Naturelich Games

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