Designed by Reiner Knizia
Published by Kosmos
Reviewed by Mike Siggins
£25 ($40)
2-5 players
20-45 mins
Durch die Wüste (Through the Desert) is the second in Reiner Knizia's much heralded tile placement trilogy. We have already seen, and salivated over, Euphrat & Tigris while a third game, shrouded in secrecy and rumoured by 'sources' to be the most innovative of all, is yet to appear. [Ken: That would be Samurai...] Personally, I can't wait. Meanwhile, Durch die Wüste is the lightest of the three, intentionally and unashamedly so, and represented Reiner's best pitch for Game of the Year honours in 1998 given that Tigris will, sadly, doubtless be deemed unsuited to the win. Durch is definitely a good game and twenty or so outings already is testament to the game's undoubted class.
That last statement needs some qualification, just in case you think I have recently gone full time as a game player. Durch is no Tigris, either in depth or length of play. Games take as little as fifteen minutes, and even with five players (which for some reason slows the game substantially) you will be hard put to take longer than 45 minutes. Most games pan out at between 20 and 30 minutes, slightly longer if you have a deliberate gamer testing your patience. So fast is the three player game that sometimes it seems as if you are sorting the pieces longer than you are actually playing.
The game has a random set up, which will offer a welcome degree of variation over the course of many games. Imagine a hexagon based map of the desert. There are rock formations in the centre and a line which delineates the slightly smaller board used for two and three players. Onto the board are placed five palm trees, representing oases, and a considerable number of waterholes. Each player is given five camels, one in each of five colours, each ridden by a camel driver in the player's own colour, and these too are placed strategically on the map. Each turn, a player takes two camels (in any colour combination) from the reserve and places them on the board. The rule is simply that the colour of camel must match your caravan, that the new camel must be attached to said caravan, and that you cannot place a camel that would breach the one hex buffer zone between two similarly coloured, but rival, caravans. So, in a sub-system not dissimilar to Wildlife Adventure, the players use the five common camel piles at will, until one of them is exhausted, at which point the game ends. The tactical ploys in choosing to end the game, or hitting one pile until this happens, are rather interesting.
Points are scored by simply extending your caravan to a waterhole and picking up the counter (1 to 3 points), by connecting an oasis with one of your camel trains (5 points) or by enclosing a virgin area of desert (usually partly bordered by board edge or rocks) in which each hexagon is worth a point at game end. You also get the benefit of any waterholes thus enclosed. Finally, at the end of the game, the player with the longest caravan in each of the five colours is awarded ten points. One of my early successful tactics, until it was spotted, was to largely ignore two of my caravans, along with oases and waterholes (apart from "incidental gains") while trying for the longest caravan in three colours - thirty points in the bank, plus whatever else I had bagged en route. Well, it worked for a while.
Understandably, the initial reaction of most players is that Durch is the game Sisimizi wanted to be when it grew up. The difference is this one works without flaws, clumsiness, or rule fudges and the playlength far better fits the task in hand and entertainment on offer. The enclosure of areas is an important distinguishing feature, and needs to be constantly monitored as it is often the difference between a winning and losing score. On which subject, I would not dream of offering an overview of tactics but I am pretty sure Durch has enough to keep you going for a while. Most gamers start off by collecting waterholes, which seem almost too easy as prey (though timing is a factor - you don't always need to grab them early), but this can be deceptive since each such turn has an opportunity cost - what have you not done instead? Then they progress to linking oases. Then they do a bit of each, with an eye to enclosing areas and getting long or focused caravans for the bonuses.
Sometimes it is useful to develop all five of your caravans, at other times you might leave one, two or even three of them undeveloped. There is always a balance between short term gains, grabbing local stuff, or the long term strategic view where caravan length and enclosure are more important to your plans. Interestingly, these considerations often subsume your short term aims - you can always try to score those 'grab' points en route to greater things, or later on. Why score six when you can score ten or more? Then, at a variable time, you realise that you are not playing alone, and if you can lay a camel that can score for you, plus prevent someone else reaching an oases or sealing off an area at the same time, then life is even better. And, finally, comes the really quite nasty interaction between like-coloured caravans. Most caravans co-habit happily, allowing for crowded oases and waterholes snatched from under your nose, but try this offensively or defensively against an opponent's matching caravan and that buffer zone really starts to hurt. Clever.
Occasionally the cry of the kibbitzer is heard, pleading with you to head off Ahmed's sprint for the edge of the board which may indeed benefit you, or it may just be for the common good - another tough choice. And so it goes on. All this from the simple placing of two camels on a hex grid. It takes a while to see that Durch, despite its deceptive simplicity, has been developed to the point of perfection - the balance of camel numbers, size of the board, victory points and everything else is spot on. Any change would have quite marked effects. So often we moan at the designer and the playtesters for failing, yet when design and development is done properly it becomes almost transparent and is very easy to fail to give credit, which I duly do in this case.
Production is very impressive (though not particularly inexpensive overall), utilising the little plastic camels that first appeared in MB's Blazing Camels, their version of Wurmeln. The camels are pastel shades, the riders are the usual bold colours we expect to identify players' factions. Some gamers have noted that the overall effect of the pastels, oases, waterholes and camels is rather confusing, so much so that they can't easily deduce what is happening, or even pick out their own camels. Certainly, when well progressed into a four or five player game, there can be a lot going on but overall, I haven't found it to be a problem. I'd be interested in your reactions.
In true Siggins tradition, I will try and explain how Durch feels to play. I say this with some trepidation as it is not any easy one to pigeonhole. The first, and overwhelming, trait is that the game is quick, luck free, perfectly balanced and not at all heavy, yet it offers plenty of decisions - seemingly the ideal formula to catch the eye of The Judges, and a lot of gamers. As Reiner is wont to say, "Too many things to do, too few turns". With the strict time limit, and on average four or five actions you'd like to do per turn, you really have to make your mind up all the time. That is a good thing, I hope you will agree. Not quite so good for me is that game is clearly abstract, and not a little dry - totally in keeping with many of the Nuremburg releases this year. Balancing this is that Durch is an abstract game I can completely understand, see all the options without much in the way of difficult look-ahead and, gosh, occasionally win.
To compare the game to Simplified Go, as some have done, definitely meets with little agreement from this interested party. Whereas Go remains opaque (albeit well defined), impenetrable (yes, I am still trying to learn) and its terrain control rules baffle me completely, Durch is accessible, comprehensible and has impressive clarity - you can see the aims, you can see how to go about them and prevent others doing the same and your main problem is waiting for your next turn. Add to this the ability to follow two or three paths to victory, or combine them, and the fact that it works well as a multi-player exercise is enough to convince me of its eminent playability. It also works well with two, as we eventually discovered with Tigris, rather than, as usual, this number of players being a last minute afterthought. Finally, and I feel a little odd saying this, but Durch feels a lot like a train game to me. The waterholes represent little towns, the oases cities and the camels track. It works at that basic level until one considers the land envelopes, but see if you agree with me.
I suppose if I had one overriding criticism, it would be to say that the game is not a lot of fun, and one is not going to get excited very often (or at all). One tends to sit there and studiously appraise the board position, chatting is rare (though groans aren't) and one's turn is usually rapid and without event. You just pick up your points and you're done. Which clearly does very little to explain why we have played it quite so much... Mmmm. Suffice to say it has that Knizia appeal - play once, you want to play again, by game three you are into the tactics, and the testing and experimentation and adjusting to new opposing tactics carry you from there. After so many games I am not sure I am going to be playing as much as I have been, but I know that Durch will become a regular.
So, yet another game to add to the vintage 1998 batch, surely a record haul of good, but not great, titles. While Durch isn't great, it is very good. Some may say that it is difficult to critcise an unarguably functional medium weight game that is over so quickly, for if nothing else it scores highly on "bangs per minute". Were it not for the fact that we regularly play two or three games back to back, so positive is the experience, then I'd probably agree. As it is, Durch has plenty going for it. There are absorbing decisions, there is constant tactical adjustment, there is the pace and interest of play and the superbly balanced victory conditions - games are usually close, but equally you can get royally stuffed if you screw up. It works with two to five equally well, it is eminently teachable to non-gamers and I am sure it will be exactly the sort of game that will be heavily played at Kosmos' stand at Essen. And again as with Tigris, I am pleased to admit that an essentially abstract game has proved both accessible and manageable - we know the breed does replayability well, it is just that I seldom get to experience it. Given the quality of this year's Spiel des Jahres list and the vicissitudes attached to the award, I genuinely have no idea if Durch will win. But I know for sure it will be up there with the front runners and it is also deserving of your time and money. And on a final note, either use "Through the Desert" as your title of choice or make sure your German pronunciation is spot on. A slight slip of the tongue and the game becomes "Through the Sausage" which does not have quite the same impact.