The best designers in the world stream.

[@pm71241]

Oh ... and ... I know Cole Wehrle is young and up-and-coming for some ... but I think, by now he has a track record and shown consistent brilliance that I can't imagine that in 10 years he won't be an obvious top-5 name.

[@pm71241]

Also btw ... for the Mount Rushmore: Francis Tresham Sure, he's not known by many, but he did father the whole 18xx genre AND his game Civilization has left a huge imprint of the whole boardgame AND computer game world. ... and Uwe Rosenberg said that the card trading mechanism in Tresham's Civilization is what inspired him to do Bohnanza.

[@FiveGamesForDoomsday]

You're absolutely right. Tresham needs a real re-evaluation.

[@jonathanfranklin461]

We do watch your videos :) and even enjoy the music. I think designers are based on when you got into gaming and how you got in to it. My 'designers' were Teuber, Kramer, and Knizia. My Bruno was Faidutti, not Cathala.

[@FiveGamesForDoomsday]

Faidutti is brilliant. Citadels is one of the best.

[@pm71241]

I have to object to the statement that wargames/historical-games are a "different medium". They just reach into a higher end of the complexity/depth spectrum. (and are more thematic). Let's take an example which should make it clear that wargames are similar to other board games in terms of the medium: "Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan" by Matt Calkins (who almost should be in the top-5 solely because of the sheer elegance of Sekigahara). It has very simple rules. Takes 3 hours to play and has a lot of depth. ... and you can ignore the historical theme and play it like an abstract game if you like and still get a deep strategy experience.

[@FiveGamesForDoomsday]

I'm happy to concede that war games are an area that I need more knowledge of. The ones that I've played though, while being very thematic, have equally thematic analogues in the non wargaming space. Also, the idea that they have a monopoly on "real" depth isn't true either. There are so many incredibly profound games that exist outside of wargaming. I have moved a lot on war games since i started gaming but I don't agree that they are the acme of game design. Some titles, for sure, but there are legendary games in every genre.

[@pm71241]

@@FiveGamesForDoomsday I didn't mean to say that wargames have a monopoly on real depth. But I do find that many Eurogames struggle to achieve depth. Often that comes from being too much of a point salad. I often find that simple abstract games (like Azul, or even SHOBU) has more depth than the run-of-the-mill Eurogame. As an example ... I played "Iki" the other day. It's a much celebrated Eurogame, but it is basically just picking one of the ways to earn points, sticking with it as much as possible and then do what ever is available. No real depth IMHO. EDIT: Ok ... that's not entirely fair to Iki. There are some depth in figuring out which way to VP your opponent have chosen and figuring out how to block them from maxing it. - But ... you get the point. Oh ... and ... I'm sure any 18xx gamer would also point out that wargames and euros don't have a duopoly on depth either.