Description from the publisher:
In The Colonists, a.k.a. Die Kolonisten, each player is a mayor of a village and must develop their environment to gain room for new farmers, craftsmen, and citizens. The main goal of the game is full employment, so players must create new jobs, educate the people, and build new houses to increase their population. But resources are limited, and their storage leads to problems that players must deal with, while also not forgetting to upgrade their buildings. Players select actions by moving their mayor on a central board.
The Colonists is designed in different levels and scenarios, and even includes something akin to a tutorial, with the playing time varying between 30 minutes (for beginners) and 180 minutes (experts).
The Colonists FAQ
- immersive, long-form journey with strong thematic cohesion
- satisfying progression across eras and board expansion
- dynamic action placement and planning with evolving options
- game length can be long (several hours) which may deter some players
- complex setup and learning curve for new players
- city-building and population growth with resource management
- a developing community across multiple eras
- long-form planning and evolution of a settlement
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- board growth and new action spaces — as towns grow, more actions become available to players
- era-based progression — play through several eras with era-specific actions and expansions
- steward movement across action hexes — steward can move between adjacent hexes to take actions; range can be extended later
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Players take on the role of farm managers who want to deliver the goods to the market stalls, local towns, and hopefully to the ports of Palma.
- the same basic mechanisms as Lacrania, just kind of turned up to 11 essentially.
- with the dice drafting mechanism, you're going to be drafting a die and taking out the inner and outer action.
- One of the key other points I really enjoy about this one is the help your neighbor.
- This is the engine building that I find so enjoyable.
- You're working towards gaining the most prestige before the arrival of the Napoleonic forces.
- The main mechanism in this one is kind of a common action selection.
- There will be more workshops opening up along the way as where players can play their cards.
- This is another Euro game that has some very intricate working cogs.
- Trade with a noble action, cascades into more options depending on which noble you trade with.
- Everything is tied together in interlocking cogs.
- I love planning everything out and cursing the other players when they foil my perfectly laid plans.
- It's a game of chains. I want to take this task because I think I can achieve it.