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Bobby Warren
United States
Glendale
Arizona
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This week I am posting a little early since I will need to hunt through the boxes that are tightly packed away in a large closet to find the game. The renovation on the house has hit a bureaucratic snag (the power company doesn't have someone who can come out and supervise the moving of the power box), so many of my games will be packed away for at least another month. This is one I want to get into an accessible position and I will use the search for it to make some other games I have been wanting to play readily available.
Last week I was able to play both The Hanging Gardens and the previous week's game choice, Vikings. I guess I'll count both as being played. Too generous? how about counting it as 1.5 GotW being played? 
I introduced The Hanging Gardens to both Rob and Nico. I was surprised that neither had played it before since Nico plays almost anything and it was being played when Rob was coming around on a regular basis. Of the three that played Vikings with me, only Michael may have played it before. That is less of a shock since I only played it once before at the store, though others do own it.
This week's game is one which did get a few plays at the store. Hermagor is a great game that is a graphic design nightmare, from it's poor art choices to it's muddled brown palette and horrible font selection for the rulebook.
It's a game played in two parts with the players trying to amass the most cash during the game. First, goods are bought at market using an influence/auction mechanism that was re-purposed as it's own game in Charon Inc., and then the players move along the map to supply the goods they have available this turn to cities which request them. These two parts are repeated over several turns and the winner is the player with the most cash.
What makes the game great for me is that there are several different mechanisms in place which integrate into a larger, cohesive game which has some tough choices and still has player interaction. The interaction comes in play every turn when trying to buy the tiles to have goods to sell as well as for placement on the map. The first players in a city collect money from new players who set up shop there.
It's an excellent economic game that plays in 90 to 120 minutes and scales pretty well from three to five players, though I like it a little more with the maximum number of players.
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