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Samarkand box art

Samarkand

Game ID: GID0275335
Game Info
Year
1980
Collection
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Description

A trading game in which you don't trade with the other players. Instead the commodities are displayed on the board in a number of "nomad camps." If your move brings you to a camp, you must present a gift to the camp -- then you can trade your cards for any cards in the camp. You can also buy goods from the deck at "oasis" squares. Once you've amassed a number of a particular commodity, you head for the city where that commodity is bought. There are a few other details to complicate matters, but basically everyone repeats this process until someone has the 500 cash in hand to win the game. Samarkand is an entertaining exercise with no especially brain-taxing strategies to figure out and makes a good family game.

This game is sometimes called Bazaar II, because Schmidt Spiele originally published this game under the name Bazaar, even though Bazaar is a completely different game. Both games are by Sid Sackson.

Description

A trading game in which you don't trade with the other players. Instead the commodities are displayed on the board in a number of "nomad camps." If your move brings you to a camp, you must present a gift to the camp -- then you can trade your cards for any cards in the camp. You can also buy goods from the deck at "oasis" squares. Once you've amassed a number of a particular commodity, you head for the city where that commodity is bought. There are a few other details to complicate matters, but basically everyone repeats this process until someone has the 500 cash in hand to win the game. Samarkand is an entertaining exercise with no especially brain-taxing strategies to figure out and makes a good family game.

This game is sometimes called Bazaar II, because Schmidt Spiele originally published this game under the name Bazaar, even though Bazaar is a completely different game. Both games are by Sid Sackson.

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All mentions
Browse transcript mentions, sentiments, pros/cons, mechanics, topics, quotes, and references.
Total mentions: 1
This page: 1
Sentiment: pos 1 · mix 0 · neu 0 · neg 0
Mentions per page
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Video 8UEZ6efFvNE Getting Games Discussion at 34:10 sentiment: positive
video_pk 89056 · mention_pk 293642
Getting Games - Samarkand video thumbnail
Click to watch at 34:10 · YouTube ↗
Overall sentiment (raw)
positive
Pros
  • classic Sid Saxon action game vibe
  • reprint with updated production
Cons
none
Thematic elements
  • trade and market dynamics
  • classic action/trading game environment
Comparison games
none
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Mechanics unknown.
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
  • this is a work replacement Style game that very much reminds me of dwellings of el reveal
  • I like Tableau building I like interesting work replacement systems
  • I am quite looking forward to digging into this game to see exactly how it works
  • I genuinely don't really understand and honestly I wouldn't say I'm particularly compelled by the mechanics that are explained so far
  • this game has this interesting River idea where six cards will put face up in the middle of the table
References (from this video)
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