Game: Gardens of the Alhambra, The

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rober — 2008-11-18T16:13:01+00:00

overview

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Motorkopf — 2008-07-01T18:17:34+00:00

Back of the german box of the original CARAT

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Motorkopf — 2008-07-01T18:15:40+00:00

Box of the original (Carat)

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Motorkopf — 2008-06-26T16:27:39+00:00

Inside the box of Carat

Thread: Re: 3 players --how do you score the non player?

Tim Synge — 2008-01-14T13:58:32+00:00

Palm (Green?) gets the points.

Even though Orange is not in the game, there is a tie between Orange and Yellow for this building. The rules are clear that, in the case of a tie, the score is given to the next colour down.

This is important, because in your example, it might well have been the Green deliberately placed a tile so as to ensure that Yellow did not win the building in question, by ensuring that the Orange points were equal to Yellow's.

Edit: typo.

Thread: Re: Queen Face-off: Carat vs. Gardens of Alhambra

hudarklord — 2008-01-05T06:44:05+00:00

Randy Cox wrote:
Once a square scoring tile is completely surrounded by trees, points are awarded. The color that has the most trees gets the points shown on the little square scoring tile.

This is incorrect. The point value on the building tile is a MULTIPLIER. The player with the most trees around the tile counts the number of distinct colors of plants around the building and multiplies that number times the multiplier and scores the result.

For example, if green, purple, orange, and yellow plants surround a level 5 building tile and green has the most plants around the building, according to you green scores only 5 points. In reality, green scores 20 points in this example. This dramatically changes tile placement and makes it more complicated than you are describing. In the game I just played, for example, I sometimes helped surround a building tile with plants of my opponent's color so that he would get the multiplier times one (just his color on all sides) instead of a better result (like the multiplier times 3 or 4).

Now, I don't know if Carat worked the same way or not. If it doesn't, then the games have a scoring difference. If Carat does work the same way, then you can't just keep the round numbers tiles from Carat to calculate your score -- you'd need pen and paper to sum up the multipliers.

In any case, something is missing from the review, and I think it's somewhat misleading as to the depth of the game.

Regards,
Lee Valentine

Thread: 3 players --how do you score the non player?

FezAZ — 2007-12-05T16:58:17+00:00

I thought I had already posted this question, but it is nowhere to be found.

How do you score the non-player in Gardens? {I know what the rules say --but they don't provide details}

Say the three players are Lavender, Lemon, and Palm. No one is orange. So, for example, a building is surronded by trees on all sides so that Orange and Lemon have 5 trees and Palm has 2 trees. How is this scored?

Does Lemon get the points because Oranage is not in the game, or does palm get the points because orange and lemon tied.
Thanks.

Thread: Re: New Variant

yut-yau — 2007-11-20T12:26:37+00:00

You know what,
I have this game and I didn't really like it but I thought I would try your variant.
The original game had a lot of 'analysis paralysis' and is boring setting it up.
Your variant gets rid of the set-up.
I also decided to allow each player to place one small(building) and one large(garden) piece per turn because I thought that deciding which to do might slow it down, so one of each.
I tell you what, this game is now a lot better for this variant.
No boring set-up.
Less 'analysis paralysis'
An extra dimension i.e. a building site can be surrounded and won/lost/tied before the building is built.

I reckon this new variant adds about 2 or 3 to the rating of this game, at the very least I want to play it whereas before I was a bit dissappointed with it.

Cheers

Yut-yau

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Daddys_Home — 2007-10-17T16:37:08+00:00

Unpunched octagonal garden tiles and one of each scoring tile except tower and non scoring tiles

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Daddys_Home — 2007-10-17T16:35:34+00:00

Unpunched octagonal garden tiles and tower tiles

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Daddys_Home — 2007-10-17T16:33:07+00:00

Unpunched octagonal garden tiles and arcade tiles

Thread: Re: Queen Face-off: Carat vs. Gardens of Alhambra

Drew1365 — 2007-10-03T14:05:09+00:00

I'm sure a large part of it was "What if we rethemed Carat and stuck it in the popular Alhambra line for better sales?"

I must admit I've only played the "Gardens" version, and thought it was so-so. (Though I intend on buying it someday because I think it'll go over well with the wife'n'kids, them bein' girls an' all.) And we all did kind of complain about the difficulty in flipping the building tiles.

But gosh it was purty.

Thread: Re: Queen Face-off: Carat vs. Gardens of Alhambra

Randy Cox — 2007-10-03T12:43:52+00:00

Drew1365 wrote:
Nice review. However, I would much rather play the pleasant Gardens of Alhambra version than the (to my eyes) rather garish Carat version. I would have thought that too, before actually trying it. The trees are pretty, but terribly non-functional. Counting five vs. six trees plus the is-it-four-or-five isn't nearly as easy as just adding a the digits "5" and "4".

Now, if the graphics for the new edition had been structured so that there would be no need for the small square tiles, it would have been better. That way, the little tiles could still be circles and, therefore, removable from the board (and held by the players to tally final score).

In other words, they could have had their cake (pretty graphics) and eaten it (playability) too. But they chose not to do that. It seems to be a rush job by the manufacturer.

Thread: Re: Queen Face-off: Carat vs. Gardens of Alhambra

Drew1365 — 2007-10-03T04:12:13+00:00

Randy Cox wrote:
In summary, Queen's Carat is an abstract game with colors and numbers. It's very easy to see and interpret, and still looks lovely in a Blokus-like way when the game is over. Queen's Gardens of Alhambra spent too much effort on imagry and theme tie-in to the franchise name "Alhambra" and didn't think about how the result is a mashed-up, messed-up, jumbled mass of color splotches. In execution, it's like a bad Impressionist painting.

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The game is the same no matter which edition you go with, but it's so much cleaner in the previous Queen format. It'll never be a "must play" game, but if Queen had left it as it was, it would hit the table a little more frequently.

Carat
Gardens of Alhambra

Nice review. However, I would much rather play the pleasant Gardens of Alhambra version than the (to my eyes) rather garish Carat version.

Thread: Re: Extra blank tiles??

yut-yau — 2007-10-03T03:11:50+00:00

We just use them as if they are a building worth zero.
i.e. if you draw a "6" piece then you would try to place your opponents '6' against the scoreless square.

Thread: Queen Face-off: Carat vs. Gardens of Alhambra

Randy Cox — 2007-10-02T14:31:04+00:00

Last night, I tought the game Gardens of Alhambra to my wife. I did this for a couple of reasons. First, it's always good to get to play a game and this one accommodates two players. Second, I had played the game once before, in 1998, and discovered that I own the revised edition (the one with the Alhambra franchise name) and needed to see if either or both should go to eBay.

Setup
So we sat down to play the new edition. Board setup was fairly quick (just put the number squares, which range from 1 to 5, arbitrarily out on the board). Speaking of that, have you ever noticed that publishers say in the rules to "randomly" place bits on the board? It's not random. In fact, people usually start placing in the spaces close to them and work towards the middle of the board. What the publisher means is to arbitrarily place the pieces on the board without regard to the values on the pieces. End of rant. Anyway, to do this 100% fairly, you'd need to place the pieces on the board with the number side down (so you wouldn't know what you were placing) and then flip them all up to reveal the initial board layout. If you were at the WBC, where people live to whine about "competitive" gaming, that would be OK. But for a fun family game, just put the number pieces on the board in their proper orientation.

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Rules
When that task was accomplished, the rules were stated. They are very simple. Hold one big tile in your hand at all times (so you can be contemplating what to do with it, come your turn). When it's your turn, play it on the board. The big tiles fit between the little squares such that each big tile borders four squares. Each big tile has four sides, one for each color (each player is a color). Each side shows a number of trees in that color (the number of trees is the same for all colors on the big tile). In other words, you hold in your hand a big tile that has, say, three red, three purple, three green, and three yellow trees on the four sides.

By placing the tile on the board, you have forced one of the color sides (three green trees, e.g.) up against one of the square scoring tiles (say, one with the number 5 on it). Once a square scoring tile is completely surrounded by trees, points are awarded. The color that has the most trees gets the points shown on the little square scoring tile. If two or more players tie for most trees, then they all cancel out and the color with the next most trees wins the points. To indicate that a scoring tile has been evaluated, flip it over to its artwork side and move the scoring pawn along the scoring track.

When the board is full, all square scoring tiles will have been awarded and the board will be beautiful (trees and meandering paths on the big tiles, buildings on the small tiles).

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High score wins.

Play
In terms of game play, it's awfully straightforward. Look at your tile and see where you can maximize your score and minimize your opponents'. Interestingly, we had just played Sudoku Challenge before this (and aborted it, due to mindless tile placement aspects) and this game isn't all that different. Instead of finding the very basic best place to put a tile, as in Sudoku Challenge, you have to evaluate a tiny bit more in Gardens of Alhambra. You need to see how your placement affects up to three other players and if you can force a tie for first on a square where you are the runner-up in trees. But that's not exactly taxing. Warning: if you have people who just MUST score optimally on every play, this game will break down to the evil known as Analysis Paralysis.

The biggest problem with game play is the component factor. The small squares and big tiles fit together exactly. Snugly. They're designed to be butted up against one another, so as to make for a pretty picture when the game is complete. Problem is: it's impossible to flip over the little scoring tiles without disturbing surrounding tiles.

]]>When a big tile is placed on the second row, third position over, those little square tiles numbered 1 and 4 will be a bitch to flip over

Carat vs. Gardens of Alhambra
Which brings me to my evaluation of the two editions I own.

In Carat (Queen edition, not dbSpiele), there are no trees. Each big tile is simply divided into four colors (one for each side). Conveniently, these sides look like triangles in four colors which, through the magic of graphic design, are rendered as cut gemstones. Carat. Get it. Each little gemstone also shows the value (like the trees in the new edition), but shown as simple Arabic numerals.

So, comparing the big tiles the winner is Carat by a landslide. No counting little, itty bitty trees. Just look at colors and numbers.

]]> See the tiles--just colors and numbers

Now to the little scoring tokens... In the Alhambra edition, they are full squares that fill the space between tree tiles. In Carat they are simple white-on-black circular tokens showing the scoring value of the tile. That is a huge difference. You can actually pick up the little circles when the space is filled.

]]> There is space to pick up the circles

Again, Carat wins by a country mile. The big gemstone tiles are nicer than the trees. But the black point counters run circles around the newer editions square building tiles. Not only are the point values much more visible, you can in fact turn them over.

And finally, there is the scoring track. I'm not a big fan of scoring tracks around the edge of the board. I don't mind them too much if the token that is placed atop them is a little disc that doesn't topple over easily. But for Gardens of Alhambra, the publisher decided to put a track filled with narrow spaces and pawns that are supposed to be towers.

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For Carat, the publisher (which, ironically, is also Queen) decided to just hand you a scoring pad and not provide a track. In my mind, that's a better solution. But the glorious thing is that you don't even need it. As scoring circles are evaluated in Carat, simply hand the token to the winning player. There is no need to flip it over and keep it on the board. With that method, you simply count your scoring circles at the end to decide who wins.

So, again, Carat wins the Queen battle.

In summary, Queen's Carat is an abstract game with colors and numbers. It's very easy to see and interpret, and still looks lovely in a Blokus-like way when the game is over. Queen's Gardens of Alhambra spent too much effort on imagry and theme tie-in to the franchise name "Alhambra" and didn't think about how the result is a mashed-up, messed-up, jumbled mass of color splotches. In execution, it's like a bad Impressionist painting.

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The game is the same no matter which edition you go with, but it's so much cleaner in the previous Queen format. It'll never be a "must play" game, but if Queen had left it as it was, it would hit the table a little more frequently.

Carat
Gardens of Alhambra

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BigWoo — 2007-09-16T22:18:51+00:00

Die Gärten der Alhambra (box cover of the German edition)

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mintylish — 2007-09-11T05:21:38+00:00

The rules come in four languages

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mintylish — 2007-09-11T05:20:33+00:00

Scoring counters

Thread: Re: New Variant

DeanCornel — 2007-08-22T00:00:23+00:00

That could work.

Or you could try it with 10 diamond tiles already laid in the centre of the board.

Thread: First Play Review

willk_1230 — 2007-05-24T14:10:02+00:00

I just received The Gardens of the Alhambra this week and got the opportunity to play it with another avid gamer yesterday. What follows is our opinion of the game, not a detailed description of the mechanics or gameplay as that's already been covered in other reviews.

Learning the Game
Gardens is very easy to learn. We read the rules in about 5 minutes, and played two games on our 1-hour lunch break. We had to refer to the rules maybe twice during play. Explaining this game to a new player would take all of maybe 1-2 minutes. It would take longer to explain how to play Candyland than to explain how to play this game.

Game Speed
Game play is very fast at first as there are few options to weigh when laying your tile. Plus, as we laid a tile, we picked a new one up during our opponent's turn as opposed to waiting til their turn. This sped things up as well and didn't seem to adversely affect gameplay. Midway through the game the options for laying your tile double or triple and you occasionally hit a pause while one player is calculating the best move. However, we rarely noticed these pauses because we'd already chosen our next tile and were also analyzing. Near the end, things speed up again as the options dwindle again. Due to the speed at which you play, we found that a game usually lasts about 20-30 minutes.

To Flip or Not to Flip
When a building is fully surrounded, the rules call for it to be flipped to it's picture side. This involves slightly separating the pieces (read: displacing all pieces connected to it) in order to flip it. The gripe is that there's no need to flip the tile - other than to look at a pretty building as opposed to a number for the rest of the game. Then you have to re-situate all the displaced pieces to where they belong. About 6 buildings into the first game, me and my buddy decided we could live with looking at the numbers.

Randomness Can Easily Skew the Game
The tiles have 1-6 bushes on them. The higher the number of bushes, the more powerful the tile. The first game, my buddy and I seemed to draw about an even distribution of tiles in terms of numeric value, and we finished within 10-15 points of each other with me pulling ahead slightly at the end.

However, during the second game, my buddy hardly drew any tiles with a value less than 4 while I rarely drew one with a value greater than 3. As a result, he came within 1 point of "lapping" me on the score track. In other words, he won by 99 points! While I'm sure some of that was due to strategic play, we both agreed that a lot of it was due to his luck in drawing tiles.

Plenty of Strategy
I don't mean to give the impression that the game is ruled by luck. I believe our second game was a statistical anomoly and most games will be more balanced on the luck and determined more by your strategic play. There are several strategic factors to consider when playing your tiles - by enclosing a building, what sort of advantage/disadvantage are you giving your opponent? What is the net value of your move instead of the perceived value? How can you plan a series of moves to maximize your return? And can you influence your opponents play by giving him options he can't ignore? All these and more must be considered.

A Perfect Gateway Game
Because of its simplicity, speed, and beauty it will make a great gateway game - especially for people (read: girls) who are fantasy/wargame-phobic like my wife. If she hears "dragon" or "wizard" in the description of a game, her mind shuts like a steel trap. However, she loves to play games - don't ask me to explain it. Also, because the game is visually beautiful, it should appeal to more females than, say, the same game with a dungeon theme.

Bottom Line
We enjoyed the game and look forward to playing it with more than 2 people to see how that changes the strategy. However, it will likely not be a favorite for me, and thus my solid "5" rating for it, because my favorite games tend to have more mechanics and more layers of strategy as I'm a very competitive player by nature and like to play more complex games. As a filler though, this one is very good.

Curiosities
There were about 6 extra diamond tiles in the game that had no apparent use. We scoured the rules and couldn't find any mention of them - not even in the "Contents" list. Instead of the buildings/numbers that the other tiles have on them, these are the same yellow color as the board and have little paths printed on them. If anyone figures out what they're for, I'd love to know.

Thread: Review of Gardens of Alhambra

Bubba — 2007-05-11T18:40:25+00:00

Overview

Gardens of Alhambra is a light weight abstract board game loosely based on the same theme as Alhambra. This time, you are challenged to maximize the influence your flowers have over the residents of Alhambra.

Bits and Setup

The game board is divided into octagons and diamonds. The game provides squares numbed from 1-5 to be placed onto the squares numbers side up while the octagons are mixed and placed flower side down. Each player has a wooden tower matching their preferred flower color, this is used to track scoring on a track outlining the main board.

Play

On their turn, a player draws an octagon and must place it next to an existing octagon on the board. You can't place the initial octagon next to to the outside row. Each octagon is divded into 4 sections with a number of flowers equally in each color.

If a placed octagon completely surrounds one of the squares, scoring is done. The player with the highest number of flowers around a building scores (# on building X # of different flower types around the building). If two or more players tie for the number of flowers, the points go to the color in 2nd place.

Ending

The game ends when the final octagon is placed. Highest score wins.

Opinions

Gardens of Alhambra is a good filler game, easy to explain, with some tricky choices. By placing your color flower next to a scoring building, you are helping someone else out with another building. It pays to look carefully as you may end up scoring more for someone else than yourself! There are also opportunities to mess up other players by forcing ties thus letting the points go to the 2nd play flower color.

I'll rate this a 6. It won't hit the table every week, but when we're in need of something quick and cutthroat to play this will be coming out.

Thread: A fun abstract filler game

WeirdBal — 2006-09-28T16:48:35+00:00

This review is based on the Gardens of Alhambra version of the game, though comparisons will be made to the original Carat release. As far as I can tell, the rules for the two are identical and Gardens is merely a re-theme on this abstract game.

Game Overview

Point chips are distributed randomly onto the board in a grid. Players take turns placing down four sided tiles, with each side facing a different point chip on the board. Each side also represents a different player’s color, and the number value on the tiles indicates the influence towards capturing the adjacent point chip for each player. When a point chip is completely surrounded, points are awarded to the player with the most influence facing that chip, and are multiplied by the number of players contending for the chip. In the case of a tie, the points are awarded to any second place player not involved in the tie!

Strategy

There is not much planning ahead in this game, as players only hold onto one tile at a time, which will be their next play. The key goal is minimizing potential points earned by other player, because every tile you lay will help all the players to some degree. The obvious strategies are placing a low influence tile with another player’s color facing a valuable chip, or wasting a high influence tile on something a player is already sure to win and thus reduce the multiplier they will receive. Not knowing what will be drawn next can lead to some difficult placement choices, and there are usually various options available, so there is usually not an obvious ‘best’ move to make. However, it is not a complex game overall and could definitely be considered a light filler game.

Components

All of the components in the Gardens edition are of excellent quality, but the re-theme itself is questionable. I’m sure it will sell more copies, but makes an enjoyable abstract game more frustrating to play. Here are some of the minor annoyances it brings:

- A number and distinct color no longer represent the influence value of a tile. Instead, there are pictures of colored plants that must be counted, and the colors themselves are not very distinctive. Definitely makes for slower play as more work is involved in counting these tiles.
- The point chips are now square, unlike the original round pieces. While this makes for a pretty continuous garden picture after the scored tiles are flipped, the flipping becomes more of a hassle as the board fills up and the tiles are packed together. Makes another aspect harder than it should be.

Despite this, we still have fun playing this version. The score track is a nice addition to the board, though there is still nothing to use as an indicator of which player is using which color.

Final Thoughts

This game is definitely fun filler, but the ideal number of players limits it. I have only played with four myself, but I can imagine it is not as well suited to three. Two would probably work decently, but it would become a much more simplistic game. It can be compared to Blokus in terms of player scheme. I appreciate the re-theme in that it brought this game to my attention, where as I had never heard of Carat before, but I think it hurts more than it helps. If the game looks appealing, I would recommend hunting down the original Carat version to play.

Thread: Re: Extra blank tiles??

maxac — 2006-08-03T21:42:30+00:00

Great! Thanks for the fast response.

Thread: Re: Extra blank tiles??

Bernd — 2006-08-03T21:24:53+00:00

Hi Max,
nothing wrong about those 5 blank tiles.
A brandnew game includes 6 die-cut sheets. Each containing 6 8-cornerd tiles and 9 squares. For gameplay you will need 36 of the big ones and only 49 of the squares.
So, you can use those 5 spare tiles however you want, maybe as a kind of reserve.
All the best from germany
Bernd

Thread: Extra blank tiles??

maxac — 2006-08-03T20:57:23+00:00

I just bought this game used, and it came with 5 square tiles, just like the building tiles with the points, but the tiles are blank except for grass and a faint path. Does anyone know what these are for??

Thread: Re: Why the arrows?

fractaloon — 2006-06-16T02:42:00+00:00

You know, Metro has arrows on the cards too. You are supposed to align them, but for a variant they say to ignore that. If I remember right, that variant is supposed to make the game more challenging.

Thread: Re: First Impressions and Component Question

DSHStratRat2 — 2006-03-30T13:57:21+00:00

BookandGame wrote:
First off, we got an extra sheet of tiles in our copy of Gardens, tile set #1. I can probably figure out what extra Garden tiles we have from looking at a completed game picture, but if someone can easily tell me what was on Tile Set #1, that'd be great. I know I have 10 extra 1 Buildings.

Personally, I think the game needs some extra garden tiles. The building tiles are fine, but it's too easy to "count cards" in this game. In the last round or so, when scoring opportunities become fewer but tend to do more damage, it's too easy to see what's on the board and calculate what's left to draw. There are six tiles each of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 trees. People who know that, and pay attention to it, have a big advantage over people who are just drawing their tiles and hoping they'll get lucky. If they included more garden tiles than you could possibly use in a game, it would be a whole lot more interesting because you would never know what that next tile draw would give you...

I knew my wife liked Alhambra, so I thought she would like a similar game. However, this game has NOTHING in common with Alhambra except the theme, and that's a pretty weak connection.

Agreed. I bought this game for the same reason--my wife and I love to play Alhambra with just the two of us. So I bought the "expansion kit" that includes the Vizier, etc, and I bought The Gardens. The latter has nothing to do with Alhambra other than the theme itself. I like the game, but I haven't tried it on the wife yet. I think she'll like it, too, but I think she'll also be as disappointed as I was that it's not really all that Alhambra-ish. Alhambraic? It lacks Alhambrocity? At any rate, it feels more like a puzzle than a game. You just spend each turn trying to figure out what your best move is. It's always there--it's just a matter of whether or not you'll see it.

My biggest worry so far, however, is simply the luck factor. In the first game I played, the guy who won sure drew an awful lot of 5's and 6's. I kept getting 1's and 2's, which pretty much relegated me to playing defense a lot. After all, you're not likely to capture many 4- and 5-point buildings by planting single trees next to them. I got badly beaten because Palm and Lemon kept setting me up in positions where all I could do was prevent Lavender from scoring too many easy points. "Gee, do I hand him 10 points so he can't have 15, or do I hand him 6 points so he can't have 9...?" Worst of all, they always left him more great moves than I could possibly block. As a result, he won running away, and I was a mile behind everybody.

Thread: Re: 2 Player Rules

ferengi — 2006-03-15T23:06:18+00:00

Many thanks Andrew.

It makes sense the way you put it.

Andy.

Thread: Re: 2 Player Rules

Chump — 2006-03-12T23:27:50+00:00

ferengi wrote:
If playing 2-player does one include the non-player colours when deciding who has won the points?

Yes.

ferengi wrote:
And then "points for colours not belonging to any player are not awarded." would indicate that the points are simply calculated by multiplying the structure values (1-5) by 1 or 2? thus ignoring the other two colours if present?

No. It simply means that if a non-player colour wins points, they are not awarded. But you must still use all the colours present to calculate points.

Andrew

Thread: Re: 2 Player Rules

ferengi — 2006-03-10T23:37:11+00:00

Chump wrote:
I suppose with house rules you can do whatever you want.

Of course, the rules are clear--points for colours not belonging to any player are not awarded.

However, one of the published variations (for two players), is where each player plays with two kinds of trees each--this is how I've played.

I can't say the rules or your explanation make total sense to me.

If playing 2-player does one include the non-player colours when deciding who has won the points?

And then "points for colours not belonging to any player are not awarded." would indicate that the points are simply calculated by multiplying the structure values (1-5) by 1 or 2? thus ignoring the other two colours if present?

Anyone able to clarify?

Cheers,

Andy.

Thread: First Impressions and Component Question

BookandGame — 2006-02-20T07:45:44+00:00

First off, we got an extra sheet of tiles in our copy of Gardens, tile set #1. I can probably figure out what extra Garden tiles we have from looking at a completed game picture, but if someone can easily tell me what was on Tile Set #1, that'd be great. I know I have 10 extra 1 Buildings.

My wife got this game from my brother on my suggestion. I didn't realize that it was a rerelease of an old game until just a few minutes ago when I looked it up and saw that it was originally published in 1994. That's kind of annoying in my opinion. I recommended it because I knew my wife liked Alhambra, so I thought she would like a similar game. However, this game has NOTHING in common with Alhambra except the theme, and that's a pretty weak connection.

Reading the rules, I didn't think we'd like the game very much. It's obviously an abstract game with the theme pasted on. However, when we started playing, I enjoyed it. It's a good abstract game. It's fun and I'm not unhappy to have it. I'd probably give it a 7 or so.

It's pretty but the tiles are hard to pick up and keep straight because it's a tight fit. It looks like the old version had some spaces between the tiles so you can flip them over easily.

Just wanted to write a few words because I might be writing a review later and I wanted to get my impressions down before I went to bed.

Thread: The Gardens are not always peaceful

Odat — 2006-01-16T07:48:47+00:00

Marisue: 104
Dan: 81
Terence: 76
Esther: 51

The one request Dan the casterman had made when he invited us over for a night of games was to bring the Gardens of Alhambra, a game Terence had given me for Christmas - I saw it at our FLGS and said "Hey! That has Alhambra in the title, I'd better get that for Christmas if you know what's good for you!"

We'd only had an opportunity to play it once since the holidays (a combination of a busy work schedule and the "curse" of having too many games) but it had gone well. I recall winning the first time, but I'm not really sure if that's an accurate memory or a wishful one - let's say accurate because I'm the one writting these reports! With one play under our belts we hadn't had much opportunity to develop that much of a strategy, other than to note it's a game of agonizing descisions and generally if you help yourself, chance are you help somebody else wether you like it or not..

We each selected a color and went about planting the gardens. For some reason everybody was being really nice to my color, orange - of course by the time they realized just how nice they were being , it was too late and my orange groves ruled the board! The Gardens was a nice, fast game that has a lot more depth to it than the first play indicated. I have to gloat big with this win since the nex time we play with the Castercouple I will not be so fortunate.

Thread: "Three Garden Tile" Variation

Chump — 2006-01-14T08:25:19+00:00

I've played Carcassonne similarly, where we always have two tiles to choose from--it makes the game that much more strategic. I was just wondering why the suggested variation for Gardens goes to three instead of two ... why not four, or five then?

Thread: Re: 2 Player Rules

Chump — 2006-01-14T08:19:15+00:00

I suppose with house rules you can do whatever you want.

Of course, the rules are clear--points for colours not belonging to any player are not awarded.

However, one of the published variations (for two players), is where each player plays with two kinds of trees each--this is how I've played.

Thread: New Variant

nyhotep — 2006-01-10T12:24:43+00:00

Gardens of Alhambra variant

Warning - I havn't tested it at all, but it may be interesting.

1) No pieces start on the board.

2) The building tiles are shuffled and separated into a number of stacks equal to the number of players.

3) Each turn, you may either play a garden tile or a building tile.

4) When playing a building tile, choose one of the stacks and place the top tile on any available space.

5) Buildings can be placed on any available space, regardless of the presence of gardens. Gardens are placed as per the normal rules but cannot be scored until they surround a building, as normal.

Thread: Re: Quick game, easy to learn with lots of challenge

db3000 — 2006-01-04T20:18:41+00:00

Thanks for the review. I appreciate it. My question is this: Is this game a remake of Carat with a new theme slapped on top of it or is it a game which is somewhat similiar to Carat but not exactly the same? Does anyone know the answer to this. I'd rate the origninal Carat as decent and 7/10.I Welcome responses from the reviewer and the readership. Thanks.

Thread: 2 Player Rules

Moviebuffs — 2005-12-30T14:00:54+00:00

How much do you pay attention to the other two colours in a 2 player game?

We've played this once and this is how:

(we played purple and orange)

When calculating scores, all four colours were taken into account. In other words, when green won a region, we got no points. If green and yellow tied, then whoever was next (if anyone) got the points.

All points were multiplies by the total number of colours (player colours & non-player colours)

We didn;t use the green or yellow markers, ie if they scored any points we just ignored the points.

Should we have marked yellow and green's points to make sure that the non-players didn't beat us?

I would appreciate a comment from anyone else who has played it the same way or differently ...

Thanks,

N.

Thread: Quick game, easy to learn with lots of challenge

PaKaWN — 2005-12-24T08:01:12+00:00

Just picked up the game tonight at a midnight madness sale, so we decided to try it, didn't sound too bad, so why not?

The game is beautiful, the board and pieces are pretty to look at and durable, so big plus when doing the punch out. The game is simple enough, you place tiles and try to score based on who has the most trees touching the buildings, but there's a catch, you multiply the value of the building by the number of tree types surrounding it.

The game gives you ample chances to screw over your neighbor by making them tie, because you don't win if you tie for most trees. While making you place your color trees to try and gain the most amount of trees with most tree types. It's an interesting mechanic and a different game strategy. You can't neglect other colors and just hope to run away with it by concentrating on your own color. You have to be willing to give points away while hoping to get the greater number of points.

It's one of those simple games to play, but tricky to master, which makes it interesting. It's easy enough to be a gateway game for those who might not play so much or be too interested yet. It's also probably a pretty good game for kids to learn, much like Carc (but without pesky farmers), it even helps the kids with their multiplication tables!

Overall, I think this is a good game, especially when you want something a little lighter and quicker that still takes a decent amount of strategy.

Thread: Re: Why the arrows?

Aubigny — 2005-05-29T22:06:39+00:00

If you put the arrows in the same direction, the shadows of the buildings will point to the same direction and so the game will look better. That's the only reason.

Thread: Re:Why the arrows?

Bobby4th — 2005-03-14T16:43:23+00:00

I wondered about it when I first played it in November and then forgot about it until I got my own copy. The only reasons I can come up with are:

1. To keep the numbers on the foundation sides of the tiles facing the same way on the board.

2. Because it seemed like it might be one other (superficial) link to "Alhambra" by making the tiles have a particular orientation.

My vote is for "2".

Thread: User Review

Eggo — 2005-01-26T20:01:39+00:00

Die Gärten der Alhambra
by Dirk Henn (Queen Games)

This game has been published under the title “Karat” a couple of years ago, and Queen Games has used the recent success of “Die Gärten der Alhambra” to publish this game again with beautiful artwork reminiscent of it’s “sister” game. But gamewise this has little to do with “Alhambra”, in fact “Die Gärten...” is a truly abstract tile laying game.
The large gameboard is filled with empty, semi-octagonal spaces that surround square building spaces of different numerical (VP) value. These buildings are placed at random, but the values are open from the start. Each player now in turn plays one of the octagonal tiles that are designed in a way that 4 of them surround a building space.
Each octagon has flowers on each side, in equal quantity, but in different orders. The flowers represent the player’s “influence” on the various buildings. If a building is surrounded by 4 octagons it is immediately scored, and the player with the highest number of flowers adjacent to the building wins the points. In the (often occurring) situation that two players have the same amount of flowers present, the player with the next highest number of flowers gets full points, and the others nothing. This can even mean that a player with NO flowers present can get points (if the three other players cancel each other out that is).
These are, not even in a nutshell, the complete rules of “Die Gärten der Alhambra”. Game play is not as easy, as the board becomes cluttered very quickly, and it is easily overlooked what repercussions each play has. The buildings at the rim of the board are attractive as they can be quickly scored, but these plans are also easily foiled by making playing a matching numbered tile more easy. You can have two kinds of tiles in your hand – if you draw a high one you will try to bolster your expected scoring buildings, if you have a low one you might use it to score a building by making a play safe for you but bad for the other players. Rarely you’ll have the exact tile that you need or want!
The game ends after all tiles have been placed, a running score is tallied and one player wins.
The game, although physically attractive, holds one big caveat for the ambitious player, and that lies in the fact that you are “played” by the placement of the other players. In fact up to ¾ of your VP will be achieved through actions no at all your doing!. As each player first of all thinks of him/herself the placement of your own coloured flowers will very often be what you want, but in what order the OTHER 3 flower colours are placed on the tile and which players will profit from their placement is very often a result of pure chance, even if you might achieve one or two naughty and damaging plays. This is especially true in the endgame, when open spaces become rare and tiles are simply played as they come. In the several games we played the winner was always the player who profited most from this undirected placement, in fact you could have thrown the dice instead of playing the game in a way. But it is probably easy to devise variants. The game offers two: In the first variant each player has three available tiles (which gives your play a bit more of direction), in the second two players play with each having TWO colours. The latter variant can actually be very challenging and can be fullheartedly recommended to the pro-gamer, whereas the “normal” game is probably more fit as a “relaxed” family game, for which it’s easy rules make it work well.
The game can be explained in under 5 minutes, actual playing time is 45 minutes to an hour. 2-4 players.

Thread: Why the arrows?

boomtron — 2004-12-23T05:00:18+00:00

Can anyone tell me why the new "Garden of Alhambra" version point tiles have arrows, along with the board? The rules say to align the arrows of the tiles and the board. Why? Aesthetic purposes? The orientation of the tiles has no function in the game. (As far as I can tell.)

Thread: English Rules?

Ogma — 2004-12-18T09:26:01+00:00

I see the rules for Carat are here, but not for Die Gärten der Alhambra... Are they radically different or should I have no trouble playing Alhambra with the existing Carat rules?

Thread: Session Report

dwgteach — 2004-12-09T14:47:07+00:00

Gardens of Alhambra with Jason, Greg, and Mike

Another playing of this quick tile-laying game by Dirk Henn fell a bit flat as well, though given its brevity, I can live with it. Everyone was a newbie to the game but me, so that meant that I was destined to come in last place. I just couldn't buy a tile that would pay off for me. I had one juicy spot on the board that, if I could pull any tile other than a 4-flowers-per-color tile, I could have scored big. Instead, for the next two tile pulls I got that tile type and lost the opportunity to capitalize. The guys liked, but didn't love, the game, but I see it hitting the table as filler occasionally at the very least.

It certainly is chrome-filled, with nice, chunky tiles and extraneous, but pretty, drawings of buildings on the square score tiles on side opposite the number value. Greg won with 91 points to Jason's 85, Mike's 83 and my 67.

Thread: Session Report

i7dealer — 2004-11-12T14:03:10+00:00

My friend Rich had just returned from Essen with the Gardens of Alhambra game, and we were very interested in playing. Jesse, Sharry and I sat and waited for Rich to finish work up so he could play too, and while we waited went over the rules. Simple enough game, surround the squares formed in the middle of hexes laid orthogonally next to each other (similar to keythedral) and the person's color who is represented most when the square is completely surrounded scores points. The tricky part is that the points multiple for every color next to the square, so if you couldn't compete for a juicy square, you should just go elsewhere to avoid giving points away.

Anyways, Rich ended not showing up after we figured out the game (took about ten minutes) so we started without him. Sharry positioned herself well next to large scoring squares early in the game and blew away to an early lead. Jesse and I seemed to be destined to draw the lower point hexes and couldn't compete against the early lead that Sharry acquired.

One particularly harsh turn of the game came when I passed a situation to Jesse where he could surround the square with the non-playing color (points get thrown away) that was going to give sharry at least 10 points (15 if she could place there). All he needed to have was a hex worth 3 or more (hexes range in value from 1 to 6) and he had a 1 point hex, making the block impossible, and Sharry scooped up the points.

Sharry's commanding lead was never really challenged, and she won handily. I don't recall the exact final scores but it was close to:

Sharry - 98 (I remember 2 points shy of a hundred)
Dave - 75 or so
Jesse - 68 or so

I thought the game was good filler, but thought maybe if each player had a stack of hexes that were equal but shuffled (something like in attika) I wouldn't have felt that this game hinged so much on getting the big number hexes. I look forward to the next game.

Thread: carat a strategic abstract tile game

db3000 — 2003-04-22T23:25:43+00:00

Carat is a game which should appeal to fans of abstract tile laying games. There is no theme at all and it has a mathematical feel to it. Carat is a good mix of strategy and luck and plays in about 45 mins. with the right group.
Carat is most strategic and challenging game when played as a two player game (each player running 2 colours). Although not listed in the rules, i don't see why this game couldn't be played as a partnership game(4 players) with partners sitting opposite to each other. Rated as 7.5 out of
10.

Thread: Session Report

wavemotion — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

CARAT - My first play of this Dirk Henn game (I seem to like some of Dirks other games and so was looking forward to trying this). A good abstract game - but it did have a kingmaker problem at the end. Mark could basically decide the winner between Jonathan and Andrew. I was a bit behind them and so was out of the running. Mark chose Andrew since Jonathan seems to win more than his share of games I did like it quite a bit, however - the gameplay was quick and somewhat tense. I think it might end up a good 2 player game where the kingmaking would disappear.