I haven't played Basari though. Are there any real differences in the rules?
Yes, it's a simpler game. It only runs up to four players, and so there are only three actions: gems/points/die roll. There's also a board which determines the point/gem value for each player. The die roll action meanwhile helps you move around the board faster and also gives you some points. A round ends when someone makes it all the way around the board, and everyone who did gets +10 points. The die roll is replaced by the special cards in ES&R.
I'm very interested in Knizia's Quo Vadis.
It's a 30-minute game where you're negotiating with other players to get votes to move up in the hierarchy of the Roman Senate. I doubt a single player could mess up the game because they'd be at a severe disadvantage and pretty quickly everyone would start learning not to negotiate with them. Watch RPGnet; I think I'm going to review it for next Wednesday.
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Yes, it's a simpler game. It only runs up to four players, and so there are only three actions: gems/points/die roll. There's also a board which determines the point/gem value for each player. The die roll action meanwhile helps you move around the board faster and also gives you some points. A round ends when someone makes it all the way around the board, and everyone who did gets +10 points. The die roll is replaced by the special cards in ES&R.
I'm very interested in Knizia's Quo Vadis.
It's a 30-minute game where you're negotiating with other players to get votes to move up in the hierarchy of the Roman Senate. I doubt a single player could mess up the game because they'd be at a severe disadvantage and pretty quickly everyone would start learning not to negotiate with them. Watch RPGnet; I think I'm going to review it for next Wednesday.