Greetings from the Mecca of gaming, Essen Spiel-98! As Gluck would have it, my wife and I are on a business trip in Mainz, Germany, about a 2&1/2 hour drive from Essen. I went all day Thursday, half a day Saturday, and all day Sunday (4-day pass cost 38DM ~ $23). Here’s a report on my first pilgrimage to the Holy Land of gaming.

It's HUGE. Besides board games, it has children's games and toys, abstract games, role-playing games, collectable card games, miniatures, toys, and wargames spread over 28000 square meters of convention hall (actually 7 halls). One of the rooms is devoted almost entirely to out-of-print and used games (not always at bargain prices ?). Most of the other rooms have large numbers of tables with open copies of various games, and staff to explain the rules (sometimes even in English, though being there alone was a bit of a drawback). I don’t speak German, which was a definite disadvantage, as I couldn't just kibitz to learn the games. Eventually I learned the secret, which was to get someone’s attention for one of the less popular games at a stand, and learn that game. Then with the attention of an English-speaking game-explainer, shift to the game(s) I was more interested in.

Thursday

In the course of the day I played three games (two to completion), and bought all three as well as some others. I'll list them below with the relevant info:

El Cabellero

28DM (Hans im Gluck) A tile laying and influencing game in the El Grande tradition (a separate game, not an expansion), with Spanish nobles exploring the New World (created by the play of tiles). Each player has cards numbered from 1 to 13, with an (approxi-mately) inverse number of caballeros on them. The highest card played gets to go first in a round, but lower cards get more caballeros as compensation. Scoring occurs after the fourth, and seventh round (the last round).

On a player's turn, he first collects the caballeros indicated on the bid card. Then he places one (square, not hexagonal) tile adjacent to a tile already on the board, choosing from the 5 face-up tiles available. Each tile has four edges that are each either all land or all sea (any combination amongst the 4 edges). Land must be played adjacent to land, and sea to sea. After placing a tile, he then places a caballero tile, which must be played adjacent either to a sea edge or to at most one land edge. Each of these is also a square tile, with the numbers 1 through 4 on the edges on one side, and 5 through 8 on the other side. However many caballeros he wants to spend is the number he places adjacent to a land edge. He can place any amount next to a sea edge for only 1 caballero spent (they're like money as well as being tiles on the board). In addition, some land has gold (worth extra points), and some seas have fish (ditto). You need to build ships to control sea areas (cost of one caballero), and you may also purchase castillos (castles) to protect (well, more like insure) your played caballeros (cost of two caballeros). But if your opponent places a second land edge next to your caballero, it goes away (back to your bank if it had a castillo, lost otherwise). Whoever has the most caballeros adjacent to a land mass (which may consist of many cards, depending on how people distribute the land and sea when they lay tiles) gets points proportional to the size of the land mass, with bonuses for gold. Likewise for sea and fish, but ships are also required. Most points after last round wins. It's actually simpler than this sounds, since you can't see the pieces. It's good, and looks even better multi-player, plays in a reasonable time, and I love that build-your-own map kind of game. A no-brainer at 28DM.

Pfeffersacke (Gold Sieber Spiel) AKA Medieval Merchant

(Rio Grande Games) These are the same game, one in German, and the other in English. Components are identical except for the rules. I bought one copy in English (since the nice folks at Rio Grande games taught me the game, and are bringing us lots of German games), and another copy in German (since my coffers are limited). The setting is pre-Renaissance Germany (1524), and the map shows 25 cities in Germany (and a little of France, Belgium, and the Netherlands) with sizes ranging from 2 to 8, and 20 small towns. The map is quite nice, and is the perfect souvenir of our trip to Germany, IMHO. There are various routes printed on the board connecting cities and towns, with varying costs. Mostly, it's expensive to build from city to city, and cheaper to build via a town, but it takes an extra turn. The object of the game is to win the most influence points. Points are earned as follows: 1 point for each town (NOT city) built, 2 points for each region you have at least one house token in (there are 10 regions, I believe), 1 point for each 20 guilders you have left, the value of the city for each city you dominated, half the value for each city you had plurality influence in, but didn't dominate.

In the beginning, everyone starts in a small town of their choosing. Next they place a city token on the board. City tokens are just numbers from 2-8, enough for all 25 cities exactly. There are multiple 2's and 3's, several 4's and five's, two 6's and 7's, and one 8, which get divided amongst the players semi-randomly (I.e., with some insurance against not getting enough high-value tiles). On each players turn (sequential, not simultaneous), he must place a city token if he has one (all other phases of the turn are optional, though there is never a reason NOT to take income if you don't increase influence in a city). Next, he looks at all of the cities he has influence in (i.e. has at least one house token on), and decides for each whether he will earn income, or exert further influence by placing an additional house token. Income is earned as follows: for each city, count the number of UNoccupied influence spaces (im-portant game balance here), then multiply by two to get the income (in guilders -- nicely printed money, by the way). For example, if you have one house on a seven city, and no one else has any, you get (7-1=3D6)*2 =3D12 guilders. If someone else had three houses on that city in addition to your one, you'd collect (7-(1+3=3D4)=3D3)*2=3D6 guilders (the same amount the other player would collect on his turn, assuming no one else plays in that city). Obviously, exerting influence robs you of income (you get none that turn, at best 2 fewer on any subsequent turn), as well as robbing your opponents in that city (since you have taken up a previously unoccupied space); however, dominating a city is the main way to earn influence points, and win the game.

When a player has the clear majority (i.e. 5 out of 8, or 2 out of 3, etc. but not 3 out of 6), then he receives the city token and its value in influence points. If the city is full, and no one has a clear majority, plurality wins half the city's value in influence points rounded down, and the token. The balance between taking income and gaining city influence is crucial, and makes for lots of tough decisions, made every turn for every city occupied. Next, the basic income (four guilders in the three player game, varies by # of players) is earned. Finally, the player can extend his network by building to one new city or town. The game ends when one of three conditions is met: 1) all 20 towns (not cities) have been built, 2) no player places any house tokens in a single round (i.e. all players pass), or 3) all 25 city tokens have been claimed.

I played a three player game in less than two hours, including learning the rules, at the Rio Grande Games stand. We all three chose different strategies -- the RG rep (whose name I didn't get) went for early dominance of big cities, my fellow gamer tried to get early income with lots of smaller cities, then dominate them fairly early, and I tried to earn lots of income (thus placing dominance of cities at risk). I trailed the whole game, sometimes by as many as 25 points. It was down to the wire, but I eked out a win by 2 influence points (final score of 53), and last place had 48. Very nice feel (OK, I like to win, especially a come-from-behind-out- of-nowhere win), good interaction, reasonable ability to get- the-leader, and a variety of strategic options will, I think, make this game a big hit (of all the games being played at the fair, only Elfenland was played at more tables than Pfeffersacke).

Mutter(n)land

30DM (Hartmutt Witt) A homegrown, abstract game, punning on the German Mutter (mother) and Muttern (nut, as in nuts and bolts). Game equipment consists of ~70 hexagonal nuts, and 5 marbles (conveniently sized to sit on top of the nuts) for each player (2-6 players, I'll describe the game for two), in a wooden box with the rules. Start by creating the motherland, of any shape and topology you wish, out of the nuts, with the proviso that no nut is isolated (i.e. not adjacent to at least one other nut). You then take turns placing your opponents marbles in the motherland, anywhere on its outer edge.

After the initial placement, the game begins. Players play in turn, first moving one of their own marbles, then moving a nut. A marble can be moved to an adjacent nut on the same level, or up or down one level, or jump over an adjacent friendly marble, or push an adjacent marble. Then a nut adjacent to any friendly marble, and with at least three sides free, is removed, and placed adjacent to the marble that was moved previously. The object of the game is to build and occupy three towers 4 nuts tall with your marbles before your opponent does so.

This (incomplete, as I don't want to give the whole game away since its components are so simple) description doesn't convey the elegance of the game adequately. The allowed motions of marbles are intuitively obvious, as are the disallowed motions. There is room for strategy and tactics, offense and defense of towers, isolation of regions, threats and counter threats. All with a board that's different every time, yielding excellent replay value. Hartmutt asked if I'd translate the rules into English, so if you are interested in the game, he can send along a complete version of the rules. Those are all the games I actually played on Thursday. In addition, I purchased the following games in theAntiquariat

Hase und Igel (Hare and Tortoise) -- 23DM (Ravensburger) An out-of-print classic resource (well, carrot) management game. Looks like a kid's game, but then so does Master Labyrinth. Never played it, but it's never had a bad word said about it on rec.games.board, so I got one. Won the Deutscher Spielpreis, 1979.

Quo Vadis

30DM (Hans im Gluck) Another out-of-print classic for 3-5 players, by Reiner Knizia. I don't know too much about it, but I tend to buy his games sight unseen. It's a political influence game set in the Roman Republic, with lots of quids-pro-quo and et-tu- Brutes.

Manhattan

25DM (Hans im Gluck) Readily available in the US, I just picked it up for the good price. Game of building tall buildings in Manhattan. Ken Tidwell's Godzilla variant makes the game a must-have. Won the Critic's prize in 1994.

A tile-laying and influencing game set in medieval Japan. Players lay tiles to try to gain influence over helmets, rice fields, and buddhas (nice plexiglass pieces) on a map of Japan. This has been described well by other posters, so I won't go into any more detail.

Saturday

Here's a German word you don't want to learn: Stau. On the drive up the autobahn on Saturday, there was apparently a car accident. Here in Germany, they don't clear the accident to the side of the road and let cars go through. They leave everything where it is, ask questions, fill out reports, and take their sweet time. The upshot was over 2 hours lost, sitting dead still on the (so-called) autobahn. Arrghh! Luckily my wife and son (3&1/2 years old, under 4 gets free admission ?) weren't too upset by the delay. I played Can't Stop, and a little Tahiti at the Franjos stand. Can't Stop is a quick, easy game for 2-4 players from Sid Sackson. Mountaineers attempt to climb a mountain via dice rolls. There are eleven tracks numbered from 2 to 12. Four dice are rolled, and the climber pairs them off however they wish. The sums of the two pairs determine the tracks (or ropes) the mountaineers can climb. If at least one pair has a mountaineer on the corresponding track, he climbs one space (there are three mountaineers in play). However, if no pairing has a corresponding mountaineer, all the climbers fall! You can keep rolling for as long as you wish, or voluntarily stop at any time before fall, and place a base camp under each of the 3 climbers.

Next turn, if one or more of those numbers is rolled, the climber can start from one above the base camp. If climbers subsequently fall, they go down only to the base camp. When a climber gets to the top of any one track, that track is now closed for all players. First to get three climbers to the top, wins. Can't Stop only takes about 20 minutes to play, and is a light, fun game (kind of like Cosmic Wimpout, though the rules are clearer). A little expensive (35DM) for what you get (a vinyl map of the mountain, 4 dice, 36 wooden disks, and 3 wooden climbers), but I like quick, light games, and besides, it seemed a good souvenir of our previous weekend trip to the Alps. On some of the gravely hiking trails, my son enjoyed sliding down the Alps. He actually plays and enjoys this game (with a little help, of course), but unfortunately, his favorite part is when the climbers fall. Now at bedtime I hear, Let's play Can't Stop.

Tahiti is a fairly abstract game about pearl diving, with tons of nice bits. Gameplay involves rolling a die, then bidding amongst the players to see who gets to use the roll to move. The bid is paid to the first player to pass. The players move their token (a nice little sailboat, about 4cm high) around the outer track. At each point on the track is a letter (A through H) and a pearl of a particular color. If you don't have a pearl of that color, you can acquire one. If you do, you get to place it on the board anywhere in the row or column indicated by the letter. Cardboard cutouts of rowboats (with holes in them to hold the pearl) indicate who owns the pearl. Owning the majority of like-colored pearls in an orthogonally-connected group scores many points; how many is determined by the number of empty squares surrounding the pearl group. You also have chances to store money (points) away in your cardboard treasure chest at various points in the game. I didn't play this one for long enough to get a clear impression of how the game would go, but the bits were VERY nice for a game costing 35DM (orig. 65DM, reduced because of overstock).

Later I learned Samurai at the Hans im Gluck stand. As it was family-day, I then went to the kinderzimmer blocks, slides, moon rooms, and tent tunnels to play with Matthew, and let my wife browse the floor. The entirety of hall 3 was devoted to kid stuff, and was a no-smoking zone

There was good stuff for older kids as well, with juggling lessons, etc. A life-size game of Zicke Zacke Huhnerkacke (Critics prize and kinderspiel prize) also was available there. However, Saturday was VERY crowded (a tough day not to speak German, as you had to be aggressive and lucky to get someone to teach you a game), and my wife didn't really enjoy her browse that much.

Near the end I did some shopping around, prices varied by a fair amount, so you had to be careful to get the best buys. A couple of abstract games caught my eye, but not my imagination. A la Carte by Moskito was cute, but didn't quite convince me to buy. It's a game about cooking a meal. Each player has a stovetop (with a little metal pan), and draws recipe cards. They then have to add the requisite spices (little jars with wooden cubes in them, which you shake until a cube comes out, and hope it's the right spice (color)). Three of any kind of spice ruins the dish. Then a die is rolled, and the temperature of your stove goes up. The recipe card has a min and max temperature. Completing the dish successfully earns you points.

I was tempted to get a used copy of Queens Games Ringgeister, a follow-on to their Hobbit game, but I didn't recall a lot of praise for that game from rgb, so it didn't make the cut. Later I saw a beautiful game by Thomas Fackler (sp?) based on Eco's The Name of the Rose. I didn't learn the gameplay, but the components were handmade and gorgeous. Nevertheless, not nearly gorgeous enough for the price 3,216 DM (~$2160)! By a self-styled game artiste who clearly doesn't fancy his games as games, but art. That one was easy to pass up.

There were also several stands selling bulk pawns, chips, dice, etc. for the do-it-yourself gamer. Then we left to have dinner, and find a hotel. Decent Chinese in nearby Ratingen-Lindtorf, but had to go to 5 different hotels all over the place in the dark in the rain without a map before finding a place that had a cancellation, and one room available ( a double, thankfully). In the morning, my son learned to play Can't Stop, which has since replaced his previous favorite, Mole Hill. He could count and make the pretty much random decision whether to continue or not, but as his favorite part was when the dice fail, and the climbers all fall down the mountain, he did not fare well against his father. Sunday we got an early start, and I got to go it pretty much alone, as mother and son used Essen as an indoor playground and shelter from the incessant rain.

Sunday:

Much less crowded than Saturday and even than Thursday. I knew the lie of the land, and was done with my used game shopping=96 on to find and play new games, and buy the best that I found. First off, I found a group of three people willing to learn Elfenland (Amigo) and teach me in English along the way. It was not difficult, as I had read about it on rgb. I was surprised at how much I liked it, especially the aspect of cooperation in using transportation tiles other players have laid. A worthy game of the year, and easy to buy at 32DM. The staff at Amigo was very good about helping with rules questions, though there weren't many. While shopping for gifts, I came across The Art Game (?) conveniently available in English as well as German. It's one of those non-competitive, let's just be creative and have fun games that I don't normally like. The game play is nothing to write rgb about, but the oversized cards depicting 200 works of art, were GORGEOUS. A good gift for my non-game-playing sister, even at 68DM. While walking around, I heard an announcement over the loudspeaker, blah blah blah Reiner Knizia blah blah blah. As I had heard that he was going to be at the Hans im Gluck stand around 1, and it was 1:30, I went over there to ask the guy who taught me to play Samurai what the message was, and where I might go to meet Reiner. As I walked up to the stand, I tapped the guy on the shoulder, and asked what the message about Reiner Knizia had said, and lo and behold, it wasn't' the guy, but Reiner himself! I got to talk with him briefly, and thank him for all the great games he's invented. We talked a little about the games market in the US, and how its different from over in Europe, then he was off to an autograph session.

On to the Doris and Frank stand, where I met, well , Doris and Frank. I had wanted to get Ursuppe (Doris and Frank, 2nd place Deutscher Spielpreis) for my birthday back in January, but it wasn't available (I had to settle for Euprates & Tigris, 1st place Deutscher Spielpreis ?), and the new expansion, but they were already sold out. Here's where I learned my trick of getting in and learning a popular game (Ursuppe) in English. I got someone to teach me Igel Agern. Then with the attention of an English speaking rules explainer, I got to play Ursuppe. It was all I'd hoped it would be, but I guess I'll have to keep waiting (sigh). I also liked Igel Agern, but funds were getting low, and it just missed the cut @ 30DM. Before I left, I picked up Kahuna and Siedler Alex/Cheops (Kosmos) on reputation/ inexpensiveness (19 and 17 DM, respectively, the Siedler expansion is actually two new games, how can you lose!). Kahuna is a repackaged and slightly revised version of Arabana-Ikibiti, which has gotten mixed reviews on rgb. It looks interesting to me, however, though I didn't get a chance to play. Neu Spiel im Alten Rom, a collection of 14 short games by Reiner Knizia, loosely themed on Ancient Rome, was a bargain at 64DM. And finally, an extra copy of the sold-out-almost-every-stand Elfenland, as a gift for someone who hopefully doesn't read this newsgroup! Thanks to all of you on rgb who give their time and gaming expertise, who helped make Essen a most enjoyable experience. Now all I need to do is ship these things home.