The TEN Levels of Boardgame Complexity (and Depth!)

Brass LOOKS complicated, but is actually fairly approachable. TI is like wading into the edge of an ocean and then finding you're in the middle of outer space and have no idea what's going on or how to get back

Root is actually not that complicated... If you don't play with new factions every time, I'd say it's really only a 5 on complexity. There aren't that many moving pieces and the complexity really comes from everyone having different factions and how those factions interact.

You know your game is complex when you have 3rd party apps for managing parts of the game xD

I think it would be beneficial to instead have a range for each metric. For example, Go has a pretty simple ruleset, but the complexity that comes from the rules is easily a 10 at the top end where you're reading out hundreds of move variations and trying to evaluate each segment of the board and how they interact. I supposed you could consider the depth as a sort of ceiling, but it's also a bit different, so I think a range is still valid.
There are also a lot of games for which the depth is locked behind competent play. For example, in Root if you ignore the rest of the table and just think at level 0, only considering your own faction and what you're able to do right now, then it's not very complex at all, but the depth of the game collapses as well.

Brilliant, thank you

The Galeforce 9 Dune reprint is not that bad in terms of complexity. But yeah, if you are including old rules sets, expansions, etc it get kinda crazy. My vote for 10 level complexity game is Europa Universalis Price of Power, that one takes the cake. There are literal flow sheets on BGG on how to perform an action.

I think Biosgenis is also up there in the level 9-10.
It took us 4 times to play with 3 people with a Master in Biology and dozens of times reading rules and watching videos.

I strongly disagree that you can't get better at Secret Hitler. You actually need deduction skills, sophistry, been comfortable to play mind games and to lie on the face of someone who knows you're lying. Maybe simple mechanics, but in this game you play more the people than the game

"It has 25 factions. Which is more than the number of people who played Concord." Nice. 😂

That hit against concord caught me so off guard, and it was so hilarious

If you dont know the rules, make shit up.

I like to think Eclipse is like Twilight Imperium minus 2 complexity points and can be played in half the time.

Campaign for North Africa?

I always think Power Grid is at an interesting level of complexity. You really only need one person to know the rules really well to make sure the auction flow and phase changes are handled properly. No one else needs to learn the complex administrative rules if they don’t want to.

well well Im at 9, 9.5 but I do want to play that Dune thing

So where would a game like risk end up on this scale?

I can’t help but notice that you compared to missing a roll in Elden Ring to getting unlucky

Imagine believing there is no depth to human social interaction in games like Secret Hitler lol

What is ASL? (Advanced Squad Leader)

"It's got tiles like we are gonna remodel a bathroom" 😂😂😂

I introduced my kids to strategy with a home brew rule in Candy Land - at the start of the game, they draw three extra cards. On their turn, instead of drawing a card from the deck, they can pick to use one of their bonus cards instead.

Dude, Dune could be a game that some peoples scale actually starts, ever heard of Lacerda, wargames or games like Mr. President?

War of the ring, enough said to be an 11

Root's depth seems to be ranked way higher then it should be. Who wins mostly depends on other player's actions, not your own. In a sense it is no different than camel cup where things are out of your control despite your best play and intentions.

Very good video and a well-compiled list.
I found myself mostly nodding to the remarks, which is surprising for such a subjective topic. I've only found myself wondering in two places:

1. Gloomhaven - I think today there's a huge overlap between people who grew up with RPG video games, people who tried or at least have knowledge of DnD, and people who'd be interested in playing Gloomhaven. With that, I think many of the rules of Gloomhaven become pretty self-explanatory, because they make sense in the context of these other games. Sure, you have to play a bit for the game to flow freely without checking the rulebook, but most of things are standard or written down on the gaming pieces themselves.

2. Most of the reasoning for Dune being a tier of its own - Just because a game doesn't have a clear ruleset, or even if it has multiple conflicting rulesets, it doesn't make it any more complex. It either becomes multiple games with the same pieces, or one game with an ambiguous / badly written ruleset.
To illustrate my point: If half of the people would be playing chess with pawns also being able to move backwards, it wouldn't make it any complex, just unclear what you're actually playing.
Dune is complex enough in and of itself (maybe not a separate tier complex), ambiguity of rules is a completely separate issue imo. (And it is just that, an issue. Unlike complexity which is deliberate way to appeal to the audience.)

I feel like TI4 is rated a bit higher than it should be. I think an 8 is more fair, it doesn't seem anywhere close to something like Mage Knight which I'd see as a 10

I really felt the difference between complexity and depth with Ankh (CMon).
There are four simple actions and then three more "actions" that can happen, two of those very simple and even the battles are pretty straightforward (ruleswise).
However, WHAT you do with those 4+3 things is incredibly difficult to handle. Especially with two players, you need to think way ahead of current turn to be able to think what you should be doing and what actions to take etc to control who will be starting the next battle and when and with what action etc.

Where would be scholars of the south tigris on that scale?

I genuinely think it is a underestimation for secret Hitler game to be given 1 depth. The social deduction games and probablity based games like Rummy have a high depth potential when they are played analytically. And yes you can git gud at them.

Heaving SH as safe space is crazy, the amount of conflict and deepdiving is enormous at our table

5D Chess with Multiverse Timetravel

Monopoly is actually a somewhat deep game if your group does creative trade deals. Trading for a monopoly in exchange for a certain amount of immunity, combining for a monopoly and splitting profits, giving out predatory loans, etc. It makes the game actually kind of fun.

lol I've never heard any of these games before! Thanks for the overview dude, I'm super keen to try them now

No way is Gloomhaven more complex than Root.

Interesting video topic. But I wish you would give more examples for each level, not just 1 game per level.

So is warhammer a 996 game or is it a true 10 complexity

Randomness does not reduce a game's depth. I think depth is "how difficult/interesting is it to find the optimal decision", not "how much does optimal play affect who wins." (that could be called fairness or competitiveness). For example in Secret Hitler, figuring out who the fascists are doesn't guarantee that you'll win, but that doesn't make it any less difficult or interesting of a puzzle.

Where do you think tabletop wargames are on this list? When I used to play 40k, it felt overwhelming even after dozens of plays even considering that I've played heavy games like Twilight Imperium before

Thanks for those explanations. I'm personally looking for age appropriate games for kids as well as for the elderly. There are so many games without enough weight, as kids and the elderly are often perceived as less intelligent that they actually are and as companies want to sell more games that aren't suitable and are just poorly designed as they are quickly released. It's also difficult to evaluate a game without expansions that seems incomplete vs. games that are planned to unwrap through many expansions that are not bringing that much to the game. I would rather have the choice of meeples type and mat type before I purchase so many boxes, or at least save on the expansion boxes cost and get the material in another way. With all those game expansions, I've learned to plan my purchases better, but still... Kids have much to learn, and the elderly need proper stimulations to keep their cognitive and physical abilities. We, the adults, lack the proper time to play. Context of gaming also have their own parameters. Some game expansions could be to get from a 8 y. old + game to a 10 y. old + game, instead to keep it simple, like the kids didn't age. Others could be some variant rules for the elderly to help the weight of the game to be more confortable. I'm still looking for better fits for my gaming groups and would appreciate any suggestions.

So you reckon a 3.44 game is a level up a 3.88 game? huh

Gloomhaven??? It's the most simple game ever. Id say it's barely more than Catan. Weird

I refuse to accept that Gloomhaven is harder than Dune: Imperium.

Secret hitler is a great example because my friends were just talking about how we, collectively have "solved it" for all player counts below 7.

Level 10 Should be Lacerda games and/or Magic Realm, Republic of Rome sequence level. Dune is lower than Twilight Imperium, that being said, they are of similar level. SOOOOO many more games harder than Dune. And you gotta switch Brass and Dune Imperium. Dune Imperium is def easier than Brass. Everything else seems solid tho.

Thank you very much for this video. It perfectly explains why I’ve never gotten into Root, Twilight Imperium, and Dune.

I wish BGG had a rating like that.

So level 8, maybe even level 7 is "dev should have just made it a video game" level

With the exception of Brass which is straight fire, I would love to see this video redone with good games.