The Engine Building Complexity Ladder: From Splendor to Gaia Project
There’s a moment in every engine building game where it clicks. Your turns stop being individual decisions and start becoming inevitable consequences of everything you’ve built. Cards chain into cards. Resources generate resources. What took three actions on turn two now happens for free on turn eight. That feeling — the hum of a machine you’ve constructed from nothing — is why engine building is one of the most satisfying mechanics in all of board gaming. But the genre spans an enormous range, from games you can teach in five minutes to beasts that need a full evening just for setup. ...
