Euphoria Review: Happy and Unaware!
Intent: Inspire you to try playing Euphoria!
In a dystopia, you have the opportunity to seize the day and control of the wonderous city of Euphoria. Will you have what it takes to keep your workers happy, inspired and unaware of your master plan? Euphoria is designed by Jamey Stegmaier and Alan Stone, illustrated by Jacqui Davis and published by Stonemaier Games. In this 2-6 worker placement game, you will be competing to take control of the dystopia that is the city of Euphoria by claiming resources and ultimately authority. Who will emerge as victorious as you all attempt to make the future better than the past?
Overview
Throughout the game, you’ll be taking a role of a leader trying to take control of Euphoria through allegiances and strategic placements of your workers (dice) on the board. Your goal is to place all ten of your authority tokens (stars) first! The player in doing so, claims victory and control of the land.
How do you earn stars? Well there are multiple ways.
Construction sites by helping build buildings or by placing a worker on the corresponding artifact market. Construct away!
Territories, there’s four of them in the game and you can claim numerous amount of authority tokens here depending on your player count.
Recruit card, each of your recruit cards can hold an authority token if you finish the corresponding allegiance tracks.
Ethical Dilemma, last but not least you can also place an authority token on your Ethical Dilemma card, by fulfilling the requirement.
Well, now that I told you how to place authority tokens let’s quickly explain each of them. Essentially your turn will comprise of placing one of your workers or collecting your workers from the game board. There’s various locations you can go and as you obtain resources you’ll be able to use them to create opportunities to place authority tokens. Gold, Silver and Clay are used to construct buildings in the Construction Market. You can use various commodities to acquire artifact cards, which allow you to claim various territories and sometimes already constructed markets. In acquiring resources from the commodity areas, you will also potentially progress on the allegiance track, which could support you in placing an authority token on your recruits.
Your workers are dice and the higher their number, the more knowledge they have, however too much knowledge will lead you to lose a worker (die) so you want to keep them knowledgeable enough to support you but not too knowledgeable to leave your cause. You’ll take turns placing dice in various locations, collecting resources and tracking to victory in many different paths until someone has placed all their ten authority tokens, at that point that individual wins!
Will you be able to navigate and create the most cunning strategy to become victorious?
First Game Impression
When we first opened the box, we were slightly overwhelmed, with so many cards, components, and quite a busy board, it was a lot to take in. As we read the rulebook and the pieces began to click together, we felt the excitement brewing. There were simply so many strategies one could take and having unique recruits each play excited us, as we knew instantly it was a game we would want to play again.
We were instantly drawn in from the first turn. Having to balance morale, knowledge, and keep an eye where other players are taking their turns and maximizing the potential of each worker was thrilling, challenging and thought provoking. Each decision we made felt truly impactful and thematic as we schemed to become the new leader of Euphoria.
It was a close game but Tylor ended up winning just by a hair. we made so many mistakes, didn’t fully take advantage of tunnels but were eager to dive right back in as we wanted to learn from the mistakes and strengthen our gameplay. It’s always exciting to grow and see yourself learn through games.
Thoughts After Five Games
This game is EUPHORIA!
Being a game that’s over seven years old and still feeling so fresh, exciting and innovative in today’s board game space is rare to see. There was so much to love about this game, the innovative worker placement with the dice, the balance of various tracks and the engaging player interaction as you compete for spaces, construction, and territories. It was thrilling each and every game.
Unfortunately we’ve only experienced this game at two players, but even so, a game that’s so exciting at two will only scale and create more dynamic opportunities at greater player count. I simply cannot wait to share this experience with others as it’s been an absolute pleasure immersing ourselves in the land of Euphoria.
I do wonder how impactful the unique recruits are, as I found they’ve had a strong and lasting impact on our games with the specific abilities they held. I certainly look forward to trying various combinations and learning how much of an affect they truly have on each game.
MERIT Report Card
Overall Letter Grade: A-
Strengths: Fantastic production, super innovative worker placement with the dice and knowledge, many paths to victory, healthy player interaction. Really immersive theme intergration that certainly leaves you coming back for more.
Areas of Improvement: A bit overwhelimg to start off, a way to ease you into the game as having so many cards and components certainly overstimulated my brain slightly.
Memorability: A-
Did this experience stick with me after playing this game?
Absolutely, the production in components, the vibrant colours, the theme behind the game and the variety of pathways to victory really stuck with me but what intrigued me most of all was the “dice” worker placement where the higher the pips the more knowledge workers are. It’s such an interesting mechanic that’s incredible well thought out.
How does this game resonate with the folks we introduce it to?
Sadly due to COVID we have not had the opportunity to introduce this game to anyone yet, however, I foresee this being one of the first once we are all vaccinated.
How many memories can be built from this game?
Truthfully quite a lot, the player interaction in this game is truly wonderful. You have your own objectives and motives but you never know when you’re actually helping somebody else, which makes it exciting and creates many AH-HA moments. The dice rolling to determine knowledge, the competing for various territories and racing to dig tunnels and enhance allegiances is truly memorable and thrilling.
Education: A-
This game has quite a lot going for it in terms of education. Initially it’s quite a lot to take in but one of my favorite aspects is that you can grow from game to game and optimize your moves and learn from mistakes. Having somebody to do that with as well, creates such a dynamic and joyful educational experience.
You’ll be doing a lot of multitasking and adapting. Sure, your primary objective that you set for yourself is to acquire some artifact cards in hopes of placing some authority tokens in this district you want to claim. However, you notice Cassandra building up some silver and gold to take control of some construction sites, how can you pivot to take advantage of the moves somebody else makes to benefit yourself? This game provides a space to really learn and create opportunities for you to feel comfortable with changing plans and trying something different, which is a pretty good life skill to have.
I adore games that have multiple pathways to victory, and this game is exactly that. Depending on your recruits you can devise many various strategies on how to win. Will you build up a reserve of silver, clay and gold and ensure you’re part of every market purchase? Will you primarily take control of the territories? Will you path a tunnel to get ahead and always have workers at disposal? Each game will have you feeling like an entirely different story where you really are trying to vow for power in a clever and cunning way. You can continue to perfect the same strategy or diversify how you obtain points and learn a bit more about yourself in the process.
Now one of my favorite educational elements is the analysis of taking risks. You can acquire more workers but if their combined value is too high you may lose a dice, which means losing a couple of turns and resources as acquiring workers isn’t the easiest. However, if you maintain your workers and manage to not let them get too knowledgeable you’ll have quite an advantage. This game precisely teaches risk in a unique way, you’ll take risks and sometimes it’ll pay off but other times it won’t. Learning risk management in a board game is a truly valuable experience.
Replayability: A-
The replayability is definitely present in this game. Having a rather large deck of recruits and always starting with two different ones already makes the game quite different each time as recruits do have a large influence on how you play.
Beyond that, the randomization of the construction tiles, the varying dice rolls, and the reactivity to other players all contribute to replayability. This game can be play multiple times and get more and more exciting as you and your friends get more knowledgeable on strategies and can compete on a whole other level. Excitement is bound to keep capturing you as there certainly isn’t a dull moment in the world of Euphoria.
I’m trying to think of what would increase replayability here but I’m not sure much can really improve it without decreasing the quality of the game. It’s fine the way it is really, replayability is quite solid.
Imagination: A-
The theme integration in this game is absolutely wonderful. You really feel like you’re instructing your workers to go to various locations in order to benefit your rise to authority. The morale, which lets you keep more artififacts, the knowledge of your workers getting too high and workers leaving your cause, it just all feels so tied to the story of Euphoria.
The allegiances are interesting, it genuinelly feels like there is a massive world behind this game and I was surprised that this game wasn’t based on an intellectual property considering the immaculate amount of detail. Overall, each move and choice really immerses you into the game and makes it that much more thrilling to play Euphoria.
The only thing I would have loved to see is a bit more lore and background with the recruits, the factions and just the entire story line. I was intrigued but that curiosity really had nowhere to go except the path of imagination.
Target: B+
Beautiful game with art that certainly draws you in and a superior production quality ranging from the resources to the dice. Overall, this is a game I would certainly look at if I only saw the cover and really appeals to folks who love a good dystopia, where they get to make the future just a little bit brighter.
It’s hard to grade this category always, especially being a board game enthusiast, but as my first impression definitely lead me to believe this game was more complex than it was decrease the score in this category. The guides and the rulebook after playing it for the first time definitely made sense but the first time reading them, I was a bit lost, I think there could have been more work done to ease individuals into this game especially now that Stonemaier does the Quick Start guides too.
Being a game that’s over seven years old though, it’s definitely withstood time and we would certainly recommend this game to others if the theme intrigues them.
Tylor’s Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐
What a neat way to combine dice rolling, work placement and resource management! I really enjoyed the theme of this game and I personally felt like it was well integrated. There feels like multiple ways to win the game but you have to adapt to your characters and what the players are doing around you. I also think its great that you can work off your opponents by either using the spaces they unlocked or teaming up to unlock spaces faster. The improvement tiles are also a bit chaotic since they have negative effects for not having a star on it which I think is fantastic.
Overall, I am very much looking forward to playing this with more people. This seems to be a theme with a lot of our games lately and I get excited about introducing our friends to new games.
Final Thoughts: Beautiful integration of theme, superior production quality with unique components and mechanics. The worker placement with dice that have knowledge is just so neat and you working to ensure they don’t get too knowledgeable as they may leave your cause is just so fitting. This is a game I can certainly see us introducing to folks and enjoying over and over again as the replayability, story and gameplay has been thrilling and engaging.
MERIT Report Card Letter Grade: A-
Note: A copy of this game was provided to us by the publisher.