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I really like this game, but it really frustrates the people who are impatient with other players. The chaos can be funny at first, but to play to win and to minimize frustration, focusing on moving one character at a time works well.
I’m taking credit for my friend’s awesome house rule – he found that after a few plays the runes were underused. So, if no rune was taken that round, they were discarded, and new runes were revealed. There are so many rune cards, it worked out brilliantly, and we got to see more of these awesome opportunities.
I find that well-placed farmers can bring a lot of points. Use of farmers means paying close attention to where the farmer is placed, ideally not somewhere where the field can easily be curtailed by a road or river. Points can be maximised by:
* Trying to complete cities within the field, including completing lots of 2-tile cities. A 2-tile city is worth only 2 points to an opponent’s knight, but 4 points to a farmer.
* Extending fields by ensuring that they wrap around cities, so that it can reach other cities.
Particularly when playing with inexperienced players, farmers tend to be game-winners.
I have found that there are two ways to simplify the game for first time players:
* Do not allow discarding and drawing of route tickets. While it makes it more random whether players have complementary or non-complementary routes, it removes an experienced player’s advantage of knowing whether a combination is achievable or not.
* Removing the special rules for tunnels and simply playing tunnels as normal routes.
Cryptozoic now has a Multiverse Box to store all sets and expansions in one place. This is great! It comes with plastic themed dividers and some extra cards to add to the game. This is a great addition for a great family of games!!
I played this a few times at a family reunion and liked it enough to buy my own copy. There’s something fun about playing with ceramic tiles, and I really like the level of strategy involved. Pretty simple to learn, and my kids enjoyed it.
Update: I found an affordable Pacific Theater Expansion! It was going for the MSRP plus shipping out of Europe. So now I have all of the big box expansions. Hopefully we can talk them into an Italian Faction box! I would love some Greek island hopping, or maybe some mountain combat rules in Europe.
Azul is a fantastic, beautiful game with an easy to learn entry point. Highly recommend this game for all groups and gaming skill levels.
Simple and awesome with depth. Something like a deck building but with its own way. I love it.
Nobody has posted for 3 years but nothing has changed, this game is still great! @gamerdad, luck brings peace to the family – some of our family are more strategic than others but it brings balance when the less strategic people still win. However I’d say that mostly strategy wins the day but sometimes those lucky 2’s and 3’s go against this probability
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While I wouldn’t say this is my personal favorite worker placement game, I would say it is an objective worker placement masterpiece that most avid worker placement fans will enjoy
Gameplay/Replay
As a family running a vineyard you use your workers through the year to grow various kinds of grapes, turn them into wine and fill orders with the various people looking for certain kinds of wine of certain ages. The game is played over multiple rounds where you go through 4 seasons doing things throughout each season to help make your vineyard the best. You start by placing your rooster meeple on the turn order track to get a reward, the better the reward the later in the round you go. In the summer you choose to build improvements, plant grapes, get grapes to plant, entertain visitors or give a tour. Fall gives you a summer or winter visitor then in the winter phase you can harvest, make wine, entertain winter visitors, hire an additional worker, or fill an order. The catch to all this is you only have so many workers to spread through the entire year and a summer worker cannot be played in the winter (barring certain visitor cards changing this of course). Play continues till someone scores 20 then the year is played out and the player with the most points wins. With all the different visitor cards you will find a new way to play every time.
The Bad
Very little to talk about here. I guess if you hate crass jokes about a word that is a synonym to rooster then you might get irritated when people say “ok it’s wake up phase grab your roosters” and all the people as immature as I am start giggling. Also the theme is a little dry (Ha! Get it?!) but I found myself enjoying the game theme and all.
As worker placements go you can’t go wrong with this one. Get the essential edition though it really improved the original game by leaps and bounds
Artifacts Inc. is a nice dice placement that packs into an easy to carry box. Good for trips where you might be looking to kill an hour
Gameplay/Replay
In Artifacts Inc. you race to get to 20 points first and then have the most points after all players have taken an even number of turns. Players do this by gathering various kinds of artifacts like fossils or idols or gems or parchment. Each player starts with 4 cards that give them 3 different locations and 3 dice per turn to roll. The 3 locations give players 2 expeditions and a place to purchase upgrades to their artifacts for hire company. Money can be made by selling artifacts in amounts to various museums or by selling them to a public space where you can get 1 dollar per artifact with a bonus per extra unique type you sell. This money can be used to buy upgraded buildings which give you points. All points are tracked as you buy which can make the game seem to end sooner than expected, but it is often a tight race where having majority in things sold to a museum (the only end game bonus) can make all the difference. Every game the buildings are randomized so each play is different, though the dive mechanic will remain the same every game.
The Bad
This game can be prone to AP for some as you get more and more to do with upgrades giving yo u more dice, rerolls, or the ability to increase/decrease a die roll. More options means more thinking about what the best move is. Also it isn’t the most aesthetically pleasing game yo have ever looked at and at times you will not have enough cubes (you can use a site that sells cubes to fix this however.)
All that said for what it costs MSRP wise this is a good little middle of the road dice placement game
This game is great for a quick play (10-20 minutes depending on your skill) that is different every time based on the letter tiles that you draw. Form your own “Scrabble” board in a race against your opponent. Every new word must connect with a previous word, so you must choose whether to go for the simple words for time or figure out longer words to give you more options later. My wife and I enjoy playing together after a meal. If you like word games, this is definitely for you!
Much more replay value than checkers or chess since you have the strategy of placing your own pieces and certain parts of the board are inaccessible. My wife and I played a 4-hour game on our first go-around, but I don’t think that’s necessarily how each game will be now that we understand the mechanics better. Depending on what version of the game you buy determines the quality of your components. We opted for the cheaper and easier-to-find version which comes with plastic pieces which you have to manually place the stickers on the first time you play. But do it once and you’re set for life, so it’s not that big of a deal. Simple gameplay, easy to learn, but fun and replayable due to the various setups and tactics you can employ. Plus it’s a great 2-player game, which can be hard to come by. We are excited to have finally got our hands on this game!
This game is a great introduction to cooperative style games in my opinion. Simple game mechanics and objectives, easy to understand rules, but still fun because it makes you think out loud with your teammates as to the best strategy to win. It’s very replayable because you set up the board random every time, and you can increase or decrease the difficulty to your liking and depending on the group of players you have. It’s a great game to travel with because it’s relatively compact and lightweight, easy to introduce new players, and has a shorter play time. We will be playing again soon!