European Style games or Euros are a sub-genre of board games. These primarily include games that come from the game-churning lands of Germany. These tabletop games have two distinct features – their focus on theme and design and on serious strategy. Euros are much more complex than your usual party or family games (think Pictionary or Scrabble) and they necessarily have all players playing till the end (no more sitting out after you are thrown out of that game of Monopoly).
Here is our pick of some quintessential European style games that are a great fit for your collection.
Alhambra
Alhambra is a tile-placement game. This game is set in 14th century Granada and focuses on the construction of the palace of Alhambra, which is where it gets its name from. The players are each posing as master builders from across Europe and Asia who are looking to demonstrate their skills. Your job is to employ the most suitable team and ensure that you have the right kind of currency to be paying your artisans. The one to build the Alhambra first and with the right kind of currency is declared the winner.
Terra Mystica
On the strange land of Terra Mystica, 14 different groups of people live on 7 landscapes. Each of these groups is bound to their own home environment. So the only way to expand is to terraform their neighbouring landscapes. Players are in charge of one of these groups and must compete with other groups to take over the land. In order to win, players must try and rule as great an area as possible and develop the skill of the group in question.
Carcassonne
Carcassone is a classic tile-placement game. The board is nothing but a medieval landscape that is built during gameplay. There is just one single tile that is face-up at the beginning of the game. On their turn, players will draw a tile from the shuffled face-down pile and place them in a befitting manner next to the existent tiles. Once you have placed your tile, you must now decide if you want to place a meeple (people shaped pieces in the game) on it. The game ends when the last of these shuffled tiles are placed down. At this point, all terrains score points for the players who have the most meeples on them. The player with the most points is the winner.
Puerto Rico
In Puerto Rico, every player will have to assume the role of a colonial governor who is looking to amass victory points by either shipping their goods to Europe or constructing buildings. Each player has a separate board where they have space for their plantations, city buildings as well as resources. There are components that need to be shared between players – three ships, a supply of resources, a trading house and doubloons (the currency of the game). Each round begins with players selecting a role card (for instance, trader or builder) which then lets all the players take the action associated with the role chosen. This mechanic of choosing different roles every turn was relatively unheard of until Puerto Rico came out.
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