Vegas Showdown

(image courtesy Shadowen @ BGG)
I've previously talked about Nexus Ops, an Avalon Hill game that should not be judged by its cover art. Clearly Avalon Hill needs some new artists because Vegas Showdown falls into that exact same category. The box and even the components are very lackluster but the game itself turned out to be a real surprise.

Vegas Showdown is a game of making the best hotel/casino possible. You will be bidding against other players for new rooms to place in your building. These rooms bring in more income, allow for more guests and ultimately earn you points. Each turn some new rooms get placed out if the bidding table has open spots, players earn income and take turns bidding on the rooms up on the auction block. Winner pays for their new building tile, places it on their building mat and play continues until one of the stacks of buildings is exhausted or one player completely fills up their building.

(image courtesy kilroy_locke @ BGG)

The auction system in Vegas Showdown is extremely simple. There are bidding tracks next to each tile that is up for sale. On your turn you place your bidding token on one of those tracks. If someone else is already on a track you must outbid them and they get their piece back to rebid when their turn comes around. Once everyone has placed their bid token you pay for your tiles, place them, adjust your income/capacity/victory points accordingly and do it all over again.

That's pretty much Vegas Showdown. It really is that simple. There's a pretty healthy dose of luck as to which tiles get turned over and what special effects kick in when new tiles are revealed but the player that paces their purchases and picks up the right tiles at the right time will certainly do well. Unpurchased rooms drop in price each round so there's also decisions to make on how long you wait for something to drop in price before jumping on it. What really impresses me is that I've seen people win using very different strategies. Some of the rooms may only be placed if you have the prerequisite room and the quantities are limited so you also have to decide which rooms you really want to battle over.

(image courtesy ronster0 @ BGG)
What impresses me most is that there are several different paths to victory. You might shoot for the very nice rare rooms, build out lots of smaller rooms, focus on rooms that nicely fill out your building mat or just go for the really good deals. The rules are very simple - you can likely explain the entire game in under five minutes - meaning you can dive right in and the fun is immediately apparent. There's enough depth to the game and interesting decisions to be made, though, so the game feels interesting every time. Placing rooms in your building also has a very nice puzzle aspect as you try and maximize your available building spots and points earned.

If you do pick up Vegas Showdown, be sure to have a set of poker chips handy. The game does technically come with chips to represent the players' money but they are really cheap, thin plastic chips. Using a nice set of weighted poker chips goes a long ways towards adding to the Vegas feel of the game and just makes the game more enjoyable. Unfortunately the other components are on the cheap side as well: player mats are glossy paper instead of boards and minimum bid discs tokens are small red discs that slide around too easily.

I'd love to see a premium version of Vegas Showdown released sometime with upgraded components. The game is well worthy of a re-release and deserves the royal treatment. If you can find a copy, be sure to pick it up. You won't be disappointed.

Hollywood Blockbuster

(image courtesy TheKeck @ BGG)
Auction games are hit-and-miss for me. As I mentioned in my post on Modern Art, I'm terrible at evaluating the worth of things. I did eventually come to like Modern Art, though, and I do really enjoy other auction games like Ra, For Sale and Nefertiti. When I first discovered the original German version of Hollywood Blockbuster - called Traumfabrik - I was extremely interested. Rebuilding classic films using actors and directors of my choice sounded like a lot of fun and the game is by Reiner Knizia, one of the most prolific game designers out there. It seemed like a sure thing even with my uncertainty on auction mechanics.

Traumfabrik was only available in Germany for quite some time until Uberplay finally brought the game to the US as Hollywood Blockbuster. The theme remained the same but they had to replace all of the real actors and film with parodies. At first I was extremely annoyed by the change but after playing the game I realized it really didn't make that big of a difference. In fact when I play I typically see the titles and names as the things they are trying to parody and just ingore the terrible puns (like actors Nickeless Wage and Keanu Breeze).

(image courtesy ronster0 @ BGG)

Hollywood Blockbuster takes place over four years as players try to put together the best films possible. A year has three auctions and two parties where players will be able to acquire the components needed to complete their films (actors, directors, special effects, cameras, etc.). The first auction is strictly for a high profile director while the others are for a random set of film components. There are also two parties where players get a component based on who has the most popular actors in their films. A film's final value is the combined value of all the film's components. When you complete a film you immediately score its points. At the end of each year bonus points are given for the most valuable film and at the end of the game bonus points are also given to the best film in each category (comedy, drama, action) and also for the worst film. Whoever has the most points at the end wins.

That portion of the game works fairly well and people always have fun trying to complete their films and make them the best - or the worst - possible. Unfortunately things break down once we dive into the auction mechanic behind it all.

Each player starts the game with a certain number of contracts which are the currency for the game. That starting amount is fixed; no money will enter or leave the game. Each auction players take turns going around the table making bids for the film components currently up for sale until someone finally wins the auction. Here's the catch: the winner's bid gets redistributed evenly amongst all the other players. If there is a remainder it sits in the middle and gets redistributed with the next auction.

(image courtesy hotrodqt @ BGG)
I find this leads to a real problem with the game. There are only six auction each year. Since your bid gets redistributed, winning an auction means you are immediately poorer and all of your opponents are now richer, making it increasingly less likely for you to win the next auction. In practice what happens is players need to pick a couple of auctions they feel are imporant for them to win and focus on those, holding out on the others to make sure they get the proceeds and guarantee them enough money to win the auctions they want. The bidding process feels rather shallow because it is generally in your best interest to maximize your bid on the auction you need. There's no real disadvantage because you'll get your money back in a few rounds.

What I've found is that this ultimately leaves you without many interesting decisions to make over the course of the game. Pick a couple of rounds that matter and make sure you have enough contracts to win them. With no way for money to enter or leave the game its just a matter of timing your auctions so you have money when you need it.

(image courtesy P47 Thunderbolt @ BGG)

My second complaint is that it generally feels like it is in your best interest to complete films as quickly as possible and there's little room for other strategies. If one person is tearing through films they are likely going to win the game. Trying to save up and pile all of your most valuable film components on a single movie means you aren't finishing other films and you aren't getting points. There are a limited number of films in the game, so it is also quite possible that there will simply be no more films for you to complete as other players gobble them all up. Also, while having a bonus for worst film is a clever touch it is rarely worth specifically trying to grab the worst film. I don't think I've ever seen anyone intentionally pursue worst film and even come close to winning the game.

You should be able to finish a game of Hollywood Blockbuster in a half hour to forty five minutes, though, which is nice when you need a quick filler. It is also fairly easy to teach and the theme will appeal to many so it is a good intro game or a game for a younger crowd. In that regard I think Hollywood Blockbuster works quite well. Unfortunately I don't think most serious gaming groups will find much satisfaction playing Hollywood Blockbuster with their peers.

El Grande

(image courtesy roboman @ BGG)
It is good to show respect for your elders. Euro-style games really started to become popular in 1995 with the release of Settlers of Catan which really introduced and reintroduced many concepts that are standard in modern board games: resources, victory points and no player elimination. It's a game that introduced many people to the hobby and is one of the most popular board games out there. What some forget is that another game also came out that year: El Grande, the father of area control games.

The game board in El Grande represents Spain broken into a handful of provinces and also features the castillo, a massive upright wooden tower. Players take turns placing wooden cubes called caballeros in an attempt to have the most cubes per region. El Grande lasts nine rounds and scoring is performed after every third round. Each territory earns point values for first, second and third place and whoever has the most points at the end wins.

I suppose the concept of area control may have very well appeared in games prior to El Grande but it generally seems to be considered the inspiration for every area control game that followed (of which there are many). There are three major things that make El Grande unique not only from area control games but from most games in general:

(image courtesy garyjames @ BGG)

The Castillo - It is impossible to look at El Grande and not comment on the castillo, a massive black wooden tower on the game board. The castillo serves two purposes. First, it is a territory like any other on the map that players may place their caballeros on. You must drop your pieces in the tower, though, and may not peek inside so there is a bit of a memory element if you wish to compete for points. Second, your pieces are moved from the castillo to a single province in Spain prior to scoring, making the castillo a stall tactic to allow you to make a last-minute adjustment to your current standing on the map.

Province Dials - Each player has a cardboard disc with an arrow and all of the province names listed. Most any time multiple players need to pick a province they do so secretly on their spinner and then all players reveal simultaneously. This secret selection mechanism causes some antagonizing moments as you attempt to out-guess and out-maneuver your opponents.

(image courtesy Nodens77 @ BGG)
The King - Aside from the castillo the next most prominent piece on the board is the king marker. The king sits in a single province and prevents the players from affecting that province in almost any fashion for the course of that round. Also, when players move new caballeros on the board they may only be played in territories adjacent to the king. Smart use of the king allows players to lock in points and protect a key territory while making sure they are not giving others players too much benefit by denying access to territories they need.

What gives El Grande its legs are the action and power cards. Each player has a hand of power cards numbered one through thirteen that shows a value and a number of caballeros. In turn order players choose one of their power cards but may not choose a value already played by someone else this round. You then pick and resolve action cards in order from high to low power card. There are four stacks of action cards with enough of each to last over nine rounds (meaning some in each stack will not be used each game) along with a fifth power card that always lets you move the king. These action cards allow the players to put a certain number of caballeros on the board and optionally perform some special ability. The abilities are the heart of the game and let players perform a variety of actions like move the king, force your opponents to move caballeros, manually shuffle caballeros around yourself, score a province early and so on. As the action cards are revealed randomly you never know exactly what events to expect or the order they'll occur. There is still plenty of room to strategize around the cards but their random nature adds a fair amount of replay value.

(image courtesy henk.rolleman @ BGG)

I really only have two complaints with the game. First, the text on the action cards is pretty bare-bones. There are more detailed instructions in the manual but the inclusion of even a couple of key words would've prevented you from having to reference the rule book. Second, the game's terminology is not very intuitive. Players have cubes representing their caballeros in two piles, one that is immediately available for placement and the other is your unavailable pool. The available pool is called your "court" and your unavailable pool is called your "provinces." It usually takes players awhile to wrap their heads around the terms but it is very important to know the difference as several action cards specify one or the other.

El Grande is a game every gamer should play, if only to see where many games got their inspiration from. In this case it is an oldie and a goody. You have a lot of very challenging decisions to make when picking your actions and then figuring out how to best exercise (or not exercise) the special ability. The rules are very easy to teach and while some of the terminology is odd players tend to pick it up fast. I might catch some flack for this but I think that Settlers feels a bit dated. The artistic style and the gameplay mechanics put it in the 90s. El Grande, on the other hand, has aged well and I think it'll stand the test of time.

Shogun

(image courtesy Bernd @ BGG)
There are currently only two games I have rated a "perfect 10" over at BoardGameGeek. A game does not need to be truly perfect to get the elusive perfect score but just a game that I'm always wanting to play and that I often continue to think about when we're done. Twilight Imperium 3 is one of those games, but I've already talked about that (although don't be surprised to see more talk in the future). Shogun, by Queen Games, is another.

If nothing else, Shogun is a gorgeous game. The large map of Japan broken into provinces is very colorful, pleasing on the eyes and very easy to read. There's even an alternate map on the back side with a different layout for more advanced players. Each player has bright, well-illustrated player mat to help them plan their actions and place their armies (using the advanced setup). Of course players have a bunch of wooden cubes to represent their armies. Most striking, though, is the cube tower. The tall cardboard tower with a clear plastic funnel and base dominates the visual field. It is impossible to miss and is guaranteed to get more than a few people at least curious about what the heck it is.

Shogun takes place over the course of two years. Spring, summer and fall have players planning and executing their actions while winter is purely a scoring round. You earn points for holding provinces, owning buildings in those provinces and having the majority of three different types of buildings in the regions on the map. At the end of two years the player with the most points wins.

(image courtesy asm_zero @ BGG)

While the basic premise is quite simple, doing well at the game is far from easy. There are ten actions players will be able to perform each season. Each player has a hand of province cards that represent the territories they control. To perform an action you place a province on the action you wish to perform there. For example, to collect rice from Owari you'd place your Owari card face down on the collect rice action on your player mat. The order of the actions is randomly determined each season. You get to see the order of the first five actions but the last five are hidden and revealed as you start resolving actions. This means you have some knowledge about the timing of events for the season but must also plan around the unknown.

(image courtesy richardsgamepack @ BGG)
One very important part of the game is feeding your people come winter. You are allowed to take rice from provinces you own, adding to your overall rice supply for the year. At the end of the year you need to have one rice for every province you control. If you are short then you'll be facing revolts come winter. Collecting rice can often be challenging enough but the real tricky part is that four event cards are put out at the start of each year, one card per season. Each card has two parts: first is a special condition that applies for spring, summer and winter, second is rice loss come winter. This number will range from zero to negative seven or so. You'll see the four possible cards at the start of the year but the order is random so you have to plan for the possible rice loss and possibly take some risks or change your plan as the cards are resolved.

The best part of the game is without a doubt the cube tower. Inside the tower are a couple of horizontal platforms with random holes cut in them. When you attack another player (or face revolts) you take your army cubes along with cubes from the defender, toss them in the tower and see what comes out! Attacker and defender destroy each other on a 1:1 basis and whomever has the most left wins. Any cubes not related to the attack stay in the tray and are tossed in again on the next attack to keep them cycling through the tower. Cubes will get caught up in the tower so you may only have a few come out or you might knock some loose inside and end up with more cubes coming out than you tossed in! It's quite possibly the most exciting randomizer ever. There's no way you can even begin to guess probability, you just have to toss your cubes in and hope for the best. Generally combat is extremely bloody with the winning side only having a couple of cubes left. Everyone loves watching the results from the tower... it's just oh-so-satisfying.

Shogun is not all that difficult to learn even if it looks a bit daunting at first glance. It is part war game, part area control and part resource management. You need to balance all three to do well at the game. With only the possibility of 12 attacks per player over the course of the entire game (two per season) you really need to pick your battles carefully. Armies are expensive not only in gold cost but also in activation; you can't move an army the same turn it is built so you always have to be thinking at least one season in advance. The cube tower is a great way to resolve combat. Not only is it a fun randomizer but you also will be making decisions based on how many cubes you might have sitting in the tray or possibly stuck in the tower.

(image courtesy Legomancer @ BGG)

Which is why I think the game is so fantastic. There's a decent amount of luck in the game with the random events, random action order and the cube tower but it's all very manageable. You might get a few bad results from the tower but it's rare to see someone win or lose the game from luck alone. At the same time there's enough variability that no two games ever seem to play out exactly alike. You can feel when you've made a good move; it's possibly one of the more satisfying games in that regard. With only six seasons every action counts and you need to be setting yourself up from turn one. Pulling off a win in Shogun is a great feeling.

Shogun is actually a remake of Wallenstein which featured a map of Germany during the Thirty Years' War. Having played both I can say without a doubt that I find Shogun to be the much better game. Shogun has a few extra mechanics - most importantly a bid for turn order - that really adds a lot. I also feel the map is actually better. At first I thought Wallenstein's more rounded map might make for a tighter game but it is almost a little too large and has some seemingly imbalanced areas. Shogun, while much longer and narrower, feels like it makes for more interesting and focused interactions with other players. Generally I think you interact with fewer players (as there are fewer adjacencies) but those conflicts turn out to be much more interesting.

(image courtesy cimere @ BGG)
I really only have three complaints. First is that the player mats tend to bow upwards a bit which can make dealing with your province cards a little bit of a pain at times. Second, I don't like the rule that you plan your actions before seeing what special event is in effect for the season. Sometimes the action will impact rice or gold production, for example, or might protect provinces with certain buildings. They did that to add a little bit more randomness but I think the game could just as easily be played with this information known before planning your actions. It's a variant I'd like to try out sometime and see what impact it has on the game. If anything I think it'd just make it even more strategic. It's a minor complaint, though, and the game works perfectly fine as-is.

Finally, the game is a bit punishing once you start falling behind. Fewer owned provinces means fewer actions you'll be taking each round. When two of your actions almost always will need to be taking gold and rice that can leave you with little left to do. If you carelessly attack or leave key provinces unprotected it's not hard to end up in a bad situation. I've seen players pull off great wins but often you'll have a rough feel for which spots you'll be competing for at the end of the first year. I don't find this to be a real problem as careful planning will generally keep you competitive. Still, I can see where some might find issue with this.

Part war game, part Euro, Shogun succeeds on both fronts. The game can run a little long at times - plan a good 2 1/2 to 3 hours - but it's well worthwhile. Players will be sucked in by the cube tower and hooked by the interesting decisions and good mix of strategy and tactics. Shogun is a great game, no doubt about it.

Ave Caesar

(Image courtesy CafegamesRon @ BGG)
It's not easy to find quick six player games. I've talked about Category 5 at great length, but sometimes you need something else to help fill the gap, something with just a little bit more meat on. Ave Caesar is that game.

Ave Caesar is a chariot racing game where players compete to be the first across the finish line. Asmodee did a fantastic job with the box art, board and components. The player pieces are really cool plastic chariots that look like Roman reliefs; they are very striking and look great when set up on the board. I also really like the board itself. It's very bright and colorful, particularly the crowd. Anyone taking a glance at the game is bound to be immediately interested.

Seeing as how you'll probably end up with a lot of people oohing and aahing over the game once it is set up, it's good that Ave Caesar is incredibly easy to play and teach. Each player picks a chariot and receives a deck of cards numbered one through six. Players will always have a hand of three cards. On your turn you play a card, move your chariot and draw a new card. First to complete three laps wins. It's that simple.

(Image courtesy Capitaine Grappin @ BGG)

Well, almost that simple. There are a few things that really make the game interesting. First, the track is generally only two spaces wide representing the inside and outside of the track. Only a single chariot may occupy a space and you may not pass directly through an opponent so it's quite possible for players to block both lanes, preventing others from getting through. There are also a handful of spaces on the board that take up both lanes, meaning a single player can block off the track in those spaces. Navigating yourself into these blocking areas is one very key aspect of the game. Second, you may never play a "six" card when you are in the lead (or tied for the lead). Third, when you play a card you must move exactly the number of spaces listed on the card. If you have no valid card to play then you must pass. Finally, sometime on the first or second lap you must stop in front of Caesar and pay tribute. This is represented by the player tossing in their plastic coin and proclaiming, "Hail, Caesar!

Positioning and timing are everything in Ave Caesar. At first you may wonder why you wouldn't always play your highest card every time. It seems reasonable at first but once you see how tight the board gets you'll understand how important timing your movement really is. Just because you can blow past someone doesn't mean you should; often you are better off using a little less movement if it means you get prime positioning in a blocking spot or on the inside of the track. Forcing your opponents to waste their good cards traveling on the outside of the track can really be devastating. You also will need to relinquish the lead at some point to use your sixes, so timing when to fall back and push forward again can be very tricky.

(Image courtesy gamephotos @ BGG)
The beauty of Ave Caesar is how incredibly simple it is. If people just want to toss down cards that's fine and the game works. At the same time more skilled players will always be thinking two or three moves ahead and will generally be rewarded for it. There certainly is a luck component to Ave Caesar and there may very well be times where you suffer because you didn't have the ideal movement cards in your hand. At the same time you always have three cards so you should always be planning your next couple of moves. Decisions are usually quite simple but it's important to time your key movements as best you can.

Starting position is important, and while the early players seem to have an advantage the leader has to work much harder and take more risks to get their sixes used up. Being in the lead and having two sixes in your hand really hurts. You also have to be careful when you pass the leader as you are now giving them the opportunity to play one of their sixes. The rules recommend you do a few races in a row to try and even out the luck factor a bit and I do think that's a good idea. At first I think players are going to feel that the game is extremely luck-based. After a race or two, though, they should start to see how even a little bit of planning will go a long way.

(Image courtesy gamephotos @ BGG)

I do have a few minor complaints. First, there are many spaces on the board that are not large enough for the chariots! You end up sticking them in there sideways so it looks like your chariots are drifting around corners and sliding through pit row. Second, the board seams are in some very inconvenient spots and I've had several first time players think a crease was actually marking a new track segment. Finally, while the game does come with two tracks I do it had come with a few more. There is an expansion in the works and there's plenty of fun to be had with the two included tracks but one or two others would've been nice.

These are very minor faults, though, and really don't bring the game down at all. It's a fantastic gateway game and people really seem to get in the spirit of the race. The real beauty of Ave Caesar is that it's best with six and it's possible to get a couple of races in under an hour. Add in the great art and components and you have yourself a real winner.

Cuba

(image courtesy MikeBwithoutadot @ BGG)
Every now and then a game surprises me. At a glance, Cuba doesn't look like anything special. Sure the board is gorgeous but the theme and mechanics all look derivative. Once I played it, though, I realized that Cuba has plenty to offer.

Cuba has players gathering resources, producing goods and shipping or trading them for points. By itself that doesn't sound very exciting, not to mention all that unique in the Eurogame realm. The game does borrow a lot from others that came before it. There is role selection, making and shipping of goods, collection of victory points and laws that get passed. It all sounds pretty mundane but Cuba adds its own unique twist to nearly everything.

Each player has a set of five role cards, a player mat showing a 3x4 grid of fields and a worker token. The game takes place over six rounds and whoever has the most victory points at the end wins. On a turn, players go around in order activating one of their roles and performing that action. Each role has a number (one through five) and the fourth card you play activates but also counts as your "bid" for turn order. Your remaining role card is not played but its number counts as your base votes for parliament. The clever part about this is that the higher numbered roles are the more powerful ones, meaning you'll have to sacrifice a good role to get a good base vote in parliament.

One of your roles is the farmer who allows you to place your worker somewhere on your 3x4 grid and then harvest the resources and goods in the row and column he's placed in. There's also the foreman who activates all of the buildings in the row and column your worker is currently in. Player mats have two sides, one that is identical for all players and one that is unique so you could play on completely equal footing or have different starting setups, which is a nice touch.

(image courtesy diceychic @ BGG)

To leverage all of the stuff your workers collect, though, you'll most likely need buildings. The architect role allows you to pick one building of your choice from the pool of available buildings and place it on a square on your player mat. This is one of the most important parts of the game because not only do the buildings you pick determine your overall strategy for the game but you also must cover up an existing resource when you build it. Figuring out what you need and what you can do without can be painful at times but thankfully your player mat is small enough that your choices are fairly limited and once that first building is placed you've pretty much locked yourself in to a pattern for the rest of the game.

Three of the roles have alternate uses. The mayor, tradeswoman and architect all have primary uses that work with the resources you have gathered so far. Their alternate uses allow you to collect a bonus which is then unavailable to all other players for the rest of the round. For example, the mayor normally lets you ship goods to a single ship at the docks. If you didn't feel like shipping anything, though, the first person to use the mayor's secondary ability collects four pesos and the second person collects two pesos. These spots can be in serious contention each round and you need to plan your actions accordingly.

Finally, the best part of the game is parliament. Each round there are four categories of laws that will be invoked. The first two involve discarding money or goods for victory points and if you do both you get a bonus point. The third law gives more victory points for specific conditions and the fourth is always some form of rule breaker. At the start of the game the four laws being voted on are shown at the top of the board. As I mentioned earlier, the value of your fifth card determines your base votes and then there's a blind bid to add additional votes, one per peso. Whoever has the most votes gets to pass two of the four laws and their choices replace any previous laws of that type. Then the laws are invoked in order and players earn points for the laws they are in compliance with.

(image courtesy richardsgamepack @ BGG)
This really makes the game and I think the it can be won or lost here. Most of Cuba is about picking a strategy from turn one, building your victory point engine and working it throughout the game. There are many different ways to earn victory points and it seems like they are all roughly equal in their ability to win. The variables are the laws, if/when they get passed and how long they are in effect. For example, if you are generating a lot of income and the other players are poor you'll probably want to pass the law that makes players spend five pesos to earn two victory points as there's a good chance you'll be the only person who can afford to do that each turn. Or if you have more buildings than everyone else you'll want to pass the law that earns you points for each building.

Making sure you have the money to win votes, picking your roles so you have the proper base number of votes going in and knowing when to aggressive protect or remove laws is not only very important but a lot of fun. It adds a level of player interaction and awareness you don't often see. When the new laws come up you'll be very aware of what impact the passing of those laws will have on each player. If you ignore your opponents they'll capitalize on the laws and most likely pull out the win.

(image courtesy Nobi @ BGG)

This isn't to say that Cuba is perfect. My main complaint is that there are only six rounds so there's no time to waste. From round one you had better pick a strategy and stick with it. If you end up in too much competition with another player or waste too much time getting your production machine up and running you'll fall behind and have a very difficult time catching up. Your turns will feel scripted at times as well as there'll really only be one logical way to play it out. Other times you'll be scratching your head trying to maximize your turn as you generally can't afford to make many mistakes. Also, there will be times when you discover you can earn more points on a turn by completely ignoring your original strategy and going a completely different route. Not a big deal but it can be a little demoralizing to have built up this whole system just to ignore it on the final round.

Overall, though, I think Cuba has a lot to offer. There are a lot of different ways to achieve victory in the game but I think they all rely on paying attention to the parliament and making the moves you see necessary to give you a boost or prevent others from getting one. It's also a relatively fast game, easily playable in a couple of hours. Out of the new board games I've played over the last year Cuba is easily one of my favorites.

Modern Art

(image by nrihtar2 @ BGG)

I could never survive in a barter economy and I've never tried to play the stock market. I'm terrible at evaluating the worth of things and in all honesty it stresses me out a bit. Which is no surprise that Modern Art and I have had a rocky relationship.

Modern Art is an auction game in its purest form. Players buy and sell art in while trying to predict which artists will be the most lucrative. Each player starts with a hand of cards that represent a piece of art from one of five different artists. On your turn you play a card which you are putting up for sale. An auction occurs, the winner pays the seller and places the work of art in front of them. Once the fifth piece of art from a given artist is played on the table the round is immediately over. The top three most popular artists - those with the most purchased paintings wwwwall players - are given values of 30, 20 and 10 for that round. Then players collect money for the paintings they purchased that round. Purchased cards are removed and a new round begins.

There are two things that make Modern Art work. First, artists accumulate worth over the course of the game. If Krypto places first in round one, his art is worth 30 per card. Round two Krypto places second making his art worth 50 per card (30 from round one plus 20 from round two). Round three Krypto doesn't place, meaning for this round his art is worthless. Last round Krypto places in second place again, meaning his art is now worth 70 each(30+20+20). When you purchase and sell art you are trying to predict which artists will place each round and where they will place. An artist tracking for first will rake in more cash than one that isn't looking to place.

Second, there are several types of auctions in the game. Each card has a symbol showing the type of auction that occurs when that card is put up for sale. The types are:

• Open - Your standard auction. Players call out bids until nobody wishes to raise the bid further.
• Once Around - Bids go around clockwise once starting with the player to the right of the auctioneer.
• Sealed - A blind bid. Each player puts an amount of money in their hand and reveal simultaneously. Highest bid wins.
• Fixed Price - The auctioneer sets the bid price and in clockwise order have a chance to buy it at that price or pass.
• Double - A double auction card lets you put down a second piece of art for sale and the form of auction is determined by the other card played with it.

(image by creech @ BGG)
Combine these two things and you have a game that is all about trying to read your opponents and figuring out the best timing for an auction. Throwing out a double auction can rake in a lot of cash. Likewise a well-timed sealed auction might have people over-bidding to make sure they get that piece of art. The catch is, of course, that you never want to pay too much otherwise you are giving an opponent a lot of money and not making much profit for yourself. As you would expect, the key is to buy low and sell high. Most importantly, though, your hand of cards gives you some inside knowledge about what the market looks like and allows you some control over the course of the game.

My first few plays of Modern Art were rough. As I said, I'm not good at evaluating the worth of things and that's pretty much all you do in this game. When you first play you really have very little understanding of the general price trends and it's easy to overpay or sell something for far too cheap. Experienced players will wipe the floor with you. That's what happened with me and I really came to dislike the game.

One night, though, things finally clicked. I decided to play a game without buying a single piece of art; all of my income came exclusively from sales. This let me watch how everyone else bid and allowed me to better focus on the trends; that game gave me a lot of insight on how Modern Art works and how to read the group you're playing with. I came in an extremely close second without purchasing a single piece of art.

(image by Moviebuffs @ BGG)

That's when I realized that Modern Art is truly a great game. There tend to be general price guidelines you'll follow each game once you understand how things place and the impact that'll have on their worth; there's definitely a general pacing to the game. Yet two matches will play the same as each match takes on the mindset of the players and you have to understand how to gauge the impact that'll have. I highly suggest you take a similar approach during your first game: sit back, watch how others play and make money off of your sales. You probably won't win but you'll gain a real understanding of how the game works.

After my initial hatred for the game I've actually come to enjoy it quite a bit. Odds are I'll never recommend we play Modern Art but I'll no longer complain about my dislike for it. Modern Art is a very simple board game with some serious replay value. I do think the game could grow stale if you play too often with the exact same group of people. Still, it's a great game to close off a game night.

On a side note, be sure to have a set of poker chips to use in place of the cheap plastic coins that come with the game. They are a pain to handle and people just like holding poker chips.