Naturelich Games

At Essen we played a couple of games. Although we would have loved to play more there is only a limited number of new stuff I can digest. The four Essen days are extremely dense and we wanted to try some games after the fair.

Games Played at Essen

• BattleLore: We were able to get a table to play and pre-order Battlelore. Days of Wonder was demoing a simple Battlelore version which felt like Memoir 44 but is already better. In Germany, the fantasy theme will be much much more popular and politically correct than the WWII Memoir '44. Battlelore is starting off much slower than Memoir. It took a couple of turns before the first unit was hit and later taken off the board. This is due to some nice twists to the rules which lets the forces get closer to each other before big damage can be done. The mana was an extremely important element that allows to finish off injured enemy units. Results for the Zauberer und Macht scenario: Shelak 5, Naturelich 6
• Blue Moon City: This earlier Nuremberg 2006 release was nominated for this year's Spiel des Jahres. Although Blue Moon City did not win, we liked the game although I personally feel no need to own it. While Pegasus was giving away two promo cards for the original Blue Moon game, the Knizia Almanach contains new tiles for Blue Moon City. This game went pretty well for Raven. At first I did not seem to understand the mechanism but later got better into the game. Results: Shelak 2, Raven 5, Naturelich 3
• Cleopatra and the Society of Architects: This Days of Wonder game had been released a couple of months ago, pre-Essen. Since we did not get a chance to play it, we immediately grabbed a free DoW table. The game explanation took pretty long, but was well done. The game has a lot of interesting mechanisms, however, the end felt a little bit long and repetitive. Shelak was playing very clever in this game as he was able to keep control of the traitor-markers. Yours truly was not as lucky and got to know what an unhappy Cleopatra can do. Rumor goes, Naturelich has survived the attack of the alligators, but it will take another CATSOA game to know for sure. Results: Shelak 33, Raven 24, Naturlich (killed in action)
• Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod: This game is for school kids. It is based on a famous funny book that makes fun of the current state of th German language. This game is obviously not recommended if you are not a native speaker. Works best for children. Results: Shelak 18, Raven 20, Naturelich 22
• Gemblo: This Korean game regularly gets high praise on a popular podcast. Therefore, I had to talk Raven and Shelak into playing. The rules were easily explained and the nice game explainer also joined our game. Gemblo is not bad but felt a little bit too abstract for my taste. Shelak did particularly well and won by quite a margin: Results: Shelak 7 (negative points), Raven 19, Naturelich 19.
• Inka: Inka is an older release from Queen Games. We had played Der Dieb von Bagdad before and decided to try another small box game. The publisher has a big sale of his small box games and Inka sounded interesting for a quick buy. Unfortunately, the game did not turn out to be among the high standard of this year's releases. In the end, I was able to win the game.
• Kabale und Hiebe: This Hans im Glück release looked pretty interesting. This card game comes in a smaller-than-HiG-usual box. The game was explained extremely well, although almost every card had to be adressed separately. The game has a nice mechanism and might make a good filler. Based on the one game I was not yet able to make-up my mind whether I should like the game. It certainly deserves a second and a third play. The game itself felt rather close although the final results proved us wrong. Raven won by quite a margin as she was able to get all 6 different card types - which scores 30 extra points: Results: Shelak 14, Raven 59, Naturelich 19
• Kampf um Rom: Kosmos, Klaus Teuber. A must-try game. Kampf um Rom is pretty close to a wargame. Although players do not fight each other directly the game is very confrontational. The map depicts Europe in the usual Catan-like tiles. I enjoyed the game a lot although we got pretty bored at the end. Kampf um Rom felt repetitive at the end and it was not really compelling. Despite this impression our game was very close and was won by a short margin, where two players had the same amount of victory points (the turn is played until the end) but a different purse. Results: Shelak 10 (3 money), Raven 10 (4 money), Naturelich 7 (but also only one turn away from victory...)
• Taluva: My personal favorite of the show. Taluva plays very fast and can be very tense. The components are beautiful and the rules are simple. The first game was pretty close and we had to learn a lot of strategies that we applied in a couple of games in the evening. Results: Shelak 3rd place, Raven 2nd place, Naturelich 1st place.

Games Acquired

I was able to buy quite a number of games. Some of them were blind buys, where I just could not resist. I doubt that they will all work out well for me, but the majority is pretty interesting. When do I get to play more...?

• Alhambra - Das Würfelspiel
• Die Macher
• Die Siedler von Catan - Die große Karawance
• Hameln
• Imperial
• Meastro Leonardo - Codex Leonardi II
• Power Grid - Benelux / Central Europe (Funkenschlag - Erweiterung Zentraleuropa/Benelux)
• Shogun
• Space Dealer
• Taj Mahal
• Taluva
• Tempus
• Thurn und Taxis - Der Kurier der Fürstin
• Ticket to Ride: USA 1910

Games Played at Home (after Essen)

We played a couple of games in the evening hours. Since we were all pretty exhausted after the show we did not get to play as much as I would have liked to. However, the games we played were big fun. Particularly Space Dealer was interesting and I will have to play this again some time soon...

• Start Player


• Space Dealer


• Taluva

Posted by Naturelich at 12:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

During our little Tour d'Essen we tried to get an idea of the big crowd-pullers. Halls 12 and 11 belong to the big (mostly German) publishers. The games that we found to be promoted most heavily in terms of advertising space were:

• Hans im Glück: Thurn und Taxis (winner of Spiel des Jahres 2006), Taluva, Kabale und Hiebe


• Kosmos: Kampf um Rom, Die Säulen der Erde


• Ravensburger: Die Baumeister von Arkadia, Das verrückte Labyrinth (20th Anniversary)


• Queen Games: Shogun, Der Dieb von Bagdad, Alhambra - Das Würfelspiel


• Days of Wonder: Battlelore

Thurn und Taxis

From this list, Thurn und Taxis was probably played the most on "zillions" of tables (always full, of course) spread across multiple booths in several halls. The October issue of German gaming magazine Spielbox contains an expansion to this Andreas Seyfarth game. It is called Der Kurier der Fürstin. This expansion generated some interest but since both Shelak and I are subscribers we did not have to pay too much attention to secure a copy. We did not find the time to play this expansion (yet) but it will certainly add more spice to the SdJ winner (English rules available at Spielbox, here).

Battlelore

Battlelore was probably the game generating the most hype. In advance to the fair publisher Days of Wonder had already created some buzz with prominent articles and interviews on Boardgamenews, The Dice Tower or Garrett's Games and Geekiness. Although the game is not yet released Days of Wonder had taken several (mostly German) copies directly from the factory and set up several tables that were extremely crowded. We were able to play Battlelore on Thursday afternoon. A lot of people were walking by who seemed to be intrigued by the game and were already aware of it. During the game, I was wondering: why can they not hold the publishing date for the single most important event of the year? I presume, missing Essen fair sales causes a substantial financial impact. But when I think of it: the game comes at 70.00 EUR. That's a whole lot of money that some people might not want to spend while present at the exhibition floors. However, pre-ordering it, immediately earning two additional free miniatures is probably an incentive where everybody thinks: no problem, this might make a great Christmas present. Well, now, that I have played Battlelore and seen the hype that DoW has generated I can truly say: yes, it is totally, one-hundred percent worth it. Full stop. Exclamation mark.

Taluva

Taluva has really impressed me. We were able to play the game for the first time on Thursday late evening. Our game finished 5 minutes before the fair closed their doors. And this title has surprised and impressed me a lot. It is simple, yet a lot of depth can be created. Of course, it is not a gamers game but it's probably one of the better family games I have seen this year. Note, this game is not language dependant, except for the rule book and the little player aid cards (although these will probably be translated and posted to BGG soon).

Kabale und Hiebe

The title Kabale und Hiebe is a pun on Schiller's play Kabale und Liebe. Instead of Intrigue and Love one might translate this as Intrigue and Blows. The game is published by Hans im Glück and designed by Lutz Stepponat who also had his own booth at the fair. The card game comes in a small box (Carcassonne-expansion size). The players get the same set of influence cards in their color showing characters with a different point value. Some characters also have interesting special abilities. Players compete for a set of targets each with a different victory point value (one card for each player per round). Each round, players have to place a number of influence cards below a target card. The number of influence cards is required to be at least equal to the number of victory points underneath the card. When a player places a card it is first placed facing down. The card will be revealed only after the next player puts one of their influence cards in the corresponding columns. Special abilities allow players to heavily interact, e.g. the Entdecker card moves throught columns and reveals several other cards "for free".
We enjoyed a three-player game on Thursday. This family game is an interesting filler with a lot of interaction. Overall we did not decide to buy Kabale und Hiebe, but maybe it is an interesting Christmas present.

Kampf um Rom

Kampf um Rom (Battle for Rome) is this year's incarnation to the Settlers of Catan family. Klaus Teuber has designed a game in which ancient tribes first start to plunder and then continue to conquer cities of the Roman empire. The game is played on a map of Europe consisting of Settlers of Catan hexes. The game contains many familiar elements from the original Catan game but also adds many new features and mechanics. The game has a new mechanism allowing players to move their tribes across the board to get them into a proper position to attack Roman cities. It is not a wargame since players cannot attack each other but it is probably as close as a Catan-game will ever get to a wargame.
Conquering a Kosmos table is probably the single most difficult thing at Essen. Lucky as we were, we got our chance to play Kampf um Rom on Friday. The game took about 90 minutes plus an additional 20 minutes to understand the rules (unforunately, no Kosmos "game explainer" was available at the time to assist us). In the beginning I found the game to be really fascinating as it combined many familiar elements from previous Catan games with the exploration / plundering theme. However, as the game was progressing, something did not feel quite right. The game started to become a little bit langatmig. The turns started to become more and more repetitive and all we were waiting for was enough resources to conquer additional cities to finally hit the 10 victory points. In the end, Shelak was the first to reach these 10 points and seemed like the clear winner as my 7 points certainly were way behind. However, Raven pulled off a scoring firework and managed to reach 10 victory points as well. In the end, Raven won this extremely close game by a margin of 3 gold ducats. Can you imagine how much fun the rest of the day must have been for Shelak? ;)

Die Säulen der Erde

Die Säulen der Erde was the second game heavily promoted by Kosmos. Unfortunately we did not get a chance to play the game. The game was played by a group before we were able to get their Kosmos table. They seemed to like the game although it took about 2 hours to complete the game. The game certainly was extremely well-produced and the Cathedral that had to be build during the game consisted of nice components. The game has received an extraordinary review in the Spielbox magazine. Maybe, just maybe, this might be a good idea for Christmas... ;)

Shogun

This Dirk Henn design was majorly promoted at the Queen Games booth. Unfortunately, we were not able to play this game. Since I have heard a lot of good things about the sold-out Wallenstein - which is supposed to be a rather similar game - I decided to buy Shogun without looking any further. The map is beautifully designed, the components look top-notch and the tower of randomness is cool in itself. I hope to get this game to the table pretty soon. Let's see if the 35 Euros have been well invested...

Der Dieb von Bagdad

Der Dieb von Bagdad (Thief of Baghdad) was the second big Essen release by Queen Games. The game was advertised with as many posters as Shogun and got a lot of attention. We were able to play Der Dieb von Bagdad. Since our game explainer did not really focus on the "why" we had a hard time at first. He just wanted to get us going, I believe. However, playing strategy board games is particularly difficult if you do not know what your goal is. No goal, no strategy. We therefore had to ask a couple of times for rule clarifications which started to annoy me. The game itself was a lot of fun and Shelak decided to buy a copy. We used Sunday evening to play another game as we all wanted to try again with 100% awareness of both rules and the overall objective of the game. This turned out to be a lot of fun. Der Dieb is certainly a game we will play more often in the near future...

Amigo

If you are wondering: Amigo was a real disappointment this year. I already own Um Krone und Kragen which is a good filler game but other than that they did not have much to interest me. Neither did the republished version of Il Principe peak my interest, nor did the numerous card games that were available for play. Maybe we were overlooking something (then please, please tell me) but their portfolio did not seem to be very strong this year.

Posted by Naturelich at 11:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Since I don't have the time to write the full Essen report at once, I have decided to create smaller chunks. I am currently on a business trip in Chicago so I can make good use of jet lag problems and post something about our Essen experiences. It has been a great, great, great experience and I still have that many new games awaiting to be played. I wish I could do this right now, but apparently it will have to wait.

This year I had taken off two days at work to visit on Thursday and Friday as well. Raven and Shelak were also able to make the time. They arrived on Wednesday evening and we started off our Annual pre-Essen gaming sessions with a couple of older Essen 2005 games.

Since we finished rather late on Wednesday night we had a short breakfast on Thursday morning and left for Essen at 9:45. We entered the exhibition hall 12 at about 10:30. This seemed to be a good time as their was almost no crowd at the entrance. We bought a full 4 day-pass (Dauerkarte) which helps a lot in passing the lines on Friday, and especially Saturday and Sunday. On Friday we arrived pretty early, trying to conquer a Kosmos table. But since this was not very successful at first, we decided to take our time and rather play a couple of games during the (late) evenings...

While the impressions are still fresh: I am impressed with the quality of the games we have seen. The small publishers are getting closer and closer to the industry leaders. Although Thursday and Friday are great to play some games, we decided to walk through the main exhibit halls first, before starting to play any games. The idea was to get some sense of the atmosphere and get the bigger picture before diving into the fun already.

Here is the list of stuff I am planning to write, but it might certainly take a little while to get this all online...

Essen 2006 reports

• Essen 2006 - Wednesday pre-gaming sessions
• Essen 2006 - The Big Publishers
• Essen 2006 - Geheimtipps - The Small Publishers
• Essen 2006 - Photoshow, Part 1
• Essen 2006 - Photoshow, Part 2
• Essen 2006 - Hot Games
• Essen 2006 - The State of the Board Gaming Industry
• Essen 2006 - Games Played and Games Acquired

Posted by Naturelich at 1:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ticket to Ride Scandinavia was created by Andreas Ericson. The Ticket to Ride board game is designed by Alan R. Moon and published by Days of Wonder.

Andreas Ericson has designed an unofficial Ticket to Ride game of Scandinavia. The map has no double routes but slightly more cities than the original Ticket to Ride. The map covers a little bit more terrain than the Hansa map, but the Baltic sea is ever prominent and many, many ferry routes are available. On his website, http://ttr.servegame.com, Andreas describes what's new in his fan-prodcued game:

I have added some value cards to mix with the short route cards. That makes for pleasant surprises and gives the players incentive to pick new ticket cards. That in turn leads to a more ticket oriented game strategy, which I personally think is more challenging than just playing to get "the long ones". I also added six rule cards. I recommend to shuffle them and draw one before each game. Each rule card bends the characteristics of the game a little, to give the impression that every game is fresh and new. A couple of things with the kit that can hardly be called inventive, is the lack of double routes, long routes and tunnels. If that is good or bad is a matter of taste. The friends that have helped me with the testing think it works just fine.

Below is a short summary of the additional cards introduced to the game:

• Veto: Card owner may stop other players building a route


• Public Line: One route is build by a public company. This route is available for all players


• Ghost Line: At the end of the game, an unused route can be claimed in exchange for four victory points


• Jackpot: The player can pick up all 5 open train / waggon cards


• Overtime: Build two routes in the same turn


• Carte blanche: One (unfulfilled) destination ticket can be ignored at the end of the game


• Tax rules: Changes the number of victory points for claiming routes


• Ordinary times: Rules from original Ticket to Ride or Ticket to Ride Europe may be applied


• Good times: Two cities give additional points to any connection to these two cities.


• 4-tune: The scoring track adds additional fun: If the play piece ends on a special symbol, players can draw or discard destination tickets (depending on the symbol)


• Risk capital: Additional trains are made available before the game starts


• Quarantine: One city is quarantied and no routes are permitted to connect to this city.

I believe these new cards contain some pretty interesting concepts and can spice up the game considerably. They might also be a good extension to the basic Ticket to Ride game. Scandinavia seems to be a well designed expansion. I will certainly try and build my own copy - maybe for Christmas?! :D

Posted by Naturelich at 5:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Taluva - Takes tile-laying games into the third dimension..
Taluva is designed by Marcel-André Casasola Merkle and published by Hans im Glück, 2006.

Game Background

Taluva takes the players into a volcanic region in the South Seas where eruptive activities create an island that is colonized by the players. Taluva is a dangerous island: While new settlements get created, existing ones might be destroyed by volcanos. Civilization starts to flourish in prevailing settlements with religious temples and prestigious towers.

Artwork

The game materials are top-notch quality: volcano tiles, huts, towers and temples. The 48 tiles come in a very unique shape of three connected hexagons. One hexagon depicts a volcano, the other two show a different type of terrain, e.g. jungle, mountains, meadows, lakes or beach. The cardboard is almost twice as heavy as in Carcassonne. The main reason for this is probably the need to create a real three-dimensional look as the volcanos erupt. However, it creates excellent haptics plus a very robust and stable game.

Each player is provided with a set of buildings to create their settlements. These wooden pieces look as if they were taken from the South Seas: The small huts look like tents build on a set of stilts. The temples are pyramid like with small steps on their roof. The cone-like towers have three levels and a beautifully rounded roof.

Taluva buildings and player aid (in German language only)

Rules

The objective of Taluva is to build as many temples, towers and huts as possible. The game ends immediately if a player manages to populate the island with all buildings of any two categories. Otherwise, the winner is determined by counting the number of temples on the island: the more, the better. In case of a tie, the number of towers is evaluated. If this number is tied as well, the number of huts finally decides about the winner. Negligent players might maneuver them into a position where they cannot place any more buildings. In this case they are immediately eliminated.

A Taluva-turn is very simple as it consists of only two steps:
1. Lay a tile
2. Place a building

Laying tiles
The first step handles the expansion of the island. After drawing a tile, players can decide to extend the landscape or to have a volcanic eruption. Taluva's size is extended by placing a tile adjacent to another one on the first level. A volcanic eruption causes the countryside to rise destroying all affected huts in the process. Since this might cause a lot of havoc in the competing settlements, several additional rules are in place:

• A volcano hex has to be placed on another volcano hex and may even be placed on top of multiple volcanos


• The volcanos may not face the same directions - in other words, an eruption has to be placed across two tiles


• Neither towers, nor temples may be covered by a tile


• It is forbidden to extinguish an entire settlement by an eruption, i.e. at least one building of a settlement has to stay intact). Note: a settlement is defined as all hex fields connected by buildings of the same player.

Placing buildings
In contrast to other tile-laying games, buildings can be placed on any free non-volcano hex field of the island. Some restrictions apply based on the type of building: Huts may be placed on any unoccupied level 1 hex. Towers may only be placed on a level 3 hex adjacent to a player's own settlement that does not already contain a tower. A temple may build on a hex on any level adjacent to a settlement that is at least three hexes in size and does not already contain a temple. In general, a player may only place one building per turn.

Taluva Towers on level 3

In addition to these three basic options, a fourth alternative (Settlement Extension) allows players to add multiple huts, even on a higher level. First, the player has to pick one of these settlements. Then, he may name any one terrain type and build huts on all hexes (of this type) adjacent to the settlement. The higher the terrain, the bigger the number of huts to be placed: one hut on the first level, two on the second level, three on the third level, etc.

Taluva - Game mechanics: How to place buildings

First, players have to place a hut to start a settlement

Place tiles with matching terrain to extend your settlement. Here: 4 new huts in one go

A temple can be build adjacent to the huts if the settlement is at least three hexes in size

Game Play and Strategy

Taluva is a great family game that offers simple rules, yet considerable depth. The simplicity will appeal to new players, casual gamers and older kids. It is fascinating to watch the island grow and see how the first settlements are erected. At first, new players will try to avoid the others and pick more distant locations for their buildings. But after the first volcano eruption, the game begins to become more competitive: players will start to destroy settlements that already occupy three hexes. This nasty move stops the owner from constructing temples. After someone has fallen victim to this strategy numerous times, they will start to invent counter-strategies (which are not disclosed in this review). Further down the road, players will note that well-placed temples have the power to block nasty volcano eruptions. This can be particularly useful if another player is waiting to raise to the third level. Maybe his huts are under-developed but he requires only this one temple to win the game?! Nasty, these eruptions, aren't they?
Different winning strategies are possible: since the game immediately ends when all buildings of any two categories have been constructed one can try different strategies. It's possible to take the promising religious-highland-approach where you try to set up two towers on level 3 and three temples. As an alternative, players can try to build high (=> towers) and focus on a limited number of terrain types to extend their settlements quickly. Getting rid of all huts is not as difficult as it seems if you have enough level 2 or 3 hexes in the vicinity. The last option is the "Hut-Temple"-strategy where you try to secure bigger settlements enhanced with temples one a few terrain types.

Summary

All Taluva games I have played so far were very close games. All players were within one round of winning the game. This balance creates excitement and player involvement. The game scales well from two to four players, although the well-balanced game might suffer from kingmaker situations in a three- or four-player game. A two player game with more experienced players will last only about 15-20 minutes, the four player version will take 30 minutes. Some players might fall prone to analysis paralysis which will increase this timeframe to a maximum of about 45 minutes. The game works equally well for newbies as well as experienced players. However, if new and more experienced players are both at the same table, the game might become a little bit frustrating for either side (=> over-/under-challenged). The learning curve can be climbed easily: strategies and counter-strategies can be learned and applied quickly.

Taluva is a fascinating island and looks very intriguing. The wooden pieces are extremely pretty, the unusual selection of colors for the pieces (white, brown, orange, red - no blue, no green, no yellow!) as well as the nice tiles add a lot to both the theme and the overall gaming experience. If their standard were any less professional, the game would appear rather abstract in nature and consequently be less appealing to families. For experienced gamers, the game offers some interesting computational and strategic challenges, although it is certainly not a brain-burner. To put it in a nutshell: it does not take a lot of skill to play Taluva, but a lot to master it.

Statistics

• Designer: Marcel-André Casasola Merkle
• Publisher: Hans im Glück
• Graphic design: Manuel Casasola Merkle
• Duration: 15-45 minutes
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 10 and up
• Links: BoardGameGeek, Publisher

Posted by Naturelich at 11:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Some first visual impressions from Thursday and Friday at Essen. More to follow after the show together with some longer comments...

I will start with the motto of all Essen visits. People playing a game on the floor at the Kosmos booth wearing some interesting T-Shirts...

Nein, dieser TISCH wird nach dem Spiel nicht frei
(No this *TABLE* will not be available after this game)

Battlelore hype at the Days of Wonder booth

Playing Battlelore (Yes, we did it!). And yes, it's totally worth the hype. Unfortuntaley the game was only available for pre-order

We also got to play Cleopatra and the Society of Architects

Taluva by Hans im Glück - My personal favorite so far

Taluva works great as a two-player game

Over-sized game of Haste Bock (Shear Panic)

Teuber's Kampf um Rom at the Kosmos booth

Kampf um Rom - Pretty close to a Euro-Wargame hybrid?! Although there is no combat, it has some contfrontation. But whether it will be successful?

Details of the Kampf um Rom board

Another popular title: Kosmos' Die Säulen der Erde with about 2 hours of playing time (at the show)

Space Dealer - Real-time gaming at the extremely crowded Eggertspiele booth. Most innovative game we have seen. Maybe the next Geheimtip?

Space Dealer sessions - A game lasts exactly 30 minutes but people were willing to wait at the booth for 60-90 minutes just to get a table...

Space Dealer details (at home)

Imperial designed by Mac Gerdts and published by Eggertspiele. Similarities with Antike are intentional

Posted by Naturelich at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (1)

Ticket to Ride: Portugal is created by Helio Andrade. The image above shows the light version for 2-3 players. The original Ticket to Ride is designed by Alan R. Moon and published by Days of Wonder.

Helio Andrade has created a map of Portugal for the Ticket to Ride board game. This map is the first fan-produced map intended for play with advanced Ticket to Ride: Märklin rules including merchandise tokens, passengers, long and short destination tickets.

The board is also available in two versions.

• Light version: The light version is recommended for 2-3 players. Few double routes make it difficult to reach some areas if you play it with 4-5 players (which can be nice if you like cut-throat games). During playtesting, the light version makes it difficul to complete some routes in the enf-game.


• Advanced version: The advanced version is recommended for 4-5 players and contains more double routes. This version is better for those who don't like others to block them.

Avanced version version of Ticket to Ride: Portugal

To download the map, go to the author's site by clicking here.

Posted by Naturelich at 1:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Tile from Carcassonne: The Invasion by Jeremy Chambers. Carcassonne is designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and published by Hans im Glück.

Created by Jeremy Chambers, Carcassonne: The Invasion is a new fan-produced expansion to the basic Carcassonne game, also included rules for Carcassonne: The Princess and the Dragon.

In this expansion, the Fire Salamander has returned to the lands of Carcassonne. Players who are willing can form an unholy alliance with these pyorphiles by using Smoke Cities. Altogether, 19 smoke city tiles are added to the game. Visually, Smoke Cities are "color-deprived" Carcassonne tiles that come with a twist or two. Here is a quote from the rules (the full set of rules is available on BoardGameGeek here:

Smoke Cities
The smoke cities count the same as standard cities for scoring purposes but they have a twist or two. When a player completes a smoke city it scores as normal, but the player may choose to leave their meeples in the city.

If a completed smoke city is connected to any other city by roads (blocking trees and farmhouses do not matter) the meeples of the smoke city can attack the other city when it is completed and give the smoke city owner the points (under normal majority meeple rules). The smoke city meeples would then return to the hand of their owner.

Dragons can fly over smoke cities, but cannot eat meeples that are in a smoke city. (A dragon and a meeple can be on the same tile if in a smoke city). Fairies cannot enter smoke cities. Towers can capture meeples from within a smoke city.
If you do not complete a smoke city you gain negative points at the end of play (equal to the number of positive points you would have gotten in a traditional city).

Farmers are afraid of what comes out of the smoke cities and will not enter one for any reason. Smoke cities that are 2 tiles do not count for farmers. Smoke Cities larger than 2 tiles count as -1 city for farming purposes.

Here is the tile set for this expansion.

Posted by Naturelich at 1:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)