Chattanooga, Tennessee
March 2 – 5, 2000
First, allow me to say that Vonda and I had an excellent time. As always, Gulf Games had a clever theme (Blue vs. Grey given the Chattanooga location) that was implemented to the tee. The whole event is obviously a labor of love for its founders. I played just about everything I wanted, and the amazing thing is that after about 2 sleepless days of constant gaming, I was still raring to go. I simply could not figure out where the time had gone! My congratulations and thanks to Greg, Mark, Ty, Tim and Ted — as well as their lovely wives for making it all happen. I highly recommend to anyone coming to this con. Its unparalleled gaming bliss.
I think most of the new releases have already been aptly described, so I’ll just give my top 5 list . . .
1) CarolUS MAGNUS — Great mechanism, very tense end-game, attractive bits made this the top of my must buy list. Oh wait, I forgot the single most important quality of this game; it is designed for THREE players! At last, a way out of the curse of three or seven. Even a modest three player game would get my cash, much less a great one.
2) TAJ MAHAL — More nice bits, more tense end-game play. Its in a tight race with Carolus Magnus. I like the poker like card dynamics. If any of you have played the CCG Overpower, you’ll recognize the same “do I push this one card further and risk everything, or fold now” dilemma. I wish the theme were a little deeper, but that goes double for Carolus Magnus.
3) KARDINAL & KONIG — Quick play El Grande. Very clever scoring mechanism. There’s a heavy luck element, but it plays too fast to feel that you’ve got a lot invested. I would rate it higher if I was certain that there were lots of winning strategies.
4) MorgENLAND — The Keydom rework. Great bits. Clean play. I still think its a touch too long, still. While its tense because of the guessing element, its one of those games that give you a deceptive feeling that you are in control, but basically your hands are in the fates.
5) CitadelS — Nice artwork on the cards, I liked the overall play, but I did not fall in love like other folks on the list. Basically, I found it to be advanaced VerrATER. Yes its deeper, but not so much as to avoid comparison. It suffers from pile on the leader issues, since you have a predetermined point goal and all points are public.
In any case, I intend to buy all of these, so my overall view is positive. However, Carolus Magnus is first off the shelf.