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Maharaja by Wolfgang Kramer & Michael Kiesling Rating: 6/10 after 5+ plays

Maharaja by Wolfgang Kramer & Michael Kiesling art Franz Vohlwinkel publish Phalanx Games players: 2-5 duration: 60-90 mins. type: Heavy board game theme: Indian architects building palaces for the Raja PACE: MEDIUM. For a strategy game, I thought the pace moved quite well, but I wasn't playing with analyzers so my grade is uncertain. Some bogging possible as players late in the action queue try to anticipate all the moves of the other players. COMPLEXITY: MEDIUM. The concepts are not at all hard to understand, but the choices are many and varied, and it takes a smart players to do well at the game, knowing when to cut their losses, or to plan ahead (very important in this game -- sometimes planning 4 rounds ahead is a good idea.) LUCK: NONE. Of course, the other players can mess with your plans, but only if you allow them to go before you. (If you want cheap palaces so bad, then you are going to spend a lot of the game with the 'leftovers' of the board!) TENSION: HIGH. Like many games by this design team, trying to squeeze as much out of one turn as possible is of the utmost importance. And since you are at the mercy of what other players leave for you, even what they do is of vital interest to you. VICIOUS: HIGH. Watching the player just before you take your role away and build the central palace you were about to build will certain seem vicious when it happens to you (though it's pretty funny when it happens to someone else.) SOCIAL: LOW. You need to be paying attention, but the breaks in between rounds allow a little shakeup. VISUALS: GOOD. The board conjures the period fairly well, but feels drab. The beads, although nice, don't look anything like palaces (why not just plastic palaces?) The houses and action disks are nice. THEME: LOW. It just barely works. This is essentially an abstract game, but since you are 'building' things, I suppose architects works okay. The board has a very balanced abstract setup. GAMER APPEAL: PROBABLY. But I am not the only one who finds this game somewhat dull. Still, the ratings prove that most gamers do like it. NON-GAMER APPEAL: LOW. Too much to consider, and a lot of future planning, and a lot of stealing and one-upping make this a disasterous non-gamer game, I think. 2 PLAYERS: POOR. I've heard soem liek it, but any game that has majorities (1st place, 2ns place, 3rd place) seems lacking to me with 2 players. REPLAY: FAIR. The tension saves it. Good with 3-5 players. Best with 5 players.

My full review at Funagain

This game has been getting very high ratings from the gamer-slanted website Boardgamegeek, and it is easy to understand why: the game boasts excellent and well-fit mechanics, and fairly simple rules, with all kinds of twists and turns. Players are trying to build 7 palaces first, which will win the game. But to do that they need money, and to get money they need influence in the cities that the Raja is visiting, and to get that influence they must spend money to build houses and palaces in the cities! What makes the game work well is the different roles each player has assigning that player an extra ability, with less-powerful abilities getting to go sooner and break ties! And sicne all actions are chosen secretly on a 'disk' the sooner you go in a round, the more likely you are to be able to take your turn unimpeded by your opponents. My main probolem with the game is, though clever, it is very dry and abstract, something that is apparent with a quick glance at either the rulebook or the board itself. It is very clever, but dry, and definitely a better fit for gamers than non-gamers. I recognize its excellence design, but found little fun in it for me. It seemed like a mix between El Grande and Java, but I like both games better than Maharaja.

This page by Jeremy Avery