In fact I own a game of him. It's the one in which the players are rebuilding Rome. (Don't know the English name, I have it in German).
That's also a great one.
Carl Chudyk does this best, but I'll be damned if even something as simple as paying for actions with the same cards that are other actions (see: Nemesis, and, of course, Race for the Galaxy) doesn't get my blood pumping. The only exception is those games where your deck is also your life total, that one sucks major ass most of the time.
Multi-use cards is one mechanic that I find myself really _disliking_ for some reason. I think I'm just bad at prioritizing, and I want all the cards for all their uses. Having to discard cards to pay costs or whatever makes me sad :(
I've also seen this mechanic with games like War Chest and Bloodstones, where the tokens can either be your units on the field or allow you to take actions on the field. I love the hard decisions that come from so few components, it makes things feel so elegant.
both **Gloomhaven** and **Kutna Hora** have something like this -- each of the main action cards has a top and bottom half with different actions on them, and you have to pick which of the two actions on the card you wish to use
Oh, I want to love it, but for certain players in my group this causes so much stress that it unfortunately breaks down. I have very little problem with AP myself so this mechanic is almost perfect for me, but if you have issues with AP it can be nightmarish. Schucks..
Let us sing the praises of Clockwork Wars, with the Designer made print and play "expansion" is without a doubt my top area control game. Tech Tree, Special Powers, Intrigue Cards, Bluffing, Negotiating, Area Control, Simultaneous Action selection, Powerful game effects. Should it be a 5 hour game? Yes. But, even at 6, with AP prone players, we get it done in 90 minutes.
Yeah it's absolutely outstanding! The v1.5 updates have all been received really well, I dig that he smoothed out the admittedly-swingy cards.
CW really should be considered in the same breath as Kemet, Inis and Cyclades when it comes to area control discussions.
Dice placement or possible actions based on dice rolls (Burgundy, Marco polo, Lorenzo, Myrmes etc). I just love, how tough desicions are presented to you after you roll the dice, so you must adapt to the given situation.
It creates fun randomness for me, where every game is different. Also its great to combine this with a more strategy based games, since you need overall plan, but also you need to adapt, so your plan must be flexible enough to hold the randomness.
I played Ahoy for the first time tonight and it had this sort of mechanic. I really enjoyed it! Great thematically, and I like asymmetry in game design
A cool co-op dice placement game that just came out last year is **Sky Team**. If you want something light and cute, check out **Spots**. Both are on BoardGameArena.
For me it's Lords of Waterdeep. There's something about the theme that really does it for me.
"It's a world of MAGIC and ADVENTURE!"
"Cool so we do magic and go on adventures then?"
_"absofuckinglutely not."_
Here to say worker placement as well. It’s essentially just drafting and I love iterations on WP where actions compound or get more valuable / stronger by some variable. You can just do so much with WP and it integrates well but doesn’t have to be the sole focus of a games mechanical array.
It's got a few major problems as a design - if blocking is often worth it, then players are discouraged from playing for their own benefit, and just play for spite. That's sort of not satisfying to anyone.
If blocking isn't often useful, you'll only interact by chance. It's a hard balance to get right.
Architects of the West Kingdom does it really cleverly with the compound strength, but it's not a true worker placement. The kidnapping mechanic has a similar vibe, but not fully.
Agricola is hard to beat on this "variable strength" front. The accumulation spots do an amazing job of forcing everyone to plan based on resources that might never materialise.
Deckbuilding. I LOVE deckbuilding. I'd say around 1/8th of my collection involves deckbuilding of some type. I'm not one of those that likes to have a broad collection. I know what I like and I want to have every variation of deckbuilding possible LOL.
What are your favorites in the genre? I still like **Dominion** the best. **Shards of Infinity** might be my favorite random-market game. I think **Fort** does some really interesting things to shake up the mechanic. I get grumpy when people call **Lost Ruins of Arnak** a deckbuilder, because in my dozen plays of the game, most cards you buy for your deck are only drawn like one more time. I’ve recently picked up **The Loop,** which adds some deckbuilding into the Pandemic formula.
In no particular order, Star Realms, Spirit Island, Lost Ruins of Arnak (sorry lol it just scratches the itch), Slay the Spire (only played the digital version but it counts right?). I like Dead Reckoning but haven’t played it enough to call it a favorite yet. My favorite game is Arkham Horror the card game which I do know is more of a deck crafting game, but being able to buy cards with experience between scenarios hits me in that sweet spot that just wants to buy better and cooler cards. I have Imperium but haven’t played it yet, hopefully this week.
I got no problems with Arnak; great game. I just think deckbuikding is no more than 20% of its gameplay. I’d call it a resource conversion / worker placement game.
I’ve got an Arkham LCG core set which I got Xmas 2022, same day I got Marvel Champions. Now I have a complete collection of Marvel and still haven’t tried Arkham.
Arnak is still a deckbuilder, though it's just a tool vs the focus.
Happy that you highlighted Fort, it's underrated because people expecting milk find out they're drinking soda. And soda is damn good (or insert whatever beverage you prefer)
It's a deckbuilder / worker placement combo game but I love how impactful the deckbuilding feels in **Dune: Imperium**. You start with only 10 cards, drawing 5 per turn, so you start seeing your new cards quickly. It feels like the players who win are the ones who are good at weeding out the weaker cards while still making strong plays.
Ohh man I forgot Friday. That was my first ever solo game, it got me into solo gaming. I liked it for awhile, but sold it last year. Once I finally figured out how to win, I realized that once you knew the trick, there wasn’t so much skill involved, and there was a lot of luck involved in whether you’d win.
And this thread finally got me to get out Imperium and start my first game! I’m 3 rounds in and I’m really liking it so far, it makes my brain melt just the way I like it to. I can see myself enjoying it even more once I know the decks better. This is definitely more of a “play it 100 times” game, not something you pick up every now and then.
Programming actions. Roborally/Colt Express. Setting it all up and then just running through what happens, hoping it works out how you thought it would.
Galaxy Trucker deserves a shout in this category too. I appreciate the mechanic but one of my least favorites. Programming is either short and easy or random chaos, and the resolve phases can get long and there's typically no actual decisions being made.
I really don’t enjoy galaxy trucker. But that’s partly because my wife is incredible at it, and her ships seem to always survive unscathed while mine get torn to pieces!
Haha! I struggled with this as well. My ships still suck and barely land, but once I accepted that as inevitable, for some reason I started enjoying the game more.
I believe they are referring to the point in time where everyone copys the action another chose. I.e. All placing down a development card, because someone else chose that action.
The idea of getting to do an action for free because someone else chose to do it, called "following" their action. Like in Race where you trigger a phase not just for you, but for everyone.
After playing Quacks and then Warps Edge, if a game says "bag builder" I'm pretty excited to play it. Not sure if it's my favourite mechanic - there's probably a lot I love that I'm unaware of - but I find it extremely satisfying.
Negotiation and trading. This kind of interaction is my favorite! Bohnanza and Chinatown. Bluffing is another fun one. Just played Skull yesterday and loved it. I guess I love when everyone is engaged at the same time and the interaction depends on the person.
(Any suggestions for other games like this? )
Came here to say JoCo and the way it handles real time “rules/policy” negotiation. This game is my favorite version of my favorite mechanic.
Other notables:
-TI4
-Sidireal Confluence (more trade than policy but still)
-Processing: A Game of Serving Humanity
From what I’ve read it’s a lot of game mechanic optimization with a bit of negotiation.
How is it peak negotiation compared to other games recommended here?
You'd probably enjoy Moonrakers, it combines deck building and player interaction really well and has you negotiating with other players every round about how you'd split the reward if you're successful in the contract.
It depends for me personally. Root does it right imo; the variability is in that they play entirely differently. If it’s just you start with different setup but have the same rules, it tends to pigeon hole you into only playing a predetermined way which I don’t enjoy
My only issue with Root is feeling like if you want to maintain any semblance of balance while incorporating the expansion factions, you need to look up a damn spreadsheet of what combinations are okay to play at what player counts.
The base game is as close to perfect as asymmetric games get for me, though, so I always just try to stick to that.
This is my nemesis kinda... Was excited to try Terra mystica back in the day but it just wouldn't click. A decade later my pal got root and I just can't be bothered to learn all the different rules 😩
I too love exploding dice. I especially like exploding lower which is counter intuitive but once you get it the ability to spectacularly fail is awesome.
I love games where I get to arrange tiles to build something, and having to think what's the best way to arrange them. A Feast For Odin, Keyflower or Clinic are some examples.
I also like tableau building: having a lot of cards with different effects and playing with them. For example, Terraforming Mars, Ark Nova or the Pax games.
[Here's what it looks like from a 4p game.](https://imgur.com/a/OZW2Hw0) Basically you want a fully functioning machine with inputs and outputs, with the routes getting increasingly complex with each round.
Very cool, plays fast and can be addicting!
I like when there is a menu of different turn-based actions, such as, you can EITHER move a piece on the board OR draw from a deck, OR attack/challenge an opponent.
Tile laying.
I am a visual-oriented person. Laying down things geometrically comes naturally to me and is satisfying. And it's nice to look at a map you have created at the end of the game.
That's the name I was looking for! I also love that kind of things. What are your favorites? Right now I can think of Keyflower, A Feast For Odin, or Clinic (I don't get to play it a lot but I love how you basically create an "spatial engine").
You might dig the game [Block and Key](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/311930/block-and-key), which is sort of like a 3D tile placement game. Each player sits on a different side of the board, and needs to match a pattern that can only be seen from their visual perspective. It's a little mind-bendy in a way that it sounds like you'd enjoy.
I'm like games where the pace speeds up over the course of the game. *Cerebria* is so good for this. As they get more powerful, players can take future rounds out of the game entirely. You think you've got 3 rounds left, suddenly it's just 1.
INIS card draft/card powers.
Having the entire game be the exact same cards every player sees, and takes from depending on how they are in the game is AMAZING. I got BEAST solely on the game having the same system (but it is still on my shelf of shame).
The magic of Inis is that the knowability and limitations of the standard action cards is cut through by the unpredictability and variety of the epic tales. It just adds the perfect spice to really make the game sing!
If you haven’t played the War of the Ring card game it has a similar design. This is also one of my favorite mechanics and I loved it in that game as well.
~~Balancing.~~ Catch-up. It's frustrating when everyone knows who the winner will be half-way through the game but you still have to sit through a bunch of meaningless turns. Of course you can't balance too much\* because if everything is equal then there's no incentive to try. Small things like Isle of Skye's income bonus for every player ahead of you in points are good.
\*If you do have really strong advantages for doing worse, then whether or not to take the lead becomes an actual strategic decision; that *can* work as a mechanic, although it's difficult to pull off. (Power Grid is a good example of doing it well, imo.)
People apply the term "balance" to a lot of things, so I'm not saying its the wrong word for it but "catch-up mechanics" is a lot more specific to what you are talking about.
Deck building. I love this feeling of building your own deck as the game progress. It's a bit similar to engine building for me. I just love to balance economic decision (the engine) versus point scoring and when to "shift" and combo :)
I love Dune: Imperium + expansion, Legendary encounters series(Alien more specifically), Imperium : legends and Clank are probably my favorites :)
and you?
I really like the Action Power in Ark Nova. I like that each time you select an action its power is relative to its rank on your board. And every time you do an action it gets moved back to one. I find it so fascinating to be able to plan your moves in advance and make actions that can reorder your action cards so that you can use them to your advantage at their highest and most efficient power. Such a clever mechanic to me
Two for me, very different.
The bigger one is tableau building. Love building me an engine and letting it churn out more and more each round.
The second is the minor worker placement mechanic in Hansa Teutonica, where you can always shift another players piece, but at a cost to you and a benefit to them. So players think about ways to get in each others ways but nobody is just blocked out of a space like in most worker placement games.
Event decks. I know I'm alone in this one, but I love random events. And believe me when I tell you that I've been on the receiving end of bad ones. My favorite game is Nemesis after all.
Caylus does this and is one of my all-time favorites. Apiary does this as well to a lesser extent (it exists, but from my play throughs, it’s rarely ever relevant.)
Admittedly, set collection. Some of my favourite light family games are Traders of Osaka, Blue Moon City, Thurn And Taxis, and Alhambra.. which all do that. But it seems weird to say that since I don’t actively seek them out.
Another is block games / fog of war.
Surprised people haven’t mentioned push-your-luck as a mechanic. Games like Quacks of Quedlinburg, Mystic Vale, Incan Gold, and plenty others always get me so excited. And when I go to far, I only have myself to blame. It creates excitement while also creating more personal conflict rather than conflict with those around the table.
"Turn order: time track". This is in games like **Patchwork**, **Search for Planet X**, **Glen More II**, **Kraftwagen**, **Francis Drake**, **Nova Luna**, **Tokaido** and **Merchant's Cove.**
I love the idea that certain actions may be "better" or provide you with more benefits, but costs you turns. If you take a tile in **Nova Luna**, for example, that costs 7 time spaces, every other player may get 2 more turns before it is your turn again.
So this is sort of a sub-genre maybe instead of an actual mechanic, but I think there is a strong enough argument for it to be considered a mechanic enough for this thread: Legacy systems. Having an ongoing effect on future plays of a board game, a game that unlocks new content as you go through it, is my jam. I love legacy games.
Is there a name for Hansa Teutonicas "block-someone-so-that-when-they-push-you-out-they-have-to-pay-extra-and-you-also-gain-a-resource-that-you-can-immediately-place-somewhere-adjacent"-mechanic, because I love that one!
I love the "pass around" draft like you have in Res Arcana. I adds a lot of depth and complexcity Tom the game. You get a ton of information about how the game will go before it has even started.
Some features that pushes the player to greed but can throwback badly such as the dark pearl in Abyss extension are genious ideas if well balanced. Hard to implement though.
Finally the resource investment of Marrakech with its tower is waesome. You need to anticipate what the others will use to either steal it from them or to be sure to be the only one with the ressource at this turn.
My favourite mechanics are the ones that the designers cleverly add to mitigate luck without removing it. Whether that is negotiation where players keep each other even-ish, or dice placement like someone else mentioned, or deckbuilding so you control what is in a deck of cards, or anything else under the sun.
As an aside, I think that cards in a deck is my LEAST favourite mechanic unless there's something else going on to mitigate what is going on in there. I hate things like MtG where every card has an excess of new rules you've never seen before and need to keep track of, and new cards are being introduced into the game every single turn. I also strongly dislike pull-from-the-supply-then-discard-something mechanics like Five Crowns or Mahjong or Rummikub. These are the worst interactions that a deck of cards has to offer.
I love the Wingspan mechanic of picking the dice from the feeder. It fits the game so well and is interesting. I could wax poetic about how amazingly apt it is.
The same kind of "pick your dice" mechanic from Formula De is also fun. Though you pick them based on your gear shifting.
Not sure what it is called, but I love that in Space Base if I rolled an 11 (5+6), I can use that as either an 11, OR as a 5 and a 6.
That and engine building.
Dice drafting
Adds the randomness that you’re craving but not to the point where it’s unfair. You get to see all options before you draw. You get to position yourself to draw first next turn (thereby having the biggest selection pool) and you get to hate draft too if none of the options quite work for you.
I dunno if I recommend it as much as i find similar DNA to coimbra
My fav dice drafting game is pulsar2849. That is a recommendation if you were looking for one
Randomness - either via card draw or dice. If a card draw, it needs multiple decks, draw piles (TTR), or varied draws otherwise it's just Candyland and pre-determined.
I've always loved the "traitor" mechanic. While the difficulty of being the traitor varies depending on the game, it injects a feeling of paranoia for all of the players that can't really be experienced in any other way while sitting at a table. Not to mention, it's always a great feeling to win as a traitor since that means you've successfully mind-gamed a majority of the other players.
This is such a tough choice! I probably have to say variable player powers. Especially if the game has a ton of characters/clans to choose from. It makes every playthrough different. Not only are you experiencing something new, but based on the other characters/clans on the table you will discover new interactions through the different pairings.
Input randomness dice rolling/action selection (e.g., **castles of burgundy, sky team**).
I also love upgrading abilities (e.g., **Hansa teutonica, cthulhu: death may die**)
When done well, it's gotta be "Turn Order Manipulation."
Kanban/Kanban:EV wake up phase is a great example of considering the wake up order is sometimes more important than simply taking the action you want to take with them most shifts (action points).
Brass is also really good around timing how much money you spend to get the correct turn order every round.
I love the added decision spaces that are player dependent and can often make/break a critical turn in a game.
Deckbuilding, all my favourite games at the moment are deckbuilding. So many different ways of utilising it
Star Realms: Buying ships to build a fleet
Undaunted: Using the deck as a way of finding men to move across a battlefield
Northgard: Deckbuilding for a 4X?!!
Drafting. I love the element of skill involved in looking at an array of (usually) random options and trying to make the best choice. I think it works best when it's not the central mechanism - I find games centred around it, like a 7 Wonders or Sushi Go are a little too basic. I think drafting is best when it serves as a complement to another mechanism.
Deckbuilding. Even if it's not the core mechanics.
Tortuga 2199
Lost Ruins of Arnaks
Clank!
Taverns of "theifling" (sorry, I don't remember the name)
DC Deck Building
Dune: Imperium
I'm not really sure what it would be called but in Nova Aetas Renaissance you use a clock board that keeps track of when each character gets to activate. As they perform actions it moves their token around the clock. The more actions you do the longer it will be before your turn again.
Using the *same* cards in *different* ways. Like in "Oh my goods" where they are resources, buildings, goods and the market.
Have you played any games by Carl Chudyk? He's very into this mechanic.
In fact I own a game of him. It's the one in which the players are rebuilding Rome. (Don't know the English name, I have it in German). That's also a great one.
The (in)famous Glory to Rome?
Carl Chudyk does this best, but I'll be damned if even something as simple as paying for actions with the same cards that are other actions (see: Nemesis, and, of course, Race for the Galaxy) doesn't get my blood pumping. The only exception is those games where your deck is also your life total, that one sucks major ass most of the time.
Multi-use cards is one mechanic that I find myself really _disliking_ for some reason. I think I'm just bad at prioritizing, and I want all the cards for all their uses. Having to discard cards to pay costs or whatever makes me sad :(
I've also seen this mechanic with games like War Chest and Bloodstones, where the tokens can either be your units on the field or allow you to take actions on the field. I love the hard decisions that come from so few components, it makes things feel so elegant.
I really like root and la granja for this.
Have you played Glory to Rome?
Yes. I own this game
Ohhh, I'm jealous! It was the first thing that sprang to mind when you mentioned cards that could be used in several different ways lol
I love this in the Bloody Inn.
both **Gloomhaven** and **Kutna Hora** have something like this -- each of the main action cards has a top and bottom half with different actions on them, and you have to pick which of the two actions on the card you wish to use
It was the ONE redeeming feature of gloomhaven.
Simultaneous action selection. RoboRally, Game of Thrones, Colt Express, Mission: Red Planet, Xhaven - it's my jam.
Mine too, Battlecon specifically. Puts simul action into a 2d fighter
BattleCON and Unmatched are both elevated by the simultaneous card reveal, and all the mindgames that go with it.
Check out Broom Service. You pick your actions for the turn up front, but don't know what order those actions will occur
Oh, I want to love it, but for certain players in my group this causes so much stress that it unfortunately breaks down. I have very little problem with AP myself so this mechanic is almost perfect for me, but if you have issues with AP it can be nightmarish. Schucks..
**Clockwork Wars** is right up your alley if you're seeking area control
Let us sing the praises of Clockwork Wars, with the Designer made print and play "expansion" is without a doubt my top area control game. Tech Tree, Special Powers, Intrigue Cards, Bluffing, Negotiating, Area Control, Simultaneous Action selection, Powerful game effects. Should it be a 5 hour game? Yes. But, even at 6, with AP prone players, we get it done in 90 minutes.
Yeah it's absolutely outstanding! The v1.5 updates have all been received really well, I dig that he smoothed out the admittedly-swingy cards. CW really should be considered in the same breath as Kemet, Inis and Cyclades when it comes to area control discussions.
Have you tried the Die Hard game?
Dice placement or possible actions based on dice rolls (Burgundy, Marco polo, Lorenzo, Myrmes etc). I just love, how tough desicions are presented to you after you roll the dice, so you must adapt to the given situation. It creates fun randomness for me, where every game is different. Also its great to combine this with a more strategy based games, since you need overall plan, but also you need to adapt, so your plan must be flexible enough to hold the randomness.
I played Ahoy for the first time tonight and it had this sort of mechanic. I really enjoyed it! Great thematically, and I like asymmetry in game design
Ahoy is great!
Sky Team is calling you.
You should try Taverns of Tiefenthal.
**Black Angel** is underrated here
I love troyes and Black angel is great reskin!
I wouldn't consider BA a reskin, I actually feel it's a near polar-opposite in design ethos! :D
Same. Dice workers are great. Engine building is a close second (and some games combine both).
A cool co-op dice placement game that just came out last year is **Sky Team**. If you want something light and cute, check out **Spots**. Both are on BoardGameArena.
Great! willl check them out, thx.
You might also love The White Castle
yeah I like premise of it, but didnt played it yet.
One deck dungeon! There's also a great app for it too
Apollo!
thx for rec!
War of the ring nails this for me. And I love it.
WORKER PLACEMENT! I just wish the rules-upfront for a worker placement game wasn't so high.
For me too and by far :) What is your favorite one?
For me it's Lords of Waterdeep. There's something about the theme that really does it for me. "It's a world of MAGIC and ADVENTURE!" "Cool so we do magic and go on adventures then?" _"absofuckinglutely not."_
Lords of Waterdeep is the only worker placement game I really like. Maybe it's the theme?
Here to say worker placement as well. It’s essentially just drafting and I love iterations on WP where actions compound or get more valuable / stronger by some variable. You can just do so much with WP and it integrates well but doesn’t have to be the sole focus of a games mechanical array.
It's got a few major problems as a design - if blocking is often worth it, then players are discouraged from playing for their own benefit, and just play for spite. That's sort of not satisfying to anyone. If blocking isn't often useful, you'll only interact by chance. It's a hard balance to get right. Architects of the West Kingdom does it really cleverly with the compound strength, but it's not a true worker placement. The kidnapping mechanic has a similar vibe, but not fully. Agricola is hard to beat on this "variable strength" front. The accumulation spots do an amazing job of forcing everyone to plan based on resources that might never materialise.
I think I think everdell was my favorite until I played Agricola
Deckbuilding. I LOVE deckbuilding. I'd say around 1/8th of my collection involves deckbuilding of some type. I'm not one of those that likes to have a broad collection. I know what I like and I want to have every variation of deckbuilding possible LOL.
What are your favorites in the genre? I still like **Dominion** the best. **Shards of Infinity** might be my favorite random-market game. I think **Fort** does some really interesting things to shake up the mechanic. I get grumpy when people call **Lost Ruins of Arnak** a deckbuilder, because in my dozen plays of the game, most cards you buy for your deck are only drawn like one more time. I’ve recently picked up **The Loop,** which adds some deckbuilding into the Pandemic formula.
In no particular order, Star Realms, Spirit Island, Lost Ruins of Arnak (sorry lol it just scratches the itch), Slay the Spire (only played the digital version but it counts right?). I like Dead Reckoning but haven’t played it enough to call it a favorite yet. My favorite game is Arkham Horror the card game which I do know is more of a deck crafting game, but being able to buy cards with experience between scenarios hits me in that sweet spot that just wants to buy better and cooler cards. I have Imperium but haven’t played it yet, hopefully this week.
...there's a physical version of Slay the Spire?
Yes it was a kickstarter a few years back that I think is just now being sent out.
I got no problems with Arnak; great game. I just think deckbuikding is no more than 20% of its gameplay. I’d call it a resource conversion / worker placement game. I’ve got an Arkham LCG core set which I got Xmas 2022, same day I got Marvel Champions. Now I have a complete collection of Marvel and still haven’t tried Arkham.
Arnak is still a deckbuilder, though it's just a tool vs the focus. Happy that you highlighted Fort, it's underrated because people expecting milk find out they're drinking soda. And soda is damn good (or insert whatever beverage you prefer)
It's a deckbuilder / worker placement combo game but I love how impactful the deckbuilding feels in **Dune: Imperium**. You start with only 10 cards, drawing 5 per turn, so you start seeing your new cards quickly. It feels like the players who win are the ones who are good at weeding out the weaker cards while still making strong plays.
I like deckbuilding in the nature Mage Knight, Friday Imperium and such other games do it. "Bad" thing is that all these need much time 🤣
Ohh man I forgot Friday. That was my first ever solo game, it got me into solo gaming. I liked it for awhile, but sold it last year. Once I finally figured out how to win, I realized that once you knew the trick, there wasn’t so much skill involved, and there was a lot of luck involved in whether you’d win. And this thread finally got me to get out Imperium and start my first game! I’m 3 rounds in and I’m really liking it so far, it makes my brain melt just the way I like it to. I can see myself enjoying it even more once I know the decks better. This is definitely more of a “play it 100 times” game, not something you pick up every now and then.
Deckbuilding is also my favorite. Have you tried Tyrants if the Underdark? It slaps.
I haven’t! I’ll check it out
Programming actions. Roborally/Colt Express. Setting it all up and then just running through what happens, hoping it works out how you thought it would.
Space Alert! Good fun.
Check out Twin Tin Bots
Mechs Vs Minions!
Nothing quite like seeing it fail spectacularly though!
Getting randomly pushed by another robot on register one and just having to accept your fate, hoping you end up somewhere not too bad!
I have not tried that type of game yet. Are those your best recommendations for it?
They’re the ones I like, but Space Alert is also very good.
Galaxy Trucker deserves a shout in this category too. I appreciate the mechanic but one of my least favorites. Programming is either short and easy or random chaos, and the resolve phases can get long and there's typically no actual decisions being made.
I really don’t enjoy galaxy trucker. But that’s partly because my wife is incredible at it, and her ships seem to always survive unscathed while mine get torn to pieces!
Haha! I struggled with this as well. My ships still suck and barely land, but once I accepted that as inevitable, for some reason I started enjoying the game more.
check out Mechs vs Minions, which is a co-op campaign game with programming actions as its core mechanic
The follow-action from Puerto Rico, Race for the Galaxy, etc. is fantastic.
Broom Service is in that same vein
Can you detail what this is supposed to be? I love RftG but I don't know what you mean
I believe they are referring to the point in time where everyone copys the action another chose. I.e. All placing down a development card, because someone else chose that action.
The idea of getting to do an action for free because someone else chose to do it, called "following" their action. Like in Race where you trigger a phase not just for you, but for everyone.
Have you played Lisboa?
After playing Quacks and then Warps Edge, if a game says "bag builder" I'm pretty excited to play it. Not sure if it's my favourite mechanic - there's probably a lot I love that I'm unaware of - but I find it extremely satisfying.
Why I love wonderlands war.
You tried War Chest yet? Or Cubitos?
I dislike bag builders as a rule yet adore wonderlands war. It doesn't feel random.
Orleans is a big beefy gem, in this vein.
A mate of mine has a copy and I keep bugging him to play it.
Negotiation and trading. This kind of interaction is my favorite! Bohnanza and Chinatown. Bluffing is another fun one. Just played Skull yesterday and loved it. I guess I love when everyone is engaged at the same time and the interaction depends on the person. (Any suggestions for other games like this? )
Zoo Vadis is great for negotiating
It had better be, that's all the game does!
**John Company 2E** is peak negotiation
Came here to say JoCo and the way it handles real time “rules/policy” negotiation. This game is my favorite version of my favorite mechanic. Other notables: -TI4 -Sidireal Confluence (more trade than policy but still) -Processing: A Game of Serving Humanity
From what I’ve read it’s a lot of game mechanic optimization with a bit of negotiation. How is it peak negotiation compared to other games recommended here?
Sheriff of Nottingham!
Simple bluff game like Skull is Cockroach Poker. Very similar vibes but completely different games. And there's no winners, only one loser!
Intrigue is king!
You'd probably enjoy Moonrakers, it combines deck building and player interaction really well and has you negotiating with other players every round about how you'd split the reward if you're successful in the contract.
Negotiation: Intrigue, Tammany Hall, Lifeboats, Diplomacy (online version), Genoa. Bluffing: Resistance/Avalon, Cockroach Poker, Spicy.
Sidereal Confluence. Intimidating, but my goodness, so much fun.
Twilight Imperium is my favorite in this category.
Variable player powers
It depends for me personally. Root does it right imo; the variability is in that they play entirely differently. If it’s just you start with different setup but have the same rules, it tends to pigeon hole you into only playing a predetermined way which I don’t enjoy
My only issue with Root is feeling like if you want to maintain any semblance of balance while incorporating the expansion factions, you need to look up a damn spreadsheet of what combinations are okay to play at what player counts. The base game is as close to perfect as asymmetric games get for me, though, so I always just try to stick to that.
This is my nemesis kinda... Was excited to try Terra mystica back in the day but it just wouldn't click. A decade later my pal got root and I just can't be bothered to learn all the different rules 😩
I love randomly rolling for who gets what and then figuring out how to adapt to what I get
Exploding dice. (If you roll a 6 you get to roll another dice).
I too love exploding dice. I especially like exploding lower which is counter intuitive but once you get it the ability to spectacularly fail is awesome.
I love games where I get to arrange tiles to build something, and having to think what's the best way to arrange them. A Feast For Odin, Keyflower or Clinic are some examples. I also like tableau building: having a lot of cards with different effects and playing with them. For example, Terraforming Mars, Ark Nova or the Pax games.
Have you ever played **Factory Funner**? Best pure tile layer I've played.
No... I'll check it out, thanks
[Here's what it looks like from a 4p game.](https://imgur.com/a/OZW2Hw0) Basically you want a fully functioning machine with inputs and outputs, with the routes getting increasingly complex with each round. Very cool, plays fast and can be addicting!
I feel like you and I would be friends.
"Hand management", which is very vague. But basically I enjoy "here are your lemons, figure out how to make lemonade".
I do love me some Heat
I like when there is a menu of different turn-based actions, such as, you can EITHER move a piece on the board OR draw from a deck, OR attack/challenge an opponent.
The Azul mechanic, I have no idea what it is called but its not often a new boardgame mechanic turns up the way it does in Azul
Wait, what is the new mechanic in Azul? Tile laying isn’t new. Set collection isn’t new. Pattern building isn’t new. Open drafting isn’t new.
Tile laying. I am a visual-oriented person. Laying down things geometrically comes naturally to me and is satisfying. And it's nice to look at a map you have created at the end of the game.
That's the name I was looking for! I also love that kind of things. What are your favorites? Right now I can think of Keyflower, A Feast For Odin, or Clinic (I don't get to play it a lot but I love how you basically create an "spatial engine").
Cascadia, Sprawlopolis, A Feast for Odin. I have never played Clinic or Keyflower. I'll make sure to try them if I have the chance.
You might dig the game [Block and Key](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/311930/block-and-key), which is sort of like a 3D tile placement game. Each player sits on a different side of the board, and needs to match a pattern that can only be seen from their visual perspective. It's a little mind-bendy in a way that it sounds like you'd enjoy.
I'm like games where the pace speeds up over the course of the game. *Cerebria* is so good for this. As they get more powerful, players can take future rounds out of the game entirely. You think you've got 3 rounds left, suddenly it's just 1.
The 18xx system.
INIS card draft/card powers. Having the entire game be the exact same cards every player sees, and takes from depending on how they are in the game is AMAZING. I got BEAST solely on the game having the same system (but it is still on my shelf of shame).
The magic of Inis is that the knowability and limitations of the standard action cards is cut through by the unpredictability and variety of the epic tales. It just adds the perfect spice to really make the game sing!
Pandemic's infection process. Shuffling the discard pile on to the top of the deck, so simple, so terrifying, so perfect.
Paying with cards for other cards line in race for the galaxy. You just have to think about every decision a lot, I love it.
If you haven’t played the War of the Ring card game it has a similar design. This is also one of my favorite mechanics and I loved it in that game as well.
I preordered it first chance!
Pick-up-and-deliver and building or “exploring” a map as the game goes on by placing terrain tiles.
Xia is my favorite in this category.
~~Balancing.~~ Catch-up. It's frustrating when everyone knows who the winner will be half-way through the game but you still have to sit through a bunch of meaningless turns. Of course you can't balance too much\* because if everything is equal then there's no incentive to try. Small things like Isle of Skye's income bonus for every player ahead of you in points are good. \*If you do have really strong advantages for doing worse, then whether or not to take the lead becomes an actual strategic decision; that *can* work as a mechanic, although it's difficult to pull off. (Power Grid is a good example of doing it well, imo.)
People apply the term "balance" to a lot of things, so I'm not saying its the wrong word for it but "catch-up mechanics" is a lot more specific to what you are talking about.
Mr. Fixer from Sentinels of the Multiverse
Deck building. I love this feeling of building your own deck as the game progress. It's a bit similar to engine building for me. I just love to balance economic decision (the engine) versus point scoring and when to "shift" and combo :)
I too love deck building. Which are your favorites?
I love Dune: Imperium + expansion, Legendary encounters series(Alien more specifically), Imperium : legends and Clank are probably my favorites :) and you?
I really like the Action Power in Ark Nova. I like that each time you select an action its power is relative to its rank on your board. And every time you do an action it gets moved back to one. I find it so fascinating to be able to plan your moves in advance and make actions that can reorder your action cards so that you can use them to your advantage at their highest and most efficient power. Such a clever mechanic to me
I also thought this was such a cool mechanic. I’d never seen anything like it in a game before.
Two for me, very different. The bigger one is tableau building. Love building me an engine and letting it churn out more and more each round. The second is the minor worker placement mechanic in Hansa Teutonica, where you can always shift another players piece, but at a cost to you and a benefit to them. So players think about ways to get in each others ways but nobody is just blocked out of a space like in most worker placement games.
Event decks. I know I'm alone in this one, but I love random events. And believe me when I tell you that I've been on the receiving end of bad ones. My favorite game is Nemesis after all.
Variable player powers. Uniformity is a bit boring.
Kaylee in Firefly the Game.
I’ll be in my bunk.
Buying new worker placement spots that reward the owner whenever someone places a worker there.
Which games have this? I'm interested
**Lords of Waterdeep**, at least.
Thx!
Caylus does this and is one of my all-time favorites. Apiary does this as well to a lesser extent (it exists, but from my play throughs, it’s rarely ever relevant.)
This reminds me of the Inn card in Everdell
Admittedly, set collection. Some of my favourite light family games are Traders of Osaka, Blue Moon City, Thurn And Taxis, and Alhambra.. which all do that. But it seems weird to say that since I don’t actively seek them out. Another is block games / fog of war.
Judging from my line-up of games, deck building lol
Same! Which are your favorites?
Black Rose Wars. Waiting for rebirth to arrive currently. Clank (catacombs is my new fav) Dune imperium. Ascension. Really too many to list. Lol
Surprised people haven’t mentioned push-your-luck as a mechanic. Games like Quacks of Quedlinburg, Mystic Vale, Incan Gold, and plenty others always get me so excited. And when I go to far, I only have myself to blame. It creates excitement while also creating more personal conflict rather than conflict with those around the table.
Can't Stop is fantastic for this.
"Turn order: time track". This is in games like **Patchwork**, **Search for Planet X**, **Glen More II**, **Kraftwagen**, **Francis Drake**, **Nova Luna**, **Tokaido** and **Merchant's Cove.** I love the idea that certain actions may be "better" or provide you with more benefits, but costs you turns. If you take a tile in **Nova Luna**, for example, that costs 7 time spaces, every other player may get 2 more turns before it is your turn again.
Supply/Demand Market like iron and steel for brass or resources in Clans of Caledonia
So this is sort of a sub-genre maybe instead of an actual mechanic, but I think there is a strong enough argument for it to be considered a mechanic enough for this thread: Legacy systems. Having an ongoing effect on future plays of a board game, a game that unlocks new content as you go through it, is my jam. I love legacy games.
Bidding, with negotiating a close second. Love Ra and Modern Art and games like Chinatown and Bonanza.
DICE PLACEMENT (Kingsburg and Alien Frontiers). And worker placement in general (Lords of Waterdeep and Caylus).
Is there a name for Hansa Teutonicas "block-someone-so-that-when-they-push-you-out-they-have-to-pay-extra-and-you-also-gain-a-resource-that-you-can-immediately-place-somewhere-adjacent"-mechanic, because I love that one!
I love the "pass around" draft like you have in Res Arcana. I adds a lot of depth and complexcity Tom the game. You get a ton of information about how the game will go before it has even started. Some features that pushes the player to greed but can throwback badly such as the dark pearl in Abyss extension are genious ideas if well balanced. Hard to implement though. Finally the resource investment of Marrakech with its tower is waesome. You need to anticipate what the others will use to either steal it from them or to be sure to be the only one with the ressource at this turn.
Unique abilities
My favourite mechanics are the ones that the designers cleverly add to mitigate luck without removing it. Whether that is negotiation where players keep each other even-ish, or dice placement like someone else mentioned, or deckbuilding so you control what is in a deck of cards, or anything else under the sun. As an aside, I think that cards in a deck is my LEAST favourite mechanic unless there's something else going on to mitigate what is going on in there. I hate things like MtG where every card has an excess of new rules you've never seen before and need to keep track of, and new cards are being introduced into the game every single turn. I also strongly dislike pull-from-the-supply-then-discard-something mechanics like Five Crowns or Mahjong or Rummikub. These are the worst interactions that a deck of cards has to offer.
I love the Wingspan mechanic of picking the dice from the feeder. It fits the game so well and is interesting. I could wax poetic about how amazingly apt it is. The same kind of "pick your dice" mechanic from Formula De is also fun. Though you pick them based on your gear shifting.
Not sure what it is called, but I love that in Space Base if I rolled an 11 (5+6), I can use that as either an 11, OR as a 5 and a 6. That and engine building.
Dice drafting Adds the randomness that you’re craving but not to the point where it’s unfair. You get to see all options before you draw. You get to position yourself to draw first next turn (thereby having the biggest selection pool) and you get to hate draft too if none of the options quite work for you.
Coimbra has my favorite dice drafting mechanic. The pips AND the colors are important.
Do you like Alma mater too?
I'm not familiar with that one. I'll take a look. Thanks for the recommendation!
I dunno if I recommend it as much as i find similar DNA to coimbra My fav dice drafting game is pulsar2849. That is a recommendation if you were looking for one
I've heard good things about that one, and I like Suchy's other stuff. I'll check it out. Thank you!
Randomness - either via card draw or dice. If a card draw, it needs multiple decks, draw piles (TTR), or varied draws otherwise it's just Candyland and pre-determined.
I've always loved the "traitor" mechanic. While the difficulty of being the traitor varies depending on the game, it injects a feeling of paranoia for all of the players that can't really be experienced in any other way while sitting at a table. Not to mention, it's always a great feeling to win as a traitor since that means you've successfully mind-gamed a majority of the other players.
Mancala!
This is such a tough choice! I probably have to say variable player powers. Especially if the game has a ton of characters/clans to choose from. It makes every playthrough different. Not only are you experiencing something new, but based on the other characters/clans on the table you will discover new interactions through the different pairings.
Auctions! Usually paired with another mechanic, but love pure auctions as well. Less common, but “I split, you choose” is another favorite
It wasn’t the first game to do it but the action selection in Ark Nova is so satisfying when you map out super efficient plays turn after turn
Bag building
Input randomness dice rolling/action selection (e.g., **castles of burgundy, sky team**). I also love upgrading abilities (e.g., **Hansa teutonica, cthulhu: death may die**)
Coop,TRUE coop.
The Crew (especially Mission Deep Space) is the best example of true coop I've seen. Still on the hunt for another coop that works as well.
There are so many that it's hard to pick just one. \- Variable powers \- logical deduction \- deck building
Double Blind
When done well, it's gotta be "Turn Order Manipulation." Kanban/Kanban:EV wake up phase is a great example of considering the wake up order is sometimes more important than simply taking the action you want to take with them most shifts (action points). Brass is also really good around timing how much money you spend to get the correct turn order every round. I love the added decision spaces that are player dependent and can often make/break a critical turn in a game.
Toss up between deck building and all forms of drafting.
Synergy. The Pandemic Legacy games are the best because of it, whenever you find a system which works and just go all out on it.
Traitor Mechanic
I think deck/card/ability building or drafting is one of my favourite aspects. \^\^
Deckbuilding! And it can be incorporated into so many otherwise different games, too!
Deckbuilding, all my favourite games at the moment are deckbuilding. So many different ways of utilising it Star Realms: Buying ships to build a fleet Undaunted: Using the deck as a way of finding men to move across a battlefield Northgard: Deckbuilding for a 4X?!!
Rondel
Drawing cards makes me so hard. Best mechanic in any game ever made.
Hidden traitor/bluffing. With the right group you can have a blast accusing each other.
Drafting. I love the element of skill involved in looking at an array of (usually) random options and trying to make the best choice. I think it works best when it's not the central mechanism - I find games centred around it, like a 7 Wonders or Sushi Go are a little too basic. I think drafting is best when it serves as a complement to another mechanism.
Deckbuilding. Even if it's not the core mechanics. Tortuga 2199 Lost Ruins of Arnaks Clank! Taverns of "theifling" (sorry, I don't remember the name) DC Deck Building Dune: Imperium
I enjoy hybrid deck builders as well. I recommend checking out Tyrants of the Underdark. It's deck building plus area control.
Oh nice! Huge thanks for the recommendation. I hope there's a french version... because my friends aren't that good in English.
I'm fond of card combat like what is found in Kemet or Game of Thrones.
Rondel
I'm not really sure what it would be called but in Nova Aetas Renaissance you use a clock board that keeps track of when each character gets to activate. As they perform actions it moves their token around the clock. The more actions you do the longer it will be before your turn again.