Negotiation

A Medieval game of trade and commerce, Die Händler is set in Europe, where trade wagons carry wares between six cities on the board. Essentially, players buy goods, load them onto wagons and send them for maximum profit in other cities.

The whole game looks very inviting. The medieval cities depicted on the board, together with the player crests, cardboard coins, money pouches, sticker decorated wagons and wooden commodity pieces, immediately creates the right atmosphere for the players.

There are six cities - Paris, Cologne, Brugge, Gent, Vienna and Genoa - which are interconnected by roads. Three wagons carry goods from one city to another. No-one owns the wagons or controls any of them single-handedly, and in principle a player can put commodities on any transport. There are six different commodities - salt, iron, wine, silk, cloth and food - all of limited supply.

The goal of the game is to make money by delivering goods to the towns, and use the money to buy increases in status. The game ends after a certain number of deliveries have been made and the winner is the player with the highest level of status.

This classic game of pure negotiation has taken many forms over the years.

The first Avalon Hill version has perhaps the widest release, but Avalon Hill (Hasbro) re-released the game in 1999, complete with a colorful new map and metal pieces. They recently released a 50th anniversary edition with a new map and cardboard pieces representing the armies and navies.

In the game, players represent one of the seven "Great Powers of Europe" (Great Britain, France, Austria, Germany, Italy, Russia or Turkey) in the years prior to World War I. Play begins in the Spring of 1901, and players make both Spring and Autumn moves each year. There are only two kinds of military units: armies and fleets. On any given turn, each of your military units has limited options: they can move into an adjoining territory, support an allied unit in an attack on an adjoining territory, support an allied unit in defending an adjoining territory, or hold their position. Players instruct each of their units by writing a set of "orders." The outcome of each turn is determined by the rules of the game. There are no dice rolls or other elements of chance. With its incredibly simplistic movement mechanics fused to a significant negotiation element, this system is highly respected by many a gamer.

Avalon Hill Complexity rating - 3

Re-implemented by:

Colonial Diplomacy
Diplomacy: Classical Variant
Diplomacy: Hundred Variant

City of Horror is a backstabbing survival-horror game. As in classic zombie movies, a shambling horde is invading the city. The goal is to survive the assault. (Un)fortunately, surviving often means sacrificing some of your fellow players to the undead...

Each player controls several characters with different abilities; these characters can move to various limited-capacity locations, which they can then barricade and scavenge for items and weapons. Critical situations, such as zombies breaking in and eating a character, are resolved using vote.

The basic game mechanisms are the same as in Mall of Horror (also designed by Nicolas Normandon), but City of Horror differs in both materials and game play in a number of ways: the city map changes each game, twenty characters are included, they can use antidotes (or die), action cards become scarce as the game goes on, you can gain points with other stuff than surviving characters...

In the late Middle Ages, trade flourished in Europe. Economic groups like the Hanseatic League, the Welser and Fugger families, and merchants from Northern Italy established trading posts and factories in all of the important cities throughout Europe. These businesses provided the population with goods of all kinds, such as fur from the north, cloth from Flanders, wine from the south, and spices from India. The most important commodity of all was salt. In the Middle Ages salt was highly prized it was used to preserve food.

In Catan Histories: Merchants of Europe, you are a powerful merchant! Start your trading posts in three cities. Recruit new merchants and send them to distant cities to establish trading posts and expand your interests. The more trading posts you have, the more commodities are at your disposal which you can sell profitably in foreign
cities. To ensure that your commodities arrive safely at their destination, you must open up trade routes and equip caravans. You win the game if you are the first to deliver all of your commodities to foreign cities.

Catan Histories: Merchants of Europe is a twist on the 2010 release Settlers of America: Trails to Rails from designer Klaus Teuber and publisher Mayfair Games. Game play is similar in both games: Players start with three locations on the game board, collect resources depending on a die roll, spend resources to move and build, and branch out to new locations with a long-term goal of delivering goods to opponents' cities. The first player to deliver all of his goods wins the game.

Instead of being played on a fixed game board showing a Catan-ified map of the United States, Die Siedler von Catan: Aufbruch der Händler is set on a Catan-ified map of Europe – which isn't a surprise given that Kosmos is a European publisher. Instead of moving from east to west to mimic the settling of the U.S. by Europeans, players start in the middle of Europe, namely Germany.

With this expansion you can play Ca$h'n Gun$ with 9 players now.
Also there are new weapons (Tantos, Shuriken & Shotgun), new cards with special powers and some nice object-cards.

Expands:

Ca$h 'n Gun$