Negotiation

City of Horror

City of Horror is a backstabbing survival-horror game. As in classic zombie movies, a shambling horde is invading the city. The goal is to survive the assault. (Un)fortunately, surviving often means sacrificing some of your fellow players to the undead...

Each player controls several characters with different abilities; these characters can move to various limited-capacity locations, which they can then barricade and scavenge for items and weapons. Critical situations, such as zombies breaking in and eating a character, are resolved using vote.

The basic game mechanisms are the same as in Mall of Horror (also designed by Nicolas Normandon), but City of Horror differs in both materials and game play in a number of ways: the city map changes each game, twenty characters are included, they can use antidotes (or die), action cards become scarce as the game goes on, you can gain points with other stuff than surviving characters...

Catan Histories: Merchants of Europe

In the late Middle Ages, trade flourished in Europe. Economic groups like the Hanseatic League, the Welser and Fugger families, and merchants from Northern Italy established trading posts and factories in all of the important cities throughout Europe. These businesses provided the population with goods of all kinds, such as fur from the north, cloth from Flanders, wine from the south, and spices from India. The most important commodity of all was salt. In the Middle Ages salt was highly prized it was used to preserve food.

In Catan Histories: Merchants of Europe, you are a powerful merchant! Start your trading posts in three cities. Recruit new merchants and send them to distant cities to establish trading posts and expand your interests. The more trading posts you have, the more commodities are at your disposal which you can sell profitably in foreign
cities. To ensure that your commodities arrive safely at their destination, you must open up trade routes and equip caravans. You win the game if you are the first to deliver all of your commodities to foreign cities.

Catan Histories: Merchants of Europe is a twist on the 2010 release Settlers of America: Trails to Rails from designer Klaus Teuber and publisher Mayfair Games. Game play is similar in both games: Players start with three locations on the game board, collect resources depending on a die roll, spend resources to move and build, and branch out to new locations with a long-term goal of delivering goods to opponents' cities. The first player to deliver all of his goods wins the game.

Instead of being played on a fixed game board showing a Catan-ified map of the United States, Die Siedler von Catan: Aufbruch der Händler is set on a Catan-ified map of Europe – which isn't a surprise given that Kosmos is a European publisher. Instead of moving from east to west to mimic the settling of the U.S. by Europeans, players start in the middle of Europe, namely Germany.

Bohnanza

Bohnanza is the first in the Bohnanza family of games and has been published in several different editions.

As card games go, this one is quite revolutionary. Perhaps its oddest feature is that you cannot rearrange your hand, as you need to play the cards in the order that you draw them. The cards are colorful depictions of beans in various descriptive poses, and the object is to make coins by planting fields (sets) of these beans and then harvesting them. To help players match their cards up, the game features extensive trading and deal making.

The original German edition supports 3-5 players.

The newest English version is from Rio Grande Games and it comes with the first edition of the first German expansion included in a slightly oversized box. One difference in the contents, however, is that bean #22's Weinbrandbohne (Brandy Bean) was replaced by the Wachsbohne, or Wax Bean. This edition includes rules for up to seven players, like the Erweiterungs-Set, but also adapts the two-player rules of Al Cabohne in order to allow two people to play Bohnanza.

Note: As mentioned above, the Rio Grande Games edition supports more players than the Amigo release, and also sports two-player rules. You should keep that in mind when perusing the ratings.

Basari

Several games use the simultaneous action selection mechanism, but this is perhaps one of the best.

Basari is a game of gem merchants competing in a marketplace, racing, collecting, trading, and predicting what the other merchants will do.

To start the game, players receive 12 gemstones (3 each of 4 colors).
Each turn there will be a movement phase and an action phase:

For movement, everyone simultaneously rolls their die and moves their markers around a track.

They then choose one of three different actions to perform. The actions are:
- to take a variety of gems from a market stall,
- to immediately score from between 4 and 7 points, or
- to roll and move again and also collect points.

The action cards are revealed simultaneously. If only 1 player chose a particular action, they simply perform that action. If 2 players chose the same action, they barter back and forth with gemstones. One player will eventually accept the other's offer of gems, and the other will take the action. If 3 or 4 players all chose the same action card, that action is cancelled. Note that in 4-player games, there will always be a conflict in choice of 3 actions, so much more negotiating goes on.

A new turn begins with everyone rolling their die, moving, then choosing and revealing their action cards. When any merchant piece completes a lap around the board, the round ends and bonus points are awarded based on who has the majority in each gem color and who has completed a lap. After three rounds, the game is over and the highest score wins.

Re-implemented by:

Edel, Stein & Reich