the table.

Wargames:
I also am a big fan of chit draw. In most games I have played with this it involves an 'operations phase'. It seems to help eliminate the 'hi-go, yu-go' redundancy.

I also like what little I have played of wargames that involve cards in some way, or are card driven.

I also like when the rules include some type of fog of war mechanic or imperfect information being simulated. Using blocks instead of chits is an easy one for this.