Greetings & Salutations

Thanks to Jay Tummelson (the head honcho of Rio Grande Games), I've had the opportunity to play a number of the upcoming games released at Nuremberg Toy Fair. Here's some short (but hopefully helpful) first reactions to four of those games. (Note: it's unfair to call these reviews... with a couple of exceptions, I've only had the chance to play each game once.)

TAJ MAHAL

(Alea/Rio Grande)

Beautiful production combined with elegant mechanics make for an enjoyable 2 hour game. This newest offering, from Reiner Knizia is a bit long for what it is (the same "auction" is repeated 12 times), but could still be a strong contender for the Spiel des Jahres. The hand management decisions can be excruciating. [after one play, it's a 7 on a 10 pt scale]

OHNE FURCHT & ADEL

(Hans im Gluck)

Stunning, artwork on the cards coupled with a nice re-working of the "choose a role" mechanism from VERRATER blend together for a nail-biter of a game. Granted, it's a bit like GROO (build your city) but with much more control. This will not be released in English any time soon (due to art costs?) so go ahead and pick up the imported edition. (A player aid sheet with a few card translations will make the game easier to play.) [after one play, it's an 8 on a 10 pt scale]

WEB OF POWER

(Goldsieber/Rio Grande)

This Game of clerics & ambassadors in medieval Europe is very similar to EL GRANDE with its placing of pieces for influence and scoring. What makes it so intriguing is the speed with which it plays (45-60 minutes) and that it scales well from 3-5 players. This is likely to become a standard 'strategic closer in our gaming group. [after two plays, it's a 7 on a 10 pt scale]

CAROLUSMAGNUS

(Venice Connection)

Yet another placement game, with an interesting twist. Pieces in Five different colors can be placed on the board (a circle of disconnected territories) or in your court. The player with the most of a color in his court controls all of those pieces on the 'board'.... which keeps changing as territories are connected. This game works very well with 2-3 players and plays in about an hour, making it another excellent closer. [after three plays, it's a 7 on a 10 pt scale]

Easy As One, Two, Three

Each month, this column features my own highly opinionated listing of the top three games of a particular type. This month, the top three games of "Chicken." That's right... the game you played as an elementary school student on your Big Wheels (pedal furiously at each other and see which person veers off first) and that hopeftilly you stopped playing before you Got your driver's license.

"Chicken" is a dangerous, testosterone filled display of macho stupidity in real life.

In boardgames, however, it refers to any set of mechanisms that pit players against each other to see which one will blink first. POKER is a classic example, with the ante & bidding system. DIPLOMACY (which is English for "incredibly long ame that works only with 7 play,,g ers") is another example, especially for the two players with the roles of Germany & Austria-Hungary, who must spend most of the game back-to-back, waiting- for the right moment to turn on each other like vote-hungry Democratic primary candidates.

1. The number one "Chicken" game is a nifty little card game called FOR SALE (FX Schmid). Designed by Steffan Dorra, this quick-playing adventure in real estate speculation fuses a POKERlike bidding system with the fundamental mechanism of RAJ. Each player represents a speculator, who uses is stake of $15 million (in chips) to buy up houses at auction. Each turn, the same number of houses (valued from $I to $20 million) is available as the number of players. Each player may bid, raise, or check the amount already bid. If lie decides to pull out of the bidding, he receives the lowest valued house and 1/2 of his bid (rounded up). The last player in tile bidding loses his entire bid but receives the most valuable house. The key to the game is, of course, deciding when to get out, as dropping out early may cost you less while leaving valuable property available to tile remaining players at a reduced price.

The second round of the game begins with the buyers appearing in the form of another small deck of checks (valued from $3 to $20 million with two check worth nothing!). The same number of checks as players are laid out on the table, and each person chooses one home from the hand of houses they've bought in the previous round. These are revealed simultaneously, with the most valuable house getting the biggest check, tile next most valuable the next biggest check, and so on, Careful play in this phase can overcome a string of bad luck in the auction phase.

The total of your checks and the leftover chips is your score for the game. (We typically play 3 games and total scores to reduce the luck factor.) For me, FOR SALE combines some of the best parts of POKER (the bidding) with highspeed play. The auctions are tense and the reversals of fortune in the second round can cause serious waiting & gnashing of teeth!

2. Another Great "Chicken" Game is MEDICI (Amigo/Rio Grande). While both editions of this classic auction garne have Graphic design flaws, it's a tremendous play experience from the master designer, Reiner Knizia. Player are medieval merchants (hey, that's another Great game I like to play!), filling the holds of their ships with various Goods: dye, cloth, spice, Grain & fur. Each Good (a numbered card) is worth one step on a commodity ladder as well as its numeric value (used to determine the total value of your hold at the end ofeach round). Cards are auctioned in a "once around" auction, with the auctioneer choosing to offer up 1, 2, or 3 cards, as well as having the last bid. A day (round) ends when each player has filled their hold (each one holds only Five cards) or the deck has run out. Large amounts of money are dispensed for the richest hold, then money is also given to the top players on each commodity ladder. Three rounds are played to determine the wealthiest merchant.

It sounds deceptively simple. The difficulty comes in the second and third rounds, as gains on the commodity ladder remain from round to round. You find yourself wondering if bidding on an important load for another player will cause him to pay more for it... or if he'll let you have it to fill up your hold with useless junk.

One caveat: if you have players who are subject to analysis paralysis, this is probably not a good game for them. All of the information (except which cards have not yet been auctioned) is public. Late in the game, folks with this tendency can grind the game to a halt while they compute the exact amount they can or should bid. With that said, MEDICI is a favorite at Game Central Station (the club I run).

3. CLOUD 9 is my 'sleeper' pick in this category. Released last year by FX Schmid USA, this children's game designed by Aaron Weissblum has been unfairly overlooked. I'll be the first to admit that the artwork is just plain bad and that the theme (of players jumping out of a balloon to collect magic dust) to be a bit odd as well as pasted-on. But don't let that run you off from this fast-paced game.

Players have a hand of colored cards... four different colors plus a couple of different wild cards. In turn, you roll the dice, which denote which colored cards you must give up in order to make the balloon rise. Then, before you play those cards (if you have them.'), the other Players choose in order whether to jump off the balloon (and take tile points currently available) or stay on in hopes that you'll be able to play the correct cards and take the value up. If you can't make the balloon rise, III players itill on tile balloon receive no points or this trip. Then everyone climbs back on board, and the game goes on. When one player passes 45 points, the game will end with the current balloon trip. Tile player with the most points at the end wins the game.

I'm leaving out a couple of mechanisms, but you'll figure those out if you buy the game. At its heart, this is "Chicken". Do I jump early and often (for lots of small point gains... and a big hand of cards for late in the game)? Do I "let it ride" and try for big leaps (but few cards at the end)? Can I fake the other players into thinking I don't have the cards to make the balloon rise, causing them to jump too early?

While there are optional "adult" rules for bluffing & lying, they don't really help the game. It's at its best with the basic rules. (One note: the original prototype of the game had a longer scoring track. Try starting at 33, crossing the start line, and going back to 45 for a more strategic game.) CLOUD 9 is fast fun... and an excellent example of the "Chicken" genre.

Don't Buy the Hype

The other monthly feature of this column is my attempt to pump up underappreciated games (aka CLOUD 9 - see above!) or poke a hole in the overinflated reputation of some other games (aka AXIS & ALLIES). Gamers unite! You have nothing to lose but your piles of chits!

No chit-bashing this time around, though. I'm taking aim at the pseudohistorical simulation/diplomatic/ economic mishmash known as AGE OF RENAISSANCE (Avalon Hill). Not only can I not spell the name of the silly game correctly without a spell-checker, I can't play it without feeling lost in a morass of conflicting mechanisms and bookkeeping that could guarantee my accountant employment for years to come.

The game requiring players to use 1/2 size chits (ok, a 'little' chit-bashing) to track an economic system that is the key to the game should have been my first warning. (Yes, I know that some industrious soul has printed up CIVILIZATION-like commodity cards on the Web... but shouldn't a $55 game have fixed this problem before it was printed!?)

My second should have been reading through the event cards. Some (like the Black Death or Civil War) can send one country back to the Stone Age... and effectively destroy their chances of winning the game. If I want to play a civilization-building game with event cards, I'll stick to SVEA RIKE (where the sheer number of cards compensate for the varied value of their effects.) My third warning was the combat system, with its odd "guy who kept the most money has the best chance of winning" mechanism.

The crowning idiocy of the game is its length. Those of you who know me realize that I'm not a fan of long (3+ hour) games, and AOR is an excellent example of why I've developed my tastes. Just as in CIVILIZATION, a mistake early on can be perilous, while the focused attention of a couple of event cards can prove fatal to your chances to win. However, you've still got 3+ hours left to play... and no graceful way to bow out. (Yes, I'm aware there's a mechanism for this in the rulebook... but it's just a slapdash fix for a bigger problem in the game design.) Games that last an afternoon need to have some sense that players are controlling events. Unfortunately, AOR uses its prodigious bookkeeping of Advances (roughly equivalent to Civilization cards in CIV) and the Misery Index, as well as decisions about stabilization, card play and token placement to mask its inherent randomness.

For better games in the same genre, check out SVEA RIKE (Casper) or VINCI (Descartes).

Mark Jackson runs Game Central Station, Nashville, TV, based gaming group and website. This week his favorite game is TAJ MAHAL. website: www.geocities.scareyjo/