Kariba

The Game

Kariba is a small box game from Reiner Knizia. It is a simple card game about watering holes in Africa. All sorts of animals gather around the watering hole. They all need to drink, from the tiny mouse (numbered 1) to the great elephant (numbered 8). At the watering hole predators and prey can co-exist. However if too many of one animal type come, they scare away another animal type near them. 

This little circle formed using numbered tiles is the watering hole. The numbers indicate where you must play your cards. A turn is simple - play one or more cards of the same animal type, i.e. same number. When you play the animal(s) next to the watering hole, if there are three or more of this animal type, you'll scare away all animals of the next smaller animal type. You claim these cards into your score pile. In the photo above, if you have just played the giraffe (#4), they will chase away the meerkat (#2). If there are animals in both positions 2 and 3, then it is the animal at 3 which will be chased away, because that's nearer. 

There is a special rule for the elephants (#8). They are the largest number and normally no one can scare them away. The exception is the lowly mouse (#1). Three mice is enough to scare any number of elephants away. However the mice are the weakest animal and can be easily chased away by all other animals. 

The Play

One thing I find interesting is sometimes you don't want to play any of the cards you have in hand. Some you hope to play later when a good scoring opportunity comes. Some you are reluctant to play because it might help an opponent. Aaah... tough decisions. Often you don't want to play the second card of an animal, because if anyone else has another card, they will be able to play that and trigger scoring. Since everyone is aware of this, you will start collecting pairs of cards to be played at the same time, which means an animal with just one card may suddenly get to three. There is an ebb and flow in the game. You try to ride the tempo well and score more points (claim more cards) than your opponents. 

When three (or more) cards of one animal type chase away another type, they themselves become a big fat target. One situation that happens is people keep cards to catch these winning sets. There's always a bigger fish. Another situation that comes up is when you are afraid a particularly lucrative set will get taken by an opponent, you intentionally stick a single card just before it to protect it from bigger animals. Let's look at this below. 

There are six giraffes (#4), which is super tempting. Imagine that there are no animals at all from positions 5 to 8. If anyone plays three of any of these numbers, he will win that huge set of giraffes. You can play one single ostrich (#5) to protect the giraffes. Now people will not want to play their trios of 6, 7 or 8, because that will only get them your lousy single 5. Of course, it is entirely possible you end up helping someone else who has exactly two ostriches. 

The Thoughts

This is a lovely little game. Simple and easy to learn, yet having interesting tactics. It's a nice light strategy game. Good for traveling, as it can easily fit into a pocket. It's easy to teach casual gamers and non gamers. I like clever and concise games like this. They get straight to the point with minimal fluff.