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Homesteaders

#26566BGG ↗

2009 · 2-4 players · 90min · weight 3.05 · 4,015 ratings

v2 v3

BGG raw

ID
26566
Name
Homesteaders
Year
2009
Rank
589
Min players
2
Max players
4
Playing time
90
Min playtime
60
Max playtime
90
Avg weight
3.0482
Num weights
311
Bayes avg
6.56594
Average
7.1757
Users rated
4015
Num owned
4406
Wanting
179
Wishing
842
Num comments
1246
Fetched at
Sat Apr 25 2026 16:16:06 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
Mechanisms (10)
Auction / BiddingAuction CompensationAuction: Fixed PlacementAuction: Turn Order Until PassConstrained BiddingEnd Game BonusesIncomeLoansOpen DraftingWorker Placement
Categories (3)
American WestCity BuildingEconomic
Description (915 chars)

Homesteaders is an auction and resource management game in which players bid on the opportunity to build certain types of buildings, then spend resource cubes to build one of several buildings of that type. The buildings confer abilities, income, and points; some automatically and some requiring a worker. The game lasts ten rounds, with each round consisting of an auction phase followed by a building phase. After the last round, players take one final income phase and have one last chance to buy and sell goods and use their building abilities before scores are tallied. Players score for their buildings, bonuses conferred by buildings, and points earned throughout the game from selling resource cubes. The player who builds the best combination of buildings and best manages the nine different resources in the game will score the most points and win – as long as they don't take on too much debt!

LLM v2 (wide)

Core verb
bid building type, then build
Decision shape
combinatorial
Reward schedule
engine_compounding
Aesthetics
["Challenge"]
Core loop pitch
Auction the right to build certain building types each round, then spend cubes to construct income-generating tableau pieces.
Translation difficulty
Easy
Difficulty reason
Bidding plus tableau-building is async-friendly; a BGA implementation already exists, no native app yet.
Direct digital port
Homesteaders (browser, Board Game Arena)
Port kind
bga
Closest loop translation
none yet
Primitive tags
["category_auction_then_pick", "income_tableau_compounding", "loan_debt_pressure", "constrained_bid_increments", "ten_round_arc"]
Confidence
0.6
Extracted at
Mon Apr 27 2026 11:40:03 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
Raw v2 JSON (895 chars)
{
  "game_id": 26566,
  "name": "Homesteaders",
  "core_verb": "bid building type, then build",
  "decision_shape": "combinatorial",
  "reward_schedule": "engine_compounding",
  "aesthetics": [
    "Challenge"
  ],
  "core_loop_pitch": "Auction the right to build certain building types each round, then spend cubes to construct income-generating tableau pieces.",
  "mobile_translation_difficulty": "Easy",
  "translation_difficulty_reason": "Bidding plus tableau-building is async-friendly; a BGA implementation already exists, no native app yet.",
  "direct_digital_port": "Homesteaders (browser, Board Game Arena)",
  "direct_digital_port_kind": "bga",
  "closest_loop_translation": "none yet",
  "primitive_tags": [
    "category_auction_then_pick",
    "income_tableau_compounding",
    "loan_debt_pressure",
    "constrained_bid_increments",
    "ten_round_arc"
  ],
  "confidence": 0.6
}

LLM v3 (deep)

Not yet enriched at v3 (deep pass).