'Terra' - A decent board game where you learn stuff!

I like board gaming. I like all sorts of board and card games, but tend to prefer the 'Euro style' strategy board games, good two player games and fun party games. There's a rare class of games I'm always on the look out for though, and that's a decent game where you learn something new. Now there's plenty of so called educational games out there that are popular with schools and teachers but to be honest they're usually pretty awful. There either basic roll and move games with a pasted on theme and no meaningful decisions, or they info dump knowledge onto kids which puts them off completely. Some basic trivia games are alright, but I like it when they do something more interesting than just firing off a succession of questions.

Which brings me nicely to 'Terra' a board game from noted board game designer Friedemann Friese. This is all about geographical knowledge but rather than just testing your trivia knowledge - do you know the capital city of Peru etc - it gets you thinking about geography, and a bit of history too.

The board is quite simple - it's a map of the world, dividend into many different regions, and there are also three number lines, a distance line, a date line and a general number line. Each round, a question card is shown, and players take it in turns to place cubes on the board which they think correspond to the correct answers. It helps if I show you a card.

When the card is in the card holder, only the top card half of the card is displayed. It will display the name of something, a place or a thing, along with a photo. In this case it is 'Sunsphere'. Below the photo there's three questions you can answer. One is always the Area, i.e. where on the map this is, the other two will be some other measurement or date - in this case, the diameter of the sunsphere, and the year when the World's Fair was held here.

Players take it in turns to drop one of their cubes on the board, either in an area, or on one of the number/date lines, until everyone has passed. Then players get 7 points for each correct answer, or 3 points for each cube that is close, i.e. adjacent to a correct area or zone on a number line. Careful though, if you get incorrect answers, you might not get all of your cubes back.

The second half of the card displays the answers, and some additional information. This only gets revealed when everyone has passed.

There's 200 cards in the game, which may not seem a lot, but you only actually play with 6 cards in each game, so it should last you a while. What I really like is that it really gets you thinking about the topics, and even if you don't know the answer, you can have a guess, or tag along with another player who you think does know the correct answer (you can only have 1 cube per space, but you can get points for playing adjacent, and sometimes, the answer will cover several spaces).  We played this with just two of us, and it was a good game. I can't wait to try it with more players though, as I think it would provoke more discussion and debate, which can only enhance the game.

A virtual tour round the EU

As you probably know (and if you didn't, my last two blog posts do rather give it away), here in the UK we are having a referendum in June on Britain's membership of the EU - are we in or are we out? Now I have quite a lot to say on this subject and I could quite happily blog away for the next three months about the pro's and cons of Britain's membership, but you know what? Most people would find this all really boring and I'd probably alienate what few readers I might have. So I decided to do something a bit different.

Copyright European Union, 2016

My plan is to - virtually - tour round as many EU countries as I can before the referendum, to learn about each of the different countries, the people, what it is like to live there. I say virtually - I'd love to visit them personally but sadly not going to happen  (although I'm going to one in a couple of weeks, one is better than none).There's so much information available online - from fact files to tourist guides, online reviews to municipal websites. Thanks to Google, it's even possible to virtually walk down streets with its Streetview service.

Because I can't decide which ones to start with, I'm going to cheat and work my way through alphabetically. For now at least. Which means first up is Austria.

Please let me know what you think - tell me  what you like and what you don't - anything you'd like more of. If you've got any experiences or tidbits, please do share them in the comments section.

Progress so far

Austria - Vienna and Salzburg, coffee shops, ski-ing and The Sound of Music. I look at the history of the place, food, it's place in the EU and I also investigate my first random town in the EU, Kapfenberg.

Belgium - Beer and chocolate! There's a lot more to Belgium than that though, read to find out more. I also take a look at the town of Ohey.

Bulgaria - A place steeped in little known history, with possibly the most exciting historic culture you've never heard of. Also find out about the most villainous city in history.

Portugal - A place full of surprises. From city to country it is such a varied country. From a fascinating history to Fado and great culinary delights to boot. Written just after I returned from a trip there so full of local colour.

Croatia - A country in the former Yugoslavia, there's a city built within the remains of a Roman Emperor's palace, a fabulous walled city used as King's Landing in Game of Thrones, and much more.