16 of The Best Engine

Building Board Games (And

What is An Engine Builder
Anyway?)
by

This past week on our podcast we tackled a question

about engine building games.

Fan of the show Roger Meloche was starting to think that

all board games are in some way engine building games
and we discussed why we don’t think this is the case. We
also listed off what we think are some of the best engine
building board games.

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Wait, aren’t all board games engine building

games?

Today’s topic comes from Tabletop Bellhop Patreon

patron Roger Meloche who asked:
 I am enjoying your
show, especially
when I can catch it
live. I have a
question about
Engine Building
games. What
exactly is an
engine-building
game?

I hear of games like Wingspan, “Race for the Galaxy”

and “Steam Time” being described as Engine Builders.
This makes sense because you gradually build up your
tableau or player board and the results accelerate
through the synergies developed between the
components as the game progresses.

But this could be said for most games. Monopoly

behaves this way, as do most games classified as
Economic games like “Crude” or ‘Acquire”. Rail builders
like “Chicago Express” and “Martian Rails” can also
build up an economic engine as the game progresses.

How do you and Sean define an engine builder? What

are some of your favorites?

We first mentioned Engine Building in our Giant List of

Tabletop Game Mechanics.

During last week’s Tabletop Bellhop Gaming Podcast

Episode 120, Sean and I had a good forty minute or so
discussion on what we mean when we talk about engine
building board games and pointed out a number of games
that are most definitely not engine builders and many
games that have some engine building elements but that
we don’t consider to be engine building games.

In the end, we determined that engine building isn’t really

a board game mechanic but rather a style of game that
comes out of a combination of other mechanics. Some
key elements of true engine building games are a
progression of starting off small and building up to
something big, the idea of permanence where what you
build stays in place and where things you do early in the
game are cashed in on later in the game, requiring some
knowledge of what is to come later in the game so you
can plan for that and the concept of converting one thing
to another often over multiple steps.

If you are at all interested in this topic, I suggest you

check out the Ask the Bellhop segment from that episode
where we define Engine Building in board games.

What follows in this article is a list of our top eleven engine

building games as well as five honourable mentions, that
didn’t make the main list due to us not having enough
experience with them.

What are the best engine building

board games?

1. Splendor

While not my favourite game, Splendor is a perfect

example of an abstract gateway engine building game. In
this game, players use gems to buy cards. These cards
give you free gems that let you buy more cards. Those
cards then give you more free gems that let you buy
better cards that give even more gems as well as points.
Eventually, you may also complete a set of cards and get
to claim some bonus points with nobles.

This is the epitome of starting with nothing and building

up an engine to get something.

2. Gizmos

Gizmos is a great game that I like to use to show off the

engine building mechanic because that’s all it really is.
Players are trying to build a science fair project piece by
piece in a very Rube Goldberg like style that they hope will
eventually become a great engine to build them points.

You try to make it so that each piece you add to your

growing gizmo becomes part of a chain reaction. You try
to set up combos, such as “Because I grabbed yellow
energy from the energy dispenser I get to pick another
energy and I use that to pick red energy. Then due to
another card, because I picked red I can build a red card
for free. Plus when I build a red card I get to file away
another card and when I file a card I get some points.”

To me, Gizmos is the perfect game for introducing people

to engine building as a mechanic as the theme of the
game ties directly to those engine building mechanics.

3. Steam Works

If you have tried and liked Gizmos, Steam Works is a great

next step. It’s almost like an advanced version of Gizmos.
This is another pure engine building game where you are
literally building an engine out of different component tiles
in order to generate resources and score points in the
game.

Every round of Steam Works, players collect power plants

and components from the central market and use them to
build machines in their own tableau. Each machine
becomes a new worker placement spot that can be used
by players on future turns. Round after round your
machines grow and do more and more things. It’s the very
definition of engine building both mechanically and
physically.

4. Terraforming Mars
The game I have played the most in the last couple of
years is Terraforming Mars. It has been one of the most
popular games locally and gets played regularly at local
public gaming events.

While you can play Terraforming Mars without any regard

to building an engine, just buying whatever cards you
happen to have on hand, the key to playing well is to find
the synergies between the various project cards and build
a successful engine out of them. Where Terraforming
Mars really shines is in the variety and number of these
potential engines.

Are you going to collect microbes and animals? Or

perhaps work on generating the most plants and foresting
the planet? Or is it all about getting the Terraforming
Ratings up as quick as possible so you can build those big
point cards with ease later in the game? All of these are
valid options and there are a ton more than this.

5. Race for the Galaxy

While Terraforming Mars may be my most played game in

recent years, my most played game of all time is Race for
the Galaxy. Similar to Terraforming Mars, in Race for the
Galaxy engine building isn’t a requirement but building
some form of engine is pretty much required to win. This
engine could be to slowly build up military strength
allowing you to conquer bigger and bigger planets, or it
could be collecting luxury good planets and setting up an
engine to both produce, sell and/or consume those goods.

While not having nearly as many options as Terraforming

Mars, one of the best parts about Race for the Galaxy is
the number of different engines you could try to build. All
of this is combined with one of the best action selection
mechanisms in board gaming.

6. Fleet

Fleet is an engine building game about building a fishing

fleet. You start off with just one simple boat and a
contract to catch one type of fish but, by the end of the
game, you will have an entire fleet of ships and a number
of contracts.

There are some great decision points in Fleet over which

contracts to take, whether to specialize or diversify and
which ships to sail. The game is designed around multi-
use cards, so you will have to decide whether to use your
cards for ships, for fish or as money for paying for other
ships and contracts. The first time I played Fleet I was
blown away and bought it on the spot. While I realize the
theme may be a hard sell for some, this is a great game.

7. Saint Petersburg
This game has a slow ramp-up from start to finish as you
work to build your version of the Russian city of Saint
Petersburg. You start with one or two workers who
generate you some money, you then use that money to
buy buildings, hire nobles, set up trade networks and hire
more workers. By the end of a game of Saint Petersburg,
you have a table filled with workers, a city’s worth of
buildings and a full house of aristocracy, hopefully all
working together to generate you a ton of points.

One of the things I like most in this game is that you

generally have to shift your engine mid-game from
generating income so that you can afford more stuff to
generating points so that you can snatch the win. There
are some really great drafting, upgrading and set
collection elements that make this one of my favourite
Euro games of all time.

8. Keyflower

While Keyflower features a number of integrated and

interlocking mechanics, including worker placement,
auctions, drafting, and tile laying, one of the most
important things in the game is figuring out an engine that
lets you upgrade the tiles you’ve drafted and an engine to
get the right resources to those upgraded tiles.

One issue with this game is that this requirement to build

these engines isn’t obvious during your first play. It is very
easy to get distracted, just trying to collect the most tiles
or to have the most meeple and not notice where the
actual end game points will be coming from. What I do
like, that offsets this a bit, is the slow progression of
complexity, with things starting off small and growing as
the game goes on. Player options are limited at the
beginning, which, as I talked about in my article about
ways game designers can make games more accessible,
makes the game easier to learn.

9. Pulsar 2849

There are a few different engine-building aspects to

Pulsar 2849. The most obvious is the claiming, building,
and spinning up, of gyrodines around pulsars which
generate points each round. Another aspect is using the
randomized technology tree and the individual player
boards to create other scoring systems. An example of
this would be using technologies which increase your
scout ship movement and using the HQ board to unlock
gate scoring opportunities. Then there’s the entire array
system which can be used to generate points as well or
could be used as a technology cube engine or as a way to
get bonus dice and thus more actions.

Like other games on this list, the best part about Pulsar
2849 is that none of these individual systems is
objectively better than any other and there are always lots
of options for players to go with.
10. Russian Railroads

What is a better theme for engine building than building

engines, specifically railroad engines, and the tracks they
run on?

This abstract game is probably my favourite pure engine-

building game, a game where you start off with little and
end with a lot. This is a game where in turn one you are
lucky to be scoring eight victory points, yet by the last
round, I’ve seen people score over two-hundred points in
one turn.

Russian Railroads is all about upgrading your stuff. You

upgrade your rail routes, your track types, your engines
and your factories to increase your score output each
round. Of all the games on this list, I find this one has the
most satisfying feeling of building something. My only
complaint is that this is one of those engine building
games where everyone wants just one more turn, though I
think that if you did go one more round it would ruin the
balance in the game, but you can’t help but want to run
that engine just one more time at the end of a game of
Russian Railroads.

11. Arkwright

Arkwright is by far the heaviest game on this list and is a

great example of the fact that you can find engine building
games at all complexity and weight scales, from simple
games like Splendor all the way up to this very heavy
economic game.

In Arkwright, players start off with one warehouse, one

machine, and a couple of workers and use that to build a
manufacturing empire. There are a ton of hard decisions
to make in this game ranging from whether to stick to only
a couple of warehouses and goods types or to diversify,
how many workers to hire and how many goods to
produce each round. You want enough goods to meet
demand but you don’t want to make more than that and
have goods go to waste. Do you replace your workers with
automation at a high cost, hoping to make that money
back on wages, or are workers cheap due to so many
currently out of work due to other players automating
early?

I would say that Arkwright can be a bit of a beast but, in

my opinion, it’s worth learning, if you are into heavier fair.

Honourable Mentions: More Great

Engine Builders

12. Wingspan

I can’t have a list of Engine Building games without

mentioning the big hit of 2019, Wingspan. This doesn’t
make the main list because I don’t own it, nor have I even
gotten a chance to play it. Before lockdown, it was
impossible to find a copy of Wingspan at a reasonable
price. Now that it’s readily available I still want to try it
before I buy it. I hear the game is quite light, so I worry it
would be just another Splendor for me. A.K.A., a game I
only play when I bring it out to public events. I can’t deny
the popularity of this game though.

13. Everdell

Everdell is another huge hit that I’ve yet to get to try.

Based on everything I’ve read, I’m pretty much certain I
will love it. It also looks great, with some great table
presence. As a tableau builder, I’m sure it’s got lots of
engine building aspects. I also noticed this one comes up
on many other people’s engine building hotlists. Based on
all of this, I don’t think you can go wrong picking up a
copy of Everdell.

14. Underwater Cities

I’ve mentioned Underwater Cities before as a game

people claim “kills” Terraforming Mars. While I love
Terraforming Mars, I’m eager to try a game that people
say is even better. From what I understand the engine
building aspect is even stronger in Underwater Cities than
it is in Terraforming Mars. Last time I was game shopping,
this game was in-between printings but it does look like
it’s back on the market now.

15. Fantastic Factories

I added Fantastic Factories to the list due to the hype and

buzz around it. Fantastic Factories was one of Tom
Vassals best games of 2019 and seems to be a rather
pure engine builder about building factories. Reading up
on it, I found the game sounds like a lighter, much more
accessible, Arkwright. This is one I would love to try.

16. Le Havre

One of the biggest aspects of engine building is taking

something and turning it into something else and there’s
no other game that exemplifies this better than the Uwe
Rosenberg classic Le Havre. This game is still considered
by many to be Uwe’s best game. I did manage to get a
copy of this game during a math trade last year and I’m
looking forward to sitting down and discovering it for
myself. I fully expect it to live up to all of the hype.

There you have eleven of my favourite engine building

games, plus five more great sounding engine builders I
haven’t had the pleasure of playing yet. What are your
favourite engine building games? Let us know in the
comments!

Filed Under: Gaming Advice Tagged With: Arkwright,

Engine Building, Fleet, gaming definitions, Gizmos,
Keyflower, Pulsar 2849, Race For The Galaxy, Russian
Railroads, Saint Petersburg, Splendor, Steam Works,
Terraforming Mars