Thurn and Taxis
In 1490, Kaiser Maximilian I awarded Franz von Taxis the contract to deliver mail between the Kaiser’s residences in Innsbruck and Brussels. He did such a good job, that postal services in the country continue to be connected with the name Thurn and Taxis. With the introduction of postal carriages in the middle of the 17th century, members of the family were raised to Count status and given the hereditary title of Postmaster General. The game begins at this point in history.
Can you emulate the achievements of this family and build a successful postal network? Do you have the talent to connect the right cities to create an effective network and not lose sight of the need to acquire new carriages when they are needed? Plan your moves carefully and watch your opponents’ moves carefully, so you are prepared to respond to them.The game takes you back in time and gives you challenges that will bring you back to the game over and over.
User Reviews (2)
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Thurn and Taxis is a surprisingly fun euro styled game. The idea is you are a mail man creating routes through different towns in the European country side. I think the game actually crosses a number of European countries, but my geography isn’t the best.
COMPONENTS: As a euro styled game it features wooden post offices, city cards, and a map/board. The quality is nice, but its reflective of your average euro game. Be prepared to have your socks kept on.
GAME PLAY: The board is set up with cities in different regions that you will attempt to chain together these cities to create your multiple mail routes. Creating a route is done by collecting city cards. The city cards are laid out six at a time for you to choose from. On your turn you have three basic actions and a special action you can perform.
Your basic actions are take a city card, play a city card, and score points if possible. These actions are performed every turn.
The special moves, each represented by a member of the postal service, are the letter carrier who lets you collect two cities on your turn. The Postmaster who lets you play two city cards. The Administrator allows you to clear the six city cards laid out a choose a card from a fresh six. And finally, the Cartwright who allows you to score extra points with a route that is short by two cities. Example, you have a four city route, you can claim a carriage value of six.
SCORING: Accomplished in a number of ways that I think adds a lot to the game and creating a strategy. You receive your base point by collecting carriages from turning in routes. These can only be collected in order of short to longest. So even if you start with a 10 city route you’re only going to receive base carriage. You also get points for the length of the route, having offices in every city in a region, and having an office in every region.
OVERALL: I was genuinely surprised by how much enjoyment I got from playing this game. I can’t put my finger on it exactly, maybe because of low expectations, but I had enjoyed the play, options, and strategy of it all. I think it was also nice that the first time I played it I came in second and the winner had also never played. A good sign of a easy to understand game. I give it two thumbs up.
This game was definitely influenced by Ticket to Ride, but I really like the direction it takes, adding a lot of strategy and exciting gameplay to the system.
What I really like most of all is that there’s no way to just sit back and play defensive. Risk is inevitable, and must be embraced every turn, whether you like it or not. I’m not sure about Post Offices, but I can say that this is a very realistic situation for businesses in general, and a great play mechanic for a game involving one.
The only downside I had was some of the rules were a bit confusing, making the learning curve a little steep (especially in terms of what the best strategies to pursue were), but overall, this is an excellent game!