Lost Treasures of the Eurogames Reclamation Project

black inferno wrote: Knizia just needs to Kickstart some zombie/Cthulhu rethemes of his old classics

Minus the kickstart part, Knizia of course already has done Cthulhu and Zombie games: Zombiegeddon, Mmm...Brains!, and Cthulhu Rising (look at a picture of the board in play for that last one, and it's pretty much THE peak negative stereotype people have about Knizia). Much as I love Knizia, it'd be foolish to suggest that he's above crass commercial maneuvers. But who cares? Why give the guy a hard time for wanting to make money?

Playing some new Knizia games recently (Medici and Beowulf), and I'm struck with how much his games, at least the big ones, really do have some running themes that are clearly important to him...and I mean "theme" in the literary sense here. Like, definitely a core lesson of a LOT of his games is "choose your battles; you can't win everything all of the time". That's a core theme of Blue Moon, Battle Line, Lost Cities, Keltis, Beowulf, Taj Mahal, more I'm sure, all of which really PUNISH you HARD for not accepting that defeat is a part of life.

Speaking of Bohnanza and Rosenberg's old days, has Mamma Mia come up yet? It's not one I kept, but it's a fun light card game, and is probably the best "memory" game I can remember playing.

Bull Nakano wrote: Dice Town is such a frustrating game, there will be many turns you'll visit Doc Badluck because your turn accomplished literally nothing. This game just isn't any fun to me.

Bohnanza is an incredible trading game. I love it and want to play it all the time, you can make some pretty creative deals. Gets real good at 5-7.

Bohnanza isn't one I considered lost since I agree that it is a fantastic game, but considering how long it's been since I've seen anyone talk about it...Perhaps it is. A glaring open hole in my collection.

Dice Town I've only seen this issue with more people. And one the expansion fixes since it allows actions for the first and second player.

hahaha, that is the WORST board of all time!!!

Gary Sax wrote: Why do you hate I'm the Boss, Mad Dog?

Fortunately its been many years since I've played. I recall players going through several (or more) minutes of negotiations each turn to work out a deal and then someone always just plays a card that makes all of it pointless. For me the whole game is literally mostly a waste of time multiplied by however many turns. I'd rather play Fluxx or Candyland over this annoying fucking game.

dragonstout wrote:

black inferno wrote: Knizia just needs to Kickstart some zombie/Cthulhu rethemes of his old classics

Minus the kickstart part, Knizia of course already has done Cthulhu and Zombie games: Zombiegeddon, Mmm...Brains!, and Cthulhu Rising (look at a picture of the board in play for that last one, and it's pretty much THE peak negative stereotype people have about Knizia).

I was being facetious, of course; I do my absolute best to avoid zombie and Cthulhu-themed games in the wild. And, man, how did I know before I even Googled it that Cthulhu Rising was a Twilight Creations joint. They seem like nice people but man do they produce some ugly, gauche trash. Gravediggers (another Knizia retheme) is a middling auction game with components that could charitably be described as "prototype-grade" (the money chits are one-sided, for Chrissakes).

I think the worst Knizia retheme ever, at least in terms of being a complete fucking mess, is Maginor, an old FFG joint from 2001.

Playing some new Knizia games recently (Medici and Beowulf), and I'm struck with how much his games, at least the big ones, really do have some running themes that are clearly important to him...and I mean "theme" in the literary sense here. Like, definitely a core lesson of a LOT of his games is "choose your battles; you can't win everything all of the time". That's a core theme of Blue Moon, Battle Line, Lost Cities, Keltis, Beowulf, Taj Mahal, more I'm sure, all of which really PUNISH you HARD for not accepting that defeat is a part of life.

Definitely. The "pick your battles" aspect is a big part of why I like his work so much. There's a uniquely dissonant tension in knowing you have to make multiple concessions to your opponent in order to win, as well as identify what to concede and when to concede it. So many games try so hard to artificially synthesize that kind of tension; with Knizia's best work, that tension is already hard-coded into the basic mechanics of the game. Samurai's another game that's virtually impossible to win if you try to go after every category.

VonTush wrote:

Bull Nakano wrote: Dice Town is such a frustrating game, there will be many turns you'll visit Doc Badluck because your turn accomplished literally nothing. This game just isn't any fun to me.

Bohnanza is an incredible trading game. I love it and want to play it all the time, you can make some pretty creative deals. Gets real good at 5-7.

Bohnanza isn't one I considered lost since I agree that it is a fantastic game, but considering how long it's been since I've seen anyone talk about it...Perhaps it is. A glaring open hole in my collection.

Dice Town I've only seen this issue with more people. And one the expansion fixes since it allows actions for the first and second player.

I agree Bohnanza isn't lost by any stretch, the ERP is a sentimental bunch though.

I've only played Dice Town base game and with 5.

Four I think is a good spot with just the base game - You get the competition but visits to The Doc are rare. Three isn't bad but lacks some competition. I made the mistake once of playing with six using player components from the expansion, and nothing else, and that was a mistake at least two were seeing The Doc every turn. If you get a chance to try again with four, I'd say give it a shot...Assuming you at least liked the general premise of the game.

Dragon's Gold is great, although it feels it takes too long - a bit like Citadels.

Aladdin's Dragons is amazing, brilliant... Just this great blind bidding game with gorgeous pieces, and a great theme.

Dice Town is fun with the expansion, and much more strategic than King of Tokyo or Quarriors.

Mamma Mia is hilarious. We bought it recently and I cannot explain how funny it is. I was concerned because it was a *memory* game, but you can't memorise anything. Instead you're just throwing down ingredient cards and hoping for the best.

Bear in mind, I'm coming from the position of someone who has only been in the hobby for three years so I played the new stuff first. And have bought older games as I've spent more time in the hobby.

Mamma Mia is great!

Man, I've never thought of Dragon's Gold as being a particularly long game. Here it plays in about 30-40 minutes. And you could easily control the length by randomly removing some dragons from the deck before starting. And yeah, Citadels takes entirely too long. I don't have any interest in playing that one again; it's a neat enough game, but for me it still bears the mark of being the Very First "It" Game to get wildly hyped and blown out of proportion by a then-fledgling BGG.

I spent my lunch break thinking a lot about Knizia re-themes. But, specifically: GMT and FFG's Knizia small box re-themes ca. late 90s/early aughts. There's a lot of these that I've flat-out never played, and most of them are dirt cheap on the web. Maybe some gems out there?

GMT:
Battle Line - One of the best two-player card games ever published.

Ivanhoe - Funny thing: not counting new-ish purchases that haven't hit the table yet, there are only three games in my collection that I've never played. Ivanhoe is one of them, and I've had it since 2001 or so.

Formula Motor Racing - I think I played this in college, once, and liked it.

Galaxy: The Dark Ages - I know I've played this once or twice, but it was well over ten years ago. Don't remember anything about it.

FFG:
King's Gate - IIRC it's a Samurai-style thing played with square tiles instead of a hex grid. Never played it.

Maginor - the worst Knizia game I've ever played: lame system with an incredibly awkward FFG implementation and chits that started to peel apart the moment you un-punched them. I think people forget how shoddy FFG's components were ca. 2000.

Atlanteon - another chintzy Knizia thing from that early-2000s FFG era, played it once. Hilariously gaudy presentation. It's horrible to look at. You know, FFG's in-house art style nowadays is instantly recognizable. I'm pretty sure they did some Experiment IV-style secret research in the mid-2000s to scientifically pinpoint the precise intersection between "competent" and "generic" art. But back in the old days, their art was a lot trashier - sometimes for good, sometimes for bad - and it was at least interesting. I dunno. But, hey, I think FFG was just a more interesting company pre-GoT, a company that peaked in the late 90s with Battlemist (which, with the mandatory Sails of War expansion, is the greatest fantasy wargame of all time. No, Runewars isn't the same, fuck you). Anyway.

Scarab Lords / Minotaur Lords - Never played either of these, but you can get them online for basically free. Are these re-themes or originals? Are they like Blue Moon? Holy fuck, do I ever love Blue Moon.

Kingdoms - It's okay. I like it fine. But I think it's a little odd that this is the Knizia game FFG has chosen to reprint like four times.

Colossal Arena - Never played it.

All the pibble-pabble lately about FFG games...easy to forget that we should be talkingf about playing games more than how they are sold.

Man. Tower of Babel...what a crazy Knizia design...no wonder it didn't do well...too interactive for the Eurogamers, too abstract for the AT Dudebros. In 1994, 1995...it's a SDJ game. Extremely simple...on your turn you either build or pass. If you build, you pick a building chip off one of the wonders and solicit help to meet the number on it. Players put forth a number of cards face down and then reveal. You choose who gets in on it. But people can put out other building material cards or a haggling card so you can't take as much. But whoever you pick to get in on it puts out a marker per card they contributed. So there's he whole "choose who to help" thing. The wonders score up like a majorities game. It may be brilliant.

There are no auctions in it. More like contract submissions.

I actually think Tower of Babel sounds great...do you think I would like it?

I'm bidding on Wildlife Adventures (or whatever it is called). Thanks a lot ERP

You're in for a treat, Wildlife Adventure is one of the great games of the -80s-.

I think you ought to try Tower of Babel...it's cheap, I think there's a $12 copy on BGG right now. It's SUPER minimalist though...not quite Raj levels of minimalism, but there's some really simple mechanics at work- players do the rest. HIG actually insisted on Knizia putting some action cards into the design, but pretty much everyone says to just not play with them.

Earlier today I thought "why the hell do I not own a copy of Colossal Arena?" $12 later on eBay, rectified!

Colossal Arena is pretty good -- for a long time we were playing Citadels and Colossal Arena back to back at every game night.

Have you guys played Cheaty Mages? Pretty similar feel, and for some reason neither I can explain the rules worth a damn. I think I'm leaning towards Colossal Arena as the better game at this point.

Yeah, I was mistaken in my memory of it, that was my fault. It's a bidding game.

I definitely didn't think it was brilliant, but it wasn't a complete POS either. Just pretty vanilla. Extremely repetitive, I remember thinking it was a bit long for what it was.