comment

"Master, I've heard others in the city are aware of the carpet's black market sale" chimes in the
lowly pick pocket, Agarrim. "Luckily there are other relics for sale" he quickly adds. "Um, uh,
perchance we can acquire the Carpet for cheaper than we thought?"

You sneer and begin to laugh. Agarrim looks around nervously and also starts to chuckle. You
laugh louder and the "HA HA HAs" are echoing off the stone walls of the chamber. Agarrim's
guffaw erupts to match yours. His mouth open, beaming with a smile that reveals a golden incisor
among the rest of his pearly mashers. Suddenly, your face contorts to a grimace and you motion to
one of your guards.

An erratic staccato of heartbeats rushes into Agarrim's throat and then he pleads, "Please! No! I
beg of you...I'll clean your feet! I'll buy more sex statues...they'll have bigger and more engorged
members! I won't tell anyone of your shame! I'll get my sister to do that thing you like! Please
don..."

A burly, emotionless, guard covers the cut-purse's mouth with a sweat covered palm and proceed
to toss him into the nearby crocodile pits. A Wilhelm scream is heard on the way down.

"If anyone else would like to naysay, or speak out of turn, please, be my guest." you utter to the
rest of the group. "Now let's get on with it!"

Aladdin's Dragon's is one giant game of matching wits and teasing your opponents with what your
plans really are. Each round everyone blindly bids by sending out different strength units to the
various spots on the board. You will need to acquire treasure from the dragon's caves. Once
you've procured the shinies, it's up to the palace to buy artifacts that will win you the game. Too
bad you have to deal with pesky guard to get entrance to the palace. Also once artifacts are
acquired they give each player special abilities. To top it all off each player has a magical lamp
which can be used to cast POWERFUL spells. Using these spells correctly can often lead to a big
score.

I adore the mind games this game presents as each turn is a tense little game. Then with the reveal
you get to see what each player's TRUE intentions were. Very great Euro style game with a cool
theme, great components, beautiful artwork and board. They don't make em like this anymore.
This game is sadly OOP and hard to find.
The blind bidding mechanism is probably the least loved of all mechanisms if you took a poll of
gamers - and this game hinges on it. Its saving grace is that the play is fast and the results are
entertaining - there is good groan factor. Spice it up with some spells and artifact usage, good
components, good artwork - and it comes out smelling ok.

You have 8 tokens - 1, 2, 3-9. With 4 players, there are 13 spaces to contend for and you place your
tokens in each, face down, each played in turn, 1 at a time. Each space then gets revealed in turn.
First up, there are 5 dragon caves (highest in tokens will collect most treasure from here, there'll be
2nd and 3rd prizes in some caves). Then there are 4 city spaces (highest tokens will respectively get
2 spell cards, or play 2 artifacts, or collect 2 small treasure or move the start player). Then you need
to bribe the guard to the palace (ie play enough tokens here to match a random 1-10 value that
you don't know beforehand, but you can make up the difference in treasures). If you get into the
palace, there are 4 rooms with an artifact in each. Highest in tokens in each room pays that 'tokens
bid' amount in treasure to win the artifact. Most artifacts wins.

Revealing one space at a time brings on some interesting decisions, especially once you get to the
palace rooms. You get the chance to (generally) play one artifact during the whole round so do you
spend your Doubler artifact now to ensure you win those 2 spell cards? Or will you need to play
your Key Artifact to get past a high guard to be able to buy more artifacts? Or should you play no
artifact in case so you need to play a Counterspell artifact to protect you from another player's evil.
If you're competing in two or more rooms in the palace, should you pay for the artifact you can win
now without competition ... or risk saving your treasures to pay for the next room, but where you
might lose if you didn't bid high enough, but it would stop the other player getting it if you did.

It allows different strategies, there are occasional tough choices, including the double-guessing
'what did he place in there' element. It's still getting pulled out for a whirl once a year.
Original and extremely fun bidding game from Richard Breese of Reef Encounter fame. One thing
that I really like about it is that the problems of the bidding mechanism are solved by further
bidding. For example, tied bids are broken in player order precedence, and you can bid to choose
the starting player.

The game includes rules for basic and magic versions. Don't bother with the basic version -- the
magic version is simple, interesting, and (I think) well balanced. If you're struggling with it, a good
way to play spells effectively is to accumulate say four spell cards, throw out a couple of nasty ones
(e.g. Sacrifice) to draw out your opponents' counterspells, then cast the decisive spell. Control of
the Djinn's House (double artefact) space is mandatory for spellcasting, as it prevents double
counterspells being played in the late game. And of course you want to accumulate as many
counterspells as possible yourself, to deny them to your opponents.

Some people prefer playing with the magic cards (the ones that are being bid on) face up. Haven't
tried it yet, but it sounds interesting.

The rules have a few ambiguous parts, so check the BGG rules questions and run through a game
solo before introducing it to a group. Technically out of print, but copies can still be found.

The potential downsides to this game are the play time, and a slight runaway leader problem (in
that your score is equal to the number of artefacts you have, but the artefacts make you more
powerful). These can be patched (if they bother you) by removing one artefact per player from the
game, and by making artefacts (scores) public. Actually, playing without screens would make the
game go down much better with many groups.

If you're not keen on repetitive blind bidding, you should try before you buy.

Update: Promoted to a 9, as I like this more and more as I get more experience with it. The
runaway leader problem is a weakness, but it's just a matter of using open scoring or reminding the
players that scores are easily countable.

Lately I'm playing with one spell card face up and the other face down. This gives a basis for bidding
without making the cardplay too transparent.
My initial enthusiasm cooled after several plays. Aladdin's Dragons is a fine game by any standard,
with an interesting mechanic of blind bluffing to achieve your goal. It is always great fun to turn
over the chips to find out who wins the privilege of a certain playing field. However, once people
begin to collect artefacts and magic cards, things become rather ad hoc and chaotic. The fine and
subtle balance of the first third to half of the game gives way to a 'take that!'-type of title. The
magic cards are not that balanced either, meaning that you tend not to use them—or grin
mischievously because you were extremely lucky. It helps considerably if you play this game with a
variant in which you turn up the cards on offer to allow people to decide on their own whether
they would like to pursue that option or not. Blind bidding is, after all, a good mechanic to use in a
game, but one should be very careful with anything that upsets the subtle psychological play, and
with closed cards that is precisely what happens.

With the gameplay settled to full satisfaction, all that remains to be sorted out is the annoying
amount of tiny rules questions which invariably turn up when a game with lots of special character
powers is released. Can you do X before Y, with Z, after Z-prime, and so forth. I think I ought to mail
to Richard Breese one of these days to get an authorative answer to settle the questions once and
for all.

[b]Update[/b] While there is an unmistakable care-free nature to this game, repeated plays have
shown that looking for shrewd and clever play is best done elsewhere. Artefacts and cards are
indeed, as I already noted, disruptive of what is a fragile game to begin with; sometimes winning
artefacts is more luck than intent. It's also odd that unattractive artefacts remain the goal of the
game instead of the rather attractive gems. I don't mind playing it after all this time, but to say I'm
eagerly anticipating the experience would be a lie.
[RGG 2000 Edition] {Arabian, Fantasy, novel; bluffing, set collection, blind-bidding, area-majority,
utility cards; optimal 4p} {basic game 6, 'magic' rules 7} AD is a game with attractive fantasy Arabian
theme of spells and artifacts. There are loads of interaction and fun. The core concept is simple:
collect treasures greedily, buy artifact cheaply and make opponents buy artifacts dearly.

AD is the best blind-bidding game in my collection. It is a rich game. Players have many agonizing
decisions to make - where to place your token, what should one place, when should one place,
what resources to collect, etc. It needs clever planning, nice bluffing skill and tactical move to
guarantee a winning. It's usually exciting because final score usually differs little. However, AD has a
problem of leader-bashing, esp. in 'magic' rules, where players tend to bash the leader heavily; esp.
when one plays with open information. Therefore, I suggest that screen should be used to hide
information between players.

The basic game is tactical but dry. The blind-bidding mechanics does not fit the theme nicely. The
'magic' rule is more fun and thematic because of the spells and artifacts but the game becomes
more chaotic. The basic rules are well written and illustrated. However, there are some disputes
about the usage of spell cards in the 'magic' rule. The usage of spell cards is not exactly clear but it
doesn't hurt the game. The basic game has lower replayability because the only random element
comes from the treasure allocation, which is minimal. The 'magic' rule has better replayability due
to the spell cards.

The bits are sturdy and pretty. Everything is nice: screen, treasures, artifacts, etc. However, I am
afraid of the durability of the tokens; they may wear after many plays.
Played with 5. I'm not much of a blind bidding game kinda guy so take this comment for what it's wo
Blind bidding is generally not a mechanic I'm a fan of, and this game does little to change that. The a
The more I play Aladdin's Dragons, the more I enjoy the game of Aladdin's Dragons. I guess it takes
a couple of games played of Aladdin's Dragon to really see it's worth. It took a couple of plays to
enjoy the blind bidding part of the game. I bought my copy after I played a couple of games.

Recently played Aladdin's Dragon again. I still had fun playing this game. The blind bidding is great
in Aladdin's Dragons. Judging the worth of each lot of gems and spots on the game board is not
easy. Each player has their own idea of how much each spot of the board is worth. So getting
something you really want for a fair price can be hard. Especially when playing with maximum
players. It can be costly if two players targets the same thing. Goal is to get what you want
cheapest as possible in order to use your other tokens elsewhere.

Some tiles are more powerful/useful than others. Player with most tiles wins.

I am more used to this kind of auction, I enjoy it more than I was at the beginning. I`m happy that I
have this auction/bidding game in my game collection today.

Blind bidding is quite different compared to your typical bidding games. I have to say that
auction/bidding is one of my favorite game mechanics in board games.

4 plays since recording games played.

Played once with 5P. Aladdin's Dragons is a pretty tense blind-bidding game where bids are spread
around different areas of the board. Players are aiming to collect the most artifacts, which
incidentally can also be used to assist players throughout the game. There's a clever rule to limit
the use of artifacts, which introduces difficult decisions when to trigger their abilities.

The magic spells add even more randomness to the game and are potentially more upsetting, but
they are also limited by the artifact rule (as in, a player needs to use Aladdin's Lamp in order to use
spells, which rules him out from using other artifacts for the round). There are some niggles
regarding the timing of the resolution of spells though.

Given its lightweight rules, Aladdin's Dragons is a surprisingly long and thinky game. The one game I
played went into overtime as the final round saw us competing for a single artifact. (That game
took us roughly 115 mins, and I won with 9 artifacts on my side.) This is a blind-bidding game done
well, if players don't mind the randomness of spells, the fiddliness of spell resolution and the length
of the game.
One of my favorite bidding games. A lot of tension and choices. Not that there's a LOT of paths to
victory as you gotta get the artifacts to win but how you go about getting your money is really the
name of the game. Blind bidding accented with artifact effects and spell cards. NEAT.Update after
playing this game over and over for a couple years now it's still a lot of fun due to I love the style of
bidding game this is but the game is going to slip to an 8. Seems like the limited victory paths kind
of wears a bit, not much but enough that you start wishing for other things to do in this game. The
center portion of the board also kind of become pointless. The game almost solely becomes bid for
gems, bid for artifacts and nothing else. Seems like I'm beating the game up here and I'm not cause
it's still a LOT of fun.

UPDATE:
Upon playing the CRAP out of the game Ys I find I like it much better than this one. This game was
purchased first but this type of game is much more efficiently executed in Ys. Ys also eliminates the
"gem only" rush in the game. Lowering this game to 7 based on desire to play Ys over this.

A fun game, colorful board, although the box-art doesn't grab me. Great gems! Although it would
be easy to dismiss this as a blind-bidding game, there are interesting choices to be made and a nice
bit of variety with the magic cards in play.

From my Ys rating:
"First off, ya just can't help but want to compare this game to Aladdin's Dragons. Both are fine
games. Ys definitely has more to consider in terms of how to get gems and increase their value,
and I do like playing one broker down and the other broker face up. The components are much
nicer in Aladdin's Dragons, but the components in Ys are fine. Themewise, Aladdin's Dragons is
more fun, and the game mechanics match the theme. I like how the areas depend on each other in
Aladdin's Dragons, whereas in Ys it's more a matter of adapting and maximizing your points."

Update: 5/25/16
Fun to revisit this, but yeesh, those spell cards are swingy. No wonder people suggest playing them
face up. Also, it seems like every game I've played there is confusion with some of the cards
abilities and their timing. Also, I stink at this game!
The blind bidding is a real fun element that excels most other games of this type due to the substant
This is a fun light-medium to medium game which lasts about an hour and fifteen minutes with 5
players. I can see that it really needs 4 or 5 players to work properly - with less, the blind bidding
just wouldn't be so tense.

I liked it very much but one possible weakness is that the first turn is just jockeying for position and
then if all the artefacts go every turn, the game ends in a rush and there isn't much time to acquire
a lot of spell cards. So, the criticism I've heard that the game is too long, can actually be turned on
its head. I'd imagine though, that as you played the game more often, you'd be more prepared for
the speed of the ending.

There are a lot of positives here - the bidding is tense, the spell powers (which must be used) are
variable and interesting, the different spaces are well thought out and I like the Palace Guard
mechanism. I love the treasure pieces, but I'd have liked to have plastic lamps and a chit to show
who won the play 2 artefacts power.

Overall, I love games with player interaction and plenty of thinking and this has both.

Very good, light, "blind bidding" game, although it almost feels more like worker placement with
bets on each space. The game is extremely simple: bid for treasure, then bid for spaces to sell the
treasure. The fun lies in trying to guess what your opponents want, trying to distract them as to
what you're going for, and then waiting for the last moment to place down your strongest token on
the thing you really want. The timing decisions and tension in the placement round are excellent, as
well as trying to predict which artifacts your opponents will use each round.

My two problems with the game are: 1) One bad decision or lousy turn can really take you out of
the competition early on; and 2) The game lasts a little too long for my taste. I'd say play to five
artifacts (including Aladdin's lamp), which would trigger the game end. I'd also say the magic
version is a must: I couldn't imagine playing this without the artifacts and spells, which make this so
much better in so many ways.

Morgenland is a worker placement game from before this term was invented. It's unique twist is
the blind placement of workers valued 1 to 9. There's no limit to the amount of workers placed in a
single space which makes it a game of bluffing. If you really want to get something this usually can
be assured by a massive investment but the winner will be the player who gets the most with the
least effort. Choose your battles wisely.
As lies in the nature of blind bidding games there's a notable random factor but that's fine with me.
It's a game of double-guessing and this is where the fun is coming from. What bugs me is the digital
winning condition. Either you get to purchase an artefact or you don't. In the end, winning scores
can be 7,7,6,5,5. Also, it's difficult to catch up when somebody gets off to an early lead with cheap
purchases of two artefacts at once. Morgenland could have a place as a less strategic version of
worker placement games but 90 minutes is a bit long for that.
Wow. What a beautifully made game with quality components.

I was a little disappointed in the play, however. All a player has to do is keep score of how many
artifacts a player has won, (which is not that difficult with 3 players, because there are only 15 to be
secured, and you know how many you have), and when the majority is won there is no way to
catch up (unless maybe there is a special card and you are close), so there is no sense in playing to
the end.

The theme is irrelevant. This game could be played with any theme.

We played the Magic modification. I think the basic game would have been extremely boring. I
also think and hope that playing with 5 players would improve the game (we played with 3).

When I first read about this game it was already out of print. It took me a long time to find it.
Maybe the anticipation of the game over rated it in my mind.

I think it is a good child's game.

On Bruno Faidutti's Best Games List.

It's blind bidding. Blind bidding where everyone loses their bid is perhaps the worst game
mechanic in existence. Aladdin's Dragons is close to that. The difference is that you have a fixed
amount to bid every round, so while you don't really "lose" anything by losing a bid, you also don't
gain any advantage for future rounds (since the winner didn't really "spend" anything to win the
bid). Bidding in the palace (one third of the auctions) is a bit different, though, since there the
winner does have to spend something and the loser doesn't.

Overall, there's enough of a feel of the blind-bidding-loser-still-pays that this game only gets a solid
"average" rating from me. I like auction games in general, but this one is near the bottom of that
list. I prefer Modern Art, Princes of Florence, Vegas Showdown, O Zoo Le Mio, For Sale. I haven't
tried Ra or Amun Re, but I expect they'd rate higher, too.

Theme is very, very thin.

This is a neat game. The board's artwork and layout are very attractive, but also serve as a reminder
Aladdin's Dragons is a pretty game and as a game that uses blind bidding, it is quite solid. But this
3.結算 從左下開始照路線一個一個結算，打開該地點所有標記，根據數字總和行動，平手照
順位，所有地點結算完才所有標記回手進入下輪
>龍穴 拿資源，資源會放在人數-1個櫃子中，照數字大小從最上面開始拿
>阿拉丁帳篷 拿魔法卡，數字最大才有效果(魔法版本使用)
>精靈房屋 可使用兩個神器，數字最大才有效果(魔法版本使用)
>市場 可以資源1換3，數字最大才有效果
>駱駝 選擇誰當起始玩家，數字最大才有效果
>宮殿守衛 打開守衛標記，數值超過等於守衛值才能在宮殿買神器，差值可用任意資源數補
足，少於的人把宮殿房間的標記都移除
>宮殿房間 左到右結算，照數值順序選擇是否買神器，要支付他放的標記數字個資源，如果
兩個以上標記，每個標記要用不同資源支付，幾個人使用幾間，每輪一間賣一個

*遊戲在所有神器賣完，買最多的人勝利
***魔法版本***
*神器卡根據種類分類，每種使用同等玩家數，每人拿一個阿拉丁神燈，剩下的洗勻每疊五張
放到宮殿去，魔法卡洗運蓋著放到阿拉丁帳篷
1.準備階段 額外打開每疊神器打第一張，如果打開就不用
*每輪任意時間可使用神器跟魔法卡，使用的神器展示放到屏幕前，回合結束收回，魔法卡丟
棄，多人使用時全部出完再照順位結算
***神器***
>阿拉丁神燈 此輪可使用魔法卡，張數不限
>反擊咒語 可無效化別人的魔法卡
>兩倍 選擇一個自己在地點開著的標記複製，視為一個額外標記
>飛毯 放到任意要結算地點，視為一個3點的標記

>鑰匙 可無視數值通過宮殿守衛，可不放標記
>卷軸 平手比卷軸數
Excellent game. I always want to use more chips than I have and so the magic carpet early on can be a
There seems to be some thought out there that this is some sort of blind-bidding auction game. That i

Blind Bidding game with worker placement aspects by Richard Breeze (Keyflower). Players bid for
resources and special effects by placing their tokens (numbered 1 to 9) with different numbers face
down at different spots.
In order to get into the palace, the guard has to be bribed (by bidding). If you bid higher than the
guards random number, you get in. Otherwise, you have to pay the difference.
In the palace, players bid for artifacts (which you need to win the game and which also grant
special effects). Players again place their tokens here and the highest bidder must pay the amount
of resources equal to his bid (if the player cannot pay, the second highest bidder can try and so on).

# Better with higher player counts 4-5

# Family / gateway game, but may leave bad feelings when you are frequently outbid
# High interactivity

Similar games:
* Lockup!
Yes, it's a blind bidding game, but it's a great game regardless. How much should I pay for 5 red
treasures? Will I have enough for the Flying Carpet artifact in the palace? Maybe I should bid on
the space that allows me to play two artifacts... just in case. I highly recommend this game that has
lots of tough decisions and is oozing with theme.

UPDATE: Bumping the rating up to 8 after a few more plays. What can I say? I'm a sucker for the
blind bidding and bluffing mechanism. This game is a real treat with the right people.

UPDATE: Bumping this to a 9 after even more plays. I really enjoy this game. The magic system
leads to some tough decisions as to when artifacts are played. And as we all know, tough decisions
are what makes board games so entertaining. It's just rock solid fun.

A hidden information game where so much information is hidden that you might start to wonder 'what's
Very good blind bidding game with wonderful bits and art. Remake of Keydom. Lots of choices every tu
Also published as Aladdin's Dragons in America. This is a revised and improved version of Richard Bre

If you can handle blind bidding which allows for a lot of bluffing you can really enjoy this game. I
find that the spells are underused. You need to save them up and unleash many at once. You need
to be aggressive at going after the artifacts at the beginning when they are cheap and easy to get
and everyone else is concentrating on raising cash.

This is one of the games where the theme is evocative and permeates every aspect of the game.

Perhaps the 3 treasure is the first one to go for before the key, as once you have that you can mess
with a lot of bids, or drop a 3 in a bid for a treasure. One spell forcing everyone else to place their
bids showing is particularly nasty.

Ideal with 5, but need to give it a try with 4 some time.

Bought August 2007. German edition, Morgenland. Not yet played.

July 2008. Have now completed applying the spell card paste-ups, a long overdue action. I used
some surplus card sleeves from my Magic days, and simply slipped in the english text along with
the cards. Each player will get an artifact summary with their shields. Still not played, but getting
closer...

UPDATE 090329. Have now had my first game of Morgenland. Plays excellently, with a real old-
school german game flavour. Divide scarce influence between gaining & applying resouces, with
the right mix of second-guessing, random resources & blind-bidding.

Very good stuff, well worth the time taken in pasting this up (or, sleeving w/slips & printing out the
English rules).
German version, Morgenland.

First off, the bits and boards are gorgeous. Very lavish and no expense spared. The game play itself
is ok.

In typical Breese fashion, players are blindly bidding for positions on the board: these translate to
currency that will eventually be used to buy artifacts from the Shah's palace.

Players with most artifacts win!

In addition, there are spell cards and artifact abilities to screw the mix up. Artifact and spell card
effects are highly imbalanced. Some are rubbish and some are overly useful (this problem also
appears in Breese's Keythedral law cards).

The game is a little too repetitive for my taste. I recommend removing some artifact cards to
reduce the length of the a typical game.

Need to get a second play in. Blind bidding game with alot going on. It really pays to pay attention
to what people are collecting and what you are collecting. I started to do that a couple of rounds
too late. My first play was without using magic, so I imagine that would add a ton more to do and
how to manipulate you getting certain items.

So, either this game will go up to a 7 with the magic included or it could drop to a 6 (or lower) if the
magic makes it even more chaotic and drags the game out longer.

Feb 2019 - So, roughly 9 years later I played again, with magic. I liked it much better this time.
Maybe it was just the day, I dunno. But we had fun and it was tight as hell. Wish I would have kept
a copy.
username rating Column1

BonesJackson 9 2877
PBrennan 7 2208
sbszine 9 2193
cymric 5 1986
Starsunsky 6 1803
Jim40percent 3 1357
CortexBomb 2 1315
dwarf 8.5 1282

shadow_bind 7 1149
thoia 7 1133

gashlycrumb 7 1104
caltexn 8 1086
Admiral Fisher 8.5 1083

cbazler 6 997

JoSch 6 997
familywontplay 6.7 958

FlyingArrow 5 944
cktjharris 8 940
freechinanow 7 924
paul10liao 6.5 901
POvidiusNaso 7 878
seppo21 7 873

ajewo N/A 865

mrspank 9 807
chux vomitus 5.5 781
alkaiser 8 779
madhatterboardgames N/A 748

autumnweave 8 747

kgm3219 8.5 743

shawn_low 6.5 730

bop517 7 727