I’m normally not a big fan of negation games. The blah, blah, blah of many of them bore me to tears. Some negotiations can be fun from time to time but often I prefer games where I can take more direct measures against the opponents.
This is where Die Händler (“The Dealers”) comes in. In Die Händler you take the role of a medieval merchant (or dealer) trying to buy goods cheap and sell them for a profit later on, nothing new here. The object of the game is to achieve the highest social status amongst the dealers at the end of the game. You spend money to climb the social ladder, but it gets more and more expensive as the game progresses. While it would seem smart to climb the ladder early on, you have to maintain your position as well which is quite expensive on the higher levels. In the end it’s the classical balancing act but its well done and executed in this game.
Let’s take a closer look at the game.
The game comes in a fairly big box of good quality (as you expect from Queen Games). The components are of top notch quality as well. Big wooden wagons, a wooden courier piece, lots of wooden goods tokens and generally sturdy materials. There’s nothing to complain about here.
The Map
The map is just strings of dots between different cities of medieval Europe. Each player has a warehouse in each of the six cities on the board. In each city three goods types are displayed, these are the only goods that can be produced in that city. Above each city there is a delivery bonus track which is increased each turn no goods are delivered to that city if there is no wagon in the city.
On the map there are also three tracks. One is the game deciding Social Status track with the cost to maintain that level of social standing. You have a wagon arrival track with the cost to advance a level socially and finally you have the goods price track. The number on the left of this track is the purchase price and the number on the right is the selling price.
Set up
Each player chooses a colour and gets the corresponding pieces which are really only four movement tiles numbered 1 to 4, a price wheel and two Coats-of-Arms. One is placed on the social track and the other in front of the player as a reminder which colour he is.
The three wagons are placed in different cities on the board and the two messengers are placed as well close to empty cities. The cities with the wagons have their delivery bonus track set to 0 while the other three is set to 200.
Place one of each of the six types of goods at the bottom of the price track.
Each player also gets 4000 guilders and two special ability cards. The rules suggest certain pairings of these cards which are about even in power, but if you want to each player can start out with 5000 guilders and then the players bid for the different abilities. No player can have more than two cards. I prefer the fixed method myself especially with players new to the game.
There are two cards that increase wagon movement, two that allows you to move the couriers, two that allows to you change the price track, one that allows you to purchase goods cheaply and finally one that allows you to sell goods directly from your warehouse.
Money is secret in the game, this is vital. You do get a nice cloth bag to keep your money in if you want to. Do as you want as long as you keep it secret.
Game play
I won’t go over every rule exactly, just the general game play. The game is played in rounds of six phases each.
1. Purchasing Goods
2. Bidding for Wagons and Loading Goods
3. Wagon and Courier movement
4. Price Modification, Warehouse Selling
5. Selling Delivered Goods
6. Upkeep and Raising of Social Status
1. Purchasing Goods
You start out the turn by purchasing goods. Each player in player order purchase 0-3 goods from those available in the supply. The cost for each goods is the price on the left of the level the goods is on on the price track. All goods start at the lowest level (100) at the start of the game. You then place the goods you bought in one of more of your warehouses in cities where that type of goods is produced. The first turn this is done twice to get some goods on the map.
2. Bidding for Wagons and Loading Goods
After buying the goods and placing them in your warehouse in one of the cities on the board you have to get them to another city to sell them. This is where the three wagons come in. The wagons are numbered 1 to 3.
Wagons currently in cities are auctioned off in order and then loaded with goods. Players are bidding on the right to become "Loading Master" for each of the Wagons. You take the amount you’re willing to bid and then all players reveal simultaneously. The highest bidder is the winner; ties are won by player order.
The winner gets to load his goods and also get to sell wagon space to the other players. The twist here is that he doesn't have to and can charge one player much more than the others. Expect to hear wails and wild pleadings here. True evil!
Usually you want to buy wagons where you have goods to ship but sometimes you’ll try to buy a wagon anyway. Perhaps all the other players have goods in the city they want to ship or perhaps you simply don’t want a certain player to be able to ship his goods. I love being evil so this is great stuff to me. Don’t play the game with people that can’t take no for an answer.
3. Wagon and Courier movement
Now it’s time for wagon movement. Each player in order chooses one of his movement tiles and move a wagon that number of spaces along the road. You can’t turn a wagon around, it can only go forward. There can’t be two wagons in the same space or city either. If you come to a fork in the road the moving player chooses which road to take.
If a wagon ends up on the same space as one of the couriers the moving player get to draw one influence card. There are five different types of influence card and it goes from “Broken Axle” which stops one wagon from moving to “Social Climbing” which allows a player to climb one level on the social status track for a fixed price.
4. Price Modification, Warehouse Selling
After the movement is complete each player in secret records up to two goods types on his price wheel. You can pick the same goods twice if you want to. Now all players disclose their wheel and for each goods type selected the corresponding goods is moved up one step on the track. The twist here is that the scale wraps around so if a certain goods type is at the top and is increased one level it goes to the bottom of the track. Some hard choices here, you want to your goods to be at the top of the track but someone else might also increase it bringing it to the bottom instead.
5. Selling Delivered Goods
The first thing you do here is to move the wagon track up one step for each wagon that arrived in a city this turn. This is a vital rule. You’re never certain how many turns this game will play. Some turns all three wagons will arrive and some turns none of them will.
After that all goods on wagons that arrived in cities are sold. The price is the selling price on the track plus the bonus on the city’s bonus track if that type of goods is not produced in that city. You can really screw people over here by moving a wagon to a city with maximum bonus with goods that are produced there.
After that you increase the bonus track on all cities that had no deliveries this turn (and have no wagon in the city).
6. Upkeep and Raising of Social Status
Now you have pay to keep up appearances. You pay the amount listed next to your level on the social status track. If you can’t pay the amount listed you drop in status. This is bad news so be certain to always have enough money for this.
After upkeep you can increase your social status 0-2 steps. Each step cost the amount listed on the wagon track. So it’s cheaper to increase the status at the start of the game but then you’ll have to pay higher upkeep. So you’ll have to plan somewhat here.
Game end
The game ends after 8 wagon arrivals in the 4 player game (7 with 3 players, 6 with 2). When this is triggered you still play the round to its end. More wagons than 8 can arrive if they all arrive in the last round. This is allowed but the wagon arrival track only goes to 8 and stays there if already there.
The winner is the player with highest social status. If tied check the amount of money left. If still tied celebrate a joint victory and marry of your children to each other.
Verdict
Die Händler is one of the nastiest games out there despite the cute looks. If you like auction games you'll love this one and if you like negotiation games, even better. If you like to screw people over as well this is your game no question about it.
You need four players for the game to really shine but shine it does. All in all a fantastic negotiation game that I really appreciate despite my normal aversion to that type of games.
Playing time is around 90-120 minutes for a 4-player game. Age 12+ I would say. I know its listed as 10+ on the box but that’s too low imo.
Rating: 8.5/10
NB: In this review I have used pictures from the gallery here at BGG instead of taking my own. A big thanks to the people I have borrowed from. If I have used one of your pictures and you would rather that I had not, let me know and I’ll remove it.
Posted Wed Nov 14, 2007 3:44 pm
I remember this game got panned when it first appeared, but later, people have been giving it a try and finding out it is an outstanding game...with so many elements to balance, there is never a dull moment!
