C'mon people - the game has an "anal probe" card - and you get to play it against your friends! What's not to love? Well, the general chaos about turn order and who plays events in what order, etc.

Best with 3-4 players. Moves fast, and it's a struggle to be as efficient as possible in order to win. I tell new players that it's a contest to see who can build the best "pleasure palace" - and that what really counts is who has the biggest harem.

It's potentially better than Lost Cities because the "Tactics" cards can offset an imbalance of luck - lots of tough choices to make in a fast-moving game

Great social game for 4-6 players. Not really a "strategy" game - more like a popularity contest, but totally worth it for the laughs.

Great depth with simple components and simple rules, but only works with 2 or 4 players

It's good fun and works with a variety of players and skill levels. I'm jaded by too many expansions - you have to mix and match expansions rather than trying to play them all at once.

definitely NOT candyland - don't be fooled by the back of the box - very tight, tactical game. Very good 2 player with face-up cards, but keep the cards face-down with 4 or 5

More Faidutti chaos - but really just a "get rid of your cards" game with a twist or two. The card art is quite fun for this, goes well with the "social" gamers

Worth a laugh in a social setting - very fun the first time through the deck. The "nookie" cards can be very powerful, but oh the embarassment if you roll a "1" on a nookie check

not great with 4 players - fun with 7 but too much downtime - sweet spot is probably 5-6 players - not a huge amount of depth overall

good filler game. lots of opportunities to agonize over min/max decisions without getting too overwhelming

The Colossal Arena version is good fun, but it is a little hard to control your fate, especially if other players figure out your secret bet. More of a "betting" game than a creature combat game.

quite possibly the best of the Richard Borg games using the card-based action system.

I have a custom-made Hilinski board - "the Lothlorien" - see www.hilinski.net - great social game, great for couples, great with a drink in one hand

The standard map is hardly "balanced", and it's tough today to find 6 or 7 players for a 5 hour + game. Still, this is the "Creme of the creme" if you like negotiation games. Remember - if you have to trust someone, it's already too late! Always negotiate from a position of strength. A single player win requires you to do some serious backstabbing at some point.

Faidutti chaos - works well with players who like the tense negotiations that sometimes break down badly. I'm not a big fan of the card that "allows" you to cheat.

I like the bits and the system a good deal. However, my Euro-snob friends think it is too light and fluffy (turned off by concept, I think), whereas my friends who like lighter games find the system overwhelming. It's like it's a fantastic two-player strategy game dressed up like a beer and pretzels game.

Allows for some nice variety from the original DT character mix, and opens up more scenario ideas.

the best of the Gipf games - fast and brutal, but you always feel like you can turn around a losing game if you can find something that your opponent missed - ever-changing board, novel scoring, nice components - great lunchtime game

silly card game, but good for a few yucks. Doesn't pretend to be anything other than a filler game.

sort of a multiplayer solitaire puzzle thing, but it has interesting choices and tough planning decisions to make.

This one's a little too light - "bluffing" portion of the game doesn't pay off the strategy of the "bidding" portion of the game

Dice-rolling beer and pretzel goodness. I find that only the "2 lap" rules really make for a fun game.

Weighty - but simply amazing with people who already know how to play. Theme is light and the rules are a little overwhelming for newbies, but the payoff is worth it.

wish I could play more often - glorious game

hey- it's a Reiner Knizia auction game. Only this time, the guy with the least money left is the big loser. The guy with the best stuff and at least some money left at the end is the winner. Can be very tight, and only requires 20 minutes or so to play one round.

classic game of bluffing and outguessing the other players. Plays in 60 min. or less with little downtime - good for 5 or 6 players

Oh so many happy memories of bickering, table talk, and backstabbing from my college days. Man, though, keeping track of all the numbers was a royal pain...

i own it and like it. very tight in terms of picking the right action and the right character on your turn. Just the right length for what it is. It doesn't immediately SEEM balanced on a first play, but the balance is definitely there.

despite abstract nature, very accessable to newbies, but subtle strategies for pros - can be tight up until the final few turns

mathematical, abstract, yet chaotic and competitive. I like these kinds of games

i own the 6 player "Bluff" version with a nice bidding track scoreboard.

quick but tense 2 player fun. Much more depth than "LOTR Stratego"

Great 2 player though light and luck dependent. Clasic Knizia. Easy to find games on BSW.

Perrhaps a little too much going on. Lots of subtle interactions and great balance, but the tight balance makes the endgame scoring seem a bit fiddly and random. This may gain another half point with a few more plays.

Wasn't impressed after 1 play, but now I uderstand the game a bit better. Luck certainly matters here, but there is some real strategy to the bidding. As much as this is a classic Knizia bidding game, the artwork on the US Rio Grande edition is TERRIBLE, with a crappy font on the cards. Bits in the original German edition are much nicer.

Classic Knizia - great dynamics. I never know if I'm winning (and rarely do) perhaps too easy for a newbie to unwittingly hand the game to someone else by mistake.

nice theme, and map. Feels like a light rail game, but you really have to scrap it out for every single point.

Reiner Knizia at it again. This got better on a second playing. The tension rises once the players have a better feel for what is going on in the auctions.

Fast filler game for the start of a game session. Scales well 3-6 players. Very easy to teach, and even something you can play with your family. I will, however, make the joke that this is the sort of game that RK probably designs before breaksfast on a good day.

a little too dry - lacks dramatic conflict, scoring is a little weird, still fun to play with the little building and park tiles

It can be frustrating that the pieces are all the same shape, but it's a nice 3D puzzle and a somewhat clever game

It doesn't make me wet my pants or anything, but it's a damm good game and always interesting. I have one strategy (factory - guildhall) but it doesn't always work

Great two-player "lunchtime" sort of game. Simple, but not "solvable", with sudden reversals of fortune.

I didn't "get" this game the first few times I played - now I "get it" and it's one of my alltime favorites. The key to victory is getting the lead in pharoahs.

"Name that tune" robot floor puzzle. Makes your brain hurt and then some. I'm pretty good at this, but it really hurts when I play against someone who is much faster than I am.

can be a little demanding for the Eurogame crowd. Game length is all in how you set up the board - from 60 minutes to nigh on impossible. My favorite variant was a tag-team race with two robot teams.

Not good with 4 players, but seems like a good social game for 5-7 that plays in well under an hour. Trying to smoke out the "saboteur" players is more fun than actually counting the scoring at the end.

Only really works with 3 players, but the "pie-cutting" mechanic really makes this shine. I also really like the components. Think of this as "el Grande" lite for 3 players

the classic - very tight and competitive in standard 4 player version, with a nice definite ending

Unique game system, but some of the advanced rules can bog it down a little bit.

i like this sort of highly abstract tile game

Knizia goodness. Officially "the candy-colored-camel game" in my house. Lovely design and tradeoffs in scoring - games can be very tight, and skill wins out in the end

solid game, even if I still can't seem to put together a solid winning strategy.

defintely takes a few hands to begin to understand this one. Strange cross between Rummy and a trick-taking game with a few strange rules and weird "special" cards. Still, with experienced players, a partnership game with a LOT of replayability.

Fast, tight, and very teachable to newbies. The new sequel TTR Europe actually exposes some problems with the original, but the US map and the lighter rules still make this more accessable to new gamers.

Much better balance than original TTR, but develishly difficult in the details. Pretty tense throughout. A little bit of added setup time is a hassle, but the bits are LOVELY.

Sure it's prone to "analysis paralysis", but a wonderfully elegant game with some cool optional rules for advanced players to give the game more variety.

Sure it's light and your fate can be determined by which cards you draw. Still, it moves fast and skill can win out over the cards. Fun to play with nieces and nephews!

Board is more chaotic than the "TransAmerica" version, and the scoring seems more harsh. Funny European spellings of the city names.

I thought I really liked this at first. Then I discovered that there really wasn't much strategy here. Oftentimes, there is really one 1 "best" play available, and with more than four players it just feels like a random cluster****. At least it plays fast, and is good while waiting for others in your game group to show up.

One of the more popular games in my gaming group - way more fun than you might assume from just reading the rules

More an "activity" than a game and sometimes tricky to balance the difficulty of the puzzles. Still, it's easy to attract a crowd at parties with this one, and it's a unique challenge