We are tunnelling down the mines in Stonemaier’s worker placement game to reclaim and renovate the wasteland… with the help of some very clever Trevors!(PHOTOS COMING SOON)
Build together, win alone. Not exactly what Jack was keen on saying on Lost, but the age of Euphoria is here. Or rather it was. Or perhaps it has still yet to pass. Who knows. A game about a future time published 13 years ago is now messing with my mind too much to drill down into existentialism any further this early in a review.
So what is it all about beyond what the title suggests? Well, Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia is a dice worker placement game where you have your sights on a new world order. The eponymous city, with all its prized resources and expertise, has risen up oblivious to the underground movement gaining traction. Not the only builders on the block, however, groups of Wastelanders are developing Subterra using scraps in order to rise up and rule over Euphoria. Spreading your own brand of Influence is the goal, and you need to create the opportunities to wield it.
As leaders of individual groups of workers, players activate their workers in order to use their knowledge to gain advantages. Building infrastructure as well as allegiances that will enable you to place out your ten stars and claim victory……or should that be territory?! Same difference in Euphoria where area control is key. As in reality, however, ruthless growth has consequences, and, as such, ethical difficulties must be managed along the way. Stifling morality to do questionable actions for a bonus might seem a no-brainier in a game scenario. But I certainly found it tricky to justify sometimes, even fictitiously, even where the promised advantage could have yielded great results. Not only that but when workers get smarter, they become a flight risk. So you want them to develop and know enough but never too much or else you’ll lose them.
Turn mechanics aren’t complicated. Going round the expansive board placing workers to gather resources and hoover up coveted artifacts are important. In fact, resources infiltrate everything in this game on some level or other. In a strange way, the simple place down, grab something, and take back mechanic, as well as the bumping workers and hunger for resources, reminded us of Charterstone, although the generosity there is replaced by risk – as hinted to above, keeping your workers when they return to you is not guaranteed in Euphoria. But the path to victory is quite open. It’s possible (and in a way encouraged) to mix and match what you do so long as everything ultimately plays into your chosen strategy and hits the minimum requirements of the game itself. The main tracks need balancing throughout the game, and for us they remained in flux until the end.
But don’t be too wedded to your initial play. Whilst we felt what we were doing individually was less about thwarting each other (although blocking juicy locations did sometimes happen) and more about pursuing our own agendas, we found that we could leverage the other player’s decisions to gain shorter and longer term benefits. And that makes sense in a game where we are working apart albeit together. Sharing a communal space but ultimately out for ourselves. Other interesting elements include the recruits and their asymmetric abilities (with one initially hidden, early activation is a must as you may end up following a less optimal one), the ability to lose omniscient workers (the roll-risk referred to above), and completing market/construction changes game to game enhanced by the effectiveness (or not) of the tunnel system.
I probably don’t need to say this as it is a Stonemaier game, but the production quality is tip top. In fact, the amount of stuff in the box overwhelmed me so much that my husband had to unpack it all and set up the game ready for our first play. I praise his love of popping and unpacking on a daily basis!
Overall this is solid worker placement game. But unlike Viticulture (another Stonemaier title) which I infinitely prefer at 2 player, I think Euphoria would benefit from a higher player count. The interactions that generate the most interesting decisions stem from the advantages you can eke out of other player’s moves. It also seems like the tunnels would have more prominence in terms of their construction and use. When we next see our gaming pals with a few hours to spare, it will be good to compare our existing plays with a four player experience
Please note that a copy of this game was kindly provided by the publishers for review. I am not paid for my comments, however, and all opinions are my own. I am also not affiliated to or sponsored by any retail store.
