A "dice" version of The Castles of Burgundy. The famous strategy game now in pure dice!
As influential sovereigns, expand your estates through trade and commerce. Combine the dice to your advantage and find the strategy that will lead you to victory.
Like the original game, the goal is to get the most points, mostly by filling spaces on your board to complete as many color regions as you can. The game comes with 5 dice: one timer die, 2 number dice and 2 color dice. The game is played using a "roll and write" mechanic, where one player rolls the dice, and from the results, each player individually picks one color die, representing a type of hex, and one number die, and uses their chosen combinations to fill in a hex on their individual player board.
Each player starts with one castle space already filled in; from there, a hex can only be filled on the board if it is adjacent to an already-filled hex. Each type of hex has its own rules for which numbers can be used to fill it. When completing a region of hexes, you score points and get a reward depending on the type of hex, which can be workers or monks that you can use to manipulate the dice, silver coins that you can spend to take extra actions or goods that you can later ship for even more points. In addition, bonus points are awarded to the first and second players to fill in all hexes on their board of each color.
The timer die sets the pace of the game. When it is rolled, players mark a number of boxes on the time track equal to the number of hourglasses rolled on the timer die (one or two). This progresses the game through three phases of ten time boxes each. When all time boxes are filled, the game is over and the player with the most points wins.
- follow-up to The Castles of Burgundy
- Wolfgang Warsch is on fire
- four of his games are in the catalog
- difficult to score big points
- host is not good at it yet
- The Castles of Burgundy
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Dice Rolling — Players roll dice and interact with their score sheet in a completely different way on every level. Different colored dice have different interactions with the score sheet.
- score sheet interaction — The way dice interact with the score sheet is completely different on every level, sometimes scoring negative points.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- it's like the number one selling game in the industry
- it's so familiar yet so different
- this guy is called bricks and this one I can call it probably not allowed to say it like in marketing really but it's like Tetris below and right
- Uwe Rosenberg one of the great designers in the world
- you don't want to draw well in this game you want to draw shuttling
- light to Midway euro with absolutely gorgeous artwork by Michael Menzel
- everyone I'll turn over this card and I'll take the action in your chore you're first gonna take an action so you're gonna build an engine with these cards
- we merge this past here in August of lashes so coming up on the one-year anniversary merged with Indy boards and cards
References (from this video)
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- "it's basically it's a word game so you've got a grid of 16 letters that come from rolling dice and everyone tries to write down as many words that they can spell snaking around the grid"
- "it's a really well balanced game"
- "please play it if you like rolling right"
- "Cartographers which is probably my other favorite"
- "Cat Café is really good as well"
- "Copenhagen rolling right"
- "Amerigo action selection mechanism"
- "the roland right character in the upcoming Merchant's Cove"
References (from this video)
- One of the earlier games of the boom.
- Good for difficult space decisions.
- Includes engine building.
- Natural fit from the board game The Castles of Burgundy.
- The card game version is only okay, preferring the dice and board game.
- The Castles of Burgundy
- The Castles of Burgundy: The Card Game
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- action selection — Natural fit from the board game's hex types, allowing players to cross out and get equivalent actions.
- Bingo Style Dice Rolling — Rolls dice (common to everyone) and players make choices from them.
- Engine Building — Elements that allow for engine building.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- this is the game that makes us play pinball more
- it's very clever way of using the dice
- simple rules but then deeper decision
- it is more interactive than most
- tries to chain as much together in as effective a way as possible