Love this game. Love the mechanics. Would give you two thumbs up, if I could.

Never tried this game, but would love to!

Is this mechanism in any way similar to chasing down the spy in Scotland Yard?

In Scotland Yard, the spy-player can do 2 secret movements, but must reveal his position every third move. The other players have to chase him down by guessing where he's going.

Yeah, the trail mechanism has got some similarities to Scotland Yard. But it's easier to trackdown Dracula than Mr X as he can't double back easily and he has to reveal if you've encountered any of the fresh (on board) parts of his card trail.

Of course, Drac doesn't go down as easily as Mr. "I give up" X does when caught. :P

Yes and no. The first thing I thought of when I played this game was Scotland Yard. But Drac's mechanic is much, much cooler and adds a great deal more tension than Mr X. Rather than revealing Drac's location every few turns the Drac player keeps track of his last 6 locations (easy with the set of cards provided) and when a player enters a space Drac has been in recently Drac has to reveal the card. So the hunters can't just fan out waiting for Drac to show himself every now and then, they have to actually hunt him down like blood hounds on the scent. Also Drac gets to leave behind little presents for the hunters at every location in the form of traps or ambushes or the like.

Much better than Scotland Yard.

This mechanic was awesome. I'm not a fan of the game overall (mostly because I don't like the way the combat system works), but this mechanic is enough for me to give it another try at some point.

Agreed. Great mechanic. I think the King's Court is quite clearly the most important. Turn order is important on occasion, but you might want to be moving last as often as first, depending on the situation. Fiefdoms is more important, particularly if you can get the sword - but the stars on your orders give in effect the same result and with more flexibility.

Of course, always want to be on top of all of them.

The mechanic reappears in Caylus ("royal favor," again). Appears Ystari Games agrees with you.

True, even though I didn't like the game itself, I thought this mechanism was cool. Quite nice.

a game of thrones just has a very nice combination of mechanisms. the order placements, the wildling biddings, the influence tracks, the use of the cards in combats and the the card driven mechanism which determines if you can muster new troops... i really like the game because of that combination and the constant tension created by it.

I would agree. This is the one mechanic that saves this game from being a complete bore in my opinion.

I believe the Power Grid commodities market actually came from McMulti, which had two oil markets and two gas markets that operated in the same way. Of course, it's possible that McMulti took the idea from an even earlier game, but that's the earliest one I know of that uses this concept.

Hopefully FFG's Reins of Power will be the Supremacy of the new millennium. Except, y'know, good.

Yes, but will Reins of Power be released this millennium or next?

Don't destroy my dreams!

agree 100%

On the other hand, I find the provost adds an element of nastiness which means I refuse to play this game ever again. I don't remember bad things actually happening to me, but the fact that a game had a built-in opportunity for spite appalled me.

Agreed, the key to Caylus and winning is the provost.

The provost is what gives Caylus greatness and makes Agricola look silly in comparison.

If you hate built in spite, do NOT play In the Shadow of the Emperor. The entire game is spite mechanics, at least if you want any victory points.

When playing with my wife and my mother in law, We just leave the corruptible dwarf alone. When playing with friends... (insert maniac laughter).

I also like the fact that (in most cases) you can see the results of the roll before deciding to modify it with a card or ability.

I'm only just coming around on this mechanic now but after maybe 15 games I'm starting to appreciate it as well. At first I thought that rolling doubles was one of the most irritating combat systems around, but your totally right on the theme aspect (fending off) and the need for weapons, of which there are plenty.

- J

I agree, great mechanic all around. It's fairly easy to fend off a Zombie, but very hard to kill them without weapons, so you get some great fights,and it's always something special when a hero beats a zombie with bare hands.

And I love the creative ways the weapons alter this...by re-rolling, adding another dice, adding 1 to one or more dice, killing on what would normaly fend off, and even instant kills.

But they are not hidden as you receive them. It's not impossible to keep count. In fact, it's pretty important that you do.

The hidden victory points are my least-favorite aspect of T&E, precisely because they are only hidden, not unknown. I generally dislike having memory of past events be really important for strategy games.

Doesn't Modern Art have hidden victory points behind cool screens too? (well, money in Modern Art is really victory points) I agree with the above comment though: I don't really like these hidden victory points, since they stress my memory. It'd be fine if I'm playing in tournaments, but I don't want to think that hard when I'm enjoying the game in a social setting (or play people who think that hard).

Agreed. Without hidden scoring this game would lack much tension. The hidden scoring is what pushes it over the hump into the realm of greatness.

I have the opposite opinion. Hidden scoring sucks the tension right out of the game, and brings it closer to multi-player solitaire. When you don't know how close you are, you lose the ability to really optimize your tiles.

Of course, I only play here on BGG, where a game may take a couple of weeks to play out. Factor in that you have multiple games going on at the same time, and it is basically impossible to remember even vaguely who was scoring in what color. Well, maybe not impossible, but not fun either.

The farm rule makes it hard to get my friends interested. They understand building cities and roads and abbeys and all, but beginners get frustrated with the farms.

I'll be the odd one out and say that the farms stuff in Carc is the bit I like least about the game

I'm not sure I'd even consider the farm scoring to be a "mechanic" per se. I guess it is, though, a scoring mechanic. Regardless, my experience in the game (so far) has indicated to me that scoring cities is still the most important avenue toward winning the game, not only for the direct, doubled points, but also indirectly for purposes of bolstering the score of controlled fields and/or securing the trade goods bonuses.

As far as stand-out mechanics in "Carcassonne" go, I'd lean more toward some of the expansion mechanics like those of "Trader and Builder" or "The Tower."

At any rate, it's a great game!

When I was taught the game the farm rule was poorly explained, if not almost skipped over. With the River it caused a large farm to develop that proved the key to scoring and the winning of the game - and which I never had an real understanding of how to have any chance to compete for it.

So I spent a few hours playing a game where I essentially had zero chance of actually winning. One reason I've never bothered to seek a chance of playing it again.

- Kurt

I totally agree with this. Farms are cool when you play with experienced players but are a total party-pooper when you introduce this game to new, casual players. I usually prefer to throw in I&C and T&B right away and forget about farms altogether.

I think I like variable player powers more than any other game mechanic.

Variable player powers are awesome if done right. I think to work properly they have to do two things:
1. Be significant. That is, have a real affect on how you play the game and not just be some tacked on and generally insignificant thing.
2. Be balanced. 'Nuff said1

I've never played CE or Dune, which are supposed to be the prime examples of variable player powers. Games like LNoE and Shadows over Camelot use them effectively.

In regards to CE, 1. Yes 2. Nope.

Dune is 1. Yes 2. Qualified Yes.

CE trusts in luck and multiple players to balance matters. It often works, but it helps if you just surrender to the crazy nature of a good CE game.

Dune is less crazed and trusts alliances to balance matters.

Those two games are prime examples because they're early examples of really differentiating players.

Agreed - this brings tension into a game unlike anything in any game I've ever played before.

In my last game of Pandemic, we had JUST found the cure for black, but had 4 cities with 3 black cubes each, and several other cities with black cubes too. Then we hit an Epidemic card and literally everyone at the table suddenly sat up straighter. Would we eliminate those 4 3-cube cities before we drew one of them again? Drawing from the shuffled discards makes the game so much tighter.

(PS, we did squeak by, and even eliminated black, but then were overwhelmed by blue and lost with 8 outbreaks )

I couldn't agree more really. As soon as I saw what the list was about, I quickly scrolled down looking for this particular mechanic !! Really creative and incredibly in line with the theme of the game.

Also, you can tell it is something really special by the the thumbs up on this entry (40+ at the time of this writing)

The closest runner ups are Power Grid (21) and Cosmic Encounter (15)

I just got Pandemic n the weekend...and the Outbreaks are so fun! esp the chain reaction outbreaks.

You know, I was browsing the list with exactly this in mind
Again, nice one, Grim - we Magers are all one

I totally agree, the re-shuffle is a really a great piece of game design.

That's why I was totally dumbfounded when I read a much-thumbed negative review of Pandemic which basically concentrated on dissing two things - a lack of theme (?) and the re-infecting mechanic (???). I mean, WTF?

Ron's got a good point, although for my money the trading mechanic which actually encourages exchanges beneficial to both parties is the most elegant system in the game. In short, the value of a set of cards is multiplied by the square of the number of like cards that you hold. Thus, a single salt card is worth three points, but two salt cards are worth 3 x (2x2) = 12 and three salt cards are worth 3 x (3x3) = 27.

With this system, if one player holds two papyrus (base value 2), two salt (base value 3) and one iron (base value 5), his hand is worth 8+18+5 = 31.

If his opponent holds one papyrus, one salt and two iron, his hand is worth 2+3+20 = 25.

Now, here's the beauty of the system: if they make a trade, with the first player giving up an iron card (base value 5) and receiving in exchange a papyrus and a salt (total base value 5), on initial inspection that looks like an even trade that doesn't offer either player any motive to trade; however, when you look at the final hand values, you reach a different conclusion.

The first player now holds three papyrus (worth 2 x (3x3) = 18) and three salt (worth 3 x (3x3) = 27) for a total of 45 points after the trade. The second player now holds three iron, worth 5 x (3x3) = 45. By giving up cards worth five points each, the first player increased the value of his hand from 31 to 45, while his opponent increased the value of his hand from 25 to 45. Both players benefit. Brilliant!

I have always wanted to give this game a go.. With the limited availability it probably will not happen. It looks fun. Long, but fun.

It is long. And very fun. Better as Advanced Civ, IMHO.

The trading is one outstanding mechanic, agreed.

I also like the non-combat combat system. Excepting the invasion of a city, "battles" are really more representative of land-control struggles that span years or decades, not a specific incident.

This mechanic returns in Revolution: Dutch Revolt.

Actually I suspect a fair number of real alliances in history have been made just for this reason - I'd rather not fight X, so let's make X my ally and Z our common enemy.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

The evil part is "X wants to fight Y, so I'll pay to make them end up on the same side".

Keep your friends close, keep your enemys closer.

Best part of a great game. I played this game early in my introduction to gaming, and this was probably the first mechanic to elicit a "Cool" from me.

I do find Turn The Tide's 'pass your hand to your left' mechanics rather unique and very challenging. T3 is a great card game!

This is definitely an underrated game on BGG and one I enjoy playing. The pass-the-hands mechanism is a great balancing method and the game's a good "super filler"... easy to play yet strategic.

I love the use of dice in this game - throwing a big fistful of dice and them
deciding which actions are and aren't possible in a round. And being able to
buy bonus dice that only count for you is a nice extra touch.

I (and several others including my brother) got introduced to this game during a school 24 hour famine thing we did to raise money for ethiopia sometime during the 80's; for some reason everyone doing it had to remain on school grounds (I dunno m'b so people would remain honest ifn their freinds were there to abuse them ifn the weakened, anyhum not point of the story) we were 16, we liked to play games we thought we could combine this with not eating for 24 hours (yes i know the mind boggles dosent it?) what could go wrong?

Anyhum it would be probably about 2 in the morning when this happened, bouyed on by youth and the fact we seldom got together this many people to play games we were still going strong, my brother playing the brown faction (polish?) had been sitting very quietly in one corner of the table subtly and sneakily moving a specfic polish prisoner ever so slowly towards freedom; no fancy escape kit, no distractions, no disguise just wandering purposefully toward an exit point, I like to imagine (as this is an anecdote reserved for gamers who like to brag) the guy; hands deep in his pockets, kepi (I always saw him as a lancer) pulled down hard over his face, whistling nonchalantly around a cigerrette rolled in newsprint in the corner of his mouth; he looks round, claps his hands together and rubs them jubliantly just about to dissapear off into the deep forest for the difficult task of getting to a neutral country (Switzerland?) when WHAMMM! A mauser rifle round enters slightly behind his ear and drops him like a sack of spuds.

True it was very late, true no-one had eaten in approximatly 10 hours, true people were sleepy, true it was a particularly dark brown piece and in bad lighting it did look rather like a german piece, true Dan (and 60% of the people playing) had never played the game afore and did not know the contense of the german cards but makeing smug pronouncements like "HA HA HA! you can't get him Lee he is too far to catch, nyah-nyahnyah-NYAH-Nyah!" would never be a good idea would it?

Should have seen his face after he learnt what it did, Priceless!

Thanks for sharing the experience. I've never played this game or even heard of it. Seems interesting..

All this needs is a reprint, with a proper, clear set of rules and it would shoot straight into the BGG top 100.

It's a great game, spoilt slightly by the rather vague rulebook.

Ho ho...for you I sink the var is over ja?

There are other CCGs that use the same mechanic most notably WWE Raw Deal. It is also used in Magic: the Gathering. The earliest example I know of is Millstone from Antiquities (1994). It has been used as the kill condition in tournament decks (eg. Mind's Desire).

Sounds similar to the Star Wars CCG. In that game your deck is your "life" and such.

The innovation isn't so much deck=life, but that the specific ordering of your deck matters. You gain mana by flipping ahead in your book (you have to flip at least one page each turn, but can choose to flip more), so you can skip ahead to specific cards. Some of the cards have random effects ("flip a coin: heads, do one damage"), so two decks won't alway play against each other the same way. The ordering means that even two copies of the same deck, ordered differently in the spellbook, could play very differently.

I second the lack of interest in the theme, and in practice I wonder if the spellbooks were more fiddly than they were worth (re-ordering cards would be time-consuming, and some cards are removed from the books during play), but if I ever come across a cheap source for the cards I might try it.