Strategies

Carcassonne
$36.99
Amazon has got to love me. I'm always searching for new things to read, watch, or play. And so while searching for a fun and interesting new board game, I came across both Carcassonne and The Settlers of Cataan. After some deliberation and research (see Wikipedia), I chose Carcassonne because it looked more visually appealing and because the rules seemed more interesting. Boy, did I make a good choice!

This game is so easy to get the hang of. Basically, you score points by placing your "followers" on cities, cloisters, roads and farms. This is done as each turn, players place new land tiles to the game surface. Of course, there are certain conditions for placing your tiles and followers and you quickly see how strategies can be applied to take the best advantage of those conditions. The game was so easy to learn, that my daughters (ages 8, 11 and 13) quickly caught on. Within ten minutes, we were playing our first game.

As I said, the need for a strategy quickly becomes apparent, so Carcassonne becomes a thinking game as well. A game typically takes around a half-hour with this basic set.

Then finally, if you are like me, you start checking out the numerous expansions that are available for this game: Inns & Cathedrals, Traders & Builders, River II, just to namne a few. Each expansion provides additional tiles and/or rules that make the game even more fun and challenging to play. I'm hooked already.

One more thing: In my research, I discovered a website called CarcassonneCentral that was extremely helping getting started. They have a bbs were you can download reference materials (the rules do get more complex as you add expansions) and there is always someone who will answer a question you might have on the game or provide you with advice on which are the best expansions.

As I said, this is a game for all ages. I already enjoy playing it with my family, and I look forward to taking it to other family gatherings as well.

Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant
$29.95
Still reading but really like it so far... very inspiring - if you want to follow your dreams and stand out from everyone including your competition....

Strategies and Games: Theory and Practice
$75.00
This book is the perfect mix of slow enough for beginners and math-enough for those that are more advanced. The examples used are clear and easy to follow. There are problems worked out in each chapter and plenty of additional exercises, so that a person can check their understanding.

Also, as the book continues, it gets complicated enough that those with a more advanced understanding can still find it challenging. Still, even with the more difficult math, there isn't a massive increase in jargon usage.

The examples are actually something that most people can relate to. I really think, with the most basic of math and statistics, a person could conceptually - and in practice - get something from this piece. Definitely a great text if you have a mixed class of students.

The 33 Strategies of War (Joost Elffers Books)
$20.00
While the Art of Seduction and The 48 Laws of Power are great, The 33 Strategies of War brings you into the common sense of the realities of life.

If you are to get anything out of this work, it is the fact that we are frequently facing unpleasant situations we choose to ignore and that an attitude of conflict resolution, no not necessarily pleasant or fair, is a must for survival in this world.

I'd like to think we can live in peace, that we can resolve our differences in a civil way, that things and circumstances are fair and favorable most of the time, but this scenario is by far not the scenario in which most of us live our lives.

This book brings one a little more awareness of what is going on in the world and why we struggle so much in the face of the only constant which is change, as we fail manyatimes to adapt clinging to a preconceived notion of reality from whatever tradition this may come from (religion, customs, culture, etc.)

This and other strategies are portrayed in the book. I give it four stars, because there is no magical solution for any worldview or successful approach to a problem.

Finally, this book made me reaffirm my realization that no book is the solution to any problem. As your person, your life, your circumstances will be unique and never identical, the only solution to problems is living through them by facing them using your own wits and your own experience.