Pegasus Spiele | Istanbul Big Box | Board Game | 2 to 5 Players | Ages 10+ | 40 to 90 minute playing time

An excellent big box culmination of the Istanbul games. I first played this digitally and thought it was a good, solid game. The physical product is even better as player interaction is a visceral experience and you find you really engage more with every move and decision made by every player.No issues with components, packaging or manufacturing. A well constructed and attractive product.Some people ask about the language: it is both English and German (one side of the tiles being English, the other German).Are there both English and German rules?: most definitely, yes. Two very well written and structured rulebooks included, one English, one German.If you want an easy to play, hard to master game suitable for families and serious board gamers alike, you won't go wrong with Istanbul Big Box.

A great game, made all the greater by the inclusion of expansions.Quick to learn. Difficult to master. If you like resource management and worker placement style games, this will float your boat. Plays well with 2, but plays best with 4 or 5 (due to increased impact of interference by other players).Taught this to a friend of mine last night in about 5-10 minutes. He nodded and proceeded to kick my ass. (Even though I used the strategy my wife used when kicking my ass the time before!)So good. So many options for keeping it fresh, making it harder, adding more randomness, expansions, etc.I expect I'll play this even more often than Puerto Rico, Agricola, and some other old favourites.

A four player game typically takes two hours.The pieces are wood the cards can be arranged for different complexity which is great.Its a shame the back of the cards are the same only in German, but that's a minor gripe.The how-to cards players get are great and mean the rule book is almost never consulted.There's always something interesting to do on your turn and it's usually the last or second last turn which decides the winner so its exciting all the way through.Definitely worth the money.

I cannot really fault this. Having two expansion packs in the same box was a real bonus. Loved this game. It appealed to the whole family with age range from 13 years to mid 50s! Even the first game whilst learning the instructions was great fun. Lots of potential to concentrate on different strategies for future episodes.

I bought this game as a gift on a bit of a gamble, but it's surprisingly interesting to play, varied and enjoyable. The aim is to collect rubies, which can be bought/traded/awarded at several different stalls in the bazaar. The game centres around managing your journey around the bazaar given various constraints, collecting and trading resources, and eventually ending up with the right combination of resources to use one of the ruby-acquiring opportunities before someone else gets there first.Because there are several possible strategies, not all players are necessarily competing for the same things, and part of the strategy is to spot what your opponents aren't competing for. The game can play quite differently depending on the combination of play styles at the table, and you can vary your own play style to add variety and keep your group guessing.

Well designed game with good quality components. My copy arrived with both English and German rulebook. Cards are printed in both languages, half card in English and other half in German. Tiles are also in both languages with one language on each side. It’s a great, engaging worker placement family game.

This game uses cards as the markets and you travel around buying and selling your goods. The quality is very good of all complements. It’s also worth checking out the expansions or why not buy the big box version which is fully loaded with main game plus expansions. Good replay ability and easy to play, teach and learn.

Let's start with the negatives. The insert for this is just rubbish. Considering it's a big box and will hsve tonnes of components, who has the time to bag so much each game. The game does include a recommended bagging but I just completely disregarded it.Ended up buying 2 organisers to store my pieces in and this is now so much easier to setup and play. (see photo).The expansions make the game a lot longer but also take it away a little from what it is at its heart. Having the extra actions opens up more possibility but takes away from the simplicity that is the game. I think it'll be one of those things yoill play with one, or the other, but very rarely both.Let's get onto the gameplay. It's brilliant!Each move you make puts you 1 step closer to victory, as you tactically plan your moves to drop off assistants and carry out actions in the market.Some warehouses give a type of resource depending on which you visit, whilst visiting the Post Office gives an changing amount of goods.You'll want to get these goods to then sell items and earn yourself some gold so you can then hold more goods to then buy more goods and sell more!That's just 1 tactic as upgrading your cart fully only nets you 1 gem. You'll then need another 5 more in 2P or 4 more in more player counts.You can buy more by paying the coins that will increasingly become more difficult or visit trade for it for goods that become increasing more expensive.All this whilst fighting for the ideal spots to be in so other people have to pay you to use the square you end your turn on.Gameplay is great and quick and you're always looking for the best move.There's not as much downtime as one person moves, drops off or picks up, does the action and then the next player is ready.Before you know it, it's your turn againThere's also 2 expansions which make the map bigger adding the coffee currency and then the ability to deliver letters for rumours.The game itself is a 5***** game, the insert let's it down.Well well worth the money in my opinion since the base game and buying expansions separately costs much more.The rulebook is very clear and simple too which makes it easy to understand and get back into it.