. . . all of which makes Taj Mahal my favorite Knizia game (and I own 30).

Of course, this design characteristic is not unique to Knizia. Consider the dilemma Moon puts on you in Union Pacific. Every turn there's a decsion to make: add a train to the board (making the company more valuable) or invest (making a payoff in the company more likely). You can't do both, even though there are times when you absolutely need to.

At his best, Kramer also puts the player in a position where you want to do more than the system will allow (El Grande, for example). Many of the best Euro games share this feature, no matter who designed the game.

I'm not sure I follow your statement. Since there's no element of luck or random events in Stephensons Rocket, I always felt like I was in control.

Another great design by the Master! The scoring rules --- reminiscent of his Tigris & Euphrates --- turns what might have been a run-of-the-mill tile-laying game into a outstanding strategy game.

When teaching the game to new players, you take a deep breath before starting the "How you win" part.

I still like the tip that someone posted a while back about this...

Instead of:

"Your final score is equal to the lowest number of cubes you've collected in any single color"

say

"Your final score is the total number of complete sets of 4 colors you have collected"

Collecting and counting 4 different colored cubes in sets seems a bit more intuitive. Don't you think?

I've concluded the easiest way to explain how to count the score is to demonstrate with a neat lineup...
Lay out some 1pt victory cubes in neat rows all together:






And point to the score. Say, with appropriate gestures, "your score is your weakest colour".

People make their own visualisation pretty quick that way.

I'd probably teach them Ingenious first. Then when they learn T&E, they'd understand the scoring system.

Jason