I had high hopes for Logistico even before Essen '03 started. It had a logistics theme which I love - due to Age of Steam. I was really hooked when I heard that Logistico features “Boats, Planes and Trucks". And when Bruno Fiadutti wrote that this game was more mind-boggling than AoS, my expectation got even higher! Then I saw the rules at Cwali homepage, which was quite simple. Okay, I get the idea, but can this really be a game harder that AoS? And when I opened the box(in a hotel room in Heidelberg), the components looked humble too (with cards that you have to cut out by yourself). Well... Anyway, I waited for my first play, then bang! The game was not what it seems to be! The game board has five islands, which are each divided into several spaces. Islands are connected with bridges, and each has an airport too. First you put coloured wooden discs in each spaces, which shows the "demands" in that area. And then, you put coloured wooden cubes which shows the "products" which are supplied in that particular area. Your aim is to make a "delivery" - transferring a cube to an area which contains a same coloured disc. You get rewards for each delivery, and the reward goes up as game turn progresses. Now the transfer costs money too. The costs depends on the number of your actions. Actions are : 1)loading a product on your vehicle, 2)unloading a product from your vehicle, and 3)moving your vehicle one space. There is a cost list on the board : 1 action - 1 logi (a currency used in this game), and 2 action - 2 logi. But the cost goes up : 3 action - 4 logi, 4 - 6 logi, 5 - 9 logi. You can perform maximum 8 actions per turn, which will cost you whopping 20 logi. And you cannot make an unprofitable delivery! That is, you cannot make a delivery rewarding 10 logi at the cost of 12 logi. There are also bonus cards which indicate a particular area on the board. You get additional reward if you show the card when making a delivery to that area. You can also "sell" your truck and boat at 3 logi. A game turn is composed of three phases, and you have to get used to this in order to make a tactical/strategical plan. First, all players operate their boats (which can load 4 products) in player order. Second, planes(3 products). Third, trucks(2 products). You can freely re-distributes the cargos between your vehicles when they are in the same area, but because of the phases it's a little hard to make a sequence of transfers correctly. And you have to pay 3 logi per cargo at the end of a turn - so you cannot just load everything in. In my first game, everyone was trying to make a delivery from the beginning of the game - this was a wrong approach. You should carefully plan your transfers, and must do it in several steps. Also the game rulebook suggests that you should learn the game with "less than" 5 players, which is repeated in the earlier posting in this game entry here in geek. You really should, because 5 players game can be quite intense. There can be some problems : you can expect paralysis-analysis with some people for sure. And there are small argues about the first player advantage, which is again detailed in an article here by the publisher. I personally think this game is really great. It is abstract(but the theme kinda works here), but a good one. If you like logistics theme or logical games, you should play this. Back to Table of Contents -- Game! # 14 To Game! List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2005 by George Phillies. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com