Designer: Günter Burkhardt
Publisher: Kaissa Chess & Games, KOSMOS
Europa is the next game in line from KOSMOS' geography series (previous installments: Deutschland - Finden Sie Minden! and Globalissimo).
The game expands the idea from 'Deutschland' to a European map, where the players have to locate cities, rivers/lakes, landscapes/regions and historical sites. In doing so, the players can decide how much risk they take by choosing how detailed they get in their localization attempt.
The systems works more or less like betting at roulette; the smaller the region you guessed, the higher the return. But if you make a mistake you get nothing at all!
Europa is to 'Deutschland' what 'Ausgerechnet, Uppsala!' was to 'Ausgerechnet, Buxtehude!'. It just takes the game to another geographical level.
The only major difference is the catch-up mechanism: Instead of allowing trailing players to jump over occupied fields on the point track, the game reuses the 'barriers' from 'Globalissimo'. The leading player has to guess the country of a certain location in order to advance further on the point track. Trailing players can then proceed without such a trial. Additionally, the last player may make a bonus guess by correcting or detailing another player's guess for a bonus point.