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Istanbul
Author: Rüdiger Dorn
Publisher: Pegasus Spiele
Year: 2013


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We take our chances as merchants in the bazaar district of Istanbul. With the help of our lovely assistants we aim to outsmart our competitors and make profit. The ultimate goal is to be the first to collect a certain amount of rubies.

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The board is variable, and is composed of 16 different locations in a 4x4 grid. Each player has his own playerboard, a wheelbarrow, where he can store his goods and rubies. Everybody has a merchant and four assistants in his player colour, and he moves these discs as a stack around the board. In his turn, a player moves his stack by one or two positions. He has to leave one of his assistants behind on his target location, where the assistant can carry out the action associated with this location. As soon as the merchant finds himself all alone, he is no longer able to carry out actions. But if an assistant is already present at the target location (because it was left behind in a previous turn), the merchant may place him back at the bottom of his stack, and still carry out the associated action! This way, he can pick up the assistants he left behind earlier.
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But sometimes an assistant is too far removed, or the action associated with its location is simply no longer interesting. No worries: when a merchant reaches the Fountain, he is allowed to retrieve all his assistants from all over the board.
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And what are the merchants doing all day long in the bazaar district? In a nutshell: collecting goods, and exchanging them for rubies, or selling goods and using the money to buy rubies. Depending on the number of players, 5 or 6 rubies are required to win the game. There are Warehouses in three colours, where the player’s wheelbarrow can be stocked up to its maximal capacity with goods of the corresponding colour. The wheelbarrow starts out with a capacity of two goods per type, but can be expanded at the Wainwright’s to up to five goods per type.
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There are two Market stands where specific combinations of goods can be sold for money, and at the Gemstone Dealer’s this money can be used to buy rubies. Alternatively, specific combinations of goods can be exchanged for rubies directly at the Sultan’s Palace.
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That sounds simple, but of course there is competition! If a merchant encounters another merchant at his target location, he has to pay him 2 lira. If he doesn’t have that kind of money, he is not allowed to go to an occupied space! Fortunately, everybody has a no-good family member. This nephew is in jail, but if the merchant visits the Police Station and puts in a good word for the little rascal, he is set free. The family member can then be placed on any location on the board, and carry out the accompanying action.
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He ignores anyone he encounters there, and doesn’t have to pay 2 lira. But apparently the little nephew gets himself in trouble again: if an opponent’s merchant comes across somebody’s family member, he can send him back to prison. He receives 3 lira, or a bonus card, as a reward.
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Bonus cards can also be obtained at the Caravanserai, or from the Governor (a character that moves along the board, and is moved further after each encounter with a merchant). These bonus cards contain all sorts of advantages: money, goods, discounts or double actions.
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Finally, the two Mosques are worth mentioning. Each mosque contains two stacks of mosque tiles, each corresponding to one of the four types of goods. If a player owns the depicted amount and type of goods, he may collect the top mosque tile. These tiles give the player an advantage that he can use for the rest of the game, such as a fifth assistant-disc, or a re-roll at the locations that involve a die-roll. As soon as a player possesses one tile of each colour, he may take a complimentary ruby.

The first player to collect 5 (3-5 players) or 6 (2 players) rubies triggers the end of the game. The round is played to an end, and the player with the most rubies wins.
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The general strategy seems obvious: collect goods and somehow convert them into rubies. But there are several routes to accomplish this. It can be advantageous to buy or exchange rubies as quickly as possible, since the market price increases with every transaction. On the other hand, it also makes sense to first ‘power up’: expand the wheelbarrow, collect all mosque-tiles, and get some bonus cards. With all this wheelbarrow-capacity and additional options via the tiles and bonus cards, it should be relatively easy to get rubies, even at a higher price. But in some cases this approach takes too long, and another player has already collected enough rubies to end the game.
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Which approach works best strongly depends on the configuration of the board. The four outer corners require more effort to reach, and are usually visited less frequently. The position of the fountain is very important: merchants have to go there quite often, so this will be the most popular location on the board. The locations within two steps of the fountain are therefore also easy to reach.
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There is not a lot of direct player interaction, but there is ample opportunity to annoy each other. For starters, you have to pay an opponent’s merchant upon an encounter. So: make sure you are there first! Secondly, every transaction at the Gem Dealer or the Sultan’s Palace increases the price of the rubies. Again: make sure you are there first! The same holds true for the mosque-tiles.
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And after selling goods at the market, a new demand-tile is drawn, which is annoying if you had just collected all the goods on the previous demand-tile... Altogether, there is just enough interaction in Istanbul in order not to qualify as multi-player solitaire.
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Istanbul is a solid game. The rulebook is concise and clear, the icons on the board and the cards are self-explicatory, the player aids contain a complete game overview, and the bazaar-theme is well-embedded. The illustrations further add to the 1001-night-atmosphere. The game is diverse and original enough to also appeal to the more experienced player.
© 2014 Barbara van Vugt

Istanbul, Rüdiger Dorn, Pegasus Spiele, 2014 - 2 to 5 players, 10 years and up, 40-60 minutes


After playing it for the umpteenth time the game is losing its shine
A solid, nice, but nowhere innovative game
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