New Bedford Kickstarter Preview

This post is not a review, but a preview for a game that is currently seeking funding on Kickstarter. Final art, components, and rules are subject to change.

Dice Hate Me Games was one of the first board game publishers to get their start on Kickstarter. They have done quite well for themselves and have a very strong reputation as a great company that puts out consistently great games.

Five of the Town action spaces

Next up from Chris and company is New Bedford. Designed by Nathaniel Levan at Oakleaf Games, New Bedford is a worker placement game set in the titular Massachusetts city during the time of whaling. Players will use their workers to collect resources, build buildings, and go on whaling expeditions.

Play takes place in phases. The first is the Action Phase, where players will take turns placing workers onto the seven starting action spaces, as well as any built buildings, and resolving their effects immediately. Town spaces are not blocked once workers are placed on them, but the player who places on each space first will get a bonus.

Light colored buildings can be used for actions,
while dark colored buildings are worth points at the end of the game.

Players will also be able to build their own buildings. Unlike Town spaces, buildings can only be used once per round. Additionally, the player who builds a building owns it, and can use it on future turns for free, while other players who use the building will have to pay the owner $1. There are also buildings which cannot be used as action spaces, but rather score the owning player points at the end of the game

After all players have place their workers, the Movement Phase will begin. All ships at sea will move 1 space up the whaling track towards the Return space. Then, the Whaling phase begins. Whaling tokens are drawn from the bag equal to the number of ships on the board. These tokens are then drafted by the players, with players who have ship farther out to sea choosing first. Whale tokens chosen this way are placed on the player's board, next to the corresponding ship. Any whale or open sea tokens that are leftover will be returned to the bag at the start of next round's whaling phase.

When a player's ship returns to port during the Movement phase, players will have to pay a "lay." Each whale token paid for, will earn the player points indicated on the token. Players can also choose to (or they may have to if they can't afford lays for all their whales) sell any whales tokens that return to port. When a player sells a whale token, she receives half of the cost of each sold token from the bank. Then, moving in clockwise order from the seller, each player will have the opportunity to purchase the sold tokens for the full cost. Any amount paid goes to the bank, and if a player cannot or chooses not to purchase whale tokens, the next player clockwise will have the opportunity, and so on.

The game continues in this way for 12 rounds. At the end of the game, players receive points for any whale tokens in their possession, any buildings which score points, and for leftover money ($5=1 point).

That's New Bedford! It is a very enjoyable game, with a refreshing mix of familiar mechanisms. The worker placement aspect is fun, since it both removes the tension of being locked out of spots, but retains the tension of having to prioritize placement because the bonuses for being first at a Town space are pretty good. The whaling mechanism is always very exciting, especially as the game goes on and the bag really only has a few whales mingling with a mess of worthless open sea tiles. I especially like the choice of having to either pay for your whales or sell a few for some much needed money. Should I sell for some quick cash, but then risk giving my opponent's the opportunity to score points? And once you've gone through that decision, the next time you're at sea you'll think twice before automatically taking the big 4 point whale (which costs $8 to bring back)! Or maybe you'll spend most of your time in Town, building up a bustling economy, and then waiting at the docks to buy the leftover whales from your overeager opponents with too many whales!

New Bedford does a lot of things right - but the best thing about the game is that it is one of those games that is easy to both learn and teach, but will surprise you with its depth after you dive in for subsequent plays.

If you think New Bedford sounds great, go pledge your support for the game on Kickstarter today!

Argent: The Consortium Review

Argent: The Consortium is the newest game from Level 99 Games. It was wildly successful on Kickstarter back in January, funding over 450%. In Argent, players use their wizards to earn enough votes from the consortium of a university in order to become the new chancellor.

Argent is primarily a worker placement game, but there are elements of card drafting, set collection, and special player powers also integrated as well. 

One of the best things about Argent is that there are 5 different kinds or workers (wizards) that each have a different ability either before or after they are placed. The red wizards, for instance, have the ability to knock other wizards off of placement spots, take the spot for themselves, and send the injured wizard to the infirmary.

Players' turns consist of taking a single action, which can consist of placing a wizard, playing a card, casting a spell, or passing. Worker spaces don't trigger until the end of the round. Once the round ends, the tiles that comprise the board trigger one after the other. All tiles have several spaces for wizards, and while the best ones are at the top of the tile and trigger first at the end of each round, these spots also require a badge - of which players only start with one.

There are three types of cards in the game. Spell cards, which players will acquire and then be able to activate once per round for a special ability, supporter cards, which will sometimes grant a special ability, and vault cards, which are a mix - treasures stay in play and can be activated once per round and consumables are played and discarded.

As I mentioned above, the goal of the game is to attract the most votes from the members of the consortium. The trick here is that the members of the consortium all start the game face down and secret. Players have to use their wizards to earn marks in order to gain information about what each voter is looking for - some will vote for the player with the most supporters from a certain school of magic or the player with the most money at the end of the game, etc.

The game ends after 5 rounds. End the end of the fifth round, the consortium cards are revealed, and rewarded to whoever meets the voters criteria. 

Argent: The Consortium does a lot of things differently from many worker placement games. First is the fact that players' turns do not always involve placing a worker. Adding card play into the mix changes the normal prioritization of worker placement games - not only do players need to decide which spots they need to take first, they also need to time snatching up those spots with resources or abilities they might need by taking an entire turn to play a card.

One thing that fell a little short for me is the hidden scoring conditions. Before my first couple plays, I was really excited about this concept. I really liked acquired marks so that I could get information about final scoring that my opponents didn't have and give me a direction to go in. The problem I have with this part of the game is two fold. First, there are 12 consortium votes available each round - but it was very rare in any of my playthroughs to see any players who had not placed out all or nearly all of their marks. The problem is that there are so many voters available that the variation of which voters are available each game is not very big. For the most part, players will want to try to get the most of everything, and need to find the consortium voters who are looking for specific color spells and supporters. I guess since my expectations for this mechanism were so high, I got to be a little let down after the fifth time I marked the "most gold" voter - not super exciting.

Another thing that I didn't love about Argent is the feeling that, even though the game adds a lot of really interesting twists to the worker placement genre, at its core, Argent's basic gameplay of "place a wizard, get resources," is still pretty stock worker placement. The different wizard's special powers didn't come into play nearly as often as I would have liked, and their abilities are not super exciting anyway.

Although those two factors didn't hit for me, I did have a great time playing Argent. The theme is great, and the twists the gameplay does offer are fun to play around with.

In addition, one of my favorite mechanical twists Argent throws in is the end of round trigger. In each game, there are a number of Bell Tower cards which grant a one-time bonus. Players can take one of these as their entire turn, but once the last card is taken, the round ends immediately. So players also share control over how long each round will last. Do you take the Bell Tower card with the resource you really need before the resolution phase? It's the second-to-last one there...will you have enough turns before the last one is taken to get everything done you need to get done?

Argent: The Consortium isn't going to set the worker placement genre on fire, but it is a very solid game, and one that I would recommend checking out! 7.5/10.

Jim would like to thank Level 99 Games for providing him with a review copy of Argent: The Consortium.

Praetor Review

Praetor is an upcoming worker placement game from NSKN Games set in ancient Rome. Players assume the role of a Roman engineer tasked with building up the Eternal City. Caesar will reward the engineer who can improve Rome the most!

The starting workers for the blue player. The dice on the right are available workers. The dice on the left are villagers, and not available.

Praetor is a worker placement game where your workers are represented by dice. The number of pips on each worker, represent how experienced that worker is. The more experienced a worker is, the more effective it is at performing many of the game's actions. At the same time, many of the actions players can send their workers to do will increase that worker's experience, but when workers get to 6 pips, they retire and are no longer considered active.

Building the wall tile to the right costs 2 marble and 2 weapons and would yield the player 10 favor points. This player would also get a bonus 6 favor points for having already built 2 wall tiles. 

Players can gain favor points in a variety of ways, but the main two are by managing their resources to build buildings or to build parts of Hadrian's Wall. The game ends once either the available building deck or wall deck is empty. On her turn, a player can choose between two basic actions (with a third option being introduced once certain tiles are built): build a new building or place a worker on an unoccupied building.



To build a new building, the player selects a building from those available, returns the required resources to the supply, and places the building into the city grid. Each building tile shows how many points the player receives for building it, and the player can also earn bonus points if she can place the tile in such a way that the color of the plazas in the corner of the tile match the tiles that have already been placed. Building a building requires a worker, and whichever worker is used to build, will gain an experience at the end of the round. Not only does the player building the building get favor points, she also is adding a new tile to the board - and one that she can get a benefit from even if other players use it.

If the blue player wanted to activate the Temple of Plutus, she would have to pay the yellow player 3 gold. She would then receive 1 point for all of her wood and stone - and her worker would return to her at experience level 5 at the end of the round.

To use a building, a player simply places one of her active workers onto the tile, and immediately receives the benefit. If the building was built by another player, she might have to pay an entrance fee to that player. If the city tile has a green circle, the worker used to activate that tile will not gain experience - only tiles with a red circle will grant a worker experience after being activated.

Most active workers (which are kept on the green spaces) cost 1 gold each at the end of each round, though they become more expensive once a player has 5. All retired workers (kept on the red spaces) cost 1 gold at the end of each round.

Obviously the most interesting thing about Praetor is that the workers in the game gain experience and eventually retire. This mechanism is made even more interesting by the fact that each worker a player has costs (at least) 1 gold at the end of each round. This includes retired workers. So having a worker gain experience is great, because they get stronger and can perform more powerful actions. It is also good because once a worker retires, the owning player gets bonus favor points (the earlier the better). But, having to pay for workers who are now retired can be a major drain on a player's economy. Figuring out the timing of when to retire workers is a lot of fun.

This balancing act is further complicated by the building tiles. I mentioned before that the red tiles will grant a worker experience, while green tiles will not. So one might think a viable strategy might be to level workers up to 5, and then use them on green tiles. This will certainly work - but not as well as one might think. The green tiles' activation abilities are not affected by a worker's experience. The market tile (which is green), for instance, allows a player to interact with the market - regardless of the experience level of the worker placed there, the action remains the same.

The awesome but AP inducing Market. The exchange rates on pictured on each player's personal board.

Speaking of the market - it is probably simultaneously one of my favorite and least favorite parts of the game. It is one of my favorite parts of the game because activating the market tile allows a player to interact with the market as many times as she wishes. None of this "one sale and one buy" nonsense! A player could sell all of her weapons and buy 20 wood - and get the rest back in gold if she wanted! The market is also one of my least favorite parts of the game for the very same reason. Having the ability to exchange money and resources to basically any equal combination of resources and money is very powerful, but involves a lot of calculation and planning - which slows the game to a halt. This introduction of a little analysis paralysis does not hurt Praetor too much, however, since aside from the market, the game flows at a rather nice pace. 

Praetor is a fantastic game. I think its biggest strength is while it does change things up a bit, it doesn't reach too much. It innovates just enough, while keeping the core ideas of worker placement intact. This allows players who speak the language of games to get into the game easily, while making the experience mechanism accessible and easily enjoyable - without having to jump through too many mental hoops to get there.

I would absolutely recommend Praetor to pretty much anyone who is reading this. I don't think it would be a good first worker placement game, but as a second or third game with this mechanism I don't think there are many more innovative, accessible, or interesting worker placement games to be found. I give it an 8.0/10. 

Jim would like to thank NSKN Games for providing him with a review copy of Praetor.

If you like Praetor, you might also be interested in: Bruxelles: 1893, Viticulture, or Lords of Waterdeep.

Bruxelles 1893 Review

Bruxelles 1893 is the first published game from Etienne Espreman - but after playing it, most people wouldn't be able to guess this. In fact, I've heard a few other reviewers mention that someone playing this game without knowing who designed it, might guess that it was designed by seasoned vet Stefan Feld. And I can't say I would disagree with that idea.

The Bruxelles board

In Bruxelles 1893, players are vying with the each other to become the most successful and famous architect in the Art Nouveau style. The main mechanism in Bruxelles is worker placement, though area control, auctioning, and card drafting mixed into the game in very interesting ways.



There are two boards in the game - the Art Nouveau board is modular and has the 5 basic actions on it, and there is also the Bruxelles board, which has the card drafting area, the art workshop, and several tracks (including the score track).

To begin a round the first player will flip over the top Stock Market card. This card will indicate which two (usually - sometimes 3 or 4) areas of the Art Nouveau board she can choose to be available for the round. All of the spaces outside of the chosen range are not available.

On a turn, a player will either pass for the round, or place one of her assistant pawns onto one of the boards. The spaces on the Bruxelles board are never completely blocked off, but whichever player has the most assistants on these spaces at the end of a round will lose one assistant indefinitely. These spaces allow players to either take 3 joker building materials, take money according to the stock market card, execute any Art Nouveau board action, or activate a number of her Public Figures.

This Stock Market card indicates the first player should put the frame on the Art Nouveau board at either intersection 3, 4 or 4, 3.

Players can also place onto the Art Nouveau board. There are 5 actions available on this board, and they are:

• Take any two building resources (not jokers)
• Construct a building
• Create an artwork
• Display (sell) an artwork
• Recruit a Public Figure

The bottom of the Art Nouveau board and available bonus cards.

When a player places an assistant on the Art Nouveau board, she also needs to place some money along with the pawn. At the end of each round, each column on the Art Nouveau board will be evaluated, and the player who bid the most money in each column will receive a bonus card. These cards can be discarded for a one-time effect, or kept to multiply one of the end game scoring categories (and ignoring the discard effect).

This player would get 15 points for building 3 buildings (and an architect level of 5), 3 points for assistants, 6 points for leftover artworks (3 works x a multiplier of 2), 3 points for Public Figures, and 0 points for leftover money (what was he thinking?!?)

After all players pass, the round ends. Bonus cards are awarded, as well as bonus points for having a majority of assistants around a completely surrounded intersection on the Art Nouveau board. First player is determined, and she flips the next stock market card to begin the next round. After five rounds, bonus points are awarded for buildings constructed, assistants not in court, Public Figures remaining, artworks remaining, and money remaining. The player with the most points wins!

Bruxelles is a complex game with a lot of interlocking pieces (many of which I didn't even mention) and a lot going on. There are many things to consider with each placement. Do I want to risk going to the Bruxelles board? Can I afford to lose an assistant next turn? How much money should I place with my assistant on the Art Nouveau board? Do I really want to win that bonus card - or should I at least make it hard for the players who I think want it?

Despite all of these considerations, Bruxelles is such a well put together game, that after the first few rounds, the game starts to flow very beautifully. The mechanisms get out of the way, and the players are free to play with the different strategies that Mr. Espreman has so elegantly laid out for us to explore.

One of the best things about Bruxelles is how many paths to victory there are. Being confronted with the decision to either take an immediate benefit, or to choose to multiply something (a choice between 4 things) for end game scoring and giving a direction for the remainder of the game is a great one.

Bruxelles is a beautiful game. It takes a bit to teach and to learn, but the payoff is more than worth the effort. I would rate Bruxelles very highly - a 9.0 in my book. I very much look forward to see what Etienne Espreman has in store for us next, and I highly recommend it to fans of more complex strategy games - it is surely one not to be missed.

Viticulture Review

One of the most surprising games that I've played has to be Viticulture.

In Viticulture, you are competing wine makers, attempting to gain the most fame for your operation by giving tours, growing grapes, and of course, selling fancy wine.  The game is played in a series of "years", and in each year, the players will get to send all of their workers to help grow their vineyard.  The years are split into four different seasons (you know - like in life... unless you live in Houston).  In the first season, the players select how early their workers will "wake up".  The earlier you wake up, the earlier you get to place on the board, but the later you wake up, the happier your workers will be (represented by getting various bonuses).  In the next season (codename: "Summer") you will get to place workers on all of the Summer spaces - these actions will let you improve your vineyard by building buildings, planting vines, etc.  The third season consists of only drawing a "visitor" card, and then the fourth season (Winter) allows you to place your remaining workers (the ones you didn't place in Summer) on the various Winter action spaces.  These actions let you fill wine orders, harvest grapes, crush them into wine, etc.  (As a note - I think how short the Spring and Fall seasons are really show that the designer lives in the Midwest USA.  I've lived there; it really does seem to go straight from Winter to Summer with only one day of "Spring" and "Fall".)  Along the way of performing these actions, various things will get you victory points - with the primary way being by fulfilling orders for wine.  The game continues year by year until one player has scored at least 20 victory points.  At that point, the players finish the year, and the player with the most victory points at the end of the year wins!

The rooster track

My first pro for Viticulture is that I enjoy the Spring season - or the "Rooster selection", if you will.  (You mark how early you want your workers to wake up by placing a rooster on the corresponding section.)  I like the balance of wanting the first choice of where to place workers, which is amazing, with getting rewarded for waiting.  One of the rewards for waking up early even is a victory point!  As a side note, this review is based on the 2.0 rule set for Viticulture.  More on that later.  Sometimes in the original ruleset, this choice was a bit obvious - you always wanted to have your workers wake up as early as possible.  However, in the 2.0 version, this choice is important, as you will have to balance getting a reward (which is sort of like a free action) with selecting your turn order.

My next pro for Viticulture is that I like the feeling of needing to do everything at once - and not being able to.  There are a couple of limiting factors on what you can do - the number of workers that you have and the number of spaces on the board (which, as I type, I realize is just like every worker placement game that has ever been made).  However, though this isn't a unique feature to Viticulture, I still think that it has been done well.  Essentially, every spot on the board has enough spaces for half of the players to claim one.  And, you also get a reward for being the first person to use each action.  So, in addition to needing to make selections based on which actions you need to execute this year (should I be planting more grapes, or do I need to use that worker to finally crush some grapes into wine?) you also have to factor in whether you should forgo your plans temporarily to jump on a golden opportunity to get a bonus - and deprive the other players of it!  Worker placement games achieve varying degrees of success in creating this placement tension, but I believe that Viticulture has created it masterfully.

A player's wine making operation

One of my other favorite aspects of "the VC" (it gets tiring to call something the same thing every time) is that there are a couple of different ways to try to achieve victory.  Essentially, you can try to win by fulfilling a lot of small wine orders, a few large wine orders, or stealing victory points wherever the game allows (on the Rooster selection, as a bonus for certain actions, and a few other places).  I've seen each of these strategies implemented, and each one seems to have a very strong chance for victory - with it coming down to which player can most readily adjust to how the other players are doing and get in their way while also helping themselves.  And, ultimately, that's what I want a game to come down to - how well can I implement my strategy while preventing others from doing the same!

Now that I've said my favorite pieces about the 'culture, there are a couple of things to mention.  First is the theme.  I specifically call this out, because I don't drink.  I actually jokingly thought about calling this review "the tee-totaler's thoughts on wine making."  However, though the theme doesn't really call out to me, and I have to reference the rulebook when trying to make sure that I remember rules that may come naturally to wine connoisseurs (like how many red and white grapes are required to make a champaign), I still enjoyed the game.  So, whether you only drink beer, don't drink at all, or love wine, I think that this is one that you can still enjoy.

The second thing to call out is something I alluded to in my first pro.  This review is based on the 2.0 rules of Viticulture.  But, what's the difference?  The main difference is that the "Grande Worker" is now part of the core game instead of part of the Arboriculture expansion (which came with the original KS version of the game).  The Grande Worker is a special worker that can be placed on parts of the board that are already full.  So, for example, if you really need to plant vines and all of the places to plant vines are taken, you can still place your Grande Worker there and plant them.  In the 1.0 version of the game, the decisions about where to place your workers were much more tense, and I miss that in 2.0.  However, they were so tense that you essentially were forced to always select the top of the Rooster track whenever you had the chance.  Additionally, you could get into a situation where you were the last person to play, and you could not fulfill a wine order on the last turn, simply because you were the last to place your rooster on the wake up track - thus waking up last, and having all of the wine order spots taken before you could select them.  So, as a whole, I think that including the Grande Worker was an improvement.  The other "big" change in the 2.0 rules relates to crushing grapes into wine.  In the original rules, you could make all that you wanted of a single type of wine.  Now, you can only make two total glasses (barrels?) of wine, but they can be of differing types.  I also prefer this rule, as it makes the game a bit more straightforward, and gives you some flexibility.

Viticulture Game board

So, now that I've droned on and on about Viticulture, what didn't I like?  The main complaint that I can find is that the "visitor" cards don't always seem balanced.  Some of the visitors were amazing - and you would always want them.  They basically allow you to do several actions all at once.  Who wouldn't want that?  That is helpful at any point during the game!  However, most of the visitors are very situational.  In the right situation, they can be amazing, but through much of the rest of the game they are worthless.  Or, some of them are good for much of the game, but if you draw them at the wrong time then they literally can not help you (for example, one of them lets you train a worker at a discounted rate - if you have all of your workers, then you just drew a dead card).  This "right time" aspect of the visitors can make them swingy - when everyone draws a visitor, and two people draw immediately useful ones and two other players draw useless cards, then (as you'd imagine) two players just got a nice boost.

Overall, I give Viticulture a 9.0/10.  I have really enjoyed it and, though it hasn't quite taken my top worker placement spot (that title goes to Age of Empires 3) it definitely stands out as one of my favorites, and one that I intend to keep bringing to the table.

As a final note - Viticulture's Tuscany expansion is currently on Kickstarter.  Check it out here.

If Viticulture sounds interesting, you should also check out Euphoria, Kingdom of Solomon, and Stone Age.

I would like to thank Stonemaier Games for providing me with a review copy of Viticulture (a long time ago).

Euphoria Review

After really enjoying the first game by Stonemaier Games, I was privileged to have an opportunity to check out their second title - Euphoria.

In Euphoria, you are attempting to build the best dystopia.  In order to build and maintain your dystopia, you have to keep your workers dumb and happy as they mine for resources, build markets, and tunnel into neighboring cities.  In game terms, each turn you will either place a worker (or multiple workers, if they show the same number of pips on the dice that represent workers), or you can pull any number of your workers back.  When placing workers, they can collect resources, contribute to building markets, get you victory points, etc.  When retrieving workers, you must either pay a resource and gain some morale, or sacrifice a morale.  Additionally, when you retrieve your workers, you immediately re-roll all of them and add the total of all your available workers to your score on the knowledge track.  If this total is too high, then one of your workers runs away.  The game progresses in this fashion of placing and retrieving workers until one player has successfully scored their 10th victory point - at which point they are the king of the grumpy, unhappy land!

The first pro that I have for Euphoria is that I enjoy the strategy involved in attempting to get your workers "bumped" as much as possible.  In the game, there are three different types of locations for your workers - one can hold any number of workers, one can hold a single worker that can't be displaced, and the final type of location holds a single worker which will be "bumped" if another worker accesses the location.  When you get a worker "bumped," he immediately is re-rolled and returned to your active worker pool.  This is a wonderful thing for the owner of that worker, as they suddenly have another worker that can be placed, and they didn't have to spend a turn pulling the worker back.  Thus, determining where you think your opponents might want to place their workers and taking advantage of those locations first is a great strategy.

Another thing that I have found interesting in Euphoria is balancing your morale.  Initially, I thought that you could basically neglect morale early in the game and wait until the game has started to blossom.  After all, that way you don't have to waste resources early on in the game when pulling back your workers.  But, if you do this, then you will have a hand size of one when holding artifacts.  (I haven't mentioned artifacts.  Essentially, they are cards that you can turn in to get victory points.  You will need at least three of them or two that match.  Plus, you'll have an artifact that is special to you each game.)  Since you can turn in three artifacts for a victory point (or two matching ones), you really don't want to throw them away!  And, the earlier you increase your morale, the earlier you can start trying to match these cards (and not grow angry as you have to throw away the second card of a pair because you neglected morale).  I found the importance of morale in the early game to be interesting.

Nice artwork for the board

Now, before moving on to the cons, there are several things I just want to mention about Euphoria - not good or bad things, but things I want you to be aware of.  First, "60 minutes" is.... optimistic.  None of the games that I have played have really come close to that mark.  I think that it is possible, especially if playing with about 3 people, all of which are experienced.  However, I really don't recommend playing your first game with 6 people.  Start smaller.

The second thing that I will point out is that there are a couple facets of the game that can make it a bit swingy.  First, if you roll doubles on your workers, you get to place multiple workers on the same turn (which is a very good thing for you). Also, if you roll really high numbers on your workers when you pull them off the board, you might lose them, even if your knowledge is not very high.  Both of these die rolling elements can turn the tide of a game - either towards you or away.  In one of my games, I saw someone with a moderately high knowledge (4 on a track that goes from 1-6) lose two workers on almost back to back turns, because they rolled too high.  This made them go from having three workers to place on the board to having a single worker.  Needless to say, they did not come back.  Some players will enjoy this element of the game, whereas it will leave a bitter taste in the mouths of others.

Now that you're feeling great about Euphoria, it's time to list some cons.  After all - this is a game about dystopias, right?  My first con is that there are four tracks relating to each specific allegiance.  Each player has a couple of recruits, and as the tracks that correspond to his recruits advance, he will get bonuses - and, in fact, one of his recruits will not even be available until the corresponding track goes a certain distance.  This sounds cool, right?  It allows for some uneasy alliances, where you are helping other players because it is ultimately in your own best interests.  However, in practice, it feels like these tracks basically just move as the game goes along.  I don't know if the recruits have been too well distributed in all of my games, but in my experience, the tracks have all stayed very close together throughout the game, and players are too often forced to advance a track that they care nothing about in order to get a bonus that they do want.  So, instead of this being a neat feature of the game, it turns out to be a really cool sounding non-factor.

Another action shot - I was purple this time (and I won!)

The next con that I have for Euphoria is that I thought that the tunnels should be scaled based on the number of players.  In the game, there are tunnels that lead from one part of the city to another - so that the Wastelanders can steal resources from the Euphorians, etc.  Realistically, players place workers on the tunnels to transform commodities into resources and/or artifacts.  As they do this, the miner moves along the track, and once he reaches certain places, recruits become flipped, and eventually a new place is opened up on the board.  However, the miner has to go the same distance no matter how many people are playing.  Thus, in a six player game, you have a new spot open up and more recruits available.  But in a smaller game (possibly even four player!), you have these same tunnels, but they might never be completed.  This is especially true since the resources that are provided from digging are scaled, as there are less resources needed to build each market in a smaller game.

My final con for the game is that it felt.  Disjointed?  I'm not sure what term to use.  It felt like I was placing workers for the sake of placing workers.  There is strategy involved and there is a theme, but they didn't mesh together overly well for me.  The flow of beginning, buildup, and climax also seemed a bit missing.  It was hard (at least for me) to envision how what I was going to do this turn was going to help me in the long run.  It felt more like, "well, I guess I can do this - I don't have any of this resource type."  There were occasionally long pauses of people thinking - but it wasn't because they were overwhelmed with choices.  It was more that they were trying to figure out how this turn would lead towards anything later in the game.  I don't think that I captured this con well, but it just felt like each turn only leads to the next 1-2 turns instead of the game building upon itself throughout.

Overall, I give Euphoria a 7.0/10.  There are some neat elements to the game, but overall the game left me a bit disappointed - though this is quite possibly because I expected a bit more based on how much I enjoyed Stonemaier's first game (Viticulture).  I would play Euphoria in the future if my friends were interested in it, but it won't be something that I regularly seek out.

If Euphoria sounds interesting, you might also check out Android: Netrunner, Kingdom of Solomon, and Alien Frontiers.

I would like to thank Stonemaier Games for providing me with a review copy of Euphoria.

Edit: It has been pointed out to me that I got a rule slightly wrong.  Originally, I had stated that when your workers are bumped, they did not have to make a knowledge check.  That was incorrect - sorry.  I still think that getting your workers bumped is far better than having to pull them back on your own, but I wanted to make sure to clarify this in case I had made anyone second guess themselves.

Keyflower Review

Sometimes a game's box doesn't immediately attract your attention, but something else causes you to try it out.  For me, Keyflower was a perfect example of this.

In Keyflower, you play a series of four rounds ("seasons").  Each round is a combination of auctioning and worker placement.  Going around the table, each player has the option of placing workers.  These workers can be used to bid (or increase a bid) on a tile, or they can be played on top of a tile to activate its effect.  At the end of each round, players take any tiles that they have won, and they connect them to their village (previously purchased tiles).  That is the crux of the game.  However, one action that can be performed is worth noting - tiles can be upgraded.  By acquiring goods (and moving them (another action) to the correct locations), players can upgrade their existing tiles to make them better - either they will have a stronger effect, they will be worth more points, or both.  At the end of the four rounds, whoever has the most points wins.

So, to be fair, there are a lot more rules than the very trim overview that I just gave.  And one specific rule leads to my first pro.  Each tile can be bid on (and/or activated) by only one color of meeples ("miniature peoples").  What does this mean?  There are three basic colors of meeples - red, blue, and yellow (there are also green meeples, which are harder to get).  Each player will have a varied number of these meeples, and they will use them to bid on tiles.  So, when I bid on a tile, I might bid one yellow meeple.  If someone else wants to overbid me later, they have to bid more yellow meeples than I bid - they can't use green, red, or blue.  This causes a really interesting dynamic in the game.  Sometimes you want to have an even distribution of colors - that would let you bid on anything, and you won't have to worry about what other players bid.  Other times it might be in your best interest to have a whole lot of one color.  This would let you be much more likely to win a tile that you really want - assuming that you're able to set the color on it.

Bidding in yellow meeples

The next pro is that owning a tile isn't always better than not owning it.  Why?  Because anyone can activate your tiles - not just you.  And, when activating a tile, whoever activates it first selects what color is used for activating it.  So, if I have a lot of red meeples, and you have a tile that I really want to activate several times, then I might choose to activate it with red meeples (each additional activation costs an extra meeple; and each tile can only be activated up to three times per round).  And, since I placed red meeples on your tile, I may have prevented you from being able to use your own tile!  (That is, assuming you don't have any red meeples.)  Now, at the end of the round, you get to keep any meeples that were played on your tiles, which can be wonderful.  But that isn't always better than getting to activate your own tile, specifically on the last round of the game.  So, whereas it is very good to own tiles (you can at the very least control things like when it is upgraded), it is sometimes much better to go first!  (And, of course, you get to go first if you win the auction that determines who goes first.)

My third pro for Keyflower is that the game has a very tense feeling.  What I mean is that often during the game I will want to perform about five actions on each turn.  And, I'm actively waiting on my opponents, hoping that they won't do "that one thing" that I need to do.  Which, inevitably, they will do.  One of the marks of a good game is that you are forced to decide the "better" move between two good moves.  And, in my opinion, Keyflower nails that characteristic.

The final pro that I will mention is how the fourth round ("winter") works.  At the beginning of the game, each player is given a few different winter tiles.  Before the start of winter, each player has to select which of their tiles (at least one) will be available for auction that round.  So, you have some control over what will be worth victory points.  Or, probably more truthfully, you have some control over what will not be worth victory points - by burying the tiles that would be most beneficial to your opponents.  Granted, just because you select a tile doesn't mean that you will actually keep it - you still have to win the auction.  But, I like that the final scoring tiles are determined by player selection instead of random chance.

Meeples waiting to be collected

Though there are not very many cons that come to mind for Keyflower, I will mention this one: the game can be negatively affected by the random tiles that are used in a given game - especially with a smaller number of players.  Each game you use a different random selection of tiles.  Great - replayability!  However, depending on which tiles appear, certain elements of the game can be neglected.  For example, if no tiles are drawn that allow you to create green meeples, then this very important aspect of the game will be completely missed.  (Granted, this is not a common situation; I did, however, play a game where only one of these tiles was drawn - and that one was drawn in the last possible season.)  Additionally, if the tiles that allow you to collect certain types of resources are not drawn, then you will have a hard time upgrading many of your tiles.  These situations are not common, but with less players (the less players in the game, the less tiles you use), they can definitely happen.

My other (very minor) con for Keyflower is that it is difficult to quickly see what is happening.  Since everyone is bidding with the same thing (colored meeples), and colors are not associated with players, it takes a second to register where you are bidding, what you are winning, and where you might want to play.  (If you're wondering, you bid by placing your meeples on the side of the hexagonal tile that faces you.)  This is a small price to pay for the incredibly well executed auction mechanic, but it is a nuisance nonetheless.

Overall, I give Keyflower a 9.0/10.  It is one of the most pleasant surprises that I've found recently in gaming, and I think it will stay in my collection for quite some time.  (And, hopefully I will get at least decent at it - I never win!)

If Keyflower sounds interesting, you might also check out Kingdom of Solomon, Legacy: Gears of Time, and Power Grid.

I would like to thank Game Salute for providing me with a review copy of Keyflower.

Il Vecchio Review

A surprise little game that I was asked to check out recently is Il Vecchio.

At it's heart, Il Vecchio is a worker placement game.  Each player starts with four workers on the board, and the goal is to get victory points ("build up your family's influence to take over Florence").  Players alternate taking actions in the game, and each turn you can do one of the following: collect goods, take over a province (get points and a once per game bonus), take a Florence tile (either gain a bonus for the rest of the game, or get a tile that helps you score based on certain criteria), add a new worker to the board, or "stand up" your existing workers (allow them to be used again). At certain times during the game, placing a worker on a province or on a Florence track will cause an "Il Vecchio Event" to occur - these are game-wide events that are generally negative; but they also serve as a countdown mechanic until the end of the game.  Once a certain number of Il Vecchio events have occurred, then the final round will be triggered, and then players will compare victory point totals to determine the new ruler of Florence!  (Of course, if you truly want to rule Florence, you will have to convince the people of Florence that playing a board game was truly authoritative and that, like with the Sword in the Stone, now that you've won it, they should all submit themselves to you - good luck with that...)

The most unique element of Il Vecchio are the "middlemen."  In order to perform most actions, a middleman token must be present.  Then, to perform the action, you lay your worker down, collect whatever goods you get as a result of the action, and then move the middleman to the next matching spot on the board.  Alternatively, if you play a Bishop, then you are able to take an action without a middleman being present - and without even having to lay down your worker.  I consider this mechanic to be a pro for a couple of reasons.  First, I like that it is unique.  And, though "unique" does not necessarily mean "good" (let's face it - there are lots of mechanics that could be in games, but that were left out because they're awful); however, in this case, the mechanic actually works.  Secondly, I like that this mechanic forces you to make some interesting decisions about which actions to perform, and the order that you perform them.  Sometimes, you may not desperately need a certain resource; however, if the middleman is present with your worker, you can collect that resource easily, without having to track it down later.  So, should you go ahead and forgo what you "need" for what you can easily collect?  Sometimes that is the best course of action; but most of the time the choice at least presents some nice tension!

Two sided board - both sides are the same, except color

The next pro that I have for Il Vecchio are the bonus tiles that you can gain in Florence.  Specifically, I like that they can be really stinking awesome.  For example, one of the different "collect goods" actions allows you to collect either two Carriages or two Bishops.  (Carriages allow you to move to any place on the board for free - generally you have to pay one coin per town that you move, and this moving is done as an optional first step in most of your other actions.)  This action can be good at the right time.  However, one of the Florence bonus tiles allows you to take a Carriage and two coins every time you collect Bishops.  So, now, instead of just collecting two Bishops, you collect two Bishops, one Carriage and two coins!  Keep in mind that if you use a Bishop then you don't need a middleman and you don't lay down your worker.  So, you could conceivably do this action every single turn - thus collecting hordes of treasure to lord over like a greedy dragon!  Fortunately, you don't win by having the most money - so, again, this tile is great, but doesn't break the game.  And, likewise, there are many other Florence tiles that are very powerful.  I like that the game gives you essentially "superpowers", and that one of your goals in the game is to maximize the benefits that you receive from your superpower.

The final pro that I will mention for Il Vecchio is that in the last round of the game, you get to perform a double turn.  Alternately, you can pass on your entire double turn to receive two victory points.  I like both that you get to have a double turn and that you can pass on it.  This prevents you from having to be quite as close to completing your current objective when the game ends.  It also keeps you from being caught "out of position" when the game is triggered.  For example, because of how the laying workers down mechanic works, if you only got a single final turn, then you may not be able to do anything simply because all of your workers are lying down.  However, since you get a double turn, you can stand them up if needed before trying to move them into Florence or a province.  Conversely, since you have the option of passing on your final double turn, you get to weigh the value of taking those two extra moves.  I don't know how many other games I've played where I spend my last turn doing something trivial to help win a tie breaker.  In Il Vecchio, if you don't have something useful to do, you can simply move on and collect a couple of victory points.

Can you guess what these do?

However, though Il Vecchio surprised me with a lot of really fascinating game play, I can, of course, find something to complain about.  My biggest complaint?  The iconography is far from intuitive.  Now, I'm not going to say that the iconography is "bad", because quite frankly, it's not.  Once you understand what the various pictures are depicting, it actually does make sense.  However, when you're first playing the game, you will have no idea what various things are trying to tell you.  Expect to be passing the rulebook around for much of your first few games (or any game with a new player) as you try to decipher the various bonuses that you might receive.  And, with this instruction passing, the game will occasionally slow down when you are waiting on a player (generally because you impatiently handed them the rulebook and continued playing without them, but then it got back around to their turn before they finished deciphering all of the hieroglyphics from their tiles).  This con isn't a huge inconvenience, and is (I think) a result of trying to keep all of the components language independent.  Regardless, it is a nuisance in your first few games.

Overall, I give Il Vecchio an 8.5/10 (which may be one of my most overused scores).  Ultimately, I enjoyed my time with the game and was very happy that I wound up playing it.  I don't know that it will become a permanent fixture in my theoretical ideal game library, but I would highly encourage you to check it out if you're ever presented the opportunity!

If Il Vecchio sounds interesting, you might also check out Glory to Rome, Kingsburg, and Village.

I would like to thank Tasty Minstrel Games for providing me with a review copy of Il Vecchio.

Village Review

One game that I've been hearing about for a while now is Village.

In Village you're doing..... something... in order to gain the most victory points.  Specifically, you are trying to make your family rich and famous and whatnot.  In order to do this, each round will consist of various resources (cubes) being placed on the board.  Then, players alternate taking turns by selecting a cube from the board and following the corresponding action.  The actions can include collecting food, traveling, joining the monastery, getting married, becoming a village politician, selling at market, or performing a trade.  Some of these activities take a while to master - and this is indicated through each player's "time" track.  And, whenever a player makes a full loop around their time track, one of their oldest family members passes away and is either honored in the book of elders, or is buried in an unmarked grave (because there is only so much ink in this village - so once they write a couple of names down, they have to be very selective).  Each round is completed whenever all of the cubes have been taken - at which point a Mass is performed, and the player with the most monks in the monastery gains some victory points.  Then, the board is re-seeded with cubes and a new round begins.  Play continues in this manner until either the book of ancestors is completely filled, or until all of the unmarked graves are filled.  At that point, there is one final Mass, and then players check to see who has had the most successful family (by comparing what really matters to the people of Ye Olde Village - victory points).

Those who have gone before - the book of ancestors

So, starting with the pros, the thing that I find most interesting about Village is that your people can die.  This is a fascinating new addition to me.  I have played a lot of worker placement games, and in many of them you can gain extra workers as you play.  However, I've never played one where you actually lose workers as well.  And, what I like even more about this is that it isn't necessarily a bad thing to lose workers.  In fact, having five of your workers in the book of ancestors at the end of the game is worth quite a few victory points (12 to be exact).  But, it is also good if you keep your people alive.  Workers in the church and in the council chamber are worth victory points at the end of the game - up to six points per worker!  So, there are interesting strategic decisions that you have to make about which worker you want to place, which are expendable, and when is it better to try to keep them alive (as much as possible).

The next pro that I have for Village is that I like the distribution of the resource cubes on the board.  These resources are not evenly spread - some actions will have drastically more cubes than others (the Market action only gets one cube per round).  And, the round doesn't end until all of the cubes are gone.  This provides a nice dynamic which forces you to either take advantage of a lot of different actions, or have an opportunity cost of taking a cube without performing an associated.  It also forces you to prioritize your actions as some of them may not be available later in the round.  So, the best players in the game will learn to gain at least a few points from actions that don't necessarily fit well within their overall strategy - or at the very least, they will take advantage of these extraneous actions to position some of their workers in different areas of the board in order to kill them and have them added to the corresponding section of the book of elders.

Along the same lines as the previous pro, I also appreciate that the distribution of "resource" cubes doesn't only contain resources - it also has plagues.  So, sometimes you have to make the decision between performing the action that you want, while advancing twice on your time track, or performing a different action and gaining a resource.  Where this becomes even more interesting is through an action that I didn't mention before - you can always trade in three matching resources in order to perform any action.  Which means that when there is a plague as the only resource available for an action you want, you can decide to spend three of your resources to avoid that cube.  Or, in another situation, if there are only plague cubes remaining, you can also decide it is worth your resources to circumvent the plagues (and even select an action that doesn't have a cube associated with it).

Sending meeples to Mass

Now with some solid pros listed, I have two specific cons that I will address.  The first con is that I feel like the first move of the game is too prescribed.  Specifically, I do not see a reason why anyone would ever choose not to perform a marriage action as their first action of the game.  When your workers die, you always have to lose the lowest numbered workers first.  Performing a marriage action first allows you to unlock a worker with a "2" on him - one that will die after all of your starting workers.  This worker, then, is able to be placed in a region of the board where you will want a worker to live a long time - possibly even all game.  I can see reasons why you may or may not want to perform a marriage action every round, but if you don't do it in the first round, then (in my opinion) you are handicapping yourself for the rest of the game - and if you don't perform it as your first action, then there is a good chance that it will not be available to you later in the round.  Now, I am admittedly writing this con out of my limited number of plays - feel free to share your experience with this and if you think that I am correct in this, or if you think that I'm off base.

The second con is this - the theme.  Or, perhaps I should say, "Theme?  What theme?"  I honestly had to look up what the theme of the game was before starting to write this review (after having played the game multiple times).  And, after looking in the rules, I'm still not sure what it is.  I think it is just that there are people in a village doing stuff, and they want to do it well.  The last sentence of the "Game Idea" section is, "Those that worked hard during their lifetime may find themselves immortalized in the village chronicle and thus increase their families' fame."  Yeah; so I guess you're trying to become a famous family.  Anyway, this didn't bother me especially much, as I enjoy a strong theme, but it's not a requirement for me to enjoy a game.  However, I can see where this would be a drawback to a lot of other people.

Overall, I give Village an 8.5/10.  I enjoyed my plays of it, and will probably keep playing it on an occasional basis - which, when you consider the number of new games I keep learning, is a pretty good feat!

If Village sounds interesting, you might also check out Kingdom of Solomon, In the Year of the Dragon, and Lords of Waterdeep.

I would like to thank Tasty Minstrel Games for providing me with a review copy of Village.

Kingsburg Review

A game that I've wanted to try out for quite a while is Kingsburg.

In Kingsburg, each player is attempting to help rebuild the kingdom, and fight off invading minions, in order to gain the King's favor.  In order to do this, the game is played over a series of five "years" with each "year" having three productive seasons and then an invasion.  The core of the game is the productive seasons.  In each productive season, all of the players roll their three dice.  Then, starting with whoever rolled the lowest, players take turns placing a group of dice on the board.  Legal placement is determined by the die rolls - for example, if you've rolled a 3, 5 and 6, then you can place a die on the 3, 5, or 6, or you can place a group of dice on the 8, 9, 11, or 14.  However, you cannot place dice on a spot that has already been claimed.  After everyone has placed their dice, then players collect bonuses (generally resources) for the places ("advisers") where they have placed dice ("influenced").  Once these resources have been collected, everyone has the option of building one building - these buildings can help defend against invaders, provide you flexibility in the placement of your dice, or give you victory points.  After the third productive season, each of the players has the opportunity to buy extra troops (they may have hired some during the productive seasons).  Next, the first player rolls a die - this number is added to each player's number of troops, and each player compares their total to the strength of the invading armies.  If you win, then you get a bonus.  If you lose, then they destroy one of your buildings.  Finally, you move everyone's number of armies back to zero, and start the next year - and, at the end of the fifth year, whoever has the most victory points wins!

The first pro that I have for Kingsburg is that I like the fact that your dice drive your placement.  I think that it forces players to make the most of what they roll, and is a very interesting and rarely-utilized dynamic (yes, I realize that Alien Frontiers and To Court the King also do similar things, but I believe Kingsburg came out before Alien Frontiers).  Plus, there are mechanisms within the game that let you alter your roll.  This enables you to do a combination of adapting to your die roll to your strategy and making your strategy adapt to your dice at the same time.  Specifically, there are some "+2" markers (that you earn in various ways) that you can play along with a group of dice to increase their value by exactly two.  Also, there is a building that allows you to place one group of dice per productive season on an adviser that is adjacent to the one that is equal to your dice value.  Other buildings can give you more dice, or let you re-roll some of your dice if you roll especially poorly.  These factors work together to make the game fun.

Using dice to influence advisors

Another element of Kingsburg that I like is that you have to pay attention to the invading horde.  But, what I like more about this is that there are a couple of advisers on the board that allow you to look at the strength of the invading horde.  So, as the round is being played, you are able to better plan for how big your army needs to be (and which buildings will give you bonuses).  This is especially important if you intend to build one of the most expensive buildings, as they are the ones that will be destroyed by the invading army - so, you want to make sure that you're going to be able to protect it, if you choose to build one of these buildings.  However, you never truly know how large your army needs to be, since you add a die roll to your troops.  This leads me to my first con.

Kingsburg is a bit too random for me.  All of the die rolling is what makes the game fun, but at the same time, it can becoming frustrating quickly when some of these random factors work heavily against you.  One example is in fighting off the invading horde.  When fighting off the horde, there are two approaches you can take - you can either try to get enough armies that you are guaranteed to win (assume that the die will be rolled a one), or you can rely on the die to help you win the battle.  The problem is, whichever of these choices you make is only the "ideal" choice if the die rolls as you anticipated.  If you build a giant army, and the die rolls a one, then you feel like you made the right choice spending all of your resources and influence towards building an army.  However, if it rolls a five or a six, then you realize how much time you wasted building this army that now gets reset back to zero (aside from strength that comes from buildings).  So, the invading horde is basically a press your luck element.  And, though I'm fine with games that are based around pressing your luck, I find that it can be very frustrating in a more strategic game.

The royal family - you have to roll high to influence them

The other element that is a bit too random can be worded this way, "Bad rolling prevents good strategy."  What I mean by this is that there are some rolls that are just awful.  The more I've played the game, the more impressed that I have been that rolling higher doesn't mean that you are guaranteed to gather more resources than your opponents.  Ultimately, the higher spots generally get you around as many resources per die as lower spots do.  That is, unless you roll very low.  For example, if you roll all 1's.  This roll is awful.  It allows you to claim a single resource on your turn (or, if you are lucky, a resource and a victory point).  Generally, you gain approximately one resource per die - some spots allow you to get a bit more than this, or give you flexibility on what resource you select in place of getting as high of a quantity.  But, a normal productive season will net about three resources.  So, getting one resource, puts you at a major disadvantage - and had nothing to do with what your strategy was in the game.  Now, rolling all 1's isn't common (though I've seen it), but in general, rolling all low dice is bad, because, though I said you average about one resource per die, when you have to put dice together to form a "die" (for example, putting a two and a three to make a "five"), then you are getting less resources per die.

Overall, I give Kingsburg an 8.0/10.  I really enjoyed my first few plays of the game, but I think that it will grow stale for me pretty quickly.  The invading horde provides both a very neat strategic element to the game, but a very frustrating situation where your strategy's merit is determined by a die roll.

If Kingsburg sounds interesting, you might also check out Alien Frontiers, Kingdom of Solomon, and Bootleggers.

Zong Shi Review

An interesting "little" game that I've had the opportunity to play recently is Zong Shi.

In Zong Shi, you are attempting to impress townspeople with how amazing you are.  Generally, you do this by building amazing works, but you can also do it by sucking up to the elders, and running a sweet pawn shop.  Each round consists of players alternating placing their two workers - the Master and the Apprentice.  Basically, the Apprentice can do anything that the Master does aside from working on a project - but he gets less of a reward for doing each action.  The different actions include starting a project, going to the temple to draw "scrolls" (cards), going to the pawn shop to get "Exchange tiles", visiting the marketplace to collect resources, and visiting the town elders to get victory points.  However, if your Master is working on a project, then he will not be able to perform any other actions (so he will pass on his turn).  The game continues with players selecting these actions until one player has completed six projects.  Then, everyone gets one last turn, and the player with the most victory points wins.

The first pro that I have for Zong Shi is that I like the Master/Apprentice mechanic.  There may be other games which give you workers of different skill levels, but I do not remember any that I have played.  I think that it adds an interesting layer of strategy to figure out which of your workers you are going to place each round to try to maximize your Master.  The Apprentice can be useful when you only need to do something small - collect a single resource, visit a single elder, get a single exchange tile.  However, you are always better off sending your Master - or, more specifically, you would be better off if you could place two Masters instead of using an Apprentice.  But, your Master can only be in one place at a time; and that place will often be in your workshop working on one of his projects.  And thus, the player who is able to best utilize both his Master and his Apprentice will probably claim the victory.

Some of the Masters have been playing in paint

The next interesting thing about Zong Shi are the Exchange tiles.  Each work (and elder) requires a certain combination of resources.  For example, the Merchant Statue requires two Gold, one Jade, and one Ivory.  Exchange tiles allow you to substitute materials.  For example, if I had a Gold/Jade Exchange tile, and I wanted to build the Merchant Statue, I could substitute any of the Gold for Jade and vice versa.  So, if I wanted to, I could build the Merchant Statue for three Jade and one Ivory.  This element of the game is neat, and is also useful strategically, as having a lot of Exchange tiles will allow you to focus on getting materials, without having to worry as much about which materials you are collecting.  I'm not really sure how thematically it fits in.  (You get these at the "pawn shop" - is there a dealer that has an infinite supply of each of these, and you bribe him to let you trade?  If he has an infinite supply, why does he care about your bribe?)  But, either way, I like this element of the game.

The final pro that I will mention for Zong Shi is that there are multiple paths to victory.  In the last game that I played, I successfully completed six projects before anyone else had built four, and so I was the one that triggered the end of the game.  However, none of my projects were especially valuable.  Another player had visited all of the town elders, and most of the other players had more Exchange Tiles than I did.  At the end, the player who had visited the town elders and completed a Masterwork project (a big, expensive project) was the winner, even though he had only completed two projects.  So, "multiple paths to victory" may not be the best way of describing Zong Shi, but the player that best capitalizes on his opportunities should be the winner - and how those opportunities present themselves will not always look the same.  (One thing that I will note strategically - as someone who generally loses at this game, I highly recommend building Masterwork projects.  That is the only area of the game where you can repeatedly score eight victory points.)

The first player Buddha looks nice

However, though I enjoyed Zong Shi, there are a couple of cons that I should mention.  First, the Exchange tiles can wind up causing you to spend quite a bit of time calculating, especially if you only have a few of them.  They give you flexibility, but the flexibility causes some processing to occur in your brain.  So, you will spend a decent amount of time looking at what resources you have, what you can turn them into, and trying to match that up with the project you are wanting to begin.  You'll have to do this processing both when starting the project itself, and when planning to try to get the resources or Exchange tiles that you need.  This doesn't necessarily take a long time, but it can occasionally slow the game down.

The other con that I will mention is that some of the cards are simply better than others; and some strategies also seem especially strong.  For example, there is a card that allows your Apprentice to start on a project (instead of your Master).  That is amazing, as it frees your Master up to do all of the other actions for a few rounds (its like having two Masters).  Another card allows you to start on two projects at the same time!  That is also wonderful, because it is like giving your Master several extra turns - and can also help you end the game more quickly, if you are trying to do that.  These cards are drastically better than a random resource from the bag (which is what one of the other cards gives you).  Now, I'm not saying that any of the scrolls are useless - at the right time, any of them can be useful.  But some of them are (in my opinion) far better than others.  And, similarly, allowing one player to complete multiple "Blacksmith Tools" projects (this allows them to complete their projects one turn faster) also seems like it could allow an experienced player to have a significant advantage.  (Though, it does not guarantee victory, as I completed two of these and still lost, due to not using them to build Masterwork projects.)

Overall, I give Zong Shi an 8.5/10.  I enjoyed the game, and I think that it added some nice new elements to the "worker placement" genre.

If Zong Shi sounds interesting, then you might also check out Kingdom of Solomon, Le Havre, and Caylus.

I would like to thank Gryphon Games for providing me with a review copy of Zong Shi.