Lost Treasures of the Eurogames Reclamation Project

Kramer is great, even though he's responsible for ruining Eurogames with Princes of Florence.

Goldland is great. Big ol' Goldsieber box. Fun tile-laying adventure game where you have to have certain tools to overcome obstacles. I sold this for like $85 a couple of years ago. Of course, now I want it back. :-|

Java is REALLY good with a cool visual appeal of building terraces. More complex than Tikal, probably more abstract. Mexica I didn't play much but I remember liking it less than the other two. Building canals, controlling flow of water...that kind of thing. All expensive now *sob*

El Caballero is a game that I _hated_ when I first bought it. But I just kind of didn't get it. It's a very unique design. You play land tiles and then also these caballero cards that have values on each side of the square. You try to control the landmasses you find, and sometimes it winds up that your caballeros are influencing different areas because of how they have four effective sides. There's a _little_ El Grande in it, but it's really kind of a more cereberal game. Pretty abstract, very challenging.

I hate Citadels and think its a pretty overrated game. I really like Witches Brew though. I think it has more meaningful decisions. From selecting your hand at the start of the round to choosing what to play when and knowing when to So Be It to get partial benefit instead of risking nothing by trying to take the max benefit. As well as other things like what to buy. Citadels only has the illusion of choice. You either get gold or build to get to 8 first, which almost always means you'll win. You can select characters randomly each round and still win since nobody can deduce what you chose

Gosh, I remember when Citadels came out (Ohne Furcht und Tadel), people were flipping out over it. I bought it and the people I was playing with HATED it. I didn't really think much of it either. It wasn't until some years later that I played again with the small box FFG version that I came around to it...and it was mainly because it was the perfect end-of-night closer. It's really good for when you just want to play something simple and easy with a couple of dramatic moments here and there. It's always very anticlimactic though, I've never liked how you actually win that game. I like it, still own it, but it's one that really only comes out when we have a full group and have time at the end.

Mission Red Planet is really a better implementation of the core mechanic. Will be getting the reprint of that.

Michael Barnes wrote: Kramer is great, even though he's responsible for ruining Eurogames with Princes of Florence.

Goldland is great. Big ol' Goldsieber box. Fun tile-laying adventure game where you have to have certain tools to overcome obstacles. I sold this for like $85 a couple of years ago. Of course, now I want it back. :-|

Java is REALLY good with a cool visual appeal of building terraces. More complex than Tikal, probably more abstract. Mexica I didn't play much but I remember liking it less than the other two. Building canals, controlling flow of water...that kind of thing. All expensive now *sob*

El Caballero is a game that I _hated_ when I first bought it. But I just kind of didn't get it. It's a very unique design. You play land tiles and then also these caballero cards that have values on each side of the square. You try to control the landmasses you find, and sometimes it winds up that your caballeros are influencing different areas because of how they have four effective sides. There's a _little_ El Grande in it, but it's really kind of a more cereberal game. Pretty abstract, very challenging.

El Caballero is dirt cheap on the webbe, so I'm going to pull the trigger on it first. Even if visually and thematically it reminds me of another game I inexplicably still own and don't particularly like (Entdecker).

Java looks so cool, but it's about an $80-90 investment. Goldland's a little cheaper.

Michael Barnes wrote: As well as some of those other pre-Catan Teuber games. I really want Die Fliegen Hollander and Drunter & Druber.

I sold Drunter & Druber a while back, since I felt it didn't really have enough meat on it, but for families I'd totally suggest it. It's been reprinted, too, in English, as "Wacky Wacky West" or something. If you liked Heimlich & Co., I'd say it's a more fun version of that. Really fun theme! I'd be sad if they changed the buildings in the new version; I loved the silly reasons for each of the different buildings in the German version. And "Ja! Jaa! JAAAAAA!" and "JEEIIN!" has got to be better than whatever the English translation is. We got a real kick, added enjoyment, out of Adel, Drunter, and Wildlife Adventure being in German back in the day. If you do find a cheap German copy: it is completely language independent, as long as everyone understands that Ja=Yes and Ne=No. I'd say it's got the same problem as Heimlich, though, of it being difficult/foolish to meaningfully bluff.

black inferno wrote:

Let's talk Wolfgang Kramer. He's responsible for some of my all-time favorites (El Grande, Torres, Pueblo) as well as a few titles I truly hope to never, ever touch again (PoF, Tikal), yet I've never experienced much of his late 90s/early 00s output. His work is quickly becoming the focus of the "Discovery" phase of my ERP. Anyone care to gloss the following: Java, Mexica, Tycoon, El Caballero, Goldland?

If you don't like Tikal, I wouldn't recommend Java and Mexica to you. They're all Action Point based, where you're filling the board out with tiles, structures, and possibly workers (not sure about Mexica). They were marketed as a game trilogy back then, with I think the order being Tikal / Java / Mexica.

Java is a brain burner, at least for the horsepower that my brain can manage. It feels a lot like 3-D Tikal. You lay down tiles, hoping to get large patches of connected tiles, controlled by your workers, for scoring. The patches grow both horizontally and vertically. Similar to Tikal, you have to be careful about setting up point-scoring areas that can be connected to and swiped by the other players. It is _very_ AP prone.

Mexica I only played once, back when it first came out. I thought, "Meh," and never played it again. I can't even tell you what it's about, now.

Mission Red Planet is closer to Witch's Brew than Citadels. Citadels is the only one of the three where you're effectively drafting your role and all the fun stuff that comes with passing the remaining roles to your neighbor.

M:RP is actually A LOT like El Grande played with the Gradisimo expansion. It's streamlined in that there's no bid, you select your card, and your card has the number and action printed right on it. However M:RP is just uncontrollable, what you do could be negated by any of your opponents, intentionally or just by happenstance. The components little wooden discs suck too. I felt that the game had so little control that I lost interest. It's one of those almost there titles that would have been cool if it wasn't so frustrating.

Was there something deeply flawed with Age of Mythology? If there is I don't remember it when I played it way back when, but there's something that makes me think there was some issue with the game, just can't remember what. And thinking back I really enjoyed it and not sure why I traded it. So this is one I think I'm going to hunt back down.

Anybody play The Swarm? Didn't realize it was Kramer/Kiesling...giant crabs...

Hey Barnes, since Eagle games are being brought up, back in the day you weren't impressed by Bootleggers, maybe worth a second look?

We really enjoy it. it can sometimes flop but usually its a very fun game. Apparently there is a kickfucker reprint but we still have the ugly art copy, don't know if they are changing that.

Joebot wrote: Any other good post-Catan Teuber games that belong in the ERP? What about Elasund? That's the very rare game that my wife actually likes. It has some wonky concepts, like putting down "building permits" to mark where you want to build. You end up telegraphing your intentions ahead of time, which can be frustrating, but you can also do some fun bluffing with it. And it can get really nasty when you start bulldozing each other's buildings down.

I freaking LOVE Elasund. If you're playing it with folks who can get into the spirit of stealing and bulldozing at every opportunity, it can be incredibly nasty. I love that the church pieces bulldoze everything, so building near it is basically daring God to come down and smite your building off the face of the planet. It also has the Catan dice mechanic, but gives you a nice way to pay to circumvent it, so rolling crappy doesn't kill you.

I brought out Elasund once with my crowd and that was the end of it. One guy took a "suboptimal" move to screw someone that had screwed him earlier and the fur started flying. Now I recommend it and everyone gets quiet.

S.

Sagrilarus wrote: I brought out Elasund once with my crowd and that was the end of it. One guy took a "suboptimal" move to screw someone that had screwed him earlier and the fur started flying. Now I recommend it and everyone gets quiet.

S.

Those are my favorite moves!

Elasund is one of the few that I've sold and considered getting again. Problem is getting other players to play it.

Scissors, I think I actually gave Bootleggers a 7 (hah) when I reviewed for Games International...it was OK, it sort of came out when everybody was trying to figure out the hybrid thing. It was sort of a messy design, lots of different elements clunking around, but it was pretty fun to play. I'd look at it again but I don't think I'd buy it.

Y'all got me wanting to get Elasund again...I was sort of iffy on it, but back when I had it I somehow managed to play every game with a bunch of stoners so my entire experience with it is playing with people who were high.