Jambo- How Good are you at Trading?

Well now that the weight of letting you all know to get your games is off my shoulder, I can get back to writing my reviews :-)

This game is by far the most advanced Kosmos- Rio Grande, 2 player game that I have played till date. The reason I say it is complex is not because the game mechanic is difficult. In fact the mechanic is very simple, but the sheer variety of cards that exist makes the learning curve really really steep for players! More about the cards etc a little later.

I just stumbled upon this game on the Internet, when I was looking for a lighter option to Caylus (really complex strategy game). The reason I was looking at a lighter game is because my wife was in tears after the 1st game play of Caylus. It took us nearly 4 hrs! An absolute marathon!!

More about that game later. But I read up a few reviews and finally decided to get my hand on it and got it through a colleague of mine who was traveling to the US. After having played this some 10-15 times I can say that this game offers enough strategic depth as any other big box games. Yes, it may not be as deep as a Puerto Rico or Caylus or Princes of Florence, but hey! Make no mistake this one's a winner!

Jambo by-Rüdiger Dorn

Rüdiger Dorn (born 1969) is a game designer of popular Eurogames. He was nominated for the 2005 Spiel des Jahres award for his game Jambo, which also placed 8th for the Deutscher Spiele Preis award. He was also nominated for the 2007 Spiel des Jahres award for his game Die Baumeister von Arkadia. (from wikipedia). He has designed many popular Euro games like Louis XIV, Traders of Genoa, Arkadia, Goa etc.

Euro styled games are strategy board games where luck plays almost no part in the outcome. You have all the details in front of you to take decisions and plan your game play. A tactical board-game on the contrary is one where things are very dynamic and changes every move. You really can't plan ahead of your game play in a tactical game. Eg. Balloon Cup, Lost Cities

I'm writing about these as Jambo falls somewhere in between the two. It has enough depth and strategy to keep players engaged and at the same time tactical to keep players engaged. Sometimes strategy games tend to become isolated and people may spend loooooooonnnnng periods before they make a move and that for certain people can kill the fun.

Now back to Jambo- At the heart of it is a trading game- you buy low sell high and in doing so gain gold coins. Anyone who wins 60 coins is the winner. This game comes with some amazing artwork! In fact you can spend quite a bit of time just looking and admiring the cards! By far the best artwork I've seen from Kosmos-Rio Grande.

The game comes with so many special cards that it takes 4-7 games just to get used to the variety and understand how they work in turn! More about all these in the following sections.

What Do you get in the box?


This game comes with some really nice and neat pieces:

• 2 large market stand cards- one for each player
• 5 small market stands
• 40 Ware cards
• 22 Utility cards
• 29 Person cards
• 14 Animal cards
• Gold coins in 1's and 5's
• 6 different ware chips (6 of each variety)
• 5 action markers

The artwork on all of them is top notch.

How does it play?

This game takes about 5-7 minutes to set this game up. Just that you need to separate all the bits out and place it in groups. Then you deal 5 cards to each individual, take 20 gold coins and a large market stand (that can accommodate 6 resources) and then you start the game.

• Each player gets 5 actions that he can perform on his/her turn (counted using the action marker)
• There are 2 things basically that a person can do and both of them are optional- Draw Phase and Play
• Both these phases are optional
• In the draw phase you can continue drawing a card until you decide to keep one; and once you do so you go onto the play phase where you play cards for the remaining actions
• Because they are optional, you can directly go onto the play phase and play as well

Now with the game play being so simple, you might start to wonder where on earth is the complexity? Well that is precisely what I'm going to answer in the following paragraph.

• This game comes with 8 different animal cards (14 cards overall)- these cards can cause harm to your opponent and give you a distinct advantage
  
• 10 different utility (22 overall) which gives players lot of advantages during every turn! These cards stay in front of the player (upto a max of 3) and can be used once every turn!!
  
• 13 different person cards (29 overall) that gives lot of advantage to players at different points in the game!

I'm not going to go very deep into each cards because I'll be writing out a thesis then and not a review :-)

The objective is to use these special cards along the ware cards to buy wares at a lower price and sell it at a higher price to reach 60. But there are some interesting aspects with these wares itself. A card with 3 different wares is worth more than card with the same ware! Also when you buy your 6th ware and you don't have a small market, you have to pay 2 gold extra for keeping them! If you are the 1st person to buy a small market then you need to pay 6 gold opposed to the 2nd player who pays just 3....phew so much isn't it. Well not really. Just get used to it and it is lots of fun! Trust me on that.

How long does it play?

A good game should go on anywhere between 40-45 min. Very rarely when the game gets real close I've seen it go on for an hour. But you really won;t figure out how time flew by! It is very fast, interactive with both players going at each other and loads and loads of tactics and some strategy.

Who would you recommend it to?

Well, if you have got bugged with playing some basic card games like Lost Cities, Balloon Cup etc. But fret the idea of getting into a Caylus or an Agricola, then this one's for you! Even for hard core gamers, this is a great game, because it is light compared to lot of other big box Euro Strategy Games. This game is also great for people who like to tingle their gray cells! But definitely not a brain burner. This is an enjoyable nail biting experience fo 2 players.

Any Downsides?

Well as I said before the variety is something that this game provides in plenty! But this is a double edged sword. As you can see the number of different cards can become overwhelming for some. The learning curve is really steep. As the rule set recommends you have to play the 1st few games just to get used to the cards. Most of the cards come with lot of text on them and hence can slow down the game till you get familiar with them. The inter-relation between various cards is something that you'll pick as you keep playing more and more games. As you have to draw cards from a face down pile this is definitely not a 'no luck' game. Because of this element the game has a tilt towards tactics more than strategy- though there is definitley a plan you can go with once you get to know all the cards.

Final Thoughts!

I would say Jambo is an experience (well though I don't classify it in the same league of other Euro Strategy Games). This is definitely a great 2 player small game. Don't get misled by the fact that I've laid out so many rules. The rule set in fact is smaller than my review hahahah!! This game is definitely easy to learn and play!

It is neither too long nor too short, nethier a brain burner nor a dumb game, nether is this too easy nor is this too difficult. This makes it a very attractive propositon and wants me to play more and more with casual gamers. If you are one that likes some strategy with luck, this is definitely one for your collection. But play other simpler games before you get to this; then you'll appreciate this game a whole lot better. Very elegantly desiged, this award winning game will leave you surprised at the amount of depth it offers in such a small box!