Date: 21st March 2003
Game played: Edel Stein & Reich ( Alea ) BGG Id: 5781

This is a revamp of Basari without the board and substituting event cards for the movement option. It also adds another exchange option in the five player game but the mechanics are very close to the original. The game is played over three rounds with scoring at the end of each. The person with the most gems in each of the four colours gets rewarded with a cash payment. In addition, players may get bonuses for certain event cards collected during the round, and the player with the most and second-most certificates collected also get cash. The player with the most cash at the end of the third round wins.

Each round contains between 6 and 8 turns depending on the number of players and on each turn, every player receives a gem card and an event card is turned over. The gem cards show an amount of cash and an assortment of gems and players choose which action they wish to pursue from taking cash, taking gems, taking the event card or exchanging gems. If you are alone in choosing that action you get to carry it out; if 3 or more players choose the same action, nobody gets to do it; but, if two players choose the same action, they barter with their gems for the right to carry it out.

The first two rounds turned out to be pretty close, although Mark G got a great 8 point bonus for the majority in red gems in the second round. Nige, however, was carefully accumulating through the bartering, a phenomenal collection of gems, aided to a certain degree by some very generous deals. Consequently, he had the majority in all gem colours in the final round. Everyone else saw this coming and so so were squabbling for the money action, usually with nobody being successful and so, Nige ran out the winner by a good margin. John did quite well by concentrating on certificates, whereas I managed to mess up a number of turns so was unsurprised to find myself last. However, I quite like the mechanics, as I did with Basari, and will certainly play this again.

 
Player
Rating
Score
Position
Winner
Nige
6
74
1
John
6
61
2
Mark G
6
57
3
Mark K
6
52
4
Garry
7
38
5

(c) 2001-2024 Garry Lloyd | | admin