5 Popular Board Games I Find Highly Overrated

Time to have some fun - let's trash talk some board games enjoyed by legions of players that, for one reason or another, just don't appeal to me that much.  Yes, I have played all of them.  And if you like them - hey, that's your opinion.  These are just my thoughts.  I'm going to list these in reverse order of their overall ranking on BoardGameGeek (in parentheses), the be-all, end-all of board gaming websites.

'Twas fun for a while, Catan, but you've lost your luster.

Settlers of Catan (110)
Now, I have to give Settlers credit for its success as one of the first "gateway" games to open the floodgates in the US to great European board games back in the late '90s.  Since then, though, better gateway games have emerged, and plain Settlers has simply lost its appeal to me.  My biggest issue?  I'm convinced it's impossible to win without getting lucky.  In theory I have no problem with luck or randomness in games.  But in Settlers, unless you can pull off a magic move scoring 3 or 4 points in one turn (which itself requires luck), once you get close to winning, people will stop trading with you.  Period.  Then you have to hope the dice come up with the resources you need.  For me that is incredibly frustrating, to have all your carefully laid plans rely on one or two dice rolls, and it renders Settlers obsolete.  Note that I have played later variants and enjoyed them more as they introduced mechanics that reduced the randomness problem - my favorite being Settlers in America: Trails to Rails, which incorporates train game elements.

Surely this will get D&D nerds to play a board game!

Lords of Waterdeep (29)
When LoW came out, it was hailed as a truly great merger of theme and mechanics.  A worker placement Euro game set in the world of Dungeons and Dragons?  Here, finally, was the game that could bring RPG nerds and board game nerds together - get those DMs to put down their D20s and think about cost/benefit analysis for a change.  For me, Lords is a fairly standard worker placement game with a very pasted-on D&D theme.  It could be replaced with anything.  It's fine, but nothing special.  It's certainly not the ideal marriage some claim it to be.

Look at all those cards! ... Hope you like shuffling.

Dominion (17)
Dominion took the gaming world by storm in 2008 when it introduced a new gaming genre, that of "deck building."  Magic: The Gathering nerds (which I never really was) who loved to spend hours crafting the best possible decks suddenly had a Euro-style card game completely focused on that mechanic.  The problem?  That's basically all there was to it.  That and shuffling.  So much shuffling. I didn't mind Dominion in short bursts, but really failed to grasp some peoples' obsession with it.  I hear the expansions make it better, but I'm not a fan of expansions being required to make a base game interesting, and don't feel like learning dozens of new cards just to give Dominion another chance.  Fortunately deck-building has since been incorporated as an element in other, better games, rather than composing the near-entirety of the game itself.

The guy on the right has the perfect reaction to TM.

Terra Mystica (7)
As this game recently came out, I think it's currently feeling the effects of being the "new hotness," and it remains to be seen whether its BGG rank stays so high.  I really hope not.  Yet another in a long line of Euro games that promises to couple a strong theme with solid mechanics.  Nope, try again.  It is long, overly complex (it takes a real kitchen sink approach to game mechanics), and while the fantasy theme is theoretically interesting, you forget about it five minutes after you start playing.  TM also suffers from my chief complaint of heavy Euro games - having to go through about five steps before you accomplish something like scoring one victory point.  Ugh.  Also, all this excitement is probably going to set you back over $60.  Not worth it.

I built a fence, and all it cost me was two hours and the starvation of three children.

Agricola (3)
Agricola's been out for five years so it's proven that it has true staying power - for reasons that baffle me.  It is the shining example of why many people, including me, are turned off by many heavy Euro games.  First there's the theme - subsistence farming!  Wooo!  Haven't you always wanted to pretend you're a serf barely eeking out an existence?  Who needs winning World War II, conquering distant planets, or managing business empires when you can worry about having enough grain to bake bread?  Speaking of which, I'll give it credit for at least connecting the theme to its most annoying mechanic - constantly having to generate food for your family, which is so demanding it feels like you can't get anything else done.  It's not fun, and takes away from the escapism that partially drives people to hobbies like board games.  It feels way too much like work, and I just don't get it.

The Tea Party Shut That Whole Thing Down

Well, they went and did it.  The group of "patriots" who very explicitly detests all parts of government except the military succeeded in their mission in shutting it down.  And then, of course, they celebrated it while simultaneously blaming it on the Democrats.  What a mess.  Let me try to sort through it and explain why, for the good of the country, the Tea Party needs to die.

Dude, It's In the Constitution 

The people that hate government shut it down?  I am shocked!

How did we get here?  Well, it has to do with the banality of government financing and the inability of Congress to do one of its most basic jobs - pass a budget.  That hasn't happened for years, but the federal government is able to keep operating on a temporary basis by passing continuing resolutions (CR) that have to be reauthorized every so often.  The federal fiscal year starts on October 1, and the current CR before Congress would have authorized the government to keep operating through November 15.  But the Tea Party in the House refused to pass it unless it defunded the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare), whose insurance exchanges opened up for business on October 1.  The Democratic Senate, of course, refused to pass a CR that defunded the ACA (which the House repeatedly sent them), or delayed its implementation in any way.  Both chambers stood firm, and so without a CR in place, nonessential federal services stopped when the clock struck October 1, and 800,000 federal employees were indefinitely furloughed.

The House GOP immediately and consistently accused President Obama and the Senate of refusing to compromise.  While it's true they aren't going to compromise on the ACA, here's a fact that's going woefully underreported in the mainstream media: the CR that was before both chambers was already a significant Democratic compromise.  It funded the government at sequester levels, far below what both the President's budget and Senate's ideal contained.  Remember the sequester?  Yeah, that's still around, and still having its effect felt - and the Democrats were willing to keep living with it in order to keep the government running.  That's not a compromise?  Moreover, why should the Dems compromise on the ACA, the most important legislative achievement of Obama's tenure?

Let's clear something up about the ACA.  It is not a liberal's wet dream of a socialist utopia, nor was it passed in secret in the middle of the night without proper discourse.  It was the result of 14 months of negotiations with the final result disappointing many progressives who wanted something resembling a single-payer system (essentially, Medicare for everyone).  The roots of the ACA were drafted by the conservative Heritage Foundation as an alternative to "HillaryCare" in the '90s.  It was supported by Newt Gingrich and first put into action by a Republican governor who just happened to be the party's presidential nominee last year.  It was a conservative health care plan until Barack Hussein Obama came out in support - then it became the surest sign of the Marxist Apocalypse and "one of the most insidious laws ever developed by man" (Rep. Todd Rokita of Indiana).  Nonetheless, it passed the Democratic-controlled Congress and has been upheld by the Supreme Court with conservative Chief Justice John Roberts voting in favor.  The American voters indirectly weighed in by handily reelecting Obama last year; after all, Romney made it clear he would repeal the ACA.  So, Obama has a clear and constitutional mandate to implement perhaps the biggest accomplishment of his presidency, and it's going into effect right now.

And what do Republicans offer in exchange for giving up the ACA or at least delaying it?  They would agree to fund the government at sequester levels for six whole weeks.  Why in God's green earth would Obama and the Democrats take that deal?  They would face yet another budget crisis in November and Republicans would demand yet more concessions to keep the government running.  That is not how you govern a functioning country, lurching from one fiscal crisis to another.  Moreover, if they agreed to delay ACA implementation for a year (so the Reps can use it in the 2014 election), do you honestly think the GOP would be totally fine with letting it go ahead next year?  Of course not.  The whole cycle would begin again.

Speaking more broadly, such actions threaten to set a dangerous precedent for how our country is governed.  Shutdowns have happened before but they were over general budgetary issues.  Here, we have a minority party that controls one chamber of Congress (through gerrymandering - they lost the House popular vote by a million votes) that has succeeded in shutting down the government because of a constitutionally validated law that they don't like.  That is not how our system was designed to function.  There is a constitutional method for repealing or changing laws you oppose.  You know the constitution, right?  That old document conservatives claim to love so much?  That method is called winning elections.  If the GOP were so sure the ACA is going to destroy America, the politically smart thing to do would be to let it go into effect.  Then when people hate it, they ride those sentiments to huge victories in the 2014 and 2016 elections.  In 2017 President Ted Cruz could repeal the ACA five times over if he wanted.  Instead they chase the impossible dream of repealing it under a Democratic Senate and President and have no problem dragging the rest of the country down their fever dream with them.  It is reckless, irresponsible, and proves that the Tea Party has no place in governance.

John Boehner (R-Incompetent)

The saddest part of this whole debacle is that the shutdown could be over in five minutes if not for the actions (or inaction) of one man – House Speaker John Boehner.  There are enough votes on record (all Democrats and enough moderate Republicans) to pass a “clean” CR at any time.  However, Boehner generally refuses to bring any votes to the floor of the House that don’t have the support of a majority of his caucus.  In essence, the Tea Party is holding Boehner’s job hostage.  If he allows the vote, he will either be primaried by a Tea Partier in the next election or be deposed as Speaker.  Consequently, Boehner comes off as one of the worse, most ineffectual Speakers in American history and the Tea Party is revealed as the bunch of vindictive, anti-government nihilists they are.

The Great Memorial Farce

The WWII Memorial in happier days

The hypocrisy and sheer mendacity of the Tea Party congregation really came into light early this week as the shutdown took effect.  While simultaneously declaring the shutdown no big deal (Fox News rebranded it a “slimdown”), they also proceeded to blame Obama for shutting down things that are highly visible, within easy reach, and that they happen to like.  This was no more evident than at the World War II Memorial on the Mall in DC.  When groups of WWII vets from Mississippi and Iowa arrived as part of a planned trip and found the memorial closed due to the shutdown, some of the Tea Party’s brightest stars leapt into action.  Now, I can buy that Steve King of Iowa was there, for obvious reasons.  But the fact that Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota claims to have been walking nearby purely by chance and came over to see what was going on is laughably incredulous.  Louis Gohmert of Texas just happened to be there too!  What a coincidence!  The Representatives moved the barricades, allowing the vets in, and proceeded to get great photo ops and make high-falutin’ speeches about how Obama and the Democrats were so evil for depriving the vets access to their memorial.  They do not care that their votes are what caused the shutdown.  Hypocrisy is nothing next to a chance to wrap themselves in the flag and pretend they care about veterans.  But I’m no veteran, so let’s hear from a real one, Iraq war vet Representative Tammy Duckworth:

 “These same veterans that they’re pretending to help today at the WWII memorial, you know, they’re going to have access to their disability pensions is going to be limited after Oct. 15. There’s going to be cuts in prosthetic research for veterans. The National Cemetery Administration is not going to be able to lay our heroes to rest at the same rate that they were,” Duckworth said. “And Michele Bachmann who was there today at the World War II Memorial actually said, ‘The shutdown is exactly what we wanted. We got what we wanted.’ A good day for the tea party is when government is having a bad day.”

Rep. Tammy Duckworth

Well said.  I am so tired of Republicans getting to claim they’re great patriots by pulling stunts like this, and their base voters and the media eating it up.  It is baloney.  Their actions prove sadly otherwise.  I wonder if King, Bachmann, and Gohmert cared to explain why all of them gleefully voted to kick 140,000 veterans off of food stamps last week?  No?  Or that the shutdown is seriously impacting the VA and other services relied on by our veterans?  Probably not.  No, they saw an opportunity to stroll on down to the WWII memorial and slam that evil socialist Obama for being so un-American and mean to our veterans.  To which I would ask, which President’s actions have led to more American military casualties, Obama or his predecessor?  (Shh!  You’re bringing up something that happened before 2009!  That’s not allowed!)  Oh, sorry.  Is it too much to ask, if you care so much about people being impacted by the shutdown, to pay attention to other groups, such as patients at the National Institutes of Health or children and families served by the WIC program?  Obviously it is.  Because they really do not care.

Texas Rep. Randy Neugebauer kept up the "class act" today by chewing out a Park Service Ranger for daring to do her job at the memorial, where vets are still being let in.  “The Park Service should be ashamed of themselves,” he said to her, to which she bravely replied ‘I’m not ashamed,” and people in the crowd thankfully stood up for her, one noting “This woman is doing her job, just like me.”  It reveals the fundamental disrespect the Tea Party has for government and all of its employees.  They are the enemy and do not deserve respect – it’s not like this ranger was there at the personal behest of Lord Obama.  99% of the civil service is nonpartisan and are ordinary people just doing their jobs.  They deserve better.  But guess what?  Some Republicans are even unsure whether those furloughed employees should receive back pay when the shutdown ends, even though they always have in past shutdowns.  They say this with no trace of irony or sympathy as they themselves continue to receive their salaries.  They are despicable.

Moderate Republicans:  This Is On You

It would be amusing if not so tragic and consequential – a fair number of self-identified “common sense” Republicans coming out of the woodwork this week, finally realizing just how crazy the Tea Party faction is.  Like this one, who makes some good points beyond being misinformed about the ACA.  The funny part is that they are basically saying what liberals have been saying for years.  As I blogged about a while back concerning the Southern Strategy, the GOP has been courting the votes of the far right fringe for decades and has gleefully used it to win elections – but then in large part ignored its agenda.  No more.  The fringe has grown to become the mainstream and has taken over the party.  This is not the party of Eisenhower, Colin Powell, or Bob Dole.  It is the party of Steve King, Ted Cruz, and Rush Limbaugh.  Lots of analogies to employ here, but it’s October so let’s go with horror: Frankenstein’s monster is loose and is wreaking havoc in DC (not to mention many state capitals).

If “common sense” Republicans – the few that are left – want to be taken seriously when they insist on separating themselves from the Tea Party, the onus is on them to slay the monster they have created and set loose upon the country.  The rest of us certainly can’t do it.  You must deprive them of power.  Denounce them publicly.  Remove their committee positions in Congress.  Cut off their funding.  Challenge them in primary elections.  Kick them out of your party for good.  You claim to be the party of personal responsibility.  Well, it’s time to put up or shut up.  If you refuse, you will prove just how dependent you are on the support of the Tea Party, and you will be just as responsible for whatever messes they leave in their wake.

Syria: Historical Context and the Laws of War

The past week the world has been abuzz with the possibility that the United States and/or some of its allies could launch some sort of military strike against Syria, in retaliation for the Assad regime's use of chemical weapons in that country's ongoing civil war.  This has prompted many people to ask the very valid question: "Why now?"  The civil war has been going on since 2011 and has killed untold thousands of people, many innocent.  So why does the use of chemical weapons, instead of conventional means, to kill people prompt a harsh response?  The answer lies in archaic notions of just warfare codified into international law in the early 1900s that might seem rather absurd to our 2013 minds.

Back in the early 1800s, or what is fittingly called the Romantic era in history and art, war was a gentleman's affair.  When you think of the great struggles of the Napoleonic era, your mind conjures up images of armies facing each other across a field and taking turns firing shots at each other from their slow-loading, incredibly inaccurate rifles.  There were exceptions of course, but this was the "ideal."  Massacring the enemy was not the objective.  We have adapted the word "decimate" in modern English to mean crushing your opposition.  Literally, the word means to incapacitate just 10% of the opposing force - which was considered a resounding defeat in Napoleon's day.  Such gallant notions of warfare were inspired by notions of chivalry dating back to the Middle Ages - a chief inspirational period for the Romantics (and, of course, they mainly only applied to European vs. European combat).

That all began to change during the late 1800s, when advancements in technology such as machine guns, more powerful artillery, and the airplane not only made it much easier to kill the enemy but also exposed civilians to wartime dangers that they had mostly avoided since probably the Thirty Years War (1618-1648, which ravaged Germany's population).  When World War I broke out in 1914, most Europeans expected a splendid little Napoleonic-style conflict that would be over by Christmas and provide many opportunities for personal honor and national glory.  The horrors of the trenches declared otherwise.

Chief among these was the deployment of noxious chemicals such as mustard gas on the battlefield by both sides.  This excerpt from the classic poem "Dulce Et Decorum Est" by British soldier-poet Wilfred Owen gruesomely conveys the effects of a gas attack:

Gas!(7) Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets(8) just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime(9) . . .
Dim, through the misty panes(10) and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering,(11) choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; 

The world was so revolted at the horrors of modern chemical warfare that in 1929 38 countries signed the Geneva Protocol, which outlawed the use of chemical weapons in warfare.  This was the latest in a series of treaties that sought to establish principles of how war should be fought, including the treatment of prisoners.  However, it should be noted that many people still considered war a legitimate instrument in a country's foreign policy toolbox, so long as it was fought for the "right" reasons and in the "right" way.  There were certainly activists such as Woodrow Wilson who wanted the Great War to truly be the "war to end all wars," but any naive ideas about achieving that goal were dashed in the late 1930s, when Japan invaded China and the Nazis began their conquest of Europe.  Chemical weapons weren't really used on the battlefield in World War II; Hitler, of course, saved them for the gas chambers.  Still, such restraint failed to stop such battlefield horrors as the Rape of Nanking, the London Blitz, the mass slaughter of the Eastern Front, the firebombings of Tokyo and Dresden, and the dropping of the atomic bomb.

The Cold War was dominated by the struggle over nuclear weapons and guided by the principle of "mutual assured destruction" by the two superpowers.  Now that the main global security threat has shifted to terrorists and small rogue states, nukes, chems, and biological weapons have been lumped together into the category of "weapons of mass destruction" made infamous by the run-up to the Iraq war.  These weapons are treated differently than conventional armaments, have numerous treaties regulating or banning their use, and get much more attention from the international community than, say, mortars or rocket-propelled grenades.  They have been singled out for special treatment due to their ability to inflict mass suffering (often on civilian populations) with relatively minimal effort.

Which brings us to the current conundrum.  US foreign policy is generally in line with most of the world in that the use of WMDs should not go unpunished; this is a chivalric view of the "laws of war" clearly drawn from the history I've outlined before.  But here's the rub - in 2013 many people have come to realize that there's not much difference between killing 1,500 people with chemical weapons and killing 1,500 people with some machine guns and mortar rounds.  So they very astutely ask why the former requires intervention and the latter does not.  It is up to the leaders of the countries supporting such an action to justify their reasons to the rest of us with very reasonable concerns.

As for me, I'm glad that President Obama has apparently stepped back from the brink and is seeking Congressional approval for any action in Syria (this is almost unprecedented for a post-WWII President, and I highly doubt he'll get it anyway).  However, I'm really disappointed that, no matter who our leaders are, our gut reaction to any international event we don't like is to blow some shit up - it is a very outmoded way of thinking that might correspond to the foreign policy principles of previous generations, but seems ill-advised for a country that is so tired of perpetual war.  It seems especially misguided to get involved in yet another Mideast conflict without a clear purpose or exit strategy, particularly because at least some of those fighting Assad are Islamic fundamentalists.  Do we really want to be siding with Al Qaeda or similar groups again?  Assad is a bad dude and his actions shouldn't go unpunished, but this case presents an opportunity for President Obama, the United States, and the world community to show they have learned from such mistakes as the Iraq war and forge a new 21st-century strategy for dealing with international atrocities.  Unfortunately I am not exactly hopeful that will be the case.

The Best Hope for Kansas: A Unity Ticket for Governor

If you've read my blog at all you'll know I'm not exactly a fan of current Kansas Governor Sam Brownback.  His tax policies are corporate welfare giveaways to the Koch brothers at the expense of middle and lower income Kansans, while simultaneously draining education funding and sending the state into a perennial budget crisis when almost every other state is moving forward.  His other main focus on social issues, such as signing a law that requires doctors to lie to patients about the debunked link between abortions and breast cancer, threatens to send scores of bright, young minds away from a state that desperately needs them as younger generations become more and more socially liberal.  Brownback has got to go, especially since the Tea Party has an iron grip on the Legislature, and unseating them is likely impossible.  Can Brownback be ousted in 2014?  It will be a tremendous challenge, but it could happen.  Remember, this is a state that twice elected Kathleen Sebelius.  The state's gone hard-right since her last election in 2006, however, and so if Brownback's to get the boot, it will take a combined effort of all those who want to see him go.  Here's how I'd like it to happen.

Sebelius won because at the time Kansas was essentially a three-party state - Democrats, moderate Republicans, and conservative Republicans.  The Republicans couldn't firmly get behind a candidate, and Sebelius took full advantage.  Since then, however, the moderates have been almost totally quashed.  They don't hold any statewide offices (other than a few members of the State School Board) and their numbers in the Legislature have dwindled.  Some of them tried to challenge the "cons" in last year's primary elections, and were universally defeated.  Pragmatic, reasonable Republican voices like former Governor Bill Graves and former US Senator Sheila Frahm have been silenced.  If they want to replace Brownback as much as Democrats do, they will need to be heard.

But whom to replace him with?  I'm no dummy - the most electable candidate would be a Republican.  But that would require challenging the incumbent Brownback in a primary, backed with all the money the Kochs can throw in - a probably insurmountable task.  No, this fight will likely have to take place in the general.  Sure, a Republican could challenge Brownback as a write-in or independent candidate in November, but that would split the opposition vote with the Democratic candidate and ensure Brownback's reelection.  (I don't think there are simply enough Democratic votes left in Kansas to ride to victory on a split Republican vote.)

Paul Davis

So that leaves it to a Democrat.  Which one?  Well, there aren't many with enough name recognition to pick from.  Sebelius was well-known and respected in the state, having long served as Insurance Commissioner.  There's no Democrat left like that in Kansas.  But this week one emerged that could be up to it.  House Minority Leader Paul Davis of Lawrence has formed an exploratory committee for Governor and will make the formal announcement soon.  He's also launched a teaser website.  Davis has been leading the opposition to Brownback - such as is possible - since 2011.  He has shown he can work across the aisle, cooperating with moderate Republicans to craft a budget when the conservatives refused.  At just 41, he's certainly young, but he might be the best chance around.

He's not a perfect candidate in terms of electability - mainly because he's from "liberal Lawrence" (can't waste good alliteration), and so Brownback and his allies will have a field day calling him out of touch with most of Kansas - as we know, in the conservative mind, calling someone a liberal is pretty much the worst thing imaginable (and I doubt Brownback's squad is too worried about losing votes from Lawrence).  Never mind that KU political science professor Burdett Loomis (yikes, I had him for class...14 years ago) labels Davis a centrist with a bipartisan record.  He supports Obamacare, and therefore is a commie Socialist Obama-lover.  For this reason, I wouldn't mind there being a Democratic primary, but I worry about what effect that would have on the general election - to have any real chance, Democrats need to consolidate around one candidate, and quickly.

So let's assume Davis emerges as that consensus-builder among Democrats.  Now here's the clincher - to have a shot at winning, he absolutely must form a coalition with the moderate Republicans left in the state.  The clearest way to do this?  Pick a Republican running mate for lieutenant governor.  How about Sheila Frahm, or former LG Gary Sherrer?  Former US Rep. Jan Meyers, from the critically important Johnson County?  Rep. Sandy Duncan of Wichita?  There are quite a few to choose from, if they want the job.  I don't think Governor Graves could run due to term limits, but he could be a formidable voice on the campaign trail, being one of the most well-liked governors in Kansas history.  Choosing an elder states(wo)man from the pragmatic Republican Party of the past would send a clear signal that the young Davis wants to move the state forward by, ironically enough, reviving the more convivial political traditions of Kansas' heritage.

Would Davis do this?  Would the moderate Republicans be willing?  I don't know.  It relies on all interested parties realizing that this is the absolute best chance they have of unseating Brownback.  For his part, Davis has already taken a step in the bridge-building direction by appointing William Kassebaum, son of former US Senator and moderate Republican Nancy Kassebaum, as his campaign treasurer.  Davis will need to cast as wide of a net as possible when seeking support, extending beyond the Democratic strongholds of Lawrence and Wyandotte County to places like Johnson County, Wichita, Topeka, and even rural areas like Hays and Garden City.  To do this, he'll need all the help he can get, from representatives of both parties sending the strong, unified message that the Tea Party is incapable of governing Kansas.

No one disputes that this is a tall order.  Kansas' progressive heritage is all but forgotten (Wichita used to be a strong union town), and even its capability of pragmatic, sensible political compromise has been washed away by the Tea Party wave.  To get Kansas back on the right track, I urge Davis (or any Democratic nominee) to pick a moderate Republican as their running mate and for Kansas voters to support such a unity ticket in 2014.