[Bryan]

Anybody play?

[normajean777]

There is a thread for this already (just old).

But ya its a fun game. I don't personally have it but my cous does and its great. I also gifted one to a friend and have played with them. I'd buy it myself, but ya noone else to play with. . . So theres no point.

[Nate]

Yes, though there are many others in a similar genre that I enjoy more.

[Bryan]

what games?

[Nate]

Originally Posted by Bryan

what games?

Probably should have listed some the first time around.

Some other "German"-style games that I really like are:

Samurai: It's kind of like an adult's version of the box / dot game we all used to play as kids (draw lines between dots on a grid until you close off a box and claim it... you know). You're trying to gain majorities of three different types of "boxes" by enclosing them with differently powered samurai and such. The scoring system is neat and is kind of reminiscent of an electoral voting system (though with three parties in this rendition).

Through The Desert: It's kind of like a kid's version of the ancient game of Go (only kind of, though). This was designed by the same guy as Samurai above. You're trying to lead your caravans of camels across the desert in search of watering holes and oases, while also trying to close off sections of the desert for your tribe only. You can get points in a bunch of different ways, but you only get to place two camels (there are hundreds of them) at a time, so you really have to think ahead.

Antike: It's kind of like the "German"-style version of Risk. There's no luck in the game, and combat is completely deterministic (you'll know who will win the battle before it starts, every time). Also, you don't actually get points just for conquering territory, but must complete a number of different objectives, for which the points awarded are scarce and being constantly taken by your opponents. If you're gunning for the "destroy a temple" point, but the other players have already claimed all of those, you can't get points that way and will have to figure something else out to try to do.

Domaine: This is from the same guy that designed Settlers of Catan, and is a game about fencing off feudal lands. It's a difficult game because it appears to be very friendly (you're just building fences after all), but once the land has been claimed, every additional point you gain represents at least as large a loss from someone else's total. The older version, made in Germany and harder to find, Lowenherz is even meaner, because you have to negotiate over which actions you'll get to do every turn, and often have to bribe other players just to get to do anything.

Entdecker: This is also from the same guy that made Settlers, and is about discovering (Gr. "Entdecker" = "Discoverer" / "Explorer") an archipelago and staking out territory on the various islands It's a fairly pleasant game with not too much nastiness, but you can make some sneaky moves and completely shut out someone from the large island they were planning to take over. Like Lowenherz/Domaine, there's an older version made in Germany and harder to find that has a few differences, mainly in regards to the number of ways to get points (so competition for the islands is probably a little fiercer in this one). [I own the older versions of both Lowenherz and Entdecker.]

Big City: This is a game in the same series of games and from the same publisher as the older versions of Lowenherz and Entdecker, and is the closest board game equivalent to the old PC game SimCity. It's very hard to find (I got mine on eBay) and pretty expensive (I used a $50 eBay gift card from our wedding), but it's really worth it because it's so unique and the pieces and such are so cool (you get tons of 3-d plastic buildings that represent the different things you can build). You'll be building houses, businesses, banks, post offices, cinemas, city hall, factories, parks, shopping centers, churches, and streetcar lines, all of which have different prerequisites, different point values, and different methods for building. The real fun comes from the fact that you're all building together in just one city, and many of the higher-point buildings have requirements for other buildings that must be built first... so every time you try to set yourself up for a big-point play later, you're also necessarily setting someone else up for the same thing.

Ticket to Ride and Carcassonne: These are both much more readily available (you can actually find these in many American bookstores / gamestores and such, instead of having to resort to etailers and eBay), so I should definitely mention them to you. I probably enjoy Settlers a little more than either of these, actually, but they are both very good, too. Ticket To Ride is a game about building railroads across the country to connect certain pairs of destination cities, but everyone keeps secret which cities they're trying to connect, so you have to guess where everyone else is going so that you can either block them or find a way around them. It uses a rummy-like way of playing cards to actually build your train tracks on the board, so the game feels familiar and inviting to anyone who's played a few games of rummy. Carcassonne is a game about building up a medieval countryside (in Carcassonne, France) and laying claim to the roads, cities, monasteries, and farms that you piece together. It has a lot of jigsaw-puzzle qualities to it and is a fairly peaceful game (if you want it to be, although you can also play it very very mean) which makes everyone feel good as they enjoy the pastoral landscape.

You can find these and many many more at BoardGameGeek, the definitive website for all things boardgame-related. The link I gave you sorts every board game listed in the website's database by the rating given to it by the thousands upon thousands of users on the site. It's a fairly reliable way of finding good games in the German-style genre of board games.