The main game board at game end. The large pale yellow oblong spaces are where the engineers are located during the game.

Russian Railroads is a meaty, worker-placement eurogame.  As you may expect from the title, players compete to construct the best railroads across Russia.

THE GAME
Unlike many railway-building games, there is no map to build across; however, this isn’t a hindrance and actually makes the game different to other games.  There is a central game board where players place their workers to take actions, plus each player has their own player boards to track their progress.

Each round, players take turns allocating their workers (cool-looking meeple with Russian hats) to various actions on the main game board.   For example, players can lay track which advances the relevant matching colour rail marker(s) along any of the 3 routes on their player boards.  There are 5 colours of track marker in the game (each route requiring a different mixture of track marker colours) but these colour markers are not allowed to pass one another or occupy the same space, so this means you need to consider the order in which you advance the track markers too. Read the rest of this entry »

Blueprints is an intriguing abstract game where players build buildings out of dice that follow the blueprint plans they have in front of them.

Each player starts with a blueprint which shows where the dice must be placed (floorplan and how high each stack should be).  The blueprint shows a plan view (where players physically place their dice as they ‘build’ their building, as well as a 3-D view so it’s nice and clear.

On their turn, a player can pick one of the dice from the pool of already rolled dice, and a new dice is added after each player’s turn to replace the used one.  To place a dice on top of another dice, the dice on top must be of the same or great value than the one below it.  As well as their values, the colour of the dice makes a difference to the players too as each material is scored differently.

The game is made more interesting because the player’s blueprint are placed behind their player screen, so other players know what they took but have no idea what shape it is taking.

After drawing 6 dice each, players reveal and score how their buildings compare to their blueprint.  Orange (wood) dice each score 2 points for each dice adjacent (faces touching) to them; Green (recycled) dice score points based on the total green dice in the building; Grey (stone) dice each score based on their height within the building; and, Clear (glass) dice each score based on the value on their top face.

Read the rest of this entry »

During Russian Railroads, players compete to construct the best railroads in Russia.  Whilst there is no map to build across like many railway games, Russian Railroads is a meaty, worker-placement eurogame.

Each round, players take turns allocating their workers (cool-looking meeple with Russian hats) to various actions on the main game board.   For example, a player can lay track along their 3 different rail routes which advances the relevant matching colour marker along any route(s).  There are 5 colours of track marker in the game (each route requiring a different mixture of track marker colours) but these colour markers are not allowed to pass one another or occupy the same space, so this means you’ll need to consider the order in which you advance the track markers too.

Players can also use workers to build and upgrade locomotives that are placed on the rail routes.  At the end of each round, players score the track spaces their locomotives can reach, plus there are some other bonuses when locomotives reach certain spaces too.  Players usually have to take the lowest numbered locomotive available so the timing of building these is important.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Palaces of Carrara first caught my attention because it’s a Eurogame by veterans Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling (Tikal, Tikal II, Asara).  Also, the Palaces of Carrara has been nominated for the 2013 Spiel des Jahres Kennerspiel.

Players buy coloured marble which they use to build buildings in the 6 cities.  The player with the most victory points (VPs) at the end of the game is the winner.  This may sound very ordinary, but there are several clever game mechanics that combine really well and deliver a tight and tense game.

On their turn, a player can either buy marble, build a building, or score.

Buying Marble
On the board is a rotating disc (split into 6 segments).  Around the disc are 6 sets of prices for the different marble colours – white is most expensive, then yellow, then red, and so on.  When buying marble, the player turns the wheel one section clockwise and draws marble blocks from the bag to bring the total on the wheel up to 11 (placing new blocks in the most expensive segment).  The player can then buy any number of marble blocks but only from one single segment of the wheel.  The costs are marked next to each segment and these get cheaper (even free) as blocks progress around the wheel. Read the rest of this entry »

A player board can be seen at the bottom of the picture. Notice the cubes in the square holes marking the advances gained.

Clash of Cultures is a civilisation building game by the designer of Merchants and Marauders and this sole fact meant it was on my ‘must play’ list as Merchants & Marauders was a superb game.  In Clash of Cultures, players start as rival tribes in corners of the realm with no technology.  Over 6 rounds, the players explore the land, generate resources, build cities, create technologies, trade, potentially fight each other, and do whatever they can to be the most successful.  At the end of the game, victory points (VPs) are scored for building cities (1VP per piece), advances in technology (1/2VP each), completing objective cards (2VP each) and building wonders (5VP each) – the player with the most VPs wins.

GAME
The board/map is made of tiles (each showing 4 hexes) of various types: water, mountains, barren, grassland, forest.  Unexplored regions remain face-down until entered when a player turns the tile over and sometimes gets a choice on its orientation.

Players all start the same with 1 settler, the Farming and Mining advances and 1 basic city.  During the game, cities can be improved by adding a port, academy, temple and/or fortress.  The size of a city is equal to the total number of pieces – the bigger the size, the more resources it collects and influence it has; however, city size is limited by the number of cities you own so you can’t just have one super-city.  A city that is happy functions like a city of 1 larger size; whereas, an angry city functions like a city of size 1. Read the rest of this entry »

Ginkgopolis is by one of the designers I really like – Xavier Georges (Carson City, Royal Palace, Troyes and Tournay).  Ginkgopolis is a game with the theme of futuristic, city building.  As with many of Georges’ games, the game mechanic is a bit unusual (it’s actually relatively simple, although it may not seem so at first).  As a result, I felt it important to explain the gameplay quite clearly (so please excuse the length of this review) because a brief outline would offer little insight.

GAME
At the start of the game, there are 9 building tiles in a 3×3 grid – 3 red, 3 yellow and 3 blue buildings with values 1, 2 and 3 – surrounded by lettered discs A-L.  The initial card deck contains cards for each letter and each of the 9 starting buildings.  Players start with some resources (cubes) of their own colour and some building tiles.  During the game, the players will add building tiles to the 3×3 grid (on the outside as well as laying new tiles on top of existing ones).  Players score victory points (VPs) when placing some tiles, and at game end for controlling areas plus bonus VPs based on cards they own. The player with the most VPs at the end of the game wins. Read the rest of this entry »

I am very pleased to announce that the winner of 4th annual game giveaway is: Suzan from the Netherlands!  Congratulations to Suzan who will soon receive the copy of Xavier Georges’ Ginkgopolis by Z-Man Games.

If you want to see the answers to the quiz, these are now on the competition page.  Commiserations to all the other entrants who did not win.

The competition may have finished, but I have some exciting news of a new competition coming in the next week or two, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, reviews of the latest Spiel releases will begin in the next day or two.

James.

I am very pleased to announce that I am holding my 4th annual game giveaway where I give away one of the new releases from Spiel 2012 which starts in just 5 days time.

This year you can win a copy of Ginkgopolis by Xavier Georges (Carson City, Royal Palace, Troyes and Tournay) kindly provided by Z-Man Games.

Visit the competition page for more details on how to enter, and good luck.

Xavier Georges is one of the designers I really like and it’s good to see he has a new game this year called Ginkgopolis.  Carson City, Royal Palace, Troyes and Tournay.

Ginkgopolis is a game of futuristic city building.  On their turn, players simultaneously select a card from the 4 cards in their hand.  At the end of each round, they will then pass the remaining 3 cards to their neighbour who adds one new card to make a total of 4, and they will select from those on their next turn.  That sounds like an interesting card mechanic – sort of like 7 Wonders but continual.

After choosing cards, players resolve their card (which are red, yellow or blue and numbered so each card matches a building).  There are three possibilities:

1. Gain Resources/Tiles/VPs
   Playing a card on its own gains the player resources (their own markers), tiles or VPs (determined by their colour).  The amount is based on the height of the matching building (plus bonuses based on items you already gained).
2. Build New Building
   If the player plays a building tile with their card, they place the new tile where the matching letter is (moving the letter outwards) plus gain any bonuses based on items already gained too.  The player places one of their resources (markers) on the building to show their ownership (but this can change during the game).  The card matching the new building is added to the draw deck too.
3. Develop Existing Building
   If the player plays a building tile with their card, they can add the tile to the top of the building shown on the card.  The player takes control of the building so they place their marker on it and return any current owner’s markers (for which they get 1VP each) Read the rest of this entry »

Each year, I have run a competition to win a copy of one of the latest games released at Spiel in Essen. As always the competition will be open to anyone so you don’t need to be at Spiel itself.

I am very pleased to announce that this year, I shall be doing the same.  However, I am also very excited to announce that I am running the competition in association with Z-Man Games who will be providing a copy of Dark Minions as the prize (which they are releasing at Spiel).

This competition has now closed.  You can still read my preview of Dark Minions for details on the game.

James.