Naturelich Games

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.

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

Seeräuber designed by Stefan Dorra. Published by Queen Games. 3-5 Players

Game Background

Are you ready for a 20-30 minute filler game? Or something which works nicely with your children? Then Seeräuber (Buccabuneer) from Queen Games might be just the right thing. It comes with the ever popular pirate theme: rum, treasures, boarding ships, mutiny, rum, treasures, boarding, treasures, boarding, rum, rum, rum...

Artwork

Fifteen ship cards, 5 pirates per player, ducats and some pieces of booty. That's all the content we get. That's all the content we need. The pirate-pieces are made of thick wooden discs in different colors. After opening the box, stickers with funny-looking pirate faces have to be pasted onto the discs. The ships are printed on wonderfully thick and water-resistant cards. As if Queen Games knew how clumsy I can be at times. Protection has to come first. To sum it up: the game is made up of high-quality components and the artwork is good. But it's a small game and don't expect 1455 plastic pieces or a game board in the size of 4x4 square meters. Buccaneer is small and simple.

The Booty

The Rules

At the start of the game, each player puts five pirates in their color in front of them. Each pirate forms a separate stack. Three ship cards are laid out in the middle of the table. The pirates are going to raid these three ships. The ships come in different sizes: the bigger the ship, the better the booty and the more pirates required to board it. Small icons on the ship cards indicate how many pirates are required to board the ship, how much booty can be "earned" and which treasures are available. The pirate captain will get the first pick at the treasures while his second-in-command might get a second treasure (only if the ship is big enough and carries two treasures). All the other pirates in the crew will only get paid in ducats. Which is not bad either...

Two ships

How do the pirates board the ships? Players have to move their pirates to form stacks. This is done by taking one of your own pirates or pirate stacks and placing him on top of another player's pirate (or pirate stack). This stack is then put in front of the player who has got the top-most pirate. This fortune-hunter has just become the captain of the stack. On your next turn you can use this stack to board a ship and get the prize. Unless, of course, one of your co-players does not put one of their pirates on top of your stack. In this case, your opponent will become captain and can board the ship on his next turn. Unless, naturelich, you don't regain control over this stack on your next turn.

This "I want to be the Captain"-game does go back and forth. But it does not go on forever. The reason is simple: whenever the captain decides to board a ship he has to pay his crew. Let's assume the ship is worth 20 ducats. This prize is shared among the raiders. The captain takes the 20 ducats and has to pay all other players first. The amount is determined by the pirate's experience. While experienced pirates get paid 5 ducats, novices can be hired for only 2. Some shady pirates bear a question mark. Their payment depends on the size of the ship.
In an unfortunate case, the captain will have to pay more to the others than he will get from the ship. Nobody likes opening their private ducat chest, but buccaneering is a difficult business. Therefore, players should carefully remember who is in their crew before they board a ship.

The boarding party

This mechanism can lead to pretty interesting stalemate situations. Players steal the stacks from each other until the stack is simply too high and raiding the ship would be financially unattractive. This captain is pretty doomed. Particularly if the crew contains three or more pirates from one other player. Can you guess what happens? Mutiny... As the other player's tiles are more or less blocked, they can force the captain to raid the ship. As I said, a Buccaneers life is complicated.

The stalemate mechanism is mitigated by the fact that the captain earns the ship's booty, e.g. treasure chests, barrels of rum, candlesticks or daggers. The player who manages to acquire the biggest collection of each type will earn additional ducats at the end of the game. Here comes the real big money that can balance some expensive raids as captain of too large a crew.

Game play and Strategy

Buccaneer is a fast-paced game. Moving the stacks is extremely quick and players will interact on each turn. This creates a tense atmosphere when approaching a stalemate situation and players are constantly required to plan ahead, evaluate actions of others and adjust their own strategies. Should I board the big ship with my big stack? Will someone else please captain this expensive stack? Can I get another pirate into that other stack to force Joe to board a ship? Should I board the ship and open my private chest just to get the barrels of rum?

Summary

Buccaneer has a lighter "vibe". The game does not suffer from analysis paralysis. At least not in my gaming group(s). If your group consists of players who love to do their maths then Buccaneer is not for you. This will kill the game. Players have to play it quick, decide fast, observe the others carefully and take intuitive decisions. The resulting tension and interaction will create a light-weight and fun 20-30 minute session.
The game scales equally well from 3-5. It's not designed for two players as it simply would not work due to the great amount of predictability. Four players might be the best size to enjoy the game.
Buccaneer has the potential to be a great filler as well as a decent shorter gateway game. Easy, light and fun. Particularly suitable for families. The game's nomination for the prestiguous Spiel des Jahres 2006 award is justified. Although Buccaneer did not win (as it was probably too light), Stefan Dorra has created a fun little gem.

Posted by Naturelich at 2:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thurn und Taxis

Game Background

Thurn und Taxis lets players rebuild Europe's first, family-owned mailing system. The Thurn und Taxis dynasty became a key player in the international mail and postal services in the 16th century and dominated the mailing system throughout Europe for a few centuries. Thurn und Taxis, the new game by Andreas Seyfarth and his wife Karen, puts players in the shoes of these pioneers to build their own network of mailing stations: In the course of the game players will create postal services between Munich and Salzburg, or Munich and Stuttgart or Zurich.

Artwork

Most of the action takes place on a game board illustrated by Michael Menzel. The board depicts a historic map of Bavaria and its neighboring countries.

Thurn und Taxis - The game board

In the 16th century, Europe consisted of many many small countries, each ruled by their own principal. And the board depcits the cities and the geography of that period nicely. In fact, I consider the game board and all the material to be top notch. The map is simply beautiful and a joy to play on, all the illustrations and cards are extremely atmospheric. For example, each town shows a drawing of a famous historic building. This is much nicer than simply using little "dots" to indicate the locations as it also offers enough space to put the small post offices into that town.

Thurn und Taxis - Detailed view of Basel

Thurn und Taxis - Detailed view of Munich

Thurn und Taxis - Detailed view of Salzburg

Hans im Glück has delivered a game with high quality components. The wooden buildings have a nice feeling to them, the town cards are thick enough to survive a couple of plays and the player aid will even resist the occassional Coke spill over (don't drain 'em, though). The point markers contain a nice backside that helps you stack them in the correct sort order during game setup.
The German first edition contains a two-page sheet with background information on the Thurn und Taxis family that's very interesting to read. The backside of the sheet contains a short description of the historic buildings displayed on the map, e.g. Munich's Frauenkirche or Linz's Wallfahrtsbasilika Pöstlingberg. This might spark players interests in both the historic or the geographic background of the game. Something parents might like for their kids...
Altogether, the artwork and components look very harmonic and well thought through with love to detail.

Thurn und Taxis - Game materials

The Rules

The game is based on a few easy to learn mechanisms. Basically, players establish routes between the cities on the board by drawing town cards. One player's turn is almost as simple as this: Draw a card, play a card, score points. Next player's turn.

The turn summary card: Draw, play, score

Once it's your turn you have to pick one town card from any of the six currently available. When taking the card you have to plan a little bit ahead, as each player has only one active postal route. The tricky thing is to ensure that the town card you draw fits to one of the end points of your current route. Whether a card "fits" is determined by looking at the map on the board: both towns need to be directly connected with one another. Over several turns the routes will grow longer and longer.

Town card of Salzburg

Once the player is happy with the lengths of the route or if there are no valid cards available the players can voluntarily close their routes. If the route was longer than three cards, the player will get the chance to perform additional actions:

1. The most important action is to place buildings inside some of the towns your postal coach has visited. The players may choose between two options: they can choose to place a building in all the cities of one specific country they have visited. This is particularly interesting if your route contains only towns from within one country (e.g. six cities in Bavaria, a very big country). The alternative option is to place a building in only one city per country you have visited. This scoring mechanism sets an incentive to visit a different country with each town card you play and is rather contrary to the first.


2. Basd on the player's buildings on the board they may be eligible to score bonus points. Bonus points are available for having a particularly long route, by visiting all cities in one specific country, by visiting one city per all the countries, or by being the player to end the game.


3. Upgrade you stagecoach if the route has been long enough to earn a better coach. Stagecoaches also score victory points. The better the coach, the more victory points.


4. Discard all cards from hand.

Building a house in Innsbruck early in the game easily scores some victory points as Innsbruck is the only town in the country of Tyrol

While this covers the scoring and turn order rules, there is an still one unmentioned game mechanism: getting the support by an official. Each player may ask one (and only one) official per turn for support. Since postal carriers, postmasters, administrators and cartwrigths are decent men, they will help you draw two cards, play two cards, exchange all city cards in the display or acquire a new carriage with 2 fewer city cards than required.

Thurn und Taxis - Two officals

The game ends after the first player has acquired the stagecoach #7 or somenoe has managed to place all their buildings on the map. The current round is played to the end before each player add their points: the points for the best stagecoach are added to the bonus points. The player's score is then diminished by one for each house they have not yet placed on the map.

Although the rules sound maybe a little bit complicated at times, they completely fall into place during the first game. All mechanisms are simple, elegant and logical without any ballast. The four rulebook pages contain several examples where questions could potentially arise.

Gameplay and Strategy

The hand management mechanism is an important part of the game: Players constantly have to look for matching city cards and plan ahead for potential routes. The luck element introduced by the card draws requires players to constantly evaluate and adjust their plans. It's certainly not a good idea to start your postal route in Lodz, which only connects to Pilsen. The more connections from/to the start city, the bigger the probability of creating suitable follow-up connections. In practice, the luck element can be controlled by keeping track of the city cards discarded or drawn by others. This oftentimes creates dense moments in the game: if another player gets support by the Administrator to exchange all city cards in the display this can considerably hurt your fellow players. At certain moments in the game you can play it difficult for your co-players. With experienced players this will create a natural "Thurn und Taxis-tension" at the table: once the first player establishes first operations in all countries, they can try to stop the others from getting to Lodz. This will give them a considerable regional bonus over the others. A counter-strategy is to keep at least one city in Bavaria a difficult place to get to.

The game is well balanced as there are multiple possible winning strategies. Play shorter routes to score high on regional bonus or collect longer routes to go for the length bonus. Try to stay focused on Bavaria or get a postal station in each country. I have seen either combination of these strategies win the game. There is probably only one thing which will definitely bring you in last: if you have to discard a short route without getting any points this will hit double. While the loss in points creates a small disadvantage the lost turn(s) are probably worse in the long run. Needless to say: if you can get a fellow player into this situation by taking the card they need this pretty quickly buys victory. Yes, Thurn und Taxis can be mean at times...

I have found the game to play equally well with two, three or four players. The four player game is probably the best as it creates the most interaction. But even with four players, the game will be finished just under one hour. I have seen four player games lasting only about 25 minutes.

Summary

Thurn und Taxis has become very popular with the groups I played in. The game has light to medium weight and contains very elegant game mechanics. Particularly placing buildings and scoring points create a very inspiring game experience. It is tense, it is fun and it's difficult to guess the winner ahead of time. The theme certainly adds to the experience. Together with the game components and artwork, the designers have delivered a highlight of 2006 that plays well with both casual gamers as well as more experienced players. As highlighted earlier, Thurn und Taxis has high potential for Germany's Spiel des Jahres 2006 award. But even if designers Karen and Andreas Seyfarth do not win the prize, the game will become a keeper and a classic for me, as me and my friends will always like to play a game (or two or three)...

Posted by Naturelich at 1:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Zug um Zug - Märklin Edition

Zug um Zug is coming home to Germany. Ticket to Ride Märklin is the third official installment in the Ticket to Ride series (only counting real board games - the Ticket to Ride PC game contains a fourth official map of Switzerland). This time, designer Alan R. Moon and publisher Days of Wonder give us the option play on a map of Germany. The original Ticket to Ride game won the prestigious 2004 Spiel des Jahres award. So, the expectations are high.

Game Background

Ticket to Ride Märklin is a special collector's edition developed in collaboration with Germany's famous model train company Märklin. Their brand name is very popular in Germany's toy industry. Many boys (aged 6 to 99) get their eyes sparkling with joy if a "Märklin Eisenbahn" needs to be build. Märklin is particularly famous for their realistic models with real-world company logos on trains and train waggons. And this design approach has found it's way into this "special collector's edition" of Ticket to Ride.

Artwork

Each train and waggon card in the game depicts a different Märklin waggon. This makes a total of 118 different waggons and 14+6=20 trains. Märklin fans will appreciate the fact that each card also depicts the make and type of the train displayed. On the other hand, infrequent players may find this design a little bit confusing as it takes a little bit of concentration to identify the proper color of a card. The game illustrator Julien Delval has successfully adressed this issue by putting images of blue waggons on the blue cards, image of yellow waggons on the yellow cards, etc. As one can imagine there are not many blue, yellow and purple train waggons in the real world. One would normally expect some greyish or brownish colors. But again, the designers coped with this issue well by including train carts with commercial brandings, such as DHL (logistics company owned by Deutsche Post World Net) or Maggi (supplier of instant soups and spices) for yellow and ARAL (biggest gas station chain in Germany, now owned by BP) for blue cards. While some of these brands will be unfamiliar to non-German players, this design not only adds a truly local German flair to the game but also also creates some interesting follow-up research opportunities for the TtR-Geek.

The waggon with Maggi brand

The waggon with DHL brand

The waggon with ARAL brand

While the previous Ticket to Ride editions were set in the early 1900s, the Märklin edition is set in rather current times. The art work reflects this by including a few elements one can find in recent industrial designs. Although I am not a design expert, they reminded me a little bit of recent German car (or train) design elements. This certailny breathes a little bit of fresh air into the game.

The game is illustrated by Julien Delval

The design has been adjusted to a modern look

Gameplay

But the updated design is not the only novelty. Of course, the gameplay has changed, too (Please note, for this review, we shall assume familiarity with the rules of the original Ticket to Ride). The Märklin edition adds the concept of passengers who can collect merchandise by moving through the cities being connected by the player. Before the game starts, Merchandise Tokens are placed onto the cities. Whenever a player connects two cities they may also choose to put one of their three passengers on one of them. Note, this may not be done in a later turn, but only in the same turn that the player claims the route. Passenger placement is critical to the overall game: placing your passenger too early in the game will allow others to make a guess on destination tickets and will also encourage some competition on the most valuable merchandise tokens. On the other hand, the rules do not permit placement of a passenger without claiming a route and placing passengers only late in the game is not a great idea, either. Most often this will be too late to gain a substantial point benefit. One new tactical element in the Märklin edition certainly is to find the right balance here.

Passengers, not meeples

Once a passenger is in play, the player will typically want to claim a few more routes to maximize the points that a travelling passenger can earn. Having a passenger move, is a new action that can be performed instead of the "regular" actions of drawing two waggons, drawing new destination tickets or claiming a route. The passenger must move from the city he currently occupies along any or all of player's continuous routes, picking up Merchandise tokens in each city he moves through. To make this a little bit more complicated the game offers four types of cities (somewhat depending on their economic weight within Germany). The single most valuable city on the map, Berlin, allows the first passenger passing through to score 7 points. The second passenger scores 6, the third one scores 5 and the fourth one gains 4 points. Passenger #5 scores no points. These rules certainly create another incentive to play and move passengers early during the game. This incentive is also pretty strong for the yellow and red cities, but even stronger for the white cities where only the first passenger passing through scores points at all. Winner takes all.

Passengers moving through Mannheim or Karlsruhe are too late and will get no points from Merchandise Tokens. Saarbrücken still has Merchandise to offer but is not yet connected...

Another passenger-related novelty is the introduction of Passenger Cards. They are drawn like regular waggon cards and basically introduce a stealing mechanism for Merchandising Tokens. Normally, a Passenger may only be moved along your own routes. However, players may use other players' routes by discarding one or more Passenger Cards from their hand. Indeed, a very devious deed is to steal the 7 points located in Berlin by using another player's route. While this mechanism might not be applied as often when playing with friends or family, it will probably be used pretty often in competitive environments. As of now, Days of Wonder has not yet announced whether the Märklin edition will be made available online, but if they do, the passenger cards might be key to winning a competitive onlnie game. In several of our games, the winner had scored more points through passenger movement than by completing destination tickets. Although the player completing the most tickets will score 10 points at the end of the game (replacing the rule for the longest route in previous TtR versions).

Collecting merchandise is at least as important as earning points by completing destination tickets

So far, this review has been generous with space for the passengers. Simply because this is the most influential change and key to the success in gameplay. However, the Märklin Edition also creates new or refines some existing mechanisms.
First, we have several long routes with a length of 6 or 7. Without exception, they are difficult to claim as player's need to collect one particular color. To mitigate those colors becoming too scarce as a resouce, there are also new jokers, the Locomotive +4 cards. These cards are drawn like regular waggons, i.e. it is possible to openly draw two Locomotive +4 cards per turn. They are played pretty much like regular jokers, but may only be used on routes which have a lengths of four or more.
The game does neither include tunnels, ferries nor train stations as with Ticket to Ride Europe.

The game does include refined rules for the destination tickets. These are now available in two stacks, one with short tickets (5-11 victory points) and another one with long routes (12-22 pts). Whenever a player chooses to draw new tickets they have to announce how many they would like to draw from each stack. It is mandatory to draw four tickets but the player is only obliged to keep any two of them.
Several tickets require players to create a city to country route. This mechanism has been previously introduced by the Ticket to Ride PC Game. It also works nicely with the new map, as German economy is highly interconnected with that of France, Nederlands, Switzerland, Austria and Denmark.
However, the map does neither provide connections to Poland nor to the Czech Republic, Germany's neighboring countries to the East. Although this is not a main issue, I think of Ticket to Ride as a family game capable of teaching kids a little bit of geography (for example, the map of the US taught many German players where Duluth is located). While the Czech Republic is even depicted on the board, I can see that there was little physical space to include Poland. But both Germany's historic responsibilities and the current geopolitical and economic situation in the EU would have required such a connection. I will be very forgiving to both Alan R. Moon and Days of Wonder, but a German publisher might not have gotten away with this so easily. I know it is just a board game, but imagine German kids playing this game in geography class. It would have been so great to see this happen... I certainly would have loved to learn my geography through Ticket to Ride.

Summary

For someone living in Düsseldorf, it was great to see the city on the map. Others might argue about the exact GPS position of city locations. I have pointed to some flaws in a politically correct map-layout. However, these are really minor issues. Ticket to Ride Märklin Edition is an extremely well designed board game. It is certainly a standalone game that has some (actually not that many) common rules with it's successful predecessors. Even experienced players of Ticket to Ride and Ticket to Ride Europe will have to come up with revised and newly devised winning strategies. The new passenger-related game mechanisms create a deeper game. While the Spiel des Jahres 2004 winner was the simplest Ticket to Ride, perhaps the best gateway game ever, but probably the essence of Ticket to Ride, Alan R. Moon has managed to create something that will be more appealing to "serious gamers". It's neither Puerto Rico, nor Caylus. But some interesting new strategic opportunities unfold with the passenger cards. Players can take the traditional Ticket to Ride (US) approach and complete long tickets and long routes (preferably on the Eastern section of the map). As an alternative, they can run for the shorter routes in the west which helps their passenger points to increase. A weighted strategy is also eligible for success. Some longer tickets run on a east-west trail, rather than the more common north-south. This version of Ticket to Ride forces some real strategic decisions in competitive play: By placing passengers, players give hints to their destination tickets. If this is done too early, it can cause some catastrophic blocking which will easily over-compensate the passenger points. By not placing passengers, players will miss on the winner-takes-all merchandise.

Midgame situation with Passenger Movement

The game also has some negatives.
1. The uppermost criticism above all else is the fiddly setup of the Merchandise Tokens. This is not fun and here you can learn a new German word: setup is simply "frickelig" (= fiddly, tricky in an unpleasant way). These tokens are certainly designed for kids finger sizes not mine. Hopefully, we will see someone come up with an easier mechanism for this (I mean aside from playing online).
2. The plastic trains come in different colors than in the predecessors. Green and blue have been replaced by purple and white. The reason behind this remains a mystery, as it certainly makes a variant with tunnels (from the TtR Europe) look a bit confusing. I am not sure whether this variant makes sense at all, but it might have been worth a try...

To wrap this review up: Each individual game of Ticket to Ride Märklin Edition will force players to make hard decisions each turn. The game requires players to constantly be alert on others, evaluate their own options and adjust the short-term plans with their long time strategy. Ticket to Ride Märklin Edition has not become a brain-burner (and I doubt TtR games ever will), but it's no longer simply a nice hand management game. Strategic options have increased and no single winning strategy is apparent. The flow is still quick and not prone to analysis paralysis. For kids / beginners it might be simpler to apply the original Ticket to Ride rules, first, and add the passenger rules later on. The experienced player will enjoy the passenger movement. If you were asking me, this is a must-play for 2006. Ticket to Ride Märklin Edition has already made it to my personal Five & Dime list and might just make it to number one.

Posted by Naturelich at 1:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Imagine you are walking into a gaming session observing the following actions: one player rolls three dice. ALmost the same instant the entire turns crazy: one player throws a card in the middle of the table and yells Bluuuuuueeeee, another one raises his arms, a third one does the same and screams Woooooow and another player drums on the table with just two fingers. Some mumbling follows. A few chips get distributed and the three dice are rolled again. Now everyone is clapping their hands like crazy and someone shouts: Peter, you were last!! Some chips get distributed and the irritating specatacle starts all over again.

Welcome to Confusion! Confusion is a pattern recognition game with three dice. The little scene from above shows how confusing it might get at times. The reason is that each die has a different meaning. The color die defines the color - either blue, red or yellow are possible. The second die is the word die. The word die also bears the same background colors, but each side has a word printed on it, e.g. the word Blue (blau) is printed on one side that is colored in red. Due to the different perceptions between color and word the brain will get confused.

If the color on the color-die and the word on the word-die do not match (e.g. yellow color and the word blue written on yellow background) you have to throw one card from your hand into the middle. As you might have guessed each player's hand consists of three cards, one in each color. The card that needs to be put into the middle of the table needs to bear the missing color while each player also has to say/shout/yell the name of that particular color. A thing most easily forgotten, once you have figured out which color is the right one to be played.

The third die is the action die. This one only comes into play if the color on the color die (e.g. blue) and the word on the word die (e.g. red on a background in yellow color) do match. In this case, each side of the action die requires a different action (e.g. clapping your hands, raising both arms without shouting "Wow" or saying "Psssst").

This logic can be very confusing and will probably lead to rather different opinions about the "right" action in this particular turn. An additional comment: do try this game at home -- as playing this game in a public place will probably result in several people thinking: are these people out of their minds?!

Wherever you play the game, each player performing the right action scores a victory point. The player with 9 victory points wins the game. The full game rules also offer additional variations which basically change the logics of which action needs to be executed when.Nothing complicated, but it is just mooore confusing.

Naturelich my opinion
Confusion is a small filler that's good for 2-5 players. It works better with 3 players and up. The official playing time is said to be 20 minutes but no game ever took that long. It was fun for three games in a row. After a few plays the game becomes boring and repetitive pretty quickly. Until then, however, it is a lot of fun and very confusing at times. Especially if each player takes a different action after the dice roll. It can be hectic at times and is entertaining for this short period where it's fresh and new. I would recommend the game only for someone who is playing frequently with changing groups. For kids, the game might be a bit more challenging. In addition, the game probably helps kids in recognizing patterns. Therefore Confusion which might be a good eductational tool (e..g in school class) but I am really not the right person to judge this.

An additional note for non-German speakers: the colors on the word die are in German language, so you have to learn the words Gelb (yellow), Rot (red) and Blau (blue). This might be another reason not to buy the game...

Posted by Naturelich at 8:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

RoboRally was published more than ten years ago (1994). It is an older game which I kept playing for a while in the mid to late Nineties. It recently got back to the table which motivates this review.

The objective of the game is to program your robot to reach certain waypoints on the board. At the start of a turn you get a set of program steps which enable your robot to move (forward, backward, fast forward, very fast forward) or to turn (90 degrees or 180 degrees). The game is set in some sort of (old?) factory with different designs for the factory layout. The board layout alone contains plenty of challenges for your robot: belt conveyors which move you another one or two fields, firing lasers, plus deep deeeeeep holes.
RoboRally makes a programmers life difficult. It is quite possible that your hand is missing that particular left turn which would have made you reach the next waypoint easily. But the game is not about hand management: each player receives nine cards (or less if the robot is partially broken due to laser fire) and has to pick five cards as programming steps for their robots. The cards introduce a luck element into this very algorithmic thought processes. Which makes it all the more challenging, as the obstacles on the board, in particular the belt conveyors cause a lot of thinking trouble for women, academics and regular people. RoboRally is a game that gives software engineers a little advantage, I guess...

After each player has secretly decided on the programming steps, a (imaginery) CPU processes them by priority. Each card has a priority value printed on it which determines the order in which this particular step is executed (as compared to the other player's cards). Due to this process your entire programming steps might get totally messed up as another programmer may have a higher priority and hustle your little fellow over the board. If this happens directly after the first step, your entire programming will obviously result in a totally messed up position, or even worse, in a robot's termination. Or should we rather say temporary termination? As a copy of the robot is reinstated at the last archive spot on the map (i.e. the last waypoint or a particular repair spot in the factory). From here on, the robot's progress is less obstructed by fellow robots.

Unfortunately, this is one of the major problems of the game. Once a single robot is ahead one or two waypoints it is nearly impossible to stop him. The game is fun, if there is a lot of interaction between robots - the Schadenfreude effect. If one robot is too far ahead it becomes boring easily. The second problem of the game is it's length. To finish a game with two boards and four or five waypoints takes a long long time. As all players have to carefully plan their moves, this phase of a turn might become lengthy as well. A robot that is currently in a rather uncomplicated area of the board is easier and quicker to program than one currently stuck in this supercomplex maze of conveyor belts.

The game celebrates the luck element. The program execution order and the interaction of robots can totally destroy what player's had previously planned. I sometimes think RoboRally tries to teach us that planning ahead is not everything. Taking a strategic detour at the beginning to get out of the way of the crowds is a promising strategy. But which detour is the right one?

Personally, I like to play the game from time to time. The Schadenfreude-effect is just to cool. Plus, if your carefully planned program is destroyed by another robot and you have to watch your little robot move twoards the abyss... It is heartbreaking. All the energy for nothing. If players are able to take this with a lot of humor then RoboRally makes for an entertaining evening. Just try to cut the game short a little bit and introduce a limit for programming time. This should speed up the game a little bit and decrease total play time.

Posted by Naturelich at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Die Dolmengötter is a luck-free majority game set in ancient times.

The Game Title
First, I'd like to explain the game title because it's a bit unusual. The noun "Dolmengötter" is rather tricky as it is not an actual word any German would be familiar with (unless they are an archeologist, maybe). Just for the fun of it, I'll try to make this section as exhaustive as possible. This should ensure that I get to hear more good jokes about Germans on BoardGameSpeak.
As you are perhaps aware the German language has a concept concatenating several nouns into one humongous word with as many syllables as possible (this concept is particularly famous with German civil service agencies; a great example being Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaft). Dolmengötter combines two words (hey, only two?): "Dolmen" and "Götter". So, what's the fuzz about? Let's look at the easier one: "Götter" may simply be translated with "Gods".

Okay. Now you are at the exact same point as the average German, non-archeologist kind of person: What type of Gods is this game about? Dolmen? What the heck are Dolmen? Never heard of them. Where do they live? What do they eat? Are they a 'they' or more a 'them'?

After doing some research you can find that Dolmen is the Breton term used to describe megalithic tombs (Wikipedia has more on Dolmen both in English and German with some neat pictures). Well, since Dolmen is not a German word: How can the game publisher expect us to understand? Why did they not use Hünengräber (the German word for megalithic tomb). Die Hünengräbergötter - try pronouncing that. That's even too difficult for the German tongue, plus it sounds extremely strange to my ears, because it's probably the only word which contains all three different German umlauts.

Now, I bet you won't forget the game title, right? But is Die Dolmengötter worth playing or buying?

Continue reading "Review: Die Dolmengötter" »

Posted by Naturelich at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (2)

The Ticket to Ride PC game is a standalone program that allows players to enjoy Ticket to Ride on the computer. Basically, there's two modes in which this game may be played. The first option is the single-player mode. Here, you compete against as many as four different robots. The second option is to play the game online. Both the original Ticket to Ride as well as Ticket to Ride Europe contain a Web Card which allows the fortunate buyer to play both games online for one year - for free. During that time, one can play as many games as there is spare time but once that year is over, one is required to renew the subscription or buy another Days of Wonder game to get another Web Card. TtR online is probably one of the most popular online installments of a boardgame today. The publishers claim to have counted more than 2,000,000 online games, with a new game starting every 13 seconds. Due to this fact it's very easy to find someone playing Ticket to Ride online. The community that has evolved, includes hardcore players who have played as many as 3,000 games since the initial release of the online game in 2004. But it also includes guest players or casual players who only play the game every now and then.

I guess everyone is wondering:
Why should I pay €24.95 for the computer game if I can buy a webcard for €18.00 and play the game online for free? Well, Days of Wonder's website has prepared a list of arguments why we need this game:

• play the game in a high full-screen resolution


• new music, sound effects and animations


• an all new and exclusive Swiss map for 2-3 players


• a new web card for another year of online gaming

The question is: How valid are these arguments?

Continue reading "Review of Ticket to Ride - The Computer Game" »

Posted by Naturelich at 8:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (3)

Der Große Fluss (The Big River) is a scenario for The Settlers of Cantan (Die Siedler von Catan) and its' extensions. The scenario was a free giveaway during the Spiel 2005 in Essen. If you live in Europe, another way of obtaining a copy freely, is by ordering something else from Catan Shop (They put it on top of any order, as long as supply lasts).
The scenario consists of three connected hexagons, replacing three tiles from the original game: The Big River springs from the mountains, runs through the hills, branches out in the swamp as a Delta and finally reaches the sea. As the river is rich in gold players want to build as many streets and settlements on the river banks. Ultimately, the collected gold helps scoring additional victory points.

Continue reading "Die Siedler von Catan - Der große Fluss" »

Posted by Naturelich at 6:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pirates and Plunder is an unofficial clone of Klaus Jürgen Wrede's Carcassone, designed by Brian L. Bird and Richard Thames Rowan. The biggest difference to the extensions I have reviewed so far: this one is a standalone game which cannot be combined with Carcassonne. Due to some legal issues, the authors now call the game Pirates and Plunder, without a reference to the original game.

Pirates and Plunder is a pirate-like game that recreates the Carribean sea. This sets the game apart from the classic medival motif. In addition it's not even related to the famous French walled city which posed as theme for the original game. I therefore guess it's only fair to omit the reference to Caracssonne. But interational copyright law is probably a bit more complicated - so I leave all this up to the experts and finally start concentrating on the actual review...

Continue reading "Pirates and Plunder - A fan-produced Carcassonne style game" »

Posted by Naturelich at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (15) | TrackBacks (1)

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.

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

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.

Continue reading "Die Baumeister des Königs (The Ark of The Covenant)" »

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

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)

Hans im Glück published Sankt Petersburg in 2004. The game has been nominated for game of the year 2004 and won numerous other awards.

Naturelich had his first shot at the game today. I got hooked up to it real quick as did all the other players. Altogether we enjoyed three games today. One started in the early morning as the contestants both were not able to sleep any more. In the afternoon I insisted on having an additional game and two additional players joined us...

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Posted by Naturelich at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last week we played one of my latest game acquisitions: Carcassonne - Die Stadt (aka Carcassonne - The City). Designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede for 2-4 players, the game is published by Hans im Glück in Germany.

The first thing catching attention is the deluxe packaging of the game: a wooden box containing only quality components like nice wood pieces and linnen bags for the tiles. The rules are laid out on a few pages and explain the game in a lengthy but very clear way with a lot of examples.

Carcassone - Die Stadt is a standalone game divided into three rounds. The game is quite similar to older Carcassonne editions, but also adds some new elements to the game. These elements make it a challenging game - even for experienced players of older Carcassonne-style games. The basic idea is still adhered to: players have to build up a map (in this case the city of Carcassonne) by consecutively placing tiles. This will create a unique cityscape in which one can place his followers (onto markets, streets or buildings) who eventually will score some points.

After a specific (well-defined) moment in the game, players start building walls around city tiles. The players start building the wall next to a wooden gate. Walls always have to be connected to either this gate or other wall pieces. While the city still continues to grow the walls grow with it, leaving less and less areas in which the city may be extended.

Two interesting new ways of scoring points have also been introduced with the walls:

The players may place their followers as guardians on top of these walls. Depending on the number of historic city buildings in the corresponding "row/column" of the city the guardians will score points.

Towers can be build between wall pieces to score points. The player placing the tower scores as many points as there's tiles between the newly placed tower and a tower placed earlier or the city gate)

These two elements make the game far less predictable. Planning ahead is much more difficult and the number of options one has to calculate have increase drastically. In my opinion, this will make the game especially difficult for younger children. In addition, a raised level has to be put on chosing the right players to play with (especially if you are a non-planning person playing with all those tacticians who really want to calculate through all their possible options before making a move).

This put aside the game is real fun and a nice variation for all players who like Carcassonne at least a little bit. My game group has enjoyed playing this A LOT and we will certainly play it again soon.

Posted by Naturelich at 3:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was very fasincated by Kosmos' game Blue Moon when we encoutered the author Reiner Knizia and the artist Frank Vohwinkel in Essen 2004. I have now bought the basic set along with two additional people sets: the Mimix and the Terrah. After reading the rules, it seems to be quite an easy and fun game to play. The game machanics are rather similar to traditional trading card games. However, there is no rarity issues involved. The game design is fabulous. Franz Vohwinkel has really done a great job here! I have yet to read through all the card details to see which race got which advantages. Let's play...

Posted by Naturelich at 3:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I got the second expansion set to Der Palast von Alhambra for Christmas. This expansion is called Die Tore der Stadt (ie. The Gates of the City) and contains for new modules which can be added to the game. As with all Alhmabra expansion sets, the players may choose which modules they want to include, i.e. you can include one, two or even eight. The game will of course take much much longer if you include all eight modules from the first and the second expansion set.

The four modules are:
1. The Gates: Two tiles which would be separated by a wall can be connected by a gate. There are three gates in the game. You have to draw a gate just like you would normally draw money. There is absolutely no drawback with this, in fact it offers some great opportunities when used together with the camps (another module in this expansion).

2. The Camps: Camps are built next to the palace, i.e. they connect to a palace wall. During a regular valuation round, they score points for each tile placed in line next to the camp. Some camps allow for scoring in multiple directions. Camps have to be bought with money just as any other tile.

3. The Characters: Fascinating new characters are introduced. They are auctioned off and give a very useful skill or special ability to the highest bidder. Some are (of course) more powerful than others.

4. The Diamonds: A new kind of universal currency which can be used for any other currency. Diamonds cannot be combined with any other currency. This new module is great when you are looking for that one particular tile. Assume this has been placed on the Ducats field. But you cannot buy it because you just paid a fortune in Ducats to get that 13 point tower. Diamonds will help you here. Does have some nice interplay with the vizier from the first expansion.

I very much liked playing with this new expansion and so did the other players. It adds a lot of fun and new opportunities to the game. While at the same time the duration of a game increases drastically as you have to go through so many more alternatives and possibilities, it is still a lot of fun and a nice addition to the basic game. I recommend buying this expansion rather than Die Gärten der Alhambra which is a completely new game. Look here for more.

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

Queen Games has released another game in their Alhambra product line. Die Gärten der Alhambra is a standalone game with only minor similarities to the Spiel des Jahres 2003 Der Palast von Alhambra (Germany's Game of the Year 2003). I am definitely a fan of the original Alhambra and have played the game along with the first expansion quite often.

The sequel, however, is a little bit difficult and confusing. The Alhambra theme seems to be a bit artifical - maybe just a sales trick? If it was, it worked for me.

What the original Alhambra offered in terms of contents and game design, I find lacking in the sequel. The game consists of just a few loveless cards with buildings or trees (in different colors) on them. The gameplay is quite easy to comprehend: The board is pre-populated with buildlings (of different values 1-5 on square cards) turned upside down. Each player puts a plant card down every turn. On each plant card, there's four colors (i.e. one for each player) with different amounts. If a building card is entirely surrounded by plant cards, it is turned upside and the points are scored by the player with the most plants surrounding the building. The score equals the card value times the number of colors adjacent to it. There are some additional rules and variations, which I will not explain now. In short: the tricky piece is to do what's best for your own benefits and worst for the opponents. This sounds like a simple principal and it is. However, the number of possibilities is enormous. This game is difficult to master at an adequate level: my brain does not have the calculative power to evaluate all the alternatives. So, it comes down to intuition and luck.

I am sure it's not that bad after I give it more time, but I would have expected more from the Alhambra line. I shall play and try the next expansion before buying it.

Posted by Naturelich at 6:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (2)

Klaus Teuber signing his game Candamir, Spiel 2004, Essen

If you like board games you are certainly familiar with Settlers of Catan (Die Siedler von Catan) - one of the most successful games ever. The game has evolved and become the basis for an entire merchandise. The latest addition to the world of Catan is Candamir - Die ersten Siedler (engl. probably: Candamir - The First Settlers). The game leads the players into the world described in the novel by Rebecca Gablé. It combines some well-known gameplay elements from the original game with a character-based role-playing approach. Players can improve their character's talents. This is achieved by sending the character away from the security of their village into the wilderness and reaching a selectable, pre-defined target field. Raw nature is naturelich the place where the character is confronted with obstacles (wolves, bears, snakes, other tasks), special adventures or different kinds of collectibles. In the wilderness, collectibles are called herbs, I guess :-). If the character fails to overcome an obstacle or adventure he looses stamina and slows him down. Stamina can be regained by converting several collectibles into healing potion (there's of course other potions).

The raw materials - also available on the target fields - can be converted into higly sophisticated equipment: chests, swords and parchments. If you deliver one such equipment to another inhabitant of the village (in a full role-playing game, we'd call em Non-Player Characters-NPCs) you gain a victory point (I'll spare you the additional options on how to gain victory points). The player reaching 10 victory points wins the game.

Sounds complicated to you? It did to me at first - and the instructions don't make your live easier. Well, actually they do... Because everything is explained to the most meticulous detail. This results in a long booklet text to work through. But it is really easy to play, once you got the touch of it. And once you have started playing the manual is an excellent piece of documentation offering solutions to all the questions our group could come up with.

But there is not only the board game. Candamir comes with a webpage with some additional goodies. The most noteworthy is a character editor, which allows you to create and print your own character cards. During Spiel 2004 in Essen, Kosmos Verlag offered to take a picture and created a unique character card from that. Naturelich, Naturelich is available as such a character. Not too good looking and charismatic, but at least some decent combat skills ;-) Just like my favorite roleplaying characters (kidding)...

To sum it up: the game takes 1-3 hours (with 3 players) and makes an evening full of entertainment. The game design is marvelous - a lot of attention has been spend on the smallest details and the drawings and characters are wonderful. The wildernesss/movement cards look a little bit strange as they combine photography with drawings. Personally I had prefered to have paitings throughout the game, but this is just a minor detail. The game-play is well thought through and allows for future expansions to come, e.g. new adventures, new characters, new special talents, etc. Definitely a christmas recommendation...

Posted by Naturelich at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)