Euphoria Board Game - Build a Better Dystopia for Family Game Nights

Stonemaeir games has the best quality components and great games. This game is played in turns where you place die as "workers." It has a fun theme of a dystopia and is very easy to learn. It takes a few play-throughs to get the strategy but I love this one and have taught it several times in several different groups.This game is beautiful. Now, I realize that's not the measure of a good game, but I appreciate how aesthetically pleasing it is, especially when it's not a $20 game. The names of the buildings are hilarious. It's clear that this game was a labor of love.It's also original. Your moves are affected by the cards you draw and the other players, so you can't necessarily use the same strategy every time. There's a high re-playability factor. It's complicated, so it's not for your casual gamers. A game can easily take three hours or more. But it's complex, and I've learned something new each time I've played it.The first time I played this game was at a conference. The room we were in closed and we were told to leave and come back in a couple of hours. We were so engrossed, we picked up the table we were playing on and carried it through the double doors into another room so we could finish. (This was not an easy feat) That should tell you all you need to know about how strongly six people felt about this game, none of them having ever played it before.On first play this game takes a bit of time to learn, but once there is someone that can guide new players it significantly lowers the learning curve and time. This is currently my favorite board game and it gets a lot of use, even when just me and the wife are playing (fun increased as players are added. We even play with our 7 year old children sometimes (when we can handle them trying to make up their own rules). This game has a resource called bliss that is a drug (used to dope up the workers). The game text doesn't actually call it a drug though, so we just tell the kids that it is candy (it's a small green cloud), and the workers are happy to get candy. Most games last about an hour or so, but the best part is you can seem like you are winning and then suddenly someone that appears to be in last place will win.I love the flavor and game play of Euphoria. It's complicated, but everything you need to know is right on the board. We've introduced many friends to it and it isn't all that difficult to pick up if you are at all board game savvy.My husband and I played a friend's copy and decided that we had to own it ourselves. The only sad thing is that the friend, being a backer, had a double sided board and really nice resource pieces. This version's pieces are fine, we were just a bit spoiled. When we opened our box, a couple of the pieces were damaged. I e-mailed Stonemaier and they sent replacements for us with no hassle.Get thy dumb workers to work, oh and keep them happy (blissfully happy). A game for every gamer to have on the shelf. If you are a traditional euro-gamer, this title may not be completely to your high standards because it has dice... but beyond that it is beautifully themed, exceptionally balanced and scalable from 2 to 6 players. Many different strategies will lend to a victory as your faction competes for resources in a dystopian world where it is advantageous to keep your workers dumb and happy! Markets change every game as do the recruits, so there is a very high replayabilty to the game, and because it is very well balanced, end game scoring tends to be of narrow margins!My wife and myself are new to board games and we are trying out different types of games. This was our 1st worker placement game. Like some reviewers below it is better to just start playing and let the strategies reveal themselves. We really like how the factions and markets interact with each other. You can win with any faction and use multiple strategies. The components are very good but I can see how some would like the kickstarter components better. I like the game so much that I would consider buying upgraded resources and commodities pieces just for the "bling" factor. This is just a geek type desire because the current game components at retail are well worth the price. Next up deck building games.A great game that’s overlooked, yes it’s a bit difficult to learn/teach but once you do, it’s worth every minute.I got this game since it looked very interesting and was suggested by an avid board gamer, but overall it has been underwhelming.The game isn't balanced, since one faction is more dominant than the 3 others, and there are parts of the board you would never use because it's just more effective to play the game a certain way to win every time.It isn't as challenging as I thought, and the game wasn't fun.I just didn't enjoy it as much as say 7 Wonders, or Dominion. Both of which I've played extensively and with the expansions (leaders for 7 Wonders, and all 9 expansions with Dominion).Euphoria is a worker placement game where you attempt to gain influence over a dystopian regime faster than your opponents by keeping your workers happy and ignorant of how appalling their monotonous, hard lives are. Influence can be obtained by trading in artifacts that could remind workers of a happy time when there was opportunity for leisure or by building markets with accrued resources, penalising those opponents who were too slow.The game sticks to theme reasonably well throughout, with options to wake new workers with an electric shock or hearty blast of water, choose to resolve an ethical dilemma, sending your workers into mines to steal resources and by paying your workers with 'bliss' as an alternative to food.The board and components are such a high quality that Euphoria is the only game where I haven't felt the need to sleeve the cards, as they are so thick and tough. After more than 50 games I've only noticed wear on the hinges of the board so far.Euphoria was a game I bought almost a year ago and this is easily the game I most frequently play, especially at 2 players. The game is well balanced at any supported player count (best at 3-5), though 6 player games can be slower.At 3+ players the game guarantees that at least one player will miss out each time a market is built, which incurs a penalty to them for failing to help in its construction. This adds to the importance of strategy and keeps the pressure up during the stage of the game when no one wants to be penalised. This in turn adds to the tactical feel of the game, as players are forced to choose between negating a penalty with hard earnt artifacts or taking the penalty on the chin. Larger games can make keeping track of your own and others' penalties a bit of a pain, but this is rarely a huge issue.The game does rely heavily on dice, so planning how many workers you will retrieve and roll, based on the probability of losing workers is a fun challenge that feeds well into the tactical play in the game, as retrieving workers will mean a greater probability of getting a double turn as well as increasing the time before the next occasion you'll have to spend a turn doing so. This consideration is balanced against the odds of those dice plus your workers' over all knowledge reaching 16 or more, however. Should this happen, a worker will leave. When a worker is lost in this way in spite of incredibly narrow odds, this can be incredibly frustrating, especially if one player is having all the bad luck. However, generally I find this to be an exciting mechanic in the game.The recruit cards provide players with advantages in different areas of the board and add a really fun way of guiding players in a fairly general way so that no 2 games are the same. This is also true of the random market setup, as these all offer different prices for land as well as differing penalties if they are built without your assistance. I feel that one or two of the recruits are slightly overpowered, which can have a noticeable impact on a 2 player game. I don't think this is a big problem, as it is so rare, but it's something to be aware of.Setup of the game is about 5-10 minutes due to all the pieces, especially the cardboard tokens. Game play tends to take around an hour once you get the hang of it. The art work in Euphoria is beautiful and while the board looks incredibly complicated, all the support is right there with excellent use of symbols to indicate resources, costs and rewards of each action. In my experience this is a tricky game to explain, often receiving blank looks, but I find after a few turns it's easily picked up.Over all, I think this is a particularly good looking, well produced and balanced game. The theme is strong throughout and the necessity of changing tactics, combined with the excitement of whether you'll lose a worker every so often keeps the game fresh.Really simple to understand game but quick deep strategy thinking behind. Really good game for those spare moments to play. As always with Stonemaier, the quality of the components is excepcional.Pro: High-quality materials and components, easy manual, included insert to sort everything.Con: Boring gameplay. No immersion, no strategy or tactics, just wasting time.Ya había jugado Euphoria antes, estaba algo usado el juego porque era parte de un board game cafe. La sorpresa que me llevé cuando vi el organizador y los colores tan brillantes de un juego que me gustaba incluso sin eso, fue hermosa, es una edición muy bonita ?