Maharaja is a new edition of the classic game by the authors Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling. In this new version of the game which supports 1 to 4 players and is enriched with new graphics and components, you build statues of your God of reference to please the Maharaja during their visit and score victory points at the end of the game depending on the majority you reach.
During the game, players take the role of priests who travel to different cities in India, building statues and shrines dedicated to their favorite Gods to expand their worship. To do so, they are assisted by several characters with different abilities. Every year, the Maharaja, the great king of India, will change his residence and players will receive rewards according to their Gods' worship value. At the beginning of each year, players plan their actions in a secret phase to be played simultaneously.
At the end of the seventh year or when a player builds their seventh statue, the game ends, then the player with most prestige wins.
Aside from the new graphics and components and from players now building statues instead of palaces, this new edition of Maharaja includes new characters to use during the turn that change turn order, additional ways to earn victory points, an additional bonus each time you score a city after the Maharaja's visit depending on the assistant you chose, and additional modular rules that can be added during the game and in the final scoring.
—description from the publisher
Includes solo mode by Dávid Turczi & Simone Luciani
- Interesting simultaneous action selection with meaningful initiative
- Maharaja track is highly manipulable and strategic
- Strong area-control gameplay with varied player powers
- High production quality and large, table-ready board
- Excellent replayability due to many powers and end-game tiles
- Balanced mechanics that reward planning and routing
- Board footprint may be too large for small tables
- Plastic player pieces instead of wooden ones (personal preference)
- Color palette can feel garish to some players
- worship, city control, and royal politics
- Historic India with a network of cities linked by roads; a Maharaja visits cities in a fixed track
- mechanistic with thematic veneer
- El Grande
- Stafford Dynasty
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- area majority / control — Players compete to dominate cities to earn worship points and coins.
- Dynamic pricing/discounts for building — Discounts on statues or other purchases can change costs.
- Maharaja track manipulation — Players can shift the Maharaja's visiting order to influence timing and scoring.
- Resource management and end-game scoring tiles — Money management and bonus tiles affect end-game scoring.
- Road travel costs and shrine ownership — Travel along roads with shrines; using others' shrines costs coins.
- Shrines and statues placement — Build shrines and statues on board to gain worship points, affected by position.
- Simultaneous action selection (action wheel) — Players secretly choose two actions, revealed and resolved in initiative order.
- Unique player powers with swapping — Each player has a unique power; powers can be swapped with others or from the pool.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- the balance is perfectly tuned
- the board you can see is absolutely huge
- replayability i think is pretty good actually
- I really do like the shifting bonus system
- it's a perfectly pleasant area control game
References (from this video)
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- El Grande is my favorite game of all time; it is the original area control game and the cream of the crop.
- Only your best round will count in Coliseum, which is a cool twist on scoring.
- El Grande and the King, with simultaneous selection and Castillo, harmonize to create a rich gameplay experience.