Tried it with the kids this afternoon - played very well. 5-yr old Son beat 10-year old daughter $165,000 to $164,000, with me behind by 12,000. Design lends itself to friendly win-win deal making and was readily playable by the kids. This was a surprise after my reading of the reviews and rules translation, which led me so fear that it would be too detailed for them. They picked up the concept very quickly and their attention stayed engaged with the clearly defined game phases (new building cards, new businesses, trading, placing businesses, payment). Without hidden cards, it was also an easy format to provide helpful advice to the younger player ("keep that building, I'll make you a good deal for it"; "you need this, I want that, let's trade").

In a more competitive group, there might be more of a tendency to hold out against key trades, but the game has mechanisms to soften the impact of that strategy (multiple turns, extras of each business type, plenty of spaces in each building in which to structure a business). Based upon other postings, it sounds like close finishes are common. In the six-turn structure, it obviously pays to have businesses established early, to pay as many turns as possible. At the same time, players are unlikely to have all of the necessary pieces in the first round or two. It is a real decision-point whether to place a particular business in an isolated building, or to hold on for the next round to see whether another business is a better direction. On the other end, in a crowded building, you must consider whether you are likely to obtain enough room to squeeze in a 5- or 6-unit business (you won't have it when you start the business and must count on obtaining more adjoining space later).

Only weak points: (A) There is little ability to monitor progress during the game, so final score is likely to be a surprise (my daughter and I thought we were blowing out the son) - it might help to have score taken during the game (after the 2nd, 4th rounds, maybe) - we'll try it to see. (B) With 3 players, the number of different business types was sufficient that we didn't have much competition to be the initial/primary builder of a certain business type, leading to easily-defined 1-on-1 trades, with no 2 buyer-1seller situations. With 4 or 5 players, there may be more competition for business types, leading to more complicated negotiations. (C) Finally, it might be worth expanding the scoring to consider super-sized businesses. In several cases, we wound up with extra units of a particular business attaching to a completed business in several cases (even while aware of the absence of added benefit). More importantly, there were a number of 1 or 2 unit empty spaces that became irrelevant when sandwiched amongst completed businesses. Wouldn't hurt to make them worth fighting for.

Overall, it worked very well for us. It was on a par with Samurai, Elfenland, and Bohnanza in terms of keeping the kids involved in the game (with much of the latter's friendly deal-making atmosphere). Even El Grande and Settlers don't hold their attention as well. After the top 4-5 cliche classics, you should consider giving this one a try. As far as SDJ nominees, Chinatown is lighter and faster than Tikal, with more player interaction, if not as beautiful or as detailed. We've only played Union Pacific 2-player so far (pretty good, but would obviously be better with more players) and haven't gotten Giganten yet.