I'm surprised by the low ranking, too. My wife loved this game and was really into the storytelling aspect of the game...and she's not a big fan of Game Night here at the house. That alone makes me give this game a huge thumbs up.

We actually just played again last night, she asked to play it, gotta update my played games thingy.

i have played the game solo a few times and lost about half the time...lol, so I know. Probably why I limited the pollution (add only one for each city) and the famine (raises after every 3rd turn, and exploring as normal)

Welcome to the hobby.

For a "beginner" Geek you sure know what games to choose, Splotter games are not games most beginners would buy.

I must admit, initially it was the cool city building pieces and all the bits that came with it. It looked nice. I downloaded the rules, and ended up finding it for under 85 dollars...so i grabbed it. The aged look of everything really was cool.

My wife loves this game as well. This is her most requested game to play when it is just the two of us.

Having played this 2-player using the official variant, I'd have thought this gives an unbalanced advantage to whoever governs in a round, as they get the first and last word. though i suppose this is offset after repeated rounds of play.

Try playing with the designers originally intended rules. You may not play on your opponents side unless the hop you want to play on is FILLED on your side.

I like it much better this way.

I will have to try that. Thanks.

After hearing the designer admit this on a podcast (Dice Tower?), I told my wife about it. We've played that way ever since. It is much better.

My wife and I prefer Lost Cities to this one too. The problem I've got with BC is that it seems very dry -- it doesn't seem to have anything to do with a balloon race, whereas in Lost Cities I do get an exploration feel.

this was a nice way to step up from ticket to ride.
we played TTR so much that i had to find something to break her into a game with more strategy.

sounds cool. maybe I can get my husband to play it...

Indeed, I'm always set up to score BIG when the game ends just 1 or 2 turns before I get to do my big score. So I loose

I bought this for my father as I really like MR:JTR, but I knew he would like the western theme much more. Well, after playing this, I actually prefer it to mystery rummy, if for no other reason than I don't have to use pencil and paper to keep score.

My fiance and I play this game all the time. Unfortunately, it took about ten games before we realized we were forgetting a VERY major rule:

On your turn you can either draw a new card OR pick up the top card from one of the discard piles!![u]

Makes a big difference heh....

My wife and I always play 3 rounds, and only consider a complete game to be 3 rounds. It isn't over quite so quickly and if you win you feel more like it was for how you played and not so much for how much luck may have been in your hand.

Get some decent poker chips, and this game will become perfect.

Again with the poker chips. I prefer paper money. It feels money-er, and is harder to count what the others have. There's a great print-and-play paper money set in the files:

http://boardgamegeek.com/fileinfo.php?fileid=19449

Really classes the money up.

..again with the poker and paper money-
use plastic play money!

I really enjoy this one as well. I discovered a variant here on this site that I never play without anymore. Temple to temple connections does not equal an instant win, but instead gives you 3 amphoras.

Still in your best interest to block a connection, and certainly worth pursuing one yourself... but it's not game over instantly if you can't manage to block it. Plus 2 or more people may reach that goal. Also adds one more level of strategy: you may sacrifice completing your groups in order to make a quick connection and earn amphoras this way.

Much better in my opinion.

I am glad to find someone else who thinks that this is boring. I love the camels too, and I generally love Knizia's games, but I just can't enjoy this one. I find it boring too, and I like the games you like (that I have played), so I'll be interested in picking up games you enjoy that I don't have in my collection.

I was disappointed, too. I just don't get why this is ranked so high.

My experience with Through the Desert: The first game was an absolute blast, so i bought it. After that, it's still pretty good, but the first game was the best. I think it needs 4 or 5 players to really shine.

I admit I have only played it with two and three players. Just not my cup of tea. Enjoyable, yes, but a game were if it didnt have pretty camels, would probably fade from existence. It is fun to line them all up, and then harry the purple camel number 14, and linda green camel number 4 jump off the table,...um...*cough*...I mean it fun for my kids to play with the camels. If I had to do it again, I would have bought Hacienda or something else with similar mechanics.

I agree with you that this game is dry, boring and pointless. I had lost my hope in Knizia cause I have played some of his games and found them dry and mechanical. I just played Blue Moon City though and that is a really good Knizia game.

When is the expansion supposed to come out?

As far as I know, it is still on schedule for summer 2008.

If my wife owns me at Mr. Jack...will she own me at Fury of Dracula?

This is a really great game for 3 or more, but the two player variant is pretty boring. All the strategy of trading is lost in the two player game.

What is this wonderful thing called "Math Trades"?

Check the geeklist for math trades to find available ones. Basically everyone adds a game (or a bunch of games) until a deadline date. Then everyone submits a wantlist to who ever is hosting the math trade. So you will only trade your game for items that are on your want list ( a computer program figures out who gets what)

Basically someone might have a game that you want, but they dont want your game. Perhaps a third person wants your game but you dont want his game. The math trade matches up peoples wants so that everyone gets something they want. So you may ship to Joe, but Sally is shipping her game to you, and someone else is shipping their game to Sally and Joe is sending one to someone else.

Example: I traded my copy of Warhammer to person A, and person A sends thier game to person B, Person C sends Tikal to me (confusing I know). Sometimes you have direct matches. Its just a nice way to trade games and have a giant list to look through. Trade away games you may not want for games you do.