Collecting . . . Queen Games #5 | BATs Cave of Games (2024)

28 Mar 2021

Brian Moore

(Hopalong)

United Kingdom
Bolton
Lancashire

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Queen Games have been around since the late 80's and have published over 300 titles over the decades. I have quite a number of their games.

Here are some more Queen games that are in my collection.
Part one can be found in this blog Collecting . . . Queen Games
Part two can be found in this blog Collecting . . . Queen Games #2
Part three can be found here: Collecting . . . Queen Games #3
Part Four can be found here: Collecting . . . Queen Games #4

Templar: The Secret Treasures (2013) is an exciting family game in which the players help the Knights Templar to get their treasures to a secret abbey and hide them inside. Each player can use the different members of the abbey to help them hide the treasures – but every character is different and needs to be used wisely. Whoever hides the most treasures wins!
A good game to play with family or friends. When Anne isn't available I'm playing most of my games solo 2 person to start with (or just solo) and this game was easy to learn. An enjoyable family game.

Serengeti (2001) Players compete in auctions to players purchase African art with the local currency "Hongo". The innovative bid mechanism is that players may not bid a number whose 'ones' digit matches the number on any card they have previously won.
The 'Don' Queen version of the game has a gangster theme, with players bidding for control of districts of Chicago.
A great, light bidding game, similar to No Thanks! in a lot of ways, but different enough that I enjoy it on its own.

Granada (2009) is a member of the Alhambra family with a more challenging character: in this standalone game the players develop the city of Granada next to Sierra Nevada, where the famous Alhambra stands, by buying building tiles to construct the city which will earn the most victory points. Building tiles now have two sides and there are new building types for which the value is set during the game.
This is Alhambra advanced. Play is the same: buy a building tile, take money or remodel. If you buy a tile for the exact amount, you can take another action, same as in Alhambra. The differences: new building types, building values are dynamic, two-sided tiles, and moats instead of walls.
This is Alhambra with a small twist, but this is much prettier on the table and the tile artwork is beautiful and more thematic looking. If you have Alhambra, then you probably don't really need this is in your collection as well, but it is worth playing to see the differences for yourself.

Turbo Taxi (2000) Originally called Flickwerk about laying cables, it was rethemed in 2005 to be about taxis. It features city streets rather than computer cables. The markers on the edge of the grid are a yellow taxi, yellow house, black taxi and black house. Players must ensure that their tiles create valid routes leading the yellow taxi to the yellow house, and black taxi to the black house.
Quirky little filler puzzle game - you'll either get it or you won't.
It is though a fun real-time puzzle game where all players are trying to solve a puzzle simultaneously.

Liguria (2015) players take the role of merchants who sail the Ligurian Sea to discover beautiful and exotic colours. By trading, conquering and engaging in diplomatic relationships, they can earn valuable prestige points. Fulfilling contracts with the bishop can prove very lucrative...
Make sure to collect all special colours in the various harbours and bring them back home to make your cathedral stand out the most.
Liguria is a prequel (by a different designer) to the award-winning game Fresco. As a standalone game, it tells the story of how the colours came to the markets of the Ligurian cities to paint the beautiful frescos.
This came from a Queen KS and is a nice design with some interesting decisions & mechanisms. There is a lot to like here: I like the turn-order mechanic (lifted almost entirely from Fresco) and I like the pickup-and-deliver boats. I got this out once to play two player but it doesn't really work that way so it went back on the shelf.

It Happens.. (2010) Anton, the adventurous anteater, is out looking for food. Nosy as he is, he sticks his long nose into every termite hill he comes across, and it’s not just edible things that he turns up either. His main objective, however, is the termite queen and her general. They earn the most points at the end.
A dice game where players have to place dice one by one onto certain columns of different anthills in order to get the majority and score the most victory points.
Possible only Feld could come up with a light euro that packs that much strategy with so few rules. An interesting filler dice placement game. At first there doesn't seem to much decision making but then it clicks. Not a deep filler but is entertaining.

Wabash Cannonball (2007) was originally released in a limited format by Winsome Games as Wabash Cannonball and it was the first game in Winsome's Historic Railroads System.
In the game the B&O, C&O, Pennsylvania and New York Central railroads drive from the East Coast across the growing eastern US to Chicago. Smaller, more aggressive railroads like the Wabash spring up to further expand America's extensive railroads. The sharpest railroad executives vie for the maximum return on their investment in this business game lasting about one hour.
Streamlined, fast train game and proper bidding in the auctions is an essential skill. It is a tense game of stock purchasing and player manipulation. A great game that's easy to learn but yet has lots of depth. I'm lucky to own both Wabash Cannonball and this.

Montego Bay (2009) Players have to transport drums and load them on ships. For this, they have two workers, a large one and a smaller one, and a set of 5 cards for each worker to move them. There is a scale with counters (for each worker 1 counter) depicting which worker moves first, second and so on).
In a turn, all players secretly choose one of the numbered cards from each of their card sets. For the worker which is the first to move, the player revealed the appropriate card and moves his worker the amount of spaces as stated by his card. When one of the workers land on an occupied space, the (passive) worker is pushed to the opposite side of the warehouse.
This looks so simple that there couldn't be much to it. It has a programming aspect similar to RoboRally yet you have more control than you might think. At one time this was going cheap at a store that sells 'end-of-line' products, but they'd all sold out so bought it for the same price on the BGG market.

Die Magier von Pangea (2001) A game with a modular board in which land-tiles can be moved around on a sea, hence Pangea. There are five different tile types, for each of which there is a tribe that can produce goods there. Each player has tribes in only three types. A tile has a maximum number of inhabitants, no production takes place if there are more tribes on a tile.
The game is won by obtaining amulets, these can only be bought from opposing tribes which are currently producing. Amulets increase the magical power of a player. Magic can be used create new tribes or move neutral ones around, but can also be used to move land-tiles around.
This game only ever had a German release, however it has no in-game text. It has an interesting map-shifting mechanic and probably works best with 2 players, as it is quite a tense brain-burner. A very original game.

Kansas Pacific (2009) is a no-luck tactical train game that was released as one of the games in the Winsome Games 2009 Essen Set. In this game, players are purchasing auctioned shares to run or share in the profits of one of six railroads that begin on the Eastern edge of Kansas. The railroads gain income by passing through a variety of Kansas cities and towns, with sizable income available for those that go through Wichita or Topeka.
A great economic game with a simple ruleset but rich gameplay. This rail stock game has a simple design and rules. It's similar in play to Wabash Cannonball, but with some nice twists such as majority shareholder control, the Wall Street auction, and weighing up the viability of racing to the West.

Skylands (2018) is a tile-laying game where you are tasked with building part of the Skylands kingdom. Go exploring for new areas of wood, stone, and most importantly, crystalline, as you seek to build the grandest part of the Kingdom.
On their turn, a player selects one of four actions: Explore, Harvest, Build, or Collect Energy. All players get to take the action, but the player who selected it gets an extra bonus. A player cannot select the same action two turns in a row. The actions allow players to select tiles and place them in their tableau, building out their landscape of Skylands, forest, and quarries.
Skylands includes special buildings for beginner, intermediate, and advanced play, and five small expansions ("Queenies") for more complexity.

When I first saw this on KS I hadn't realised that the game is a reimplementation of The King of Frontier from five years earlier and a game I played at a con with Tony Boydell and my good friends Russ and Alex. So naturally I want all-in and got the Queenies as well, even though by that time I already had King of Frontier. I just love what Queen have done with the game and I enjoy it a lot.

Robber Knights (2005) The knights set off from their castles to conquer the surrounding land. For the wealth of the big towns and the villages belonging to them is just too tempting.
Of course, once in possession, no knight wants to lose his newly acquired properties, so this means: caution. For the other players´knights are awake to any opportunity and the newly gained land may be lost again just as quickly to a new lord.
Bring your landscape tiles and above all your knights skilfully into play, secure your properties on all sides and watch out for enemy knights at all time.
Like Carcassonne, it has the same cosy feeling about it when you play, but it's a bit more complicated, which is good since you can play it over and over again without getting bored. This is a territory control game with some management of your resources. It's a tactical tile-laying game, where players can't moan about the luck because they all have the same set of tiles, like in Karuba.
In 2018 the game was reimplemented as Expedition Luxor with new artwork and an Egyptian theme.

Sultan (2007) For quite some time the famous and respected sultan is looking for a husband for his only daughter who suits him. In order to check the large number of candidates, he has prepared a test: Each candidate receives the same amount of gold. They now have to attend the various city bazaars to acquire the most beautiful and costly jewels. The one who is able to present the sultan the most expensive collection of jewels has proven that he is skilful enough to manage the sultan´s fortune and will win the hand of his daughter.
Reminds me of games like High Society, For Sale and Basari. Blind bidding with lots of bluffing. Especially good with 2-3 players. Great components! A simple filler game that's easy to teach.

Silberzwerg (2000) Players manage a set of dwarves mining for gems to fulfill randomly distributed contracts. Each turn, players simultaneously decide where to send their dwarves. Four of the dwarves are simply miners and will mine a particular color of gem, depending on placement. Gem prices are set each round, cheaper the more dwarves that are mining it.
Assembling the correct assortment of gems and assigning a silver dwarf to fulfill a contract, he can score either his own contract or one of two open contracts. Or he can assign a silver dwarf simply to sell gems for cash.
Only ever released in German, so requires paste-ups found here on BGG. A fun solid game which is a somewhat unique game involving bidding and market manipulation.

Ringgeister (1992) based on J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Played on a randomly assembled board composed of 12 octagonal and 11 square pieces, with one corner representing the hobbits' home and the other Mt. Doom. Players race to complete several lesser quests before being allowed to cast the One Ring into the fires of Mt. Doom, all while avoiding ringwraith, orc and Gollum tokens or moving Gandalf to help.
Unlike the newer, much-heralded The Lord of the Rings game, this is not a cooperative quest, (but is better if played that way), although all players do lose if a ringbearer is caught by a ringwraith.
Again, only ever made in German, Queen's version is from 1994. This is less of a strategic board game and more of a puzzle game with random and tactical elements. The puzzle tiles that make up the game board are beautifully designed, displaying an intricate map with roads and rivers. All in all, a curious game, with a great deal to recommend it.

And that is all the Queen Games in the collection - for now!
Hope you have enjoyed this look at this prolific publisher.

• [+] Dice rolls

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