The six million dollar man, also known as the bionic man is one of my happier childhood memories. Throw it together with the A-team, Knight Rider, the Incredible Hulk and a little MacGyver and that was pretty much my world. Miami Vice would have been included but alas I wasn’t allowed to stay up for that one. Am I a better person for my parents censorship, I’m not sure, but after the movie came out I suspect I am certainly no worse of. But I digress.

Anyway the bionic man was not, and is not, on my top 5 list of super heroes, and in fact bionic abilities are not on my top five superpowers (comeon, I know you’ve all had that discussion … ‘if I could have one superpower it would be’) list. Yet he was special and very memorable for the slow mo action sequences and that accompanying warbling music that sounded something likes springs and something like a Eurhythmics song. The slow mo allowed us to watch his actions in pain staking detail. But he was fantastic, worhty of his title.

With him in mind I named Maharaja the six million dollar game. It is good looking, plays beautifully, is very simple, yet incredibly deep, all the things a good euro should have. However as one of my friends commented, “I know it’s a great game, I can see it, but it’s just not fun”. I love the game but I can see what he means because the game can grind to a halt so regularly when someone, usually me, is struck by a fit of indecision.

Maharaja is elegant. Everything about it is elegant. The colours are muted and flow together well, the board is spacious and clear, and the all the pieces are attractive. To be fair there are a lot of colours on the board and they are not always clear but this is more than made up for by the detailed portraits on the city tiles. These remind my of the player order markers in Oasis, as they are beautifully designed and add some more flavour to the game. Add to that individual player wheels which are clear and easy to understand and you have a very tidy package.

The game play of maharaja is what makes it stand out. Although there is nothing special in the mechanics, the range of actions available is simple, easily understood and can be managed by anyone. You know pretty much what you’re going to get from each of the actions and so the key skill element is project planning. In each turn you get to take two actions which allow you to do a range of things, these actions are selected before any of the player get to take the actions. So in selecting actions a good player has to a) look at their resources and see what they can afford, b) assess where they might score points, c) and assess what their competitors might do to change the state of play. There are so many permutations and uncertainties that a player prone to AP is almost certainly goes to end up in a dithering mess going round and round in circles while telling other players to shut up and not distract him and then thinking more about being aware of not thinking about thinking ….. Need I say more.

When a decision is made then the playing out of the turn is relatively simple. Although you react to your opponents moves the choices here are limited by the actions you choose previously so there is not a lot of scope for plans to change rapidly.

There are no dice involved so the game is one of strategy and cunning. The game is one of many strategies, and each seem equally capable of winning you the game. As Tom Vassel points out, in an excellent review of the game play, it is a game with a simple goal but one which can be achieved in a variety of ways.

Maharaja is definitely a classic euro and deserves the relatively high spot on the geek. I suspect that it would be ranked higher if the possibilities and scope for action were not so wide, because the wealth of opportunity can reduce the game down to slow motion. Still it is this depth of decision that makes it such an intriguing game. I loved Maharaja, and in my opinion it is the complete package, and well deserving of the title, “the six million dollar game.