Jambo and the Settlers of Catan Expansion

Before we went to the family reunion in MN, we bought the Settlers of Catan Expansion so that we could play with 5 or 6 players...and while we were at the game store, I couldn't help but pick up another game...so we bought Jambo which is one of a series of two-player games by Kosmos. We have Lost Cities from this series and like it quite a bit, so we thought Jambo would be a safe bet.

We have played with the Settlers Expansion twice now. The first time we played at the family reunion, we neglected to include the special build phase which helps players keep under the 7 resource limit (and speed up the building). The game seemed to drag on forever. When we played with the expansion the second time with Rob's college friends, we made sure to include the build phase and the game played like normal--and was fun. So if ya get the expansion--don't forget the special build phase :). One thing to keep in mind though, If you have the old version of Settlers of Catan the expansion that you can get now has slightly different art on the tiles and the water tiles now link together like puzzle pieces, so things are a bit mis-matchy. You may be able to get the expansion with the old art online--I haven't checked.

We played Jambo for the first time this weekend. It is a fairly straightforward game. The goal: get the most gold. You draw and play cards to buy and sell wares. Like Lost Cities, it's easy to learn and fun to play, but still incorporates enough strategy to keep you interested in the game. I give this one a thumbs up and look forward to playing it more. Here's a picture from our first game. I beat Rob by 3 gold. :)