PUBLISHED GAMES OF SID SACKSON
(S)
with commentary by Nick Sauer and Herb Levy
Samarkand:
This was
published by Abacus/Rio Grande games in 1998.
This was nominally a reissue of the Schmidt game Bazaar
(Bazaar II) however a number of changes were made.
According to Joe Nikisch at Abacus, all of the changes were created in
house based upon
their playing of the original Schmidt game.
A free expansion for the game called Isfahan
(pictured separately) was later released that brought the game more in line with
the original version. Samarkand,
for me, is a really neat game that we don't play anywhere near as much as the
game probably deserves. I suspect
that this is because the game is a little too dry for some player's tastes.
For those who
want to try out the original Bazaar II version of
the game here is how to convert Samarkand to Bazaar:
First of all,
you will need a copy of the Isfahan expansion which
used
to be given out free by Rio Grande. This
switches the commodities that can be sold in each city throughout the game and,
is how these spaces originally worked in Bazaar.
Next, replace
the special die with a regular six sided die.
This die is rolled for movement on a player's turn and the player moves
the number of spaces indicated on the die following the arrows (at no cost).
The numbers of
commodity types are different in Bazaar.
The number of each type of commodity in Bazaar
is 26 Grain, 24 Fruit, 21 Copper, 19 Carpet, 16 Camels, and 14 Jewels.
(Actually, in Bazaar they are just colored
tokens.) This is pretty close to
the spread in Samarkand so, unless one feels the
need to rush out and buy a second copy of Samarkand,
you can probably just use the card mix as is.
You will also
need one Piaster notes. In Bazaar,
everything was an order of magnitude more expensive (players started with 2,000
and won by getting 5,000). Abacus
wisely decided to divide all of the costs by ten but, they also rounded the
lowest cost for anything in the game to 5.
I am going to divide the Bazaar amounts by
ten also but, you will need one Piaster notes to play.
The spaces on
the board had some changed and some left the same.
The Nomad Camps
in Samarkand work identical to those in Bazaar
(where they are called Barter Markets).
The Oasis
(called Shopping Markets in Bazaar) had a different
cost for cards and allowed you to purchase from 1 to 4 commodities.
Like Samarkand, there were three different
types of Oasis spaces. The chart
below gives the conversion from Samarkand to Bazaar:
Samarkand:
Bazaar:
4c = 20 1c = 1, 2c = 4, 3c = 9, 4c = 16
4c = 25 1c = 2, 2c = 6, 3c = 12, 4c = 20
4c = 30
1c = 3, 2c = 8, 3c = 15, 4c = 24
There was no penalty for not
being able to buy on an Oasis space in Bazaar.
The Cities
(called Bazaars in Bazaar, go figure) are probably
the most different due to the rotating commodities accepted in each city (as per
the Isfahan expansion mentioned earlier) and,
because of the very different sales chart.
The penalty was also different. In
Bazaar, if you could not sell, you had to take the
shortest route possible to an Oasis and had to buy something there.
The original sales chart for Bazaar is:
Commodity: 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Grain 2 4 8 16 30 60 120
Fruit 3 6 12 24 50 100 -
Copper 4 8 16 32 65 130 -
Carpets 5 10 20 40 80 160 -
Camels 6 12 24 50 100 200 -
Jewels 7 14 30 60 120 240 -
Mixed
2
5
12
28
65
-
-
Everything else works the same as per the Samarkand rules. Enjoy! - NS
The 6 Pack of Pencil and Paper Games:
Published by
Gamut of Games in 1974. This was a
collaborative project with Phil Orbanes. According
to Phil, The Great Races was
pretty much completely Sid's and Pay off was
Phil's. Phil's recollection was
that Financier
and Oil Strike were Sid initiated ideas and Spy
and Words Times Three were initiated by him.
However, he said all four were solidly collaborative efforts.
The games are covered individually below.
The
Great Races: This is
interesting as it is the direct pre-cursor game to Can't
Stop. The major differences are
that players get to roll the four dice only once on their turn and, there are
scores for first as well as second place in each of the column.
I'll cover the
other games as I get to them but, Oil Strike looks
particularly promising. - NS.
Sleuth:
This was
originally published as The Case of the Elusive Assassin
by Ideal in 1967. It was later
picked up by 3M and published as part 
of
their line in 1971. It has since
been published by Avalon Hill in America and by Schmidt in Germany under both
it's regular name and as Diamantenjagd
(Diamond Hunt).
This is Sid's spin on the classic deductive logic style game (Clue being the most famous of this type of game). The game itself features a number of gem cards (players have to figure out which is missing, as one is removed from the deck upon set-up). However, the really interesting feature is that there are also question cards which specify the types of information a player can ask of his opponent's hands. Furthermore, each player's question cards are kept face-up in front of the player. This little twist is very important because it allows a player to decide who to direct a specific question at based upon what questions they now their opponents are capable of asking. Of course, there is some luck (I completely walked into the solution within the first few turns of one game) but, for the most part, good players will be right on top of each other at the end of the game. This is an outstanding game that has been reprinted by Face 2 Face Games. - NS
