F@#$ Castles of Burgundy

castles of burgundy

back after 2 months of no posts.  I apologize.  Either for not posting enough or posting again, take your pick.

Plot:

hmm.  That's tough.  Build up your Duchy in Burgundy?  Sure.  Why not.  The theme is very stamped on (in fact, even though the tiles are all named, very few of them are known by the players.  In fact we make up names because it matters that much)

Game Play:

You get a minimum of 50 actions split into 5 rounds, so ~10 actions per round.

At the beginning of the round, roll two dice.  Each die is an action.  Now this is important, the number on the die, limits you on what actions you can take.  

General Actions:

#1:  Take a tile.  There are 6 tile reservoirs numbered 1-6.  A die value of "1" can take from the "1" reservoir and so on.

#2:  Play a tile:  Playing a tile requires to actions, first to get it, the second to play it.  The die roll corresponds to numbers on a map.  Play like colored tiles on corresponding die rolls, and they have to be adjacent to a previously placed tile.

#3:  Trade goods:  Trading earns you VPs and money.  There are 6 trade goods, which strangely correspond to the numbers of a die!

#4:  Take workers:  This is the ONLY generic action available in the game.  Spend a die and get 2 workers. 1 worker allows you to adjust a die roll +/- 1.  There is no limit on workers you can spend and the die wraps around (a 6 becomes a 1 with only a single worker).

#5:  If you have cash, you can buy 'center' tiles.  These still need to be placed, but $$$ = a free tile draft action.

Ok, so dumb game so far.  You may as well roll two dice 50 times and see who gets the highest total.  What makes this game fun is the tiles have powers that activate once you get them on your tableau.

So there are 6 colors.

Beige are buildings.  In general buildings give you extra actions.  They aren't as versatile as dies, but hey, they are free.  Things like after playing a this building, you get to take a blue or light green one.  Or after playing this other one, you get to trade goods for free.

Grey are mines.  At the beginning of a round (not turn), mines give you cash. 

Blue are ships.  Ships help you go earlier and acquire trade goods.

Dark Green are castles.  Castles give you a free die!  Use it for anything!

Yellow are knowledge.  Knowledge may - 1) give you some ability that helps placing, drafting, trading or some other ability, - or 2) give you victory points at end game.

Light Green are pastures.  Pastures hold animals.  And you want to group like animals together to get lots of victory points.  The most boring tile ever.

How do you win?:

It's a game about victory points.  The bulk of your victory points will come from closing sections on the tableau.  The earlier you close them the more victory points, and the harder they are to close, the more victory points. 

When you play a pasture tile, add up connected like animals.  So if you have a 3 chicken tile adjacent to a 4 chicken tile, you get 7 points!  These are big points, when you consider animals plus closure.

When you trade goods, you only get a dollar no matter how many you trade.  (remember a die roll determines what you can trade.)  But you get double VP for trading 2 and triple for trading 3 items.

Yellow tiles may give VP, along the lines of "get 4 VP for each <building type> you have in play."

Finally badges.  Look at the map above.  There are 2 badges for each color and these are awarded to the player who completely fills out the corresponding color's section earliest.

A winning score is around 225.

Review:

The interactions of the tiles is what makes this game.  It's not necessarily getting the most actions, its getting the right ones.  Everyone is going to get plenty of beige building actions, the trick is finding the right combination.  Something I haven't come close to figuring out.

Anyways, I really like this game, and it has stood up for well for a half dozen replays.