Barnes on Games #11 - Trade on the Tigris, Raccoon Tycoon, Stephenson's Rocket Reviews

Trade on the Tigris
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I claim I dislike negotiation, but between Trade on the Tigris and Sidereal Confluence, I wonder if I need to re-evaluate that. Both take it in much more interesting directions than, say, Traders of Genoa or Chinatown.

Not possible because Chinatown is The Best Game. Sorry to let you down.

Stephenson's Rocket is one of those games that I keep meaning to try and not getting around to. I think it's because trains put me to sleep. I should probably move on this soon if I'm going to before it goes out of print for another decade. From what I hear Grail isn't doing too well at the moment.

Vysetron aren't you in NC? Come to Greensboro some Friday night and I'll be more than happy to play Stephenson's Rocket with you. I love that game. Games play out so differently depending entirely on player actions. It's fascinating every time.

My understanding is that SR will be Grail Games final release, which is a real bummer because they've been doing great work lately. Kings Road is another really good obscure Knizia game they reprinted a couple years ago, and I desperately want to try Yellow & Yangtze.

Edit: also almost assuredly this is a group thing but our players almost never get passengers. The competition for getting stations on lines is FIERCE, and the benefit of getting a passenger ($6k potentially) seems not worth the trade off of letting someone else onto a line for free.

I’ve mentioned before that I grew up in the Ozarks (think Winter’s Bone), and now after becoming ensconced in academia, realize that some of my experiences are unique to the Ozarks.

One of those is that we had three pet raccoons that lived in the house — Larry, Curly, and Moe. Curly dispatched of the other two and remained our pet for two years before he had to be released into the wild. In any event, those are good memories, and I have a soft spot for raccoons. I’ll almost certainly check this out.

Michael - will you be keeping your copy?