Euro Introduction Games

Madbranch · Post by **Madbranch** » 24 June 2026, 11:27

The second part of the tournaments are also ready to register.

Stepping Stones lineup:

• August 28: Viticulture
https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=574204
• September 4: Tigris and Euphrates
https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=574269
• September 11: Res Arcana
https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=574782
• September 18: Castles of Burgundy
https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=574783
• September 25: Concordia
https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=574787
• October 2: Lorenzo il Magnifico
https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=575217
• October 9: Puerto Rico
https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=575218

The first post has also been updated with the links to all of the games in the Foundation and Stepping stones sections.

I also realised I did a newbie mistake, using general name for tournaments and specific for championship. I'll do it the right way onwards but not all are grouped now. Sadly.

Madbranch · Post by **Madbranch** » 27 June 2026, 11:24

tbhp · Post by **tbhp** » 10 July 2026, 11:11

Meeplelowda wrote: ↑18 June 2026, 17:47 Skipping (expelling) is a personal choice, but in Swiss tournaments particularly and to a certain degree in single elimination brackets, that player is often holding up the entire tournament, so not skipping them affects more than just you and them.

The game will be over after the maximum duration time anyway, so the game won't be taking longer than what was listed in the tournament settings and what the other players may be expecting.

I find it strange that in your previous post you encouraged OP to increase thinking time, leading to much longer tournaments, but in the context of players using up all their thinking time you find it problematic that the tournament lasts longer as a result. That seems contradictory.

Meeplelowda wrote: ↑18 June 2026, 17:47 Also, it does nothing to warn the community about them through karma (although the penalty is less for tournaments).

This is why I've always found it strange that expulsion and penalty are not independent features. It should be possible to give a penalty to someone without ending the game as a result. Just because I think a player is doing something wrong that should be communicated to other players doesn't mean I also want to terminate the game I'm playing with them.

Meeplelowda wrote: ↑18 June 2026, 17:47 But I'm mostly viewing this through the lens of 2p games, where expelling someone doesn't result in a bizarre selection of who advances based on BGA account age. In a 3+ player game letting the round time expire seems to be the better of two bad choices.

It's a different situation from multiplayer but there are also strong reasons why you wouldn't want to expel your opponent. When I play competitively on this site I want my wins to be obtained through actually winning the game. If I were interested in being handed free wins then why would I even be playing games on here? What is the value and satisfaction of a win obtained like that?

Sure, sometimes when someone doesn't play it looks like they just aren't gonna show up and won't be in capacity to win the game anyway. But you never know if they may actually show up and manage to finish the game in time. I'll always leave that possibility open for them to come back and get their shot at winning the game, even if it makes the whole tournament drag as a result.

Madbranch · Post by **Madbranch** » 12 August 2026, 09:55

Hey everyone! It’s been a little quiet in this thread, but the tournaments are running at full steeam.

Massive thank you to everyone who has joined in to learn and play!

First off, congratulations to our podium finishers from the inaugural Carcassonne tournament:

1st: mhart044

2nd: HebusTheTroll

3rd: BobertW
That one was a bit rushed with timers sadly set too low, but remaining tournaments have much less issues with people running out of time. So thanks again for the tips on that.

Other stats so far:

Azul - 190 registered - in progress.
At 5 days per player last round saw roughly 12 percent of the games end due to time running out.

Harmonies - 155 registered - in progress.
At 5 days per player last round saw roughly 8 percent of the gamws end due to time running out.

Roll for the Galaxy - 20 registered - in progress.
This one was a bit brutal percentage wise. 3 games or 30 percent ended because of the time.

Stone Age - 82 registered - in progress.
First round is still running. So far one game ended due to a player being kicked because of the time.

Tokaido - 39 participants - in progress.
First round still running.

Alhambra - scheduled for 14th of August. https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=572668

Wingspan - scheduled for 21st of August. https://boardgamearena.com/tournament?id=572669

cigma · Post by **cigma** » 12 August 2026, 12:16

Madbranch wrote: ↑15 June 2026, 14:11 I've decided to create a series of tournaments aimed at being an intruduction to Euro games of all sorts.

I'd be curious how you define Euro games. I always struggle with this term.

I think that American style games are more interactive and mostly competative, often around fighting of some kind. Also, they tend to have more luck elements (culminating in push your luck games), whereas Euro games are more tactical or strategic.

Do you agree with that? Is there anything else to say? And what about the rest of the world?

Madbranch · Post by **Madbranch** » 12 August 2026, 12:36

cigma wrote: ↑12 August 2026, 12:16
Madbranch wrote: ↑15 June 2026, 14:11 I've decided to create a series of tournaments aimed at being an intruduction to Euro games of all sorts.
I'd be curious how you define Euro games. I always struggle with this term.

I think that American style games are more interactive and mostly competative, often around fighting of some kind. Also, they tend to have more luck elements (culminating in push your luck games), whereas Euro games are more tactical or strategic.

Do you agree with that? Is there anything else to say? And what about the rest of the world?

I wouldn't necessarily agree on interactions. Nowadays yes. But older euro games were quite interactive. But with the modern euro it's really much less. One that i questioned putting in for that very reason is Tigris and Euphrates. Could one even call it euro with all the wars and revolts? But on the other hand the actions are tight and highly strategic. The theme is there but you could easily just rename it something else. And most people define it as an euro game. So i figured it goes on the list.

So I'd say euro games in a nutshell would be categorised as:
Strategy > Luck
Tight resource/card/... management
No player elimination
Mechanics > Theme
Indirect conflict > direct conflict.
And usually has either tile placement, worker placement, engine building, resource management, and possibly even combination of 2 or more of these.

And that would work for majority. But there are exceptions to pretty much every rule (not sure about player elimination, but surely with all the titles out there) ...

Madbranch · Post by **Madbranch** » 23 August 2026, 12:52

Here's a short write up for the first tournament of the series:

Euro Introduction Games- Fundamentals 1 - Carcassonne

The first tournament exceeded my expected number of participants by a lot. I hoped for 32, and fully expected drop down to 15ish for some of less popular games later on (Roll for the Galaxy is lowest so far with 20 participants). In the end we almost reached 90.
I messed up with the time per game, as one week total was a bit short for one third of the games. Nevertheless. The tournament ended and we dropped by mere 2 participants withdrawing during the whole tournament.

Here's some basic stats for all the curious.

Total number of participants: 86

1st place: mhart044
Starting ELO: 105
Ending ELO: 183

2nd place: HebusTheTroll
Starting ELO: 110
Ending ELO: 152

3rd place: BobertW
Starting ELO: 131
Ending ELO: 194

Highest score in a game:
167 by Jelly Knee in game https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=880870794

The time was set at 1 week, which as mentioned, turned out to be too short.

5th round: 15 out of 42 games expired.
4th round: 13 out of 42 games expired.
3rd round: 11 out of 42 games expired.
2nd round: 20 out of 43 games expired.
1st round: 11 outta 43 games expired.

Total: 212 games, of which 70 expired on time.

So 33%.

tbhp · Post by **tbhp** » 23 August 2026, 14:00

cigma wrote: ↑12 August 2026, 12:16 I think that American style games are more interactive and mostly competative, often around fighting of some kind. Also, they tend to have more luck elements (culminating in push your luck games), whereas Euro games are more tactical or strategic.

I can see why you'd say that makes them more interactive, but I wouldn't agree that makes them more competitive. That's very subjective.

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