1) Playing a game about German political elections while Germany is
in the midst of political election turmoil is surreal. From reading the news articles, I can tell that Die Macher captures the flavor of German elections very well. As one person on the Dallas Games mailing list said of the current headlines from Germany, "It's almost like a LARP of Die Macher!"
2) Luck plays more of a factor than I expected. While most of the game centers around careful strategy and planning, there are two facets of luck in the game.
a) Die rolling - There are some die rolls in Die Macher. This is mitigated by the fact that the six-sided dice only have numbers from 0-3, and that each player will roll a number of dice throughout the game. Except in extreme circumstances, a single die roll should not have a large effect on the game. I found it to be nearly a non-factor.
b) Opinion poll cards - This was a big surprise. Opinion poll cards could be extremely powerful, letting you trend two players up or down, depending on the specifics of the card. This can result in HUGE swings of votes, unless the player draws an opinion poll that trends his own color down and his opponent(s) up. This becomes more of a problem because the opinion polls are acquired using blind bidding. You never know if the poll is useful until after you purchase it. Twice in our game I paid a premium bid for an opinion poll, only to find that it trended me down. As a consolation prize you may always roll dice to gain national party, but forking over $30k+ to gain a couple of NP is a waste. Especially if you then roll poor dice and gain only 1 NP. (been there, done that) The luck of the opinion polls could have a large effect on individual elections, which in turn could affect the victory points in a significant way.
3) The time flew by. At no point in the game was I disengaged. If another player was taking a long time to act, that gave me more time to evaluate the board and consider the future elections. It's brilliant that the board shows not only the current election, but three elections out. I may have a good idea how the current election will play out, but I can always be thinking about future turns. There is always something to think about in this game, which makes time pass quickly. More designers of longer games (and even shorter ones *cough [Hansa] cough*) should keep this in mind.
4) One of the marks of a good game is it makes you think about it long after you've finished playing. Two days later, I'm still thinking about it.
5) A friend of mine asked me today "So did you like the game"? I guess I talked a lot yesterday about the mechanics of the game, but I didn't clearly express my opinion. Yes, I loved the game. The length makes it prohibitive to play more than occasionally (as does the scarcity and price of the game), but I would love to play this game every few months. It is as satisfying as any all-afternoon game I've played. Who wants to sell me a copy?!