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Knizia Mania
Date: 01/13/2007 07:00AM Location: Danny's house Notes: This month we'll be playing only games designed by Reiner Knizia. He is a legend. He's made some very good games. We have several of them, including Lord of the Rings, which Jenny got me for Christmas. Here's the Wikipedia article about him:
Reiner Knizia is a prolific German-style board game designer. Born in Germany in 1957, he developed his first game at the age of six. He has a PhD in mathematics, and, after working as a quantitative analyst ("quant") is now a full-time game designer. Knizia has been living in England since 1993.
In addition to being quite prolific, with over 200 published games, he is highly acclaimed as a designer, having won the Deutscher Spiele Preis four times, a Spiel des Jahres special award, a 2002 Origins Award and numerous other national awards. His games make frequent appearances on various "top games" lists, including seven games on the GAMES 100 list, fourteen games in the BoardGameGeek top 100, and sixteen games on the Internet Top 100 Games List. Several gaming conventions host "Kniziathons", tournaments dedicated to Knizia-designed games.
Reiner Knizia started developing games for his play-by-mail game zine Postspillion, founded in 1985. The zine still exists and the game Bretton Woods (also a Reiner Knizia design), started in 1987, is still going.
According to Knizia, his best selling game as of 2005 is Lord of the Rings, published in 17 languages with over 1 million copies sold.
Voters:
Brian Tenholder,
Nathan Clark,
Danny Ferguson,
Playing time: 20 minutes Players: 2 to 8 Year published: 1992 Designer: Reiner Knizia Description: The cards show trading ships and pirate ships, with pirates and an admiral. Players send a trading ship of value on a voyage in which it must survive a round of attacks from other player's pirate ships. You defend your traders with your own pirates and collect the spoils of your attacks elsewhere.
Description for the Heidelberger release:
Essen release, 2002. In the nice small black box, with embossed lettering. An improved version of Pirat. This game has 25 Tradeships worth different amounts of gold (from 2 to 8), 48 Pirate ships, 12 each in 4 colors. The Pirate ships are worth 1-4 skulls (the player with the most skulls played on a tradeship captures it if the lead is kept for one full pass around the table). There are 4 Pirate Captains (1 of each color) to help win the battles and 1 Admiral to help defend the tradeships. The game is playable with 2-5 players individually. With partners it can be played with up to 6 or 8. More info at boardgamegeek.com
Playing time: 60 minutes Players: 2 to 5 Year published: 2000 Designer: Reiner Knizia Description: Lord of the Rings is a co-operative game where the object is to destroy the Ring while surviving the corrupting influence of Sauron. Each player plays one of the Hobbits in the fellowship, each of which has a unique power. The game is played on a number of boards: the Master board indicates both the physical progress of the fellowship across Middle Earth and the corrupting influence of Sauron on the hobbits, and a number of scenario boards which detail the events and adventures of particular locations. Progression across the boards is determined by playing cards (many of which represent the characters and items of Middle Earth), and the effects of corruption are represented by a special die. The game is lost if the ring-bearer is overcome by Sauron, or won if the ring is destroyed by throwing it into the volcanic fires of Mount Doom.
Lord of the Rings was expanded with:
* [gameid=2449]
* [gameid=3819]
* [gameid=22884]
[designerid=2] also designed [gameid=3201], but this is a completely unrelated game to his main series. More info at boardgamegeek.com
Playing time: 15 minutes Players: 3 to 6 Year published: 2005 Designer: Reiner Knizia Description: From the Playroom Entertainment website:
"The mad doctor has cooked up something evil in Reiner Knizia's Poison, a clever strategy card game. Players choose a potion card from their hand to add to one of three colored cauldrons, being careful not to let the pot go over a total value of 13.
The player who causes the cauldron to go over 13 must take all of the cards within it, trying to avoid taking a potion mixed with poison.
Be the player with either the most or none of any potion and you're safe - otherwise take the risk of receiving a deadly dose!" More info at boardgamegeek.com
Playing time: 45 minutes Players: 2 to 5 Year published: 1998 Designer: Reiner Knizia Description: Through the Desert is part of the [[Knizia tile-laying trilogy]]. Each player attempts to score the most points by snaking caravan routes through the desert, trying to reach oases and blocking off sections of the desert. Many people feel that it is reminiscent of [gameid=188].
Originally published as "Durch die Wüste" by [publisherid=37 Kosmos].
Nominated for the 1998 [[Spiel des Jahres]] award. More info at boardgamegeek.com
Playing time: 60 minutes Players: 3 to 6 Year published: 1995 Designer: Reiner Knizia Description: Another [designerid=2] standby, this game plays very well with varying numbers of people. The object is to accrue the most points during three rounds, which you do by spending your points to bid on sets of cards. Each turn the current player turns up one to three cards for all the players to bid on, with the highest bid taking all cards. The cards denote a commodity type and quantity/value. The round ends when each player's ships are full, or the commodity card deck is exhausted. After each round, points are awarded to each player having the most of a given commodity, and to the one with the most valuable total "cargo load".
Part of the [[Knizia auction trilogy]].
More info at boardgamegeek.com
Playing time: 15 minutes Players: 3 to 5 Year published: 1998 Designer: Reiner Knizia Description: In this light, fun filler players try to complete sets of cards before the game ends. A player begins her turn with several face-up cards to choose from. If she doesnÂ’t like them, she can draw another, but if a card gets turned that matches one of the face-up ones, she loses her turn. Also during her turn she can combine three cards of the same value and lay them down in front of her. Such sets will be worth 10 points at the end of the game; additionally, the highest card from each suit in her hand contributes its face value to her score. More info at boardgamegeek.com
Loot