Post by Gilvan Blight on Mar 14, 2007 9:07:05 GMT -5
Quickly: a great game, too bad they messed up the cards.
Summary:
This is another one of those games that you have to see to understand so forgive this attempt at explanation.
The players are each Grande's in Spain trying to expand their influence to all of the land. They do this by controlling Caballieros around the provinces. Each player starts with their Grande and 2 Cabs in a randomly generated starting province. A set of action cards is turned face up randomly and players then big from 1-13 on who goes first. The bid amount also determines how many Cabs they will get from a pool (the provinces) into their play area (the court). The higher the big the better chance you will go first but the lower then number of Cabs you will have to play with.
Once turn order is determined players get Cabs from the pool then select an action card. The action cards vary wildly but all do two things. They tell you how many Cabs you can move from your Court to the Board (regions) and they let you do something special. The something special is where all the strategy comes in. These actions vary wildly from moving Cabs already on the board (sometimes yours, sometimes the other players, sometimes from one region sometimes from all, etc), Special scorring (all regions with a score of 4, any one region, the regoin with the most Cabs, etc), Playing extra Cabs, Moving Extra Cabs from the provinces to the court, getting a bid card back from your discard pile, Moving the King, and a lot more. As with the auction section, most of the time the actions that let you do the most let you play the least number of Cabs to the Board. Players are free to either do their Action or play Cabs in any order, but must complete one before doing the other (aka you can't place some Cabs, do you Action and place some more).
The King complicates things. He starts in a random region and gets moved around by one of the action cards ( a special one that is avaliable every round). The King does three things. First he determines where Cabs can be placed on the board. Players can only place Cabs from their Court to the Board in regions ajacent to the King. Second the King ensures no change happens in the regions he is in. Nothing and I mean nothing can change in the Kings region. This means no action cards can affect it, no Cabs may be placed, No Cabs may be Removed, No Cabs can be moved to or from there, score boards can't be changed, nothing. Third the King provdes bonus points when scoring.
After each turn, the unused actions are turned face down, a new set is randomly drawn and the players bid for turn order again. This continues for a total of 9 rounds, with a special scoring round added after turns 3, 6 and 9.
Scoring: Each province is worth a set amount of points. Most contain three scores. The first score is awarded to the player with the most Cabs, the second to the player with the second highest number of Cabs, and the third to the third highest (this is reduced with fewer players). Grande's add extra points as does the king. The player with the most points at the end of the scoring in round 9 wins.
The Castle: There is a black castle on the board. Whenever players place Cabs on the board they have the option of tossing them into the Castle instead of in a region. A couple of action cards can affect the castle and cause it to be scored. At the begining of each scoring round, players determine where they want their Cabs in the castle to go (any region, except where the king is) then the castle is scored (same was a the regions), lastly the Cabs in the castle move to the regions the players decided (secretly). This means that a player can sudenly jump to a new region or reinforce a region they already control without another player knowing it's coming.
The edition I picked up was also the 10th aniversary edition and included I think it was 5 expansions. I haven't tried any of these out. Though I did look at the rules some seemed interesting, some overly complicated.
The Good: a really good game. One of the best I have played this year and probably in a long while. Definately glad I picked this up. It's currently rated at 6th on Boardgamegeek and deserves it's placement. This game doesn't remind me of any other game, which is awesome. I've played enough different games now where usually when I try something new I sit an think things like "wow they stole that from Puerto Rico" or "How Catan Like". I didn't have that at all with this game. It's a very unique system and I love that. Once the players learn the game this is one of the quickest games I own. They say a short game takes about an hour, and it really does. A long game really isn't that much longer (3 more turns then short). It's one of the quickest 'big' games I have. Nice pieces. Everything included is rather nice: great art, well designed parts, nice wooden cubes, solid castle, etc. This one also contains the largest Pawn ever. The black pawn for the King is just massive.
The Bad: This game looks over complicated. This is a huge hinderance when trying to introduce it to new players. Plus trying to explain the rules is not very easy either. The game really is rather simple once you get the basics and even they don't take long, it looks way worse then it is, but it could very easily scare off a casual gamer. Unusual box size. Man I wish there was an industry standard for box sizes. I hate trying to find room on my shelves for these odd shaped boxes. Also the box interior is rediculous. They didn't design it for the parts included at all. All you get is one trough to toss everything in, cards, chits, counters, regions. At least there was a bag for all the wooden pieces.
The Ugly: Printing errors! I hope for the companies sake it's only my copy but a ton of the action cards are missing large chunks of text. This is not only highly annoying it actually can interfere with gameplay as now you need to grab the rulebook and read up what the cards actually say. Thankfully after the first couple of look ups you know what the cards are supposed to do, but this is inexcusable, especially in an aniversary edition.
Ovarall: I would rate this a 10 our of 10 if there weren't printing errors on the action cards and the box design were better (inside and out). A bit hard to explain but rather quick and simple to play. Simple in rules but not in strategy. One of the most strategic games I own, and it's great how quick you can get through a game. Instantly became on of my favourites.
Summary:
This is another one of those games that you have to see to understand so forgive this attempt at explanation.
The players are each Grande's in Spain trying to expand their influence to all of the land. They do this by controlling Caballieros around the provinces. Each player starts with their Grande and 2 Cabs in a randomly generated starting province. A set of action cards is turned face up randomly and players then big from 1-13 on who goes first. The bid amount also determines how many Cabs they will get from a pool (the provinces) into their play area (the court). The higher the big the better chance you will go first but the lower then number of Cabs you will have to play with.
Once turn order is determined players get Cabs from the pool then select an action card. The action cards vary wildly but all do two things. They tell you how many Cabs you can move from your Court to the Board (regions) and they let you do something special. The something special is where all the strategy comes in. These actions vary wildly from moving Cabs already on the board (sometimes yours, sometimes the other players, sometimes from one region sometimes from all, etc), Special scorring (all regions with a score of 4, any one region, the regoin with the most Cabs, etc), Playing extra Cabs, Moving Extra Cabs from the provinces to the court, getting a bid card back from your discard pile, Moving the King, and a lot more. As with the auction section, most of the time the actions that let you do the most let you play the least number of Cabs to the Board. Players are free to either do their Action or play Cabs in any order, but must complete one before doing the other (aka you can't place some Cabs, do you Action and place some more).
The King complicates things. He starts in a random region and gets moved around by one of the action cards ( a special one that is avaliable every round). The King does three things. First he determines where Cabs can be placed on the board. Players can only place Cabs from their Court to the Board in regions ajacent to the King. Second the King ensures no change happens in the regions he is in. Nothing and I mean nothing can change in the Kings region. This means no action cards can affect it, no Cabs may be placed, No Cabs may be Removed, No Cabs can be moved to or from there, score boards can't be changed, nothing. Third the King provdes bonus points when scoring.
After each turn, the unused actions are turned face down, a new set is randomly drawn and the players bid for turn order again. This continues for a total of 9 rounds, with a special scoring round added after turns 3, 6 and 9.
Scoring: Each province is worth a set amount of points. Most contain three scores. The first score is awarded to the player with the most Cabs, the second to the player with the second highest number of Cabs, and the third to the third highest (this is reduced with fewer players). Grande's add extra points as does the king. The player with the most points at the end of the scoring in round 9 wins.
The Castle: There is a black castle on the board. Whenever players place Cabs on the board they have the option of tossing them into the Castle instead of in a region. A couple of action cards can affect the castle and cause it to be scored. At the begining of each scoring round, players determine where they want their Cabs in the castle to go (any region, except where the king is) then the castle is scored (same was a the regions), lastly the Cabs in the castle move to the regions the players decided (secretly). This means that a player can sudenly jump to a new region or reinforce a region they already control without another player knowing it's coming.
The edition I picked up was also the 10th aniversary edition and included I think it was 5 expansions. I haven't tried any of these out. Though I did look at the rules some seemed interesting, some overly complicated.
The Good: a really good game. One of the best I have played this year and probably in a long while. Definately glad I picked this up. It's currently rated at 6th on Boardgamegeek and deserves it's placement. This game doesn't remind me of any other game, which is awesome. I've played enough different games now where usually when I try something new I sit an think things like "wow they stole that from Puerto Rico" or "How Catan Like". I didn't have that at all with this game. It's a very unique system and I love that. Once the players learn the game this is one of the quickest games I own. They say a short game takes about an hour, and it really does. A long game really isn't that much longer (3 more turns then short). It's one of the quickest 'big' games I have. Nice pieces. Everything included is rather nice: great art, well designed parts, nice wooden cubes, solid castle, etc. This one also contains the largest Pawn ever. The black pawn for the King is just massive.
The Bad: This game looks over complicated. This is a huge hinderance when trying to introduce it to new players. Plus trying to explain the rules is not very easy either. The game really is rather simple once you get the basics and even they don't take long, it looks way worse then it is, but it could very easily scare off a casual gamer. Unusual box size. Man I wish there was an industry standard for box sizes. I hate trying to find room on my shelves for these odd shaped boxes. Also the box interior is rediculous. They didn't design it for the parts included at all. All you get is one trough to toss everything in, cards, chits, counters, regions. At least there was a bag for all the wooden pieces.
The Ugly: Printing errors! I hope for the companies sake it's only my copy but a ton of the action cards are missing large chunks of text. This is not only highly annoying it actually can interfere with gameplay as now you need to grab the rulebook and read up what the cards actually say. Thankfully after the first couple of look ups you know what the cards are supposed to do, but this is inexcusable, especially in an aniversary edition.
Ovarall: I would rate this a 10 our of 10 if there weren't printing errors on the action cards and the box design were better (inside and out). A bit hard to explain but rather quick and simple to play. Simple in rules but not in strategy. One of the most strategic games I own, and it's great how quick you can get through a game. Instantly became on of my favourites.