There's not a lot of talk about board games on this forum, so let's fix that.

What mechanics do you enjoy the most?

What was your first euro board game exposure?

What is your current favorite board game?

Who wishes they had the money for this monstrosity?

 

The big things for me are:

1. Replayability, so something to ensure that every game doesn't play out the same
2. unclear optimization: the optimal decision for any given turn shouldn't be obvious.
3. Some way to control the effects of die rolls.

I played a lot of Axis and Allies growing up, which does a fairly good job with all 3, but once you put in a lot of games it grows a bit stale. Still a fun game though, and I will play a game with my old friends once in a while.
More recently, Small World and Cyclades are the two best games I have played. Both have randomly determined effects that make every game different, minimal die rolling, and can be quite deep despite relatively simple mechanics. Small World is much simpler than Cyclades, but the bidding system in Cyclades opens up all kinds of different mind games and strategies that can be a ton of fun to play wit.

 

https://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?t=21483

I play a lot of board games. The more complicated, the better, but most importantly, it has to be fun. I'll play pretty much anything. The most recent game I've been addicted to is the Firefly boardgame. I also had a lot of fun with the Game of Thrones boardgame. I really wish more people around my area were into dungeon crawlers, but they honestly take forever - the closest thing I managed to do was the Munchkin boardgame. I also want to get into kingdom builder type games, since I love games with a million pieces, though I'm not a huge fan of manuals that are the size of the Goblet of Fire.

And holy crap, $1000 for a boardgame? I thought the $170 I spent on Epicus was a lot (dat leather game board and pewter pieces though).