Boardgame session; 15 February 2020

This was an outing for a couple of my charity shop ‘finds’, both of which have a strong ‘take that’ aspect.

Firstly we played Mexica, an old find of mine from a few years back that we have played before. This is a well regarded game that has subsequently been reprinted. The game play revolves around sub-dividing an island into districts of defined sizes, claiming those districts, and then building temples of differing heights to secure your domination of districts. The game is played over 2 phases, and as each phase develops the play becomes more cut-throat as you focus on blocking opponents in addition to building your own empire. This game works well if all players are fully aware of the aggressive play required. If you can laugh at your misfortunes and the undermining of your carefully laid plans, then you will enjoy this game.

Next we played a new find, Maharaja (another Kiesling & Kramer game). Basically this game is a race to build your 7 temples first, and achieve area control in the cities the Maharaja is visiting on his journey around India (thereby earning money required for building). On each turn a player has 2 actions which he assigns at the start of a turn using an action disc, and has the ‘help’ of a character with special powers. The player interaction comes from the option to change/steal other characters, and the chance to alter the route to be taken by the Maharaja in upcoming turns. Money is tight in the game. It is amusing/frustrating to see the action options chosen at the start of the turn being profoundly impacted by the actions of a player ahead of you in turn order. The character you were depending on has been stolen; the costs you relied on are suddenly out of your reach; the Maharaja is heading in an unexpected direction etc. etc. A crucial element is to be aware of the number of temples built by opponents, you cannot fall behind in this department because the game is a race to build all 7. When the game nears its end is it vital to be able to finish you temples in the final turn and then it comes down to who has the most money remaining. I really enjoy the game and it works well with both 2- and 4-player counts (planning is more tricky with more players). I recently noticed on BGG that there are moves to get a reprint done for Maharaja, which it fully deserves. The putative publishers also suggested they would introduce a points based victory condition, as opposed to the race element in the original game. I can see why they might do this, but I think such a move may remove a major driving force behind the gameplay.