“I’m Brian; and I play Ameritrash games.”
“Hi Brian.”

OK; so maybe there is no program to help gamers expand their horizons; but maybe there should be.  I am by self admission an ameritrash gamer; I love games with deep theme; lots of components and most importantly no worker placement… at least that is what I thought.

This last weekend my world was shaken; I was invited to a friends house to play some games, I of course accepted, would you expect anything else from me? Now I have played all make and manner of games with this guy (and those whom join us when we have our small gatherings) from summoner wars to BANG! to Eldritch Horror and thus I always arrive willing to play whatever is put before me. This time was different, however, there were just three of us; and I was tasked with choosing the game.

I looked over his collection and saw many games I desperately wanted to play from twilight struggle to twilight imperium 3rd edition to twilight the movie card game. Due to how many players we had and time available I decided to avoid anything with twilight in the title and saw he had Lords of Waterdeep. I love me some Forgotten Realms so couldn’t refuse despite my predisposition against worker placement; and admittedly I had wanted to play the game for some time.  Half way through the game I was shocked; this game is AMAZING!  Bear in mind I have only played the game once thus far but I hope to change that soon; easily the most fun I have had with worker placement; my eyes may have been re-opened to this genre/mechanic.

The story does not end there, however, after we finished establishing our hold over the city of Waterdeep we decided we had time for another game and still intrigued by my rediscovery of worker placement I saw Vlaada Chvatil’s Through the Ages looking back at me from its place on the shelf. The host had admitted this to being one of his favorite games and as a long time fan of the Civilization video games; I just couldn’t refuse. I was aware this was a long game, but that didn’t stop me from embarking on a three age journey through time.  And once again I found myself enjoying a heavy worker placement game. Admittedly both of these games have much more to them than the games that initially turned me off of the mechanic (Puerto Rico, Agricola I’m looking at you) but both were game’s I greatly enjoyed and look forward to playing again.

Now I am not ready to say I am a euro-gamer by any means; but maybe I will have to soon start accepting the fact that I am much more than the ameritrash fan boy I had thought myself to be; and if you are looking for thematic games that you can use to lure your ameritrash friends into your euro side of the pool; I would highly recommend these two.