Rick Thornquist: The Gathering of Friends / Nuremberg Games - Part II

Here are my thoughts on some more Nuremberg games that I played during the Gathering of Friends:

Serengeti
Serengeti is a new version of Michael Schacht’s Don, originally published in 2001 by Queen.  The new version is rethemed and supposedly revised, though I couldn’t see much difference in the rules between the two.

This is a light bidding game where numbered cards are auctioned.  You are trying to get sets of cards and the more you get of a particular number card the more points they are worth.  There are a few little twists as well when it comes to what you can bid and how the winning bid is paid out to the other players.

In the end, it’s a pretty good light filler game.  If you have Don it seems pretty unnecessary to get Serengeti, but if you don’t have the original game and are looking for a light auction game, Serengeti is worth a look.

Alchemist
Alchemist is a new game from Amigo that will be published in English by Mayfair.  The theme is of alchemists creating potions, but the theme is pretty thin.  This is mainly a ‘use some colored cubes to create other colored cubes’ game.  It’s medium weight and plays in less than an hour.

The board shows some cauldrons which are used to create the potions.  A player can create a new potion by putting some cubes in an empty cauldron.  The player then assigns a victory point value to the cauldron and gets the victory points.  The idea is that other players (you cannot use a potion that you created!) can give up the cubes to complete the potion and get the victory points as well.  The potion also yields two cubes which can be used for creating or completing other potions.

This is one of those games where the strategy, at least to me, is initially a bit baffling.  Obviously you want to do things that get you the most victory points but the road there is a little twisted (it’s a bit difficult to explain without playing the game).

I found the game to be just okay, as did the people I played it with.  The game works, but we just didn’t find it interesting enough to want to play it again. 

Venedig
Venedig is a new big box board game from Amigo and designer Klaus-Jürgen Wrede.  Though Wrede did well with Carcassonne, the verdict on his other games has been, in my opinion, mixed.  Games like Pompeji and Dragonriders, I didn’t like at all.  He did redeem himself somewhat with Mesopotamia, which I quite liked.  So how does Venedig stack up?

By the way, in English, Venedig means Venice - a favorite theme among German boardgame designers.  It seems like every convention there is a new Venice game.  I should have a game night were we only play Venice games - there are more than enough of them!

In Venedig, players are constructing buildings in the five different districts of Venice.  Cards are played that create these buildings and each building scores in a different way.  In most cases, more than one player will contribute to the construction of a building and they will share points.

How the scoring track is used is interesting.  The scoring track runs in the canals between the districts and each player has a gondola that marks his space on the track.  The interesting part is that the scoring track is actually part of the gameplay.  For example, one building, the bridge, can only be constructed in a district that is beside where your gondola is on the scoring track.  Also, you get bonus points if you construct buildings in the districts beside where your gondola is.  I found this integration of the scoring track and the gameplay to be quite innovative.

The rest of the gameplay I found good, if a bit mechanicy (there’s a word for ya).  There is a decent amount of strategy and the theme is pretty good - there may be just a few too many little mechanics thrown in for my taste.

The game is medium weight and plays in about 45 minutes.  It’ll never be among my favorite games, but I do like it enough to want to get it.

Ponte del Diavolo
Next up is Ponte del Diavolo, a new two player abstract from Hans im Glück.  Believe it or not, this is yet another game about Venice!  This one is purported to be an homage to the classic games of Alex Randolph and I can definitely see the resemblance.  It has the simple rules and clean lines of a classic Randolph game.

The game has a small blue board superimposed with a grid.  On a player’s turn, he plays colored wooden squares of his color on the grid - these represent land .  You can also play bridges between your own squares, within certain limits.  Islands are created by having four squares orthogonally adjacent to each other.  Players get points by creating islands and building bridges between them.  Basically, once the board is full the players total up their points and whoever has the most wins.

The gameplay is simple, but there is strategy here.  It also plays fairly quickly - I’d be surprised if my game went over 15 minutes.

I liked it and would be tempted to buy it if I didn’t already own some good Randolph games.  I have Twixt, for example, which I really like and would probably prefer it over this.  Nevertheless, Ponte del Diavolo is a good, easy to learn, two player abstract that I’d be more than happy to play again.

Die Siedler von Catan: Das Würfelspiel
It seems it wasn’t enough for the game companies to foist the abysmal Alhambra dice game on me.  Now Kosmos and Klaus Teuber (supposedly, I’d actually be surprised if he really designed this) have downed the ante and introduced the world to, guess what, The Settlers of Catan dice game.  I didn’t think it was possible to make a game I liked less than the Alhambra dice game, but Kosmos has done it.

Die Siedler von Catan: Das Würfelspiel is basically Settlers crossed with Yachtzee.  You get some dice that have the typical Settlers resources on the faces and you roll up to three times, saving dice between rolls, to get your final result.  Wow, how original. 

You then use the resources you roll to buy roads, settlements, cities and knights.  Each player has a sheet of paper which shows a typical Catan board with the roads, settlements, etc, marked on them.  The settlements, cities and knights each have a point value on them (the roads are worth one).  When you build something you simply mark the thing on your sheet and get the victory points.  There are a few other (small) wrinkles, but that’s basically it.  After fifteen painful rounds the game is over and whoever has the most points wins.

The game is ridiculously simple, has tons of luck, and practically no strategy.  The game also has zero interaction - it’s completely solitaire.  I recommend playing rock/paper/scissors with the other players when it’s not your turn or perhaps reshingling your roof.  I abandoned my game about a third of the way through as I wasn’t able to take it anymore.  The game is rated for ages 7 and up but it really should be rated for ages 7 and down.

I will concede that there were some at the Gathering that did like this game, though I think they were the people who had been up for 48 hours and were in a delusional state at the time.

I would say if you really are keen on a Settlers dice game that is fairly portable and plays well with the kids, you may want to look at this one.  Otherwise, I wouldn’t bother.

That’s it for Part II.  Part III will have the remainder of the games plus a smattering of other Gathering news.  Stay tuned!

© 2007 Rick Thornquist

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