The parade of gaming has continued. Last week, my wife and I purchased Samurai ($39)(review at Board Game Geek), another German game from Reiner Knizia, who is considered the master at game design.


The Board

The players pieces

The oligarchy, clerics, peasants over whom the players compete.

Abstractly, players capture pieces by surrounding specific targets with units of varying strength; the player whose units have the highest aggregate strength wins that piece. The person who has the most of two kinds of targets wins the game.

Thematically, the players are competing for the control of resources (political, religious, agricultural) in medieval Japan. Three different pieces represent argiculture (a rice field), clerics (Buddhas), and political power (helmut). These are placed in the cities and villages on the board according to the players' choices.

The players have at their disposal units with which they try to surround the cities and villages in an effort to win the support of the peasants, clerics, and oligarchs. The units vary in abilities and strength: some can influence only one class, but tend to be strong; samurais can influence anything but tend to be weak; ships can influence from the sea, something useful when the board get crowded.

More often than not, players have to balance various interests: position units to influence two settlements, etc.

So far this game is very fun. Spatially, it is more direct than other board games we have been playing. The unique thing about this game is the control of resources: winning depends on having the most captures in two or three categories--having the most captures overall does not win the game.