Games + History = Life.

Here are the three that gave me most life this year!

You can read all of the Farewell 2025 posts here:

• Farewell 2025 – New-to-Me Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Fiction!
• Farewell 2025 – Non-Historical Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Non-Fiction!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Best on the Blog!

Time of Crisis (Wray Ferrell/Brad Johnson, GMT Games)

I love a good ancient game. The Greeks and Romans provide not only ample literary and archaeological sources (which are the basis for any decent scholarship, and consequently, for games which take their history seriously), but also the right touch of drama to go with it. Yet while everyone know about the drama of the Greeks defying the Persian Empire or Rome’s struggle with Hannibal, late antiquity gets short shrift in popular media, games included. Time of Crisis does its part to remedy that, shedding light on the crisis of the third century in the Roman Empire which saw no fewer than 19 emperors in the fifty years the game covers (with several dozen co-emperors, emperors of secessionist empires, and anti-emperors who never gained legitimacy on top).

Time of Crisis is by no means a simulation. However, it does give you an idea of the sheer chaos of civil war, external invasions, social and economic upheaval, and quasi-constant usurpation… and it does so in a very entertaining way, daring you to wreck the Roman Empire in an enjoyable short evening.

Julius Caesar (Grant Dalgliesh/Justin Thompson, Columbia Games)

Did I say I love ancient games? Here’s exhibit B.

Julius Caesar takes two players to the final years of the Roman Republic, when Caesar and Pompey struggled for mastery of Rome. While the rules are the same for both sides, they play very differently: Caesar commands high-quality veterans of his Gallic campaigns, concentrated in Gaul (both transalpine and cisalpine), whereas Pompey’s more numerous, but greener troops are spread out all over the Mediterranean. Caesar will thus have an edge attacking… and attack he must, as the initial score (measured by control of objective cities) is 7-1 in Pompey’s favor.

That does not mean, though, that Pompey is only digging in. Pre-emptive movements to take victory cities and move to more defensible positions are indispensable, and the edge of Caesar’s attacks can often be blunted by spoiling attacks or distractions elsewhere… and should Caesar take the lead, Pompey must take more risks and go on the offensive anyway. Either way, Julius Caesar is always a thrilling experience.

And my favorite historical game of the year was…

Here I Stand (Ed Beach, GMT Games)

Here I Stand is no newcomer to these lists. In fact, it has been on there a record five times already, winning in 2018 and 2020. I guess that means that Here I Stand is doing a few things right… for example:

• Accessibility: Yes, I know. The game has a 48-page rulebook and takes all day. But for all that, as long as you have one person knowing the rules well, newbies can be eased into the game because the first turn is a bit of a “try out the mechanics of your faction” phase and there are several powers whose field of operations (geographical and thematical) is limited in the beginning (the Protestants, England, and the Ottomans). I played a six-player game early this year in which there were three newbies and they competed just fine.
• Diplomacy: A tricky thing in games. Some games only let you do all kinds of non-binding deals (and then people normally don’t do them because the stakes for betrayal are so high). Others only allow very specific, strictly binding things, which also restricts diplomacy a lot. Here I Stand has found the happy middle ground of making some things binding, but not others, and giving most powers something they can trade to any other power (sometimes only a juicy card event played in their favor).
• Ratching Up Tension: It’s no rocket science, but I love the way that Here I Stand makes the game tenser with every round. You need 25 VP to win, and most of them come from the control of “keys” (that is, objective cities) – so, whenever you gain one, another player loses one. Yet there are also other victory points which are permanent (ranging from winning a war over discovering something in the New World to disgracing an opponent debater)… and thus the overall VP count rises and rises, until “The Papacy might score 25 VP this round, let’s hold them back” has given way to “England, the Protestants, and the Ottomans might score 25 VP this round, and the Hapsburgs threaten a military auto-win”. It is exhilarating!
• The Big Picture: Here I Stand has a thousand little pieces (literally and figuratively) – Tyndale, the translator of the English bible, the conquest of the Incas, the corsairs of Algiers. Yet all these little stones form a magnificent mosaic. Playing the game you will realize how things that you never connected in your mind influenced each other – for example, if Tyndale holds his own in the difficult early stages of English Protestantism, that might encourage the Papacy and the Hapsburgs to end the intra-Catholic war with France. The Hapsburgs might then invest more in the New World, and a successful conquest might give them the means to take the offensive in the Mediterranean against the corsairs and fleets under the banner of the Ottoman sultan. I love when a game makes these connections.

And what were the historical board games that you most enjoyed this year? Let me know in the comments!

Games + History = Life.

Here are the three that gave me most life this year!

You can read all of the Farewell 2025 posts here:

• Farewell 2025 – New-to-Me Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Fiction!
• Farewell 2025 – Non-Historical Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Non-Fiction!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Best on the Blog!

Time of Crisis (Wray Ferrell/Brad Johnson, GMT Games)

I love a good ancient game. The Greeks and Romans provide not only ample literary and archaeological sources (which are the basis for any decent scholarship, and consequently, for games which take their history seriously), but also the right touch of drama to go with it. Yet while everyone know about the drama of the Greeks defying the Persian Empire or Rome’s struggle with Hannibal, late antiquity gets short shrift in popular media, games included. Time of Crisis does its part to remedy that, shedding light on the crisis of the third century in the Roman Empire which saw no fewer than 19 emperors in the fifty years the game covers (with several dozen co-emperors, emperors of secessionist empires, and anti-emperors who never gained legitimacy on top).

Time of Crisis is by no means a simulation. However, it does give you an idea of the sheer chaos of civil war, external invasions, social and economic upheaval, and quasi-constant usurpation… and it does so in a very entertaining way, daring you to wreck the Roman Empire in an enjoyable short evening.

Julius Caesar (Grant Dalgliesh/Justin Thompson, Columbia Games)

Did I say I love ancient games? Here’s exhibit B.

Julius Caesar takes two players to the final years of the Roman Republic, when Caesar and Pompey struggled for mastery of Rome. While the rules are the same for both sides, they play very differently: Caesar commands high-quality veterans of his Gallic campaigns, concentrated in Gaul (both transalpine and cisalpine), whereas Pompey’s more numerous, but greener troops are spread out all over the Mediterranean. Caesar will thus have an edge attacking… and attack he must, as the initial score (measured by control of objective cities) is 7-1 in Pompey’s favor.

That does not mean, though, that Pompey is only digging in. Pre-emptive movements to take victory cities and move to more defensible positions are indispensable, and the edge of Caesar’s attacks can often be blunted by spoiling attacks or distractions elsewhere… and should Caesar take the lead, Pompey must take more risks and go on the offensive anyway. Either way, Julius Caesar is always a thrilling experience.

And my favorite historical game of the year was…

Here I Stand (Ed Beach, GMT Games)

Here I Stand is no newcomer to these lists. In fact, it has been on there a record five times already, winning in 2018 and 2020. I guess that means that Here I Stand is doing a few things right… for example:

• Accessibility: Yes, I know. The game has a 48-page rulebook and takes all day. But for all that, as long as you have one person knowing the rules well, newbies can be eased into the game because the first turn is a bit of a “try out the mechanics of your faction” phase and there are several powers whose field of operations (geographical and thematical) is limited in the beginning (the Protestants, England, and the Ottomans). I played a six-player game early this year in which there were three newbies and they competed just fine.
• Diplomacy: A tricky thing in games. Some games only let you do all kinds of non-binding deals (and then people normally don’t do them because the stakes for betrayal are so high). Others only allow very specific, strictly binding things, which also restricts diplomacy a lot. Here I Stand has found the happy middle ground of making some things binding, but not others, and giving most powers something they can trade to any other power (sometimes only a juicy card event played in their favor).
• Ratching Up Tension: It’s no rocket science, but I love the way that Here I Stand makes the game tenser with every round. You need 25 VP to win, and most of them come from the control of “keys” (that is, objective cities) – so, whenever you gain one, another player loses one. Yet there are also other victory points which are permanent (ranging from winning a war over discovering something in the New World to disgracing an opponent debater)… and thus the overall VP count rises and rises, until “The Papacy might score 25 VP this round, let’s hold them back” has given way to “England, the Protestants, and the Ottomans might score 25 VP this round, and the Hapsburgs threaten a military auto-win”. It is exhilarating!
• The Big Picture: Here I Stand has a thousand little pieces (literally and figuratively) – Tyndale, the translator of the English bible, the conquest of the Incas, the corsairs of Algiers. Yet all these little stones form a magnificent mosaic. Playing the game you will realize how things that you never connected in your mind influenced each other – for example, if Tyndale holds his own in the difficult early stages of English Protestantism, that might encourage the Papacy and the Hapsburgs to end the intra-Catholic war with France. The Hapsburgs might then invest more in the New World, and a successful conquest might give them the means to take the offensive in the Mediterranean against the corsairs and fleets under the banner of the Ottoman sultan. I love when a game makes these connections.

And what were the historical board games that you most enjoyed this year? Let me know in the comments!

History is about people. And so, my three favorite historical non-fiction reads were all biographies – but of very different kinds.

You can read all of the Farewell 2025 posts here:

• Farewell 2025 – New-to-Me Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Fiction!
• Farewell 2025 – Non-Historical Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Non-Fiction!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Best on the Blog!

Betina Anton: Hiding Mengele

Josef Mengele’s life can be neatly divided in two parts. The first saw him rise to prominence in Nazi Germany for his medical research on “racial hygiene” and his subsequent human experiments at the Auschwitz concentration camp. After 1945, Mengele faded into obscurity, living a simple, but comfortable and unperturbed life in South America. Betina Anton covers both from a multitude of perspectives, including a plethora of interviews with the survivors of Mengele’s cruel experiments as well as those who knew him in Brazil, and even a documentary find of Mengele’s private letters. The book thus adds especially to the under-researched second half of Mengele’s life, giving a full picture of the casual and organized support for Nazis in hiding.

Mengele’s quiet life in South America contrasts starkly (and purposefully) with the continued suffering of his victims and their dependents, as well as with his own much more dramatic life before the end of the war, making you ask yourself how the world could allow such a man to go scot-free.

Geoff Mortimer: Wallenstein. The Enigma of the Thirty Years’ War

I have written a lot about Wallenstein this year. Obviously, that means I have also read a lot about him, and no book better than Geoff Mortimer’s biography. Despite its subheading, the book is concerned with dispelling the Wallenstein myth, created by his opponents after his death and re-interpreted (affirmatively or negatively) by historians for centuries. Instead, Mortimer presents Wallenstein as a not uncommon man of his time whose actions were rooted in his concern for the safety of his estate, and, when it came to choosing sides, his imperial-Catholic loyalty. Wallenstein was thus tied to the emperor, but needed peace to have his fiefs (gained from emperor Ferdinand’s expropriations in Bohemia and Mecklenburg) confirmed for good. When Ferdinand lost trust in Wallenstein, he was turned from a beneficiary to a victim of the same method – murdered and expropriated.

And my favorite historical non-fiction read of 2025 was…

Christopher Duffy: Frederick the Great. A Military Life

Frederick II of Prussia remains of the most fascinating historical personalities to me – as a politician, a writer, and, of course, as a general. Duffy’s biography focuses on this last aspect and does so in admirable depth and clarity. Of course, Frederick’s wars are covered (on a tactical, operational, and strategic level), but also his activities as a military administrator and organizer. It is in these latter fields where Duffy finds most fault with Frederick, whom he credits with having inherited the finest military force in Europe upon his accession and leaving his own successor a mediocre army. While Duffy thus does not shy away from pointing out Frederick’s mistakes and oversights, he also presents him as a very capable commander, whose battle plans were both daring and practical, whose rapid marches allowed him to contend with three great-power foes at the same time, and whose strategic resilience made him last long enough until his enemies’ exhaustion forced them to make peace with him – all of this in smooth, flowing prose, and with 50 detailed maps of all major battles and campaigns.

What were your favorite history books read in 2025? Let me know in the comments!

History is about people. And so, my three favorite historical non-fiction reads were all biographies – but of very different kinds.

You can read all of the Farewell 2025 posts here:

• Farewell 2025 – New-to-Me Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Fiction!
• Farewell 2025 – Non-Historical Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Non-Fiction!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Best on the Blog!

Betina Anton: Hiding Mengele

Josef Mengele’s life can be neatly divided in two parts. The first saw him rise to prominence in Nazi Germany for his medical research on “racial hygiene” and his subsequent human experiments at the Auschwitz concentration camp. After 1945, Mengele faded into obscurity, living a simple, but comfortable and unperturbed life in South America. Betina Anton covers both from a multitude of perspectives, including a plethora of interviews with the survivors of Mengele’s cruel experiments as well as those who knew him in Brazil, and even a documentary find of Mengele’s private letters. The book thus adds especially to the under-researched second half of Mengele’s life, giving a full picture of the casual and organized support for Nazis in hiding.

Mengele’s quiet life in South America contrasts starkly (and purposefully) with the continued suffering of his victims and their dependents, as well as with his own much more dramatic life before the end of the war, making you ask yourself how the world could allow such a man to go scot-free.

Geoff Mortimer: Wallenstein. The Enigma of the Thirty Years’ War

I have written a lot about Wallenstein this year. Obviously, that means I have also read a lot about him, and no book better than Geoff Mortimer’s biography. Despite its subheading, the book is concerned with dispelling the Wallenstein myth, created by his opponents after his death and re-interpreted (affirmatively or negatively) by historians for centuries. Instead, Mortimer presents Wallenstein as a not uncommon man of his time whose actions were rooted in his concern for the safety of his estate, and, when it came to choosing sides, his imperial-Catholic loyalty. Wallenstein was thus tied to the emperor, but needed peace to have his fiefs (gained from emperor Ferdinand’s expropriations in Bohemia and Mecklenburg) confirmed for good. When Ferdinand lost trust in Wallenstein, he was turned from a beneficiary to a victim of the same method – murdered and expropriated.

And my favorite historical non-fiction read of 2025 was…

Christopher Duffy: Frederick the Great. A Military Life

Frederick II of Prussia remains of the most fascinating historical personalities to me – as a politician, a writer, and, of course, as a general. Duffy’s biography focuses on this last aspect and does so in admirable depth and clarity. Of course, Frederick’s wars are covered (on a tactical, operational, and strategic level), but also his activities as a military administrator and organizer. It is in these latter fields where Duffy finds most fault with Frederick, whom he credits with having inherited the finest military force in Europe upon his accession and leaving his own successor a mediocre army. While Duffy thus does not shy away from pointing out Frederick’s mistakes and oversights, he also presents him as a very capable commander, whose battle plans were both daring and practical, whose rapid marches allowed him to contend with three great-power foes at the same time, and whose strategic resilience made him last long enough until his enemies’ exhaustion forced them to make peace with him – all of this in smooth, flowing prose, and with 50 detailed maps of all major battles and campaigns.

What were your favorite history books read in 2025? Let me know in the comments!

On to the next category – non-historical games! This year, we see a mix of the new(-to-me) and a very old favorite.

You can read all of the Farewell 2025 posts here:

• Farewell 2025 – New-to-Me Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Fiction!
• Farewell 2025 – Non-Historical Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Non-Fiction!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Best on the Blog!

Agent Avenue (Christian Kudahl/Laura Kudahl, Nerdlab Games)

One of my more recent discoveries… and it is all about discovery itself: You want to discover the other player’s secret identity, which you do by catching up to them on the circular track. Of course, your opponent wants the same, and so both of you try to go as fast as they can by enlisting the most helpful of your suburban neighbors (all of which are anthropomorphic animals) to your cause. Yet you must always select two cards from your hand for recruiting, place one of them face-up and the other face-down – and then your opponent gets to select one of them (and discover if they made the right choice).

Can you bait them with the great face-up card and take the even better face-down card for yourself? Or can you trick them into thinking that this is just what you want them to do, so they select the face-down card which turns out to be utter trash? Such are the thoughts of retired agents.

Let’s not even get into the intricacies of the instant victory (by enlisting enough codebreakers) or instant defeat (by enlisting too many daredevils), or the special equipment you can buy from the black market in the advanced version. Agent Avenue has you outwit, outbluff, and sometimes outluck your opponent in 10 to 20 breezy minutes.

Heat: Pedal to the Metal (Asger Harding Granerud/Daniel Skjold Pedersen, Days of Wonder)

I have sung Heat’s praises in general in the farewell post on new-to-me games. Here, let me expand on the Schwerpunkt of its mechanics – heat management. Heat represents the strain on your car. In game terms, that’s heat cards clogging up your hand. They cannot be played (ugh) and not even discarded (double ugh), thus costing you both raw power and flexibility. The only way to get rid of them is to shift down and let your machine recover in low speeds… while watching everybody else get ahead of you.

So, should you avoid heat at any cost? – No! You will to take a certain amount of it to win. Sometimes you need to crank up your speed quickly, sometimes you want to boost a movement to put yourself in a position where you can slipstream past opponents. If you have a low-gear stretch soon after taking on the heat, you might be able to shed the heat before it did any damage. The intriguing gamble of how much heat you can incur and how to get rid of it without sacrificing speed is the heart of Heat.

And my favorite non-historical game of the year was…

Catan Card Game (Klaus Teuber, KOSMOS)

The Catan Card Game has a special place in my heart. It was the first board game I ever played with my friend F., and after F.s death left only M. and me as two sides of our original Magical Triangle, the Catan Card Game turned into a mainstay of our meetings. We used to play the Expanded Basic Game but tried the Tournament Game this year – which means instead of having all the cards from the base game and potential expansions at your (aleatory) disposal, players use a pre-constructed deck of 33 cards.

That provides plenty of personalization. We used a university-based deck and one which aims for fast city construction and trade dominance – two very different approaches which both worked well (one victory per deck). And the joy of playing is complemented with the joy of deck construction. I already have some ideas on my mind for a future deck.

And what were your favorite non-historical games this year? Let me know in the comments!

On to the next category – non-historical games! This year, we see a mix of the new(-to-me) and a very old favorite.

You can read all of the Farewell 2025 posts here:

• Farewell 2025 – New-to-Me Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Fiction!
• Farewell 2025 – Non-Historical Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Non-Fiction!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Best on the Blog!

Agent Avenue (Christian Kudahl/Laura Kudahl, Nerdlab Games)

One of my more recent discoveries… and it is all about discovery itself: You want to discover the other player’s secret identity, which you do by catching up to them on the circular track. Of course, your opponent wants the same, and so both of you try to go as fast as they can by enlisting the most helpful of your suburban neighbors (all of which are anthropomorphic animals) to your cause. Yet you must always select two cards from your hand for recruiting, place one of them face-up and the other face-down – and then your opponent gets to select one of them (and discover if they made the right choice).

Can you bait them with the great face-up card and take the even better face-down card for yourself? Or can you trick them into thinking that this is just what you want them to do, so they select the face-down card which turns out to be utter trash? Such are the thoughts of retired agents.

Let’s not even get into the intricacies of the instant victory (by enlisting enough codebreakers) or instant defeat (by enlisting too many daredevils), or the special equipment you can buy from the black market in the advanced version. Agent Avenue has you outwit, outbluff, and sometimes outluck your opponent in 10 to 20 breezy minutes.

Heat: Pedal to the Metal (Asger Harding Granerud/Daniel Skjold Pedersen, Days of Wonder)

I have sung Heat’s praises in general in the farewell post on new-to-me games. Here, let me expand on the Schwerpunkt of its mechanics – heat management. Heat represents the strain on your car. In game terms, that’s heat cards clogging up your hand. They cannot be played (ugh) and not even discarded (double ugh), thus costing you both raw power and flexibility. The only way to get rid of them is to shift down and let your machine recover in low speeds… while watching everybody else get ahead of you.

So, should you avoid heat at any cost? – No! You will to take a certain amount of it to win. Sometimes you need to crank up your speed quickly, sometimes you want to boost a movement to put yourself in a position where you can slipstream past opponents. If you have a low-gear stretch soon after taking on the heat, you might be able to shed the heat before it did any damage. The intriguing gamble of how much heat you can incur and how to get rid of it without sacrificing speed is the heart of Heat.

And my favorite non-historical game of the year was…

Catan Card Game (Klaus Teuber, KOSMOS)

The Catan Card Game has a special place in my heart. It was the first board game I ever played with my friend F., and after F.s death left only M. and me as two sides of our original Magical Triangle, the Catan Card Game turned into a mainstay of our meetings. We used to play the Expanded Basic Game but tried the Tournament Game this year – which means instead of having all the cards from the base game and potential expansions at your (aleatory) disposal, players use a pre-constructed deck of 33 cards.

That provides plenty of personalization. We used a university-based deck and one which aims for fast city construction and trade dominance – two very different approaches which both worked well (one victory per deck). And the joy of playing is complemented with the joy of deck construction. I already have some ideas on my mind for a future deck.

And what were your favorite non-historical games this year? Let me know in the comments!

On to the next post in my Farewell series! Today, it’s all about works of historical fiction. Here are the three I liked best this year.

You can read all of the Farewell 2025 posts here:

• Farewell 2025 – New-to-Me Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Fiction!
• Farewell 2025 – Non-Historical Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Non-Fiction!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Best on the Blog!

Antony and Cleopatra (Colleen McCullough)

Long-time readers of this blog know my infatuation with Colleen McCullough’s Masters of Rome series. I have been reading the series since 2018 at the appropriately epic pace of one book per year (and last year, I skipped). Masters of Rome reading was always a highlight of my literary year – the high drama, the broad historical canvas painted with a myriad of characters, events, and microplots, and, most of all, McCullough’s readiness to engage the ancients on their own terms, with ever so many pages dedicated to this legislation or that campaign.

McCullough had planned to end the series after the sixth instalment (The October Horse, which covers the years 44 to 42 BCE). Only her fans’ pleas convinced her to write Antony and Cleopatra. Maybe that shows a little bit – the book takes a long time (say, the first 200 pages) to hit its stride, and never quite reaches the heights of previous instalments. Yet that mostly shows how good these books were (peaking with novel #5, Caesar), as this conclusion to the drama of the late Roman Republic was still one of my favorite historical novels in 2025.

Clarissa Oakes (Patrick O’Brian)

I’m continuing my re-read of the Aubrey-Maturin series, that delightful panorama of life at sea (and land!) during the Napoleonic Wars. Among the Aubrey-Maturin novels which I read this year, my favorite was #15 – Clarissa Oakes.

Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin want just one thing: Leave New South Wales and its mixture of brutal government (instigating clashes between the officers and men) and anti-Irish fervor (which gets Stephen into trouble). However, when the ship is out at sea, they realize that one of the younger officers has smuggled out a convict from the penal colony – an enigmatic young woman, who is bound to attract the attention of several of the men. No other book in the series makes so good on the premise of the characters being confined to a small ship, unable to avoid each other. And Clarissa, the escapee, is not just a plot device, but a complex and compelling character in her own right.

And my favorite historical novel of this year was…

A Gentleman in Moscow (Amor Towles)

„Where is it now?“, asks the poem which kicks off the book – “it” being purpose. Having been written after the failed Russian revolution of 1905, the poem is widely seen as a call to action and inspires Russia’s revolutionaries… and thus they do not sentence the aristocratic author Count Alexander Rostov to death when he returns to Russia after the October Revolution. Under house arrest at the Hotel Metropol in Moscow, he will spend the next thirty years rethinking and rediscovering his purpose. It will not count as a spoiler that he finds it in putting his abilities to good use and connecting with his fellow human beings – of course he does. Yet the point of the book is not the goal, but the winding way there, told with grace, nuance, and originality.

While the ending might be a bit kitschy, the unique protagonist, the cast of intriguing side characters and the delightful prose made this my favorite historical fiction read of the year.

Have you read any of these books – and, if so, what did you think? And what were your favorite historical novels of the year? Let me know in the comments!

On to the next post in my Farewell series! Today, it’s all about works of historical fiction. Here are the three I liked best this year.

You can read all of the Farewell 2025 posts here:

• Farewell 2025 – New-to-Me Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Fiction!
• Farewell 2025 – Non-Historical Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Non-Fiction!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Best on the Blog!

Antony and Cleopatra (Colleen McCullough)

Long-time readers of this blog know my infatuation with Colleen McCullough’s Masters of Rome series. I have been reading the series since 2018 at the appropriately epic pace of one book per year (and last year, I skipped). Masters of Rome reading was always a highlight of my literary year – the high drama, the broad historical canvas painted with a myriad of characters, events, and microplots, and, most of all, McCullough’s readiness to engage the ancients on their own terms, with ever so many pages dedicated to this legislation or that campaign.

McCullough had planned to end the series after the sixth instalment (The October Horse, which covers the years 44 to 42 BCE). Only her fans’ pleas convinced her to write Antony and Cleopatra. Maybe that shows a little bit – the book takes a long time (say, the first 200 pages) to hit its stride, and never quite reaches the heights of previous instalments. Yet that mostly shows how good these books were (peaking with novel #5, Caesar), as this conclusion to the drama of the late Roman Republic was still one of my favorite historical novels in 2025.

Clarissa Oakes (Patrick O’Brian)

I’m continuing my re-read of the Aubrey-Maturin series, that delightful panorama of life at sea (and land!) during the Napoleonic Wars. Among the Aubrey-Maturin novels which I read this year, my favorite was #15 – Clarissa Oakes.

Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin want just one thing: Leave New South Wales and its mixture of brutal government (instigating clashes between the officers and men) and anti-Irish fervor (which gets Stephen into trouble). However, when the ship is out at sea, they realize that one of the younger officers has smuggled out a convict from the penal colony – an enigmatic young woman, who is bound to attract the attention of several of the men. No other book in the series makes so good on the premise of the characters being confined to a small ship, unable to avoid each other. And Clarissa, the escapee, is not just a plot device, but a complex and compelling character in her own right.

And my favorite historical novel of this year was…

A Gentleman in Moscow (Amor Towles)

„Where is it now?“, asks the poem which kicks off the book – “it” being purpose. Having been written after the failed Russian revolution of 1905, the poem is widely seen as a call to action and inspires Russia’s revolutionaries… and thus they do not sentence the aristocratic author Count Alexander Rostov to death when he returns to Russia after the October Revolution. Under house arrest at the Hotel Metropol in Moscow, he will spend the next thirty years rethinking and rediscovering his purpose. It will not count as a spoiler that he finds it in putting his abilities to good use and connecting with his fellow human beings – of course he does. Yet the point of the book is not the goal, but the winding way there, told with grace, nuance, and originality.

While the ending might be a bit kitschy, the unique protagonist, the cast of intriguing side characters and the delightful prose made this my favorite historical fiction read of the year.

Have you read any of these books – and, if so, what did you think? And what were your favorite historical novels of the year? Let me know in the comments!

As the year comes to a close, I’ll do my usual end-of-year posts: My personal top three in a range of categories. As tradition commands, we’ll begin with the games that I played for the first time this year. Here are the best three.

You can read all of the Farewell 2025 posts here:

• Farewell 2025 – New-to-Me Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Fiction!
• Farewell 2025 – Non-Historical Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Non-Fiction!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Best on the Blog!

Heat: Pedal to the Metal (Asger Harding Granerud/Daniel Skjold Pedersen, Days of Wonder)

I’m not much of a Formula 1 fan – from my point of view, nothing much happens during the races (after the start, that is), and in many years, even the championship as such is a bore because one driver/car combo is just too dominant. (This year has been excitingly different in that regard.)

Heat, however, takes just the exciting parts of racing and puts them together in an enthralling package of evocative mechanisms – downshifting before corners (and upshifting afterward), and the delicate balance of how to deal with the psychological stress on the driver and the physical stress on the car (the eponymous heat). And as the main planning phase is done simultaneously, there’s minimal downtime even with the full six players.

Vijayanagara (Cory Graham/Mathieu Johnson/Aman Matthews/Saverio Spagnolie, GMT Games)

I’m excited to learn new things from and with games. One topic I knew next to nothing about is the 14^th century in India. That, however, has changed a bit now due to Vijayanagara, a COIN-lite treatment of the collapse of the Delhi Sultanate’s hegemony under the challenge of invasion from the north (Timur’s Mongols) and centrifugal forces in the south (the nascent Bahmani Kingdom and Vijayanagara Empire). Every game of Vijayanagara tells a variation of that story.

I was happy to play several games of this intriguing debut design with my fellow board game bloggers Dave from Dude! Take Your Turn and Michal from The Boardgames Chronicle.

And my favorite new-to-me game of the year is…

Time of Crisis (Wray Ferrell/Brad Johnson, GMT Games)

Chaos – some games hate it, others, like Time of Crisis, embrace it. Whoever wants to be Roman emperor in the tumultuous third century must be prepared to deal with a whole whirlwind of challenges: Angry mobs want to drag your governors into the gutter, Barbarian tribes stand ready to cross the border into your provinces, and, worst of all, the rest of the Roman elite wants to be emperor, too, and will gleefully take whatever you possess.

I have been thwarted in my imperial aspirations by my fellow bloggers Alexander and Grant from The Players’ Aid as well as Dave and Michal, and have been loving every minute of it. Time of Crisis has been my most-played game overall this year (with 14 individual plays of it), and rightly takes the crown in this category.

What were your favorite new-to-me games this year? Let me know in the comments!

As the year comes to a close, I’ll do my usual end-of-year posts: My personal top three in a range of categories. As tradition commands, we’ll begin with the games that I played for the first time this year. Here are the best three.

You can read all of the Farewell 2025 posts here:

• Farewell 2025 – New-to-Me Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Fiction!
• Farewell 2025 – Non-Historical Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Non-Fiction!
• Farewell 2025 – Historical Games!
• Farewell 2025 – Best on the Blog!

Heat: Pedal to the Metal (Asger Harding Granerud/Daniel Skjold Pedersen, Days of Wonder)

I’m not much of a Formula 1 fan – from my point of view, nothing much happens during the races (after the start, that is), and in many years, even the championship as such is a bore because one driver/car combo is just too dominant. (This year has been excitingly different in that regard.)

Heat, however, takes just the exciting parts of racing and puts them together in an enthralling package of evocative mechanisms – downshifting before corners (and upshifting afterward), and the delicate balance of how to deal with the psychological stress on the driver and the physical stress on the car (the eponymous heat). And as the main planning phase is done simultaneously, there’s minimal downtime even with the full six players.

Vijayanagara (Cory Graham/Mathieu Johnson/Aman Matthews/Saverio Spagnolie, GMT Games)

I’m excited to learn new things from and with games. One topic I knew next to nothing about is the 14^th century in India. That, however, has changed a bit now due to Vijayanagara, a COIN-lite treatment of the collapse of the Delhi Sultanate’s hegemony under the challenge of invasion from the north (Timur’s Mongols) and centrifugal forces in the south (the nascent Bahmani Kingdom and Vijayanagara Empire). Every game of Vijayanagara tells a variation of that story.

I was happy to play several games of this intriguing debut design with my fellow board game bloggers Dave from Dude! Take Your Turn and Michal from The Boardgames Chronicle.

And my favorite new-to-me game of the year is…

Time of Crisis (Wray Ferrell/Brad Johnson, GMT Games)

Chaos – some games hate it, others, like Time of Crisis, embrace it. Whoever wants to be Roman emperor in the tumultuous third century must be prepared to deal with a whole whirlwind of challenges: Angry mobs want to drag your governors into the gutter, Barbarian tribes stand ready to cross the border into your provinces, and, worst of all, the rest of the Roman elite wants to be emperor, too, and will gleefully take whatever you possess.

I have been thwarted in my imperial aspirations by my fellow bloggers Alexander and Grant from The Players’ Aid as well as Dave and Michal, and have been loving every minute of it. Time of Crisis has been my most-played game overall this year (with 14 individual plays of it), and rightly takes the crown in this category.

What were your favorite new-to-me games this year? Let me know in the comments!

Vier-Gewinnt mal anders und anspruchsvoller. Ein tolles Spiel für zwischendurch.

💾

You love board games. You probably also like music. Let’s combine the two into an immersive playlist for Weimar: The Fight for Democracy (Matthias Cramer, Capstone Games/Skellig Games/Spielworxx). Have it gently play in the background during your next session of Weimar for the full period immersion!

First things first: Here’s the playlist!

Before we dive into the content of the playlist, some general observations:

• All of the songs in the playlist were popular during the Weimar Republic (1918—1933). Yet as music recording was still in its infancy at that time, many of the songs in the playlist are later recordings (and some rare ones were recorded even before 1918!).
• As the playlist is only 2:21 hours long, your Weimar game will probably last longer (if you don’t crash the republic on the first or second round), but there’s no reason not to listen to these songs two or three times – they’re fascinating historical documents.
• The playlist is thematically sorted. That helps you find similar songs, but makes for somewhat monotonous listening (until you come to the next group of songs). I therefore recommend you turn shuffle on.

Now, what awaits you in the playlist?

#1: The National Anthem

It seems like a no-brainer to include the German national anthem of the time, yet it’s not so simple: The Lied der Deutschen (Song of the Germans) had been written in 1841, but had since then only been a patriotic song among many – until the first president of the republic, Friedrich Ebert, declared it the national anthem in 1922. The song’s three stanzas were variedly popular: Ebert favored the third stanza with its liberal ideals of unity, justice, and freedom, his right-wing opponents preferred the “Deutschland über alles” (Germany Above Everything) first stanza. I have included an instrumental version. If you feel patriotic, you can sing along.

#2-9: The Old World

The Weimar Republic did not come into existence in a vacuum. It inherited German cultural traditions like folk songs (“Wem Gott will rechte Gunst erweisen” (Whom God Wants to Favor), song #2).

And, of course, the Weimar Republic succeeded the German Empire with its national feeling (“Die Wacht am Rhein” (The Guard on the Rhine), song #2), dominant Protestantism (Martin Luther’s classic “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott” (A Mighty Fortress Is Our God), song #5), and monarchy (“Heil dir im Siegerkranz” (Hail to Thee In the Victor’s Crown), song #7 – the quasi-anthem of the German Empire).

The republic’s midwife was the First World War – whose experience shaped its veterans and provided the cultural context even for those who had not been adults during the war yet (“Wildgänse rauschen durch die Nacht” (Wild Geese Rush Through the Night), song #8, written in 1916, was immensely popular among the Weimar Republic youth movement). The war also cast its shadow over Weimar Germany as many had lost their husbands, sons, fathers, brothers, and friends in the war (“Ich hatt’ einen Kameraden” (I Had a Comrade), song #9, the traditional German soldiers’ lament).

#10-15: Satirical Coping

The liberal republic proved fertile ground for satirical treatments of the new developments: Otto Reutter made fun of the big and small war profiteers with “Seh’n Sie, darum ist es schade, dass der Krieg zu Ende ist” (See, that’s why it’s a pity that the war is over, song #10), and Claire Waldoff called for replacing the men in power with women in “Raus mit den Männern aus dem Reichstag” (Kick the Men Out of Parliament, song #11), playing on masculine anxieties after the introduction of women’s suffrage.

#16-25: Pop!

Even in a time and place as politically charged as the Weimar Republic, not everything was politics. The average Hans and Gretel may have cared less about their preferred ideology and more about how to have good time on a Saturday night… and the new cultural scene, especially in the big cities like Berlin, provided ample opportunities.

The more sophisticated artists like the Comedian Harmonists succeeded with witty wordplay and erudite vocal harmonies. Others played on the classics – alcohol (“Wir versaufen unser Oma ihr klein’ Häuschen“ (We Blow Grandma’s Little House on Booze, song #19) and sexual innuendo („Fräulein, Woll’n Sie nicht ein Kind von mir“ (Miss, Don’t You Want a Child By Me, song #22). There was even the equivalent of a (generalized) diss track: “Du bist als Kind zu heiß gebadet worden” (You Have Been Bathed Too Hot As a Child, song #23) indicates that this neglect of bath safety led to lasting brain damage in the interlocutor.

#26-33: Film, Theater, and Opera Music

The Weimar Republic’s vibrant cultural scene led to cross-pollination between diverse forms of artistic expression. The new medium of film was pioneered in Germany, and once it had left its silent infancy behind, movie songs became hits. Marlene Dietrich, starring in The Blue Angel, enticed with “Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt (I’m Set to Love From Head to Heel, song #26), but warned “Nimm dich in Acht vor blonden Frau’n“ (Beware of Blonde Women, song #27).

More traditional art forms like the theater also adapted. Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera)’s acerbic critique of capitalism would not have been as successful without its catchy songs, the most famous of which is the “Moritat of Mackie Messer” (Ballad of Mack the Knife, song #31).

Even the most classic and highbrow form of entertainment modernized: “Jonny spielt auf” (Jonny Plays It Big, song #33) introduced jazz into the world of the opera… which brings us to our next category.

#34-41: Jazz and Blues

Traditionally, the United States had received and emulated European fashions, not the other way around. Yet by the early 20^th century, America had become the largest economy in the world, its war entry in 1917 tipped the scales of the war further in favor of the Allies, and the increased presence of Americans in Europe meant that the United States turned from an importer to an exporter of culture. Jazz took Europe by storm – both in the form of American (and nascent European) bands and by the new medium of the music record. The Weimar Republic was no exception. Jazz fueled the parties in any larger city of 1920s Germany.

Of course, not everyone loved jazz, and the controversy over its unorthodox dissonances, the more expressive, individualistic, and eroticized dancing style accompanying the music, and, of course, the race of its performers entered the contemporary culture wars – exemplified by Weimar’s double use of Louis Armstrong, illustrating both the SPD’s “The New Rhythm” and the DNVP’s “Nicht Deutsch” (“Not German”) event cards.

The “Tiger Rag” (song #41) is also used in The Tin Drum, German writer Günter Grass’s epic about the rise, fall, and persistence of Nazism: The youthful protagonist Oskar Matzerath who always carries his eponymous tin drum plays the Tiger Rag at a NSDAP rally in his hometown Danzig. The mesmerizing rhythm has the audience sway and dance, exposing the Nazis to ridicule.

#42-47: Workers’ Songs

The aggressive ethno-nationalism of Nazism was one of the two most dynamic political movements of the Weimar Republic (at least once the 1929 crash had plunged vast parts of the German population into a crisis of material and identity). The other was the workers’ movement, both in its reformist Social Democratic and its revolutionary Communist form. As the workers had been traditionally excluded from the public in imperial Germany, dominated by aristocracy and bourgeoisie, they created their own political parties (SPD, later USPD and KPD), economic associations (the trade unions), and social and cultural associations – from workers’ sport clubs to workers’ singing societies. Their milieu was bound together not only by their shared economic experience, but also by this cultural connection, of which the workers’ songs formed an important part.

Classics from imperial times like “Die Internationale” (The Internationale, song #42) remained important, but the movement also adopted new songs written by the numerous socialist poets and composers like Bertolt Brecht, Hanns Eisler, or Ernst Busch. Whereas some of these became new classics (like the “Solidaritätslied” (Solidarity Song, song #46), others aged badly: “Der Marsch ins Dritte Reich” (The March to the Third Reich, song #47) poked fun at the alleged inability of the Nazis to take power after their electoral setback at the Reichstag election of November 1932. First recorded in December 1932, the song was horribly overtaken by events just a month later when Hitler was elected chancellor in January 1933.

Thus, we conclude our playlist. It contains the traditional and the modern, entertainment and politics, left and right – except for the very right, but I don’t want to listen to Nazi songs while playing board games, and I’m sure that neither do you.

Do you like to play music in the background while playing board games? What’s your favorite song from this playlist? Let me know in the comments!

You love board games. You probably also like music. Let’s combine the two into an immersive playlist for Weimar: The Fight for Democracy (Matthias Cramer, Capstone Games/Skellig Games/Spielworxx). Have it gently play in the background during your next session of Weimar for the full period immersion!

First things first: Here’s the playlist!

Before we dive into the content of the playlist, some general observations:

• All of the songs in the playlist were popular during the Weimar Republic (1918—1933). Yet as music recording was still in its infancy at that time, many of the songs in the playlist are later recordings (and some rare ones were recorded even before 1918!).
• As the playlist is only 2:21 hours long, your Weimar game will probably last longer (if you don’t crash the republic on the first or second round), but there’s no reason not to listen to these songs two or three times – they’re fascinating historical documents.
• The playlist is thematically sorted. That helps you find similar songs, but makes for somewhat monotonous listening (until you come to the next group of songs). I therefore recommend you turn shuffle on.

Now, what awaits you in the playlist?

#1: The National Anthem

It seems like a no-brainer to include the German national anthem of the time, yet it’s not so simple: The Lied der Deutschen (Song of the Germans) had been written in 1841, but had since then only been a patriotic song among many – until the first president of the republic, Friedrich Ebert, declared it the national anthem in 1922. The song’s three stanzas were variedly popular: Ebert favored the third stanza with its liberal ideals of unity, justice, and freedom, his right-wing opponents preferred the “Deutschland über alles” (Germany Above Everything) first stanza. I have included an instrumental version. If you feel patriotic, you can sing along.

#2-9: The Old World

The Weimar Republic did not come into existence in a vacuum. It inherited German cultural traditions like folk songs (“Wem Gott will rechte Gunst erweisen” (Whom God Wants to Favor), song #2).

And, of course, the Weimar Republic succeeded the German Empire with its national feeling (“Die Wacht am Rhein” (The Guard on the Rhine), song #2), dominant Protestantism (Martin Luther’s classic “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott” (A Mighty Fortress Is Our God), song #5), and monarchy (“Heil dir im Siegerkranz” (Hail to Thee In the Victor’s Crown), song #7 – the quasi-anthem of the German Empire).

The republic’s midwife was the First World War – whose experience shaped its veterans and provided the cultural context even for those who had not been adults during the war yet (“Wildgänse rauschen durch die Nacht” (Wild Geese Rush Through the Night), song #8, written in 1916, was immensely popular among the Weimar Republic youth movement). The war also cast its shadow over Weimar Germany as many had lost their husbands, sons, fathers, brothers, and friends in the war (“Ich hatt’ einen Kameraden” (I Had a Comrade), song #9, the traditional German soldiers’ lament).

#10-15: Satirical Coping

The liberal republic proved fertile ground for satirical treatments of the new developments: Otto Reutter made fun of the big and small war profiteers with “Seh’n Sie, darum ist es schade, dass der Krieg zu Ende ist” (See, that’s why it’s a pity that the war is over, song #10), and Claire Waldoff called for replacing the men in power with women in “Raus mit den Männern aus dem Reichstag” (Kick the Men Out of Parliament, song #11), playing on masculine anxieties after the introduction of women’s suffrage.

#16-25: Pop!

Even in a time and place as politically charged as the Weimar Republic, not everything was politics. The average Hans and Gretel may have cared less about their preferred ideology and more about how to have good time on a Saturday night… and the new cultural scene, especially in the big cities like Berlin, provided ample opportunities.

The more sophisticated artists like the Comedian Harmonists succeeded with witty wordplay and erudite vocal harmonies. Others played on the classics – alcohol (“Wir versaufen unser Oma ihr klein’ Häuschen“ (We Blow Grandma’s Little House on Booze, song #19) and sexual innuendo („Fräulein, Woll’n Sie nicht ein Kind von mir“ (Miss, Don’t You Want a Child By Me, song #22). There was even the equivalent of a (generalized) diss track: “Du bist als Kind zu heiß gebadet worden” (You Have Been Bathed Too Hot As a Child, song #23) indicates that this neglect of bath safety led to lasting brain damage in the interlocutor.

#26-33: Film, Theater, and Opera Music

The Weimar Republic’s vibrant cultural scene led to cross-pollination between diverse forms of artistic expression. The new medium of film was pioneered in Germany, and once it had left its silent infancy behind, movie songs became hits. Marlene Dietrich, starring in The Blue Angel, enticed with “Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt (I’m Set to Love From Head to Heel, song #26), but warned “Nimm dich in Acht vor blonden Frau’n“ (Beware of Blonde Women, song #27).

More traditional art forms like the theater also adapted. Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera)’s acerbic critique of capitalism would not have been as successful without its catchy songs, the most famous of which is the “Moritat of Mackie Messer” (Ballad of Mack the Knife, song #31).

Even the most classic and highbrow form of entertainment modernized: “Jonny spielt auf” (Jonny Plays It Big, song #33) introduced jazz into the world of the opera… which brings us to our next category.

#34-41: Jazz and Blues

Traditionally, the United States had received and emulated European fashions, not the other way around. Yet by the early 20^th century, America had become the largest economy in the world, its war entry in 1917 tipped the scales of the war further in favor of the Allies, and the increased presence of Americans in Europe meant that the United States turned from an importer to an exporter of culture. Jazz took Europe by storm – both in the form of American (and nascent European) bands and by the new medium of the music record. The Weimar Republic was no exception. Jazz fueled the parties in any larger city of 1920s Germany.

Of course, not everyone loved jazz, and the controversy over its unorthodox dissonances, the more expressive, individualistic, and eroticized dancing style accompanying the music, and, of course, the race of its performers entered the contemporary culture wars – exemplified by Weimar’s double use of Louis Armstrong, illustrating both the SPD’s “The New Rhythm” and the DNVP’s “Nicht Deutsch” (“Not German”) event cards.

The “Tiger Rag” (song #41) is also used in The Tin Drum, German writer Günter Grass’s epic about the rise, fall, and persistence of Nazism: The youthful protagonist Oskar Matzerath who always carries his eponymous tin drum plays the Tiger Rag at a NSDAP rally in his hometown Danzig. The mesmerizing rhythm has the audience sway and dance, exposing the Nazis to ridicule.

#42-47: Workers’ Songs

The aggressive ethno-nationalism of Nazism was one of the two most dynamic political movements of the Weimar Republic (at least once the 1929 crash had plunged vast parts of the German population into a crisis of material and identity). The other was the workers’ movement, both in its reformist Social Democratic and its revolutionary Communist form. As the workers had been traditionally excluded from the public in imperial Germany, dominated by aristocracy and bourgeoisie, they created their own political parties (SPD, later USPD and KPD), economic associations (the trade unions), and social and cultural associations – from workers’ sport clubs to workers’ singing societies. Their milieu was bound together not only by their shared economic experience, but also by this cultural connection, of which the workers’ songs formed an important part.

Classics from imperial times like “Die Internationale” (The Internationale, song #42) remained important, but the movement also adopted new songs written by the numerous socialist poets and composers like Bertolt Brecht, Hanns Eisler, or Ernst Busch. Whereas some of these became new classics (like the “Solidaritätslied” (Solidarity Song, song #46), others aged badly: “Der Marsch ins Dritte Reich” (The March to the Third Reich, song #47) poked fun at the alleged inability of the Nazis to take power after their electoral setback at the Reichstag election of November 1932. First recorded in December 1932, the song was horribly overtaken by events just a month later when Hitler was elected chancellor in January 1933.

Thus, we conclude our playlist. It contains the traditional and the modern, entertainment and politics, left and right – except for the very right, but I don’t want to listen to Nazi songs while playing board games, and I’m sure that neither do you.

Do you like to play music in the background while playing board games? What’s your favorite song from this playlist? Let me know in the comments!

In der Welt von Arche Nova ist dieses Jahr Artengarten bei Feuerland Spiele erschienen. Alles wie immer? Nö! Aber ist es auch gut?

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Before the fall fair and convention circuit is coming to an end, I had the opportunity to attend Süddeutsche Spielemesse (Southern German Game Fair) in Stuttgart. As when I went last time, it was a pleasant, laid-back experience.

The game fair is part of a conglomerate of hobby and leisure related fairs which are all held over the same long weekend in neighboring fair halls. As the ticket covers all fairs, you are free to explore everything. That’s great if you go as a group or family with differing interests: Your creative-minded daughter can get all inspired at the arts & crafts fair, your animal-loving son will try to make friends with the cats, rabbits, and camels at the animal fair, your gourmet spouse samples their way through the food fair, and then everybody meets at the game fair because you all love board games. Right?

With that setup, Süddeutsche Spielemesse’s target audience is broad, from the hobbyist to the very casual gamer. Consequently, you’ll find a lot of games outside of the hobby board game niche – from classics like chess and go over sports games to role-playing games. The exhibitors are usually either vendors (game test opportunities are rare), clubs looking for new members (like many of the role-playing clubs), or, my favorite, the big gaming island run in the middle where you can just borrow a game and play it free of charge which gives Süddeutsche Spielemesse a certain convention feel.

At this point, it is tradition that the gaming island remains open until 10pm on Friday, allowing for a beautiful evening of gaming. I met with a friend there and we played three different two-player games:

Rival Cities (Andreas Steding, Pegasus)

Northern German cities Hamburg and Altona try to outdo each other – yet while the usual victory point collecting occurs, these only matter if the game runs its full seven rounds. And it is much more likely that one of the cities will decisively outdo the other in one of the four areas of competition (alliances, ships, lawsuits, and prestige) and score an instant victory. With such a plethora of instant victory conditions, you will always feel the thrill of chasing one yourself and being threatened with another by your opponent.

In our game, we both started conservatively, getting a little bit of everything. Then my friend made a play for the alliances and was only one of them short of victory… but I could stave off defeat and counter-punch with ship dominance. I guess more experienced players would be at each other’s throat from the get-go which should make for exciting gaming and high replayability (at a very moderate complexity).

Solstis (Bruno Cathala/Corentin Lebral, Frosted Games)

Two players chart their path up a mountain built from a shared supply of tiles, each of which has a unique combination of a color (indicating its row) and number (indicating its file). Thus, you always know that a tile you took cannot be accessed by your opponent – and vice versa. This kind of very abstract game with almost-perfect information is usually not up my alley, and Solstis proved no different. We were both unenthused by its mix of logical planning and high randomness in the rare case of placing a nature spirit. However, each play only took 10 minutes, so we didn’t spend much time to gain the valuable knowledge of what’s not our jam.

Agent Avenue (Christian Kudahl/Laura Kudahl, Nerdlab Games)

Maybe our highlight of the fair: Agent Avenue pits its two players against each other as retired secret agents trying to catch each other. To unveil the other’s identity, they enlist their suburban neighbors, all of which are anthropomorphic animals, from daredevil wolves over codebreaker owls to double agent vixens. The recruitment comes by “I cut, you choose” – but as one of the two cards the active player offers to their opponent is face-up, the other face-down, there is a spy-appropriate amount of bluffing and deduction. Pair this with a varied, but not overwhelming amount of instant victory/defeat conditions and card effects, and you have a light, but tense contest which resolves in no time at all (we played three times in 40 minutes).

Any games of these that sound like your cup of tea? Have you attended any cool local conventions or fairs recently? Let me know in the comments!

Tobias H. aus Heusenstamm ist neuer Deutscher Cacao-Meister. Wir gratulieren ihm ganz herzlich. In einem spannenden Finale konnte sich Tobias H. am 22. November in Darmstadt gegen die Konkurrenz durchsetzen und Titel und Preise mit nach Hause nehmen.

Nur wer sich bei den deutschlandweiten Qualifikationsturnieren qualifiziert hatte, durfte an diesem Tag an dem Cacao DM Finale 2025 antreten. 32 Qualifikanten von Jung bis Alt waren aus allen Teilen Deutschlands nach Darmstadt ins Darmstadium angereist, um den Titel des Deutschen Cacao-Meisters 2025 zu erringen.

Hier mein Review von dem Würfelspiel Pina Coladice aus dem Verlag ielo. Das bessere Kniffel?

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Back to the strategy posts – this time in the tried-and-true fashion of giving three basic tips which new and intermediate players can easily remember. Today, we’re going for one of the most anticipated historical games of the last few years: Imperial Struggle (Ananda Gupta/Jason Matthews, GMT Games). Its pedigree recommended it to many gamers, but it plays very differently from its spiritual predecessor Twilight Struggle – so, mastery of the one will not help you much with the other.

Here’s how to play Imperial Struggle successfully: Get advantages, initially prioritize board position over victory points, and use initiative wisely. Let’s go!

Get Advantages

Now this may sound a bit basic. Of course you want advantages! Yet when you’re planning what to do with your investment tile, you might often be tempted by other things – shiny prestige spaces, or simply spaces with a lower cost which help you gain the majority in the region. Advantages, however, are often the better choice: A well-chosen advantage can gain you another space (or deny it to your opponent) not only once, but several times over the course of a game. If your opponent is smart, they will often try to counteract your gaining of an advantage by unflagging the space which gave you the advantage, or at least gaining a similar advantage, which means you are acting and they are reacting.

Some of my favorite advantages: The Indian alliances with Mysore, Nizam, or the Marathas which allow you to drown your opponent in a sea of conflict markers, the Asiento advantage whose discount on fleets gains you a cheap military edge – and spaces – which can be flexibly moved around, and, best of all, Baltic Trade whose debt reduction amounts to two free wild points every turn. Get it or at least deny it to your opponent!

Board Position First, VPs Second

Advantages are long-term benefits. In the same spirit, I advise you to prioritize the long-term benefits of a sound board position over the short-term gains of winning this regional or that global demand scoring. If your board position is good – if you have the right alliances, military outposts, and advantages – you will put pressure on your opponent, win wars, gain spoils, and the VPs will come rolling in anyway.

A key investment in that sense is a turn 1 fort in North America. That’s the only theater which is active in all four wars, so the fort will give you a military benefit four times (a strength point and the conquest line) in addition to controlling its surroundings (which makes unflagging harder and removing enemy conflict markers easier), and, of course, it’s a space which counts for regional scoring.

Use Initiative Wisely

If your opponent scores a few more VPs than you early on, that is not only bearable, but might even be to your advantage, as the player behind in VPs has the initiative and decides who goes first in a turn. That’s a weighty decision, as going first gives you a better choice of the investment tiles, but going last allows you to mess with your opponent’s plans and they have no chance to repair the damage before scoring.

My rule of thumb is: I go last, unless there’s an odd number of investment tiles with a major action in the dimension that will be crucial (early on, that’s often diplomatic), or an odd-and-low number of investment tiles that allow you to play an event.

Which strategies and tricks do you use to win at Imperial Struggle? Let me know in the comments!

Back to the strategy posts – this time in the tried-and-true fashion of giving three basic tips which new and intermediate players can easily remember. Today, we’re going for one of the most anticipated historical games of the last few years: Imperial Struggle (Ananda Gupta/Jason Matthews, GMT Games). Its pedigree recommended it to many gamers, but it plays very differently from its spiritual predecessor Twilight Struggle – so, mastery of the one will not help you much with the other.

Here’s how to play Imperial Struggle successfully: Get advantages, initially prioritize board position over victory points, and use initiative wisely. Let’s go!

Get Advantages

Now this may sound a bit basic. Of course you want advantages! Yet when you’re planning what to do with your investment tile, you might often be tempted by other things – shiny prestige spaces, or simply spaces with a lower cost which help you gain the majority in the region. Advantages, however, are often the better choice: A well-chosen advantage can gain you another space (or deny it to your opponent) not only once, but several times over the course of a game. If your opponent is smart, they will often try to counteract your gaining of an advantage by unflagging the space which gave you the advantage, or at least gaining a similar advantage, which means you are acting and they are reacting.

Some of my favorite advantages: The Indian alliances with Mysore, Nizam, or the Marathas which allow you to drown your opponent in a sea of conflict markers, the Asiento advantage whose discount on fleets gains you a cheap military edge – and spaces – which can be flexibly moved around, and, best of all, Baltic Trade whose debt reduction amounts to two free wild points every turn. Get it or at least deny it to your opponent!

Board Position First, VPs Second

Advantages are long-term benefits. In the same spirit, I advise you to prioritize the long-term benefits of a sound board position over the short-term gains of winning this regional or that global demand scoring. If your board position is good – if you have the right alliances, military outposts, and advantages – you will put pressure on your opponent, win wars, gain spoils, and the VPs will come rolling in anyway.

A key investment in that sense is a turn 1 fort in North America. That’s the only theater which is active in all four wars, so the fort will give you a military benefit four times (a strength point and the conquest line) in addition to controlling its surroundings (which makes unflagging harder and removing enemy conflict markers easier), and, of course, it’s a space which counts for regional scoring.

Use Initiative Wisely

If your opponent scores a few more VPs than you early on, that is not only bearable, but might even be to your advantage, as the player behind in VPs has the initiative and decides who goes first in a turn. That’s a weighty decision, as going first gives you a better choice of the investment tiles, but going last allows you to mess with your opponent’s plans and they have no chance to repair the damage before scoring.

My rule of thumb is: I go last, unless there’s an odd number of investment tiles with a major action in the dimension that will be crucial (early on, that’s often diplomatic), or an odd-and-low number of investment tiles that allow you to play an event.

Which strategies and tricks do you use to win at Imperial Struggle? Let me know in the comments!