China

Alas, China is out of print. But that doesn't mean you can't enjoy this fantastic game if you know someone who owns a copy or you're willing to spend a bit more to get it used from ebay or Board Game Geek. In fact, I'm trying to get a copy from Europe. Yes, this game is that good.

You are vying for control of China. The country is divided up into regions and different colors. There are two regions for each color, except purple, that has only one. Each region contains a number of cities and roads run from city to city, region to region. There are also cards the same color as the regions. Each player gets a hand of three cards. Each player also gets a number of houses and emisaries of a particular color.

On your turn, you can open a new region or play in a region that's already open. To open a region, you play a card the color of the region you want to open and place one of your houses on a city. If you play in an already open region, you use cards of the region color. You can play one or two cards for an already open region, allowing you to play a house or an emisary. You can also play two cards of the same color for as a wild card. You then replenish your hand up to three cards.

Houses go on the cities, one house per city. When all the cities in a region are taken, the region is closed and scored. The player with the most houses in the region gets one point for each house in the region. The player with the second most gets one point for each house of the most colors, and so on. In case of a tie, each player scores.

Placement of emisaries is different. They are placed in the desinated area in each region. The total number of emisaries per region is the same as the count of the most houses of one color, so if there are two blue houses, you can have two emisaries, three houses of one color allows for three emisaries, etc.

The game continues until the deck has been passed through twice. Open regions are then scored per the above rules. If a player has four or more continuous houses on a road, they get one point for each house. Emisaries are then scored. The Emperor makes his way through the country, stopping at the border of each region. The player with the most emisaries in each of the two bordering regions scores one point per emisary in each region. For example, when Emperor stops on the border of the purple and yellow region, exam the emisaries in one region. The purple region has two yellow, one red, and one green emisary. The yellow region has two yellow and one blue emisary. The yellow player has a majority in each region and scores seven points. However, if the yellow region has two blue and one yellow, no player has a majority in both regions, so no one scores.

Playtime is around 45 minutes, so China makes for a quick, fun, and challenging game and plays 3-5 players.

Update June 17, 2010: I have secured a copy of China.

Vegas Showdown

Have you ever wanted to be a big Las Vegas tycoon like Howard Hughes, Donald Trump, or others? Now's your chance with Vegas Showdown.

Each player starts with a blank mat that lays out their hotel/casino. One end, the casino is yellow. The other, the hotel is blue. In the middle is a blank white area. The rooms of the hotel/casino are represented by different size and color tiles. Yellow casino tiles match up with the yellow and white areas of the mat. Blue hotel tiles match up with the blue and white areas of the mat. There are also green tiles that can go anywhere. The borders of the tiles have breaks in them to represent doors, the you need to match up with doors of adjoining room tiles. Casino tiles must be placed to that a path can be traced back to the front door of the casino. Likewise for hotel tiles.

So, how do you get tiles? Each round consists of several steps. The first is "Flip new tiles". A card is read that triggers some event, for example, Slot builders on strike. This means that you can't gain a slot room this round. The card then specifies the size of the tile that comes out. The tile specifies how much is the opening bid. At any one time there are up to eight different rooms out for bid. Each round that a room isn't bought, it's minimum price is reduced.

The next is collect income. So, you'll get paid a certain amount based on your income and population counters. More on that in a moment.

The third is "Place bids". Each player in turn will place their bids for the building of their choice. You can get zero or one room each turn. If another player outbids you, you can move your bid to a different room tile or opt out of the bidding.

Step four is "Place tiles". Once you have won the bid, you place the tile on your mat per the above rules. The tile also specifies one, two, or three things. The first is income. The tile will say something like "Increase your income by 3", so you move your income marker up three. You only do this when you place the tile. The second is population. You adjust it similarly to income. At the beginning of each round, you get income equal to the lower of these two. The third thing is fame points. At the end, the winner will be the person with the most fame points.

The game ends when either a player has filled their mat or a card calls for a tile size that doesn't exist in the supply. You get additional fame points for things like filling in all the hotel or casino areas or have doors connecting the casino door to the hotel door. Vegas Showdown is a great game for 3-5 players.