Other long term favorites are Castles of Burgundy, Scythe, and Viticulture.
You may be aware of this - this genre is called Eurogame
https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Eurogame
It's the type of game where you don't directly or fully interact with your opponents (at most, you can usually indirectly block one of their moves, but that's about it). People seem to like the less adversarial playstyle as there are many successful games in this genre: Catan, Ticket to Ride, Puerto Rico, Carcassone etc.
Games of the style "everyone plays somewhat independently, with some interaction such as blocking, but mostly you race to score points" have the key property that you can do much better if you spend a lot of mental bandwidth carefully tracking the state of all your opponents (how many points they have, what they're doing), which also contributes to a strong "a computer, or computer-assistance, would make this better" feeling, which in turn makes a game feel less fun to me.
I actually really enjoy Catan, in large part because of mechanics like inter-player trading and the jostle for the 3:1 / 2:1 trading ports, which makes for much heavier interaction with other players. Ticket to Ride, on the other hand, is a textbook example of the mechanics I find frustrating and un-fun.
Bluffing games, guessing games, dexterity games are much more fun for me.
I think it really depends on the game, you can have your game with little interaction, and then the clashing of players type of euro.
I enjoy chess occasionally, with a player at a comparable skill level. That computers play it far better doesn't bother me in that context, the way it bothers me that a computer would be better at carefully tracking exactly how many points other players have in Ticket to Ride.
It's true that modern (that is, since 1994 or so) European games try to avoid "politics", e.g. individual dealmaking between players, or players having free choice over which other player to reward or hinder. European reviewers (and, say, SdJ judges) will typically consider it poor design if
1. Who wins can be decided by who gets targeted
2. Players don't get to play to the end (I.e. get eliminated)
3. Your win status can be certain and obvious long before the game is actually over.
But there is still plenty of room for that in older European games like Catan (1995)
What isn't, the text you are replying to, or the linked definition in that text?
The linked definition includes your point that "European reviewers will consider it poor design if ... players don't get to play to the end" for example, so your listing it doesn't work as a criticism of the definition.
The BGG definition seems quite comprehensive, and definitely not just "games you interact with your opponent".
From BGG:
Eurogames (or alternatively, Designer Board Games or German-Style Board Games) are a classification of board games that are very popular on Board Game Geek (BGG). Though not all eurogames are European and not all of them are board games, they share a set of similar characteristics. A game need not fit ALL the criteria to be considered a Eurogame.
Most Eurogames share the following elements:
- Player conflict is indirect and usually involves competition over resources or points. Combat is extremely rare.
- Players are never eliminated from the game (All players are still playing when the game ends.)
- There is very little randomness or luck. Randomness that is there is mitigated by having the player decide what to do after a random event happens rather than before. Dice are rare, but not unheard of, in a Euro.
- The Designer of the game is listed on the game's box cover. Though this is not particular to Euros, the Eurogame movement seems to have started this trend. This is why some gamers and designers call this genre of games Designer Games.
- Much attention is paid to the artwork and components. Plastic and metal are rare, more often pieces are made of wood.
- Eurogames have a definite theme, however, the theme most often has very little to do with the gameplay. The focus instead is on the mechanics; for example, a game about space may play the same as a game about ancient Rome.
- Eurogames are concerned with getting the most strategy from the least or minimal mechanics.
- Eurogames typically have multiple viable paths to scoring points or securing the win condition.
- Eurogames generally correspond to the BGG subdomain "Strategy".
Examples of Eurogames: CATAN, Puerto Rico, Carcassonne, Tigris & Euphrates, Caylus, Power Grid, Ra, El Grande, Five Tribes
// As owner of the listed example games, I find the linked definition significantly superior.
Catan is particularly bad at this; if you have 6 points and someone with 9 points offers you a trade, your decision will choose who wins.
Beautiful packaging and pieces though! And it’s very cool that it works single player and two player. But nothing eventful at all happens, and nobody feels any compelling reason to rack up points.
So many other great games in the genre though.
The compelling reason to rack up points, if you're playing seriously, is to see if your engine works --- just like Race For The Galaxy, or games like that.
No, that's one of the reasons.
The expansions changed the game completely for me, it's more strategic and you're interacting with other player more (i.e. in-between round activation, end of round powers, more steal resource from other players, etc). I personally love that the game play is very fast, as you have limited number of moves every round.
The Oceania expansion with the nectar tokens and new board really let you do more in the game.
I would give it another try with the expansions, it's truly a different game.
I find the returns to skill in it are, if anything, greater than in Agricola, which is also one of my favorites.
The tension is all about the competition for a complementary strategy to what your opponents are doing.
Some people just don’t like weakly interactive engine builders, which is a fair objection to it, but it’s quite deep.
One weakness is that the Corvidae are too strong; many experts seem to have converged on either removing them or nerfing them.
I know it's well-loved, but when my wife and I tried playing it we found it dull and tedious. I'm curious if we're just missing something.
I have the Tuscany expansion, playing with 4 seasons and the unique workers makes the game even better in my opinion. I can see why some wouldn't like it, as it's a choice salad style game, and on first play through can seem like you're really doing nothing expect putting meeples down.
I actually wish they made a beer themed version of the game, call Bavaria or something.
this is what my family needs.
also, i heard this is a good game. might get it.