Ralph The Squirrel

With 7 Wonders: Cities you get to add not only two new Wonder boards, but an extra card each phase. The new black cards change the strategy quite a bit with their influence on coins throughout the game. Players can now go into debt, which might happen if your coin supply is low when somebody plays a coin loss card. And those debt tokens can’t ever be removed. So you need to figure out how best to manage your coins while still trying to build the best wonder. I loved it!

Libertalia is a great lightish pirate game that is easy to learn and easy to play, yet has a decent amount of strategy.

In Libertalia you play three “campaigns” each consisting of six rounds. In each round you choose one of 9 cards in your hand. Note: each player has 30 cards and each player’s deck of 30 is the same as the other players. For the first campaign 9 cards are chosen randomly. In the two subsequent campaigns 6 cards are added to get players back up to 9.

All players will simultaneously choose a card and place it face down on the board. Then once they are flipped over they will be placed in numerical order (there is a tiebreaker in gray on the cards in case two players chose the same numbered card). Then in order they will be activated, first in a “day” phase, then in a “dusk” phase. Cards will have certain actions that can only be activated in certain phases. After the dusk phase players will also grab a booty token. These tokens can be worth positive or negative points, or they can allow you to remove a neighbor’s card. After the dusk phase the cards are moved from the board to right in front of you. Then the “night” phase gets activated.

Through all the phases players are trying to obtain doubloons. The player with the most doubloons will win. Doubloons are scored at the end of each campaign, after which players will start the next campaign with 10 doubloons, just like the start of the game.

There is a lot of interaction in the game and there is a lot of suspense. I was constantly hoping no one would use a saber booty token to get rid of one of my cards. And I was also trying to make sure I played cards that I thought would work well with what I predicted other players would play. It was a great mental battle. The artwork is great and the game plays quickly, even with up to 6 players. I recommend it!

I’ve played a lot of Ticket to Ride games and I own the standard, Marklin, and this expansion. I’ve also played the Europe map a lot. Of them all this is definitely my favorite map.

Every game it seems like there is a race for the Zurich-Luzern connection. But what I think really makes the game special are the country-to-country and city-to-country destination tickets. You can get some serious points by completing those cards. And they add variety to your strategy.

If you love Ticket to Ride, then you’ll love this expansion map!

I love how the dice version makes the game much faster. When I’m tired and don’t feel like a heavy game I know I can get out T2R and the dice and play in about 20 minutes.

The dice turn an already great game into a game that’s accessible for those who want strategy but only have a short amount of time. There is no sacrifice of strategy here. Excellent expansion.

I only have two problems with the game: 1) cards should be sleeved, 2) don’t let your first play get you down. The learning curve is steep but short. The second time you play the game you’ll love it so much more than the first time.

I love the colors, the artwork, and the ease of play. You’ll never get the same combination of cards. And the best part about the game is that it takes the same amount of time to play whether you have 2 or 7 players!