Mosaic: My Favorite Mechanism 

Absolutely love his one and has replaced all other Antiquity Civ-Building Games. It's gorgeous, has smooth playability, and plays in under 2 hours!

I like the uncertainty of when scoring will happen. We had too long of a play session with Mosaic because we had overlooked that players can build a city/town on any turn. We were waiting for city/town cards to be available in the market... If everyone is getting antsy about how long the game is taking, you may have missed a rule!

Mosaic has become a surprise hit for me. I like that there are so many different goals to aim for, that it's easy to find something that you are likely to achieve first, even if other people are achieving other things first. Feels like there's always a path and you can't get shut out!

Huge fan of this game. I think the size of the game actually deters some people from wanting to play it, because it may appear more complex than it actually is. As for comparisons, the tag collection reminds me of Terraforming Mars, and the tech "tree" reminds me of Twilight Imperium 4.

I think the thing that I responded to most in your video was your excitement that you start the game with 5 tech cards in hand. That instantly made me think of what other games are fun from that very first moment, even before the game really begins. We played Terraforming Mars last night. We deal out 3 corporations to choose from, 4 Prelude cards, and 10 project cards you might buy at the start. That first moment of TM is very exciting. Ark Nova does that too - with 2 Final Scoring cards, and 8 in-game cards to choose 4 to keep, and a set of 5 action cards set in a random order of starting power, you instantly start imagining how the entire game might unfold. There are games that give you other goodies at the start. In Teotihuacan, you are given 4 tiles depicting a variety of starting goodies (cocoa, resources, temple moves, dice power upgrades) and you select 2 tiles. In Viscounts of the West Kingdom, "hero" cards are laid out in pairs with starting cards. The latter tell your starting position on the rondel, plus how many resources, deeds & debts, coins, and other starting buffs you will have. You choose a pair. Then there's games like Terra Mystica, where you are selecting a faction and starting positions on the board. Some games are a slow build, but some the beginning has its own special kind of excitement.

This game never enticed me but when you talk about it, it sounds so fun.

I really wanted to love this game but there are some issues for me: first off setup is a bit much for me. Second, the area control is annoying to calculate and feels a bit tacked on. Third It hard to see/read all the communal tiles on the table. Fourth, the game drags in the last quarter of it imo, but i suppose i can move the empire scoring up. It is so close to being a great game imo but some usuability issues really hinder it for me and make a game that could be an 8-9 for me instead a 7-8, still good but not great imo