Peloponnes was another Spiel 09 game that I pre-ordered based on reading the rules.  I was also very interested because the designer created Maya, a game I really enjoy even though I tend to lose.

Peloponnes is a civilisation building game that lasts 8 short turns.  Players bid coins to purchase land or buildings tiles which generate resource income each round, plus some give one-off instant income.  If you exceed certain amounts of a single resource, you get luxury goods instead which can be used in placed of other resources and are an important game mechanic.

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The great-looking board of Pony Express caught my attention before any other info.  Reading the rules made me pre-order it.  Could the game live up to my expectations?

Players play wild west riders racing to reach Sacramento.  To move, a player rolls 5 poker dice and the result determines how many spaces they will move forwards; for example, a pair equals one space, two-pair equals two spaces, etc.  A player can re-roll dice if they want but at a cost.

The twist is that the player rolls the dice under a cup and simply states what they have rolled so they could be bluffing.  Read the rest of this entry »

Cold War : KGB v CIA is a superb two-player game containing tactical play, creative card use, push-your-luck play and opponent motive guessing.  So, when I heard the designers had created a new game (Nostra citY), I was immediately intrigued.

The game focuses on the trial of a mob boss.  The players are his mobsters and, together, they try to fix the trial so the boss is found innocent.  The most respected player by the boss will win the game.  Players collect turf, wiseguys and income with which they bribe the jury, hire more wiseguys, and so on.

Nosrta citY is a superb, semi-co-operative game for anyone wanting some thoughtful tactical play with a hint of double-crossing and paranoia.  The gameplay is quite unusual so I’ll explain three phases of a round so my comments make more sense. Read the rest of this entry »

Never heard of Langfinger?  It would have been easily missed at Spiel 09 but it’s one of my favourite games from this year.

Players are thieves who collect tools to steal loot (paintings, statues, gold) which they then fence for points.  First to 20 points wins.  Each player gets three actions per turn and there are five actions to pick from: Get tools (City),  Steal loot (Villa), Swap tools (Ruin), Steal loot (Museum), Fence loot to gain points (Harbour).

Players must select their three actions for the round first and then the actions get resolved in order.  To claim an action, players take turns placing one of their 3 markers on the relevant action location.  More than one player can perform the same action but the first to claim an action will go first when it is resolved.  This is a critical element as what you want may not be there when it gets to your turn.

This is the first interesting game mechanic.  Read the rest of this entry »

Upon reading the rules prior to Spiel 09, Carson City sounded interesting and I pre-ordered it.  I wasn’t disappointed either as the game delivered a close run contest with some very interesting choices.

ACTIONS
Together, but not co-operatively, players build Carson City.  Each turn, players select a unique role and then spend their cowboy meeple (one at a time) to claim actions.  Actions allow players to gain resources, buy buildings, hire additional meeple, and even gain victory points.  However, actions only get resolved after players have committed their meeple.  Plus, apart from the two default actions, only one player can perform each action. 
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There are few specific designers I follow but Dirk Henn is one that I do.  So, I was excited that he was releasing a new big game.  And big is the word – big in size, big in weight and big in thinking.

Players play families in a town who use resources to make goods which they sell in order to buy relics.  Each step of the game is relatively simple, but it is the decisions to be made at each step that makes this an enjoyable, meaty game of thinking and decisions. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m always on the lookout for good 2 player games.  Kingpin sounded great from the description and the Flash demo is a superb example of how to use the web to showcase and explain a game.

The game involves moving your gangsters (tiles) on a board in order to either control the centre area, get one of your gangsters off the other side of the board, or to totally eliminate your opponent.  Moving your tiles and changing their facing is simple but very strategic, as each tile’s side has a different mix of attack and defence icons.  Some tiles can support others, fire over spaces and charge in to a fight (called a raid and shown by car icons). So, Kingpin offers interesting tactical play.

It took a while to understand how to be effective.  Read the rest of this entry »

[Below is my initial review of Stronghold.  A three-part report covering the game in a lot more detail is available too:  Part One – Part Two – Part Three]

Please note that the Valley Games version of Stronghold (released March 2011) has massively updated rules to make them clear as the original rules were very confusing and had many conflicts.

Stronghold not only has a great setting but it also had a great pre-launch.  The designer released over ten posts about how he came up with ideas and developed the game.  This brilliant bit of marketing explained the game perfectly but was also very evocative.  As a result, I pre-ordered it.

The game is about the seige of a castle.  With two players, one player defends and one invades.   (With more than two players, players share in the invasion or defense.)  Resources are tight, especially for the defender but then they have the advantage of being in a giant castle and shooting at anything approaching the walls.  Read the rest of this entry »

Ever since I saw the photo of Tobago, I was looking forwards to it.  When I read the rules, I was even more certain.  Then I played it, and Tobago delivered.   I like games that offer a fresh game mechanic and Tobago was great because it’s beautifully diffferent.

The game focuses on determining where treasures are hiddden, primarily by playing an accumulation of clue cards to discern a treasure’s precise location, like “it’s not next to a palm tree” or “it’s in the biggest jungle”.  When the location of a treasure (there are always four being sought) is reduced down to just one hex/location, it can be picked up.  Instead of adding clues, you can drive your ATV to pick up treasures or amulets.  When grabbed, the treasure inside is revealed and shared between the players who helped find it.

There are two really great mechanics.  Read the rest of this entry »

Writing reviews on games using Twitter during Spiel09 was fun but had a couple of inherent difficulties.  First, giving a fair impression of a game in one tweet is almost impossible.  Getting across all the points in around 120 characters (140, minus #tag, minus game name) is crazily hard.  In fact, it’s much harder than writing a short blog entry.  Rather than quick to write, every tweet becomes a mad challenge of summarisation – I even had to throw in a couple of deliberate typos to save precious characters (deliberate, honest).  Second, the time it takes to do the ultra condensed writing meant it was hard to write them between games.  As a reult, many tweets were written in a batch rather than ‘live’.  I think in future, I’d post short blog entries and use Twitter to notify people of the new item (all possible from the iPhone).

As a result, I shall be writing longer reviews on the games I played to give the full view on each.  Plus, I can add reviews of other games I play, general entries about gaming, as well as my journey to create my own board game (wish me luck on that) which I am aiming to have ready for Spiel 2010. 

So, whilst Essen may be finished, my thoughts and discussions about the games played, plus all the games still to be played over the coming weeks, are still to be aired.

If you have any specific items you’d like covered, post a comment and let me know.  Also, if you have any feedback on my tweets from Spiel09, let me know too.