GERMAN GAMES - Why Are They SO Good?

Back To TRAGSNART!

Back To Hub

This page started 2002
Updated : Sept 2004

Contact me

Click on any picture for more detail

GERMAN
GAMES
Why So Good?

I have been playing "German games" for some time. These are board and card games mostly coming out of Germany. They have particular features which make them very entertaining and well worth buying. But it is very difficult to get British people to even try these games.

Why so hostile to board games?

Because of MONOPOLY(tm) Hok twut!

Monopoly is a horrible game and is such a negative experience it puts most people off games for life. There are three things wrong with Monopoly;

1) It has a boring mechanism (the way the game works). In Monopoly, you roll a die, move your piece round a track, pick up a card, follow the instructions, roll the die, move your piece... etc., etc., etc. You might as well be a robot for all the input you have.

2) It is an elimination game. You reach your goal by actually driving the other players out of the game! And worse than that, it is Death By A Thousand Cuts. I give you £5, you give me £8. It takes forever to bleed you dry.

3) It has spawned a hundred worse imitations. If a Brit wants to design a board game, they copy the boring mechanism of Monopoly, the track, the die, the Chance cards, the piles of paper money.

No wonder British people hate board games. Endless, boring, negative, painful Monopoly.

So why play German games? Well, they are well designed, original, novel, balanced, inclusive and POSITIVE! In many German games, players accumulate points over a limited series of rounds. The games are easy to learn, the rules are short and simple. Players usually have to interact, often by trading or dealing with each other. Games are designed to be balanced between luck and strategy/tactics. Often, the only luck in the game is in a random draw, and players are totally in control of their decisions. And where players compete, if someone attacks you, it is only a set-back or delay. At the end of the game, most players are close to the win. Not all German games are perfect, but most are worth playing again at least. New players catch on quickly! The German game industry has been booming, and some ideas are becoming common;

Tiles or Placement : the board is made from a variety of large tiles which can be laid out in different orders to give a variety of game boards (e.g. Settlers Of Catan, Tikal, Lowenherz, Mississippi Queen).

Or the game consists of laying out smaller tiles, pieces or objects on a board or moving tiles after they're laid.

(Carcassonne, Alhambra, Drunter & Druber, Take It Easy, Linie 1, Expedition, Entdecker, Samurai, Durch Die Wuste, Tikal, Ra, Fossil, El Caballero, Volle Hutte, Marracash, Euphrat & Tigris, El Grande, Manhattan, Torres)

Victory Points/Scoring Track/Spending Points : You win by achieving a certain number of victory points for various goals (Settlers), or you accumulate points in the game and move your score marker around the track (Medici, Basari, Ursuppe, Manhattan, Fossil, Tikal).

In Ursuppe (left), your place in the scoring determines who gets first actions in ascending or descending order, so it might pay to be last for a while! This gives losing players the chance to catch up late in the game and snatch victory. Also, games treat the score like cash, so you must spend some of your points to gain more (Medici, Fossil, Showmanager/Atlantic Star). Also game victory can be shared between players, each achieving their own goals.

No Dice : The random element is provided by decks of cards (Lowenherz, El Grande, Ave Caesar, Stimmt So!, Showmanager, Reibach & Co, Union Pacific), or by placing tiles or objects (Carcassonne, Metro, Samurai, Durch Die Wuste, Sizimizi), which provide a balanced structure to events.

Uncertain End Point : The game ends when various conditions are reached or when the deck produces a game ending card (Lowenherz, Reibach & Co, Campanile). This encourages players to get in an optimal position early, or risk going one more round. In Durch Die Wuste, the game ends when you finish one pile of a colour of camels, so you can try to force a game end when you want. In many games, it isn't clear who will win until you finally count up the points.

Limited Rounds : Many games have a set number of rounds, such as 4 or 6 (Manhattan, Elfenland, Chinatown, Torres). This way, the game is reasonably short and players are pressed to make the best of their situation in the limited time.

picture

Bid & Bluff : There are bluffing card and dice games (Hols de Geier, Munchausen). The games involve bidding for assets in an auction (Modern Art, Medici), or players choose their card/tokens in secret and reveal them, trying to bluff their opponent into spending too much (Das Gold von der Maya). In Basari, you make 1 of 3 choices, and 2 players making the same choice must bid with their gems to get the choice. But you're trying to gain gems, so winning a bid costs!

Negotiation : Probably the strongest element in many games is that players must negotiate with each other, swapping and trading items each wants (Settlers, Chinatown, Metropolis, Basari, Tonga Bonga). These games force players to talk to each other and to help each other!

Easy Rules : The rules are usually simple and easy to learn, often in a few minutes. They usually don't have fiddly conditions or special rules. Some German games are heavy and complex (we call them "gamer's games"), but most are aimed at families, for parents to play with their children. Typically, they can be played by 8 or 10 year olds.

Lovely Bits : Most German games still use wooden pieces instead of plastic (although this is starting to change). The cardboard is thick and heavy. The artwork is fantastic, colourful and stylish design. Even the boxes are great, square and deep, not the long flat boxes that tear at the corner. And German publishers don't sell air, most boxes being reasonably full of bits.
Sadly, Settlers has now gone plastic, which is a shame, but you can still find the wood edition (far right).

Another common element of German games is that the author/designer is recognised with its name on the box. This encourages buyers to pick a favoured designer's new game. Names to look for are Stefan Dorra, Reiner Knizia (who lives in London), Klaus Teuber, Wolfgang Kramer, Hartmutt Witt, Alex Randolph, Dirk Henn, Reinhard Staupe, Uwe Rosenberg. Publishers to look for are Goldseiber, Amigo, Abacus, FX Schmid, Hans Im Gluck, Doris & Frank, Frankh Kosmos, Blatz, Ravensburger. Also look for the prizewinners, especially the Spiel De Jahres symbol on the box (Game Of the Year). This is a prestigious prize which prompts sales for the lucky winner of half a million in the first year alone.

Days Of Wonder are a new publisher based in France and America and have a range of new and re-issued games. They have won this year's SdJ with Alan Moon's Ticket To Ride, a very simple game of building up train routes using sets of cards. You can score during the game and if you can or can't make your bonus routes, you can gain or lose points at the end as well.

Here are some of the best games around, starting with a 3 million seller;

Settlers Of Catan (dSvC)-is a developing and trading game set on a small island. Each player collects cards for produce (sheep, timber, wheat, bricks & ore). You use these to build villages, roads and towns worth victory points.
As your settlement expands, you get more chances to get cards and more victory points; the first to 10 VPs wins. However, you cannot always get the cards you need and players must trade with each other to keep progressing.
Each game is different since the layout of the island tiles is random at the start. The game even uses probability theory as you roll 2 dice per turn. Using dice means that luck does play a role, but fore-thought, planning and clever trading will be more important in winning.
Die Seidler von Catan has spawned expansions; Seafarers, Cities & Knights, Starfarers, dSvC card game and naturally a CD Rom! Sales now exceed 4 million... have you played it yet?

Mississippi Queen -is a river race with paddle-steamers. Your steamboat's wheels show its speed and coal reserve. You can change speed and turn your boat in your move, but extra changes cost coal. You must collect two passengers in the race before you finish and you can barge other boats out of your way.
You decide how your boat goes. The only random element is the bends in the river, left, right or straight on, chosen by dice roll before the tile is placed.
It is a great game, lots of fun as boats jostle along. As some fall back to pick up passengers, the others race on, but normally all the players reach the finish in a bunch.

6 Nimmt! (6 Takes!) - is a quick, simple but fiendish card game for 2-10 players. 104 are numbered from 1 to 104 (!), each card having one or more little oxheads on it. You are dealt 10 cards and 4 are dealt face up on the table, the start of 4 rows. Everyone chooses a card from their hand to reveal simultaneously. These cards go onto the rows, you choose another card and so on. When a row has 5 cards in it, it is full. If your card goes onto that row as the 6th card, you pick up the five in front and your card starts the row afresh (6Takes!). The cards you collect go in front of you and each oxhead on them will score -1 against you. After some rounds, when somebody's score hits -66, the best score wins.
Your card goes onto the end of the row where the number on the last card is nearest below yours. So if the rows end 20, 30, 40 & 50 and you play a 42, it goes on the 40 row. If you played a 89, it goes on the 50 row, despite the gap.
A beautifully simple and original game, with a fair amount of luck. The tension builds quickly as the rows fill and it is great fun when you avoid the pick up. It even plays differently with more or fewer players.

Carabande -is an action game of flicking discs! Large MDF pieces slot together to make a racing circuit. Up to 8 players each have a wooden disc which they flick round the course, Carrom style. The track has walls and a good shot will take you far round. But if you land off the track, or knock someone else off, you go back to where you started from.
Simple and great fun for adults and children alike. Carabande also has an expansion set that has extra bends, a bottleneck, a chicane and a jump! Some people even buy two sets of Carabande to make huge tracks.
Good News! Carabande is re-issued as Pitch Car, with the basic set and the expansion. Sadly, the different editions are not compatable, so if you don't have Carabande, buy into Pitch Car now.

Chinatown - is a negotiation game played in just 6 quick, sharp rounds. Players first get cards showing plots in Chinatown, but must reject 2. Then they draw tiles for businesses like restaurants, laundry, watchmaker etc. Next is the frantic trading of plots, tiles & money, after which players put their business tiles on their plots.
Finally, at the end of each round, your shops earn you money. A complete business earns much more than a partial one. The tiles are numbered 3 to 6, so a '4' shop earns $4,000 when 3 tiles are down , but earns $8,000 when 4 tiles are connected, completing the business.
The next round begins again with getting plots, then tiles and so on. Most money at the end wins! Players quickly realise that bigger stores earn bigger profits, but take more tiles, plots and time to complete.
The small random element & limited time leaves a nearly pure trading game; good deals allow both players to prosper, selfish players penalise themselves.

Tikal - is the 1999 Game Of the Year and clearly follows the innovative design lead of Settlers. Exploring the Mayan jungle, you gradually uncover temples and buried treasure, competing with other explorers to score the best sights. After laying a fresh tile, you spend only 10 Action Points each turn, moving explorers around, recovering treasure and revealing the ziggurats for higher scores. The temples start at value 1 or 2, but spending points allows you to put tiles on them, raising their value to 3, 4 etc. up to a possible 10 points.

Three scoring rounds occur when the volcano tiles appear and there is a final scoring at the end. Whoever has the most explorers at a temple gets the points & you get points for sets of treasures as well.

The game flows very sweetly, looks fantastic as the jungle is gradually explored, and the whole thing plays very nicely. Having only 10 Action Points creates a real struggle as you have to spend your points efficiently to maximise your position for the random scoring rounds. A superb game that will enthrall you.

Hols De Geier - is a quick & easy card game, where players must double-think. Each player has cards numbered 1-15 & compete for 15 scoring cards; 10 mouse cards scoring 1 to 10; 5 vulture cards, scoring -1 to -5. To win a mouse, you play a card higher than anyone else's. But if it's a vulture, the lowest card wins. When more than one player has the highest card, then the next highest wins. Likewise, if the lowest card is shared, the next lowest wins. So if the scoring card is a mouse 6, and the cards played are 12, 11, 6, 12 and 12, then the 11 will win. If a vulture is out, and the cards played are 9, 10, 7,8, 7, then the 8 will win it. Players discard their cards when played, so some card counting helps, but the heart of the game lies in out-thinking your friends!

picture

Linie Ein -is a tile placement game, where players try to lay tram lines between their terminii. The first tram home, after 2 or 3 required stops, wins.
Each turn you may place, or replace, only 2 tiles. So your intended route can easily go wrong. The tiles have straights, curves and lots of combinations, and with up to 5 players laying track, your route will twist and turn wildly.At the start, you keep secret which terminii & stops you have, but players can work out who is going where & thwart their plans!
A simple, but nefarious game. Have you got the right tile to get your path going where you want?

picture

Wildlife Adventure / Expedition (current re-issue by Queen Games) - A classic placement game making routes around the world to spot rare animals / visiting ancient ruins which match the cards you were dealt. Place red, blue or white arrows from point to point around the world, extending the expeditions across the map, using travel tokens and bonus moves to make the expedition go further. As well as scoring points for visiting your sights, including double points for ones you've marked at the start, there are also public expeditions to pick up as well.

The trick to the game is that you can use your moves to remove arrows, backtracking, and where a route makes a loop, you can break out from the loop anywhere. So combining backtracking and looping makes the expeditions jump in strange directions, not where you planned.
Although the arrows are plastic, the game looks very good and the thinking about how to make the best of your moves stretches your mind nicely.

Where can you get German games?
The best source of German games is Germany. Prices are around €20 for large games, going up to €40 for some of the latest big releases. The exchange rate is roughly €1.5=£1, so that gives a typical price between £15-20, frankly bargain prices for what you get. Card games run from €5 typically, 3 quid for excellent card games! Although you have to add in delivery, the extra cost is minimal. Bulk postage rates are very cheap from the continent to the UK and many online retailers give free delivery for large orders.

<>If you are in the US, the exchange rate is virtually 1:1, so the price in Euros is the dollar price. But you can get the best German games in US editions from Rio Grande Games, www.riograndegames.com, Uberplay, Fantasy Flight Games and the originator Mayfair, who hold the Settlers license. Rio Grande and now Uberplay cherry-pick the best of the new games from the german publishers, and have an identical edition US edition printed under their label in full English. Mayfair, Fantasy Flight and other smaller publishers like Out of the Box produce US designs of the german games, with different artwork and variants on rules. Or buy through retailer Funagain Games, with a very good website www.funagain.com .

The most popular mail order firm in Germany is Adam Spielt, who still print a large, very useful catalogue (in German) and they take Visa! They are very helpful with good English, send them an email info@adam-spielt.de, give them your Visa number and they will send a catalogue and charge a few quid. Start buying from them and they will send a catalogue each year for free. They do have a website now, but it is not that useful.

A better websight (in German) is provided by PlayMe www.playme.de, with a superb search engine that you can even search by game designer, very useful. They take Visa and Mastercard and their English is very good too. Spielenet have a good site and Ludotopia are a new online retailer in France.

The main problem with buying from Germany is that you usually do not get English rules, but you can usually get English rules off the internet. Most modern games are translated very quickly on the newest site The Boardgame Geek www.boardgamegeek.com . For older games, rules & reviews for these are still on The Game Cabinet www.gamecabinet.com . Tribute must be paid to Mike Siggins, a pioneer who operated The Rules Bank, collecting and distributing rules in the early years. He also ran an excellent fanzine Sumo, its place being taken now by The Counter, a quarterly fanzine from Stuart Dagger, Mike Clifford and Alan How AlanDOTHowATwhichDOTnet .

Probably the best source in the UK now is Discount German Games run by Andy Daglish, http://members.aol.com/aforandy/discount.htm , who is looking to provide German games to UK shoppers at German prices and is doing sterling work! He doesn't supply the English rules though.
In the UK, more shops are starting to carry them, although not so cheaply, but they DO provide the English rules. In London, Leisure Games in Finchley (www.leisuregames.com) is a great store. On Museum Street is Playin' Games, with a good selection downstairs. You can find them in some Waterstones bookshops. Around the country, look for them in Sci-Fi or Comicbook shops, and especially where you buy RPGs. For example Travelling Man shops carry some German games.

In America, as well as www.funagain.com , there is www.bouldergames.com and www.germangames.com provide German games in Canada.

For a full list of useful websights, drop me a line and I will send an up-to-date selection. Contact me

Back To TRAGSNART!

Back To Board Games Hub

This Page Started 2002
Updated : Sept 2004

Contact me

page 018