Dice worker placement set in a dystopian society where the number on the dice reflects their intelligence.”

Each player now rolls their 2 dice and the person that gets the highest value goes first. Throughout the game, you’ll roll your dice often, and once rolled, their value is fixed until you get to reroll. Never fiddle with your dice, even when they’re sitting next to the board! Morale & Knowledge We discussed this issue in great detail and approached it in different ways with various versions of the expansion. In the end, we decided that we wanted to retain the feel of the original game, as one of the things that make the Icarites fun is that they’re a little different than the other 3 factions. A note on "Chrome" An important element of board games that aren't always talked about is how well and how easily it is stored, and how easy it is to get out and play. In this printing of Euphoria, Stonemaier has started including specially designed trays from Game Trayz, a company that makes token trays for various different games. The trays included here seem more built around easy storage than in-game use but could be employed for both. They're not only incredibly sturdy, but they make storage and deployment so much smoother than I have ever experienced before. More companies need to start considering this level of commitment to a good set-up and put-away experience when designing their games.Four distinct societies, each of them waiting for you to rewrite history. What are you willing to sacrifice to build a better dystopia? In Euphoria workers are represented by dice, and their individual knowledge of the inner workings of the Euphorian dystopia is represented by the pips shown on each die. The more pips, the more effective a worker can be, but too many can drive up your group’s overall knowledge, prompting individuals to leave as they learn how the world really works.

If you play at two players or six, downtime is almost none existent. This makes the game enjoyable and it’s a good game, with more thematic choices it could have been so much better though. Once someone pulls the trigger and contributes to a marketplace, you need to follow up, and keep the momentum going until they’re all done. This will land you a few easy victory points towards victory. The game ends when the first player reaches 10 victory points, with ties broken down with morale or knowledge levels.

Review Summary

The Automas gain a benefit from getting recruits activated (but not from the recruit abilities, since that’s an uncommon interaction point).

There is more to the world than the surface of the earth. Deep underground lies the hidden city of Subterran, occupied by miners, mechanics, and revolutionaries. By keeping their workers in the dark, they’ve patched together a network of pipes and sewers, of steam and gears, of hidden passages and secret stairways. Instead of going with drab colors, Stonemaier went with a bright color palette and style reminiscent of the post WW2, in some ways reminding me of Fallout. The board maximizes usable space and at the expense of the artwork, a smart decision in the long term. So, in addition to having the Euphoria Automa affect human players we wanted human players to be able to affect the Automas using the same game subsystems as against other humans. This means that:

I think it’s easy to say that Stonemaier Games has another hit on their hands with Euphoria. I love the dice rolling, the different types of worker spaces and the amazing components. While Euphoria plays better at the 4-5 player count, I’ve had a lot of fun with just 2 players. Euphoria scales really well, but you do get a different game between the low player counts and the high. All are fun though. Ignorance Is Bliss is a “more stuff” expansion. Or perhaps a better way of putting it is “alternative stuff.” For example, there are a bunch of new recruit cards and market tiles that you can use as an alternative to the recruits and markets in the original game (they aren’t designed to be mixed together with the original recruits and markets). There’s also a new type of recruit card (not a new faction, just a new type).

I think the main reason that Euphoria manages to stay engaging is the elements that do change. Going in you don't know what factions the other players will be trying to curry favor with, nor do you necessarily know what buildings will be constructed. You have to keep a very close eye on your opponents at all times because where your authority stars get places can protect you from negative effects, and those can be very detrimental to your chances of success. Many times I found myself 2 turns behind an opponent and ended up losing thanks to an inability to plan ahead. So to give players more agency over which artifact cards they drew, David designed the New Antiques Bazaar. It’s a mat that sits next to the board, populated with 4 face-up cards at all times. The artifact on the far right has no additional cost (beyond what you paid–if anything–to place your worker on the board), while the others have additional costs of 1 or 2 commodities. And that’s one of the interesting things about the game. It seems that everyone has their own ideas about how to win and they just go for it. I’ve found one person that likes to hit the Icaritan artifact markets over and over while another loves to construct markets. As a player, you almost have to be flexible with your strategy as the game unfolds. If people are rushing to build the markets, you had better make sure you get in on that (players without authority stars on the markets once built are penalized). The idea of the game is to place authority markers on to the board by making use of the various actions. Keeping an eye on your workers actions is key to keeping the workforce going and strategic timing of retrieving workers is essential too. Final Thoughts on Euphoria This might not be as significant to you, but it blew me away when I first realized it. Beyond that point, the focus returned on resource and victory point collection, but I’ll always remember that moment. Icarite TerritoryThe first player to place all 10 stars wins the game. Euphoria has many different places to place your workers, each of which can have their own strategic importance. Game Experience: While I don’t have trays to sell, I have a very small number for replacement parts and for situations where someone thought they were buying a copy of the game with the trays (but it was actually an older printing). The Automas get penalized for not being a part of constructing a market (though in a very simple manner). My oldest daughter played clarinet and I got her a middle grade one so we didn't have to rent it. Of course, just after we got it she quits.