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Del listado de juegos que mis GB me recomiendan, sobresale uno que pronto será re-editado por Z-man: Neuland. Link: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/12681

La efusión con la cual algunos lo describen ha picaneado mi interés y probablemente será mi próxima adquisición (abril 2008 sería la fecha de la reedición).

Tiene un parecido a Industria, Agrícola, Phoenicia: hay que edificar, obtener productos, construir. Quien coloca sus limitados escudos de armas en más construcciones, gana.
Sin embargo, esto que suena bastante común, está hecho de tal manera que se traduce en un juego muy cerebral.

Lo que dicen mis Geekbuddies:

Analysis for Neuland Average Rating: 7.94

User	Rating	Own/Want/Trade	Comment
Nick Case (Big Bad Lex)	9	Own: No Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	You read the rules and there seems nothing there. You sit down to play and it all seems a bit of a mess, and then all of a sudden you have this OMYGOD! moment and you realise that you are sitting with a masterpiece. A truly awesome game of plotting, placement, blocking and timing. What took the reprint so long to arrive? Bring on the next game.
J C Lawrence (clearclaw)	9	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	Excellently brain melty. The decision tree is unusually bushy unusually quickly, and with four players this can make the game feel very tactical. However familiarity with the game and the dependency relationships does a lot to swing the balance back the other way. I suspect that three players may ultimately be the sweet spot with two players also being very good. This is not to say that the four player isn't very good, just that it may be better for more experienced players and thus not be the best introductory player count. There's also minor concern with four players that the VP allocations may be so lumpy as to make the end game less interesting. Update: Wonderful with three, suffers lockup problems with four without expert players, two players can degrade without care.
Morgan Dontanville (sisteray)	8	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	This is a pretty crazy perfect information game. You have to juggle action after action, turn after turn; keeping everything in motion without wasting turns and without idling -- because if you stall, or you get half of what you need too quickly everything falls apart and your workers walk off the job. The whole thing feels like you are spinning plates. You have to keep nudging all of your pieces around in order to keep them afloat and in progress. Brilliant, but it really is a crazy work intensive puzzler. Perhaps this will be too much work for some, but I quite enjoy it. Those that enjoy efficiency and deliberation, but don't want to spend hours on Roads and Boats will get a kick out of this; it crams R&B into a 120-150 min game. Because this is a perfect information game, it can "suffer" from someone giving up and clogging the game up for others, resulting in somthing of a kingmaker situation. I don't see this as a problem, but it should be made aware that this is possible, and frankly just not a whole lot of fun for anyone. Overall though, quite a meaty mistress. She ain't a beaut, but she gets the job done.
Ivan Hanley (Ivan)	8	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	One of my favourite games of this year. Somewhat long and cutthroat and best played with three.
Larry Chong (Larry Chong)	8	Own: No Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	A deep-thinking, formulaic game with solving linear building progressions. Be opportunistic with turn order mgt. and not overbuild as certain tiles are limited in supply. The turn sequence mechanic is fascinating to me...
John Squires (modboy)	7.5	Own: No Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	Kinda hurts the brain a bit. It's a race to build technologies but it really requires analysis because to earn the technology their are a ton of steps to take and players can try to lock you out of some of those opportunities which could potentially be extremely costly. Quite the puzzle. I enjoyed playing but this is one of those once or twice a year games. Must say the turn-order / action point mechanism was the second best mechanic of the year right behind the brilliant rondelle in Antike.
Valerie Putman (statonv)	7	Own: No Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	No comments
Dan Rosewater (Goodsound)	7	Own: No Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	Rather abstract game but with interesting mechanics (action points spending related with turn order). The game rewards planning and blocking facilities for your next turn. The artwork is not exciting; rather its opposite but functional enough. I prefer this game as a two player game (more duel less down time as you have to consider many factors; prone to A/P).

Parece que no tiene el mismo sentido de otros juegos que usan el sistema de puntos de acción (que no me atraen mucho): la cantidad de acciones a realizar sirve para determinar el orden de juego.

El jugador puede hacer varias cosas en su turno: producir x bien, construir, producir de nuevo otro tipo de bien, construir (varias acciones, no puntos de acción o puntos de movimiento). Si ejecuta menos acciones, probablemente le tocará un nuevo turno antes que el resto (al igual que en TEBAS).

Un turno de ejemplo, que aparece al final de las reglas, aclara el sentido:

Para la primera edición había este ejemplo: Si el jugador verde realiza 4 cosas, queda detrás del rojo, y le toca de nuevo.
Ahora el marcador de tiempo alcanza al jugador mas retrasado.

En un reporte de sesión, JC Lawrence (uno de mis GB preferidos), expuso:

Four player game: Dave, Chad, Christopher, JCL (me).

Having just gotten in Neuland from SpieleGuild we were excited to
get it onto the table. It had missed the table the week before in
favour of another Essen release: Reef Encounter. I was particularly
interested in Neuland given the many descriptions as being
Roads&Boats-Lite.

Rules explanation took the better part of 20 minutes. Neuland's
rules aren't particularly complex -- it is actually a rather simple
game rules-wise -- but like many heavy games, while the rules may be
simple, using them to play the game well seems anything but.

ObPeeve: There was minor difficulty in getting the recommended
starting board setup. The hex tiles in the game are in various
shades of green and gray and the illustrative picture in the rules
is monochrome and lacks a key to indicate, for instance, whether
the light gray tiles in the picture are supposed to be gray or
light green, or the mid-gray tiles should be gray or light green.
Some tile counting and comparison resolved the question (light
gray in the picture is light green in the game tiles).

And we were off! Chad won starting player and started off in the
east quickly building two mines and using only the minimum actions
for it. Christopher started in the south and built a quarry and
then a smelter. I went for the north west and built a charcoal
burner and a mine, along with getting production markers on them and
everywhere else I could afford ("get while the getting is good!").
Dave went for another mine and quarry. And then the first round was
over and the clever turn track mechanism was about to start...and we
suddenly realised that just like in Roads&Boats, nobody owns
anything in the game except their production markers (transports in
R&B). Buildings are free for anyone to use just so long as there
isn't a production marker on them. As such board position is very
fluid and transitional. Production markers are really just
temporary investment markers.

And the brain melting began and didn't stop.

Early turns were slow, long, and tentative, often running for 10
minutes or so per player. Many times we had players do long
sequences of actions and then say, "Ooops, no, that's not what I
want to do, undo!", roll back a whole bunch of actions or even their
entire turn so far and then try a different tack, which they'd then
rollback, try something else again etc before eventually settling on
a final move. While normally this sort of tentative and analysis
heavy (and discussion heavy) play style would be a huge problem, in
this case due to the weight of the game and our shared inexperience
it turned out to be a great feature in helping us learn how to play
effectively. We all watched, made observations, corrected each
other's moves, and learned together. By the time the late game
approached moves were faster and shorter, often done in a minute or
so. We still had some tentative exploration going on, but we'd all
started to be comfortable with the base patterns of the game, had
some ideas of where the really stupid things to do where and how to
avoid them, and thus a lot of the early floundering had fallen out.

Some comments from the game:

"This is a great game!"

"Boy, we really suck at this."

"We're in a massive clue vacuum here. None of us know what we're
doing: we're in a Ross Perot field. Can you hear the great big
sucking sound?"

"My brain hurts." "You still have a brain?"

"Oh my god, I don't have enough actions!" "You can't get there
from here."

"Hey, at least I don't suck at this as badly as you do...I think!"

"I'm going to play this so much differently next time."

"I want to play again."

"Where did you get this from? I want a copy."

"You bastards, you blocked off all the quarries!" "Uhh huh..."

"You know, iron is pretty worthless." "You mean, except for all
those victory points?" "Oh yeah..."

"Lie down!" (Christopher at the start of every turn)

"Oh crap." "Yup."

"I guess I can't do that." "Well I wish you hadn't done that."
"Trade?"

Our most common mistake was forgetting to pay the stone or wood
needed to build a building. This became known as a "Chad" and was
something we all kept a careful eye on when it wasn't our turn. Our
next most common mistake was forgetting to count an action for
production when the resources had to be shipped in expensively,
something that I narrowly escaped having named after me.

Me: "I make a silver bar here with this coal from there and that
silver ore from over there with a transport cost of three..."

Others: "Plus one action for the production."

Me: "Oh yeah...so that's four."

And, in the end, Chad won, placing all his victory point markers one
step ahead of the rest of us via some very nice control of the turn
track. Total play time was about 210 minutes, 190 minutes minus the
rules explanation -- which wasn't bad considering the weight of the
game and that it was the first game for all of us.

All of us wanted to play again, soon.

Observations:

This is not a light or simple game. It is also a perfect
information game. Expect your first game to be like ours: much
more of an explorative learning session than a game. There is a
long learning curve. While we're ready to be surprised, none of
us expect to even start feeling comfortable and effective with the
game until at least our third or fourth game.

Mik Svellov's English rules are quite good but require careful
reading several times over. Many critical details didn't reveal
their actual significance and relation to other parts of the game
until the N'th time over.

Good player aids that show the resource, VP and production graphs
would help a lot. There are two that come with the game (why 2 in
a 4 player game?), but they're in German and but we didn't find
them particularly useful due to the language barrier and poor
layout.

Land is a limited resource and with the exception of mines,
there's a very small number of each building type. Transport
costs and control of free central land area end up featuring
significantly in the late mid-game and onward.

Play with players of similar skill/experience. Newbie players are
going to get mashed by more experienced players. There is a steep
learning curve and a large reward for getting further up the
curve.

The decision tree is unusually wide and very bushy. Unlike most
German games there aren't ~7 possible moves from which to select,
but hundreds followed by yet more hundreds, and pruning the
decision tree just isn't that obvious early on. This, combined
with an action point system could lead to serious AP problems if
your group is sensitive to them.

Neuland seems well suited to an online version.

At times the game seemed VERY tactical due to the board changing
so much between turns. My impression is that this was more of an
apparency than a fact, and was due to our inexperience. Adaptive
long term strategies (if that makes sense) seem the order of the
day.

The accelerating values of the VP buildings helps keep trailing
players in contention, especially if they control the turn
mechanism well. However this same feature can also make it hard
to tell who is ahead in the game: the guy with 6 VPs on the board,
or the guy with 1 VP who could produce another 8 VPs over the next
two turns if you don't stop him?

Control and manipulation of the turn mechanism is critical. Be
willing to waste action points this turn in order to get them back
and then some due to the turn track mechanism.

Try and keep at least two different production channels in
progress in each turn. As such the base pattern seems to be to
try and finish one channel one turn, and setup the another channel
for the next turn.

Otro reporte de sesión, de Michael Longdin, es en verdad una reseña:

Neuland is a construction / resource production game set up on a abstract map of hexes (settlers style) representing fields, forests and mountains. On this players build different "buildings" (farms, lumberjack huts, mines, gold mints, abbeys, theatres etc) all of which either produce a raw material or turn that raw material into another product. Thus the Hunting Lodge produces food which can be used to feed the lumberjack in his hut who produces timber which can be used to build more buildings or to fuel the charcoal burner, which produces coal which can be used to fuel the smelter.... etc etc). The production tree is quite complex with the goods at the top of the tree being worth VP's. The player who first claims goods worth 9/12/18 VP's (depending on the number of players) wins. As there are only 36 available in total this can be quite tight and tense at the end.

Each turn a player has a maximum of 10 actions used to build and produce goods. Buildings are common to all players. That is, if you build a quarry then anyone can use that quarry. The only restriction on this is that if a building already has a good on it then it cannot be used. Thus it is possible to prevent others from using buildings albeit this is only temporary as you must use any left over goods on your next turn otherwise they are destroyed. There is a very clever little turn order track which means that the fewer action points you use then the more turns you will get. Clever manipulation of this can allow you to use in excess of 10 points before anyone else gets to go - quite powerful.

Understanding the production tree is key to doing well at the game. You need to plan ahead both to make sure you have all the goods you need to produce that final product to get you vp's and to ensure that you get there before your opponents. There is nothing worse than having spent a significant number of actions producing a sword only to find that there is nothing left to use it on.

We set off in our own little corners of the board but it soon became apparent that we were going to have to muscle in on other players turf in order to get all the resources we need. This meant that me and Grant were constantly ending our turns by producing food in all the remaining farms and hunting lodges to prevent anyone else from claiming them. This is fine but it is costly in terms of action points if you want to avoid waste. Alan was much more conservative in this manner and, as a result, ended up getting far more, smaller, turns then us two. Gradually the VP's got ticked off and the board became much more crowded which meant that we all had further to travel to produce the required goods - this too is much more expensive. Eventually there were two VP scoring products left and whoever got the first one would win the game. This required paper and with only two paper mills on the board I monopolised the output. However, I also needed coal so Alan and Grant shut me out of the coal producing buildings. Unfortunately for them this was much more difficult to sustain and they couldn't keep it up for as long as I could keep the paper hoarding up and in the end I was able to get the 2 vp's needed to win.
Michael - 12, Alan - 11, Grant - 10

I've seen Neuland described as 'Roads and Boats lite'. The comparison to R&B is obvious and well made as both games involve constructing 'buildings' which produce raw materials or turn those materials into other products via a reasonably complicated 'production' tree. What it isn't though is Roads & Boats lite. A light game this is not. If anything it is more intense than Roads & Boats which has a longer, more gradual ramp up of resources and where player interaction doesn't occur for a while (if at all). In Neuland, you can get to the top of the production chain fairly quickly and the limited space means that you are always competing for resources with the other players. One of the advantages of this is that the game plays much more quickly than R&B. I probably prefer the earlier game with it's much less 'in your face' style but the game length makes Neuland more likely to get to the table. The sequence at the end was slightly worrisome and may cause the game to lock up but the rest of the features make it well worth playing - you need to be prepared to have your brains fried though! Rating 8.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/74152

Ver reporte en http://tinyurl.com/2h6p45

Analysis for Chinatown Average Rating: 7.32

User	Rating	Own/Want/Trade	Comment
Morgan Dontanville (sisteray)	10	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	Great trading game! Unlike other negotiation games, in that it is absolutely reliant on making the most deals rather than the best deals. Game isn't designed so much for the Big Score or the Swindle. The only fault is that it everyone wants to make one last deal, but people wanting to stretch out a game because they are so into it doesn't seem like it should be a strike against it. High potential for good fun. Play only with social people that want to make deals.
Bas Luyten (BaSL)	9.5	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	Lots of luck & math, but it's still (one of) our favorite game(s). Negotiation, negotiation & negotiation. >10 plays 08-2005 - 30 - Spielbrett, Basel CH
Larry Chong (Larry Chong)	9	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	An excellent, simple and elegant negotiation game. I'd recommend this for a light or mid-weight negotiation game with Traders of Genoa (also great) for a heavier negotiation game.
Greg Schloesser (gschloesser)	8.5	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	No comments
Tom Vasel (TomVasel)	8	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	The best negotiation game there is - period.
Nick Case (Big Bad Lex)	8	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	Simple mechanic but very nice feel and flow through the phases. There is an element of luck with the plot card distribution and business tile draw, but this is offset to a degree during the trading phase. Initial impressions are that I like it alot, but wonder if the rub of the luck might start to p*ss me off eventually.
Bill Skulley (BillSkulley)	8	Own: No Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	4 playings. There is certainly an amount of luck to the game, but because it is a negotiation/trading game you can sometimes wheel-and-deal (or fasttalk) yourself out of a hole.
Amy Wiles (amwiles)	8	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	Only played twice -- need to play again.
Jason Spears (spearjr)	8	Own: No Want: Yes Trade: No Wishlist: Yes	(Rating after only two plays.) Very cool neogatation game. Would love to play it more to have a better feel for what items are worth. Annoying that it is so expensive in the states. Hopefully the rumor I heard about a French company reprinting in 2007 comes true.
Jonathan Degann (Jonathan Degann)	7.5	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	No comments
Derk Solko (derk)	7	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	Decent little negotiation game. I prefer to play with closed tiles, and with the 'street access' rules.
Matthew Frederick (mfrederick)	7	Own: No Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	No comments
Alex Sorbello (lexen)	7	Own: No Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	one of the better negotiating games, but could take longer than wished for... maybe a timer would work great, make the deal or lose....
Scott Nicholson (snicholson)	7	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	Everything's Negotiable! While there's luck in what you draw, it comes down to your negotiating and deal-making skills that will help you do well in this game.
Paulo Soledade (Soledade)	7	Own: No Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	Maybe the best negotiation game I've ever played. Very clever mechanics.
Randall Peek (RandallPeek)	7	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	This game has dropped a point mostly due to comparison with later Alea titles which cover much of the same ground but with more depth and elegance. Traders of Genoa is now the definition of deal-maker's heaven, and this is the pretender to that title.
mark coomey (wizardless)	7	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	after first play this is my initial rating. I don't own many negotiation/trading games..perhaps the most popular is bohnanza. I also own Die Handler, and, although I believe to be a good game, doesn't stir up the fun factor and enthusiasm from other players while playing. Chinatown on the other hand had two things going for it. 1. The rounds, and game played quick, probably not far from an hour. We stuck rigourously to the 5 min deal-making time limit. 2. Everyone got 'into character' with this game. All adopting rather bad chinese accents in pray. This resulted in lotsa laughs, and additionally, fun. Obviously number 2 relies on the group a fair bit, but I think this is an excellant game and was worth shelling out the big money to get my hands on it, as it was recommended to me at the same time as die handler and instead I went for Die Handler, but I think this is the better game.
Chris Johnson (fnord23)	7	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	No comments
John Squires (modboy)	6.5	Own: No Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	The purest negotiation game I've played. If you like negotiation I highly recommend it as it's a great design. The play is straight-forward but you'll need to use your guile and get into as many (profitable) deals as possible in order to win.
Malachi Brown (Malachi)	6	Own: No Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	Eh, it's okay for the type of game that it is. Based on 1 play with 5 players.
Ivan Hanley (Ivan)	5	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	Fun light negotiation game with plenty going on. It does seem to end somewhat abruptly though.
Michael Webb (CortexBomb)	3	Own: No Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	Things I like: This appears to be well-balanced. Things I worry about: too much open information and the personality of the group you're playing it with. I played it with a group of 5 people, only one of whom I really knew well, and it made negotiation a bit...odd. I think my lack of experience also contributed. I also think the luck of the draw, though fixable by dealing, can be a little too generous in some circumstances. Chinatown felt like a math puzzle at some level to me. The game should be fun for its free-wheeling haggleathons, but everything ended up feeling like a math puzzle to me. The "I've got what you need and refuse to deal with you" aspect is also a large one for me, if someone is in the lead and you're in second, and they draw the last tile you need there is no way to get it away from them. The real killer though is the nigh completely open information, it is way too easy to calculate the value of a given trade out, and hence, negotiations frequently end up stalling out. The only place you can get ahead against savvy opponents is in the draw, which isn't exactly a mark of distinction for me. One of the alea disappointments. If you're looking for a negotiation game I highly recommend either Traders of Genoa or Die Haendler over this...

Clans es un juego de movimiento de piezas (para algunos, hecho que lo hace caer en el lado de los abstractos), de Leo Colovini, mismo autor del muy buen juego Los Puentes de Shangri-La. Publicado por Venice connetion y Rio Grande Games.

Es para 2-4 jugadores y de una duración de 30 minutos o menos. Es un juego táctico de una duración como la de China, pero con más elementos a considerar y de uso  más intenso de neuronas.

• Sitio del juego en BGG.
• Más sitios, en inglés y castellano, que hablan de Clans.
  
• Reglas en castellano.
• Para bajar al computador, tras terminar de cargarse el video, click en el icono inferior derecho.

Ojo:es un juego de reglas sencillas, pero que se disfruta más tras varias partidas, cuando se empieza a dilucidar cómo armar la situación para puntuar más eficientemente y a ocultar el Clan para el cual se está trabajando.

Tras varios meses de espera desde que lo adquiriera en noviembre de 2007, y tras haber pasado por el muy juego de Phoenicia durante un mes y medio, le tocó el turno a cuba. En verdad la intención era empezar este mes con Die Händler, un diabólico juego de subastas y negociaciones, para hacer un contrapunto con Phoenicia que tenía rasgos mas parecidos a Cuba, pero con la incorporación de un quinto jugador, en este caso, jugadora, hubimos de hacer un enroque.

Esta partida se realizó el jueves 7 de febrero de 2008, a las 20:30 horas. Los contertulios se retiraron pasadas las 11,30 horas.

Este juego era nuevo para todos; yo al menos conocía las reglas, así que me tomé un tiempo de aproximadamente media hora para explicarlas.

A cada jugador se le repartió lo siguiente:

• Ayuda memoria con personajes.
• Ayuda memoria con Fases del juego y otros datos.
• Ayuda memoria con Edificios.
• Ayuda memoria con las leyes.

• Marcela (nuevo en esto de los eurogames: en la semana previa ya había conocido el Taluva, Union Pacific, Toma 6, You're bluffing).
• César
• Francisco
• Gonzalo
• Yo

En el transcurso del juego lo que produjo un cierto análisis-parálisis, entendible al ser nuestra primera partida, fue la elección del edificio a comprar y su posterior colocación en el tablero individual. Todos entendieron que debe hacerse con un sentido de planificación, pensando en los recursos que se necesitarán para los edificios futuros. Y ahí había que esperar, nuevamente, que revisara sus futuras adquisiciones y sus exigencias, para determinar dónde se ubicaría el edificio recién comprado....tic, tac, tic, tac...

La etapa de Parlamento fue bastante expedita, haciendo que la fase de ejecución de las leyes se hiciera en orden de jugador y no de ley. Así, el de inicio de ronda veía si cumplía las dos primeras leyes para llevarse los $5, luego el mismo jugador y su cumplimiento de las leyes III y  IV. A continuación el jugador de su izquierda, y así sucesivamente. En verdad en la primera ronda lo habíamos hecho en orden de ley, pero nos percatamos del enredo a la hora de recordar si un jugador había cumplido la 1ª o no para los efectos del bono de $1, si además cumplía la 2ª.

En esta primera partida advertí que el personaje menos utilizado fue el de la Vendedora; el más usado, el Trabajador. El Alcalde naturalmente no era usado por los jugadores todas las rondas, porque no siempre había qué embarcar y porque, a veces, había que esperar al barco que daba los 3 puntos (con la preocupación de espera que otro no se adelantara y embarcara por menos puntos)

El cambio de un cubo azul por la posibilidad de recibir el 3º producto fue poco usada, aunque todos estaban conscientes de su existencia.

La modalidad de que cada participante recibiera un hoja con los Edificios, con un lápiz de grafito para ir anotando quién adquiría y qué, fue bastante útil. No se provocó una demora en la búsqueda de edificios disponibles. Todos lo veían en su hoja. Creo que incluso esta idea es mejorable en un sentido: le voy a poner un número a cada edificio, rayando la ficha, para ordenarlos de forma ascendente, de tal manera de hacer más rápida su ubicación dentro de las pilas. La idea es no tener que desplegar todos los edificios en la mesa, sino que hacer 2 o 3 pilas con numeración ascendente.

Creo que tras esta primera partida, la única ayuda que permanecerá a la mano de los jugadores, aparte de esta de los edificios, será la de las fases...por un tiempo, para no obviar nada. Las leyes y los personajes ya no serán necesarios, porque ya están suficientemente aprendidos y asimilados (respecto de las leyes, al menos para tener una idea de lo que producen).

Naturalmente en una primera partida, con esa cantidad de edificios, que van acompañados de exigencias previas y ventajas futuras, la demora en la decisión de compra fue importante, aunque no llegó a nivel de desagrado generalizado. Sin embargo, a mitad de la partida ya algunos se quejaban de malas decisiones.

Es mas, personalmente, con el apuro de darle fluidez al juego, al escoger los 2 productos y los 2 recursos iniciales que el juego entrega gratis a los jugadores, lo hice sin pensar en mis necesidades futuras,  especialmente en relación con los cilindros, al no tomar en cuenta algo básico, como son el que sean coincidentes con los requerimiento de los los barcos que estaban en el puerto. Escogí dos de caña de azúcar, sin ver que los barcos que transportaban ese tipo de productos, estaban recién en el puerto de 1 punto. Muy atarantado!.

Algunas estrategias,o atisbos de estrategía, usadas en esta partida:

Marcela con su Rum Café transformó durante la partida 2 o 3 botellas de ron en 2 puntos cada una. Pero pronto se dio cuenta que era un poco caro obtenerlas porque se agotaron en el mercado, haciendo que su precio fuera de $7, es decir, mucho. Luego usó el dique para obtener cubos azules y a través de leyes de subsidio, transformarlos en puntos (una ley de esas duró 2-3 rondas). Además, usó mucho las facultades secundarias de algunos personajes, como el arquitecto, que le daba 2 puntos; sin embargo, me dio la impresión que lo hizo cuando había que pelear por determinados edificios (estoy hablando del principio del juego, donde no hay que dar ventaja alguna a la hora de elegir el edificio del plan propio).
Dado su carácter de novata en estas lides, dio la impresión de no tener un plan claro, aunque quedó con muchas ganas para la revancha.

César, hombre ducho en estos avatares, a través del Banco grande siempre tuvo dinero para todo, especialmente para cumplir las leyes y gastar un par de pesos en la coima. Al mismo tiempo, aprovechó la existencia de algunos productos baratos en el mercado, que luego pudo embarcar. Por otro lado, al tener 5 casillas de recursos sin edificar, durante un par de rondas pudo cumplir las leyes I y II y la de subsidio por tener tales espacios, por lo que obtenía 10 puntos cada vez. Aspectaba bastante bien para el tramo final del juego, pero se culpaba de cometer el error de no embarcar una caña de azúcar, olvidando que yo podía hacerlo con mi Sucursal Grande, al ejecutar el Foreman sin esperar el Mayor.

 La llegada final fue estrecha, atropellando Francisco y Gonzalo con embarques jugosos.

• Francisco 61 puntos,
• Gonzalo y yo 57 puntos
• César 56 puntos
  
• Marcela 40 puntos

No pudiendo dar un veredicto definitivo, al menos puedo adelantar algunas sensaciones.
Lo primero que viene a la cabeza es Puerto Rico, aunque con evidentes variaciones. Los edificios se construyen a la Caylus, con recursos y no con dinero. A diferencia de Caylus, sólo sirven al jugador que lo construyó.
Lo otro que recuerda al PR es el embarco de mercancías y la lucha por ocupar los espacios que queden.
También recuerda a PR el uso de Cartas de Personajes, claro que ahora es para uso exclusivo del respectivo jugador.

En fin, diría que el tema está mejor adaptado a la mecánica que en PR y Caylus.
Por otro lado, diría que su nivel de dificultad es similar a esos dos juegos, con un factor suerte dado por las nuevas leyes y los nuevos barcos que llegan a la isla, y un cierto grado de aleatoriedad en la puja a ciegas para coimear en pos de los votos.
Se sospecha la existencia de varias estrategias posibles, aunque por el ahora siento que el embarque ha tenido prioridad.
Sin embargo, todo lo dicho puede cambiar en partidas sucesivas (esperamos completar la quina). Por ende, ya veremos cómo evoluciona.
Por el momento, todos quedamos más que conformes con el juego, que fue muy fluido, con una secuencia muy lógica que no costó ni costará recordar, por lo que con todos estos ingredientes, estimo que resistirá perfectamente nuestro sistema de jugarlo 5 veces en semanas consecutivas, antes de pasar a otro.

Bueno, por fin pudimos jugar esta partida, el 23 de enero, sin errores de reglamento. César, Francisco, Gonzalo y yo en cabaña de Francisco.

No voy a entrar en demasiados detalles. Sólo diré que enfrenté el juego con la idea de no caer en un espiral de sobreprecio pro alguna tarjeta y jugar más tácticamente. Desde luego, no podía caer en, según mi opinión, error de adquirir el Fort en las dos primeras rondas.

Efectivamente Gonzalo  en la 2ª y luego César en ea 3ª adquirieron sendos Fort, lo que los limitó bastante en sus ingresos, porque si bien da una buena cantidad de trabajadores, por su costo hace que produzca iliquidez por 1-2 rondas.

Otra conclusión: con la mayor liquidez que yo tenía, pude adquirir algunas Cartas de Desarrollo que tenían descuentos en su adquisición si previamente se tenía otra carta. Yo no tenía esa carta previa, por la cual se disputaron otros jugadores, pero igual pude ofertar una cifra insuperable. O sea, una cosa compensa la otra. Ahorro dinero en la subasta de la carta que da descuento y con eso logro tener el dinero para adquirir una carta de muchos puntos, sin descuento.

Por otro lado, amén de no haber errores de reglas, la tensión en cada subasta era evidente.

Cuando los jugadores ya saben perfectamente el uso de las cartas; cuando los jugadores ya han visto lo que algunas combinaciones provocan, es cuando se saca mas partido al juego (vaya novedad; pero en este caso, el aprendizaje es un poco mas largo, por lo que hay que recalcarlo para no perder la paciencia). Porque no es un juego que encante por la vista, ya que el tema cada vez se va perdiendo más en la concentración que hay que tener en el monto a subastar y los efectos de cada Carta de Desarrollo. No se trata de saber solamente lo que rinde cada Carta de Desarrollo y cada tarjetón de fábrica, sino saber lo que rinde considerando un factor cambiante en cada partida: el precio pagado.

Entonces, no es como Puerto Rico donde se puede saber bastante bien la utilidad de cada edificio y su costo (que es fijo). Acá hay que llegar a conocer eso, con la experiencia de más partidas en el cuerpo, pero también hay que calcular el precio máximo a pagar en la subasta, según cada situación (costo variable según dinámica de esa partida en particular). Es una ecuación con mas elementos, lo que lo hace mas difícil.

A estas alturas, cada jugador subastada y pujaba calculando exactamente cuánto dinero tendría el otro en esos momentos. Claro, las monedas eran de público conocimiento, pero no así las cartas, cada una de las cuales podía representar desde un 4 a un 6. Ahí es donde también cada uno tomaba riesgos (y he ahí la utilidad de que las cartas de dinero, llamadas de producción en el juego), sean variables. Ese nivel de incertidumbre hacía más entretenido el tema del precio mínimo de subasta o hasta cuanto pujar, según el cálculo, conservador o arriesgado que cada uno hacía de la mano de los demás.

Cabe agregar una nota sobre el tiempo de duración de una partida, con cuatro jugadores. Al principio, con explicaciones y todo, me parece que estuvimos 3 horas con el juego. Ahora, tras nuestra 5ª partida, no superamos los 90 minutos.

Las subastas son cada vez mas tensionantes, pero no entre todos los jugadores. De los 4, normalmente eran dos los que peleaban una Carta de Desarrollo. Luego, la parte administrativa del poblado de cada jugador, era bastante expedita.

Además, la burocracia de fin de cada ronda, duraría a lo sumo un minuto.

EN SINTESIS: un juego difícil de "agarrar" al principio -sigue siendo un tanto árido-, pero curiosamente morigerado por la interacción que dan las subastas y la exquisita sensación que otorga el hecho de ir cada vez compenetrándose mas con las posibilidades que otorga.

Hemos terminado con nuestra 5ª partida, con enseñanzas comunes de qué es lo que no se debe hacer, mas que en tener UNA estrategia o combinación táctica de cartas, ganadora. Eso está muy bien.

Sin embargo, como dijo uno de los miembros de nuestro grupo, ya estaba un poco estresado con este juego, por el nivel de cálculo que debía estar realizando. De hecho, César, el jugador más ganador de nuestro grupo, perdió la última partida, "la que lo ganaba todo", y no lograba entender bien donde había estado su error (es de los jugadores cerebrales que analizan hasta el último detalle, comparado con mi acercamiento más intuitivo).

Otros comentarios finales de mis contertulios:

Francisco decía, a mitad del juego: no entiendo como ustedes me llevan tanta ventaja en puntos y dinero (comentario que ya le habíamos escuchado en partidas anteriores); y al final del mismo, se quejaba que hasta la fecha nunca pudo comprender bien una estrategia ganadora, como que le faltaba un tornillo a la máquina que tenía enfrente. Yo, habiendo tenido una caída muy fea en la partida anterior, tomé nota de ello y me repuse muy bien.

Esta partida la gané por un margen de alrededor de 10 puntos (llegué a los 34), seguido por Gonzalo, tercero César y finalmente Francisco.

Bueno Phoenicia, hasta la próxima!

En el Año del Dragón es mi última adquisición, decidida tras leer varios análisis favorables.
De 3-5 jugadores, donde tratan de sobreponerse a eventos futuros, casi todos negativos. El que logra rescatar mas puntos de victoria de esos desastres, gana.

Mis Geekbuddies le dan lo siguiente:

Analysis for In the Year of the Dragon Average Rating: 7.15

User	Rating	Own/Want/Trade	Comment
Alex Rockwell (Alexfrog)	8.5	Own: No Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	Played 4 times, very interesting, I want to play it more. I love the turn order mechanic.
Valerie Putman (statonv)	8	Own: No Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	No comments
John Brier (verandi)	8	Own: No Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: Yes	This is a really solid game, and my only misgiving is whether there are certain dominant moves or strategies that render the spectrum of viable approaches an illusion. Despite some niggling suspicions I look forward to playing this more to disprove them, and if indeed there is no "optimal" strategy, then I can see this in my top 10. Why? Well it is very stress-inducing which is right up my alley, plus I really like the interplay of the initiative track with the abilities of the characters. This is a refreshingly different take on some of the principles behind Notre Dame (unsurprisingly, as they share the same designer)
Matthew M. Monin (Octavian)	8	Own: No Want: Yes Trade: No Wishlist: Yes	A big balancing act where you need to pick your poisons and hope they don't end up hurting you too much. The game feels restrictive, and that certainly drives a lot of the angst. Time will tell if it ends up hurting the game in the long run. I have a suspicion five players will be too many. I don't anticipate this going up from 8.
Paolo Ciardulli (oceano)	8	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	No comments
Morgan Dontanville (sisteray)	7	Own: No Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	It is a solid action drafting game (players chose one at a time from the available actions). The problem is that I'm on the verge of saturation when it comes to action drafting. After El Grande came out, everyone was trying to use its Area Control system. Now that Area Control is played out everyone has looked back to El Grande for more things to take, with Caylus it was action drafting. Because Caylus was so successful, it seems that everyone is using it now. Agricola is heavily steeped in it, but it also is running on the other hot design mechanic the Engine System. With In the Year of the Dragon, it is all drafting and action drafting. It works well, and because the game beats you up so much it is engaging, but come on, can we give action drafting a rest. About the game itself, well, it is annoying that at a certain point in the game (halfway?) some players will be well aware that there will be no way for them to win. I don't mind it in some games, but here this game is all about point accumulation. It is so abstract that I can't just focus on some element of your game for fun and just hope to place as best as I can. Certainly experience will yield the best success, but that makes me wonder how balanced it is... I don't know, its fine. What isn't fine is the graphic design of the board. I'm not sure why there even is a board. I guess it is supposed to be a carpet? If just looks like someone printed out orange on a sheet of paper only to discover it isn't water resistant ink when they spilled their Mountain Dew on it. It looks like it was produced straight from the prototype. Ugly and uninspired. I wish they would have put a beautiful Chinese landscape on it. Maybe, have the scoreboard be the Great Wall? Perhaps the whole thing as a top view of the Forbidden City? Blech.
Michael Webb (CortexBomb)	7	Own: No Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	Im Jahr des Drachen is the newest alea game, so of course it had to be on my play list. Stefan Feld is apparently alea's in-house designer as of late, and I enjoy both of his previous games, Und Ru(h)m und Ehre and Notre Dame. I think Im Jahr is the best of his alea series to date though. Im Jahr is a game of adversity. At the most baseline level, you're trying to build buildings, get people to put in them, and keep everyone alive. This is made difficult in various ways by the Cossacks (Mongols actually, but the swords look Cossack-like), the plague, droughts (with damage prevented by coarse-ground cocaine tacos), and the incredibly deadly king/emperor/ruler type of your choice (who will kill many more people than the Cossacks if you fail to grovel adequately). Each round is based on two major halves. The first half, each player can select an action from a menu of X where X is equal to the number of players. Multiple people can select the same action, but they have to pony 3 bucks if someone else is already there. The actions each give you things like victory points, or chips that generate victory points, or chips which help you to avoid unpleasant events. The second part of the game involves drafting personality tiles off the board. These tiles allow the actions you take in the first half of each round to be more efficient. They also give you points on the sub-track, which determines player order, and which tends to be very important if you aren't rolling in the cash. After that, an event occurs, most of which are negative, and most of which involve losing people if you can't fend it off. The events are all laid out at the start of the game, so you can see what is coming, and everyone is likely to be dinged by something at some point in time. The end game scoring is the usual alea mish-mash with a tonne of things generating VPs, i.e.: the buildings you have put up, the number of people you have, points you've accrued throughout the game for having buildings, points you've accrued throughout the game for having bonus point scrolls, &c. I think this game fits together well, and I enjoy the tough choices and the ability to look ahead at the events and craft a game length strategy. In some senses, people have been comparing it to Notre Dame in that it is a game where it is nice to have strong infrastructures in place so that one can take actions with increased efficiency and get a bigger return, but it's impossible to do everything well, and the order the events come out in seems like it will dictate some strategic choices. My only real reservation about this game is my feeling that with a cash heavy infrastructure (i.e.: a couple of the coin-makers) you can almost ignore what the other players are doing. The only real interaction in the game is based on the battle for scarce actions, which is the major angst in the first half of the round, and also partially dictates person tile choice in the second. Cash allows you to effectively buy the action you want for 3, and to take the person tiles you want without paying much attention to the turn order sub-track. Not every game will make cash a sound choice, so this is a niggle, but so it goes. I like the game though, and I would like to play it some more to form a more solid opinion on it. This might have a hard ceiling on it where players can craft certain strategies for certain event sequences (i.e.: when this event occurs early do this...&c.) but that's complete speculation on my part. At this point, I enjoy, would be willing to play it anytime, but don't need to own it. 7 for starters.
Bas Luyten (BaSL)	6	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	Hm. It works, but I'm missing the fun. 1 Play with 3, 2 solitaire. 3 plays. 10-2007 - 23 - Spiel Essen
Larry Chong (Larry Chong)	6	Own: No Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	It might be me but playing this with 5 players is a really tough game of "pain management". Interestingly, it doesn't scale (from number of tiles) with different number of players.
Scott Nicholson (snicholson)	5	Own: No Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	While there wasn't anything wrong with the game, it was dull. I didn't feel like I had any new experiences with the game, as we've seen most of this before. It was mainly a game of damage control - how to block or deal with pain, and I really don't enjoy that type of pounding-on-your-head game.
Paulo Soledade (Soledade)	0	Own: No Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	It isn't better than Notre Dame. In fact I think I don't like this game at all but I have to play it again just to make sure. I felt that the game was playing me and not the opposite. Everything seems to be about damage control.

Miércoles 16 de enero de 2008
Mi depto.
Gonzalo, Francisco, César, yo.
Tras unos ricos panqueques rellenos de carne y pollo, a la crema, empezó la función.

Tras la partida anterior nos percatamos que estábamos sub-utilizando el tarjetón Victory Point Purchase, que se obtiene con la Carta de Desarrollo City Center.
En efecto, pensábamos que ese tarjetón requería la llegada de un trabajador para producir los puntos, en circunstancias que bastaba poner un disco blanco de la fuente general.

Así que en esta cuarta partida, ya se avizoraba un uso mejor de esa herramienta.

En la primera ronda fui el Overlord, por sorteo, así que empecé sacando Cartas de Desarrollo para subasta. No recuerdo qué se llevó cada cual, pero me quedé con la muy interesante Dyer, que en combo de 2 es más que buena para luego adquirir las Dye House, que dan 3 puntos de victoria y aumento de 3 en el nivel de ingresos.

Hasta ahí, todo bien.

Segunda ronda: salió la segunda Dyer y yo sí tenía dinero para adjudicármela. Como era el Overlord de nuevo (ya que tenía mas puntos que los demás), saqué a subasta el Fort, que otorgaba 3 trabajadores no capacitados. Esta se había demostrado una tarjeta muy codiciada en anteriores juegos, porque permite tener mano de obra que luego puede ser enviada a las distintas fábricas.
Sin embargo, su costo es bastante elevado, $7. La saqué a subasta con la oculta finalidad que otro jugador se la adjudicara y yo, de esa forma, quedara con un contendor menos para la subasta de la que realmente me interesaba, la ya mencionada Dyer.
Lamentablemente no me percaté (error) que los demás no tendrían los $8 para subir a partir del precio mínimo de $7 que me vi obligado a poner. Así que me la adjudiqué. Bueno, pensé, la Carta no es mala, solo que cambia mis planes.
La verdad es que resultó ser pésima, porque es una carta que para el principio del juego no aporta nada, ya que no se necesitan tantos trabajadores; además, es cara y no aumenta la producción de mi poblado (léase, no me genera ingresos).

Con esa acción tuve que lidiar con la falta de dinero por dos o tres rondas, mientras los demás, particularmente César y Gonzalo, se escapaban en su nivel de ingresos, lo que les permitió efectivamente pujar por otras cartas, mejorar nuevamente su nivel de ingresos y PV, y alejarse de mi irremediablemente. Cuando ya me recuperé, los demás me llevaban varios cuerpos de ventaja.

Así que, es verdad: en este juego, una decisión errada puede dejarte atrás en la carrera por mejorar tus ingresos por ronda y, por ende, en la posibilidad de adjudicarte Cartas de Desarrollo que den más ingresos o PV.

Avance rápido ----> Ya estamos en el tercio final. Yo, último, peleando con Francisco. Esa era mi meta: no tener que "arrear el lote". César, con una muy sólida base de 2 Shipyards, preparándose para las compras navideñas de fin de año...Gonzalo, no le iba en zaga en PV ni en ingresos, aunque su futuro no era tan promisorio.

City Center

En un momento, Francisco se había adjudicado el City Center, por lo que recibió el tarjetón de Victory Point Purchase (VPP), del que hablaba al inicio de este reporte. César comentó que no había que permitir que se adjudicara el segundo (el mismo luego se olvidaría de su augurio).

VPP

Pues bien, pasaron un par de rondas y siendo César el Overlord, sacó a subasta una Carta de Desarrollo y se la adjudicó, no subastando más, terminando su turno con las gestiones internas en su poblado. Pasó el turno a Gonzalo y sacó a remate la segunda y última carta de City Center. Alegaba que no podía defenderla, ante el reclamo de césar de que no podíamos permitir que Francisco se la adjudicara... Gonzalo y particularmente yo estábamos un tanto ilíquidos, como para ir a esa pelea.
Se la adjudicó Francisco, quien pudo voltear su tarjetón de VPP, con lo cual ya podía hacer 6 compras en vez de solo 3.
Y he aquí que se produjo la forma errada en que interpretamos las reglas (explicadas el inicio de esta partida con dicho error), porque no eran claras en el original en inglés. Se explicó que cada disco costaba $3, pero que el primero daba 1 punto, el segundo 2PV y así sucesivamente hasta el 6º, que daba 6 PV. En total, si el jugador con el VPP compraba todos los puntos, obtenía 21 PV.
Así que con esa interpretación en mano, Pancho se dedicó a juntar los $18 que le costaba comprar los 6 discos, lo que pudo hacer en dos rondas sucesivas, ante la impotencia de César y Gonzalo, sus mas cercanos seguidores (yo era un mero espectador de lo que pasaba delante). Y esta urgencia era a pesar de que el nivel de ingresos de Francisco era de tan solo 2 cartas de producción por vuelta (o sea, de $8 a $12, según la suerte de las cartas). Era lejos quien tenía el poblado menos productivo, aunque en puntos iba a la par conmigo.

Así que con repentinos 21 puntos, la partida se acabó llegando en primer lugar. En segundo lugar arribó Gonzalo, tercero César y yo quedé último, a distancia.

La partida debe haber durado unos 60 minutos efectivos, tras la configuración inicial. De hecho, a diferencia de partidas anteriores, no alcanzaron a salir las Cartas de Desarrollo que daban 7 y 8 PV.

El triunfo de Francisco fue legítimo, porque se aprovechó, mejor que los demás, de la errada interpretación de las reglas.

La actual traducción al castellano respecto de este punto, aclarada para evitar errores como éste, ahora dice:

En relación con el tarjetón Victory Point Purchase, el jugador activo puede comprar Puntos de Victoria ($3 cada compra, que da 1 punto cada vez), hasta el límite que muestra dicho tarjetón. Para ello se coloca un disco blanco, de izquierda a derecha, cada vez que se usa tal función (por lo que se puede realizar sólo hasta que haya disponibilidad, es decir, hasta ganar 3 puntos, o 6 puntos si se adquiere la carta que permite voltear este tarjetón). Este tarjetón no se vacía en momento alguno.

Comprado en 49 euros, con flete a Chile. Muy buen precio.
Es un juego que tenía en mi lista desde hace muuucho tiempo. Mis Geekbuddies me lo recomendaban mucho.
Reseña en castellano aquí.

Ver lo que dicen:

Analysis for Händler, Die Average Rating: 7.36

User	Rating	Own/Want/Trade	Comment
Alex Sorbello (lexen)	9.2	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	Auctioning the roles makes for a better game. A good game with excellent components. This game is not for the lovely good meaning folks. You've got to play and be able to receive a lot of nasty moves! the rating has gone up with every play, i just like it better and better!
Morgan Dontanville (sisteray)	9	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	Certainly one of the most sadly overlooked games in the cannon. What a blast. Easily one of the nastiest economic negotiation Euros this side of Intrige. Tons of laughs. I'm not sure how balanced this game is (which is why it gets a 9 rather than a 10), but the level of fun that I have overrules whatever I'd be concerned about while forced to eat my ass from a chafing dish. I'm not sure if it would work well with less than 4 players, but with 4 it is incredible. Good luck tracking this one down, it is a must in any collection.
Thi Nguyen (rorschah)	8.5	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	Savage game of manipulation, bluff, deceit, and outmaneuver. Crazy. I love this game.
Michael Webb (CortexBomb)	8	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	Negotiation Variant: Very interesting take on the negotiation genre by Kramer, and a game that hasn't gotten enough recognition to date, likely due to its German only status. Many tricky decisions to be made during each step of the game: what roles to run with at the beginning of the game, how to handle the loading of the carts (win outright and sell or try to finagle a good deal from someone else), whether to pursue the courier cards, usw, usw. Many interlocking mechanisms that take a bit of getting used to, but once you're there it's a very a enjoyable time, with haggling a plenty and much nastiness afoot (i.e.: players colluding to run wagons into a town that screws you, broken axle cards, players winning wagons just to shut you out of some earnings, etc, etc). I will say that there are some rules issues that need to be cleared up with the English rules at least, which detracted from the game, but I still am very happy with this title, and it's certainly the equal of my other negotiation favourite, the Traders of Genoa by Dorn. The fact that I am this enthusiastic about a game which features both blind bidding and the generally chaotic simultaneous choice mechanism (via the spinners to augment the value of goods) is very telling. The blind bidding works because an open auction, IMO, would wreck the tension that sometimes leads to a given player blowing over 1000 on the reins when they only needed to pitch out 400 for the privilege...it just adds that fun "I hope I'm guessing right about how much the other players are willing to pay" tension to the game. The simultaneous goods movement too seemed very understandable from my perspective...it was fairly obvious what everyone would want to increase (or roll over the top) so working with that in mind was generally pretty effective. I don't think those kinds of selections are very hard to contend with, so again, another mechanic that normally causes issues for me just wasn't one in this title. (My copy is pasted up with English)
Valerie Putman (statonv)	8	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	No comments
Nick Case (Big Bad Lex)	8	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	After first read through of rules I thought to myself this is a game where there could be considerable screwage. After first play I think I was right but play could easily be softer for those who prefer some cooperation and less confrontation. Considerable scope for bluff, blockage, calculation and absolute brutality. The price of failure to maintain your status could easily take you from first to last. I'm gauging that the game really needs the full compliment of 4 to shine, would lose its teeth with 3 and be a fairly lame exercise with 2. 8 score after first play, I really enjoyed this and expect the rating to rise with further plays. An absolute gem.
Ivan Hanley (Ivan)	8	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	No comments
Jonathan Degann (Jonathan Degann)	8	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	No comments
Randall Peek (RandallPeek)	8	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	No comments
Anthony Simons (fellonmyhead)	8	Own: No Want: Yes Trade: No Wishlist: Yes	A game which is definitely more about status than trading; and of course the importance of trade lies right there. I particularly like the negotiation element; negotiate well and you can have a place for your goods on the next wagon out of town, or get a decent price for transporting somebody else's. Negotiate poorly and your goods will stay put or nobody else pays to use your wagon. Best of all is the way faces turn ashen when, after banking on income from either loading or delivery, it doesn't come in and their status drops dramatically.
John Squires (modboy)	7.5	Own: No Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	I have a lot of respect for this game, it's got some great mechanism and one of the coolest pick up and delivery systems I've seen. However I wasn't too keen on the wagon negotiations and though I liked the idea of the price wheel there didn't seem to be enough control (or perhaps I just out-guessed myself? Also, strangely, each player is provided with different "powers". It's amazing it all works out. Depending on the group you play with this could be a very nasty game. Not recommended for newbies.
Richard Pardoe (RPardoe)	7	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	Like the combination of pick-up and logistics. Some nice touches in the game design also. The highest goods purchase price is less than the lowest goods sales price - so should always make money on a deal provided the transportation costs don't eat into that profit. I like the fact that upkeep and advancement gets more expensive as one moves up while the income tends to stay relatively constant - nice twist from the the usual "rich get richer" style of economic development. Game can appear chaotic with all the price changes and ability to move any wagon - but think this shows that players need to balance cooperation with competition in the game. While the rules look long and intimidating, the mechanics aren't that hard to understand - just step through the phases and the game will flow rather smoothly. Nice wooden bits also!
Ryan Johnson (Ryno8)	7	Own: No Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: Yes	No comments
mark coomey (wizardless)	7	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	after 1st game have a reserved feeling about the mechanics. somewhat chaotic & unpredictable. has only had the one play as well... 2nd play with 4 better. Would like to attempt the play without the standard role setup and utilise the auction method to obtain roles. Also think a set price variant for placing goods on the wagons may speed up play somewhat.
Larry Chong (Larry Chong)	6	Own: No Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	seems good or okay, but optimal number may be with 4 players only.
General Protection Fault (generalpf)	5	Own: No Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	Quite the mish-mash of mechanics. We've got open auction, negotiation, blind bidding, Simultaneous Action Selection, pick-up and delivery and a commodities market. I wouldn't mind it so much but the doublethink introduced by the commodity valuing phase killed it for me. There's no reason to do that anymore. I spent the better part of an hour coming up with numerous improvements for that system. Anyway, it's a unique design, but it's superceded by Traders of Genoa (the ne plus ultra of negotation games) in almost every regard. Give this one a pass.
Charles Féaux de la Croix (charlesf)	3	Own: No Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	[6/11/2006] Boring and flawed game.
Deleted User (Fawkes)	0	Own: No Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: Yes	Recommended by my Geekbuddies: 18 Ratings, 7.22 average
Dry sense of martini (Beowulf)	0	Own: Yes Want: No Trade: No Wishlist: No	Deutscher Spiele Preis 5th Place 1999