I’d say my biggest complaint about the game is the special powers of the recruit cards. Each recruit comes with their own, unique special ability. The game has 48 different recruit cards, each with their own power, and let me tell you, they do not feel balanced at all. Some powers are clearly better than (and are much more used) others. For example: The oracle agent lets you gain 2 knowledge to draw 2 artifacts cards and keep one when you would normally draw one. Gaining knowledge in Euphoria is a really bad thing, so this power is rarely used. Compare that to the Hydroelectric agent who lets you gain an energy when you gain a water (if you have no artifact cards). I’d be using that ability all the time, especially early in the game. The agent cards in Euphoria have many different, unique powers. However they don’t quite feel balanced from one agent to the next. We also added a double-sided reference card to be placed on the board: One side for ongoing rule reminders and the other for setup reminders. As we near the end of these design diaries, I wanted to talk about a subject that is indirectly related to the expansion: Game Trayz. 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

I can't remember the exact moment, but I think in season 2 he just really lets his anger get the best of him, beating people up on the sidewalk for the most trivial stuff. Just his explosive temper,... An alternative would be to the reduce the number of Automa players from 2 to 1, but that would also require extra explanations in the rules. Importantly, though, you can only ever have at most 1 factionless recruit, and if you do, they are immediately active (because there’s no way to flip recruits if they don’t have a faction). Allowing the Automa system to be used with 3 humans was an option we considered because it would move the game to the more popular 5-player, but again we faced a trade-off decision. At 5 players the Automas can into trouble with the constructed markets. It wasn’t anything we couldn’t have handled (and you can house rule it if you want), but it would have required us to add exceptions to the subsystem that’s by far the most complex in the Automa rules.

Review Summary

IGNORE that previous comment. I just looked through my paper copy and realized they ARE the same. Thanks! The question is, does this characteristically Stonemaier attention to detail carry over to the mechanics of Euphoria? The answer to that is a resounding, but probably unsurprising 'yes.' Unlike many eurogames, Euphoria doesn't contain phases, rounds, or even that many choices of action. Each player takes their turn, performs one of at most three different actions they can take, and then the next player goes. This repeats until the end of the game, meaning that at high-levels of play, you can be running through turns faster than a BGG commenter disowning a Monopolyplayer. Euphoria doesn’t stand out with its component design, neither in a good nor bad direction. It’s got that Stonemaier quality and practical approach that works nicely in a game that’s all about map awareness. How to Play Euphoria

Because I wasn’t intimately involved in the design process, my focus was more on the components and presentation of Ignorance Is Bliss. Most of the expansion is cardboard (cards, tiles, mats, and the board), so I wanted to add something a little more dramatic without significantly increasing the cost. For many of the recruit cards, a period and new sentence indicates total separation from the previous statement and a separate persistent ability; but sometimes it doesn’t, and the sentence is informed by the context of the previous sentence…and so we’ve encountered some confusion for a few recruits. 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). In Euphoria, players’ ultimate goal will be to spread out their influence and authority among the 4 factions in this new society. Each player will have 2 agents that swear allegiance to one of these 4 factions. However, the agents aren’t the ones doing your bidding. That’s the workers’ job. In Euphoria, workers are represented by 6 sided dice, these minions will go out and gather, harvest, and build to increase a player’s influence among the four factions. But be careful, if your workers become too smart and aware of their horrible lives, they will leave you. This will force another trip to the worker activation tanks to gather more minions. But if a player can keep their workers both happy and dumb, they will be able to spread enough of their authority to seize control of Euphoria and win the game. Components:In 2-3-4 player games, the miner meeples start 3-2-1 spaces down the tunnel. This means that it’s easier to activate recruits of the earthbound factions, which alleviates the issue that it was easier to activate additional Icarite recruits. My one complaint with the components is the game board. There is a lot going on here and I’ve found the board to be very confusing for new players. Many new players have a hard time wrapping their heads around the different areas, how they interact with each other, and how there are actually 4 factions on the board. Usually it appears as a jumbled mess to them. I’d say it takes about 1/4 to 1/2 a game for players to really wrap their head around what’s going on with the game board. I think some better organization and layout could have really helped here. But other than that one gripe, the components in Euphoria are nothing short of stellar. How to Play: Euphoria is a worker placement game with dice-rolling elements and limited resource fields. It’s one of the finest games made by Jamey Stegmaier and Alan Stone, even though it doesn’t rate as highly on Board Game Geek as you’d expect. The Automas get penalized for not being a part of constructing a market (though in a very simple manner). Wow, does Euphoria ever look intimidating when you set it up on the table. My first reaction was to scramble to YouTube and find the “Watch it Played” with Rodney Smith video. Even after Rodney's excellent video, I still had my doubts. But, after a through reading of the rulebook and the excellent Tips for Teaching section, I felt confident in both playing and teaching the game. And, yes, it is not as complex as it looks. It is a worker placement Euro with some interesting takes on a variety of gameplay elements.

As I mentioned in regards to the markets, if you play with the new recruits and new markets, you won’t play with the original recruits and markets (you’ll choose one set or the other). This is mostly for balance reasons. Oho! New to Stardew? Keep me posted on what you think. It can take time to earn things, but other avenues open up (mining, fishing, interacting with townsfolk) to keep you engaged as the in-game days... The look of the board came across quite daunting at first but once you have played a few games you soon learn what each space is for. You have spaces for generating commodities like electric, spaces to dig towards other players commodities and even a market place that will be built.The process led us to versions of the expansion that looked and played wildly different than the final product. But in the end, the version that resonated best with playtesters was the version we decided to use: alternative recruits and markets, some fixes to perceived issues, and some additions. I’ve played several games of my friend’s copy and never paid any attention to the theme. Then he told me “You know it’s called Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia? Take a look at the board.” I only then realized that the workers are working in excruciating conditions and that the theme is not about utopia, but a grim dystopia. 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

Take the Ethical Dilemma cards: it's a basic decision such as “Burn a Book/Read a Book.” Burning a book means you play a star immediately moving you 10% closer to victory. Read A Book allows you to draw two recruit cards and keep one. The recruits will possibly gain you a star later in the game and allow you to use their special powers once they become active. But, for the life of me, I can't bring myself to do the oppressive action. I'll take that chance, I'll bet on the recruit paying off later simply because that action “feels” right. Never mind that I'm actively exploiting workers to rise within a dystopia with tie breakers that include having low intelligence workers, I won't burn that book. Yea, so, I've bought into the theme. Euphoria is a dice placement game where the dice represent your workers and the dice faces the worker’s knowledge. Being a Dystopia, knowledge isn’t always a good thing. You want your workers to accept what you say, if they become clever (self-aware) they will revolt against you giving you less workers and a cost to retrieve that worker. Euphoria – In the box All our games have wide player count ranges (with 5-7 different numbers supported in each game). That range is not the full story, though. To see what I mean by that let’s look at some data about Euphoria on boardgamegeek.com: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.