Agricola

(image courtesy cuazzel @ BGG)
There's a new king in town and it goes by the name Agricola. For quite a long time Puerto Rico claimed the number one spot in the rankings over at BoardGameGeek. When Agricola released at Essen in 2007 it quickly climbed and at some point last year it finally knocked Puerto Rico off its throne. Agricola had a lot of buzz about it and the speed which it rose was really quite impressive; is the game equally as amazing?

Agricola is a worker placement game about farming. The game takes place over 16 rounds with harvests happening after every few. Over the course of the game you will place your family members (initially two but you may get more later) to raise animals, plow fields, sow crops, expand and renovate your house, bake bread, collect food and much more. There are a lot of aspects to the game and essentially you earn points for everything you've managed to do and lose points for the things you haven't.

As a worker placement game I think Agricola succeeds. There are a lot of different areas to place your family members and even with five players there's almost always something useful you can do each turn. One aspect I really like is that there is a base set of actions (determined by the number of players) and then each round another action is made available. Family members determine how many actions you'll be performing each round so as you grow your family and as more actions come up you do get a sense of growth and accomplishment as you manage to do more each turn.

(image courtesy richardsgamepack @ BGG)

One of the more interesting parts of the game are the occupation and improvement cards. Each player is dealt seven of each at the start of the game and will be able to bring these cards into play over the course of the game. What's most impressive is that every single card is unique and there are even three different decks that come with the game but only one is used at a time. This means there is a ton of replay value as you'll probably never be dealt the exact same set of cards twice. There's also a good chance these cards will help you formulate your strategy and set your course for the game.

Unfortunately this also leads to one of my main complaints with Agricola. The occupations and improvements do a lot of cool and varied things but I feel there is a significant luck-of-the-draw aspect to the game. Sometimes you just get dealt really awesome cards that work well together. If you don't have that same level of synergy you are already at a significant disadvantage.

I've discovered that Agricola really stresses me out but not in a good way. There is something like a dozen different areas where you can gain or lose points. Generally you need to make sure you are doing a little bit of everything; focusing too much on one aspect means you are forgoing something else and losing points. You'll feel real despair when the end of the game is rolling in and you see how much more stuff everyone else has managed to accomplish compared to you. Case in point: I think my highest scoring game was my first when I had no idea what I was doing. I played turn-to-turn and did whatever looked best at the time. Every game since then I've tended to focus on whatever I was lacking in last time, meaning something else was ignored and my scores suffered greatly. I've found the trick is to really play more tactically and try to maximize each turn rather than try and plan some great strategy. Take what you can when you can get it and you'll do well.

(image courtesy timsteen @ BGG)
I also feel like the game is dull for the first half to two thirds of the game and then really quickly escalates towards the end. There's a good chance you won't be getting your third family member until nearly halfway through the game and harvests come more quickly towards the end. Usually it seems like things really don't start clicking until round 10 or later at which point you are well over halfway through the game and often things won't really come together for you until the last couple of rounds when you fill in those last few missing pieces that you need. It'd be nice if the game had a more gradual curve than the somewhat sudden crecendo I often feel.

For all my complaining, though, I do think that Agricola is a good game. Does it deserve the number one spot on BoardGameGeek? Probably not. The mechanics are solid and the game has really high replay value which is fantastic. Unfortunately I think the cards can put you at a disadvantage from the start and I find having to do a little bit of everything not as satisfying as other games where you can really focus on a strategy and see it unfold. I'm not going to turn down a game of Agricola and I might even recommend it from time to time, but generally there are other games I'd rather play.

Dominion

(image courtesy monteslu @ BGG)
BoardGameGeek - while a great site - isn't always a good thing for me. Whenever a new release really catches on there I have a tendency to fight against that game; I'm always skeptical that it can be remotely as good as the masses claim. Early reviews are always in that honeymoon period (which I get caught up in as well) so it can take a little while for the game to "settle" to its proper place on the site. Dominion caught like a wildfire when it released which is surprising since it's just a card game and the BoardGameGeek community tends to favor more in-depth strategy games. Race for the Galaxy had a similar fever around it when it released and while I think it is a good game the complexity and learning curve means it rarely hits the table. With comparisons being drawn between the two on BoardGameGeek I found myself having a hard time getting excited about Dominion.

Then I played the game and realized what the fuss was all about.

Dominion is a deck building card game for two to four players. There are 25 different kingdom decks that come with the game, 10 of which will be in use for a single match. You'll also find copper, silver and gold cards - the currency in the game - and estate, duchy and province cards - worth 1, 2 and 3 victory points respectively. Player start with seven copper and three estates, shuffle them up and draw five into their hand. Over the c0urse of the game players will be playing cards from their hand to acquire new kingdom cards which will in turn allow them to earn yet more cards. The ultimate goal is to pick up victory points. Once either the provinces or three of the 10 kingdom card stacks runs out, the game is over and whomever has the most victory points wins.

(image courtesy garyjames @ BGG)

What makes Dominion so brilliant is that the rules are incredibly simple. On your turn you have an action and a buy that can be done in any order. Your action allows you to play a card marked as an action from your hand. Many action cards give you more actions (listed as +1 action) or more buys (+1 buy). More actions allow you to play further action cards from your hand, possibly chaining them together. Each buy allows you to purchase one kingdom card using the money cards in your hand. Everything purchased, spent and unused from your hand is put in your discard pile and you draw five new cards, reshuffling your discard pile as needed.

That's really it! Dominion is a deck building game and everyone starts on equal footing with the same 10-card deck. On your turn you'll be able to purchase new cards which go directly into your discard pile and will get shuffled in when you need to reshuffle. It is a great mechanic because you are trying to seed your deck with the proper types and amounts of cards that you feel will get to you victory the fastest. The fate of your game is mostly in your hands based on how you build your deck with a little bit of lucked tossed in based on what cards you draw.

The rest of the rules are printed on the cards themselves. For example, play the Cellar and you get +1 Action plus you can discard any number of cards from your hand and redraw new ones. The Woodcutter gives you +1 buy and two more copper to spend on your turn. As you look at the available cards you'll be able to visualize combos building up that allow you to burn through your deck more quickly and get to the cards you need.

(image courtesy Filippos @ BGG)
While all these actions are nice, money and victory points are extremely important. Provinces - worth three victory points - have a cost of 8. If you can't get 8 worth of money into your hand you'll never have a chance of winning the game. Copper is worth 1, silver worth 2 and gold worth 3. You don't want to flood your deck with copper because you need eight of them to get a province, whereas three gold gets you there too. Since your initial hand is only five cards, you need to find a balance between more actions to draw through your deck and more efficient money to get you more with less.

What's really brilliant is that victory points are also cards that get shuffled into your deck. They have no inherit value and are of no use to you while you play the game, they are just your points at the end. Any victory points you draw into your hand are dead weight so you need to start the game early by building up your infrastructure of actions and money and at some point switch over to grabbing victory points. Finding the proper balance for your deck and deciding when to make that transition is your key to success. Once one player picks up the first province it is often an arms race to grab the rest.

Not only is Dominion incredibly simple it is also just a lot of fun to play. With 25 different kingdom cards the game is going to play different every time. Even with the same set of 10 kingdom cards in play there will probably be at least two or three viable ways to build your deck, maybe even more. Everyone will find a slightly different balance and it's hard to describe the satisfaction I find in selecting the right cards, building up my deck and seeing it execute properly. It's also interesting how your card draws influence what cards you plan on buying. I may have bought a few Cellars but based on their distribution in my reshuffle I might feel like they just aren't coming up often enough and will try to play accordingly. There's an interesting balance in building your deck mathematically to play the odds and playing by gut reaction as you go.

(image courtesy EndersGame @ BGG)

I honestly have no complaints about the game. The artwork is a little bland but it works and doesn't distract you at all. It is a little pricey for a box of cards but the game is very well designed and a ton of fun; you'll get your money's worth. My main fear is the upcoming expansions. There is another full 25 set of kingdom cards being released soon. It'll function as a standalone game but can also be mixed in with the base set. I think there are more expansions planned. My fear is that it'll just get too bloated with all of these expansions and the fun will get lost along the way. Thankfully the base game is enough fun and has so much replay value that I'm not sure a person would never need to get these expansions. I just don't want them to dilute the value of the game by pumping out too many expansions too quickly.

Nobody is forcing me to buy expansions, though, so I'm going to continue to enjoy Dominion for a long time to come. It is incredibly easy to teach, has a lot of replay value and is highly satisfying to play. A couple of guys in our group have had a somewhat lukewarm reception to it, but overall it has been received with great enthusiasm. I think it will be a staple for our gaming group going forward.

Battlestar Galactica

(image courtesy Surya @ BGG)
Competitive/cooperative games are sort of the new hotness in board games. Shadows Over Camelot is one of the most popular in the genre but there are others like Bang!, Saboteur and Betrayal at House on the Hill. Typically these styles of games have players working together against the game system; the catch is that one or more players are secretly working against the "good guys" and are trying to make them lose. It's a really interesting mechanic that adds a lot of tension to a game and generally results in a lot of player interaction.

Battlestar Galactica is the newest in this style of game. I'm a huge fan of the television series so I was both excited and nervous about the game. Like video games, board game movie tie-ins generally don't turn out to be that good. Usually they are just a cash-in on the franchise. Early press made Battlestar Galactica sound like little more than Shadows Over Camelot with a science fiction twist. Thankfully it turned out to be much more!

(image courtesy @ henk.rolleman BGG)

Here's a real quick rundown of the story as it applies to the board game. Humans created a robotic race called Centurions to do their bidding. Eventually the Centurions rebelled, left on their own and created the Cylons, robots that look and act exactly like humans. Finally the Cylons invaded the human home world of Caprica and forced the remaining survivors to flee and look for a new home. The humans are looking for the mythical planet of Earth and need to get to the planet Kobol which supposedly will point them in the right direction. They are being chased by the Cylons, though, and worse yet have no idea who in the fleet may in fact be one of them!

Mechanically this sets the game up perfectly for a hidden traitor mechanic. At the start of the game everyone picks a character and is then dealt a loyalty card that says if you are human or Cylon. If you are human you want to get the fleet to Kobol; if you are Cylon you want to blow up Battlestar Galactica, overtake the ship or make the humans run out of resources. Only one side will come out victorious.

As a Cylon you generally want to keep your loyalty hidden as you can do a lot of damage that way. Each turn players draw a set of skill cards of five different possible colors, defined on their character sheet. Then they take a "good" action which might involve fighting Cylon ships, repairing Galactica or throwing someone in the brig. After that you are forced to resolve an event which is never good. These represent things like new Cylon ships appearing, prison riots, hostage negotiations and the like. At the bottom of the card are symbols showing if Cylon ships attack and if the battlestar spins up its faster-than-light (FTL) drives which is key to jumping closer to Kobol.

(image courtesy filwi @ BGG)
The top portion of the card is typically some sort of skill check to pass or a decision to be made and these are the real crux of the game. Decisions are made by either the current player, the president or the admiral (roles that are assigned to players over the course of the game). Usually you have to pick between two different bad things and decide which is the lesser of two evils. Skill checks make up the bulk of the event cards. On the card is shown a target level, which of the five skill card colors apply towards success and what happens if you pass or fail the check. First, two random skill cards are added to start the pile, then going around the table each player has the option of playing face-down as many skill cards as they would like. Once all the cards are in the pile is shuffled and the cards are totaled. Each skill card matching the colors on the event adds its value towards success while each non-matching cards subtracts its value. If the total equals or exceeds the target you pass, otherwise you fail.

This part of the game really lets the hidden Cylons mess with the humans. Assuming everyone is loyal there should be a maximum of two bad cards in the stack if both random cards were bad. Everything else should be good. If not, you know someone intentionally played a bad skill card! As a Cylon you can try to toss in bad cards to push the event towards failure but you risk revealing yourself. While you don't know who threw in a specific card, process of elimination based on what color the card was and what skill cards each player draws can help narrow down the traitors. There's also the possibility for some bluffing and blame-laying; you can even toss in cards to try and frame someone else! The amount of mind-games and deduction is extremely fun and players are always interested as the totals are added up.

There's one more mechanic that makes Battlestar Galactica work. At the start of the game the loyalty deck is built with a specific number of human and Cylon cards based on the number of players. Only half of the deck is dealt out at the start, giving each player a single loyalty card. Roughly halfway through the game the second half of the deck is dealt, giving each player a second loyalty card. This means you may have been a loyal human at the start but you have now switched and become a Cylon! Players may have had everything figured out from the start but halfways through it can almost become a new game as the paranoia settles in all over again.

(image courtesy avyssaleos @ BGG)

While I love Battlestar Galactica, it isn't perfect. My first complaint is that they used stills from the show for a lot of the artwork; this is going to make the game age really poorly. Second, the pace of the game is often determined by the random event deck. Sometimes you can go awhile without anything too exciting happening. Granted, skill checks always keep people involved but the game is typically more "fun" when there are Cylon ships attacking as well. There's also the possibility for a player to get stuck and unable to contribute much to the game if they are in the brig or keep getting sent to sickbay. Finally, it is a long game (plan on 3-4 hours) and might outstay its welcome for some.

For me, though, Battlestar Galactica is pretty much the ultimate competitive/cooperative game. It improves upon other games in the genre by adding in the second round of loyalty cards (allowing for changing loyalties) and players are involved every single round as they add cards to skill checks. I do think it runs a bit long and there are some minor balance issues but I've had a ton of fun every time I've played. It does a great job of invoking the feeling of the show and I think fans of the series will get into the game even more. Both sides of the game - human and Cylon - are engaging throughout the entire game, something other games in the genre struggle with. Assuming we have the time, Battlestar Galactica will always be my "traitor" game of choice.

Railroad Tycoon and Rails of Europe

I'll admit it, I'm a sucker for expansions. If a publisher adds on to an existing board game, odds are I'll end up getting. Often expansions add more content, simply adding on to the base game (Descent: Journeys in the Dark). Others make changes to the original game that some argue are critical to truly enjoying the game (Twilight Imperium 3rd edition). You also have expansions that give you new ways to play the existing game (expansion maps for Power Grid). Rails of Europe is the first expansion for Railroad Tycoon and it is a mix of all the above; thankfully it turned out to be great.

First, a bit on Railroad Tycoon. As the name implies it is a rail game where each player works to build the best rail company they can. The game features a hex map of the eastern United States. Cities of various colors are located around the map and each starts with a certain number of randomly-colored cubes. Ultimately the goal is to build links of track and deliver these cubes to cities of the matching color. You earn a victory point for each link of yours that the cube travels over; it is possible to use other player's links to get to your destination but you feed them points in the process. The number of links you may use per delivery is based on your engine size which may be upgraded over the course of the game. Whoever has the most points at the end wins.

(image courtesy EndersGame @ BGG)

One of the more interesting concepts in the game is that you start with no money. Income is based on how many victory points you have; outside of that you must take shares to get money. Shares are subtracted from your income at the end of the round (considered to be paying dividends) and each share is worth minus one victory point at the end of the game. You may never get rid of shares so each one you take is one less point for you when all is said and done. Early on you need to take shares so you have enough money to get started but take too many and you are hurting yourself in the long run. Planning early short deliveries to earn points to get you going while setting up long routes and getting your engine upgraded is where the real fun of the game lies.

All of this works really well and the core mechanics are solid. Unfortunately a few things hold Railroad Tycoon from being great. First, the map of the United States is way too crowded in the northeast and far too sparse everywhere else. You can't let one person control the New York area so you'll have two or three players fighting it out there while others pretty much do their own thing in another part of the map. Play with less than six and you can go the entire game without ever having to run into another player. Second, the track laying rules are far too ambiguous when it comes to rivers. You are supposed to pay an extra $3000 when crossing a river but there's always arguments over what is considered "crossing" thanks to how the map is drawn. Third, there are cards dealt out each round that players may purchase to give them extra bonuses. Some cards are actually bonus points for successfully connecting two cities. It is impossible to plan for these because you never know if or when they'll come up so it actually feels a little random when people manage to score those points.

(image courtesy keithblume2 @ BGG)
Enter Rails of Europe. The core mechanics are all the same: lay track, deliver goods, earn points. What you get is a new map, a new deck of cards and some rule changes.

First off, the Europe map is awesome. It may not quite be as accurate a representation of Europe but it is perfect in terms of game balance. Cities are spread out nicely and there are far fewer of them meaning everyone is going to be thrown into the fray. They also cleaned up the track cost rules, getting rid of the highly ambiguous river crossing. Now if there is any water in a hex it costs $3000. It might not be quite as realistic but I think the simplicity really helps the game flow much more smoothly and makes the map more balanced. Another very nice change is that the city connection bonuses are no longer in the deck of cards but are all printed on the map and available from the start of the game. It allows players to build strategies around these connections and get some bonus points early on to help offset the much more challenging map build conditions.

Essentially every single complaint I have with Railroad Tycoon is fixed with Rails of Europe. The map is better, the rules are simpler and the game play is tighter and far more fierce. Our group has played several games of Railroad Tycoon before but when we set up Rails of Europe for the first time we just all stared at the map, uncertain of how to formulate our strategies. It really is a different game.

(image courtesy EndersGame @ BGG)

There's really only one remaining issue: the color choices for the cities and cubes are terrible. In the original print of Railroad Tycoon they did a very poor job matching the dye colors of the blue and purple cubes to the blue and purple cities on the map. They've since fixed that but now it is difficult to tell the blue and black cities apart, especially when you have bad glare on the glossy map. With so many colors and hues to pick from I'm not sure why they had to pick ones that look so similar. Thankfully there aren't many cities in Rails of Europe so it is easy to point out which cities are what color and people can easily remember. Still, I'd love to see them fix up the colors some day.

Outside of that I honestly think Rails of Europe fixes everything that was wrong with Railroad Tycoon. As Rails of Europe only supports five players and Railroad Tycoon supports six the only time I'll probably ever play the base game again is if we have the full compliment of six. I'm hoping that Rails of Europe does well because I would really like to see Eagle Games put out more expansion maps. If they can keep up this level of game play quality I think having a variety of maps will really add a lot of life and replay value to the game. Rails of Europe easily bumped Railroad Tycoon up several notches for me and it is a game I will always be willing to play. It really hits that sweet spot of complexity, depth and play time.

Finally, I will mention this is another game where you will want poker chips to replace the paper money. Paper money equals bad, poker chips equal good. You would be wise to remember that.

Vegas Showdown

(image courtesy Shadowen @ BGG)
I've previously talked about Nexus Ops, an Avalon Hill game that should not be judged by its cover art. Clearly Avalon Hill needs some new artists because Vegas Showdown falls into that exact same category. The box and even the components are very lackluster but the game itself turned out to be a real surprise.

Vegas Showdown is a game of making the best hotel/casino possible. You will be bidding against other players for new rooms to place in your building. These rooms bring in more income, allow for more guests and ultimately earn you points. Each turn some new rooms get placed out if the bidding table has open spots, players earn income and take turns bidding on the rooms up on the auction block. Winner pays for their new building tile, places it on their building mat and play continues until one of the stacks of buildings is exhausted or one player completely fills up their building.

(image courtesy kilroy_locke @ BGG)

The auction system in Vegas Showdown is extremely simple. There are bidding tracks next to each tile that is up for sale. On your turn you place your bidding token on one of those tracks. If someone else is already on a track you must outbid them and they get their piece back to rebid when their turn comes around. Once everyone has placed their bid token you pay for your tiles, place them, adjust your income/capacity/victory points accordingly and do it all over again.

That's pretty much Vegas Showdown. It really is that simple. There's a pretty healthy dose of luck as to which tiles get turned over and what special effects kick in when new tiles are revealed but the player that paces their purchases and picks up the right tiles at the right time will certainly do well. Unpurchased rooms drop in price each round so there's also decisions to make on how long you wait for something to drop in price before jumping on it. What really impresses me is that I've seen people win using very different strategies. Some of the rooms may only be placed if you have the prerequisite room and the quantities are limited so you also have to decide which rooms you really want to battle over.

(image courtesy ronster0 @ BGG)
What impresses me most is that there are several different paths to victory. You might shoot for the very nice rare rooms, build out lots of smaller rooms, focus on rooms that nicely fill out your building mat or just go for the really good deals. The rules are very simple - you can likely explain the entire game in under five minutes - meaning you can dive right in and the fun is immediately apparent. There's enough depth to the game and interesting decisions to be made, though, so the game feels interesting every time. Placing rooms in your building also has a very nice puzzle aspect as you try and maximize your available building spots and points earned.

If you do pick up Vegas Showdown, be sure to have a set of poker chips handy. The game does technically come with chips to represent the players' money but they are really cheap, thin plastic chips. Using a nice set of weighted poker chips goes a long ways towards adding to the Vegas feel of the game and just makes the game more enjoyable. Unfortunately the other components are on the cheap side as well: player mats are glossy paper instead of boards and minimum bid discs tokens are small red discs that slide around too easily.

I'd love to see a premium version of Vegas Showdown released sometime with upgraded components. The game is well worthy of a re-release and deserves the royal treatment. If you can find a copy, be sure to pick it up. You won't be disappointed.

Hollywood Blockbuster

(image courtesy TheKeck @ BGG)
Auction games are hit-and-miss for me. As I mentioned in my post on Modern Art, I'm terrible at evaluating the worth of things. I did eventually come to like Modern Art, though, and I do really enjoy other auction games like Ra, For Sale and Nefertiti. When I first discovered the original German version of Hollywood Blockbuster - called Traumfabrik - I was extremely interested. Rebuilding classic films using actors and directors of my choice sounded like a lot of fun and the game is by Reiner Knizia, one of the most prolific game designers out there. It seemed like a sure thing even with my uncertainty on auction mechanics.

Traumfabrik was only available in Germany for quite some time until Uberplay finally brought the game to the US as Hollywood Blockbuster. The theme remained the same but they had to replace all of the real actors and film with parodies. At first I was extremely annoyed by the change but after playing the game I realized it really didn't make that big of a difference. In fact when I play I typically see the titles and names as the things they are trying to parody and just ingore the terrible puns (like actors Nickeless Wage and Keanu Breeze).

(image courtesy ronster0 @ BGG)

Hollywood Blockbuster takes place over four years as players try to put together the best films possible. A year has three auctions and two parties where players will be able to acquire the components needed to complete their films (actors, directors, special effects, cameras, etc.). The first auction is strictly for a high profile director while the others are for a random set of film components. There are also two parties where players get a component based on who has the most popular actors in their films. A film's final value is the combined value of all the film's components. When you complete a film you immediately score its points. At the end of each year bonus points are given for the most valuable film and at the end of the game bonus points are also given to the best film in each category (comedy, drama, action) and also for the worst film. Whoever has the most points at the end wins.

That portion of the game works fairly well and people always have fun trying to complete their films and make them the best - or the worst - possible. Unfortunately things break down once we dive into the auction mechanic behind it all.

Each player starts the game with a certain number of contracts which are the currency for the game. That starting amount is fixed; no money will enter or leave the game. Each auction players take turns going around the table making bids for the film components currently up for sale until someone finally wins the auction. Here's the catch: the winner's bid gets redistributed evenly amongst all the other players. If there is a remainder it sits in the middle and gets redistributed with the next auction.

(image courtesy hotrodqt @ BGG)
I find this leads to a real problem with the game. There are only six auction each year. Since your bid gets redistributed, winning an auction means you are immediately poorer and all of your opponents are now richer, making it increasingly less likely for you to win the next auction. In practice what happens is players need to pick a couple of auctions they feel are imporant for them to win and focus on those, holding out on the others to make sure they get the proceeds and guarantee them enough money to win the auctions they want. The bidding process feels rather shallow because it is generally in your best interest to maximize your bid on the auction you need. There's no real disadvantage because you'll get your money back in a few rounds.

What I've found is that this ultimately leaves you without many interesting decisions to make over the course of the game. Pick a couple of rounds that matter and make sure you have enough contracts to win them. With no way for money to enter or leave the game its just a matter of timing your auctions so you have money when you need it.

(image courtesy P47 Thunderbolt @ BGG)

My second complaint is that it generally feels like it is in your best interest to complete films as quickly as possible and there's little room for other strategies. If one person is tearing through films they are likely going to win the game. Trying to save up and pile all of your most valuable film components on a single movie means you aren't finishing other films and you aren't getting points. There are a limited number of films in the game, so it is also quite possible that there will simply be no more films for you to complete as other players gobble them all up. Also, while having a bonus for worst film is a clever touch it is rarely worth specifically trying to grab the worst film. I don't think I've ever seen anyone intentionally pursue worst film and even come close to winning the game.

You should be able to finish a game of Hollywood Blockbuster in a half hour to forty five minutes, though, which is nice when you need a quick filler. It is also fairly easy to teach and the theme will appeal to many so it is a good intro game or a game for a younger crowd. In that regard I think Hollywood Blockbuster works quite well. Unfortunately I don't think most serious gaming groups will find much satisfaction playing Hollywood Blockbuster with their peers.

El Grande

(image courtesy roboman @ BGG)
It is good to show respect for your elders. Euro-style games really started to become popular in 1995 with the release of Settlers of Catan which really introduced and reintroduced many concepts that are standard in modern board games: resources, victory points and no player elimination. It's a game that introduced many people to the hobby and is one of the most popular board games out there. What some forget is that another game also came out that year: El Grande, the father of area control games.

The game board in El Grande represents Spain broken into a handful of provinces and also features the castillo, a massive upright wooden tower. Players take turns placing wooden cubes called caballeros in an attempt to have the most cubes per region. El Grande lasts nine rounds and scoring is performed after every third round. Each territory earns point values for first, second and third place and whoever has the most points at the end wins.

I suppose the concept of area control may have very well appeared in games prior to El Grande but it generally seems to be considered the inspiration for every area control game that followed (of which there are many). There are three major things that make El Grande unique not only from area control games but from most games in general:

(image courtesy garyjames @ BGG)

The Castillo - It is impossible to look at El Grande and not comment on the castillo, a massive black wooden tower on the game board. The castillo serves two purposes. First, it is a territory like any other on the map that players may place their caballeros on. You must drop your pieces in the tower, though, and may not peek inside so there is a bit of a memory element if you wish to compete for points. Second, your pieces are moved from the castillo to a single province in Spain prior to scoring, making the castillo a stall tactic to allow you to make a last-minute adjustment to your current standing on the map.

Province Dials - Each player has a cardboard disc with an arrow and all of the province names listed. Most any time multiple players need to pick a province they do so secretly on their spinner and then all players reveal simultaneously. This secret selection mechanism causes some antagonizing moments as you attempt to out-guess and out-maneuver your opponents.

(image courtesy Nodens77 @ BGG)
The King - Aside from the castillo the next most prominent piece on the board is the king marker. The king sits in a single province and prevents the players from affecting that province in almost any fashion for the course of that round. Also, when players move new caballeros on the board they may only be played in territories adjacent to the king. Smart use of the king allows players to lock in points and protect a key territory while making sure they are not giving others players too much benefit by denying access to territories they need.

What gives El Grande its legs are the action and power cards. Each player has a hand of power cards numbered one through thirteen that shows a value and a number of caballeros. In turn order players choose one of their power cards but may not choose a value already played by someone else this round. You then pick and resolve action cards in order from high to low power card. There are four stacks of action cards with enough of each to last over nine rounds (meaning some in each stack will not be used each game) along with a fifth power card that always lets you move the king. These action cards allow the players to put a certain number of caballeros on the board and optionally perform some special ability. The abilities are the heart of the game and let players perform a variety of actions like move the king, force your opponents to move caballeros, manually shuffle caballeros around yourself, score a province early and so on. As the action cards are revealed randomly you never know exactly what events to expect or the order they'll occur. There is still plenty of room to strategize around the cards but their random nature adds a fair amount of replay value.

(image courtesy henk.rolleman @ BGG)

I really only have two complaints with the game. First, the text on the action cards is pretty bare-bones. There are more detailed instructions in the manual but the inclusion of even a couple of key words would've prevented you from having to reference the rule book. Second, the game's terminology is not very intuitive. Players have cubes representing their caballeros in two piles, one that is immediately available for placement and the other is your unavailable pool. The available pool is called your "court" and your unavailable pool is called your "provinces." It usually takes players awhile to wrap their heads around the terms but it is very important to know the difference as several action cards specify one or the other.

El Grande is a game every gamer should play, if only to see where many games got their inspiration from. In this case it is an oldie and a goody. You have a lot of very challenging decisions to make when picking your actions and then figuring out how to best exercise (or not exercise) the special ability. The rules are very easy to teach and while some of the terminology is odd players tend to pick it up fast. I might catch some flack for this but I think that Settlers feels a bit dated. The artistic style and the gameplay mechanics put it in the 90s. El Grande, on the other hand, has aged well and I think it'll stand the test of time.