Popular Tile Placement Board Games

While there aren't specific examples in my head of games where I dislike it, I am never drawn to games with bidding or auctions in them. Not really sure why but they tend not to appeal.

That said I really enjoyed playing #Keyflower. I loved the choice of either using your meeples to do an action to get an immediate benefit or bidding on the tile to maybe get that more long term benefit (although I also love how even after you win a tile other people can still use it). So who knows, maybe I just need to try more bidding games.

Edited to tag @sdirrane. This is also partly in response to his thoughts.

I agree that you this is question of semantics. And, I would be curious to know how our varied backgrounds in language affect how we look at this question.I, for example, while born and (mostly) raised in the US, I speak English as my second language. That will affect how I look at English and definitions of English. I know that the English have very subtle differences in how they view certain words. This is painting in broad strokes, but on a more individual front, we each hail from different backgrounds, and appreciate different nuances in words.

I do continue to maintain, without hope or expectation of converting you or anybody else, that a game mechanism is one of the games smallest consituent parts. I do also wish to state that for most people, maybe even most gamers, talking about mechanisms is not all that helpful in describing a game. Let me give an example. For mechanics of #The Castles of Burgundy, BGG has listed the following mechanics: Dice rolling, Grid coverage, Hexagon Grid, Set collection, Tile Placement, Turn order: Stat-based, Worker placement with dice workers. These are all correct, but give me much less of a sense of the feel of the game, than if somebody were to tell me that it is a, "multi-player solitaire, point salad, euro game."

My stance of course begs the question, what is the good of mechanics then?

They are good because we are nerds and like talking about them. They are also good because as we get deeper in the hobby we can identify the feelings that certain mixtures of mechanics will give. We can, to a certain extent, tell a little bit of the "taste" of the game by reading its recipe.

I love this list and agree with the vast majority if not all of it.  I am not a huge fan of games based on luck and so #Candy Land Game, #Yahtzee, or even #Dice Throne do not peak my interest much or my interest (say as in Dice Throne) is tempered somewhat.  

Games with luck that allow you to push your luck #Diamant, #The Quacks of Quedlinburg, or such I am a little more ok with but they still aren't my favorite games.  Those a more of a controlled adjustment strategy #Orléans or #Dice Forge I enjoy a bit more.

Other games such as the luck involved in drawing cards in #Gloomhaven or #Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island that mimic the randomness of battle or wildlife are great and in both those cases the random nature impacts everyone (seeing as they are co-op games).  Even the luck of a drawn encounter card in #Scythe is mitigated by the balance across all encounter cards.

There are several games where I have felt that luck was not necessary and house ruled something to remove it. #Everdell: Spirecrest allows you to draw three cards from a seasonal deck at the end of each season and place them randomly at the bottom of the board with the first being free, the second costing a little more, and the third costing the most.  This seems arbitrary to me and so the last play we drew five, pick one, and place the others on the bottom of the deck.  In #Maracaibo is makes more sense to reveal all the privilege buildings at the beginning because there are 8, you randomly draw 4, and there's already enough luck with card draw throughout the game that revealing one each decade seems unnecessary. 

Two other games I've found luck workarounds are #Wingspan and #The Isle of Cats.  In Wingspan we draft cards at the beginning of the game with each player starting with 7 cards, drafting until necessary and discarding down to 5 (at least) by drafts end.  This gives everyone a fair shot at a solid opening hand and not ending up with 5 birds that don't play well in the first couple turns.  In Isle of Cats I divide the cards into green cards (baskets), purple, brown, and yellow cards, and blue card (lessons) stacks and each round we start the draft with each player getting three green, and choosing two or three from each of the other stacks.  THEN we draft.  This eliminates a whole round with NO extra baskets (unless you draft them away...in that case your loss).  

Great topic/mechanic choice!

On vacation with the family and In-Laws so gaming has been plentiful so far this week.  First night I was on a team with my five year old playing#Ticket To Ride First Journey against my daughter, wife and father in law.  Little man did fantastic matching up the locations by picture (just starting to read and the city names are still too long for him) and made excelllent draws and we ended up winning.

Last night I got to play my second ever game of#Wingspan and we played with 4 players.  I'm totally hooked on the game now even though I came in last but my wife took the prize on her first time playing.  I hope to get one or two more rounds in this week.

Tonight I am playing scenario 7 of#Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion with my four solo characters and so far so good.  Since we are on vacation I can leave everything set up to get at least one more round in before we leave.

Tomorrow we are going to play either#Carcassonne or start the #Scythe: The Rise of Fenris campaign with 3 players.  I can update later on how it plays out the rest of the week.

I generally rules out upgrades save for the last one here:

Everdell has some great resources (I have the collector's edition which could make a difference) and nice meeples in general.  One of the reasons my family loves this game is for the parts and pieces.

#Tapestry has a nice array of components from the common income buildings to the special buildings obtained from cards and racing up the tracts.

#Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island has several great components and while they could be better it came out in 2012 toward the front end of better parts in a boardgame being as big a deal.

#Architects of the West Kingdom is my cheat because the parts are upgraded but they are fantastic...

all of the Architect parts have some heft to them :)

Nice choices!  My top game art would be:

1) #Brass: Birmingham and #Brass: Lancashire: I fell in love with it when I saw it in the kickstarter.  One of the few times I was sold on something other than the game.  Luckily they are amazing games too!

2) #Scythe Jostles with Brass for 1 & 2 regularly.  I find the art really draws me in to the game and helps the game context make a lot more sense for me.

3) #Forbidden Stars From the box down to the lowliest Ork Boy this game exudes Warhammer 40K.  

4) #Teotihuacan: City of Gods I just find this game gorgeous end to end.  It can be a tad busy initially but the artwork is great.

5) #Kingdomino The art isn't epic or anything but it is simple yet varied enough to fit the game perfectly.  I couldn't imagine any other art with this game.

#Keyflower is great! Such an enjoyable engine builder made really good by the fact that you are bidding to get control of the tiles and that you can just use other players engines (they just get to keep the meeples)

I did my ranking and it was excruciating, haha. Here's mine:

1. #Oceans
2. #Evolution: Climate
3. #Dune
4. #Everdell
5. #Western Legends
6. #Santorini
7. #Concordia
8. #The Isle of Cats
9. #7 Wonders Duel
10. #Viticulture: Essential Edition

Honestly, any of the games in the top 6 could be my #1 on any given day, depending on my mood, haha. Possibly top 7. Perhaps with more plays of all of them, I'll get better at differentiating, but for now, I love them all equally and for different reasons.

Love this idea and I used to do this a lot in the beginning of this year xD

Not much recently though and I'm glad because then I'd have a much longer wishlist. The only game that falls in this category for me is #Keyflower because I ended up getting all of the other games after watching the playthrough and being sure of it lol

And boy, I loved playing through FF7&9, Kingdom Hearts games, and other RPG's in the past.

Of the ones in your list I'm most interested in #Maracaibo and #Coloma. I eventually dropped Maracaibo from my wishlist thinking it might be overly complex for me and my wife (plus, I just had so many other games that creeped on on me haha.) It was a bit of a similar story with #Tekhenu: Obelisk of the Sun where even though I was immediately drawn in by seeing the designers involved, it looked like it had a lot going on. I've checked out Coloma several times in the past too but never got to the point of watching a video on it.

This would be my list, limiting to 5 games:

1. #Too Many Bones
2. #Keyflower
3. #Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar
4. #Brass: Birmingham
5. #Aeon's End

This list is subject to change any moment tomorrow :)

Oh and I'll be buying #Flip Ships real soon for family game nights.

I played #Takenoko with my wife and 2 friend that were not really familiar to board games. They loved it, and one of them won both plays! Slowly I'm building our playgroup.

You bet! I have mentioned this before on the forum, but #The Castles of Burgundy seems to get a lot of love from practically everybody, but it really didn't hit home with me. I even tried to like it and played it multiple time haha But, we each have our own preferences, which is a good thing in the end. :) 

Some big games and some small games this week:

• #The Voyages of Marco Polo (Yucata, multiplayer): I've been keeping an eye on this one for quite a while as it seems to be up my alley.  I definitely quite enjoyed it and the game seemed to fly by.  I probably could have used a turn or two more to it.  I might check out the second one to see if it fits even better.
• #Imhotep (yucata, muliplayer) x2: I've played this one before.  It's a nice little game made good by the concept of filing boats with your stones but having any player move any boat to any location.  So do you fiit one more stone in a boat and hope you get it somewhere good but risk someone else sending it somewhere poor and/or taking the spot you want to go to, or do you send it now and get what you can?  Fun and quick.
• #Concordia with #Concordia: Britannia & Germania map (britannia) (Tabletop Simulator, multiplayer) I've played this one quite a few times now although not on this particular map.  One of my favourite games and the TTS implementation we played was enjoyable and a good experience.
• #The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine (Tabletop Simulator, multiplayer): First time playing this game.  It was a lot of fun!  Went through a few scenarios pretty quickly.  I could see even a non-gamer getting in to this.
• #Kingdomino (Tabletop Simulator, Multiplayer):  I've played this game a ton.  A great fiiller game with just enough puzzle to keep your brain engaged. 

I love #Keyflower, the dual bidding and using of cards and the reall fascinating engine building you can do. PLus the fact that whenever you upgrade a tile your opponents always use it first is ingenious.

So is each player creating their own set of tiles or is it a shared construction like in #Carcassonne? 

#Keyflower! As I played #Lions of Lydia: A Strategic Game of Ancient Prestige, I was reminded that I'm going to really like that game. Lions had some interesting decision-making involved with the merchants/meeples, and I know that Keyflower is going to be the epitomy of meeple goodness :)

You know, I still haven't played but I wonder if #Fort could potentially serve a similar function as #Wingspan. I feel like with the theme and the art, it'll be a big draw for new/casual gamers. I definitely don't think it'll reach as big of a status as Wingspan, but it'd be wonderful if it becomes the deck-builder for many people who are new to the hobby. Will be trying it out today!

N. - #Nemo's War (Second Edition) - Never played but I see the appeal and I love the theme! A little out of my normal preferences with a lot of dice luck being needed, but it can be mitiagated with some gambling and using powers. 

K. - #Keyflower - LOVE this game. Very interesting decisions with bidding and workerplacement. Highly strategic and unique!

F. - #Fort - Not a ton of options here, but Fort seems to hit a lot of my boxes in a game! Interaction, interesting decisions every turn and you always need to be aware of what other people are doing!

Personally I think #Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra is the worst of the 3 azul games.  The additional scoring confusion and set up time for SG makes is my least favorite way to play.  I have played #Azul: Summer Pavilion a bunch and that gives me a lot of the same tatical feel and decisions with a lot less scoring confusion.  If I ranked my preference it would be SP, #Azul and then SG.  Your milage may vary ;)

Family was out of town for much of the week.  We played a game of #Call to Adventure before they left--always enjoy narrating our stories to each other at the end!

Took advantage of the time home alone to try some solo play.  I've been curious about #Near and Far for a while, and I found a trial version online with Tabletopia which enabled me to play Arcade Mode vs. myself to get a feel of the game mechanics.  Really enjoyed myself and bought a copy from a seller at BGG's Geek Market.  Looking forward to diving into the Character and Story modes!

Also broke out #Tapestry and tried out its solo mode for the first time.  It was nice being able to take my time strategizing without worrying about holding up other players.  I found the Automa and Shadow Empire pretty smooth to manage, once I got the hang of it...

Now with family having arrived back home, I just played a fun quick game of #Santorini with my son.  

A nice week overall!

I can get them to play #Ticket to Ride: Europe, #Century: Spice Road, #Pandemic, #Sushi Go Party! and #Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle and #6 Nimmt! fairly easily.  My wife also likes #Splendor #Azul and #Alhambra. I'm always up for a game, my wife occasionally, and my son not so much. I'm hoping to get more game play with #Cartographers: A Roll Player Tale, #Istanbul: The Dice Game, and #The Quacks of Quedlinburg.