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The beginners guide to German Games
Risk: Choose where to attack. Like Monopoly, lucky dice rolls really skewer the actual impact of your decisions. Your strategy can be brilliant, but dice can often kill your chances.
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Settlers of Catan: Roll a die on your turn, but the die affects everyone differently, giving resources to players to build all over the Island of Catan. Build cities, towns, roads however you think best. Not only do cities and towns get you points, they also get you access to more resources. Certain lands are more bountiful, so build towns in good locations. You need roads to build new cities, and roads can cut other players of from expanding. Choose what you build and where you build carefully because resources are scarce.
Puerto Rico: Choose a 'role': everyone gets an action, but gives you, as selector, a bonus to your action. You will choose these roles depending on how much more of an advantage you will gain versus your opponents. Use these roles to start plantations, acquire goods, sell goods/ship goods (one gets you money, the other gets you points -- a difficult decision right there!), recruit colonists, and build buildings. The buildings have special powers that can combine for some neat strategies.
American: Not all American games are equal, but many are just plain boring or luck dependant. What decisions need to be made are often skewered tremendously by luck.
German: Most German games allow different decisions on your turn. Most German games have no dice whatsoever. What you do on your turn is your choice! You may get to do one or two actions from a list; most of the time you can do far less in one turn than you want. That makes decisions interesting and tough. You need to prioritize, or strategize, and choose accordingly. Luck varies from game to game, but with 99% of the games, decisions matter greatly. Many times luck is something you can play off of, working a random event into your strategy. Therefore, strategy needs to be flexible. You need to be able to work with what you have each turn, even if it is not what you counted on.
Risk: Run out of land, and ditto.
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Settlers of Catan: First person to 10 pts wins, and everyone plays until someone has 10 points. It's true that with 4 players, one person usually gets hemmed in, but if you choose carefully, you'll be okay. Usually scores are very close too.
Puerto Rico: Everyone builds their island trying to make it prosperous and successful and at the end of the game, everyone tallies up their scores (number of goods shipped, value of buildings) to see who has the most thriving island.
American: In many games, you can get eliminated. See above.
German: Most games are designed to include all players until the very end. You may be doing poorly, but at least you are still involved in the outcome of the game, or can try experimental strategies. Plus, good decisions could lead to a late run and provide a come-from-behind victory!
Risk: 3-8 hours.
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Settlers of Catan: 90 minutes
Puerto Rico: 45-90 minutes.
American: 4 hours? 7? Who knows? Games can go on for hours, and usually you won't know how long ahead of time.
German: On the box. And most games are less than 90 minutes (some only 30) so have fun playing several in a night.
American: Who knows?
German: It says on the box. And just like authors, or actors, designers have certain styles, so if you like a game by a designer, you may like his other games too. My favorites: Stefan Dorra, and Alan R. Moon.
Risk: Don't know.
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Settlers of Catan: Klaus Teuber, designer of 15+ games.
Puerto Rico: Rising star, Andreas Seyfarth.
American: Some bad, some okay, lots of plastic pieces and paper money.
German: Some okay, some gorgeous. Some so good, it's worth buying just to have on your coffee table. Some have nice wooden pieces. Just like game authors, there are famous game artists. Check out Tikal, die Magier von Pangea, Hera & Zeus, and Union Pacific.
Risk: Okay. New plastic pieces nice.
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Settlers of Catan: Nice pieces. The board is made of land type hexagons (forest, field, etc.) which are placed different every game. One of the uglier German games and still looks great.
Puerto Rico: Absolutely gorgeous. Lush plantations, beautiful player boards, lots of wooden commodity markers and thick cardboard tiles.
Check out my favorites on The GOLD GAMES page.