Alhambra

We gave this to my husband for Christmas and now we play it often. My teenagers are as interested in it as my husband and I. Even my younger kids will watch us play and give suggestions. It is fun seeing them planning strategy. The instructions were clear and we played through only once before feeling comfortable and familiar with the game play. I am impressed to see that we look for and try new strategies each time we play. I'm glad to know that we will not get bored of the game soon. Another great game from Rio Grande!

Most of the other reviews adequately cover the game, I felt I should just add a couple of things:-The game is less about your tile placement (as in, it's hard to mess up how you place stuff) and more about how you draft the money and which tiles you purchase. So it is only superficially similar to Carcassonne. (and it should be noted, the original "Stimmt So!" game was a stock market game... the tile laying component was the major change when it was updated to Alhambra)-The game is acceptable at 3 players, but the drafting mechanic on the tiles and money scales quickly into an uncontrollable and uninteresting exercise with more- even though the game says it handles up to 6 players, I would only grudgingly say it can somewhat handle 4 players, at most.

A pretty good gateway game. Played with a few non-gamers and they have enjoyed it. Not on the short list of "ooh, let's play that", but a good gateway game in that it's timed, has little direct competition, and you can easily adjust the game to be shorter / longer to give people a taste of it (just cut out 25-30% of the tiles and/or 25-30% of the money).Drawbacks are that it requires 3 people for it to be truly interesting, the scoring is semi-random / obtuse (ie: randomly decided when to score so there is a clear "beginning, middle, end", as well as a "wall bonus").Benefits again are that the rules are fairly straightforward and that you can pretty much always still be playing the game (never an elimination) and if you're not in first place it's still pretty fun to compete to get "higher" in the end rankings (very rarely is there a huge gap in score between everybody ... sometimes there is a huge gap between first place and the rest). Also there is a nice mix of luck and strategy- Do you go for spending money on the "expensive buildings"? Do you get a variety and look for good opportunities? Do you just try to be the "wall lord"?Lots of expansions (that I haven't played) so if you like the style you can add to it.--Robert

I own dozens of games, many of them the German-style games (like Alhambra) that are more based on strategy than luck. This game is probably my favorite one of all. It is a tile-laying game, where you try to build up your own complex by buying additional tiles. It only takes a few minutes to learn but turns out to be rather thought-provoking. I also like that there isn't really a destructive component to this game (i.e. like in other games where you can "take" or "destroy" parts of what other players have built up). Each player merely sets out to build as big a complex as possible, while keeping in mind that different types of additions to one's complex allows one to be dominant in this field. (For example, you can have a smaller complex than your opponent, but have more tiles of greater worth in the category of "gardens," hence meaning you are dominant in this sub-category. This is where strategic calculation really comes in play.) If you are only going to buy one game, I would buy this one!

Being fans of Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride, we thought that we had to give another recipient of the Spiel Des Jahres Game of the Year award a try. Though there are a lot of pieces and a lot of different strategic points to bear in mind as you play, it's easy to learn and you pick up the subtleties over time. Sure, I have yet to win a single game that we've played, but I'm getting closer.

One of my favorite board games. Like many other of my favorites, it is one we are able to play with a 9 year old girl (though she never wins because she cannot yet grasp the strategy). Expansions are good and fun, but not necessarily "must haves."

Great game