ALADDIN'S DRAGONS Richard Breese Hans im Glück / Rio Grande Players have eight followers of various value that they use to secretly place in any of 13 different areas. These may be in the dragon caves in order to steal valuable treasure or the city where services may be procured or the palace where fabulous artifacts can be purchased. The trick is that you can't do everything and you must have the most powerful followers in an area to perform the task there. Since the followers are placed one at a time and hidden from other players a lot of tension can ensue.
	ATTILA Karl Heinz Schmiel Hans im Glück / Rio Grande This game has been called a "stock market" game as it's more about gaining control of tribes rather than moving tribes driven from their homes by Attila. Either way there's a lot of tense moments packed into a short playing time. Players use cards to both place tribe markers and gain influence on those tribes.  Should too many people settle in one area conflict will erupt.
	CARCASSONNE Klaus-Jürgen Wrede Hans im Glück / Rio Grande It's amazing what variety can be wrung from such a simple idea as laying connected tiles. Carcassonne is a fine example of this as players place tiles containing roads, cities, fields and cloisters. Points are gained depending on where you place your tokens; knights on cities, robbers on the roads, farmers in the fields and monks in the cloisters.
	LA CITTA Gerd Fenchel Kosmos / Rio Grande This is one of the more complex games (by German standards) and there's a lot to think about on your turn. The ultimate goal is to have the most populous cities at the games end. Lots of farms means you'll have plenty of food to feed your people but if town next door has better amenities you'll find they're emigrating every turn. If you build too fancy a city though you may discover you don't have enough food to go around! Tough decisions all around and you'll need to carefully balance things to succeed.
	LORD OF THE RINGS Reiner Knizia Kosmos / Hasbro A rather unique offering in that players must cooperate as a team in order to defeat the game driven enemy, Sauron. A great deal of flavorful text and events from the books adds to play and many players have been inspired to (re)read the books after playing.
	MERCHANTS OF AMSTERDAM Reiner Knizia Jumbo / Rio Grande The history of Amsterdam is played out in this game as the city rises and declines in importance throughout the years. Primarily an auction game, the players compete to have majority interest in; the city itself, markets around the world and shipping. True to the theme auctions are "dutch auctions" and are facilitated with a countdown timer. Slap the timer when it reaches the price you're willing to pay and the item up for bid is yours.
	METRO Dirk Henn Queen Another track laying game but instead of trying to make your routes short and direct, you gain more points by having long and twisted routes. Great artwork adds to the game as a true spiders web of paths slowly emerges.
	MORISI Corné Van Moorsel Cwali A multi-player version of last year's 2 player nominee, Isi. This time the board is made up of hexagons (instead of squares) and up to four may play. Players must first travel about the land of Morisi gaining knowledge of the terrain. They then use this knowledge to build a network of roads. the winner is the player that has connected the most cities with his/her roads.
	OHNE FURCHT UND ADEL Bruno Faidutti Hans im Glück Fabulous artwork highlights the play in this card game.  Players secretly choose professions each round with a mind to building the greatest buildings. Do you choose the Soldier who can destroy other buildings or the Thief who can steal gold or the Assassin who can kill someone or ...
	PRINCES OF FLORENCE Wolfgang Kramer & Richard Ulrich Alea / Rio Grande An unusual theme here - players are wealthy princes trying to attract the greatest artists, workers and thinkers to their city. Of course there are many different ways to go about this; do you hire jesters to keep them entertained or do you erect buildings for them to work in? Should you put in a lake for them to relax by or allow them freedom of religion? Architects make it easier to build but will will other players recruit your best workers?
	TAJ MAHAL Reiner Knizia Alea / Rio Grande Far off India is the setting for this card driven game. In each of twelve turns players take turns revealing cards hoping to win in one (or more) of six categories.  Elephants give the players increasingly valuable commodities but the monk, general, princess and vizier allow you to place castles on the board. Connecting these castles can be tricky but can also lead to many victory points. However, it's not only important to win but to win quickly as the best spots may be taken if you fight a prolonged battle.
	TRAUMFABRIK Reiner Knizia Hasbro Who can resist the urge to play producer and set about making movies? You may have the greatest idea in Hollywood but if you can't put together the right cast and crew it'll be all for nothing. The trick is that the better the people the more they'll cost and you may not be able to afford who you want.  Since this is show business there's also the fact that it's not just what you know but who, a studio with high star power always has more fun at the parties don't they? If things go poorly you can always try for the notoriety of producing the worst movie ever screened.
	WEB OF POWER Michael Schacht Gold Sieber / Rio Grande There's a lot of game packed into a short time in this one. The play is very simple, place one or two of your pieces in one region on the board. Pieces are either cloisters, which occupy a network of connected spaces or advisors. Cloisters are guaranteed to score you points but having a large cluster of advisors can often win the game.

General Strategy Games, 2-Player

	BATTLE CRY Richard Borg Avalon Hill 2000 was a great year for games that you  can teach to your children.  Hasbro/Avalon Hill's Battle Cry! Is an excellent example of that type. Basically, designer Richard Borg (NOT the co-designer of Risorgimento) has created a generic battle system for playing out battles from the American Civil War.  The Battle Cry components rate high on the Coolness Factor, inducing (hopefully) a younger child to take an interest in history.  Instead of counters, Battle Cry uses plastic infantry, cavalry and artillery.  The battlefield is completely customizable through the use of terrain overlay tiles of woods, streams, hills and hedges.  Battle Cry comes with several scenarios of the "Big Battle" variety, and even more are cropping up on Internet websites.  Best of all, you can learn (and teach) the card-driven combat system in about 20 minutes.  Battle Cry is recommended for the Inner Child in all of us (especially if your Inner Child likes little plastic army men!).
	BATTLE OF BRANDYWINE CREEK Mike Miklos GMT The American Revolutionary War; Generals Howe and Washington meet at Brandywine Creek on the road to Philadelphia.  One map, 176 5/8" counters. 200 yards per hex, 1 hour per turn, Regimental sized units. The sister game to GMT's Saratoga takes  the same system, modifies it ever so slightly and gives gamers a chance to refight a knock-down drag-out brawl. Random order of command activation, Four scenarios, and possible random orders  of appearance give this relatively simple game plenty of  replayability.  And for hard core players, there are advanced  rules to add even more flavor without adding dozens of pages of additional rules.
	BONAPARTE IN ITALY Kevin Zucker Operations Study Group Napoleon's successes cannot be fully understood unless they are seen at a larger scale, and this game is the latest in the series that like no other has succeeded in bringing this point to the fingertips of historical gamers.  The map sees only the individual forces moving, without indication of their strength or leaders, both of which are revealed only when giving battle.  Orders can be given to some of your subordinates, but when many foraging forces have to be drawn together to concentrate against a (hopefully) surprised enemy, you have to rely on the initiative of your best subordinate generals to march to the sound of the guns on their own. Battles are merely the culmination of cunning plans - or the results of blunders as your subordinates fail you, leaving their comrades-in-arms in desperate situations as you try to bring on the relief columns. Both short, playable scenarios and a intense campaign game covering all of Napoleon's 1796/97 campaign are provided. Together with a supremely evocative map that shows the mountains, orchards, vineyards, small fields, and fortified town of northern Italy, this game is a feast for the eye and a challenge for the player.
	DRIVE ON PARIS Al Wambold The Gamers The Great War in Europe, the Western Front, before they dug the trenches. One map, 420 counters. 10 kilometers per hex, 1/2 week per turn, Divisional sized units. The seventh game in the Standard Combat Series takes a step back to World War I with this release. The French planned on a quick drive to recapture the lost Provinces of Alsace and Lorraine and avenge the humilation suffered less than 50 years before in the Franco-Prussian War. The Germans opted for a drive through Belgium and a fast sweeping march to Paris. Overestimation by the French on elan and a failure to appreciate the devastating effect of modern weaponry and overcaution and a similar lack of understanding on the part of the Germans of just how much could be accomplished by mere flesh and blood ultimately doomed both sides' plans to what ultimately became the hell of the trenches.
	PACIFIC VICTORY Tom Dagliesch Columbia Pacific Victory from Columbia Games is the latest descendant of a long line of games that have consistently managed to combine two of the most sought-after properties of historical wargames - elegance of design and easy incorporation of fog of war, that property which generally bedevils real-world commanders and whose absence from games often keeps armchair generals from understanding the real reasons behind historical decisions. Columbia has brought these properties together in their line of block games - not flat cardboard counters but solid wooden blocks whose front face shows the real strength of a unit that is hidden from the enemy. The simple expedient of turning a block to show a different number to the owning player permits the secret allocation of combat strengths, turning block games into tense contests that combine bluffing and strategy.  Pacific Victory brings that goal to the Pacific theatre of WWII, where limited intelligence (and its overcoming by signals intelligence) was crucial, and provides this complex conflict, generally the domain of huge monster games, in a multidimensional game with seasonal turns that is colorful, evocative, but still playable in a single evening.
	RISORGIMENTO Richard Berg & Peter Perla GMT Risorgimento may be the best game on a war you've likely never heard of--the Second War of Italian Independence, fought between the forces of Austria and Piedmont-Sardinia, with some generous assistance from the French Empire of Napoleon III.   Risorgimento 1859 concerns itself with the with the central year of the struggle for Italian independence, specifically April - July 1859.  During that time period, two of the largest land battles fought on the European continent occurred-- Solferino and Magenta.  The game is presented in two parts-- a brigade scale "Big Battles" game, designed by Richard Berg, and a larger- picture Campaign game designed by Dr. Peter Perla.  Both games are  designed to be played independantly of one another.  The Big Battles game features the blood baths of Magenta, Solferino, and a smaller introductory battle called San Marino.  The campaign game features the entire campaign season from April to July, and focuses on strategic decision making.  Risorgimento is a phenomenal wargaming bargain-- two excellent games in a single box.
	SIMPLE GBOH Richard Berg & Mark Herman GMT 16 page rulebook, 7 page gamebook. Simple Great Battles of  History (SGBoH), is not a stand alone game. Rather, it is a rerelease and massive simplification of one of the core game series from GMT. Great Battles of History is a very detailed series of games on ancient warfare that in all ways but physically, is a set of miniatues rules. However, the rules are involved, and the time required to fight all but the smallest battles is not short. SGBoH streamlines almost all the processes and lets players refight the GBoH battles in less time and with less effort with but a small sacrifice of detail for playability. Includes new charts and tables and a re presentation of many of the scenarios from the original GBoH.
	SOLOMON SEA Markus Stumptner Simulations Workshop Covering naval battles in the South Pacific during WWII, the game features a combination of straightforward rules, fast play and a realistic feel.  The core of the game is a double blind search system, sort of an upmarket version of 'Battleships'. Each player (US and Japanese) has a hidden map showing their forces, but not those of  the enemy.  Players must search for their enemies and often receive conflicting data.  Although a unique system, gameplay is reasonably straightforward.  What is difficult is the strategy and trying to outwit your opponent.
	UKRAINE '43 Mark Simonitch GMT A simulation of the Soviet Summer Offensive from the Donets to the Dnieper. One and a quarter maps, 380 counters. 10 miles per hex, 5 days per turn, Divisional sized units. The Soviets must breach a well dug in Axis adversary, repel vicious counterattacks by mobile Panzer reserves, and attempt to envelope or otherwise force back the Axis, all the while making sure his army doesn't bleed to ineffectiveness. The Axis has to resist a well equipped and numerically superior assault, blunt the massed Soviet spearheads while falling back to the next viable defensive line without losing his army in the process. Sudden death victory conditions make this a tense confrontation of the two giant land powers of World War II.
	XENOPHON Joe Miranda Strategy & Tactics The Persian Civil War of the 4th Century BC. One map, 200 counters. 80 kilometers per hex, 1 year per turn, Units represent 1600-6400 troops. For 14 years the fate of one of the largest most prosperous empires in the western world hung in the balance as Cyrus, a provincial satrap (governor) and Artaxerxes II (Xerxes the Great) battled back and forth  from the borders of Greece to the edge of India. Both players have to focus on winning the loyalties of the various provinces to maintain a steady supply of manpower and support. Politics and subterfuge are as important as battlefield prowess.