Sounds obvious? No when you factor in the devious scoring scheme which means a failure to compete will be a one-way-trip to losing. Fans of (Las) Vegas will find the basic mechanic vaguely familiar, but the ability to 'call' the end of each round (and, moreover, time it properly) is even more important here. With all the current trend for dynamic 2P games (and, make no mistake, some of them are excellent), I'm amazed that Shanghaien gets consistently overlooked. The other two games in the series ( Lee's Invincibles: Gettysburg Campaign of 1863 and Jackson & Sheridan: The Valley Campaigns) may be as good or better, but this is the only one I played face-to-face this year. The rebels have to entrench, cause damage, and fall back and time it well. Either side can score auto-victory through attrition on the other side. VPs are also earned by the side that controls Richmond and Petersburg at game's end. The Union gets victory points for cutting Confederate supply. This game on Grant's 1864 Civil War campaign (Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, Siege of Petersburg) is less about bluffing than it is about maneuver, though the fog of war plays a part in it. If you play this solitaire, you won't see what it has to offer. #10: Grant's Gamble: Wilderness Campaign of 1864: If you can't find a player to play this with (or don't play Vassal), don't waste your time. Additionally, that gives you any number of ways to experiment with the system. There are a lot more rules going on, but that means you have a lot of ways to go with each action, rather than an obvious choice. It is much deeper than the other deck builders. It has fixed turns (when Carthage extinguishes its draw deck), and a scoring system that only rewards aggressive play. It takes the system introduced in Martin Wallace's A Few Acres of Snow and added a naval aspect, random events, strategy cards (legal ways to cheat, such as adding 2 to your max. If you are not familiar with it, this is the next evolution in the deck-builder. My playtest prototype was either #2 or #3 all-time, but the final product pushed it over the top. The production values were through the roof. However, when the finished product arrived, my jaw was on the ground. I have been involved with the playtesting for 3 years. #1: Hands in the Sea: It almost seems unfair to put this here, especially since I put the prototype as #1 back in 2013.
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