Naturelich Games

Louis XIV. is a strategy game by alea who have a fame for creating challlenging strategic boardgames. As most of you might know, Louis XIV. reigned as the King of France and was known as The Sun King (Le Roi Soleil). As he reigned for 72 years he had a lot of time to wage wars and to create an absolutist and centralised state. We can all imagine that plenty of people wanted to influence the person at the head of such a state, can't we? OK, now, before I actually dive deeper into reviewing the game, let's look a little further. What type of a man was he? Wikipedia and many others ascribe the words L'Etat, c'est moi (= I am the state) to him. Well, given this attitude, along with the fact that his power was enormous we can all see why so many women where interested in him. He was said to have numerous mistresses. Now imagine: you are the King. You not only have to deal with your ministers, your family, France's nobility but also you enemies and probably even worse a huge amount of competing women. You get the picture? Well, keep it in mind, it's exactly what came to my mind when I actually played the game Louis XIV.

Now, that we are both in Versailles in the shoes of Louis XIV: some bad news first! Neither of us is ever going to become King of France. Not in real life, not in this game. However, at least you are a member of his Court and get to bribe the people directly influencing and surrounding the King. I have to pay my compliments to Rüdiger Dorn, the author of Louis XIV. (who also authored Spiel des Jahres 2005 nominee Jambo): he did a great job in selecting a very atmospheric theme for a rather abstract strategy game.

Let's look a little bit at some gameplay details.
In each of exactly four turns all players get to replenish first (with money, influencing cards and solved mission cards, if appropriate). In my experience money is important but the real winner are the influencing cards. There are several ways to get more of them and I found it advantageous to take them. OK, done with replenishing?

Let the starting player for this turn move into Influencing phase. As I pointed out, Loius XIV. was surrounded by a lot of powerful people. These characters sit in the middle of the table waiting to give their special advantages to the player who influencesthem best (the critical words are printed in italic):

• The special advantage you get depends on the character, e.g. Jules Mazarin (who ran the country instead of Louis XIV. because little Louis was still in diapers at that time) lets you take more influencing cards while most of the others award you with mission chips.


• You influence a character by placing one or more wooden influence token(s) onto that characters card. You have probably already guessed this: each player's supply of influence stones is way too small to let you influence everyone. Yes, you can get these tokens back but only if you abandon the option of influencing one person. Argh! Now, this makes it really expensive, doesn't it

In phase 3 we finally get to score big. If we are the best influencer we earn the advantage. Now, what does "best" mean? This one is tricky, because it depends on the character. But not only that: the criteria to earn the advantage may change every turn because you have to flip the character. Confused? It's not my intention to confuse you. But, if you were a mistress at the King's Court would I be able to influence you twice and twice the same way? See, I didn't think so. I also believe that this is another good example of how well the theme has been integrated into the game mechanics.

After earning mission chips and other awards we get to complete missions in phase 4. This is critical to winning as missions let you gain a strategic advantage over your co-players. The more difficult the mission, the more and better the awards required to solve it. Missions can give you great advantages such as greater supplies or better influence, etc. During my first game I tried to complete the easy/medium missions only. After game two, we all noticed that even the most difficult missions are quite possible to fulfill. It's a stretching challenge but not impossible. I guess it pays to play high risk at the Court.

OK, that's about all I want to say regarding the gameplay. It's probably been more than enough anyways, but I hope you get the idea of how I felt when I started playing:
I have played the game a few times now. At first, it was difficult to grasp. The rules are unfortunately not a piece of poetry the King were to be impressed with. Our first game was a total failure with the only purpose of learning the rules. Even the game setup is difficult. But when we finally understood the mechanics, the possibilities and different strategic options, I was really impressed. I am certain we are not at the end of exploring this further.

All games were very close and intense until the end. It was difficult to tell who the winner was until you actually counted all the emblems (the final bit in the scoring phase). Moreover, each game was totally different. Not different as different in Ticket to Ride or different in Carcassonne - it was more like The Settlers of Catan-different.

I truly believe to have found a true gem in Loius XIV. It is not a family game. Don't play it with kids (>12 is recommended by the publishers). Bring some time (~1.0 -1.5 hrs). Take the time to explain the rules by simply starting to play the game once. Get a feeling for the strategies. I can't see how this game could ever bore me. It's not mainstream enough to be awarded Spiel des Jahres but I certainly see it among the best games this year - so far.

Louis XIV. on other board game blogs
gameblog
&games

Posted by Naturelich at 7:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (4)

Carcassonne - Fruit Traders. (c) by Jonathan Wu.

Fruit Traders is the name of an inofficial Carcassonne add-on developed by Jonathan Wu. This expansion consists of 6 tiles and 6 pineapple tokens. Carcassonne: Traders and Builders is not required, but Fruit Traders plays better with this extension included.

Gameplay
Unlike Carcassonne - Traders and Builders, the goods are not placed inside the cities; they are placed on the field. The player who completed the road or monastery takes the pineapple token. If the tile contains both road and monastery, a player who completed either feature can take the goods. When the player gets the pineapple token, he may exchange it with any player for one goods token of his choice. That player cannot refuse the exchange. After that turn, no exchange can be made.

At the end of game, players with most pineapple tokens gain 10 points. Players with most farmers on the field gain 2 points for each pineapple farm (map tile with pineapple) attached.

Design and Theme
The tiles are well designed. They look very similar to the original Carcassone game design. Three of the six tiles contain a cloister. I find this surprising but the designer may just be a fan of the clerics. A particularly nice tile contains three city parts with a monastery in the middle. It will be quite easy to score nine points for this cleric.
The little pineapple icon looks nice as well. However, I would not have expected pineapples in a medieval European game, as these fruit were probably very difficult to get for the ordinary person (if they were available in Europe at all?!). But since this merchandise is the base for a powerful new game mechanism, I believe this little glitch may well be forgiven.

If you do not own Carcassonne - Traders and Builders, this expansion is probably not a must have: half of the game mechanisms are not fully usable. Just collecting pineapples without the option of trading does not really add much value. In fact, the game will be turned into a game of luck even more. What remains is a few new interesting tile.

If played in combination with Carcassonne - Traders and Builders, however, the option of stealing merchandise from your fellow players makes it easier to collect one particular kind of merchandise (entiteling you to 10 bonus points - maybe even several times?). This adds a nice new game element without harming the game balance. It can also hit you hard if someone steals a valuable piece of merchandise from you. The bad-luck chap I am, this will probably happen to me all the time. Altogether, I think Fruit Traders is a good add-on for Traders and Builders that's worth the effort of tinkering the tiles...

Download
The game is available at BoardGameGeek http://www.bggfiles.com/viewfile.php3?fileid=11989 or at the authors website http://jhywu.tripod.com/FruitTrader.htm.

Posted by Naturelich at 11:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

Carcassonne is a great and commercially successful game. The publisher (Hans im Glück Verlag) and author(s) have provided many add-ons to the original game and even created a few siblings. But there are quite a few inofficial (=fan-produced) extensions available on the internet. I am trying to compile a comprehensive set of reviews of each of the expansions on this blog. Knowing me, this will certainly take a while so it will probably make sense to check back every once in a while. If you come along any missing extensions, please leave a comment below and I will add the extension here.

Carcassonne Extensions

• Die Eroberer (The Conquerors) by Dieter "Belushi" Rausch, which adds city-sieges, watchtowers, runis and an oracle


• Families extension (by wildlife)


• Fruit Traders by John Wu, which plays nicely with Carcassone: Traders and Buildes (Carcassonne: Händler und Baumeister)


• Knecht und Bettelmönch (Laborer and Mendicant) by Christoph Berger


• Fischerhütte (The Fishing Hut) by Jörg Krühne


• Carcassonne - Die Eisenbahn (The train extension) by Matthias Hecking


• Neue Flusskarten (New River tiles) by Martin Storbeck


• Wald (The Forrest) by Guntram Engelhardt


• Holzfäller und Müller (Lumberjack and Miller) by Steffen Reichel


• Storehouses and Paths by Jeremy Chambers


• Carcassonne: The Horse by Jeremy Chambers

Carcassone variants

• Carcassonne Vanguard by Jonathan Wu gives players different strengths and weaknesses at the beginning of the game

Carcassone clones - Not playable with original Carcassonne

• Pirates and Plunder - A pirates-style standalone Carcassonne clone by Brian L. Bird and Richard Thames Rowan

Extensions for Carcassonne - Hunters and Gatherers (Carcassonne - Jäger und Sammler)

• The Stonewall - In principal, this is The River for Hunters & Gatherers; by jeuxparje

Posted by Naturelich at 11:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (1)

Carcassonne - Die Eroberer. The Siege. Copyright by Dieter Rausch, www.carcassonne-welt.de. Used with permission.

Dieter Rausch has put up a great Carcassonne fan page called Carcassonne Welt. This page features an inofficial, fan-produced Carcassonne extension called Die Eroberer (The Conquerors). To download the extension you will have to register. Apparently, this extension was so popular that people sold plenty of copies on ebay and this caused a lot of trouble. So, what is the content in this extension?

The Farm Track
The farm track connects two streets but does not separate the willows in between. A very cool idea, since this card makes connecting willows easier and can decide a game if drawn during the endgame.

The Möbius intersection (aka the infinite intersection)
The Möbius intersection is a 4-way intersecition which does not end the incoming streets. Instead there is a small roundabout in the middle. This card concept is similar to the bridge tile which was later introduced in Carcassonne: Traders & Builders. However, it also allows players to claim both streets if his follower is put directly onto the ronudabout. This part did not make it into the official extension. Still, I believe it speaks for Die Eroberer that game designers thought the tile concept would make a nice addition to an offical add-on.

The Oracle
The Oracle is an extension to a willow which offers a powerful mechanism to exchange a tile. The player with the most farmers on the same willow as the oracle is permitted to redraw a card if he does not like the one he drew.

The Siege
The Siege is a regular city tile at first which fits against a regular city. However, if placed against an opponent's city, the player may populate a military camp with two soldiers. The siege ends once the city is completed. During the siege, the siege commander scores one point during each of his turns. I definitely love this card. It adds an extremely interesting new game mechanism that fits great into the Carcassonne theme. I presume this tile was the role model for the official extensions Carcassonne: Die Katharer (The Cathars).

The Watchtower
Watchtowers protect cities from siege in a 3x3 region around them. Any siege currently running in that area ends immediately. But that's not it: The watchtower counts as a regular city tile with two additional shields, thus scoring additional points and adds an additional two knights for the owner of the tower. But these towers are even more powerful: Only the owner may add cards adjacent to the tower itself. This allows for some powerful blocking mechanisms and I believe could harm game-balance (even considering the Siege cards), but there is yet another counter-mechanism: ruins.

The Ruin
The owner may destroy one building until a city is complete, e.g. a Cathedral or a Watchtower of any city, even if owned by himself. The destroyed building is taken out of the game and replaced by the ruin. The ruin counts as a regular city tile and scores points normally.

Let's put it in a nutshell: this extension is truly marvelous and a true gem. One of the best fan-produced extensions I have ever seen! The design is great but the new game mechanism is maybe even better.

Die Eroberer is copyrighted by Dieter Rausch, Berlin
Carcassonne is copyrighted by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede, Hans-im-Glück Verlag, München

Posted by Naturelich at 12:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Die Baumeister des Königs is a Carcassonne clone designed by original Carcassonne-designer Klaus-Jürgen Wrede. Interestingly, this German-type game has first been published in the United States under the title The Ark of The Covenant by Inspiration Games. This game is very closely related to the original Carcassonne game but not an extension. It's stand-alone and comes with tiles in different design and a slightly altered - religious - game theme. Die Baumeister des Königs is settled during the times of King Solomon, a famous figure in the Old Testament. The players are members of King Solomon's staff and have to build cities and roads - does this already sound familiar? In addition to this, the players have to promote sheep farming and transport the ark of the covenant. Prophets need to be placed on the cities to encourage repentance and adherence to the Ten Commandments.

Gamplay
Now, what's different compared to the original Carcassonne?

• The first new feature includes oases along some road tiles wich award one additional point to that road for each oasis.


• Secondly, a prophet can be played (only once by each player) which doubles the value of a completed city for that player.


• The third novelty changes the way points can be scored on willows: followers score two points for each sheep on that willow. Any wolf on that same willow subtracts two points. We have seen a similar feature in Carcassone: Hunters and Gatherers.


• The monasteries from the original game are replaced by temples. The temples do not require nine tiles around them (as in the original) but only four. Since this is a religously inspired game, these tiles have to shape a cross and score seven points.


• Additionally, players can forgo the placement of a follower on the board to move the Ark around the tiles and award 1 point to the owner of each follower it passes.

This makes an interesting new variation on the well-known theme.The religious touch is almost neglectable. Of course it is not the revolution of the gaming industry. But I had not expected that anyway.

Design and Theme
The game design is lovely. I like the yellowish colored tiles and the religious theme. It really fits the new concepts well, especially the ark is a nice new game element. It is probably among the few Christian game with real top quality components. I strongly believe this game must have been a lot of fun to design for Klaus-Jürgen Wrede who is also a teacher of religion in Germany. The rulebook contains background information on the Ark of the Covenant, King Salomon's Temple and the Prophets.
Another interesting detail is the rule about who starts the game:

The player who last read a portion of the Bible will be the starting player

It's my personal believe that this rule should be added to the list of best Start Player Rules on BoardGameGeek or on Startspieler.

Another interesting observation is that the letter "B" is printed on the back of the cards (while the original Carcassonne contained a "C"). The American edition features an "A" instead. I guess the designers did not want to be accused of little variation in this new installation of Carcassonne.

Of course, the game play between Carcassonne and this clone is more or less the same. It is easy to learn this game when you already know the original. So, is it worth buying? Well, don't buy it, if you dislike the original. If you are a true Carcassonne-fan you will probably own it already. For all the others: it IS a good game, even it's "yet another clone"...

Posted by Naturelich at 9:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)

As of now all the boardgame-related content from www.naturelich.com is now available in this separated weblog Naturelich Games. Due to the upgrade to the latest 3.2 version of MovableType I decided to re-arrange things a little bit. Until recently www.naturelich.com featured about 375 blog entries. The majority of those dealt with Naturelich's boardgame-life. Those 90 articles have now been moved to Naturelich Games where I will continue to write about one of my biggest hobbies. I hope this new focus makes it easier for you to follow this part of me. If you are interested in the personal stuff (Hi, Mom!) you are cordially invited to visit Naturelich main.

Posted by Naturelich at 6:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

I am not sure whether this belongs into the Ticket to Ride: Extension category but it is probably the best fit. The long routes in Ticket to Europe are very crucial to winning. Beginners may not know where the route endpoints are. Suppose a beginner-level player first places waggons on Edinburgh-London. An experienced opponent will almost immediately assume that this player is running for Edinburgh-Athens. Which makes unfriendly moves much easier.

Jonathan Degann has recently posted endpoint markers for the long routes on BoardGameGeek. I believe, his idea is to cut and paste the markers to denote the endpoints. This will instantaneously create more transparency for all players - even beginners.

Click here to download the image file.

Posted by Naturelich at 2:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Families is the name of a fan-produced extension for Carcassonne. The author is Frederic Renaud. Of course, the basic Carcassone game is required to play this extension.

Game idea
The basic idea of the game is inspired by medieval family feuds: Two families cannot stand each other and cannot be in the same city. This expansion includes a set of new tiles with a different shield printed on them. These red/yellow shields represent the one family crest, while the original blue/white shields (from the original game) represent the second family.

Rules
If a tile with a family crest is put into a city, it is impossible to add a family-crest tile from the second family.

Additional Tiles
In addition to the family feud, the extension set contains a few new road and bridge tiles.

My 2 cents
Quite frankly. I do not get it! What kind of an expansion is this? It serves basically no purpose. Unless I have missed something - the rules are not extensive. I would really appreciate any comments or ideas you have with regard to the rules.

Anyway, the files can be downloaded at BoardGameGeek. Just follow this link!

Posted by Naturelich at 11:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

I came across a funny article which describes a nice what-if scenario:

What if World War II was a Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG)?

(via &games)

Posted by Naturelich at 12:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

During my holidays the Carcassonne Almanach has arrived. This almanac contains all artciles ever published in Germany's biggest gaming magazine Spielbox. This includes reviews of the original Carcassonne game and all its extensions, interviews with the game publisher and author. This includes the rare US based Carcassonne sibling The Ark of the Covenant which has recently been published in Germany, too (as Die Baumeister des Königs).

First and foremost, the almanac also includes the rare extension Die Katharer (The Cathars) and their rules. This add-on was available in one of last year's Spielbox editions. This issue has been out-of-stock for quite a while now and here is your chance to get it.

Another interesting article deals with the new Carcassonne clone Carcassonne - Neues Land which is scheduled to be released for Essen 2005. The game is not an add-on to the original game but rather an entirely new game designed by Leo Colvini.

Great news for our non-German speaking friends: The almanac also includes an English translation of all articles.

You can order the almanac by following this link.

Posted by Naturelich at 8:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

We played a session of Munchkin combined with Munchkin 2. Shelak and Raven had brought these games and since they are a quick play we decided to give it a go. It was the first time Jana played these games. The clever and lucky girl she is, she won the game - but it got very close. For a long time it looked as if Raven was gonna make it. Naturelich and Shelak were behind the ladies and I had to use a good portion of "nöhling around" to score at least a few points. In the end it got very close and - as Raven pointed out after the game - I could actually have won. But I pay back my debts =8) -- almost always... =8)

Posted by Naturelich at 9:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After starting our DSA session Shelak and Naturelich played a game of Ticket to Ride Europe. I was able to block the important piece between Copenhagen and Stockholm so Shelak was unable to get the longest route. In the end it was a real close game as you can see above...

Posted by Naturelich at 11:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we played two games of Ticket to Ride (Zug um Zug) on our Belgian map. This map is fan-produced and probably the best to play with three players. I was lucky to score well on both games.

Here are the final results:

Session 1

Session 2

Posted by Naturelich at 11:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Australia is designed by Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesing. This Ravensburger game deals with the exploration of Australia. Each player is equipped with a set of rangers to explore the continent. The map is divided in territories and each territory consists of several regions in different colors. For each region players can solve one environmental and one industrial project by putting rangers into that region's camps. The more players participate the less rangers you get into your starting pile. In addition to the rangers, each player is equipped with an airplane and two cards. The airplane is used to fly into a region and the cards are used to play the rangers into one camp of that region. Basically, each turn consists of exactly two actions from a number of choices:

1. Fly into a region


2. Play a card (which includes to play rangers into the region and get dollars)


3. Take rangers from a region into your stock pile

You score points for solving those industrial and environmental projects. In addition, any dollars remaining at the end of the game are converted into points. An industrical project is solved if the number of all rangers inside a regional camp is equal to the number printed on the industrial project. This number is only revealed if someone flies into the region. The scoring may take place immediately when the plane lands (e.g. a 4 is uncovered and there's already 4 rangers from different players in that region) or afterwards when someone adds (or removes) rangers. The player solving the project is not necessarily the one scoring the most points as this number is determined by the number of your rangers in that region. Your opponent may well fly into that region, discovering the industrial project but have less rangers than you do. However, you scre additional bonus points for solving industrial projects, so chances are good that you score better than your opponent when you are the one exploring.

The second way of scoring is by solving environmental projects. On a sidenote: here we see that this is a true German boardgame. It does not only have an interesting game mechanism and an interesting theme but also serves an educational purpose. You can only be successful by solving both environmental as well as industrial projects. But anyway, let's not judge on Germans and their environmental awareness and go back to the game. You solve an enivronmental project when all camps inside a region are occupied. Quite similar to the industrial projects, the player responsible for "closing the region" scores some bonus points which gives you an incentive to quickly close regions. Even better when you can solve the industrial project at the same time.

This is as far as I will get to explaining the rules. The manual is easy to read + understand and contains meaningful graphics which explain the mechanics well. There is an additional variant for more professional players which adds another game mechanism. Let's leave this aside for this review - it should not spoil everything... This mechanic certainly adds additional complexity and makes up for an interesting variation.

Until today, I have played the game only twice - always with two players. It was quite fun for me as the basic game mechanism is easy to grasp and fun. It is a not a very heavy game although it will probably become more strategic if played with multiple players (the maximum is 5). With two players, the action is going back and forth. You have to make a lot of decisions and get the chance to score points quite frequently. I like the fact that each players game progress is always visible. Currently, I believe this game keeps you interest for maybe 5-10 games. After that it's probably going to get a little bit too repetitive and the gameplay will follow a similar pattern. But after the two games it still feels fresh and we haven't found a winning strategy or strategic points which you need to control in order to win. This implies a good game balance and I hope to enjoy a gew more games of Australia in the future. It's a good and decent game but will probably not make it into the all time boardgame hall-of-fame...

Posted by Naturelich at 9:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This entry is actually not a game session report. It is more like the announcement of one. During our upcoming holiday we will have one (or more) reolplaying sessions. I have agreed to host an adventure of Das Schwarze Auge. I have bought an adventure book and it arrived today. I am all excited and looking 4ward to this. My last RPG session is already a couple of years back (except just one exception maybe a year or two ago) so I'll have to dive into the new rules as well. Let's see how this works out.

Posted by Naturelich at 7:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)