"Catan is the cardboard gatekeeper between people who think Monopoly is the best game of all time, and those who have 300 games still in shrink wrap". This, Sir, is Pure Poetry.
Poetry indeed! The thing with Catan is that a) it sucks without at least cities and knights expansion and b) the 'skill' (and fun) comes from the trading opportunities with other players that are always there. I still rank it in my top 10, but it doesn't get played since it just sparks too many emotions on our table (people ran off multiple times in anger)
'Go' is still the king of complexity vs depth. The complexity is so low that you are instantly lost in the depths of what to do because you only have one type of token, and it can go anywhere.
Nah, most of the traditional games are super simple and have below average depth. Go is deeper than chess for sure, but nothing compared to the majority of modern boardgames not marketed towards casuals.
@@timiddrake Depth to me is skill cap, not how much content it has. Skill cap of chess is infinite. There is nothing but skill to it. I thought this was how the video measured it
I introduced my kids to strategy with a home brew rule in Candy Land - at the start of the game, they draw three extra cards. On their turn, instead of drawing a card from the deck, they can pick to use one of their bonus cards instead.
I only disagree with one thing - games with social deception (like Skull, Secret Hitler, Avalon and so on) - should have more depth then you’ve shown- like +1 in my opinion. Or seperate category for social strategy. Sure, game mechanics are simple and when optimizing them you get little advantage. But the psychological manipulation aspect - that can be played at many differnt levels. And require big skill, maybe not analitycal one - but you need to be good at reading other people, bluffing, setting other people up and figuring up what lies can i tell that are belivable considering rules of the game. And you can learn to be better at it too. If f.e. poker didnt have psychological elements it would be a game of counting probabilities and luck. But psychological strategy makes it something much deeper.
Thank you. It is borderline unfair to even classify Secret Hitler as a bard game, or at least to grade it on the core values of one, because it really is just a social deduction game with pieces of cardboard attached to it.
Notably, as well, Secret Hitler's depth is devalued in this video because the game is designed to always be close, but that does not mean that games by people that know what they are doing are not different - one of the big strategies in Secret Hitler when you understand the interactions of the game, is knowing when to purposefully fail governments and pass the top policy of the deck, which is a very meaningful strategic decision that emerges as a result of a feature that hardly looks like a gameplay feature but a tiebreaker.
My roommate in college tried to teach me and some of our friends DUNE about 3 years ago. We spent our first session just learning the rules and the steps for a player to take a single turn. After a little over an hour and a half, we decided we would play next time we all met up for a board game night… we never met back up for a board game night because everyone was too scared to play. I still wanna play eventually. I remember I was assigned the Bene Gesserit and I predicted that my roommate who was teaching us, and was playing as House Atreides, would win on turn 7. Still waiting to see if I was right lol. I just sent him this video so maybe I’ll finally get to play it.
The big brain thumbnail brought me here. Now I am here to stay. This is a quality video, not just in the filming, but also the succinctness of communication, the concord burn (jokes), and just the really thinky thought you put into this video.
Well, I created a "Root only" playing group. We've been playing exclusively Root for about a year and a half (60+ plays now). We're not doing board games like "normal people" would, that's for sure! 😂😂😂
Root is cutesy and you can usually convince someone to give it a try as a "normie". Once you break out the Gloomhaven box though, friends ask for something less heavier. Like literally heavier the box is like 10 pounds.
@@monoludico6166 Oh, it would be a **dream come true** to have a "Root only" playing group! I would like to also play the other Root-like games with this group, such as Arcs, Oath, John Company, etc… - but nothing else!!
i like games that cheat in comlexity like Dominion and Betrayal at House on the hill because the have books worth of mechanics but you only learn them a little at a time
My main issue is with the editing: sometimes words are cut off. I can't always infer in real time what the word was, so I have to skip back. Example: 22:34 "banish"? (Now I know it's Spanish.) Otherwise, an interesting and enjoyable video!
Wow, great video. For me the “struggle” is trying to experience and enjoy more depth in games while trying not to overwhelm my gaming friends with complexity. Nice writing, keep with this good content.
Here's how I would chart the sliding scale: 0) Games of Pure Chance Candyland 1) Reducible to Rules of Thumb Monopoly, Risk, Uno, Jackal 2) Nontrivial Decisionmaking Skull, Durak, King of Tokyo, Munchkin 3) Simple Strategy and Simple Tactics Coup, Smallworld, Secret Hitler, Machi Koro 4) Multidimensional Strategy or Tactics Settlers of Catan, Dominion, Evolution: The Origin of Species, 7 Wonders 5) Multidimensional Strategy and Tactics Smash Up, Five Tribes, Imperial Settlers, Eldritch Horror 6) Small Explosion of Key Considerations Pixel Tactics, Neuroshima Hex, Through the Ages, Old EDH 7) Large Explosion of Key Considerations Root, Game of Thrones, Mage Wars, Contemporary EDH 8) Grand Strategy Terra Mystica, Twilight Imperium 9) Have Mercy, Lord Tet Mage Knight, High Frontier 10) Good Scales Don't Reach the Limit Campaign for North Africa
TM has a really easy ruleset. You can literally come back to the game after 5 years and need only 5 min to know all the rules again. Hard to call this an 8/10 complexity. Imo complexity just doesn't matter, depth is the exciting part. And GH has more than 5/10 depth, but it depends on the player level and the playstyle. Comparing depth of coops to non coops is hard as well
@@vaarios Smash Up is no joke pretty complicated. Especially with expansions. It's simpler on card by card basis than Magic, but not that much simpler overall. There are lots and lots of considerations, given that there are often a dozen different effects on the field that all interact with each other and matter, plus stuff in your hand which is frequently ten cards, plus stuff that could be in hands of other players, and stuff that is in a graveyard now so can't be in hands but can be interacted with; also there's an economy with three resources, also there's space and each time you play a minion you have to choose where to and it matters.
@@uselesscommon7761 I own almost all expansions in that big ass geeky box so I know what you mean, but I still don't think it's near as complex as eldritch horror as you really need to min max sometimes in order to win. Whereas the card play in smash up is the simplest possible with no player health, mana, only 2 card types per deck. Of course in the end it's all very subjective and the rest of your list I very much agree with. High Frontier is one of my favourite games and I do think it's much much harder than dune which in the video is at the highest level.
I've been watching board game content for over a decade, and this is easily one of the best videos I've ever seen. It’s the kind of video that remains relevant no matter how much time passes - even if someone watches it a decade from now, it will still feel fresh and insightful. This is truly timeless content. Amazing job
This may be the best video related to board gaming I have ever seen. Incredible treatment of this super interesting topic. Tremendous writing and analysis!!
"25 factions... Which is more than the number of people who played Concord" DAMN SON Seriously I've been trying to explain the difference between depth and complexity to people for so long. I very much enjoy this.
2 месяца назад+8
This is such a crazily well put together video. So interesting to watch and informative. I don't say this often but this channel certainly deserves more attention. Subscribed!
I have one comment, and it is that the words “complexity” and “depth” are closely intertwined if not almost the identical in this context. The word “complicated” (which you used at the beginning) is a better word for how you defined “complexity.” When something is complicated, then it has many rules and many moving parts, but it can often be broken down into smaller, simpler tasks or concepts. “Complexity” shares this initial idea of overwhelming possibilities and actions, but its intricacy cannot be subdivided. Think of how a car running is complicated even though each moving part can be understood simply (and thus the car running as a whole is then not difficult to understand), but how the inner working of the neurons in your brain is complex (we can understand the properties of a single neuron, but it is not all that clear how this leads to the emergent complexity of thought). Regardless, I was a fan of the video. Love the idea. Thanks for posting!
I'm so glad this popped up in my algorithm. Board game video essays of this quality is a very specific type of video that I very much crave. Good stuff.
Great video! I really enjoyed the ranking system you've created-it’s clear and makes a lot of sense. I’d love to see even more games included in this system in the future! In particular, I'd be very interested in seeing games that are low in complexity but offer high depth. Keep up the awesome content!
I love Brass so much. It really doesn’t take long to learn but has a considerable amount of depth for the actions you can take. Where would people rank Terraforming Mars + expansions? Around a 5?
Honestly, I felt that there is a huge difference between learning the game by yourself and having a teacher to help you. I learned TI4 and Root by myself, and boy Root was PAIN. It took me around 6hours of reading, watching RUclips, checking bgg and 5 games to play the game even correct. TI4 was pretty straight forward: After reading the rules and maybe checking some minor things, I was ready to go. BUT when I tought the games to my friends, the Root group was like "that's pretty easy" and the TI group was overwhelmed by the amount of stuff. Btw. for me the worst games were: Mage Knight (complexity) and great western trail (depth).
Root is not bad if you only care about learning your own faction... But if you have to understand all 4 base game factions to explain the game, it's crazy, it's like explaining 4 games. And to get good you definitely need to understand and keep careful watch on the 4 games happening at the same time at the table. I remember how my first game ended, I lost because was still getting surprised by the crazy stuff the Woodland Alliance player could pull off.
💯 I have taught this to at least 10 individuals all with different backgrounds. It’s all in the teach…and ‘on the job’ teaching. You have to keep adding to their knowledge, but by round 2, the training wheels can come off. I will say…just going over someone’s player board and faction can be daunting. There is a lot of complexity through the text alone! Both the faction board and the cards you receive.
This is the first BigPasti video I have watched and I was very impressed. I immediately subscribed. The definitions of Complexity, Depth and Weight were spot on and very well thought out. I’m interested to see what other topics he’s covered.
Great video, I really appreciate the separation of complexity and depth. Also great job editing the video, it really made a 30+ min video really consumable.
Thank you for the compliment and comment! I was shocked that it was almost 40 minutes long after I was done recording lol, but I'm glad some editing helps!
Good Video. I like the idea of separating Weight from Complexity. Being relatively new to the hobby I have often combined them which usually just makes things more confusing.
Thank you for the compliment and comment! Ya I find 'weight' to be a frustrating reference point, but while it's not perfect, it does provide a 'feeling' of what to expect.
Yes. Patchwork, being rather low weight, is typically described as a fun filler game. When its depth is greater than chess, basically Fischer Random chess turned up to 11.
I think you are cooking with this channel; this kind of board game content + formatting + presentation could use more presence on youtube. i hope the algo blesses your content and delivers you to the audience you so deserve. Keep up the good stuff!
Nice idea for a video. And it’s the template I didn’t know I needed for deciding what game to “usher in a new friend” to the hobby. A lot of times we’ll think “yeah, it’s challenging but we’re all adults here. You’ll figure it out and have fun.” But there’s a lot of assumed hurdles overcome there in terms of mechanic familiarity, expectations, how much is too much thinking (balance of playing to win vs. playing to have a good fun session.) Gives a good tangible spectrum to decide what a certain individual’s dipping-in point might be. Thanks!
Slay the spire board game is such a cool example of low complexity high depth. Compared to most board games I've played, I can get someone up and running in the game in minutes. But you could spend hundreds of hours mastering it.
@@nijucow I would argue that chess doesn't actually have the highest depth (in classical time control), because the depth talked about in this video is not just depth of the decision tree (sure, chess wins there, because I don't think there is any other game where the theoretical depth of the decision tree is 8800 moves), but depth of the viable strategies. It's really REALLY hard for humans, but top humans (with the help of computers) have very much figured out a very solid metagame where variability in strategy barely exists.
@kukuc96 chess isnt solved yet. Not even by stockfish. And what u want to say u can apply to any game. Any bluffing, politics, emotions, behaviour is just nearly pretty easily by probability and data collection. (Yes, the probability is still estimated but very accurate). Basically it is the the same what chess computers are doing by analyzing positions and calculating alot moves ahead. Chess is extremely depth and probably one of the easiest rulesets. Even on the highest level, when ppl spent their entire life on this game, there is still a significant difference in skill while unsolved for computers. Barely any metagame in the midgame besides alot of concepts. (yes some positions are quite similiar and you can apply the same ideas on but u might miss sth). High complexity often let us think that it is more deep but thats not quite true. So i disagree. chess is 10/10 in depth to me
Wow! You and I came to a very similar conclusion! The biggest question I have is how did you make your grading scale? I would love to know! Here is what I wrote about Board game weight back in June. Concerning BGGs Weight System The ‘weight’ of a game is referring to the mental capacity or the mental burden of a player. I’ve concluded the ‘weight’ of a game is a triangle of 3 factors: 1. Complexity Index 2. Depth Index 3. Time Index COMPLEXITY - deals with how basic rules can interact with each other in meaningful ways. The meaning of ‘complexity’ is a combination of simple things and interconnected parts, sometimes this is called ‘Intricate’. And ‘Intricate’ means entangled or perplex. Examples of Complexity : 1. The amount of rules a game has. The size of the rulebook is usually a good indicator. 2. Learning how to play the game for the first time (reading the rules) 3. Teaching the game to others. Sometimes it is much easier to tell how to play than it is to learn by reading the rules. 4. The amount of additional rules introduced. This could be through cards, mechanics, or other unique variables 5. Games with variable dashboards 6. Games with lots of cards and text on the cards. As the cards compound and pileup, so does the mental capacity of players who have to remember new conditions, abilities, exceptions, enhancers, and new mini rules. 7. The amount of knowledge a player needs to start playing. I.e. I have to understand everything about a Ryan Lauket game before I’m able to play it for the first time, otherwise the are gaps in my understanding and comprehension. He game rules are like a code or puzzle I have to crake. DEPTH - is when the consequence of a decision you make, branches out into more choices and perhaps additional consequences. Examples of Depth 1. The amount of decisions a player has to make during their turn. - In Scythe all you do is pick one of four actions for your turn. But deciding which of those 4 to take can be difficult. Then, how you execute your action could greatly change how efficient you are. Later, there is a whole bottom row to consider and calculate which can maximize your efficiency. 2. The degree of punishment for wrong decisions. 18X games are infamous for being unforgiving. - Meaning, if a player makes a mistake on their first couple of turns, it may be very difficult to come back from that. There are other games that have catchup mechanics built in, so that if players get too far behind, there is a mechanism that can give them a chance to catch up. TIME - has to do with the mental processing of the rules. How much does a player need to know before they can start to play? How long will it take to make all the mental calculations and navigate through all rules before a player can make a decision? The amount of time you spend throughout the game are also contributing factors. Complexity will always limit the depth of a game (or it would be endlessly complex), but depth is bought with complexity. Meaning, you can’t have any amount of depth without adding some complexity. A game like checkers has both low depth and low complexity. There are only a handful of rules, and there are even fewer choices you can make. Examples of the Time index 1. The length of playtime - overtime everyone’s mental capacity begins to diminish, some will diminish faster than others 2. The setup time - Games that take 20-45 mins to setup can add to mentally capacity load. Players have to remember all the rules and conditions for setup. Sometimes this can be mitigated if a player has all the rules memorized because they play it so much. A player could set up the game prior to others showing up, those reducing this factor. 3. Take Down time - Once the game is done, the player may be done too. But there is still the task of putting everything away. If there is an insert involved, or if it’s a certain storage system, or has to be packed a particular way, then this could add to the mental load of players. 4. Amount of time a player has to take a turn. If a player takes a long time to take a turn, we call this analysis paralysis (AP). Does a turn take 2 mins or 6 mins, how long does each turn affect the overall length of the game? 5. The amount of mental decisions a player needs to make per second. - On a player’s turn in Chess they only have one action to take, but the amount of decisions they have to go through on that turn can be daunting. Chessmasters have developed methods to minimize the amount of time they spend calculating the odds. - A game could be only 30 minutes long, but the amount of decision making could exhausting, wearing out the mental capacity of players. Captain Sonar is a short game. If you play as one of the secondary roles then you could get board playing. But if you play as the Captain the amount of decisions you have to process with a short window of time can be mentally draining. - This can affect the Pace of Play, which could also draw out the game longer, exceeding the mental capacity of some players. Some other factors that may influence this game-weight triangle are: 1) Elegance 2) Game Management 3) Intuitiveness 4) Immersion ELEGANCE - is when a game has high depth to complexity ratio. - This means the game has choices for the player that are meaningful and that mater, without needing to have a long rulebook, or overly complex rules. GAME MANAGEMENT - deals with how much a player has to manipulate the game each turn (often referred to ‘fiddling’ or ‘bookkeeping’). - The more players have to remember to do certain things each round and upkeep the game, the greater the mental load on a player. INTUITIVENESS - deals with the level of ease for you to understand how to play optimally. - Players often refer to this concept as ‘grokking’ or ‘seeing through matrix’. It’s how well you mentally connect with the game. A good graphic art design can enhance a player’s level of understanding, which in turn can reduce the mental load on players. On the other hand, a game with 50 icons for players to remember could increase the mental load on players. IMMERSION - deals with the ratio of pleasure/engagement to the mental load a game has on a player. - Some games can have both a high complexity-level and high depth-level, but the level of immersion can be so high, it negates or lessens the mental toll it has on players. Because the mental toll is massaged by a player’s level of enjoyment, it can reduce their mental load or capacity for that game. SUMMARY I think these 3 factors (complexity- depth - time) are more measurable than what we have on BGG, and they are all contributing factors to the ‘weight’ of a board game. PS: I love Tenet and I don’t need subtitles 😊
I love that Camel Up is your example of “Games for the Elderly!” I bought it thinking that my elderly parents and young niece/nephew could all play it.
I was listening to you talk about Dune when I thought, "huh, I wonder how he'd rank Root." So when it came next labeled "the sane man's limit", I laughed out loud. Yeah, I love Root, but I've played it multiple times with two different groups of people who have played it multiple times, and I swear to God I have to relearn even the fundamental mechanics every time I bust it out. And these are all people I regularly play TTRPGs with. There's asymmetrical gameplay, and then there's "each faction's goals and gameplay is so different, that the genre of game changes class to class."
I used to play roots a few years ago and I remember loving the raccoon, you’re just chilling in the forest doing your own thing while all the other players are trying to build up their kingdom
@@ayzix-polytopia3854 yeah, I really liked the card trade mechanic of that class, and how you could forge an alliance powerful enough that if they win, you also win lol. It's pretty cool game design.
Thank you for this amazing video! I always wondered how deep I would go into boardgaming, and you are giving here the keys to understand what would be my limit :D.
Root is my boardgame group's current skill ceiling. I gifted it to my sister a few years ago because it looked fairly complex and the critters are cute. Reading into the manual and looking up video tutorials, she and my brother in law got quickly overwhelmed. We still have to tackle it to this day.
If you want my current advice on tackling root, just learn 1 faction each and play the game once, don't stress up too much about being competitive and understand exactly what everyone is doing for your first game. Actually playing through the different stages will make learning the rules afterwards much much easier IMO and removes the "analysis paralysis" hold you back
@@schiffer125 That's the best advice, play the game as you can and go from there ... There is no Boargame police that will fine you for playing it wrong :) Especially if you play with family and close friends
@@schiffer125 Yes, I am 3 games in, watched all 4 faction tutorials on YT and I can say I have a pretty good idea of the 4 basic factions now. Maybe not so much on what good tactics are but I do know the basic rules and ways to score points for each faction. The first game is pretty overwhelming and it helps to have someone who already knows the game to play along but once you've done you're first game learning the basics of the other factions isn't that hard.
The question of depth for Gloomhaven is certainly an interesting one. Gloomhaven is my favorite board game (I've played all the expansions), so my opinion is definitely a bit biased, but I think the complexity ceiling is incredibly high. With 18 classes in the base game alone, along with items and different party compositions, the sheer amount of interactions and possibilities blows most other games out of the water. However, what holds the game back in "depth" is that it is a co-op game where everyone is working together against the game. As you said, each scenario is more of a puzzle that you are working together to solve. Because of this, there is a limit to where all that potential craziness can go. In PvP games, the skill ceiling is almost unlimited because there is always someone else that can rival your levels. But a scenario of Gloomhaven just can't do that because its difficulty can only grow with the players so much. Loved the video!
Interesting. I was gonna comment that after having read through the rules first, most of the rules were pretty straightforward "oh, so basically like in DnD" or "oh, so basically like a video game RPG" level for me. Sure, it's not Catan level simple, but in terms of complexity, I would've ranked it lower. I'm more on the side that it's of greater depth with the array of player characters and enemies.
We didn't find Gloomhaven to be that complex. In the end it turned out to be quite repetitive and was mainly decided by the luck of the draw: basically the attack routine cards the enemy got in a particular round.
War games aside, I like to think 18XX games are the pinnacle of boardgame depth and complexity. Some are less complex but the get good factor is almost always 9/10.
Excellent video! This even helped me solidify my own standing and preferences within the boardgaming space. I seem to live within the 6-7 range but will go up to an 8 and still enjoy myself. I tend to be the only one learning and teaching my games so naturally, that’s my personal bar as to what I can digest and what my noobier gaming group is willing to learn/enjoy.
i have gotten my wife that hate learning new games to play pandemic , TTReurope, azul and wingspan LOL, (thats also my go to games if we get friends over) i play ticket to ride with my 6y, but it more for fun to build tracks and she starting to to catch up the get cards to lay tracks thinking :) but think I need to buy TTR first journey to help her more
My daughter's copy of Candyland has a rule "for older kids" where you draw 2 and choose 1 to play. This adds depth and complexity (albeit not a lot), so I would argue it's more like a 1.1 out of 10.
Brass LOOKS complicated, but is actually fairly approachable. TI is like wading into the edge of an ocean and then finding you're in the middle of outer space and have no idea what's going on or how to get back
Great video! Well, I haven't played Twilight Imperium or "classic" Dune, but, from my experience: Lvl 0: Snakes and Ladders (not a game, just a nonsensical activity.) Lvl 1: The Game of Life (plays itself, but at least there are some points where players can make simple decisions.) Lvl 2 : Ticket to Ride (this is the point where player's decisions start to matter. There's some simple strategy involved, but the rules are pretty simple and straight forward.) Lvl 3: 7 Wonders (not so deep or complex, but there are different strategies to pursue and the symbols add some complexity.) Lvl 4: Lost Ruins of Arnak (there are more ways to achieve victory than in 7 Wonders and some interesting strategical/tactical choices, but in the end it's not complex to learn and not deep enough to keep more "serious" gamers engaged.) Lvl 5: Agricola (from this point forward I think we're on "gamers games" territory. The deepness on this one is somewhat high, and there's some complexity due to the symbols and hand management/optimization, but it's not that complex after a couple of plays.) (Dune Imperium, Puerto Rico and Brass are also good examples of this level.) Lvl 6: Race for the Galaxy (a pretty deep game due to all the posible card combinations and the variable phase order. It's certainly complex, due to the variety of symbols.) (Pax Pamir and Imperium: Classics/Legends/Horizons are also good examples of this level.) Lvl 7: Pax Renaissance (from this point forward I think we're in "games for weirdos" territory. This game has one of the most complex rulesets I've ever seen and ridiculous amounts of player interaction! All the cards present a wide range of possibilities and the path to victory is pretty darn obscure.) Lvl 8: Root +expansions (learning all that factions, all of which play a completely different game on their own... The most brutal learning curve, but the more rewarding one as time passes! I formed a Root exclusively playing group, that's what it takes to master this thing!) (Gaia Project and Spirit Island are also good examples of this level.) Lvl 9: Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization, with New Leaders and Wonders (so many rules and moving pieces, so many strategies to pursue, so deep and yet a fulfilling experience!) (John Company also fits perfectly in this category.) Lvl 10: High Frontier 4 All (this IS rocket science, literally speaking. So many rules, so brutally complex, specially with the addition all those moules... Insane!) Could you please make a second part of this video, maybe adding some of the games I mentioned? New subscriber, btw.
Weight 3.2 is my sweet spot. Scythe, Terraforming mars and even MTG are all right around 3.2. Just hard enough that I feel like I won’t quite make the right decisions and I make plenty of mistakes. Just easy enough I can teach my friends and they can do the game actions on the first go,, even if it’s barely even that. Great video please make more deep dives like this on the genre.
Someone may have categorised it but I can't quite place where Scythe is on the scale in terms of complexity and depth, I'm assuming between 3-5 in complexity but I'm not too familiar with many of the games on the list.
Lvl 11: Magic the Gathering. I really love it's complex interactions so I watch nearly everyday the new Judging FtW video from a top magic judge. I've heard people say that the lvl 2 magic judge exam is as hard as a law bar exam... I'm going to say that's likely an exaggeration but still you get the point.
Interesting. Of course there's thousands of cards, and hundreds of thousands of interactions between them, but it's low complexity imo, maybe the stack is a difficult concept to grasp. The depth comes from playing enough to know the most popular cards and archetypes (of which there really aren't that many imo, maybe 15) for your format, resource management, threat assessment, calculated risk and tracking your and your opponent's deck. But a lot of the cards do the same stuff when you boil it down, I rarely come across a card that completely blows me away with a unique mechanic that I don't know the answer for. The main complexity comes from the mechanical interactions , tracking and executing them (or trying to remember to lol) but not a ton of brainpower in decision making most times. Even at the highest levels of play, players know the decks inside and out and are taking educated guesses and relying on a a bit of luck that they draw the answers. But then again, I'm probably just talking it down since I'm pretty experienced at Magic, but I know the second half of this list would break my feeble brain.
@@yinbakalu You should really check out the Judging FtW youtube channel to see the more interesting interactions and how the rules handle them. I've been playing magic since 1999 and have a really good intuition about how interactions play out. It's only been the past couple of years when I found Dave's judging channel that I really got into the nitty gritty details of how and why the rules work the way they do. Non-deterministic loops, dependancies, the layer system for continuous effects, copy abilities, double faced cards... There is a lot of nuance. You should also check out the Judges Tower format. You play with a shared deck and a group of people and infinite mana. Every turn you have to take all actions you possibly could (play all spells possible, attack with all creatures, have to block etc). You lose if you break a rule and get called out for it. And you lose if you call someone out yet you are incorrect.
I enjoyed your differentiation between Complexity and Depth a lot and I have realized, that I prefer games with depth, no matter the complexity. But the complexity limits with whom I can play the game with. How would you rate Spirit Island (+Expansions) on the Complexity/Depth scale? I would really love to see a video about the "3 high depth games for each complexity level" (maybe from C3 upwards)!
So many people have asked about Twilight Imperium and why I am willing to play an 8+ hour game. My answer is always that I have never had a bad game of TI4. Like, every game is a story and incredibly engaging. It's seriously the pinnacle of everything boardgames can be. To my wife's surprise, even though I clearly explain the time requirement, I actually have a list of people waiting to play. It's seriously the best board game experience.
Playing a game of TI4 feels like playing an entire D&D campaign, but condensed to a single 6-8 hour game. The sheer scope of it, the emergent storytelling it facilitates, the drama, it's like no other game I've played. There's almost always some mad scheme you can try to pull off to *maybe* steal a win. I've never actually had the most points by the end of a game, but I've never felt like I lost.
No, no, no. D&D is a very different beast, if proper role-playing is followed. I can't possibly conceive of TI4 being in anyway equivalent to even a single session of role- playing, let alone an entire campaign. You must've experienced very dull or limited campaigns to think that. I don't play it anymore because it became too all- consuming. But my typical feeling afterwards was, where did the time go, and when can we play again?
Time is relative, and entirely dependent upon level of enjoyment. Ten hours can seem like a brief moment when it's something you enjoy, while ten minutes can seem like an endless nightmare with something you can't stand.
*Laughs in Pen and Paper DM* Once you've gotten used to reading 300+ page rulebooks something within you really shifts. I thrive under unhinged complexity now :D Twilight Imperium looks really cool, but the cost of that is even absurd for my standards 🙈 I wanne recommand "Imperium Classics" from Osprey Gaming to all of the complexity geeks tho! It's a little bit steeper then even Dune Imperium (what's up with all the Imperium names, lol), but comes at less then 40 bucks cost and is set up only using cards. There are a lot of different unique, assymetric factions with their own decks and very different strategies, yet it's actually very well balanced!
How could you. Chutes and Ladders is clearly less complex then Candy Land. You have way less working parts! Candland has a solid .1 in complexity compared to it!
What an amazing video ! I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw your low subscriber count. Keep up doing it like this and your channel will grow big im sure of it
It’s the markedly staccato speech. Once you hear it, it’s tough to get through. I’m all for enunciation, but exaggerated to this degree is tough to listen to. Makes Tenet easier on the ears.
Marvelous video!! I've binged some of your videos today, and they're also great. You mentioned Dominion (my favorite board game) in passing, and now I'm so curious as to your thoughts on it!
As a boardgame noob who does enjoy a good game, i wish i played any of these besides Catan so i could have a reference to know what level of complexity i would still enjoy. With all the Elden Ring and souls references in the video, i definitely expected the Dark Souls boardgame to at least get a mention---which i feel like is probably the most complex board game i play on a regular basis. But ive also spent nontrivial amounts of time learning and internallizing ttrpg rulesets such as pathfinder and SotDL and such. I have no idea where on this list any of these would be comparable to.
I think a lot of users also include "game difficulty" in the BGG scale. This is why games like Chess and Santorini and Onitama are so apart, despite being actually quite similar in depth. There are just less constraints on the latter two.
I like that you mentioned digital versions of board games. I think there are complex games out there that are better as digital adaptations. I'm personally working on a digital adaptation on the famous but hard to find wargame Napoleon's Triumph. Looking forward to finding out if there's a community out there that wants to play it.
Thanks for those explanations. I'm personally looking for age appropriate games for kids as well as for the elderly. There are so many games without enough weight, as kids and the elderly are often perceived as less intelligent that they actually are and as companies want to sell more games that aren't suitable and are just poorly designed as they are quickly released. It's also difficult to evaluate a game without expansions that seems incomplete vs. games that are planned to unwrap through many expansions that are not bringing that much to the game. I would rather have the choice of meeples type and mat type before I purchase so many boxes, or at least save on the expansion boxes cost and get the material in another way. With all those game expansions, I've learned to plan my purchases better, but still... Kids have much to learn, and the elderly need proper stimulations to keep their cognitive and physical abilities. We, the adults, lack the proper time to play. Context of gaming also have their own parameters. Some game expansions could be to get from a 8 y. old + game to a 10 y. old + game, instead to keep it simple, like the kids didn't age. Others could be some variant rules for the elderly to help the weight of the game to be more confortable. I'm still looking for better fits for my gaming groups and would appreciate any suggestions.
applaud your effort to try and measure the game attributes. I do not think you will ever find two people that agree on any of it hehe. but I applaud your effort and explanation.
Great video! Although I was quite surprised by some of the rankings. For me, Dune Imperium is a natural next step after Catan. And even Root has been smooth to introduce (base game only) thanks to how much info is laid out on the player board.
"Catan is the gatekeeper between people who think monopoly is the best board game of all time and people who have 300 games still in shrink wrap." Nailed it.
I applaud the effort, this is a deep, and complex topic! I do think you are under-valuing the skill required in bluffing and deduction in games such as Skull, Secret Hitler etc. there is a reason top Poker players win more frequently in a game with such a high luck factor. Also, you didn’t address how complexity can also relate to high-AP-prone games, not just complexity of learning the rules.
Very good video and a well-compiled list. I found myself mostly nodding to the remarks, which is surprising for such a subjective topic. I've only found myself wondering in two places: 1. Gloomhaven - I think today there's a huge overlap between people who grew up with RPG video games, people who tried or at least have knowledge of DnD, and people who'd be interested in playing Gloomhaven. With that, I think many of the rules of Gloomhaven become pretty self-explanatory, because they make sense in the context of these other games. Sure, you have to play a bit for the game to flow freely without checking the rulebook, but most of things are standard or written down on the gaming pieces themselves. 2. Most of the reasoning for Dune being a tier of its own - Just because a game doesn't have a clear ruleset, or even if it has multiple conflicting rulesets, it doesn't make it any more complex. It either becomes multiple games with the same pieces, or one game with an ambiguous / badly written ruleset. To illustrate my point: If half of the people would be playing chess with pawns also being able to move backwards, it wouldn't make it any complex, just unclear what you're actually playing. Dune is complex enough in and of itself (maybe not a separate tier complex), ambiguity of rules is a completely separate issue imo. (And it is just that, an issue. Unlike complexity which is deliberate way to appeal to the audience.)
I am actually shooketh to kearn that i played the level 10 game. I don't know if i played by someones house rules or something, but it seemed significantly less complex that for example Terra Mystica to me.
Never really played board games in general (nobody wanted to when I was younger and I've gravitated to single player video games as a result) so my limit is like...level 0.5 right now. Guess I'd have needed to try and find people 20 years ago because I'm too far anti-turn based now to even consider trying them.
Really nice video! I really like how you defined your terms at the beginning and explained everything. Plus, now I have scientific proof I can present to my wife that she can indeed learn Root and stay sane!
I feel there is a big big jump between Catan and Brass Birmingham. Much bigger than your "lets put a complex skill deduction game in the middle". The difference between Catan and Brass Birmingham is much bigger than the difference between Brass Birmingham to Root. And I'm not even convinced that DI:U is more difficult to play than Brass: Birmingham. In addition you skipped a whole world of Stone Age, Voyages of Marco Polo, Lost Ruins of Arnak, Agricola, A Feast for Odin, Terraforming Mars, Great Western Trail... And on the end track there are the super-heavies Lacerda games, that can give a migraine to the strongest players (On Mars, Gallerist, Lisboa...).
As a fledgling boardgamer this video made me subscribe and I would love to see a video with these ratings put on every game you've played. Doesnt have to be as expansive as you did here but just 30 seconds per game would already make me watch it all
Great video. I really enjoyed it. I will comment that I see Root a little differently. Once you I got good at the game I no longer experienced "domino kingslaying". The more experienced players played to setup their win such that once they crossed the OMG threshold they couldn't be stopped. At that level the game becomes more diplomatic in that you are trying to incentivize and empower the factions that can best cripple your next rival. If you've done it right you have enough on the board and in your tableau that you can explode past 30. There are a couple of exceptions like the Eerie who don't explode well. For them you need to steam roll consistently to the point where no one can beat you to 30. I am not a huge fan of Root anymore, but I do think it is unfortunate that people think of it as whack-a-mole. It isn't that way in my experience.
I think realistically you could even add a third category to weight of intricacy as opposed to complexity. I would consider an intricate game a game with a lot of setup but a complex game a game with a lot of rules. Gloomhaven isn’t that complicated (relatively speaking, obviously still not a simple game), but it is very intricate. It’s worth separating as experienced players may be wanting a complicated game that they can start within a minute of grabbing the box.
I'm trying to think of the least complex game with the most amount of depth. Chess seems like the obvious winner. Probably a 3 complexity with a depth of 10
@RoryMag That's honestly what I thought before I played it as well. But the rules are incredibly simple, you simply take turns placing a stones on the line-intersections of the board. If a group of stones ever runs out of liberties (adjacent empty space) the stones are removed and put aside. Whoever controls the most area at the end, plus captured stones wins. There is a tiny niche rule about the fact that you cannot repeat a board state, which once you play that scenario once you will understand it. You straight up just learnt how to play go, it's ridiculously simple, yet so deep.
@@ethan6627I would generally agree that the moves are less complex but to me the counting/scoring system seems more complex than the nuances surrounding checkmate. Perhaps this is just my opinion because I still don't really understand the final count🤣
I would be kinda curious to know where you would rank cards games like Arkham horror, any coop cards games or even tcgs... Because the difficulty of those games comes more from the diversity of deckbuilding possibilities than the sheers rules themselves ( even if they are not the easiest of all games at all, but there is way worse)... So, would you consider having to create a deck and the amount of options to do so as an addition of a game's depth ? Or more of an complexity that you need to go through before playing ? And does that make those game lvl 8 or 9 because of how wide they are ? Or pehaps more an lvl 6 - 7 because the ammount you need to know and master to purely play a game is not that high ?
I found the anecdote at the beginning about Brass exactly my experience. The same, I think, can be said about Go. The game has 5 rules but takes a lifetime to master.
I disagree that Social Deduction games like Secrect Hitler have low deep. They are really deep, as knowing when to Tell the truth, when to lie, and How to lie, demands a lot of experience with the game loops.
this was really well done. I appreciate your insights and agree with a lot of it. I personally enjoy playing Brass Birmingham, Dune Imperium, Spirit Island (I wonder where it would be - 9 or 10?), and Root. Again, very consumable video and I actually watched it all.
my favorite example of a game that is so much deeper than it is complex is Hanabi. the game is played with what are one step removed from basic playing cards, but the unique twist of not being able to see your own hand as well as the co-op environment flip everything you know about board games on its head. the strategies that emerge as a result are fascinating and it feels like you learn something new about them every time you play.
I always think Power Grid is at an interesting level of complexity. You really only need one person to know the rules really well to make sure the auction flow and phase changes are handled properly. No one else needs to learn the complex administrative rules if they don’t want to.
![Lethal Company Music Video 🎵 "Follow The Orders" [VERSION A]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QeooZB4Z7RA/mqdefault.jpg)
"Catan is the cardboard gatekeeper between people who think Monopoly is the best game of all time, and those who have 300 games still in shrink wrap". This, Sir, is Pure Poetry.
Poetry indeed! The thing with Catan is that a) it sucks without at least cities and knights expansion and b) the 'skill' (and fun) comes from the trading opportunities with other players that are always there. I still rank it in my top 10, but it doesn't get played since it just sparks too many emotions on our table (people ran off multiple times in anger)
@@Eikenhorstyeah its way to luck based and basic
@@Eikenhorst As someone with massive social anxiety, I cannot stand games with negotiation so I've only played Catan once.
This quote felt like a hit to me personally. Catan was my gateway drug into something fierce
@@pacorka9943 I get that. But without the negotiation you can still play the game. It just becomes a far worse game, not worth playing in my opinion.
You can get better at candy land actually… by getting better at arguing that you should go first
The rules just state the youngest player goes first. It allows the kids to beat their parents slightly more often.
@@dannyketch7683 guess the strategy is to get older people to play lol
'Go' is still the king of complexity vs depth. The complexity is so low that you are instantly lost in the depths of what to do because you only have one type of token, and it can go anywhere.
I’d say it loses some weight in that there is only 1 potential action - placing a piece.
Nah, most of the traditional games are super simple and have below average depth. Go is deeper than chess for sure, but nothing compared to the majority of modern boardgames not marketed towards casuals.
@@timiddrake What's your definition of depth?
@@timiddrake Depth to me is skill cap, not how much content it has. Skill cap of chess is infinite. There is nothing but skill to it. I thought this was how the video measured it
@@MrTVx99same
You did what had to be done.
Certainly, this was really well thought out
😂
Now I want a comprehensive spreadsheet of games with their respective depth and complexity.
And I think what I look for in a game is the depth to complexity ratio. I hope someone makes this list!
We need an Excel sheet!
where is it. where is the excel sheet
@@palliyil Chess has high depth to complexity ratio
@@matthewe3813 yup. Chess and Go as well. Probably why it has stuck around for so long!
Out of nowhere with the Concord burn. Love it!
I'm watching random videos today, this is the second time somebody burned concord out of nowhere :D
I had to pause the video and pass it on. It was so good
I laughed pretty hard when this came up
28:34
@@TheTriforcekeeper thank you for making this joke easy to find forevermore
I introduced my kids to strategy with a home brew rule in Candy Land - at the start of the game, they draw three extra cards. On their turn, instead of drawing a card from the deck, they can pick to use one of their bonus cards instead.
I only disagree with one thing - games with social deception (like Skull, Secret Hitler, Avalon and so on) - should have more depth then you’ve shown- like +1 in my opinion. Or seperate category for social strategy.
Sure, game mechanics are simple and when optimizing them you get little advantage. But the psychological manipulation aspect - that can be played at many differnt levels. And require big skill, maybe not analitycal one - but you need to be good at reading other people, bluffing, setting other people up and figuring up what lies can i tell that are belivable considering rules of the game. And you can learn to be better at it too.
If f.e. poker didnt have psychological elements it would be a game of counting probabilities and luck. But psychological strategy makes it something much deeper.
Thank you. It is borderline unfair to even classify Secret Hitler as a bard game, or at least to grade it on the core values of one, because it really is just a social deduction game with pieces of cardboard attached to it.
@@PuzzlingGoal I mean, that makes it a board game, lol
As a quiet person who plays secret hitler in a loud friend group, i feel like there is a lot of depth and breadth of skill
Notably, as well, Secret Hitler's depth is devalued in this video because the game is designed to always be close, but that does not mean that games by people that know what they are doing are not different - one of the big strategies in Secret Hitler when you understand the interactions of the game, is knowing when to purposefully fail governments and pass the top policy of the deck, which is a very meaningful strategic decision that emerges as a result of a feature that hardly looks like a gameplay feature but a tiebreaker.
@@t1geres544 The problem is secret hitler is essentially a "solved game", there is one path to good
My roommate in college tried to teach me and some of our friends DUNE about 3 years ago. We spent our first session just learning the rules and the steps for a player to take a single turn. After a little over an hour and a half, we decided we would play next time we all met up for a board game night… we never met back up for a board game night because everyone was too scared to play. I still wanna play eventually. I remember I was assigned the Bene Gesserit and I predicted that my roommate who was teaching us, and was playing as House Atreides, would win on turn 7. Still waiting to see if I was right lol.
I just sent him this video so maybe I’ll finally get to play it.
Its a solid game and not really that bad to play. It takes quite a while but I taught my aging parents how to play and they did pretty well
Dune can be explained to a regular gamer in about 20 minutes. I know, because I've done it on more than one occasion.
The big brain thumbnail brought me here. Now I am here to stay.
This is a quality video, not just in the filming, but also the succinctness of communication, the concord burn (jokes), and just the really thinky thought you put into this video.
Root at level 7 is still at normal person levels? A normal person would have tapped out after catan.
An “ascended” normal person, let’s say. But still not a board game weirdo hahaha
Well, I created a "Root only" playing group. We've been playing exclusively Root for about a year and a half (60+ plays now). We're not doing board games like "normal people" would, that's for sure! 😂😂😂
Root is cutesy and you can usually convince someone to give it a try as a "normie". Once you break out the Gloomhaven box though, friends ask for something less heavier. Like literally heavier the box is like 10 pounds.
@@monoludico6166 Oh, it would be a **dream come true** to have a "Root only" playing group! I would like to also play the other Root-like games with this group, such as Arcs, Oath, John Company, etc… - but nothing else!!
@@FBracht that's exactly what I'm trying to do with that group 😁
i like games that cheat in comlexity like Dominion and Betrayal at House on the hill because the have books worth of mechanics but you only learn them a little at a time
Well... this video is going to blow up, so SO well edited! Solid script as well!
My main issue is with the editing: sometimes words are cut off. I can't always infer in real time what the word was, so I have to skip back. Example: 22:34 "banish"? (Now I know it's Spanish.)
Otherwise, an interesting and enjoyable video!
I found the misspellings in the overlaid text distracting
Wow, great video. For me the “struggle” is trying to experience and enjoy more depth in games while trying not to overwhelm my gaming friends with complexity. Nice writing, keep with this good content.
Congrats on striking algorithm gold! Very interesting video. I like your style. Subscribed.
Here's how I would chart the sliding scale:
0) Games of Pure Chance
Candyland
1) Reducible to Rules of Thumb
Monopoly, Risk, Uno, Jackal
2) Nontrivial Decisionmaking
Skull, Durak, King of Tokyo, Munchkin
3) Simple Strategy and Simple Tactics
Coup, Smallworld, Secret Hitler, Machi Koro
4) Multidimensional Strategy or Tactics
Settlers of Catan, Dominion, Evolution: The Origin of Species, 7 Wonders
5) Multidimensional Strategy and Tactics
Smash Up, Five Tribes, Imperial Settlers, Eldritch Horror
6) Small Explosion of Key Considerations
Pixel Tactics, Neuroshima Hex, Through the Ages, Old EDH
7) Large Explosion of Key Considerations
Root, Game of Thrones, Mage Wars, Contemporary EDH
8) Grand Strategy
Terra Mystica, Twilight Imperium
9) Have Mercy, Lord Tet
Mage Knight, High Frontier
10) Good Scales Don't Reach the Limit
Campaign for North Africa
TM has a really easy ruleset. You can literally come back to the game after 5 years and need only 5 min to know all the rules again. Hard to call this an 8/10 complexity.
Imo complexity just doesn't matter, depth is the exciting part. And GH has more than 5/10 depth, but it depends on the player level and the playstyle. Comparing depth of coops to non coops is hard as well
Haven't seen the video yet, and here's me hoping EDH refers to elder dragon highlander, the mtg format.
I love this list, but smash up with eldritch horror and those other games seems like giving too much credit to smash up 😅
@@vaarios Smash Up is no joke pretty complicated. Especially with expansions. It's simpler on card by card basis than Magic, but not that much simpler overall. There are lots and lots of considerations, given that there are often a dozen different effects on the field that all interact with each other and matter, plus stuff in your hand which is frequently ten cards, plus stuff that could be in hands of other players, and stuff that is in a graveyard now so can't be in hands but can be interacted with; also there's an economy with three resources, also there's space and each time you play a minion you have to choose where to and it matters.
@@uselesscommon7761 I own almost all expansions in that big ass geeky box so I know what you mean, but I still don't think it's near as complex as eldritch horror as you really need to min max sometimes in order to win. Whereas the card play in smash up is the simplest possible with no player health, mana, only 2 card types per deck. Of course in the end it's all very subjective and the rest of your list I very much agree with. High Frontier is one of my favourite games and I do think it's much much harder than dune which in the video is at the highest level.
I've been watching board game content for over a decade, and this is easily one of the best videos I've ever seen. It’s the kind of video that remains relevant no matter how much time passes - even if someone watches it a decade from now, it will still feel fresh and insightful. This is truly timeless content. Amazing job
This may be the best video related to board gaming I have ever seen. Incredible treatment of this super interesting topic. Tremendous writing and analysis!!
"25 factions... Which is more than the number of people who played Concord"
DAMN SON
Seriously I've been trying to explain the difference between depth and complexity to people for so long. I very much enjoy this.
This is such a crazily well put together video. So interesting to watch and informative. I don't say this often but this channel certainly deserves more attention. Subscribed!
I have one comment, and it is that the words “complexity” and “depth” are closely intertwined if not almost the identical in this context. The word “complicated” (which you used at the beginning) is a better word for how you defined “complexity.” When something is complicated, then it has many rules and many moving parts, but it can often be broken down into smaller, simpler tasks or concepts. “Complexity” shares this initial idea of overwhelming possibilities and actions, but its intricacy cannot be subdivided. Think of how a car running is complicated even though each moving part can be understood simply (and thus the car running as a whole is then not difficult to understand), but how the inner working of the neurons in your brain is complex (we can understand the properties of a single neuron, but it is not all that clear how this leads to the emergent complexity of thought).
Regardless, I was a fan of the video. Love the idea. Thanks for posting!
I'm so glad this popped up in my algorithm. Board game video essays of this quality is a very specific type of video that I very much crave. Good stuff.
Great video! I really enjoyed the ranking system you've created-it’s clear and makes a lot of sense. I’d love to see even more games included in this system in the future! In particular, I'd be very interested in seeing games that are low in complexity but offer high depth. Keep up the awesome content!
I love Brass so much. It really doesn’t take long to learn but has a considerable amount of depth for the actions you can take.
Where would people rank Terraforming Mars + expansions? Around a 5?
Honestly, I felt that there is a huge difference between learning the game by yourself and having a teacher to help you. I learned TI4 and Root by myself, and boy Root was PAIN. It took me around 6hours of reading, watching RUclips, checking bgg and 5 games to play the game even correct. TI4 was pretty straight forward: After reading the rules and maybe checking some minor things, I was ready to go.
BUT when I tought the games to my friends, the Root group was like "that's pretty easy" and the TI group was overwhelmed by the amount of stuff.
Btw. for me the worst games were: Mage Knight (complexity) and great western trail (depth).
Root is not bad if you only care about learning your own faction... But if you have to understand all 4 base game factions to explain the game, it's crazy, it's like explaining 4 games. And to get good you definitely need to understand and keep careful watch on the 4 games happening at the same time at the table. I remember how my first game ended, I lost because was still getting surprised by the crazy stuff the Woodland Alliance player could pull off.
💯 I have taught this to at least 10 individuals all with different backgrounds. It’s all in the teach…and ‘on the job’ teaching. You have to keep adding to their knowledge, but by round 2, the training wheels can come off.
I will say…just going over someone’s player board and faction can be daunting. There is a lot of complexity through the text alone! Both the faction board and the cards you receive.
This is the first BigPasti video I have watched and I was very impressed. I immediately subscribed.
The definitions of Complexity, Depth and Weight were spot on and very well thought out.
I’m interested to see what other topics he’s covered.
Great video, I really appreciate the separation of complexity and depth. Also great job editing the video, it really made a 30+ min video really consumable.
Thank you for the compliment and comment! I was shocked that it was almost 40 minutes long after I was done recording lol, but I'm glad some editing helps!
You came to me from out of the abyss, and I am so thankful to have found you! Thank you for sharing your knowledge, your insights, and your candor.
Good Video. I like the idea of separating Weight from Complexity. Being relatively new to the hobby I have often combined them which usually just makes things more confusing.
Thank you for the compliment and comment! Ya I find 'weight' to be a frustrating reference point, but while it's not perfect, it does provide a 'feeling' of what to expect.
Yes. Patchwork, being rather low weight, is typically described as a fun filler game. When its depth is greater than chess, basically Fischer Random chess turned up to 11.
I think you are cooking with this channel; this kind of board game content + formatting + presentation could use more presence on youtube. i hope the algo blesses your content and delivers you to the audience you so deserve. Keep up the good stuff!
Nice idea for a video. And it’s the template I didn’t know I needed for deciding what game to “usher in a new friend” to the hobby. A lot of times we’ll think “yeah, it’s challenging but we’re all adults here. You’ll figure it out and have fun.” But there’s a lot of assumed hurdles overcome there in terms of mechanic familiarity, expectations, how much is too much thinking (balance of playing to win vs. playing to have a good fun session.) Gives a good tangible spectrum to decide what a certain individual’s dipping-in point might be. Thanks!
Slay the spire board game is such a cool example of low complexity high depth.
Compared to most board games I've played, I can get someone up and running in the game in minutes. But you could spend hundreds of hours mastering it.
so... chess?
@@nijucow No the depth isn't THAT deep. There is still a considerable amount of luck.
@@geoffreydowdle5751 luck in chess? This is one of the FEW games that don't include ANY elements of chance.
@@nijucow I would argue that chess doesn't actually have the highest depth (in classical time control), because the depth talked about in this video is not just depth of the decision tree (sure, chess wins there, because I don't think there is any other game where the theoretical depth of the decision tree is 8800 moves), but depth of the viable strategies. It's really REALLY hard for humans, but top humans (with the help of computers) have very much figured out a very solid metagame where variability in strategy barely exists.
@kukuc96 chess isnt solved yet. Not even by stockfish. And what u want to say u can apply to any game. Any bluffing, politics, emotions, behaviour is just nearly pretty easily by probability and data collection. (Yes, the probability is still estimated but very accurate). Basically it is the the same what chess computers are doing by analyzing positions and calculating alot moves ahead. Chess is extremely depth and probably one of the easiest rulesets. Even on the highest level, when ppl spent their entire life on this game, there is still a significant difference in skill while unsolved for computers. Barely any metagame in the midgame besides alot of concepts. (yes some positions are quite similiar and you can apply the same ideas on but u might miss sth). High complexity often let us think that it is more deep but thats not quite true. So i disagree. chess is 10/10 in depth to me
Wow! You and I came to a very similar conclusion! The biggest question I have is how did you make your grading scale? I would love to know!
Here is what I wrote about Board game weight back in June.
Concerning BGGs Weight System
The ‘weight’ of a game is referring to the mental capacity or the mental burden of a player. I’ve concluded the ‘weight’ of a game is a triangle of 3 factors:
1. Complexity Index
2. Depth Index
3. Time Index
COMPLEXITY - deals with how basic rules can interact with each other in meaningful ways. The meaning of ‘complexity’ is a combination of simple things and interconnected parts, sometimes this is called ‘Intricate’. And ‘Intricate’ means entangled or perplex.
Examples of Complexity :
1. The amount of rules a game has. The size of the rulebook is usually a good indicator.
2. Learning how to play the game for the first time (reading the rules)
3. Teaching the game to others. Sometimes it is much easier to tell how to play than it is to learn by reading the rules.
4. The amount of additional rules introduced. This could be through cards, mechanics, or other unique variables
5. Games with variable dashboards
6. Games with lots of cards and text on the cards. As the cards compound and pileup, so does the mental capacity of players who have to remember new conditions, abilities, exceptions, enhancers, and new mini rules.
7. The amount of knowledge a player needs to start playing. I.e. I have to understand everything about a Ryan Lauket game before I’m able to play it for the first time, otherwise the are gaps in my understanding and comprehension. He game rules are like a code or puzzle I have to crake.
DEPTH - is when the consequence of a decision you make, branches out into more choices and perhaps additional consequences.
Examples of Depth
1. The amount of decisions a player has to make during their turn.
- In Scythe all you do is pick one of four actions for your turn. But deciding which of those 4 to take can be difficult. Then, how you execute your action could greatly change how efficient you are. Later, there is a whole bottom row to consider and calculate which can maximize your efficiency.
2. The degree of punishment for wrong decisions. 18X games are infamous for being unforgiving.
- Meaning, if a player makes a mistake on their first couple of turns, it may be very difficult to come back from that. There are other games that have catchup mechanics built in, so that if players get too far behind, there is a mechanism that can give them a chance to catch up.
TIME - has to do with the mental processing of the rules. How much does a player need to know before they can start to play? How long will it take to make all the mental calculations and navigate through all rules before a player can make a decision? The amount of time you spend throughout the game are also contributing factors.
Complexity will always limit the depth of a game (or it would be endlessly complex), but depth is bought with complexity. Meaning, you can’t have any amount of depth without adding some complexity. A game like checkers has both low depth and low complexity. There are only a handful of rules, and there are even fewer choices you can make.
Examples of the Time index
1. The length of playtime - overtime everyone’s mental capacity begins to diminish, some will diminish faster than others
2. The setup time
- Games that take 20-45 mins to setup can add to mentally capacity load. Players have to remember all the rules and conditions for setup. Sometimes this can be mitigated if a player has all the rules memorized because they play it so much. A player could set up the game prior to others showing up, those reducing this factor.
3. Take Down time
- Once the game is done, the player may be done too. But there is still the task of putting everything away. If there is an insert involved, or if it’s a certain storage system, or has to be packed a particular way, then this could add to the mental load of players.
4. Amount of time a player has to take a turn. If a player takes a long time to take a turn, we call this analysis paralysis (AP). Does a turn take 2 mins or 6 mins, how long does each turn affect the overall length of the game?
5. The amount of mental decisions a player needs to make per second.
- On a player’s turn in Chess they only have one action to take, but the amount of decisions they have to go through on that turn can be daunting. Chessmasters have developed methods to minimize the amount of time they spend calculating the odds.
- A game could be only 30 minutes long, but the amount of decision making could exhausting, wearing out the mental capacity of players. Captain Sonar is a short game. If you play as one of the secondary roles then you could get board playing. But if you play as the Captain the amount of decisions you have to process with a short window of time can be mentally draining.
- This can affect the Pace of Play, which could also draw out the game longer, exceeding the mental capacity of some players.
Some other factors that may influence this game-weight triangle are:
1) Elegance
2) Game Management
3) Intuitiveness
4) Immersion
ELEGANCE - is when a game has high depth to complexity ratio.
- This means the game has choices for the player that are meaningful and that mater, without needing to have a long rulebook, or overly complex rules.
GAME MANAGEMENT - deals with how much a player has to manipulate the game each turn (often referred to ‘fiddling’ or ‘bookkeeping’).
- The more players have to remember to do certain things each round and upkeep the game, the greater the mental load on a player.
INTUITIVENESS - deals with the level of ease for you to understand how to play optimally.
- Players often refer to this concept as ‘grokking’ or ‘seeing through matrix’. It’s how well you mentally connect with the game. A good graphic art design can enhance a player’s level of understanding, which in turn can reduce the mental load on players. On the other hand, a game with 50 icons for players to remember could increase the mental load on players.
IMMERSION - deals with the ratio of pleasure/engagement to the mental load a game has on a player.
- Some games can have both a high complexity-level and high depth-level, but the level of immersion can be so high, it negates or lessens the mental toll it has on players. Because the mental toll is massaged by a player’s level of enjoyment, it can reduce their mental load or capacity for that game.
SUMMARY
I think these 3 factors (complexity- depth - time) are more measurable than what we have on BGG, and they are all contributing factors to the ‘weight’ of a board game.
PS: I love Tenet and I don’t need subtitles 😊
What a great video! I would be great to have the TEN levels of Depth!
This is exactly what I needed today. Thank you for your time and effort.
I love that Camel Up is your example of “Games for the Elderly!” I bought it thinking that my elderly parents and young niece/nephew could all play it.
I was listening to you talk about Dune when I thought, "huh, I wonder how he'd rank Root." So when it came next labeled "the sane man's limit", I laughed out loud.
Yeah, I love Root, but I've played it multiple times with two different groups of people who have played it multiple times, and I swear to God I have to relearn even the fundamental mechanics every time I bust it out. And these are all people I regularly play TTRPGs with.
There's asymmetrical gameplay, and then there's "each faction's goals and gameplay is so different, that the genre of game changes class to class."
I used to play roots a few years ago and I remember loving the raccoon, you’re just chilling in the forest doing your own thing while all the other players are trying to build up their kingdom
@@ayzix-polytopia3854 yeah, I really liked the card trade mechanic of that class, and how you could forge an alliance powerful enough that if they win, you also win lol. It's pretty cool game design.
Incredible video! Thanks for all of your hard work.
Thank you for this amazing video!
I always wondered how deep I would go into boardgaming, and you are giving here the keys to understand what would be my limit :D.
Root is my boardgame group's current skill ceiling. I gifted it to my sister a few years ago because it looked fairly complex and the critters are cute. Reading into the manual and looking up video tutorials, she and my brother in law got quickly overwhelmed. We still have to tackle it to this day.
Sounds like it's above the ceiling.
If you want my current advice on tackling root, just learn 1 faction each and play the game once, don't stress up too much about being competitive and understand exactly what everyone is doing for your first game.
Actually playing through the different stages will make learning the rules afterwards much much easier IMO and removes the "analysis paralysis" hold you back
@@schiffer125 That's the best advice, play the game as you can and go from there ... There is no Boargame police that will fine you for playing it wrong :) Especially if you play with family and close friends
@@schiffer125 Yes, I am 3 games in, watched all 4 faction tutorials on YT and I can say I have a pretty good idea of the 4 basic factions now. Maybe not so much on what good tactics are but I do know the basic rules and ways to score points for each faction. The first game is pretty overwhelming and it helps to have someone who already knows the game to play along but once you've done you're first game learning the basics of the other factions isn't that hard.
The question of depth for Gloomhaven is certainly an interesting one. Gloomhaven is my favorite board game (I've played all the expansions), so my opinion is definitely a bit biased, but I think the complexity ceiling is incredibly high. With 18 classes in the base game alone, along with items and different party compositions, the sheer amount of interactions and possibilities blows most other games out of the water.
However, what holds the game back in "depth" is that it is a co-op game where everyone is working together against the game. As you said, each scenario is more of a puzzle that you are working together to solve. Because of this, there is a limit to where all that potential craziness can go. In PvP games, the skill ceiling is almost unlimited because there is always someone else that can rival your levels. But a scenario of Gloomhaven just can't do that because its difficulty can only grow with the players so much.
Loved the video!
I tired to play that game and I gave up. It just seemed that every game there were rules on top of rules.
Interesting. I was gonna comment that after having read through the rules first, most of the rules were pretty straightforward "oh, so basically like in DnD" or "oh, so basically like a video game RPG" level for me.
Sure, it's not Catan level simple, but in terms of complexity, I would've ranked it lower. I'm more on the side that it's of greater depth with the array of player characters and enemies.
We didn't find Gloomhaven to be that complex. In the end it turned out to be quite repetitive and was mainly decided by the luck of the draw: basically the attack routine cards the enemy got in a particular round.
War games aside, I like to think 18XX games are the pinnacle of boardgame depth and complexity. Some are less complex but the get good factor is almost always 9/10.
Honestly a breath of fresh air to see a good video essay on boardgame complexity. Great work
Excellent video! This even helped me solidify my own standing and preferences within the boardgaming space. I seem to live within the 6-7 range but will go up to an 8 and still enjoy myself. I tend to be the only one learning and teaching my games so naturally, that’s my personal bar as to what I can digest and what my noobier gaming group is willing to learn/enjoy.
I can't even play ticket to ride with my family. Not even Quirkle. I've given up trying to play a game with my mom and bro
Dorfromantik
i have gotten my wife that hate learning new games to play pandemic , TTReurope, azul and wingspan LOL, (thats also my go to games if we get friends over)
i play ticket to ride with my 6y, but it more for fun to build tracks and she starting to to catch up the get cards to lay tracks thinking :) but think I need to buy TTR first journey to help her more
my family couldn't even manage Calico :(
Try Cascadia 🎉 our 80 year old non-player aunt got it 😅🎉
@@b.2194 played cascadia with 3 gamers on a con. I do see it can be rich.
lol I've never heard any of these games before! Thanks for the overview dude, I'm super keen to try them now
Amazingly well done video! The Concord whap gave me a really good chuckle.
My daughter's copy of Candyland has a rule "for older kids" where you draw 2 and choose 1 to play. This adds depth and complexity (albeit not a lot), so I would argue it's more like a 1.1 out of 10.
Brass LOOKS complicated, but is actually fairly approachable. TI is like wading into the edge of an ocean and then finding you're in the middle of outer space and have no idea what's going on or how to get back
Great video!
Well, I haven't played Twilight Imperium or "classic" Dune, but, from my experience:
Lvl 0: Snakes and Ladders (not a game, just a nonsensical activity.)
Lvl 1: The Game of Life (plays itself, but at least there are some points where players can make simple decisions.)
Lvl 2 : Ticket to Ride (this is the point where player's decisions start to matter. There's some simple strategy involved, but the rules are pretty simple and straight forward.)
Lvl 3: 7 Wonders (not so deep or complex, but there are different strategies to pursue and the symbols add some complexity.)
Lvl 4: Lost Ruins of Arnak (there are more ways to achieve victory than in 7 Wonders and some interesting strategical/tactical choices, but in the end it's not complex to learn and not deep enough to keep more "serious" gamers engaged.)
Lvl 5: Agricola (from this point forward I think we're on "gamers games" territory. The deepness on this one is somewhat high, and there's some complexity due to the symbols and hand management/optimization, but it's not that complex after a couple of plays.) (Dune Imperium, Puerto Rico and Brass are also good examples of this level.)
Lvl 6: Race for the Galaxy (a pretty deep game due to all the posible card combinations and the variable phase order. It's certainly complex, due to the variety of symbols.) (Pax Pamir and Imperium: Classics/Legends/Horizons are also good examples of this level.)
Lvl 7: Pax Renaissance (from this point forward I think we're in "games for weirdos" territory. This game has one of the most complex rulesets I've ever seen and ridiculous amounts of player interaction! All the cards present a wide range of possibilities and the path to victory is pretty darn obscure.)
Lvl 8: Root +expansions (learning all that factions, all of which play a completely different game on their own... The most brutal learning curve, but the more rewarding one as time passes! I formed a Root exclusively playing group, that's what it takes to master this thing!) (Gaia Project and Spirit Island are also good examples of this level.)
Lvl 9: Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization, with New Leaders and Wonders (so many rules and moving pieces, so many strategies to pursue, so deep and yet a fulfilling experience!) (John Company also fits perfectly in this category.)
Lvl 10: High Frontier 4 All (this IS rocket science, literally speaking. So many rules, so brutally complex, specially with the addition all those moules... Insane!)
Could you please make a second part of this video, maybe adding some of the games I mentioned?
New subscriber, btw.
What a spectacular video. I hope you get thousands of subscribers soon, because you deserve it. Love the dry wit and sharp observation!
Cool video. This is helpful as a guide to evaluating depth and complexity
The casual Concord diss thrown out at 28:38 made me laugh so hard I had to pause 😂😂😂
What games do you guys think are lower in complexity (3-5), but have larger depth (6-9)?
Excellent job! Thank you for writing a script ahead of time!
Weight 3.2 is my sweet spot.
Scythe, Terraforming mars and even MTG are all right around 3.2.
Just hard enough that I feel like I won’t quite make the right decisions and I make plenty of mistakes.
Just easy enough I can teach my friends and they can do the game actions on the first go,, even if it’s barely even that.
Great video please make more deep dives like this on the genre.
In the twilight imperium part, that concord joke still got me chuckling!
Someone may have categorised it but I can't quite place where Scythe is on the scale in terms of complexity and depth, I'm assuming between 3-5 in complexity but I'm not too familiar with many of the games on the list.
Lvl 11: Magic the Gathering. I really love it's complex interactions so I watch nearly everyday the new Judging FtW video from a top magic judge. I've heard people say that the lvl 2 magic judge exam is as hard as a law bar exam... I'm going to say that's likely an exaggeration but still you get the point.
If Magic is 11, Campaign For North Africa is 13.
Interesting. Of course there's thousands of cards, and hundreds of thousands of interactions between them, but it's low complexity imo, maybe the stack is a difficult concept to grasp. The depth comes from playing enough to know the most popular cards and archetypes (of which there really aren't that many imo, maybe 15) for your format, resource management, threat assessment, calculated risk and tracking your and your opponent's deck. But a lot of the cards do the same stuff when you boil it down, I rarely come across a card that completely blows me away with a unique mechanic that I don't know the answer for. The main complexity comes from the mechanical interactions , tracking and executing them (or trying to remember to lol) but not a ton of brainpower in decision making most times. Even at the highest levels of play, players know the decks inside and out and are taking educated guesses and relying on a a bit of luck that they draw the answers. But then again, I'm probably just talking it down since I'm pretty experienced at Magic, but I know the second half of this list would break my feeble brain.
@@yinbakalu You should really check out the Judging FtW youtube channel to see the more interesting interactions and how the rules handle them. I've been playing magic since 1999 and have a really good intuition about how interactions play out. It's only been the past couple of years when I found Dave's judging channel that I really got into the nitty gritty details of how and why the rules work the way they do. Non-deterministic loops, dependancies, the layer system for continuous effects, copy abilities, double faced cards... There is a lot of nuance. You should also check out the Judges Tower format. You play with a shared deck and a group of people and infinite mana. Every turn you have to take all actions you possibly could (play all spells possible, attack with all creatures, have to block etc). You lose if you break a rule and get called out for it. And you lose if you call someone out yet you are incorrect.
I enjoyed your differentiation between Complexity and Depth a lot and I have realized, that I prefer games with depth, no matter the complexity. But the complexity limits with whom I can play the game with. How would you rate Spirit Island (+Expansions) on the Complexity/Depth scale?
I would really love to see a video about the "3 high depth games for each complexity level" (maybe from C3 upwards)!
I'm interested to know this also.
So many people have asked about Twilight Imperium and why I am willing to play an 8+ hour game. My answer is always that I have never had a bad game of TI4. Like, every game is a story and incredibly engaging. It's seriously the pinnacle of everything boardgames can be. To my wife's surprise, even though I clearly explain the time requirement, I actually have a list of people waiting to play. It's seriously the best board game experience.
Playing a game of TI4 feels like playing an entire D&D campaign, but condensed to a single 6-8 hour game. The sheer scope of it, the emergent storytelling it facilitates, the drama, it's like no other game I've played. There's almost always some mad scheme you can try to pull off to *maybe* steal a win.
I've never actually had the most points by the end of a game, but I've never felt like I lost.
No, no, no. D&D is a very different beast, if proper role-playing is followed. I can't possibly conceive of TI4 being in anyway equivalent to even a single session of role- playing, let alone an entire campaign. You must've experienced very dull or limited campaigns to think that. I don't play it anymore because it became too all- consuming. But my typical feeling afterwards was, where did the time go, and when can we play again?
Time is relative, and entirely dependent upon level of enjoyment. Ten hours can seem like a brief moment when it's something you enjoy, while ten minutes can seem like an endless nightmare with something you can't stand.
*Laughs in Pen and Paper DM*
Once you've gotten used to reading 300+ page rulebooks something within you really shifts. I thrive under unhinged complexity now :D
Twilight Imperium looks really cool, but the cost of that is even absurd for my standards 🙈
I wanne recommand "Imperium Classics" from Osprey Gaming to all of the complexity geeks tho!
It's a little bit steeper then even Dune Imperium (what's up with all the Imperium names, lol), but comes at less then 40 bucks cost and is set up only using cards. There are a lot of different unique, assymetric factions with their own decks and very different strategies, yet it's actually very well balanced!
How could you. Chutes and Ladders is clearly less complex then Candy Land. You have way less working parts! Candland has a solid .1 in complexity compared to it!
What an amazing video ! I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw your low subscriber count. Keep up doing it like this and your channel will grow big im sure of it
It’s the markedly staccato speech. Once you hear it, it’s tough to get through. I’m all for enunciation, but exaggerated to this degree is tough to listen to. Makes Tenet easier on the ears.
Marvelous video!! I've binged some of your videos today, and they're also great. You mentioned Dominion (my favorite board game) in passing, and now I'm so curious as to your thoughts on it!
I feel honored to share your knowledge
As a boardgame noob who does enjoy a good game, i wish i played any of these besides Catan so i could have a reference to know what level of complexity i would still enjoy.
With all the Elden Ring and souls references in the video, i definitely expected the Dark Souls boardgame to at least get a mention---which i feel like is probably the most complex board game i play on a regular basis. But ive also spent nontrivial amounts of time learning and internallizing ttrpg rulesets such as pathfinder and SotDL and such. I have no idea where on this list any of these would be comparable to.
I think a lot of users also include "game difficulty" in the BGG scale. This is why games like Chess and Santorini and Onitama are so apart, despite being actually quite similar in depth. There are just less constraints on the latter two.
I like that you mentioned digital versions of board games. I think there are complex games out there that are better as digital adaptations. I'm personally working on a digital adaptation on the famous but hard to find wargame Napoleon's Triumph. Looking forward to finding out if there's a community out there that wants to play it.
i fucking love blood on the clocktower. my brothers coworker makes the best games lol
This guy comes alive whenever the friend group finally decides to do a board game night.
I wish BGG had complexity and depth instead of weight. I love depth but don’t have time for complexity.
Thanks for those explanations. I'm personally looking for age appropriate games for kids as well as for the elderly. There are so many games without enough weight, as kids and the elderly are often perceived as less intelligent that they actually are and as companies want to sell more games that aren't suitable and are just poorly designed as they are quickly released. It's also difficult to evaluate a game without expansions that seems incomplete vs. games that are planned to unwrap through many expansions that are not bringing that much to the game. I would rather have the choice of meeples type and mat type before I purchase so many boxes, or at least save on the expansion boxes cost and get the material in another way. With all those game expansions, I've learned to plan my purchases better, but still... Kids have much to learn, and the elderly need proper stimulations to keep their cognitive and physical abilities. We, the adults, lack the proper time to play. Context of gaming also have their own parameters. Some game expansions could be to get from a 8 y. old + game to a 10 y. old + game, instead to keep it simple, like the kids didn't age. Others could be some variant rules for the elderly to help the weight of the game to be more confortable. I'm still looking for better fits for my gaming groups and would appreciate any suggestions.
applaud your effort to try and measure the game attributes. I do not think you will ever find two people that agree on any of it hehe. but I applaud your effort and explanation.
Great video! Although I was quite surprised by some of the rankings. For me, Dune Imperium is a natural next step after Catan. And even Root has been smooth to introduce (base game only) thanks to how much info is laid out on the player board.
With the exception of Brass which is straight fire, I would love to see this video redone with good games.
"Catan is the gatekeeper between people who think monopoly is the best board game of all time and people who have 300 games still in shrink wrap." Nailed it.
I applaud the effort, this is a deep, and complex topic! I do think you are under-valuing the skill required in bluffing and deduction in games such as Skull, Secret Hitler etc. there is a reason top Poker players win more frequently in a game with such a high luck factor. Also, you didn’t address how complexity can also relate to high-AP-prone games, not just complexity of learning the rules.
Very good video and a well-compiled list.
I found myself mostly nodding to the remarks, which is surprising for such a subjective topic. I've only found myself wondering in two places:
1. Gloomhaven - I think today there's a huge overlap between people who grew up with RPG video games, people who tried or at least have knowledge of DnD, and people who'd be interested in playing Gloomhaven. With that, I think many of the rules of Gloomhaven become pretty self-explanatory, because they make sense in the context of these other games. Sure, you have to play a bit for the game to flow freely without checking the rulebook, but most of things are standard or written down on the gaming pieces themselves.
2. Most of the reasoning for Dune being a tier of its own - Just because a game doesn't have a clear ruleset, or even if it has multiple conflicting rulesets, it doesn't make it any more complex. It either becomes multiple games with the same pieces, or one game with an ambiguous / badly written ruleset.
To illustrate my point: If half of the people would be playing chess with pawns also being able to move backwards, it wouldn't make it any complex, just unclear what you're actually playing.
Dune is complex enough in and of itself (maybe not a separate tier complex), ambiguity of rules is a completely separate issue imo. (And it is just that, an issue. Unlike complexity which is deliberate way to appeal to the audience.)
Twilight Imperium is the peak of table top gaming, simple as!
Who else is watching this to find out what their maximum level is?
I am actually shooketh to kearn that i played the level 10 game. I don't know if i played by someones house rules or something, but it seemed significantly less complex that for example Terra Mystica to me.
For board games i have properly played, 3.
With video games? Higher.
Never really played board games in general (nobody wanted to when I was younger and I've gravitated to single player video games as a result) so my limit is like...level 0.5 right now. Guess I'd have needed to try and find people 20 years ago because I'm too far anti-turn based now to even consider trying them.
At 6, trying to convince my groupe to get to 7. I’m eager to get to root !
He didn't rate "snap" 😢
Really nice video! I really like how you defined your terms at the beginning and explained everything. Plus, now I have scientific proof I can present to my wife that she can indeed learn Root and stay sane!
I feel there is a big big jump between Catan and Brass Birmingham. Much bigger than your "lets put a complex skill deduction game in the middle". The difference between Catan and Brass Birmingham is much bigger than the difference between Brass Birmingham to Root. And I'm not even convinced that DI:U is more difficult to play than Brass: Birmingham. In addition you skipped a whole world of Stone Age, Voyages of Marco Polo, Lost Ruins of Arnak, Agricola, A Feast for Odin, Terraforming Mars, Great Western Trail... And on the end track there are the super-heavies Lacerda games, that can give a migraine to the strongest players (On Mars, Gallerist, Lisboa...).
Yeah I was totally wanting more examples games too and was wondering where heavy euros were placed.
Love the fact you slipped in a diss at concord... you getting my like XD
As a fledgling boardgamer this video made me subscribe and I would love to see a video with these ratings put on every game you've played. Doesnt have to be as expansive as you did here but just 30 seconds per game would already make me watch it all
Great video. I really enjoyed it.
I will comment that I see Root a little differently. Once you I got good at the game I no longer experienced "domino kingslaying". The more experienced players played to setup their win such that once they crossed the OMG threshold they couldn't be stopped. At that level the game becomes more diplomatic in that you are trying to incentivize and empower the factions that can best cripple your next rival. If you've done it right you have enough on the board and in your tableau that you can explode past 30. There are a couple of exceptions like the Eerie who don't explode well. For them you need to steam roll consistently to the point where no one can beat you to 30. I am not a huge fan of Root anymore, but I do think it is unfortunate that people think of it as whack-a-mole. It isn't that way in my experience.
I don't know why but your videos are so entertaining!
I think realistically you could even add a third category to weight of intricacy as opposed to complexity. I would consider an intricate game a game with a lot of setup but a complex game a game with a lot of rules. Gloomhaven isn’t that complicated (relatively speaking, obviously still not a simple game), but it is very intricate. It’s worth separating as experienced players may be wanting a complicated game that they can start within a minute of grabbing the box.
I'm trying to think of the least complex game with the most amount of depth. Chess seems like the obvious winner. Probably a 3 complexity with a depth of 10
Go is less complex and a higher depth
@@ethan6627 I've never played go, I always assumed it was more complex.
@RoryMag That's honestly what I thought before I played it as well. But the rules are incredibly simple, you simply take turns placing a stones on the line-intersections of the board. If a group of stones ever runs out of liberties (adjacent empty space) the stones are removed and put aside. Whoever controls the most area at the end, plus captured stones wins. There is a tiny niche rule about the fact that you cannot repeat a board state, which once you play that scenario once you will understand it. You straight up just learnt how to play go, it's ridiculously simple, yet so deep.
@@ethan6627 it definitely wins least complex and most depth then without a doubt
@@ethan6627I would generally agree that the moves are less complex but to me the counting/scoring system seems more complex than the nuances surrounding checkmate. Perhaps this is just my opinion because I still don't really understand the final count🤣
I would be kinda curious to know where you would rank cards games like Arkham horror, any coop cards games or even tcgs... Because the difficulty of those games comes more from the diversity of deckbuilding possibilities than the sheers rules themselves ( even if they are not the easiest of all games at all, but there is way worse)... So, would you consider having to create a deck and the amount of options to do so as an addition of a game's depth ? Or more of an complexity that you need to go through before playing ?
And does that make those game lvl 8 or 9 because of how wide they are ? Or pehaps more an lvl 6 - 7 because the ammount you need to know and master to purely play a game is not that high ?
I found the anecdote at the beginning about Brass exactly my experience. The same, I think, can be said about Go. The game has 5 rules but takes a lifetime to master.
So what level would Oath, John Company, and Weather Machine be at?
What other games have level 9-10 complexity and depth?
Brilliant, thank you
I disagree that Social Deduction games like Secrect Hitler have low deep. They are really deep, as knowing when to Tell the truth, when to lie, and How to lie, demands a lot of experience with the game loops.
Wait, how are you assigning numerical values to each game's depth and complexity? Would love to learn more about your process.
this was really well done. I appreciate your insights and agree with a lot of it.
I personally enjoy playing Brass Birmingham, Dune Imperium, Spirit Island (I wonder where it would be - 9 or 10?), and Root.
Again, very consumable video and I actually watched it all.
my favorite example of a game that is so much deeper than it is complex is Hanabi. the game is played with what are one step removed from basic playing cards, but the unique twist of not being able to see your own hand as well as the co-op environment flip everything you know about board games on its head. the strategies that emerge as a result are fascinating and it feels like you learn something new about them every time you play.
Congratulations, you nailed a lot concepts that I am seeking to explain! I will write an article about it in portughese and give this as an reference!
I always think Power Grid is at an interesting level of complexity. You really only need one person to know the rules really well to make sure the auction flow and phase changes are handled properly. No one else needs to learn the complex administrative rules if they don’t want to.