Customer Reviews

Mayfair Games Maharaja

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Maharaja is a great example the the nearly continuous stream of fantastic boardgames coming out of Germany these days and fortunately translated into english. Not all the new "eurogames" are equally good however. Maharaja is a good one that everyone at the table loved on the first play. Our 4 handed table consisted of 2 gamer geeks, one casual gamer, and one newbie. We got through the rules in about twenty minutes and launched into.. a very wild boardgame.

The gameplay in Maharaja is outstandingly good. You have the city and road building structure of Settlers of Catan, but then you use that structure to travel around. Maharaja has the richness and complexity of Caylus, and you can play all over the board to your advantage. Additionally, Maharaja has an aspect of craziness that is surprisingly pleasing. The chaos can often mess up your plans, but because it nearly always creates some avenue of opportunity, the chaos adds more richness than frustration.

And, in that first game, the newbie won.

This game was a gift for my adult son. He had played it before and wanted to own it. As a scientist at MIT, he is rather intellectual in his interests, but enjoys the entertainment aspects of these types of games, too.l