Die Macher - August 5, 2006

Four of us sat down to play Die Macher. There was Kevin, Dave, Jim and me. I was the only one who had played it (twice before) but we all had read the rules ahead of time so everything went fairly smoothly. We finished our game in just over three hours. Pretty impressive for three newbies and a veteran.

And, as it should have been, the veteran won. But it didn't come easily. In fact, I thought I was out of it coming out of the fifth election. I had put all my hopes and dreams into the fourth election, which I won by a landslide. Unfortunately, my wad was pretty well shot after that. I performed fairly well in election #6, but not enough to overcome the others. Kevin slaughtered all of us in election #7, and actually made up alot of ground. But not enough, as he eventually realized.

My main competition after election #4 was Jim. His very respectable strategy was to make strong showings in all of the elections, without necessarily winning them. Where the rest of us had peaks and valleys, Jim maintained a strong position consistently. It would have won him the game. Except for the National Opinion Board.

Doing well in the regional elections allows you to manipulate the National Opinion Board, and having a strong correlation with the National Opinion Board at the game can give you huge bonus points. This is where playing with newbies paid off for me. Not because I did anything particularly clever, but because both Jim and Dave let me carry the National Opinion. Jim neglected it, and Dave unwittingly pushed it in my favor. My narrow victory came at the expense of the others' inexperience. Hey, I'll take a win in Die Macher anytime, though.

Final Scores:
325 Stephen
318 Jim (see? very close)
263 Dave
246 Kevin

I can honestly say that this was one of the most satisfying games that I've played in a long time, and not just because I won (I didn't expect to win at all.) The game just has such seamless mechanics. It really isn't that complex -- there are just ALOT of simple things you need to do each turn. I highly recommend this and look forward to it hitting the table again soon.