Naturelich Games

Days of Wonder has announced the release of Ticket to Ride Nordic Countries. This version of Ticket to Ride is a stand-alone game and will only be available and sold in the Nordic Countries of Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland. This game will be for 2-3 players and take players through the big nordic cities Oslo, Copenhagen, Helsiniki, Stockholm (and probably some others too).

More information is available here at the Days of Wonder blog.

Posted by Naturelich at 10:55 PM | Permalink

Sweden: Unofficial map for Ticket to Ride. Created by Gustaf Andersson. The original Ticket to Ride is designed by Alan R. Moon and published by Days of Wonder.

Gustaf Andersson has created an unofficial map for Ticket to Ride. The map can be printed on 10 sheets of A4 paper. The map contains new rules for Harbor and Flight connections. These routes are build like any other route. However, if a harbor or flight route is used, the player immediately loses 10 (harbor) or 20 (flight) points. A rather costly undertaking but it allows you to connect the two destination cities and might help you score additional destination ticket points.

Download the map at the author's homepage:
http://www.roselike.com/eng/ticket_eng.html

Posted by Naturelich at 5:42 PM | Permalink

Chris Jones has designed a wonderful UK map for Power Grid (Funkenschlag) and published it to BoardGameGeek.com. He has posted more details here. A full (low-res) image of the map is available here and the high resolution images are available here:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4

Each file should be printed 26cm wide by 36cm tall (the exact dimensions of the Power Grid board). It would be best to get the file into a graphics editor, half it, and printing each piece onto A4 paper (for those not in the US).

Posted by Naturelich at 11:05 PM | Permalink

As Shelak was visiting for a couple of days we decided to start a two-player session of Imperial. I had acquired this game, designed by Mac Gerdts at Essen 2006 and now was the first chance to play it (yeah, I know...). We went through the rules quickly and since we were already familiar with Antike it was all pretty self-explanatory. Still, the game has only few common elements to Mac Gerdts' first game.

In Imperial, players take the role of international financial investors trying to earn the greatest influence over European states in the age of imperialism. The game shows a beautiful map of Europe and comes with truly gorgeous wooden playing pieces, among them ships, armies and factories. Based on the loans by the investors all nations expand by building new factories, troops and fleets to expand their power in Europe. Each country can collect taxes from occupied territories to pay interest to their investors. The player granting the biggest amout in loan(s) to a state will be able to control their government and is eligible to take the turn for that particfular country. As financial control over the imperial nations changes, new strategic alliances are formed and new conflicts emerge.

As I said, the game was pretty easy to learn, however, it takes a couple of turns until we started to (!) grasp the tactical and strategical implications. I was able to get control over the French government and speculated to earn taxes as the next action. However, since the previous government had built that many armies (that also need to be sustained by the tax income), taking the taxing action did not seem a great idea. Instead, I decided to maneuver the armies, gaining control over additional territories (i.e. more taxes) and battling against enemy armies to reduce the sustainability cost. What a great plan, I thought. Pah, Shelak was able to loan more money to France and to regain government control. Guess, who took the tax income in France's next turn?

Mechanisms like this make Imperial a very unique, interesting and challenging game. In addition, the game also teaches us something about the power and influence of large investment corporations or large cooperations. Sarcastically speaking, Mac Gerdts could have set the game in today's times as well. On the other hand, it is a beautiful simulation of the imperialistic, (pre-)WWI times in Europe.

Altogether, we both liked Imperial a lot, even as a two-player. We definitely should give it another go with more players as well as revisiting the game again to play another full session.

Posted by Naturelich at 11:59 PM | Permalink

PC version of Yspahan by Günther Rosenbaum

Günther Rosenbaum has released another board game for the PC: Yspahan, designed by Sébastien Pauchon and published by Ystari Games. This game is available as freeware for download (officially sanctioned by the publisher). The game comes with an artifical intelligence allowing players to compete on multiple difficulty levels. For beginners (like me) the highest difficulty is pretty challenging. This is similar to Günther Rosenbaum's PC version of Sankt Petersburg.

If you do not want to compete against the computer, the game also supports a manual mode.

The game is currently available in English and in German via download at:
http://www.westpark-gamers.de/download/yspahan_pc.php

Posted by Naturelich at 11:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Yehuda - Gaming and Blogging in the Holy Land blog has a great article on celebrities playing board games. Yehuda has obviously put a lot of effort into compiling the list, together with some sources.

Now, the bad news: My playlist is not at all, not even remotely similar to that of celebrities. Bad luck for me. While I was clicking the link to Yehuda, I had already gotten my hopes up to play a round of Die Macher with Wil Smith. But... ;)

Better luck next time. Until then, I have highlighted the matches:

Top 6 List: Board Game Night: Naturelich vs. Celebrities

Number 6
The first crossover is the Beastie Boys who like playing Mah-Jongg on their tour bus. I presume they are a group of 4 anyway so I would probably not be welcome in joining them, would I?(unless somebody has thought of a 5-player variant for Mah-Jongg?!)

Number 5
In addition, if I were about 25-27 years younger, I might have considered competing against Beyonce Knowles in Connect Four (yawn).

Number 4
Same is true for Catherine Zeta-Jones. Although I would love to engage her (in a game) ,1she only plays Yahtzee, Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit. At least here is some potential to introduce her to Um Krone und Kragen.

Number 3
Since I don't know Bridge, I will have to take on Bill Gates in a game of Chess - but I doubt I will win - he is simply too smart.

Number 2
Oh, oh, and here is the perfect match: Jenna Fischer plays Carcassonne, Lost Cities and Bohnanza. Yippie! Finally! But who is Jenna Fischer? I'd rather play Jennifer Aniston, but she only enjoys Scrabble and Poker. Not a Geek's lady, apparently... :(
... Maybe I could interest them both in a game of Ladybohn?

Number 1
Wil Wheaton. Yes, Wesley Crusher. Yes, yes, I know. The "geek" from Star Trek - The Next Generation. This weekend, he played Apples to Apples with his family and created a link to the game on BGG. He even has a BGG profile and his collection also includes Carcassonne, Munchkin and Pirate's Cove. Great, I'd love to have him over for a game night :D

Okay, that's enough of my fantasies. I shall 7111, it's 14675.

Posted by Naturelich at 12:51 AM | Permalink

Here is a variant for Taluva. Play it with 2 teams of 2 players: A - B - A - B. The rules remain unchanged. A team wins if one of the players wins.
If no more tiles are left, the team who has built the most temples (then towers, then huts) wins.

This way offers some new interesting tactical possibilities: a player can protect the position of his partner or help him build it in the first place. Anybody who dislikes king-making will also be glad to try this variant...

[via BGGUser Pyjam]

Posted by Naturelich at 12:01 AM | Permalink

A new unofficial map of The Netherlands has recently appeared on BoardGameGeek. Currently, these images are not in printable quality.

BGG User Jukke has created the map.

Posted by Naturelich at 11:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Carcassonne board game is scheduled for release on XBox 360 Live Arcade. 12 new screenshots (with a more 3-dimensional view) are available on TeamXBox:

http://previews.teamxbox.com/xbox-360/1579/Carcassonne/p1/

Apparently, the game is scheduled for release in June shipping with The River expansion included for free. It is currently expected that The River II as well as King and Baron will be available as add-ons for an additional charge with the initial release.

Posted by Naturelich at 6:13 PM | Permalink

This GeekList Aggregator deals with How-to-GeekLists. Many geeklists serve as a little how-to guide. Most of them are serious, some others just pure fun and they cover a broad range of topics. One How-to list covers the game rules and nicely connects BGG images and text, some others investigate how to manage and categorize game collections and another one is focused on how to best explain the rules.

Pretty thought provoking stuff *g*, all collated in GeekList Aggregator #17: How-to GeekLists.

Continue reading "GLA #17: How-to GeekLists" »

Posted by Naturelich at 11:25 PM | Permalink

Ticket to Ride - Austria - An unofficial expansion map for Ticket to Ride by Bodo Malo. Ticket to Ride is copyright by Alan R. Moon and Days of Wonder

Bodo Malo has designed an unofficial map of Austria for use with Ticket to Ride / Zug um Zug. The map was designed to resemble the Austrian railroad network to a high degree. The game is completely self-designed and includes a map with real tracks and holding areas for destination tickets and waggon cards. During the summer months, Austria offers plenty of trains with steam engines or diesel engines for tourists. All destination tickets show a real picture and the name of the actual train, including historic trains from 100 years ago. This is a wonderful idea for fans of the train hobby.

Rules
The Austrian map is best played with original Ticket to Ride rules. However, the game can be extended by train stations from Ticket to Ride: Europe as well as passengers from the Ticket to Ride: Märklin edition.

Some special rules apply. Touristic routes - indicated by a small zig-zag icon along the route - have to be build like a tunnel. These routes end in a dead-end and are covered by only 1 destination ticket. If players attempt to build these routes they need to complete the route and hold the appropriate destination ticket. Otherwise, they will lose a number of victory points as indicated on the ticket.

The destination tickets also contain 9 valuable, long routes that are highlighted on the map to indicate them for new players. On his webpage, Bodo discusses blocking strategies for these routes.

An extremely well designed map for Ticket to Ride with some great ideas. Download the map at the author's webpage.

Posted by Naturelich at 9:51 PM | Permalink

This blog has seen little activity over the last three months as I have been particularly involved with work. Last weekend, I finally found the leisure time for some serious gaming. In a combined effort Raven, Shelak and I were prepared to dive into some of the games I had acquired during or after Essen 2006. Among them was the brand-new Thurn und Taxis: Glanz und Gloria. As we all continue to enjoy the original Thurn und Taxis, the expansion came as a natural buy. But let's continue in order of play.

Start Player

Ted Alspach's Start Player has been one of the greatest novelties for me in 2006. Finally, there is a fun and somewhat fair way to determine the start player. Played three "games" in total and won 2 them. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to hit this ratio with the other games. In fact, there was no additional first place this time, reminding me of the Fifteenth Gamer Commandment: Though shalt not get rusty in your gaming.

Thurn und Taxis: Glanz und Gloria

Thurn und Taxis: Glanz und Gloria is the first expansion to the Spiel des Jahres 2006 winning Thurn und Taxis. T&T: G&G has just recently been published in Germany. The game comes in a box with less height than the original T&T box. This expansion contains

Thurn und Taxis - Glanz und Gloria

• a one page rule leaflet,
• a game board showing a map of the Northern part of Germany and it's surrounding territories
• 69 city cards (23 cities on the map, 3 cards per city). The back of the cards shows a different number of horses (between 1-3)
• 39 victory point markers
• a(n almost useless) mail courier made from cardboard

.

Basically, the contents are only lacking the houses from the original game.

The new map takes us into the Northern part of Germany

The game itself comes with a modified set of rules and revised game elements:

• The country of Prussia Bavaria is separated into two parts. In the original game it was possible to build stations in all cities of the biggest country with one route. Although it was difficult to accomplish, it rewarded a high number of victory points. Due to the separation, players are now required to travel through (at least) one foreign country. In effect, the player cannot build a station in every city they have visited. The bigger challenge arises through the introduction of additional bottlenecks. If multiple players seek to score points for Prussia they all need to go through either (Hannover), (Kassel) or (Bremen & Hamburg) or (Frankfurt & Würzburg & Weimar). In our games this has caused some severe attempts at blocking access to Hannover and Kassel.


• Players will no longer be collecting coaches of increasing value (3, ..., 7). This is replaced by the following mechanism and the rule that the game ends once one player has placed all his mail stations on the board.


• The Cartwright is not available anymore. Instead, players get a coach with two horses. In order to score a route, players need to have at least as many horses pulling this coach as they have cities in their route. For example, if the player wants to score the route Dresden - Berlin - Hannover - Bremen - Amsterdam (5 cities) they are requried to have at least five horses in front of their coach (= 2 come with the coach for free and 3 additional are required). Andreas and Karin Seyfarth have found a nice mechanism to add horses: whenever a city card is played, the player can choose to play the card as in the original game to extend their route OR (new!) they can place it face down on top of their coach. The back of the city cards contain between one and three horses. In our example above, we would have had a need for 1 city card with 3 horses or 3 cards with 1 horse etc. This mechanism elegantly serves an additional purpose: whenever you cannot place a card to extend your route, you can still use it for the coach and are not forced to close out a route. This was probably one of the major criticisms with the base game.


• Free Cities: Frankfurt, Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck are free cities. The latter three have been members of the Hanse and form separate entities but do not form a country. Each free city scores one victory point for the first player to place a mail station their. If a player has multiple free cities in a route currently being scored, the player may only pace one station into one of the free cities.

No Cartwright no more

The city cards with different numbers of horses on their back

The Belgian Perspective

Wonderful design by Michael Menzel

We were able to play two sessions of Thurn und Taxis: Glanz und Gloria and I really enjoyed the experience. Each game was involving and the result was always close once with a tied score for first place and the second time only 1 victory point apart.
Due to the changed ending condition, the game seems to have become a little bit longer. Players also tend to build longer routes. At first, I thought T&T:G&G is just a new map but it isn't. It involves different mechanics and requires players to adjust strategies. While in the original T&T blocking was a problem only for one city, the new geography provides 5 such bottlenecks (Brussels, Rostock, Hannover, Kassel, Würzburg) where blocking can prove effective. The expansion is not revolutionary but I liked playing it. Needless to say, the map can also be used in combination with the original rules of the base game (and including the free city rules).

Taluva

Taluva continues to be one of my favorites from Essen 2006. We played two 2-player and one 3-player game. Shelak beat me by a considerable margin. Argh! Normally, I had been looking for cheap excuses but these Taluva sessions were just horrible. I'll have to practice before we compete again...

Taj Mahal

An older Knizia game I had not played before. I was able to get the Rio Grande Games release at Essen and I was totally hooked by the game. It seems to be a very deep game with various strategies and options. Given the fact that Shelak was more than 20 points ahead of Raven and myself, I believe he would be willing to play again. I certainly want to try this more often.

Mauerbauer

Another first for us was Mauerbauer. For me, this was certainly the weakest game of the evening. Something I was already expecting due to some blog reviews and session reports I had read earlier. Leo Colovini games just do not seem to work for me. I may want to give it another chance, but for this quarter I am done with it...

The scoring track was nice, though. Am I getting cynical here?

Mauerbauer Scoring Track

Posted by Naturelich at 10:04 PM | Permalink

Jeremy Chambers is one of the most productive designers of inofficial Carcassonne expansions. In addition to Storehouses and Paths and The Horse, he has also created The Well and the Donkey.
This expansion is related to the legend of the devil and the well:

The Legend of the Devil and the Well (Carcassonne, France):

One night, a long time ago, seven archers were singing and making noise in the streets, swearing against the apostles and Saint Gimer. These non-believers met a donkey which was covered with a very rich cloth. They seized it, and one after the other rose on the back of the donkey. The animal lengthened as they took place on it, so that they all could sit down on its back! Suddenly the beautiful cloth changed into a funeral pall, and the donkey began to run in the streets. It stopped first at the cemetery, where graves opened, leaving passage to the died, who intoned a funeral lament. Then the donkey, which was in reality Satan, went to the Big Well and dived into the depth with the seven archers. They still belong to him.

This unofficial expansion contains:
2 Donkey tiles
3 Wheat Field tiles
5 Vineyard Field tiles

Donkey Tile
When the Donkey Tile is played every player that has a meeple in the city loses one of their meeples. If someone has more than one meeple they only loose one meeple. Lost meeples are removed from the game. (The tile pictures the donkey and “The Big Well” from the medieval Cité in Carcassonne.)

Wheat Field Tile
If a player has a farmer in a field that contains a Wheat Field Tile and touches a city that contains a wheat token, when the city is complete the majority farm owner takes the wheat token even if they were not the one to complete the city. The farm does not have to be complete for this effect.

Vineyard Field Tile
The Vineyard Field Tile works the same way as the Wheat Filed Tile. The Vineyard Field Tile works with the barrel tokens.

Carcassonne: The Well and The Donkey requires Carcassonne to play and also highly recommends Carcassonne: Traders and Builders for optimal enjoyment. If you don’t have Carcassonne: Traders and Builders just use the Wheat and Vineyard Field tiles as normal field tiles.

To download the files from BoardGameGeek, click here.

Posted by Naturelich at 6:12 PM | Permalink

Power Grid (Funkenschlag) is a very popular game with multiple expansions. The latest official addition was the map of Benelux / Central Europe. The game is supplemented by several unofficial, fan-produced expansions as well. I while ago, I had reported on Attola Modulis which is a very flexible map customization system. However, this design is completely fictional. If you are interested in something more realistic you might also want to try the inofficial Power Grid map of Canada.

This map was designed by BGG-User IntvGene in an extremely professional design. The map displays power plants in Southern Canada with export cities in the Northern United States of America.

The map is not yet completely finished: both the connection cost as well as the initial market setup rules still need to be defined

You can download the map file from BoardGameGeek here.

Additional information on special rules can be found on this forum thread.

Posted by Naturelich at 4:03 PM | Permalink

Ticket to Ride Finland - An unofficial expansion map to Ticket to Ride. Created by Esa Kujala. The original board game Ticket to Ride is designed by Alan R. Moon and Days of Wonder

As time progresses almost every European country is being made available as a fan-produced map for Ticket to Ride. This shows clearly how popular Alan Moon's game really is. Esa Kujala has created a beautiful map of Finland. The design is 100% custom and looks very very nice. The game is set in the year 1938 and the map makes use of the Ticket to Ride Europe rules. This includes tunnels, ferries as well as different long and short route destination tickets. In addition to a regular set of tickets, the author provides a second extended set of tickets. This certainly increases re-playability.
In addition to the European rules, the map also contains connections to cities in other countries, such as Leningrad, Tallin, etc.

The map is available for download at: http://personal.inet.fi/cool/teeseitse/muuta/lautapelit/

Posted by Naturelich at 10:37 PM | Permalink